Cello Player Holds Porch Concert for Neighbors During Stay-at-Home Orders

A renowned local cellist in the Michigan area is holding 30-minute porch concerts for her neighbors due to the stay-at-home orders put in place to fight the coronavirus.

The cellist, Irina Tikhonova, has played as a principal cellist for the Saginaw Bay Symphony, the Dearborn Symphony Orchestra, the Flint Symphony Orchestra, and on occasion the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, after immigrating to the U.S. from Ukraine in 1991.

Since the coronavirus has set in, her orchestral performances have turned into 30-minute porch concerts for anyone in her Royal Oak neighborhood to hear.

“When you play for other people, you can feel, almost physically, connection to people who are listening,” she told the Detroit Free Press.

Onlookers applause, cheer, and praise her online.

Word spread about her concerts on social media and at least two dozen people tuned in to the latest performance Thursday afternoon.

People in their cars and on bicycles stopped by, and others came out of their homes to record the performance with their phones.

“I love them,” neighbor Debbie Schindler, 65, said. “I go outside, sit on my deck, watch and listen.”

Schindler said people are having a good time “together but apart.”

Tikhonova said she plans to continue to do daily performances Monday through Friday, weather permitting, as long as everyone follows the social distancing rules put into place.

“If I see that it becomes dangerous and people are not observing the distances, I probably will have to stop,” she said.

Tikhonova had been playing the cello for more than four decades and also teaches students, but those lessons are on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Tikhonova credits her friend, a fellow professional cellist from Ann Arbor, for giving her the idea to do porch concerts. She said her friend did concerts from her driveway.

“I told her how wonderful that idea was and copied her idea,” Tikhonova said.