Jeff Spevak

Right now, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, with no end in sight, Alan Murphy imagines the plight of songwriters as a familiar philosophical question: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

“I imagine, especially now, everybody wonders, ‘What am I doing?’” Murphy says. “Not, ‘What’s the value of it?’”

The falling tree, and the songwriters, are making vibrations in the air. It’s your ear that converts those vibrations into sound. And if there’s no one on the receiving end, did the sound even exist…?

In his only novel, “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” Oscar Wilde tells of a man seemingly impervious to time and travail; it is his portrait, hidden away in his attic, that ages and shows the wear of the world.

The discovery of the remains of the glass negative of one of the most-famous portraits of Susan B. Anthony is Wilde’s story in reverse; the portrait, hidden away in a Geneva attic for decades, does not age. It is the world outside that attic that has changed.

After being canceled last year due to the pandemic, the CGI Rochester International Jazz Festival is on track for this summer -- but will be held for the first time outside the city and later than usual, festival organizers announced Thursday.

The festival’s co-producers, Marc Iacona and John Nugent, said they were moving the popular nine-day concert series to the Rochester Institute of Technology campus in Henrietta to better adhere to state health guidelines. The festival is scheduled for July 30 to Aug. 7.

As the carnival barkers say, step right up -- and see the amazing Geva Theatre Center schedule change before your very eyes.

This is the COVID-19 reality. There will be no flipping of a switch, so that everything suddenly goes back to “normal.” The emergence of the arts from the coronavirus pandemic will be a cautious, step-by-step process.

As Geva Artistic Director Mark Cuddy says, “We’re trying to step up into the season, every next production a little closer to normal.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is announcing plans to help the performing arts get a boost in New York state after so many live performances and other activities have been canceled or delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Monday, Cuomo said that more than 300 "pop-up" events are planned throughout the state in the next 100 days, including a performance by Garth Fagan Dance at the Magic Spell Studios at RIT.

Plans tentatively call for two to three 30-minute performances on the soundstage at those studios, on Sunday, Feb. 21.

An attempt was made to steal a piece from the Andy Warhol exhibit at Rochester’s Memorial Art Gallery on Sunday, but it was soon recovered.

The museum’s management released a statement on the theft: “The matter is still under investigation and we’re working on putting the pieces together to understand precisely what happened. The artwork in question was not damaged and is safe.”

The museum did not identify which piece was taken, and it has no further comment at this time.

Teagan Ward doesn’t need The Weather Channel to understand the current climate in America.

“One of frustration, I suppose,” she says.

Ward works in the travel industry, developing tour packages to be sold by travel agents. She’s also a singer and songwriter on the Rochester scene, with her band Teagan and the Tweeds.

Rock royalty has played the tiny room known simply as the Bug Jar.

There was The White Stripes, before the duo became indie-rock favorites. The Black Keys, before returning to town a few years later for gigs at Blue Cross Arena and Constellation Brands-Marvin Sands Performing Arts Center. Vampire Weekend. The 1975, sharing a bill with Rochester’s Joywave.