Even during a time of mandatory separation, music has the power to bring people together. Amid the distancing and loneliness that COVID-19 has thrust upon us, music lovers from around the world are finding hope and comfort in amazing music video collaborations.

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10 We Are the World

More than 70 members of the Long Island music scene united to create “We Are the World 2020 — The Quarantine Mix, Long Island.” They joined forces “to bring a little hope and healing to New York and the world during this COVID-19 crisis that impacts us all.”

All of the musicians worked virtually from the safety of their own homes to record and video their individual parts on home studio gear or smartphones and then sent their parts to be edited into the finished piece. Sit back and enjoy.

9 What the World Needs Now Is Love

Students from Boston Conservatory at Berklee and Berklee College of Music delivered an inspiring virtual performance to bring their community together, performing “What the World Needs Now is Love” by Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

Shelbie Rassler, a senior composition major at Boston Conservatory, coordinated the project from her home in South Florida. She recruited performers with a simple Facebook announcement:

“Your job is to just take a video of yourself singing (literally, pick any part/the whole song/just 10 second/riff to the gods/up to you!!), playing your instrument along to the track, choreographing a dance to the music, or anything your heart desires. I’ll cut everything up, create an arrangement from what y’all send me, and share it with you because WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW IS LOVE SWEET LOVE, Y’ALL. LET’S MAKE IT HAPPEN.”

A pianist friend played the accordion, while a percussionist who didn’t have access to his instruments improvised with rice in a salt shaker.

“While we’re in quarantine or whatever everyone is dealing with during these scary and uncertain times,” Rassler told NPR, “we can still do the things we love from our home and we can still collaborate and reach out to our friends and be in touch with our friends and create art together.”

Bacharach himself responded to the video, telling NPR he “felt very proud and honored to see and hear my song performed by these extremely talented students from the Berklee School of Music. It’s great seeing them find ways to be creative and stay connected to each other while maintaining social distance.”

8 Close to You

Last month, the Pub Choir “asked the internet to stop misery-scrolling for a moment and to sing with us!” In just two days, more than 1,000 people from 18 countries submitted video performances of The Carpenters’ “Close to You.” Every submission that was successfully received was manually added to the collective. The result is a magical “Couch Choir” performance.

“We can’t adequately express in words what a gift your videos were to us,” Pub Choir wrote. “Each was like unwrapping a beautiful, personal, virtual hug. Thanks for trusting us with your voices and for sharing your lives with us for a few minutes.”

7 Here Comes the Sun

Camden Voices is a collective of talented musicians at the leading edge of contemporary ensemble singing. The 30-piece choir comprises passionate singers, instrumentalists, and educators from across London who are unified by their shared love of music.

In this self-isolation virtual choir cover, Camden Voices is bringing the sunshine indoors. “So awesome!” said one commenter. “The virus is like the cold winter. Sun comes from a human voice made out of devotion and training. Totally inspiring. Keep doing it. Peace & Blessings.”

6 You’ve Got a Friend

“From all over the world, in these most challenging times, the cast of ‘Beautiful’ wants you to know that ‘You’ve Got a Friend.’” The worldwide cast, in quarantine, recorded this compilation for The Actors Fund. It’s a touching arrangement that features the actors doing what they do best, but doing it from the safety of home.

One viewer commented: “OMG, this is so uplifting! I wish everyone around the world could stay joined in caring…that these precious moments would live on after the pandemic. Blessings of health and safety to our world.”

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5 Hope for the Future

In a spectacular collaboration, 32 trumpet stars filmed and recorded themselves in isolation on a new inspirational song written by Matt Catingub. The video is a “tribute to the frontline heroes around the globe: our healthcare workers dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Each player is identified by name and country flag. It’s an impressive collection of talent.

“Representing 14 different countries, classical soloists, jazz artists, military personnel, educators, and rock stars from the Dave Matthews Band and Chicago, ‘A Hope for the Future’ is dedicated to all those around the world who care for us during this time of crisis and beyond.”

“Hope for the Future” was inspired by celebrated trumpet player Ryan Anthony, who is sequestered in the hospital and battling cancer. He is one of the musicians featured in this special performance.

4 Over the Rainbow

When their annual choir concert was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, these Chino Valley Unified School District students performed their acapella cover of “Over the Rainbow” virtually instead.

Reactions were positive and supportive. Fans expressed a desire for more music like this and fewer contrived performances by celebrities.

“MUCH better and more beautiful and authentic than the celebrity ‘Imagine,” said one fan. “Would love to hear more from these young guys and gals. That was lovely and uplifting and hopeful!!!”

3 What a Wonderful World

Fans felt the same way about a video posted by John Foreman’s Aussie Pops (Isolation) Orchestra. “This made me feel hopeful,” remarked one viewer. “A stark contrast to the cringe I felt watching those tone-deaf celebrities singing ‘Imagine’ in their mansions. Thank you.”

The video begins with the caption, “The Aussie Pops Orchestra has never ‘phoned it in’ … until now.” The talented Australian artists then deliver a beautiful rendition of “What a Wonderful World.” Foreman shared his vision for a return to normalcy. “Please stay safe. And when this current crisis is over, arts communities everywhere will be looking for your face in the audience! We hope it’s not too long before we can experience live music, together in the same room.”

2 Boléro

New York City has suffered tremendously from the pandemic. Members of the New York Philharmonic are doing their part by staying home in an effort to assist the first responders, nurses, and doctors who are unable to do so.

This rousing video is accompanied by a caption that reads, “The musicians of the New York Philharmonic dedicate this performance of Ravel’s ‘Boléro’ to the healthcare workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis. #ClapBecauseYouCare”

One viewer found the song to be especially fitting: “Bolero is metaphorical of getting out of quarantine–first few steps out by a timid human soul and slowly all the footsteps growing until thousands take over the streets again.”

The honorees are grateful for their efforts. “I have been a registered nurse in New York City for these past 35 years,” wrote Miles Clifford. “The past month has been insurmountably difficult for all of the healthcare team (but not as difficult as it has been for many of the poor souls for whom we are caring). A tribute such as this brings joy to my heart which, presently, aches for the world.”

1 Lux Aurumque

In this captivating video compilation, Grammy-winning composer and conductor Eric Whitacre delivers a groundbreaking virtual performance of “Lux Aurumque.” Whitacre’s choral composition is a Christmas piece based on a Latin poem, which translates to “Light, warm and heavy as pure gold, and the angels sing softly to the newborn babe.”

Whitacre created a downloadable score and track of himself conducting, then added the thousands of contributed videos into the collaborative virtual choir. The video features 243 tracks recorded by 185 singers from 12 countries. It is absolutely beautiful.

+ Bridge Over Troubled Waters

The coronavirus outbreak prevented the Voice of Miami children to rehearse in person. “So we decided to send some love out to the virtual world by dusting off an old song that means a lot to us.”

It was the group’s first try at a virtual choir with the song, and it is heartwarming. “Singing in a choir requires active listening, blending, cutting off together, and so much more,” Voice of Miami wrote. “As we approach this new way of making music, we will be challenged to hone our individual skills to maximize our #virtualchoir blend and sound. Nothing can replace making music together in person, but until then, let’s #keepthemusicgoing friends.”

++ Don’t Stand So Close to Me

Sting, Jimmy Fallon, and The Roots joined forces to recreate a quarantine remix of “Don’t Stand So Close to Me,” a fitting song for this era of social distancing. The vocals (Fallon can really sing!) were accompanied by musicians playing “at-home instruments,” including scissors, pot lids, and even Connect 4! It’s a lighthearted performance that promotes a serious cause: Frontline Foods.

“As an ICU nurse, I can tell you the donated food is one of the things that helps me make it through the day,” says one beneficiary. “Not even really about the fact that it’s free (though I definitely appreciate that) but just that it’s there on my unit. I certainly don’t have time during my shifts to make it to the cafeteria, and I’m too exhausted to pack a lunch between shifts.”

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The year is far from over, but you should probably put money on “social distancing” being the most popular phrase of 2020. This is the year of COVID-19, a worldwide pandemic that has infected 242,191 people worldwide and claimed 9,843 lives as of this writing.

The coronavirus has forced governments to cancel mass gatherings, classes in schools, sporting events, and much more to halt the spread of the novel virus. Billions of everyday people are now learning to love being in quarantine.

If this applies to you, then cheer up. Some of the greatest artists and inventors have managed to change the world for the better from their quarantined rooms. Let this list serve as a reminder to read more, sleep more, and create more during your enforced isolation.

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10 Eugene Onegin

Alexander Pushkin’s standing in Russia is equivalent to William Shakespeare’s in Great Britain. Pushkin is the “great bard” of Russian letters, and one of his greatest productions is the verse novel Eugene Onegin (1832).

The story focuses on the life of Eugene Onegin, a wealthy and spoiled aristocrat living in Saint Petersburg. When Onegin becomes tired of attending all the city’s balls and dances, he decides to move to his deceased uncle’s country estate.

There, he meets the poet Vladimir Lensky. Onegin also meets the beautiful Tatyana Larina, who becomes his lifelong obsession. In 1879, Eugene Onegin was turned into an opera by the great Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Pushkin, himself a dandy like Eugene Onegin, often turned to writing whenever he was sick (most often with some form of venereal disease). In fall 1830, a terrible cholera outbreak in Moscow convinced Pushkin to leave for his family’s estate in the country. There, while doing a little social distancing, Pushkin completed Eugene Onegin and other classic works.^[1]

9 Samuel Pepys’s Diary

Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) was a Member of Parliament and a civil administrator for the English Navy. During his life, he was best known for his efforts to modernize the navy and its administration. Nowadays, Pepys is best known for the diary that he kept from 1660 until 1669, which remains one of the best primary documents concerning the English Restoration.

In 1665, the bubonic plague struck London. Unlike most fellow Londoners, Pepys was not surprised by the outbreak because he had seen a similar outbreak of the “black death” in Amsterdam two years earlier. In June 1665, Pepys wrote, “[To] my great trouble, hear that the plague is come into the City.” Then he added, “God preserve us all.”^[2]

Thanks to Pepys’s active pen, historians and scientists have a good understanding of how the bubonic plague moved so quickly and proved so devastating in London. Essentially, a massive rat population in the filthy city spread the plague.

8 Alexander The False Prophet

Lucian was one of the great wits of the Roman Empire. An Assyrian born in the imperial city of Samosata (located today in southern Turkey), Lucian was a popular playwright, satirist, and rhetorician. His works mocked such things as the differences between Greeks and Syrians, stoicism, and cults. One of his more important works, Alexander the False Prophet, lampooned magic and those Romans who sought supernatural explanations for life’s miseries.

The “Alexander” of the title was a real person named Alexander of Abonoteichus. Like Lucian, Alexander came from Asia Minor. Not too much is known about Alexander except that he claimed to be a powerful magician who could cure the sick.

This claim caught on with Roman citizens and imperial subjects because a massive plague started in AD 165. Called the Antonine Plague, it cut a swath through the Roman Empire.^[3]

First discovered by the brilliant Greek physician Galen, the plague most likely came from China and was spread via the Silk Road. Today, the plague is thought to have been either measles or smallpox.

While the Romans isolated themselves or sought magical cures, Lucian decided to write a satire of a fake spiritual healer.

7 The Magic Mountain

Considered one of the finest works in all of German literature, Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain was first published in 1924. The novel concerns Hans Castorp, a young Hamburg merchant who decides to visit his cousin Joachim at a tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss Alps.

Hans’s simple journey soon becomes complicated as his health fails and he begins to meet other patients. Almost all of them represent the social decay of Europe after World War I.

Mann knew a thing or two about sanatoriums. His wife, Katia, suffered from tuberculosis, and in 1912, she stayed at a sanatorium in Davos-Platz, Switzerland. Mann visited her often. In the following years, the two were regular patients at health spas throughout the world. Mann turned this experience into the setting for The Magic Mountain.^[4]

6 Dashiell Hammett

American writer Dashiell Hammett was born to raise hell. The son of an old Catholic farming family in Maryland, Sam “Dashiell” Hammett dropped out of school at 13 and began hanging out with gamblers, prostitutes, and thieves in Baltimore and Philadelphia.

In an attempt to turn his life around, Hammett signed up with the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in 1915. He worked as a private eye until 1922. A few years later, Hammett started writing detective fiction. Without question, he used his real-life experiences to create the fictional private eyes Sam Spade and the Continental Op.^[5]

Hammett might never have become a writer if he hadn’t contracted tuberculosis while serving in the US Army during World War I. The army recorded that Hammett was 25-percent disabled because of the disease and granted him a medical discharge. The army also gave Sergeant Hammett a small pension.

Thanks to this pension and a part-time job as a copywriter, Hammett had time to devote to writing, which was still frequently interrupted by his terrible coughing fits.

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5 Anton Chekhov

Like Pushkin before him, Russian writer Anton Chekhov found time to write due to Russia’s frequent cholera epidemics. Between 1892 and 1899, Chekhov wrote some of his best-known short stories, including “Ward No. 6” and “The Black Monk.”

At the same time, Chekhov lived a semi-isolated life at his Melikhovo estate. It was here that Chekhov helped to organize famine and cholera relief for the local peasants. He also continued his day job as a practicing doctor.

Sadly, Chekhov had to stop practicing medicine in 1897 due to his worsening health. Like Hammett, Chekhov suffered from tuberculosis. The disease killed him in 1904.^[6]

Today, Chekhov is hailed as one of the world’s greatest short story writers. Many of these short stories came as a result of what Chekhov saw as a doctor during the cholera epidemics of the late 19th century.

4 Paradise Lost

The Englishman John Milton was many things during his life—a pamphleteer, a philosopher, and a politician who served as the Secretary of Foreign Tongues (Latin Secretary) for England’s Commonwealth Council of State. Milton is best known today as a poet, specifically the one who wrote the epic Paradise Lost about Satan’s fall from grace and his war against God, Heaven, and humanity.

Many know that Milton went blind while composing Paradise Lost. Between 1652 and 1667, Milton had to dictate his epic poem to his family members, friends, and amanuenses. This process was made more difficult when the Milton family had to move to a new home at Chalfont St. Giles to avoid the Great Plague of London in 1665–66. It was here that Milton finished Paradise Lost.^[7]

3 The Decameron

The Decameron is arguably the greatest piece of literature about a pandemic. Most likely written between 1348 and 1353, The Decameron is about 10 young aristocrats who flee to a country estate to avoid the Black Death in Florence. Inside the estate, the aristocrats tell 100 stories over several days.

Most of the stories are somber, although some are funny and full of practical jokes. The Decameron, much like Dante’s Divine Comedy, is written in the Florentine vernacular, which eventually became standard Italian.

Giovanni Boccaccio, the man who wrote The Decameron, lived through the terrible plague years of the 14th century. Like the characters in his most famous work, Boccaccio successfully avoided the plague in Florence by traveling to Naples and other Italian cities. However, he did witness the Florentine plague firsthand in 1348.^[8]

2 William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare’s entire life was full of plague epidemics. In fact, the infant Shakespeare was one of the few residents in Stratford-upon-Avon to survive the plague of 1564. One of Shakespeare’s most prominent biographers, Jonathan Bate, has written that Shakespeare’s experience with the plague was the single most defining aspect of his life and work.

The plague appears in several of Shakespeare’s best works, including Romeo and Juliet. Even more startling, Shakespeare’s greatest burst of energy occurred between 1605 and 1606 when he composed King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra.

Scholars now believe that Shakespeare was so productive during this time because 1605–06 was a plague year in England. Rather than brood while in quarantine, Shakespeare decided to write.^[9]

1 Isaac Newton

The English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton is regarded as the man who discovered gravity and, in turn, wrote down the laws of physics. Without Newton’s discoveries, the Age of Enlightenment may never have happened.

In 1665, Newton was a subpar student at Cambridge University. That year, the university closed due to the Great Plague of London. With school closed, Newton returned to his family’s home in Cambridge and began conducting a series of experiments.

While working during quarantine, he first began observing the laws of motion and gravity. When Newton returned to Cambridge University in 1667, he bolted up the university ranks from undergraduate to fellow and then professor in 1669.^[10]

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About The Author: Benjamin Welton is a freelance writer based in New England.