Stuck@Home virtual concert series marks return to campus with live performance

In a time of physical distance, the Medicine & the Muse Program’s Stuck@Home virtual concert series brought the Stanford community together and provided a creative outlet. On Oct. 4, after more than a year of online shows, performers finally showcased their talents for an in-person audience at Stuck@Home@Bing Concert Hall. The event, a collaboration with Stanford Live and part of We are Stanford: A Festival of Reflection and Renewal, served as a welcome to returning students and employees and a thank you to essential workers.

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Prior to the pandemic, Medicine & the Muse was organizing the first-ever School of Medicine Symphony Concert. The symphony’s progress halted when Stanford restricted in-person events during the March 2020 lockdown. In its stead, Dr. Bryant Lin, Medicine & the Muse director and Stuck@Home co-host, suggested a musical event on Zoom. Two weeks later, the Stuck@Home concert series debuted. Since then, the series has become a monthly gathering of talented health professionals, faculty, trainees and students from both Stanford Medicine and the university. The lineup is usually tied together with a timely theme, like the holiday concert in December and the concert honoring Asian grandmothers, which was spurred by the attack on an elderly woman in San Francisco and occurred during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

Over the past year and a half, the concert series has evolved into a creative space that touches more lives than its founders ever imagined. At least 1,700 viewers from around the world have tuned in. Furthermore, the format provides flexibility with performance type. “I think the beauty of Stuck@Home is it’s not just classical music – it’s everything,” Lin said. Musical performances range from show tunes to folk to rock and roll, but interludes featuring visual art, spoken word and even magic also occur.

While Zoom concerts satiated a hunger for arts and community during the height of the pandemic, Bing Concert Hall provided performers with “a venue that fits their talent,” said Jacqueline Genovese, Medicine & the Muse executive director and Stuck@Home co-host. In addition to welcoming people back to campus and thanking essential workers, the live show was a tribute to the more than 100 performers who have participated in Stuck@Home. “It’s really a reward for them,” Lin said. However, not all could take the stage. “My dream would be to do this again in winter or spring so we could feature even more of our Stuck@Home performers,” Genovese said.

Medicine & the Muse will continue hosting the concert series virtually in alignment with the program’s goal to provide an arts and humanities outlet for the Stanford Medicine community. For many health professionals, art provides solace, creative expression and a way to process emotions accompanying their high-stress jobs. Genovese explained that she frequently witnesses physicians light up when given the chance to engage their creative side. “Art is its own kind of medicine,” she said.