(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The stage at Lyric Opera has been dark, like other venues. But members of the Lyric Opera orchestra are brightening the scene for a different audience: patients at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
From their homes, Lyric musicians play. And FaceTime takes the music to hospital rooms, where patients are trying to recover — some of them, from COVID.
Marie Tachouet is the Lyric's principal flutist.
"What we do, it's our passion and it's really part of our identities. And not being able to perform, not being able to work at all, it's just really isolating.
"It feels like we've lost a sense of purpose. So, being able to do this has added that back into our lives."
Tachouet says sometimes the patients are visibly moved, always relaxed and relieved to have human interaction with someone not wearing a mask.
Tachouet is part of a group called Sharing Notes. They're also available to play for doctors and nurses, she says.
