Much is different on this day. Soloist Teodor Tirlea's fingers move quickly over his gold-patented cross flute as usual. But the musicians in the orchestra sit at a proper distance from each other and the blue cloth-covered chairs in the lounge are empty - and will remain so during the concert the following day.

Norrköping's symphony orchestra will have a concert this week - but with no audience present.

After only two days of rehearsal, Norrköping Symphony Orchestra put together a concert that is performed in front of an empty concert hall. The musicians sit at a proper distance from each other - and the audience can only participate through the camera eye. Photo: Tina Enström

"Hard to get the same feeling"

Instead, a camera is set up between the bench rows and in the control room the technical staff is waiting to press rec.

- It's hard to get the same feeling, the same adrenaline, when you don't have hundreds of concert visitors in front of you but just a silent camera eye, thinks soloist Teodor Tirlea.

"Called and offered financial assistance"

He says that he feels strongly for his freelance musician colleagues who have not been granted an extended contract.

- I called some of them and offered to help them financially. But they seemed to me that my offer was strange. Maybe that's not what you do in Sweden? says Teodor, who himself comes from Romania.

Now Norrköping's symphony orchestra will still have a concert every week - albeit in front of an empty concert hall. Photo: Tina Enström

Norrköping's symphony orchestra will digitally release an artistic product this week. There is a decision that the concerts with the present audience are canceled until the end of May.

Watch and listen to the rehearsal with the symphony orchestra and hear Jenny Augustinsson, who plays viola, tell how it affects her in the video above.

"You quickly lose shape if you don't start playing," says Jenny Augustinsson, a musician in the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra. Now you will still have a concert every week - though in front of an empty concert hall. Photo: Tina Enström