How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected you personally?

The pandemic has been tough. I was supposed to be getting married on March 22, but we had to cancel the wedding which was not the start to the year my partner and I had hoped for. At the same time, I had put a lot of work into organising a concert of works by nine living Australian composers, which was supposed to happen on March 29. As the lockdowns started kicking in, we tried to adapt to the restrictions but they kept changing every few days, and every plan we came up with inevitably became non-viable until we couldn’t even have a string quartet, sound guy and the composer all in the same venue at the same time. At which point I had to admit defeat. I had started planning again for moving forward recently but now we’re in a new wave of lockdowns, so it’s back into hibernation again.

Christopher HealeyChristopher Healey. Photo: supplied

That was just the tip of the iceberg, though. Reduced hours in my part-time job plus the majority of my private students electing not to transition online meant about 40 per...