Shots, and a musical serenade, at NYC vaccination center

NEW YORK (AP) — On a recent weekday, the sounds of Vivaldi, Mozart and Bach greeted hundreds of just-inoculated New Yorkers as they entered a medical observation area at one of the city's biggest COVID-19 vaccination sites, the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

Hearing the music, many stopped to record videos of the five musicians in a piano and string ensemble gathered onstage, performing live.

For people on the road to immunity from the coronavirus, experiencing live music in the same space that served as a field hospital at the height of the pandemic was a fitting accompaniment on a day of hope.

For some of the musicians, it was something more.

Pianist Barbara Podgurski said her recent performances at the vaccination site were her first in public since the pandemic battered the city last spring.

“There were three months where I didn’t play the piano because I felt hopeless," she said. “The reaction … I haven’t heard in a year. You realize how much people need music in their lives, to feel beauty and magic. It gives them hope."

The music is part of a series of daily, two-hour midday concerts from a collaboration between the nonprofit group Sing for Hope and violinist Victoria Paterson, who started her own nonprofit, Music and Medicine.

Paterson said many of her fellow musicians have been out of work since the city’s music and performance scene shut down last spring.

The musicians who perform at the Javits Center are paid to play. There’s a tip jar, too, but contributions go to Sing for Hope so the music can continue.

“We can’t be buskers with family obligations at this stage in our careers,” Paterson said.

Podgurski, who is also a music professor at the City University of New York, said that with the city’s live entertainment scene still...