Fourth of six parts

With classical, pops and band concerts and musical theater performances canceled across the region because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, professional musicians are out of work.

Stephen Reisteter muses that he took a triple hit.

Not only does Reisteter play principal clarinet for The Allentown Band and the Allentown Symphony Orchestra, he is a frequent pit orchestra musician for musical theater in the Lehigh Valley.

In addition to cancellations of ASO and Allentown Band concerts, Reisteter lost several pit orchestra gigs.

He was to perform in Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts’ production of “Singing in the Rain” in March and Civic Theatre of Allentown’s production of “Spamalot” in May.

Most disappointing for Reisteter was the cancellation of Whitehall High School’s Freddy Awards qualifying production of “Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella,” which was scheduled for April.

“I was excited to play for my old alma mater,” says Reisteter, who retired in 2017 as an elementary school music teacher in the Whitehall-Coplay School District.

“When I taught there, I had all the kids as first-graders when they couldn’t tie their own shoes,” he says. “I was looking forward to seeing them dancing and singing on stage.”

The Bethlehem resident says this was the first Memorial Day in years when he didn’t play patriotic music with The Allentown Band.

All of the Allentown Band’s summer concerts in the parks have been canceled or postponed.

Resisteter is also disappointed that Allentown Symphony Pops “Women Rock” concert, scheduled for May, was canceled.

As a pop musician, he has played for Aretha Franklin, one of the artists to be honored in the concert.

He had looked forward to playing her classics, including “R.E.S.P.E.C.T,” and hoped that “Nessum dorma” from Puccini’s opera “Turandot,” which he says Franklin frequently performed in her concerts when he accompanied for her, would be included in the concert.

Reisteter has played in concerts by other marquee artists, including Ella Fitzgerald, Bob Hope, The Four Tops, The Temptations, Barbara Cook, Joel Grey, Bernadette Peters and Johnny Mathis.

This year, Reisteter had been substituting as a music professor at Moravian College and Lehigh University and ended the school year, like so many other teachers, leading classes through Zoom lessons. He feels the technology is challenging for music instruction, since there is a noticeable lag in transmission time.

Now that the school year has concluded, Reisteter, who also is a published composer, is turning his attention to his latest project with The Allentown Band.

For the past few years, the Allentown Band has been playing music to accompany silent films in a popular series at Miller Symphony Hall, Allentown.

For the first two performances, Allentown Band conductor Ronald Demkee had the 32-member band play existing music that matched the action.

Last fall, Demkee asked Reisteter to compose an original score for the 1922 film, “Nosferatu.” It was Reisteter’s first time writing a score to be played by the entire band.

“I had done scores for other films, but never to this extent,” Reisteter says.

The project took him six weeks to compose the piece. He ended up with a score of more than 300 pages with 30 parts.

On Oct. 24, the Allentown Band is scheduled to accompany the 1920 hit silent film, “Mark of Zorro,” starring Douglas Fairbanks as Zorro. Demkee again asked Reisteter to pen the score.

“I will be working on it during the summer,” Reisteter says. “I’m already halfway through. I will have the composition done next month.”

He says the project will keep him busy because the 100-minute movie requires constant music with no breaks and has a lot of parts. He notes that the first clarinet part, which was his part for “Nosferatu,” had 52 pages.

Resisteter says that the Allentown Band would probably present the “Mark of Zorro” concert in 2021 if the October concert is canceled.

He has also been keeping busy doing personal projects in which he records himself on multiple tracks playing woodwinds and posts them on his YouTube channel.

Resisteter played on 59 tracks for a recording of Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers.”

“There are projects I always wanted to do,” he says. “I record in the guest room. Although I feel sorry for my wife because she hears me doing parts over and over. But she’s so sweet. She never complains.”

His published compositions and arrangements have been played worldwide by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Danish Concert Band, Amherst Saxophone Quartet and Michigan Philharmonic Orchestra.

Although his income has taken a hit from the canceled performances, he is receiving royalty checks for concerts of his compositions, but expects that to dwindle, too.

Meanwhile, Resisteter has been practicing a lot to keep in shape. He accompanies his wife, Johanna, who plays piano in musical theater pit orchestras, and French horn in the Allentown Band.

“It can’t match playing with an ensemble. There’s nothing like playing in a big group,” he says.

For now, Resisteter and his wife take long walks and talk about how strange life in the time of the coronavirus is as they look forward to the day that The Allentown Band, Allentown Symphony Orchestra and musical theater productions are allowed to return to the stage.

Next week: “Gigless in the Valley,” Part Five: Pennsylvania Playhouse Theatre Administrator Rody Gilkeson