NASHUA – In a time when enjoying live music in-person has been hard to find, the First Church, 1 Concord St. is providing live performances while adhering to the strictest guidelines from local, state and the CDC.

At 3 p.m. on Sunday, First Music will present acclaimed bass baritone Mark Andrew Cleveland and pianist Eliko Akahori in the program, “Winterreise: A Winter’s Journey, works by Schubert.” Admission is free.

Music minister and artistic director Joseph Olefirowicz said the church has specifically designed this season, First Music’s 13th, to be a reduced artist format.

“Nine out of the eleven programs on our calendar are solo programs,” he said. “This is the only duo. And at Christmas time, we had a greatly reduced version of what we would normally do with 50 people. We managed to pull it off with 19.”

The First Church has the unique ability of being able to accommodate a live audience because of the sheer size of the venue in this case, the church.

“With distancing and air exchange and masks and PPE, we can offer live in-person performances in a manner that’s not possible with larger organizations,” Olefirowicz said.

First Music also conducts contact tracing.

Olefirowicz has conducted here in Nashua and has enjoyed a successful career conducting in Europe. Sunday’s performance will only feature a vocal soloist and pianist. As for upcoming seasons, he said those have already been mapped out.

“We are already sketching out the ’21-’22 season now,” he explained. “And we have the unique perspective of where COVID closures hit, to already take into consideration what might be happening in our following season in the case of a pandemic.”

First Music did close their final three programs because they did not have in place the measures to be able to host an audience safely. Olefirowicz said some of those programs were also multi-person programs.

“The studies on aerosol hadn’t come out yet,” he said. “Luckily, for this upcoming season, we had the opportunity to re-think our format for this year and to offer something a bit pared-down that could still stay in person, provided that the church was open.”

It should be noted that the series is funded by the “Friends of First Music,” so even if First Music sustains a cancellation, they do not suffer a significant financial loss.

Turnout for live, in-person shows has been down, according to Olefirowicz.

“Our capacity at 30 percent is still around or slightly above what a normal concert attendance would be,” he stated. “Our concert attendances are down minimally by 60 percent this season.”

Concert-goers have expressed that they are interested in attending live music performances.

“The patrons that we already have, starting in November, were the ones who felt comfortable going to such programs outside of a vaccine,” Olefirowicz said. “And most of the audience is in the senior category, per se, so this will be the first concert offered after the vaccine has been released, so we’re hoping that it encourages folks more to know that the measures that we take already are an enhancement.”

Olefirowicz added that concert goers who have attended performances, “are absolutely thrilled to be able to hear live music in these times, when every other venue is cancelling.”

“Everything is virtual, everything is closed,” he said. “We are offering an in-person, non-streamed format because we want these people to experience this classical music art in the way it is meant to be heard, which is live.”

Restructuring seating, shows and performances has been somewhat of a challenge, but Olefirowicz said that he knew adjustments would have to be made with the programs themselves.

“In our planning, sometimes artists who had been hired would need to be substituted out because they just weren’t ready yet to be doing in-person music,” he shared. “I think the delicate balance that we’ve been fortunate to hit with our timings, is that we intentionally started the season a month later than usual because we wanted to make sure that we were looking at the best emerging data coming out to be able to host.”

The mission of the series is to ensure that the artists and audience feel safe in a live, in-person concert setting. Olefirowicz said First Church is being observed by multiple arts organizations in the region as to how they have found success in hosting live events with an audience.

Sunday’s program is a salon-style vocal concert, presenting one of the most renown song cycles of the 19th century art song movement. This will be Cleveland and Akahori’s first time performing together.

“Mark is a known entity to us in the Nashua area, because he lives in the city,” Olefirowicz said.

As for taking every precaution, Olefirowicz said “we have safety in mind.”

“We wanted to make sure that the air exchange that we have in place would be able to accommodate the safest amount of exchange possible,” he said. “Everybody is talking about aerosols these days. We offer distancing that no classical concert ever takes place in. And we’ve seen that it works.”

The maximum occupancy for First Church at 30 percent is 180 people.

“However, even for worship services, we have never surpassed 120,” Olefirowicz said. “And we started a soft reopen in September. We were closed from March through August. And we only closed again in mid-January through early February, to accommodate the surge that happened after Christmas. (Olefirowicz stressed that the church closed not only because of safety issues, but because of the state mandates closing performance venues.)

Olefirowicz said the church is seeing new faces as people are longing to return to their own houses of worship which still may be closed.

“We are actually getting to know new faces in the region,” he said. “They are seeking that in-person connection. And because our space seats 620, and the church has a very high ceiling and very broad perspectives, and everybody is masked, this is why we are in a more unique position.”

Entry to the church building is through the sole entrance currently used, in the courtyard between the old and new buildings in the rear. Wearing masks is a requirement inside the church for all attendees. First Music operates with full social distancing principles and air exchange in the Sanctuary for the safety and comfort of their patrons. For more information, visit first-music.org.