With the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic, Japanese movie theaters, concert halls, and performance halls where people gather in large numbers have needed to implement appropriate measures to help prevent infection, one of which is ensuring that audience members remain socially distanced. This usually means spaced seating, but there are many ways of implementing it.

For example, in October of last year, we reported on a concert hall in Gifu Prefecture which placed locally-made dolls in every other seat.

For a classical music hall, however, a more thematically appropriate method makes more sense.

On January 14th, 前田妃奈 Hina Maeda (@HinaMaeda_vn), a student specializing in violin at 東京音楽大学付属高等学校 Tokyo College of Music H.S., and member of the recently-formed Quartet Re NADA, performed at the trial concert of the "Project Q Chapter 18: Young Quartets' Challenge Beethoven."

Before leaving, she posted a pair of photos to her Twitter account showing the seating area in the 上野学園石橋メモリアルホール Ueno Gakuen Ishibashi Memorial Hall, where the concert was held.

In a post that quickly went viral, garnering over 144,000 likes and 28,000 retweets at the time of writing, Maeda revealed the hall's witty music-themed socially-distanced seating measure:

In case you haven't guessed it by now, Ueno Gakuen Ishibashi Memorial Hall chose to implement some friendly "pressure" from the maestros. You may recognize their faces on these printouts attached to the seats.

The text on one of them says:

"This seat belongs to Beethoven-sensei. Please do not sit here."

Similarly-worded messages are printed above the portraits of Brahms and Bach.

The concert hall's witty idea and Maeda's Tweet which revealed it elicited many replies. For example:

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Reacting to all the positive feedback she received, Maeda used the opportunity to promote the Project Q Chapter 18: Young Quartets' Challenge Beethoven event which will be having its main concert on February 21st: