The Utah Symphony is performing once again at Abravanel Hall. But the musicians have different seating arrangements, because a study by the University of Utah showed how to minimize the risk of spreading coronavirus.

The problem is wind instruments and what comes out of that French horn or oboe along with the music. Chemical Engineering professors James Sutherland and Tony Saad worked with a team of students to model the air flow across the stage along with the air coming from the musicians. A news release says they used the U's Center for High Performance Computing to come up with an arrangement that reduces the risk of spreading the virus by as much as a hundred times.

The team's next challenge is to do the same thing for the Capitol Theater, the home of the Utah Opera.