The Salon, a renowned performance series modeled after the 19th Century European salons, was founded in September 1986 by composer Andrea Clearfield. "One of the best-known music salons in the country" with "deep bench of topflight musicians" (The Philadelphia Inquirer), and winner of the "Best of Philly Award 2008" (Philadelphia Magazine), this Salon features high level performances of classical chamber music, opera, jazz, original contemporary compositions, electronic, folk, experimental, world music, spoken word, dance and multimedia works. The first Salon of the COVID-19 pandemic was to take place in March 2020. It was the first event in the 34-year history of the series to be cancelled. It was a difficult choice, but the correct one. By chance, Adam Vidiksis, a composer, technologist, and frequent performer on the Salon, had been scheduled to perform. He and Andrea quickly devised a way to share the Salon performances remotely via Zoom. Thus, the Zalon was born.