A medical worker prepares to administer a vaccination against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as Israel continues its national vaccination drive, during a third national COVID lockdown, in Ashdod, Israel January 4, 2021. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

i24News – The economic downside of the coronavirus pandemic has seen industries of tourism, restaurants, social events and retail stores, among others, suffer grave consequences.

And yet the music industry has been the unsung victim of the prolonged crisis.

Ziv Grinberg, a 33-year-old Israeli composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist, has been pushed to the brink of physical exhaustion during the third national lockdown in the Jewish state.

He was hospitalized for seven days at Ichilov hospital in Tel Aviv with shingles.

“Shingles can break in instances of high levels of stress,” Grinberg told i24NEWS. “The doctors at the hospital told me that there has been a spike of cases since the coronavirus broke.”

With kindergartens shut prior to his hospitalization, Grinberg juggled between jobs and coming up with daily activities for his 6-year-old daughter, in a hectic schedule that could sometimes end as late as 3 am, he relayed.

But not all was bad over the past 10 months. “I had to reinvent myself,” the musician stressed.

“If before the crisis I would perform five times a week and teach music at school, now I was left with little income — which together with state compensation would not be enough to close the month,” he said.

At first, he started working as a pizza delivery man.

“The truth is, it was nice to work at something that had nothing to do with my main profession, I did not complain too much,” Grinberg recalled.

“As I was working at the pizza place, I managed to gain more and more private students; and with time added more clients to my home studio. After starting to make original music for music libraries [firms offering music content and licenses to customers] and increasing my income, I quit the pizza place and now make more money than I did before the crisis.”

“I must say that I am lucky,” Grinberg added, “although I am not representative of most musicians during this period.”