It didn’t take long after the first safer-at-home order was issued in March for arts and cultural groups to embrace the internet as a live performance venue.
St. Johns Cultural Council Executive Director Christina Parrish Stone said her organization realized early on that local artists would be especially hard hit by the economic shutdown.
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“So we created an online concert series, where we pay the St. Johns County musicians to perform through Facebook Live every weekday for the month of April.”
Those concerts, Stone says, turned out to be unexpectedly personal.
“People who are watching can type in song requests or type in comments and actually communicate with the musicians during the performance - just as you might in a very intimate, live, in-person setting.”
This week and next, the St. Johns Cultural Council is hosting the 25th annual Gamble Rogers Music Festival on Facebook Live.
And instead of cancelling this year’s Romanza Festivale of Music and the Arts, a virtual version of the St. Augustine fest will stream live on the event’s website the weekend of May 15.
Contact reporter Cyd Hoskinson at choskinson@wjct.org, 904-358-6351 and on Twitter at @cydwjctnews.
