In the immediate aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, many sites dropped their paywalls to allow unrestricted access. This likely won’t last forever, so don’t be surprised if the viewing at some of the destinations listed on these pages now comes with a price tag.
Casino Royale
Casino Guitars will continue its Musicians Matter series featuring local out-of-work musicians on Friday nights from 8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. To tune in go to the Casino Guitars Facebook page. Venmo usernames will be posted during the livestream concerts for donations.
Standing ‘O’ from the Cheap Seats
On Wednesday, May 13, at 7:30 p.m., Maestro David Michael Wolff will present his third concert in a live streaming series launched together by Sandhills Community College and the Carolina Philharmonic. To join the audience for the piano-centric performance from an otherwise empty Owens Auditorium at the Bradshaw Performing Arts Center, simply go to www.carolinaphil.org and click the “play” button. The series will continue on May 27 at 7:30 p.m. with Ryan Book on the guitar. SCC piano instructor Kristina Henckel will also be performing in May. Details can be found at www.carolinaphil.org.
At the Sunrise
The Stay-At-Home Film Fest for locked-down Spielbergs has been extended for, well, about as long as we’re going to be locked down. Make a video re-enactment of a scene from your favorite movie or play and submit it. Keep it clean. For complete instructions, visit the Sunrise Theater website at www.sunrisetheater.com. At this writing, Good Shot Judy remains scheduled to give a live outdoor concert on May 23 at 7 p.m. The theater is also hoping to continue The Great Composer Series: In Search of Haydn at 10a.m. on Thursday, May 28. As Ronald Reagan said, “Trust, but verify.” In addition, the Sunrise will be continuing its Virtual Theater in May. Go to www.sunrisetheater.com.
Museums Galore
You’d be hard pressed to find a museum that isn’t doing some sort of virtual tour. What follows is just a smattering of what’s available online.
Want to see the Rosetta Stone and a few Egyptian mummies? Go to blog.britishmuseum.org.
Interested in a trip to Paris? You can visit the Musée de Louvre as long as vous acceptez l’utillsation de cookies.
Join “Degas at the Opéra” or “Raphael and His Circle” at the National Gallery of Art by visiting nga.gov.
If you simply can’t resist Paris in the springtime, you can make a return trip to the Musée d’Orsay at m.musee-orsay.fr to see “Whistler’s Mother,” Edouard Manet’s “Olympia” or Claude Monet’s “The Saint-Lazare Station” and more Degas, which is decidedly not the same as more cowbell.
So you think you are stuck in isolation? Have a look at “The Bedroom” in the Van Gogh Museum’s collection at vangoghmuseum.nl. Or maybe just stop by to check out the sunflowers.
What seems like about a hundred years ago, in April, all of America was worried about becoming Italy. But, even in these perilous times, you can visit the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Botticelli. Caravaggio. Michelangelo. Leonardo. Virtualuffizi.com will let you book tickets.
And, in L.A., they come and go and talk of Michelangelo (Sincerest apologies, T.S.) at the J. Paul Getty Museum’s “Michelangelo: Mind of the Master” exhibit at www.getty.edu/museum.
Need more? Go to Google Arts & Culture for the motherlode.
Tar Heel Collections
Worried about being charged mileage on your gigabyte globetrotting tours of great museums? Stay right in your own backyard. At the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh it’s possible to explore the collection virtually by going to ncartmuseum.org. Another feature, “NCMA Recommends,” highlights film, music and art from the collection. The Reynolda House Museum in Winston-Salem is producing “Call-a-Curator” to anyone on its email list where team members share their view on art and all things Reynolda. The Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington is currently giving a virtual tour of the photographs of well-known architect Phil Freelon in its exhibition: “Structure in Space and Time — Photography of Phil Freelon.”
Culture in Quarantine
The National Theatre Live, long a staple offering of the Sunrise Theater, will be releasing an encore performance every week in May on its YouTube channel. Find the list at either sunrisetheater.com or nationaltheatre.org.uk. In addition, the Metropolitan Opera has promised encore performances while the opera remains dark. That list is also available on the Sunrise website or at MetOpera.org. And, if you haven’t maxed out on baritones, you can always visit the Royal Opera House via Facebook or YouTube.
Montreux Jazz Festival and Boomer Rock
The Montreax Jazz Festival made over 50 concerts available to stream at no charge for 30 days. Included were performances by Ray Charles, Wu-Tang Clan, Johnny Cash, Nina Simone, Marvin Gaye and Carlos Santana. To find them go to stingray.com/FREEMJF1M and enter the code FREEMJF1M. At a higher altitude, Neil Young has allowed access to some of his “Fireside Sessions,” filmed at his house in Telluride, Colorado, by his wife Daryl Hannah at neilyoungarchives.com.
Take a Hike
Staying home is all well and good but if you feel the need to get out and explore you can do it safely by taking virtual tours — or watching live cams — at a number of National Parks, including Yellowstone at nps.gov. Other parks offering virtual tours are Yosemite, Denali, Kenai Fjords, Hawai’i Volcanoes, Carlsbad Caverns, Bryce Canyon and Dry Tortugas. Or, you can explore 35 of them on Google Earth. You’ll need a comfortable pair of boots and trail mix.
Get a Quick Art Fix
The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia has been running short daily pieces featuring one of its curators talking about one of their favorite pieces of art in the extensive collection of over 900 impressionist, post-impressionist and modern paintings that include works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Henri Rousseau, Amedeo Modigliani, Edgar Degas, Vincent Van Gogh and Georges Seurat. The collection also features African masks, Greek antiquities, Native American jewelry and more. The “Daily Servings of Art” are available in bite-sized portions by going to YouTube and searching for “Barnes Takeout.”
