Virtual Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts hosts slate of musicians
Despite the cancellation of in-person performances — or in-person anything — at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, virtual performances from favorite Arts Fest musicians can be found online through Sunday.
The schedule includes 12 local musical acts dispersed throughout the days.
This year’s format was successfully modified, but it wasn’t easy.
“Figuring out how to handle the music was one of the more difficult problems we faced,” said Rick Bryant, Arts Fest executive director, “just because of the technology involved and the skill set of the festival staff, and not working with the people we normally work with.”
On any given year, there could be up to 50 musical performers scheduled all throughout downtown State College, from the sensational Allen Street stage to mandolinists busking on the sidewalks. This year, there are far less performers, but a great deal of time and effort has gone into producing what is expected to be a series of 90-minute shows.
“We have four live performances a day,” Bryant said. “They are mostly local performers, although on the weekend we have two performers of international stature: Alasdair Fraser and Trout Fishing in America.”
State College Live is hosting the livestreams, and there will also be an on-demand component of the performances and videos, including an on-demand performance by Centre County’s Tussey Mountain Moonshiners. On-demand performances can be found at arts-festival.com/on-demand-entertainment.
“In addition to live streaming music,” Bryant said, “there will be artists’ demonstrations and studio tours and that kind of thing. We’re having a tap class, we’re having yoga, and we’re having belly dancing too.”
Arts Fest is particularly music-centric when compared to comparably-sized arts festivals, such as the Long’s Park Art Festival in Lancaster. So, continuing the music was a high priority, but social distancing restrictions related to COVID-19 required a new approach.
“Standing cheek by jowl on South Allen Street, or sitting on a blanket on Old Main lawn — that’s a really a quintessential part of the arts festival, and it’s really impossible to translate that to sitting at your monitor or looking on your phone or tablet,” Bryant said.
Still, Bryant and his team have succeeded in putting on a show, to the relief of virtual Arts Fest patrons who will be treated to great, local music.
Local musicians, who have been understandably concerned about the lack of opportunities to perform, are grateful for the opportunity, but it’s been a whirlwind the past few months.
“It’s not just that we aren’t able to share our music and interact with people in a live setting,” said Kristi Jean Branstetter of Kristi Jean and her Ne’er-Do-Wells, which is set to perform on Friday. “We also miss hanging out and playing with the other musicians in the band — they are our friends and we get such great energy and spark from being together.”
This story was originally published July 9, 2020 at 4:16 PM.