Entertainment News Roundup: Live music lifts spirits in Burkina Faso; Melody Gardot seeks digital orchestra to beat coronavirus blues and more

Following is a summary of current entertainment news briefs.

Live music lifts spirits in Burkina Faso's coronavirus curfew

On stage in an empty auditorium, backed by starry lights, Patrick Kabre plucks his electric guitar and sings through a microphone to an audience many miles away. Kabre is contributing to COVID-Live, a series of sessions by musicians broadcast in real time on Facebook to people across Burkina Faso who have been under curfew for months.

Jazz singer Melody Gardot seeks digital orchestra to beat coronavirus blues

American jazz singer Melody Gardot is inviting musicians around the world to play along digitally on her new album to overcome the solitude and financial strain of coronavirus lockdowns. For the song "From Paris with Love" on her new album, Gardot is asking orchestra musicians worldwide - strings, woodwinds, or harp - to contribute remotely by playing along to a score and a backing track.

Warsaw's open-air Chopin concerts move online due to coronavirus

Lovers of Frederic Chopin's music who usually flock to a central Warsaw park on Sundays for open-air concerts will have to go online this season to hear the weekly performances because of restrictions imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus. The concerts are a key event in the Polish capital's summer cultural calendar, with performers serenading citizens in the elegant setting of the Royal Lazienki Park with concertos, nocturnes and other masterworks by the great romantic composer.

Lockdown storytime: Roald Dahl with Streep, Cumberbatch and more

Stuck at home with the kids? Meryl Streep, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Cate Blanchett may be able to help. Oscar-winning New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi has lined up some of his Hollywood friends by videolink from their living rooms for a coronavirus lockdown charity reading of Roald Dahl's classic "James and the Giant Peach".

(With inputs from agencies.)