Monthly Archives: January 2021

Piano-issimo

January 30, 2021   Programming

Join us today for a pro­gramme of piano music — main­ly clas­si­cal but not entirely.

In addi­tion to some amaz­ing piano con­cer­tos and oth­er clas­si­cal works, we’ll also be play­ing pieces like the “Den­ham Con­cer­tos” — pieces writ­ten to cap­i­talise on the suc­cess of Richard Addin­sel­l’s War­saw Con­cer­to from the film Dan­ger­ous Moon­light (the film-mak­ers asked Rach­mani­nov to write a piece but he declined). These include Clive Richard­son’s Lon­don Fan­ta­sia, orig­i­nal­ly to be titled Coven­try Fan­ta­sia after the Mid­land city severe­ly dam­aged in the Blitz of Novem­ber 1940, but his pub­lish­ers told him that Lon­don would sell bet­ter. This tremen­dous work musi­cal­ly traces a day in the life of a city at war.

There are oth­er piano pieces from the movies too, but in addi­tion there’s light music, solo and orches­tral works, music-hall pieces arranged for piano, and much more. Do tune in!

Image: “piano keys” by mararie licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

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Genre Day: British Composers

January 27, 2021   Programming

It’s the mid­dle of Win­ter here in the UK but hope­ful­ly you’re able to keep warm inside — and lis­ten to today’s pro­gramme, which fea­tures music from British com­posers old and new. Edward Ger­man, Richard Har­vey, Ger­ald Finzi, Sir Arthur Bliss, Jon Lord, Christo­pher Gun­ning, Vaugh­an Williams and many more.

Image, “Mid­win­ter” by Lord Skul­ly is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

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Saturday At The Movies

January 23, 2021   Programming

Stuck at home like every­one? Pour­ing with rain or snow out­side at the same time? Tune in to Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio for Sat­ur­day At The Movies, one of our col­lec­tions of Genre Days, each fea­tur­ing a dif­fer­ent genre of music.

Movies are where most peo­ple today hear orches­tral music, and there will be plen­ty of that today. But movie music is a much broad­er field than that, and today you’ll hear music from the movies of many dif­fer­ent kinds, from the very start of the genre (with Camille Saint-Saens) to the lat­est block­busters; from orches­tral music to rock, to Fifties songs. There is a slight bias towards fan­ta­sy and SF movies, but nev­er mind, we all need a bit of an escape these days.…

So… Grab the pop­corn and set­tle down in front of the speak­ers in the best seat in the house — your own.

Pho­to by Krists Luhaers on Unsplash

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Genre Day: Light Classical

January 20, 2021   Programming

Today on VCR, we’re pleased to present a pro­gramme of light clas­si­cal music, in our first live play­out broadcast.

The pro­gramme fea­tures a wide range of both artists and com­posers, some well-known and some, per­haps, who are sel­dom heard of. Lis­ten out for the likes of Tom­lin­son, Ketel­bey, Alwyn, Gun­ning and Addin­sell, for exam­ple, to name but a few, and enjoy a day of tune­ful, often relax­ing orches­tral music.

Pho­to: The Jalis­co Phil­har­mon­ic Orches­tra, by Pedro Sánchez (CC)

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Building a Virtual Home

January 10, 2021   Station News

We are cur­rent­ly in the process of build­ing a head­quar­ters loca­tion in Sec­ond Life as a base for our oper­a­tions in-world. The “VCR The­atre” is being brought togeth­er by Hon­ey Heart and will be com­plet­ed soon.

It takes the form of an Art Deco the­atre, with a stage, seat­ing that can be over­laid for danc­ing, and a broad­cast stu­dio. In addi­tion it will house admin­is­tra­tive func­tions like the devices that will han­dle spon­sor­ship pay­ments and renewals to make that oper­a­tion as smooth as possible.

We are also intend­ing to hold live read­ings and oth­er per­for­mances as well as dances and oth­er activ­i­ties in the audi­to­ri­um. Here are a few pic­tures — though bear in mind that the build is not yet finished.

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Coming Soon: The Black Mass

January 5, 2021   Programming
The Black Mass

Com­ing short­ly to Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio is the land­mark radio dra­ma series The Black Mass, cre­at­ed at the Paci­fi­ca radio sta­tion KPFA in Berke­ley, CA, over fifty years ago. In 30 chill­ing tales of mys­tery, imag­i­na­tion and the human mind, The Black Mass brings you some of literature’s most haunt­ing sto­ries, by mas­ters of the craft.

Realised with the min­i­mum of audio equip­ment, the per­for­mances were quite remark­able and trod ground sel­dom cov­ered by radio dra­ma before — or since. Watch this space for details on when the shows will air. There are 30 episodes of up to 30 min­utes each, and each week­ly episode will be broad­cast twice on the same day, once for UK/European lis­ten­ers and the oth­er for those in North America.

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