The tests are com­plete, the stream is on the air, and it’s time to offi­cial­ly launch the station!

We’d like to extend a warm invi­ta­tion to Sec­ond Life res­i­dents to join Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio at our Grand Open­ing Ball in our fab­u­lous art deco the­atre on the Chest­nut Hills region, on Sat­ur­day Feb­ru­ary 6th at 2pm Pacif­ic Time (22:00 GMT), as we offi­cial­ly launch the sta­tion. Come in for­mal dress and enjoy a pro­gramme of 90 min­utes of waltzes, fox­trots and some rather more live­ly dances in a broad­ly Light Clas­si­cal vein, pre­sent­ed in liv­ing stereo­phon­ic sound by DJ Cale­do­nia Skytower.

Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio plays a con­tin­u­ing music pro­gramme focused on the Light Clas­si­cal genre — you’ll hear the likes of Gilbert & Sul­li­van, Leroy Ander­son, Ron Good­win, Richard Addin­sell, Christo­pher Gun­ning, Ernest Tom­lin­son and many more — flavoured with more jazzy con­tri­bu­tions includ­ing some lounge/Easy Lis­ten­ing, and some major pieces of clas­si­cal music and sound­tracks — but pri­mar­i­ly instru­men­tal, light and relax­ing. In addi­tion, spe­cial “Genre Days”, cur­rent­ly Wednes­days and Sat­ur­days, fea­ture and explore spe­cif­ic musi­cal gen­res, such as Ear­ly Music, Baroque, Big Band and Swing, and New Age. Tune in any­time to http://main.vcradio.org or click the ‘Lis­ten Now’ ban­ner to the right of this post on the web site.

Over­laid on the back­ground of this musi­cal “sus­tain­ing ser­vice” is a grow­ing series of spo­ken-word pro­gram­ming that is a pri­ma­ry focus of the sta­tion, fea­tur­ing dra­ma, talk shows and more. The Black Mass is a land­mark dra­ma series pro­duced by KPFA in Berke­ley, CA  over 50 years ago, fea­tur­ing chill­ing tales of mys­tery and imag­i­na­tion by lead­ing lit­er­ary fig­ures often bet­ter-known in oth­er gen­res. Where’ve You Been is a fort­night­ly series where we explore fea­tures and attrac­tions around the Sec­ond Life Grid. We’ll also be pre­sent­ing addi­tion­al series in due course includ­ing the fas­ci­nat­ing Tarot @ Teatime, which explores the his­to­ry and read­ing of the cards, and mys­ti­cal dra­ma series of “sto­ries for the soul” from our friends at ZBS Media. You can also hear The Engines of Our Inge­nu­ity — a radio pro­gramme that tells the sto­ry of how our cul­ture is formed by human cre­ativ­i­ty, writ­ten and host­ed by John Lien­hard and oth­er con­trib­u­tors and pro­duced by Hous­ton Pub­lic Media. We’ll be includ­ing live read­ings pro­duced in con­junc­tion with our friends at Sean­chai Library. And start­ing next week you can hear reg­u­lar pro­grammes from The Grove — a superbly atmos­pher­ic star­lit envi­ron­ment — where we’ll explore New Age music and more. And if you missed a spe­cial pro­gramme, we will have it avail­able to “Lis­ten Again” via our chan­nel on Mixcloud.

To stay in touch with Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio, either vis­it this web site from time to time or sub­scribe to the RSS feed (click the orange but­ton top right of this page). In-world we have a Sub­scri­bo that you can sign up for in the lob­by of the VCR The­atre which keeps you informed with­out tak­ing up a Group (though we have a Group too).

If you like what you hear on Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio, per­haps you’d like to sup­port us with a spon­sor­ship pack­age — vis­it this page for spon­sor­ship details or pick up a note­card back­stage at the VCR The­atre. Or email info@vcradio.org.