Monthly Archives: May 2024

Jack Flanders in Do Angels Really Have Wings? — Complete!

May 31, 2024   Programming

Tune in on Fri­day for this COMPLETE excit­ing radio ser­i­al from our friends at ZBS Foun­da­tion: “Do Angels Real­ly Have Wings?” - in which Jack Flan­ders explores Heav­en — and Hell!

Orig­i­nal­ly broad­cast as six short episodes of just a few min­utes, on Fri­day May 31 we’re broad­cast­ing the entire ser­i­al at noon and 4pm Pacific/SLT. Don’t miss it!

Now read on…

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A New Age

May 25, 2024   Programming

Today’s fea­tured music harks back to the musi­cal expe­ri­ence of tun­ing in to the ear­ly “New Age” radio sta­tions on the West Coast of the USA in their hey­day in the late 1980s: sta­tions like KTWV, “The Wave” in Los Ange­les and KLRS (“Col­ors”) in  San­ta Cruz.

You’ll hear a wealth of music of the peri­od, pri­mar­i­ly but not exclu­sive­ly instru­men­tal, fea­tur­ing both syn­the­sis­ers and nat­ur­al instru­ments. A lit­tle more live­ly than “space music” in most cas­es, the music is by and large tune­ful, melod­ic and relaxing.

These radio sta­tions and their com­pa­tri­ots in oth­er mar­kets grad­u­al­ly shift­ed towards “smooth jazz”, “New Adult Con­tem­po­rary” and beyond, and thus lost some of the atmos­phere that the sta­tions orig­i­nal­ly cre­at­ed. We hope today’s pro­gramme will bring back some mem­o­ries if you were there at the time, and present some har­mo­nious musi­cal vis­tas if the music is new to you.

In addi­tion, tune in at 12 noon or 4pm SLT/Pacific Time for the lat­est episode of our series in which we dis­cov­er things to do and places to see around the Sec­ond Life grid — “Where Have You Been?” —  and catch “The Engines of Our Inge­nu­ity” every four hours from 4am Pacific.

Image: “235/365 …some­where there is a bound­less uni­verse wait­ing to be dis­cov­ered” by rennes_i is licensed under CC BY 2.0. Cre­at­ed by Ukrain­ian artist

 

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Where Have You Been? S04E02: MyStory RP

May 22, 2024   Programming

Wel­come to the sec­ond episode in a new sea­son of “Where Have You Been?”,  our series broad­casts on Wednes­days and Sat­ur­days at 12 noon and 4pm SLT, where we high­light places to go and things to do around the Sec­ond Life Grid.

This time we dis­cuss a new twist on the idea of Role­play as we vis­it MyS­to­ry RP, a unique role­play that engages in grow­ing and prepar­ing food, as well as in oth­er health-relat­ed activ­i­ties. From par­tic­i­pat­ing in a role­play, could you increase your aware­ness of your own health?  Could tend­ing a gar­den in Sec­ond Life make you more food aware? Might you learn to cook things where pre­vi­ous­ly you would have bought pre­pared foods with all the atten­dant fillers and preser­v­a­tives that come with that?  We can­not say for cer­tain, but any oppor­tu­ni­ty to increase aware­ness has such poten­tial. You can judge for your­self. Tune in to find out more.

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Modern Classical Music

May 22, 2024   Programming

Wednes­day, 22nd May: Today’s Fea­tured Music is “Mod­ern Clas­si­cal Music” — but what does that mean, exact­ly? It’s not sim­ply “mod­ern orches­tral music”: most peo­ple’s expo­sure to orches­tral music is via movie sound­tracks, and they have their own show.

Well, in the con­text of today’s pro­gramme, we’re talk­ing about pieces of music writ­ten between around the mid-20th Cen­tu­ry until the present day, that aren’t exact­ly “pop music” (though they may tip a hat to it from time to time).

This is a tricky def­i­n­i­tion, how­ev­er. Mike Batt (some of whose work is in the playlist for today: there’s a lot more to his com­po­si­tions than the Wombles! ) has remarked that there is no such dis­tinc­tion as “pop­u­lar music” and “seri­ous music” — there’s sim­ply “pop­u­lar” and “unpop­u­lar”, so the def­i­n­i­tion rather falls at the first fence.

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The Magic of The Musical S03E02: It’s Awards Time!

May 18, 2024   Programming

Our orig­i­nal series of The Mag­ic of The Musi­cal, con­tin­ues today — Sat­ur­day, May 18th @ 2pm SLT/Pacific Time.  Host Cale­do­nia Sky­tow­er explores songs, sto­ries and lore from  the world of musi­cal the­atre. This episode is now avail­able on Mixcloud.

Join our live audi­ence at Ceiluiradh Glen on Sat­ur­day at 2pm SLT — slurl: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Nowhereville/196/131/21 or tune in to Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio here on the web site, plug this URL into a net­work play­er: http://main.vcradio.org — or ask your smart speak­er to “Play Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio!”

Also today on Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio, enjoy our fea­tured music On Broad­way, the lat­est edi­tion of “Where Have You Been?”, where we vis­it the Rose Gar­den in Sec­ond Life, at 12 noon and 4pm SLT/Pacific. And don’t miss The Engines of Our Inge­nu­ity from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hous­ton, every four hours from 4am SLT.

This Month:  The Nom­i­nees Are …

It’s that time of year again in the world cap­i­tals of musi­cal the­atre — at least in New York and Lon­don. April saw the Olivi­er Awards bestowed for out­stand­ing new musi­cal and revival in Lon­don, and June sees both the Dra­ma Desk Awards and the Antoinette Per­ry Awards (the Tonys) cel­e­brat­ing  excel­lence in musi­cal the­ater in New York and on Broadway.

Cale­do­nia shares selec­tions from among the shows nom­i­nat­ed for recog­ni­tion, but this year it won’t be easy.  Find out why, and learn more about the evolv­ing world of musi­cal the­ater and the shows that you might want to be look­ing for in this edi­tion:  The Nom­i­nees Are …

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Where Have You Been? S04E01: RoseGarden

May 8, 2024   Programming

Wel­come to a new sea­son of “Where Have You Been?”,  our bi-week­ly series (ie with a new episode every two weeks), broad­cast on Wednes­days and Sat­ur­days at 12 noon and 4pm SLT, where we sug­gest places to go and things to do around the Sec­ond Life Grid.

Our thanks to lis­ten­er Tama Cub who sent us the SLURL and some infor­ma­tion on RoseGar­den, which we are fea­tur­ing in this episode.

Tama says. “It’s a place I always come back to. …it’s a set of four islands that are each themed around the four sea­sons of the year. There’s a lot you can do on these islands and they make great spots to take pictures!”

As Tama shared, each of the four major islands is themed to a dif­fer­ent sea­son, and each of  the themes includes some secrets, as well as things to do. Tune in to learn more!

S04E01 – RoseGar­den
Own­er — Lady­Rose Writer
RoseGar­den – Moderate

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/RoseGarden/128/143/22

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Formal Ball to Celebrate Earth Day: May 5th

May 1, 2024   Programming

Sun­day May 5th at 1:30pm SLT/Pacific, join us on Wil­low Grove in Sec­ond Life for anoth­er of our month­ly first-Sun­day For­mal Balls. 

This time we’re cel­e­brat­ing Earth Day (yes, a lit­tle late) with 90 min­utes of music from Cale­do­nia Sky­tow­er and Elrik Merlin. 

See you there! Join us in per­son or on the air… 

Your car­riage awaits: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Willow%20Grove/92/109/2964

- Or tune in at main.vcradio.org...

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Music for Beltane — and more!

May 1, 2024   Programming

Today we present a pro­gramme of a wide vari­ety of music inspired by, but not lim­it­ed to, Beltane.

Beltane or Beltain is the Gael­ic May Day fes­ti­val. Most com­mon­ly it is held on 1 May, or about halfway between the spring equinox and sum­mer sol­stice. His­tor­i­cal­ly, it was wide­ly observed through­out Ire­land, Scot­land, and the Isle of Man. In Irish the name for the fes­ti­val day is Lá Beal­taine, in Scot­tish Gael­ic Là Beall­tainn and in Manx Gael­ic Laa Boaltinn/Boaldyn. It is one of the four Gael­ic sea­son­al fes­ti­vals — along with Samhain, Imbolc and Lugh­nasadh — and is sim­i­lar to the Welsh Calan Mai. Inter­est­ing­ly, in the process of Chris­tian­i­sa­tion, no saint was assigned to this day. And inter­est­ing, too, Beltane actu­al­ly began at night­fall the day before, not on the morn­ing of the day itself: it was the night and the day, and not the oth­er way around.

Don’t for­get to tune in for an edi­tion of our reg­u­lar fea­ture, Where Have You Been? — where we take a look at events and places around the Sec­ond Life grid. 12 noon and 4pm Pacif­ic Time, 8pm and mid­night in the UK. Plus The Engines of Our Inge­nu­ity — every four hours from 4am Pacific.

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