Category Archives: Programming

Where Have You Been? — A New Season

March 1, 2023   Programming

We’re pleased to announce the start of the third series of our orig­i­nal pro­gramme, “Where Have You Been?”, where we dis­cuss places to vis­it and things to do around the Sec­ond Life grid — and we try to ensure they’re usu­al­ly things and places that the major com­men­ta­tors miss.

“WYB” airs every Wednes­day and Sat­ur­day at 12 noon and 4pm Pacif­ic / SLT, and each episode is broad­cast over a cou­ple of weeks. And don’t miss “Engines of Our Inge­nu­ity” from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hous­ton, every four hours from 4am Pacific.

Our des­ti­na­tions gen­er­al­ly fall into one of three cat­e­gories: Art, Explo­ration and Events. In the first episode of the new sea­son, it’s the first of those, as we take a trip over to GBTH, aka “Grab By The Horns”  — a vir­tu­al visu­al arts incu­ba­tor in Sec­ond Life, found­ed in Octo­ber 2017 by Mari­na Münter. 

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English & Scottish Country Dance

February 25, 2023   Programming

Our pro­gramme today, 25th Feb­ru­ary, focus­es, rather broad­ly, on Eng­lish Coun­try Dance – and in par­tic­u­lar on the work of John Play­ford (1623–1686/7) — and its cousin, Scot­tish Coun­try Dance, along with a range of oth­er tra­di­tion­al dance music such as Mor­ris dancing.

In addi­tion, tune in at noon or 4pm Pacific/SLT as “Where Have You Been?” re-vis­its the his­toric Sec­ond Life envi­ron­ment of Svar­ga. To learn more about Svar­ga, check out this arti­cle from last year. Plus “Engines of Our Inge­nu­ity” every four hours from 4am SLT/Pacific.

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The Magic of The Musical: The Tony Awards

February 18, 2023   Programming

Our new sea­son of The Mag­ic of The Musi­cal with Cale­do­nia Sky­tow­er begins in April, but in the run-up to that time, we’re repeat­ing some of last sea­son’s pro­grammes, so today, Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 18th at 2pm slt/pacific you can hear our show on the Tony Awards, orig­i­nal­ly broad­cast live from SL19B last year.

The Mag­ic of The Musi­cal explores the blend­ing of music and dra­ma — fea­tur­ing the songs, his­to­ry, and lore that make up the musi­cal the­ater canon. Learn more about some of your favorite shows and com­posers as we cue the orches­tra, and the over­ture begins.

In this, Episode 03: “Count­down to The Tony Awards” your host Cale­do­nia Sky­tow­er talks to guest Mor­rie Enders, the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Lin­coln Com­mu­ni­ty Play­house in Nebras­ka. Togeth­er they explore some “what ifs” and “might have been“s from var­i­ous Best Musi­cal races from the Amer­i­can The­ater Wing’s Tony Awards past.

In keep­ing with the show, “On Broad­way!” is our Fea­tured Music theme through the day. And don’t miss the episode of Where Have You Been? where we vis­it Svar­ga, and Engines of Our Inge­nu­ity every four hours from 4am Pacific.

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Sounding Brass

February 15, 2023   Programming

Today’s pro­gramme — Wednes­day Feb­ru­ary 15th — focus­es on brass instru­ments, with gen­res that range from Ear­ly Music to con­tem­po­rary pieces.

Thus the pieces you’ll hear today range from ancient and ear­ly music, through Baroque and clas­si­cal, to Vic­to­ri­an brass bands, to rag­time, trad jazz, a touch of big band, right up to mod­ern works includ­ing a mar­vel­lous suite of pieces for wind band inspired by the works of Shakespeare.

This will all lead to some remark­able jux­ta­po­si­tions — and a few sur­pris­es. Plus “Where Have You Been?” re-vis­its Svar­ga, and more!

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Jack Flanders in Return to Inverness

February 3, 2023   Programming

Tune in on Fri­day for the next episode of anoth­er excit­ing radio ser­i­al from our friends at ZBS Foun­da­tion: Return to Inver­ness - a 12-part sequel to the orig­i­nal Jack Flan­ders adven­ture, The Fourth Tow­er of Inver­ness.

This adven­ture con­sists  of 12 half-hour episodes, broad­cast at noon and 4pm Pacific/SLT on Fridays.

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Music for Brigid’s Day and Imbolc

February 1, 2023   Programming

St Brigid’s feast day is Feb­ru­ary 1st, and today we’ll be play­ing a col­lec­tion of Celtic music in her hon­our. The Gael­ic fes­ti­val coin­cides with Imbolc, the first day of Spring in Irish tra­di­tion, and because St Brigid has been linked to the god­dess Brigid, the fes­ti­val of Imbolc is asso­ci­at­ed with the goddess.

In addi­tion you can tune in at 12 noon or 4pm SLT for an edi­tion of our orig­i­nal series, “Where Have You Been?”, where we vis­it The Nature Col­lec­tive.

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Tarot @ Teatime 10 — The Major Arcana

January 29, 2023   Programming

Here’s anoth­er chance to hear Episode 10 of our orig­i­nal series, “Tarot @ Teatime”, with Hon­ey Heart and Wil­low Moon­fire, explor­ing the his­to­ry of the cards and how they may be read. Tune in to http://main.vcradio.org at noon or 4pm Pacif­ic / 8pm or mid­night UK time. This episode will repeat on Sun­day Jan­u­ary 29th and Thurs­day Feb­ru­ary 2nd.

Episode Ten
This cov­ers the Major Arcana and var­i­ous way of think­ing about these twen­ty-two cards as a group. We dis­cuss the notion of The Fool’s Jour­ney, Jun­gian Arche­types, and the Major Arcana as a depic­tion of the inter­play between order and chaos.

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The Light Programme

January 28, 2023   Programming

Sat­ur­day Jan­u­ary 28th, and today we make a for­ay into the world of Light Music, one of our sta­ple gen­res here on VCRadio.

We can think of Light Music as fill­ing a gap between out-and-out clas­si­cal music, and the excep­tion­al qual­i­ty music pro­duc­tion library and film music of the 1940s-50s — the lat­ter also fea­tur­ing from time to time on The Light Pro­gramme. It’s a con­tin­u­um with per­haps Sul­li­van at one end, and maybe Coates at the oth­er – though it’s dif­fi­cult to define bound­aries. In between are com­posers like Addin­sell, Alwyn, Ketel­bey, Tom­lin­son, Binge, Lane and oth­ers, and it’s their music that we’ll be fea­tur­ing today. What these pieces and com­posers have in com­mon, is a “clas­si­cal” approach to melod­ic music. Their work is full of great tunes, and it utilis­es orches­tral forces with as much aplomb as any clas­si­cal com­pos­er. But in gen­er­al (though not always), the music is a lit­tle lighter in tone and feel.

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Music of Scotland and A Burns Supper

January 25, 2023   Programming

Today, 25th Jan­u­ary, is the anniver­sary of the birth of Robert Burns, and today we’re bring­ing you a pro­gramme of tra­di­tion­al and mod­ern music from Scot­land (with plen­ty of bag­pipes of course), and then, at 2pm Pacif­ic Time/SLT (10pm GMT) we are pre­sent­ing a com­plete Burns Sup­per, cour­tesy of the late-lament­ed Scots Inde­pen­dent News­pa­per (a role these days tak­en by The Nation­al).

In addi­tion, today sees a repeat of the Elven For­est edi­tion of our orig­i­nal series, “Where Have You Been?”, where we dis­cuss things to do and places to see around the Sec­ond Life Grid, at 12 noon and 4pm Pacific/SLT, 8pm and mid­night in the UK. Plus, “Engines of Our Inge­nu­ity“every four hours from 4am Pacific.

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The Magic of The Musical: “With Cat-Like Tread”

January 21, 2023   Programming

Tune in on Sat­ur­day Jan­u­ary 21st at 2pm pacific/slt for anoth­er chance to hear a show in our orig­i­nal series, “The Mag­ic of The Musi­cal”! The series con­tin­ues with brand new episodes from April, but until then we are repeat­ing a few of our favourite episodes in the third Sat­ur­day of the month slot.

In this edi­tion, “With Cat-Like Tread” focus­es on the influ­ence of the dis­tinc­tive operettas of W.S. Gilbert & Arthur Sul­li­van on Amer­i­can musi­cal theater’s evo­lu­tion years lat­er in the 20th C.  Host Cale­do­nia Sky­tow­er is joined by guest Elrik Mer­lin as they com­pare and con­trast with views from both sides of “the pond.”

At the height of the Vic­to­ri­an era in Eng­land, a part­ner­ship devel­oped between drama­tist W.S. Gilbert and com­pos­er Arthur Sul­li­van that result­ed in a form of operetta so unique that it is reg­u­lar­ly referred to as its own genre: “G&S” – Gilbert and Sul­li­van.  Their dozen musi­cal shows direct­ly influ­enced musi­cal the­ater in the 20th C, intro­duc­ing inno­va­tions in con­tent and form that are still part of the lan­guage of musi­cals today. They’ve stood the tests of time, pol­i­tics, and par­o­dy – often­times encour­ag­ing the lat­ter. Their shows are still wide­ly per­formed in the Eng­lish speak­ing world, and Gilbert and Sul­li­van soci­eties abound in North America.

The Mag­ic of The Musi­cal explores the blend­ing of music and dra­ma — fea­tur­ing the songs, his­to­ry, and lore that make up the musi­cal the­ater canon. Learn more about some of your favorite shows and com­posers as we cue the orches­tra, and the over­ture begins.

Also Today … 

NOTE: The actor men­tioned in this episode who por­trayed the Police Con­sta­ble in the 1980 New York Pub­lic The­ater pro­duc­tion was actu­al­ly Tony Azi­to, not Tony Ansel­mo. Azi­to was an Amer­i­can eccen­tric dancer and char­ac­ter actor.  Ansel­mo is an Amer­i­can voice actor, best known as the voice of Don­ald Duck.

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