Category Archives: Programming

Modern Classical Music

Today’s Fea­tured Music is “Mod­ern Clas­si­cal Music” — but what does that mean, exactly?

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.

Where Have You Been?: Return to Limoncello

In the lat­est episode of our orig­i­nal series, “Where Have You Been?” which sug­gests things to do and places to vis­it around the Sec­ond Life Grid, we pay a return vis­it to the Limon­cel­lo Gallery, a new­ly-enlarged art gallery with a sig­na­ture air­ship, now placed at the top of a tow­er in which is exhib­it­ed a very large col­lec­tion of Sec­ond Life Art. It was start­ed some 16 years ago, and it’s a big pri­vate col­lec­tion open to the public.

This show airs on Sep­tem­ber 23,  27,  30 and Octo­ber 4 & 7, at 12 noon and 4pm SLT/Pacific.

To lis­ten to Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio, tune to http://main.vcradio.org or “Play Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio” on your smart speak­er*. Oth­er options for tun­ing in can be found here.

The Magic of The Musical: “Three by Lerner & Loewe”

THE MAGIC OF THE MUSICAL — Orig­i­nal­ly broad­cast Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 16th 2023. This Month: “Three by Lern­er & Loewe”

THIS SHOW IS NOW AVAILABLE ON MIXCLOUD

For this mon­th’s episode we return to the Gold Hall at the ele­gant Angel Manor Estate. Join our live audi­ence in Sec­ond Life or on-the-air!

Also on the air today: tune in at 12 noon or 4pm SLT for an edi­tion of “Where Have You Been?”. Plus “Engines of Our Inge­nu­ity” from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hous­ton, every four hours from 4am. Fea­tured Music today will, of course, be “On Broadway!”.

TUNE IN  at main.vcradio.org, or “Play Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio” on your smart speaker*!
(*If this does­n’t work first time, say “Enable Skill” and when asked what skill to enable, say “Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio”)

Jack Flanders in Orchids & Moonbeams

Tune in on Fri­day for the next episode of anoth­er excit­ing radio ser­i­al from our friends at ZBS Foun­da­tion: “Orchids & Moon­beams” - fea­tur­ing that sea­soned eso­teric tourist, Jack Flanders.

This adven­ture con­sists  of three half-hour episodes, broad­cast at noon and 4pm Pacific/SLT on Fri­days. Now read on dot, dot, dot…

Music from the International Lounge

Today’s pro­gramme brings you a selec­tion of pri­mar­i­ly instru­men­tal music, and pri­mar­i­ly from the 1960s as we present a com­fort­able sojourn in the Inter­na­tion­al Lounge.

You’ll hear instru­men­tal — and oth­er — arrange­ments of well-known tunes of the peri­od, along with the best of pop­u­lar pro­duc­tion music and themes from the 60s. Most of the mate­r­i­al is from the Unit­ed King­dom, the Unit­ed States and occa­sion­al­ly main­land Europe: so at least it some­what deserves the label “inter­na­tion­al”.

Today, of course, “lounge music” is ter­ri­bly fash­ion­ably retro, and no longer con­signed to the old vinyl bin in the char­i­ty shop under the head­ing “Easy Lis­ten­ing”. So tune in, sit back, let the bar-ten­der bring you a gin and ton­ic with ice and lemon, and enjoy your stay in the Inter­na­tion­al Lounge.

Where Have You Been?: LynchLand

In the lat­est episode of our orig­i­nal series, “Where Have You Been?” which sug­gests things to do and places to vis­it around the Sec­ond Life Grid, we vis­it Lynch­Land, the remark­able trib­ute to the work of film­mak­er, visu­al artist, musi­cian and actor David Lynch. Lynch is per­haps best-known for his land­mark 1990s TV series, Twin Peaks.

This show airs on Sep­tem­ber 6,  9,  13, 16 and 20, at 12 noon and 4pm SLT/Pacific.

To lis­ten to Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio, tune to http://main.vcradio.org or “Play Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio” on your smart speak­er*. Oth­er options for tun­ing in can be found here.

Music of the Gilded Age

The Gild­ed Age, La Belle Époque… both terms, one from the Unit­ed States, the oth­er from Europe, refer to essen­tial­ly the same peri­od, cor­re­spond­ing to the late Vic­to­ri­an and the Edwar­dian peri­ods in the UK.

The peri­od is bound­ed by the First World War at the end, and some­where around the mid-1870s for the start.

The term “Gild­ed Age” (alleged­ly coined by Mark Twain) is actu­al­ly slight­ly pejo­ra­tive. Gild­ing is a light cov­er­ing of gold and it’s also osten­ta­tious – but a “gild­ed age” is not a “gold­en age”. And the term La Belle Époque was coined after the peri­od – look­ing back at the peace­ful, pros­per­ous past from the dark days of the Great War.

Today we’ll hear music of the Gild­ed Age from both sides of the Atlantic, includ­ing bal­lads (we’ve includ­ed some of Stephen Fos­ter’s won­der­ful songs, which were well known dur­ing the peri­od – and indeed still are today), dance music and some light clas­si­cal pieces includ­ing items from Gottschalk in the US and Satie in France; and you’ll hear the first-ever film score, com­posed by Saint-Saëns.

Some orig­i­nal peri­od record­ings may con­tain neg­a­tive stereo­types or lan­guage now regard­ed as offen­sive. Such mate­ri­als should be seen in the con­text of the time peri­od and as a reflec­tion of atti­tudes of the time. The record­ings are part of the his­tor­i­cal record, and do not rep­re­sent the views of Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio.

Image: The Cup of Tea, Mary Cas­satt (c. 1879)

Where Have You Been?: Ciampi and Porto Nuovo

The lat­est episode of our orig­i­nal series, “Where Have You Been?” which sug­gests things to do and places to vis­it around the Sec­ond Life Grid, this time explores the Ital­ianate vil­lage of Ciampi and its har­bor, Por­to Nuo­vo, which are spread across over half a dozen abut­ting main­land regions. They were envi­sioned and cre­at­ed by Viggen Petofi who began over six years ago with the parcels on Bhi­ma and a few more, and has built it out as land became avail­able and he could pur­chase it. This show airs on August 23, 26, 30 and Sept 2 at 12 noon and 4pm SLT/Pacific.

To lis­ten to Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio, tune to http://main.vcradio.org or “Play Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio” on your smart speak­er. Oth­er options for tun­ing in can be found here.

The Magic of The Musical: Celebrating Summer

THE MAGIC OF THE MUSICAL — Sat­ur­day, August 19th @2pm Pacific/slt. This Month: “CELEBRATING SUMMER”!

This show is now avail­able on Mix­cloud — click here to listen.

August’s episode will be LIVE from the Gar­dens at beau­ti­ful Angel Manor, and on-the-air: join the audi­ence in-world!

Also on the air today: tune in at 12 noon or 4pm for the lat­est edi­tion of “Where Have You Been?” where we Jour­ney to the Cen­tre of Sec­ond Life. Plus “Engines of Our Inge­nu­ity” from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hous­ton, every four hours from 4am. Fea­tured Music today will, of course, be “On Broadway!”.

TUNE IN  at main.vcradio.org, or “Play Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio” on your smart speaker*!
(*If this does­n’t work first time, say “Enable Skill” and when asked what skill to enable, say “Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio”)

Jack Flanders in The Eye of Van Gogh

Tune in on Fri­day for the next episode of anoth­er excit­ing radio ser­i­al from our friends at ZBS Foun­da­tion: “The Eye of Van Gogh” - fea­tur­ing that sea­soned eso­teric tourist, Jack Flanders.

This adven­ture con­sists  of four half-hour episodes, broad­cast at noon and 4pm Pacific/SLT on Fri­days. Now read on dot, dot, dot…