Music for Shakespeare

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Today, 4 May, we are pre­sent­ing a pro­gramme of music writ­ten to accom­pa­ny, or inspired by, the plays of William Shake­speare. In addi­tion we hope to give you a feel­ing for the world of the Eliz­a­bethan and Jacobean the­atre, with the help of recre­ations of the atmos­phere of plays and play­go­ing at the time.

The pro­gramme includes music from the Eliz­a­bethan peri­od to the present, with a wealth of clas­si­cal mate­r­i­al as well as Ear­ly Music (some of it per­formed by the play­ers and musi­cians of the recon­struct­ed Shake­speare’s Globe The­atre in Bank­side, Lon­don) and some mod­ern exam­ples such as the Third Ear Band’s music for Polan­ski’s film of Mac­beth.

Then tune in at noon or 4pm Pacif­ic Time/SLT for the lat­est episode of our orig­i­nal series, “Where Have You Been?”, where we vis­it Svar­ga — details here.

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Music for Beltane — and more!

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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.

And tune in at noon or 4pm Pacif­ic Time / 8pm or mid­night in the UK — for the lat­est edi­tion of our Sec­ond Life trav­el show, Where Have You Been? — where we vis­it the pre­served region of Svar­ga and dis­cuss SLRPS. Details here.

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The Incredible Adventures of Jack Flanders — Part 7

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Tune in for the lat­est episode of our excit­ing radio ser­i­al from our friends at ZBS Foun­da­tion: The Incred­i­ble Adven­tures of Jack Flan­ders! There are 10 half-hour episodes, one every Fri­day at noon and 4pm Pacific/SLT.

THE INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES OF JACK FLANDERS

In the dead of night, a large ship­ping crate is deliv­ered to the home of our hero Jack Flan­ders. Open­ing the crate, Jack dis­cov­ers a green vel­vet over­stuffed chair. Each night at the stroke of mid­night, Jack sits in the soft, com­fort­able chair which comes alive, lur­ing him onto its vel­vety realm. Every­day real­i­ty fades away, and Jack finds him­self in a strange, oth­er-world of mag­ic, pirates, and sor­cery where huge puff­balls cling to ceil­ings and walls, mast­ed sail­ing ships with wings fly the skies and islands float in the air…

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Tarot @ Teatime — Episode 31: The Tech of Tarot

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In Episode 31, we delve into the var­i­ous tech­nolo­gies that need­ed to come togeth­er to make Tarot cards as we know them pos­si­ble. We dis­cuss how the tools, mate­ri­als and tech­niques invent­ed in Chi­na informed the devel­op­ment of mate­r­i­al cul­ture in Renais­sance Italy and France, and led to the evo­lu­tion and devel­op­ment of Tarot cards. We con­sid­er the com­ing togeth­er of a very spe­cif­ic com­bi­na­tion of tech­nolo­gies and cul­tures, that result­ed in Tarot emerg­ing from the fer­tile soil of the Renais­sance — and what made the envi­ron­ment so per­fect for the evo­lu­tion of this game at this spe­cif­ic era. As we’ll see, Renais­sance Italy cre­at­ed the per­fect envi­ron­ment for the emer­gence of the Tarot deck as play­ing cards.

Episode 31 pre­mieres on Thurs­day April 28th at 12 noon and 4pm /SLT Pacif­ic Time (8pm and mid­night in the UK) and is repeat­ed at the same times on Sun­days and Thurs­days up to and includ­ing May 8th.

Image: Cards from the Sola Bus­ca deck (1491), a major influ­ence on Pamela Col­man Smith.

“Where Have You Been?” visits Svarga and discovers SLRPS

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Just after 12 noon and 4pm Pacific/Second Life time on Wednes­day and Sat­ur­day begin­ning April 27th (for two weeks) tune in for the lat­est edi­tion of “Where Have You Been?” where we take a look at places to vis­it and things to do around the Sec­ond Life Grid.

In Series 2, Episode 9, we vis­it a fab­u­lous loca­tion from the dim past: Svar­ga. It was cre­at­ed in 2006 by Laukosar­gas Svarog, and even in those days it was a must-see des­ti­na­tion — an excel­lent exam­ple of the vir­tu­al builder’s craft.  It’s immer­sive, and uses a rich mix­ture of shape and tex­tur­ing to evoke the world of the Gods from Slav­ic mythol­o­gy.

It’s one of the regions pre­served by Lin­den Lab as being of spe­cial his­tor­i­cal inter­est — and we also dis­cuss the SLRPS (Sec­ond Life Region Preser­va­tion Soci­ety) and some of the oth­er his­toric regions pre­served under its ban­ner.

And every four hours from 4am Pacif­ic, catch Engines of Our Inge­nu­ity from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hous­ton — a radio pro­gramme that tells the sto­ry of how our cul­ture is formed by human cre­ativ­i­ty.
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Jazz On The Keys

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Today, Sat­ur­day April 23rd, we’re pre­sent­ing a pro­gramme of key­boards-based Jazz. While many of the pieces we’re play­ing today fea­ture or include the piano, there are also some record­ings fea­tur­ing oth­er key­board instru­ments, includ­ing some inspir­ing pieces on syn­the­sis­er. Keep an ear out for Alan Haven’s Image, a late-night Radio Car­o­line clos­ing tune back in the day; Cam­bridge-based David Rees-Williams and his tri­o’s inter­pre­ta­tions of clas­si­cal works; two albums by Bil­ly Bar­ber, one (Shades of Grey) on piano and the oth­er (Light­house) on elec­tron­ic instru­ments; and some mar­vel­lous per­for­mances by Ian Lynn includ­ing his clas­sic album For­got­ten Sum­mer.

Don’t miss “Engines of Our Inge­nu­ity” every four hours from 4am Pacif­ic.

And check out our vis­it to the amaz­ing Seren­i­ty Val­ley in the lat­est episode of “Where Have You Been?”.

“Shai Mae­stro” by Nathan Bul­li­vant is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Friday 22nd: Elrik Merlin At Fantasy Faire’s Fairechylde

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The four­teenth Fan­ta­sy Faire, in aid of the Amer­i­can Can­cer Soci­ety’s Relay for Life, is now open, with some amaz­ing fan­ta­sy regions and a whole lot of par­ty­ing! In that lat­ter vein, on Fri­day, April 22nd at 1pm Sec­ond Life Time, join VCRa­dio’s Elrik Mer­lin for two hours of clas­sic rock, at The Fairchylde, the Fan­ta­sy Faire fly­ing ship par­ty venue.

Here’s the loca­tion: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Effervescent%20Clefs/102/120/73 — don’t miss it!

“Man Of La Mancha” Now On Mixcloud

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We’re pleased to say that the first episode of our new orig­i­nal series, “The Mag­ic of The Musi­cal”, “Tilt­ing At Wind­mills: The Man Of La Man­cha” is now avail­able to hear on our “Lis­ten Again” facil­i­ty on Mix­cloud.

Man of La Man­cha pre­miered in 1965 with music by Mitch Leigh, and lyrics by Joe Dar­i­on. It is adapt­ed from Dale Wasserman’s non-musi­cal 1959 tele­play I, Don Quixote, which was in turn inspired by both Miguel de Cer­vantes life, and his 17th-cen­tu­ry nov­el Don Quixote — con­sid­ered by many to be among the great­est nov­els of all time. It tells the sto­ry of the “mad” knight Don Quixote as a play with­in a play, per­formed by Cer­vantes and his fel­low pris­on­ers as he awaits a hear­ing with the Span­ish Inqui­si­tion.


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Sounding Brass

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Today’s pro­gramme — Wednes­day April 20th — focus­es on brass instru­ments, with gen­res that range from Ear­ly Music to con­tem­po­rary pieces.

Thus the gen­res 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.

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