Music from the Grand Hotel

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“And now we take you to the Palm Court of the Grand Hotel…” as the announc­er used to say, intro­duc­ing a pro­gramme of fine light clas­si­cal and dance music from the Grand Hotel in East­bourne, on Britain’s South Coast.

Today we take you back to the dance-halls of the ear­ly to mid­dle 20th Cen­tu­ry, from around the mid-20s to the 50s, char­ac­terised by the BBC radio series, Grand Hotel. We’ll also be hear­ing some clas­sic big-band record­ings and much more.

Then at 12 noon or 4pm Pacif­ic / 8pm or mid­night in the UK, tune in for the lat­est episode of “Where Have You Been?”, our twice-month­ly look at things to do and places to vis­it on the Sec­ond Life Grid. This time, we vis­it The Restau­rant At The End Of The Uni­verse.

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Introducing… ZBS: Audio Adventure At Its Finest

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Today, Fri­day Sep­tem­ber 17th, sees the start of a new set of radio dra­ma series from our friends at ZBS Foun­da­tion. Begin­ning as a com­mune of radio pro­duc­ers in an island stu­dio farm in upstate New York, the “Zee­bers” start­ed by cre­at­ing radio com­mer­cials and oth­er projects includ­ing albums for DJs to pro­mote new record com­pa­ny releas­es.

In 1972 they cre­at­ed their first radio dra­ma series, The Fourth Tow­er of Inver­ness, about an intre­pid and unin­ten­tion­al adven­tur­er, Jack Flan­ders, who sets about dis­cov­er­ing the mys­ter­ies inside a hid­den tow­er in an old Vic­to­ri­an man­sion. We’ll be broad­cast­ing The Fourth Tow­er start­ing next week, Fri­day 24th.

This week, we are bring­ing you a spe­cial 80-minute intro­duc­tion to the work of ZBS Foun­da­tion, at 12 noon and 4pm Pacif­ic / 8pm or mid­night in the UK.

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“Where Have You Been?” visits The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe!

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Wednes­day Sep­tem­ber 15th: In a new episode of our orig­i­nal series, “Where Have You Been?”, which sug­gests places to see and things to do around the Sec­ond Life grid, Episode 16 vis­its The Restau­rant At The End Of The Uni­verse, inspired by Mil­li­ways, said restau­rant in Dou­glas Adams’ mul­ti-part hilar­i­ty, The Hitch-hik­er’s Guide to the Galaxy (aka H2G2).

There are all sorts of fun lit­tle robots put­ter­ing about, a ghoul­ish bar­tender in an astronaut’s space suit, bright lit­tle details from the glow­ing, fizzing cock­tails to the vibrant­ly col­ored art on the walls. It’s a fair­ly new loca­tion, so not too many peo­ple know about it… yet! http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Polar%20Circle/97/90/764

Don’t miss this fun new episode! 12 noon or 4pm Pacif­ic, 8pm or mid­night in the UK.

Ancient Journeys

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Today, Weds 15 Sep­tem­ber, join us on a jour­ney across the Ancient World, guid­ed by the ancient and mys­te­ri­ous Piri Reis Map.

We vis­it Ancient Greece, Rome and beyond to encounter the Sev­en Won­ders of the Ancient World. We redis­cov­er lost Atlantis, the ancient civil­i­sa­tions of South Amer­i­ca, cross the Pacif­ic and even trav­el to Antarc­ti­ca and the Moon.
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This week: New Episodes!

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Here’s an out­line of what’s hap­pen­ing on Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio this week, Sep­tem­ber 15–21. We’re fea­tur­ing three new shows! All shows air at at Noon & 4pm SLT/Pacific Time, that’s 8pm and mid­night in the UK.

Wednes­day, Sep­tem­ber 15th, Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 18th — Episode 16 of “Where Have You Been?” vis­its The Restau­rant at the End of the Uni­verse.

Thurs­day, Sep­tem­ber 16th & Sun­day, Sep­tem­ber 19th — Episode 15 of “Tarot @ Tea Time” dis­cuss­es rit­u­als, jour­nal­ing, and med­i­ta­tions.

Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 17th — ZBS Foun­da­tion: A Unique Intro­duc­tion: As we pre­pare to start an extend­ed sea­son of audio adven­tures from our friends at ZBS Foun­da­tion, we kick off with an overview of writer Meat­ball Ful­ton’s favourite ZBS series in a spe­cial 80-minute extrav­a­gan­za full of amaz­ing excerpts.

Wednes­day & Sat­ur­day — Fea­tured Music

Stay Tuned!

Two New Shows on Mixcloud: Tarot@Teatime 14 & Where Have You Been 15

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We’re pleased to let you know that there are new episodes of our two pop­u­lar orig­i­nal series now up on Mix­cloud in case you missed them or are work­ing your way through the series.

In Episode 14 of Tarot @ Teatime, Hon­ey and Wil­low dis­cuss the Four Car­di­nal Virtues and how they relate to both the Major and Minor Arcana of the Tarot. In addi­tion, the read­ing for this episode presents a tech­nique for choos­ing a good date for a project.

Mean­while, Episode 15 of our pop­u­lar twice-month­ly orig­i­nal series about things to do and places to vis­it around the Sec­ond Life grid, “Where Have You Been?”, this time vis­its Art Korner SL. Art Korner SL focus­es on art and pho­tog­ra­phy show­cased in-world across all dif­fer­ent gen­res and forms. They seek to cov­er art gal­leries, art projects, pho­to­genic regions and many oth­er activ­i­ties through con­tent which is orig­i­nal, infor­ma­tive and enter­tain­ing.

Modern Classical Music

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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”.

This is a tricky def­i­n­i­tion, how­ev­er. Mike Batt 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.Con­tin­ue read­ing→

The Black Mass 30: Flies by Anthony Vercoe

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Join us on Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 10th, at a lit­tle after 12 noon or 4pm Pacif­ic time / 8pm or mid­night in the UK,  for the final episode in the land­mark radio dra­ma series The Black Mass, cre­at­ed by the late Erik Bauers­feld and his col­leagues at the Paci­fi­ca radio sta­tion KPFA in Berke­ley, Cal­i­for­nia, over fifty years ago. In 30 chill­ing tales of mys­tery, imag­i­na­tion and the human mind, The Black Mass has brought you some of literature’s most haunt­ing sto­ries, by mas­ters of the craft — many of whom are best-known in oth­er fields. Our thanks as always to John Whit­ing, pro­duc­er of many of these record­ings, and of course to Erik Bauers­feld him­self.

This land­mark radio dra­ma series draws to a close this week, with our final tale from The Black Mass. Next week at the same time, join us for an spe­cial intro­duc­tion to the radio dra­ma of ZBS Foun­da­tion, lead­ing off a sea­son of fab­u­lous, fan­tas­tic and mys­ti­cal radio dra­ma series from our friends at ZBS.

Note that the episode will not start until the track play­ing at the top of the hour has fin­ished, so the actu­al start time of the episode will be a few min­utes after the hour.

10 September: Flies by Anthony VercoeContinue reading→

Pastorale

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As sum­mer begins to draw to a close in the North­ern hemi­sphere, tune in today, Weds Sep­tem­ber 8, for a pro­gramme of melod­ic, often orches­tral pieces as we fea­ture music that evokes the nat­ur­al world in all its glo­ry.

Main­ly, but not exclu­sive­ly, clas­si­cal in nature, we’ll hear music like Beethoven’s Pas­toral Sym­pho­ny and the beau­ti­ful but less­er known Sym­pho­ny No 3, Pas­toral, from Vaugh­an Williams. There’s The Lark Ascend­ing and many oth­er beau­ti­ful relax­ing clas­sics.

In addi­tion, you’ll hear some relax­ing ‘smooth jazz’ and New Age pieces, again with a coun­try air.

So kick back and enjoy var­ied sounds evoca­tive of the coun­try­side.
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