The Black Mass 27: A Country Doctor by Franz Kafka

Join us on Fri­day at a lit­tle after 12 noon or 4pm Pacif­ic time / 8pm or mid­night in the UK,  for anoth­er 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 brings 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.

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.

20 August: A Country Doctor by Franz KafkaContinue reading→

Tarot @ Teatime 13 — Studying the Major Arcana

Thurs­day 19 August debuts the first broad­cast of Episode 13 of our pop­u­lar 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.

In Episode 13 we talk about meth­ods for study­ing the Major Arcana of the Tarot, and then explain how to find your Per­son­al­i­ty card and Soul card.

Ref­er­ences: Mary K. Greer, Tarot For Your­self, Weis­er Books, Sep­tem­ber 2019. ISBN-13: 978–1578636792

If you’ve missed any episodes of this series, remem­ber you can catch pre­vi­ous episodes on demand at Mix­cloud.

New Shows on Mixcloud: Tarot @ Teatime 12 and Where’ve You Been 13

We’re pleased to announce the addi­tion of two new pro­grammes to our Mix­cloud “Lis­ten Again” facil­i­ty. Lis­ten to them now at https://www.mixcloud.com/virtualcommunityradio/

“Where’ve You Been” Episode 13 fea­tures The SLEA Bridge Project, a two region con­nec­tive stretch between the SLEA home region (with its per­form­ing arts cen­tre, Machin­i­ma­land, and edu­ca­tion spaces, etc) and the quar­ter region small project area.

And in “Tarot @ Teatime” Episode 12, Hon­ey and Wil­low explore the his­to­ry behind the Rid­er Waite Smith tarot deck.

Con­tin­ue read­ing→

Celtic Moods

Today’s pro­gramme takes a look at the expan­sion of Celtic music and themes into sev­er­al dif­fer­ent gen­res of music.

Here we are fea­tur­ing musi­cians and music that start from the Celtic tra­di­tion and take it for­ward into oth­er realms, from Joanie Mad­den to Mendelssohn to Ger­al­do and his Orches­tra; from thun­der­ous­ly spec­tac­u­lar orches­tral arrange­ments (you’ll hear sev­er­al of those today) in the wake of River­dance, to inspir­ing music for a small Celtic ensem­ble and organ, played in the largest Goth­ic space in the world.Con­tin­ue read­ing→

British Composers

Today’s pro­gramme fea­tures music from British com­posers old and new, pri­mar­i­ly focus­ing on clas­si­cal styles. The playlist includes Edward Ger­man, Richard Har­vey, Ger­ald Finzi, Sir Arthur Bliss, Jon Lord, Christo­pher Gun­ning, Vaugh­an Williams and many more.

Then tune in at 12 noon or 4pm Pacif­ic Time / 8pm or mid­night in the UK, for anoth­er chance to hear the lat­est episode of “Where’ve You Been?”, where we vis­it The Bridge Project at the Sec­ond Life Endow­ment for the Arts,  and don’t miss the lat­est episode of “Engines of Our Inge­nu­ity” from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hous­ton, every four hours from 4am Pacif­ic.

Image, “bal­loon — british coun­try­side” by Mikee Show­biz is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0  

The Black Mass 26: Shiddah & Kuziba by Isaac B. Singer

Join us on Fri­day at a lit­tle after 12 noon or 4pm Pacif­ic time for anoth­er 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 brings 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.

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.

13 August: Shiddah & Kuziba by Isaac B. SingerContinue reading→

Light Classical Music …and more

Today on Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio, we’re pleased to present a pro­gramme of light clas­si­cal music, one of our core gen­res.

The pro­gramme fea­tures a wide range of both artists and com­posers, some well-known and some, per­haps, who are sel­dom heard of. Lis­ten out for the likes of Tom­lin­son, Ketel­bey, Alwyn, Gun­ning and Addin­sell, for exam­ple, to name but a few, and enjoy a day of tune­ful, often relax­ing orches­tral music.
Con­tin­ue read­ing→

Music of the Baroque

Today, Sat­ur­day August 7, we explore the music of the Baroque era. We’ll be includ­ing the work of a wide range of com­posers. Many will be famil­iar; oth­er per­haps less so; or they may have writ­ten pieces that we know well but have no idea of who com­posed them — for exam­ple Eng­lish com­pos­er Thomas Arne, who wrote Rule Bri­tan­nia but also a range of oth­er pieces which deserve more inter­est than is usu­al­ly paid to them. And on this occa­sion we are also explor­ing a range of works by J S Bach — some well-known and oth­ers less famil­iar.

Then at 12 noon and 4pm Pacif­ic / 8pm or mid­night UK time, there’s anoth­er chance to hear Episode 13 of “Where’ve You Been?”, our twice-month­ly show on places to vis­it and things to do around the Sec­ond Life Grid. This time we’re pay­ing a return vis­it to the Sec­ond Life Endow­ment for the Arts (SLEA), focus­ing on the near­ly-com­plet­ed Bridge Project.  You’ll find more details here. And every four hours from 4am Pacific/noon in the UK, tune in for “The Engines of Our Inge­nu­ity”, from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hous­ton, about the machines that make our civ­i­liza­tion run and the peo­ple whose inge­nu­ity cre­at­ed them.

Con­tin­ue read­ing→

The Black Mass 25: Oh, Mirror, Mirror by Nigel Kneale

Join us on Fri­day at a lit­tle after 12 noon or 4pm Pacif­ic time for anoth­er 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 brings 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. Today’s pro­gramme was orig­i­nal­ly broad­cast on Feb­ru­ary 12, 1964.

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.

Today: Oh, Mir­ror, Mir­ror by Nigel KnealeCon­tin­ue read­ing→