Smooth Jazz

Hel­lo and wel­come to Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio. Today, Weds 10 March, we are fea­tur­ing a col­lec­tion of Smooth Jazz pieces to relax with and enjoy in these dif­fi­cult times.

The major­i­ty of pieces are instru­men­tal and in gen­er­al the music is on the Jazz end of the New Age spectrum.

New Series: Tarot @ Teatime

We are very pleased to announce the first in a new series of pro­grammes look­ing at the Tarot.

In Tarot @ Teatime, we explore the his­to­ry and mean­ing of the Tarot, and dis­cuss a vari­ety of tech­niques for read­ing the cards.

Where’ve You Been? We visit Sinful Retreat — “It’s not what it sounds like!”

It’s Wednes­day March 3rd and time for a new episode of Where’ve You Been, our fort­night­ly fea­ture on places to vis­it and things to do around the Sec­ond Life grid. You can catch the show at 12 noon and 4pm Pacific/SLT, that’s 20:00 and 00:00 UTC, on Wednes­days and Saturdays.

In this, Episode 3, we’re vis­it­ing Sin­ful Retreat and Angels’ Rest — “A mar­vel­lous col­lec­tion of art, sculp­ture and architecture”

Folk Music from the UK

Today we present a pro­gramme of folk music from the UK (well near­ly — there are a cou­ple of North Amer­i­can artists in there if truth be told), cov­er­ing the last 50 years or so.

This time we are also fea­tur­ing a clas­sic album from 1979, The Pea­cock Par­ty, by vir­tu­oso gui­tarist Gor­don Giltrap. Amongst a tal­ent­ed group of musi­cians, it fea­tures Gryphon’s Richard Har­vey on recorders and crumhorn. The tunes are inspired by char­ac­ters from the book The Pea­cock Par­ty writ­ten by George E Ryder and illus­trat­ed by Alan Aldridge — a sequel to the some­what bet­ter known The But­ter­fly Ball and the Grasshop­per’s Feast.

Coming March 4th — Tarot @ Teatime

Mark your cal­en­dars and join us for our fas­ci­nat­ing new series Tarot @ Teatime, where hosts Wil­low Moon­fire and Hon­ey Heart explore the his­to­ry and mean­ing of the cards, and the dif­fer­ent ways they can be read.

Tune in on Thurs­days, repeat­ed Sun­days, at 12 noon and 4pm Pacif­ic (20:00 and 00:00 UTC). Episodes will run for two weeks and will there­after be avi­l­able on our Mix­cloud chan­nel.

The Light Programme

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.

The Black Mass: Friday at 4pm Pacific ‑The Squaw by Bram Stoker

The Black Mass

Join us on Fri­day at a lit­tle after 4pm Pacif­ic time (mid­night Fri/Sat GMT), for anoth­er episode from the land­mark radio dra­ma series The Black Mass, cre­at­ed 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.

Today’s tale: The Squaw, by Bram Stoker.

Note that episodes 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.

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”.

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.

La Musique Classique Française

Join us today from a pro­gramme of French clas­si­cal music from a wide vari­ety of com­posers, pri­mar­i­ly from the 18th and 19th cen­turies, includ­ing a nice col­lec­tion of the works of Erik Satie that goes well beyond the Gymnopédies. Most of the com­posers today are pret­ty well-known, but keep your ears open for things like the Euro­vi­sion theme — actu­al­ly Extrait du Te Deum by Char­p­en­tier — and oth­er good­ies. There is some gor­geous music in today’s pro­gramme and we do hope you enjoy it.

The Black Mass: Friday at 4pm Pacific — All Hallows, by Walter de la Mare

The Black Mass

Join us on Fri­day at a lit­tle after 4pm Pacif­ic time (mid­night Fri/Sat GMT), for anoth­er episode from the land­mark radio dra­ma series The Black Mass, cre­at­ed 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.

Today’s tale: All Hal­lows, by Wal­ter de la Mare.

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

The Black Mass art­work was pro­duced by Ter­ry Lightfoot.