Main: Jazz On The Keys

Today on our Main Stream we present a programme of keyboard jazz, mainly modern, from a wide variety of composers and musicians, playing electronic as well as conventional keyboards. You'll hear some truly virtuoso playing today, along with a range of moods from classically-inspired improvisations to up-tempo numbers. And a great many fine tunes. Join us today for the very best of jazz keyboard performance.

Today's programme is presented by Elrik Merlin and produced by gullar sahir in conjunction with our friends at the Alexandrian Free Library Consortium of Second Life. You can listen to the programme in-world now at http://main.radioriel.org, or simply click here to start your player, if your browser is configured to do so. Listeners in the United States are encouraged to tune in using this link: http://loudcity.com/stations/radio-riel/tune_in


For more information on the Alexandrian Free Library, current exhibits and the work of Consortium members in general, please visit the Alexandrian Free Library website, or one of their branches in-world.

Elrik Merlin will be on vacation for the coming week. His next programme on gullar sahir will go out on Wednesday, August 17. 

Main: Piano-issimo - Classical Piano Music

Today we explore the world of classical piano music, including all your favourite piano concertos - Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Gershwin and many more; along with solo piano works by the likes of Faure, Poulenc, Chopin, Debussy and Ravel... and some unusual pieces from lesser-known composers like Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Erik Satie. There are also some performances on the Fortepiano - an earlier, similar instrument to the pianoforte we know - and some pieces for Pianola and Reproducing Piano. In addition, we've included some beautiful jazz interpretations of classical pieces by the talented David Rees-Williams Trio.

It's a veritable feast of classical and neo-classical piano music today on gullar sahir, and we do hope you enjoy it.

Today's programme is presented by Elrik Merlin and produced by gullar sahir in conjunction with the Alexandrian Free Library Consortium of Second Life. You can listen to the programme now at http://loudcity.com/stations/radio-riel/tune_in; outside the US, tune to http://main.radioriel.org in-world, or simply click here if your browser is configured to launch a player automatically.

For more information on the Alexandrian Free Library, current exhibits and the work of Consortium members in general, please visit the Alexandrian Free Library website, or one of their branches in-world.

Main: From the Library: Jazz on the Keys with Elrik Merlin

Today's programme on our Main Stream takes its cue both from the Steinway anniversary at the weekend and the jazz of the last day or so's Mardi Gras programming on gullar sahir. It's a programme of keyboard jazz, mainly modern, from a wide variety of composers and musicians, playing electronic as well as conventional keyboards. You'll hear some truly virtuoso playing today, along with a range of moods from classically-inspired improvisations to up-tempo numbers. And a great many fine tunes. Join us today for the very best of jazz keyboard performance.

Today's programme is presented by Elrik Merlin and produced by gullar sahir in conjunction with our friends at the Alexandrian Free Library Consortium of Second Life. You can listen to the programme in-world now at http://main.radioriel.org, or simply click here to start your player, if your browser is configured to do so. Listeners in the United States are encouraged to tune in using this link: http://loudcity.com/stations/radio-riel/tune_in

For more information on the Alexandrian Free Library, current exhibits and the work of Consortium members in general, please visit the Alexandrian Free Library website, or one of their branches in-world.

From the Library: Pianoforte Performance

On this day in 1853, Henry Engelhard Steinway, a German immigrant to New York, founded his new company, Steinway & Sons, in a loft on Varick Street in Manhattan, to make pianos of the finest quality. Henry and his sons went on to build possibly the best-known name in pianoforte craft in the world.

Henry had built 482 pianos by hand in his native Germany. Number 483, the first made by the new company, was sold to a New York family for the princely sum of $500.

Over the next three decades, Steinway's company essentially developed the modern piano, introducing 127 patents and dramatically improving the design of the instrument. Steinway's musical innovations were both an art and a science: the 19th century was a time of scientific discovery, not least the birth of the science of acoustics.

In 1866, the company opened the Steinway Hall, a 2000-seater auditorium and home for the New York Philharmonic. By this time, the company had moved to new premises in Astoria, Queens, and built the Steinway Village, which located all the materials and craftspeople required to build Steinway pianos together in one place.

In recognition of the Steinway anniversary, today's programme features piano music and piano composers, including a wide range of material, primarily but not exclusively in a classical vein. As usual there will be a few surprises - music of Erik Satie performed by chamber orchestra and solo Moog synthesiser, for example, and a collection of classical pieces interpreted by David Rees-Williams - and a few special treats, like the original piano version of Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition,  but throughout the day you'll be treated to some wonderful music for the pianoforte. And if you'd like to read more about the history of Steinway, here's the History page of their web site.

The ZBS Radio Hour

Then join us at 11am and 7pm Pacific Time, that's 19:00 and 03:00 GMT, for two exciting adventures from our friends at ZBS Foundation in the ZBS Radio Hour. At the top of the hour, Jack Flanders returns to where it all began - his aunt's mysterious Victorian mansion where all manner of strange goings-on unfurled and he discovered many other worlds both within and without, over 35 years ago, in Return to Inverness. Then at the bottom of the hour it's Ruby the Galactic Gumshoe, in Ruby 5.

Today's programme is presented by Elrik Merlin and produced by gullar sahir in conjunction with our friends at the Alexandrian Free Library Consortium of Second Life. You can listen to the programme in-world now at http://main.radioriel.org, or simply click here to start your player, if your browser is configured to do so. Listeners in the United States are encouraged to tune in using this link: http://loudcity.com/stations/radio-riel/tune_in

For more information on the Alexandrian Free Library, current exhibits and the work of Consortium members in general, please visit the Alexandrian Free Library website, or one of their branches in-world.

From the Library: Piano-issimo

Today we explore the world of classical piano music, including all your favourite piano concertos - Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Gershwin and many more; along with solo piano works by the likes of Faure, Poulenc, Chopin, Debussy and Ravel... and some unusual pieces from lesser-known composers like Louis Moreau Gottschalk. In addition, we're featuring some of the works of Erik Satie, and we don't just mean the Gymnopedies, nice though they are.

There are also some slightly unusual instruments on the programme today, such as a "proto-piano", the Fortepiano. Other unusual instruments in today's programme include the Pianola and the Reproducing Piano. The Pianola was an attachment to a regular piano, with hammers that pressed on the keys in response to instructions from a punched paper roll. The tempo and dynamics were supplied by the operator, who pedalled more or less furiously to get the desired effect. The Reproducing Piano takes that one stage further, with the pianoroll mechanism built-in and with a recording capability too, which could capture a player's dynamics.

It's a veritable feast of classical and neo-classical piano music today on gullar sahir, and we do hope you enjoy it.

And don't forget to join us at 11am and 7pm SLT (19:00 and 0:300 UK time) for the first instalments of our two thrilling new ZBS serials: Dreams of Rio, which features wonderful live atomospheres captured in Brazil; and, at the half-hour, Ruby 3: The Invisible World, brought to you courtesy of our friends at ZBS.org. You can tune in at home, or join us in the Clarendon Conservatory in New Babbage (http://slurl.com/secondlife/New%20Babbage/218/29/104).

Today's programme is presented by Elrik Merlin and produced by gullar sahir in conjunction with the Alexandrian Free Library Consortium of Second Life. You can listen to the programme now at http://loudcity.com/stations/radio-riel/tune_in; outside the US, tune to http://main.radioriel.org in-world, or simply click here if your browser is configured to launch a player automatically.

For more information on the Alexandrian Free Library, current exhibits and the work of Consortium members in general, please visit the Alexandrian Free Library website, or one of their branches in-world.