ArtSound’s office building at the Manuka Arts Center. It was built in 1928 as Canberra’s first “mothercraft” centre; photo: Julie Finch-Scally
ArtSound Newsletter — December 2024
A lot is happening at ArtSound! Read on for news about:
- Listener survey
- Garden Concert
- 2025 membership marathon
- Two new programs
- Late-night programming changes
- Writing competition & call for radio-drama scripts
- Classical music recordings
- Radiothon donations
- Technology update
- Ambassadors visit
- Young Virtuosos
- Stuart Warner nominated for Senior Australian of the Year
- Podcasting 101 course on again
- ArtSound’s podcasting meetup
- ArtSound’s 2025 Membership and Fundraising Drive
- How You Can Help
ArtSound listener survey
ArtSound FM Community Radio would like to know more about its listeners’ reception of ArtSound programming. Please complete our simple online survey, available here:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/9N6VJWG
(or use the QR code)
As one way to show our appreciation for your assistance, we’ll have a prize drawing at the end of December with a year’s membership to ArtSound (or a year’s extension, if the winner is already a member).
We’re eager to hear from you.
A leafy, shady garden concert
ArtSound held another in its ongoing series of fundraiser garden concerts in late November.
Thanks to the Coolabah Coolective (pictured) and Box of Hammers for performing.
Stay tuned for news about more garden concerts in the new year, and then some indoor winter concerts, later on. We’re aiming to present four outdoor concerts each year summer and four indoor concerts at local venues during the cooler months.
2025 ArtSound membership marathon
Beginning this month, and through all of 2025, ArtSound is running a membership drive.
Currently, membership accounts for about 10 percent of the organisation’s annual income. We’d like to double that.
The Board recently announced modest membership-fee increases from January 1, 2025. The new annual fees are: individual membership, $75; family membership $110; concessional membership (with seniors or student ID) $50 per year.
The holiday season is coming, so perhaps, in addition to joining or renewing, you’d like to make a gift of ArtSound membership to family members, friends, artistic colleagues, and others.
Two new programs
Two new programs are starting on ArtSound.
On Saturdays at 11am (repeated Mondays at 11pm), an eight-week special series, High Score, will run until early February. Accomplished gamer Nick Doody presents a one-hour program dedicated to the composers, musicians and developers behind many computer games played today.
On Sundays at 5pm, Dirk Zeylmans and Flynn Marcus, former hosts of Down in the Basement on Mondays, and two founts of jazz knowledge, will return with a new program with a self-explanatory title, Jazz Album Explorations.
The program currently at 5pm, Hot, Sweet and Jazzy, will shift to 6pm (it also runs on Tuesdays at 4pm), while the current 6pm program, A Year in Jazz/The Roaring Twenties, hosted in London by Neil Sheldon, will be rested.
Late-night programming changes
Starting on January 1, 2025, you’ll be able to listen back late at night to many programs produced by ArtSound volunteers. Those will re-run from midnight, or just after. More news on that in the January issue of this newsletter.
Writing competition: Canberra Days
Everyone has at least one story!
ArtSound is running its Canberra Days literary competition in keeping with our mission to promote the arts and artists in and around Canberra.
We’re looking for stories from local writers with Canberra as a setting. The stories can be set in the past, present or future. They should be written in the first person and between 1,000 and 3.000 words in length.
A judging panel appointed by ArtSound will shortlist up to six stories, which ArtSound will record using Canberra actors for broadcast on ArtSound Radio Theatre, which airs Sundays at 4pm with repeats on Mondays at 10pm.
The author of the best story, as judged by the panel, will receive a prize of $200.
Some requirements: submissions must be in either Word or PDF format; title and author’s name, and email address must be displayed at the top of the first page; text should be in 12 point font with 1.5 line spacing; pages should be numbered; authors are limited to two submissions; all submissions should be new works.
Submissions will be accepted until February 28, 2025.
Please send submissions to admin@artsound.fm, with the following in the email title line: “Submission Canberra Days – [author name].”
Note that in addition to recording and broadcasting the shortlisted stories, ArtSound may elect to publish them under its ArtSound Press imprint. Any profits from publications by ArtSound Press are used to fund ArtSound in its ongoing support of Canberra arts and artists. If a book is published, authors submitting work to this competition agree to allow the publication of their story without payment, but they will retain copyright and receive two copies of published work.
Radio plays wanted
Do you have a script that would be suitable for radio, or even an idea for a radio play but you’re not sure where to start? ArtSound Radio Theatre may be able to help. Drop us a line at admin@artsound.fm.
Classical music concert recordings
Scenes from the Missa Solemnis recording; clockwise from top: rehearsal; basses and winds; Louis Sharpe conducting; the recording station (in the wings). Photos: Tim Lamble
ArtSound’s two primary outlets for live recordings of music performed in and around Canberra are Friday Night Live (Fridays at 8pm) and Concert Hall (Sundays at 8, repeated Wednesdays at 2pm).
For Concert Hall, Tim Lamble, longtime ArtSound classical-music recording engineer, has been recording 50 to 60 classical concerts annually in recent years. Most have been in Canberra, some in Yass, Goulburn, Braidwood, Gloucester, and other locations.
Another ArtSound supporter, Eric Pozza, records most of the Wednesday Lunchtime Concerts at the Wesley Music Centre that are also heard on Concert Hall, whose host is Annabel Wheeler.
Says Tim Lamble: “We collect a lot of music!”
Performers receive a recording of their performances. The recordings vary from a soloist to a 130-voice choir with an 80-piece orchestra. Setup times for the big concerts can take two to three hours.
Among memorable recordings has been one that Tim Lamble made in August 2024 of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, at the ANU’s Llewellyn Hall. The recording ran in September 2024 on Concert Hall, but you’ll have another opportunity to catch it, in March 2025; more details as that broadcast approaches.
Beethoven composed the solemn mass between 1819 and 1823. Its first performance came in 1824 in Russia. Says Tim: “It’s generally considered one of the composer’s supreme achievements and, along with Bach’s Mass in B minor, one of the most significant mass settings of the common practice period. The words are in Latin, but I don’t need to know what is being sung to be emotionally affected, and to experience so many people collaborating for a common outcome.”
The Llewellyn Hall performance was by the National Capital Orchestra, Canberra Choral Society, Llewellyn Choir, and soloists. Tim deployed 14 microphones to capture the event through a 16-track mixer onto a laptop. Editing took a couple of days.
Radiothon Donations
If you missed out on donating during our recent Radiothon on-air fundraiser, by all means get in touch if you’d like to help out, via our website (artsound.fm) or by phoning the station on 6295 7444.
Or, use this QR code to go directly to the ArtSound donation page:
We’ll be delighted to hear from you, and you’ll be helping to take ArtSound into its fifth decade of operations. Each year, we broadcast hundreds of interviews and concerts with local artists in many fields, along with specialty programming that supports and fosters arts activities in the ACT region.
ArtSound technology update
Last month we let you know about some upgrades to ArtSound’s transmission capabilities. Here’s more news, now relating to equipment within our broadcast studios.
Thanks to member donations, the first phase of our studio upgrades has begun! Shown here is the new broadcast console destined for Studio 1 which is being bench tested after its arrival from Leipzig, Germany last month.
If you’ve visited the ArtSound studios, you may well have noticed the Master Control room within, full of electronic equipment. As part of our upgrades, we’re making changes related to the studio modifications. Those will take place over the next few months.
Chris Deacon would be happy to give you a demonstration if you are interested to know what is involved in the digital transformation.
Part of ArtSound’s major transmitter site upgrade has included the radio “plumbing” work shown here of a coaxial switching unit that enables either the main transmitter (newly commissioned) or the backup to be connected to the main FM antenna in the Telstra Tower on Black Mountain.
Our FM signal is output via the large copper feeder at right, finalising the installation of the new transmitter. Rodger Bean (pictured) and Chris Deacon undertook this work in October and November.
Again, ArtSound thanks the Community Broadcasting Foundation for its generous Development & Operations Grant in support of our transmission upgrade, and also our many listeners who have contributed to our transmission-upgrade fund.
You can still contribute to that fund, by the way. Simply scan this QR code, or get in touch with the office at admin@artsound.fm or 6295-7444.
Ambassadors visit ArtSound
Ambassadors, high commissioners, and other diplomats have been coming thick and fast at ArtSound in connection with a new on-air program, currently in development, Pacific Neighbours.
Visitors in recent months have included, most recently, New Zealand High Commissioner Andrew Needs and Public Diplomacy Advisor Bryce Taotua (pictured); Mario Corredor, Officer in charge of Cultural Affairs at the Embassy of Colombia (pictured with Julie Finch-Scally and Nikki Suttor); and Yves LaFoy, Official Representative of New Caledonia to Australia (pictured, left, in ArtSound’s Chris Deacon Recording Studio with the facility’s namesake).
Thanks to a grant from the ACT Government’s Community Services Directorate, Pacific Neighbours will air, weekly, an hour of music and cultural information about various countries near and far. Julie Finch-Scally, Wylie Pang and Nikki Suttor are creating the program. Diplomats have been coming by on familiarization visits, and soon will begin to work with an ArtSound producer to pre-record the programs for broadcast in 2025.
In October, we received visits by His Excellency Douglas Yu-tien Hsu, the representative in the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Australia, Taiwan’s de facto embassy in the absence of formal diplomatic relations, and by Costa Rica’s recently appointed ambassador to Australia, Her Excellency Ms Carolina Molina Barrantes. In September, the Ambassador of the Republic of the Philippines, Her Excellency Ma. Hellen B. De La Vega, came to the studios.
Young Virtuoso finals
Congratulations again to Zachary Li, 13, a pianist who was the finalist in ArtSound’s ACT Finals of the national Young Virtuoso Competition (pictured second from left, with other finalists). In late November, he travelled to Sydney to represent the ACT in the National Fine Music Network Young Virtuoso Award Finals held at the Joseph Post Auditorium of the Sydney Conservatorium.
For over 35 years, the Young Virtuoso Award has celebrated emerging classical talents, offering career opportunities and substantial prizes. This year’s winner of the national competition was 23-year-old cellist Noah Oshiro, who is in his final year of a Bachelor of Music in Performance degree at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
Thanks again to Rotary of Belconnen for providing prize money for the ACT regional finals.
Courtesy of 2MBS Fine Music Sydney community radio, you can listen online to the finals performances, including Zachary Li’s, here:
Stuart Warner nominated for Senior Australian of the Year
Photo: australianoftheyear.org.au
Congratulations to ArtSound volunteer Stuart Warner, who was among nominees for the 2025 Australian of the Year Awards for the ACT, in the Senior Australian of the Year category. He was among the ACT’s 18 nominees across the four award categories.
The National Australia Day Council, organisers of the Australian of the Year Awards, said Stuart was nominated for his 35 years playing weekly at Hyatt Hotel Canberra as well as embassies, the Commonwealth Club, and various events. The Council added: “When not serenading guests, Stuart has been a radio presenter and program coordinator for community radio station ArtSound FM 92.7 for 10 years. On air for up to four hours a week, he has amassed an audience thanks to his soothing voice and impart of music and singer knowledge. A mentor to many, 74-year-old Stuart serves on several committees at ArtSound, including its board, and assisted with training courses and seminars to introduce new community members to broadcasting.”
Stuart is also a trained theatre organist and has volunteered with the Theatre Organ Society of Australia (ACT) since 1998. He performs on the Compton Theatre organ housed in the Albert Hall.
The 2025 award winners for the ACT, announced on November 14 in a ceremony at National Gallery of Australia, included Marilyn and Peter Ralston OAM, founders of Achilles Running Club Canberra for the vision impaired, as the ACT’s Senior Australian of the Year. They and other ACT award winners will represent the territory in the national Australian of the Year Awards in Canberra in late January.
Rod Menzies’ Volunteering ACT Honour
Congratulations to ArtSound member and former presenter of Senior Memories, Rod Menzies, too. He was highly commended in the Volunteering ACT’s annual awards on 4 December, in the Senior Volunteer of the Year section. Rod was honoured for his contributions to Covenant Care, a community engagement program operated by Holy Covenant Anglican Church in Cook which seeks to improve social connections, and physical and mental wellbeing, for vulnerable Canberrans.
ArtSound Podcasting 101 is back
Our short course on podcasting will return in February 2025, and you’re invited to enroll in it.
It will take place over two Saturday afternoons, February 1 and February 8, from 1:30pm to 4:30pm each day.
Some experienced ArtSound presenter/producers will show you how podcasts are made, with hands-on use of podcasting and studio consoles, microphones, and recording devices, as well as sound-production software you can download freely and use at home.
We’ll learn the basics of editing software packages that participants can then download and use at home, and much else.
The course fee is $150. By early January, you’ll be able to pay via ArtSound’s website. Meanwhile you can enroll and pay for the course via email at admin@artsound.fm or by calling 6295 7444 weekdays 10-2.
If you have questions about the course, write to podcast@artsound.fm.
ArtSound’s podcasting meetup
Whether or not you take our Podcasting 101 course, you’re welcome to join our podcasting meetup group, which has been getting together for a few months, now. It’s a small band of podcast enthusiasts who have been meeting regularly at the ArtSound studios to discuss and plan podcasts and podcast skills.
The group meets on every second Monday night from 5:30-6:30pm in ArtSound’s dedicated podcast studio.
To inquire about joining in, write to podcast@artsound.fm.
2024 is ArtSound’s Big Year of Fundraising — and Membership!
ArtSound’s Fundraising Committee is building on recent successes to revive ArtSound’s financial fortunes after some tough years.
Our 2024 campaign is proceeding on various fronts. During the year, we’ve held an ongoing membership drive, an end-of-financial-year donations drive, and a full-fledged Radiothon during October.
During the year, we’ve held a variety of other fundraising events, too, including concerts like the one described above.
Now, we’d particularly like to boost our membership, as that can provide a solid financial base for the year’s operations. Currently, membership fees account for about 10 percent of our annual income; we’d like to increase that to 20 percent.
On January 1, 2025, membership rates increase modestly: the individual rate will be $75, family $110, concession (card-holding seniors and students) $50.
ArtSound is aiming to boost the benefits that members enjoy. Already members, and non-members, receive 24/7 radio every day of the year, but we’d also like to increase the number and range of businesses that will offer discounts to our members. We’ll list these on our website’s membership page.
Can you help us to identify or recruit such business supporters? If you know of any that might be interested, please write to Bart Meehan (bart.meehan@gmail.com) with details (including any contact details, if you have them).
GoFundMe
In one major thrust of our overall fundraising campaign, we’re continuing to use an online crowdfunding platform to raise money for essential technology upgrades. That’s on GoFundMe. The campaign has passed $10,500 towards a goal of $15,000. And we’ve received some welcome donations outside the GoFundMe campaign. Thanks to everyone who has contributed.
You can use this website or QR code to contribute to this crucial project: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-console-artsound.
Or, contact us and talk about how you might help: admin@artsound.fm
Help us to upgrade our broadcasting gear. That will ensure we bring you the best specialist music and arts programming in the region (and streaming to the world).
Simply go to https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-console-artsound and follow the prompts. Or contact us and talk about how you might help: admin@artsound.fm
Thank you.
Other ways you can help
Do you have skills that you’d be willing to lend to the ArtSound cause? Please let us know. Below are some areas where you might be able to help – but perhaps you have skills that we don’t know how to profit from, until you tell us!
Needs include:
Welcoming Committee members
Writers of scripts for on-air announcements, press releases, and the like.
Management and financial wizards
Advertising reps
Presenters
Program producers and assistants
Concert recording engineers
Music library helpers
If you can help, please send your contact details and a description of how you think you can help to help@artsound.fm. Or phone 6295 7444 weekdays between 10am and 2pm.
If you associate with artists of any kind, you could promote the station to them.
Any way you can spread the word is useful to ArtSound.
ArtSound FM’s mission is to cultivate a vibrant arts community in the ACT region. Your memberships and donations sustain our year-long programming including our artist-centred features and interviews and our many broadcasts of live recordings of concerts in and around Canberra.
Thank you for being part of ArtSound!
Please go online to artsound.fm to take out membership or donate. Or, send your contact details and a description of how you think you can help to help@artsound.fm.
Or phone (02) 6295 7444 — if you don’t reach someone right away, please leave a message and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
Donations of $2 or more are tax deductible.
ArtSound is an all-volunteer community radio station.
Please forward this newsletter to any possibly interested friends and family members. And if you have any suggestions about items to include in this bulletin, please send them to newsletter@artsound.fm at least three days before the end of the month.
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