The ArtSound gardens in blossom, Manuka Arts Centre; photo: Julie Finch-Scally

 

A lot is happening at ArtSound! Here’s some of it.

Read on for news about:

  • Concerts coming up
  • Book launch
  • Call for radio drama scripts
  • Vale Glenn Gore Phillips
  • Introduction to Radio Broadcasting course
  • Rotary outside broadcast
  • Poetry competition
  • ArtSound submission to broadcasting inquiry
  • ArtSound’s Big Year of Fundraising
  • GoFundMe Campaign passes $10,000 of $15,000 goal
  • How You Can Help

 

Concerts at the Polish Club and at ArtSound

ArtSound will hold the next in its series of fundraising concerts on September 1, starting at noon. On this occasion, with the cold months hanging on, the event will be indoors, at the Polish Club in Turner (at 38 David St.).

A film screening starts at noon, and then live music follows from 2pm, with Kopasetic Duo, Joel Dreezer Quartet, and Zambezi Sounds.

Tickets are available online https://events.humanitix.com/artsound-event or at the door. Full information about the event is available at the ticket sales site.

ArtSound is teaming up with Live @ The Polo and organiser Clandestino to offer a full afternoon of film and live music as an ArtSound fundraiser.

From noon (until 4:30pm) we’ll be treated to a film screening (with popcorn!) and then, from 2pm, local music. It’s the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon and support your local arts and music scene! This edition focuses on reggae, roots, jazz, folk and roots music.

The film is the 2018 documentary RUDEBOY: The Story of Trojan Records, which lovingly explores how the legendary London record label Trojan Records played a leading role in the musical conquest of Great Britain by Jamaican music styles like ska, reggae, and rocksteady.

Live music begins at 2pm, with three Canberra-based bands exploring the sounds of reggae, roots, jazz, folk and roots music: Zambezi Sounds plays Afro Reggae Roots. Joel Dreezer Quartet offers jazz and funk. And Kopasetc Duo performs folk and acoustic music.

A second, similar concert at the Polish Club is in planning, too, for Sunday, October 13, as part of ArtSound’s annual Radiothon. That second concert will be transmitted via video to the ArtSound Facebook page, and potentially broadcast live to air, as well.

That event will mark the start of the Radiothon, which will wrap up on the following Sunday with a concert in the ArtSound gardens.

The October 13 event will again present a film screening and then three musical acts, this time with a Latin American theme as we’re partnering with ANU’s Latin American Student Association (LASA) as a culmination of the ANU’s Latin American Week 2024. Our event will showcase various local Latin American musicians in a unique stripped-down format in solo and duo sets, along with a feature set from local band Capital Samba.

The film screening will be of Emicida: AmarElo: It’s All for Yesterday (2020).

The musical performers will be Capital Samba, Sergio + Adanna (from the band Funktrop), Andy + Matt (from Los Chavos), and Ned + Nadia (from Chicharrita).

 

Book Launch

ArtSound Press invites you to the launch of its latest book, Gertrude’s Sweetheart — Monologues for Readers and Actors, which collects 11 pieces by Canberra writers that have been produced and broadcast on ArtSound FM.

The launch takes place at 1pm on Sunday, September 7 in the ArtSound Gardens at the Manuka Arts Centre (or, if raining, in the ArtSound offices).

Longtime ArtSound stalwart Bill Stephens will launch the publication.

If you’d like to attend, please RSVP to admin@artsound.fm, or just come along on the day.

 

Radio plays wanted!

Do you have 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.

 

Vale Glenn Gore Phillips

Glenn Gore Phillips, Canberra musician and composer, passed away on August 17, 2024 after a long illness. Glenn was well known in local theatre where his music was used in a number of shows. He was also a friend of ArtSound FM, having written the scores for several ArtSound Radio Theatre productions including The Wind in the Willows and Mrs Warren’s Profession. We extend the condolences of the entire ArtSound community to Sue and to Glenn’s family.

 

Introduction to Radio Broadcasting

ArtSound’s Standards and Training Committee will run its second Introduction to Radio Broadcasting Course of this year, starting in mid-September.

Returning after a pandemic-induced absence of a few years, the course held in February resulted in six “graduates” finding spots on existing ArtSound show.

While the introductory course is designed to give participants the basic skills to become on-air radio presenters, it might also suit would-be podcasters, or anyone interested in the production and content side of radio.

Completion of this course (and subsequent successful assessment) does not guarantee an on-air slot but will be considered favourably.

Secure your spot by paying your deposit now!

Course duration: 4 weeks commencing on Saturday 21 September, 1pm-4pm, then additional Saturdays: 28 September, 5 October, 12 October, and assessments on Saturday 2 November. Potential presenters will have nearly 3 weeks (from 12 October) to arrange practice sessions in preparation for assessment

Course fee: $300 per person (must be paid in full by 14 September)

Number of Participants: 10 maximum; your place is secured by your $50 deposit or payment in full

Pre-requisites: A genuine love of music, especially the ArtSound genres (classical, jazz/blues, world, folk). Any previous experience is a plus, but not required.

Content: Some basic theory and classroom instruction; lots of hands-on studio time to practice.

 

Rotary Outside Broadcast

On Sunday, September 8, ArtSound will be on hand to broadcast live from the 50th Anniversary of Trash and Treasure Market at the Jamison Centre, which the Rotary Club of Belconnen organizes with assistance from other local Rotary Club members and Rotaractors.

The anniversary event marks a mighty achievement by Rotary, which holds its Trash and Treasure market each Sunday from 7am until 1pm, weather permitting.

For this special iteration of the market, Rotary of Belconnen has invited 10 local charities to take part in a Treasure Chest draw where the successful charity will be given $1,000.

In addition, the event will feature a raffle, whose profits will go to Karinya House and the Doris and Beryl Women’s refuges. (Purchase tickets at Kippax Plaza outside Woolworth’s on Friday, August 20; tickets are $5 each or three for $10.)

During the last 50 years, Rotary of Belconnen has assisted many charities and organisations in the local community and overseas. For example, each Christmas, the club packs 360 hampers for families in need and donates them to St Vincent de Paul Society, St. John’s Care, Kippax Uniting Church, the Salvation Army, local schools, and others. Rotary Cottage at Canberra North Hospital was funded and erected in two stages as a result of the Club’s hard work and is used as accommodation for country patients and their families when they are using the hospital’s facilities. And, donations have also served to assist clean-water projects in various countries including Papua New Guinea.

Among many other project Rotary Belconnen has assisted: local schools seeking to purchase library books, school readers, and sports equipment. It has made awards from its Principal’s Discretionary Fund to assist primary schools in Belconnen in sending needy children to camps and on excursions, or to purchase uniforms and school bags.

The Club also established the Rotary Collection of Art at the National Gallery of Australia to provide an outlet for emerging Australian artists.

For more information, contact Bob Greeney, Secretary, Rotary Club of Belconnen, greeneyb@iimetro.com.au

 

ArtSound Judges Kids’ Poetry Competition

Late last month, organisers of a series of events, Kambah Turns 50, called on ArtSound to judge its poetry competition for school children in grades three through ten. The competition’s theme was the 50th anniversary of the suburb of Kambah. Peter Monaghan, producer of Poetry in the Radio, selected the winners.

 

ArtSound’s recommendations to community broadcasting inquiry

Late in August, ArtSound submitted comments to the Community Broadcasting Sector Sustainability Review, which is being held by the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts.

ArtSound stressed the ongoing need for federal funding of community radio, and plenty of it.

 

2024 is ArtSound’s Big Year of Fundraising

ArtSound’s newly refreshed Fundraising Committee is building on some recent successes to revive ArtSound’s financial fortunes after some tough years.

Our 2024 campaign will proceed on various fronts. During the year, we’ll hold an ongoing membership drive, an end-of-financial-year donations drive, and a full-fledged Radiothon in November.

Earlier this year, we held a successful Music Trivia Quiz Night fundraiser, and have offered some public courses in broadcasting and podcasting skills.

There’s more to come.

GoFundMe

In one major thrust of our campaign, we’re using an online crowdfunding platform to raise money for essential technology upgrades. We are up and running on GoFundMe. As of the beginning of August, the campaign has reached $10,000 of a goal of $15,000. And we’ve received some welcome donations outside the GoFundMe campaign. Thanks to everyone who has contributed.

Help us to upgrade our transmission gear. That will ensure we stay on air and continue to bring you the best specialist music and arts programming in the region (and streaming to the world).

It is expensive to provide quality radio. We can do it only because at ArtSound we have no employment costs: we are all volunteers. We have managed to raise enough funds every year for the past 40, but we now must replace vital broadcasting equipment, and that will take money we need to raise from several sources, including you, our listeners.

In 2005 station volunteers cobbled together our current studio broadcasting consoles, and those have served us well — as our on-air campaign promo puts it, they were “lovingly handcrafted in the Middle Ages.” But we’ll soon have to re-equip our studios at an estimated cost of well over $100K. (As mentioned above, we now have obtained funds to purchase a much-needed new transmitter.)

Without these upgrades ArtSound may become un-transmit-able and we’d then all be in-console-able.

Our analogue broadcast consoles are old – way beyond expected lifespan! – and we’d be very wise to upgrade them to spiffy new digital ones, pronto.

We’ll seek grants for part of these costs, but we need to find the bulk of them. So, we’re asking you to invest in the future of your good listening by contributing what you can to help. It’s your chance to make an impression on the arts in and around Canberra.

How can you help? 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.

 

Membership

ArtSound has a new membership database system in place, and now we’re aiming to boost the benefits that members enjoy. Yes, already we provide members, and non-members, with 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).

 

Can You Help?

The ArtSound Board and its fellow volunteers would like to establish a list of capabilities that members could bring to the organisation, when needed.

Do you have skills that you’d be willing to lend to the cause, from time to time? We’re sure you do.

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: people who can volunteer four hours from 10am to 2pm one weekday a month, fortnight, or week. The members of the Welcoming Committee take care of the studio lobby: they greet visitors who come to be recorded or interviewed, monitor email, and often open and close the studios, all while creating a warm atmosphere and being warmly thanked by ArtSound presenters, program producers, and other volunteers.

People who can write and would be interested in helping with our monthly newsletters (like this one) as well as scripts for sponsorship announcements and promotions and a potential host of other purposes. Writing for radio is simply a matter of putting words together that are easily read aloud, and are compelling to listen to.

Grant writing: it’s arduous but somehow gratifying work, and the more of it we can do, the better. We’ve had good success of late, so now are ready to step up our game. Can we identify grant opportunities and improve our grant administration?

Management and financial wizards would be of great assistance for our Fundraising events. As we become a more thriving and expanding organisation, we’d appreciate help in keeping track of all our fundraising and commitments. In a city of public servants, we know you’re out there!

Advertising reps: Perhaps you’re a retired ad rep or salesperson who could help ArtSound to find businesses that would like to take sponsorships (advertisements) with the station. On-air announcements are potentially a major source of income to ArtSound, but to date we’ve lacked dedicated advertising staff, so have not been able to optimise this income source, even though we know plenty of likely advertisers are out there. We are legally permitted to run up to five minutes of advertising in any hour of programming. Even one minute each hour, from 7am to 10pm, would bring us enough to meet the station’s total annual unavoidable expenses – transmitter costs on Black Mountain and Mount Taylor, utilities at the station, and so forth. In fact, that would permit us to triple our income each year, and our investment in Canberra’s arts scene.

Presenting: We’re proud of the diversity in our programming. On a typical day, we broadcast 12 hours or more of locally produced live or recorded programs. There are also opportunities to produce pre-recorded programs including for our special Senior Memories program block, which airs each morning from 10am to midday.

Program Production: If you have experience in recording program content including interviews and/or in producing finished audio or program blocks, we’d love to hear from you. Or, perhaps you have programming ideas and would like to learn how to use audio-editing software.

Concert Recording: ArtSound records concerts for later broadcast local, national, and international performers at venues in and around Canberra. Most concerts take place in the evenings or on weekends.

Music library: we can always use help in cataloguing and shelving CDs in the ArtSound music library. You don’t need to have library experience to do that, just an ability to carefully enter and track details. It’s quite fun, in a way only people of that inclination seem to understand.

This is just a list of the more obvious needs at the station. But perhaps your talents or qualifications lie elsewhere, and would also greatly assist us. Perhaps you have a “working with children certificate” or a trailer we can use from time to time.

If you associate with artists of any kind, you could promote the station to them. Tell them about the benefits of membership, the opportunities to visit for on-air interviews or live performances, or our very affordable advertising rates (essentially, about one dollar a second), and our studio rentals for music or voice recording.

Any way you can spread the word is useful to ArtSound.

So 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.

 

 

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 write to admin@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.

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.