Two special NEA Big Read Our Town Our Island Events are coming up on WVBI, Beaver Island’s Community radio station. The kick-off event for the project was to have been a Beaver Island Community Players production of Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town. When COVID-19 nixed a live play, Jacque made an effort to produce the show as a radio play, but continued restrictions and limits on volunteer time made that impossible, too. The play was to have started with a speech made by Christie Heller Perdue, a former BICS student, who played Emily Webb in the show the last time it was produced on the island. Jacque still hopes to produce the play, but there’ll be no more waiting on Christie’s remarks. They’ll be delivered on WVBI’s Beaver Island Perspectives show this Friday evening after the station’s regular network newscast at 5:00 or about 5:05 p.m. If you miss the show when it airs, you’ll be able to hear it as a podcast on WVBI’s website under the Podcasts menu.
The second event is a 90+ minute music show hosted by Jacque that takes a look at music on Beaver Island. Our Town Our Island Our Music covers both the artists and the songs, reach back to the Alan Lomax recordings of traditional Irish tunes and forward to modern artists who write and perform today. Music on the program runs the gamut of music heard on the island with folk, country, jazz, pop, classical and rock among the genres of songs. Jacque weaves the music together with historical info about both the tunes and the performers. The program will air in the time slot normally reserved for WVBI’s Top Ten + Five countdown show on Saturday morning , January 16, at 10:00 a.m. and again Wednesday evening, January 20, at 7:00 p.m. (The Top Ten + Five will return the following week.) Of the show, Jacque said “I had a lot of fun putting it together. The hard part was picking and choosing among the songs. I think folks will have fun listening to it.”
You can tune in to the programs at 100,1 FM on the island or stream them on any browser at http://wvbi.nethttp://http//:wvbi.biccenter.org. You can also listen to them with Alexa, Siri or Google devices by saying the wake word and then “Play WVBI.”
