Songs for Ukraine IX

Honoring composer and pianist Anna Stoinova

“Those who wish to sing always find a song.” ― Swedish proverb

I call them grand experiments - finding ways to bring physical and virtual realities together to learn from and enhance one another. And of all those experiments, hosting and writing about music events in the virtual world of Second Life has been one of the grandest and most challenging.

On the one hand, I’m able to safely gather with people from around the world to listen to and share thoughts about some extraordinary musicians. On the other, I am frustrated by the limitations of the platform and my inability to reach beyond it to share what I am experiencing with the rest of the world. This became especially problematic when I started to write about and host concerts for Ukrainian musicians. Many of these musicians had limited access to the internet and no way to download and run the software required to get into Second Life. However, they naturally wanted to see and hear the concerts.

Fortunately, we have a very tech-savvy koala on our team named Rasp who was able to figure out how to live stream the concert to Facebook. The result was that Anna Stoinova (the musician we were honoring), and her family and friends were able to see both the performances and chat in real-time and feel they were part of the event. It was wonderful. To experience it for yourself, click on the image below.

NOTE: There are a couple of tech glitches following the first performer. Just move the playhead forward a few minutes to see the rest of the show.

Link: https://fb.watch/cPVc2WbVZP/

Below are recordings of each of the separate performances. Thank you again to Denny, Grace, Wes, and RASP for making this an especially wonderful, music-filled day!

Denny Mac

Grace Loudon and Wes West

Raspbury Rearwin aka RASP the koala

Copyright 2022 by Jena Ball. All Rights Reserved.