Programming Update

In years past, we would use Labour Day as a signpost that summer is almost over and that we are into the final third of the year. In the days of COVID-19, it seems that the calendar doesn’t have the meaning that it once had.

I trust that you are all safe and doing well, in spite of the many public health measures we have come to accept.

I also hope that our musings and daily shares on our podcasting channel provide some form of respite and escape from the mundane that has become our everyday.

 I would normally take some time as we approach the end of the summer to “tease” some of the stuff we have in store for the remainder of the year, and let you in on some of the ideas we are working on for next year. Here we go…

For Your Listening Pleasure – Year Two

As I pointed out in a post August 1^st, we have come to the end of Project 366. We used the final 12 months of the project to guide our daily programming on our Podcasting Channel. As of September 1^st, we plan to begin a new 12 month cycle, this time guided by a different “project”.

Under the auspices of Project 366, we have revisited 217 of our ITYWLTMT montages – which as of now number 342. Over the next 12 months, we will be adding another 23, to bring the total up to 365, one for every day of the calendar year.

My plan is then to program all of them as daily shares on the channel. I will do my best to intersperse the remaining new montages at the rate of one or two a month, and will continue to dust off Podcast Vault features on Fridays we don’t have new montages to offer, much like I have done through the last year.

The programming will also revive some of our past “thematic arcs” – and in some cases, add new or recent montages under the arc umbrella. Also, where it makes sense, I plan to match up pairs of montages under the moniker For Your Listening Weekend.

I can tell you montage #365 will be a Quarterly Tuesday share on August 31^st 2021  but keep you in suspense as to what that will be about. It will be the launching point to programming for Year Three, that is if we’re still doing this!

On September 1^st, I will unveil our daily calendar for the remainder of 2020, which will include a lot of Beethoven in December, in itime for Ludwig’s 250^th birthday.

Tuesday Blog

We cut back on Tuesday Blogs for the Summer, limiting ourselves to monthly #Beethoven2020 shares. We have a few more of these left for the Fall, as well as some Mozart Cover2Cover titles. We need to build up our Mozart collection, as it will be an important part of our overall 2020 programming – more on that in December when we do our Year In Review teaser.

What we plan on doing that will be different moving forward, is that our Tuesday Blogs will be “bonus” shares on the Podcasting Channel, whilst continuing – at least for the time being – our policy of having Tuesday Blogs matched to YouTube clips and playlists. We keep having more and more music lovers subscribing to our YouTube channel, so I don’t see that policy ending any time soon.

The Return of OTF

I’ve discretely resumed posting on OperaLively in July. Most of our posts are concentrated on a thread I call “OTF Short Stories”, which provide a quick blurb on operatic or lyrical shares on the Podcasting Channel.

As I scan the calendar I have developed so far, I think there’s still quite a bit of material we can flag as a Short Story. I plan to provide either “encore” shares or new opera material on OperaLively (as Short Stories or as “classic” OTF posts) as we move along. In the event material isn’t on the calendar (which, remember, will be limited to ITYWLTMT Montages), I will provide the material as “bonus” shares on the Podcasting Channel, same as the Tuesday Blog.