Initially held in 2009, when we began broadcasting on our Community Radio licence, First Spark is a weekend of radio experiments to coincide with the ancient festival of Imbolc, or Candlemas (also ‘Groundhog Day’) that falls at the beginning of February. It marks the midway point between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox, and is when we begin to feel the earliest signs of Spring. Small shoots, the earliest flowers, frogs coming out of hibernation. It is a better time than New Year’s Day to kick off a good habit; a better time than Twelfth Night to take down Christmas decorations. For us, it is a time to consider the First Sparks of ideas, energy, electricity, transmission – a radiogenic point in the calendar.
For 2020 - a morning of new works for radio, curated and presented by Mark Leahy
From midday - Launch of Patches of Land, with community radio lunch and chat
First Spark Saturday Feb 1st 2020
playlist
On air from 0930hrs to finish just before 12 noon.
part 1
Toni Dimitrov, Backyard Rain – 10’
Sebastiane Hegarty, Photosynthesis: for water snails, diving beetle and pondweed. – 7’06”
Emmanuelle Waeckerlé, 0(nly) – 21’
Sebastiane Hegarty, on [is] off – 13’
Mark Leahy, biddys 1 – 2’30”
part 2
Sue Coulson, Under the Line at Starcross – 7’15”
Olchar E. Lindsann, three poems – 6’
Kate Donovan, Seed Dispersal I – 2’
People Like Us, No One is an Island – 28’
Mark Greenwood, The Seance – 10’
Kate Donovan, Seed Dispersal II – 6’10”
Mark Leahy, biddys 2 – 2’30”
part 3
Sue Coulson, Sound of Piers and Seas – 6’40”
Andy Cluer, THEN, NOW, THEN (Act iii) – 7’30”
Noise Laboratory, Feather – 4’
Mark Leahy, biddys 3 – 2’30”
Alice Kemp, fourteen twelve – 14’12”
Olchar E. Lindsann, improvisation – 12’
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