Thirty female community radio presenters around the country have teamed up to produce a special show for International Women’s Day (8^th March 2021) by taking part in ‘Lightning Birds: A Game of Sonic Tag’, an initiative spearheaded by Stellaria Media. Each presenter was given one day to make an original 90-second feature linked to the content produced by the presenter before them.

The thirty individual features have been threaded together to make up one overarching piece which will be broadcast by all participating community radio stations across the country on 8^th March.

Radio LaB will be broadcasting the programme three times on International Women’s Day during its breakfast, drive-time and evening schedule.

One of the presenters taking part is Megan Murphy, a third year Radio & Audio student at the University. Also a Student Station Manager, Megan is excited to bring something new to Radio LaB. She said:

“I was really excited to be asked to participate in this Sonic Tag project. It’s something I’d never heard about before and I was so excited to get stuck in.

“It was a real challenge having to create an entirely new piece of audio based simply off the inspiration of the previous days’ piece. I chose to focus on the sound of birds featured in the previous day’s work, creating my own piece ‘As free as a bird’.

“I was inspired by poems when creating the dialogue. I spent some time verbally brainstorming, creating voice notes of my thoughts and just kept speaking continuously to get all my ideas out. From this, I listened back and noted down the key lines which I liked and I thought matched together well – and then created the final ‘poem’, if you will.

“It’s something very different to what I usually create, but I’m really happy with what I was able to produce. I focused around the idea of being able to choose your own destiny, your own path in life, and how sometimes it can leave you feeling lost, especially within yourself.

“I’m really looking forward to listening to the programme in full on 8th March.”

Stellaria Media, who organised the project with funding from the Audio Content Fund for International Women’s Day, said:

“Community radio has been more vital than ever over the last year, but for many women who have taken on extra caring responsibilities, it can be hard to get involved and have their voices and ideas heard.

“This innovative approach to making radio, enables us to collaborate at a distance, and create something greater than the sum of its parts."

The special feature ‘Lightning Birds: A Game of Sonic Tag’ will air on Radio LaB at 9am, 4pm and 10pm on Monday 8^th March.

To listen to Radio LaB and find details on how to get involved, visit: https://radiolab.beds.ac.uk/