At Soar Sound, we’re learning by doing. With the help of John Coster from the Documentary Media Centre, we’ve been developing a pair of podcast series—Spotlight on Arts and Spotlight on Heritage—that reflect something essential about life in Leicester: our shared stories, creative expressions, and historical experiences matter. They connect us, they shape us, and they deserve space to be heard in full voice.
John and I both see this as a journey of improvement. It’s about developing our skills as community radio producers, certainly—but more than that, it’s about building a radio platform where art, culture and heritage are recognised as everyday practices of care. We’re interested in how people make meaning, express identity, and nurture the places they belong to. And we believe that community media has a vital role to play in supporting those conversations.
Not Just Talking About—But Talking With
Our approach is deliberately participatory. We’re not inviting guests on to recite a list of issues or priorities in the abstract. We’re asking people to share what they care for, how they make sense of the city they live in, and how their creative or cultural work emerges from that. The conversations are wide-ranging and often surprising—one week it might be a local visual artist reshaping old narratives through new forms, the next a heritage campaigner sharing memories of lost landmarks and the stories they still carry.
This isn’t about broadcasting answers; it’s about opening up spaces to listen and reflect. And we’re grateful to have access to space at New Media Art Club, based at LCB Depot, where we regularly meet, plan, and record episodes. Having a welcoming space to work in makes a huge difference—it helps us slow down, take stock, and enjoy the process.
Why Arts and Heritage?
Because they aren’t optional extras. They are the texture of community life. Whether it’s through shared traditions or experimental performance, the stories we tell ourselves and each other are the threads that tie our communities together. By using community radio to spotlight these threads, we’re making a case for why arts and heritage should be accessible, inclusive, and rooted in local experience.
That’s why developing these programmes isn’t just good practice—it’s a demonstration of what community radio can do at its best. We’re showing, not telling, how people in Leicester are already shaping the cultural life of the city from the ground up.
Get Involved
We’re looking to grow. If you have a story to tell, a project to share, or a perspective grounded in your own lived experience—especially if you’ve never been behind a microphone before—we’d love to hear from you. We’re building something open, experimental and responsive. A radio station that listens. And that, we think, is worth tuning into.