#also the composer worked on survivor australia

[fatcowboys]

its a widely accepted fact that if you have you are in a position where you have to watch a Ton of childrens television that bluey is, by far, the best option of the kids media out there. like its one of the few shows that thinks about the adults who end up watching these shows on top of the kids watching it and did small things to make it enjoyable for parents too.

like a major thing is the writing. it feels much more natural than shows that are specifically aimed at like. Teaching yknow theres no prompting kids to participate along or anything. the plotting is grounded - its just a show about a family. they arent super heroes, they dont go on grand adventures, they do normal, regular things.

i also read that for the voice acting of the kids in the show, rather than using professional adult voice actors pitching their voices to sound like kids, they often recorded actual children, many of them kids of people who worked on the show. which helps it feel much more genuine rather than faked

some Smaller things they do include the music. every episode is individually scored, so the musical cues dont get repititive and obnoxious (even if you are like me and work in a childrens hospital where bluey is often playing in the background) and also often incorporate classical music into the theme. Plus, the theme is easily the best one out there - no lyrics, just a fun little tune followed by characters saying their names. which is Far better than other theme songs that are usually just. repeating the same lines and the name of the show.

anyway. heres my unexpected bluey infodump. shout-out to the me who was almost a teacher which is part of why i find it so interesting to read abt why this show in particular is as loved as it is by both kids and adults lmao

[natromanxoff]

(x)

HIGHLANDER

Manhattan: 1986. In a vast underground garage beneath Madison Square Garden, two men are locked in mortal combat. The huge cavern echoes with the sound of clashing steel, for although this is the 20th century, one combatant wields an ancient samurai sword, the other a broadsword. bromtrwert. The duel rages in deadly carnest, ending only when the loser is decapitated.

This action-packed opening scene from "Highlander” is just one of the many tense duels and battles featured in this mystical science-fiction film which opens in Britain in August.

Christopher Lambert stars as Connor MacLeod, a Scottish clansman who, in 1536 is seemingly mortally wounded in battle by a terrifying warrior, the Kurgan. Miraculously, his wounds heal and he discovers that he is and Immortal, one of a rare breed of men who can only die by being decapitated with a sword. He then has to duel down the ages to a distant time called the Gathering when the last survivors of the Immortals meet in climactic combat for a prize which will grant them powers beyond imagination.

The unusual thriller was directed by Russel Mulcahy, who pioneered pop videos in Australia when he was nineteen. He came to England and established a reputation in both America and Britain for the music videos he directed for a range artists including Duran Duran, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Boy George and Go West.

The music score for the film was composed by Michael Kamen, although the songs and additional music were written and performed by Queen. Queen were originally to have issued the soundtrack album under the title of 'Highlander', but have now delayed release to turn the album more into an LP for Queen fans, which they have retitled ‘A Kind Of Magic’ and have introduced other material apart from the ‘Highlander’ songs. This is their first album release since ‘The Works' in 1984.

‘A Kind Of Magic' is a Roger Taylor song which is featured over the closing titles of the film and has been issued as a single, backed with another song from the film — ‘A Dozen Red Roses For My Darling.’

Russel Mulcahy worked with Queen on a promo film for ‘A Kind Of Magic’ which incorporates some of the most extensive animation ever seen on a promo. Curiously, this is first collaboration between Mulcahy and Queen. He comments: "When I did the film there was only one band in my mind for the music and that was Queen. Their music is just right for it; they have a keen sense of visuals and write powerful, anthem-type songs which is just what the film needed.

Full track listing is: ‘Princes Of The Universe’, the song which is performed over the opening credits of the film; ‘A Kind Of Magic’; ‘One Year Of Love’’, a John Deacon song from the film; 'Pain And Pleasure', a Freddie Mercury song which is his own tribute to Motown; "Friends Will Be Friends', which will be the next Queen single; ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’, a Brian May song from the Movie and ‘Gimme The Prize’ and ‘Don’t Lose Your Head’, both of which are also featured in ‘Highlander.’

[so-shiny-so-chrome]

Witness: Supergirrl

Creator name (AO3): supergirrl

Creator name (Tumblr): le-temps-viendra36

Link to creator works:  https://archiveofourown.org/series/343042

Q: Why the Mad Max Fandom?

A: I’ve never seen the original three movies, so I went into Fury Road having no idea what I was about to watch, and it changed my life. I’d never seen a movie that looked or felt like Fury Road, and it blew my mind. What inspired me to write fanfiction for the movie were the women, especially the sisters. I had never seen survivors of sexual assault/domestic violence portrayed in that way, and it made me want to write about them.

Q: What do you think are some defining aspects of your work? Do you have a style? Recurrent themes?

A: I think the defining aspects and recurrent themes of my work are feminism and magical realism/mythical steampunk, and the intersection of those different ideas. Those ideas are all present in Fury Road, I try to delve into them more and expand them beyond the scope of the film. 

Q: Which of your works was the most fun to create? The most difficult? Which is your most popular? Most successful? Your favourite overall?

A: I don’t know if I can pick a favorite work or one that was most fun, because they’ve all been really rewarding in different ways, but the most difficult one was definitely the Furiosa chapter of Our Words. It took almost two years to write because I really struggled with getting inside Furiosa’s head. Even though I enjoy her a lot as a character, I don’t relate to her the way I do to the sisters. Although they’re all victims of Joe, they occupy very different roles in his regime, with Furiosa occupying a more conventionally ‘masculine’ role as an imperator and the sisters occupying the ‘feminine’ role of breeders/wives, thought they ultimately use their different positions within Joe’s patriarchal hierarchy to overthrow and kill him. As a more conventionally ‘feminine’ person, I relate to them more strongly than I do to Furiosa. 

Q: How do you like your wasteland? Gritty? Hopeful? Campy? Soft? Why?How do you like your wasteland? Gritty? Hopeful? Campy? Soft? Why? 

A: I think my wasteland is a blend of gritty, soft, and hopeful, but I focus on the hopefulness the most. For me, the wasteland represents our current world and my own mental health/life, and I have to believe that we can make things better (as they ultimately do in the movie).

Q: Walk us through your creative process from idea to finished product. What's your prefered environment for creating? How do you get through rough patches?

A: I either write things in one intense late night writing fest, or in bits and pieces over time. I only write when I’m alone, and I like to either have instrumental music playing or silence. 

Q: What (if any) music do you listen to for help getting those creative juices flowing?

A: I have a huuuuge long playlist of music that goes with/inspired each part of Words, composed mainly of film and TV scores, that I listen to whenever I write.

Q: What is your biggest challenge as a creator?

A: Finding the time/energy to actually write my fics down. I think about them all the time throughout the day, I am just really bad at actually physically typing them. 

Q: How have you grown as a creator through your participation in the Mad Max Fandom? How has your work changed? Have you learned anything about yourself?

A: I think my work has gotten weirder and more magical/mythical, because I’ve been inspired by the inherently weird, quasi-magical world of Fury Road, and writing Fury Road fic has helped me work through my own experiences as an SA survivor.

Q: Which character do you relate to the most, and how does that affect your approach to that character? Is someone else your favourite to portray? How has your understanding of these characters grown through portraying them?

A: I relate to all five of the sisters in different ways, but especially to Toast. Overall it makes writing her (and Angharad and Cheedo, who I also relate to very strongly) easy and fun. I think I’ve come to see that their different archetypes aren’t mutually exclusive-in their own ways, they’re all knowing and fragile and capable, and so on. 

Q: Do you ever self-insert, even accidentally?

A: Yes, I definitely project some of my own thoughts and experiences onto the Sisters, especially with regards to their being survivors of sexual assault. But I think that it’s impossible to completely remove yourself from your writing/characters.

Q: Do you have any favourite relationships to portray? What interests you about them?

A: So many! I really love the relationships of the five sisters, with each other in particular but also other characters, like Furiosa, Max, and Nux. I think their unique personalities, their strong bonds with each other, and their dynamic is endlessly fascinating. 

Q: How does your work for the fandom change how you look at the source material?

A: I definitely pay closer attention to minor details, like how the characters’ clothing changes throughout the movie, and what characters are doing in the background, because it’s such a detailed world and there’s a lot you can pick up on in those little things. 

Q: Do you prefer to create in one defined chronology or do your works stand alone? Why or why not?

A: My series Words consists of several multi-chapter fics and oneshots that all exist in the same chronology, but I also have some oneshots that stand alone. Overall I prefer to write in the Words universe because it feels more real and detailed to me. 

Q: To break or not to break canon? Why?

A: I break canon all the time and I think it’s generally a good thing. For me, I’m usually doing it because I want to tell a story that fits into the broader themes of Fury Road without necessarily aligning with all the specific facts of the film. 

Q: Share some headcanons.

A: I have so many! Most are in my fics, but one that I’ve never had the chance to incorporate into my writing is that Miss Giddy used stolen War Boy paint to write the words left in the Vault for Joe to find.  

Q: What are some works by other creators inside and outside of the fandom that have influenced your work?

A: Within the fandom, @jaesauce’s modern AUs have definitely influenced how I write Toast and Capable, both as individuals and in the context of their relationship with each other and with Slit and Nux respectively. Outside the fandom, I’ve been really strongly influenced by Jo Graham’s Numinous World series, with its themes of magic, the divine, and social justice.  

Q: What advice can you give someone who is struggling to make their own works more interesting, compelling, cohesive, etc.? 

A: It sounds a little trite, but in my mind, ultimately fanfiction is for yourself. If other people like it, then great, but that isn’t my purpose in writing it. So I write what I find interesting and compelling, and sometimes other people are interested and sometimes they aren’t, but it’s okay either way. As for maintaining internal cohesion, I find it helpful to re-read what I’ve previously written to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything. 

Q: Have you visited or do you plan to visit Australia, Wasteland Weekend, or other Mad Max place?

A: I have not yet, I would like to visit Australia someday, and I think the Wasteland Weekend would be really fun to attend one year.

Q: Tell us about a current WIP or planned project.

A: Right now I’m just working on Knowing, the last fic planned in the Words universe, set from Toast’s POV. I’ve got it all worked out in my head, I just need to get it on the page!

Thank you @le-temps-viendra36

[madstars-festival]

AD STARS 2020: 11 GRAND PRIX WINNERS REVEALED!

AD STARS is pleased to congratulate this year’s Grand Prix, Gold, Silver and Bronze winners, which were chosen from 20,028 entries from 60 countries.

Levi Slavin, Chief Creative Officer at Colenso BBDO, New Zealand was an Executive Judge at the AD STARS 2020 Awards. He says: “Overall, we did get a sense of the power of creativity through the work we judged this year. As a tool and weapon, applied properly, creativity can solve anything.”

Due to coronavirus travel restrictions, the Final Jury voted on winners remotely this year. Slavin explains: “The process was more difficult than people might realize, but nobody on the jury once said, ‘Let’s not do this.’ Everybody felt it was critically important to celebrate creativity and its power. Any metal awarded at AD STARS this year is a career highlight – all winners should be very proud.”

Valerie Madon, Chief Creative Officer, Asia at VMLY&R also joined AD STARS 2020 as an Executive Judge. She says: “It’s really exciting to see that some of the best works this year came from markets like the United Arab Emirates and Sri Lanka. We see more culturally relevant work getting recognition for being insightfully inspired: the impact is clear, even if the executions can be simple.”

11 Grand Prix trophies were awarded to 9 creative companies: 

- 72andSunny Los Angeles, USA: ‘Swipe Night’ for Tinder (Brand Experience & Activation Grand Prix) and ‘Next 100’ for NFL (Film Grand Prix) - Ogilvy Australia: ‘KFC Secret Menu’ for Yum! (Mobile Grand Prix and Social & Influencer Grand Prix) - Dentsu Inc., Japan: ‘Pocky THE GIFT’ for Ezaki Glico Co., Ltd. (Design Grand Prix) - Clemenger BBDO Wellington, New Zealand: ‘Belted Survivors’ for NZ Transport Agency (Diverse Insights Grand Prix) - Alt.vfx, Australia: ‘Dinosaur Vs Unicorn’ for AA Insurance (Film Grand Prix) - Walt Disney Company, United States: ‘Pixar Street View’ for Walt Disney World (Outdoor Grand Prix) - Flock Creative Network, Indonesia: ‘Mad Cousin’ for McDonald's / PT. Rekso Nasional Food (Print Grand Prix) - Jung von matt, Germany: ‘For Seasons composed by climate data’ for NDR Elbphilhamornie Orchestra Hamburg, Germany (Radio & Audio Grand Prix) - WPP Marketing Communications, Thailand: ‘Thai Stay Home Miles Exchange’ for Thai Airways International (Pivot Grand Prix)

To see the full list of AD STARS 2020 Award winners, click here.

[blackkudos]

Kelly Rowland

Kelendria Trene Rowland (born February 11, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, television personality and mogul. Rowland rose to fame in the late 1990s as one of the lead singers of Destiny's Child, one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time. During their hiatus, Rowland released her debut solo album Simply Deep (2002), which sold 2.5 million copies worldwide and produced the number-one single "Dilemma" with Nelly, as well as the international top-ten hit "Stole". Rowland also transitioned into acting, with guest appearances in television sitcoms, and starring roles in Freddy vs. Jason (2003) earning $114.9 million and The Seat Filler (2005) earning $27.9 million in the box office.

Following the disbandment of Destiny's Child in 2005, she released her second album Ms. Kelly (2007), which included international hits "Like This" and "Work". In 2009, Rowland served as a host on the first season of The Fashion Show, and was featured on David Guetta's number-one dance hit "When Love Takes Over". The song's global success influenced singers like Rihanna, Nicki Minaj and band member Beyoncé to explore house music. Rowland on her third album Here I Am (2011), which spawned the international top-ten hit "Commander" and US R&B/Hip-Hop number-one "Motivation". In 2011, she returned to television as a judge on the eighth season of The X Factor UK, and in 2013, became a judge on the third and final season of The X Factor USA. Rowland's fourth album Talk a Good Game (2013), which saw a return to her "R&B roots", was released to positive reviews.

Throughout a career spanning 18 years, Rowland has sold over 40 million records as a solo artist and 60 million records with Destiny's Child. Her work has earned her several awards and nominations, including four Grammy Awards, two Billboard Music Awards and two Soul Train Music Awards. Rowland has also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame with Destiny's Child, and as a solo artist she has been honored by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Essence for her contributions to music. In 2014, Fuse ranked Rowland in their "100 Most Award-Winning Artists" list at number 20.

In 2016, she hosted BET's Chasing Destiny with Frank Gatson Jr. They formed a girl group, June's Diary.

Early life

Kelendria Trene Rowland was born on February 11, 1981, in Atlanta, Georgia. She is the daughter of Doris Rowland (née Garrison; December 6, 1947 – December 2, 2014) and Christopher Lovett Rowland. Kelly has an older brother named Orlando. When she was seven, her mother took her and left her father, who was an abusive alcoholic. At the age of eight, she relocated to Houston. In 1992, Rowland joined a girl group, originally named Girl's Tyme. Rowland's addition made it a six-member group. West coast R&B producer, Arne Frager, flew to Houston to see them and eventually brought them to his studio, The Plant Recording Studio, in Northern California. As part of efforts to sign Girl's Tyme to a major label record deal, Frager's strategy was to debut them on Star Search, the biggest talent show on national TV at that time. They participated, but lost the competition.

In 1995, Rowland moved in with Beyoncé Knowles's family. Not long after the inclusion of Rowland, Beyoncé's father, Mathew, cut the original lineup from six to four with LeToya Luckett joining in 1993. The group continued performing as an opening act for other established R&B girl groups of the time, such as SWV, Dru Hill and Immature. They auditioned before record labels and were finally signed to Elektra Records, only to be dropped months later, before they could release an album.

Career

1997–2001: Destiny's Child

Taken from a passage in the Biblical Book of Isaiah, the group changed their name to Destiny's Child in 1993. Together, they performed in local events and, after four years on the road, the group was signed to Columbia Records in late 1997. That same year, Destiny's Child recorded their major label debut song "Killing Time", for the soundtrack to the 1997 film, Men in Black. The following year, the group released their self-titled debut album, spawning hits such as "No, No, No". The album established the group as a viable act in the music industry, amassing moderate sales and winning the group three Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards. The group rose to fame after releasing their multi-platinum second album The Writing's on the Wall in 1999. The album featured some of the group's most widely known songs such as "Bills, Bills, Bills", "Jumpin' Jumpin'" and "Say My Name", which became their most-successful song at the time, and would remain as one of their signature songs. "Say My Name" won Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals and Best R&B Song at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards. The Writing's on the Wall sold more than 15 million copies worldwide, essentially becoming their breakthrough album.

Along with their commercial successes, the group became entangled in much-publicized turmoil involving the filing of a lawsuit by Luckett and Roberson for breach of contract. The issue was heightened after Michelle Williams and Farrah Franklin appeared in the video of "Say My Name", implying that Luckett and Roberson had already been replaced. Eventually, Luckett and Roberson left the group. Franklin would eventually fade from the group after five months, as evidenced by her absences during promotional appearances and concerts. She attributed her departure to negative vibes in the group resulting from the departure. After settling on their final lineup, the trio recorded "Independent Women Part I", which appeared on the soundtrack to the 2000 film, Charlie's Angels. It became their best-charting single, topping the Billboard Hot 100 for eleven consecutive weeks. The success cemented the new lineup and skyrocketed them to fame. Later that year, Luckett and Roberson withdrew their case against their now-former bandmates, while maintaining the suit against Mathew, which ended in both sides agreeing to stop public disparaging.

Later that year, while Destiny's Child was completing their third album Survivor, Rowland appeared on the remix of Avant's single "Separated". Survivor, which channeled the turmoil the band underwent, spawned its lead single of the same name, which was a response to the experience. The song went on to win a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. The themes of "Survivor", however, caused Luckett and Roberson to refile their lawsuit; the proceedings were eventually settled in June 2002. Meanwhile, the album was released in May 2001, debuting at number one on the US Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 663,000 copies sold. To date, Survivor has sold over twelve million copies worldwide, over forty percent of which were sold in the US alone. The album also spawned the number-one hit "Bootylicious". After releasing their remix album This Is the Remix in 2002, the group announced their temporary break-up to pursue solo projects.

2002–06: Simply Deep and acting career debut

In 2002, Rowland was featured on Nelly's single "Dilemma", which won the pair a Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. The song became one of the most successful singles of the year, topping many charts worldwide including the United States, where it became Rowland's first number-one single as a solo artist, selling worldwide over 7,6 million copies. Caroline Sullivan of The Guardian wrote that because of the song's success, "Rowland is no longer a mere backing vocalist for Beyoncé".

Rowland's debut solo album, Simply Deep, was released on October 22, 2002 in the US. Featuring production contributions by Mark J. Feist, Big Bert, Rich Harrison, and singers Brandy and Solange Knowles providing background vocals, the album took Rowland's solo work further into an alternative music mixture, which Rowland described as a "weird fusion [of] a little bit of Sade and a little bit of rock." Simply Deep debuted at number 12 on the Billboard 200 and at number three on the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, with first-week sales of 77,000 copies sold. It was eventually certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). As of 2013, Simply Deep remains as Rowland's best-selling album in the US, with 602,000 copies sold. Released to an even bigger success in international territories, the album topped the UK Albums Chart and became a gold-seller in Australia, Canada and New Zealand, resulting in worldwide sales total of 2.5 million copies. Simply Deep yielded the international top-ten single "Stole" and the UK top-five single "Can't Nobody".

Rowland transitioned into acting in 2002, playing the recurring role of Carly in the fourth season of UPN sitcom The Hughleys. She continued her acting career the following year, with guest roles in UPN sitcom Eve as Cleo, and in NBC drama series American Dreams as Martha Reeves. In August 2003, Rowland made her big screen debut playing the supporting role of Kia Waterson alongside Robert Englund and Monica Keena in the slasher film, Freddy vs. Jason, which grossed $114.5 million at the box office worldwide.

In July 2005, Rowland starred opposite Duane Martin and Shemar Moore in the romantic comedy The Seat Filler, which grossed $17.9 million worldwide. She played Jhnelle, a pop star who falls for an awards-show seat filler whom she mistakes for a high-profile entertainment attorney. After a three-year hiatus that involved concentration on individual solo projects, Rowland rejoined Beyoncé and Michelle Williams for Destiny's Child's final studio album Destiny Fulfilled, released on November 15, 2004. The album hit number two on the Billboard 200, and spawned the top-five singles "Lose My Breath" and "Soldier", which features T.I. and Lil Wayne. The following year, Destiny's Child embarked on a worldwide concert tour, Destiny Fulfilled ... And Lovin' It. During the last stop of the European tour in Barcelona, Spain on June 11, Rowland announced that they would disband following the North American leg of the tour. Destiny's Child released their first compilation album Number 1's on October 25 in the US, which peaked at number one on the Billboard 200. On March 28, 2006, Destiny's Child accepted a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Rowland and Beyoncé founded the Survivor Foundation, a charitable entity set up to provide transitional housing for victims and storm evacuees in the Houston, Texas area. The Survivor Foundation extended the philanthropic mission of the Knowles-Rowland Center for Youth, a multi-purpose community outreach facility in downtown Houston. Rowland and Beyoncé lent their voices to a collaboration with Kitten Sera, entitled "All That I'm Lookin for". The song appeared on The Katrina CD album, whose proceeds went to the Recording Artists for Hope organization. In 2006, Rowland joined other artists such as Pink and Avril Lavigne in ads for so-called empowerment tags for the ALDO Fights AIDS campaign, which went on sale exclusively at ALDO stores and benefited the YouthAIDS initiative. Rowland returned to television that same year, playing Tammy Hamilton, in the sixth season of UPN sitcom Girlfriends. Rowland initially hoped her three-episode stint would expand to a larger recurring role, but as the show was moved to The CW Television Network the following year plans for a return eventually went nowhere.

2007–09: Ms. Kelly, new management and label

In June 2007, Kelly Rowland embarked on the Ms. Kelly Tour to promote her second solo album Ms. Kelly. The five date tour visited Europe, North America, Africa and Asia. Ms. Kelly was released on July 3, 2007 in the United States. Originally entitled My Story, the album's first version was actually scheduled for a June 2006 release, but Rowland, her management and Columbia Records decided to shelve the album at the last minute to re-work a version with a different vibe as the singer considered the final track listing "too full of midtempos and ballads." Rowland eventually consulted additional producers to collaborate on the album, including Billy Mann, Mysto & Pizzi, Sean Garrett, Scott Storch, and Polow da Don. Upon its release, Ms. Kelly debuted at number six on the Billboard 200, and at number two on the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, with first-week sales of 86,000 copies. Outside the US, the album widely failed to reprise the success of Simply Deep, barely reaching the top-forty on the majority of all charts it appeared on, except for the UK, where it opened at number 37.

Ms. Kelly included the UK top-five hit "Like This", featuring Eve, and the international top-ten hit "Work". In July 2007, Rowland released her first DVD entitled BET Presents Kelly Rowland, which celebrates the release Ms. Kelly and features an interview with Rowland about the album's production, footage of her time with Destiny's Child, live performances and music videos. Following the album's lukewarm sales, it was re-released as an extended play entitled, Ms. Kelly: Diva Deluxe, on March 25, 2008. Previously unreleased Bobby Womack cover "Daylight", a collaboration with Travie McCoy, served as the EP's lead single and was a moderate success in the UK.

In 2007, Rowland, along with stars such as Jessica Simpson and the cast of Grey's Anatomy autographed pink Goody Ouchless brushes that were made available for auction on eBay, with all proceeds going to Breast Cancer Awareness. In addition, the singer teamed up with Kanye West, Nelly Furtado and Snoop Dogg to design a Nike sneaker for another eBay auction. All proceeds went to AIDS Awareness. In October 2007, Rowland auditioned for the role of Louise, Carrie Bradshaw's assistant, in the 2008 film adaptation of HBO's comedy series Sex and the City. The part eventually went to Jennifer Hudson. Two months later, Rowland appeared as a choirmaster in the first season of the NBC talent show Clash of the Choirs among other musicians such as Michael Bolton, Patti LaBelle, Nick Lachey, and Blake Shelton. Rowland's choir finished fifth in the competition, and Clash of the Choirs did not return for a second season.

In 2008, Rowland officially became ambassador for MTV's Staying Alive Foundation, which aims to reduce stigma against people living with HIV and AIDS. She visited projects in Tanzania and Kenya to promote the charity, and underwent an HIV test in Africa to raise awareness of the disease. In 2009, Rowland connected with Serve.MTV.com, MTV's platform to connect young people with local volunteerism opportunities, for a series of on-air PSAs. From battling homelessness to beautifying impoverished neighborhoods to saving whales, Rowland was joined by the likes of Cameron Diaz, will.i.am, and Sean Kingston as they discuss causes they volunteer to support, and urge young people to join with their friends in making civic service a part of their lifestyle. That same year, she spearheaded a bone marrow drive, and joined fellow singers Alesha Dixon and Pixie Lott to create T-shirts for River Island in aid of the Prince's Trust, profits from which help change young lives.

In January 2009, Rowland ended her professional relationship with Beyoncé's father Mathew Knowles, who had managed her career since she was a member of Destiny's Child. Knowles stressed that no animosity was involved in the decision and acknowledged that Rowland will always be a part of the Knowles family. Then two months later, Rowland announced that she left Columbia Records, adding that she "felt the need to explore new directions, new challenges, and new freedoms outside my comfort zone." In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Rowland stated that the label ended her contract because Ms. Kelly was not commercially successful. She later signed with Universal Motown Records.

In April 2009, Rowland was featured on David Guetta's single "When Love Takes Over", which topped many charts in Europe, selling over 5,5 million copies worldwide, and received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Dance Recording. Billboard crowned the song as the number one dance-pop collaboration of all time. In May 2009, Rowland was cast to host the first season of Bravo's reality competition series The Fashion Show alongside Isaac Mizrahi, but was replaced by fashion model Iman in the second season.

2010–12: Here I Am and The X Factor UK

In 2010, Kelly Rowland launched I Heart My Girlfriends, a charity that focuses on self-esteem, date violence prevention, community service, abstinence, sports, drugs and alcohol and smoking avoidance, obesity, disabilities, and education. In April 2010, Rowland toured Australia alongside Akon, Pitbull, Sean Paul, Jay Sean, and Eve for the Australian urban festival, Supafest. Later that month, her song "Everywhere You Go", featuring an all-star supergroup of international artists called Rhythm of Africa United, was released as the MTN theme song for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. In October 2010, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) honored Rowland at the second annual ASCAP Presents Women Behind the Music, an event which recognizes women in all areas of the music industry. Rowland's first compilation album, Work: The Best of Kelly Rowland, was released on October 25, 2010 but failed to impact the charts.

In January 2011, Rowland reunited with Nelly on "Gone", a sequel to their successful 2002 collaboration "Dilemma". Upon its release, the song failed to reprise the success of "Dilemma". In April 2011, Rowland appeared on Italian DJ Alex Gaudino's single "What a Feeling", which became another UK top-ten hit. Originally scheduled for release in 2010, Rowland's third studio album Here I Am was released on July 26, 2011 in the United States. The album sold 77,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. Here I Am produced the successful lead single "Commander", which peaked in the top-ten of many charts in Europe, and the UK top-ten single "Down for Whatever". It also included another successful single "Motivation", with Lil Wayne, which topped the R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart for seven consecutive weeks and was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). "Motivation" won Song of the Year at the 2011 Soul Train Music Awards and Top R&B Song at the 2012 Billboard Music Awards, and received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.

Rowland was the face of Diddy's women's fragrance Empress, the female counterpart to his men's fragrance I Am King. She was also the worldwide ambassador for watchmakers company TW Steel. Rowland's second compilation album, Playlist: the Very Best of Kelly Rowland, was released on October 18, 2011, but failed to impact the charts. She also released her first fitness DVD entitled, Sexy Abs with Kelly Rowland. Later that year, it was confirmed that Rowland would replace Dannii Minogue as a judge for the eighth series of The X Factor UK alongside Louis Walsh, Gary Barlow and Tulisa Contostavlos. Due to a conflicting schedule, Rowland did not return for the ninth series in 2012 and was replaced by Nicole Scherzinger. During the Black Women in Music event held on February 8, 2012, Essence magazine honored Rowland and music executive Sylvia Rhone for their contributions to music. In April 2012, Rowland toured Australia alongside Ludacris, Chris Brown, Trey Songz, T-Pain, Ice Cube, Lupe Fiasco, and Big Sean for the urban festival, Supafest. That same month, she returned to the big screen playing the supporting role of Brenda in the romantic comedy Think Like a Man. The film, which also starred Michael Ealy, Jerry Ferrara, Meagan Good, Regina Hall, and Kevin Hart, topped the US box office and grossed $91.5 million. Rowland recorded "Need a Reason" with Future and Bei Maejor for the Think Like a Man soundtrack.

In June 2012, Rowland became the face of popular rum brand Bacardi. Rowland and German production team Project B reworked the Bacardi song, "Bacardi Feeling (Summer Dreamin')", and released an accompanying music video to help promote the brand. In August 2012, Rowland became a dance master in the first season of the Australian talent show Everybody Dance Now alongside Jason Derulo. The show was cancelled after the fourth episode due to poor ratings.

2013–14: Talk a Good Game and The X Factor USA

In January 2013, Destiny's Child released a compilation album entitled Love Songs, a collection of romance-themed songs from their previous albums and newly recorded song "Nuclear". On February 3, 2013, during Beyoncé's performance at the Super Bowl XLVII halftime show, held at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Rowland and Michelle Williams joined her on stage to perform "Bootylicious", "Independent Women" and "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)". On February 24, 2013, Rowland co-hosted the Academy Awards pre-show for the 85th Academy Awards alongside Kristin Chenoweth, Lara Spencer, Robin Roberts and Jess Cagle. In May 2013, it was announced that Rowland would replace Britney Spears as a judge on The X Factor USA for its third and final season, joining Simon Cowell, Demi Lovato and fellow new judge Paulina Rubio. Later that month, Rowland performed as a supporting headlining act at the RiverFest 2013 in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Rowland embarked on the Lights Out Tour, a co-headlining tour with The-Dream, to promote her fourth studio album Talk a Good Game. Formerly titled Year of the Woman, the album was released on June 18, 2013 in the US. It is Rowland's first release with Republic Records following Universal Music Group's decision to close Universal Motown and Universal Republic, and reviving Motown Records and Republic Records. Talk a Good Game sold 68,000 copies in its first week and debuted at number four on the Billboard 200, becoming Rowland's third top-ten album in the US. The album's lead single "Kisses Down Low" was a moderate success on the US R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and was certified gold by RIAA for exceeded 500,000 copies sold. The second and final single "Dirty Laundry" was acclaimed by critics for its lyrical and the emotional honesty. In December 2013, Rowland appeared in Beyoncé's "Grown Woman" music video and alongside Williams in Beyoncé's "Superpower" music video and provided backing vocals on the same track, taken from her self-titled fifth studio album.

In February 2014, Rowland was featured on Joe's single "Love & Sex Part 2". In March 2014, she was named a spokesperson for cosmetic company, Caress. During an interview with HuffPost Live on March 26, 2014, Rowland revealed that she has begun recording her fifth studio album and said the new music, which encompasses horns, drums, and flutes, was influenced by iconic female singers including Diana Ross. Rowland also announced in the interview that she left Republic Records, adding that she "just needed a fresh, new start." In June 2014, Rowland and Beyoncé were featured on Williams' single "Say Yes". The same month, her song "The Game" and its music video appeared on Pepsi's visual album for the 2014 FIFA World Cup titled, Beats of the Beautiful Game. On July 19, 2014, Rowland was featured on Adrian Marcel's song "Honey" from his mixtape Weak After Next and on Beau Vallis's song "Love Stand Still". Rowland also contributed background vocals to the song "You're My Star", the first single released from Tank's 2014 album Stronger.

2015–present: Empire, Chasing Destiny and fifth studio album

In August 2015, she was featured on Jacob Whitesides's single "I Know What You Did Last Summer". Rowland is part of the recurring cast of the second season of the American drama television series Empire. She played Leah Walker, Lucious Lyon's mother, in flashbacks and starred in five episodes. She recorded a song for the show called "Mona Lisa" which included on the EP Empire: Music from "Be True", released on October 21, 2015. On October 26, 2015, Rowland released a new song titled "Dumb" which is rumoured to appear on her upcoming fifth album. Rowland's new record does not have a release date yet.

Rowland along with other female artists such as Missy Elliot, Kelly Clarkson, Zendaya, Janelle Monáe, Lea Michele and newcomers Chloe & Halle, all feature on a charity single put together by US First Lady Michelle Obama. "This Is For My Girls" was written by Diane Warren and was released on March 15. The song was created to raise funds and awareness towards Obama's Let Girls Learn initiative – aimed at boosting education rates amongst adolescent girls around the world who are denied the right to an education The iTunes-exclusive record will be used to both coincide with Obama's Texan SXSW speech and to promote the First Lady's third-world educational initialtive "Let Girls Learn". On April 5, 2016 Rowland stepped into her "music-mogul shoes" for the debut of Chasing Destiny. Partnering with BET, Rowland began the search to find the next superstars for an all female group. As stated by Rowland herself, she's not looking for reality stars, but she's looking for stars. The show also stars Frank Gatson Jr.. The group released its first single in June 2016 titled "All of Us".

On 24 December 2016, Rowland was announced as the replacement to Jessie J on The Voice Australia which is set to preview its 6th season in early 2017.

Personal life

Rowland and her manager Tim Witherspoon (not to be confused with the former heavyweight boxing champion) reportedly began dating in 2011. She announced her engagement to Witherspoon during an appearance on The Queen Latifah Show on December 16, 2013. They were married in Costa Rica on May 9, 2014, with guests including Beyoncé and her sister Solange Knowles. On June 10, 2014, Rowland announced via Instagram that she and Witherspoon were expecting their first child. On November 4, 2014, Rowland gave birth to her son Titan Jewell Witherspoon.

Artisty

Musical style

Rowland's voice is classified as a three-octave lyric mezzo-soprano, and her music includes various styles of musical genres such as contemporary R&B, pop, hip hop, soul, rock and dance. Her debut solo album Simply Deep (2002) followed an adult-alternative rock sound, while her second album Ms. Kelly (2007) featured an urban sound. In an interview with The Independent, Rowland admitted that with her first two albums she struggled to find her sound. "I was in a stage with the first two records where I was searching and I was like, let me try a rock-dance approach, the label [and management] wanted me to try it and I did it ... And then after that came a more urban approach with Ms. Kelly in 2007." Her third album Here I Am (2011) consisted of a pop and R&B sound, with subtle influences of dance. Rowland stated that meeting David Guetta had influenced her to record dance music. During production of the album, Rowland stated that part of the reason for the new sound on Here I Am was wanting to do something different, saying "I knew I couldn't be afraid of this direction, and I wasn't going to let the thoughts and opinions of others make me afraid to go in this direction".

Most of the lyrical themes in Simply Deep (2002) speak of love and life experiences, particularly in the songs "Dilemma", in which Rowland expresses her endless love to her love interest, and "Stole", in which she sings about an emotional "tale of school shootings and suicides". In Ms. Kelly (2007), Rowland covers topics such as her "deeply personal relationship issues" in her songs, "Still in Love with My Ex", "Flashback", "Love", "Better Without You" and "Gotsta Go (Part I)". Alex Macpherson of The Guardian noted that the songs could be about Rowland's former relationship with American football player Roy Williams. Here I Am (2011) included common themes of womanhood, sexual intimacy and love. Some of Rowland's other songs such as "Work", "I'm Dat Chick" and "Work It Man" have been musically compared to the work of former Destiny's Child bandmate Beyoncé.

Influences

Rowland has cited Whitney Houston and Janet Jackson as her biggest musical influences. She stated that Houston "was the woman that inspired me to sing". Rowland is also inspired by Sade Adu and says that "she has a style that's totally her own". Her other inspirations include Destiny's Child, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, Naomi Campbell, and Oprah Winfrey, whom she describes as "the female version of God". Rowland has discussed how living in Miami has influenced her style, growth, and music. From a fashion perspective, Rowland credits her grandmother, Halle Berry, Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé, and Oprah Winfrey as her style icons. Rowland cited Houston, Beyoncé, and Brandy Norwood as vocal inspirations for her second solo album Ms. Kelly, "I love how different they are. I love how they take themselves to the next level". Her third solo album Here I Am was inspired by Donna Summer and Diana Ross, as well as dance producers David Guetta and will.i.am. Rowland's fourth solo album Talk a Good Game was also inspired by Houston, Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder.

Public image

Rowland stated that there was a time in her life when she struggled about being dark-skinned. In October 2007, Rowland underwent plastic surgery to receive breast implants. She stated, "I simply went from an A-cup to a B-cup" and that "the decision was 10 years in the making". In 2012, Rowland ranked at number 61 on Complex magazine's list of "The 100 Hottest Female Singers of All Time" and was recognized as one of the best-dressed women by Glamour UK. In April 2013, Rowland ranked seventh on People's Most Beautiful in the World list.

Discography

Simply Deep (2002)

Ms. Kelly (2007)

Here I Am (2011)

Talk a Good Game (2013)

Filmography

Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

The Seat Filler (2005)

Think Like a Man (2012)

The 10th Date (2017)

Tours

Headlining

2003: Simply Deeper Tour

2007: Ms. Kelly Tour

2013: Lights Out Tour (Co-headlined with The-Dream)

Supporting

2010: Supafest (Australia)

2011: F.A.M.E. Tour (North America)

2012: Supafest (Australia)

TV and Show

1998 Smart Guy 2002 The Hughleys 2002 Taina 2003 American Dreams 2003 Eve 2006 Girlfriends 2007 Clash of the Choirs 2009 The Fashion Show (US) 2010 Brandy and Ray J: A Family Business 2010 The Spin Crowd 2010 When I Was 17 2010 X Factor (Germany) 2010 The X Factor (Australia) 2010 La La's Full Court Wedding 2010 The A-List: New York 2011 Kourtney and Kim Take New York 2011 Single Ladies 2011 Bag of Bones 2011 The X Factor (UK) 2011 Keeping Up with the Kardashians 2012 La La's Full Court Life 2012 Everybody Dance Now 2012 What Would Dylan Do 2013 The X Factor (USA), Super Bowl XLVII half time 2015 EmpiXLVII rel 2016 Chasing Destiny 2017 The Voice (Australia)

Wikipedia

[thatsnotcanonpodcasts]

Half-Life, Dragon's Lair & A NEW PLAYER HAS ENTERED THE GAME !!!

This week the Nerds welcome Dev-i-boy to the group. Dev-i-boy is also known as Brad, a Brisbane game developer, who we interviewed around a year ago. Check that one out too, it's a good one and it'll be in the show notes below.

Professor and Dev-i-boy are gushing over Half Life: Alyx, despite a massive lack of Valve Index availability in Australia. Why, Valve, why?. HL:Alyx also doubles as an online lecture platform, a Cover your Cough training simulator and apparently, a generally good game.

DJ wants to see the Dragons Lair movie. Ryan Reynolds has been cast in a live action remake of a classic animated Laserdisc game from 1983. Don Bluth is on board, so it should be something interesting to watch.

Once again, the Nerds take on the topic of dinosaur chickens. Professor rants about the software design skills of Dennis Nedry and Dev-i-boy thinks there's no point in bringing back dinosaur chickens. But imagine the drumsticks on those chooks.

As usual, we cover the games of the week and remember some famous figures who passed away this week.

Half Life & Valve news  

                - https://uploadvr.com/new-valve-vr-games/

                - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1271440/Next_Gen_HP_VR_Headset/

                - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKsSsEmfjoE&feature=emb_title

Dragon’s Lair Movie remake

            -https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/ryan-reynolds-talks-tackle-live-action-film-80s-game-dragons-lair-1279270

Recreating living dinosaurs now a reality

            -https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/247402?fbclid=IwAR2oerRwD5V1i3wiT_uBZglAOB5pbAazIK5GYFTxWFwlYbV4KrClpkFsRzk

Games Played

Professor

– Half-Life 2: Update - https://store.steampowered.com/app/290930/HalfLife_2_Update/

Rating – 4/5

DJ

– Call of Duty : Warzone - https://www.callofduty.com/warzone

Rating – 4/5

Dev-i-Boy

- The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_The_Wind_Waker

Rating – 4/5

- Colin McRae Rally 2005 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_McRae_Rally_2005

Rating – 5/5

Other topics discussed

A Nerds Special - An Interview with An Aspie Life developer : Bradley Hennessey - https://thatsnotcanon.com/topshelfnerdspodcast/episode87

Valve to pay AU$3 million fine for misleading Australian gamers

- https://www.cnet.com/news/valve-to-pay-3-million-fine-for-misleading-australian-gamers/

F-Stop or 'Directed Design Experiments'

- https://vcc.wiki/wiki/F-Stop

Math Teacher’s class in Virtual Reality

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3g9jrqjOZs

Oculus Headset

- https://www.oculus.com/?locale=en_US

Oculus Rift Store

- https://www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/?locale=en_US

Sullivan Bluth Studios (Irish-American animation studio established in 1979 by animator Don Bluth.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sullivan_Bluth_Studios

Detective Pikachu (2019 urban fantasymystery film directed by Rob Letterman.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detective_Pikachu_(film)

Free Guy (upcoming 2020 American science fiction action comedy film directed by Shawn Levy, a story by Matt Lieberman, and a screenplay by Lieberman and Zak Penn.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Guy

Castlevania (an action-adventure gothic horrorvideo game series about vampire hunters created and developed by Konami.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlevania

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018 interactive film in the science fiction anthology series Black Mirror.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror:_Bandersnatch

Green Lantern (2011 American superhero film based on the DC Comics character of the same name.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Lantern_(film)

R.I.P.D. (R.I.P.D.: Rest in Peace Department, or simply R.I.P.D., is a 2013 American science fiction action comedy film starring Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.I.P.D.

Clive Palmer's dinosaur Jeff destroyed by fire at Palmer Coolum Resort

- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-03/fire-guts-jeff-the-dinosaur-at-clive-palmer-resort/6276188

Dennis Nedry (a computer programmer at Jurassic Park and the secondary antagonist of the orginal Jurassic Park Film.)

- https://jurassicpark.fandom.com/wiki/Dennis_Nedry

FakeFactory Cinematic Mod for Half-Life 2

- https://www.moddb.com/mods/fakefactory-cinematic-mod

No Man’s Land (2001 Bosnian war film that is set in the midst of the Bosnian War.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Man%27s_Land_(2001_film)

Black Beauty (1994 American film adaptation of Anna Sewell's novel by the same name directed by Caroline Thompson in her directorial debut.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Beauty_(1994_film)

The Matrix 4 (upcoming American science fiction action film and the fourth installment in The Matrix franchise. The film is co-written and directed by Lana Wachowski, one of the two Wachowskis who directed the previous three films.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix_4

That’s Not COVID (TNC Podcast)

- https://thatsnotcanon.com/thatsnotcovidpodcast

Shout Outs

29 March 2020 - Alan Merrill, ‘I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll’ Songwriter dies at 69 - https://deadline.com/2020/03/alan-merrill-dead-coronavirus-i-love-rock-n-roll-songwriter-joan-jett-and-the-blackhearts-obituary-1202895407/

Merrill was a member of the band The Arrows along with drummer Paul Varley and guitarist Jake Hooker. While in the band, he wrote the song “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” which the band released in 1975. The song would later become a chart topper for Joan Jett & The Blackhearts in 1982. In an interview with Songfacts, Merrill said he wrote the song as "a knee-jerk response to the Rolling Stones' 'It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)'." This version was first released as a B-side, but was soon re-recorded and flipped to A-side status on a subsequent pressing of the record. Arrows performed the song in 1975 on the Muriel Young-produced show 45, after which Young offered Arrows a weekly UK television series, Arrows, which was broadcast on ITV starting in March 1976. Joan Jett saw the Arrows perform "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" on their weekly UK television series Arrows while she was touring England with the Runaways in 1976. She first recorded the song in 1979 with two of the Sex Pistols,Steve Jones and Paul Cook. He died from complications arising from COVID-19 at the age of 69 in Manhattan, New York City.

29 March 2020 - Krzysztof Penderecki dies at 86 - https://deadline.com/2020/03/krzysztof-penderecki-dies-composers-work-used-in-the-exorcist-and-the-shining-was-86-1202895207/

Krzysztof Penderecki, a Polish composer and conductor whose modernist works were on soundtracks for The Exorcist and The Shining. Penderecki was an avant-garde composer and prolific in his output. His resume includes eight symphonies, four operas, a requiem, and several concertos. Film directors often used Penderecki music to capture their moods. His music was used in Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island,  Peter Weir’s Fearless, David Lynch’s Wild at Heart and Inland Empire in addition to The Exorcist and The Shining. Pop music also revered Penderecki. Artists ranging from Kele Okereke of Bloc Party and Robbie Robertson of the Band to  Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead were fans. He died from a long illness at the age of 86 in Kraków.

31 March 2020 – MDK2 turns 20 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDK2

MDK2 is a 2000 third-person shooter, action-adventure video game developed by BioWare and published by Interplay Entertainment for the Dreamcast,Windows and PlayStation 2. It is a sequel to the 1997 game MDK. First released for the Dreamcast in March 2000, it was later released for Windows in May, with newly selectable difficulty levels and the ability to manually save. The game begins moments after the end of the original MDK. MDK2 received generally positive reviews across all systems, with critics praising the graphics, variety of gameplay styles, level design, boss fights, the game's sense of humor, and its fidelity to the original MDK. The most commonly criticized aspects of the game were the difficulty level, which was felt to be too high, and the platforming sections, which many critics found frustrating and too exacting.

Remembrances

30 March 1962 - Philip Showalter Hench - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Showalter_Hench

American physician. Hench, along with his Mayo Clinic co-worker Edward Calvin Kendall and Swiss chemist Tadeus Reichstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1950 for the discovery of the hormone cortisone, and its application for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. The Nobel Committee bestowed the award for the trio's "discoveries relating to the hormones of the adrenal cortex, their structure and biological effects." His speech at the banquet during the award ceremony acknowledged the connections between the study of medicine and chemistry, saying of his co-winners "Perhaps the ratio of one physician to two chemists is symbolic, since medicine is so firmly linked to chemistry by a double bond." In addition to the Nobel Prize, Hench received many other awards and honors throughout his career. He also had a lifelong interest in the history and discovery of yellow fever. He died from pneumonia at the age of 69 in Ocho Rios.

30 March 2004 – Michael King - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_King

New Zealand popular historian, author, and biographer. He wrote or edited over 30 books on New Zealand topics, including the best-sellingPenguin History of New Zealand, which was the most popular New Zealand book of 2004. King was well known for his knowledge of Māori culture and history. New Zealand Listener, one of New Zealand's most popular weekly magazines, dubbed King "the people's historian" for his efforts to write about and for the local populace. He died from a traffic collision at the age of 58 in near Maramarua,Waikato.

30 March 2008 - Dith Pran - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dith_Pran

Cambodian photojournalist,  he was a refugee and survivor of the Cambodian genocide and the subject of the film The Killing Fields. In 1975, Dith and The New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg stayed behind in Cambodia to cover the fall of the capital Phnom Penh to the Communist Khmer Rouge. Schanberg and other foreign reporters were allowed to leave the country, but Pran was not. Due to persecution of intellectuals during the genocide, he hid the fact that he was educated or that he knew Americans, and he pretended that he had been a taxi driver. When Cambodians were forced to work in labour camps, Dith had to endure four years of starvation and torture before Vietnam overthrew the Khmer Rouge in December 1978. He coined the phrase "killing fields" to refer to the clusters of corpses and skeletal remains of victims he encountered during his 40-mile (60 km) escape. He gained worldwide recognition after the 1984 release of the film The Killing Fields about his experiences under the Khmer Rouge. He was portrayed in the film by first-time actor Haing S. Ngor (1940–1996), who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance. He died from pancreatic cancer at the age of 65 in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Famous Birthdays

30 March 1820 – Anna Sewell - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Sewell

English novelist. She is well known as the author of the 1877 novel Black Beauty, which is now considered one of the top ten bestselling novels for children ever written, although it was intended at the time for an adult audience. During this time her health was declining; she was often so weak that she was confined to her bed. Writing was a challenge. She dictated the text to her mother and from 1876 began to write on slips of paper which her mother then transcribed. The book is the first English novel to be written from the perspective of a non-human animal, in this case a horse. Although it is now considered a children's classic, Sewell originally wrote it for those who worked with horses. She said, "a special aim was to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses". In many respects the book can be read as a guide to horse husbandry, stable management and humane training practices for colts. It is considered to have had an effect on reducing cruelty to horses; for example, the use of bearing reins, which are particularly painful for a horse, was one of the practices highlighted in the novel, and in the years after the book's release the reins became less popular and fell out of favour. She was born in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk.

30 March 1853 – Vincent Van Gogh - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh, Dutch post-impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes,portraits and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. His reputation began to grow in the early 20th century as elements of his painting style came to be incorporated by the Fauves and German Expressionists. He attained widespread critical, commercial and popular success over the ensuing decades, and is remembered as an important but tragic painter, whose troubled personality typifies the romantic ideal of the tortured artist. Today, Van Gogh's works are among the world's most expensive paintings to have ever sold, and his legacy is honoured by a museum in his name, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which holds the world's largest collection of his paintings and drawings. On 30th March 2020, his painting titled The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring, was stolen from the Singer Laren museum in Laren, North Holland. It was stolen in an overnight smash-and-grab raid on a museum that was closed to prevent the spread of coronavirus. He was born in Zundert.

30 March 1930 - John Astin - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Astin

American actor who has appeared in numerous films and television series, as well as a television director and voice artist. He is best known for starring as Gomez Addams in The Addams Family, reprising the role in the television film Halloween with the New Addams Family and the animated series The Addams Family. Notable film projects include West Side Story, Freaky Friday, National Lampoon's European Vacation and Teen Wolf Too. His second wife was actress Patty Duke and he is the adoptive father of Duke's son, actor Sean Astin. Astin is director of the Theater Arts and Studies Department and Homewood Professor of the Arts at Johns Hopkins University, his alma mater, which offers an undergraduate minor program. He was born in Baltimore,Maryland.

Events of Interest

29 March 1979 – Another Brick in the Wall, Part II hits number one - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_Hot_100_number-one_singles_of_1980

"Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" was released as a single, Pink Floyd's first in the UK since "Point Me at the Sky". It was Pink Floyd's only number-one hit in the United Kingdom, the United States, West Germany and several other countries. The single sold over 4 million copies worldwide. "Part 2" was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Performance by a Rock Duo or Group. The lyrics attracted controversy. The Inner London Education Authority described the song as "scandalous", and according to Renshaw, prime minister Margaret Thatcher "hated it". Renshaw said: "There was a political knee-jerk reaction to a song that had nothing to do with the education system. It was [Waters'] reflections on his life and how his schooling was part of that." The single, as well as the album The Wall, were banned in South Africa in 1980 after it was adopted by supporters of a nationwide school boycott protesting racial inequities in education under apartheid.

30 March 1814 - Napoleon's forces defeated in Paris

- https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/allies-capture-paris

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Paris_(1814)

European forces allied against Napoleonic France march triumphantly into Paris, formally ending a decade of French domination on the Continent. After a day of fighting in the suburbs of Paris, the French surrendered on March 31, ending the War of the Sixth Coalition and forcing Emperor Napoleon to abdicate and go into exile.

31 March 1999 - "The Matrix" released in theaters - https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-matrix-released

On March 31, 1999, the writing and directing sibling team of Lana and Lilly Wachowski release their second film, the mind-blowing science-fiction blockbuster The Matrix. Filmed for $70 million, The Matrix was a stylish, innovative and visually spectacular take on a familiar premise–that humans are unknowing inhabitants of a world controlled by machines–central to films such as Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Matrix starred Keanu Reeves as a computer hacker who learns that human-like computers have created a fake world, the Matrix, to enslave the remaining humans while keeping them in the dark about their dire fate. Packed with slow-motion camera tricks and references from a myriad of sources–including comic books, the Bible, Lewis Carroll, Eastern philosophy and film noir—The Matrix also stunned viewers with its Hong Kong-style fight scenes, choreographed by the martial-arts master Yuen Wo Ping and performed with the help of invisible wires allowing the characters to fly through the air. Greeted with enthusiasm by computer-gaming fanatics and mainstream audiences alike, The Matrix earned a staggering $470 million worldwide and won four Academy Awards, for Best Editing, Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Visual Effects and Best Sound.

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[mocktheright]

Ravensbrück Concentration Camp - Ravensbrück was a women's concentration camp during World War II, located in northern Germany, 90 km north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of Fürstenberg/Havel). Construction of the camp began in November 1938 by SS leader Heinrich Himmler and was unusual in that it was a camp primarily for women and children. The camp opened in May 1939. In the spring of 1941, the SS authorities established a small men's camp adjacent to the main camp. Between 1939 and 1945, over 130,000 female prisoners passed through the Ravensbrück camp system; around 40,000 were Polish and 26,000 were Jewish. Between 15,000 and 32,000 of the total survived. Although the inmates came from every country in German-occupied Europe, the largest single national group incarcerated in the camp consisted of Polish women. Siemens & Halske employed many of the slave labor prisoners. The first prisoners at Ravensbrück were approximately 900 women. The SS had transferred these prisoners from the Lichtenburg women's concentration camp in Saxony in May 1939. By the end of 1942, the inmate population of Ravensbrück had grown to about 10,000. There were children in the camp as well. At first, they arrived with mothers who were Gypsies or Jews incarcerated in the camp or were born to imprisoned women. There were few of them at the time. There were a few Czech children from Lidice in July 1942. Later the children in the camp represented almost all nations of Europe occupied by Germany. Between April and October 1944 their number increased considerably, consisting of two groups. One group was composed of Roma children with their mothers or sisters brought into the camp after the Roma camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau was closed. The other group included mostly children who were brought with Polish mothers sent to Ravensbrück after the collapse of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. With a few exceptions all these children died of starvation. Ravensbrück had 70 sub-camps used for slave labour that were spread across an area from the Baltic Sea to Bavaria. Among the thousands executed by the Germans at Ravensbrück were four female members of the British World War II organization Special Operations Executive: Denise Bloch, Cecily Lefort, Lilian Rolfe and Violette Szabo. Other victims included the Roman Catholic nun Élise Rivet, Elisabeth de Rothschild (the only member of the Rothschild family to die in the Holocaust), Russian Orthodox nun St. Maria Skobtsova, the 25-year-old French Princess Anne de Bauffremont-Courtenay and Olga Benário, wife of the Brazilian Communist leader Luís Carlos Prestes. The largest group of executed women at the Ravensbrück camp was composed of 200 young Polish patriots who were members of the Home Army. Among the survivors of the Ravensbrück camp was Christian author and speaker Corrie ten Boom. Corrie ten Boom and her family were arrested by the Nazis for harbouring Jews in their home in Haarlem, the Netherlands. The ordeal of Corrie and her sister Betsie ten Boom in the camp is documented in her book The Hiding Place which was eventually produced as a motion picture. Countess Karolina Lanckoronska, a Polish art historian and author of Michelangelo in Ravensbruck also was imprisoned in the camp from 1943--1945. Eileen Nearne, a member of the Special Operations Executive was a prisoner in 1944 before being transferred to another work camp and escaping. Additional Ravensbruck survivors include Gemma LaGuardia Gluck - who wrote a memoir about her experiences at the camp and afterward - her daughter Yolande, and Yolande's baby son. During her imprisonment in Ravensbrück, the anthropologist and member of the French resistance Germaine Tillion secretly wrote a comic operetta about camp life titled Le Verfügbar aux Enfers. In 1975, she published a comprehensive study of the camp, Ravensbruck: An eyewitness account of a women's concentration camp. In 1945, just prior to liberation, the poet, playwright and author of The Green Goos, Konstanty Ildefons Galczynski, managed to save one of the Ravensbruck inmates from certain death. Her name was Lucyna Wolanowska. They began living together, and in January 1946 their son was born, also named Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński. Later that same year Lucyana Wolanowska and her son emigrated to Australia. -- from Mock the Right on Facebook - bit.ly/2TKLJMe

[courtneytincher]

The biologist in a race against time to save the Great Barrier Reef

Could pioneering research by a young marine biologist from Essex save the embattled Great Barrier Reef?  Guy Kelly meets her to find out. I’ve never considered what the collective noun might be for a group of explorers – a compass? A khaki? A smug? – but whatever it is, I have discovered a large one, gently grooming one another in a lecture theatre in downtown Washington, DC. They convene here every year, at the National Geographic Explorers Festival, to revel in their triumphs, network furiously, and share concerns for a planet in desperate need of their kind to save it. By mid-morning on the second day, those gathered in the auditorium at National Geographic’s headquarters have heard from people who’ve viewed Earth from space and plumbed the dark depths of the oceans. We’ve listened to NGOs that have come together to save the Sumatran rhino and learnt why protecting 30 per cent of the planet by 2030 is essential to preventing the next mass extinction. Many of the speakers have been American and many have been confident, experienced figures who’ve fought to become the leaders in their (often literal) fields. Then, refreshingly, come a group of innovators with new solutions to age-old problems – beginning with a young marine biologist from Brentwood, Essex. Wearing an aqua-blue summer dress, 32-year-old Emma Camp strides out looking calm and composed. She hits her mark, takes a deep breath, then delivers the bad news. ‘The Great Barrier Reef in Australia is home to over 7,000 marine species, has huge economic and cultural value, and supports essential ecosystem services, such as fisheries. But this underwater city, full of life and colour, is turning white and derelict,’ she says. The audience is hooked. ‘Climate change is compromising not just the Great Barrier Reef, but reefs globally. Warmer, more acidic, low-oxygen seawater is fundamentally affecting the biology of the corals, and this is compromising whether they’ll be able to exist in the future. In just three years, over a third of the Great Barrier Reef has been lost.’ Camp isn’t just here as a harbinger of doom, however. She’s also come with a plan. Through her research, she tells us, she has discovered that in certain areas of the planet there are corals that already exist in the kind of hot, lower pH waters we’ll see all over the world, unless action is taken. And remarkably, some are adapting to survive. Camp has had the idea of ‘transplanting’ clippings of ‘super-survivor’ coral (think of grafting tree branches) to reefs being devastated by rising sea temperatures, then seeing what happens. Camp is the first speaker – and sole Briton – from the 10 finalists for this year’s Rolex Awards for Enterprise. In 1976, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Rolex Oyster, the world’s first waterproof watch, the Swiss company launched a biennial programme to support explorers, scientists and entrepreneurs who have a project that could make the world a better place. It continues today, as part of the brand’s ‘Perpetual Planet’ campaign. This year’s group – chosen from 957 entries by a jury that included Jonathan Baillie, the chief scientist of the National Geographic Society, and the British geneticist and broadcaster Adam Rutherford – will be halved after further jury consideration and a public vote. The five winners will then become ‘laureates’, each receiving a significant grant for their project (in the region of 200,000 Swiss francs) and, naturally, a watch. All 10 finalists will also enjoy the vital publicity that attends the awards. Studying resilience in coral at a mangrove off Port Douglas Credit: Franck Gazzola/©Rolex They are eminently impressive, and as varied as in any year. Previous winning projects have included turning discarded rice husks into energy; establishing a travelling school to help a nomadic culture survive; and, in 2016, a proposal from a British man, Andrew Bastawrous, transforming eye care in sub-Saharan Africa using a smartphone-based examination kit. This year’s competition features everything from conservation to disease prevention.  ‘It’s all been a bit full on,’ Camp admits, when we meet for coffee in a nearby hotel the next morning. The night before saw her attend the National Geographic Awards and the rest of her time has been taken up by speaking events, interviews, photo shoots and ‘associated admin activities’. ‘I had to just go for a walk yesterday, just to be outside,’ she says, sinking into an armchair. ‘I’m not used to being around so many people. It’s usually fish and coral.’ Camp is tall and willowy, with long brown hair and the healthy tan of somebody who spends half her life dangling off boats in the world’s most beautiful places. I ask for the down-the-pub-chat version of her pitch. ‘Well, climate change is killing the reefs, and we risk losing them in our lifetimes. But there are naturally resilient populations we know very little about. My project aims to find out how they’re doing it, and whether they could help save other reefs.’ For a long time Camp’s work was largely general: looking at the impact of climate change on coral in different waters. But one research trip in 2016, to mangroves in New Caledonia, in the South Pacific, changed her focus for life. ‘Nobody [in marine biology] outside of our little community bought into the idea that there could be something exciting there, but we went and there were corals everywhere – full reef structures, in water where the pH reading was extremely low.’ The public’s greatest misconception about coral is that it is a plant. Really, it is a sessile (fixed, like a barnacle) animal, a marine invertebrate related to sea anemones and jellyfish. Corals rely on algae that live inside their tissues, photosynthesising and giving the coral its colour. Under stress – due to, for example, warming waters and changing pH levels – the algae will leave, eventually killing the coral. The process is known as ‘bleaching’ because it goes dull and pale. A good pH level for coral is around 8 to 8.5. In certain mangrove lagoons in New Caledonia, where tidal cycles and unique physico-chemical conditions create a swirl of warm, deoxygenated, lower pH water, Camp didn’t expect to find such healthy coral. The water was 1 to 2C warmer than nearby. So she tested the pH – it was below 7.5. ‘My colleagues said the pH meter must be broken. So they tried and got the same. We ended up trying five sensors before we accepted it. It completely challenged our understanding.’ It was the kind of lightbulb moment scientists only experience once or twice in a career. The water conditions in the lagoon are more extreme than many of the worst predictions for the warming of the world’s oceans over the next century. So if corals there have managed to adapt, could they hold the key to saving the Great Barrier Reef? The biggest reefs in the world Camp’s team now hope to expand a project that involves transplanting ‘super-survivor’ cuttings to at-risk areas. She has already set up a ‘multispecies coral nursery’ off Australia (imagine a mesh fence with cuttings of different types of coral fixed to it, weighed down close to the sea floor), but requires further funding and support. And it may not work: after all, the Great Barrier Reef – one of the seven wonders of the natural world, visible from outer space, and worth about £3 billion in tourism each year – is about the same size as Italy, and subject to all manner of different stresses. But it might. ‘There’s a real art to getting the message across. We fundamentally have to lower carbon emissions to save coral reefs, that’s number one, but we also need to look at alternative strategies we can use in addition to that,’ Camp says. She is intensely aware that her messaging needs to be drenched in caution, lest people hear of her discovery and declare the problem solved – or worse, lest climate sceptics hoist it as an example of us underestimating the planet’s ability to survive, whatever the conditions. ‘Some people look for any excuse to do less, so we need to be honest but not give a false sense of security. Think of it like a toolbox. The main tool we have is lowering emissions, but that’s not working well enough alone, so what else do we have?’ Camp has been fascinated by coral reefs since childhood. The daughter of local-government workers, she grew up in Essex with two brothers (both are still there; one has his own business, the other’s a policeman). When she was seven, her father took her snorkelling during a holiday to the Bahamas. It was all she needed. ‘I vividly remember putting the mask on and for the first time seeing this whole life you couldn’t see from above the water, this complex coral network. At the time I just appreciated its beauty, but as I got older I started to understand how important that ecosystem is. That so many people and animals rely on it. A third of all fish stocks interact with the reef. They need it.’ As a teenager, she spent most summers in Spain, where she earnt her diving qualifications. By the time she was an adult she was a divemaster, but balanced that passion with one for basketball (she went on to play for Great Britain). On a basketball scholarship, she completed an environmental science and chemistry degree at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, before a master’s in environmental management and business at Sheffield Hallam University, then a PhD in marine biology at the University of Essex – most of which was spent in the field, studying reefs around the world. Today she is based at the University of Technology in Sydney, where she is one of the leading researchers focusing on climate change and coral reefs. Camp – whose vowels occasionally slip into a New South Wales twang, especially when talking about her life in Australia – lives in Sydney with her husband, Rawiri, a banker from New Zealand. They married in January, and she is teaching him to snorkel. Seeing his appreciation of the underwater world has ‘reinvigorated’ her love for it, she says. Camp now reckons she’s completed ‘over 1,500 dives, most of them about an hour at least – I stopped counting’. By my calculations, she’s spent two months of her life underwater. ‘Probably about a quarter of my day job is in the field. The rest is in the labs, testing samples, or writing it up. But more and more important is the science communication, making sure people understand why we’re doing what we’re doing.’ It’s why accolades like making the Rolex shortlist are so valuable, as they allow her both to gain extra funding and to promote her work before people she might not normally reach. ‘For me, it’s about raising awareness of what’s going on in our oceans, so it’s more about exposure than the money. These are global issues and a brand like Rolex can facilitate that message.’ Last year she was also announced as one of 17 ‘young leaders’ for the Sustainable Development Goals by the United Nations. It’s a two-year position, and has seen her address the UN General Assembly once already. Do they listen? ‘Yeah, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. There’s an eagerness to have intergenerational discussions. We are the next custodians who will inherit the planet and give it to our children, and there’s a real commitment to make sure young people’s voices are heard.’ Britain seems to have embraced the anti-plastics message Sir David Attenborough and others have pushed into the mainstream. Australia is similarly filled with activists, Camp says, but the Queensland government hasn’t helped by recently approving the construction of an Adani coal mine – to be one of the largest in the world – in the Galilee Basin, near the Great Barrier Reef. Are we putting too much energy into banning straws? ‘The analogy I like to use is that if somebody has a terminal illness and breaks their leg, you obviously deal with the broken leg, but you don’t stop treating the illness. You can deal with short-term issues without losing sight of the bigger picture.’ By the end of the Explorers Festival in Washington, it’s been announced that Camp has narrowly missed out on becoming one of the five Rolex laureates. Those lucky few are João Campos-Silva, a Brazilian fishing ecologist who has devised a plan to save the world’s largest scaled freshwater fish, the arapaima; Grégoire Courtine, a French medical scientist with a method of allowing people with broken backs to walk again; Brian Gitta, a Ugandan IT specialist who has developed a new weapon in the war on malaria; Indian conservationist Krithi Karanth, who works to ease conflicts between people and wildlife; and the Canadian entrepreneur Miranda Wang, with her plan for plastics. Copy of More from Tel Mag Moon landings 18/07 Not all is lost for Camp, however. Rolex was so impressed with all 10 finalists that the remaining five have been made ‘associate laureates’, meaning her project will still receive support. Besides, the networking opportunities have been invaluable, not least a dinner at a mansion in the historic Georgetown neighbourhood, where the world’s leading explorers gathered to meet and celebrate one another, again. There, Camp met her hero, the legendary marine biologist Sylvia Earle – a woman who has spent a year of her life underwater. Camp hopes she’s still diving and working at 83, too. There are days ‘when you think, this is really tough’, she says, ‘especially when you see the political scene, but what’s the option? You can give up or be one of the individuals who make it their commitment in life to do everything they can to protect the reefs.’ So she is optimistic about the future, but knows the planet is now at a crossroads. ‘The best case scenario in 50 years is that we have coral reefs that are still biodiverse, serving their function, and we have an even healthier marine environment than we do now, respecting biodiversity not just for its value to us as humans. The worst case scenario is that we’ve lost coral reefs as we know them. I don’t want to tell my future grandchildren that this was a privilege I had, but they won’t, and it was all because we didn’t do enough.’ Every time I see her in Washington, Camp is wearing a large bone necklace in the shape of a fish hook. It is a traditional Maori hei matau, made by her husband’s late uncle, and means ‘safe passage over water’. A wearer is considered a strong-willed provider and protector, determined to succeed. Camp clutches it to her chest. ‘It’s seen better days,’ she says, ‘but I wear it on every dive.’ Rolex is now accepting entries for the 2021 Rolex Awards for Enterprise

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines

Could pioneering research by a young marine biologist from Essex save the embattled Great Barrier Reef?  Guy Kelly meets her to find out. I’ve never considered what the collective noun might be for a group of explorers – a compass? A khaki? A smug? – but whatever it is, I have discovered a large one, gently grooming one another in a lecture theatre in downtown Washington, DC. They convene here every year, at the National Geographic Explorers Festival, to revel in their triumphs, network furiously, and share concerns for a planet in desperate need of their kind to save it. By mid-morning on the second day, those gathered in the auditorium at National Geographic’s headquarters have heard from people who’ve viewed Earth from space and plumbed the dark depths of the oceans. We’ve listened to NGOs that have come together to save the Sumatran rhino and learnt why protecting 30 per cent of the planet by 2030 is essential to preventing the next mass extinction. Many of the speakers have been American and many have been confident, experienced figures who’ve fought to become the leaders in their (often literal) fields. Then, refreshingly, come a group of innovators with new solutions to age-old problems – beginning with a young marine biologist from Brentwood, Essex. Wearing an aqua-blue summer dress, 32-year-old Emma Camp strides out looking calm and composed. She hits her mark, takes a deep breath, then delivers the bad news. ‘The Great Barrier Reef in Australia is home to over 7,000 marine species, has huge economic and cultural value, and supports essential ecosystem services, such as fisheries. But this underwater city, full of life and colour, is turning white and derelict,’ she says. The audience is hooked. ‘Climate change is compromising not just the Great Barrier Reef, but reefs globally. Warmer, more acidic, low-oxygen seawater is fundamentally affecting the biology of the corals, and this is compromising whether they’ll be able to exist in the future. In just three years, over a third of the Great Barrier Reef has been lost.’ Camp isn’t just here as a harbinger of doom, however. She’s also come with a plan. Through her research, she tells us, she has discovered that in certain areas of the planet there are corals that already exist in the kind of hot, lower pH waters we’ll see all over the world, unless action is taken. And remarkably, some are adapting to survive. Camp has had the idea of ‘transplanting’ clippings of ‘super-survivor’ coral (think of grafting tree branches) to reefs being devastated by rising sea temperatures, then seeing what happens. Camp is the first speaker – and sole Briton – from the 10 finalists for this year’s Rolex Awards for Enterprise. In 1976, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Rolex Oyster, the world’s first waterproof watch, the Swiss company launched a biennial programme to support explorers, scientists and entrepreneurs who have a project that could make the world a better place. It continues today, as part of the brand’s ‘Perpetual Planet’ campaign. This year’s group – chosen from 957 entries by a jury that included Jonathan Baillie, the chief scientist of the National Geographic Society, and the British geneticist and broadcaster Adam Rutherford – will be halved after further jury consideration and a public vote. The five winners will then become ‘laureates’, each receiving a significant grant for their project (in the region of 200,000 Swiss francs) and, naturally, a watch. All 10 finalists will also enjoy the vital publicity that attends the awards. Studying resilience in coral at a mangrove off Port Douglas Credit: Franck Gazzola/©Rolex They are eminently impressive, and as varied as in any year. Previous winning projects have included turning discarded rice husks into energy; establishing a travelling school to help a nomadic culture survive; and, in 2016, a proposal from a British man, Andrew Bastawrous, transforming eye care in sub-Saharan Africa using a smartphone-based examination kit. This year’s competition features everything from conservation to disease prevention.  ‘It’s all been a bit full on,’ Camp admits, when we meet for coffee in a nearby hotel the next morning. The night before saw her attend the National Geographic Awards and the rest of her time has been taken up by speaking events, interviews, photo shoots and ‘associated admin activities’. ‘I had to just go for a walk yesterday, just to be outside,’ she says, sinking into an armchair. ‘I’m not used to being around so many people. It’s usually fish and coral.’ Camp is tall and willowy, with long brown hair and the healthy tan of somebody who spends half her life dangling off boats in the world’s most beautiful places. I ask for the down-the-pub-chat version of her pitch. ‘Well, climate change is killing the reefs, and we risk losing them in our lifetimes. But there are naturally resilient populations we know very little about. My project aims to find out how they’re doing it, and whether they could help save other reefs.’ For a long time Camp’s work was largely general: looking at the impact of climate change on coral in different waters. But one research trip in 2016, to mangroves in New Caledonia, in the South Pacific, changed her focus for life. ‘Nobody [in marine biology] outside of our little community bought into the idea that there could be something exciting there, but we went and there were corals everywhere – full reef structures, in water where the pH reading was extremely low.’ The public’s greatest misconception about coral is that it is a plant. Really, it is a sessile (fixed, like a barnacle) animal, a marine invertebrate related to sea anemones and jellyfish. Corals rely on algae that live inside their tissues, photosynthesising and giving the coral its colour. Under stress – due to, for example, warming waters and changing pH levels – the algae will leave, eventually killing the coral. The process is known as ‘bleaching’ because it goes dull and pale. A good pH level for coral is around 8 to 8.5. In certain mangrove lagoons in New Caledonia, where tidal cycles and unique physico-chemical conditions create a swirl of warm, deoxygenated, lower pH water, Camp didn’t expect to find such healthy coral. The water was 1 to 2C warmer than nearby. So she tested the pH – it was below 7.5. ‘My colleagues said the pH meter must be broken. So they tried and got the same. We ended up trying five sensors before we accepted it. It completely challenged our understanding.’ It was the kind of lightbulb moment scientists only experience once or twice in a career. The water conditions in the lagoon are more extreme than many of the worst predictions for the warming of the world’s oceans over the next century. So if corals there have managed to adapt, could they hold the key to saving the Great Barrier Reef? The biggest reefs in the world Camp’s team now hope to expand a project that involves transplanting ‘super-survivor’ cuttings to at-risk areas. She has already set up a ‘multispecies coral nursery’ off Australia (imagine a mesh fence with cuttings of different types of coral fixed to it, weighed down close to the sea floor), but requires further funding and support. And it may not work: after all, the Great Barrier Reef – one of the seven wonders of the natural world, visible from outer space, and worth about £3 billion in tourism each year – is about the same size as Italy, and subject to all manner of different stresses. But it might. ‘There’s a real art to getting the message across. We fundamentally have to lower carbon emissions to save coral reefs, that’s number one, but we also need to look at alternative strategies we can use in addition to that,’ Camp says. She is intensely aware that her messaging needs to be drenched in caution, lest people hear of her discovery and declare the problem solved – or worse, lest climate sceptics hoist it as an example of us underestimating the planet’s ability to survive, whatever the conditions. ‘Some people look for any excuse to do less, so we need to be honest but not give a false sense of security. Think of it like a toolbox. The main tool we have is lowering emissions, but that’s not working well enough alone, so what else do we have?’ Camp has been fascinated by coral reefs since childhood. The daughter of local-government workers, she grew up in Essex with two brothers (both are still there; one has his own business, the other’s a policeman). When she was seven, her father took her snorkelling during a holiday to the Bahamas. It was all she needed. ‘I vividly remember putting the mask on and for the first time seeing this whole life you couldn’t see from above the water, this complex coral network. At the time I just appreciated its beauty, but as I got older I started to understand how important that ecosystem is. That so many people and animals rely on it. A third of all fish stocks interact with the reef. They need it.’ As a teenager, she spent most summers in Spain, where she earnt her diving qualifications. By the time she was an adult she was a divemaster, but balanced that passion with one for basketball (she went on to play for Great Britain). On a basketball scholarship, she completed an environmental science and chemistry degree at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, before a master’s in environmental management and business at Sheffield Hallam University, then a PhD in marine biology at the University of Essex – most of which was spent in the field, studying reefs around the world. Today she is based at the University of Technology in Sydney, where she is one of the leading researchers focusing on climate change and coral reefs. Camp – whose vowels occasionally slip into a New South Wales twang, especially when talking about her life in Australia – lives in Sydney with her husband, Rawiri, a banker from New Zealand. They married in January, and she is teaching him to snorkel. Seeing his appreciation of the underwater world has ‘reinvigorated’ her love for it, she says. Camp now reckons she’s completed ‘over 1,500 dives, most of them about an hour at least – I stopped counting’. By my calculations, she’s spent two months of her life underwater. ‘Probably about a quarter of my day job is in the field. The rest is in the labs, testing samples, or writing it up. But more and more important is the science communication, making sure people understand why we’re doing what we’re doing.’ It’s why accolades like making the Rolex shortlist are so valuable, as they allow her both to gain extra funding and to promote her work before people she might not normally reach. ‘For me, it’s about raising awareness of what’s going on in our oceans, so it’s more about exposure than the money. These are global issues and a brand like Rolex can facilitate that message.’ Last year she was also announced as one of 17 ‘young leaders’ for the Sustainable Development Goals by the United Nations. It’s a two-year position, and has seen her address the UN General Assembly once already. Do they listen? ‘Yeah, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. There’s an eagerness to have intergenerational discussions. We are the next custodians who will inherit the planet and give it to our children, and there’s a real commitment to make sure young people’s voices are heard.’ Britain seems to have embraced the anti-plastics message Sir David Attenborough and others have pushed into the mainstream. Australia is similarly filled with activists, Camp says, but the Queensland government hasn’t helped by recently approving the construction of an Adani coal mine – to be one of the largest in the world – in the Galilee Basin, near the Great Barrier Reef. Are we putting too much energy into banning straws? ‘The analogy I like to use is that if somebody has a terminal illness and breaks their leg, you obviously deal with the broken leg, but you don’t stop treating the illness. You can deal with short-term issues without losing sight of the bigger picture.’ By the end of the Explorers Festival in Washington, it’s been announced that Camp has narrowly missed out on becoming one of the five Rolex laureates. Those lucky few are João Campos-Silva, a Brazilian fishing ecologist who has devised a plan to save the world’s largest scaled freshwater fish, the arapaima; Grégoire Courtine, a French medical scientist with a method of allowing people with broken backs to walk again; Brian Gitta, a Ugandan IT specialist who has developed a new weapon in the war on malaria; Indian conservationist Krithi Karanth, who works to ease conflicts between people and wildlife; and the Canadian entrepreneur Miranda Wang, with her plan for plastics. Copy of More from Tel Mag Moon landings 18/07 Not all is lost for Camp, however. Rolex was so impressed with all 10 finalists that the remaining five have been made ‘associate laureates’, meaning her project will still receive support. Besides, the networking opportunities have been invaluable, not least a dinner at a mansion in the historic Georgetown neighbourhood, where the world’s leading explorers gathered to meet and celebrate one another, again. There, Camp met her hero, the legendary marine biologist Sylvia Earle – a woman who has spent a year of her life underwater. Camp hopes she’s still diving and working at 83, too. There are days ‘when you think, this is really tough’, she says, ‘especially when you see the political scene, but what’s the option? You can give up or be one of the individuals who make it their commitment in life to do everything they can to protect the reefs.’ So she is optimistic about the future, but knows the planet is now at a crossroads. ‘The best case scenario in 50 years is that we have coral reefs that are still biodiverse, serving their function, and we have an even healthier marine environment than we do now, respecting biodiversity not just for its value to us as humans. The worst case scenario is that we’ve lost coral reefs as we know them. I don’t want to tell my future grandchildren that this was a privilege I had, but they won’t, and it was all because we didn’t do enough.’ Every time I see her in Washington, Camp is wearing a large bone necklace in the shape of a fish hook. It is a traditional Maori hei matau, made by her husband’s late uncle, and means ‘safe passage over water’. A wearer is considered a strong-willed provider and protector, determined to succeed. Camp clutches it to her chest. ‘It’s seen better days,’ she says, ‘but I wear it on every dive.’ Rolex is now accepting entries for the 2021 Rolex Awards for Enterprise

July 27, 2019 at 07:00AM via IFTTT

[captaingardening100-blog]

THIS WEEK: Winter Words Festival at Pitlochry

New Post has been published on https://gardenguideto.com/awesome/this-week-winter-words-festival-at-pitlochry/

THIS WEEK: Winter Words Festival at Pitlochry

Pitlochry Festival Theatre has an amazing array of demonstrates for this year’s Winter Words Festival from 14 – 17 February :P TAGEND

Thursday, 14 February

Mary Miers and Christina Noble: Journey To A Highland Estate

Enter the wonderful world of the Highland Estate with two fascinating writers. Mary Miers will introduce some of the most dramatic and little-known homes in the romantic north of Scotland, with some specially commissioned images, many from the world famous Country Life picture archive. Christina Noble will focus on one estate- Ardkinglas, a 45,000 -acre estate at the head of Loch Fyne- now famous for its Oyster Bar. She’ll tell the story of the estate, based on personal memories, letters and household diaries- from her great-grandfather buying the estate in 1905, to the community Ardkinglas has become today, looking at a Highland estate in the modern world and asking what is it for?

10. 00 am- 11.00 am | PS8. 50

Ken Cox: Adventures In Woodland Gardening

Festival favourite, Ken Cox returns to Winter Words with a talk on Woodland Gardening, detailing how to landscape with Rhododendrons, Magnolias and Camellias. With plenty of gorgeous images, Ken will take audiences through the history and evolution of the woodland gardening style, from Japan and China, to Europe and around the world. Plus insights and advice on intend, management and restoring woodland gardens. Ken is a third generation woodland gardener at Glendoick, Scotland, a nurseryman and writer of 11 volumes on Scottish gardens, gardening and rhododendrons.

11. 30 am- 12.30 pm | PS8. 50

Chris Townsend: Strolling The Spine Of Scotland Literary Lunch

Chris Townsend, passionate hillwalker and backpacker, is currently Hillwalking Ambassador for the British Mountaineering Council. Here he turns his attention to the spine of Scotland,’ The Watershed’ which operates between the Atlantic and the North Sea, covering 1200 km and describes his walk along the line where fallen rainfall operates either west to the Atlantic or east to the North Sea, showing us some of the stunning images he’s taken along the way. But this tale isn’t simply a travelogue, instead Chris will reflect on nature and history, conservation and rewilding, land use and literature, and change in a time of limitless possibilities for both better and worse.

12. 45 pm- 2.15 pm | PS24. 50 includes a two course lunch and coffee or tea.

Gary Sutherland: Walk This Way

Gary Sutherland is not your typical nature writer. He lived on the doorstep of the West Highland Way for many years, dismissing it, until one day he started to walk- and walking and walk. Gary tells how mounds dedicated him the heebiejeebies, and woods frightened him. Add to that his deep aversion to most forms of wildlife. Then, one day, he decided to tackle the West Highland Way … and the Great Glen Way … and the Speyside Way. This is a tale- with images- of fortitude, cows, resilience, feral goats, ambition, Belgians, ludicrous ridges, cataclysmic quagmires and creepy messages spelt out in pine cones!

3. 00 pm- 4.00 pm | PS8. 50

Donald S Murray and John MacLeod: Remembering The Iolaire Disaster

In 1918, more than 200 men succumbed when His Majesty’s Admiralty Yacht, Iolaire sank, just outside Stornoway Harbour. It was one of the worst shipping catastrophes in British history. The 100 th anniversary of the Iolaire disaster is a time to remember, and we’re doing just that in this event. Donald S. Murray will discuss his fictional account of the tragedy, As The Women Lay Dreaming, while John MacLeod brings us a factual story from the day that so many Scottish hearts were violated. Join us for what will surely be a moving and fascinating discussion.

4. 30 pm- 5.30 pm | PS8. 50

Liz Lochhead with Steve Kettley: Something Old, Something New

A selection of favourites, old and new, from fifty( ouch !) years of bittersweet, polemical, comical, in-character monologues, theatre pieces and performance poems by the former National Poet of Scotland and recipient of the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, Liz Lochhead. Plus bluesy, soulful and playful saxophone stuff from musician, composer and occasional performer, Steve Kettley of long-standing quartet, Steve Kettley’s Odd Times, whose varied career includes work touring the UK and with residencies in New York and Baltimore.

7. 30 pm- 9.00 pm | PS12. 50

Friday, 15 February

Donald S Murray and Robin A Crawford: Discovering The Story Of Peat

Peat. The Dark Stuff. Art historian, Robin A Crawford delves Into The Peatlands of the Outer Hebrides over the course of the year, explaining how they have been created and examining how peat has been used from the Bronze Age onwards plus many other aspects, including the wildlife and folklore relating to these lonely, watery places. Playwright-poet, Donald S. Murray’s talk extends from Lewis and the Highlands to the Netherlands and Australia, unpicking how this landscape affected him and the ways that humans have represented the moor in literature, art and folktale. Together their conversation is a fascinating discourse on this most Scottish of materials.

10. 00 am- 11.00 am | PS8. 50

Andy Howard: The Secret Life Of The Mountain Hare

Andy Howard is a wildlife photographer, ecologist, and expert on the mountain hare. “Usually shy, always charming, they can run like the wind and their presence is an indicator of a healthy environment, where predators and prey live their lives in a constantly changing balance.” In this event Andy will take the audience on a journey with this ultimate survivor, accompanied by his own stunning images.

11. 30 am- 12.30 pm | PS8. 50

Polly Pullar: A Richness Of Martens Literary Lunch

Polly Pullar is a novelist, photographer and field naturalist. She has a particular passion for wildlife, the countryside and in particular remote the sectors of the Highlands and Islands.

Join Polly for a fascinating insight into the story of the Humphreys family and their pine martens, a much misconstrue animal, and a passionate portrait of one of Scotland’s richest habitats- the oakwoods of Scotland’s Atlantic seaboard. Polly’s previous Winter Words appearances ought to have festival highlightings- knowledgeable and packed with energy!

12. 45 pm- 2.15 pm | PS24. 50 includes a two course lunch and coffee or tea.

Alex Boyd: Images Of St. Kilda- The Silent Islands

Alex Boyd’s photographs of the ever-mysterious St. Kilda archipelago depict the beauty of the islands, but he also captures the modern signs of military presence- jarring with the empty landscape: the inter-relationship between heritage, myth and Britain’s ongoing role on the world stage as a major weapons producer.

Alex will take you on the journey across the largest isle of Hirta, from the hills above Village Bay, or in the valley of Gleann Mor beyond, pointing out the structures both ancient and modern built by the St. Kildans themselves.

3. 00 pm- 4.00 pm | PS8. 50

Christopher Baker: J.M.W. Turner, A Life In Watercolour

J.M.W. Turner( 1775 -1 851) was perhaps the most prolific, innovative and one of the best-loved of all British artists. His outstanding watercolours were bequeathed to the National Gallery of Scotland in 1899 by the distinguished collector, Henry Vaughan, and are one of the most popular features of its collection. Join Christopher Baker, Director of the Portrait Gallery, for an illustrated talk that will provide a remarkable overview of many of the most important aspects of Turner’s Career.

4. 30 pm- 5.30 pm | PS8. 50

Doddie Weir: His Name’5 Doddie

Scottish rugby legend, George Wilson Weir is better known to the world as Doddie. Winning 61 caps, he was a fan-favourite of the Scottish crowd, before retiring in 2004. Then, in 2017, Doddie announced he had motor neurone disease. There is currently no remedy, and most patients diagnosed with this illness die within three years of developing symptoms. His foundation, My Name’5 Doddie, is creating money to help find treatments and a remedy. Come along to this special evening and hear Doddie, along with his ghost writer, Stewart Weir, talk on this funny, moving and fascinating uncover of Doddie’s career and life.

6. 00 pm- 7.00 pm | PS10. 00

Prof Dame Sue Black& Dr Richard Shepherd: The Truth About Life And Death

Professor Sue Black is known the world over for her work as a forensic anthropologist and anatomist. From uncovering war crimes in Kosovo to identifying bodies in the Indian Ocean tsunami, she’s returned bodies to their loved ones, often years after they disappeared.

Dr Shepherd takes nothing for granted in the pursuit of truth. Each post-mortem is a detective narrative in its own- and Shepherd has performed over 23,000 of them and involved in some of the most high-profile cases of recent times.

How do these extraordinary people was also able to separate work and the rest of their life- and what happens when those lines blur? Sue and Richard will discuss this and some of the extraordinary instances they’ve covered in their long careers. Q& A conference and book-signing.

7. 30 pm- 9.00 pm | PS14. 50

Saturday, 16 February

Jonny Muir: The Mountains Are Calling

Jonny is a successful hill and fell runner. In an exhilarating story of runners who go to high places, he explores the history and culture of the athletic, and meets the legends who are venerated for their extraordinary endurance. Discovering the insatiable lure of the hills led Jonny to the supreme test of mountain operate: Ramsay’s Round- a daunting 60 -mile circuit of twenty-three mountains, climbing the equivalent height of Mount Everest and culminating on Ben Nevis, to be completed within twenty-four hours. Did he manage it? Find out in Jonny’s talk- illustrated with some of the incredible photo as well as maps contained within his book.

10. 00 am- 11.00 am | PS8. 50

Hamish Brown: East Of West, West Of East

Hamish Brown is a legendary climber, traveller and author. Here he tells the story of his remarkable family, caught in Japan at the outbreak of the Second World War in the Pacific. With letters, journal extracts , notes from his mothers, and his own recollections, he brings the epoch to life: is not merely the dying days of the British Empire, but the terrible reality of the intrusion of Singapore into which they escaped. In 2015, Hamish Brown was awarded an Outdoor Novelist and Photographers Guild, Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding contribution to outdoor writing and photography.

11. 30 am- 12.30 pm | PS8. 50

Rosemary Goring: Scotland: Her Story Literary Lunch

Scotland’s history has been told many times, but never exclusively by its girls. Rosemary takes a unique view on dramatic national events, as well as ordinary life, as experienced by women down the centuries. From the saintly but severe medieval Queen Margaret, via Nan Shepherd and Muriel Spark, to today’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, Rosemary encompasses females from all stations and notoriety and brings to life the half of history that has for too long been hidden or ignored.

12. 45 pm- 2.15 pm | PS24. 50 includes a two course lunch and coffee or tea.

Penny Junor: All The Queen’s Corgis

The Queen has had corgis by her side ever since she was seven years old and persuaded her parent to buy one for the family. The dogs are the Queen’s constant companions and Jenny’s book discloses the scraps and scrapings in which the dogs have been involved.

Daughter of Sir John Junor and school-mate of Princess Anne, journalist, TV presenter and popular novelist, Penny Junor is maybe best known for her royal biographies, originating with Diana: Princess of Wales, earning her the label of’ royal expert’. This is a fascinating and affectionate look at the Queen and her most faithful companions on what really attains our much-loved and longest reigning monarch truly light up.

3. 00 pm- 4.00 pm | PS8. 50

Gabriella Bennett: Coorie In, The Scottish Way

Coorie, or cosagach in Gaelic, is the Scottish version of hygge- a recently popularised Danish word, meaning to create a warm ambiance and enjoy the good things in life with good people. Gabriella Bennett has travelled Scotland speaking to people whose love of coorie shows in their homes, ingenuity and approach to a life lived well. Join Gabriella as she explores what coorie is and how it has helped nurture the astonishing creativity for which Scotland is famed, despite an often harsh and unforgiving climate.

4. 30 pm- 5.30 pm | PS8. 50

Richard Holloway: Waiting For The Last Bus

Get together with one of the most important and beloved religious leaders of our time as he widens an invitation to reconsider life’s greatest mystery. Now in his ninth decade, former Bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway presents a positive, meditative and profound exploration of the many important lessons we can learn from death: facing up to the limitations of our bodies as they falter, reflecting on our fails, and forgiving ourselves and others.

A reviewer and writer for the press, including The Times, The Guardian and The Scotsman, Richard is a frequent presenter on radio and television and is well known for his support of progressive causes, questioning and addressing complex ethical issues in the areas of sexuality, drugs and bioethics.

6. 00 pm- 7.00 pm | PS10. 00

Neil Oliver: The Story Of The British Isles In 100 Places

Archaeologist, historian, conservationist, writer and broadcaster, Neil Oliver is best known as presenter of the BBC documentary series, Coast. This event is his personal account of what induces these islands so special, told through places which have borne witness to the unfolding of our history. Cradling astonishing beauty, the human narrative here is a million years old, but the tolerant, easy-going peace we’ve enjoyed has been hard won. We’ve made and known the best and worst of days. We have been hero and villain and all else in between.

Beginning with humankind’s earliest ancestors, he takes us via Romans and Vikings, the flowering of religion, civil war, industrial revolution and two world wars. From windswept headlands to battlefields- each is a place where the spirit of the past seems to linger. “I have chosen what I consider to be the most characteristic features of the face I have grown up to know and love … in this present climate of public anxiety, disagreement and uncertainty about the future, I think it is timely to seem again at the past, the histories of this place from its earliest times.”

7. 30 pm- 8.30 pm | PS14. 50

Sunday, 17 February

David Ross: Highland Herald

From 1988 to 2017 David was the Highland Correspondent of The Herald. His patch stretched from the Mull of Kintyre in the south to the Shetland island of Unst in the north; from St. Kilda in the west, to the whisky country of Speyside in the east. David helped the first community land buyout in modern times in Assynt, covered the anti-toll campaign on the Skye Bridge, together with the efforts to save Gaelic and protect ferry services. Join David reflecting on the issues affecting the Highlands and Islands during his time of coverage.

10. 00 am- 11.00 am | PS8. 50

James Crawford: Scotland From The Sky

Accompanying the BBC documentary series, novelist and broadcaster James Crawford’s talk will be based on his lavishly represented volume which draws on the vast collecting of aerial photography held in the Historic Environment Scotland repositories. Opening an extraordinary window into our past this is the remarkable story of a nation from above, showing how our great cities have dramatically altered with the ebb and flow of history, while whole communities have faded in the name of progress. James reveals how aerial imagery can unearth gems from the ancient past, and secrets interred right beneath our feet. Come along to get a glorious bird’s-eye opinion of this story of Scotland, from the sky!

11. 30 am- 12.30 pm | PS8. 50

Christopher Fleet: Scotland: Defending The Nation Literary Lunch

Scotland has had an important military history over the last five centuries. 16 th century conflict with England, Jacobite insurrections in the 18 th century, two world wars, as well as the Cold War, all resulted in significant cartographic activity. Christopher Fleet, Senior Map Curator in the National Library of Scotland will explore this rich legacy through rare maps, some reproduced in book sort for the first time. These maps tell particular tales about both attacking and defending the country: castles, reconnaissance mapping, battle schemes, military roads, mines, adversary maps, unrealised proposals and projected schemes.

12. 45 pm- 2.15 pm | PS24. 50 includes a two course lunch and coffee or tea.

Kaye Adams and Nadia Sawalha: Disaster Chef

Are your family rude about your cook? Do you think cake-bakers come from another planet? Disaster Chef is borne out of MasterChef-winner, Nadia Sawalha’s annoyance with Kaye Adams’ kitchen mishaps. It is a recipe volume for the culinary-challenged to be able to dish up delicious maggot fast. Best friends and television services and facilities presenters Nadia and Kaye are well-known for the ITV daytime show, Loose Women. Nadia rose to fame as Annie Palmer in EastEnders, and Disaster Chef is her sixth cookbook. Kaye, meanwhile, is a highly respected journalist and broadcaster, for ITV and STV and BBC Radio Scotland. Join Nadia and Kaye as they chat about quick and simple recipes, and how not to be a Disaster Chef!

3. 00 pm- 4.00 pm | PS10. 00

Denise Mina and Lin Anderson with James Crawford: Bloody Scotland

In Bloody Scotland twelve of Scotland’s best crime-writers use the sinister side of the country’s build heritage in tales by turns, gripping, chilling and redemptive- exploring the potential of Scotland’s iconic sites. Join writer and broadcaster James Crawford as he talks to two of the twelve: Denise Mina- win of the Short Story Dagger for her story in this collecting, the 2017 McIlvanney Prize and Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year Award( twice !); and Lin Anderson, best known as creator of the forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod series of crime thriller fictions, and her part in founding the Bloody Scotland crime-writing celebration itself. From murder in an Iron Age broch, to a dark psychological thriller set at Edinburgh Castle, uncover the intimate- and deadly- connections between people and places, as James guides you on a dangerous journey into the dark darkness of our nation’s houses- where passion, ferocity, longing and death collide!

4. 30 pm- 5.30 pm | PS8. 50

Peter Cairns: SCOTLAND: A Rewilding Journey

Not so long ago vibrant, wild forest stretched across much of Scotland. Beavers and cranes were at home in extensive wetlands. Salmon and trout filled the rivers. Lynx, wolf and wild boar roamed wooded glades. Today, it’s easy to be seduced by the raw beauty of the Scottish landscape, but it is sadly an ecological darknes of its former self.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Join conservation photographer Peter Cairns, who results the call for a new vision of a wilder Scotland, where woodlands abundant with life are regenerating, rivers lined with alder and willow operate freely, injury peatlands are revitalised and oceans support the great whales: a place where nature works as it should, wildlife prospers and crucially, where people prosper.

6. 00 pm- 7.00 pm | PS8. 50

Read more: glasgowtheatreblog.com

[larryland]

“TROIKA À LA RUSSE” PRESENTED BY CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH MUSIC, SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 2019, 6PM, MAHAIWE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

(Great Barrington, MA…) Ukrainian-born pianist Inna Faliks (“adventurous and passionate”— The New Yorker) and Yehuda Hanani present a program rich in Russian lore, Slavic emotionalism, Soviet-era sarcasm, and dazzling virtuosity: the cello/piano sonatas by Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, and Scriabin’s Sonata No. 5, which pianist Sviatoslav Richter considered the most difficult piece in the entire piano repertory. Rachmaninoff’s sonata is passionate and emotionally torrential, a survivor from the 19th century. Prokofiev, on the other hand, dubbed “bad boy of Russian music” by the establishment for his earlier avant-garde style, has written here a work that is mellow and reflective. Faliks will evoke Scriabin the mystic who believed he was the musical Messiah. It is music of ecstasy and visions. Faliks, who has appeared with Keith Lockhart, Leonard Slatkin and many of the world’s greatest orchestras, has been praised as a “high priestess of the piano, pianist of the highest order, as dramatic and subtle as a great stage actor.” The concert is a journey in Russian landscapes and into the Russian soul.

Inna Faliks

Yehuda Hanani

Inna Faliks, piano; Yehuda Hanani, cello

In the Close Encounters With Music tradition, each performance is followed by an AFTERGLOW reception, with hors d’oeuvres and wine provided by local restaurants.

Audiences can savor the music and fun as well as the culinary connections with us at our thematic concerts and post-concert receptions this season!

TICKET INFORMATION

Tickets, $50 (Orchestra and Mezzanine), $27 (Balcony) and $15 for students, are available at The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center box office, 413-528-0100, mahaiwe.org. Pro-rated subscriptions to the seven concert Close Encounters series are available to purchase on our website, cewm.org or by calling 800-843-0778.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Artistic Director Yehuda Hanani’s charismatic playing and profound interpretations bring him acclaim and re-engagements across the globe. An extraordinary recitalist, he is equally renowned for performances with orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Berlin Radio Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, BBC Welsh Symphony, Buenos Aires Philharmonic, Honolulu Symphony, Jerusalem Symphony, Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, I Solisti Zagreb, and Taipei and Seoul symphonies, among others. He has been a guest at Aspen, Bowdoin, Chautauqua, Marlboro, Yale at Norfolk, Round Top (TX), Great Lakes, and Grand Canyon festivals, Finland Festival, Great Wall (China), Leicester (England), Ottawa, Prades (France), Oslo, and Australia Chamber Music festivals, and has collaborated in performances with preeminent fellow musicians, including Leon Fleisher, Aaron Copland, Christoph Eschenbach, David Robertson, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Itzhak Perlman, Vadim Repin, Dawn Upshaw, Shlomo Mintz, Yefim Bronfman, the Tokyo, Vermeer, Muir, Lark, Avalon and Manhattan quartets, as well as members of the Cleveland, Juilliard, Borromeo, and Emerson. In New York City, Yehuda Hanani has appeared as soloist at Carnegie Hall, the 92nd Street Y, Alice Tully, and the Metropolitan Museum’s Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium. In addition to his pioneering recordings of Charles Valentin Alkan (for which he received a Grand Prix du Disque nomination), Nikolai Miaskovsky, Leo Ornstein, and Eduard Franck, he is one of the originators of thematic programming with commentary that engages and illuminates contemporary audiences.

  “Adventurous and passionate” (The New Yorker) Ukrainian-born American pianist Inna Faliks has established herself as one of the most exciting, communicative and poetic artists of her generation through her commanding performances of standard piano repertoire, as well as genre-bending, interdisciplinary projects. Following acclaimed teenage debuts at the Gilmore Festival and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, she has performed on many of the world’s great stages, with numerous orchestras, in solo appearances, and with conductors such as Leonard Slatkin and Keith Lockhart. Her 2014 all-Beethoven CD release on MSR Classics drew rave reviews: the disc’s pre-viewer on WTT W Chicago called her “High priestess of the piano…as dramatic and subtle as a great stage actor.” Her MSR Classics CD Sound of Verse featured largely unknown music of Boris Pasternak and works of Rachmaninoff and Ravel. Ms. Faliks’ distinguished career has taken her to thousands of recitals and concerti engagements throughout the U.S., Asia, and Europe, performing at Carnegie’s Weill Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Paris’ Salle Cortot, Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Hall and in the festivals of Verbier, Portland International, Music in the Mountains, Brevard, Taos and Chautauqua. Highlights of recent seasons include a 2016 tour of China, with appearances at the Beijing Center for Performing Arts, Shanghai Oriental Arts Theater and Tianjin Grand Theatre; in the Fazioli Series in Italy and Israel’s Tel Aviv Museum. Faliks is founder and curator of the of the Manhattan Arts Council award-winning poetry-music series “Music/Words,” creating performances in collaboration with distinguished poets. She recently co-starred with Downton Abbey star Lesley Nicol in “Admission—One Shilling,” a play for pianist and actor about the life of Dame Myra Hess, the great British pianist. She went on to create a one-woman show, performing at Baruch Performance Center’s “Solo in the City—Jewish Women, Jewish Stars” Festival in NYC, and at the Ebell of Los Angeles, where she gave the premiere of “Polonaise-Fantaisie, Story of a Pianist,” an autobiographical monologue for pianist and actress. A recent collaboration with WordTheatre features today’s leading screen actors in literary readings. Constantly in dialogue with today’s composers, she is the creator of the “Reimagine: Ravel and Beethoven” project, where composers such as Richard Danielpour, Timo Andres and Paola Prestini are writing works for her in response to Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit and Beethoven’s Bagatelles opus 126. Faliks is currently Professor of Piano and Head of Piano at UCLA.

ABOUT CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH MUSIC

Close Encounters With Music stands at the intersection of music, art and the vast richness of Western culture. Entertaining, erudite and lively commentary from founder and Artistic Director Yehuda Hanani puts the composers and their times in perspective to enrich and enlighten the concert experience. Since the inception of its Commissioning Project in 2001, CEWM has worked with the most distinguished composers of our time—Joan Tower, Judith Zaimont, Lera Auerbach, Robert Beaser, Kenji Bunch, Osvaldo Golijov, John Musto, and Paul Schoenfield among others—to create important new works that have already taken their place in the chamber music canon and on CD. A core of brilliant performers includes: pianists, Roman Rabinovich, Soyeon Kate Lee, Walter Ponce and Jeffrey Swann; violinists,Shmuel Ashkenasi, Vadim Gluzman, Julian Rachlin, Peter Zazofsky, Itamar Zorman and Erin Keefe; clarinetists Alexander Fiterstein and Charles Neidich; vocalists Dawn Upshaw, Jennifer Rivera, Danielle Talamantes and Kelley O’Connor; the Muir, Manhattan, Ariel, Vermeer, Escher, Avalon, Hugo Wolf, Dover string quartets; and the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet and guitarist Eliot Fisk. Choreographer David Parsons and actors Richard Chamberlain, Jane Alexander and Sigourney Weaver have also appeared as guests, weaving narration and dance into the fabric of the programs. Close Encounters With Music programs have been presented in cities across the U.S. and Canada—Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Omaha, Cincinnati, Calgary, Detroit, at the Frick Collection and Merkin Hall in New York City, at The Clark in Williamstown, at Tanglewood and in Great Barrington, MA, as well as in Scottsdale, AZ. Summer performances have taken place at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA. This year, the High Peaks Festival moved to the Berkshires to the Berkshire School in Sheffield, MA, where it has continued as the educational mission of Close Encounters With Music with fifty international students in residence for an immersive course of study and performance.

  Artistic Director Yehuda Hanani has led the series since its founding, providing entertaining, erudite commentary that puts the composers and their times in perspective to enrich and amplify the concert experience. Each concert is framed by an introduction before the music, and is followed by an AFTERGLOW reception with an opportunity to meet the musicians. Venues include the landmark Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center and the newly renovated Saint James Place in Great Barrington. To complement the musical offerings, two guest speakers, Haydn scholar Caryl Clark, and composer Tamar Muskal are featured in the Conversations With…. series at the West Stockbridge Historical Society and Casana T-House in Hillsdale, NY.

2018-2019 CALENDAR

Saturday, February 23, 6 PM, Saint James Place

HAYDN SEEK–DISCOVERING THE HUMOR AND WIT IN PAPA HAYDN

Saturday, March 23, 6 PM, Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center

RUSSIAN TROIKA–PROKOFIEV, RACHMANINOFF AND STRAVINSKY

Saturday, April 13, 6 PM, Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center

THE AMERICAN BRASS QUINTET

Saturday, May 18, 6 PM, Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center

THE ESCHER QUARTET–BARBER, MOZART, SCHUBERT QUINTET

Saturday, June 8, 6 PM, Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center

GALA: LIKE FATHER-IN-LAW, LIKE SON-IN-LAW–

ANTONIN DVORAK AND JOSEF SUK

Conversations With…

Sunday, April 28, 3 PM, Casana T-House

TAMAR MUSKAL—COMPOSER, SONGWRITER, FASHIONISTA

Close Encounters with Music Presents “Troika a la Russe” at the Mahaiwe “TROIKA À LA RUSSE” PRESENTED BY CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH MUSIC, SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 2019, 6PM, …

[teknomagi]

Theosophy

~As described in Blavatsky’s book, “The Secret Doctrine“, (1888), root races are “stages in human evolution in the esoteric cosmology“. Some of these races were said to have existed on now-lost continents (Lemuria, Atlantis, etc).

Blavatsky’s root race model was further developed and expounded by later theosophists – most notably by William Scott-Elliot (d. 1930) in his books, “The Story of Atlantis“, (1896) and “The Lost Lemuria“, (1904). And by Annie Besant in her book, “Man: Whence, How and Whither“, (1913).

Both Scott-Elliot and Besant relied heavily upon information from Charles Webster Leadbeater who had obtained it through “astral clairvoyance”.

Further elaboration on the root races was given by Rudolf Steiner, the architect of Anthroposophy, in his work, “Atlantis and Lemuria“, (1913).

The seven root races are noted as:

1) 1st root race – Astral/Etheric

2) 2nd root race – Hyperboreans

3) 3rd root race – Lemurians

4) 4th root race – Atlanteans

5) 5th root race – Aryans

6) 6th root race – Yet to appear

7) 7th root race – Yet to appear

To date, only five root races have appeared on the earth, and the 6th root race is predicted by theosophists to emerge in the 28th century. The 7th root race will only appear several million years in the future.

The 1st Root Race (Astral/Etheric)

The 1st root race (Astral/Etheric) was primarily spiritual, and did not leave any physical remains – they were “ethereal”, and were consequently composed of etheric energy/matter. Their reproduction was accomplished by them dividing similar to that of amoebas. Moreover, at the time of the 1st root race the earth was still cooling; and it is said that the first mountain to rise out of the chaotic primal ocean was “Mount Meru”.

–()–

The 2nd Root Race (Hyperborean)

The 2nd root race lived in Hyperborea which includes what is now Northern Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia, Northern Asia, and Kamchatka. The 2nd root race was colored golden yellow and the climate was tropical in consequence of the earth not having yet developed an axial tilt. The esoteric name of the 2nd root race’s continent is “Plaksha”, and they called themselves the “Kimpurshas”. This root race reproduced by budding; and today, there are no descendents.

–()–

The 3rd Root Race (Lemurian)

The 3rd root race was the first race with physical bodies, and they were described as a black race of three eyed giants who inhabited the “lost continent” of Lemuria. It is believed that this continent existed where the Indian and Pacific oceans now are. Modern theosophists identify Lemuria with the actual ancient supercontinent of Gondwana.

The esoteric name of Lemuria is “Shalmali”, and according to Theosophists, it specifically existed in alarge part of what is now the Indian Ocean, and included Australia and extended into the South Pacific Ocean. The last remnants are the Australian continent, and the islands of New Guinea and Madagascar. It is believed that Lemuria sank gradually and was eventually destroyed by increasing numbers of violently erupting volcanoes.

–()–

The 4th Root Race (Atlantean)

According to Theosophy teachings, the 4th root race was called the “Atlantean” race. It appeared approximately 4,500,000 years ago in Africa, and originated from the 4th sub-race of the Lemurian root race. The Lemurians had colonized a part of Africa that is now inhabited by the Ashanti. Theosophists believe the Atlantean root race was physically procreated by the “Chankshusha Manu”. After the early Atlanteans developed in Africa they migrated and colonized the continent of Atlantis. The esoteric name of Atlantis is “Kusha”, and the Atlantean root race had Mongolian features.

The seven sub-races of the Atlantean root race are:

1) The Rmoahal

2) The Tlavati (Cro-Magnons)

3) The Toltec (a Theosophical term which use for “American Indians”)

4) The Turanian

5) The original Semites (e.g., the Phoenicians, etc)

6) The Akkadians

7) The Mongolian (who migrated to and colonized East Asia)

According to traditional Theosophy, the 4th root race (Atlantean) began with golden brown skin, and because some Atlanteans migrated to the Americas and Asia they gradually evolved into the red American Indian, brown Malayan, and yellow Mongolian races – as well as some groups of what, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was referred to as the “olive-skinned” Mediterranean race.

–()–

The 5th Root Race (Aryan)

Blavatsky asserted that humanity was presently in the 5th or Aryan root race, which Theosophists believe to have emerged from the previous 4th root race (Atlantean). Thus, the origins of the 5th root race are traced back to about 100,000 years ago in Atlantis. When Blavatsky stated the Aryan root race was 1,000,000 years old, she meant that the “souls” of the people that later physically incarnated as the first Aryans, about 100,000 years ago, began their incarnation cycles in the bodies of Atlanteans 1,000,000 years ago.

Theosophists believe that the Aryan root race was physically procreated by the Vaivasvatu Manu – one of the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom. The Aryan root race is white because it originates from a specific tribe of the 4th (original Semite) sub-race of the Atlanteans, which was white skinned and lived in the mountains of north-eastern Atlantis. The closest relatives to this tribe today are the Kabyle. Thus the Aryan root race overlapped the Atlantean root race, and the genesis of the 5th root race occurred towards the end of the time when the 4th root race dwelt in Atlantis.The original Aryan root race was comprised of 9,000 who migrated from Atlantis in 79,797 BC. A small group of these migrants split from the main body and went south to the shore of an inland sea in what was then a verdant and lush Sahara where they founded the “City of the Sun”. This city came to be ruled, about 70,000 BC, by an incarnation of the being who later became known as the “Ascended master, St. Germain”.

The main body of the Aryan migrants continued onwards to an island called the “white island” in the middle of what was then an inland sea in what is now the Gobi desert, where they established the “City of the Bridge”.

The “City of the Bridge” was build directly below the etheric city called “Shamballa” where Theosophists believe the governing deity of Earth, “Sanat Kumara”, dwells. Consequently, the evolution and development of the Aryan root race has been “divinely guided” by the being that Theosophists identify as “The Lord of the World”.

Theosophists believe that a large percentage of the people who live in the time of the period of the 5th root race are part of the 5th root race. However Blavatsky declared that some Semitic peoples have become “degenerate in spirituality”. She further asserted that some groups descended from the Lemurians are “semi-animal creatures”, and these include “the Tasmanians, a portion of the Australians, and a mountain tribe in China.” There are also “considerable numbers of the mixed Lemuro-Atlantean peoples produced by various crossings with such semi-human stocks — e.g. the Wild Men of Borneo, the Veddhas of Ceylon, most of the remaining Australians, Bushmen, Negritos, Andaman Islanders, etc.”

All these groups mentioned by Blavatsky are part of what was in the late 19th and most of the 20th century was called the Australoid race (except for the Bushmen, part of the Capoid race, which were believed by traditional Theosophists to have been descended from the Lemurians).

Blavatsky described the 5th root race: “The Aryan races, for instance, now varying from dark brown, almost black, red-brown-yellow, down to the whitest creamy colour, are yet all of one and the same stock – the 5th root-Race – and spring from one single progenitor, which Hindus call Manu.” Theosophists believe that each root race has a separate and distinct progenitor.

The sub-races of the Aryan 5th root race include:

· 1st sub-race – the Hindu – which migrated from the “City of the Bridge” on the white island in the middle of the Gobi inland sea to India in 60,000 BC

· 2nd sub-race – the Arabian – which migrated from the “City of the Bridge” to Arabia in 40,000 BC

· 3rd sub-race – the Persian – which migrated from the “City of the Bridge” to Persia in 30,000 BC

· 4th sub-race – the Celts – which migrated from the “City of the Bridge” to Western Europe beginning in 20,000 BC (the Mycenaean Greeks are regarded as an offshoot of the Celtic sub-race that colonized Southeast Europe)

· 5th sub-race – the Teutonic – which also migrated from the “City of the Bridge” to what is now Germany beginning in 20,000 BC (the Slavs are regarded as an offshoot of the Teutonic sub-race that colonized Russia and surrounding areas).

· 6th sub-race – According to Blavatsky the 6th sub-race of the Aryan 5th root race will begin to evolve in the area of the United States in the early 21st century. This 6th sub-race of the Aryan root race will be called the Australo-American sub-race and is believed by Theosophists to be now arising from the Teutonic sub-race of the Aryan root race in Australia and in the Western United States (Many individuals of the new sub-race will be born in California.) and its surrounding nearby areas (i.e. the Australo-American sub-race is presently in the process of arising from the Anglo-American, Anglo-Canadian, Anglo-Australian and presumably also the Anglo-New Zealander ethnic groups). The 6th or Australo-American subrace will “possess certain psychic powers, and for this the pituitary body will be developed, thus giving an additional sense, that of cognising astral emotions in the ordinary waking consciousness. We may say that in general the 6th sub-race will bring in wisdom and intuition, blending all that is best in the intelligence of the 5th sub-race and the emotion of the 4th.”

· 7th sub-race – these will be the survivors of the “new great cataclysm” that will soon destroy the Aryan root race. Thus, the Seventh sub-race has yet to come into existence; they still do not exist, but they will.

It is believed by Theosophists that the root races evolve from the sub-races of the same number; thus the 6th root race will evolve from the 6th sub-race of the 5th or Aryan root race, just as the 5th or Aryan root race evolved from the 5th sub-race (the Semitic) of the 4th or Atlantean root race 100,000 years ago.

–()–

The 6th Root Race

According to C W Leadbeater, a colony will be established in Baja California by the Theosophical Society under the guidance of the “Masters of the Ancient Wisdom”. This will take place in the 28th century for the intensive selective eugenic breeding of the 6th root race.

The Master Morya will physically incarnate in order to be the Manu, or “progenitor”, of this new root race. It is further believed that, by that time, the world will be powered by nuclear power and there will be a single world government which is led by a person who will be the reincarnation of Julius Caesar.

Further, tens millennia in the future, a new continent will arise in the Pacific Ocean that will be the home of the 6th root race. California, west of the San Andreas Fault, will separate from the mainland of North America and will become the “Island of California” off the eastern coast of the new continent.

–()–

The 7th Root Race

In time, several million years into the future, the 7th root race will rise from the 7th sub-race of the 6th root race on the future continent that the 6th root race will be living on that will arise from the Pacific Ocean. The continent they will inhabit is esoterically called “Pushkara”.

–()–

Further Reading

For more information refer to, “The Secret Doctrine“, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, 1888.

Via http://www.unariunwisdom.com

[3ezentrum3-blog]

10 Celebrity Cancer Survivors Who Have Inspired Others

There can be no doubt that disease is scourge on the world; consistently it ends the lives of immense quantities of individuals over the globe. It has no partiality, striking down youthful and old, high contrast, rich and poor alike. In that capacity, it additionally strikes our valued famous people taking their lives in rise to numbers.

Be that as it may, likewise, similarly as with all instances of tumor, numerous Celebs get past their experience and return as solid as ever. The main genuine distinctive with famous people that win their battle and survive growth is that they can be seen back in the general population eye and are a reasonable motivation to other individuals who are enduring to not surrender expectation and battle back and ideally win the fight against these different types of tumor.

Here are only Ten of the numerous VIP tumor survivors who are demonstrating that it is conceivable to win the growth battle.

1. Kylie Minogue

Kylie Minogue, the acclaimed Australian celebrity, who is known for her provocative music recordings and sultry voice particularly in the overall crush "Can't Get You Out of My Head" likewise had a session with bosom growth in 2005.

She is presently right now going away and in the previous year has distributed a youngsters' book and came back to both the show and Broadway organize.

All through her fight she stayed solid, openly expressing that with the guide of loved ones she was resolved to thump bosom tumor and pick her life where she cleared out off before her determination, it is said that untold quantities of young ladies were spared by early identification as an immediate consequence of the exposure around her story.

2. Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, a VIP because of his status as fellow benefactor of Apple, was determined to have pancreatic disease in 2004. In spite of the fact that he is most unmistakable for the Apple mark, Jobs additionally is an individual from the Board of Directors of Walt Disney and was CEO of Pixar Animation until the point that Disney gained the stock.

In spite of the way that pancreatic malignancy is typically inoperable, Jobs is presently disappearing in the wake of experiencing a radical new strategy in which part of the pancreas is expelled [Pancreatic growth treatment].

Despite the fact that there has been theory about his wellbeing, Apple reports Jobs still contributes intensely to choices and is abating from disease.

3. Spear Armstrong

Spear Armstrong is notable for his fight with testicular malignancy in 1996 and was given a 2% shot of surviving the tumor. This is on the grounds that it had spread to his cerebrum, lungs, and stomach area.

Not exclusively did Armstrong beat the chances and effectively enter abatement however he likewise won the Tour de France not once, but rather, seven times since having a 98% shot of capitulating to tumor. [Testicular malignancy cure]

Despite the fact that he resigned in 2005 from focused bicycling it appears he can't ward off as he came back to the game in January of 2009.

4. Nelson Mandela

Political figure Nelson Mandela was likewise determined to have prostate growth in 2001 in the wake of being discharged from jail and completion the Apartheid administration in South Africa.

Now he resigned from people in general eye and entered radiation for his malignancy which was effective as he has now been disappearing since 2004 [Radiation treatment].

Mandela is making the most of his serene existence with family and can credit a Noble Peace Prize to the rundown of honors he has gotten.

5. Fran Drescher

Fran Drescher, known for her nasal vocal characteristics in numerous films and featuring as TV's The Nanny, needed to put her life on hold when she was determined to have organize 1 uterine malignancy in June of 2000.

Despite the fact that it was misdiagnosed for around two years, when it was found, luckily, it was still in organize 1, enabling her to experience a radical hysterectomy method and now carries on with her existence without growth out of sight. Fran stood up about her fight in a book title Cancer Schmancer.

6. Quality Wilder

Quality Wilder, who a great many people know affectionately as Willy Wonka from the Chocolate Factory motion picture, was determined to have lymphoma, (non-Hodgkins) in 1999 however could beat the strain and has been disappearing and carrying on with a private life since 2000.

His better half Gilda Radner passed far from ovarian disease [signs of ovarian cancer] and he has been a vocal backer of growth philanthropies since his recuperation. Likewise, since he went into abatement for his malignancy he has distributed a few books including the 2007 discharge My French Whore and in 2008 The Women Who Wouldn't.

7. Kathy Bates

Performing artist Kathy Bates, who is best known for her work in Misery for which she won an Academy Award, has pursued a private fight with ovarian disease in 2003 yet since it spilled to the press she has reported that she could make a full recuperation and is currently over five years into reduction.

Bates keeps on flying up in motion pictures as the oppressive lovable characters she is known for; with appearances as of late in movies, for example, PS I Love You, Bee Movie, and The Family That Preys.

8. Suzanne Somers

Suzanne Somers, known as the interminable excellence and writer of a few self improvement guides and also the attractive advance mother in Step by Step in the mid nineties, combat bosom tumor in 2001.

Not at all like a great many people she get medical procedure and radiation treatment however avoided chemotherapy for elective malignancy treatment that included mistletoe infusions.

From that point forward she has been a devoted supporter of bio-indistinguishable hormone substitution treatment and furthermore penned a smash hit novel on the theme entitled Ageless.

9. Olivia Newton John

The vast majority perceive Olivia Newton John as Sandy in Grease or for her hit single Let's Get Physical,but John presently invests her energy crusading and bringing issues to light of bosom malignancy.

In 1992 she was determined to have the ailment when the subject was as yet forbidden in popular music culture. From that point forward she has actually changed her tune discharging music to inspire ladies' spirits and giving a liberal segment or continues to bosom growth establishments.

John keeps on raising disease mindfulness and discharge collections and as of late was seen in front of an audience at Sound Relief in help of the Victoria wildfire casualties in Australia.

10. Christina Applegate

The latest VIP to be profiled freely for her episode of disease, Christina Applegate, known for her part in Married with Children and in a rash of motion pictures, was determined to have growth in August of 2008.

In spite of the fact that the disease was gotten early and just in one bosom she found that she conveys the quality change that would make the growth emerge again and chose to have a twofold mastectomy.

She is currently disease free and experiencing reconstructive medical procedure. The ongoing 2009 People magazine voted her the most Beautiful Person of the Year and the creation of her new Television sitcom "Samantha Who?" has proceeded with generation of course.

Neelima Reddy, writer of this article composes for OnlineCancerGuide.com. Online Cancer blog is committed to following and posting data on the advances in the investigation of diseases, yet in addition different parts of tumor related issues that worries dominant part of individuals. For more data visit Cancer Blog.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/master/Neelima_Reddy/495452

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3372519

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Art Movements

X-radiograph of Edgar Degas’s “Arabesque over the Right Leg, Left Arm in Front” (© Fitzwilliam Museum)

Art Movements is a weekly collection of news, developments, and stirrings in the art world. Subscribe to receive these posts as a weekly newsletter.

The Guggenheim Museum withdrew three works from its upcoming exhibition Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World, following a public outcry from animal rights activists. The museum attributed their decision to pull works by Peng Yu and Sun Yuan, Huang Yong Ping, and Xu Bing, to “explicit and repeated threats of violence.” An online petition objecting to the works has so far garnered over 750,000 supporters.

Jean Nouvel dismissed claims of worker abuse and exploitation at the Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi as an “old question.” “They have the same conditions, even better conditions, than those I see in other countries,” the architect told the Anglo-American Press Association. “We checked and it was fine. We saw no problem.” A 2015 report by Human Rights Watch concluded that migrant laborers working on Saadiyat Island’s Louvre and Guggenheim museum projects were living in squalid conditions, subjected to wage theft and underpayment, and routinely had their passports confiscated.

A series of X-rays taken by conservationists at the Fitzwilliam Museum revealed Edgar Degas‘s use of wine bottle corks, shop-bought armatures, and old floor boards for his wax sculptures of dancers.

Dissident cartoonist Ramón Esono Ebalé (aka Jamón y Queso) was arrested in Equatorial Guinea. The artist, who has produced work criticizing dictator Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, had travelled back to his home country to renew his passport.

Richard Rogers challenged Prince Charles to engage in a public architecture debate after claiming he knows of five developers who have privately consulted the prince out of fear of his potential opposition. A spokesman for the prince of Wales denied the architect’s claims. In 2015, the Guardian published the so-called “black spider” memos, a number of letters sent by Charles to British government ministers and politicians advocating his stance on a number of socio-political issues — a violation of the monarchy’s tradition of political neutrality.

Nicole Eisenman‘s sculpture “Sketch for a Fountain” (2017) was vandalized for a second time. The work was spray painted with a swastika and a phallus on the eve of Germany’s 2017 election, in which the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) made historic gains in the Bundestag.

Hurvin Anderson, “Is it OK to be black?” (2016), oil on canvas, 130 x 130 cm (courtesy the artist)

The 2017 Turner Prize exhibition opened at the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull. This year’s nominees are Hurvin Anderson, Andrea Büttner, Lubaina Himid and Rosalind Nashashibi.

A Manhattan district judge dismissed a lawsuit filed against London’s National Gallery over the ownership of Henri Matisse’s 1908 portrait of Margarete “Greta” Moll.

A group of amateur archaeologists discovered a Roman mosaic in Boxford, England. Part of a larger villa complex, the mosaic is thought to depict Bellerophon, Hercules, and Cupid.

Developers filed an application to destroy the last remaining example of Victorian slum housing in Leicester, England.

The UK’s oldest postcard firm, J Salmon, will close in December. Founded in 1880, the firm remained a family business for five generations.

Anger Management, a pop-up store organized by Marilyn Minter and Andrianna Campbell, opened at the Brooklyn Museum. Featuring works designed by artists including John Baldessari, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, and Glenn Ligon, the store features objects dedicated to themes of “resistance, hope, and protest.”

The empty lot on the corner of Bedford and North 1st Street in Williamsburg — known to locals for its eccentric dioramas of stuffed animals — was listed for sale.

Transactions

Wisdom King of Passion (Aizen Myōō) (1300s), Kamakura period (1333–1392) to Nanbokuchō period (1336–92), hanging scroll; ink, color, gold and cut gold on silk, 102 x 60.5 cm (courtesy Cleveland Museum of Art)

Agnes Gund donated works by Brice Marden, Robert Colescott, Claes Oldenburg, Donald Sultan, and Adja Yunkers to the Cleveland Museum of Art. The museum also announced a number of other recent acquisitions, including a portrait by Joseph Wright of Derby and a medieval painting of Aizen Myōō, one of the Five Great Wisdom Kings and protectors of the Five Wisdom Buddhas.

The Peabody Essex Museum acquired the Andover Newton Theological School’s collection of Native American and native Hawaiian objects. The museum has committed to identifying possible ownership of the artifacts in compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990.

Cheryl and Haim Saban donated $50 million to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

Yahoo’s cofounder, Jerry Yang, and his wife, Akiko Yamazaki, donated $25 million toward the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco‘s expansion project.

Peter Fu donated $12 million to the McGill School of Architecture.

The Akron Art Museum received an $8-million grant from the Knight Foundation.

Susan and Stephen Wilson donated $1.5 million to the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University.

Gerhard Richter plans to donate a new, multi-part artwork to the city of Münster, Germany.

The Museum of Fine Arts of Montreal acquired Henry Moore’s “Three Piece Reclining Figure No. 1” (1961–62).

The Woodson Research Center at the Fondren Library at Rice University acquired the archive of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.

David Hockney donated his 32-panel painting “The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire” (2011) to the Center Pompidou.

The Vivien Leigh collection sold at Sotheby’s for £2.2 million (~$3 million) — a figure five times higher than the pre-sale estimate. Highlights included a sketch of the actress by Augustus John, a watercolor by Roger Kemble Furse, and a still life painting by Winston Churchill.

Roger Kemble Furse, “Vivien Leigh Reading with Tissy” (nd), watercolor, pen, ink, and pencil on paper (courtesy Sotheby’s)

Transitions

Gerard Vaughan announced his retirement as director of the National Gallery of Australia.

Linda Blumberg will step down as executive director of the Art Dealers Association of America at the end of the year.

Augustus Casely-Hayford was appointed director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art.

Kathy Halbreich was appointed executive director of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.

Marko Daniel was appointed director of the Joan Miró Foundation.

Thomas Sokolowski was appointed director of the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University.

Nicola Trezzi was appointed director and chief curator of the Center for Contemporary Art Tel Aviv.

Kwame Kwei-Armah was appointed artistic director of the Young Vic in London.

Colin B. Bailey was elected to the Richard Diebenkorn Foundation’s board of directors.

Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi was appointed head of the International Biennial Association.

Rendering of the Studio Museum in Harlem’s new building, facade view from 125th Street (courtesy Adjaye Associates)

Diane Wright was appointed curator of glass at the Toledo Museum of Art.

Douglas Brinkley was appointed the New-York Historical Society’s first presidential historian.

The Meadows School of the Arts at SMU announced new faculty appointments, including the Roberto Conduru as professor of Art History.

Loring Randolph was appointed the Frieze art fair’s artistic director of the Americas.

Former Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Carlos Picón was appointed director of Colnaghi’s new New York gallery.

The Studio Museum in Harlem unveiled the first renderings for its new building.

Canada’s first-ever National Holocaust Monument was opened in Ottawa.

The American Museum of Natural History announced a $14.5 million renovation of the Hall of Northwest Coast Indians.

Architecture firm Yamasaki will reopen under the leadership of Robert Szantner, a longtime employee of the late architect Minoru Yamasaki (1912–1986). Szantner teamed up with fellow employees to purchase the firm’s intellectual property out of receivership.

Two museums dedicated to Yves Saint Laurent (1936–2008) will open in Paris and Marrakech next month.

Accolades

The Corning Museum of Glass selected Karen LaMonte for its 2018 Specialty Glass Artist-in-Residence.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University were awarded the inaugural Sotheby’s Prize.

Obituaries

The July 1977 issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland, with a cover by Basil Gogos (via Flickr/Toho Scope)

Marc Balakjian (1938–2017), artist.

Katherine M. Bonniwell (1947–2017), Life magazine publisher.

Derek Bourgeois (1941–2017), composer.

Charles Bradley (1948–2017), soul singer and songwriter.

Robert Delpire (1926–2017), editor, curator, and gallery owner.

Ritha Devi (1924–2017), Indian classical dancer and teacher.

Basil Gogos (1929–2017), artist. Best known for his portraits of movie monsters and villains.

Billy Hatton (1941–2017), guitarist and singer. Founding member of the Fourmost.

Hugh Hefner (1926–2017), publisher and founder of Playboy.

Marian Horosko (1925–2017), ballet dancer and historian.

Albert Innaurato (1947–2017), playwright.

John Jack (1933–2017), jazz producer and promoter.

Myrna Lamb (1930–2017), feminist playwright.

Vann Molyvann (1926–2017), architect.

Zuzana Ruzickova (1927–2017), harpsichordist and Holocaust survivor.

David Shepherd (1931–2017), artist and wildlife conservationist.

Albert Speer Jr. (1934–2017), architect. Son of Nazi architect Albert Speer.

Pete Turner (1934–2017), photographer.

The post Art Movements appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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The master nursing essay help writing service 8023

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[larryland]

\resenting String and Piano Virtuosos and Stars of the Chamber Music and Vocal Worlds in Concerts at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington Fall, Winter, Spring 2018-2019

(Great Barrington, MA…) Embarking on its 27th year of presenting outstanding chamber music with lively commentary, the Berkshires’ premier chamber music organization Close Encounters With Music continues its second quarter-century with a new season of commemorations and discoveries, world-renowned musicians and extraordinary new faces, and an expansion of original programming of classical, contemporary and cutting-edge music.

Humor and gastronomy figure large in the upcoming season.  Rossini was just as recognized for his culinary talent as he was for his musical talent and exhibited his wit in both realms, naming many works after foods in hilarious onomatopoetic parodies.  Schubert created a mouthwatering feast for the ears with his “Trout” Quintet. Haydn could have been a stand-up comedian if he hadn’t been the musical genius he was, and injects jokes to delight and surprise.  Dvorak longed for his Czech beer while composing and teaching in America.

Audience members are invited to savor the music and the fun as well as the culinary connections with the trademark thematic concerts and receptions. Bringing to life the music selected this season are the Escher Quartet, which has risen meteorically to the highest echelons of the string quartet firmament; pianists Inna Faliks, Max Levinson, Soyeon Kate Lee and Roman Rabinovich; violinists Irina Muresanu, Hagai Shaham, Peter Zazofsky and Itamar Zorman; voicalists Emily Marvosh and Sonja Tengblad; the outstanding American Brass Quintet, and many more CEWM returning favorites and brilliant performers making their debuts.  From October to June, it’s a season not to be missed!

Artistic Director Yehuda Hanani has led the series since its founding, providing entertaining, erudite commentary that puts the composers and their times in perspective to enrich and amplify the concert experience. Each concert is framed by an introduction before the music, and is followed by an AFTERGLOW reception with an informal “talk-back” and an opportunity to meet the musicians. Venues include the landmark Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center and the newly renovated Saint James Place in Great Barrington.  To complement the musical offerings, two guest speakers, Haydn scholar Caryl Clark, and composer Tamar Muskal are featured in the Conversations With…. series at the West Stockbridge Historical Society and Casana T-House in Hillsdale, NY.

2018-2019 SEASON

A ROSSINI EXTRAVAGANZA!

Saturday, October 13, 6 PM

Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, Great Barrington, MA

Tickets: $50 (Orchestra and Mezzanine) and $27 (Balcony), Students $15

The season opens Saturday, October 13, at 6 PM celebrating the 150th anniversary of the death of the great Italian composer Gioachino Rossini with an evening illustrating the wide range of his majestic, hilariously wicked and sparkling music—arias and duets from Tancredi, Adina, Cenerentola, and selections from his brilliant piano music Péchés des vieillesse (Sins of Old Age) composed at the end of his life.  The enchanting contralto Emily Marvosh is joined by soprano Sonja Tengblad (“crystalline tone and graceful musicality—Boston Globe) in a romp through vocal works, that will also include the glorious Barcarolle by Jacques Offenbach, whose music Rossini championed.  Pianist Roman Rabinovich, winner of the 2008 Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv, presents some of the fiendishly challenging Péchés that reveal a portrait of a bon vivant who pushed humor, gastronomy—and technique—to their limits.  A finishing flourish will be a performance of a string quartet written originally at the tender age of twelve!

A Taste of Rossini! Pre-Concert Rossini-themed Reception will take place for Patrons and Season Subscribers.

Sonja Tengblad

Roman Rabinovich

Emily Marvosh

Emily Marvosh, contralto; Sonja Tengblad, soprano; Roman Rabinovich, piano

MOZART AND SCHUBERT—MARZIPAN AND THE “TROUT”

Saturday, December 8, 6 PM

Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, Great Barrington, MA

Tickets: $50 (Orchestra and Mezzanine) and $27 (Balcony), Students $15

Two great melodists, two young geniuses in one brilliant evening: Bubbly, like fine Champagne, Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet is one of the most joyous pieces ever written.  A landmark of classical music, it weaves a net of enchantment with its catchy melodies and fresh exuberance. This piece has it all—elegance, beauty and irrepressible good humor; music from the pen of a 22 year old prodigy inspired by the tragic-comic death of a fish that captures the glories of Nature!  The program also features Mozart’s miraculous Quartet in E-flat Major, a reminder that the unearthly beauties of Mozart defy explanation. An all-star ensemble that joins artistic director Yehuda Hanani includes pianist Max Levinson (“Brilliant…He uses his wide spectrum of pianistic mechanics for altogether poetic ends, touching the listener deeply and often” –Los Angeles Times); violinist Itamar Zorman (winner of the Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition); and David Grossman, double bass of the New York Philharmonic.

Max Levinson, piano; Itamar Zorman, violin; Karine Lethiec, viola; Yehuda Hanani, cello; David Grossman, double bass

HAYDN SEEK—HUMOR IN THE WORKS OF PAPA HAYDN

Saturday, February 23, 6 PM

Saint James Place, Great Barrington, MA

$38 general seating, Students $15

What constitutes a musical—or any other kind of—joke?  Humor explodes our expectations and takes us by surprise. Three Haydn string quartets, including his “Joke” Quartet, provide an evening of ambiguous beginnings and fake-out endings; mismatched dialogues between instruments, misunderstandings, musical pratfalls and pretend memory lapses and digressions. What about those embarrassing long pauses, that daring modulation, that unexpected excursion into strange tonalities….? It’s all intentional and part of the fun! From the composer of the “Surprise” Symphony who wrote a cat’s meow into another comes a slightly tipsy “high” as well as “low” program of subversive humor.  The audiences of Haydn’s day loved the kinds of things he put into his music as do present-day listeners. Yehuda Hanani and colleagues will lead us through this night of musical comedy with their expert playing as well as comments. Call it a master class in musical humor.

Hagai Shaham and Xiao-Dong Wang, violin; Dov Scheindlin, viola; Yehuda Hanani, cell

Troika à la Russe—Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Scriabin

Saturday, March 23, 6 PM

Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, Great Barrington, MA

Tickets: $50 (Orchestra and Mezzanine) and $27 (Balcony), Students $15

Ukrainian-born pianist Inna Faliks (“adventurous and passionate”— The New Yorker) and Yehuda Hanani present a program rich in Russian lore, Slavic emotionalism, Soviet-era sarcasm, and dazzling virtuosity: the cello/piano sonatas by Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, and Scriabin’s Sonata No. 5, which pianist Sviatoslav Richter considered the most difficult piece in the entire piano repertory.  Rachmaninoff’s sonata is passionate and emotionally torrential, a survivor from the 19th century.  Prokofiev, on the other hand, dubbed “bad boy of Russian music” by the establishment for his earlier avant-garde style, has written here a work that is mellow and reflective.  Faliks will evoke Scriabin the mystic who believed he was the musical Messiah. It is music of ecstasy and visions. Faliks, who has appeared with Keith Lockhart, Leonard Slatkin and many of the world’s greatest orchestras, has been praised as a “high priestess of the piano, pianist of the highest order, as dramatic and subtle as a great stage actor.” The concert is a journey in Russian landscapes and into the Russian soul.

Inna Faliks, piano; Yehuda Hanani, cello

PRESTIGE PERFORMANCE: THE AMERICAN BRASS QUINTET

Saturday, April 13, 6 PM

Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, Great Barrington, MA

Tickets: $50 (Orchestra and Mezzanine) and $27 (Balcony), Students $15

The American Brass Quintet is peerless among brass ensembles, sculpting new repertoire and setting the artistic standards for the modern classical brass ensemble. With over sixty recordings and tours around the world many times over, they’ve made it their mission to treat both past and present with equal zeal. The Quintet evening begins with a staple of Romantic brass music—Victor Ewald’s Brass Quintet No. 2, from late 1800’s Russia. Common Heroes, Uncommon Land, a recent commission through the Juilliard School, where they have been in residence for three decades, is a work with an Americana sound by Philip Lasser requiring each player to recite poetry.  Three Fantasies in Church Modes by Thomas Soltzer, a European priest and court musician, dates back to the 15th century.  The night ends with Eric Ewazen’s engaging Frost Fire which evokes from the composer adjectives such as “gentle,” “mysterious,” “playful, sonorous and waltz-like” and “heroic and dynamic.” The New York Times has written that “among North American brass ensembles none is more venerable than the American Brass Quintet.”  Prepare to be “blown” away!

Kevin Cobb and Louis Hanzlik. trumpet; Eric Reed, horn; Michael Powell, trombone; John Rojak, bass trombone

THE ART OF THE QUARTET—THE ESCHER STRING QUARTET

Saturday, May 18, 6PM

Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, Great Barrington, MA

Tickets: $50 (Orchestra and Mezzanine) and $27 (Balcony), Students $15

Acclaimed for musical insights and rare tonal beauty, and championed by the Emerson String Quartet, the Escher has toured extensively throughout the U.S., Europe, Australia and Asia.  They served as BBC New Generation Artists and gave debuts at the BBC Proms, are winners of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and perform as Artists of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.  For this program, they bring their special sheen to Mozart’s powerfully compelling String Quartet No. 23 in F major (third of the “Prussian Quartets” and to Samuel Barber’s spellbinding Adagio for Strings. They are joined by Yehuda Hanani for the incomparable Schubert Quintet, regarded as one of the greatest compositions in all of chamber music, other-worldly in its beauty and miraculous melodies.

“Clearly one of the finest quartets of their generation” —The Guardian

“Mr. Hanani was rightly rewarded with cheers from the audience.”                       —The New York Times

The Escher String Quartet: Adam Barnett-Hart, violin; Danbi Um, violin; Pierre La Pointe, viola; Brook Speltz, cello, with Yehuda Hanani, cello

Like Father-in-Law, Like Son-in-Law: Antonin Dvořák and Josef Suk

Saturday, June 8, 6 PM

Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, Great Barrington, MA

Tickets: $50 (Orchestra and Mezzanine) and $27 (Balcony), Students $15

Nationalist composer Dvořák rose to fame in Prague, paving the way for his favorite student and later son-in-law Josef Suk.  There was great closeness and spiritual kinship between them, and both were championed by Brahms (who confessed to envying Dvořák his melodic gifts!)  Dvořák’s Rondo and Suk’s “Balada” and “Pisen Lasky” love song are rarely performed gems, and the more familiar Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major by Dvořák is acknowledged as one of the masterpieces in the form, along with those of Schumann and Brahms.  In fact, Dvořák assimilated Brahms’ techniques and methods, while his exuberance, earthiness and the warmth of his sublime melodies ennoble Bohemian folklore. This program will transport listeners to those cobbled streets of the old town and back to an era when music served as the voice of the Czech people.  An all-star ensemble of superb performers brings their extraordinary virtuosity and musicianship to this joyous and heart-warming repertoire.

Soyeon Kate Lee, piano; Irina Muresanu and Peter Zazofsky, violin; Michael Strauss, viola; Yehuda Hanani, cello

In the Close Encounters With Music tradition, each performance is followed by an AFTERGLOW reception, with hors d’oeuvres and wine provided by local restaurants.

MORE THAN MUSIC:

Close Encounters With Music continues its listen and talk series, Conversations With… intimate and stimulating afternoons of music, literature and exchanges of ideas with notable performers, critics, authors, and cultural personages.

Reconsidering the Legacy of Haydn—Caryl Clark

Sunday, November 11, 3 PM

West Stockbridge Historical Society Old Town Hall, West Stockbridge MA

Tickets: $20 includes light refreshment

Is Haydn, Father of the symphony and the string quartet, the underappreciated Classical composer, a duller, rougher antecedent to Mozart and Beethoven?  (The answer is “Hardly”!) Caryl Clark, Professor of Music History and Culture at the University of Toronto, will provide a window into the breadth and greatness of his oeuvres—his sacred music, comic operas, quartets and symphonies as well as the changing social, cultural, and political spheres in which he studied and worked. Take a virtual tour of his Burgenland and nearby western Hungary where the palace of Eszterháza is located. Author of Haydn’s Jews: Representation and Reception on the Operatic Stage (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and commissioning editor for the Cambridge Companion to Haydn (Cambridge University Press, 2005), she is currently writing a book on Haydn, Orpheus and the French Revolution, and co-edited the just published Cambridge Haydn Encyclopedia. This talk complements our February Haydn concert.

Tamar Muskal—Composer, Songwriter, Fashionista

Sunday, April 28, 3 PM

Casana T-House, Hillsdale, NY

Tickets: $20 includes light refreshment

Undaunted by new forms or new frontiers, Tamar Muskal has written everything from pop songs to symphonies to her new opera-in-progress, set in the world of high fashion, that tells the story of Diana Vreeland and Andre Leon Talley and examines the constant rises and falls of the industry.  Her score for the historic, silent, film about the Mexican revolution, a song cycle commissioned by ASCAP and music for a documentary film about finding a cure for blindness (narrated by Robert Redford), exemplify the diverse material and platforms she uses. Her work “The Yellow Wind,” based on the novel by Israeli author David Grossman, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Ms. Muskal has been the recipient of many other awards from institutions such as ASCAP, Meet-the-Composer, American Music Center and the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University and a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, with commissions from the 92nd Street Y and the Library of Congress as well as from orchestras and ensembles—including Close Encounters With Music!

Close Encounters on the Radio/Podcast

Close Encounters With Music concerts are broadcast on WMHT-FM, and audiences are encouraged to tune in to the new weekly broadcasts of “Classical Music According to Yehuda” on WAMC Northeast Radio or visit www.wamc.org for over 200 podcasts.

ABOUT CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH MUSIC

Close Encounters With Music stands at the intersection of music, art and the vast richness of Western culture. Entertaining, erudite and lively commentary from founder and Artistic Director Yehuda Hanani puts the composers and their times in perspective to enrich and enlighten the concert experience. Since the inception of its Commissioning Project in 2001, CEWM has worked with the most distinguished composers of our time—Joan Tower, Judith Zaimont, Lera Auerbach, Robert Beaser, Kenji Bunch, Osvaldo Golijov, John Musto, and Paul Schoenfield among others—to create important new works that have already taken their place in the chamber music canon and on CD. A core of brilliant performers includes: pianists, Roman Rabinovich, Soyeon Kate Lee, Walter Ponce and Jeffrey Swann; violinists,Shmuel Ashkenasi, Vadim Gluzman, Julian Rachlin, Peter Zazofsky, Itamar Zorman and Erin Keefe; clarinetists Alexander Fiterstein and Charles Neidich; vocalists Dawn Upshaw, Jennifer Rivera, Danielle Talamantes and Kelley O’Connor; the Muir, Manhattan, Ariel, Vermeer, Escher, Avalon, Hugo Wolf, Dover string quartets; and the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet and guitarist Eliot Fisk. Choreographer David Parsons and actors Richard Chamberlain, Jane Alexander and Sigourney Weaver have also appeared as guests, weaving narration and dance into the fabric of the programs. Close Encounters With Music programs have been presented in cities across the U.S. and Canada—Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Omaha, Cincinnati, Calgary, Detroit, at the Frick Collection and Merkin Hall in New York City, at The Clark in Williamstown, at Tanglewood and in Great Barrington, MA, as well as in Scottsdale, AZ. Summer performances have taken place at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA.  This year, the High Peaks Festival moved to the Berkshires to the Berkshire School in Sheffield, MA, where it has continued as the educational mission of Close Encounters With Music with fifty international students in residence for an immersive course of study and performance.

TICKET INFORMATION

Tickets, $50 (Orchestra and Mezzanine), $27 (Balcony) and $15 for students, are available at The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center box office, 413.528.0100. Subscriptions are $250 ($225 for seniors) for the series of 7 concerts. Tickets are available for purchase at www.mahaiwe.org. Season subscriptions are available on our website, www.cewm.org.

2018-2019 CALENDAR

Saturday, October 13, 6 PM, The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center A ROSSINI EXTRAVAGANZA!

Saturday, December 8, 6 PM, The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center MOZART AND SCHUBERT–MARZIPAN AND THE “TROUT”

Saturday, February 23, 6 PM, Saint James Place HAYDN SEEK–DISCOVERING THE HUMOR AND WIT IN PAPA HAYDN

Saturday, March 23, 6 PM, Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center RUSSIAN TROIKA–PROKOFIEV, RACHMANINOFF AND STRAVINSKY

Saturday, April 13, 6 PM, Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center THE AMERICAN BRASS QUINTET

Saturday, May 18, 6 PM, Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center THE ESCHER QUARTET–BARBER, MOZART, SCHUBERT QUINTET

Saturday, June 8, 6 PM, Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center GALA: LIKE FATHER-IN-LAW, LIKE SON-IN-LAW– ANTONIN DVORAK AND JOSEF SUK

Conversations With…

Sunday, November 11, 3 PM, West Stockbridge Historical Society Old Town Hall

RECONSIDERING THE LEGACY OF HADYN

Sunday, April 28, 3 PM, Casana T-House

TAMAR MUSKAL—COMPOSER, SONGWRITER, FASHIONISTA

The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center is at 14 Castle Street, Great Barrington, MA.

Saint James Place is at 352 Main Street, Great Barrington, MA.

A reception with light refreshments follows each concert December through May.  Patrons and subscribers are invited to a pre-concert Rossini-themed reception on October 13.

“Great music played with great heart… There’s a palpable mystique about Close Encounters concerts. The evening never failed to fascinate!…” –The Berkshire Eagle

“The Berkshires are home to distinguished cultural events, but none so brilliant, perhaps, as the chamber music series Close Encounters With Music.” —Berkshire Record

“…A stunning, majestic resolution, a brilliant ending to an unforgettable encounter with music.  Bravi!” —The Berkshire Edge

“RESCUING NEGLECTED COMPOSERS: Mr. Hanani’s rich tone and thoughtful phrasing made a powerful case for it [Eduard Franck Sonata for Cello and Piano] in a performance that had a convincing subtext: The 19th-century cello repertory is not so vast that cellists (or their admirers) should neglect works this opulently lyrical….Soulful, fiery performance of Mendelssohn Piano Trio No. 2.”—New York Times

“STUNNER CLOSES SEASON! Though Hanani, Prutsman and Upshaw all performed with that rare combination of mutual understanding and technical finesse which makes for the most satisfying chamber music, Hanani deserves special recognition for his astute program choices.”—Albany Times Union

“The program provided stellar performances…played with passion and pathos…”—Arizona Republic

“…To experience the finest music ever written, presented by leading musicians of the day, in the inviting atmosphere of the Berkshires, is the best of all possible worlds. . . The quality of Lincoln Center with an intimacy that exceeds it….”

—Yehuda Hanani, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

  Close Encounters with Music Launches Season Twenty-Seven \resenting String and Piano Virtuosos and Stars of the Chamber Music and Vocal Worlds in Concerts at the…