I would like to contribute to FFF (Fridays for Future) in my own way: by sharing one concrete action per week that YOU can do, and which I have done, for combating climate change.
FFF14: Vote for environmentalists in elections!
WHY: The Finnish local elections are beginning next week, and for some reason they often have a lower turnup than other elections in Finland, only 58,8% voted in 2017 to be exact. This is however strange, as local elections are the ones that affect your living and hometown and your immediate environment the most! And through voting for candidates and political parties who care about the environment, we can in a easy way take action and a stand for our environment.
WHAT CAN I DO: VOTE! And I would advice to vote for someone who openly values our environment. Read about different candidates and read also what the party they represent stands for. In Finland we have also many voting aid applications (“vaalikone”), in which you can fill in what you think is important, and the applications will give you suggestions on candidates who have similar responses as you. Elections are also important for preserving culture, so keep that in mind as well!
HOW:In Finland you can either vote easily in advance 26.5-8.6 at almost any voting place or on the voting day 13.6 at your predetermined voting place. If you live abroad (like me) you can vote in advance 2-5.6.
Japanese musician Nakahashi Yuki won second prize in the composition division at the Geneva International Music Competition on Wednesday.
The prestigious competition is viewed as a gateway to a professional career for young musicians.
The prizewinners were selected from among 97 contestants from 37 countries.
Works by Nakahashi and the two other finalists were performed by a mixed chorus.
Nakahashi’s 15-minute piece is themed on stories from the Bible. Six singers used their voices to express the sounds of waves and animals’ cries.
The performance was met with a roar of applause.
Nakahashi told NHK he is happy that his free style of composition was accepted.
The 27-year-old composer is from Toyama Prefecture in central Japan. He began writing music in high school. He currently studies at the Paris conservatory.
Thirty-four year-old Mumbai-based saxophonist Rhys Sebastian knows how to throw a party. Frontman of Bombay Brass – a Mumbai-based 11-piece floating jazz outfit which has found inspirations in the varied sound of an Indian baraat, funk-and-soul legend Maceo Parker, Hindustani classical music, and noted composer duo Shankar-Jaikishen – Sebastian turns the band’s concerts into a riot of sorts, thanks to his slick showmanship. He dances in slo-mo, carries a tune while lying flat on his back, and walks in the aisles, asking the audience to intone and repeat some of the passages – including a few incredible originals, without a note out of sync.
At the recently concluded 16th edition of Jodhpur Riff (Rajasthan International Folk Festival) at the the majestic Mehrangarh Fort – Sebastian and his band segued into musical splendour with their dexterous blend of groove, energetic musical filigrees, and charisma – all the hallmarks of a good jazz show. Besides Sebastian on the alto sax, the band includes Ramon Ibrahim on the keys and trombone, Robin Fargose on the trumpet, ID Rao on tenor sax, Jarryd Rodrigues on soprano sax, Saurabh Suman on bass, Sanjeev Aguiar on electric guitar, JJ (Jehangir Jehangir) on the drums, Avadhoot Phadke on the flute, and Emmanuel Simon on percussions.
While JJ and Sebastian went to college together and began making music quite early, the others – all musicians with solo careers and significant roles in other bands – came along gradually. “We all spent a lot of time on the road performing with different bands. So coming together was easy,” says Sebastian, who is also the one working out the logistics of bringing 11 musicians with different careers and schedules together under one roof for rehearsals and recordings.
Bombay Brass began its career with covers – funky interpretations of songs not even remotely linked to jazz
A deep admirer of New Orleans jazz that evolved with the colliding and intermingling of many different influences, Sebastian found it to share similarities with jazz in Bombay, where he grew up and which was once a haunt for musicians from around the world, just like New Orleans. “I felt that it’d be nice to have brass as the frontman, turn it into our lead singer of sorts and revive that sound in our own way. There could be versatility in that. I felt it could be quite cathartic,” says Sebastian, both of whose parents were musicians and who himself has had extensive training in Western classical music. His mother Merlin D’Souza makes it to the stage often, on the keys for Bombay Brass.
Interestingly, Bombay Brass began its career with covers – funky interpretations of songs not even remotely linked to jazz, such as Kisi disco mein jaaye (1998, Bade Miyan Chhote Miyan), O o jaane jaana (1998, Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya) and Kala chashma (2016, Baar Baar Dekho). This was fabulously upgraded baraat music with influences of jazz harmonies. The band had a great time, the crowds lapped it up, it was a win-win for all. But Sebastian and others were keen to go the extra mile, and focus on their own voices, which led to a number of originals. “Bombay also had the military bands playing besides the jazz bands. Bombay Brass is an attempt at the revival of that culture. Of course, they weren’t ripping guitar solos like we are but brass was the essence,” says JJ.
So, if OP Nayyar’s composition, Mera naam chin chin choo (1958, Howrah Bridge), became a part of their repertoire, so did Badshah’s Jugnu (2022). In between, there were also a bunch of original compositions, including Joggers Park, a piece based on raag Jog; Goodbye Ravi in raag Bhairavi and a fun piece titled Prime Sinisters. Sebastian says it is here that the individual talents of the members come to the fore. “For instance, it helps that Suman and Phadke are classically trained in Hindustani music because I am not. But I like to dabble in the permutations and combinations of the ragas that are suggested. It’s enriching to find new meanings for the music I know,” says Sebastian.
Then came Quegdevelim Sunset, an ode to the rocky but peaceful beach in Goa, one of the two originals the band has created. It was spotted in 2019 by musician Ankur Tiwari, who was then the music supervisor for Mira Nair’s screen adaptation of Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy (2020). While Nair didn’t like the first recording, she approved the second one and used it as the backdrop to a soiree in a newly-Independent India in the mini-series. “Mira is extremely open as well as exacting. She was available in the recordings remotely and gave her inputs throughout. We stuck to the brief and the result’s been very interesting,” says Sebastian.
When Sebastian created Bombay Brass, he was clear that as much as he loved jazz standards, he didn’t want to get stuck in them. Which is why he decided to merge the music with electric guitars, synths and even a duffli. “You can choose to work only with jazz as a career or you can choose to amalgamate your experiences with it. I choose to do the latter. It allows me to think out of the box,” he says.
I’m very proud of Finland at the Eurovision song contest final! If the audience would have decided Finland would have been fourth, but also now the 6th placement was the best Finland placement since Lordi won in 2006! Well done @blindchannel !!
I’m proud of Finnish culture but I’m not proud of how Finnish culture has been treated by our government (by cultural minister @annika.saarikko among others)! Living in Germany I see how ALL institutions (restaurants, gyms, shops AND culture institutions) are treated equally, same rules for everyone. In Finland again everything else seems to matter except culture. The National Theatre can take in 6 people in the audience while the casino next door can take in 350!! I do believe in regulations due to corona, but a 50% capacity concert or theatre where everyone wears face masks, is for sure a more safe place than for instance any bar. So why does culture have the worst conditions for being able to do work, of all professions in Finland at the moment? A sector that includes 135.000 people working with it, and usually a turnover of 12,5 billion euros a year, it is a substantial industry that has been abandoned by our government. Finland HAS to do BETTER than this!
Ending with a good Churchill quote, when asked to cut down on funding for art during World War II he replied “Then what would we be fighting for?”.
Shin Kim, right, of South Korea and Yuki Nakahashi, center, of Japan answer questions from an emcee at the Geneva International Music Competition in Geneva, on Oct. 26, 2022. (Kyodo)
GENEVA (Kyodo) — Shin Kim of South Korea on Wednesday won the top prize in the composition division at an international competition for young musicians in Switzerland, with Japanese Yuki Nakahashi coming second, the contest’s organizer said.
The 27-year-old South Korean gets 15,000 Swiss francs ($15,000) for winning first prize at the Geneva International Music Competition in Geneva. Armin Cservenak of Hungary, 27, came third.
Nakahashi, who studied under Japanese composer Ichiro Nodaira at the Tokyo University of the Arts and now is a student at the Conservatory of Paris, also won three of the four additional special prizes awarded in the composition category, including those chosen by music students and members of the audience.
Nakahashi, 27, said he was pleased with the results. “The most impressive thing was that I was able to play with wonderful performers,” he said.
Kim won the top prize for a contemporary piece entitled “The Song of Oneiroi” he composed for the contest.
“It means a lot to me to receive this prize because the Geneva competition is one of the biggest in the world. I think it is a great first step for me as a composer,” he said after the award ceremony.
A graduate of the Korea University of Arts where he studied under South Korean composer Byungmoo Lee, Kim is currently a student at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
“The richness of the vocal sound quality in Kim’s piece was fantastic,” the chair of the jury, Beat Furrer, said. “Shouting, screaming, soft and tensed sounds, the sound range was enormous,” he added.
The Geneva competition, founded in 1939 to promote young talented musicians, is considered a springboard to an international career.
Ann and Gordon Getty’s collection achieved more than US$150 million across four live and six online auctions at Christie’s.
Courtesy of Christie’s
Text size
Ann and
Gordon Getty’s
collection achieved more than US$150 million across four live and six online auctions at Christie’s that concluded Tuesday, making it one of the top three collections of both decorative and fine arts ever sold at Christie’s.
Each of the 10 auctions met or exceeded their presale estimates, each with a 100% sell-through rate, the auction house said.
Proceeds will benefit the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation for the Arts, which supports a range of California-based arts and science charities.
The nearly 1,500 works in the collection were drawn from Getty’s townhouse in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhood. Gordon Getty, 88, a son of oil tycoon
J. Paul Getty,
led the sale of his family’s oil business to Texaco for US$10.1 billion in 1984. Since then, he has focused on his interests in classical music composing, and philanthropy. His wife, Ann, died in 2020 at the age of 81.
At the evening auction on Thursday at Christie’s New York saleroom, 60 lots fetched a combined US$79.4 million, which didn’t include the expected sale of Venice, the Grand Canal looking East with Santa Maria della Salute by Italian Venetian-school painter
Giovanni Antonio Canal,
commonly known as Canaletto. The painting sold privately hours before the live auction to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco through a donation by
Diane B. Wilsey,
a former chair of the museum, according to Christie’s. The painting was valued between US$6 million and US$10 million.
Mary Cassatt’s Young Lady in a Loge Gazing to Right became the top lot, selling for US$7.5 million, setting a record at auction for the 82-year-old American painter and printmaker. The work, with a presale estimate between US$3 million and US$5 million, was acquired by the Pola Museum of Art in Hakone in Japan.
An early George III walnut and parcel-gilt side chair
Courtesy of Christie’s
“As the momentum built over 10 auctions, Christie’s was thrilled to see the funding of the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation for the Arts increasing sale by sale,”
Marc Porter,
chairman of Christie’s Americas, said in a news release. “It is also important to note that museums purchased the two highest value paintings for public display.”
The other three live auctions took place from Friday to Sunday, featuring paintings, English and European furniture and silverware, as well as Chinese works of art. In total, the four live auctions achieved nearly US$140 million, against a presale estimate of US$125 million.
In addition to Cassatt, three other artists saw their auction records reset, according to Christie’s.
Jacques-Émile Blanche’s Vaslav Nijinsky in “Danse Siamoise” sold for US$2.7 million;
Jules Bastien-Lepage’s Portrait de Sarah Bernhardt achieved US$2.28 million, and
Jean-Antoine Watteau’s Three Head Studies Of A Girl Wearing A Hat, fetched US$3.42 million.
The Getty Collection became the third most valuable collection of both decorative and fine arts sold at Christie’s, following the collection of Yves Saint Laurent and
Pierre Bergé
in 2009 for €373.9 million (US$483.8 million), and the collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller for US$832.6 million in 2018.
I would like to contribute to FFF (Fridays for Future) in my own way: by sharing one concrete action per week that YOU can do, and which I have done, for combating climate change.
FFF15: Sign petition for Finnish forests
WHY: Finland is cutting down old forests at an alarming rate. Old forests are particularly rich in both biodiversity, a factor that is needed for combating pandemics. Areas with good biodiversity can produce a number of important benefits for their regions and, by extension, the people who live nearby. These include functions like protecting nearby water systems, encouraging the formation of healthy soil, and breaking down ambient air pollution.
WHAT CAN I DO: Sign the petition for Finnish forests. (You need a Finnish telephone number and to give them your name and email.) Greenpeace has made a petition that asks the Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin to commit to protecting the preservation of old forests. You can also go to the website and instagram of Greenpeace for more information.
I like to share petitions every now and then, because personally I feel it’s a easy thing to do against climate change. And they do affect: the EU ruled that oat milk and other non dairy products are allowed to be called oat milk also in the future! Yay!
And for people outside Finland, go check out if there is a petition for protecting old forests in your home country you can sign!
Link to petition: https://www.greenpeace.org/finland/toimi/enemman-suojelua-enemman-elamaa/ https://unity.edu/sustainability/benefits-protecting-old-growth-forests-sustainability-studies
At its season-opening concert at Showplace Performance Centre in downtown Peterborough on November 5, 2022, the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra will perform Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the overture to Rossini’s La Cenerentola, and Kevin Lau’s “Between the Earth and Forever” featuring guest soloist Snow Bai on the erhu. (kawarthaNOW collage)
What do a songbird, a fairy tale, and Canada’s first spacewalk have in common? They are all inspirations for three composers whose work will be featured in the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra’s “Welcome Back” concert on Saturday, November 5th at Showplace Performance Centre in Peterborough.
The orchestra’s first concert of its 2022-23 season will include performances of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the overture to Rossini’s La Cenerentola, and Kevin Lau’s Between the Earth and Forever featuring guest soloist Snow Bai on the erhu.
German composer and pianist Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor Op. 67 begins with the most famous four notes in musical history. Premiering in 1808 when Beethoven was 38 years old, the composition’s iconic “Da-da-da-DUM” has frequently appeared in popular culture from television to film, including Walter Murphy’s “A Fifth of Beethoven” disco arrangement on the soundtrack to the 1977 dance film Saturday Night Fever.
Advertisement – story continues below
While that famous four-note motif has sometimes been credited with symbolic significance as a representation of “fate knocking at the door,” there is also the (possibly apocryphal) story that Beethoven was inspired by the song of a Viennese yellowhammer songbird.
Italian composer Gioachino Rossini’s composition La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo (Cinderella, or Goodness Triumphant) is a two-act dramatic opera composed by Rossini in 1817, a year after the 25-year-old composer premiered his famous comic opera Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville). Poet and librettist Jacopo Ferretti had suggested an opera based on the fairy tale, and he finished the libretto in 22 days, with Rossini completing the score in an equally impressive 24 days.
While Ferretti had misgivings about the opera, Rossini was confident in its success. Despite a cold initial reception by critics, La Cenerentola quickly gained popularity both in Italy and internationally, and the opera soon overshadowed even The Barber of Seville throughout the 19th century.
VIDEO: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 (Proms 2012)
Canadian composer Kevin Lau was first inspired to write Between the Earth and Forever after he visited NASA’s Johnson Space Center. While Lau began playing piano when he was five years old and was composing by the time he was in high school, he applied at the University of Toronto for music composition and also for astrophysics as a fallback (he was accepted for music composition).
“I absolutely love space and space exploration — the thought of what that’s like venturing beyond the bonds of our planet — so that came to mind first as an inspiration,” Lau says in a 2020 interview with Houston-based ROCO (formerly the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra).
The title of Lau’s piece came after he read former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield’s 2015 book An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, which includes a photo of Hadfield taking his first — and Canada’s first — spacewalk during an April 2001 space shuttle mission to the International Space Station. Hadfield’s caption for the photo, which was taken by NASA astronaut Scott Parazynsk, includes the line “Out in the untrespassed sanctity of space, between the Earth and forever.”
Advertisement – story continues below
Tweet this quote
“As soon as I adopted this caption as the title, it almost wrote the piece for me — giving me an idea of the shape of the piece, and what I would do,” Lau recalls. “I also wanted to write something for erhu, which I had never written for before, but had an interest in, as my paternal grandfather had played the instrument. I was totally fascinated by its unique sound.”
A traditional Chinese two-stringed bowed instrument with more than 4,000 years of performance history, the erhu has made appearances everywhere from Chinese folk and orchestral music to the World of Warcraft video game soundtrack.
“I wanted the piece to sound not like what one typically hears when you hear erhu with orchestra — these works tend to be very based in Chinese folk songs, which are so beautiful — but I wanted to do something different here, to treat the erhu’s voice more as a sonic character, exploring the possibilities of using the erhu in a very non-eastern context, through this framework of space exploration,” Lau says.
The title of Kevin Lau’s composition “Between the Earth and Forever” was inspired by former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield’s caption in his book featuring this photo of Hadfield’s first spacewalk taken by NASA astronaut Scott Parazynski during Hadfield’s first spacwalk in April 2001 during a space shuttle mission to the International Space Station. (Photo: NASA)
“First, you’ll hear a fanfaric opening recalling Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra (used as the theme of the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey) with that very primordial opening, on a very large canvas, getting us into the sound and scope,” Lau explains.
“This initial theme is played twice in its entirety, toward the beginning, and near the end. Then the erhu comes in immediately for a slightly disorienting effect, going back and forth between ideas that are western sounding, almost Coplandesque, and also drawing upon idioms rooted in Chinese music, sounds that make it typically erhu.”
“The erhu plays an extended cadenza toward the beginning of the piece, and I wanted it to take on the voice of the lonely astronaut completely surrounded by space. In the first half, the erhu and the orchestra represent traditional roles, engaging in interplay but keeping in character, and as the piece proceeds they blend more and more, as the eastern and western traditions start to break down and mesh between the erhu and the orchestra. So, by the end, it feels almost like the erhu has gone into orbit, as it gets farther and farther away from where it started.”
Advertisement – story continues below
Guest soloist Snow Bai will perform on the erhu, a traditional Chinese two-stringed bowed instrument, during the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Canadian composer Kevin Lau’s “Between the Earth and Forever” on November 5, 2022, (Promotional photo)
For the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra’s performance of “Between the Earth and Forever,” guest soloist Snow Bai will perform on the erhu. Bai has appeared in concerts across North America, France and Japan, as well as acting in several Chinese movies and television shows.
“Welcome Back” begins at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 5th at Showplace Performance Centre at 290 George Street North in downtown Peterborough. A pre-concert “Meet the Maestro” talk takes place at 6:44 p.m., where the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra’s music director Michael Newnham will take the Showplace stage for an intimate chat about the evening’s program.
Single tickets are $33, $48, or $55 depending on where you sit, with student tickets $12.. Tickets are available in person at the Showplace Box Office from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Thursday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday, or online anytime at tickets.showplace.org (student tickets are only available online).
New this season is a “rush ticket” option, where seats are available on the day of the concert for only $20 (online only, depending on availability).
kawarthaNOW is proud to be a media sponsor of the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra’s 2022-23 season.
Meanwhile, Zain Khan is presently riding on the huge success of his recently released music video ‘Aashiq Hoon,’ which has clocked more than 37 million views on YouTube.
Zain Khan.
By:
Mohnish Singh
Music composer Zain Khan, who burst onto the scene with the blockbuster song “Pallo Latke” from the 2017 film Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana, has added one more exciting project to his resume. The composer has signed on to score music for an upcoming Hindi film, titled Project Love. He will be working on the soundtrack of the film along with Raees and Sam.
To be directed by Baljeet Singh Marwah, Project Love is a comic caper that stars Arjun Rampal, Mahima Makwana, and Omkar Kapoor in lead roles. Rampal’s girlfriend Gabriella Demetriades also plays a pivotal part in the film.
What makes Project Love very special for Zain Khan is the fact that it will be his first solo film as a composer. He informed us that he is quite thrilled about the upcoming project and has worked tirelessly to come up with great tunes, which will definitely strike a chord with listeners. The composer also divulged that singers like Stebin Ben, Asees Kaur, Nakash Aziz & more will be rending their beautiful voices to the songs.
Bankrolled by Reimagine Entertainment and Zee Studios, Project Love is currently under production. The film went on the shooting floor on October 14 in London. It will be shot across several parts of the city. The makers are yet to announce the official release date for the film.
Meanwhile, Zain Khan is presently riding on the huge success of his recently released music video “Aashiq Hoon,” which has clocked more than 37 million views on YouTube.
