Before GoogleMan There Were ... The Solutreans

The Solutreans

S.F. Opera, Symphony, And Music Conservatory Welcome New Creative Neighbour ... The American Conservatory Theater

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The American Conservatory Theater has purchased the old Strand Theater, a historic cinema house in the mid-Market area near the Civic Center of San Francisco, California.

Photo credit: (c) Brant Ward and the San Francisco Chronicle 2012. Copyright controlled.

Back At Work On Coriolanus

And The Envelope, Please ...

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Image credit: Cnnfn.

N. Korea Agrees to Stop Nuclear Tests and Uranium Enrichment at Main Facility

U.S. War Veterans Are Committing Suicide At A Rate Of 18 Per Day

Putin Offers to Save Europe From Decline

To Dionisio da Borgo San Sepolcro

"To-day I made the ascent of the highest mountain in this region, which is not improperly called Ventosum. My only motive was the wish to see what so great an elevation had to offer. I have had the expedition in mind for many years; for, as you know, I have lived in this region from infancy, having been cast here by that fate which determines the affairs of men" ...

"Did not Socrates, greatest of philosophers, compel his aged fingers to the lute?"

P. P. Vergerius the Elder (1370-1444 C.E.)

Greece, Ireland, and Portugal Combined Account For More Than 60 Per Cent Of Outstanding International Monetary Fund Loans

Freedom Riders (Middle East Edition)

Photo credit: (c) Karim Kadim and the Associated Press 2012 via the New York Times. Copyright controlled. All rights reserved.

New Moon

In 2012-13, the New York Philharmonic to feature contemporary classical music by Gyorgy Kurtag, Christopher Rouse, Anders Hillborg (world premiere of a new orchestral song cycle with Renee Fleming), Wynton Marsalis ...

Silken Echoes

Tonight in Washington: Music From Japan: Echoes of the Silk Road: Music by Fuyuhiko Sasaki, Akiko Yamane, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Maki Ishii, Takehito Shimazu, and Sukeyasu Shiba

The Winter Pied-a-Terre? -- Russian Billionaire Buys 22 Year-Old Daughter $88 Million New York City West Side Digs

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Photo credit: (c) YEKATERINA SHTUKINA/ AFP/GETTY IMAGES 2011. Copyright controlled. All rights reserved.

In The Shadow Of The Global Art Market, Maybe New Music Matters?

Song Recital: Wolfgang Holzmair (Baritone) & Sonia Wieder-Atherton (Cello)

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Lori Laitman (2010) – Todesfuge (Paul Celan; sung in English) world premiere

Johann Sebastian Bach (1720) – Suite no.2 in d minor, BWV 1008 for cello solo - Prelude, Allemande, Courante

Franz Schubert (1816) (arranged by Franck Krawczyk) - Gesänge des Harfners op.12 (Goethe: Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergibt, An die Türen will ich schleichen, Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen aß)

Johann Sebastian Bach (1720) – Suite no.2, Sarabande Menuet 1&2, Gigue

David Leisner (2011) – Das wunderbare Wesen (The Miraculous Essence; from Tao te Ching by Lao Tzu; German translation by Richard Wilhelm) world premiere

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Thursday February 23 | 7:30 pm | Embassy of Austria | 3524 International Court NW | Washington DC 20008
Admission free, RSVP required: www.acfdc.org/events-registration or (202) 895-6776

Image credit: Nadia Khodossievitch Leger, b. near Vitebsk, Belarus. 1900 - 1982. Geometric Forms in Space No. 5, 1924. Recreated 1970 Ink, gouache and graphite on paper 25 7/16 x 19 11/16in. (64.6 x 50cm)

(c) Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. 2012. Copyright controlled.

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Commissioned by the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Alberto Posadas's "Oscuro abismo de llanto y de ternura" [2005] is a denunciation of the violence committed against children in war zones, particularly in the Iraq of 2003-2005.

Qatari government said to be dominating global art market right now

while Greek economy shrinks by one-eighth

Financial Times

German government spending accounts for 48 percent of GDP; US government spending accounts for 44 percent of GDP

Fresco in the 4th century BCE Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak, Bulgaria: an UNESCO World Heritage Site

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Image of Thracian tomb, possible of Thracian king, near Kazanlak, Bulgaria, Present-day European Union. Via Wikipedia.

UNESCO World Heritage List

Bruce Conner's "A Movie, 1958"

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Still from Bruce Conner's "A Movie, 1958". Permanent Collection of the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.

Candidate Putin Promises To Raise Wages For Higher Institute Doctors And Teachers To 200% Of Regional Average Wages By 2018

Financial Times

Source: Washington Post

"In 50 years economic mobility in the US has gone from the best to one of the worst"

Three Tibetan Herders Self-Immolate in Protest

Three Tibetan Herders Self-Immolate in Protest

Image credit: Tibetan musical score. Library of Congress.

Under One Small Star

My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.
My apologies to necessity if I'm mistaken, after all.
Please, don't be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due.
May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade.
My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second.
My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first.
Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.
Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.
I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths.
I apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five a.m.
Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time.
Pardon me, deserts, that I don't rush to you bearing a spoonful of water.
And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage,
your gaze always fixed on the same point in space,
forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed.
My apologies to the felled tree for the table's four legs.
My apologies to great questions for small answers.
Truth, please don't pay me much attention.
Dignity, please be magnanimous.
Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train.
Soul, don't take offense that I've only got you now and then.
My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere at once.
My apologies to everyone that I can't be each woman and each man.
I know I won't be justified as long as I live,
since I myself stand in my own way.
Don't bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words,
then labor heavily so that they may seem light.

From Poems New and Collected 1957-1997, written by Wislawa Szymborska and translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh. Copyright © 1997 by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 1997-2005 by The Academy of American Poets

Image credits: Copyright conntrolled.

"This attempt to vindicate the catastrophic austerity of Heinrich Brüning, German chancellor in 1930-1932, is horrifying" -- FT

Starting Tonight, Nation's Capital Offered NSO/WETA Version Of Keeping Score Glimpses Of Bruckner And Shostakovich

WETA-FM Tonight 9 PM: National Symphony Orchestra showcase (monthly)

Alexander Glazunov: Concert Waltz No.1 in D Major, Op.47
Neeme Jarvi, guest conductor

Dmitri Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No.2 in C-sharp Minor, Op.129
Kirill Karabits, guest conductor
Sergey Khachatryan, violinist

Anton Bruckner: Symphony No.6 in A Major
Christoph Eschenbach, conductor

Maestro Eschenbach will conduct the National Symphony Orchestra in Bruckner’s 9th Symphony and Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto with soloist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall February 9-11.

Image credit: Vassily Kandinsky "Winter Landscape" 1909 Oil on cardboard. The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation, Future European Union.

Copyright © 2011 State Hermitage Museum