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piston

Juilliard is going with the flow and opening a U.S. accredited M.A. degree granting school in China: Juilliard history was made when President Joseph W. Polisi was joined by the first lady of China on September 28 to announce The Tianjin Juilliard School. The new school will be Juilliard’s first cam...

piston

Marin Alsop and the Baltimore O. recorded his Intelligent Life five or six years ago for a second all-Greenberg Sony CD. But it has yet to be issued and Alsop's CD production, according to her webpage, has slowed down a lot with only one CD in 2014 and another one in 2015.

piston

Jorge Ramos, an American citizen, is speaking on Fresh Air tonight. A few power points: --When he requested an interview with Trump, before the confrontation in Iowa, Trump didn't reply. Rather, he posted Ramos' letter and cell phone number on twitter to basically destroy his cell phone; --When Trum...

piston

He's currently doing his doctorate in New Zealand: I am a composer & musician, working professionally in the field since 2005. In secondary school I studied composition at the Juilliard School on a part-time basis under Samuel Adler and Samuel Zyman, then went on to read Music at Cambridge under Jer...

piston

It is still happening in this day and age. Of the Americans on board the El Faro, four are from this state and all four are graduates of the Maine Maritime Academy, including the ship captain, Michael Davidson. Danielle Randolph (class of 2005) posted this message to her mother not long before the t...

piston

True. But 20th-century composers also fared better than those from previous centuries because of the declining impact of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. A statistical study based on 10,000 composers :!: found a 14-year difference between the average age of those who died of infection (47) ...

piston

The 60 to 64 year-old group, particularly devastated by heart and coronary diseases, includes many great names. And it concerns other degenerative diseases of the liver, the lungs, etc.. While people tend to focus on s.t.d.'s and other unusual causes of death, composers mostly died of the same kille...

piston

Maybe we're not meant to go much beyond 60 to 70 but the pace makers and the blood pressure medication that has become part of our breakfast routine (I'm on them too) have certainly contributed to delay what used to be a plague of strokes, congestive heart failures, cardiac arrest, etc., in that par...

piston

Well, you'll have to trust me on the information that follows because I simply can't format the individual information here. From that group of 400 composers, basically the better known composers of Europe and the Americas since the 16th century, 11.5 percent (47) did not make it to what was the ave...

piston

Well, my dear, I haven't seen you write positively about 20th century composers very often. Who do you like from that whole century?

piston

You're asking for the [nearly] impossible: to rediscover your favorite 19th-century composers in the 20th century. For my part, when I get too much 19th-century romanticism in my music listening life, I go "spoon barf." Why do you insist on finding your aesthetic taste in a century that had no place...

piston

The plague and the flag are both objects, historical markers, that can be displayed or removed depending on their symbolic meaning in society. In this country, we've also removed names, like "squaw," statues and paintings of Indians scalping an innocent white woman, and so forth. The point I made is...

piston

I am fascinated by that strong-willed Elsa Barraine, even though most of her music has dropped off the c.m. radar. There's four or five of her works on youtube, including the feminist "Ouvrage de Dame," for a wind ensemble, two preludes/fugue for organ, a symphony, a short crepuscule for horn, and s...

piston

A commemorative plaque, or simply plaque, is a plate of metal, ceramic, stone, wood, or other material, typically attached to a wall, stone, or other vertical surface, and bearing text or an image in relief, or both, in memory of one or more persons, an event, a former use of the place, or some oth...

piston

Remember the recent controversy over the Dutilleux commemorative plaque? A big part of the problem with the original decision by the "Historical Committee" of Paris, according to both film historians and classical music historians, was that the committee had failed to distinguish between the benign ...

piston

Do you remember a louse story from your childhood? A school friend who could not come to your home because, allegedly, his mother was not clean and the family was lice ridden? The reason why this stigma was so prevalent fifty to sixty years ago is largely because D.D.T., the "miracle white powder," ...

piston

I don't know what you call "proven facts," Lance. Forces occultes is a movie which attributed the origins of the war to the "cabal of Masons in allegiance with international Jews," a theme which struck a resonant chord in France because it represented "a popular sentiment among the French leading up...

piston

I am not even sure why I asked that question but I do know that it's for more than one point of personal interest: --Is there a connection between love for classical music and particular religions? That's a fair question worthy of some exploration; --Is this "privacy" about one's faith a relatively ...

piston

Posted about this last year and I'm too lazy to retrieve that thread. Increasingly, the annual budget of the US Forest Service is being, literally, consumed by fighting forest fires. It's the case in the western states this year, 250 million dollars and rolling, and we're about at the mid-point of t...

piston

In case you are not familiar with old nominal manuscript federal censuses, the primary ways for Americans to identify citizens were "color," "sex," age, family status, and occupation. By comparison, Canadians did not pay any attention to race. They used religion and ethnicity (e.g., English, French,...

piston

Replies to this simple question have been anthropologically revealing. Similarly to sexual orientation, one should not ask about other members' religious or spiritual identities on social media because it is sensitive information which could be used in prejudicial ways. Being of Canadian origin, whe...

piston

That's interesting. A part of our identity must remain secret. I don't think that's what Francis means by religious freedom -- "none of your business."

Is it the only taboo topic on these forums? We could start with that question: why is one's faith a taboo here?

piston

Do you mind identifying yourself this way? I know it is often a complicated life-road, with a lot of bumps and even derailments, but do you associate that road of yours with a faith?

I'm a Catholic who is not practicing, has not been for about twenty years.

What are you?

piston

Blacklisted in 1945, but forgiven by "the U.S." in 1947. Many artists, we should remember, were not especially political beings. Prokofiev is the finest example of a completely apolitical artist who strove to be loved by an incredibly murderous regime. I draw a line between such apolitical artists a...

piston

Cher is sure not going to let him forget the deal he proposed to Obama in October 2012. To refresh your memory, Trump offered to give five million dollars to Obama's favorite charity if the president would publicly disclove his college records and passport application. When Obama, our president, ref...

piston

Last night, Colbert figuratively threw a "big juicy meatball" for Trump to hit out of the park and get it over with: "Obama was born in this country." Trump refused to go at bat. He replied that he did not want to talk about this anymore. There were more important issues than that. One theme in Colb...

piston

I suppose one could argue that there are degrees of collaboration and of resistance. The situation at the Paris conservatoire is revealing in this respect. There's no question that composer Henri Rabaud was a major collaborator, taking the time, on his own initiative, to compile a list of all studen...

piston

There's a bunch of them, my friend, with composers living in isolation (Koechlin), in defiance (Poulenc), or in disgrace (Ibert), not to forget Jewish composers living in fear (Rosenthal) or in exile (Milhaud), being the exceptions. The French distinguish between "composers of [Nazi] conviction and ...

piston

Which goes to show how some of our politicians are utterly close-minded about climate change. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), a Catholic, is trying to make waves by boycotting pope Francis' address to Congress.

Entertaining, rwetmore?

piston

Speaking of entertainment, I'm looking forward to the Colbert-Trump show tonight.

piston

Both Sanders and Clinton are now on record for going to war against the pharmaceutical industry's outrageous price hikes. In 2013 alone, prices of generic drugs increased by an average of fifty percent. Prices of so-called "specialty drugs" have risen even faster. Why? The five reasons listed here h...

piston

Do they really give 12,900 dollars X 9 intravenous chemo blasts to colon-rectal cancer patients who have no health insurance? Plus everything else: the radiation, chemo pills, surgery, anticoagulants for the duration of the treatment at 1000 dollars every five days, etc., etc.? Am I devious in assum...

piston

And yes, I think Trump is looking to ultimately get Carson's supporters -- many of which are Christian conservatives, but Trump himself says he's consistently polling well with them. So he'll probably get them . Should Trump win, how about Carson as his VP? That would be interesting. Or maybe Allen...

piston

Much of Carson's support comes from the Christian right, looking for their superman. They probably approve his comments about Muslims. Why do you think Trump has been carrying his Bible and a photo of his confirmation to "show and tell" at the podium! He's trying to get Carson's supporters.

piston

Cancer treatment, as we know, involves chemotherapy, diagnostic lab tests, "medical care," such as appointments with specialists, radiology, and prescription drugs. Included in the list of drugs below, over a period of 17 days, are two intravenous chemo treatment (before the chemo pills, which are n...

piston

Bush, Kasich, Christie are no less conservatives than Reagan was. In any case, I stand by my analysis. It's yours that does not make sense.

piston

Boy oh boy! You're really moving the goal posts on the meaning of RINO, aren't you. It makes little sense for me to argue on a position no analyst would support. Look for a minute at the current GOP candidates and tell me who you call a RINO. Huckabee? You got to be kidding! :lol: Cruz? That would b...

piston

Frankly, I don't know how you can come to the conclusion that the base is not voting for establishment Republicans because they have abandoned their conservative principles. That is way off the mark! The Republicans who have recently been viewed as abandoning conservatism, the moderates and bipartis...

piston

BTW, why don't politicians who support Obamacare use this kind of pharmaceutical industry information to open the eyes of the electorate? Why don't they attack the pharmaceutical industry for sheltering businesses that have no R and D justification for their exhorbitant prices?

piston

How about no one really knows the price of a drug?! This court story is about Lovenox, an anticoagulant prescribed to a very close acquaintance of mine because of a chemo-therapy related blood clot. I know for a fact that, when I picked up the first carton of ten syringes, for five days of treatment...

piston

I appreciate your opinion, but you've not been following Fiorina's very rapid rise in the polls. I have actually. Yes, her debate performance was strong -- giving her a significant bump, but I expect that bump to slowly fade in the coming weeks as the buzz from her performance goes away. There's an...

piston

This is based on a CNN poll of just over one thousand people (never lose sight of numbers in polls). It's not much, but it reinforces the results from the NH poll. Look at that climb in one debate. What do you think might happen in a third and fourth debate?: https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/i...

piston

I appreciate your opinion, but you've not been following Fiorina's very rapid rise in the polls. There's an interesting media factor here that could play in many different ways. Thus far, Trump has captured the bulk of media coverage. It's been so unbalanced in this regard that people are speaking o...

piston

The attack on Fiorina's record at HP is hardly an example of fair journalism, particularly in its complete lack of context. I'm no expert on how to run a business but even if you're right about her record at HP in general her conservative policies are terrible-still she sure is better informed than...

piston

The attack on Fiorina's record at HP is hardly an example of fair journalism, particularly in its complete lack of context. All tech companies in the early 2000s were under-performing from the vantage of the 1999 stock market value of their shares. Ergo, all had to cut back somewhere and to lay off ...

piston

Trump responds in person for the first time regarding the question from the nut at his last rally and the media storm that followed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArTc5YhSCQI He does it at the beginning of the event. So, I've listened to that BS, as you say, and there's a lot that I find issue wi...

piston

And Fiorina did not physically abuse her spouse when her image was dramatically altered by breast cancer and two masectomies. Rather, bald because of the chemo treatment, she put on her best dress and organized a 60th birthday anniversary her husband could never forget, including friends he had not ...

piston

Would you believe it? Fiorina majored in medieval history as an undergraduate student. She was "raised on operas," a statement supposedly intended to undermine her image... And she plays the piano, though I couldn't say how well. So, she's got some humanistic and artistic values in her that I fail t...

piston

David Brooks' opinion, rwetmore, and it's much more perceptive than anything you've posted here. Supporters of Trump are like "socially insecure" teenagers: By a majority of 64 percent to 30 percent, conservative Republicans tell pollsters they want their candidate to be an outsider. Republican gove...

piston

The Corcoran Group is one of New York's premier real estate firms. Founded by Barbara Corcoran, she really built this enterprise from scratch (one thousand dollars). She began her work life as a school teacher, a waitress, etc., and a part-time real estate agent. Her association with Trump goes back...

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