Update: It has been confirmed that IMSLP will be online again on July 1st, 2008 at 12AM EST.
The IMSLP was a wiki-based repository of thousands of music scores in the Canadian public domain–a musical Gutenberg Project of sorts, if you will. It was taken offline last fall after not having the resources to fend off a legal threat from Universal Edition, a publisher in Austria.
I encourage you to visit when it comes back online again.
Apparently Luciano Pavarotti pulled an Ashlee Simpson at the opening ceremony of the 2006 Olympics, which saw his last public performance:
“The orchestra pretended to play for the public there, I pretended to conduct and Luciano pretended to sing,” Magiera writes … “It came off beautifully, no one was aware of the technical tricks.”
It wasn’t his first time either; he was heavily lambasted in 1992 for lip-synching another performance in his hometown of Modena, Italy. But I can’t blame him this time. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in July later that year.
Last August, I posted about Darcy Lance Jones, a panhandler who assaulted an elderly man inside Vancouver’s Holy Rosary Cathedral after the man had already pulled out his wallet to give him money.
It appears that Jones has since taken first steps to reform his life. His conditional sentence has him living in a Christian halfway house in Surrey for the next two years, where he says he’s discovered a newfound hope in God. He’s re-entered high school to finish his diploma and is working on completing Grade 12. And perhaps most importantly, he’s entered rehab to rid himself of his drug habits.
Back then, I wrote that there was a “special place in hell” for people like Jones. I still stand by that.
It’s just possible that Jones isn’t the same person anymore.
As somewhat of a competition junkie, I find this absolutely fascinating. It’s a comprehensive report on the 3rd Sendai International Music Competition, which ran from May to June last year and covered two disciplines, violin and piano.
To be fair, most of it—the photos, the juror’s comments, and the results overview—although pretty and nicely formatted, is pretty blasé. What piques my interest, however, is the section labeled Data, and in particular, the two subsections labeled Number of Participations and Results.
“Just to let you know, you are in fact crossing a picket line,” crowed a striking city worker next to the Orpheum doors. It was hard to hear over the shouting picketers, the rain beating down on the street, and the general chaos of downtown Vancouver on a Saturday evening.
“Oh, really?” came the response in mock surprise. “I’m–I’m sorry, I had no idea. Wait, let me think about this for a moment. Um, crossing a picket line, or … missing Sarah Chang?