Cherry Beach Sound is a recording studio in the Port Lands of Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 33 Villiers Street. It is located in Toronto's growing film district and is also a successful audio post-production house; TV, radio, and film commercials and or advertisements are often mixed in stereo or 5.1 surround sound.

History
Cherry Beach Sound was founded in 1982 by Carman Guerrieri, who continues to operate the studio today. The name references Cherry Beach, a local beach. The building that houses Cherry Beach Sound is called The Munition Factory, as it served as a munitions factory in the early 20th century. Awarded with Mix's "Best of 2005", Cherry Beach is a popular destination for artists and continues to attract entertainers such as 50 Cent, who filmed his 2005 film Get Rich Or Die Tryin' at one of its studios. Kevin James and Adam Sandler recently visited the facility to work on their 2015 film Pixels. Other notable musicians who have recently recorded at Cherry Beach include Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Bruno Mars, Mark Ronson, John Legend, Drake, Keri Hilson, Wyclef Jean, Trey Songz, Saukrates, Usher, Timbaland, Ludacris The Jonas Brothers and American Idol finalist Jason Castro.  In 2017, Cherry Beach Sound and head engineer Inaam Haq were awarded a Grammy Award for Record of the Year during the 59th Annual Grammy Awards for their work on Uptown Funk by Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson

Bus crash

In January 2006, at around 6:30 AM, Cherry Beach Sound was hit by a Gray Line bus which lodged 3 metres into the building and damaged support columns. To prevent the building from collapsing and to clean up fuel spill, structural engineers and a hazardous materials team were sent to handle the situation. There were no passengers on the bus and the driver escaped with minor injuries. The bus penetrated the building, destroying the front facade and damaging an interior main wall, requiring serious repair. The bus came to rest just inches from the studio's recently constructed Control Room A, fortunately no one was in the building at the time. Soon after, the building was completely repaired and carried on business as normal.

Renovation
In January 2005, a considerable amount was invested in the renovation and addition of a new state-of-the-art studio to Cherry Beach. The new studio, Control Room A, was designed by Martin Pilchner of renowned facility designers Pilchner-Schoustal International and includes four Genelec 1034B monitors, a Genelec 1034BC in the center-speaker position and a Genelec 7073A sub installed beneath the 56-input SSL6000 console in Cherry Beach's newly designed control room. Carman Guerrieri, owner of Cherry Beach states that the studio's new 5.1 array: "is capable of producing the fullrange of musical audio to the threshold of feeling at both the frequency extreme—19 Hz at the bottom end—and at the amplitude extreme—over 125 dB SPL per unit. It's quite remarkable."

Studios/Equipment

Cherry Beach Sound has two control rooms, one of which houses a large Solid State Logic console, and the other of which uses a Digidesign D CONTROL Icon console. Both control rooms are wired to the studio's live floor, and were designed and acoustically treated by Martin Pilchner. Control Room A is a one of a kind studio as it is the only studio in Canada with soffit-mounted Genelec monitors and 5.1 surround sound capability. The website of Pilchner-Schoustal International states: "A notable feature of the design is the extremely large front window which engages the control room to the studio. Four separate layers of laminated glass take up over 6 feet of depth and run over 21 feet long including two 30 degree miters per layer. The window also splays upward toward the studio space, and as such incorporated an enormous amount of glass." Cherry Beach Sound utilizes the latest modern technologies such as Source-Connect, an array of Genelec monitors, a 56-channel SSL console, Neve and Manley pre-amps and compressors, a Yamaha C7 Grand piano, and a large lot of mics including the Neumann U 87, Neumann U 89, AKG C 414 EB, Sennheiser MD 421, and many more.

The Munitions Factory
The building that contains Cherry Beach Sound, The Munitions Factory, houses several other companies such as Zero Fractal and Pro Rehearsal and Backline, offering services such as rental of rehearsal spaces. The warehouse section of The Munitions Factory is used for storage, filming/photoshoots and construction of sets. The facility presently offers three video suites, eleven rehearsal rooms, a repair shop and a rental service for film and television production. The warehouse, originally built in 1911 has high ceilings that date back to its history as a munitions factory. The high ceilings were designed to allow explosions to rise high before hitting the ceiling and being forced to expand horizontally. This reduced the risk of injury in the event of munitions-related accidents. Today, the high ceilings make the warehouse a popular space for film shoots, large band rehearsals, and other events.

Artists who have recorded at Cherry Beach Sound

 Justin Bieber
 Bruno Mars
 Mark Ronson
 Desiigner
 Lewis Hamilton
 John Legend
 Fabolous
 Boi-1da
 Rihanna
 Usher
 The Jonas Brothers
 Randy Jackson
 Danny Fernandes
 Ashley MacIsaac
 50 Cent
 Drake
 Timbaland
 Wyclef Jean
 The Clutch
 Keri Hilson
 Ludacris
 DJ Premier
 Onyx
 Brooke White
 Silverstein
 Jordan Knight
 K-OS
 Trey Songz
 Colin James
 Rush
 Garth Brooks
 K'Naan
 Divine Brown
 Shawn Desman
 Sean Jones
 The Doodlebops
 Sean Garrett
 Jann Arden
 Richard Bell
 Keshia Chanté
 Tom Cochrane
 Econoline Crush
 Dexter Simmons
 I Mother Earth
 Montell Jordan
 Leahy
 Ashley MacIsaac
 John McDermott
 Loreena McKennitt
 Kim Mitchell
 Moist
 Kardinal Offishall
 The Rascalz w/ Beat Nutz, Choclair, & Barrington Levy
 Saukrates
 Kim Stockwood
 Tea Party
 Richard Underhill
 David Usher
 Zeds Dead

External links
 Official Website

References

Recording studios in Canada
Music of Toronto
Entertainment companies established in 1982
1982 establishments in Ontario

Cherry Beach Sound


The Monongahela Railway  was a coal-hauling short line railroad in Pennsylvania and West Virginia in the United States.  It was jointly controlled originally by the Pennsylvania Railroad, New York Central subsidiary Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, with NYC and PRR later succeeded by Penn Central Transportation.  The company operated its own line until it was merged into Conrail on May 1, 1993.

The primary connection to both controlling systems was at Brownsville, Pennsylvania - with the south end of the P&LE's Pittsburgh, McKeesport and Youghiogheny Railroad and with the PRR's ex-Brownsville Railway. The PRR also interchanged traffic at Hoover, Pennsylvania, the end of its Coal Lick Run Branch.  The B&O Railroad interchanged at Leckrone, Pennsylvania, and Rivesville, West Virginia.

At the end of 1970 it operated 193 miles of road on 281 miles of track; that year it reported 446 million ton-miles of revenue freight.

History
The Monongahela Railroad's headquarters and base of operations was Brownsville, Pennsylvania.  "As early as 1883, the Pittsburgh, Virginia & Charleston Railway served Brownsville as evidenced by an old lithograph of the Three Towns showing a diamond stacked locomotive coupled to four passenger cars, ready for a northward move, sitting on the track close to the Snowden House and the United States Post Office.  However, the June, 1893, Official Guide (page 324), does not indicate any passenger service to Brownsville off the Redstone Branch."

The Monongahela Railroad was a joint venture of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) and the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad (P&LE), both of which had plans to extend their lines in the area.  Each company appointed four of their members to the board of directors, who held their first meeting in January 1901.  The newly formed Monongahela Railroad acquired many lines in the area from the PV&C as well as the Southwest Pennsylvania Railway Company, as well as the 19 mile (30 km) right of way from Brownsville to Adah from the PRR, for the sum of $519,696.13.

In 1905 the Dunlap Creek branch opened, serving several mines and coke works and also connecting with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.  The last move on this line was on November 6, 1975; the track was removed and the real estate disposed.

In 1909 the  Rush Run branch was constructed, and a patch town (Sarah, Pennsylvania) was constructed to house the workers at what was to have been a coal mine.  It was later determined that the coal did not belong to the mine developer, and the line was abandoned, the town was scrapped.  Only four trains ever ran on this line, those carrying the ballast to complete the track.

In 1910 the federal government condemned the low-clearance covered bridge in Bridgeport (now South Brownsville), and the Monongahela Railroad bought the bridge company and removed the bridge.  In the same year they installed a 10-stall roundhouse in Bridgeport.  This was to be the main yard for the railroad throughout its history.

In 1911 the railroad served seven mines and fifty one coke works (with 34 coke works and 1 mine being on the Dunlap Creek Division) The daily rated output was 1,395 cars of coke and 280 cars of coal.  In 1911-1912 the big push was the state line extension, to make a connection with the Buckhannon and Northern Railway (B&N).  It involved a major river crossing and two large creek crossings.

On July 1, 1915 the Monongahela Railroad consolidated with the Buckhannon and Northern Railway to form the Monongahela Railway Company (MRY), still under the control of the parent companies (PRR and P&LE).

In 1927 the Baltimore and Ohio railroad acquired 1/3 (1/6 from each the PRR and P&LE) of the capital stock of the Monongahela Railway, securing their interests in the coal-producing area it served.

On January 1, 1930 the Ten Mile Run branch opened.  This branch still serves one major coal mine, the Emerald Mine in Waynesburg, as of 2015.

On October 21, 1950 the Monongahela Railway discontinued passenger service.

On November 25, 1952 the Monongahela Railway ran its first Baldwin S-12 diesel locomotive.  This marked the beginning of the end of their fleet of steam locomotives, the last one of which being used on May 26, 1954.

In June 1968 the Waynesburg Southern Railroad Company (organized in the interest of the PRR) opened a line from Waynesburg to Consolidated Coal Company's Blacksville No. 1 mine and Eastern Gas & Fuel Company's Federal No. 2 mine.  This line is still in service as of 2015, although Blacksville No. 1 has closed while a third mine in the same area, Blacksville No. 2, is active.

On May 1, 1993 the Monongahela Railway was merged into the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail), which had previously bought out the shares of B&O successor CSX Transportation and Pittsburgh & Lake Erie. Conrail would be bought in 1998 by Norfolk Southern and CSX.  Eleven GE Class B23-7Rs (sometimes referred to as Super 7s), the Monongahela's final locomotive fleet numbered 2300–2310, were renumbered 2030-2040 by Conrail, then divided between NS and CSX when they operationally took over Conrail operations in 1999.

Heritage unit
In 2012, Norfolk Southern celebrated 30 years of being formed, and painted 20 new locomotives in predecessor schemes to honor its heritage.  GE ES44AC #8025 was painted into the Monongahela scheme.

See also

The Monongahela Connecting Railroad with which it should not be confused
System map of the Monongahela Railway with other railroads, 1935
Simpson Tunnel

References

Corporate Genealogy - Monongahela Railway
Employer Status Determination - Monongahela Railway Company (U.S. Railroad Retirement Board)

External links
George Elwood's Fallen Flags site images of the Monongahela Railway
Images of the Monongahela Railway by John Benner

Defunct Pennsylvania railroads
Defunct West Virginia railroads
Predecessors of Conrail
Former Class I railroads in the United States
Railway companies established in 1915
Railway companies disestablished in 1993

Monongahela Railway


Portland Union Station is a train station in Portland, Oregon, United States, situated near the western shore of the Willamette River in Old Town Chinatown. It serves as an intermediate stop for Amtrak's Cascades and Coast Starlight routes and, along with King Street Station in Seattle, is one of two western termini of the Empire Builder. The station is a major transport hub for the Portland metropolitan area with connections to MAX Light Rail, the Portland Streetcar, and local and intercity bus services. The station building contains Wilf's Restaurant & Bar on the ground level and offices on the upper floors. It also has Amtrak's first Metropolitan Lounge on the West Coast, which is reserved for first-class sleeping car and business-class passengers.

Southeast of the station, the tracks make a sharp turn and cross the river on the historic Steel Bridge. To the northwest, they follow the river, passing through rail yards before crossing the river again on the Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 5.1.

The station is owned by the city of Portland and operated by Prosper Portland, the city's urban renewal agency. The city earns $200,000 a year from nearly 30 tenants.  Amtrak, the main tenant, has a continuing lease in 2021.

Services

Union Station serves as a major intermodal transportation hub for Portland and Oregon. Union Station connects to TriMet MAX Green and Yellow Line trains at the nearby Union Station/Northwest 6th & Hoyt Street and Union Station/Northwest 5th & Glisan Street stations, as well as local bus service provided by TriMet. Located at the northern end of TriMet's transit mall, Union Station is also only a short walk to both lines of the Portland Streetcar, in the Pearl District.

The station is one of two western termini for the Empire Builder, Amtrak's major long-distance train to the Pacific Northwest. The train splits at Spokane, with one section continuing to Portland by way of the Columbia River Gorge and the other continuing to Seattle. It is also a stop for the Seattle-Los Angeles Coast Starlight, Amtrak's long-distance West Coast train. It serves as the southern terminus for two daily Cascades trains from Vancouver, British Columbia and four daily Cascades trains from Seattle, and the northern terminus for two Cascades trains from Eugene.

As of 2018, Union Station is the fifth-busiest Amtrak station in the Western United States (behind Los Angeles, Sacramento, Seattle and Emeryville) and the 21st busiest overall.

Bus connections
Portland's former Greyhound bus terminal is the next building to the south, having moved to the building (from a location in the center of downtown) in 1985. Greyhound vacated the facility in September 2019 in favor of a curbside pickup location nearby.

Station details

Union station is situated near the western bank of the Willamette River in downtown Portland's Old Town Chinatown. The site is bound by Northwest Glisan, Hoyt, and Irving streets to the south; Northwest Broadway Street and Station Way to the west; Northwest Overton Street and Naito Parkway to the north; and Northwest Ironside Terrace and industrial and commercial zones to the east.

History

The initial design for the station was created in 1882 by McKim, Mead & White. Had the original plan been built, the station would have been the largest train station in the world. A smaller plan was introduced by architects Van Brunt & Howe, and accepted in 1885. Construction of the station began in 1890. It was built by the firm of Wakefield and Bridges for the Northern Pacific Terminal Company at a cost of $300,000 ($ in  adjusted for inflation), and opened on February 14, 1896. The roof is made of bright red metal roof tiles, with exposed detailed pressed red brick, grey sandstone trimmings, and pebbledash stucco masonry exterior. A feature was the projecting metal canopies with cast iron support posts at the entryway.  The annex, also constructed in 1896 also by Wakefield and Bridges, contained the freestanding steam plant, storerooms, telegraph office, laundry, and police-room. At the Depot's opening in 1896, the yards in front of the station contained six parallel railroad tracks. Passengers gained entry to the tracks by passing through along, narrow, enclosed one-story shed appended to the east side of the station. The tracks remained unsheltered for almost 10 years.

The track shelters were built in response to the expected increase in travellers arriving by rail to attend the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition in Portland.

The signature piece of the structure is the 150-foot-tall Romanesque Revival clock tower with its four-sided 1898 Seth Thomas eight-day pendulum clock, has become one of the most iconic and recognizable features of the station. Each of the clock faces is 12 feet in diameter, with a minute hand 6 feet long and an hour hand 5 feet long. The clock has a 14 foot pendulum and 1,000 pounds of counterweight that drops almost 50 feet over 7 days.  It is wound every seven days. Neon signs were added to the tower in 1948. The signs read "Go by Train" on the northeast and southwest sides and "Union Station" on the northwest and southeast sides.

The nearby Interlocking Tower, also called the "VC tower" was built in 1914 to replace an earlier, wooden, building at this same location that served the same function related to the complex track switching function necessary for the operation of the station-related trackage. Construction was likely related to improvements required to changes in operation after the Terminal Company granted use of Tracks 1 and 2 to the Oregon and California Railroad and Southern Pacific railroad. The building is a small two-story brick volume with a decorative parapet, glazed terra cotta or white "face brick" detailing remains virtually unaltered on its exterior. The Interlocking Tower at Union Station is believed to be the only remaining building of its type in Oregon, and one of just five in the western United States. Now leased to Tri-Met, the original interlocking function ended on November 5, 1997. This interlocking tower was added to the National Registry of Historic Places form for Portland Union Station in a 2015 update .

Dissatisfaction with the lack of a clear, formal entry and confusing circulation patterns and dramatically increased passenger load were factors that led to the need to remodel. In 1927, the prestigious Portland architectural firm of A.E. Doyle was hired by the Terminal Rail Company to remodel the station. Pietro Belluschi, a young designer with little architectural training at the time, was put in charge of the remodel. With input from Southern Pacific, Union Pacific and Northern Pacific, the owners of the Terminal Rail Company, the drawings were finished in 1929. Major changes included: structural, functional and formal reordering of the main waiting room (including removing interior cast-iron columns) and associated public spaces; reorganizing the entry and exit sequences from the street and tracks; and functional and formal reorganization of the wing between the restaurant dining room and the main hall. Dormers were added to permit more natural light to enter the station. All new exterior finishes were closely matched to the old. Marble for the floors and walls was shipped from Italy for the remodeling. Little has changed in the station since this remodel in 1930.

In 1931, a pedestal was built in the station's courtyard and the Oregon Pony 1862-built locomotive was put on display in front of the station. The locomotive was moved to Cascade Locks Oregon in 1970.

In the early 1920's, ninety trains moved in or out of the station daily, 52 steam trains and 38 electrics, a train would arrive or depart about every 11 minutes! Expansion of service at Union Station related to the Spokane, Portland, and Seattle Railway line in 1920s required significant changes to the building and track, and at its peak period of operation in the late 1940s Union Station had as many as 30 separate tracks, continuing east to Front Avenue. Over time, freight rail became less utilized as some businesses turned to trucks instead of railroads for shipment of goods.

In the years prior to Amtrak's assuming passenger operations on May 1, 1971, the Union Pacific's City of Portland ran to Portland from Chicago via Utah. Amtrak ran a successor train, the Pioneer, on a similar route to Portland until 1997.

The station was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

The neon signs on the tower went dark in March 1971, because the railroads using it, Union Pacific, Burlington Northern and Southern Pacific, were preparing to transfer all of their remaining passenger services to Amtrak. For that reason, the station's then-owner, the Portland Terminal Railroad (itself jointly owned by those three railroads), decided to discontinue operation of the signs. In 1985, two local non-profit groups, the National Railway Historical Society (Pacific Northwest chapter) and the Oregon Association of Railway Passengers, led a fundraising campaign for public donations to enable the signs to be restored to operation. New neon tubes, in place of the old, were installed in July, and the signs were switched back on and returned to regular use in September 1985. The "Union Station" signs remain illuminated continuously, while the "Go by Train" signs flash on and off, in a sequence of "Go", then "Go by", then all three words, then off and on and repeat.

In 1987, ownership of the station and surrounding land was transferred from Portland Terminal Railroad to the Portland Development Commission (now Prosper Portland) as part of the Downtown/Waterfront urban-renewal district. Shortly afterwards, Union Station underwent a renovation. It was rededicated in 1996 for its 100th anniversary.

In 2004, the roadway in front of the station was reconfigured, providing a new connection to the northwest and a forecourt. In addition, the area is being redeveloped, including new housing where railroad tracks once were.

In 2023, Prosper Portland re-evaluated the alignment of its continued ownership of Portland Union Station with the economic development mission of the agency. They have concluded that it is in the City of Portland's and the Station's best long-term interest to align ownership of this asset with an entity with a transportation mission. As a result, Prosper Portland has begun to explore the sale of the Station and does not anticipate taking any further actions to pursue any renovation plans.

See also
 North Bank Depot – former train station located nearby
 Tourism in Portland, Oregon

References

External links

 "All Aboard!" at Union Station, 1896 Oregonian article on Union Station opening

Amtrak stations in Oregon
Railway stations in Portland, Oregon
Union stations in the United States
Railway stations in the United States opened in 1896
Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places in Oregon
Clock towers in Oregon
Romanesque Revival architecture in Oregon
Transit centers in the United States
National Register of Historic Places in Portland, Oregon
Former Union Pacific Railroad stations
Former Northern Pacific Railway stations
Former Southern Pacific Railroad stations in Oregon
Old Town Chinatown
1896 establishments in Oregon
Northwest Portland, Oregon

Portland Union Station


Edgar Berger (born October 19, 1966) is the Chief Executive Officer of the AutoScout24 Group since April 2020. He has more than 25 years of experience in the media, entertainment and tech sector. Berger held the position of chairman and CEO international of Sony Music Entertainment from 2011 to 2017, responsible for business outside the United States, before being replaced by Rob Stringer. Previously, Berger worked for Bertelsmann, RTL and Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. He has been on the board of the German Music Industry Association.

Life and career
Edgar Berger was born in Wolfsburg. He studied engineering, economics and philosophy in حمزة لعمش Braunschweig, Paris and Berlin. He graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering and then accepted a job as a consultant at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. In 1994 he moved to IA Television and later on RTL Television, where he initially worked for RTL II. From 1998 to 2000 Berger reported as a political correspondent for RTL Television, giving up-to-date reports from Bonn and Berlin. In 2000 he took a job at Bertelsmann, first as director of the Bertelsmann Content Network in Hamburg and New York, then from 2001, as the chief operating officer. Berger, working under Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, was thus responsible for the networking of the different business divisions, and later also for worldwide business development.

In June 2005, Bertelsmann announced that Edgar Berger had been appointed head of the German subsidiary of Sony BMG. The joint venture with Sony had only been launched recently, Berger was first appointed as a member of the Board of Management and then, from Spring of 2006, as the sole director. The decisions he made that received a good deal of attention were strengthening the Munich location of Sony BMG alongside Berlin, and focusing more on German artists. The remaining shares in Four Music as well as the rights to TKKG were acquired. In addition, under Berger's leadership, Sony BMG Germany got involved in the concert business and the digital music distribution. Berger has been a member of the Board of Management of the German Phono Association since 2006.

In early 2009 Edgar Berger took over the management for Sony BMG in Austria and Switzerland, along with Germany. In 2011 he finally moved from Munich to London, where he was named President & CEO International by Doug Morris and later became Chairman & CEO International. He took over responsibility for the record label's worldwide business outside the United States. Berger was on the board of the German Music Industry Association (Bundesverband Musikindustrie) and he is still on the board of the Cultural Association of German Industry (Kulturkreis der deutschen Wirtschaft). He is also a member of the Main Board of IFPI.

Controversies
In 2006, Berger argued for a better protection of "intellectual property". At the same time he also called for the restriction of the right to private copying as well as a ban on "intelligent recording programs". He stated that it should only be authorized to make copies from one's own original and no longer from third parties, some downloaders may be banned from the internet. In 2010, Berger asked that ISPs be obliged to commit more strongly to the protection of "intellectual property". Once again in 2012, Berger spoke out for tougher laws against "pirated" copies. He based his demands on the fact that in 2011 about 3.6 billion tracks had been sold, while 40 billion tracks had been downloaded illegally.

Berger described Germany as a "developing country in the digital sense", after GEMA prevented the featuring of music videos on YouTube. He was frustrated that GEMA acted "against their
interests". Berger argued for more support of services like Spotify or Vevo in Germany, because he "loves the internet". In 2013 Berger admitted that the music industry should have provided certain services more quickly. The large service providers also carried some responsibility for the decline of the market by approximately half its volume, he said. After sales figures began to rise again, he stated that digital sales were not a threat to music, but instead would "save" it.

References

External links
 Website of Sony Music International
 Interview on BBC News Technology

1966 births
Living people
People from Wolfsburg
German music managers
Sony Music

Edgar Berger


The Alhambra was a popular theatre and music hall located on the east side of Leicester Square, in the West End of London. It was built originally as the Royal Panopticon of Science and Arts opening on 18 March 1854. It was closed after two years and reopened as the Alhambra. The building was demolished in 1936. The name was also adopted by many other British music hall theatres located elsewhere; in Bradford, in Hull and in Glasgow etc. The name comes from association with the Moorish splendour of the Alhambra palace in Granada, Spain.

History

Origins
The Alhambra was originally known as the Royal Panopticon and was a landmark building at 23–27 Leicester Square, completed in 1854 by T. Hayter Lewis as a venue for showcasing the finest in the arts and for scientific demonstrations and popular education. This lasted for two years, and then the decision to add a circus ring was taken. When it reopened on 3 April 1858 it was renamed the Alhambra.

The 1858 building  conversion to the Alhambra Circus, was also by T. Hayter Lewis. It had a  frontage and was very tall for the time. It was built in a Moorish style, with lavish fenestration, two towers and a dome, similar to the eponymous Bradford theatre in architectural style. It was a complete contrast with the neighbouring buildings. Inside there was a central rotunda  in diameter and  high. There was a secondary entrance to the rear on Charing Cross Road.

The Leicester Square theatre's name was changed frequently, but usually reflected the building's (very loose) stylistic associations with the celebrated Alhambra in Granada, Spain. By 1864, the circus had become the Alhambra Music Hall. Rebuildings occurred in 1866 and 1881, by Perry and Reed. From 1871, when it obtained a licence, an equestrian ballet was performed. From 1872 to 1898 (except for 1883–84) Georges Jacobi was musical director of the Alhambra. Over the years he composed more than 100 works for ballet, many of them performed at the Alhambra where for some years the prima ballerina was Emma Palladino.

The Alhambra was destroyed by fire in 1882, and was rebuilt in a more restrained style by Reed, reopening in 1884 as the Alhambra Theatre. Further rebuildings were in 1888 by Edward Clark, 1892 by Clark and Pollard, 1897 by W. M. Brutton, and in 1912 by the prolific theatre architect, Frank Matcham. Other names used during the life of the theatre were the Royal Alhambra Palace; Alhambra Theatre of Varieties; Theatre Royal, Alhambra; Great United States Circus and New Alhambra Theatre.

Entertainments
London's Alhambra was predominantly used for the popular entertainment of the day, music hall. The usual music hall acts were performed, as well as the début of Jules Léotard performing his aerial act, above the heads of diners in May 1861. Other entertainments included "patriotic demonstrations" celebrating the British Empire and British military successes. The theatre also staged ballet and light opera.  In the 1860s, John Hollingshead took over management at the Alhambra and made it famous for its sumptuous staging, alluring corps de ballet and the notorious front-of-house Promenade bar.  At its bars, the attractions of the Alhambra's ballet were not merely artistic:

The Can-Can as presented at the Alhambra by the 'Parisian Colonna' troupe proved so sexually provocative that in October 1870 the Alhambra was deprived of its dancing licence.

Another example of the fare on offer was this 1882 production, written by Dion Boucicault and J. R. Planche:

Early films were also a part of the entertainment, with Robert W. Paul, a former collaborator of Birt Acres, presenting his first theatrical programme on 25 March 1896. This included films featuring cartoonist Tom Merry drawing caricatures of the German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II (1895), and Prince Bismarck (1895). Merry had previously performed his lightning fast drawing as part of a music hall stage act.

During World War I, a series of hit revues played at the Alhambra that included The Bing Boys Are Here (1916), which featured the first performances of the song If You Were The Only Girl In The World, performed by Violet Lorraine and George Robey . This was followed by The Bing Boys on Broadway (1917) and The Bing Boys are There (1918).  The music for the revues was written by Nat D. Ayer with lyrics by Clifford Grey, and the text was by George Grossmith Jr.

Like many other theatres, the Alhambra went into decline after World War I owing to the increasing popularity of cinema and radio. It was demolished in 1936 to make way for the Odeon Leicester Square, which remains on the site. The entrance on Charing Cross Road has also been demolished and is now a modern office block.

Notes

References

 Guide to British Theatres 1750–1950, John Earl and Michael Sell pp. 128 (Theatres Trust,  2000)
 Assassins Creed Syndicate  October 23, 2015

External links

Bradford Theatres, incorporating the Alhambra website
Contemporary articles concerned with the former London Alhambra at victorianlondon.org
Alhambra Theatre History Archive Material, Information, and Images on the Alhambra Theatre, Leicester Square.

Former theatres in London
Former buildings and structures in the City of Westminster
Theatres completed in 1858
1936 disestablishments in England
Former music hall venues in the United Kingdom
19th-century fires in the United Kingdom
1882 disasters in the United Kingdom
1882 fires
Leicester Square
1858 establishments in the United Kingdom
Buildings and structures demolished in 1936
Demolished buildings and structures in London

Alhambra Theatre of Variety


In mathematics, the Hecke algebra is the algebra generated by Hecke operators.

Properties
The algebra is a commutative ring.

In the classical elliptic modular form theory,  the Hecke operators Tn with n coprime to the level acting on the space of cusp forms of a given weight are self-adjoint with respect to the Petersson inner product. Therefore, the spectral theorem implies that there is a basis of modular forms that are eigenfunctions for these Hecke operators. Each of these basic forms possesses an Euler product. More precisely, its Mellin transform is the Dirichlet series that has Euler products with the local factor for each prime p is the reciprocal of the Hecke polynomial, a quadratic polynomial in p−s. In the case treated by Mordell, the space of cusp forms of weight 12 with respect to the full modular group is one-dimensional. It follows that the Ramanujan form has an Euler product and establishes the multiplicativity of τ(n).

See also
 Abstract algebra
 Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem

References

Algebra
Number theory
Modular forms

Hecke algebra


Raffaele De Grada (Milan, 1885–1957) was an Italian painter.

Biography
Initially trained by his father, a decorator, in Argentina and then from 1899 in Zurich, De Grada attended the academies of Dresden and Karlsruhe over the period 1902–05. Influenced by the Swiss Secession movement, he enjoyed success as a landscape painter from 1913 on. He moved to San Gimignano after World War I and then to Florence, where he lived until 1929. He joined the Novecento Italiano movement and took part in their two exhibitions in Milan (1926 and 1929) as well as their group shows in other Italian and European cities. His participation in the Venice Biennale began by invitation with the 13th Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte di Venezia in 1922. Having moved to Milan in 1930, he obtained a professorship at the Monza School of Art in 1931. Particularly known for his fine views of the Tuscan countryside, De Grada welcomed different generations of artists into his home, including members of the Corrente movement, with whom he also exhibited works at the group show held by the Società per le Belle Arti ed Esposizione Permanente in 1939. He took part in numerous exhibitions after World War II.

References
 Antonella Crippa, Raffaele De Grada, online catalogue Artgate by Fondazione Cariplo, 2010, CC BY-SA (source for the first revision of this article).

Other projects

19th-century Italian painters
Italian male painters
20th-century Italian painters
20th-century Italian male artists
Painters from Milan
1885 births
1957 deaths
19th-century Italian male artists

Raffaele De Grada


Barbara Kopple (born July 30, 1946) is an American film director known primarily for her documentary work. She is credited with pioneering a renaissance of cinema vérité, and bringing the historic french style to a modern American audience. She has won two Academy Awards, for Harlan County, USA (1977), about a Kentucky miners' strike,[1] and for American Dream (1991), the story of the 1985–86 Hormel strike in Austin, Minnesota.[2] Consequently, she is the first woman to have won twice in the Oscars' Best Documentary category.

Kopple will be receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences on September 28, 2023.

Kopple gained acclaim for the film Bearing Witness (2005), a documentary about five women journalists stationed in combat zones during the Iraq War. She is also known for directing the documentary films Wild Man Blues (1997), A Conversation With Gregory Peck (1999), My Generation (2000), Running from Crazy (2013), Miss Sharon Jones! (2015), and Desert One (2019).

She received a Primetime Emmy Award for Fallen Champ: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson (1993). She has directed episodes of television drama series such as the NBC police drama series Homicide: Life on the Street (1999) and the HBO prison drama series Oz (1999), winning a Directors Guild of America award for the former.

Early life

Kopple grew up on a vegetable farm in Scarsdale, New York, the daughter of a textile executive. Her mother and maternal grandparents grew up in Peekskill, New York, the latter of whom publicly criticized the attempted censorship of singer Paul Robeson in 1949. She studied psychology at Northeastern University, where she opted to make her first film instead of writing a term paper for a clinical psychology course. This experience began Kopple's interest in filmmaking. Kopple's political involvement started in college with her participation in antiwar protests against the Vietnam War.

Career
Kopple attended the School of Visual Arts soon thereafter, where Kopple met documentary filmmakers Albert and David Maysles through a classmate. She assisted them on their documentary Salesman, and then did camera work for their film on the Rolling Stones, titled Gimme Shelter. Reflecting on her time working with the Maysles, Kopple said "the wonderful thing about working for Alan and David Maysles was that they were the first company that treated women as equals...everybody attended all the meetings; everybody's opinion was important." She subsequently worked as an editor, camera operator, and sound operator on numerous documentaries and then started production on Harlan County, USA in 1972. She also created a production company in 1972, Cabin Creek Films, through which she would continue to direct and produce features and television projects, in addition to documentaries. Notable intern alums from her production company, Cabin Creek Films, include Jesse Moss, Kristi Jacobson, and Jan Ackerman.

Harlan County, USA
Kopple first became aware of the plights of the Appalachia miners while studying at Northeastern University. In 1972, Kopple started her own production company, Cabin Creek Films. It was during this time that miners walked off the job in Harlan County, and Kopple began the filming Miners for Democracy movement led by Arnold Miller. When Tony Boyle was ousted from the union leadership and miners began striking for union recognition, Kopple moved to Harlan with a crew of five and a loan of $12,000. Kopple and her crew lived with the miners, filming even when they ran out of film because the presence of a camera "kept down violence."

Harlan County, USA took four years to make and cost over $200,000. Continuing production was financially demanding on Kopple and her small crew, who regularly moved back-and-forth between Harlan and New York to collect financial backing from grant proposals and odd jobs, even writing letters for money from miners' homes. When she ran out of money, Kopple would "come back to New York and take whatever job I could, editing, sound, until I got enough to go back." Kopple also accepted donated money from her parents, friends and others in order to continue financing the project; she eventually placed herself into great debt for the film, utilizing her personal credit card for many expenses.

Kopple was threatened by mine owners during filming, being told that "if I was ever caught alone at night I'd be killed." She reportedly carried two pistols while filming in Harlan.

Harlan County, USA debuted at the New York Film Festival in October, 1976, where it received a standing ovation. The film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, Kopple accepting the award "on behalf of the miners of Harlan County who took us into their homes, trusted us, and shared their love with us."

After Harlan County, USA, Kopple didn't finish another documentary until 1990. Kopple instead took her political focus on unions to television, directing the 90-minute television drama Keeping On.

American Dream
American Dream, Kopple's next feature-length documentary captured the 1985–86 Hormel strike, a two-year-long workers strike against Hormel Foods. Kopple was first turned onto the subject matter in the early 1980s while working on starting a different documentary project. While driving in Worthington, Minn., Kopple heard a new radio broadcast on developing strikes amongst workers in meatpacking plants of Austin. Kopple reportedly started driving towards Austin immediately; "that was the beginning," said Kopple, "And I never left."

American Dream proved to be even more difficult for Kopple to produce than Harlan County, USA, despite her previous documentary's success. Budget for the film was tight, and Kopple found it difficult to obtain funding due to its subject matter. It took five years for Kopple to obtain financing for the film, and mentions her personal belief that her previous Oscar win hindered funding support.

Unlike Harlan County, which had Kopple very much on one side of the battle, Kopple intentionally aimed to be much more objective in depicting the differing perspectives of the Hormel Strike in American Dream. "I cared about the people in Austin, Minn., very much," Kopple reflected, "but if we were ever to look back at [the film], we had to have the full story."

American Dream premiered at the New York Film Festival on October 6, 1990. It eventually earned Kopple her second Academy Award the following year. Kopple continued to exclusively make documentaries for nearly the next decade and a half, exploring new subject matters such as crime procedurals and the lives of celebrities.

Shut Up and Sing

Directed and produced in tandem, Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck debuted Shut Up and Sing in 2006. The film follows musicians the Dixie Chicks as they face backlash for comments against the Bush administration and the invasion of Iraq. She was on tour with the Dixie Chicks when lead singer Natalie Maines criticized the Iraq War. The film, Shut Up and Sing, debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. It went on to win a Special Jury Prize at the Chicago International Film Festival, and two Audience awards (Sydney Film Festival and Aspen Film Fest).

Kopple's style is evident in use of candid clips of the performers discussing the fallout combined with a focus on what their daily lives look like. While the musicians maintain grace whilst getting death threats for their remarks publicly, Kopple and Peck show the burden it places upon them at home. It is truly mimetic of a "fly on the wall," a trademark of Kopple's filmmaking. Critical reception of the film was mixed at the time. The left-leaning outlets praised the documentary and the Dixie Chicks for their bravery. Right-wing media continued to criticize the group and to criticize Kopple and Peck for their decision to cover such "traitors."

In years since the premiere, many news outlets (such as The Guardian and The New York Times) have come back to the documentary, writing about why it is such a landmark film for its political nature.

Other Films
Her first non-documentary feature film to play in theaters, Havoc, starred Anne Hathaway and Bijou Phillips as wealthy suburbanites who venture into East Los Angeles Latino gang territory, and was released straight to DVD in 2005. Kopple has recently ventured into advertising work that includes documentary-style commercials for Target Stores.

She was among the 19 filmmakers who worked together anonymously (under the rubric Winterfilm Collective) to produce the film Winter Soldier, an anti-war documentary about the Winter Soldier Investigation. She has also done films for The Working Group, directing the 30-minute short documentary Locked Out in America: Voices From Ravenswood for the We Do the Work series. (We Do the Work aired in the mid-1990s on the PBS television series "P.O.V.", and Kopple's segment was based on the book Ravenswood: The Steelworkers' Victory and the Revival of American Labor.)

In 2012 Kopple released two films. One is about Mariel Hemingway, the granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway, and the other is concerning the 150th Anniversary of The Nation magazine. The film on Hemingway, Running from Crazy, was shown at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

In 2014, Sight and Sound published a list of its Greatest Documentaries of All Time, and Kopple's film Harlan County, USA (1976) was ranked 24th, tied with two other movies.[3][4]

When beginning to make the film Harlan County, USA, Kopple was promised a $9,000 grant, then later was denied. This happened countless times before she eventually secured the necessary funds. The moving image collection of Barbara Kopple is held at the Academy Film Archive, which preserved Harlan County, USA.

Style and themes
Kopple is a documentary filmmaker and has validated her art form in response to criticism that documentaries seem past their prime: "people want to get a sense of truthfulness in terms of what's happening and what's going on. Documentaries do that."

She has noted her major influence to be director Lucy Jarvis, for her both her approach to life and prolificness. Kopple's documentaries are in the style of cinema vérité. Reflecting on her documentaries in 1991, Kopple said "the kind of films that influenced me have more to do with watching people, letting scenes come alive so you actually see people change through the course of the film...almost like you're right there." Her work typically consist of observational footage, minimal voice-overs and intimate interviews with her subjects. She is quoted saying "I really love people, and I love telling their stories and I feel so excited when I get to do so" and "I try so hard to let the characters be the ones that carry the story and say the things they want to say." Thus she is humanist in her approach to storytelling. She has listed the Maysle brothers and D. A. Pennebaker as notable influences on her technique. "I absolutely loved Don't Look Back because he got so close to Dylan," Kopple said of Pennebacker. "I wanted to make films that were as intimate as that."

Kopple's work is often politically driven. She has made several films on U.S. labor issues, as well as worker's unions, and has been a longtime advocate for the American labor movement. Many of her documentaries revolve around political subject matters, but her more recent work has taken a shift towards music documentary and celebrity portraiture.

For her documentaries, Kopple works in small crews of two to five, almost always acting as her own sound operator.

Kopple embraces a collaborative approach to filmmaking, particularly in the editing process.The collaborative models of working originates from her internship with the Maysles Brothers in Gimme Shelter (1970) and later joining the film collective that would produce Winter Soldier (1972). While editing Harlan County, USA, Kopple sought multiple editors for the nine-month post-production process. She used the same process when editing Shut Up & Sing, stating, "We were working with so many different editors and different sensibilities but the discussions we had were sensational, because you couldn't say no. You had to explain how it moved the story forward or what it gave the characters so it was very egalitarian in the editing room."

Ethics
Past financial struggles influenced Kopple's embrace of commercial projects, her recent partnership was with YouTube's production of This is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous. She has partnered with studios such as ABC, NBC, Lifetime Television, Disney Channel and The Weinstein Company. Kopple responds to criticism surrounding lack of authenticity in commissioned films citing the conventions of cinéma vérité and direct cinema that she followed in her first films. She relies on a neutral outlook when approaching the subject matter of her films, some of whom were controversial figures such as Woody Allen and Mike Tyson.

She upholds the strength of women filmmakers citing Rory Kennedy, Mirra Bank, Liz Garbus, and Kristi Jacobson as both colleagues and inspirations. She notes also that there is a benefit to being a woman filmmaker in that "it's easier because people are not intimidated by you." She utilizes the underestimation of women as a positive bridge to understanding her subjects. When asked about the domination of men in the film industry she explains that, for better or for worse, this does not impact her; there are few men in her field as there is little money in documentary filmmaking.

Kopple actively participates in organizations that address social issues and support independent filmmaking.

Personal life
Kopple describes herself as a "filmmaker and mom." She is a niece of the American playwright Murray Burnett.

Filmography

 1972: Winter Soldier
 1976: Harlan County, USA
 1981: Keeping On
 1990: American Dream
 1992: Beyond JFK: The Question of Conspiracy
 1993: Fallen Champ: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson
 1994: Century of Women: Sexuality and Social Justice
 1994: Century of Women: Work and Family
 1997: Homicide: Life on the Street - The Documentary
 1997: Wild Man Blues
 1998: Homicide: Life on the Street - Pit Bull Sessions
 1999: A Conversation with Gregory Peck
 1999: Homicide: Life on the Street - Self Defense
 2000: My Generation
 2002: American Standoff
 2002: The Hamptons
 2004: Bearing Witness
 2004: Dance Cuba: Dreams of Flight
 2004: WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception
 2005: Havoc
 2006: Shut Up & Sing
 2010: 30 for 30: The House of Steinbrenner
 2011: Gunfight
 2013: Running from Crazy
 2015: Miss Sharon Jones!
 2016: Gigi Gorgeous: This is Everything
 2017: A Murder in Mansfield
2018: New Homeland
2019: Desert One

Awards and honors

Miscellaneous awards

 1994: American Film Institute, USA, Maya Deren Independent Film and Video Artists Award
 1998: Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, Lifetime Achievement Award
 2006: Woman Film Critics Circle Awards, Lifetime Achievement Award
 2006: Special Jury Prize for DocuFest Competition, Shut Up & Sing
 2011: Felix Award for Best Documentary, American Dream
 2011: Grand Festival Award for Documentary, Bagels, Borscht, and Brotherhood – Allen Ginsberg
 2018: Athena Film Festival, Laura Ziskin Lifetime Achievement Award

See also

 List of female film and television directors
American film directors
 Women's cinema
Academy Award Winners
Cinéma vérité

References

External links
Barbara Kopple's website

The Working Group
Cabin Creek Films
Barbara Kopple's Harlan County USA on MoMA Learning

1946 births
20th-century American Jews
American television directors
American documentary film directors
American women television directors
Living people
Northeastern University alumni
People from Scarsdale, New York
Coal miner activists
Directors of Best Documentary Feature Academy Award winners
Directors Guild of America Award winners
Scarsdale High School alumni
Film directors from New York (state)
American women documentary filmmakers
21st-century American Jews
20th-century American women
21st-century American women

Barbara Kopple


Gentianella germanica, common name German gentian, also known in the United Kingdom as the Chiltern gentian, is a flowering plant in the family Gentianaceae. It was chosen as the county flower of Buckinghamshire. Within the UK, it is only native to the Chiltern Hills of southern England, although its distribution in continental Europe is much wider, ranging from France to the Balkans.

References

germanica

Gentianella germanica


Richer of Senones (sometimes in French: Richer le Lorrain) (circa 1190–1266) was a monk and chronicler of Senones Abbey in Lorraine, a traveller and one of the very few chroniclers or historians of the Vosges whose works have survived complete.

Life

He was born probably around 1190, quite possibly in the Val de Lièpvre (now in Haut-Rhin), perhaps a younger son of an Alsatian or Lotharingian noble family. He studied at Strasbourg and was admitted to Senones Abbey under abbot Henri (1202–1225). In about 1218 Richer was sent as an ambassador of Senones to Würzburg when Theobald I, Duke of Lorraine, was prisoner of Emperor Frederick II, after the fire of Nancy and the siege of Amance.

He travelled extensively throughout the Vosges, which he knew extremely well, and throughout Alsace and Lorraine, where he often encountered monks from Lièpvre Priory as well as monks from St. Denis' Abbey in Paris, who had possessions in the Val de Lièpvre. He visited St. Denis' Abbey himself in 1223, probably together with monks from Lièpvre. He often visited the castles of Bilstein in Urbeis and Échéry in Sainte Croix-aux-Mines, as well as the renowned castle of Bernstein. He also knew Gorze Abbey, St. Evre's Abbey, Toul, and the abbey at Saint-Dié.

Works
Richer is an enthusiastic recorder of his travels, and of religious stories and traditions that he has encountered. Unusually for the time, he is also a fine observer of landscapes, particularly the spectacular scenery of the Vosges, and takes great pains to describe what he has observed. A peculiarity of his language is the use of the word "Teudons" to describe the inhabitants of Alsace.

His Latin chronicles survive in nine copy manuscripts. Four date from the 16th century, two are translations, another two are from the 17th century and one is from 1826. The copies originate from the monasteries at Senones, Moyenmoutier and Etival.

See also

Notes

Sources
 Dantand, Dominique, 1988: Chronique de Richer, moine de Senones au XIIIe siècle. DEA d'Histoire médiévale, Université de Nancy II
 Dantand, Dominique, 1996: La Chronique de Richer de Senones. Présentation, édition et traduction. Doctorat d'Histoire Médiévale, Université de Nancy II
 Jérôme, L. 1902: L'Abbaye de Moyenmoutier. Librairie Victor Lecoffre
 Gasse-Grandjean, Marie José, 1992: Les livres dans les abbayes vosgiennes du Moyen Âge. Presses Universitaires de Nancy

1190 births
1266 deaths
People from Haut-Rhin
French Benedictines
French chroniclers
13th-century French historians
French Christian monks
French male non-fiction writers

Richer of Senones


The Association for the Rose in the Fist () was a social-democratic political association in Italy. It was the so-called "third component" of the Rose in the Fist (RnP), a political alliance composed mainly of the Italian Democratic Socialists (SDI), a social-democratic party, and the Italian Radicals (Rad), a liberal movement.

History
In the 2006 general election the RnP obtained 2.6% of the vote and 18 deputies.

In July 2006 the association was launched in reaction to the crisis that invested the RnP soon after the election, when the federative process between the SDI and Radicals stalled. The group members included Lanfranco Turci (president), Salvatore Buglio, Biagio De Giovanni, Luciano Cafagna and Alberto Benzoni (a SDI member). Most of them were former Democrats of the Left (DS), but, while the first three came from the Italian Communist Party (which had become the Democratic Party of the Left in 1991), Cafagna and Benzoni were former members of the Italian Socialist Party (disbanded in 1994).

In 2007 the dissolution of the RnP seemed inevitable, so that Turci and his association started to work with a different direction: uniting all the so-called "liberal-socialist" forces of Italy in what was named "Secular Liberal Socialist Convention". This convention was primarily aimed at uniting the SDI, the Radicals, Turci's group and other Socialist associations (e.g. Socialism is Freedom of Rino Formica), but also the New Italian Socialist Party (NPSI), The Italian Socialists (SI), the Reformist Socialists (RS), the Italian Democratic Socialist Party, the European Republicans Movement (MRE), the Federation of Liberals (FdL), former Socialists within the DS (the group around Valdo Spini) and all the members of that party who felt dissatisfied of the formation of the Democratic Party (the left-wing of Fabio Mussi and Cesare Salvi, the group around Gavino Angius and that of Peppino Caldarola and Emanuele Macaluso).

In March 2007, during a conference at Bertinoro, the prospect of a new social-democratic party, to be formed on the ashes of both the DS and the SDI, was discussed by Lanfranco Turci and Rino Formica, Peppino Caldarola and Emanuele Macaluso (DS), Enrico Boselli and Roberto Biscardini (SDI), Gianni De Michelis, Alessandro Battilocchio and Mauro Del Bue (NPSI), Bobo Craxi and Saverio Zavettieri (SI), Donato Robilotta (RS), Adriano Musi (MRE) and Enzo Marzo (FdL).

In April 2007, at the national congress of SDI, the party launched a similar proposal: a "Socialist Constituent Assembly", open to all the Italian social democrats and above all to the former members of the old Italian Socialist Party. The proposal was immediately accepted by Lanfranco Turci, Rino Formica, Peppino Caldarola, Emanuele Macaluso, Gianni De Michelis, Alessandro Battilocchio and Mauro Del Bue, Bobo Craxi and Saverio Zavettieri, Valdo Spini and, to some extent, by Gavino Angius and Fabio Mussi, who were all special guests of the congress. The Constituent Assembly was intended to lead to a new social-democratic party (probably named "Italian Socialist Party"), which would form a federation with the Italian Radicals (whose leader Emma Bonino insisted that "the Rose in the Fist" was not dead at the congress), the MRE and the FdL.

On 5 October 2007 the Association was merged into the newly founded Socialist Party, which was renamed the Italian Socialist Party in 2009.

References

External links
Official website
Socialist Constituent Assembly

2006 establishments in Italy
2007 disestablishments in Italy
Defunct social democratic parties in Italy
Political parties disestablished in 2007
Political parties established in 2006

Association for the Rose in the Fist


Giovanni Carestini (13 December 1700 in Filottrano, near Ancona – 1760 in Filottrano) was an Italian castrato of the 18th century, who sang in the operas and oratorios of George Frideric Handel. He is also remembered as having sung for Johann Adolf Hasse and Christoph Willibald Gluck.

Career
Giovanni Carestini was born on 13 December 1700 in Filottrano. He was the son of Marco Felice Carestini and Vittoria Costantini. He was baptized two days after his birth by Don Nicola Gentiloni, provost of the Church of Santa Maria Assunta in Filottrano. In that occasion it  was given the name Giovanni Maria Bernardino. The godfathers of his baptism were Felice Lancioni  and Olimpia Felice Gentiloni, wife of Alessandro Gentiloni, a noble man of Filottrano. Since he was a child he had an exquisite and sweet voice.
Carestini's career began in Milan in 1719, patronised at the time by the Cusani family (hence the alternative name Cusanino). He sang for Alessandro Scarlatti in Rome in 1721. The scope of his burgeoning career quickly began to expand; he was at the Viennese court during 1723, and followed this up with performances in Naples, Venice and Rome again, singing in operas by Hasse, Leonardo Vinci, and Nicola Porpora. He created the role of Arbace in Vinci and Metastasio's Artaserse, which is known for its difficult and virtuosic arias. He sang in Munich in 1731 before coming to London to sing for Handel in 1733.

For Handel he sang the main roles in Arianna in Creta, Ariodante, and Alcina, and also performed in the oratorios Deborah, Esther, and Athalia. While in Naples in 1735, he commanded a fee higher than that of the renowned Caffarelli. Charles Burney records an entertaining anecdote from this time:

Following this peak, Carestini's career began to wane quickly. A London audience of 1740 was indifferent, and he returned to Italy in the early 1740s (singing in Gluck's Demofoonte in Milan in 1743), but was an employee of Maria Theresa by 1744. From 1747-49 he sang for Hasse in Dresden, and then moved to Berlin (1750–54), and then St Petersburg (1754–56). Audiences in Naples were actively displeased by his performances in 1758, and Carestini seems to have died not long after. One of his last appearances was portraying the title role in the world premiere of Gaetano Latilla's Ezio at the Teatro di San Carlo on 10 July 1758.

Voice and reputation
The range of Carestini's voice changed throughout his career - he began as a "powerful and clear soprano" (according to Burney), but later descended to "the fullest, finest, and deepest counter-tenor that has perhaps ever been heard" (again according to Burney). He was held in high regard by many critics across Europe. Hasse commented that "He who has not heard Carestini is not acquainted with the most perfect style of singing", while Johann Joachim Quantz remarked that "He had extraordinary virtosity in brilliant passages, which he sang in chest voice, conforming to the principles of the school of Bernacchi and the manner of Farinelli". He was also reputed to be a fine actor, and was furthermore noted for his striking good looks. As a mark of his continuing impact upon operatic history, in 2007 French counter-tenor Philippe Jaroussky released a CD tribute to Carestini, composed largely of arias written for Carestini's voice.

References

Riding, Alan (April 13, 2006). In Opera, a Different Kind of Less Is More: 'Handel and the Castrati'. New York Times, available here.

Italian opera singers
Castrati
18th-century Italian male actors
Italian male stage actors
People from the Province of Ancona
1700s births
1760s deaths

Giovanni Carestini


Christian Heinrich Spiess (4 April 1755 – 17 August 1799) was a German writer of romances and later pulp fiction, horror stories.

Life
He was born in Freiberg in Saxony.
For a time an actor, he was appointed in 1788 controller on the estate of Count Caspar Hermann von Künigl at Besdiekau in Bohemia, where he died, almost insane, the result of his weird fancies, on 17 August 1799.

Spiess, in his Ritter-, Räuber- and Geister-Romane, as they are called—stories of knights, robbers and ghosts of the "dark" ages—the idea of which he borrowed from Goethe's Götz von Berlichingen and Schiller's Die Räuber and Der Geisterseher, was the founder of the German Schauerroman (shocker), a style of writing continued, though in a finer vein, by Carl Gottlob Cramer (1758–1817) and by Goethe's brother-in-law, Christian August Vulpius.

These stories, appealing largely to the vulgar taste, made Spiess one of the most widely read authors of his day. The most popular was a ghost story of the 13th century, Das Petermännchen (1793); this was an influence on the work of Ann Radcliffe and the novel The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis. The novel involves a knight who is encouraged by an evil ghost (in the form of a dwarf) to commit rape, incest and murder, before being torn to pieces by the Devil.

Among his other Schauerroman stories were Der alte Überall and Nirgends (1792); Die Löwenritter (1794), and Hans Heiling, vierter und letzter Regent der Erd- Luft- Feuer- und Wasser-Geister (1798).

Beside numerous comedies, Spiess wrote, anticipating Schiller, a tragedy Maria Stuart (1784), which was in the same year performed at the court theatre in Vienna.

Bibliography
Karl Goedeke, Grundrisz zur Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung, v. 506 sqq.
Müller-Fraureuth, Die Ritter- and Räuberromane (Halle, 1894).

References

Attribution:

External links

1755 births
1799 deaths
18th-century German novelists
German male novelists
Pulp fiction writers
18th-century German male writers
People from Freiberg
18th-century deaths from tuberculosis
Tuberculosis deaths in the Holy Roman Empire

Christian Heinrich Spiess


Thomas Wolfgang Feist (born 8 April 1965 in Leipzig, Germany) is a German politician (CDU) as well as musicologist and cultural scientist. He served as an advisor for cultural activities, intercultural cooperation and music at the Evangelical Church in Saxony and was also chairman of the Federal Association for cultural activities in the Evangelical Youth Movement, Bundesverband Kulturarbeit in der evangelischen Jugend (BKA).

Political career

During the German federal election of 2009 Feist ran as a CDU candidate in the electoral district Leipzig II, which had previously been represented by Gunter Weißgerbe (SPD). Feist received a direct mandate to the Bundestag.

In the Bundestag's 17th legislative period, Feist served as a member of the Committee for Education, Research and Technology Assessment as well as the Subcommittee for Foreign Cultural and Education Policy. He was a representative in the committees for Petition and Foreign Relations. Feist is also a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the European Assembly for Security and Defence, as well as the Assembly of the Western European Union. During his term Thomas Feist was a member of the parliamentary association German-Israeli Parliamentary Friendship Group and German-Iranian Parliamentary Friendship Group. In 2017 he lost his seat to Sören Pellmann (Die Linke).

He currently serves as the Saxonian appointee for Jewish everyday life.

External links
 Official Website

References

1965 births
Living people
German Lutherans
Members of the Bundestag for Saxony
Christian Democratic Union of Germany politicians
Politicians from Leipzig
Members of the Bundestag 2013–2017
Members of the Bundestag 2009–2013

Thomas Feist