The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has a new series of narrated concerts called “Beyond the Score”. We went to one yesterday. The music featured in it was Mozart’s last piano concerto, K. 595. (If you click on the link it leads to information about it plus a video of another concert in this series)
We heard about them from the narrator and producer, Gerard McBurney. He recently moved here from England with his family to be Creative Arts Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. We met them through my children’s violin teacher because their children also take lessons from him.
The concert began with the orchestra and soloist on stage as usual, but also Gerard, another actor and a big screen. As photos and paintings of Vienna, Mozart and other people of his time were shown on the screen, Gerard talked about Mozart’s life at the time he wrote this concerto. Gerard would share a few things and then the actor would read from a letter or journal entry written by Mozart or one of his contemporaries. As well as talking about Mozart’s life, Gerard described the piano concerto in detail. He would talk about a phrase or motif and then the orchestra and soloist would play it for us. Parts of the concerto were similar to some songs Mozart wrote at the time. A soloist came on stage to illustrate those. it was fun and interesting – I’ve never been to a multi-media presentation with a live professional orchestra before!
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Today I’m guest blogger on Jason Clark’s blog. My post there is Faith in God? Or in Systematic Theology?
Posted in General Conversation | Comments OffI always hope leaders will lead by example and not publically betray the principles their role indicates they uphold.
I’m very disappointed in Wolfowitz for arranging an excessive raise for his girlfriend while leading an institution which exists to alleviate world poverty:
Call for Wolfowitz resignation grows louder
The pressure on Paul Wolfowitz, the President of the World Bank, grew today as Germany’s governor to the global financial institution added her voice to calls for his resignation.
Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, who is also the German Development Minister, said that the credibility of Mr Wolfowitz and of the World Bank itself had been “thrown into doubt” following the controversy over disclosures that he engineered a promotion and a pay rise of nearly $200,000 (£100,000) for his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, in 2005.
I’m also disappointed in the Governor of New Jersey, Jon Corzine, for not complying with his state’s mandatory seatbelt law (although I’m sorry he got in an accident while not wearing one and hence was seriously hurt). It doesn’t speak well of him what his chief of staff says about him being ‘not always amenable to suggestion’ either.
Posted in General Conversation | 6 Comments »Aides: Corzine not wearing seatbelt
Corzine’s chief of staff, Tom Shea, said he believed the governor’s belt was off when the crash occurred. “If he was not, he certainly should have been” wearing his seat belt, Shea said, “and we would encourage the state police to issue a citation.”
Shea said Corzine usually wears his seat belt. When asked why the trooper who was driving would not have asked Corzine to put on his seat belt, Shea said the governor was “not always amenable to suggestion.”
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The author of this book, Dr. Ray Pritchard, is President of Keep Believing Ministries and host of the blog which lives at Keep Believing Ministries’ home page.
The subtitle of this book is “Protecting yourself against Satan’s plan to destroy your life”.
In my words, the point of the book is to help Christians lessen the gap between how they believe God wants them to behave and how they do behave.
I think it will be very helpful in that regard: it’s full of insightful observations about what facilitates that gap and specific strategies for overcoming it.
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Three people have put this blog on their lists of “Five blogs that make me think”:
That means I’m supposed to give the link to the original blog entry on this idea and list five blogs that make me think. I’m going to list the other five Off The Map blogs because I really appreciate the thoughtful writing of all our bloggers. And I also very much appreciate those of you who comment on blog entries and create interesting conversations in the comments. Those wouldn’t happen without you! As I look at other blogs I rarely see conversations like the ones we have in our comments sections and that makes me appreciate them even more.
Posted in General Conversation | 5 Comments »American Family Radio claims they’ve had lots of positive response to this (they list some on their page). Speaking for myself I found it offensive: it strikes me as outrageously insensitive and arrogant. I was interested to see that youtube comments on it have been disabled.
Posted in Videos | 19 Comments »I heard Lauren Bohn on The Story yesterday – here’s the podcast.
Lauren was at Columbine High School when the shootings occurred. She wasn’t hurt but some of her friends died. She spoke on the radio about what it was like at Columbine dealing with the loss and also all the media attention.
Lauren talked about going to help at Red Lake school when there was a shooting there. When the students heard there was someone who had been through Columbine there, they didn’t want to talk to the professional counselors. They wanted to talk to her because she’d been through it and knew what it was like.
Now Lauren is going to Virginia Tech to help counsel students there. Lauren’s experience has shaped the direction of her life: according to her website “Lauren has made it a personal conviction to share her story in hopes of preventing another shooting from taking place.
Lauren is a conservative Christian. Some Christians are so pushy about their faith that I would feel uncomfortable about them insensitively trying to manipulate people in the midst of grief. But I didn’t feel that way about Lauren. Her compassion and her desire to help people by connecting through a shared painful experience came across strongly in the interview and impressed me. She didn’t hide her faith on the radio but I felt like she was appropriately aware that she was being interviewed on public radio, not asked to give her Christian testimony.
I think it’s wonderful that she cares and wants to help. As of the interview time, her first priority was finding available seats on a plane to Virginia (which is not easy this week), so she could be there with the students, as someone who really does understand.
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