Just had to write about Sarah Bettens this morning.
Had no idea who she was until this morning.
She is Belgian too. She lives in Tennessee. She is a singer.
She has an amazing voice.
She was featured in Flanders Today online magazine
http://www.flanderstoday.eu/jahia/Jahia/pid/2105
I followed the link to her site to find out what she sounded like and was so delighted by what I heard I had to embed a link to her concert in my blog.
She will be at the Festival of the Golden Spurs this week-end in Belgium.
I understand how she would have a great following.
Just had to share my WOW for the day!
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Music speaks to the soul, in any language: Queen Elizabeth Competition
When I was about 10 years old I developed a liking for the Queen Elizabeth Competition. It was hard to follow as I was young and the competition happened at night.I had a little radio and had been able to locate the channel where the competition was being broadcasted every night so when I went to bed, it was not to sleep right away or at least not as fast as my father was hoping I would.
It is true that it is how I discovered there was classical music I didn't like as well. Some eventually grew on me but some remains much of the contemporary classical movement remains 'too much' for me. That is where I fell in love, Tchaikovsky's famous Piano Concerto#1.
This also helped strike a friendship later in life with someone who would give me a recording of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony made during the Queen Elisabeth Competition competition.
"In 1937 a dream, long-cherished by Queen Elisabeth of Belgium and Eugène Ysaye, came true: the Concours Eugène Ysaye was born. The war brought this enterprising and generous venture to a stop that many thought definitive. However, the Queen’s determination was such that the competition was eventually resumed in 1951 under its present name. It soon became a highly popular event in Belgium’s musical life and progressively acquired an enviable international status.
...In 1988, the directors of the Q.E.C. launched the Song Award. This was done on an experimental basis, but the general response was such that it is now a permanent component of the Q.E.C.
An important characteristic of the Q.E.C. is its emphasis on Belgian contemporary music which was materialized in the test pieces for the semi-finals and the finals. In fact, from 1938 to 1983, the unpublished concerto played by all twelve finalists was by a Belgian composer. The first of these was composed by Jean Absil for the 1938 Concours Eugène Ysaye"
The internet has brought the competition online and what a special treat to find it just in time for the Piano last year! I was able to download the mp3s on ITune but my pc crashed and all that remains is what I have uploaded here. The Belgian Liebrecht Van Beckevoort took 6th place. The winner Anna Vinnitskaya, was brilliant. I watched the audience stand up, applauding for an encore, which is not be allowed by competition rules, because they were so taken with her performance. And it was absolutely wonderful! I think she won that day, but maybe not...
I'll admit that I skipped the Voice this year and although I look forward to next year's Violin, the Piano is my favorite, and that will have to wait until 2010. They have announced the rules for the 2009 Violin Competition.
To watch this year's performances - until September 15, 2008, go to http://video.cmireb.be/vod/
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Ramblings...
As I scrambled to finish putting Belgian Laces together this time, I have found myself wandering lots of wonderful places that I can add to this blog but that I would also like to add to a specifically TBR blog... That would be nice but I think I am really scattering myself way too much already.
No tsunamis in Belgium but the way the rain has come down lately, the flash floods that come of the storms have created waves of mud streaming down the streets, getting into everything... It's awful to see... In one month Liege has had 3 episodes...
I am torn between talking about the year my parents were married: 1958 and the terrible weather Liege and all of Belgium is having to deal with this year...
I saw some terrible reports on the news that make me worry about my friends and I hope they're ok.
I was translating an article about floodings that occurred in the Middle Ages and at one point there was such terrible destruction that they didn't even rebuild. They left...
No tsunamis in Belgium but the way the rain has come down lately, the flash floods that come of the storms have created waves of mud streaming down the streets, getting into everything... It's awful to see... In one month Liege has had 3 episodes...And it's been all over Belgium, there has not been any real safe place to speak of.
Right now the big concern is the water supply that is no longer safe to drink because of the storms, and then this morning I read that water is once again ok to drink in Wallonia, so I am beginning to relax a little.
Goes to show that what Mother Nature wants, Mother Nature gets... nothing stands in her way...
The only difference has been that through coordinated effort they have been able to minimize the problems although in one situation their safe plans failed because the water cut the rescuers off from everything...
The US have not been spared either and the economy is bound to feel it in times that are already hard enough on everyone.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Legacy
The past couple of years we have experienced something rather unique.
Bruce’s uncle Stanley died and Bruce has been serving as Administrator of his estate.
We almost didn’t have know there was an estate and that is a whole story by itself but serendipity lined things up so we were able to discover a treasure trove of family documents, photos, letters and artifacts that we are grateful to have been able to recover.
Bruce’s uncle lived in Los Angeles. He was 84y old, never married and was definitely a pack rat.
One treasure I want to share is the near 180 letters he wrote his mother during the time he was in the service between November 1942 and August 1945.
I have made phone calls to several places including to the Legacy Project http://www.warletters.com/mission/index.html
Andy was very nice and suggested reading the whole lot of them and finding one letter that was more outstanding than the rest and posting it to their site.
That is how I learned a little more about the man behind the boxes of things we had brought back from Los Angeles.
I discovered someone who must not have been very happy and had learned to keep to ‘safe’ subjects in his letters although at times the wall does come down but he would not let the guards down long.
Maybe I can start typing the letters here… one at a time… create a webpage for him in his memory before we ship the whole thing to Fort Sam Houston where they will keep his letters in the museum. Odd to think a person’s things could end up in a museum… and the only reason we are opting for Fort Sam Houston, in San Antonio, TX rather than Los Angeles is that Stanley was part of that first group of trained technicians that came out of Brooke General Hospital, now the Brooke Army Medical Center.
He later became a landscaper and would have rather been in the Fort’s green houses than doing what they had him trained and training others to do but he was there for more than 18 months and tells his experience through his letters.
I would like to eventually publish the whole thing and so reserve the right to do this.
The timing may not be right and there may be more psychology involved here than little ole me can handle. When the time is right, maybe… we’ll see… right now… the tedious task of transcribing is daunting and I am not looking forward to it…
So here goes nothing…
Bruce’s uncle Stanley died and Bruce has been serving as Administrator of his estate.
We almost didn’t have know there was an estate and that is a whole story by itself but serendipity lined things up so we were able to discover a treasure trove of family documents, photos, letters and artifacts that we are grateful to have been able to recover.
Bruce’s uncle lived in Los Angeles. He was 84y old, never married and was definitely a pack rat.
One treasure I want to share is the near 180 letters he wrote his mother during the time he was in the service between November 1942 and August 1945.
I have made phone calls to several places including to the Legacy Project http://www.warletters.com/mission/index.html
Andy was very nice and suggested reading the whole lot of them and finding one letter that was more outstanding than the rest and posting it to their site.
That is how I learned a little more about the man behind the boxes of things we had brought back from Los Angeles.
I discovered someone who must not have been very happy and had learned to keep to ‘safe’ subjects in his letters although at times the wall does come down but he would not let the guards down long.
Maybe I can start typing the letters here… one at a time… create a webpage for him in his memory before we ship the whole thing to Fort Sam Houston where they will keep his letters in the museum. Odd to think a person’s things could end up in a museum… and the only reason we are opting for Fort Sam Houston, in San Antonio, TX rather than Los Angeles is that Stanley was part of that first group of trained technicians that came out of Brooke General Hospital, now the Brooke Army Medical Center.
He later became a landscaper and would have rather been in the Fort’s green houses than doing what they had him trained and training others to do but he was there for more than 18 months and tells his experience through his letters.
I would like to eventually publish the whole thing and so reserve the right to do this.
The timing may not be right and there may be more psychology involved here than little ole me can handle. When the time is right, maybe… we’ll see… right now… the tedious task of transcribing is daunting and I am not looking forward to it…
So here goes nothing…
Friday, June 27, 2008
Baseball: Rockies win!
Baseball, baseball and more baseball…
It seems like I was doomed from Day 1 of our marriage.
My life is so entwined with the sport of baseball I’m not sure I’d know how to act if there were no baseball games to go to any more.
And so here we go again… After a disastrous year last year, Michael has had an incredible season this year. He plays for the Peru Little League Rockies. His team only won one game last year. They started the season slow and we were ready for a repeat but did they ever surprise us!!! They only lost 4 games total. They finished ranked #2 and won the City Tournament!
Michael who had not had a single hit all year last year (practices don’t count), really came out of his shell this year! He blew us away when he hit a 3 run homer followed in the same game by a grand slam! It was inevitably followed by a strike-out streak but he snapped out of it and started hitting the ball again…
Where he really surprised a lot of people was with his pitching.
He threw 2 no-nos (no hitters – someone asked how that could be called no hitters as he did hit a batter in both of those games putting them on base)…
Say that I am a terrible mother but the thought of him having to learn that life quickly turns the tables on people, I wasn’t thrilled at the news he would be pitching in the championship game… “What a time to eat humble pie?”, I shamelessly thought…
Well… I am eating the crow… and happily so… Michael did great. His pitch count pulled him out for the last batter but another great little player relieved him and got the job done: Eamon Borse. Final score: Rockies 11 – Cubs 6
It was not a no hitter… In fact Michael gave up a homerun to his friend Larry… but they made brilliant plays! They played like a team should, together… Nobody more important than the other…
Much can be learned from sports, when we relax and let ourselves enjoy the moment and remember that these are games. The parents were great this year too. For the first time in a long time I enjoyed going to the Little League Park… And for us, our time is done…
We will be doing All-Stars soon, where and when we still have no clue but Michael is sre excited.
It seems like I was doomed from Day 1 of our marriage.
My life is so entwined with the sport of baseball I’m not sure I’d know how to act if there were no baseball games to go to any more.
And so here we go again… After a disastrous year last year, Michael has had an incredible season this year. He plays for the Peru Little League Rockies. His team only won one game last year. They started the season slow and we were ready for a repeat but did they ever surprise us!!! They only lost 4 games total. They finished ranked #2 and won the City Tournament!
Michael who had not had a single hit all year last year (practices don’t count), really came out of his shell this year! He blew us away when he hit a 3 run homer followed in the same game by a grand slam! It was inevitably followed by a strike-out streak but he snapped out of it and started hitting the ball again…
Where he really surprised a lot of people was with his pitching.
He threw 2 no-nos (no hitters – someone asked how that could be called no hitters as he did hit a batter in both of those games putting them on base)…
Say that I am a terrible mother but the thought of him having to learn that life quickly turns the tables on people, I wasn’t thrilled at the news he would be pitching in the championship game… “What a time to eat humble pie?”, I shamelessly thought…
Well… I am eating the crow… and happily so… Michael did great. His pitch count pulled him out for the last batter but another great little player relieved him and got the job done: Eamon Borse. Final score: Rockies 11 – Cubs 6
It was not a no hitter… In fact Michael gave up a homerun to his friend Larry… but they made brilliant plays! They played like a team should, together… Nobody more important than the other…
Much can be learned from sports, when we relax and let ourselves enjoy the moment and remember that these are games. The parents were great this year too. For the first time in a long time I enjoyed going to the Little League Park… And for us, our time is done…
We will be doing All-Stars soon, where and when we still have no clue but Michael is sre excited.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Online memorials
Some people would consider my activities past weird.I just came back from the cemetery where I have been taking pictures of the graves.
They are not particularly special in beauty or artistry. They are special because they contain information that researchers may be looking for, but more than that.
This all started for me about 3-4 years ago or so.
I have never been fond of cemetery. I had never understood how people could jog through cemeteries as part of their daily exercise routines. To me THAT was weird. I figured I would eventually end up in one of them soon enough, why would I haunt them prematurely?
Well… I guess it’s another one of those “never say never” times for me…
I always seem to eat my words…
And this I do happily…
My grandmother Driessens died in 1994 in Belgium of course and I could not attend the funeral. However my father did something amazing. He sent me the ribbon that was wrapped around the coffin along with a clip of my grandmother’s white hair… In his letter he added that he wanted me to have a private ceremony to have my own closure.
Well, of course I could not do that! That was my grandmother’s hair… I kept it!
Then my father passed in 2000 and there could be no closure for me there either. Until one I opened an old letter and saw a picture of him waiving back at me as though he was saying goodbye and I cried like a baby…
As a genealogist I interact with many other researchers all over and one person in particular peeked my interest. He was taking pictures at the Robermont cemetery fro a website. http://www.lescimetieres.com/Accueil/cadreaccueil.htm
Since my Grandmother’s ashes had been dispersed on a lawn there, I asked him if he could send me a picture of that lawn. It was really out of curiosity at first. Joseph is a wonderful guy and he sent me the attachment shortly thereafter.
I had not been prepared for the effect the picture would have on me.
Pretty much like seeing my father waiving at me…
There was texture to the event. Something that had happened so long ago but that maybe because of distance had not quite registered completely. I was overwhelmed.
That day I realized that Joseph Beaujean, the photographer, had given me a priceless gift.
It may not have cost him much materially, although it cost him in time and dedication, but the gift was without a doubt priceless.
That day I realized that I wanted to do the same for others and began to help my friend Deb Beheler, who coordinates the Indiana GenWeb, including Miami county where I live, with her project of indexing the local cemeteries and adding pictures to the index.
http://incass-inmiami.org/miami/cemeteries/perutwp.htm
inmiami.org/miami/cemeteries/perutwp.htmThat’s how I started spending time in cemeteries… Amazing? Not really… I just hope someone will benefit from this effort… I know I have, as, strangely enough, I have grown closer to the community I live in. I have found our Adeline Cattin who taught French to Cole Porter when he was 6 years old. I know where she is even though I still haven't actually found her grave yet... Soon I hope...
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Pierre Rapsat - Joan joue aux dominos
Pierre Rapsat - Joan joue aux dominos
Vidéo envoyée par Quarouble
Bonjour ou Bonsoir ,
Second des trois extraits du Concert
Rares sont les Artistes a s'être fait accompagner par un tel ensemble Musical .
Beau moment ...
http://www.rapsat.net/
Sité créé par un Fan .....bien fait
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