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Paul Pressler is an advisor of the New York- and London-based private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice.^[1] Formerly president and CEO of Gap, Inc. and Chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, Pressler is also a director of Avon Products Inc.,^[2] Overture Acquisition Corporation,^[3] Advanced Sensor Technology,^[4] OpenTable,^[5] and Web Personal Assistant.^[6]

A long-time supporter of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, Pressler served on the organization's Greater Los Angeles board of directors from 1994–2002 and on the National board of directors from 2002- 2009.

Pressler was the president and CEO of Gap, Inc. from September 2002 to 22 January 2007.^[7] He also served on the company's Board of Directors.

Before Gap, Pressler spent 15 years with The Walt Disney Company, most recently as chairman of the Parks and Resorts division. Prior to that he was president of Disneyland, president of the Disney Store chain and senior vice president of Disney Licensing. Before joining Disney he was vice president of design and marketing for Kenner-Parker Toys.

A New York native, Pressler received a bachelors degree in business economics from the State University of New York in Oneonta, New York.

The Walt Disney Company[link]

The Disney Store[link]

Pressler joined The Disney Store as president in 1993. The store opened up hundreds of new shops all over the world and was making larger profits for the company than Walt Disney Feature Animation at one point.^{[citation needed]} In 1994, Pressler was appointed president of the company's Disneyland theme park. He led the team developing the property into a two-park, three-hotel resort^{[citation needed]}.

Disneyland/Disneyland Resort[link]

In 1996, Pressler oversaw a major expansion, including the opening of the new Disney California Adventure Park theme park; a new hotel, Disney's Grand Californian; the remodeling of an existing hotel, Paradise Pier; a new retail, dining and entertainment complex called Downtown Disney; and a new multi-story parking area.^[8] The new park and hotels opened in early 2001, and the entire complex was named the Disneyland Resort.

In 1996, Pressler approved a $100 million change to one of Disneyland's attraction areas, called Tomorrowland.^[9] This change would include several new attractions and an updated 'Jules Verne' theme for the area.

During his tenure as president the theme parks saw record profits, and various changes were made to the theme park's merchandise and operations.^[10] California Adventure consistently underperformed corporate and public expectations, and in November, 2007, Disney announced an over $1 billion overhaul to enhance and expand the original park. Profits also came at the expense of maintenance as light bulbs, landscapes and fixtures went unchanged or ignored^{[citation needed]}, But Pressler did push through a period of record profits for the Disney theme park division. However, after the events of September 11, 2001 (shortly after California Adventure opened), tourism to the resort had dropped.^[11]

Walt Disney Parks and Resorts[link]

Pressler was promoted to lead Disney's worldwide resorts division Disney Cruise Line, the Disneyland Resort, the Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort Paris, as well as encourage negotiations with the government of Hong Kong over the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort.^[12] His time as head of the Parks and Resorts division is very controversial among fans of the company and its theme parks.

References[link]

This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in the German Wikipedia. (December 2009) Don't speak German? Click here to read a machine-translated version of the German article. Click [show] on the right to review important translation instructions before translating. Google's machine translation is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. After translating, {{Translated|de|Paul Badura-Skoda}} must be added to the talk page to ensure copyright compliance. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Paul Badura-Skoda (born 6 October 1927, in Vienna) is an Austrian pianist.

He won first prize in the Austrian Music Competition in 1947. In 1949, he performed with distinguished conductors like Wilhelm Furtwängler and Herbert von Karajan. He has specialized in works of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, but has an extensive repertoire, and has made numerous recordings, including more than 200 LPs. Together with his wife Eva Badura-Skoda, he has also produced musical scholarship of impressive quality. The Badura-Skodas edited one of the volumes of Mozart's piano concertos for the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe (Serie V/Werkgruppe 15/Band 5, consisting of K. 453, 456, and 459).

External links[link]

• Paul Badura-Skoda's Homepage. The information above is largely adapted from the biography given on this homepage.
• CDs of Badura-Skoda released by label GENUIN
• Hear Paul Badura-Skoda in concert from WGBH Radio Boston
• Interview with Paul Badura-Skoda by Bruce Duffie, March 7, 1989
• Birthday Congratulations

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Menahem Pressler (born 16 December 1923, Magdeburg) is a German-born American pianist, founding member of the Beaux Arts Trio.

Professional career[link]

Menahem Pressler fled Nazi Germany in 1939 and emigrated to Israel.^[1] His career was launched after he was awarded first prize at the Debussy International Piano Competition in San Francisco in 1946. This was followed by his American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy. Since then, Pressler’s extensive tours of North America and Europe have included performances with the orchestras of New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Dallas, San Francisco, London, Paris, Brussels, Oslo, Helsinki, among others. After a solo career of nearly a decade, he debuted as a chamber musician at the 1955 Berkshire Festival, where he appeared as the pianist of the Beaux Arts Trio, with Daniel Guilet, violin, and Bernard Greenhouse, cello.^[2]

Since 1955, for nearly 60 years, Menahem Pressler has taught on the piano faculty at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music where he holds the rank of Distinguished Professor of Music as the Charles Webb Chair.^[2] Pressler has had prize-winning students in all of the major international piano competitions, including the Queen Elizabeth, Busoni, Rubenstein, Leeds and Van Cliburn competitions, such as the Van Cliburn Competition from the Ninth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition to the Thirteenth. He worked closely for over 30 years with the Emerson String Quartet.

In 2010 he played at the Rheingau Musik Festival with Antonio Meneses, the last cellist of the Beaux Arts Trio, and appeared before in the series Rendezvous.^[1]

Awards and recognitions[link]

Among his honors and awards, Pressler has received honorary doctorates from the University of Nebraska, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the North Carolina School of the Arts, six Grammy nominations (including one in 2006), a lifetime achievement award from Gramophone Magazine^[2] and the International Classical Music Awards ^[3], Chamber Music America’s Distinguished Service Award, the Gold Medal of Merit from the National Society of Arts and Letters. He has also been awarded the German Critics “Ehrenurkunde” award,^[2] and election into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2007 Pressler was appointed as an Honorary Fellow of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance in recognition of a lifetime of performance and leadership in music. In 2005 Pressler received two additional awards of international merit: the German Bundesverdienstkreuz (Cross of Merit), Germany’s highest honor, and France’s highest cultural honor, the Commandeur in the Order of Arts and Letters award. In April 2011 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Classical Music Awards in Finland.

Discography[link]

In addition to recording nearly the entire piano chamber repertoire with the Beaux Arts Trio for Philips, Menahem Pressler has compiled over thirty solo recordings, ranging from the works of Bach to Ben Haim.^[2]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Menahem Pressler's site
• Indiana University Alliance of Distinguished and Titled Professors - Menahem Pressler

This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in the German Wikipedia. (March 2010) Don't speak German? Click here to read a machine-translated version of the German article. Click [show] on the right to review important translation instructions before translating. Google's machine translation is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. After translating, {{Translated|de|Hans Swarowsky}} must be added to the talk page to ensure copyright compliance. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Hans Swarowsky (September 16, 1899 – September 10, 1975) was an Austrian conductor of Hungarian birth and Jewish descent.

Swarowsky was born in Budapest, Hungary. He studied the art of conducting under Felix Weingartner and Richard Strauss.^[1] His teachers in musical theory included Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern.

Herbert von Karajan invited him to take on the permanent position as conductor of the Vienna State Opera.^[1]

He became a professor of conducting at the Vienna Music Academy. His many conducting students included Leonid Nikolaev, Paul Angerer, Claudio Abbado, Iván Fischer, Jesús López-Cobos, Zubin Mehta, Gustav Meier, Miltiades Caridis, Alexander Alexeev, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Brian Jackson, Alfred Prinz, Bryan Fairfax and Albert Rosen. Swarowsky's lectures and essays were collected into the publication Wahrung der Gestalt (Keeping Shape), which today serves as an encyclopaedia for performance and conducting.^[2]

He died in Salzburg, Austria, a few days before his 76th birthday.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Hans Swarowsky at Allmusic
• Literature by and about Hans Swarowsky in the German National Library catalogue
• Hans Swarowsky at the Bach Cantatas Website
• Hans Swarowsky at the Internet Movie Database
• Brief entry on Swarowsky at a site devoted to Maurice Abravanel.

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