No. 41 (R) Squadron (also written as "No. XLI Squadron") of the Royal Air Force is currently the RAF's Test and Evaluation Squadron ("TES"), based at RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire. Its official title is "41(R) TES". The Squadron celebrates its 95th anniversary in 2011, and is one of the oldest RAF squadrons in existence.

No. 41 Squadron Royal Flying Corps was originally formed at Fort Rowner, RAF Gosport, in mid April 1916 with a nucleus of men from 28 Squadron RFC. However, on 22 May 1916, the Squadron was disbanded again when it was re-numbered "27 Reserve Squadron RFC".

41 Squadron was re-formed on 14 July 1916 with a nucleus of men from 27 Reserve Squadron, and equipped with the Vickers F.B.5 'Gun Bus' and Airco D.H.2 'Scout'. These were replaced in early September 1916 with the Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.8, and it was these aircraft which the Squadron took on their deployment to France on 15 October 1916. Eighteen aircraft departed Gosport for the 225-mile flight to St. Omer, but only 12 actually made it, the others landing elsewhere with technical problems. The 12 pilots spent a week at St. Omer before moving to Abeele, where the ground crews reached them by road, and the remaining six pilots by rail, minus their aircraft.

Claudio Abbado, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (Italian pronunciation: [ˈklaudio abˈbaːdo]; born June 26, 1933), is an Italian conductor. He has served as music director of the La Scala opera house in Milan, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Vienna State Opera, and principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra from 1989 to 2002, when he retired from the position for health reasons.

Born in Milan, Italy, Abbado is the son of the violinist and composer Michelangelo Abbado, who was his first piano teacher, and the brother of musician Marcello Abbado. After studying piano at the Milan Conservatory, in 1955 Claudio Abbado studied conducting with Hans Swarowsky at the Vienna Academy of Music. In 1958 he won the international Koussevitsky Competition for conductors, which resulted in a number of operatic conducting engagements in Italy, and in 1963 he won the Dimitri Mitropoulos Prize for conductors, allowing him to work for five months with the New York Philharmonic.

Irina Lankova (born September 11, 1977) is a Russian concert pianist. After studies in Moscow, she moved to Brussels where she continued her studies and built her reputation by winning several awards and by participation in various festivals. In 2006 she moved to England with her British husband with whom she has two daughters. She debuted in the UK in Wigmore Hall on July 1, 2008. Lankova now lives in the south of France.

Irina Lankova was born in Mitchurinsk, in the Russian Federation and started playing the piano at age seven. She graduated in 1996 with the highest honours from the Gnessin State Musical College in Moscow where she studied with Irina Temchenko. She then moved to Brussels to continue her studies at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels with Professor Evgeny Mogilevsky. Here she was awarded the Premier Prix with the highest honours followed by Diplome Superieur. Later she participated in master classes with Vitaly Margulis and Vladimir Tropp.

She became Laureate of the Fonds Wernaert’s, the French-speaking Community of Belgium, for her piano studies and was awarded the Prix de la Fondation Horlait Dapsens (Belgium) three times for her chamber music performances. She has appeared at all major festivals and concert halls in Belgium: Festival Midi-Minimes, Festival d'Enghien, Festival de Silly, Festival de Wallonie, Festival Monteverdi, the Flagey concert hall and Grande Salle of Brussels's Conservatory.

Hélène Grimaud (born November 7, 1969) is a French pianist.

Grimaud was born in Aix-en-Provence, France. On her mother's side, she is descended from Italian-Sephardi Jews on Corsica; and, on her father's side, from Algerian Jews. She has stated that, as a child, she was often "agitated". She discovered the piano at seven. In 1982, she entered the Conservatoire de Paris, where she studied with Jacques Rouvier. In 1985, she won 1st Prize at the Conservatory and the Grand Prix du Disque of the Académie Charles Cros for her recording of the Sergei Rachmaninoff Piano Sonata No. 2. In 1987, she launched her professional career with a solo recital in Paris and a performance with the Orchestre de Paris under Daniel Barenboim.

In 1991, at age 21, Grimaud moved to Tallahassee, Florida, to be near a boyfriend who taught bassoon at Florida State University. In 1997, she settled in Westchester County, north of New York City. After some time spent in Berlin, she currently resides in Switzerland. She has a passion for wolves, which she studies and raises. She now divides her time between her musical career and the Wolf Conservation Center, which she co-founded with her former companion, photographer J. Henry Fair. She also experiences synesthesia, where one physical sense adds to another, in her case seeing music as color.