Navarre (English /nəˈvɑr/; Spanish: Navarra; Basque: Nafarroa), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre (Spanish: Comunidad Foral de Navarra [komuniˈðað foˈɾal de naˈβara]; Basque: Nafarroako Foru Erkidegoa [nafaroako foɾu erkidegoa]), is an autonomous community in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Country, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and Aquitaine in France. The capital is the city of Pamplona (or Iruña in Basque).

During the time of the Roman Empire, the territory of the province was inhabited by the Vascones, a pre-Roman tribe who populated the southern slopes of the Pyrenees. In the northern, mountaineous areas the Vascones escaped large-scale Roman settlement but not so in the flatter areas to the south which were amenable to large-scale Roman farming.

The area was never fully subjugated either by the Visigoths or by the Moors. In AD 778, the Basques defeated a Frankish army in the Battle of Roncevaux Pass. Two generations later, in 824, the chieftain Iñigo Arista was chosen King of Pamplona, laying a foundation for the later Kingdom of Navarre. That kingdom reached its zenith during the reign of Sancho III of Navarre and covered the area of the present-day Navarre, Basque country, and La Rioja, together with parts of modern Cantabria, Castile and León, and Aragon.

Gil Shaham (born February 19, 1971) is an Israeli-American violinist.

Gil Shaham was born in Urbana, Illinois, while his parents, Israeli scientists, were on an academic fellowship at the University of Illinois. His father Jacob was an astrophysicist, and his mother, Meira Diskin, was a cytogeneticist. His sister is the pianist Orli Shaham. He is a graduate of the Horace Mann School in Riverdale, New York. The family returned to Jerusalem when Gil was two. At the age of seven, Shaham began taking violin lessons from Samuel Bernstein at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. In 1980, when Shaham was nine years old, he played for Isaac Stern, Nathan Milstein and Henryk Szeryng, and attended the Aspen Music School in Colorado, studying with Dorothy DeLay (the teacher of many other leading artists, including Itzhak Perlman and Sarah Chang) and Jens Ellerman.

Shaham is married to the Australian-born violinist Adele Anthony. They have two children, Elijah and Ella Mei.

At age 10, Shaham debuted as soloist with the Jerusalem Symphony, conducted by the violinist Alexander Schneider. Less than a year later Shaham performed with Israel's foremost orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, which was conducted by Zubin Mehta. At age 11, in 1982, Shaham won first prize in the Claremont Competition and was admitted to the Juilliard School in New York, where he studied with Dorothy DeLay and Hyo Kang. In addition, both he and his younger sister, the pianist Orli Shaham, attended Columbia University.

Adele Anthony (born 1971) is an Australian-American violinist. She attended Dernancourt Primary School, South Australia. A native of Tasmania, she studied violin at the University of Adelaide and the Juilliard School.

At 13, Anthony was the youngest winner of the ABC Instrumental and Vocal Competition, performing the Violin Concerto by Jean Sibelius with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. She was later the winner of the 1996 Carl Nielsen International violin competition. She studied with Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School in New York for eight years.

Her recordings include the Philip Glass Violin Concerto (1999/2000 on Naxos Records), Arvo Pärt's Tabula Rasa with Gil Shaham, Neeme Järvi and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (on Deutsche Grammophon) and Ross Edwards' Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Maninyas / Sibelius's Violin Concerto in D Minor, op 47 with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arvo Volmer (Canary Classics CC09).

She is married to violinist Gil Shaham.

The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra is a Grammy Award-winning classical music chamber orchestra based in New York City. It is known for its collaborative leadership style in which the musicians, not a conductor, interpret the score.

Orpheus was founded in 1972, by cellist Julian Fifer and a group of fellow musicians who aspired to perform orchestral repertoire using chamber music ensemble techniques. Central to its distinctive personality is its unique practice of sharing and rotating leadership roles. For every work, the members of the orchestra select the concertmaster and the principal players for each section. These players constitute the core group, whose role is to form the initial concept of the piece and to shape the rehearsal process. In the final rehearsals, all members of the orchestra participate in refining the interpretation and execution, with members taking turns listening from the hall for balance, blend, articulation, dynamic range and clarity of expression.

Recognized internationally as one of the world's great orchestras, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has been playing to music lovers on four continents for 34 years. For the past twenty-six seasons, the centerpiece of each Orpheus season has been its concert series at New York's Carnegie Hall. Accompanying the critical acclaim for Orpheus' live appearances are numerous distinctions and awards, including a 2001 Grammy Award for Shadow Dances: Stravinsky Miniatures, a 1998 Grammy nomination for its recording of Mozart piano concerti with Richard Goode, the 1998 "Ensemble of the Year" award by Musical America, as well as performances on Herbie Hancock's Grammy-winning Gershwin's World. On May 16, 2010, the orchestra was awarded an honorary degree from Case Western Reserve University at the university's graduation ceremony alongside Katie Couric and M. Cherif Bassiouni.

Michele Navarra (January 5, 1905 - August 2, 1958) was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was a qualified physician and headed the Mafia Family from the town of Corleone. He was known as 'u patri nostru (our father).

Navarra was born in Corleone (Sicily) in a middle class family; his father was a small landowner, a land surveyor and teacher at the local agrarian school. He studied at the University of Palermo, first engineering and later medicine, getting his degree in 1929. He served in the Italian army until 1942, reaching the rank of captain. He became the boss of Corleone in 1943, succeeding Calogero Lo Bue.

Navarra was the old fashioned type of Mafia boss: genteel, well dressed, but ferocious. He did not murder people himself, but delegated the work. From 1944-48, when he took over command of the Mafia in town, there had been 57 murders in Corleone. By skilful manipulation of the Mafia network of mutual aid and graft, he occupied several key positions in the establishment of Corleone, had powerful political connections an enjoyed a remarkable high prestige. He became the official medical adviser to the Ferrovie dello Stato (Italian State Railways), which was offered to him when, in public competition, he was the only candidate.