The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, bass fiddle, bass violin, doghouse bass, contrabass, bass viol, or stand-up bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2 (see standard tuning). The double bass is a standard member of the string section of the symphony orchestra and smaller string ensembles in Western classical music. In addition, it is used in other genres such as jazz, 1950s-style blues and rock and roll, rockabilly/psychobilly, traditional country music, bluegrass, tango and many types of folk music. A person who plays the double bass is usually referred to as a bassist.
The double bass stands around 180 cm (six feet) from scroll to endpin, and is typically constructed from several types of wood, including maple for the back, spruce for the top, and ebony for the fingerboard. It is uncertain whether the instrument is a descendant of the viola da gamba or of the violin, but it is traditionally aligned with the violin family. While the double bass is nearly identical in construction to other violin family instruments, it also embodies features found in the older viol family.
Vittorio Monti (6 January 1868 – 20 June 1922) was an Italian composer, violinist, and conductor.
Monti was born in Naples, where he studied violin and composition at the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella. Around 1900 he got an assignment as the conductor for the Lamoureux Orchestra in Paris, where he wrote several ballets and operettas, for example, Noël de Pierrot.
His only famous work is his Csárdás, written around 1904 and played by almost every gypsy orchestra.
Michael Stephen "Mike" Portnoy (born April 20, 1967) is an American drummer primarily known as the former drummer, backing vocalist, and a co-founder of the progressive metal band Dream Theater. Known for his drumming prowess and technical skill, Portnoy has won 26 awards from the Modern Drummer magazine . He co-produced six Dream Theater albums with guitarist John Petrucci, starting from Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory through Black Clouds and Silver Linings. From A Change of Seasons onwards, Portnoy had been writing a significant amount of Dream Theater's lyrics. He is the second youngest person (after Neil Peart) to be inducted into the Modern Drummer's Hall of Fame (at 37 years of age).
Besides his work with Dream Theater, Portnoy is known for his many side projects and tribute bands. He is a founding member of Liquid Tension Experiment, an instrumental progressive rock band featuring fellow DT members John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess along with bass legend Tony Levin. He is also a founding member of Transatlantic, a progressive rock "super-group" featuring Spock's Beard keyboardist/vocalist Neal Morse, Flower Kings guitarist Roine Stolt and Marillon bassist Pete Trewavas. Portnoy has also recorded and/or toured/performed live with Avenged Sevenfold, Neal Morse, OSI, Hail!, Stone Sour, Fates Warning, Overkill and G3. Over the years, Portnoy has also created tribute bands to The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Rush, and The Who, which has allowed him to perform the music of his four favorite drummers.
The Sydney Symphony Orchestra (abbreviation – SSO), commonly known as the Sydney Symphony, is an Australian symphony orchestra based in Sydney. It has the unique privilege of having the Sydney Opera House as its home concert hall. The orchestra's current chief conductor is Vladimir Ashkenazy. His term will conclude in 2013, and David Robertson will succeed him from 2014.
The Sydney Symphony is an icon of the Sydney cultural scene, performing around 150 concerts a year to a combined annual audience of more than 350,000. The regular subscription concert series are mostly performed at the Sydney Opera House but other venues around Sydney are used as well, including the City Recital Hall at Angel Place and the Sydney Town Hall. The Town Hall was the home of the orchestra until the opening of the Opera House in 1973. Since then, most concerts have been taking place in the Opera House's Concert Hall (capacity: 2,679 seats).
A major annual event for the orchestra is Symphony in the Domain, a free evening outdoor picnic concert held in the summer month of January in the large city park known as The Domain. This event draws audiences of over 80,000 and is a long-established part of the Sydney summer cultural calendar.
Giovanni Bottesini (22 December 1821 – 7 July 1889), was an Italian Romantic composer, conductor, and a double bass virtuoso.
Born in Crema, Lombardy, he was taught the rudiments of music by his father, an accomplished clarinetist and composer, at a young age and had played timpani in Crema with the Teatro Sociale before the age of eleven. He studied violin with Carlo Cogliati, and would have most likely continued on this instrument except for a unique turn of events. His father sought a place for him in the Milan Conservatory, but due to the Bottesini family's lack of money, Bottesini needed a scholarship. Only two positions were available: double bass and bassoon. He prepared a successful audition for the double bass scholarship in a matter of weeks. At the conservatory, he studied with Luigi Rossi, to whom he would later dedicate his Tre grandi duetti per contrabasso. Only four years later, a surprisingly short time by the standards of the day, he left with a prize of 300 francs for solo playing. This money financed the acquisition of an instrument of Carlo Antonio Testore, and a globe-trotting career as "the Paganini of the Double Bass" was launched.
Plot
In November 1937, high school student and aspiring thespian Richard Samuels takes a day trip into New York City. There, he meets and begins a casual friendship with Gretta Adler, their friendship based on a shared love and goal of a profession in the creative arts. But also on this trip, Richard stumbles across the Mercury Theatre and meets 'Orson Welles' (qv), who, based on an impromptu audition, offers Richard an acting job as Lucius in his modern retelling of Julius Caesar, which includes such stalwart Mercury Theatre players as 'Joseph Cotten (I)' (qv) and 'George Coulouris' (qv). Despite others with official roles as producer 'John Houseman (I)' (qv), this production belongs to Welles, the unofficial/official dictator. In other words, whatever Welles wants, the cast and crew better deliver. These requests include everything, even those of a sexual nature. Welles does not believe in conventions and will do whatever he wants, which includes not having a fixed opening date, although the unofficial opening date is in one week's time. In turn, Welles realizes that his name will either be strengthened or ruined in the theater community by this production. Richard is taken under the wing by the production's Jane-of-All-Trades, Sonja Jones. Known as the Ice Queen by the male cast, Sonja deflects much of the unwanted sexual attention by jokingly implying that she and Richard are having a fling, which Richard wants nothing more than to be the truth. As the end of the week and opening night approaches, Richard, having seen Welles' behavior, has to decide if acting in this production is worth it at any cost.
Keywords: 17-year-old, 1930s, actor, actors'-equity-association, actress, ambition, ambulance, ambulance-siren, apology, applause
All's fair in love and theater
Orson Welles: Cinna is Shakespeare's indictment of the intelligentsia. He's a lofty, Byronic figure.
Orson Welles: Where is thou ukulele?::Richard Samuels: I think some asshole... doth... stole it
Orson Welles: Do you know Booth Tarkington's "The Magnificent Ambersons?" Tarkington was a family friend. The character of Eugene, the inventor, is based on my father who died when I was fifteen. My mother when I was nine. "Ambersons" is about how everything gets taken away from you.
Orson Welles: Look at us, Runyon. Me without my story and you without your girl. We can't ever tell what will happen at all, can we? Once I stood in Grand Central Station to say goodbye to a pretty girl. I was wild about her. In fact, we decided we couldn't live without each other, and we were to be married. When we came to say goodbye we knew we wouldn't see each other for almost a year. I thought I couldn't live through it - and she stood there crying. Well, I don't even know where she lives now, or if she is living. If she ever thinks of me at all, she probably imagines I'm still dancing in some ballroom somewhere... Life and money both behave like quicksilver in a nest of cracks. And when they're gone we can't tell where - or what the devil we did with 'em...
John Houseman: This is an infinitely rewarding partnership, Orson. You go around smashing everything, you disenfranchise every friend, every supporter we have. And then I'm left desperately trying to clean up your mess. Because I am the one who ends up making the apologies, making the corrections, and making the ten thousand phone calls...::Orson Welles: And I'm out acting in "The Shadow" and "The March of Time" and every other piece-of-shit radio show in this city, just to pour my money into this son-of-a-bitch theater that you're supposed to be running.::John Houseman: That I'm 'supposed to be running?' I am killing myself trying to run it!
Joseph Cotten: Welcome to quadruple-space, kid.::Richard Samuels: What's quadruple space?::Joseph Cotten: You know in a novel, when the main characters are finally about to shtup? They can't describe it or otherwise they can't print the book. They just go, 'He hugged her hard, and they fell into bed.' Period. Quadruple space.::Norman Lloyd: The next paragraph the sun is rising and the milkman is knocking the bottles together.::Joseph Cotten: All the good stuff happens in the quadruple space.::Norman Lloyd: Fertilizer's hoping to make his next thirty years one long quadruple space.::Joseph Cotten: Forty.
Sonja Jones: Mercury. This is she... Oh, Mr. Ingram, Orson left just two minutes ago... he took an ambulance to beat the traffic... Well, you know, according to Orson there's no law on the books that says you have to be sick to take an ambulance. Of course, that's according to Orson, which probably means it isn't really true but it ought to be...
Richard Samuels: Well, I wish you luck.::Sonja Jones: I won't need luck. I don't believe in luck.::Richard Samuels: I don't think I do anymore, either. It's kind of a relief, isn't it, not believing in luck?::Sonja Jones: I don't want to keep Mr. Selznick, waiting, do I? How do I look?::Richard Samuels: Like a girl who's going to give me one blindingly beautiful parting kiss.
Sonja Jones: Orson wants to stay with me tonight.::Richard Samuels: Stay with you tonight?::Sonja Jones: I'm in no position to refuse.::Richard Samuels: What are you talking about?::Sonja Jones: I have to watch out for myself. That's what my whole life has taught me again and again.
[first lines]::Dr. Mewling: By the year of 1592, Shakespeare was already an actor, and a playwright. Records of how his stage career began have not survived. We do know that in 1594 he joined a theater troupe. Called... anyone remember? Not everyone at once now. The Lord Chamberlain's Men.
Plot
Former frontman for The Police, Sting performs in Italy on this video. In addition to a look behind the scenes, the film contains performances of "Don't Stand So Close to Me," "Every Breath You Take," "Fragile," and over a dozen more favorites from every phase of his lengthy career.
Plot
The spectacular mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli is joined by the ensemble Il Giardino Armonico in a program of baroque music from composer Antonio Vivaldi, "The Red Priest". The concert encompasses arias and instrumental pieces from the oratorio Juditha Triumphans and the operas L'Olimpiade, Tito Manlio, Ottone in Villa, La fida ninfa, Bajazet (Il Tamerlano) and a chilling, passionate performance from Farnace. The ensemble performs Concerto in C major for Flautino (affectionately known as the Penny Whistle), and Concerto in D major for Lute. The predominant portion of music was unknown and specially transcribed from Vivaldi's original manuscripts by musicologist Claudio Osele. The International Film Crew from RM Associates is directed by veteran opera director Brian Large and produced by classical music producer Colin Wilson. The sell-out musical event was presented at the superb art-deco Théatre des Champs-Eysées, Paris in September 2000.
Keywords: exclamation-point-in-title, punctuation-in-title
Plot
Robert works for a travel agency and helps to arrange scenes from the everyday lives of "ordinary" Czech families as an attraction for Japanese tourists. He also works as a kind of matchmaker and occasionally helps to put together some of his friends. He helps to separate his friend Hanka from Peter, an announcer for an independent radio station who tries to capture "real" life by recording the moments from "reality" and playing them over the air. Vesna, came to Prague from Macedonia because it is according to her the best place for UFOs to land, but her real reason for coming is somewhat different... Hanka is followed by the crazy Ondrej, until then a respected brain surgeon, and married with two kids. Through him she meets Jacob, who uses copious amounts of weed in order to be constructive in this gloomy world. On the other hand, this destroys his short-term memory - and he forgets that he already has a girlfriend. The disappointed Hanka runs to her parents, only to find some twenty-odd Japanese tourists watching her parents eat their dinner...
Keywords: overalls
Come to laugh at yourself.
Jakub: [Talking into the camera] I get high because the world is cruel and people are lonely. I work so I can buy drugs that make people seem kind, friendly, free and beautiful. Trouble is, these drugs caused me to hurt someone. So it doesn't make sense for me to do them anymore. I've had it with drugs. I'm giving up weed. [Raises his joint, looks at it, then looks back at the camera] This is my last joint. I'm not even going to finish it. [Throws joint at the floor, and then walks away. After a moment, he returns to pick up the joint, and smokes it again]
Plot
The 1950s. Manhattan lavatory attendant, Tom Ripley, borrows a Princeton jacket to play piano at a garden party. When the wealthy father of a recent Princeton grad chats Tom up, Tom pretends to know the son and is soon offered $1,000 to go to Italy to convince Dickie Greenleaf to return home. In Italy, Tom attaches himself to Dickie and to Marge, Dickie's cultured fiancée, pretending to love jazz and harboring homoerotic hopes as he soaks in luxury. Besides lying, Tom's talents include impressions and forgery, so when the handsome and confident Dickie tires of Tom, dismissing him as a bore, Tom goes to extreme lengths to make Greenleaf's privileges his own.
Keywords: 1950s, affection, american-abroad, american-express, anger, aristocrat, assumed-identity, bank-account, based-on-book, based-on-novel
How far would you go to become someone else.
Everybody should have one talent... what's yours?
It's better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody.
Tom Ripley: I always thought it would be better, to be a fake somebody... than a real nobody.
Peter: Sorry, I'm completely lost.::Tom Ripley: I know. I'm lost, too. I'm going to be stuck in the basement, aren't I, that's my, that's my... terrible, and alone, and dark, and I've lied about who I am, and where I am, and now no-one will ever find me.::Peter: What do you mean... lied about who you are?::Tom Ripley: I always thought it'd be better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody.::Peter: What are you talking about? You're not a nobody. That's the last thing you are.
Freddie Miles: In fact the only thing that looks like Dickie is you.::Tom Ripley: Hardly.::Freddie Miles: Have you done something to your hair?::Tom Ripley: Freddie, do you have something you'd like to say?::Freddie Miles: What? I think I'm saying it. Something's going on. He's either converted to Christianity... or to something else.::Tom Ripley: I suggest you ask Dickie that yourself. Otello's is on delle Croce, just off the Corso.::Freddie Miles: Is it on "delle Croce, just off the Corso?" You're a quick study, aren't you? Last time you didn't know your ass from your elbow, now you're giving me directions. That's not fair, you probably do know your ass from your elbow. I'll see you.
[first lines]::Tom Ripley: If I could just go back... if I could rub everything out... starting with myself.
Dickie Greenleaf: Everybody should have one talent, what's yours?::Tom Ripley: Forging signatures, telling lies... impersonating practically anybody.::Dickie Greenleaf: That's three, nobody should have more than one talent.
Tom Ripley: [imitating Dickie's father] "Oh yes, Jazz... it's just insolent noise."::Dickie Greenleaf: I feel like he's here. Horrible. Like the old bastard is here right now! [pause in disbelief, Dickie moves in to hold Tom's hand] Brilliant. How do you know him ?
Dickie Greenleaf: You know, without the glasses you're not even ugly.
Meredith: [sheepish] I'm sorry, I wouldn't have made a joke if...::Tom Ripley: [cuts her off] Don't be sorry. I've never been happier. I feel like I've been handed a new life.
Tom Ripley: You're the brother I never had. I'm the brother you never had. I would do anything for you, Dickie.
Tom Ripley: First of all I know there's something. That evening when we played chess for instance it was obvious.::Dickie Greenleaf: What evening?::Tom Ripley: Oh sure, no, no, it's too dangerous for you to take on. Oh, no, no, we're brothers. Hey. And then you do this sordid thing with Marge. Fucking her on the boat while we all have to listen. Which was excruciating, by the way! And you follow your cock around and now you're getting married! I'm bewildered, forgive me. You're lying to Marge and then you're getting married to her. You're knocking up Silvana. You're ruining everybody. You wanna play the sax, you wanna play the drums. What is it, Dickie? What do you actually play?::Dickie Greenleaf: Who are you? Huh? Some third class mooch? Who are you? Who are you to say anything to me? I really, really don't want to be on this boat with you right now. I can't move without you moving. Gives me the creeps. [enraged by his on-the-fly suspicions] You give me the creeps!
Plot
Set in France at the end of World War II Albert Dehousse finds out his father wasn't a war hero and his mother is a collaborator. He leaves his wife and goes to Paris. Gradually he inveigles himself with the resistance movement. They trust him and he helps them trace collaborators.
Keywords: 1940s, anti-hero, based-on-novel, con-man, french-resistance, lie, paris-france, satire, world-war-two
Les vies les plus belles sont celles qu'on invente.
Plot
Former Gulf War hero Rowdy Welles (Davi) is framed for murder by unscrupulous CIA boss Dick Althorp (Gazzara). As his price of freedom, Welles is ordered to undertake a deadly mission to destroy a nuclear processing plant in a foreign nation, owned by dangerous tyrant Lothar Krasna (Godunov).
Keywords: black-stockings, erotica, female-nudity, flight, independent-film, nudity, nylon, sex
Murder, The Mafia, and Mikaela.