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.

Dame Mitsuko Uchida, DBE (内田光子^?), born 20 December 1948, is a Japanese naturalized British classical pianist, who has appeared with most of the world's foremost orchestras, recorded a wide repertory with major labels, won numerous awards and honors (including Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2009), and serves as co-director of the Marlboro Music School and Festival. In recent years, she has also conducted orchestras.

Born in Atami, a seaside town close to Tokyo, Japan, Uchida moved to Vienna, Austria, with her diplomat parents when she was twelve years old, after her father was named the Japanese ambassador to Austria. She enrolled at the Vienna Academy of Music to study with Richard Hauser, and later Wilhelm Kempff and Stefan Askenase, and remained in Vienna to study when her father was transferred back to Japan after five years. She gave her first Viennese recital at the age of 14 at the Vienna Musikverein. She also studied with Maria Curcio, the last and favourite pupil of Artur Schnabel.

Hilary Hahn (born November 27, 1979) is a Grammy-winning American violinist.

Hahn was born in Lexington, Virginia. Beginning her studies when she was three years old at Baltimore's Peabody Institute, she was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia at age ten, and in 1991, made her major orchestral debut with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Hahn signed her first musical recording contract at age sixteen in 1996 with Sony Music. She graduated from the Curtis Institute in May 1999 with a Bachelor of Music degree.

Hahn plays on an 1864 copy of Paganini's Cannone made by Vuillaume. Her main interest is in solo performance; she also performs chamber music.

Hahn began playing the violin one month before her fourth birthday in the Suzuki Program of Baltimore's Peabody Institute. She participated in a Suzuki class for a year. Between 1984 and 1989 Hahn studied in Baltimore under Klara Berkovich. In 1990, at ten, Hahn was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where she became a student of Jascha Brodsky. Hahn studied with Brodsky for seven years and learned the études of Kreutzer, Ševčík, Gaviniès, Rode, and the Paganini Caprices. She learned twenty-eight violin concertos, recital programs, and several other short pieces.

Arvo Pärt (born 11 September 1935; Estonian pronunciation: [ˈɑrvo ˈpært]) is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-invented compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also takes inspiration from Gregorian chant.

Pärt was born in Paide, Järva County, Estonia. A prolonged struggle with Soviet officials led him to emigrate with his wife and their two sons in 1980. He lived first in Vienna, where he took Austrian citizenship, and then re-located to Berlin. He returned to Estonia around the turn of the 21st century and now lives alternately in Berlin and in Tallinn.

Familiar works by Pärt are Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten for string orchestra and bell (1977) and the string quintet "Fratres I" (1977, revised 1983), which he transcribed for string orchestra and percussion, the solo violin "Fratres II" and the cello ensemble "Fratres III" (both 1980).

Carlos Kleiber (3 July 1930 – 13 July 2004) was a German-born, Austrian classical conductor who spent most of his early life in Berlin, Buenos Aires, Vienna and New York City, and from the early 1960s his professional career in Germany.

Kleiber was born as Karl Ludwig Kleiber in Berlin, the son of the Austrian conductor Erich Kleiber and American Ruth Goodrich, from California. In 1940, the Kleiber family emigrated to Buenos Aires. Karl's name became Carlos. As a youth, he had an English governess, grew up in English boarding schools. He also composed, sang, and played piano and timpani. While his father noticed his son's musical talents, Erich Kleiber nevertheless dissuaded Carlos from pursuing a musical career: "What a pity the boy is musically talented", wrote his father to a friend.^{[citation needed]}

Carlos Kleiber initially studied chemistry in Zürich, but soon decided to dedicate himself to music. He was repetiteur at the Gärtnerplatz Theatre in Munich in 1952, and made his conducting debut with the operetta Gasparone at Potsdam theatre in 1954. From 1958 to 1964 he was Kapellmeister at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf and Duisburg, and then at the Opera in Zürich from 1964 to 1966. Between 1966 and 1973 he was first Kapellmeister in Stuttgart, his last permanent post. During the following years, he often conducted at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.