Brick House: Bathroom Before & After

BEFORE

BEFORE

BEFORE

A big improvement, wouldn't you say?!

A lot of things needed to be refreshed; the paneling removed from the walls, the space eating vanity removed, the sad flooring and dim light. We also installed a baseboard and door trim, curtain rod, toilet paper holder and hooks for towels. Plus all new plumbing!

BEFORE

This is one of the only before pictures I have with the carpeting. Couldn't wait to get it out of there! 

Looking down the hallway toward the back bedroom. Plenty of lovely wood floors!

 I love how the sun comes in through this window on the stairs. It faces west and gets the most beautiful evening sunshine!

As soon as I tidy up the kitchen and remove the last of the tools, I will be back with more before & after pictures!

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Vampirella Re Animator 2018 Sayı 3

 İlk 10 gün açık ve adflylı linkler beraberce yayında olacak sonra sadece adflylı linkler kalacak. Verdiğim rahatsızlıktan dolayı şimdiden özür dilerim. Katkı yapmak isteyenler adflylı linkten indirebilirler.


Sayı 3

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Decha Sangaree

Decha Sangaree

Selfies Spring 2019

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The Count and Countess of Paris Celebrate Their 10th Wedding Anniversary

The Duke of Vendôme approaches Senlis with his aunt Princess Christine of Liechtenstein (née Württemberg)

The Duchess of Vendôme arrives at the Cathedral on the arm of her father don Alfonso

Today was a meaningful occasion for the Count and Countess of Paris in two ways. First of all, they were present at the Château d'Amboise to welcome the French President and First Lady as well as the Italian President to mark the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci. Second of all, and more importantly, the couple today celebrates ten years since their religious wedding at Senlis on 2 May 2009.

On that day, Prince Jean d'Orléans, then Duke of Vendôme, married doña Philomena de Tornos y Steinhart. The Duke and Duchess of Vendôme had already celebrated their civil wedding at Paris on 19 March in a ceremony presided over by Rachida Dati, then Mayor of Paris. However, the gathering at Senlis Cathedral on 2 May 2009 brought together a great gathering of the royal houses of Europe to join in witnessing the union of the eventual Head of House France and his wife.

The Duke of Vendôme, current Count of Paris, is the second child of Princess Marie-Thérèse d'Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier (b.1934), and the late Prince Henri d'Orléans, Count of Paris (1933-2019). The Duchess of Vendôme, current Countess of Paris, is the daughter of doña Maria Antonia de Tornos (b.1944; née Edle von Steinhart) and the late don Alfonso de Tornos y Zubiría (1937-2013). Philomena's paternal grandfather don Juan de Tornos y Espelíus was formerly the head of the personal secretariat of the Count of Barcelona, father of King Juan Carlos of Spain.

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The Count of Paris Receives the French and Italian Presidents at Amboise

The Head of the Royal House of France and the French President exchange greetings

Today, 2 May, the Count and Countess of Paris received President Emmanuel Macron and First Lady Brigitte Macron of France as well as President Sergio Mattarella of Italy at the Château d'Amboise. Prince Gaston and Princess Antoinette d'Orléans accompanied their parents. The occasion for the gathering at Amboise was to commemorate 500 years since the death of Leonardo da Vinci.

Da Vinci by Francesco Melzi

Da Vinci was born on 15 April 1452 at Vinci in the Republic of Florence. The Renaissance man died on 2 May 1519 at Amboise in the Kingdom of France. Da Vinci's place of death occurred at the Château du Clos Lucé in Amboise, which was built in 1471 and still stands today.

As the Count and Countess of Paris look on, Prince Gaston shakes hands with Emmanuel Macron

The French President bows to the Countess of Paris

Princess Antoinette d'Orléans receives the greetings of Emmanuel Macron

A portion of the communiqué released by the Royal House of France regarding this event reads as follows:

This meeting at Amboise, then at Clos Lucé and Chambord, is an opportunity to recall the importance of our tangible and intangible heritage, a sign of a united Europe at its roots, as well as of the diplomatic role of the Head of the Royal House of France, which the Orléans family has always taken to heart, including when it was in exile. The Count of Paris is the honorary president of the Saint-Louis Foundation, owner of the royal Château d'Amboise, where the brilliant artist Leonardo da Vinci is buried.

The full communiqué from the Count of Paris

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Marwin Batinga

Marwin Batinga

Competition Spring 2019

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Postcard from South Africa – "What It Takes: Double Bass"

Young South African double bass players took part in a new dedicated course for their instrument at the end of last year – with promising results, writes faculty member Leon Bosch

The South African National Youth Orchestra's (Sanyo) "What It Takes: Double Bass 2018" event took place at Jan van Riebeeck High School in Tamboerskloof, on the slopes of Table Mountain in Cape Town from 9 to 12 December 2018. With 23 participants and an international faculty of seven, this was the first course of its kind in South Africa, and almost certainly signals a turning point for double bass in the country.

The instrument-specific What It Takes events, launched in 2014, are the brainchild of the orchestra's chief executive Sophia Welz, and are designed to benefit not just the young musicians of Sanyo, but also their teachers and other interested parties. The courses cover many aspects of professional musicianship, including "audition preparation, marketing yourself as a musician, posture/injury prevention, performing with an orchestra, music history related to your instrument and individual masterclasses from top professionals".

Complementing Welz's strategic vision and seemingly unlimited reserves of energy were Cape Town Philharmonic principal bass Roxane Steffen, Zanelle Britz, also from the Cape Town Philharmonic, and former Bassinova Double Bass Quartet member Mariechen Meyer. These three enthusiastically embraced the event's organisational and artistic challenges as both hosts and faculty members, while University of North Texas professors Jeff Bradetich and Gudrun Raschen, West Texas A&M University School of Music professor Nicholas Scales and I completed the faculty of seven pedagogues.


There exists not only the desperate need for expert tuition, but a crippling lack of access to decent instruments

In order to combat social and economic inequalities in South Africa, a crowdfunding campaign, philanthropic donations and a benefit concert promoted by the Arco String Project and hosted by the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire ensured that every place on the course was fully funded. In addition to the bassists of Sanyo, participants from across the country included school-age musicians, university and music college students, two young professional musicians – Jonalene Taylor from the Free State Symphony Orchestra and Siyolise Nyondo from the KwaZulu Natal Philharmonic Orchestra – and Nico Kruger, a veteran of the South African freelance world and member of the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra.

An intensive daily programme encompassed everything from early morning scales in unison (somewhat akin to brushing one's teeth) to individual lessons, physiology/body movement classes, classes in orchestral excerpts and audition preparation, ensemble playing, solo masterclasses, and advice about bursaries and scholarships for overseas study, and culminated in evening question and answer sessions.

Bradetich, Raschen and Scales worked tirelessly to resolve participants' technical and musical challenges, and to allay their anxieties; the three essentially tried to teach instrumental techniques in the space of four days that ordinarily require a lifetime to master.

Because many young South Africans experience profound economic disadvantage, there exists not only the need for expert tuition, but also a crippling lack of access to decent instruments and musical resources. So I was pleased to distribute donations of music, strings and other accessories from my professional colleagues and friends in the UK. My own contribution to the proceedings was in three parts: a masterclass in which the participants performed music by Dittersdorf, Capuzzi, Marcello and Norman Hester; the launch of my "Accelerated Learning Algorithm"; and a talk about The South African Double Bass project.

My four-stage algorithm requires no more than the faithful execution of each successive step to achieve the desired outcome. Stages one and two deal exclusively with technical challenges, stage three contends with the intellectual questions of structure and syntax, and stage four contemplates the ultimate aesthetic challenge of how to make music meaningful. The brief practical application of its fundamental principles during my masterclass produced immediate results: we were able to transform dramatically Nico Kruger's performance of Dittersdorf's Concerto No.2 for example.

There are two parts to my South African Double Bass project. The first seeks to encourage an intellectual and philosophical approach to the performance of music, expressed through a distinctive concept of sound that originates in the geography, history and politics of the country. The second encourages the development of a rich resource of compositions for the double bass by South African composers.

Paul Hanmer's Scratch-Pad-and-Six for double bass and piano, composed for me in 2014, was almost certainly one of the first compositions for double bass by a fellow South African, but I now have more than two dozen compositions from some of the most distinguished composers in the country, and there are more to come. Every What It Takes participant also left determined to have at least one new piece written for them, too, and I look forward to hearing all of these.

In a public gala concert at the Erin Hall in Rondebosch, entitled Double Bass Delight, members of the faculty were given the chance to perform. Steffen's spirited and superbly characterised performance of the Marcia movement of Nino Rota's Divertimento for double bass and orchestra set the tone for an uplifting evening of music making.

Raschen, who herself has South African roots, performed Bottesini's Elegy and Piazzolla's Contrabajeando, while Scales's eclectic contribution included François Rabbath's Ode d'Espagne, two movements from Handel's Sonata Op.2 No.8 for two cellos with his ex-student Britz, Knut Guettler's Variations on Greensleeves and Joseph Kosma's improvisation on Autumn Leaves. Bradetich performed two movements from Bottesini's Concerto No.2 in B minor and some Shostakovich duos with Raschen, and the concert concluded with an energetic account of Daryl Runswick's Strauss in the Doghouse for double bass quartet.

The 23 participants contributed to a lively closing afternoon concert of music encompassing a great many permutations of double basses in ensemble, followed by a traditional South African braai (barbecue) in the glorious Cape summer sunshine.

For me, what distinguishes young South African bassists from the hundreds I have met and taught around the world, is their fierce determination, honesty, insatiable curiosity, willingness to learn, and unbounded enthusiasm, often in the face of monstrous challenges.

The South African Double Bass Society (bit.ly/2HVKeWj), born from this passion for the instrument, seems destined to grow stronger and will, in time, forge links and collaborations with other double bass societies around the world. South Africa has successfully hosted international sporting events like the football World Cup, and my suggestion that Cape Town might in the future host an International Double Bass Convention has not fallen on entirely stony ground.

The author wishes to thank Liz Hosford and Paul Sherman for their generous donation to What It Takes: Double Bass 2018

Source: Leon Bosch (April 2019 issue of The Strad)

Leon Bosch has an honoured place among the select group of virtuoso double bass players worldwide. Concerto engagements in many parts of the world with the likes of conductors Pinchas Zukerman, Nicolas Kraemer, Nicolae Moldoveanu and Guido Johannes Rumstadt have been matched by collaborations with a long line of leading chamber music groups –among them the Lindsay, Belcea and Brodsky string quartets, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble, the Moscow Virtuosi and the Zukerman Chamber Players. Partnerships with solo performers have embraced such pianists as Peter Donohoe, Vladimir Ovchinikov, Mikhail Rudy and Maria João Pires. 

Leon Bosch has a growing discography of concerto and recital recordings. This will shortly include two albums devoted to the music of the great Giovanni Bottesini and two featuring music by British composers. Then will follow everything from a disc of Russian music and another of compositions by Domenico Dragonetti, to the complete works for solo double bass by Dittersdorf, Menotti's concerto and recordings of a string of neglected concertos for the instrument.

Source: Andrew Green (leonbosch.co.uk)

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On This Day In History: The Birth of the Last King of Finland

On 1 May 1868, Prince Friedrich Karl Ludwig Konstantin of Hesse was born at the family manor of Gut Panker in Holstein. Friedrich Karl was the third son and fourth child of Landgrave Friedrich Wilhelm of Hesse (1820-1884) and his second wife Princess Anna of Prussia (1836-1918).

Prince Friedrich Karl of Hesse and Princess Margarete of Prussia in 1893

On 25 January 1893 at Berlin, Prince Friedrich Karl married his second cousin Princess Margarete of Prussia (1872-1954). Margarethe was the daughter of the German Emperor Friedrich III and Empress Victoria. The princess was the youngest sister of Emperor Wilhelm II and a granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. They had six children, all sons, including two sets of twins: Prince Friedrich Wilhelm (1893-1916), Prince Maximilian (1894-1914), twins Prince Philipp (1896-1980; eventual Head of House Hesse) and Prince Wolfgang (1896-1989), as well as twins Prince Richard (1901-1969) and Prince Christoph (1901-1943).

The six sons of Friedrich Karl of Hesse and Margarete of Prussia

In the waning days of World War I, Wilhelm II found an opportunity for his brother-in-law to attain a regal status. On 9 October 1918, Prince Friedrich Karl of Hesse was elected as King of Finland by the parliament of the country, which had declared independence from Russia on 6 December 1917. During his brief reign, Friedrich Karl became known as HM King Frederik Kaarle I of Finland. The last Finnish king renounced his throne on 14 December 1918, having never set foot in his country.

King Frederik Kaarle I of Finland

In 1925, Friedrich Karl's elder brother Alexander Friedrich abdicated as Head of House Hesse-Kassel - Friedrich Karl succeeded him in this role. When Friedrich Karl died on 28 May 1940 at the age of seventy-two, he was succeeded by his eldest surviving son Philipp, who was married to Princess Mafalda of Savoy (1902-1944), the daughter of King Vittorio Emanuele II and Queen Elena of Italy.

Philipp of Hesse and Mafalda of Savoy on their wedding day in 1925

Although the last Kingdom of Finland lasted for barely two months, a crown was designed for its monarch. Since the final product was never realised, a replica of what the regalia would have looked like resides in the Kemi Gemstone Gallery.

A prototype of the crown planned for King Frederik Kaarle I of Finland

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New Photos of Princess Charlotte of Cambridge As She Turns Four

Before her fourth birthday tomorrow, three images of Princess Charlotte of Cambridge have been released by the Royal Family. The pictures were taken by her mother the Duchess of Cambridge at the family home in Norfolk last month. Princess Charlotte was born on 2 May 2015 at St Mary's Hospital, London.

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