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‘Tis the Season


Prophet Zacharia

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Oh sorry, I missed the bit about "holiday photo". This is perhaps the most significant holiday decoration for the area. It is the Clifton Mill, decked out for Christmas. The old mill, which is still active, gorge, and associated land and buildings are lit up with millions of lights.

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1 hour ago, Dottles said:

Flat. What if you took a photo facing the other way?

We don't live in the mountains but I wouldn't characterize the area as "flat". Dayton is at the confluence of 3 of our major rivers. 5 if you count the two minor rivers in the area. The photo you see is from the east of downtown. If you were to turn around, you wouldn't see much change in elevation.

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The main lighting ceremony in Baltimore is not with a tree, it's with the Baltimore Washington Monument (the first one in any city). It's about 1/2 north of the heart of downtown. Here is a picture, looking away from downtown, of the Holidays lighting ceremony with fireworks and one of the monument in non-holiday nakedness. It has a small, winding staircase inside that leads to an observing room at the top.

The building one the right foreground is part of the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, one of the world's top 100 music schools and the only American school where Moscow music professor Peter Tchaikovsky lectured when he visited America to conduct his music in New York City and while writing the music suite for the ballet, "The Nutcracker."

It has such a great children's and adult's Prep Program that parents from Northern NY to Southern VA drive several hours to take their kids there for Saturday lessons.

My greatest musical moments were when, as an adult student, I qualified for 12 ACE recitals in that building, playing Chopin, Mozart, Schumann, etc. music (pics at bottom) and meeting major opera, symphony, and other stars who were alumni in attendance who approached me after I performed:

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At the top right of the ACE Recital collage below, I'm in the back of the hall getting a critique on my performance from my teacher, Peabody Piano Dept. Chair and Virtuosa Frances Cheng-Koors, a Chinese child prodigy trained in the now-considered-best "Russian Method" by Russian emigres in Shanghai and then in America by students of famous Western Composers, who was one of the few allowed to play on Mozart's personal piano during the Salzburg Music Festival each year until she passed away last January.  Standing with me is international opera grand diva Hyunah Yu (google the name to see how famous she is in opera circles), a Korean-American whose father's desire to study music was wrecked by the Korean War but whose two American-born daughters both have careers in music. She kindly said she was moved by my performance of Schumann's "First Sorrow" and invited Frances and me to an after-recital party her Peabody-professor sister was throwing.  Iron lady Frances, who was brutally demanding in her lessons, had told me, "This a Romantic Era piece, so you better put a lot of emotion into the music or there'll be hell to pay at your next lesson."  So it was fortunate Hyunah made that remark in Frances' presence!

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I'm going to return to formal piano lessons at Peabody within the next year. The pianist in the video below (YouTube does not allow this one to be embedded) is Hyunah's sister, Peabody Professor Dr. Hyun Sook Park, who I know well from Peabody and I've spoken with her about taking music lessons from her there, but she has a long waiting list, too, so I'll have to really practice a lot to impress her and get moved up the list, or else I'll study under one of the other great pianists at Peabody - the faculty wins a couple Grammy Awards every few years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DZYfyXYOj8

 

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