Free Republic

In the spring of 2001, Suzanne Farrin auditioned for the Juilliard School’s prestigious composition program. The night after her audition, she says that Christopher Rouse, a faculty member at the time, tried to kiss her. “I sort of twirled out of his arms and ran away,” Farrin said. Farrin wanted to join Rouse’s doctoral studio before that night. She had traveled to New York before her audition to show him her music. She had read a book about counterpoint that Rouse suggested, hoping her efforts to build a pedagogical relationship with him would lead to a spot in one of...

A violin found in an attic in Italy has been confirmed as a priceless instrument made by Giuseppe Guarneri ‘filius Andreae’ in c.1705. The age of the wood was confirmed using dendrochronology, and the researchers were even able to prove it came from the same tree as the wood in an already-identified violin by the same maker. Around 18 months ago Mauro Bernabei, a researcher at the Institute for BioEconomy at Italy’s National Research Council, received a WhatsApp message containing a photo of the unidentified violin, which the current owner had recently inherited. It contained a label reading ‘Joseph Guanerius...

The Strings of Fire Violin Duel from 1996's "Lord Of The Dance" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoplCjVc_CU and Gypsy, with the beautiful and amazing Gillian Norris. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03rx2S6TVo4

As the shutdown entered its second full week Monday, with no end in sight, politicians and public employees traded accusations over who's getting paid, who isn't and why. "None of them should be getting paid," said Mike Lindholt, a Department of Transportation maintenance worker idled by the shutdown. "If you don't do your job, you don't get paid. That's how it is for most people." The political leaders whose budget dispute caused the shutdown are still entitled to collect their pay, and more than half of them are. Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton and the Republican Senate majority leader have both...

Afew [sic] hours after California voters approved his Proposition 13 tax-cut measure on June 6, 1978, a bibulous and exultant Howard Jarvis dropped his pants for the benefit of a few reporters gathered in his suite at the L.A. Biltmore Hotel. A reporter had asked Jarvis why he was limping, so his ostensible reason was to show a large, ugly bruise, which he'd suffered in a fall a few days before, on his ample, boxer-clad behind. The surprise gesture, however, also afforded the earthy and profane Jarvis a chance to display his contempt for the press and, by extension, the...

For centuries, violin makers have tried and failed to reproduce the pristine sound of Stradivarius and Guarneri violins, but after 33 years of work put into the project, a Texas A&M University professor is confident the veil of mystery has now been lifted. Joseph Nagyvary, a professor emeritus of biochemistry, first theorized in 1976 that chemicals used on the instruments – not merely the wood and the construction – are responsible for the distinctive sound of these violins. His controversial theory has now received definitive experimental support through collaboration with Renald Guillemette, director of the electron microprobe laboratory in the...

San Francisco police have cracked the case of the vanishing violins. Over the past few months, investigators say, a San Francisco man ordered at least three handcrafted violins -- worth as much as $25,000 apiece -- only to report either that they had disappeared off his doorstep or that he had never bought them in the first place. Word spread within the close-knit community of violin-makers in the United States and Canada, and police soon had what they needed to put an end to the allegedly criminal performance. On Wednesday, they arrested 27-year-old Tony Cheng on grand theft and stolen...

Antonius Stradivarius violins are shrouded in more myths than any other instruments in world history. At Mid Sweden University, researchers are using modern technology to uncover his secrets. At the international acoustics conference ICSV12, taking place in Lisbon on July 11-14, 2005, Associate Professor Mats Tinnsten will be presenting the latest research findings in the field. "It's not possible to copy Stradivarius violins exactly, since wood is a living material with great natural variations. The results of new research indicate, however, that we will be able to overcome such difficulties with the aid of advanced computer support," says Mats Tinnsten....

By every measure but one, the Gonzalez family of Jefferson City, Mo., are model citizens. Marvin was a courier for then-Missouri Gov. Bob Holden, delivering messages and screening the governors mail, Marina taught Spanish and was the after-school care director at her parish grade school. Their daughter Marie was a star pupil at Helias High, on the track and tennis teams, with dreams of becoming a lawyer.There was just one thing wrong with this picture: The Gonzalezes aren't citizens at all. They came to Jefferson City in 1991, legally, on a six-month visitor's visa from their native Costa Rica. They...

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM Tuesday, April 15, 2003 GAZA CITY — Palestinian agents for deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein have run out of money. Palestinian sources said thousands of Palestinians working for the Saddam regime have not been paid salaries for March, Middle East Newsline reported. The sources said they include Palestinians who helped organize pro-Saddam demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the U.S.-led war in Iraq. "A lot of people are not going to have money to pay their bills this month," a Palestinian source said. Until the halt in funding, Iraq was pumping more than...