Category Archives: Profiles

Musical Profile: Violin Virtuoso Midori Honored

Violin virtuoso Midori, a former child prodigy compared to Mozart, is honored by the prestigious Kennedy Center. Her life of music is dedicated to teaching others, while she continues to learn herself. She speaks with Vladimir Duthiers about her career and the honor.

Midori Goto who performs under the mononym Midori, is a Japanese-born American violinist. She made her debut with the New York Philharmonic at age 11 as a surprise guest soloist at the New Year’s Eve Gala in 1982.

Art Profile: Wall Writing Artist ‘Prime’ (Getty Video)

Prime is considered one of the most influential artists in the history of Los Angeles wall writing. He uses unorthodox methods for graffiti painting, incorporating rollers, brushes, and experimental materials while combining traditional graffiti and gang-styled writing with calligraphy.

Writing on walls has existed in many forms since ancient times, with examples of graffiti dating back to ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Discover the work of Prime, one of Los Angeles’s most influential street artists, and explore the artist’s practice and his interplay of words and images, a tradition that began thousands of years ago.

Learn more about this artist and the program “Writing on the Wall” https://www.getty.edu/museum/programs…

Profiles: 82-Year Old Comedian Rich Little

At 82 Rich Little, who has impersonated hundreds of celebrities and politicians over the years, shows no signs of letting up. Correspondent Tracy Smith sits down with the comedian and impressionist, now performing in Las Vegas, to talk about the presidents, movie stars and TV icons, like Johnny Carson, who have all been given the Rich Little treatment.

Culinary Profiles: Chef Ana Roš Of Restaurant Hiša Franko In Slovenia

The MICHELIN Guide takes you on a trip to Slovenia to discover the treasures of this country, its chefs, its products and its producers. Following the launch of the first MICHELIN Guide Slovenia in June 2020, we take a closer look at Hiša Franko, two MICHELIN Stars restaurant and its emblematic chef, Ana Roš. Located in Kobarid in north-western Slovenia, Ana Roš’s restaurant was awarded two MICHELIN Stars, in june 2020.

A self-taught chef with extraordinary creativity, she demonstrates the extent of her talent with precision, meticulousness and aesthetics in a friendly atmosphere. Her husband and sommelier Valter Kramar’s wine pairings extend the invitation to travel already suggested by her fine cuisine. A tribute to nature, her unique menu gives pride of place to regional products and offers an exceptional dining experience of wonderfully balanced flavours.

Artwork: ‘Flowers In A Terracotta Vase’ By Jan Van Huysum (1682-1749)

Lucy Chiswell, the Dorset Curatorial Fellow, explores Van Huysum’s ‘Flowers in a Terracotta Vase’ in ten minutes.

Jan van Huysum, also spelled Huijsum (15 April 1682 – 8 February 1749), was a Dutch painter.

Art: ‘Jeune Fille en Bleu’ By Amedeo Modigliani (1919)

Painted in 1919 after the artist fled Paris for the south of France, ‘Jeune Fille en Bleu’ is one of the finest works from the penultimate year of Amedeo Modigliani’s life. In this episode of Expert Voices, Sotheby’s Senior Specialist Simon Stock explains how the search for new subjects in this new location saw Modigliani depicting informal models found in local bars and shops. This portrait captures the serenity of the young girl sitter and we see all the recognisable traits of Modigliani’s late work: the simplified human form, the elongated neck and the vacant eyes.

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian Jewish painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. He is known for portraits and nudes in a modern style characterized by a surreal elongation of faces, necks, and figures that were not received well during his lifetime, but later became much sought-after.

Artisan Profile: London Glassblower Jochen Holz

Welcome to a new film series from The Modern House: Modern Makers. Over the next few months, we’ll be taking you inside the studios of a creative bunch of makers who produce modern, beautiful pieces for the home. Expect to hear from a ceramicist, weaver and, for the first instalment, glassblower Jochen Holz. Watch Jochen at work and hear him reflect on inspiration, technique and the fragility of glass.

Theorectical Physics: The ‘Constructor Theory’ Of Oxford’s Chiara Marletto

“Declaring something impossible leads to more things being possible,” writes the physicist Chiara Marletto. “Bizarre as it may seem, it is commonplace in quantum physics.”

Chiara Marletto is trying to build a master theory — a set of ideas so fundamental that all other theories would spring from it. Her first step: Invoke the impossible.

Constructor Theory is a new approach to formulating fundamental laws in physics. Instead of describing the world in terms of trajectories, initial conditions and dynamical laws, in constructor theory laws are about which physical transformations are possible and which are impossible, and why. This powerful switch has the potential to bring all sorts of interesting fields, currently regarded as inherently approximative, into fundamental physics. These include the theories of information, knowledge, thermodynamics, and life.

Read more about Marletto and David Deutsch’s constructor theory at Quanta Magazine: https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-to…

Artist Profiles: French Painter Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721)

Director Colin B. Bailey takes a close look at three drawings by Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), considered some of the finest drawings in the Morgan’s collection: Seated Young Woman (ca. 1716), Young Woman Wearing a Chemise (ca. 1718), and Two Studies of the Head and Shoulders of a Little Girl.

Tributes: Google Honors The Life Of Singer Luther Vandross (1951-2005)

Google celebrated the life of Luther Vandross with an animated Doodle by Atlanta-based guest artist Sam Bass, on what would have been his 70th birthday.

Vandross was born in 1951 and began performing and writing songs while in high school, singing at the 1969 pilot of Sesame Street with the Apollo Theater’s performing arts group. His first big break came when his song Everybody Rejoice featured in the 1974 Broadway musical The Wiz.

Vandross went on to record 14 studio albums that went either platinum or multi-platinum, and he was nominated for 33 Grammy Awards, of which he won eight. Vandross suffered from diabetes and hypertension and had a severe stroke in 2003 that left him in a wheelchair. He died of a heart attack on 1 July 2005 at the age of 54.

Read more here: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en…