Passage 1:Anna of Brunswick-Grubenhagen-EinbeckAnna of Brunswick-Grubenhagen-Einbeck (1414 – 4 April 1474) was a daughter of Duke Eric I of Brunswick-Grubenhagen and his wife, Elisabeth of Brunswick-Göttingen.Anna's first marriage was with Duke Albert III of Bavaria.  They had the following children:John IV (1437–1463), Duke of BavariaErnest (1438–1460)Sigismund of Bavaria (1439–1501)Albert (1440–1445)Margaretha (1442–1479), married in 1463 with Marquess Frederick I of Mantua (1441–1484)Elisabeth (1443–1484), married in 1460 with Elector Ernest of Saxony (1441–1486)Albert IV (1447–1508)Christopher (1449–1483)Wolfgang (1451–1514)Barbara, a nun in MunichAfter Albert's death, she married Duke Frederick III of Brunswick-Calenberg-Göttingen.  This marriage remained childless.== Ancestors ==Passage 2:Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of BrunswickCharles William Ferdinand (German: Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand; 9 October 1735 – 10 November 1806) was the Prince of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and a military leader. His titles are usually shortened to Duke of Brunswick in English-language sources.He succeeded his father as sovereign prince of the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, one of the princely states of the Holy Roman Empire. The duke was a cultured and benevolent despot in the model of his uncle, Frederick the Great, and was married to Princess Augusta, the eldest sister of George III of Great Britain. He was also a recognized master of 18th century warfare, serving as a Field Marshal in the Prussian Army. During the Napoleonic Wars, he was mortally wounded by a musket ball at the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt in 1806.Early lifeCharles William Ferdinand was born in the town of Wolfenbüttel on 9 October 1735, probably in Wolfenbüttel Castle. He was the first-born son of Charles I, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and his wife Philippine Charlotte.His father Charles I was the ruling prince (German: Fürst) of the small state of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, one of the imperial states of the Holy Roman Empire. Philippine Charlotte was the favourite daughter of King Frederick William I of Prussia and sister of Frederick II of Prussia (Frederick the Great). As the heir apparent of a sovereign prince, Charles William Ferdinand received the title of Hereditary Prince (German: Erbprinz).He received an unusually wide and thorough education, overseen by his mother. In his youth he travelled in the Netherlands, France and various parts of Germany. In 1753, his father moved the capital of the principality back to Brunswick (German: Braunschweig), the state's largest city. (Wolfenbüttel had been the capital since 1432.) The royal family moved into the newly built Brunswick Palace.Early military careerCharles William Ferdinand entered the military, serving during the Seven Years' War of 1756–63. He joined the allied north-German forces of the Hanoverian Army of Observation, whose task was to protect Hanover (in personal union with the Kingdom of Great Britain) and the surrounding states from invasion by the French. The force was initially commanded by the Anglo-Hanoverian Prince William, Duke of Cumberland. At the Battle of Hastenbeck (1757) Charles William Ferdinand led a charge at the head of an infantry brigade, an action which gained him some renown.The subsequent French Invasion of Hanover and Convention of Klosterzeven of 1757 temporarily knocked Hanover out of the war (they were to return the following year). Cumberland was recalled to Britain and the remaining allied north-German forces were placed under the command of Ferdinand of Brunswick, brother of Charles I, who easily persuaded his nephew Charles William Ferdinand to renew his military service as a general officer.Charles William Ferdinand was part of the allied Anglo-German force at the Battle of Minden (1759), and the Battle of Warburg (1760). Both were decisive victories over the French, during which he proved himself an excellent subordinate commander. He continued to serve in the army commanded by his uncle for the remainder of the war, which was generally successful for the north German forces. The hereditary prince's reputation improved throughout, and he became an acknowledged master of irregular warfare. Peace was restored in 1763.Marriage and travelsThe royal houses of the former Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg had traditionally married within the family, to avoid further division of their family lands under Salic law. By the time, Brunswick-Lüneburg had consolidated back into two states, Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and the Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover). The electorate was ruled by the Hanoverian branch of the family in personal union with the Kingdom of Great Britain. It was therefore arranged for Charles William Ferdinand to marry a British-Hanoverian princess: Princess Augusta of Great Britain, daughter of Frederick, Prince of Wales and his wife, Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, and sister of the reigning King George III.In 1764, shortly after the Seven Years' War had ended, he travelled to London (landing at Harwich) to marry Princess Augusta. He received a rapturous welcome from the British people, thanks to his service with allied British troops during the war. The Parliament of Great Britain showed its gratitude by voting him a lump sum of £80,000 and an annual income of £3,000 as a wedding gift. However George III was less welcoming, and sought to express his displeasure through numerous small insults e.g. by lodging the prince at Somerset House, instead of one of the royal palaces; not providing him with a military guard; and instructing the servants at the wedding to wear old clothes. This merely served to exacerbate the enthusiasm of the public, particularly when the prince was suspected of turning his back on the unpopular monarch whilst attending an opera (a breach of social protocol). Charles William Ferdinand defied royal displeasure by meeting William Pitt the Elder (who had been prime minister during the war but resigned in 1761) and the other leaders of the parliamentary opposition. The wedding was completed, but as a result of these machinations the prince remained in Britain for only thirteen days.Over the next few years the couple embarked on a wide-ranging tour of Europe, visiting many of the major states. In 1766 they went to France, where they were received by both his allies and recent battlefield enemies with respect. In Paris he made the acquaintance of Marmontel. The couple next proceeded to Switzerland, where they met Voltaire. The longest stop on their travels was Rome, where they remained for a long time exploring the antiquities of the city under the guidance of Johann Winckelmann. During their travels the couple also met Pietro Nardini and in 1767 the prince had his portrait painted by Pompeo Batoni. After a visit to Naples they returned to Paris, and thence to Brunswick.Ruler of Brunswick-WolfenbüttelRestoration of state financesHis father, Charles I, had been an enthusiastic supporter of the war, but nearly bankrupted the state paying for it. As a result, in 1773 Charles William Ferdinand was given a major role in reforming the economy with the assistance of the Geheimrat, Féronce von Rotenkreuz. They were highly successful, restoring the state's finances and improving the economy. This made the prince hugely popular in the duchy.When the American Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, Charles William Ferdinand saw an opportunity to replenish the state's treasury by renting its well-trained army to Great Britain. In 1776, Charles I signed a treaty supporting Britain in the war, the first prince to do so. Under the terms of this treaty, Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel supplied 4,000 troops for service with the British armies in America, under the command of general Friedrich Adolf Riedesel. Riedesel was given command of all the German troops serving in the Saratoga campaign, under British general John Burgoyne. Burgoyne was defeated in the Battles of Saratoga (1777), and his troops were taken captive as the Convention Army. Although the terms of surrender allowed the Convention Army to give their parole and return to Europe, the American Continental Congress revoked the convention. The Convention Army was kept in captivity until the war ended in 1783.ReignCharles I died in 1780, at which point Charles William Ferdinand inherited the throne. He soon became known as a model sovereign, a typical enlightened despot of the period, characterized by economy and prudence.The duke's combination of interest in the well-being of his subjects and habitual caution led to a policy of gradual reforms, a successful middle way between the conservatism of some contemporary monarchs and the over-enthusiastic wholesale changes pursued by others. He sponsored enlightenment arts and sciences; most notably he was patron to the young mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, paying for him to attend university against the wishes of Gauss' father.He resembled his uncle Frederick the Great in many ways, but he lacked the resolution of the king, and in civil as in military affairs was prone to excessive caution. He brought Brunswick into close alliance with the king of Prussia, for whom he had fought in the Seven Years' War; he was a Prussian field marshal, and was at pains to make the regiment of which he was colonel a model one.The duke was frequently engaged in diplomatic and other state affairs. In August 1784 he hosted a secret diplomatic visit from Karl August, Duke of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Eisenach (Goethe was a member of Karl August's entourage). The visit was disguised as a family visit, but was in fact to discuss the formation of a league of small- and mid-sized German states as a counterbalance within the Holy Roman Empire to Habsburg monarchy's ambitions to trade the Austrian Netherlands for the Electorate of Bavaria. This Fürstenbund (League of Princes) was formally announced in 1785, with the Duke of Brunswick as one of its members and commander of its military forces. The league was successful in forcing the Austrian Joseph II to back down, and thereafter became obsolete.The Swedish princess and diarist Hedwig Elizabeth Charlotte visited Brunswick in 1799; she described the Duke as "witty, literal and a pleasant acquaintance but ceremonial beyond description. He is said to be quite strict, but a good father of the nation who attends to the needs of his people."In 1803 the process of German Mediatisation led to the acquisition of the neighbouring imperial abbeys of Gandersheim and Helmstedt, which were secularised.Military commanderHe was made a Prussian general in 1773.War of the Bavarian SuccessionFrom 1778 to 1779 he served in the War of the Bavarian Succession. Frederick II praised the prince personally for his conduct during the war.Invasion of the NetherlandsIn 1787 the Duke was made Generalfeldmarschall (field marshal) in the Prussian army. Frederick William II of Prussia appointed him as commander of a 20,000-strong Prussian force which was to invade the United Provinces of the Netherlands (The Dutch Republic). The goal was to suppress the Patriots of the Batavian Revolution, restoring the authority of the stadtholder William V of the House of Orange. Much of the country was in open revolt against William, whose personal troops were unable to quell the Patriot militias and the various Dutch provinces refused to aid him.The Encyclopædia Britannica described the Duke's invasion: "His success was rapid, complete and almost bloodless, and in the eyes of contemporaries the campaign appeared as an example of perfect generalship". The Patriots were out-manoeuvred and overwhelmed: their militias were unable to put up any real resistance, were forced to abandon their insurrection, and many Patriots fled to France.The Duke's forces entered the Netherlands on 13 September and occupied Nijmegen that day. The largest Patriot force, 7,000 men under the Rhinegrave of Salm, was quickly out-manoeuvred and forced to abandon Utrecht, which the Duke occupied on 16 September. The Prussian force captured Gorcum on the 17th after a short artillery bombardment, followed by Dordrecht on the 18th and Delft on the 19th. They entered The Hague on the 20th, from which the Patriots had been forced to withdraw following a loyalist insurrection on the 17th. Amsterdam, the last city occupied by the Patriots, surrendered on 10 October. The campaign had taken less than a month. William V was restored to power, which he was to hold until 1795.Both contemporaries and historians have praised the Duke's decisive campaign, in which he manoeuvred to concentrate his forces and achieve overwhelming local superiority, before moving on to the next city. He also received credit for the low number of casualties; one British observer suggested that "the sap of the trees was the only blood shed" (an exaggeration), referring to the wooden palisades and batteries constructed by both sides.War of the First CoalitionAt the outbreak of the War of the First Coalition in the early summer of 1792, Ferdinand was poised with military forces at Coblenz. After the Girondins had arranged for France to declare war on Austria, voted on 20 April 1792, the Catholic Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II and the Protestant King of Prussia Frederick William II had combined armies and put them under Brunswick's command.The Brunswick ProclamationThe "Brunswick Proclamation" or "Brunswick Manifesto" that he now issued from Coblenz on 25 July 1792, threatened war and ruin to soldiers and civilians alike, should the Republicans injure Louis XVI and his family. His avowed aim was:to put an end to the anarchy in the interior of France, to check the attacks upon the throne and the altar, to reestablish the legal power, to restore to the king the security and the liberty of which he is now deprived and to place him in a position to exercise once more the legitimate authority which belongs to him.Additionally, the manifesto threatened the French population with instant punishment should they resist the Imperial and Prussian armies, or the reinstatement of the monarchy. In large part, the manifesto had been written by Louis XVI's cousin, Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, who was the leader of a large corps of émigrés in the allied army.It has been asserted that the manifesto was in fact issued against the advice of Brunswick himself; the duke, a model sovereign in his own principality, sympathized with the constitutional side of the French Revolution, while as a soldier he had no confidence in the success of the enterprise. However, having let the manifesto bear his signature, he had to bear the full responsibility for its consequences. The proclamation was intended to threaten the French population into submission; it had exactly the opposite effect.In Paris, Louis XVI was generally believed to be in correspondence with the Austrians and Prussians already, and the republicans became more vocal in the early summer of 1792. Rather than assuring the continued existence of the French monarchy, Brunswick's proclamation would instead ensure its downfall; the manifesto was rapidly distributed in Paris on 28 July, apparently by monarchists, who badly misjudged the effect it would have. The Brunswick Manifesto seemed to furnish the agitators with a complete justification for the revolt that they were already planning. When news spread of a combined Austrian and Prussian army led by Brunswick marching into French soil on the days after the Manifesto was publicized, the Paris populace, already incensed by the threat against the city, exploded into violence. The first violent action was carried out on August 10, when the Tuileries Palace was stormed.Invasion of FranceThe Duke was disappointed that the British remained neutral. His initial advance into France was slowed by poor weather, the rough terrain of the Forest of Argonne, and an outbreak of dysentery among his troops.The Duke was less successful against the French citizens' army that met him at Valmy. Having secured Longwy and Verdun without serious resistance, he turned back after a mere skirmish in Valmy, and evacuated France.Initially the Duke intended to winter in the fortress of Verdun, before resuming the campaign in France the following spring. However, Kellerman's forces outflanked him by advancing up the Rhine, recapturing French possessions there. The Duke abandoned Verdun on 8 October and Longwy on 22 October, before retreating back into Germany.When he counterattacked the Revolutionary French who had invaded Germany, in 1793, he recaptured Mainz after a long siege, but resigned in 1794 in protest at interference by Frederick William II of Prussia.War of the Fourth CoalitionPrussia did not take part in the Second Coalition or Third Coalition against Revolutionary France. However, in 1806 Prussia declared war on France, beginning the War of the Fourth Coalition. Despite being over 70 years old, the Duke of Brunswick returned to command the Prussian army at the personal request of Louise, Queen of Prussia.By this stage the Prussian army was regarded as backward, using outdated tactics and with poor communication. The structure of the high command has been particularly criticised by historians, with multiple officers developing differing plans and then disagreeing on which should be followed, leading to disorganisation and indecision.The duke commanded the large Prussian army at Auerstedt during the double Battle of Jena–Auerstedt on 14 October 1806. His forces were defeated by Napoleon's marshal Davout, despite the Prussians outnumbering the French around Auerstedt by two to one. During the battle he was struck by a musket ball and lost both of his eyes; his second-in-command Friedrich Wilhelm Carl von Schmettau was also mortally wounded, causing a breakdown in the Prussian command. Severely wounded, the Duke was carried with his forces before the advancing French. He died of his wounds in Ottensen on 10 November 1806.The duke's body was provisionally laid to rest in the Christianskirche at Ottensen in 1806. It was later transferred for reburial in Brunswick Cathedral on 6 November 1819.FamilyOn 16 January 1764, Charles married Princess Augusta of Great Britain, eldest sister of King George III. The couple were second cousins to each other, being great-grandchildren of George I of Great Britain. As such, they were not related in a particularly close degree, yet there had been many bonds of marriage between the House of Brunswick-Bevern and the House of Hanover, themselves both branches of the House of Welf. Some commentators have pointed to inbreeding as a possible cause for the fact that many of the couple's children had physical, mental or psychological disabilities. Indeed, the duke was once moved to describe his children to von Massenbach as "mostly cripples in mind and body."Shortly after they married, the prince had the Schloss Richmond built for his wife. It was in English architectural style and with an English landscape garden, to remind her of her home.The duke and his wife Augusta had four sons and three daughters. Three of their four sons had major debilities. Their eldest son, Karl Georg August (1766–1806) was named heir apparent, but had a significant learning disability and was regarded as "well-nigh imbecile."Nevertheless, he was married in 1790 to Frederika of Orange-Nassau, daughter of William V, Prince of Orange, a gentle, good-hearted woman who remained devoted to him to the end. He died childless at the age of 40 in 1806, shortly before his father. The second son, Georg Wilhelm Christian (1769–1811), had an even more severe learning disability than his elder brother. He was declared incapacitated and excluded from the succession. He never married. The couple's third son was August (1770–1822). He was blind and also excluded from the succession. He, too, never married. The fourth son, Friedrich Wilhelm (1771 – 16 June 1815), was sound of mind and body. He eventually succeeded his father, married and sired two sons.Frederick and Augusta also had three daughters, two of whom reached adulthood. Neither of them was disabled, but both of them had similar, disastrous trajectories in life. Both of them were married to future kings, both made extreme failures of their marriages, both had extremely acrimonious relations with their husbands, and both were accused by them of similar faults: adultery, uncouth behavior, absence of dignity, falsehood and utter fecklessness. The elder daughter, Auguste Caroline Friederike (1764–1788), was the wife of the future king Frederick I of Württemberg and mother of the future William I of Württemberg. She separated from her husband and died in Russia from complications that arose while giving birth in secret to an illegitimate child.The younger daughter, Caroline of Brunswick, was married in 1795 to her first cousin, the future George IV of the United Kingdom, and bore him a daughter, the ill-fated Princess Charlotte of Wales. On


Passage 1:Peter LevinPeter Levin is an American director of film, television and theatre.CareerSince 1967, Levin has amassed a large number of credits directing episodic television and television films. Some of histelevision series credits include Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, James at 15, The Paper Chase, Family, Starsky & Hutch, Lou Grant, Fame, Cagney & Lacey, Law & Order and Judging Amy.Some of his television filmcredits include Rape and Marriage: The Rideout Case (1980), A Reason to Live (1985), Popeye Doyle (1986), A Killer Among Us (1990), Queen Sized (2008) and among other films. He directed "Heart in Hiding", writtenby his wife Audrey Davis Levin, for which she received an Emmy for Best Day Time Special in the 1970s.Prior to becoming a director, Levin worked as an actor in several Broadway productions. He costarred with SusanStrasberg in "[The Diary of Ann Frank]" but had to leave the production when he was drafted into the Army. He trained at the Carnegie Mellon University. Eventually becoming a theatre director, he directed productionsat the Long Wharf Theatre and the Pacific Resident Theatre Company. He also co-founded the off-off-Broadway Theatre [the Hardware Poets Playhouse] with his wife Audrey Davis Levin and was also an associate artistof The Interact Theatre Company.Passage 2:CRD (film)CRD is a 2016 drama-romance Indian film by National Award Winning Director Kranti Kanade written with Yuva Sahitya Akademi Award Winning DramatistDharmakirti Sumant. Set in the world of College Theatre, it probes fascism and fierce competition in arts.PlotA Young Dramatist rebels against his fascist Tutor to form his troop of misfits – aiming to win a prestigioustheatre competition and trying to find the hardest thing of all: his voice. Inspired by real life event 'Purushottam' Theatre Competition in Pune, India.CastMrinmayee Godbole as PersisVinay Sharma as MayankSaurabhSaraswat as ChetanAbhay Mahajan as NetraIsha Keskar as DiptiGeetika Tyagi as VeenaMohit Takalkar as SeniorProductionThe preparation and improvisation of the actors went on for 4 months before the principalphotography began in November 2014 and continued over the next six months resulting in 63 days of shooting. The editing took eight months and the music and sound design took further six months. The film wasentirely shot on locations in Pune. It was executive and line produced by Ashwini Paranjape for Kanade Films and Chaitra Arts. Director of photography was Daniel Katz whose short film Curfew had won Oscar.CriticalresponseCRD has received favourable critical reception around the world.Robert Abele in The Los Angeles Times says,"Indian film 'CRD' enchanting, audacious, indefinable and infectious." Sheri Linden in The HollywoodReporter says, "CRD is entrancing, vibrant, irreverent and category-defying! Kanadé an assured visual stylist!" LA Weekly says, "Allusive, elusive and by turns funny, romantic and tragic, CRD is a film tuned to the pitchof the artist's heart." ScreenAnarchy says, "CRD, An Ethereal Exercise In Art.” Film critic Namrata Joshi, in The Hindu says, “Subversive and fearless, Kanadé breaks all rules of filmmaking in creating CRD, which boldlygoes where no Indian film has gone before.” Author and critic Naman Ramachandran says, "This astonishing film heralds the arrival of a bold new voice in world cinema where all limits are breached and boundariescrossed. Be prepared for a breathtaking journey, the likes of which you've never been on before." Saibal Chatterjee, NDTV says “A path-breaking film. Refreshingly original and delightfully whimsical. CRD is classy,satisfying and magnificently inventive package.” Nandini Ramnath, Scroll says “Outstanding, a superbly performed drama about theatre art and life." Trisha Gupta, Firstpost says “Masterful and sharp, CRD displays bothpolitical and aesthetic courage, constantly moving between lyrical intensity and playful subversion.” Rahul Desai, Film Companion says “CRD is hypnotic. The less sense it makes, the more we can’t stop watching it(Roger Ebert’s words apply here). May be this is what auteurs are about.” Reza Noorani in The Times of India says "CRD is brave with a twisted sense of humour." Business Standard says "CRD redefines cinema space."Hindustan Times says "CRD is vibrant and appealing." Shubhra Gupta in The Indian Express says "CRD is spectacular and refreshing in its willingness to go down paths less trodden." CRD is mentioned in Scroll's list of"The movies of the decade that dared to dream differently."Furtherreadinghttps://deadline.com/2016/10/exclusive-trailer-for-acclaimed-indian-drama-crd-1201837045/https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/archive/entertainment/big-little-films-get-going-485010Passage 3:DanaBlanksteinDana Blankstein-Cohen (born March 3, 1981) is the executive director of the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School. She was appointed by the board of directors  in November 2019.  Previously she was theCEO of the Israeli Academy of Film and Television. She is a film director, and an Israeli culture entrepreneur.BiographyDana Blankstein was born in Switzerland in 1981 to theatre director Dedi Baron and ProfessorAlexander Blankstein. She moved to Israel in 1983 and grew up in Tel Aviv.Blankstein graduated from the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School, Jerusalem in 2008 with high honors. During her studies she worked asa personal assistant to directors Savi Gabizon on his film Nina's Tragedies and to Renen Schorr on his film The Loners.  She also directed and shot 'the making of' film on Gavison's film Lost and Found. Her debut filmCamping competed at the Berlin International Film Festival, 2007.Film and academic careerAfter her studies, Dana founded and directed the film and television department at the Kfar Saba municipality. The departmentencouraged and promoted productions filmed in the city of Kfar Saba, as well as the established cultural projects, and educational community activities.Blankstein directed the mini-series "Tel Aviviot" (2012). From2016-2019 was the director of the Israeli Academy of Film and Television.In November 2019 Dana Blankstein Cohen was appointed the new director of the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School where she alsooversees the Sam Spiegel International Film Lab. In 2022, she spearheaded the launch of the new Series Lab and the film preparatory program for Arabic speakers in east Jerusalem.FilmographyTel Aviviot (mini-series;director, 2012)Growing Pains (graduation film, Sam Spiegel; director and screenwriter, 2008)Camping (debut film, Sam Spiegel; director and screenwriter, 2006)Passage 4:Kranti KanadeKranti Kanade is a NationalAward winning Indian filmmaker. His films include Peepal Tree, CRD (film), Gandhi of the Month, Mahek and Chaitra. He studied at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) and FTII (Film and Television Institute ofIndia).FilmsPeepal TreeBased on true events, it deals with the issue of illegal tree killings in India. When a Police Academy cuts Sacred Trees, a concerned Family confronts them only to learn it is a non-cognizableoffense without penal provision. They approach a Tree Activist who saves trees by all means. The community gathers under the tree at night to protect it but it is not that simple."CRDSet in the world of College Theatre,CRD probes fascism and fierce competition in arts with a wildly innovative narrative style. It released theatrically in US and India to major critical acclaim and commercial success gaining 100% rating on RottenTomatoes. Los Angeles Times called it "Enchanting, audacious and infectious"  and acclaimed film critic Namrata Joshi of The Hindu called it "Brilliant, subversive and fearless, it boldly goes where no Indian film hasgone before." It was in the top Ten Best Hindi films of 2017 list by The Hindu, Top Ten list of Huffington Post critic Murtaza Ali Khan,  and was included in the top ten films of the decade list of Scroll.in critic NandiniRamnath calling it "The decade in Bollywood: The movies that dared to dream differently. Most enduring and endearing films made between 2010 and 2019."Gandhi of the MonthGandhi of the Month stars legendaryactor Harvey Keitel, Neeraj Kabi and other major Indian actors. It is about an American schoolmaster in India struggling to protect his students from fundamentalists. The screenplay, earlier called 'Against Itself' wonthe Film Fund Grant by the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles. The jury included Gill Dennis (Walk The Line), Anurag Kashyap (Gangs Of Wasseypur) and Sooni Taraporevala (Salaam Bombay). The script was mentoredby Oscar winner Danis Tanovic (No Man's Land), Bernd Lichtenberg (Good Bye Lenin!), Olivia Hetreed (Girl With A Pearl Earring) and Anjum Rajabali (Rajneeti).MahekMahek, a children's film, is about 11-yr old girl whodreams of becoming the very best at everything, but is unsure of how to achieve her goals. It premiered at the BFI London Film Festival to affectionate reviews. Film Scholar & Writer Rachel Dwyer called it "A Gem of afilm", Critic & Writer Maithili Rao called it "A rare combination of sensitivity and gentle humour." Invited to festivals around the world, it received awards in Hollywood and Houston. It was Best Children's Film Nominee atthe Asia Pacific Screen Awards in Australia  and shown as part of syllabus at Otterbein University in US.ChaitraChaitra, is based on a story by legendary Marathi author G. A. Kulkarni. Set in the traditional haldi-kunkufestival, it intertwines themes of poetic justice and destiny. It won five National Film Awards including Best Short Film, Best Music for Short Film (Pt Bhaskar Chandavarkar) and Special Jury Award for Acting (SonaliKulkarni). It won two National Awards at MIFF Film Festival.Passage 5:Jason Moore (director)Jason Moore (born October 22, 1970) is an American director of film, theatre and television.Life and careerJason Moore wasborn in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and studied at Northwestern University. Moore's Broadway career began as a resident director of Les Misérables at the Imperial Theatre in during its original run. He is the son ofFayetteville District Judge Rudy Moore.In March 2003, Moore directed the musical Avenue Q, which opened Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre and then moved to Broadway at the John Golden Theatre in July2003.  He was nominated for a 2004 Tony Award for his direction. Moore also directed productions of the musical in Las Vegas and London and the show's national tour. Moore directed the 2005 Broadway revival ofSteel Magnolias and Shrek the Musical, starring Brian d'Arcy James and Sutton Foster which opened on Broadway in 2008. He directed the concert of Jerry Springer — The Opera at Carnegie Hall in January 2008.Moore,Jeff Whitty, Jake Shears, and John "JJ" Garden worked together on a new musical based on Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City. The musical premiered at the American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco, Californiain May 2011 and ran through July 2011.For television, Moore has directed episodes of Dawson's Creek, One Tree Hill, Everwood, and Brothers & Sisters. As a writer, Moore adapted the play The Floatplane Notebookswith Paul Fitzgerald from the novel by Clyde Edgerton. A staged reading of the play was presented at the New Play Festival at the Charlotte, North Carolina Repertory Theatre in 1996, with a fully staged production in1998.In 2012, Moore made his film directorial debut with Pitch Perfect, starring Anna Kendrick and Brittany Snow. He also served as an executive producer on the sequel. He directed the film Sisters, starring Tina Feyand Amy Poehler, which was released on December 18, 2015. Moore's next project will be directing a live action Archie movie.FilmographyFilmsPitch Perfect (2012)Sisters (2015)Shotgun Wedding(2022)TelevisionSoundtrack writerPitch Perfect 2 (2015) (Also executive producer)The Voice (2015) (1 episode)Passage 6:The Seventh Company OutdoorsThe Seventh Company Outdoors (French: La SeptièmeCompagnie au clair de lune) is a 1977 French comedy film directed by Robert Lamoureux. It is a sequel to Now Where Did the 7th Company Get to?.CastJean Lefebvre - PithivierPierre Mondy - ChaudardHenri Guybet -TassinPatricia Karim - Suzanne ChaudardGérard Hérold - Le commandant GillesGérard Jugnot - GorgetonJean Carmet - M. Albert, le passeurAndré Pousse - LambertMichel BertoPassage 7:Brian Kennedy (gallerydirector)Brian Patrick Kennedy (born 5 November 1961) is an Irish-born art museum director who has worked in Ireland and Australia, and now lives and works in the United States.  He was the director of the PeabodyEssex Museum in Salem for 17 months, resigning December 31, 2020. He was the director of the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio from 2010 to 2019. He was the director of the Hood Museum of Art from 2005 to 2010,and the National Gallery of Australia (Canberra) from 1997 to 2004.CareerBrian Kennedy currently lives and works in the United States after leaving Australia in 2005 to direct the Hood Museum of Art at DartmouthCollege. In October 2010 he became the ninth Director of the Toledo Museum of Art. On 1 July 2019, he succeeded Dan Monroe as the executive director and CEO of the Peabody Essex Museum.Early life and career inIrelandKennedy was born in Dublin and attended Clonkeen College. He received B.A. (1982), M.A. (1985) and PhD (1989) degrees from University College-Dublin, where he studied both art history and history.Heworked in the Irish Department of Education (1982), the European Commission, Brussels (1983), and in Ireland at the Chester Beatty Library (1983–85), Government Publications Office (1985–86), and Department ofFinance (1986–89). He married Mary Fiona Carlin in 1988.He was Assistant Director at the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin from 1989 to 1997. He was Chair of the Irish Association of Art Historians from 1996 to1997, and of the Council of Australian Art Museum Directors from 2001 to 2003. In September 1997 he became Director of the National Gallery of Australia.National Gallery of Australia (NGA)Kennedy expanded thetraveling exhibitions and loans program throughout Australia, arranged for several major shows of Australian art abroad, increased the number of exhibitions at the museum itself and oversaw the development of anextensive multi-media site.  Although he oversaw several years of the museum's highest ever annual visitation, he discontinued the emphasis of his predecessor, Betty Churcher, on showing "blockbuster"exhibitions.During his directorship, the NGA gained government support for improving the building and significant private donations and corporate sponsorship. However, the initial design for the building provedcontroversial generating a public dispute with the original architect on moral rights grounds.  As a result, the project was not delivered during Dr Kennedy's tenure, with a significantly altered design completed someyears later.  Private funding supported two acquisitions of British art, including David Hockney's A Bigger Grand Canyon in 1999, and Lucian Freud's After Cézanne in 2001. Kennedy built on the established collections atthe museum by acquiring the Holmgren-Spertus collection of Indonesian textiles; the Kenneth Tyler collection of editioned prints, screens, multiples and unique proofs; and the Australian Print Workshop Archive. He wasalso notable for campaigning for the construction of a new "front" entrance to the Gallery, facing King Edward Terrace, which was completed in 2010 (see reference to the building project above).Kennedy's cancellationof the "Sensation exhibition" (scheduled at the NGA from 2 June 2000 to 13 August 2000) was controversial, and seen by some as censorship. He claimed that the decision was due to the exhibition being "too close tothe market" implying that a national cultural institution cannot exhibit the private collection of a speculative art investor. However, there were other exhibitions at the NGA during his tenure, which could have raisedsimilar concerns. The exhibition featured the privately owned Young British Artists works belonging to Charles Saatchi and attracted large attendances in London and Brooklyn. Its most controversial work was ChrisOfili's The Holy Virgin Mary, a painting which used elephant dung and was accused of being blasphemous. The then-mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani, campaigned against the exhibition, claiming it was"Catholic-bashing" and an "aggressive, vicious, disgusting attack on religion." In November 1999, Kennedy cancelled the exhibition and stated that the events in New York had "obscured discussion of the artistic merit ofthe works of art". He has said that it "was the toughest decision of my professional life, so far."Kennedy was also repeatedly questioned on his management of a range of issues during the Australian Government'sSenate Estimates process - particularly on the NGA's occupational health and safety record and concerns about the NGA's twenty-year-old air-conditioning system. The air-conditioning was finally renovated in 2003.Kennedy announced in 2002 that he would not seek extension of his contract beyond 2004, accepting a seven-year term as had his two predecessors.He became a joint Irish-Australian citizen in 2003.Toledo Museum ofArtThe Toledo Museum of Art is known for its exceptional collections of European and American paintings and sculpture, glass, antiquities, artist books, Japanese prints and netsuke. The museum offers free admissionand is recognized for its historical leadership in the field of art education.  During his tenure, Kennedy has focused the museum's art education efforts on visual literacy, which he defines as "learning to read, understandand write visual language."   Initiatives have included baby and toddler tours, specialized training for all staff, docents, volunteers and the launch of a website, www.vislit.org. In November 2014, the museum hosted theInternational Visual Literacy Association (IVLA) conference, the first Museum to do so. Kennedy has been a frequent speaker on the topic, including 2010 and 2013 TEDx talks on visual and sensory literacy.Kennedy hasexpressed an interest in expanding the museum's collection of contemporary art and art by indigenous peoples. Works by Frank Stella, Sean Scully, Jaume Plensa, Ravinder Reddy and Mary Sibande have beenacquired.  In addition, the museum has made major acquisitions of Old Master paintings by Frans Hals and Luca Giordano.During his tenure the Toledo Museum of Art has announced the return of several objects fromits collection due to claims the objects were stolen and/or illegally exported prior being sold to the museum.  In 2011 a Meissen sweetmeat stand was returned to Germany followed by an Etruscan Kalpis or water jug toItaly (2013), an Indian sculpture of Ganesha (2014) and an astrological compendium to Germany in 2015.Hood Museum of ArtKennedy became Director of the Hood Museum of Art in July 2005. During his tenure, heimplemented a series of large and small-scale exhibitions and oversaw the production of more than 20 publications to bring greater public attention to the museum's remarkable collections of the arts of America,Europe, Africa, Papua New Guinea and the Polar regions. At 70,000 objects, the Hood has one of the largest collections on any American college of university campus. The exhibition, Black Womanhood: Images, Icons,and Ideologies of the African Body, toured several US venues. Kennedy increased campus curricular use of works of art, with thousands of objects pulled from storage for classes annually. Numerous acquisitions weremade with the museum's generous endowments, and he curated several exhibitions: including Wenda Gu: Forest of Stone Steles: Retranslation and Rewriting Tang Dynasty Poetry, Sean Scully: The Art of the Stripe,and Frank Stella: Irregular Polygons.PublicationsKennedy has written or edited a number of books on art, including:Alfred Chester Beatty and Ireland 1950-1968: A study in cultural politics, Glendale Press (1988), ISBN978-0-907606-49-9Dreams and responsibilities: The state and arts in independent Ireland, Arts Council of Ireland (1990), ISBN 978-0-906627-32-7Jack B Yeats: Jack Butler Yeats, 1871-1957 (Lives of Irish Artists),Unipub (October 1991), ISBN 978-0-948524-24-0The Anatomy Lesson: Art and Medicine (with Davis Coakley), National Gallery of Ireland (January 1992), ISBN 978-0-903162-65-4Ireland: Art into History (withRaymond Gillespie), Roberts Rinehart Publishers (1994), ISBN 978-1-57098-005-3Irish Painting, Roberts Rinehart Publishers (November 1997),  ISBN 978-1-86059-059-7Sean Scully: The Art of the Stripe, HoodMuseum of Art (October 2008), ISBN 978-0-944722-34-3Frank Stella: Irregular Polygons, 1965-1966, Hood Museum of Art (October 2010), ISBN 978-0-944722-39-8Honors and achievementsKennedy was awarded the


Passage 1:Michelangelo FaggioliMichelangelo Faggioli (1666–1733) was an Italian lawyer and celebrated amateur composer of humorous cantatas in Neapolitan dialect. A founder of a new genre of Neapolitan comedy,he was the composer of the opera buffa La Cilla in 1706.Passage 2:Walter Robinson (composer)Walter Robinson is an American composer of the late 20th century. He is most notable for his 1977 song Harriet Tubman,which has been recorded by folk musicians such as Holly Near, John McCutcheon, and others.  He is also the composer of several operas.Passage 3:Nocturne (Britten)Nocturne, Op. 60, is a song cycle by BenjaminBritten, written for tenor, seven obbligato instruments and strings. The seven instruments are flute, cor anglais, clarinet, bassoon, harp, French horn and timpani.Nocturne was Britten's fourth and final orchestral songcycle, after Our Hunting Fathers (Op. 8, 1936), Les Illuminations (Op. 18, 1939) and Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings (Op. 31, 1943). It was dedicated to Alma Mahler.Nocturne was premiered in the Leeds TownHall at the centenary Leeds Festival on 16 October 1958 by Peter Pears and the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Rudolf Schwarz. Britten conducted a recording at Walthamstow Assembly Hall in 1960 with Pears,the London Symphony Orchestra and William Waterhouse (bassoon), Alexander Murray (flute), Gervase de Peyer (clarinet), Roger Lord (cor anglais), Osian Ellis (harp), Barry Tuckwell (horn), and Denis Blyth(timpani).The theme of the piece, as its name Nocturne suggests, is sleep and darkness, both in the literal and figurative sense. In this respect, the work is reminiscent of Britten's earlier Serenade. Unlike Serenade,Nocturne is presented as a continuous piece rather than separate movements. This is emphasised by a number of figures which occur throughout, most notably the 'rocking' string motif which opens the work. Theconflicting tonal relationship between C and D-flat is also evident throughout, reflecting the contrast between the untroubled and the more perturbed aspects of sleep which are also described by Britten's choice ofpoems.StructureThe piece sets eight sections of poetry to music, each accompanied by strings and (with the exception of the first) by an obbligato instrument:Shelley – "On a Poet’s Lips I Slept" from PrometheusUnboundTennyson – "The Kraken", with bassoonColeridge – "Encinctured with a twine of leaves" from The Wanderings of Cain, with harpMiddleton – "Midnight Bell" from Blurt, Master Constable, with FrenchhornWordsworth – "But that night when on my bed I lay" from The Prelude (1805), with timpaniOwen – "The Kind Ghosts", with cor anglaisKeats – "Sleep and Poetry", with flute and clarinetShakespeare – Sonnet XLIII,with all the obbligato instrumentsNotesExternal linksWork details, Boosey & HawkesPassage 4:Tarcisio FuscoTarcisio Fusco was an Italian composer of film scores. He was the brother of the composer Giovanni Fuscoand the uncle of operatic soprano Cecilia Fusco.Selected filmographyBoccaccio (1940)Free Escape (1951)Abracadabra (1952)The Eternal Chain (1952)Beauties in Capri (1952)Milanese in Naples (1954)Conspiracy of theBorgias (1959)Passage 5:Benjamin BrittenEdward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten  (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes (1945), the War Requiem (1962) and theorchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945).Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, the son of a dentist, Britten showed talent from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London andprivately with the composer Frank Bridge. Britten first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy was Born in 1934. With the premiere of Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to international fame. Overthe next 28 years, he wrote 14 more operas, establishing himself as one of the leading 20th-century composers in the genre. In addition to large-scale operas for Sadler's Wells and Covent Garden, he wrote chamberoperas for small forces, suitable for performance in venues of modest size. Among the best known of these is The Turn of the Screw (1954). Recurring themes in his operas include the struggle of an outsider against ahostile society and the corruption of innocence.Britten's other works range from orchestral to choral, solo vocal, chamber and instrumental as well as film music. He took a great interest in writing music for children andamateur performers, including the opera Noye's Fludde, a Missa Brevis, and the song collection Friday Afternoons. He often composed with particular performers in mind. His most frequent and important muse was hispersonal and professional partner, the tenor Peter Pears; others included Kathleen Ferrier, Jennifer Vyvyan, Janet Baker, Dennis Brain, Julian Bream, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Osian Ellis and Mstislav Rostropovich.Britten was a celebrated pianist and conductor, performing many of his own works in concert and on record. He also performed and recorded works by others, such as Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, Mozartsymphonies, and song cycles by Schubert and Schumann.Together with Pears and the librettist and producer Eric Crozier, Britten founded the annual Aldeburgh Festival in 1948, and he was responsible for the creationof Snape Maltings concert hall in 1967. In his last year, he was the first composer to be given a life peerage.Early yearsBritten was born in the fishing port of Lowestoft in Suffolk, on the east coast of England on 22November 1913, the feast day of Saint Cecilia. He was the youngest of four children of Robert Victor Britten (1877–1934) and his wife Edith Rhoda, née Hockey (1874–1937). Robert Britten's youthful ambition tobecome a farmer had been thwarted by lack of capital, and he had instead trained as a dentist, a profession he practised successfully but without pleasure. While studying at Charing Cross Hospital in London he metEdith Hockey, the daughter of a civil service clerk in the British Government's Home Office. They were married in September 1901 at St John's, Smith Square, London.The consensus among biographers of Britten is thathis father was a loving but somewhat stern and remote parent. Britten, according to his sister Beth, "got on well with him and shared his wry sense of humour, dedication to work and capacity for taking pains." EdithBritten was a talented amateur musician and secretary of the Lowestoft Musical Society. In the English provinces of the early 20th century, distinctions of social class were taken very seriously. Britten described hisfamily as "very ordinary middle class", but there were aspects of the Brittens that were not ordinary: Edith's father was illegitimate, and her mother was an alcoholic; Robert Britten was an agnostic and refused toattend church on Sundays. Music was the principal means by which Edith Britten strove to maintain the family's social standing, inviting the pillars of the local community to musical soirées at the house.When Brittenwas three months old he contracted pneumonia and nearly died. The illness left him with a damaged heart, and doctors warned his parents that he would probably never be able to lead a normal life. He recovered morefully than expected, and as a boy was a keen tennis player and cricketer. To his mother's great delight he was an outstandingly musical child, unlike his sisters, who inherited their father's indifference to music, while hisbrother, though musically talented, was interested only in ragtime. Edith gave the young Britten his first lessons in piano and notation. He made his first attempts at composition when he was five. He started pianolessons when he was seven years old, and three years later began to play the viola. He was one of the last composers brought up on exclusively live music: his father refused to have a gramophone or, later, a radio inthe house.EducationLowestoftWhen he was seven Britten was sent to a dame school, run by the Misses Astle. The younger sister, Ethel, gave him piano lessons; in later life he said that he remained grateful for theexcellence of her teaching. The following year he moved on to a prep school, South Lodge, Lowestoft, as a day boy. The headmaster, Thomas Sewell, was an old-fashioned disciplinarian; the young Britten was outragedat the severe corporal punishments frequently handed out, and later he said that his lifelong pacifism probably had its roots in his reaction to the regime at the school. He himself rarely fell foul of Sewell, amathematician, in which subject Britten was a star pupil. The school had no musical tradition, and Britten continued to study the piano with Ethel Astle. From the age of ten he took viola lessons from a friend of hismother, Audrey Alston, who had been a professional player before her marriage. In his spare time he composed prolifically. When his Simple Symphony, based on these juvenilia, was recorded in 1956, Britten wrotethis pen-portrait of his young self for the sleeve note:Once upon a time there was a prep-school boy. ... He was quite an ordinary little boy ... he loved cricket, only quite liked football (although he kicked a pretty"corner"); he adored mathematics, got on all right with history, was scared by Latin Unseen; he behaved fairly well, only ragged the recognised amount, so that his contacts with the cane or the slipper were happily rare(although one nocturnal expedition to stalk ghosts left its marks behind); he worked his way up the school slowly and steadily, until at the age of thirteen he reached that pinnacle of importance and grandeur, never tobe quite equalled in later days: the head of the Sixth, head-prefect, and Victor Ludorum. But – there was one curious thing about this boy: he wrote music. His friends bore with it, his enemies kicked a bit but not forlong (he was quite tough), the staff couldn't object if his work and games didn't suffer. He wrote lots of it, reams and reams of it.Audrey Alston encouraged Britten to go to symphony concerts in Norwich. At one ofthese, during the triennial Norfolk and Norwich Festival in October 1924, he heard Frank Bridge's orchestral poem The Sea, conducted by the composer. It was the first substantial piece of modern music he had everencountered, and he was, in his own phrase, "knocked sideways" by it. Audrey Alston was a friend of Bridge; when he returned to Norwich for the next festival in 1927 she brought her not quite 14-year-old pupil tomeet him. Bridge was impressed with the boy, and after they had gone through some of Britten's compositions together he invited him to come to London to take lessons from him. Robert Britten, supported by ThomasSewell, doubted the wisdom of pursuing a composing career; a compromise was agreed by which Britten would, as planned, go on to his public school the following year but would make regular day-trips to London tostudy composition with Bridge and piano with his colleague Harold Samuel.Bridge impressed on Britten the importance of scrupulous attention to the technical craft of composing and the maxim that "you should findyourself and be true to what you found." The earliest substantial works Britten composed while studying with Bridge are the String Quartet in F, completed in April 1928, and the Quatre Chansons Françaises, asong-cycle for high voice and orchestra. Authorities differ on the extent of Bridge's influence on his pupil's technique. Humphrey Carpenter and Michael Oliver judge that Britten's abilities as an orchestrator wereessentially self-taught; Donald Mitchell considers that Bridge had an important influence on the cycle.Public school and Royal College of MusicIn September 1928 Britten went as a boarder to Gresham's School, in Holt,Norfolk. At the time he felt unhappy there, even writing in his diary of contemplating suicide or running away: he hated being separated from his family, most particularly from his mother; he despised the music master;and he was shocked at the prevalence of bullying, though he was not the target of it. He remained there for two years and in 1930, he won a composition scholarship at the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London; hisexaminers were the composers John Ireland and Ralph Vaughan Williams and the college's harmony and counterpoint teacher, S P Waddington.Britten was at the RCM from 1930 to 1933, studying composition withIreland and piano with Arthur Benjamin. He won the Sullivan Prize for composition, the Cobbett Prize for chamber music, and was twice winner of the Ernest Farrar Prize for composition. Despite these honours, he wasnot greatly impressed by the establishment: he found his fellow-students "amateurish and folksy" and the staff "inclined to suspect technical brilliance of being superficial and insincere." Another Ireland pupil, thecomposer Humphrey Searle, said that Ireland could be "an inspiring teacher to those on his own wavelength"; Britten was not, and learned little from him. He continued to study privately with Bridge, although he laterpraised Ireland for "nurs[ing] me very gently through a very, very difficult musical adolescence."Britten also used his time in London to attend concerts and become better acquainted with the music of Stravinsky,Shostakovich and, most particularly, Mahler. He intended postgraduate study in Vienna with Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg's student, but was eventually dissuaded by his parents, on the advice of the RCM staff.Thefirst of Britten's compositions to attract wide attention were composed while at the RCM: the Sinfonietta, Op. 1 (1932), the oboe quartet Phantasy, Op. 2, dedicated to Léon Goossens who played the first performance ina BBC broadcast on 6 August 1933, and a set of choral variations A Boy was Born, written in 1933 for the BBC Singers, who first performed it the following year. In this same period he wrote Friday Afternoons, acollection of 12 songs for the pupils of Clive House School, Prestatyn, where his brother was headmaster.CareerEarly professional lifeIn February 1935, at Bridge's instigation, Britten was invited to a job interview by theBBC's director of music Adrian Boult and his assistant Edward Clark. Britten was not enthusiastic about the prospect of working full-time in the BBC music department and was relieved when what came out of theinterview was an invitation to write the score for a documentary film, The King's Stamp, directed by Alberto Cavalcanti for the GPO Film Unit.Britten became a member of the film unit's small group of regularcontributors, another of whom was W. H. Auden. Together they worked on the documentary films Coal Face and Night Mail in 1935. They also collaborated on the song cycle Our Hunting Fathers (1936), radical both inpolitics and musical treatment, and subsequently other works including Cabaret Songs, On This Island, Paul Bunyan and Hymn to St Cecilia. Auden was a considerable influence on Britten, encouraging him to widen hisaesthetic, intellectual and political horizons, and also to come to terms with his homosexuality. Auden was, as David Matthews puts it, "cheerfully and guiltlessly promiscuous"; Britten, puritanical and conventional bynature, was sexually repressed.In the three years from 1935 to 1937 Britten wrote nearly 40 scores for the theatre, cinema and radio. Among the film music of the late 1930s Matthews singles out Night Mail and Lovefrom a Stranger (1937); from the theatre music he selects for mention The Ascent of F6 (1936), On the Frontier (1938), and Johnson Over Jordan (1939); and of the music for radio, King Arthur (1937) and The Swordin the Stone (1939).In 1937 there were two events of huge importance in Britten's life: his mother died, and he met the tenor Peter Pears. Although Britten was extraordinarily devoted to his mother and was devastatedat her death, it also seems to have been something of a liberation for him. Only after that did he begin to engage in emotional relationships with people his own age or younger. Later in the year he got to know Pearswhile they were both helping to clear out the country cottage of a mutual friend who had died in an air crash. Pears quickly became Britten's musical inspiration and close (though for the moment platonic) friend.Britten's first work for him was composed within weeks of their meeting, a setting of Emily Brontë's poem, "A thousand gleaming fires", for tenor and strings.During 1937 Britten composed a Pacifist March to words byRonald Duncan for the Peace Pledge Union, of which, as a pacifist, he had become an active member; the work was not a success and was soon withdrawn. The best known of his compositions from this period isprobably Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge for string orchestra, described by Matthews as the first of Britten's works to become a popular classic. It was a success in North America, with performances in Toronto,New York, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco, under conductors including John Barbirolli and Serge Koussevitzky.America 1939–42In April 1939 Britten and Pears sailed to North America, going first to Canada and thento New York. They had several reasons for leaving England, including the difficult position of pacifists in an increasingly bellicose Europe; the success that Frank Bridge had enjoyed in the US; the departure of Auden andhis friend Christopher Isherwood to the US from England three months previously; hostile or belittling reviews of Britten's music in the English press; and under-rehearsed and inadequate performances. Britten andPears consummated their relationship and from then until Britten's death they were partners in both their professional and personal lives. When the Second World War began, Britten and Pears turned for advice to theBritish embassy in Washington and were told that they should remain in the US as artistic ambassadors. Pears was inclined to disregard the advice and go back to England; Britten also felt the urge to return, butaccepted the embassy's counsel and persuaded Pears to do the same.Already a friend of the composer Aaron Copland, Britten encountered his latest works Billy the Kid and An Outdoor Overture, both of whichinfluenced his own music. In 1940 Britten composed Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, the first of many song cycles for Pears. Britten's orchestral works from this period include the Violin Concerto and Sinfonia daRequiem. In 1941 Britten produced his first music drama, Paul Bunyan, an operetta, to a libretto by Auden. While in the US, Britten had his first encounter with Balinese gamelan music, through transcriptions for pianoduo made by the Canadian composer Colin McPhee. The two met in the summer of 1939 and subsequently performed a number of McPhee's transcriptions for a recording. This musical encounter bore fruit in severalBalinese-inspired works later in Britten's career.Moving to the US did not relieve Britten of the nuisance of hostile criticism: although Olin Downes, the doyen of New York music critics, and Irving Kolodin took to Britten'smusic, Virgil Thomson was, as the music scholar Suzanne Robinson puts it, consistently "severe and spiteful". Thomson described Les Illuminations (1940) as "little more than a series of bromidic and facile 'effects' ...pretentious, banal and utterly disappointing", and was equally unflattering about Pears's voice. Robinson surmises that Thomson was motivated by "a mixture of spite, national pride, and professional jealousy." PaulBunyan met with wholesale critical disapproval, and the Sinfonia da Requiem (already rejected by its Japanese sponsors because of its overtly Christian nature) received a mixed reception when Barbirolli and the NewYork Philharmonic premiered it in March 1941. The reputation of the work was much enhanced when Koussevitzky took it up shortly afterwards.Return to EnglandIn 1942 Britten read the work of the poet George Crabbefor the first time. The Borough, set on the Suffolk coast close to Britten's homeland, awakened in him such longings for England that he knew he must return. He also knew that he must write an opera based onCrabbe's poem about the fisherman Peter Grimes. Before Britten left the US, Koussevitzky, always generous in encouraging new talent, offered him a $1,000 commission to write the opera. Britten and Pears returned toEngland in April 1942. During the long transatlantic sea crossing Britten completed the choral works A Ceremony of Carols and Hymn to St Cecilia. The latter was his last large-scale collaboration with Auden. Britten hadgrown away from him, and Auden became one of the composer's so-called "corpses" – former intimates from whom he completely cut off contact once they had outlived their usefulness to him or offended him in someway.Having arrived in Britain, Britten and Pears applied for recognition as conscientious objectors; Britten was initially allowed only non-combatant service in the military, but on appeal he gained unconditional


Passage 1:Bernard HoursBernard Hours, born on 5 May 1956 in Strasbourg, is a French businessman. He was the managing director of Danone and a member of the board of directors of the company. He was also amember of the executive committee of Danone.EducationHours graduated from the École des Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC) in 1978.CareerHours began his career at Unilever in 1979 as Product Manager andBrand Manager. He progressively became an expert in the food sector.In 1985, he joined the Danone marketing group at Kronenbourg. From 1989 and 2001, he  was the Director of Sales of Evian, and then Director ofMarketing for Danone France, later becoming the President of Danone Hungary (1994), Danone Germany (1996) and finally President of LU France in 1998.In November 2001, Hours was named the Vice-President ofthe Fresh Dairy Products division and became the President in March 2002. In November 2006 he also took charge of the Research and Development at Danone.Hours contributed significantly to sales growth between2007 and 2013, which amounted to an increase of 36.4% (from 14 to 22 billion euros) during this period. He exercised is responsible for all activities of Danone, encompassing around 100,000 people in and 100countries.In 2014, at the time of a change of governance,  Hours ended his position as managing director of Danone, by the decision of the Administrative Counsel.In 2015, Hours became president of Medvet  and  ChefSam. He is also Board Member for Verlinvest  and Oatly.Other ActivitiesHours is a member of the Administrative Counsel of Essilor as an independent director and a member of the Administrative Counsel of theinvestment holding Verlinvest and its participation Vita Coco. He is also e member of the Supervisory Board of Somfy.Passage 2:Wee Wee Hours"Wee Wee Hours" is a song written and recorded by Chuck Berry in 1955.Originally released as the B-side of his first single, "Maybellene", it went on to become a hit, reaching number 10 in the Billboard R&B chart.The song is a twelve-bar blues, described as "a slow, sensuous blues featuringsome exceptional piano from Johnnie Johnson"."Wee Wee Hours" was on the audition tape submitted by Berry to Leonard Chess in hope of landing a recording contract with Chess Records.  Although it seemed like agood fit with the record company's blues roster, Chess was more interested in the song that became "Maybellene", the song that launched Berry's career as a rock and roll star.Berry often performed the song live. It isincluded on the 1969 album Chuck Berry Live in Concert, and in the 1987 film Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll.Passage 3:Billy MilanoBilly Milano (born June 3, 1964) is an American heavy metal and hardcore punk musician. Heis the singer and occasionally guitarist and bassist of crossover thrash band M.O.D., and was the singer of its predecessor, Stormtroopers of Death. Prior to these bands, Milano played in early New York hardcore bandthe Psychos, which also launched the career of future Agnostic Front vocalist Roger Miret. Milano was also the singer of United Forces, which included his Stormtroopers of Death bandmate Dan Lilker. Milano managed anumber of bands, including Agnostic Front, for whom he also co-produced the 1997 Epitaph Records release Something's Gotta Give and roadie for Anthrax.DiscographyStormtroopers of Death albumsStormtroopers ofDeath videosMethod of Destruction (M.O.D.)MasteryPassage 4:O Valencia!"O Valencia!" is the fifth single by the indie rock band The Decemberists, and the first released from their fourth studio album, The CraneWife.The music was written by The Decemberists and the lyrics by Colin Meloy. It tells a story of two star-crossed lovers. The singer falls in love with a person who belongs to an opposing gang. At the end of the song,the singer's lover jumps in to defend the singer, who is confronting his lover's brother (the singer's "sworn enemy") and is killed by the bullet intended for the singer.Track listingThe 7" single sold in the UK wasmispressed, with "Culling of the Fold" as the B-side despite the artwork and record label listing "After the Bombs" as the B-side.Music videosFor the "O Valencia!" music video, The Decemberists filmed themselves infront of a green screen and asked fans to complete it by digitally adding in background images or footage. Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report, having recently asked fans to do the same with a video of him with alight saber in front of a green screen, brought up The Decemberists on his segment "Look Who's Riding on My Coattails Now" and accused the band of stealing the idea. The Decemberists' response was to challengeStephen Colbert to a guitar solo showdown on December 20, 2006, on The Colbert Report.On January 19, 2007, The Decemberists premiered an alternate music video of "O Valencia!", directed by Aaron Stewart-Ahn,on MTV2. The video follows a character named Patrick, played by Meloy, as he and his love Francesca (Lisa Molinaro), daughter of "the Boss", plan an escape to an unknown location. At a cafe, a man in a suit, portrayedby the band member Chris Funk, tells him to hide in the "Valencia" hotel (the Super Value Inn on North Interstate Avenue in Portland, Oregon) while he gets them the necessary documentation to escape. Above thename of the hotel, there is a neon sign that reads "Office". The letters have all burnt out except for the "O", creating the title of the song. The video then introduces other characters - various assassination teams - whosit in different rooms of the hotel waiting for the chance to catch the two lovers. Most are portrayed by other members of the band (along with Meloy's wife, Carson Ellis). They kill off any potential witnesses to theirplan. Patrick manages to take down one member from each team, before they gang up on him. The Boss arrives, along with the man from the cafe, who reveals that he snitched on Patrick and Francesca. They executeFrancesca, while forcing Patrick to watch. After they leave, Patrick finds a note by Francesca, which reveals that she never fell in love with him, and only wanted protection. 2 months later, Patrick and the man, who haslost an eye from a previous assassination attempt, have a sit-down at the same cafe. The man reveals that he snitched on Patrick just to take over the town. Patrick reveals that he poisoned a drink the man was having,but before he could get away, the man stabs Patrick in the neck with a fork before dying, followed by Patrick.The video is somewhat influenced by the distinct style and themes of director Wes Anderson, with bold fontsbeing used to introduce characters and groups on the bottom of the screen (much like in the film The Royal Tenenbaums). The band had previously (and more explicitly) drawn influence from Anderson's Rushmore intheir video for "Sixteen Military Wives". The layout of the hotel is also similar to the one used in Bottle Rocket.Kurt Nishimura was chosen as the winner by mtvU for his video that depicted a love affair between a womanand her television, with the TV containing the green-screened Decemberists video footage.Passage 5:Chuck BerryCharles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was an American singer, guitaristand songwriter who pioneered rock and roll. Nicknamed the "Father of Rock and Roll", he refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive with songs such as"Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958). Writing lyrics that focused on teen life and consumerism, and developing a music style that includedguitar solos and showmanship, Berry was a major influence on subsequent rock music.Born into a middle-class black family in St. Louis, Berry had an interest in music from an early age and gave his first publicperformance at Sumner High School. While still a high school student, he was convicted of armed robbery and was sent to a reformatory, where he was held from 1944 to 1947. After his release, Berry settled intomarried life and worked at an automobile assembly plant. By early 1953, influenced by the guitar riffs and showmanship techniques of the blues musician T-Bone Walker, Berry began performing with the JohnnieJohnson Trio. His break came when he traveled to Chicago in May 1955 and met Muddy Waters, who suggested he contact Leonard Chess, of Chess Records. With Chess, he recorded "Maybellene"—Berry's adaptation ofthe country song "Ida Red"—which sold over a million copies, reaching number one on Billboard magazine's rhythm and blues chart.By the end of the 1950s, Berry was an established star, with several hit records andfilm appearances and a lucrative touring career. He had also established his own St. Louis nightclub, Berry's Club Bandstand. He was sentenced to three years in prison in January 1962 for offenses under the MannAct—he had transported a 14-year-old girl across state lines for the purpose of having sexual intercourse. After his release in 1963, Berry had several more successful songs, including "No Particular Place to Go", "YouNever Can Tell", and "Nadine". However, these did not achieve the same success or lasting impact of his 1950s songs, and by the 1970s he was more in demand as a nostalgia performer, playing his past material withlocal backup bands of variable quality. In 1972 he reached a new level of achievement when a rendition of "My Ding-a-Ling" became his only record to top the charts. His insistence on being paid in cash led in 1979 to afour-month jail sentence and community service, for tax evasion.Berry was among the first musicians to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on its opening in 1986; he was cited for having "laid thegroundwork for not only a rock and roll sound but a rock and roll stance." Berry is included in several of Rolling Stone magazine's "greatest of all time" lists; he was ranked fifth on its 2004 and 2011 lists of the 100Greatest Artists of All Time. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll includes three of Berry's: "Johnny B. Goode", "Maybellene", and "Rock and Roll Music". "Johnny B. Goode" is the onlyrock-and-roll song included on the Voyager Golden Record.Early lifeBorn in St. Louis, Berry was the youngest child. He grew up in the north St. Louis neighborhood known as the Ville, an area where many middle-classpeople lived. His father, Henry William Berry (1895–1987) was a contractor and deacon of a nearby Baptist church; his mother, Martha Bell (Banks) (1894–1980) was a certified public school principal. Berry'supbringing allowed him to pursue his interest in music from an early age. He gave his first public performance in 1941 while still a student at Sumner High School; he was still a student there in 1944, when he wasarrested for armed robbery after robbing three shops in Kansas City, Missouri, and then stealing a car at gunpoint with some friends. Berry's account in his autobiography is that his car broke down and he flagged downa passing car and stole it at gunpoint with a nonfunctional pistol. He was convicted and sent to the Intermediate Reformatory for Young Men at Algoa, near Jefferson City, Missouri, where he formed a singing quartet anddid some boxing. The singing group became competent enough that the authorities allowed it to perform outside the detention facility. Berry was released from the reformatory on his 21st birthday in 1947.On October28, 1948, Berry married Themetta "Toddy" Suggs, who gave birth to Darlin Ingrid Berry on October 3, 1950. Berry supported his family by taking various jobs in St. Louis, working briefly as a factory worker at twoautomobile assembly plants and as a janitor in the apartment building where he and his wife lived. Afterwards he trained as a beautician at the Poro College of Cosmetology, founded by Annie Turnbo Malone. He wasdoing well enough by 1950 to buy a "small three room brick cottage with a bath" on Whittier Street, which is now listed as the Chuck Berry House on the National Register of Historic Places.By the early 1950s, Berry wasworking with local bands in clubs in St. Louis as an extra source of income. He had been playing blues since his teens, and he borrowed both guitar riffs and showmanship techniques from the blues musician T-BoneWalker. He also took guitar lessons from his friend Ira Harris, which laid the foundation for his guitar style.By early 1953 Berry was performing with Johnnie Johnson's trio, starting a long-time collaboration with thepianist. The band played blues and ballads as well as country. Berry wrote, "Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of our country stuff on our predominantly black audience and some of our black audience began whispering'who is that black hillbilly at the Cosmo?' After they laughed at me a few times they began requesting the hillbilly stuff and enjoyed dancing to it."In 1954, Berry recorded the tracks "I Hope These Words Will Find YouWell" and "Oh, Maria!" with the group Joe Alexander & the Cubans. The songs were released as a single on the Ballad label.Berry's showmanship, along with a mix of country tunes and R&B tunes, sung in the style ofNat King Cole set to the music of Muddy Waters brought in a wider audience, particularly affluent white people.Career1955–1962: Signing with Chess: "Maybellene" to "Come On"In May 1955, Berry traveled to Chicago,where he met Muddy Waters who suggested he contact Leonard Chess, of Chess Records. Berry thought his blues music would interest Chess, but Chess was a larger fan of Berry's take on "Ida Red". On May 21, 1955,Berry recorded an adaptation of the song "Ida Red", under the title "Maybellene", with Johnnie Johnson on the piano, Jerome Green (from Bo Diddley's band) on the maracas, Ebby Hardy on the drums and Willie Dixonon the bass. "Maybellene" sold over a million copies, reaching number one on Billboard magazine's rhythm and blues chart and number five on its Best Sellers in Stores chart for September 10, 1955. Berry said, "Itcame out at the right time when Afro-American music was spilling over into the mainstream pop."When Berry first saw a copy of the Maybellene record, he was surprised that two other individuals, including DJ AlanFreed had been given writing credit; that would entitle them to some of the royalties. After a court battle, Berry was able to regain full writing credit.At the end of June 1956, his song "Roll Over Beethoven" reachednumber 29 on the Billboard's Top 100 chart, and Berry toured as one of the "Top Acts of '56". He and Carl Perkins became friends. Perkins said that "I knew when I first heard Chuck that he'd been affected by countrymusic. I respected his writing; his records were very, very great." In late 1957, Berry took part in Alan Freed's "Biggest Show of Stars for 1957", touring the United States with the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, andothers. He was a guest on ABC's Guy Mitchell Show, singing his hit song "Rock 'n' Roll Music". The hits continued from 1957 to 1959, with Berry scoring over a dozen chart singles during this period, including the US Top10 hits "School Days", "Rock and Roll Music", "Sweet Little Sixteen", and "Johnny B. Goode". He appeared in two early rock-and-roll movies: Rock Rock Rock (1956), in which he sang "You Can't Catch Me", and Go,Johnny, Go! (1959), in which he had a speaking role as himself and performed "Johnny B. Goode", "Memphis, Tennessee", and "Little Queenie". His performance of "Sweet Little Sixteen" at the Newport Jazz Festival in1958 was captured in the motion picture Jazz on a Summer's Day.The opening guitar riff of "Johnny B. Goode" is similar to the one used by Louis Jordan in his Ain't That Just Like a Woman (1946). Berry acknowledgedthe debt to Jordan and several sources have indicated that his work was influenced by Jordan in general.By the end of the 1950s, Berry was a high-profile established star with several hit records and film appearancesand a lucrative touring career. He had opened a racially integrated St. Louis nightclub, Berry's Club Bandstand, and invested in real estate. But in December 1959, he was arrested under the Mann Act after allegationsthat he had had sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old Apache waitress, Janice Escalante, whom he had transported across state lines to work as a hatcheck girl at his club. After a two-week trial in March 1960, he wasconvicted, fined $5,000, and sentenced to five years in prison. He appealed the decision, arguing that the judge's comments and attitude were racist and prejudiced the jury against him. The appeal was upheld, and asecond trial was heard in May and June 1961, resulting in another conviction and a three-year prison sentence. After another appeal failed, Berry served one and one-half years in prison, from February 1962 to October1963. He had continued recording and performing during the trials, but his output had slowed as his popularity declined; his final single released before he was imprisoned was "Come On".1963–1969: "Nadine" andmove to MercuryWhen Berry was released from prison in 1963, his return to recording and performing was made easier because British invasion bands—notably the Beatles and the Rolling Stones—had sustainedinterest in his music by releasing cover versions of his songs, and other bands had reworked some of them, such as the Beach Boys' 1963 hit "Surfin' U.S.A.", which used the melody of Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen". In1964 and 1965 Berry released eight singles, including three that were commercially successful, reaching the top 20 of the Billboard 100: "No Particular Place to Go" (a humorous reworking of "School Days", concerningthe introduction of seat belts in cars), "You Never Can Tell", and the rocking "Nadine". Between 1966 and 1969 Berry released five albums for Mercury Records, including his second live album (and first recorded entirelyonstage), Live at Fillmore Auditorium; for the live album he was backed by the Steve Miller Band.Although this period was not a successful one for studio work, Berry was still a top concert draw. In May 1964, he hadmade a successful tour of the UK, but when he returned in January 1965 his behavior was erratic and moody, and his touring style of using unrehearsed local backing bands and a strict nonnegotiable contract wasearning him a reputation as a difficult and unexciting performer. He also played at large events in North America, such as the Schaefer Music Festival, in New York City's Central Park in July 1969, and the Toronto Rockand Roll Revival festival in October.1970–1979: Back to Chess: "My Ding-a-Ling" to White House concertBerry returned to Chess from 1970 to 1973. There were no hit singles from the 1970 album Back Home, but in1972 Chess released a live recording of "My Ding-a-Ling", a novelty song which he had recorded in a different version as "My Tambourine" on his 1968 LP From St. Louie to Frisco. The track became his only number-onesingle. A live recording of "Reelin' and Rockin'", issued as a follow-up single in the same year, was his last Top 40 hit in both the US and the UK. Both singles were included on the part-live, part-studio album The LondonChuck Berry Sessions (other albums of London sessions were recorded by Chess's mainstay artists Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf). Berry's second tenure with Chess ended with the 1975 album Chuck Berry, afterwhich he did not make a studio record until Rockit for Atco Records in 1979, which would be his last studio album for 38 years.In the 1970s Berry toured on the strength of his earlier successes. He was on the road formany years, carrying only his Gibson guitar, confident that he could hire a band that already knew his music no matter where he went. AllMusic said that in this period his "live performances became increasingly erratic,... working with terrible backup bands and turning in sloppy, out-of-tune performances" which "tarnished his reputation with younger fans and oldtimers" alike. In March 1972 he was filmed, at the BBC TelevisionTheatre in Shepherds Bush, for Chuck Berry in Concert, part of a 60-date tour backed by the band Rocking Horse. Among the many bandleaders performing a backup role with Berry in the 1970s were Bruce Springsteenand Steve Miller when each was just starting his career. (Springsteen related in the documentary film Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll that Berry did not give the band a set list, and expected the musicians to follow his lead aftereach guitar intro. Berry did not speak to the band after the show. Nevertheless, Springsteen backed Berry again when he appeared at the concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.) At the request of JimmyCarter, Berry performed at the White House on June 1, 1979.Berry's touring style, traveling the "oldies" circuit in the 1970s (often being paid in cash by local promoters), added ammunition to the Internal RevenueService's accusations that Berry had evaded paying income taxes. Facing criminal sanction for the third time, Berry pleaded guilty to evading nearly $110,000 in federal income tax owed on his 1973 earnings.