On the first day of the New Year

The New Year’s Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra is exclusive. For me, it brings the nostalgia and the joy of the childhood. The concert was broadcast by National Television when I was a child and every year on Ist January I watched it with my sister. The orchestra was world-class, the conductor was an international distinguish conductor and the venue – Musikverein – was outstanding. 
People say, the first day of the year indicates how the year will go. The New Year’s concert in Vienna and the joyful music of the Strauss Dynasty always brought hope and a sense of a vie est rose. 
 
I have not watched the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra concert for ages. 4 years ago I attempted to re-create the euphoria by attending a New Year’s Day concert in the Lighthouse in Poole. The concert was a disappointment which I kept to myself in order not to discourage my husband from joining me in my musical adventures. 
 
A new opportunity arose recently. The Barbican Centre in London offered an afternoon New Year concert performed by the London Concert Orchestra. 
First impressions – the Barbican Centre building is ugly. Its architectural style is called brutalist as it emphasises the raw materials (concrete) to the detriment of fine finishes and decorations. The foyer is full of mature people holding glasses of wine in their hands. Later I was enlightened  that  every ticket holder was entitled to a free glass of wine – a great marketing trick to ensure attendance and a jolly mood in the concert hall. The cafes and the restaurant are unappealing with long queues in all of them. 

The actual concert hall is huge. There are nearly 2000 seats spread on three levels and they are all  taken. The orchestra musicians seemed tired to me, their shirts and jackets creased and no smiles on their faces. The conductor explained that the orchestra played in Birmingham the night before and travelled to London in the morning.

 
The concert begins, beautiful music fills the air and everything changes. Musicians are good.The conductor Anthony Ingles is the master of the ceremony. He not only skilfully conducts the orchestra but his dry sense of humour appeals to the audience.
Suddenly Nicole Kidman enters the stage. Wait a minute, she is not Nicole Kidman, she is soprano Sky Ingram. Like Nicole Kidman, Sky is Australian, she is tall, slim with beautiful curly hair. Sky has an amazing voice. She is accompanied by the tenor Robyn Lyn Evans who brought the audience  to their feet with his performance of Nessun Dorma. 
Some tricks to engaging the audience (from The Proms) follow – we are led by the conductor to perform specific moves, to sing as a choir and to clap to the rhythm of the music. The tricks work very well. 2000 people are clapping, moving, laughing and enjoying themselves. The mood is uplifted. It is a real delight to watch the sea of smiley faces. 
And that is great because Adrian, our friends Catherine and Paul and I are going again to the Barbican centre on 22nd April to watch Gustavo Dudamel conducting the orchestra of Opera National de Paris. Cannot wait. 

Making memories at New Year’s Eve

Usually New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day are the times for making our New Year’s resolutions. The resolutions are supposed to change us in a positive way – “New Year, new me”. 
I would suggest a different approach – make memories before making resolutions. 
Adrian (my husband and a distinguished art and music lover) and I decided to make New Year memories in London. 
The best place for that was the City area around the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. 
In the late afternoon on 31st December we were sitting in the All Bar One on Great Tower Street. The weather was gloomy, raining constantly. From my seat I could see through the window and the amber lights of festive decorations the mystical contours of the Tower of London and the brightly lit Tower Bridge. The picture in front of my eyes was stunningly beautiful and breath taking. My heart was full of appreciation of life and beauty even though Adrian expertly said that I was easily pleased.  
Later we went to our favourite restaurant, Wright Brothers, in Borough Market. The fish and seafood restaurant is a charming place, offering excellent food and great service from a hard-working international team. Without them this memory wouldn’t be possible. The restaurant is very cosy and cleverly designed. The atmosphere is informal, friendly and festive. The clienele were also international  – next to us at the bar was an interesting eccentric Dutch couple. 
Around 23.00 the crowd began moving towards London Bridge in order to watch the fireworks. London is really cosmopolitan – I could hear all the languages in the world around us. We were all there for the same reason – to enjoy the anticipation that something new, something positive was on the way to meet us. Only two more seconds and the hope would be reality. No, No, please,  wait for a moment, one more shot on my iPhone….
The counting on the Shard tower began and then 0 appeared and the New Year arrived – new wishes, new opportunities, new us. Kisses, love words, champagne. Could the moment last a bit longer. 
 
 
I am writing this two days later and the quiet content in my soul is telling me that despite the benefits of mindful practice the memories we made this New Year’s Eve will be evoked and treasured in the years to come. 

The luck of having a big sister

I do not know whether there is  a statistic of how many people in the world have a big sister. At Christmas time I hope there are many. Having a big sister is the greatest luck in the world. 

1. Having a big sister means you have someone who cares and protects you for the rest of your life. One of the first things I remember as a little girl was my mum saying to my sister that she must look after me and not allow anyone to upset or hurt me. Big sisters grow up quickly, they mature early because they are responsible for caring and nurturing the annoying little sibling from a very young age. Do not get me wrong – they have their revenge later in life when a stranger looks at the two sisters and innocently asks “Excuse me, who is the oldest one?” and points to the younger one “Probably you!”. The big smile on my sister’s face was unforgettable.

2. You have someone who you trust implicitly. Your big sister knows everything about you  – your strengths, your weaknesses, your eccentricities, fears and deep insecurities. She knows your triumphs and your failures, your secrets and your desires. You can tell her anything and you know that it is safe, it is secure and you can be who you are without any pretence or facades. 
And you know that your trustworthy big sister has your best interest in her heart. She would strongly encourage you to read the most interesting book all night and pretend that you were asleep when your parents checked on you. Or she would lift your mood straightaway by insisting that divas usually live in Los Angelis, that prima donnas are in the La Scala or dramas are shot in Bollywood so why not skip the nonsense and come down to earth. In any case, a walk will help.
3. Lastly, my big sister is my role model. It is not surprising that she is a Capricorn zodiac sign – the sign of the mountain goat who never gives up and reaches the peak of the mountain where no-one has been before. 

I was two years behind my sister at school and that was great for me. She was an excellent student and had a brilliant reputation. So I felt like a “nepo baby” – fully relying on the reputation of my celebrity sister. Until disaster struck. I will always remember my teacher of physics in secondary school who looked straight into my eyes and said – “ Nina, you have a long way to go to level up with your big sister”. I am still on the road. 


Happy Birthday to my big beautiful and clever sister!
 

Avant-garde at Christmas

The Christmas Festive Season is the time when we indulge in long-standing traditions such as the  Christmas tree, presents, Christmas cards, carols, families together around the Christmas table and turkey. 
Christmas is also a wonderful magical time of superpower and irrationality. 

That makes me wonder what a meeting of the magic of avant-garde art and the traditions of Christmas would look like. 
The answer came in the form of an Interesting story by Ann Swanson published in the Washington Post. 

 

Hallmark Cards is the oldest and the largest American company in the greeting cards production business. It was established by Joyce Hall in 1910. It is a family-own company and its headquarters are in Kansas City, Missouri. Since 1940 the company have promoted the art of famous painters such as Pablo Picasso, Paul Cezanne, Paul Gaugen, V. Van Gough and Georgia O’Kaffee to the Americans through the  greeting cards market. 
In 1959 they approached Salvador Dali, the well known and popular surrealist painter. The deal was very lucrative for Dali – he was paid $15,000 in advance for the creation of 10 Christmas card designs without a deadline, subjects and he retained the copyright.
Eventually Dali produced 10 surrealist interpretations of the Christmas tree and the Holy Family. Hallmark cards company use only two of them – “The Nativity” and “Madonna and Child”. The greeting cards were not subjected to a great demand by the American public and Hallmark took the unsold cards off the shelves. 
It seemed like an unhappy ending for modern art. No, no, do not forget – it is Christmas, the  magical time, 
The Christmas Fairy made everyone happy. The Hallmark greeting card company was awarded the National Medal of Art in 1985. The few hundred Christmas greeting cards by Dali that are still in existence today are a collector’s dream. At Christmas everyone wins. 
I wonder which Dali Christmas card you would choose to send to your family, friends and neighbours. Please write your answer in the comments. 

My favourite is: The Christmas tree

Ten minute miracle on a cold winter’s day

The cold winter has arrived – the sky is grey, darkness spreads early in the afternoon. If you need something to lift your mood I have a solution for you. I guarantee that this 10 min experience will brighten your day.
What you need to do is simple and free – open your Internet device, browse “Danzon 2 (Marquez) conducted by Dudamel” and watch and listen. It lasts less than 10 minutes and afterwards you will feel uplifting joy. 
I speak from personal experience. Some years ago I heard this dynamic, elevating music and immediately wanted to know more about the music, the orchestra and the conductor.
 
Danzon 2 is a musical piece for an orchestra created by one of the most prominent living composers of our time, Arturo Marquez. He is Mexican and lives in Mexico City. 
 


The orchestra, performing the music, was the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra until some years ago. Due to the growing age of the musicians it is no longer the Youth Orchestra but the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. 
The Orchestra is a wonderful result of a very successful social project in Venezuela called El Sistema. The project was the brainchild of an economist, Jose Antonio Abreu and commenced in 1975.  It involved 5 children and took place in a garage. The idea was that access to music could give children from poor, underprivileged communities a purpose in their life and keep them away from crime and drugs. If they like music and it inspires them they would naturally strive to improve  their lives. 
The Orchestra is enormously successful. Half a million children were involved in this immersive musical training over the years. They received instruments, training and academic support. Older children were mentors for the younger ones and professional teachers and musicians were engaged. The Orchestra toured around the world and worked with two outstanding conductors, Caludio Abbado and Simon Rattle. 
The charismatic conductor of the Orchestra, Gustavo Dudamel, is also Venezuelan. He was born into a musical family and got involved in the Orchestra as a violinist. One day the professional conductor of the Orchestra was late and Gustavo, who was 12 at this time, impulsively took the baton and began conducting the Orchestra. Remarkably, when the professional conductor arrived he said “You are doing a good job here” and left Gustavo to continue conducting. The rest is history.
You may already have guessed that Gustavo was a kind of Wonderkid, a Venezuelan Mozart.  Five months later he took the position of assistant conductor for the orchestra and the following year he had his own chamber orchestra. In 1999, at18 years of age, he became the Musical Director of the Orchestra.  Nowadays he is also working with the Los Angelis Philharmonic Orchestra and  the Opera National de Paris. 
If Danzon 2 helps you feel better I have another little miracle for you. Gustavo Dudamel and the Symphony Orchestra of Opera National de Paris are coming to the Barbican Centre, London on 22 April 2023. Tickets are still available. 
See you there. 

“Life is worthwhile if you just smile”

 
Recently I read an article by Ron Gutman published in Forbes some years ago. Ron discovered a simple, powerful and free way to improve his life and the lives of others. The revelation came to him when he was running. He noticed that smiling helped him to go through the pain and struggle of the run so he went on a quest to “uncover the untapped powers of the smile”
 
Some of his discoveries are amazing:

1. If you smile in your photographs you probably will live 7 years longer than the people who do not smile in their photographs.

2. Children smile around 400 times a day. 30% of adults smile around 20 times a day and less than 14% smile 5 times daily.

3. Smiling makes us feel good. It is not only because we feel happy that we smile – it is actually because we smile that we feel happy. 

4. When you smile others smile back to you. Swedish researchers revealed that seeing another person’s smile suppresses the facial muscle controls compelling others to smile back. And smiling back makes them feel good. 

 

 

5. A British study found that a smile stimulates the brain the same way as eating 2, 000 chocolate bars and having £16,000. 

 

6. Smiling is a free therapy – it keeps you healthy, reduces the level of stress hormones,  increases good mood hormones and lowers the blood pressure. 

 

 

F. Scott Fitzgerald said it all beautifully: 

 

 

It was only a sunny smile, and

 

little it cost in the giving

 

but like morning light

 

it scattered the night 

 

and made the day worth living. 

What I talk about when I talk about getting back to running (thank you Naruki Murakami)

Long-distance running was not my first love – that was swimming. Running has became a fundamental activity for me since 2007. I ran many races and half-marathons all over Europe and two full marathons – in Rome and Paris. 
One of my favourite novelists, Naruki Murakami, said in his book “What I talk about when I talk about running” that the motivation for running is to run against time, to improve yourself, to be better than yesterday. Maybe that was true for him and for many other long-distance runners but for me running was always about freedom and belonging. 
Nothing compares to a long run along the beach. Breathe in, breathe out, strong core and leg muscles and the wind in your face. The world is your oyster and the sky is your limit. You can conquer the world. 
 
On the other side of the coin, when you run in a race you join a global community of the same natured people. No need to speak or explain, you know you are all a family. You look at their strides, their equipment, their nervousness, their smiles, pain and struggle and you know and feel good. You will finish the race together, you will reach the finish line with some of them. 
Suddenly, 3 years ago I stopped running. I do not know why. It just happened. Naruki called it runner’s blues. I moved to yoga and even though I liked it I never experienced the euphoria of the wind in your hair. Life continued.
Then one day during the yoga session the thought appeared from nowhere – time to get back to running. It appeared and disappeared but kept manifesting itself in the old photos on FB, finding running books and magazines in the attic and using stretching techniques I knew from the running days. It persisted until one morning I knew that the next day I would run. God, that was one of the great moments in my life – the joy, the feeling of coming home, of sensing there is something more to conquer, all that was there. 
The next day the sore muscles reminded me of life with limits but here I was – back in the running business. And this time I agreed with Naruki, “What is going to be much more meaningful to me now is how much I can enjoy myself. I will enjoy and value things that cannot be expressed in numbers”. 

Paul Cezanne – what an apple can do?

I have seen many of Paul Cezanne’s paintings around the world – in Musee D’Orsy, The Louvre, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and recently at the Courtauld Gallery. 
It was a pleasant surprise that the Tate Modern, in collaboration with the Art Institute of Chicago, is presenting an exhibition of Paul Cezanne from 5th October 2022 until 12th March 2023. The exhibition shows 80 of his paintings and watercolours, 20 of which have never been shown in the UK.
It was a must therefore that the famous art lover Adrian (my husband) and I visit the exhibition this week. A piece of advice – visit the gallery as early as possible. The exhibition is very well attended and can become overcrowded later in the day. 
Paul Cezanne had a fascinating life.
He followed his dream and chose the uncertainty of being an artist instead of a stable career as a lawyer. However, he always had the financial support of his rich father and in order to receive the allowance Cezanne even hid his relationship with his girlfriend (later his wife) from him.
He applied twice to the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was twice rejected. He achieved success very late in life (in his 50s) but he was proclaimed the father of modern art.

He was an awkward figure in a refined Paris but he never forgot his Provincial roots and commuted regularly between Paris and his beloved Province.
I must admit I have always liked the paintings of Cezanne – mostly because of his palette of bold colours of Southern France. He had four main themes in his artistic endeavours: landscapes, still life, bathers and portraits/card players. 
1. Knowing all of this, I had never fully grasped how this very grounded, authentic and down to earth artist was actually a modernist, a rule breaker who expressed the complex nature of the modern world. 
2. Until I saw with my own eyes the Basket of Apples c.1893 on Tuesday.
3.The composition was created by Cezanne in his studio. A basket full of apples is inclined towards the viewer and some of the apples have fallen on a white table cloth. Next to the basket is a greenish bottle that tilts towards the basket. There is a white plate that contains very carefully structured oval biscuits. Everything looks and sounds boring and unexciting if you do not stop and look deeply.
 
 
4. It is a painting of a still life but the objects are moving – apples are falling toward the viewer, the cloth is so versatile and the bottle is leaning. All of the objects are on a moving towards the viewer table. It is a strange table – a table and not a table, some strange blocks of yellow and purple-green colours. And the apples – some are clearly falling, others appear stable but they are also falling and some are securely tacked in the cloth.
5. There is a group of apples on the right side of the picture. Next to them, but a bit distant, there is another apple that looks different than the apples in the group – the rebel, the outsider. The greenish bottle looks tall and strong but leans for support from the basket which is tilted. There is some anxiety, some nervousness in the white cloth and especially in the little apple in the middle of the picture. In the background and a bit isolated there is a plate with biscuits. The plate is white and oval and corresponds with the oval apples and the white cloth. It contains a structure but if you look closely the right side of the structure is not very secure. And what about the black path in the middle of the white cloth like a channel in which the objects will fall towards the viewer? 
Cezanne created his own reality that expressed the modern world and mentality. 

 

He said “With an apple, I will astonish Paris”.  He astonished the world! 

Keeping up with the times – what personal style do you have?

Practising the art of observation (and self-observation) reveals how well we keep up with the times. How well is a matter of degree therefore the clarity of the language will help tremendously to identify the extent.  

In everyday life we often use terms such as antique, vintage, classic, retro and, on the other hand, modern and contemporary as interchangeable and even synonyms. However, they all have more nuanced meanings which determine their place on the scale . 

“Antique” objects are those that are at least 100 years old. The age is important – it demonstrates that these items are timeless as they have passed the test of the time. Usually antiques are very expensive, not for common use and become the essence of an environment or outfit. Great examples are Edward VII’s Sapphire and Diamond ring and Victorian Circa 1860 Diamond Riviere necklace.  

Very close to “antique” quality is the “classic” style. Classic style is also timeless. It has endurance, stamina, the quality to survive the unimportant temporary changes and to shine radiantly forever. Fashion classic style involves items like a white shirt, denim jeans, a little black dress, a polo shirt, a camel coat, Chanel 5, a pearl necklace, etc. 

“Vintage” style is the style we choose emotionally. Usually vintage articles are older than 20 or 25 years and can be up to 99 years. They represent a certain historical era, art movement, literature characters that make us feel nostalgic. Vintage pieces have value because of our attachment and sentiment to them. Vintage objects can be quite expensive due mostly to their limited quantity. Think about Marilyn Monroe’s dress at President Kennedy’s birthday celebration, 70s style floral flares, the 1980s mesh and puffy sleeves or the 80s and 90s one-piece tracksuit. 

The low-budget Ryanair of “vintage” style is the “retro” style. Retro is defined as the nowadays version of vintage. Articles of this style mimic vintage but they are mass produced, accessible and relatively inexpensive. Usually the fashion houses market and sell them as pieces with vintage flavour – see fashion brands like Rixo or Free People. 

At the other end of the scale are the “modern” and “contemporary” styles.

“Modern” style is a fixed category. It points to a style that was radical, liberating, innovative and even revolutionary during the period that has just passed. This style is modern compared to the styles it overrides. Modern is the styles from the beginning and middle of the 20th century such as Art Deco style – Great Gatsby and jazz era fashion, bomber jackets, etc. 

“Contemporary” style is, on the contrary, a slippery and subjective category. It means a style “here and now” whatever that means for any of us. It represents a finger on the pulse of the world and youthful curiosity. Will contemporary styles survive the test of time?

No one can predict but as Jean Cocteau rightly said: 

 

“Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time.

Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.”

 

That leads me to the other category I have not yet mentioned – “old-fashioned” style. But before writing about it I will be having an Old-Fashioned cocktail. Or may be not – refined sugar does not fit well with my contemporary health style.