The Week in Meep: Chopin, Sumo in London, and RIP, Patricia Routledge
Lots to choose among for entertainment!
The 19th Chopin Competition has been ongoing, and I’ve been dipping into watching (or rather listening to) the performances livestreamed on YouTube via the official Chopin Institute channel.
They are also recorded, and as I type, the second round of the competition is wrapping up with the final two performers: Miki Yamagata and William Yang (they lined up the performances in the second round in ABC order by last name.)
Here are their full first-round performances:
If you wish, you can go to their page of recordings, which splits out the performances by piece and performer, and you can search for a specific composition, as you can see I did here.
I noticed that I could search going back to the 16th competition, held in 2010. They hold this competition every 5 years (except for the COVID bobble, which pushed the 18th competition to 2021.)
They’ve also got some great photos:
I’ve been playing the livestream with the chat scrolling by, because the chat is really amusing me:
So… I’m not going to bitch at people for the media choices they make. After listening to Chopin, I binged on Miss Marple miniseries, and also had my daily dose of MST3K:
But here’s my sales pitch for the Chopin competition:
Chopin wrote some of the most beautiful and accessible solo piano music out there. He wrote it for himself, to play, of course.
He wrote only solo piano music.
You get to hear some of the best young pianists out there. There is an age limit in this competition - the competitors had to be born between 1995 and 2009, so between the ages of 30 and 15 at the outer limits. No snotty prodigies. And yes, they’re still a little unpolished, many of them, so yeah… you can see the live critiques in the chat, but don’t worry about that so much. I noticed flubs - that’s the extent of my knowledge (I’ve played some of these pieces back when I played piano.)
But you will notice some people in chat being all fan club, and some being bitchy. Or you can just enjoy the beautiful music.
SUMO IN LONDON!
The big boys have arrived!
How many Onosatos could fit in the Albert Hall, do you think?
I believe the tournament in London is sold out, but as you can see, the wrestlers are walking around London, so if you’re there, they’ll be around for the next week! Keep your eyes peeled!
Supposedly, PlutoTV will have some of the sumo available for viewing, so I will be looking out for that!
RIP, Patricia Routledge aka Kitty
People have been reminiscing over Mrs. Bucket, Patricia Routledge’s best-known character… but the one I enjoy the most is “Kitty”, a very opinionated, chatty middle-aged character who appeared on Victoria Wood as Seen on TV:
The roles she became best-known for weren’t the singing ones, but she did have singing talent:
(Obviously, a lot of comic musical talent.)
One of the things I appreciate about her is that she was key in the founding of a hospice for children:
Everyone at Claire House is deeply saddened to hear the news of Dame Patricia Routledge’s passing.
Dame Patricia has supported Claire House since the very beginning and we have been honoured to have had her visit the hospice over the years.
Claire House founder and mother of Claire Cain, Chris shared - “Patricia was a lovely lady and was at the official launch of Claire House in February 1992.
“She has remained a loyal supporter of the hospice and I was lucky to meet up with her on several occasions over the years. Patricia will be sadly missed.”
Our thoughts go out to Dame Patricia’s family and friends.
This is the website of the charity:
https://www.clairehouse.org.uk/
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