Friday 29 February 2008

Thursday 28 February 2008

East End of London (1)


East End of London is quite an interesting and colourful place, if you want to explore multiculturalism, if you want to see different angle of London, East End is the ideal place to go!

Graffiti

Many vivid graffiti are along the street, some of the shapes like children, some of them like animal, while some of them are just abstraction. You can see lots of tourists are staying at the same places, and watching those graffiti carefully.

White Chapel Gallery

It’s amazing to see so many green cards handing on the wall, however, if you think they are only normal cards, or just for decoration of the gallery…you haven’t found out the surprising point – environmental protection!

A Russian tourist leaves the enthusiastic message to appeal her country raising awareness of recycling.

“I couldn’t understand why people don’t care about the environment we live, we can’t only think of ourselves, and we need to think of our next generation, how they’re going to live on this earth?”

Wednesday 27 February 2008

Chinese Cultural Year in London '08



London, one of the most vibrant cosmopolitans in the world embraced the 2008 Chinese New Year. Its festive atmosphere brought Londoners good fortune and luck.


People enjoyed the combination of bright red lanterns, traditional Chinese parade and delicious food. The 2008 London-Chinese New Year Festival was the UK's largest ever Chinese cultural events.

Director: Yixiang Zeng

Filming: Yixiang Zeng

Editing: Yixiang Zeng, Laura Lee, Ying Yao

Special Thanks: Alex Lu, Yin Wang

Tuesday 26 February 2008

Budapest Spring Festival" Travel Research and Action Plan – Org/people their usefulness

Budapest Spring Festival" Travel Research and Action Plan – Action Plan

Action Plan:

Contact the following tour operators,

➢ ACE Study Tour, the association for cultural exchange
➢ Martin Randall Travel
➢ Thomson
➢ Travel for the Arts, for lovers of opera, dance and classical music
➢ Osprey City Holidays
➢ Personal Contacts as well

Backgroud information

➢ Consult Classical music encyclopaedia for background on Music
➢ Talk to the official organiser who organises this event, for more backgroud information
➢ General search on the bibliography for the most outstanding Hungarian composer Franz Liszt, Béla Bartók.

Budapest Spring Festival" Travel Research and Action Plan – Research findings

Research findings:

➢ Budapest Spring Festival official website: http://www.budapestspringfestival.com/, the website provides a list of musical and cultural programmes, and places which will hold the events, As well, from the information provided by the official website, it will not be that difficult to search the surroundings.

➢ I googled “UK tour operators”, and found AITO is very helpful, two tour operators from AITO are specialists in Budapest Spring Festival tour.http://www.acestudytours.co.uk/l/tours.subject/Music, http://www.martinrandall.com/

➢ I also found some tour operators that offering the tailor-made tours to Budapest.http://www.thomson.co.uk, http://www.travelforthearts.co.uk/, http://www.specialtours.co.uk/, http://www.ospreyholidays.com/

➢ I found the official organiser who holds this creative festival: the Budapest Festival Center Kht.

➢ I personally know a Hungarian concert pianist, who is quite familiar with the festival, also I know a Maltese concert pianist, she attended the festival when she was studying at the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, 2003, I am contacting them and try to understand more about the musical events.

➢ I found the BBC Radio 3 Music Magazine – Classical Music, 4th edition Revised & Expanded which including all of the composers that the festival will be featuring.

➢ http://www.budapestspringfestival.com/btf2008/?t=h this webpage provides the list of places that holding the events, I have googled most of them, such as Artpool P60: http://www.artpool.hu/Defaulte.html, The Bartók 32 Gallery, http://www.c3.hu/~bartok32/, Hungarian State Opera House http://www.opera.hu/index.php?module=main, etc.

Budapest Spring Festival" Travel Research and Action Plan – Research Objective

Research Objectives:

➢ The objective is to find out what the Budapest Spring Festival are all about, what exactly it will provide for our audiences?

➢ To find out the details of the places, and their surroundings that hold the concerts, opera, exhibition, and musical etc.

➢ Find people who have first hand experiences of Budapest Spring Festival, who are interested in and understand the classical music, as well the composer/performers the festival intends to feature.

➢ Find out the tour operators, their contacts and packages, including flights, hotels, restaurants, visiting places during daytime (the festival events will be mainly held in the evening).

➢ Consult travel guidebooks, official festival website, and learn more about the classical music that the festival will be featuring.

Monday 25 February 2008

"Budapest Spring Festival" Travel Research and Action Plan -- Backgroud

For Travel Feature

Background

I could count the destination show we visited on 13th February, was my inspiration of writing up this travel feature – Budapest Loud Out.

Firstly I was thinking to write something about Spanish Flamenco dance, however, when I got to the destination show, there was no Spainish stand, only part of Spanish region Catalonia with a few visitors there.

finally, I was lucky enough to discover the Budapest Spring Festival at Hungary stand, which will be held from March 14th to 30th annually.

This is definitely an interesting angle, my knowledge background and interest tied me to this particular theme. Also I remembered, once I heard BBC radio 3, the classical music magazine introduced Budapest Spring/Autumn Festival.

Eastern Europe possesses magnificent sight views, combined with Budapest’s cultural and artistic character, therefore, this feature article should own a vast readership, for those who are keen on exploring Budapest, and experience her glorious cultural and artistic enrichness.

The publication I am targeting is the Guardian, because the Guardian’s travel section provides readers particular cultural/festival trip features, it should be suitable for my feature.

Sunday 24 February 2008

Chinese documentary

2nd semester, 1st 6 weeks, Westminster

Wednesday 13 February 2008

Messiaen and the Piano

04/02/08, Royal Academy of Music, London

The sound is silvery, pearly, rapid, and full of enthusiasm, passion with warm-hearted nature.

Inside Duke Hall, Royal Academy of Music, London, young talented pianists once again brought the masterpieces to our music lovers. Their delicate and profound performance evokes the beautiful memory of Olivier Messiaen, the greatest twentieth-century French composer, in his centenary year.

Bird Sound

The 1st half of the recital is fully contributed by Messiaen’s astonishing way of composing and conveying his music – the bird sound.

In 1948, the newspaper France-Soir published an interview in which Messiaen was asked to describe the greatest influences on his work. He said, the bird.

Bird sound, through this fresh materials, through the non-distance touch of different birds species, through his openness towards music, he creates and conceives the real atmosphere of our nature, including most of the natural sound, La Bouscarle & La courlis cendre. The prominent piano work performed by Japanese pianist Yurie Miura:

In south-west of France, a foggy morning bemists the attractive and charming countryside, suddenly, wren’s silvery and rapid sound breaks the quietness and softness of the whole environment, gradually people can hear the golden oriole, like a very large flute, almost a horn; then the crow, raucous, powerful, sneering and sarcastic…However, all of the musical elements unexpected stopped in one second…Yurie’s fingers, remained in the air…

Such a rhythmic piece conveys Messaen’s new concept of timing, birds’ sound appearing differently, the stop between various musical elements (river sound, wind sound etc) all indicate his new way of organising and conceiving time, which opened the door for another generation of composers.

Two Pianos

After interval, Visioins de I’Amen for two pianos, performed by a UK-based Chinese pianist Bingbing Li, and an Italian pianist Mariangela Vacatello.

The richness of this work is concentrating on the harmonious cooperation, and sharp confrontation between two pianos, the musicianship of individual pianist brings her own understanding of Messane into the vast meaningful piece, where the first piano plays the complex and powerful music texture, over the chorale provided by the second piano.

Interestingly, Bingbing Li’s delicate and sensitive musicianship (second piano), combined with Mariangela Vacatello’s straightforward and “free soul” performing style (first piano), conveys incisively and vividly Messiaen’s deep emotion of this work – suffering, pain, conflicts, together with cheerfulness, and cherished wishes.

The work was composed for Yvonne Loriod, Messiaen’s future wife, one of his most outstanding piano students. In that period, Messiaen had just returned from the war camp from Germany, 1943. His first wife, the violinist Claire Delbos, hospitalised due to mental illness, and it was these circumstances that heavily influenced Messiaen’s Vision de I’Amen .

It was a lovely evening, filled with composer’s life-long experience, and performers’ imagination. For our audience, besides enjoying beautiful piano music, most probably are the nostalgias towards this greatest French composer -- Olivier Messiaen.

Sunday 3 February 2008

Destination Show

Earls Court, 02/02/08

As a travel journalism student, me and my group attened the Destinations Show , held in Earls Court.

It's a fantastic visit, many countries set their stands there, people can get information as much as they can, including regions such as Europe, Northern America, Latin America, Middle East, Asia & Pacific. not only the destination informations, People also can get tour operator's detailed service.

From the destination show itself, together with the Saturday morning session, travel journalists should understand that they have to possess the skills of discovering a fantastic angle, negotiating with both publication and travel industry side, which will be satisfy both sides, and also fill his/her own pocket ^_^.

It's definitely a challenging profession, require passion, hard word, enthusiasm, and lots of related skills.