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ROME, Italy — Italian pianist Maurizio Pollini, a virtuoso of Chopin and Beethoven who enjoyed a decades-long collaboration with La Scala, died Saturday age 82, the Milan opera house announced.

He had been in poor health in recent years and obliged to cancel some concerts.

La Scala called the pianist “one of the great musicians of our time and a fundamental reference in the artistic life of the theatre for over 50 years”.

From 1958 to his last recital in February 2023, Pollini played La Scala 168 times, it said, not including countless workshops with students and conferences.

“Pollini was an interpreter capable of revolutionising the perception of composers such as Chopin, Debussy and Beethoven himself, and of promoting ... listening to the historical avant-gardes, above all Schönberg, and the music of today,” said La Scala.

Born January 5, 1942 in Milan into a family of artists, Pollini stormed the classical music scene in 1960 where, aged 18 and the youngest person in the contest, he won the Warsaw Chopin Competition.

Arthur Rubinstein, president of the jury, was famously to have said that the young prodigy “already plays better than any of us”.

Half a century later Pollini corrected Rubinstein’s quote, saying “I played ‘technically’ better than any member of the jury.”

“I always thought he said that to make fun of the colleagues on the jury. Someone doctored that statement by removing the ‘technically’ and it became an exaggerated compliment,” Pollini said in a 2014 documentary.

Instead of embarking straight onto the concert scene, Pollini put his career on hold to study, explaining that performing right away would have been “a little premature for me”.

In the late 60s, Pollini participated in improvised concerts in factories and student programmes for students and workers at La Scala, conducted by his friend Claudio Abbado.

Pollini made his first American tour in 1968.

From the 1970s to the 90s, he made a string of recordings with the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon label, while maturing into an acclaimed interpreter of Ludwig van Beethoven, Robert Schumann, Franz Schubert and Johannes Brahms.

Pollini’s albums earned numerous awards, including a Grammy in 2007 for best instrumental soloist performance (without orchestra) for Chopin: Nocturnes.

He is survived by his son and wife Marilisa.

By Dr Tareq Rasheed,

International Consultant and Trainer

Self-awareness and discovery

We are born twice; at birth we are born with an identity (ID) issued to every new born baby, showing the name, date and place of birth, nationality and mother’s name.

In such an ID, we do not have any choice in any of its entries; this is a body ID.

But, the authentic birth ID starts with self-discovery and awareness, when you start to know your mind, heart and soul. Some may live without knowing about this second ID. They will live with a lack of awareness reflected as routine, no appreciation of self and, in some cases, depression and burn out.

Defining your uniqueness

To create your own unique ID, the following seven questions should be answered, if you wish to succeed in life. Once you can answer the seven questions about self-awareness, you will start your journey in life with trust, confidence and the ability to achieve and proceed — your ID is thus created.

1. What are the major skills that you master?

2. What is the talent that you were born with which represents your passion in life?

3. What are the major values that you believe in and are reflected in your decisions and attitude?

4. What are your major points of strength?

5. What are your major weaknesses that you should bridge in order to proceed in life?

6. What are the inner motivators and desires that energise you from within?

7. What are the true fears that may be an obstacle towards your progress in life?

To be able to answer these questions, think of the following pillars:

Skills are based on four building blocks: knowledge, practice, gaining and developing and professionalism.

You master the skill once you are professional in using this skill. For professionalism, make sure to get the professional certificates related to the field of industry you are working in.

There are four types of skills: technical, interpersonal or soft skills, languages and technology-related skills.

Talents represent competencies we are born with; analytical and mathematical, social, environmental, physical, geographical, emotional, linguistic and vocal or musical.

You can identify your talents by reviewing your competencies when you were a child. People who invest in their talents effectively, achieve a high level of performance. These persons are passionate and energetic — this is uniqueness.

Values represent principles you believe in, are reflected in your decisions and appear in your attitudes and behaviours. Decide on the most important values to you, like honesty, credibility, creativity, development, commitment, etc…

Strengths define the major strengths of your personality that will help you proceed in life in all your relations.

Weaknesses: Perfection is attributed only to God.

Define the major weaknesses that may be obstacles towards achieving your goals in life, and try harder to bridge them.

Desires and Motivators: Define all issues and things that make you highly motivated - are they money, achievements, or what?

Fears: Define things you fear that may threaten your success. Be reasonable in defining them, and set an action plan to face them.

Once you define all these terms, you can create your ID.

Define your goals and set an action plan that fulfils your dreams in life and use your ID as a passport to success.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

HAVANA — For ten years, the privately-funded Cuban Art Factory in Havana has provided a space for local talent to exhibit their creations in what was once a train station.

The FAC, as it is known, has become internationally renowned as a gallery and nightclub — a place for expression in a country where saying what you think can land you in jail.

Every week, from Thursday to Sunday, hundreds of visitors pay the equivalent of $4 to attend music concerts, see plays, dance, or simply to stroll, Mojito in hand, through its corridors replete with modern art.

Everything is on offer here: Nights of techno music, exhibits of plastic works, photography, fashion and just plain fun.

“Here, you can see things you couldn’t even imagine,” Olivia Rodriguez, a 30-year-old musician, told AFP as she waited for renowned Cuban salsa singer Issac Delgado to come on stage.

He performed as part of the FAC’s 10th anniversary celebrations.

“Since we opened here, this [venture] has been carried by artists, always focusing on the work and the message,” X Alfonso, founder and leader of the avant-garde project, told AFP.

The provocative and light-hearted contributions of some artists have sometimes caused problems, admits Alfonso, but he does not want to dwell on the subject.

Hundreds of Cubans, including artists, are in jail for daring to speak out against the communist state or demonstrating against poverty amid the communist island’s worst economic crisis in 30 years, marked by shortages of fuel, medicines and food.

Countless others have fled into exile.

“We make art, those who want to turn it into politics can, that’s their problem,” said Alfonso, a composer and performer who won the 2022 Latin Grammy for best folk album with the group Sintesis, formed by his parents.

“It’s like a fuel station for the soul,” he added.

‘Owe nothing to anyone’ 

Like the city that harbours it, the FAC enjoyed prosperous years with the easing of ties between Cuba and the United States in 2015 under the presidency of Barack Obama (2009-2017).

American cruise ships landed full of tourists eager to drive in an old convertible and discover the nightlife of Havana. The economy of the city flourished.

Celebrities such as Quincy Jones, Michelle Obama and Jon Bon Jovi visited the FAC premises in the affluent district of Vedado, and Mick Jagger performed at a concert in Ciudad Deportiva, another cultural venue.

And in 2019, Time Magazine included the FAC in its list of the World’s 100 Greatest Places.

But the good times did not last, with Donald Trump reversing most of his predecessor’s overtures. Sanctions were toughened after a crackdown on protests in July 2021.

The Covid pandemic did not help, starving the island of much-needed tourism.

Today, Cuba battles recurring power outages, and running the FAC has become a daily struggle.

In October, it was threatened with closure by authorities seeking to reduce electricity consumption. But it did not come to pass.

Providing some 300 direct and indirect jobs, the FAC is a “union of private companies”, self-financing and without sponsors, said Alfonso, proud to “owe nothing to anyone”.

“The most important thing is that the factory is a living organism, living in Cuba, with all the needs and problems that exist. But it is still alive and still trying... to survive,” he said.

LILLE, France — From Dothraki and Valyrian in “Game of Thrones” to the Chakobsa desert tongue in “Dune”, American couple David and Jessie Peterson have devised numerous imaginary languages — apparently the only two people in the world who earn a living concocting fantasy grammar and vocabulary for film characters.

Immortal lines from the “Game of Thrones” scripts such as: “You are my last hope, blood of my blood,” plunge viewers deeper into the series’ fantastical world when uttered in the original Dothraki: “Yer athzalar nakhoki anni, zhey qoy qoyi.”

In Dune, the Fremen desert warriors roll the “r” in their Chakobsa tongue — the name comes from a real ancient hunter’s language that inspired author Frank Herbert in writing the original series of “Dune” books.

But Herbert and Game of Thrones novelist George R. R. Martin only included a few words of these fantasy languages in their pages — it was the Petersons who fully developed them for the screen.

“Languages can be fun. Often I think languages are treated very seriously,” said David Peterson.

“People can laugh if they make a mistake.”

From Klingon to Dothraki

The use of language creators in films dates at least to 1985 when Marc Okrand created Klingon for that alien species in Star Trek.

It has since taken off in numerous fantasy series — but few people make a living from the work.

A trained linguist, Peterson landed his first paid assignment to develop Dothraki by winning a competition in 2009. Speaking at a masterclass during a television series festival in the French city of Lille, the Petersons described how they devise languages by discussing the characters’ environment, backgrounds and the objects they use.

From there, “We extrapolate,” David Peterson said.

Tasked with inventing a language which sounded like fire for the Pixar cartoon “Elemental”, for example, Jessie Peterson formed words from a series of sounds like explosions and matches.

Now she proudly recalls hearing children call out to their father in the language in the street.

Inventing grammar, vocabulary

With short turnaround times for filming — sometimes just a couple of months — the Petersons share the work.

Creating a language means more than just making up words — the couple start by building grammar, including word genders and tenses.

From there music lover David Peterson works on how the language sounds and Jessie Peterson develops the vocabulary.

They send actors recordings of the dialogue at a normal speed, slow speed and even syllable by syllable.

The high-pressure process “usually involves a lot of swearing”, David Peterson said.

Language and humanity

The pair have also created alphabets for messages written on screen by using images and symbols to create letters. David Peterson compares the process to the invention of writing five millennia ago.

Fans can study High Valyrian from “Game of Thrones” on learning app Duolingo — or in regular lessons, along with Dothraki. The Petersons share their expertise on their Youtube channel “LangTime Studio” with some 600 episodes for fans of co-called “conlangs” — constructed languages.

Could artificial intelligence get the work done faster? “It would be more work to train the AI to actually produce a small amount of things. You might as well use that time to create the language on your own,” David Peterson said.

Jessie Peterson agreed: “The beauty of language is that it is inherently human and there is no reason I want to take humanity out of language.”

MÁLAGA, Spain — The Picasso Museum in Malaga, the southern Spanish city where the artist was born, will open a new exhibition on Tuesday which groups his works according to theme instead of by period.

The show — which runs until March 2027 — brings together 141 Pablo Picasso works that the artist kept for himself, including 10 which were never before seen in Spain.

“We have not followed chronology strictly. We do begin with the very early work of Picasso and we end with the last work that he created but within that we often are combining works from different decades,” said the curator of the exhibition, Michael FitzGerald, a professor of art history at Trinity College in the United States.

“It is a group of works, paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints that represents the entire production of Picasso I hope very accurately. and we particularly emphasised ceramics among them which is a part of Picasso’s work that is often not shown and not perhaps taken as seriously as it should.”

Museums have traditionally displayed works by Picasso grouped according to his key periods, from blue, pink and cubist to surrealist.

Picasso’s great-grandson, Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, said combining works of distinct periods and techniques “allow us to link different moments of his life”.

Among the works never exhibited before in Spain is a 1922 painting called “Paul” which depicts the artist’s son as well as the 1933 sculpture “Femme accoudée” (1933) and a dish decorated with a bull’s head from the 1950s.

Opened in 2003 in a 16th century mansion, Malaga’s Picasso Museum is located just a couple of hundred metres (yards) from the house where the artist was born in 1881.

Picasso left for Paris in 1904 and most of his adult years were spent in France where he died in 1973. The Picasso Museum in the French capital houses the world’s biggest collection of the artist’s works.

LOS ANGELES — For a second weekend running “Kung Fu Panda 4” battled its way to the top of the North American box office, narrowly edging out “Dune: Part Two”, according to industry watcher Exhibitor Relations.

“Panda”, a martial arts comedy from Universal and DreamWorks Animation, took in an estimated $30 million for the Friday-through-Sunday period, while the Warner Bros. “Dune” sequel, about war and survival in a sand-covered planet inhabited by giant worms, earned a respectable $29.1 million.

“Panda” has now taken in $107.7 million in theatres in the United States and Canada plus an additional $176.5 million internationally. “Dune”, released a week earlier, has seen domestic ticket sales of $157.2 million and international sales of $210 million.

After those two films, there was a sharp dropoff in North America, with Lionsgate’s new release “Arthur the King” taking in just $7.5 million.

“Arthur”, the story of an adventurer who befriends an injured stray dog, may have an identity problem, said analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research. “It’s not a family film or a comedy, but it’s not a hard adventure for moviegoers who like edgier entertainment. All of that complicates the sell.”

Mark Wahlberg plays the man; Arthur, for those keeping track, is played by Ukai, an Australian shepherd/border collie/Bouvier mix, according to dogtime.com.

In fourth, down one spot from last weekend, was horror film “Imaginary” from Lionsgate and Blumhouse Productions, at $5.6 million. DeWanda Wise plays a woman who rediscovers her childhood teddy bear — and ends up wishing she hadn’t.

And in fifth, also down one spot, was Angel Studios’ “Cabrini” at $2.7 million. Cristiana Dell’Ann plays Francesca Cabrini, an Italian nun in 19th-century New York who clashes with politicians and church officials while trying to care for impoverished immigrants.

WASHINGTON — Their stories are divided into before and after.

First, those long years of pain which flooded every moment — school, relationships, work.

And then — after agonising treatments — what felt like the miracle of life after sickle cell disease (SCD).

Two Americans whose lives were turned around by newly approved treatments tell AFP they want others to benefit too.

But the eye-watering cost — up to $3.1 million per course of treatment — could limit access for other patients.

‘Like coming to life’

Tesha Samuels was born in 1982 — just before the invention of prenatal screening for SCD, an inherited red blood cell disorder.

SCD affects around 100,000 people in the United States and some 20 million worldwide.

Most people with the condition are Black. Scientists say this is because the sickle cell trait evolved to protect people exposed to malaria, so the risk of SCD is higher.

Those with the disease have abnormal hemoglobin — the molecule that carries oxygen — making their red cells hard and C-shaped like sickles.

Complications include anemia, bouts of extreme pain, organ damage and early death.

Tesha was diagnosed aged two and recalls a childhood in and out of hospital.

At seven, she suffered a life-threatening case of anemia and then aged 13 she had a stroke which led to monthly blood infusions.

Tesha said “the stigma of a Black child going to the hospital saying they’re in pain” made her wait until things got unbearable.

As a young adult, Tesha saw the disease take the life of a dear friend named Mohammed, a fellow “sickle cell warrior” who would often end up in the same hospital as her.

She began studying at the prestigious Howard University hoping to become a doctor but her health forced her to drop out. She then tried community college but, once more, SCD meant couldn’t finish.

“You downgrade your dreams based on your capacity in sickle cell,” said Tesha.

As a newlywed in her twenties, she was dismayed at needing an intravenous medicine drip for eight hours every night to manage her condition.

But in 2018 her life turned a corner when she became one of the first ever people to receive an experimental gene therapy.

The procedure — now marketed as Lyfgenia — uses a modified virus to deliver a functional version of the hemoglobin-producing gene.

First, doctors draw out stem cells from the bone marrow before modifying them in a lab. Then comes the hardest part — chemotherapy to clear the way for the return of the treated cells.

In addition to losing all her hair, chemotherapy saw Tesha have a 16-hour nosebleed which left her in intensive care.

Her recovery was further complicated as her blood platelets, which are essential for blood clotting, took months to bounce back.

But when they did, her energy levels soared.

“It’s almost like coming to life,” Tesha said. “Here’s this new life ahead of you. What do I want to do with it?”

Tesha went back to school to complete her degree.

She also started her own advocacy group, Journey to ExSCellence, to spread word of the treatment among the Black community.

“It looks like the cure, but we like to call this ‘transformative’,” said physician-scientist John Tisdale of the National Institutes of Health, which ran the trial Tesha took part in.

Tisdale emphasised that each patient needed monitoring for 15 years to complete the study.

Childhood struggle

Jimi Olaghere’s first memory of sickle cell goes back to when he was eight-years-old, playing soccer with other kids in his native Nigeria and needing to stop every five minutes for rest and water.

“I asked my mom, why am I different?” he remembers.

His parents sent him to live with his aunt in New Jersey where there was better healthcare but his childhood remained a struggle.

Jimi, 38, was unable to complete college and found his disease was too heavy a burden to place on most romantic partners, until he found his wife who was willing to embrace the challenge.

The disease also took a terrible toll.

His gallbladder was removed, he had a heart attack and lung clots. At his worst, he recalls spending 80 per cent of his time in bed.

Moving to the warmer climate of Atlanta brought some relief, as it does for many with SCD.

Then, in 2019, he heard about a CRISPR gene therapy clinical trial. He applied to be tested for eligibility and received a “magical” voicemail telling him he was in.

Thanks to the CRISPR-modified stem cell therapy he received, now marketed as Casgevy, Jimi is “basically living the dream now.”

He has three children, thanks to IVF, and runs several small businesses.

Like Tesha, Jimi has raised his voice to advocate for others, particularly in Africa, where access to such treatment seems a far-off dream.

Tisdale, of the NIH, said the next step was reducing the physical burden of the treatment and making it cheaper.

It remains unclear how much private insurers will pay to offset the procedure’s enormous costs.

But Medicaid, a US government-backed insurance program, has said it will pay for the therapies starting next year.

By Zenab Ishtay,
Aromatherapist & Cosmetologist

I encounter cases of back pain nearly every day. The causes of back pain can be varied and in general are from the mistreatment of our own body. Wrong movements, such as twisting to reach for something, are some common causes of backache.

The word massage is derived from the Arabic word masah and massage is performed by the hands for the purpose of producing effects on the vascular, lymphatic, muscular and nervous systems of the body.

The magic of massage

You will not believe what a manual massage by a professional can do! An aromatherapist, chiropractor and physiotherapist are your go-to people, in this case.

Massage is much more than simply manipulating the soft tissues of the body. It is a healing art and has deep physiological implications.

Let me share with you the story of my client and renowned photographer Zohrab; despite him being fit with a good posture and healthy muscles tissues, he suffered from back pain.

After I evaluated him and checked his back, I found that he had muscle spasms in the left side of his back between the hip and the intercostal side — a group of muscles called latissimus dorsi.

A holistic approach

In aromatherapy, we use a holistic approach for treating a person. So, I proceeded to take notes of his lifestyle, including diet, exercises, sleeping pattern, stress levels and his perception of the pain.

Zohrab told me that he was doing some exercises and after that he felt some discomfort in his back — this increased over the span of 20 days. We started testing

essential oils to find which ones were more suitable for his physical and emotional state.

An emotional experience

One to three essential oils can make a blend. It is interesting to see how patients react to the different smells, remembering areas of their lives. Hidden or

forgotten memories emerge and this is the emotional part of healing.

These emotions may be hidden in the subconscious and perhaps bother and worry people, but they sometimes cannot pin point the source of discomfort.

Because Zohrab is a professional photographer, his job entails sudden rotations of his body to “catch the moment”. On the other hand, he has to stand for many hours and this situation entails considerable challenges for his back.

I recommended a schedule for treating his back and after several sessions, he felt well.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

LOS ANGELES — A US man who tried to breed enormous hybrid sheep using genetic material from endangered animals so he could sell them to trophy hunting ranches faces jail time after pleading guilty to wildlife crimes on Tuesday.

Arthur Schubarth, 80, illegally imported parts of the world’s largest species of sheep from Kyrgyzstan, which he used to create cloned embryos in the United States.

The resulting fetuses were then implanted in ewes on his Montana ranch, resulting in the birth of a genetically pure Marco Polo argali, an endangered species that can weigh more than 135 kilogrammes and has horns more than 1.5 metres wide.

Schubarth then used semen from this specimen to impregnate various species of sheep in an effort to create never-before-seen hybrids, with a goal of making even larger sheep.

He hoped to sell the resulting animals to “canned” hunting ranches, facilities where customers pay to shoot captive animals and where bigger animals can command higher prices.

“This was an audacious scheme to create massive hybrid sheep species to be sold and hunted as trophies,” said Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, who prosecuted the case.

“In pursuit of this scheme, Schubarth violated international law and the Lacey Act, both of which protect the viability and health of native populations of animals.”

The Lacey Act prohibits interstate trade in certain wildlife and is used by authorities to combat wildlife trafficking.

Schubarth, whose ranch breeds and sells mountain sheep, mountain goats and other ungulates primarily for game ranches, admitted one count of conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act, and one of substantively violating the Lacey Act.

The felonies carry a maximum penalty of five years’ prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

GRENOBLE, France — French experts fired X-rays at a 18th-century violin worth millions this weekend hoping to discover the secret of its magical sound, they said on Monday.

The violin, dubbed “Il Cannone” (the cannon) because of its powerful sound, was Italian composer and violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini’s favourite.

The maestro from the Italian city of Genoa played it for decades before it became the property of his home city after his death in 1840.

The violin, made by instrument maker Giuseppe Bartolomeo Guarneri del Gesu in 1743, is now only brought out from time to time for the world’s best to play, including the winners of Genoa’s Premio Paganini international violin competition.

The European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), a particle accelerator in the south-eastern city of Grenoble, scanned the instrument down to the cellular structure of its wood.

The idea is to create a 3D model of the violin in and out of which people can zoom, down to a micron, or millionth of a metre.

“The first goal is conservation,” said Paul Tafforeau of the ESRF.

“If ever any flaws need repairing, we will have all the details.”

But they also hoped the “non-destructive analysis” would help shed light on why it plays so beautifully.

“It’s an exceptional instrument in terms of its sound qualities,” Tafforeau said.

“With this data, we hope to better understand why.”

The detailed analysis of the X-rays will take several months.

“Working on this violin is like a dream,” Tafforeau said.

Luigi Paolasini, who was in charge of the project at the ESRF, said the violin had been insured for a value of 30 million euros ($32 million) to travel from Genoa to Grenoble.

“The logistics were very complicated because we’re not a museum that would have experience in moving works of art around,” Paolasini said.

Whatever the outcome of the analysis, the guiding principle for any restoration work on the instrument is “to exercise extreme caution, or abstain altogether”, said Alberto Giordano, a curator of precious instruments in Genoa.

“I get older, but the violin stays the same, and that’s the way it should be,” he said.

“Just like the picture of Dorian Gray, it stays fresh as a rose,” Giordano added in reference to a novel by Oscar Wilde in which a painting of a man ages in his stead in an attic, allowing him to remain eternally young.