Rafael Viñoly’s Musical Refuge
New York Sun – United States

The world-famous concert-hall architect somehow finds time to practice, practice, practice…

The Uruguayan-born Mr. Viñoly is no mere collector. He is a bona fide musician who once contemplated a career as a pianist; he attended a music conservatory before switching fields, and knows how to finger those 88 ivories.

“Amazingly, I should confess that I still do consider sitting down to work out something as it deserves to work out,” he said. Scores by Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, and Schumann clutter his pianos.
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Chopin in the Blogosphere:

All Robbins
By Philippe Boucher

Ballet-loving blogger goes to the Pacific Northwest Ballet program and finds more fulsome praise for Our Man Jerome and his unique take on Chopin…

In the Night was stunning set to the Nocturnes of Frederic Chopin, my favorite composer. Nocturne in F minor Op. 55 was played (a piece that I know how to play). What the program said about In the Night: Jerome Robbins’ rapturous In the Night features three couples, in varying stages of relationships, who eventually meet in a dance for six. Each couple’s pas de deux possesses a distinct character and in the end, all drift offstage in each others’ arms like stars fading at dawn. Mesmerizing.
Last, but definetly not least The Concert (or, The Perils of Everybody): A Charade in One Act.It was just hilarious and gorgeous. The curtain lifts up and we see another curtain with a drawing by Edward Gorey. It lifts again. An empty stage with a grand piano to the left. From the right comes the pianist….

Le blog d’Anne – http://blogsofbainbridge.typepad.com/leblogdanne/

Celebrities and Depression
By Alicia Sparks, NAMI Affiliation Leader

It’s “Celebrity Health Week” on the Mental Health Notes blogstie, and Fryderyk finds himself A-listed on the Celebrity Depression List amongs Buzz Aldrin and Abe Lincoln…though what is this composition called “Nocturne” she speaks of?

Frederic Chopin, often regarded as the greatest Polish composer (I absolutely love Nocturne and am, as a matter of fact, listening to it right now) battled depression before his death 1849.

Mental Health Notes – http://www.mentalhealthnotes.com