WHAT a gas. The Rolling Stones brought the carnival spirit early to Brazil last night when they played a free concert to more than a million people on Rio de Janeiro’s fabled Copacabana beach, writes Maurice Chittenden.
They opened one of the world’s biggest beach parties with Jumping Jack Flash, their 1968 hit with lyrics about being born in a crossfire hurricane.
Fire department officials estimated the crowd was more than 1m when the show started but that more people were still coming. Officials estimated that as many as 2m would see the concert.
Some fans had camped out for days to get a prime spot on the 2.5 mile-long beach.
“It’s going to be an amazing show,” said 19-year-old Barbara de Carvalho, a student from Sao Paulo who had camped on the beach since Thursday.
A specially erected footbridge built at a cost of £250,000 took the Stones from their hotel over the beachfront Avenida Atlantica and directly to the stage.
The Stones spent £1m on setting up the gig; the city paid another £500,000, aware of its boost to tourism. A new stage was created especially for the show, decorated with a 45ft high design of palm leaves to add to the carnival theme.
Patrick Woodroffe, the Stones’ lighting designer, said: “I am sure anybody would be nervous going out in front of 1.5m people but there is nobody that does it better than the Stones.”

Buddha Bar is a chain of restaurants all over the world. The food and ambience are great, so say the customers. But what it is more famous for is the great relaxing music.

What started as music for the customers of the restaurants had a deep effect on normal people all around. What is so special about it? The unique sound, sometimes de meaningful lyrics, the state of meditation that it induces, the harmony, the peace… All of these make this music so appreciated. If you want to sample some of it, just go to Buddha Bar. I promise you will thank me!

The history of Jazz music origins is attributed to the turn of the 20th century New Orleans, although this unique, artistic medium occurred almost simultaneously in other North American areas like Saint Louis, Kansas City and Chicago. Traits carried from West African black folk music developed in the Americas, joined with European popular and light classical music of the late 18th and 19th centuries, became the syncopated rhythms of Ragtime and minor chord voicings characteristic of the Blues.

Jazz music is among America’s greatest cultural achievements and exports to the world community. It gives powerful voice to the American experience. Born of a multi-hued society, Jazz unites people across the divides of race, region and national boundaries. It has always made powerful statements about freedom, creativity and American identity at home and abroad.

Jazz, an American art form, an international phenomenon! Jazz is not the result of choosing a tune, but an ideal that is created first in the mind, inspired by one’s passion, and willed next in playing music. Jazz music draws from life experience and human emotion as the inspiration of the creative force, and through this discourse is chronicled the story of it’s people. Jazz musicians and those that follow the genre closely, can indeed be thought of as an artistic community complete with it’s leaders, spokesmen, innovators, aficionados, members & fans.

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Jazz is the best relaxation music. After a long day at work, a jazz song calms your nerves. It deepens your mind and body into a meditation that can’t be achieved through other methods. Jazz makes you dream about bunnies and butterflies, flowers and sunny sky.

Also, the saxophone (the principal musical instrument of jazz music) provides a passionate, intimate atmosphere. An atmosphere that just makes you want to make love or just love! More about Jazz next time…

The international classical music festival George Enescu kicked off Sunday in Romania, marking 50 years since the death of the Romanian composer.

The festival features five Romanian orchestras and six other international orchestras — the Orchestre national de France, the Kirov Orchestra (of the Mariinsky Theater) from Russia, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Dresden Staatskapelle from Germany.

The program also included two ballet performances by the Eifman Theater from St. Petersburg, Russia, and concerts by the Lausanne and the Basel Chamber Orchestras from Switzerland.

Other performers include American-born opera singer Barbara Hendricks, the Magnus Quartet Jazz Project and British-based The King’s Consort, one of Europe’s leading period-instrument orchestras.

The festival, which is organized by the Romanian government under the patronage of President Traian Basescu, opened on the evening of 4th September with a concert by the Bucharest-based George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra.

The program included international contests in violin, piano and composition.

Performances will took place mainly in Bucharest, but some concerts have also been presented in the cities of Iasi, Cluj, Timisoara and Brasov. The festival lasts until September 20.

What music can better describe one’s feelings than classical music? When you’re feeling down, nothing soothes you more than the sweet sound of a crying violin. Your desires, your fears, your dreams, your passions, your life… it is all revealed when listening to Mozart, Beethoven, Bach or Chopin. Who hasn’t had a moment of sadness or a small tear in the corner of his eye when hearing Tchaikovsky’s Swan lake? Didn’t you feel like waltzing on the beautiful Blue Danube to Johan Strauss’ music?

In the lonely winter nights I stay awake and listen to Vivaldi - Winter so that my soul warms in such a way the coldness outside is bearable. On a magnificent morning I hear the birds twittering and they remind me of “Morning Mood” from Peer Gynt. This is what classical music does to me. It cheers me up, it makes me want to get up every morning and dance, it makes me go to bed every night and dream peaceful. Even when I’m typing my hands follow the notes. When walking it’s more like balleting. It influences my whole life. In a good way, of course.

In the end, I’ll leave you with Gioachino Rossini’s quote about Mozart: “He roused my admiration when I was young; he caused me to despair when I reached maturity; he is now the comfort of my old age.“

Music? You might be wondering what it is… Or you think you know what it is… Or you really know! Whatever your case, this is what the dictionary says: “The art of arranging sounds in time so as to produce a continuous, unified, and evocative composition, as through melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre.” You knew that, didn’t you? Well, I believe music is much more than that!

Music is passion! Music is love for everyone and everything! Music is peace! Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together. Music creates order out of chaos: for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent, melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous. Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent. Where words fail, music speaks.
There is always music amongst the trees in the garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. The stars are musical notes that play a gentle song throughout the night sky. Everywhere you look there is music, but you have to focus your mind and heart to hear it.

In the next couple of days, weeks, months and years (so help me God!) I will try to reveal you everything I know about music, all the best, the worst, news, secrets and much more! Hope you will read with interest and maybe I’ll bring a smile to your face and not only. These being said, thank you for reading, and enjoy my blog!

Remember! “Without music, life is a journey through a desert.“