Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts

Thursday, 30 June 2016

Super Humans - Minou Drouet

Marie-Noëlle Drouet, known as Minou Drouet (born July 24, 1947), of La Guerche-de-Bretagne, France, is a former poet, musician, and actor.

Drouet gained fame in 1955 when some of her poems and letters circulated privately among French writers and publishers, generating controversy over whether or not Drouet's mother Claude was their true author. Drouet soon overcame much of this skepticism by writing poems before witnesses without her mother present. In one such test, she wrote a poem to gain admission to France's Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers. Drouet also studied piano and guitar. Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, Drouet toured as an author and musician. Jean Cocteau said famously of Drouet, "Tous les enfants ont du génie sauf Minou Drouet" (In English: All children have genius, except for Minou Drouet). After her grandmother became ill around 1966, Drouet worked as a nurse for two years before returning to public life as a singer-songwriter and children's novelist. She wrote one adult novel; its title in English translation was Donatella. Eventually, Drouet returned to her childhood home in La Guerche-de-Bretagne. She now lives with her husband Jean-Paul Le Canu and has left public life except to publish a memoir, Ma vérité, in 1993. New Yorker critic Robert Gottlieb describes Ma vérité as "reticent and skimpy," saying that it focuses on facts rather than subjective interpretations of Drouet's childhood.

Tuesday, 28 June 2016

Super Humans - Seth F. Henriett

Henriett Seth F. (Hungarian pseudonym Seth F. Henriett; birth name Fajcsák Henrietta; born 27 October 1980) is a Hungarian autistic savant poet, writer, musician and artist who became world famous with one book titled Autizmussal önmagamba zárva ("Closed into myself with autism") and her one sentence on many cubes from her book made one monodrama, titled Nemsenkilény, monológ nemmindegyembereknek ("Notanobodycreature"), before the age of 30. worldwide and nationally having regard to her childhood autism and heart disorders as mitral valve prolapse, three eye disorders as nearsightedness, astigmatism, strabismus, orthopedic diseases and other physical disorders. She gave up creative music career altogether at the age of 13, creative writing altogether at the age of 25 and she also gave up creative painting altogether before the age of 27. Henriett Seth F.' s life and arts can be compared with Arthur Rimbaud' s life and her arts took after her "Little Wassily Kandinsky" 's. Henriett universal effect of all that was what we now call autism and savant syndrome. 

Henriett did not make eye contact in her early childhood. In 1987 all the primary schools in her town refused her admission application because of her communication problems. She was placed in a music and art class, but she never sang songs, so, in 1989 she was sent to a mentally handicapped primary school by two teachers, although she remained in music and art class. She played flute at the age of 8 and played contrabass at the age of 10–12, and until the age of 13 she was in many concerts in the Garrison and Soldiers of Club (in Hungarian: Helyorsegi Klub). She gave up creative music career altogether at the age of 13. She was also found to have echolalia, communications problems and repetitive behaviors, see Henriett as a young girl – on the first digitized videos of childhood autism and savant syndrome on Hungary – on investigations and language development with her photos of paintings by Hungarian Autism Research Group, Budapest, 2002. She was diagnosed with childhood autism by Hungarian Autism Research Group (Autizmus Alapítvány és Kutatócsoport) and two psychiatries of Eger. Henriett had a long history of visual art, poetry and writing in her childhood; beginning at age nine and finishing at age thirteen. Henriett universal effect of all that was what we now call autism and savant syndrome, she painted autistic art paintings to the House of Arts, Eger, and Hotel Stadion of Budapest in the East-European Autism Conference, 2004. She won the Géza Gárdonyi Prize at the age of 18 for her art and literature. Henriett went to Eszterházy Károly College at the age of 18 to the Psychology Institution, but her communication and her behavior problems finished with a diagnosis of childhood autism in 2002. She has Raven IQ above 140 and Magyar Wechsler Intelligence Test (MAWI) IQ above 120 with part some under IQ 90, so she was considered handicapped genius, a perfect example of childhood autism and savant syndrome, see disability support. In 2005, she wrote a book, Autizmussal önmagamba zárva ("Closed into myself with autism"), that was published by the Hungarian Autism Research Group and Ministry for National Cultural Heritage. Henriett was invited to the Friderikusz Sándor's documentary film, to Szólás Szabadsága ("Freedom of Speech"), in 2005, that was seen by 700,000 people. This documentary film was entitled Esőlány ("Rain Girl"). In 2006 Henriett wrote one novel, Autizmus – Egy másik világ ("Autism – Another World"). That work was published by University of Pécs, in the New Galaxy anthology. Henriett won the 6th-place prize in the International Literature Competition in 2000, at the age of 19. She came in first in 2001, at the age of 20 (by International Alliance of Hungarian Writers). Henriett wrote novels and poems during her childhood, as well as in college life to the periodical Esőember ("Rain Man"), 2006. She showed her last art work in Brody Sandor Public Library in June 2007. She gave up creative writing altogether at the age of 25 and she also gave up creative painting altogether before the age of 27. She did not sold work of her childhood and teen age literature and visual art at her mother's advice, but her own room was transformed childhood autism and savant syndrome memorial room at age 30. She also had three autoimmune disorders and now living with childhood autism, heart disorders as mitral valve prolapse, three eye disorders as nearsightedness, astigmatism, strabismus, orthopedic diseases and other physical disorders. Her organism was attacked by cancer in 2009. In 2010, Orlai Produkciós Iroda made a monodrama, Nemsenkilény, monológ nemmindegyembereknek ("Notanobodycreature"), from book of Henriett Seth F. The text book contains details of Donna Williams' s Nobody Nowhere: The extraordinary Autobiography of an Autistic Girl, Don't want to Be Inside Me Anymore: Messages from Autistic Mind. That played in Esztergom, Budapest, Pécs, Tatabánya, Székesfehérvár and Eger theatres and made from it TV documentary in Hungarian Television, 2010, and Budapest, Gyöngyös theatres in 2011. Henriett Seth F.' s life and arts can be compared with Arthur Rimbaud' s life and her arts took after her "Little Wassily Kandinsky" 's.

Thursday, 5 May 2016

Super Humans - William Cullen Bryant

William Cullen Bryant (November 3, 1794 – June 12, 1878) was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post. Bryant was born on November 3, 1794, in a log cabin near Cummington, Massachusetts; the home of his birth is today marked with a plaque. He was the second son of Peter Bryant (b. Aug. 12, 1767, d. Mar. 20, 1820), a doctor and later a state legislator, and Sarah Snell (b. Dec. 4, 1768, d. May 6, 1847). The genealogies of both of his parents trace back to passengers on the Mayflower; his mother's to John Alden (b. 1599, d. 1687); his father's to Francis Cooke (b. 1577, d. 1663). He was also a nephew of Charity Bryant, a Vermont seamstress who is the subject of Rachel Hope Cleves' 2014 book Charity and Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America. Bryant and his family moved to a new home when he was two years old. The William Cullen Bryant Homestead, his boyhood home, is now a museum. After just one year at Williams College (he entered with sophomore standing), he hoped to transfer to Yale, but a talk with his father led to the realization that family finances would not support it. His father counseled a legal career as his best available choice, and the disappointed poet began to study law in Worthington and Bridgewater in Massachusetts. He was admitted to the bar in 1815 and began practicing law in nearby Plainfield, walking the seven miles from Cummington every day. On one of these walks, in December 1815, he noticed a single bird flying on the horizon; the sight moved him enough to write "To a Waterfowl". Bryant developed an interest in poetry early in life. Under his father's tutelage, he emulated Alexander Pope and other Neo-Classic British poets. "The Embargo", a savage attack on President Thomas Jefferson published in 1808, reflected Dr. Bryant's Federalist political views. The first edition quickly sold out — partly because of publicity attached to the poet's young age. A second, expanded edition included Bryant's translation of classical verse. During his collegiate studies and his reading for the law, he wrote little poetry, but encounters with the Graveyard Poets and then Wordsworth regenerated his passion for "the witchery of song." In his last decade, Bryant shifted from writing his own poetry to a blank verse translation of Homer's works. He assiduously worked on the Iliad and The Odyssey from 1871 to 1874. He is also remembered as one of the principal authorities on homeopathy and as a hymnist for the Unitarian Church — both legacies of his father's enormous influence on him.

Monday, 25 April 2016

Super Humans - Rabindranath Tagore

   Rabindranath Tagore (Listeni/rəˈbindrəˈnɑːt ˈtɑːɡɔːr/; Bengali pronunciation: [robind̪ro nat̪ʰ ʈʰakur]), also written Ravīndranātha Thākura (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941), sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. In translation his poetry was viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. Sometimes referred to as "the Bard of Bengal", Tagore introduced new prose and verse forms and the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, thereby freeing it from traditional models based on classical Sanskrit. He was highly influential in introducing the best of Indian culture to the West and vice versa, and he is generally regarded as the outstanding creative artist of the modern Indian subcontinent. A Pirali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist internationalist, and ardent anti-nationalist he denounced the British Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy endures also in the institution he founded, Visva-Bharati University. Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh's Amar Shonar Bangla. Some sources state that Sri Lanka's National Anthem was written by Tagore whilst others state it was inspired by the work of Tagore. The youngest of thirteen surviving children, Tagore (nicknamed "Rabi") was born in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta to parents Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875).

   The last two days a storm has been raging, similar to the description in my song—Jhauro jhauro borishe baridhara, a hapless, homeless man drenched from top to toe standing on the roof of his steamer [...] the last two days I have been singing this song over and over [...] as a result the pelting sound of the intense rain, the wail of the wind, the sound of the heaving Gorai [R]iver, have assumed a fresh life and found a new language and I have felt like a major actor in this new musical drama unfolding before me.
(Letter to Indira Devi)

   Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely.[28] Tagore family was at the forefront of the Bengal renaissance. They hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly. Tagore's oldest brother Dwijendranath was a philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright. His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist. Jyotirindranath's wife Kadambari, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt suicide in 1884, soon after he married, left him for years profoundly distraught. Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati, idylls which the family visited. His brother Hemendranath tutored and physically conditioned him—by having him swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practising judo and wrestling. He learned to draw, anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and English—his least favourite subject. Tagore loathed formal education—his scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day. Years later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity. After his upanayan (coming-of-age) rite at age eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 to tour India for several months, visiting his father's Santiniketan estate and Amritsar before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie. There, Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the classical poetry of Kālidāsa. Tagore returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the Maithili style of Vidyapati. As a joke, he claimed that these were the lost works of (what he claimed was) a newly discovered 17th century Vaiṣṇava poet Bhānusiṃha. Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of Bhānusiṃha. He debuted in the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). Published in the same year, Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").

Saturday, 26 March 2016

Super Humans - Brandon deWilde

Andre Brandon deWilde (April 9, 1942 – July 6, 1972) was an American theatre, film, and television actor. Born into a theatrical family in Brooklyn, he debuted on Broadway at the age of 7 and became a national phenomenon by the time he completed his 492 performances for The Member of the Wedding. Before the age of 12, he had many accomplishments: He was the first child actor awarded the Donaldson Award, he filmed his role in The Member of the Wedding, he starred in his most memorable film role as Joey Starrett in the film Shane (1953). He had also been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and starred in his own sitcom Jamie on ABC. He became a household name making numerous radio and TV appearances before being featured on the cover of Life magazine on March 10, 1952, for his second Broadway outing Mrs. McThing. He continued acting in stage, film and television role into adulthood before his death at age 30 in a car crash in Colorado on July 6, 1972. 

Andre Brandon deWilde was the son of Frederic A. "Fritz" deWilde and Eugenia (née Wilson) deWilde. Fritz deWilde was the only son of Dutch immigrants who changed their surname from Neitzel-de Wilde to "deWilde" when they emigrated to the United States. He was a descendant of the Dutch merchant and seigneur Andries de Wilde, who was married to Cornelia Henrica Neitzel. Fritz deWilde became an actor and Broadway production stage manager. Eugenia was a part-time stage actress. After deWilde's birth, the family moved from Brooklyn to Baldwin, Long Island. deWilde made his much-acclaimed Broadway debut at the age of 7 in The Member of the Wedding. He was the first child actor to win the Donaldson Award, and his talent was praised by John Gielgud the following year. He also starred in the 1952 film version of the play, which was directed by Fred Zinnemann. In 1952 deWilde acted in the film Shane as Joey Starrett and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance, becoming the youngest nominee for the time in a competitive category. He had the lead role in his own television series, Jamie which aired in 1953 and 1954. Although the series was popular, it was canceled due to a contract dispute. In 1956 he was featured with Walter Brennan, Phil Harris, and Sidney Poitier in the coming-of-age Batjac movie production of Good-bye, My Lady, adapted from James Street's book. This film showcased the then-rare dog breed Basenji, the African barkless dog, to American audiences. Brooklyn-born, deWilde's soft-spoken manner of speech in his early roles was more akin to a Southern drawl. In 1956 (at age 14) deWilde narrated classical music works Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev and The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra by Benjamin Britten. He also recorded a reading of Huckleberry Finn in the album The Stories of Mark Twain, along with his Good-bye, My Lady co-star, Walter Brennan. deWilde had hoped to embark on a music career. He asked his friend, Gram Parsons (of the Byrds), and his band at the time, International Submarine Band, to back him in a recording session. ISB guitarist John Nuese claimed that deWilde sang harmony with Parsons better than anyone except Emmylou Harris and bassist Ian Dunlop wrote, "The lure of getting a record out was tugging hard at Brandon." Parsons and Harris later co-wrote a song entitled "In My Hour of Darkness", the first verse of which refers to the car crash that killed deWilde

Saturday, 19 March 2016

Super Humans - Sho Timothy Yano

Sho Timothy Yano (矢野 祥 Yano Shō, born 1990, Portland, Oregon) is an American physician. Yano is a former child prodigy and has an estimated IQ of 200. Yano's father, Katsura, is originally from Japan and his mother, Kyung, is originally from South Korea. Yano reportedly was reading by age two, writing by age three, playing classical music on the piano at age four, and composing by age five. He went to the Mirman School as a child. After scoring 1500 out of 1600 on the SAT at age eight, he graduated from the American School of Correspondence at age nine then entered Loyola University Chicago also at age nine, graduating summa cum laude at age 12. He then entered the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago in the MSTP (Medical Scientist Training Program), which is designed for those seeking to earn an MD and PhD. He was awarded a PhD in molecular genetics and cell biology there in 2009, at the age of 18. He entered his second year of medical school at the University of Chicago in 2009, becoming at age 21 the youngest person to graduate with an MD from the University of Chicago, for which he has been called a "real-life Doogie Howser". He is currently a pediatric neurology resident at the University of Chicago.

According to Yano, he owes much of his success to his mother, who noticed his superior intellectual capabilities at an early age and helped encourage and motivate him through rigorous academic enrichment. His mother also homeschooled him through the 12th grade, saying she felt other students his age wouldn't be as interested in their studies. Sho's younger sister Sayuri (born 1996) also exhibits prodigious talents in both academic studies and music; she is, as of 2010, a graduate at Roosevelt University with a Bachelor of Science in biology degree. She is currently a B.M. student majoring in violin performance at the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University.

Saturday, 13 February 2016

Super Humans - Ainan Celeste Cawley

   Ainan Celeste Cawley (born 1999) passed Chemistry- O level at 7 years and 1 month (the youngest in the world) and studied Chemistry at tertiary level, at a Polytechnic, from 8 years and 4 months old. He is a particularly talented type of child prodigy. This youngster has not only shown a large amount of talent in math and science, but also composed an entire musical score for a film. He also claims to be able to see movement in the form of colors, which his father coined as "velociperception." Sometimes being smart makes them a target. Ainan Celeste Cawley was bullied “extensively” during his Bukit Timah Primary School days, though he opened up about the incidents only “in recent months”, says writer-actor dad Valentine Cawley, 45. Ainan, 13, says: “Once, someone tripped me with his leg. I just picked myself up and left. “I did not teach myself to not care, I just don’t care. Unless they are serious in their words, why should I take them into consideration?” His mother is Singaporean artist Syahidah Osman, 34, and he has two brothers, Fintan, nine, and Tiarnan, seven. The family live in an apartment in Kuala Lumpur, where Ainan is in Taylor University’s American Degree Transfer Programme, which allows for flexible, broad-based learning. He is majoring in the sciences but doing everything from computer programming to theatre. Last year, he composed the score for a 15-minute short film for a film festival. Mr Cawley has learnt a lesson from his son not to “regiment” him. The boy began composing at six but when his parents arranged music lessons for him, he “wouldn’t touch the piano for the next six years”, says dad. Ainan says: “I do not enjoy rigorous and repetitive training, which was the way I was being taught then.” He is the son of ambidextrous portrait artist, Syahidah Osman Cawley and Valentine Cawley, the writer, actor, scientist. He is the world's only known Chemistry prodigy and a general scientific child prodigy.
On September 14th 2008, he set a world age record for the memorization of pi, reciting 518 digits, on camera. He was just 8 years and 9 months old. This is a feat that has never been equaled by any child: only young adults, or older, have recited this many digits. At just 8 years and 4 months old, he started studying degree level laboratory based Chemistry modules, at a Polytechnic. Most of his courses have been third year ones. He is in the Singapore Book of Records, for being the world's youngest O level holder. He passed Chemistry O level at 7 years and 1 month old. Ainan scored the music for the film, Reflection, when he had only recently turned 12 years old. Ainan was just 13 years old when he conceived, wrote, directed and edited The Sempiternal. Ainan is the youngest film-maker to ever show a film, in the ten year history of the Malaysian Shorts film festival. That makes him the youngest out of an estimated 500 film-makers (since it is a quarterly event). On December 12th 2013, Ainan released a music recording of one of his compositions, Renaissance, as a contribution to the charity album Composers for Relief: Supporting the Philippines, to raise money for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan. Ainan had just turned 13 years old, when he composed the piece.

Personal Quotes:

The losers in World War II, are the winners in modern cars. 

In Physics, if your equation isn't simple, there is something wrong with your Universe. 

There is no such thing as bad Art, for if it is bad, it is no longer Art. 

Art causes a chemical reaction in the brain, that makes you think it is beautiful. Therefore, Art is a drug.

Sources: 
Singapore StraitsTimes
IMDB.com

Thursday, 7 January 2016

Super Humans - Per H. Enflo

Per H. Enflo (Swedish: [ˌpæːɹ ˈeːnfluː]; born 1944) is a mathematician who has solved fundamental problems in functional analysis. Three of these problems had been open for more than forty years.

The basis problem and the approximation problem and later the invariant subspace problem for Banach spaces. In solving these problems, Enflo developed new techniques which were then used by other researchers in functional analysis and operator theory for years. Some of Enflo's research has been important also in other mathematical fields, such as number theory, and in computer science, especially computer algebra and approximation algorithms. Enflo works at Kent State University, where he holds the title of University Professor. Enflo has earlier held positions at the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, École Polytechnique, (Paris) and The Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. Enflo is also a concert pianist.