Rain 300/365

There's a humour which says it's rainy over 300 days a year in Vancouver. Well, it may be true that it's not sunny 300 days a year in Vancouver, but it means a lump sum of cloudy and rainy and a few snowy days.

Anyways, it's most likely you regularly see our beautiful city as I've seen through the lens in these pictures.

Bach Arias

It has very rarely happened that two great soloists join to make incredible historic recordings. There are so many recordings by the best soloists but just intermediate orchestras and conductors, and vice versa. As a matter of fact, I can never forget the conventional vinyl record I got 30 years ago which really disappointed me; Beethoven’s concerto op. 61 performed by Christian Ferras with Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Herbert von Karajan. Ferras, although a great violinist of the time, was by no mean in the rank of that orchestra and that phenomenal a conductor.

Anyways, one of such rare records is a Deutsche Grammophon recording of Bach’s arias by the incredible soprano Kathleen Battle and the great violinist Itzhak Perlman. Please listen to two tracks of this CD:

Bach, Arias
Soprano, Kathleen Battle
Violin, Itzhak Perlman

1. Vergnugen und Lust, 0.80 Mb 3:16 Mins
2. Ich Esse mit Freuden mein Weniges Brot, 1.15 Mb 4:55 Mins

Make Your Itunes Page

If you do not already know about it, Itunes is a software from Apple, including music libraries and a very nice player as well.

Let me show you how to install it step by step:

1. Go to the download page, where you can download the latest version 7.0.2 for free.

2. At the left side of this page, enter your e-mail address and push the DOWNLOAD button. That’s it. If you wish to keep a backup of the software select SAVE and give the destination folders, otherwise just select RUN. The download and installation process would take a few minutes, so please be patient.

3. Open Itunes by clicking on the icon which should have been added to your task bar and/or desktop by now.

4. At the left side, there are a lot of options from radio stations to podcasts. If you click on RADIO for instance, you’ll see tens of free radio stations from 60’s pop to classics, country, hard rock, Latino, and much more. You can even find a Traditional Persian music station in the CLASSICAL category.

5. In the PODCASTS option, you can subscribe to many TV shows, which will automatically be downloaded right after the new show is released weekly or daily or whatever. What I love about the podcasts is that the new episode of the show remains there in the list and you may watch it whenever you’d wish.

Let me give you another recipe for setting your podcasts as this is the greatest feature of Itunes. I select Photoshop TV for illustration purposes, which is a weekly show on Mondays, and the phenomenal photographer and author of photography books, Scott Kelby, is among the three instructors.

1. Click on ITUNES STORE right at the left side menu.

2. At top right corner type PHOTOSHOP in the search field and ENTER.

3. A list of tens of related links opens in a few seconds.

4. At the very first lines look for Photoshop TV and click on SUBSCRIBE under the PRICE column.

5. A verification window pops up. Push the SUBSCRIBE button again.

6. Click on PODCASTS now. The show is added to your podcasts. Double click on the line (any point) if it does not start loading down automatically the first time only. In a few minutes you can watch the most recent Monday show. Each episode is around 27 minutes and 100Mb.

You can follow the download process by clicking on DOWNLOADS at the same left side menu.

You explore other features of the software… and… enjoy!

Piano Poet

On such a sacred day was born the poet of the piano, Frederic Francois Chopin. It was 197 years ago in 1810.

Let’s listen to a few of the most charming pieces he wrote for the instrument:

- Ballade No. 1, g minor Op. 23
10:09 mins
Vladimir Horowitz

- Ballade No. 3, a-flat major Op. 47
7:43 mins
Claudio Arrau

- Nocturne No. 8, d-flat major Op. 27-2
4:43 mins
Maurizio Pollini

More Snow

Moon Light Shadow

Snow in Vancouver