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Irish Independent
28 minutes ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Wexford author Colm Tóibín awarded prestigous honorary degree from Oxford University
On Wednesday, June 25, Tóibín was awarded the honorary degree of Doctors of Letters for his contribution to literature and journalism from the University of Oxford. The degree honours individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the field of literature, the creative arts, and humanities. The university outlined the long list of accomplishments that made him eligible for the coveted award. "Professor Colm Tóibín, FRSL is an Irish novelist, writer, journalist and academic. He currently serves as the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University. Professor Tóibín's work has been widely recognised and shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times. His novel Brooklyn (2009) was also adapted into an Oscar-nominated film. Professor Tóibín is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was appointed Laureate for Irish Fiction 2022-2024 and in 2023 was awarded the Bodley Medal,' they said. Being awarded at the private ceremony alongside him was Dame Jacinda Ardern, Lord Melvyn Bragg, Clive Myrie, Professor Serhii Plokhii, Professor Timothy Snyder, Sir Mo Farah, Professor Robert S Langer and Professor Erwin Neher. On the morning of the ceremony, the heads of colleges, university dignitaries, holders of the Oxford degrees of Doctor of Divinity, Civil Law, Medicine, Letters, Science, and Music, and the honorands assemble, in full academic dress, in one of the colleges, where they enjoy Lord Crewe's Benefaction. They then walk in procession to the Sheldonian Theatre on Broad Street. The University dignitaries enter the theatre in procession; those who are to receive honorary degrees wait in the Divinity School where they sign their names in the Honorary Degrees Book. They are then escorted into the theatre by the Bedels. Once the proceedings have been opened by the Chancellor, each honorand is introduced by the Public Orator with a speech in Latin and admitted to his or her new degree by the Chancellor. The Orator then delivers the Creweian Oration on the events of the past year and in commemoration of the University's benefactors. In alternate years the Professor of Poetry delivers the second part of this speech. For over 100 years All Souls College has hosted a lunch after the ceremony for the honorands, their guests, and other senior members of the collegiate University and the local community. This is then followed by a garden party hosted by the Vice-Chancellor.
Newsroom
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Newsroom
How to ride a horse, if you don't have a horse
Alastair Goodwin remembers standing in front of an obstacle course, hobby horse in hand, and questioning the choices that had led him and his co-founder to that spot. 'We were the biggest sceptics … The couple of hours before we started we were just like, 'What the hell are we doing?'.' But after the event kicked off and crowds started lining the perimeters of the course, Goodwin, who co-founded Hobby Horsing New Zealand with Tony Sundman, tells The Detail all his worries evaporated. 'It's like, sceptics be damned, people have a really good time and a lot of people have a good laugh.' The children's hobby of 'riding' a stick with a horse head on it has been around for centuries but it wasn't until the early 2000s that it began to be taken more seriously. A group of children sitting with their hobby horses at Whanganui's hobby horsing competition. Photo: Alastair Goodwin Finland was the first country to embrace it, and the sport there is largely dominated by pre-teen girls. Oscar-nominated Finnish filmmaker Selma Vilhunen is widely credited with bringing the sport into the mainstream with her 2017 film, Hobbyhorse Revolution. While it sounds like a bizarre game of childhood make-believe, hobby horsing is taken incredibly seriously in some parts of the world. The horses are often handmade, and the goal is to make them look as realistic as possible. Many riders will train for different events, competing in the likes of dressage, show jumping, and western riding. In the past couple of decades the sport has taken off. It's estimated that about 10,000 Finnish people take part, and it's on the rise here as well. 'We get a lot of emails from people setting up [events] around the place and I know there's another organisation over in Hawkes Bay that does it,' says Goodwin. 'It is building, which is bizarre.' But, he says it's a lot more laidback here. 'We're just trying to promote it as a concept and if people want to run with it and do the kind of high-end level of it then that's good for them,' he says. Another sport rising in the ranks of popularity here is pickleball. The sport is a mix of tennis, badminton and table tennis, and has nothing to do with pickles. 'Three dads were at home with their kids during winter, and the kids were bored and the dads were getting a bit frustrated so they thought, 'Right, let's see what we can find,' and they made the game of pickleball up,' says Ange Brady, the Hawkes Bay representative on the board of the Pickleball Association of New Zealand. The game is designed to include the whole family, from grandchild to grandparent. 'Generally it's played in doubles,' Brady says. 'You've got two people each side of the net and you can only score a point off your serve.' But while it began as a fun family sport, pickleball has evolved. Brady says both America and Australia have professional league teams, and there's an annual world cup competition. New Zealand sent two teams over to last year's world cup. The open team made it to the quarter finals and the 50+ team came second out of the 22 participating countries. There's even talk of it becoming an Olympic sport, but for that to happen Brady says there need to be some changes at the governing level. 'There are currently two governing bodies for pickleball across the world. 'We need to have one governing body for the sport and a bit of consistency of what that looks like around the world, because you obviously need to have criteria that you would meet across all of the countries in order to select the team,' she says. Whether or not it makes an appearance at a future Olympic games, Brady says pickleball is a sport for everyone. 'I hear stories of kids lining up at lunchtime and morning tea time to play at schools, and then we've got pickleball available all through the day for everybody right through until the evening for those who still have to work a full-time job, and then across the weekends. 'Once you start playing, you just find your people.' Check out how to listen to and follow The Detail here. You can also stay up-to-date by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Lalo Schifrin, Composer of ‘Mission: Impossible' Theme, Dead at 93
Lalo Schifrin, the Oscar-nominated and Grammy-winning composer behind the 'Theme From Mission: Impossible,' has died at the age of 93. The composer's son Ryan confirmed his father's death to the Associated Press, adding that Schifrin died Thursday due to complications from pneumonia at his home in Los Angeles. More from Rolling Stone Rebekah Del Rio, 'Mulholland Drive' Singer of 'Llorando,' Dead at 57 Bobby Sherman, Teen Music and Television Star, Dead at 81 Patrick Walden, Babyshambles Guitarist, Dead at 46 The Buenos Aires, Argentina-born Schifrin, the son of an orchestral violinist, had an early start in music, training on the piano at the age of six. However, upon entering college, Schifrin opted to study law, but his musical roots ultimately took hold. 'While advancing with my law studies, I was also studying music on the side, only as a hobby. And I had a very good teacher, who is probably the most important South American composer—Juan Carlos Paz. He's known among avant-garde circles all over the world, because he's the one who introduced twelve–tone music and the serial techniques in Argentina,' Schifrin told Jazz Professional in 1967. 'All of a sudden, the French Embassy in Buenos Aires offered a scholarship to the Conservatoire of Music. I went for the examination and won the scholarship. That meant that I abandoned my plans for a law career, and I decided to go to Europe.' In Paris, Schifrin became immersed in jazz music, as many of the greats of the time — Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson — would regularly perform during his time there. Upon returning to Argentina, Schifrin joined one of the country's first jazz orchestras, where he drew the attention of a visiting jazz legend, Dizzy Gillespie. Schifrin, who at that time was already scoring Argentinean films, eventually joined Gillespie's band. 'I stayed with Dizzy about three years,' he said. 'In addition to writing many things for the small group, I rearranged his band book for a type of orchestra with no saxophones in it—only brass,' compositions that formed Gillespie's 1960 LP Gillespian, and resulted in Schifrin's first Grammy nomination (for Best Original Jazz Composition). Schifrin moved to New York and worked alongside Gillespie from 1960 to 1963. (Schifrin and Gillespie would reunite for 1977's Free Ride.) However, dissatisfied with the traveling involved with being in a jazz group, Schifrin signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer, moved to Los Angeles, and scored his first American film, 1964's Rhino! Two years later, Schifrin created his most popular work, the theme from the American spy series Mission: Impossible,' which — the composer frequently admitted — he wrote in just three minutes, and without first seeing any footage from the series or even reading a script. All Schifrin had to go on was producers' idea for an opening credits' burning fuse, which gave the theme its original title, 'Burning Fuse.' (Morse Code of the series' initials, M:I, would also form the theme's 5/4 signature.) 'Television, in those days, people were in the kitchen having a soft drink, and all of the sudden in the living room, the TV set is playing the theme of a new show,' Schifrin said, adding that the 'inviting, exciting' theme was like a lure. Like the series itself, 'Theme From Mission: Impossible' was a hit, landing on the Billboard Hot 100 and earning Schifrin a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Theme; the song would also be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. (Decades later, the TV show would also eventually become a billion-dollar Tom Cruise film franchise, and though it updated Schifrin's theme, the composer did not contribute musically to any of the reboot's installments.) Over the course of his career, Schifrin would score over 200 films and television shows, and while some would lean on his jazz background — like his work on the 1968 Steve McQueen classic Bullitt and his Oscar-nominated score for Cool Hand Luke, notably its famed 'Tar Sequence' — Schifrin would adapt musically to fit the project, like his experimental work on George Lucas' sci-fi flick THX-1138 and his terrifying score for The Amityville Horror; the composer was infamously recruited to originally score The Exorcist, but upon delivering a portion of his music, the studio and director William Friedkin deemed the shrieking score too scary for even the film and rejected. 'I look for unusual sounds—but never as gimmicks. I like always to make them functional, organic parts of the music,' Schifrin told Jazz Professional. 'It can be percussion, it can be bizarre or exotic instruments, or it can be electronic instruments—but I look for that musical quality, that can be combined, and be organic to the film, to the orchestra and to the music.' Other notable Schifrin scores include Dirty Harry and its sequel Magnum Force, 1973's Charley Varrick, the Bruce Lee kung fu classic Enter the Dragon, Brubaker, the Rush Hour trilogy, Carlos Saura's Tango, the Ringo Starr-starring Caveman and more. 'I've used something in the periphery of jazz myself—not really jazz, but some jazz–orientated scores, like Bullitt, the picture with Steve McQueen. And a little bit of jazz in certain other movies,' Schifrin said. 'But jazz doesn't need anything to be seen, while film–making is made up of many components. There are the dramatic, the visual and the audio elements: they have to be all integrated, and be part of the one thing.' Despite winning a handful of Grammys, the Academy Award remained elusive: Schifrin was nominated for Best Original Score six times — for Cool Hand Luke, The Fox, Voyage of the Damned, The Amityville Horror, The Competition and The Sting II — but never won an Oscar. However, the Academy celebrated Schifrin's career with an honorary Oscar in 2019. 'I love music. To me there is no labels,' Schifrin said in 1969. 'I don't believe in rock n' roll or classical or jazz. I believe that there is good music and bad music.' Best of Rolling Stone Sly and the Family Stone: 20 Essential Songs The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked
Daily Record
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Record
BBC fans have days to stream 'one of the best British films' starring Hugh Grant
The romantic comedy is leaving BBC iPlayer in just a few days BBC viewers have a limited window to stream a much-loved Hugh Grant comedy hailed as 'laugh out loud funny.' The 1994 classic, Four Weddings and a Funeral, is available for streaming on iPlayer until Tuesday, July 8. This Oscar-nominated dramedy was a career milestone for both Grant and scriptwriter Richard Curtis. The pair would later team up again for other celebrated rom-coms such as Love Actually, Bridget Jones's Diary and Notting Hill. Featuring Andie MacDowell as Carrie, the love interest of Grant's character, the story centres around Charles, a charming British bachelor grappling with matters of the heart. His luck seems to turn when he encounters Carrie, but she is about to return to America. The drama unfolds over several occasions where their paths intersect, and they try to figure out if they are meant for each other, reports the Manchester Evening News. With an impressive 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, this romantic comedy received nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture at the 1995 Academy Awards. Not only did audiences fall in love with Grant's performance, with clips from the film still circulating on TikTok today, but critics also honoured him with the Best Actor award at the 1995 BAFTAs. Even three decades after its release, the comedy continues to garner praise from casual viewers and critics alike. "This is one of the funniest, wittiest, cleverest comedy/romances to come out of Great Britain," enthused one IMDb user. A fan echoed the commendations, posting: "I am viewing the movie for [the] fifth time since its release. I just love this movie and laugh almost endless throughout the movie." Google Reviews was abuzz with admirers lauding the film's exceptional cast, starring the likes of James Fleet, Rowan Atkinson, David Haig, and Anna Chancellor. One cinema enthusiast couldn't contain their excitement. "I've seen this 1994 British comedy film about twice and it's hilarious especially Rowan Atkinson himself. I'd say it's probably one of the funniest films I have ever seen and it's probably one of the best British films I have ever seen as well," they proclaimed. Another chimed in, balancing critique with praise: "This movie has its shortcomings, but is laugh out loud funny and moving throughout with some incredible early performances from people who are now household names. It is worth watching for this alone." Four Weddings and a Funeral is streaming now on BBC iPlayer
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Lalo Schifrin, Acclaimed Composer of ‘Mission: Impossible' and ‘Mannix' Themes, Dies at 93
Lalo Schifrin, the six-time Oscar-nominated composer, pianist and conductor renowned for his electric, jazz-infused themes and music for Mission: Impossible, Mannix, Starsky & Hutch and Bullitt, died Thursday. He was 93. Schifrin, who received an honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards in November 2018, died of pneumonia at a hospital in Los Angeles, his son Ryan Schifrin told The Hollywood Reporter. He lived for the past few decades in a Beverly Hills home once owned by Groucho Marx. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'Squid Game' Finale Ends With Surprise Hollywood Star Cameo Lorde Summer Officially Arrives With New Album 'Virgin' Rick Hurst, Actor on 'The Dukes of Hazzard,' Dies at 79 A native of Argentina whose father was the Buenos Aires Philharmonic concert master for more than three decades, Schifrin was trained in the world of classical music before being hooked on American jazz when he was a teenager. He artfully blended the two genres, and the combustible energy and rhythmic vitality of his compositions were especially well-suited for action-suspense movies and TV shows. The workaholic Schifrin received Oscar nominations for his scores for Cool Hand Luke (1967), The Fox (1968), Voyage of the Damned (1976), The Amityville Horror (1979) and The Sting II (1983) and for the song 'People Alone' from The Competition (1980). He scored Dirty Harry (1971) and the sequels Magnum Force (1973), The Enforcer (1976), Sudden Impact (1983) and The Dead Pool (1988), all starring Clint Eastwood — the filmmaker presented him with his Oscar — and served as the composer on all three of the Rush Hour films. Schifrin had Ray Charles perform with a symphony orchestra for The Cincinnati Kid (1965), and he provided the classic saxophone-laden car-chase music for Steve McQueen's Bullitt (1968). His résumé also included work on Coogan's Bluff (1968) — that kicked off his long association with Eastwood and director Don Siegel — Kelly's Heroes (1970), Charley Varrick (1973), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Telefon (1977), The Nude Bomb (1980), Black Moon Rising (1986), Money Talks (1997), Something to Believe In (1998), Tango (1998), Bringing Down the House (2003) and The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2004). His cool, percolating Mission: Impossible theme, set to an unusual 5/4 time signature and commissioned for the fabled CBS espionage drama that bowed in September 1966, netted Schifrin one of his four Grammy Awards and one of his four Emmy noms. It still serves as a vital link to the Tom Cruise movie franchise. Schifrin said it took him just three minutes to put the theme together, and he composed it without seeing any footage from the show. 'Orchestration's not the problem for me,' he told the New York Post in 2015. 'It's like writing a letter. When you write a letter, you don't have to think what grammar or what syntaxes you're going to use, you just write a letter. And that's the way it came. 'Bruce Geller, who was the producer of the series, put together the pilot and came to me and said, 'I want you to write something exciting, something that when people are in the living room and go into the kitchen to have a soft drink, and they hear it, they will know what it is. I want it to be identifiable, recognizable and a signature.' And this is what I did.' The Mission: Impossible opening credits showed a match lighting a fuse that burned superimposed over quickly-cut scenes from the episode. Schifrin wrote music for several episodes as well, and an M:I album proved quite successful. An inspired Bruce Lee worked out to the show's score in his gym in Hong Kong before signing Schifrin as the composer and orchestrator on Enter the Dragon (1973). As a bonus, Lee gave the musician his first martial arts lessons, for free. Schifrin concocted a jazz waltz in 3/4 time for the theme to the Mike Connors series Mannix — also produced by Geller — and played the Moog synthesizer on the opening music for another 1960s' CBS drama, Medical Center. Schifrin also was responsible for the themes for T.H.E. Cat, Petrocelli, Starsky & Hutch, Bronk and Most Wanted. And his 'Tar Sequence' music from Cool Hand Luke was adopted by ABC affiliates for their Eyewitness News broadcasts. Born Boris Claudio Schifrin on June 21, 1932, he began playing the piano at age 5. His classmates exposed him to jazz records when he was about 16, and he became 'totally absorbed in that music,' he recalled in a 2008 interview for the Archive of American Television. 'It was like an illumination, a very important moment in my life. I converted to jazz.' However, jazz was considered 'immoral' back then, and he had to listen on the sly. He studied music and law for four years at his hometown University of Buenos Aires, then received a scholarship to the Paris Conservatory of Music in 1952, studying classical music under famed composer Olivier Messiaen. 'I had a double life,' he told The Telegraph in 2004. 'I would study at the Conservatory during the day and play in jazz bands at night in places like the Club Saint-Germain. Messiaen didn't like jazz, but he was a very nice man, a Catholic mystic.' In 1956, Schifrin returned to Buenos Aires, formed his own jazz band and got involved in writing music for TV and radio programs. A year later, he won Argentina's equivalent of an Oscar for his score for El Jefe. With Dizzy Gillespie and his all-star band (including Quincy Jones on first trumpet and Phil Woods on alto sax) in town for a concert at the U.S. Embassy, Schifrin conducted his group from behind the piano during a reception to honor the jazz great. The trumpeter approached Schifrin and asked, 'Do you write all these charts, all these arrangements?' he recalled. 'I said yes. 'Would you like to come to the United States?' I thought it was a joke.' Schifrin arrived in New York City in 1958 and played piano in a Mexican restaurant until he was invited by Xavier Cugat to write arrangements for his show and tour with his orchestra. He finally reconnected and signed with Gillespie in 1960, performing on a hit album, Gillespiana, for Verve Records, which was later purchased by MGM. He also arranged jazz LPs for the likes of Stan Getz and Sarah Vaughan. Inspired by the movie work of such composers as Henry Mancini and Johnny Mandel, Schifrin employed his MGM connections and headed to California in 1963. His first Hollywood gig was for the African-set film Rhino! (1964), and he scored several projects under Stanley Wilson at Universal Pictures, including the 1966 bomb-on-an-airplane NBC telefilm The Doomsday Flight, written by Rod Serling. Schifrin also scored David Wolper documentaries, including The Making of a President: 1964 (1966), for which he received an Emmy nom; The World of Jacques Cousteau (1966); and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1968). Throughout his career, Schifrin conducted a number of the world's top orchestras, including those in London, Vienna, Los Angeles, Israel, Mexico City, Houston, Atlanta and Buenos Aires. In 1987, he was appointed musical director for the Paris Philharmonic Orchestra, which was formed for the purpose of recording music for films, and held the post for five years. Schifrin then conducted a 1995 symphonic celebration in Marseilles, France, to mark the 100th anniversary of the invention of movies by the Lumiere brothers. His longtime involvement in the jazz and classical worlds came together quite nicely in 1993 when he was featured as pianist and conductor for the first of his several 'Jazz Meets the Symphony' albums. Schifrin, who received the BMI Lifetime Achievement Award in 1988, recorded dozens of albums, many on the Adelph Records label run by his wife, Donna. He also was the principal arranger for The Three Tenors' World Cup concerts. He recently completed a composition for Argentina that was performed in his native country. In addition to his wife and son Ryan, a writer-director (Abominable), survivors include another son, Will Schifrin, a TV writer (The Fairly OddParents); a daughter, Frances; and grandchildren Dylan, Jonah, Jack and Emma. 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