Sunday Morning Concert

Welcome to the Weekend and Your Sunday Morning Concert.  It is a 3 day weekend for most in the US with tomorrow being the last official day of the Summer season as we celebrate Labor Day.  Rather than feature a single composer's works in today's concert performances, we are celebrating the 'labors' of Dutch Violinist Janine Jansen.  Janine began to study the violin at age 6. Her father and both her brothers are also musicians. Her mother is a classical singer and is a sister of the bass Peter Kooy. Jansen studied with Coosje Wijzenbeek, Philippe Hirschhorn, and Boris Belkin. She is married to Swedish conductor Daniel Blendulf. 

She has eschewed tradition by recording with only five solo strings rather than an orchestra, including her brother as cellist and father playing continuo. In live concerts, she has received standing ovations from enthusiastic audiences, for example at the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra 2006 concert at Berlin's Waldbühne, with a full attendance of 25,000, and in Los Angeles at the Walt Disney Concert Hall with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in 2008 to a sold-out audience. Jansen has performed on the 1727 Stradivari "Barrere" violin, which was on loan from the Stradivari Society of Chicago.  She currently plays on the "Baron Deurbroucq", also crafted in 1727 by Stradivari, which is owned by the Beare's International Violin Society.  She has begun her own chamber music festival in Utrecht. She has been a member of Spectrum Concerts Berlin since 1998.

Earlier this summer, the 2015  International Chamber Music Festival was held in Utrecht, Netherlands in the comfortably intimate confines of the TivoliVerendenberg Theater.  Janine is joined by a great number of her musical friends to celebrate Chamber Music in June of each year.  The Opening Concert from this year's Festival, recorded on June 24 at the TivioliVrendenberg Theater is posted below.  Janine is joined by friends Gregory Ahss [Violin], Nimrod Guez [Viola], Nicolas Alstaedt [Cello], Rick Stotijn [Double Bass], Andreas Ottensamer [Clarinet], Fredrik Ekdahl [Bassoon] and Radek Barborák [Horn] for a superb performance of Franz Shubert's Octet in F Major.  Over on my tumblr, Janine is joined by Denis Kozhukhin [Piano], Boris Brovtsyn [Violin], Amihai Grosz [Viola] and Julian Steckel [Cello] for their performance of Bela Bartók's Piano Quintet in C, Sz23 recorded on June 26.  

Finally for this Sunday morning, this week's celebration of the au natural beauty of the male form, Naked or Nearly So!, is posted down below for your visual appreciation.  Meanwhile over on my tumblr, your Hottie of the Day! is one hot 'Art Deco Adonis'.  Thanks for sharing part of your Sunday with me, see you again tomorrow as we begin another week of Music, Men & More! here on Nichevo.  Until next time as always, Enjoy!

Marriage, Music & Men!

Thursday remains a booger bear as far as having time to do anything other than work or "must do" items.  Unfortunately, for the time being with the new schedule, I think this will preclude any Thursday postings. I will try to make up for this with some somewhat expanded content on Fridays.  That being said, let's see what is on my radar this morning.  

Thursday did not bring the expected positive Marriage Equality ruling from the Supreme Court.  They have two remaining opportunities to announce their decision, today and Monday, the last day of the current session.  Towlerodad.com's Ari Ezra Waldman is as always on top of the situation with his expert legal analysis.  Why Does SCOTUS Wait Until the Last Minute to Decide Gay Rights Cases?, 9 Questions and Answers on Marriage at the Supreme Court Part I and the Q & A Part II will give you some insight on the doings over at SCOTUS as we await Marriage Equality's proverbial moment in the sun.  Here are 5 Reasons Why Today Is The Perfect Day for SCOTUS to Give Us Nationwide Marriage Equality just in case you did not already have a list of your own. 

As long as we are talking Marriage Equality, Texas remains a hot bed of controversy on the subject.  The powers that be in the legislature in recent weeks have been up in arms over the matter with 62% of the State Reps signing onto a letter opposing Marriage Equality while 68% of the State Senators passed a non binding resolution opposing Marriage Equality.  The University of Texas and The Texas Tribune have released a recent poll with some encouraging if somewhat surprising results.  The poll found that for the first time more Texans favor Marriage Equality than oppose it 44% to 41% with 14% undecided.  THAT is not something I thought I would ever see in my lifetime.  Meanwhile Governor Fuckhead's Attorney General Ken 'Lapdog' Paxton has issued this statement to the county clerks regarding the matter:

Paxton, a Republican who opposes gay marriage, suggested they stand pat until hearing from his office.“Whatever the ruling, I would recommend that all county clerks and justices of the peace wait for direction and clarity from this office about the meaning of the court’s opinion and the rights of Texans under the law,” Paxton said in a statement.

Lapdog also said he would do anything necessary to derail the rights of LGBT Texans to Marriage Equality.  Too bad the powers that be have no clue that what the people actually want, they are too full of their own agenda to do anything remotely favorable to anyone other than themselves.

Under "more pleasant things on my radar to think about", we have some beautiful Music on tap for you today as always.  However today we have concert footage of Wednesday night's opening of the 2015 International Chamber Music Festival Utrecht featuring Janine Jansen and friends in their 12th annual gathering.  The concert was recorded live at the new TivoliVrendenburg Concert Center in Utrecht, Netherlands.  Down below you will find Janine and friends performing Franz Schubert's Octect in F Major.  Joining Janine on stage at various points in the concert are Boris Brovtsyn, Amihai Grosz, Gregory AHSS, Nimrod Guez, Nicolas Alstaedt, Julian Steckel, Rick Stotijn, Adam Walker, Ramón Ortega Quero, Andres Ottensamer Fredrik Ekdahl, Radek Baborák and Denis Kozhukhin.  Over on my tumblr, joine Janine and friends for their performance Antonin Dvořák's Piano Quartet in E Flat Major. 

Finally for Friday, what else could be on my mind except for some supremely sexy studs with with to titillate both you and I.  You will find some kindling and lots of solid wood in this week's edition of Fantasy Fuel posted down below which also includes some sultry Men in Jeans to make up for yesterday.  Let us not forget to check out the Hottie of the Day! over on my tumblr either, as this one is chock full of 'Smoldering Saxx'.  Thanks for the visit, stayed tun for tomorrow's Saturday Matinee.  Until next time as always, Enjoy!

Diablo III

From the time I have known him, Will has incessantly raved about the much anticipated release of the third installment in the Diablo series, Diablo III, from Blizzard Entertainment.  Today is the release date for this dungeon crawling masterpiece of gaming.  It is Will's birthday on Thursday so I figured what better gift to give him than the game he has longed and lusted for the last 4 years.  He actually squealed with delight when he got on to the server at 2 AM this morning.  The waiting over, almost everyone with either an online or physical copy of the new game began trying to login to www.Battle.net to activate their copy.  The the rush of players attempting to activate their copies online caused servers to slow down, and subsequent error messages to prevent them logging in to play.  The problem became so bad last night that the error message players were being served started trending on Twitter.  "Please note that due to a high volume of traffic, login and character creation may be slower than normal," Blizzard said in a statement. "If you're unable to login to the game or create characters, please wait and try again. We've temporarily taken our Battle.net websites offline and launched more servers to accommodate for the traffic. We hope to resolve these issues as soon as possible and appreciate your patience."  Luckily Will did not have a problem getting on and he played until about 4:30 when he went to bed.  I think I definitely hit the hot spot when I selected his gift, albeit received two days early.  Happy Early Birthday, Will.  

For all you non-gamers out there, this is only Tuesday and of no real significance except it is another day to cherish being alive.  I am happy that Will is delirious with delight although I will probably get tired of hearing about it daily for the next 6 months (or more, lol)!  However to celebrate the day for the rest of us, I have a great video from the Janine Jansen International Chamber Music Festival 2011 in Utrecht, the Netherlands.  The marvelous live performance of the Piano Quartet Number 2, Opus 26 by Johannes Brahms is by Pianist Itamar Golan, Violinist Boris Brovtsyn, Violist Maxim Rysanov and Cellist Torleif Thedeen.  I think you will like it as much as I do.  As this is Tuesday, I have a simmering selection of sultry Sexy Studs in Swimwear on display after the video as they cavort about the beaches, pools and runways of the world.  Have a fabulous day and come back again tomorrow. Until next time as always, Enjoy!