Kanella: A Journey through Cyprus, Peter Rose (NOT the ball player), A Passion For Music

A Passion For Music
Produced by: Karen Smyles

The Philadelphia Youth Orchestra is the tri-state region’s premier youth orchestra organization for gifted, young, classical musicians, and one of the oldest and most highly regarded youth orchestra organiza­tions in the United States. For 77 years, the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra organization has been providing professional-caliber musical experiences to young instrumental­ists, while thrilling discriminating audiences in the Greater Philadelphia region and across the globe.
The organization has six programs: Philadelphia Youth Orchestra (PYO), Philadelphia Young Artists Orchestra (PYAO), Philadelphia Young Musicians Orchestra (PYMO), Bravo Brass, Philadelphia Region Youth String Music (PRYSM), and Tune Up Philly, an El Sistema inspired program.
Ranging in age from 6 to 21 years, the musicians of the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra organization are selected by competitive audition and come from a 70-plus-mile radius of Philadelphia encompassing nearly 20 counties within Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. Through advanced orchestra repertoire, students are challenged to perform at pro­fessional levels, to strive for advanced musi­cianship, and to achieve superior technical, musical, and personal application.
Friday Arts sits down with Louis Scaglione, President and Music Director, at The Kimmel Center for a behind the scenes look at why this program has been so successful. We talk with conductors from all divisions and meet a few young rising stars in the music world.

Peter Rose (NOT the ball player)
Produced by: Michael O’Reilly

Peter Rose is an internationally-recognized and critically-acclaimed experimental media artist (not Pete Rose, former member of the Philadelphia Phillies). He’s also something of a badass, which is not something you often hear associated with “experimental media artists”. Growing up near where the East River meets the Long Island Sound in New York, Rose often found himself outdoors. And quite near to the new Throgs Neck Bridge going up seemingly within reach of Rose’s boyhood home. Rose climbed that bridge without permission, the first of many unpermitted climbs of the bridges of New York. When we went out shooting with him in the woods below his house, he was easily the most limber of the entire crew, from a soon to be retiring cameraman to the intern along to help out. Clambering up hills and across streams, he left all of us in the dust.

That kind of upbringing does not seem like it would lend itself to work that explores heady conceptual video, new ways of seeing and hopefully “looking through time”. Rose was trained as a mathematician until he found the moving image. Here was a way, Rose thought, to be able to see the beginning, middle and end of something all at the same time. FRIDAY ARTS visits the gallery where a wide range of fascinating works Rose has created using the moving image has been installed. In the gallery show we get little sense of the bridge climbing extreme athlete, but rather we experience the extreme bending, warping and shaping of our “way of seeing”. We leave that gallery with the sense that we are in the presence of multiple viewpoints, and it is only up to us to decide which appeals to us most, and walk through it. Peter Rose has created the doors to these many faceted viewpoints and left them all open.

Kanella: A Journey through Cyprus
Produced by: Monica Rogozinski

Chef Konstantinos Pitsillides came to the US, landing in Philadelphia, after living and working his way up as a chef in London for 15 years. His mission here was to put Cypriot Cuisine in the map. In 2008, after being nicknamed by Craig LaBan from The Philadelphian Inquirer as “The Cinnamon Man” he opened his first “Kanella” (Cinnamon in Greek) at 10th and Spruce Street. After earning a three-bell review from the famed food critic and gaining lots of devoted customers, he moved Kanella to Front Street with his partner Caroline on a beautiful “Delaware Front” space, filled with light and subtle references to his hometown. There, he promotes the Mediterranean-style of living with fresh ingredients cooked on the open fire grill, and lots of aromatics that help transport the customer to the island of Cyprus.

Chef Konstantinos and Caroline share with Friday Arts their memories and knowledge of this ancient culture and help us understand and appreciate the flavors of Kanella and it’s connection to the many cultural influences that make up Cypriot cuisine.

 

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