Succes 2013: Mircea Vintilă, celebru interpret român de muzică folk

Mircea Vintilă este un interpret român de muzică folk, cu o activitate discografică și concertistică bogată. Cântecele sale debordează de melodicitate și o atenție deosebită acordată "vorbelor". De la „Lordul John” la „Dramă de cartier”, fanii au savurat o listă întreagă de adevărate hituri.

Vintilă s-a născut pe 23 martie 1949 la București și a fost interesat de muzică din copilărie. A urmat Școala de Muzică (clasa violă). A terminat „Liceul Lazăr” și apoi a absolvit Institutul de Construcții în anul 1974. A cântat alături de alți prestigioși artiști (Mircea Florian, Marcela Saftiuc, Doru Stănculescu) la primul festival studențesc de folk din anul 1971, la clubul „303” al Politehnicii bucureștene, apoi la clubul „Universitas”, la „Casa de Cultură a Studenților” și în Cenaclul Flacăra. La a doua ediție a Festivalului "Primăvara baladelor" câștiga „Marele Premiu” cu piesa "Lordul John". Cu piesa "Bade Ioane" câștigă premiul „Teletop” al Televiziunii Române, iar cu piesa "Făt Frumos" caștigă premiul Uniunii Compozitorilor și Muzicologilor din România.
A editat primul disc single, Pământul deocamdată – Mielul, în anul 1974. În 1975 lansează un alt disc single, Hanul lui Manuc – Bade Ioane. Urmează primul LP de mare succes in 1976, intitulat Crezul meu, o parte din piese fiind orchestrate de Dan Andrei Aldea.

În 1982 urmează un alt LP Peripeții noi și apoi, în 1986, un alt album, intitulat Mircea Vintilă. (Titlul original era Se retrage la Vatra Luminoasă, dar nu a fost acceptat.) În perioada 1978-1984 au fost editate două compilații folk pe care apare în total cu patru piese. În 1990 primește Marele Premiu pentru întreaga Activitate în cadrul Festivalului Național de Muzică Folk "Om bun". Urmează o serie de turnee in Austria, Franța, Germania, Rusia și Slovacia. Susține spectacolul "Față în față cu lumea" la Teatrul „Bulandra”, alături de Florian Pittiș, cu care în anul 1992 editează albumul Nu trântiți ușa. La acest album colaborează pentru prima dată cu Mircea Baniciu și Vlady Cnejevici, care s-au implicat ca orchestratori în realizarea materialului.
În 1992 fondează împreună cu Mircea Baniciu, Florian Pittiș și Vlady Cnejevici grupul Pasărea Colibri, desfășurînd o prestigioasă activitate discografică și de turneu în țară și străinătate (SUA, Canada, Germania).

În octombrie 2000, Mircea Vintilă lansează sub marca Roton albumul “Madama de pică”, primul proiect solo după o perioadă în care a activat mai mult împreună cu Pasărea Colibri. Albumul include doar piese noi, cu un sound remarcabil, la care și-au adus contribuția artiști de marcă: Mugurel Vrabete, în calitate de producător executiv, Horia Stoicanu - co-autor, Gheorghe Emanuel - programare și claviaturi, Relu Bitulescu - percuție, Eugen Caminschi - chitară, Marius Bațu - chitară acustică și backing vocal, Mugurel Vrabete - bass. Primul single extras, "Noros Cecer", beneficiază de un superb videoclip. „Madama de pică” a fost declarat "cel mai bun album folk al anului 2000", iar videoclipul piesei „Noros Cecer” a luat premiul pentru "Cel mai bun videoclip al anului", decernat de Uniunea Artiștilor Profesioniști din Televiziune.

Trei ani de pauză discografică au însemnat destule schimbări. În primul rând - despărțirea, în vara anului 2003 - de „Pasărea Colibri”, alături de care a mai lansat în acest interval două LP-uri - „Încă 2000 De Ani” (2001) și „10 Ani” (2003) -, ambele la Roton. În plus, Vintilă a semnat un contract cu o nouă casă de discuri, părăsind Roton-ul pentru Intercont Music. O altă noutate o reprezintă Trupa “Brambura”, care îl acompaniază pe muzician in concerte, dar și pe noul material. Grupul este compus din instrumentiști de valoare: Eugen Caminschi (chitară), Gelu Ionescu (claviaturi), Vadim Tichișan (tobe), Cătălin Crețeanu (bas), Elena Pavel și Andrada Popa (backing vocal).

În albumul Toți într-o Barcă, Mircea Vintilă continuă colaborarea cu Horia Stoicanu, alături de care a înființat în anul 2000, după spusele sale, un „comando muzical” prin care cei doi au dorit să „debarce în forță pe plaja de manele”. Ca urmare, dintre cele 10 piese care fac parte din acest disc, cinci sunt creditate tandemului Vintilă - Stoicanu, iar încă două sunt semnate individual de cei doi. Restul aparțin lui Eugen Caminschi și lui Iulian Vrabete.
În general, este un album mai mult îndreptat spre pop-rock ca de obicei; Toți într-o barcă surprinde prin prospețimea pieselor și prezentarea acestora.

Pe 14 decembrie 2005, Mircea Vintilă a lansat albumul Opere & operete, produs de Intercont Music și Fundația „Mircea Vintilă”, album ce conține 13 piese,

adevărate hituri lansate de solist de-a lungul anilor („Pământul deocamdată”, „Cu tine prin New-York”, „Miruna”, „Făt Frumos”, „Bade Ioane” etc.), și o piesă nouă, inedită, care constituie o mare supriză, datorită accentelor ei hip-hop, „Dramă de cartier”.
Piesele mai vechi incluse în acest best of au fost rearanjate orchestral și aduse, ca sound, la standardele anului 2005.

Matti Ahtisaari, the tenth President of Finland. Nobel Peace Prize laureate and United Nations diplomat and mediator

Martti Oiva Kalevi Ahtisaari (born 23 June 1937) is a Finnish politician, the tenth President of Finland (1994–2000), Nobel Peace Prize laureate and United Nations diplomat and mediator, noted for his international peace work.

Ahtisaari was a UN Special Envoy at the Kosovo status process negotiations, aimed at resolving a long-running dispute in Kosovo, which declared its independence from Serbia in 2008. In October 2008, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for his efforts on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts" The Nobel statement said that Ahtisaari has played a prominent role in resolving many conflicts in Namibia, Indonesia, Kosovo and Iraq, among other areas.

Martti Ahtisaari was born in Viipuri, Finland (now Vyborg, Russia). His father, Oiva Ahtisaari (whose grandfather Julius Marenius Adolfsen had emigrated with his parents to Finland in 1872 from Tistedalen in southern Norway) took Finnish citizenship in 1929 and changed his surname from Adolfsen in 1937. The Continuation War (World War II) took Martti's father to the Eastern Front as an NCO army mechanic, while his mother, Tyyne, moved to Kuopio with her son to escape immediate danger from the war.[4] Kuopio was where Ahtisaari spent most of his childhood, eventually attending the Kuopion Lyseo high school.

In 1952, Martti Ahtisaari moved to Oulu with his family to seek employment. There he continued his education in a well-known high school "Oulun Lyseo" (among its former students are two other presidents of Finland: Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg and Kyösti Kallio), graduating in 1952. He also joined the local YMCA. After completing his military service (Ahtisaari holds the rank of captain in the Finnish Army Reserve), he began to study through a distance-learning course at Oulu teachers' college. He was able to live at home while attending the two-year course which enabled him to qualify as a primary-school teacher in 1959. Besides his native language, Finnish, Ahtisaari speaks Swedish, French, English, and German.

In 1960, he moved to Karachi, Pakistan, to lead the YMCA's physical education training establishment, where he became accustomed to a more international environment. In addition to managing the students' home, Ahtisaari's job involved training teachers. He returned to Finland in 1963, and became active in non-governmental organizations responsible for aid to developing countries. He joined the international students' organization AIESEC, where he discovered new passions about diversity and diplomacy. In 1965, he joined the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland in its Bureau for International Development Aid, eventually becoming the assistant head of the department. In 1968, he married Eeva Irmeli Hyvärinen (1936–). The couple has one son, Marko Ahtisaari, a noted musician and producer.

Ahtisaari's presidential campaign in Finland began when he was still a member of the council dealing with Bosnia. Finland's ongoing recession caused established political figures to lose public support, and the presidential elections were now direct, instead of being conducted through an electoral college. In 1993, Ahtisaari accepted the candidacy of the Social Democratic Party. His politically untarnished image was a major factor in the election, as was his vision of Finland as an active participant in international affairs.

Ahtisaari narrowly won over his second round opponent, Elisabeth Rehn of the Swedish People's Party. During the campaign, there were rumours spread by some political opponents of Ahtisaari that he had a drinking problem or that he had knowingly accepted a double salary from the Finnish Foreign Ministry and from the United Nations while trying to negotiate an end to the Bosnian War. Ahtisaari denied both allegations and no firm proof of them has emerged. During the three-week campaign between the two rounds of presidential elections, Ahtisaari was praised by his supporters for being more compassionate towards the many unemployed Finns than Rehn, who as Defence Minister had to officially support the Aho government's strict economic policies. A minor scandal arose during a town hall-style presidential debate in Lappeenranta, southeastern Finland, when an apparently born-again Christian woman in the audience asked Rehn what her relationship with Jesus was. Rehn replied that she had personally no proof that Jesus had been a historical person. Ahtisaari ducked a precise answer by stating that he trusted the Lutheran confession even on this issue.

His term as president began with a schism within the Centre Party government led by prime minister Esko Aho, who did not approve of Ahtisaari's being actively involved in foreign policy. There was also some controversy over Ahtisaari's speaking out on domestic issues such as unemployment. He travelled extensively in Finland and abroad, and was nicknamed "Matka-Mara" ("Travel-Mara," Mara being a common diminutive form of Martti). His monthly travels throughout the country and his meetings with ordinary citizens (the so-called maakuntamatkat or "provincial trips") nonetheless greatly enhanced his political popularity. Ahtisaari kept his campaign promise to visit one Finnish historical province every month during his presidency. He also donated some thousands of Finnish marks per month to the unemployed people's organizations, and a few thousand Finnish marks to the Christian social organization of the late lay preacher and social worker Veikko Hursti.

Ahtisaari favoured pluralism and religious tolerance publicly. Privately, he and his wife practice their Christian faith. Contrary to some of his predecessors and his successor as the Finnish President, Ahtisaari ended all of his New Year's speeches by wishing the Finnish people God's blessing.

In January 1998 Ahtisaari was criticized by some NGOs, politicians and notable cultural figures because he awarded medals of honour to the Forest Minister of Indonesia and to the main owner of the Indonesian RGM Company, a parent company of the April Company. The April Company was criticized by non-governmental organizations for destroying rain forests, and Indonesia itself was criticized heavily for human right violations, especially in East Timor. Ahtisaari's party chairman Erkki Tuomioja said that giving medals was questionable since he feared the act may tarnish the public image of Finnish human rights policy. Students of the arts had demonstrations in Helsinki against the decision to give medals.

President Ahtisaari supported Finland's entry into the European Union, and in a 1994 referendum, 57 percent of Finnish voters were in favour of EU membership. During Ahtisaari's term as president, Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton met in Helsinki. He also negotiated alongside Viktor Chernomyrdin with Slobodan Milošević to end the fighting in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo in 1999.

Often encountering resistance from the Finnish parliament, which preferred a more cautious foreign policy, as well as from within his own party, Ahtisaari did not seek re-election in 2000. He wanted the Social Democrats to re-nominate him for the presidency without opposition, but two opponents signed up for the party's presidential primary. Ahtisaari was the last "strong president", since the 2000 constitution slightly reduced the president's powers. He was succeeded by the foreign minister Tarja Halonen.

Vint Cerf, father of the Internet

Vinton Gray "Vint" Cerf is an American computer scientist, who is recognized as one of "the fathers of the Internet", sharing this title with American computer scientist Bob Kahn. His contributions have been acknowledged and lauded, repeatedly, with honorary degrees, and awards that include the National Medal of Technology, the Turing Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and membership in the National Academy of Engineering.

In the early days, Cerf was a program manager for the United States Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funding various groups to develop TCP/IP technology. When the Internet began to transition to a commercial opportunity during the late 1980s,[citation needed] Cerf moved to MCI where he was instrumental in the development of the first commercial email system (MCI Mail) connected to the Internet.

Vinton Cerf was instrumental in the funding and formation of ICANN from the start. Cerf waited in the wings for a year before he stepped forward to join the ICANN Board. Eventually he became the Chairman of ICANN.

Cerf has worked for Google as its Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist since September 2005. In this function he has become well known for his predictions on how technology will affect future society, encompassing such areas as artificial intelligence, environmentalism, the advent of IPv6 and the transformation of the television industry and its delivery model.

Cerf also went to the same high school as Jon Postel and Steve Crocker; he wrote the former's obituary. Both were also instrumental in the creation of the Internet as we know it (see articles).

Since 2010, Cerf has served as a Commissioner for the Broadband Commission for Digital Development, a UN body which aims to make broadband internet technologies more widely available.

Cerf was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of Muriel (née Gray), a homemaker, and Vinton Thurston Cerf, an aerospace executive. Cerf's first job after obtaining his B.S. degree in Mathematics from Stanford University was at IBM, where he worked for less than two years as a systems engineer supporting QUIKTRAN. He left IBM to attend graduate school at UCLA where he earned his M.S. degree in 1970 and his Ph.D. degree in 1972. During his graduate student years, he studied under Professor Gerald Estrin, worked in Professor Leonard Kleinrock's data packet networking group that connected the first two nodes of the ARPANet, the predecessor to the Internet, and "contributed to a host-to-host protocol" for the ARPANet. While at UCLA, he also met Robert E. Kahn, who was working on the ARPANet hardware architecture. After receiving his doctorate, Cerf became an assistant professor at Stanford University from 1972–1976, where he conducted research on packet network interconnection protocols and co-designed the DoD TCP/IP protocol suite with Kahn.

Cerf then moved to DARPA in 1976, where he stayed until 1982.

As vice president of MCI Digital Information Services from 1982–1986, Cerf led the engineering of MCI Mail, the first commercial email service to be connected to the Internet. Cerf rejoined MCI during 1994 and served as Senior Vice President of Technology Strategy. In this role, he helped to guide corporate strategy development from a technical perspective. Previously, he served as MCI's senior vice president of Architecture and Technology, leading a team of architects and engineers to design advanced networking frameworks, including Internet-based solutions for delivering a combination of data, information, voice and video services for business and consumer use.

During 1997, Cerf joined the Board of Trustees of Gallaudet University, a university for the education of the deaf and hard-of-hearing. Cerf is hard of hearing.

Cerf joined the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in 1999, and served until the end of 2007.

Cerf is a member of the Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov's IT Advisory Council, a group created by Presidential Decree on March 8, 2002. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of Eurasia Group, the political risk consultancy.

Cerf is also working on the Interplanetary Internet, together with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It will be a new standard to communicate from planet to planet, using radio/laser communications that are tolerant of signal degradation.

During February 2006, Cerf testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation's Hearing on “Network Neutrality”. Speaking as Google's Chief Internet Evangelist, Cerf blamed the anticompetitive intentions and practices of telecommunications conglomerates like Comcast and Verizon for the fact that nearly half of all consumers lack meaningful choice in broadband providers.Google made a bid in 2006 to offer free wireless broadband access throughout the city of San Francisco in conjunction with Internet service provider Earthlink, Inc.Vertically-integrated telecommunications incumbents like Comcast and Verizon opposed such efforts on the part of Silicon Valley firms like Google and Intel (which promotes the WiMax standard) as undermining their revenue in a form of "unfair competition" whereby cities would violate their commitments to offer local monopolies to telecommunications conglomerates. Google currently offers free wi-fi access in its hometown of Mountain View, California.

Cerf currently serves on the board of advisors of Scientists and Engineers for America, an organization focused on promoting sound science in American government. He also serves on the advisory council of CRDF Global.
Cerf is on the board of trustees of ARIN, the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) of IP addresses for United States, Canada, and part of the Caribbean.

Cerf is on the board of directors of StopBadware, a non-profit anti-malware organization that Google has supported since its inception as a project at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

Cerf is on the board of advisors of The Hyperwords Company Ltd of the UK, which works to make the web more usefully interactive and which has produced the free Firefox Add-On called 'Hyperwords'.

During 2008 Cerf chaired the IDNAbis working group of the IETF.

Cerf was a major contender to be designated the nation's first Chief Technology Officer by President Barack Obama.

Cerf is the co-chair of Campus Party Silicon Valley, the US edition of one of the largest technology festivals in the world, along with Al Gore and Tim Berners-Lee.

Success 2013: Kurt Elling, American jazz vocalist, composer, lyricist and vocalese performer. He has been nominated for ten Grammy Awards, winning Best Vocal Jazz Album for Dedicated to You (2009)

Kurt Elling (born November 2, 1967) is an American jazz vocalist, composer, lyricist and vocalese performer. Born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Rockford, Elling first became interested in music through his father, who was Kapellmeister at a Lutheran church. Growing up, Elling sang in choirs and played various musical instruments, but was not exposed to jazz until he attended Gustavus Adolphus College. Elling enrolled in graduate school at the University of Chicago Divinity School, but left school one credit short of a master's degree to pursue a career as a jazz vocalist.
Elling began to perform around Chicago, scat singing and improvising his own lyrics. He recorded a demo in the early 1990s and was signed by Blue Note Records, releasing a total of six albums with the label. He has been nominated for ten Grammy Awards, winning Best Vocal Jazz Album for Dedicated to You (2009) on the Concord Jazz label. Elling often leads the Down Beat critics poll, and he was awarded the Prix Billie Holiday from the Académie du Jazz. Since 1995, Elling has collaborated with pianist, composer, and arranger Laurence Hobgood, leading a quartet that regularly tours the world.

While living in Chicago in 1995, Elling decided he was ready to record. He had met pianist Laurence Hobgood through Ed Petersen, who played the Green Mill on Monday nights. Elling convinced Hobgood that he was ready to go into the studio, and they came out with nine solid songs. Following the advice of pianist Fred Simon, the cassette recording was sent to Bill Traut, a manager in Los Angeles, who eventually gave it to Bruce Lundvall of Blue Note Records. 

Blue Note (1995–2005)

Two months later, Elling was signed to Blue Note, and the songs on the demo became the Grammy nominated label debut, Close your Eyes (1995). The album features Edward Petersen and Von Freeman on tenor saxophone, Dave Onderdonk on guitar, Laurence Hobgood on piano, Eric Hochberg and Rob Amster on acoustic bass, and Paul Wertico on drums.
Close Your Eyes was followed several years later by The Messenger (1997), with Elling releasing a total of six albums for the Blue Note label.
In 1999, Elling became a National Trustee for the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, and in 2003, he was elected Vice Chair and served two terms. 

Concord (2006–present)

In 2006, Elling performed on the television program Legends of Jazz, in the episode "The Jazz Singers". Elling sang "She's Funny That Way" and performed a duet with Al Jarreau on "Take Five". The recording was released on CD and DVD. In August of the same year, Elling signed a new record contract with Concord Jazz, and his first album with the label, Nightmoves, was released in 2007.
The follow-up, Dedicated to You: Kurt Elling Sings the Music of Coltrane and Hartman (2009), is a tribute to the 1963 recording John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, widely recognized as one of the all-time finest jazz vocal albums. The album arose out of a 2005 concert commissioned by the Chicago Jazz Festival, showcasing the Coltrane-Hartman material. Later, Elling and pianist Laurence Hobgood rearranged the music, culminating in a performance in the Allen Room at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York. The concert was recorded in January 2009 and the album was released in June.
Elling is a baritone with a four-octave range, and a writer and performer of vocalese, the art of writing and performing words over improvised jazz solos. In 2007 and 2012, Circumstantial Productions published two editions of Lyrics: Kurt Elling, collections of Elling's vocalese lyrics, edited by Richard Connolly. 

Collaborators

Elling has performed and recorded with David Amram, Bob Belden, Joanne Brackeen, Oscar Brown, Jr., Billy Corgan, Orbert Davis, George Freeman, Buddy Guy, Jon Hendricks, Charlie Hunter, Randy Bachman, Bob Mintzer, Rex Richardson, and Bob Sheppard.
As of 2012, Elling's band included musical director Laurence Hobgood on piano, John McLean on guitar, Clark Sommers on bass, and drummer Kendrick Scott.

Marius Copil, Romanian tennis player

Marius Copil (born October 17, 1990) is a Romanian tennis player playing on the ATP Challenger Tour and a member of the Romanian Davis Cup team.

Career highlights

2009

In September 2009 he received wild card access to the main draw of 2009 BCR Open Romania, where he defeated his fellow countryman Victor Crivoi in the first round, but he lost to Spaniard Rubén Ramírez Hidalgo in the second round.

2010

In May 2010, Marius reached his first ATP Challenger Tour final at the Trofeo Paolo Corazzi as a qualifier. On his route to the final he won in three sets against Australian Bernard Tomic in the semifinals but eventually lost the final to German Denis Gremelmayr.

2011

The year 2011 started very good for Marius. He reached his second Challenger final at the Tretorn Serie+ event in Kazan, Russia. In the final, he won against 4th seeded German, Andreas Beck, in straight sets.

2012

Copil beat World No. 13 Marin Čilić in the first round at the China Open in Beijing. 

ATP Challenger Tour finals

Singles: 4 (2–2)

Success 2013: Adrian Ungur, Romanian tennis player

Adrian Ungur (born January 25, 1985) is a Romanian tennis player who mainly competes on the ATP Challenger Tour. He is a member of the Romania Davis Cup Team and is coached by Fabrizio Fanucci. In June 2012, Ungur reached his career-high ATP singles ranking of World No. 79. His most notable result was a four set victory over David Nalbandian in the first round of the 2012 French Open.

Following some good results in Challenger events, Adrian was entered into the main draw at the 2012 French Open, his first main draw appearance at Grand Slam level. He beat former world number three David Nalbandian in the first round, before being defeated in four sets by Roger Federer in the second round – although he saved two match points in winning the third set.

Adrian Ungur is a Romanian tennis player who mainly competes on the ATP Challenger Tour. He is a member of the Romania Davis Cup Team and is coached by Fabrizio Fanucci.

Born: January 25, 1985 (age 28), Pitești

Height: 1.78 m

Weight: 73 kg

Turned pro: 2003

Spouse: Liana Ungur

Success 2013: Victor Crivoi, Romanian tennis player

Victor Crivoi (born May 25, 1982) is a Romanian tennis player who lives in Bucharest. In 2005, he played in the International Tennis Federation's Professional Circuit and won seven titles.


As a result, he was named the ITF's "Player Of The Year" for 2005. At the end of 2005, he was ranked #269 by the ATP, up from #488 at the year's start. His career high ranking is #75, achieved on August 17, 2009.

In the 2009 Internazionali BNL d'Italia, as a qualifier, he beat 14th seed James Blake 7-5, 6-3 in the first round; he then lost to Robin Söderling.

He qualified for the 2009 French Open. He lost to Gaël Monfils in the second round.

Born: May 25, 1982 (age 31), Romania

Height: 1.85 m

Weight: 75 kg

Turned pro: 2003