Music in France: Three American rising stars

Three of the rising American stars of music in France are female. They offer three different styles all inspiring and uplifting. They are all performing in the Paris area this November.

Karina Canellakis

Born in 1981 in New York City in a family of musicians, Karina Canellakis studied at the Julliard School and made a name for herself as a violinist. While at the Berlin Philharmonic Academy, Simon Rattle noticed her interest in conducting and encouraged her to continue in this direction. She worked with the Chicago Orchestra, then won the 2016 Georg Solti Prize while an assistant with the Dallas Orchestra. She was subsequently invited to conduct many prestigious orchestras in North America, Europe and Australia. Her performances and positions are frequently "first female" accomplishments in the world of conducting dominated by men. In November she is in Paris at the Theatre des Champs-Elysées, Karina Canellakis where she will be conducting the Orchestre N…

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  • 28 octobre 2021
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Magic at the Gallery of Compared Anatomy

Magic at the Gallery of Compared Anatomy For the writer Paul Claudel, The Gallery of Compared Anatomy was "rien de moins que [le] plus beau musée de Paris […]. À chacun de mes passages en France, je reviens visiter cette galerie sublime avec un sentiment de vénération religieuse, qui chaque fois, me donne envie d’enlever non seulement mon chapeau mais aussi mes chaussures."  One of the most unusual museums you’ll see in Paris, the Gallery of Compared Anatomy and Paleontology, part of the Muséum first opened in 1898. They have an exceptional collection of skeletons (as well as organs) of all the terrestrial and marine creatures known to man, displayed as if they were marching all together towards the end of the earth. It is impressive all these bones in one place and it allows the comparison of sizes, forms and means of locomotion of these creatures. Look at a giraffe next to a horse, next to a cat and understand what they share and what makes them different. Upstairs is the p…
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  • 12 octobre 2021
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Hints and Tips for Running and Biking in Paris

Hints and Tips for Running and Biking in Paris (and an impassioned plea at the end)

It’s no coincidence that “endorphin,” the chemical produced by the brain during intensive, repetitive exercise like running, biking, rowing and swimming, seems to rhyme with “morphine” (an opiate pain reliever).  It is morphine, its name being a contraction of “endogenous” (i.e., manufactured “within,” or by, the body [en = “in” in French, for example]) and “morphine”--or other “-ine” drugs, such as codeine, etc. Endorphins are natural pain relivers, which is why we get a “runner’s or biker’s high.” This would be the case even if we were pounding the pavement or pushing the pedals in Lost Springs, Wyoming (as of the 2010 census, population: 4). Or Charleroi, Belgium (according to the BBC, the ugliest city in the world).

BUT WE ARE RUNNING AND BIKING IN PARIS! Need we say more?

Yes, we need. In order to keep safe and happy while all that home-grown d…

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  • 6 octobre 2021
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FUSAC in POP Culture

Over the years FUSAC has been mentioned in numerous guide books and magazines, two novels and seen in one film and one exhibition. Cinema

The film was Love Actually a 2003 romantic comedy written and directed by Richard Curtis. Mostly filmed on location in London, the screenplay follows different aspects of love as shown through ten separate stories. The story that shows FUSAC is between the cuckold writer Jamie (Colin Firth)  and Aurélia (Lúcia Moniz). Jamie withdraws to his French cottage, where he meets Portuguese housekeeper Aurélia, who does not speak English. Despite their inability to communicate, they are attracted to each other. When Jamie returns to England, he realises he is in love with Aurélia and begins learning Portuguese. He returns to France via the Marseille airport where he hops into a cab with a FUSAC in hand! He finds Aurélia working at a restaurant. In broken Portuguese he declares his love for her and proposes. She says ye…

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  • 26 septembre 2021
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Get Out of Town to Cergy-Pontoise and La Défense

The connection between Cergy-Pontoise and La Défense Sometimes getting out of town means just going to the suburbs. Here's two daytrips Cergy-Pontoise and La Défense, both just outside Paris to the west that are linked by monumental art, villes nouvelles construction and that you can see one from the other. L'Axe majeur at Cergy-Pontoise In the 1960s, faced with the fast development of Paris and its suburbs which lead to a housing crisis and people living in shantytowns, it was decided to control and balance the developement by creating several new cities around Paris. These were Évry, Cergy-Pontoise, Marne-la-Vallée, Sénart and Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. There were some smaller projects too like our town center in Villepreux. The site chosen for Cergy-Pontoise was selected for its interesting and unusual landscape which is around and above a meander in the Oise River. The town was created in an amphitheater around the curve of water. The horseshoe shape gave it a unique …
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  • 14 septembre 2021
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The Saints on the map of Paris

Whether you walk across Paris or look at the metro or street map, you often see places named after a Saint. Such familiar names as St Genevieve, St Denis, St Vincent de Paul etc... Have you ever wondered who were these saints on the map of Paris and what their history was? We did! Here is a bit of history on the Saints on the map of Paris.

Sainte Geneviève

Logically the patron saint of Paris, St. Geneviève, is the one you come across most often. Her statue by Paul Landowski graces the Pont de La Tournelle in the 4th district. There is also one in Jardin du Luxembourg. She is on the front of Notre Dame as well. The Catholic church is celebrating the 1600th anniversary of Genevieve this year. A relic, her index finger, and her sarcophagus is in a chapel dedicated to her in the church of St Etienne du Mont a church in the 5th arrondissement on the Montagne Sainte Geneviève where she lived and prayed.

She was born in Nanterre in about the …
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  • 5 septembre 2021
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Who was Christopher Oberkampf?

Oberkampf. You know the metro station, which was named for the street. The street was named for Christopher-Philip Oberkampf in 1864. But do you know who Oberkampf was and why there is a street named after him?

Christopher was a German Protestant immigrant to France in the 1700s under the Ancien Regime. He was a man who climbed the social and financial ladder by his own grit. He came from Germany and spoke only German when he arrived in Paris as a trained, but young, textile printer and dyer. He died a millionaire, head of an empire of 1300 workers and fashion trend-setter. The odds were against him, but his tenacity, creativity, technique, innovation, intuition and thick skin makes him one of the best immigration success stories in history. And that's why Paris has a street, metro and neighborhood named after him. But in fact though he did not live and work in Paris but in the nearby (now) suburb of Jouy-en-Josas. You probably know this town as the location …

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  • 25 août 2021
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