Word: derek
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Three hours to go before the evening's performance and something isn't right. Sitting at a grand piano in St. George's concert hall in Bristol, England, on May 12, Derek Paravicini tears through a rehearsal of The Flight of the Bumblebee, his fingers skittering across the piano keys. The musicians in the Emerald Ensemble orchestra feed off his energy and manage to keep up the pace, but it all sounds a bit off. After several stops and starts, the conductor discovers the problem: the orchestra and the star have been practicing different versions of the same piece...
...Most people, when they hear a piece of music, can pick up the tune and some sense of accompaniment," says Ockelford, a music psychologist and director at the Royal National Institute of the Blind in London. "But for them, it's just a blend of sounds. For Derek, it's all separate - like being able to hear six conversations at once, in six different languages, and understand them all." Paravicini, who lives in a boarding school for the blind where he receives round-the-clock care, is one of a handful of recognized savants, unable to carry out the most...
...asking: "What would you like me to play?" and "Did you enjoy that piece?" Music is the only language he's fluent in, and jazz, with the freedom it gives him to improvise, helps him tap into a much wider range of emotions than words can provide him. "Derek communicates a lot through his music," says Ockelford. "It tends to be high-energy, ecstatic communication, but you can often tell how he's feeling from the way he plays. He could always play music expressively because he's heard people play expressively and he could copy them...
...year. Paravicini, who is related through marriage to Prince Charles' wife Camilla Parker-Bowles, was only 5 years old when he and Ockelford first met. Ockelford was giving a piano lesson to a girl at a school for the blind when Paravicini's parents were showing their son around. "Derek just shoved her out of the way and took over," Ockelford says. "He had lots of energy, so there were thousands of notes all over the place. I thought it was just clutter. Then I suddenly noticed that in the middle of all the chaos was actually...
...highest-paid employees. That means Summers’ earnings in the future will not be disclosed unless his total compensation places him in the top five. Summers’ deputy, Provost Steven E. Hyman, received an 8.3 percent raise last year, bringing his salary to $420,000. Interim President Derek C. Bok has declined to take a salary during his one-year term. “The influence of money is already too strong on many campuses,” Bok wrote in a 2002 essay.Summers’ severance pay has been the subject of much speculation...