In 1936 he became conductor of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. He stayed with this orchestra until 1952. He made this orchestra internationally famous. In 1942 he became an American citizen. In the 1950s he often conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Monteux continued to conduct until shortly before his death at the age of 89. In 1961 he was appointed chief conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra for 25 years, although he did not live long enough to fulfil this. He conducted this orchestra in 1963 in a performance of the "Rite of Spring", fifty years after he had conducted the first performance.
Monteux always prepared his work very carefully. He was not a conductor who liked to show off. He rehearsed his orchestras thoroughly, and conducted with small gestures. Although he made gramophone recordings, he did not like recordings. He preferred concerts with a live audience. He received many honours, including the Légion d’honneur and the Knight of the Order of Oranje Nassau.
Milhaud
Milhaud is a commune in the Gard department in France.
Willem Mengelberg
Willem Mengelberg (born Utrecht, 28 March 1871; died Zuort, Switzerland, 22 March 1951) was a Dutch conductor. He is famous for conducting the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam for fifty years, making them one of the world’s finest orchestras.
Willem Mengelberg studied music in Utrecht, Netherlands and at Cologne Conservatory. He had four years of experience conducting an orchestra in Lucerne. Then, in 1895, he was given the job which was to last him the rest of his working life: conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra. He took over this job from Willem Kes who had started the orchestra five years earlier. At Kes’s farewell concert on 25 October 1895 Mengelberg performed as solo pianist.
Mengelberg soon made it into a great orchestra. He was particularly good at conducting the music of Richard Strauss and Mahler. He took the orchestra on tours to many countries, including Norway, Belgium, France, Germany, England and Switzerland. He celebrated his 25th year of conductor of the orchestra by performing all the orchestral works of Mahler.
He also conducted other orchestras abroad, including the Royal Philharmonic Society in London and, in the 1920s, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
Mengelberg also conducted other groups in the Netherlands, including Maatschappij Caecilia and the Amsterdam Toonkunst Choir.
Mengelberg worked hard to get good discipline in his orchestra. He worked to introduce his audiences to good music and to make them listen quietly to the music. He did a lot to help the musicians get better working conditions and he conducted a lot of music by Dutch composers, helping them to become better known.
During World War II he accepted invitations by the Nazis to conduct in Germany. After the war people in Holland were very cross that he had done this, and he was forbidden to conduct in Holland for six years. He said that he had only conducted in Germany for the sake of the musicians.
Mengelberg was very sad and went to live in Switzerland. He died just before his six year ban would have come to an end.
Willem Kes
Willem Kes (16 February 1856 in Dordrecht - 22 February 1934 in Munich) was a Dutch conductor. He was the first conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra (now called the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra).
Kes learned the violin, studying with the famous Joseph Joachim in Berlin. From 1876 he started his career as a conductor. When the Concertgebouw Orchestra was started in Amsterdam in 1888 Kes was its conductor. He made it into a good orchestra. He had this job until 1895 when Willem Mengelberg took over. Kes went to Glasgow to conduct the Scottish Orchestra. In 1898 he took a conducting job in Moscow. From 1905 to 1926, Kes was director of a music conservatory (college) in Koblenz. He also worked in Dresden.
Cathay Dragon
Cathay Dragon, known as Dragonair before, was an airline based in Hong Kong International Airport. It had a fleet of 46 airplanes, including Airbus A320s, A321s and A330s. It flew to 44 destinations in China and Asia. It was named the "World’s Best Regional Airline" by Skytrax World Airline Awards four times. On 21 October 2020, Cathay Pacific announced to stop the operation of Cathay Dragon due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hong Kong International Airport
Hong Kong International Airport (IATA airport code: HKG; ICAO airport code: VHHH), also known as Chek Lap Kok Airport is the airport of Hong Kong that was built at Chek Lap Kok on Lantau Island. It opened in 1998. It is one of the leading airports in the world, and has won "World Airport of the Year" from Skytrax for 7 times in 10 years. It is the hub for Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong Airlines, Hong Kong Express and Air Hong Kong. It is the third busiest airport in terms of international passenger traffic in the world, and the busiest in the world in terms of cargo traffic.
The airport has an advanced highway and railway system linking it to the city centre of Hong Kong. The building project was one of the largest in the world, and featured in Discovery Channel's "Ten Greatest Modern Projects of the World". It was designed by the famous architect, Norman Foster. The aim of the airport was to increase traffic and capacity which the old Kai Tak Airport could not handle. It remains one of the best airport in the world, along with Singapore's Changi Airport and Seoul's Incheon International Airport.
Parasympathetic nervous system
The parasympathetic nervous system (PNS or PSNS) is part of the autonomic nervous system. It does the opposite things of the sympathetic nervous system, the other part of the autonomic nervous system. This way, the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems balance each other's effects. The sympathetic nervous system helps a person "fight or flight" when they are in danger. When the danger is gone, the parasympathetic nervous system lets the person "rest and digest," "feed and breed."
The parasympathetic nervous system has many different effects. It affects every part of the body, including:
Because of these effects, the parasympathetic nervous system always has to balance with the sympathetic nervous system. For example, if only the parasympathetic nervous system was working, a person's heart rate and breathing would keep getting lower and lower. Eventually the person would stop breathing or their heart would stop beating.
However, in a healthy person, the brain realizes when the parasympathetic nervous system's effects are getting too strong. For example, the brain may realize that the person is breathing too slowly, or that their heart rate is too low. The brain reacts by making the sympathetic nervous system kick in. Because the sympathetic nervous system has the opposite effects, it will make the person breathe faster and raise their heart rate. These two systems have to balance each other constantly for a person to stay healthy.
The parasympathetic nervous system is controlled mostly by the vagus nerve. This is an important nerve that comes from the brain and goes all the way down to the bottom of the spinal cord. The vagus nerve sends out chemical messengers called neurotransmitters - mostly one called acetylcholine. This chemical causes changes in many different parts of the body.
Heart rate
Heart rate (HR) is how many times a heart beats per minute (bpm). The average bpm for a man or women who does not exercise is 70 bpm. Heart rate varies between people because of fitness, age and genetics.
Vasoactive intestinal peptide
Vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP, also polypeptide) is a kind of hormone that has 28 amino acid residues in it and is made in many areas of the human body including the gut, pancreas, and suprachiasmatic nuclei (which is a small part of the brain's midline) of the hypothalamus in the brain. In humans, the vasoactive intestinal peptide is encoded, or transforming information from one format into another, by the VIP gene.