Waste was blind when she was born in 1534. Her parents were William and Joan Waste. William's job was to cut people's hair and make rope. By the age of twelve, Joan had learned to make ropes and clothes.
In 1553, Queen Mary came to the throne and it was made illegal to hold Protestant views. Mary condemned 277 people for not having the right sort of religion. This crime was called heresy.
Joan Waste was taken to court for breaking the law. The judge was a man employed by the bishop. She had to defend her views and was told she would die. She had not liked the fact that the church services were being read in the language of Latin. She was to die for being a Protestant and for refusing to agree with the Catholic Church. She bought a Bible in English, but the Catholic Church wanted them to only be in Latin. She asked friends to read to her for a penny.
On the day of her death she walked arm-in-arm with her twin brother to be burned.
Her death took place at the Windmill Pit on the Burton Road in Derby. She was hanged over the fire with a rope. She fell into the fire when the rope burned through. The judge was Antony Draycot. He went home to his meal.
The place where Joan Waste was killed is now the site of a church. When Elizabeth I of England became queen in 1559 she removed Ralph Baines from the job of Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. Baines was sent to be a prisoner of the Bishop of London. The judge was also sent to be a prisoner. He died after being released in 1571.
Vauxhall Gardens
Vauxhall Gardens /vɒks'ɔ:l/ was a pleasure garden, one of the leading places for public entertainment in London, England from the mid 17th century to the mid 19th century.
The site became Vauxhall Gardens in 1785 and money was charged to gain entry. In 1817, the Battle of Waterloo was re-played with 1,000 soldiers taking part. The park closed in 1859 and the land was sold to become buildings.
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Vladimir Ashkenazy (born 6 July 1937) is a Russian pianist and conductor. He became world famous as a pianist. During the last two decades he has become equally famous as a conductor, as well as performing and recording as a pianist.
Ashkenazy was born in Gorky, Russia. His father was an Ashkenazi Jew, his mother was Russian. Although his father was a pianist he never had lessons from him. He began playing the piano when he was six. He soon showed enormous talent and two years later went to the Central Music School in Gorki. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory. He won second prize in the International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1955 and the first prize in the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels in 1956. He shared the first prize in the 1962 International Tchaikovsky Competition with British pianist John Ogdon.
Vladimir Ashkenazy has had an extremely successful career as a pianist. He became famous for his playing of Romantic music and music by Russian composers. He recorded a very large amount of music including the 24 Preludes and Fugues of Dmitri Shostakovich, Alexander Scriabin's piano sonatas, Rachmaninoff's, Frédéric Chopin's and Robert Schumann's complete piano works, Beethoven's piano sonatas, and the piano concertos of Mozart (conducting from the keyboard with the Philharmonia Orchestra). He recorded concertos with many of the world's most famous orchestras. He still records and performs all over the world, often playing piano concertos and conducting from the piano keyboard.
In the late 1980s he started to become known as a conductor. He was principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from 1987 to 1994, and of the Czech Philharmonic from 1998 to 2003. He became conductor (musical director) of the NHK Symphony Orchestra in 2004. He toured with them in 2005, taking them to Vienna for their first concert in the famous concert hall called the Musikverein. In 2006 he took them to Seoul and then to the United States where they played in many cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles (Walt Disney Concert Hall), Boston and New York City (Carnegie Hall). He also played with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in Stresa (Italy) in 2010.
Ashkenazy is now also conductor laureate of the Philharmonia, conductor laureate of the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, and music director of the European Union Youth Orchestra. He is often invited as a guest conductor to work with other famous orchestras.
Ashkenazy has been awarded many honours and prizes for his performances and recordings. He lives with his Icelandic wife in Switzerland.
Tate
The Tate is the United Kingdom's national museum of British and Modern Art. It is a group of four art galleries in England: Tate Britain (opened in 1897 and renamed in 2000), Tate Liverpool (1988), Tate St Ives (1993) and Tate Modern (2000), with a website, Tate Online (1998). It is a administered as a quango (a non-departmental public body).
Tate is used as the name for the corporation which was started as The Board of Trustees of the Tate Gallery.
The gallery was started in 1897, as the National Gallery of British Art. When its role was changed to include Modern Art it was renamed the Tate Gallery after Henry Tate. The Tate Gallery was first started in a building at Millbank, London on the Embankment. In 2000, the Tate Gallery split its collection into four museums:
One of the Tate's most publicised art events is the awarding of the annual Turner Prize, which takes place at Tate Britain.
Tate Online is the Tate's web site. Since its launch in 1998, the site has had information on all four Tate galleries (Tate Britain, Tate St Ives, Tate Liverpool and Tate Modern) in the same website. Tate Online helps visitors with get ready to visit the galleries, but is also a gallery as well. Other resources include information on all works in Tate's Collection of British and Modern International art, e-learning for all visitors, over 400 hours of webcasts, all articles from the magazine "Tate Etc.," and a series of Internet art works. BT has sponsored Tate Online since 2001.
The Tate gets money every year from the Department for Culture, Media & Sport. It is run by a board of trustees. Under the Charities Act 1993, the Tate is an exempt charity.
Michael Tilson Thomas
Michael Tilson Thomas (born December 21, 1944), is an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is the conductor of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.
Tilson Thomas was born in Los Angeles, California. His grandparents were well known actors of the Yiddish theatre. Tilson Thomas studied at the University of Southern California.
After being assistant conductor at the Bayreuth Festival his first important opportunity came in 1969 when the conductor William Steinberg became unwell during a concert with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Tilson Thomas took over conducting the rest of the concert. He stayed with the orchestra as assistant conductor until 1974, making several recordings with them. He was conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra from 1971 to 1979. During this time he conducted a series of Young People's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic. From 1981 to 1985 he was the main guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Tilson Thomas started a new orchestra, the New World Symphony, in Miami, Florida in 1987, to give talented young people a chance to play with a good orchestra. From 1988 to 1995, he was principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, and since 1995 he has been their main guest conductor. In 1995, he became conductor (music director) of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.
Tilson Thomas has conducted many styles of music, especially American music such as that of Charles Ives and Aaron Copland. He also recorded all nine symphonies of Gustav Mahler.
In 2009 Tilson Thomas created the YouTube Symphony Orchestra to give a concert that could be watched on YouTube. The orchestra was made up of young players from 30 different countries.
Tilson Thomas is openly gay.
Esa-Pekka Salonen