Free Republic

Composing can be a lonely job. Hour after hour, the composer sits at a piano, trying to bring out the music in his head. But for Aaron Copland, composition was about the people. Working with people, learning from them, befriending them, organizing and mentoring them. His enthusiasm for combining music with humanity assured his place in music history almost as much as his compositions. "As organizer, teacher, propagandist, critic, lecturer and expositor, he has been by far the most voluble, articulate and respected American musician of his time," wrote Harold Schonberg in The New York Times in 1970. His ballets...

US Navy to order unique aircraft in Saratov 13:12 2004-04-23 The US Navy Department intends to subsidize the development of an advanced Russian aircraft, which will eventually be extinguishing forest fires on US territory. This UFO-shaped flying machine is currently being designed by the Saratov aviation concern. The Saratov aircraft enterprise, which is located in Russia's Volga region, started assembling UFO-shaped flying machines in the 1990s; however, this R&D project was then moth-balled because of financial snags. Many aircraft companies all over the world did their best to design similar flying machines. However, Saratov's aircraft designers managed to come with...

ARCHEOLOGISTS MAKE UNIQUE FIND IN SOUTHERN RUSSIA MOSCOW, August 25 (RIA Novosti) - Archeologists working in the Russian republic of North Ossetia, in the Caucasus, have made a unique find. They have unearthed remains of a horse with outfit. The horse is reported to have belonged to a dignitary of Alan, the state that presumably existed here in the 7th-9th centuries. The horse's outfit is elaborately decorated with gold-plated silver pendants, openwork pendants, and jingle bells, says Ruslan Dzatiati, a senior official at the North Ossetian Humanities Institute. Scholars believe that the horse was buried together with its owner to...

Unique full-frontal portrait reveals pharaoh's face 17:40 02 April 04 NewScientist.com news service The red lines painted across the picture suggest it was the template for a carving (Image: Jose Manuel Galan) The first full-frontal portrait of an Egyptian pharaoh has been discovered by archaeologists. It is thought to be more than 3500 years old. The artefact was buried beneath a courtyard in front of a tomb in Luxor in southern Egypt, and was unearthed by a Spanish team of archaeologists. The portrait is painted onto a wooden board measuring 50 by 30 centimetres and is unique. Other Egyptian paintings...