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TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
– United Feature Syndicate
HOROSCOPE By BERNICE BEDE OSOL Newspaper Enterprise Association TODAY – Be observant and nonjudgmental with peers and partners in the year ahead. Take care of your own responsibilities before taking on another’s cause. Diplomacy will be required if you’re to maintain your popularity. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) – When dealing with people who can influence your future, you should keep your emotions hidden. Present your best and most talented traits and refrain from complaining or criticizing others. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) – Venture out amongst friends and peers who have something to offer you. Getting out and socializing will lead to a new and very valuable relationship. SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 22) – Don’t get angry, get moving. If you want to meet your goals, you’ll need to work quickly. A conversation could prove important to your work or career. Your eagerness and inventive outlook will impress the right people. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 23-Dec. 21) – When talking to an important someone, keep your wits about you and resist saying something you will regret. Proceed with caution and put greater emphasis on improving what you have to offer instead of on what others lack. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) – Your family or loved ones could coerce you into making some bad financial decisions. You’ll need to find alternatives that make them happy without breaking the bank. Devote some time to your own projects as well. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) – How you present yourself will make a difference to the outcome of a legal, financial or medical situation. Do your best and be your best, and things will work out just fine. PISCES (Feb. 20-March 20) – Conduct business matters without showing emotion, and you’ll make deals and sign contracts with confidence. Ask for what you want and don’t hesitate to make last-minute changes that will increase your returns. ARIES (March 21-April 19) – Expect sudden reversals with regard to partnership situations. To avoid further trouble, retreat and sort through what’s happened instead of overreacting. A challenging physical activity could help ease your stress. TAURUS (April 20-May 20) – An intellectual challenge will boost your confidence and put you in a good position. Networking functions will bring you in touch with serious partners. Nurture relationships to avoid discord down the line. GEMINI (May 21-June 20) – Say little and do a lot. The difference you make to a cause will impress someone who can help you raise your profile. Romance should be scheduled for late in the day. CANCER (June 21-July 22) – Get into shape, start a diet and do whatever it takes to feel better about your appearance. It won’t take much – just a small change to your routine will do wonders for your confidence. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) – Expand your interests and your friendships to learn some valuable new skills and make crucial work contacts. What you learn and who you meet will be quite useful down the line.
Film highlights unlikely opera stars THE WASHINGTON POST Julie Cohen and Kamal Khan met in elementary school in Northern Virginia’s Fairfax County about 40 years ago. Today, Cohen, 49, is the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based founder of BetterThanFiction Productions, a documentary film company; Khan is the director of the University of Cape Town Opera School. “I Live to Sing,” a feature-length documentary directed and produced by Cohen, focuses on three of Khan’s black students who made their way from humble beginnings in often poverty-ridden townships to excel in opera – an art form most closely associated with white, elite audiences and performers. “I Live to Sing” was shown Aug. 21 during the World Music and Independent Film Festival in Washington. What follows is an edited transcript of a conversation between Cohen and The Washington Post’s Eva Rodriguez, who met in the 1990s when both worked for Legal Times and Court TV.
Eva Rodriguez: How did you come to do this project? Julie Cohen: It was just the fortuitous situation of knowing Kamal Khan. I met Kamal in third grade at Pine Ridge Elementary School in Fairfax County. He was unusual in that even at age 9 his prime interests seemed to be opera, classical music, Shakespeare. These are interests that when you’re 40 and living in New York are not so strange! He became James Levine’s assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera and he still now does a lot of conducting internationally, although his home base is at the University of Cape Town. In the
Rich White photo
A production shot from the documentary “I Live to Sing,” shows Kamal Khan, director of the University of Cape Town Opera School, and soprano Linda Nteleza. meantime I started doing several documentaries about the human side behind the performing arts. Knowing what Kamal was up to, I realized that his fascinating work – from an artistic, political and social context – was just the sort of thing I was interested in making films about.
ER: Why is it interesting to you to document performing artists? JC: We’re all so steeped in the relatively small circle of people who become really famous or really big deals. But it’s also, I think, wonderful to see the work of and hear the life stories of the majority of performing artists who are toiling away, many of whom are supremely talented, but the world doesn’t necessarily get to know.
ER: Tell me about the lives of the three young singers featured in your film. JC: Thesele Kemane [a bass baritone] came to Cape Town from a relatively small township in the northern part of the country. Thesele’s dad worked as a janitor at Standard Bank for several decades and was
a ground-level, grass-roots anti-apartheid activist for many, many years. He was not Nelson Mandela. He was not Desmond Tutu. But he was part of the very large number of South Africans who became actively involved in civil disobedience and the anti-apartheid movement. Thesele developed an interest in music through a community choir. The community choirs in South Africa are a really, really big deal. They have national competitions where choirs are competing against each other for prizes. His parents were happy, like “Oh, he’s a great singer. That’s terrific.” But much to their chagrin, he decided that this is what he wanted to do professionally.
ER: And Linda, the young soprano featured in the film? JC: Linda Nteleza comes from a huge township adjacent to Cape Town that has a lot of problems – poverty, health-care issues, education issues, huge unemployment. I believe it has the fastest-growing rate of tuberculosis in the world, and
Linda has suffered from the consequences of that. Linda learned to sing in school and then followed by her work in community choir, and through the teachers and coaches learned about University of Cape Town and its music program. She lived only [a] half-hour from the university but hadn’t been aware that music was something that was out there. She was encouraged to go and apply. I think she didn’t expect to get it, but to her joy and amazement she did.
ER: Were you an opera fan before this? JC: [Laughs] I ... must ... confess that I was not only not an opera fan, but really almost actively probably disliked opera before this project. That’s actually not something that I mentioned to Kamal when I was pitching the idea of “Can I follow your program around? Can I bring cameras to your school?” [Laughs] ... But as often when you delve into different art forms, particularly classical art forms that you are ignorant of, the more you get to know it, the better it starts to sound.
Kane County Chronicle / KCChronicle.com • Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Luis Guzman (1956), actor; David Fincher (1962), film director; Shania Twain (1965), singer; Jack Black (1969), actor; Jason Priestley (1969), actor; LeAnn Rimes (1982), singer; Armie Hammer (1986), actor.