Kate Middleton Turns Down Queen's Ascot Offer

Kate Middleton has turned down the Queen’s offer of a Royal Ascot table because she doesn’t want to become boyfriend Prince William’s “stand in”.
The 26-year-old “politely declined” the Queen’s invitation to host a private table at the famous horse racing meeting’s Royal Enclosure on Thursday.
Middleton reportedly is reluctant to “stand in for Prince William again and using her Royal status” after representing the absent heir to the throne at his cousin Peter Phillips’ wedding.
A friend explains to the Mail on Sunday, “Kate was all set to take the table after having been personally invited by the Queen. She then had second thoughts and politely declined the offer.
“She loves the races and would have so enjoyed to host her own table, but she said she doesn’t want to be standing in for William again and using her so-called Royal status.
“She knows that if she goes in William’s place as a guest of the Queen the engagement rumours will gather momentum and it’s not what she or William want.”
“Kate’s also been advised to take a back seat publicity-wise, so she’ll only really step out in any sort of Royal capacity when she absolutely has to and when she’s with William.
“She stood in for William at Peter Phillips’s wedding because he asked her to, but Kate is wary of being seen as William’s official stand-in.”

An emotional send-off for Seattle Symphony's principal cellist

When you encounter Ernest Bloch's "Schelomo," you're struck by an immediate feeling of profundity and deep emotional vulnerability. As cellist Joshua Roman recalls, "The first recording I heard was of Leonard Rose on vinyl, and it struck me as one of the most beautiful pieces in the repertoire."

Now "Schelomo" will be Roman's swan song as Seattle Symphony's principal cellist. The 24-year-old string phenom is leaving at the end of this season to pursue a solo career.

Described by Bloch as a rhapsody for cello and orchestra, the piece is loosely based on Ecclesiastes, sometimes attributed to King Schelomo (Solomon). From approximately 1912 to 1926, Bloch turned his attention to his Jewish roots. Other composers may have referred to Jewish themes, but Bloch was one of the first composers to fully integrate Jewish material into his compositions.

As the composer wrote in program notes for a 1933 performance of "Schelomo," "I was saturated with the Biblical text and, above all, with the misery of the world, for which I have always had so much compassion."

This feeling flows through the piece. Five times the music rises quietly from the cello to spectacular orchestral culminations. Each time new emotions are engaged, ending in the famous outcry in Ecclesiastes "vanity of vanities" before finally fading away.

"Schelomo" is Bloch's most famous and most performed piece of music. Its durability, when most of Bloch's other major works are seldom heard on the concert stage, can be attributed to the range and sound required of the cello part.

As Roman explained, "It's very passionate, very songful, very much a 'cello piece.' I think it is one of those pieces that personifies the popular conception of what the cello sound is. It's both mellow and operatic at the same time."

Roman will perform the piece as part of a concert that also features Paul Hindemith's Concert Music for Strings and Brass — a lush, melodic work that combines dissonance and consonance — and Cesar Franck's final orchestral work, Symphony in D Minor.

In the immediate future, Roman plans to perform, record and direct TownMusic, the "exploratory classical music series" he inaugurated at Town Hall last year. He will return to Seattle Symphony next season to perform David Stock's Cello Concerto under the direction of former Oregon Symphony Maestro James DePriest.

Meanwhile, "Schelomo" is an appropriate send-off. The emotional variety and the music's transformation into a subdued ending suggest both lamentation and something bigger yet to come.

As the cellist says, "My goal with my music is to be an open and honest communicator, and I hope that people hear that. People shouldn't think of this as a goodbye or that they can forget me, because I'll be back."

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Fox launches venture to discover animation talent

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - News Corp. is drawing up big small-screen animation plans. 20th Century Fox TV and Fox Broadcasting Co. have teamed to launch Fox Inkubation, a joint venture designed to discover new animation talent and develop animated projects outside of the traditional model.


Additionally, 20th TV has formed a new animation department focused on more conventional development of cartoon series and has tapped Jennifer Howell, executive vice president of "South Park" creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker's Important Films, to run it.


"So much of our success has been driven by animated shows, and we have been contemplating how to step up our efforts in the area," 20th TV chairman Gary Newman said. "We believe it is critical to our future success."


Separately, Fox entertainment president Kevin Reilly had been looking to do the same on the network side, so the sister companies joined forces to create Inkubation, which also will be overseen by Howell.


The initiative will give aspiring writer/animators funding to make two-minute shorts in lieu of penning a script.


If the shorts are successful, Fox and 20th TV may order additional shorts or take the concepts to pilot, possibly pairing the newcomers with experienced producers.


"A lot of the greatest voices in that arena came from outside the system, like Matt Groening, Matt Stone and Trey Parker and Seth MacFarlane," Reilly said. "We want to let these voices be produced in a pure way."


Instead of a script order, young animator MacFarlane famously was given $50,000 by Fox and 20th TV a decade ago to produce a 15-minute presentation of a show based on characters from his college thesis. The show became "Family Guy."