Bordeaux

Unfinished

Grand Arena Bordeaux is an indoor arena located in Bordeaux, France that is currently under construction. Once completed in Fall 2013, it will have a... seating capacity of 15,000 spectators. Construction began in June 2010 on the facility.
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Jacques Pierre Joseph Rode was a French violinist and composer. Pierre Rode died at Château de Bourbon near Damazan, Lot-et-Garonne, in his... native Aquitaine. Born in Bordeaux, Aquitaine, France, Pierre Rode traveled to Paris at the age of 13 and soon became a favourite pupil of the great Giovanni Battista Viotti who found the boy so talented that he charged him no fee for the lessons. Rode inherited his teacher's style to which he added more mildness and a more refined tone. It is also recorded that he made extensive use of portamento. He collaborated with Baillot and Kreutzer on the official Violin Method of the Conservatoire of Paris, published in 1802. Rode served as violin soloist to Napoleon I of France and toured extensively in the Netherlands, Germany, England and Spain, staying with François-Adrien Boïeldieu in Saint Petersburg for 1804-1809, and later spending much time in Moscow. Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his last violin sonata for Rode when the violinist was visiting Vienna. He also performed chamber music, but the backbone of his repertoire was formed by Viotti's concertos which served as models for his own concertos.
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Jacques Thibaud was a French violinist. Thibaud was born in Bordeaux and studied the violin with his father before entering the Paris Conservatoire... at the age of thirteen. In 1896 he jointly won the conservatory's violin prize with Pierre Monteux . He had to rebuild his technique after being injured in World War I. In 1943 he and Marguerite Long established the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud International Competition for violinists and pianists, which takes place each year in Paris. From 2011, it will include singers and be known as the Long-Thibaud-Crespin Competition, in honour of the soprano Régine Crespin. Thibaud was noted not only for his work as a soloist, but also for his performances of chamber music, particularly in a piano trio with the pianist Alfred Cortot and cellist Pablo Casals. He undertook concert tours with pianist Yves Nat and George Enescu. He was a friend of violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, who dedicated his second sonata for solo violin to him. Among his students were Eric Rosenblith and Joan Field.
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Richard Roman Grech was a British rock musician. Educated at Corpus Christi RC School, Leicester, he played violin in the school orchestra, Grech... originally gained notice in the United Kingdom as the bass guitar player for the progressive rock group Family. He joined the band when it was a largely blues-based live act in Leicester known as the Farinas; he became their bassist in 1965, replacing Tim Kirchin. Family released their first single, "Scene Through The Eye of a Lens," in September 1967 on the Liberty label in the UK, which got the band signed to Reprise Records. The group's 1968 debut album Music in a Doll's House was an underground hit that highlighted the songwriting talents of Roger Chapman and John "Charlie" Whitney as well as Chapman's piercing voice, but Grech also stood out with his rhythmic, thundering bass work on songs such as "Old Songs New Songs" and "See Through Windows," along with his adeptness on cello and violin. Released in February 1969, Family Entertainment, the group's second album, was a major turning point for Grech personally.
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Jean-Jacques Sempé, usually known as Sempé , is a French cartoonist. Some of his cartoons are quite striking, but retain a sentimental and... often a somewhat gentle edge to them, even if the topic is a difficult one to approach. He once drew a series called Le petit Nicolas, starting it in the 1950s, but he is best known for his posterlike illustrations, usually drawn from a distant or high viewpoint depicting detailed countrysides or cities. Sempé was expelled from school as a young man, and then failed to pass exams for the post office, a bank and the railroad. He then found work selling tooth powder as a door-to-door salesman and also worked delivering wine by bicycle in the Gironde. After lying about his age, he joined the army in 1950, since it was “the only place that would give me a job and a bed,” he subsequently explained, and would occasionally get into trouble for drawing while he was supposed to be keeping watch during guard duty. After being discharged from the army, he moved to Paris and began working with René Goscinny. Sempé has spent most of his life in Paris' Saint-Germain-des-Prés district.
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Danielle Yvonne Marie Antoinette Darrieux is a French actress and singer, who has appeared in more than 110 films since 1931. She is one of... France's great movie stars and her eight-decade career is among the longest in film history. She was born in Bordeaux, France during World War I to a physician who was serving in the French Army. Her father died when she was seven years old. Raised in Paris, she studied the cello at the Conservatoire de Musique. At 13, she won a part in the musical film Le Bal . Her beauty combined with her singing and dancing ability led to numerous other offers, and the film Mayerling brought her to fame. In 1935, Darrieux married director/screenwriter Henri Decoin, who encouraged her to try Hollywood. She signed with Universal Studios to star in The Rage of Paris opposite Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Afterwards, she elected to return to Paris. Under the German occupation of France during World War II, she continued to perform, a decision that was severely criticized by her compatriots.
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Charles Lamoureux was a French conductor and violinist. He was born in Bordeaux, where his father owned a café. He studied the violin with... Narcisse Girard at the Paris Conservatoire, taking a premier prix in 1854. He was subsequently engaged as a violinist at the Opéra and later joined the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire. In 1860 he was a co-founder of the Séances Populaires de Musique de Chambre and in 1872 he founded a quartet which eventually took on the proportions of a chamber orchestra. Having journeyed to England and assisted at a Handel festival, he thought he would attempt something similar in Paris. Having come into a fortune through marriage, he put on the performances himself, leading to the foundation of the Société Française de l'Harmonie Sacrée. In 1873 Lamoureux conducted the first performance in Paris of Handel's Messiah. He also gave performances of Bach's St Matthew Passion, Handel's Judas Maccabaeus, Gounod's Gallia, and Massenet's Eve.
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