DC Youth Orchestra

If you had the means to send your children to the best music classes, would you send them to a run-down building with dirty bathrooms and broken windows?

That’s exactly what happens for students in the popular DC Youth Orchestra, an independent program in Washington, D.C., which borrows space at a local public high school. There are hundreds of youth orchestras around the U.S., but this one has found a way to be affordable, competitive and diverse — in every sense of the word.

For Ava Spece, it’s the same story every Saturday morning: cockroaches and burned-out lights. Spece is executive director of the DC Youth Orchestra, or DCYO. She can rattle off a litany of problems she faces at Coolidge High School, where nearly 600 students gather every Saturday to take classes and practice with one of 12 different performing ensembles.

The halls ring with a wide range of music. At one end of the school, a beginning orchestra sounds like it has a lot of room for growth. At the other end of the hall, there’s the more advanced Youth Orchestra, the top dog of the program. And there’s just about everything in between: a junior philharmonic, jazz ensembles and chamber groups.

Winners of the 2009 British Academy Film Awards, presented on Sunday

Film: Slumdog Millionaire
British Film: Man on Wire

Actor: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Actress: Kate Winslet, The Reader
Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Christina Barcelona
Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
First-time Director: Steve McQueen, Hunger
Rising Star: Noel Clarke
Original Screenplay: Martin McDonagh, In Bruges
Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
Film Not in the English Language: I’ve Loved You So Long
Music: A R Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire
Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle, Slumdog Millionaire
Editing: Chris Dickens, Slumdog Millionaire
Production Design: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Costume Design: The Duchess
Sound: Slumdog Millionaire
Visual Effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Makeup and Hair: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Animated Feature: WALL-E
Short Animation: Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death
Short Film: September
Academy Fellowship: Terry Gilliam

Daniel Radcliffe has invited President Barack Obama’s daughters

Daniel Radcliffe has invited President Barack Obama’s daughters to visit the sets of Harry Potter when he starts shooting for the film later this year. The Daily Beast said that he would be ‘honoured’ to show Malia and Sasha around the sets of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows.

“I’d like to take this opportunity to issue a public invitation to the Obamas that if their daughters would like a private tour of the Harry Potter set, I would be honoured to be their personal tour guide,” said Radcliffe, who plays the famous boy wizard in the films based on the novel written by JK Rowling.

The Obamas are reportedly known to be big Potter fans ……..