Just Curious, A question for Pekka

[forrest64]

My sister in-law maintains several discussion groups for Paint Shop Pro and the company has noticed her contribution to the use of their product = increased sales. She has been rewarded by the producers of PSP by getting free software. Any freebies from Canon for your well attended group?

Mark

[Pekka]

No, being a Japanese company Canon has not contacted me to ask if I want any free gear :)

Running the forum has made it a little easier to get in contact with Canon and hopefully that will benefit forum as well in the long run. They do know the forum exists and they do check my photos from time to time, but all communication so far has been mostly from here to there and not vice versa.

As this is my personal project I do not expect them to jump in and ask what they could do for me. That would be of course nice but not likely and not required.

But If you ever talk to Canon bosses feel free to mention I need 400/2.8 and 100-400 IS :)

[ron chappel]

Hi Pekka
I've got an odd question that doesn't need it's own thread but people might like to know about.

I had a good look through the available avtar's once and was stunned at the amount of cartoon based stuff :shock:
Are you abit of a fan of this kind of art?

[forrest64]

No, being a Japanese company Canon has not contacted me to ask if I want any free gear

LOL. I had a friend that never had a TV, never wanted one. All sorts of people were always trying to give him a TV. So....I said I didn't want a TV as well and that I especially didn't want a 37 inch Sony Trinitron. Didn't work.

Mark

[defordphoto]

Removed by RFMSports

[sGu]

LOL :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Jon]

I "don't" want the 1DsMKII.

Please. 8)

Good, because they "don't" make one. :{)#

[cmM]

Good, because they "don't" make one. :{)#
Yet :wink:

[Pekka]

Hi Pekka
I've got an odd question that doesn't need it's own thread but people might like to know about.

I had a good look through the available avtar's once and was stunned at the amount of cartoon based stuff :shock:
Are you abit of a fan of this kind of art?

I have been a cartoon fan since a kid, I read those odd ones like Gaston Lagaffe, Pico and Fantasie and Schtroumpfs (way before some in USA found them and renamed them to Smurfs because they could not procounce the real name :) ), Yoko Tsuno, Tintin, Lucky Luke, Iznogoud, Asterix (with Goscinny), Mad and e.g. Corto Maltese. I have never really learned to like the "industrialized" style of Japanese Animé - although there are great movies, games and books in that genre. Nowadays I read less (I'm more into Scifi now), but I still get the Donald Duck magazine once a week :)

http://www.goscinny.net/izno/naissance/img/naiss_01.gif

[cmM]

Schtroumpfs
so that's how you spell it ! I love those...

[Ikinaa]

Hi Pekka
I've got an odd question that doesn't need it's own thread but people might like to know about.

I had a good look through the available avtar's once and was stunned at the amount of cartoon based stuff :shock:
Are you abit of a fan of this kind of art?

I have been a cartoon fan since a kid, I read those odd ones like Gaston Lagaffe, Pico and Fantasie and Schtroumpfs (way before some in USA found them and renamed them to Smurfs because they could not procounce the real name :) ), Yoko Tsuno, Tintin, Lucky Luke, Iznogoud, Asterix (with Goscinny), Mad and e.g. Corto Maltese. I have never really learned to like the "industrialized" style of Japanese Animé - although there are great movies, games and books in that genre. Nowadays I read less (I'm more into Scifi now), but I still get the Donald Duck magazine once a week :)

http://www.goscinny.net/izno/naissance/img/naiss_01.gif

ah... only french and belgium stuff then... (Except Mad...)
Don't misunderstand me... I like them best also...
I still buy them (for my daughter of course :P ... )

[Cadenza]

Pekka,

Since we're talking about you, hope you don't
mind my asking about your musical background.
You're a professional musician, right? What
orchestras do you play with? Do you spend more
time with the contrabasso or with the MkII?
If you had to give up one or the other, which
one would it be?????

Also, what are the contrabasso's favorite orchestral
repertoire (other than the first exposition of the big
tune in Beethoven's 9th ':lol:')
Mahler 2nd? Berlioz?

Also, have you performed with Karita Mattila?
I've seen her many times, and she is awesome!
The New York crowd loves her! I guess the
Japanese do to.

[tommykjensen]

My sister in-law maintains several discussion groups for Paint Shop Pro and the company has noticed her contribution to the use of their product = increased sales. She has been rewarded by the producers of PSP by getting free software. Any freebies from Canon for your well attended group?

Mark

I know this has nothing to do with Canon or even photography but I also run a forum that is all about software products from a company called Peregrine Systems. The forum is the biggest and only forum of its kind and Peregrine know about it and some of the employees visit it regularly but they have never offered me anything :cry: But I did get 2 books from an independant auther of books about the software and another company paid a Delphi 7 Studio for some advertising on my site. I think it is rare that companies like Canon or other bigshots give webmasters of small to medium websites anything.

[forrest64]

You know, now that I think about it, once Paint Shop Pro producers recoup their development expenses it would cost them little to send a copy of PSP to a supporter. On the other hand a 1Ds from Canon is $8K retail and probably at least $7K wholesale.


Mark

[Pekka]

Pekka,

Since we're talking about you, hope you don't
mind my asking about your musical background.
You're a professional musician, right? What
orchestras do you play with? Do you spend more
time with the contrabasso or with the MkII?
If you had to give up one or the other, which
one would it be?????

I've played double-bass since I was 18, before that I played Electric bass (fretless). I studied in Sibelius Academy, at that time I played in Opera (three years in Savonlinna and some time in National Opera), Avanti chamber orchestra, Lahti Symphony and did of course gigs in many other finnish orchestras. I got my vacancy in Finnish RSO at age of 25. Been playing with them since - I like the work very much, I have a top class instrument, my colleaques are cool and crazy people and the orchestra is really good (chief conductor is Sakari Oramo).

I have enough spare time to do photography and as it is visual artform it complements music well. Similarly programming uses parts of brain which those two leave alone :) So they are all equally important. If I did not have the orchestra job I would probably photograph more professionally and compose/produce as a hobby.

Also, what are the contrabasso's favorite orchestral
repertoire (other than the first exposition of the big
tune in Beethoven's 9th ':lol:')
Mahler 2nd? Berlioz?

There is very little music I don't like (some contemporary music is awful to play when written badly), but composers I really enjoy to play are Brahms, Shostakovitch, Sibelius, Stravinsky, Bartok, Bruckner and of course Mozart. Composers who know how to make chords sound good without effort, build a good structure, know the value of silence and have very emotional content and melodies. I'm bit bored of Mahler, we have played too much of his works lately and he is quite repetitive.

Also, have you performed with Karita Mattila?
I've seen her many times, and she is awesome!
The New York crowd loves her! I guess the
Japanese do to.

Yes I have played in her concerts many times. She is really nice and a lively person.

[Cadenza]

I've played double-bass since I was 18, before that I played Electric bass (fretless). I studied in Sibelius Academy, at that time I played in Opera (three years in Savonlinna and some time in National Opera), Avanti chamber orchestra, Lahti Symphony and did of course gigs in many other finnish orchestras. I got my vacancy in Finnish RSO at age of 25. Been playing with them since - I like the work very much, I have a top class instrument, my colleaques are cool and crazy people and the orchestra is really good (chief conductor is Sakari Oramo).

Interesting! Congratulations for getting a professional orchestra
post at such young age. I hope I'll get to visit Savonllinna Festival
some day. Does Finnish RSO ever tour the U.S.? I did hear
Sakari Oramo as a guest conductor in San Francisco last year.
He conducted Bartok's Viola Concerto, and also an American
premiere of a work by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho.

You probably know Saariaho. I was supposed to see her
opera "L'amour de loin" at the Santa Fe Festival a few years
ago (the U.S. premiere, with the Peter Sellars production from
Salzburg), but unfortunately I had to cancel that trip that
summer.


There is very little music I don't like (some contemporary music is awful to play when written badly), but composers I really enjoy to play are Brahms, Shostakovitch, Sibelius, Stravinsky, Bartok, Bruckner and of course Mozart. Composers who know how to make chords sound good without effort, build a good structure, know the value of silence and have very emotional content and melodies. I'm bit bored of Mahler, we have played too much of his works lately and he is quite repetitive.


Oramo is big with contemporary/new music, right?
I attend SF Symphony often, and there was an interesting situation
in San Francisco before current music director. They had Herbert
Blomstedt (American born, but works mostly in Denmark) as music
director, and his programming had a strong Scandinavian flavor, a
little too much Sibelius, Nielsen, plus Bruckner, Bartok, and Mahler.
There was bit of a backlash, and when Blomstedt left the SF post
the orchestra board of directors was under heavy pressure to
"Americanize" programming, so they got Michael Tilson Thomas.
Now we have lots of Copland, Gershwin, Ives, John Adams, and
a number of insignificant Americans composers every year. :-)

Yes I have played in her concerts many times. She is really nice and a lively person.

I've seen Mattila as Elsa in Lohengrin, Eva in Die Meistersinger,
Leonore in Fidelio, and Kat'a Kabanova. Didn't see her Salome
in New York, but apparently was a very big success. I've also
heard her in concert and recital, she's is hair-raising fabulous!

[Belmondo]

Pekka:
I was a classically trained musician (woodwinds), and worked professionally for a couple years in the Los Angeles area, but not in a symphonic environment. I started playing professionally as an early teenager, and was completely burned out by the time I graduated from high school. In fact, I declined a scholarship to a college in Southern California where I had spent a lot of time as a part time student during my last two years of high school. Somehow, I just never enjoyed it, although I was apparently proficient at it. I wish I had found things a little more challenging back then. Success might have brought some pleasure if things hadn’t always been so easy for me.

By the time I was twenty years old, I was smoking three packs of cigarettes a day, consuming large quantities of distilled spirits, and absolutely not enjoying life. At that point, I gave it up completely---just walked away from it. It might have saved my life…..I can’t be sure.

There are times I have regrets, but only on those occasions when I see people actually having fun with music.