Campus

Nunca he escrito en condiciones sobre el bonito campus de Northwestern en Evanston, aunque he incluido alguna foto que otra. Hoy estaba recordando algunas fotos y me he quedado sonriendo pensando en lo bonito que es y lo cuidado que esta (mucho mas que los edificios del campus por dentro). Me gustan los arboles, las flores, la vegetacion, la decoracion en honor a Northwestern lleno de color morado. Lo echare de menos...

I've never written anything good about the Northwestern campus in Evanston even though I've posted some pictures in the past. Today I was looking at some old pictures and I kept on smiling while thinking how nice it is and how well maintained it is (a lot more than the campus buildings inside). I love the trees, flowers and purple Northwestern decoration. I'll miss it...

Pick Staiger concerts. Arturo Sandoval y Anoushka Shankar

Hola a todos! Durante el mes de abril tuvimos el privilegio de disfrutar de dos conciertos espectaculares en "Pick Staiger", el auditorio del campus de Northwestern. Es sorprendente la cantidad de musicos buenos, bandas de jazz, grupos de flamenco, musica clasica y otras variedades que se pueden concentrar en un sitio como el campus de Evanston :) ni siquiera en Chicago!!

Lo mejor es el precio de las entradas, son baratisimas para la clase de espectaculo que se ofrece normalmente.

Antes de Navidad fuimos a un par de conciertos de quintetos de jazz y de la Big Band de Northwestern, pero sin duda, los dos ultimos conciertos han sido los mejores.

El primero, esta belleza india: Anoushka Shankar. Un talento de poco mas de 30 años de edad. Presento su disco "The Traveller", con mezclas de musica tradicional india y flamenco, combinando instrumentos tipicos indios, como el sitar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitar), el instrumento que tiene la cantante en la foto y guitarras españolas. Ademas, hubo cante flamenco con una cantaora española, Sandra Carrasco, fue precioso. Las fotos durante el concierto estaban prohibidas, asi que solo puede fotografiar el escenario. Anoushka actua sentada para poder manejar el sitar y lleva un atuendo tipico indio, al igual que los otros musicos, excepto la cantaora y el guitarrista "El melon".

Fue todo un descubrimiento, la musica flamenca y la musica tradicional india tienen los mismos origenes, por no hablar de los tonos de las guitarras. Fue muy emocionante.

Hi everyone! Last month we had the privilege of enjoying two wonderful concerts in "Pick Staiger", Northwestern University concert hall. It is surprising the amount of good musicians, including jazz bands, flamenco groups or classical, that perform in a place like Evanston :), which is not even Chicago downtown.

The best part is the tickets price. They are normally pretty cheap, at least for the kind of show they have.

We went to a couple of concerts before Christmas. One of them was a jazz quintet and the other one was the Northwestern Big Band. Those ones were good, but the best ones until the moment were the ones in April.

The first one was this Indian beauty: Anoushka Shankar, a very young and talented musician. She presented her last CD "The Traveller", a work that mixes traditional Indian music and flamenco, combining typical Indian instruments like "sitar" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitar), the instrument the singer has in the picture and Spanish guitars. Moreover, there was a Spanish flamenco singer, Sandra Carrasco, gorgeous. Taking pics during the show was forbidden so I only took a couple of pictures of the stage. Anoushka performed sitting on an Indian carpet to be able of playing her sitar and she wore traditional Indian clothes as the rest of the musicians, except for the flamenco singer and the guitar player "The Melon".

It was a great discovery, flamenco music and traditional Indian music have the same origin, the sounds of the guitars are so similar! Everything was very exciting and I recommend it 100 %.

Anoushka Shankar

http://www.anoushkashankar.com/

Escenario de Pick Staiger preparado para el concierto de Anoushka Shankar.

Pick Staiger stage ready for Anoushka's concert.

El segundo concierto fue del grandisimo Arturo Sandoval, una de las leyendas vivientes del jazz. Es un musico de origen cubano, afincado en Estados Unidos. Fue descubierto por Dizzy Gillespie y es a dia de hoy, uno de los fundadores del ritmo afro-cubano, conocido hoy en dia como "latin jazz".

Arturo Sandoval es un excelente trompetista, pero durante el concierto nos deleito tocando el piano, percusionando e incluso cantando "be-bop", que no es exactamente cantar, sino crear melodias con la voz, como si fuese jazz :)

Me encanto su energia, los ritmos latinos, su alegria. Fue impresionante. Ademas, toco con la "Chicago Jazz Orchestra", asi que imaginaos el nivel musical. Las fotos no se ven muy bien debido a la iluminacion del teatro, pero creo que os podeis hacer una idea.

Thomas ha recibido hoy el nuevo disco de Arturo, "Dear Diz, everyday I think of you", una increible explosion de sonidos y tambien baladas. Lo pasamos estupendamente, Arturo sigue teniendo una potencia increible :)

The second concert was by the greatest Arturo Sandoval, one of the jazz living legends. He was born in Cuba, but he lives in the US since he was young. He was discovered by Dizzy Gillespie and he is currently one of the founders of afro-cuban rhythm, also known as "latin jazz".

Arturo Sandoval is an incredible trumpeter but during the concert he also played the piano, percussion and he even sang "be-bop". Well, that is not actually singing but making melodies with the voice, emulating jazz music :)

I really liked his energy, the latin rhythms and his way of cheering people up. It was incredible. On top of that, he played with the "Chicago Jazz Orchestra" so the music level was way too high. 

The pictures are not good due to the theater light, but I hope you can have an idea about how the concert was.

Thomas got Arturo's new CD today "Dear Diz, everyday I think of you", a great explosion of sound and also ballads. We had a great time, Arturo still has the power :)

http://www.arturosandoval.com/

Group meeting

Hola a todos! Aprovechando el tiempo libre que tengo mientras espero que llegue mi visado (todo esto aparecera en proximos textos) os cuento una de las cosas mas importantes que he hecho referente al trabajo. Vamos, considerando que he venido a Chicago para trabajar, pues si, esto es probablemente lo mas importante que he hecho aqui :) y es "Group meeting".

Hi!! Since I have some spare time while I wait for my visa (I'll tell you about it in next posts) I'll talk about one of the most important things I've done here. Considering I came here to work I can say that this is the most important thing I've done until the moment and it is "group meeting".

En los grupos de investigacion se suele presentar el trabajo que uno hace regularmente. Hay todo tipo de reuniones, algunas informales para presentar los ultimos resultados o hablar sobre problemas que surgen en la investigacion, discusiones sobre nuevos proyectos, etc y otras que son mucho mas formales y donde se presenta tu trabajo de varios meses de una forma muy seria y detallada.

Presenting your work, results, data, etc is very normal in research groups. There are all kind of meetings, some informal where you talk about research problems or your last results and some others a lot more formal where you present your work of the last months in a very detailed way.

En Holanda yo participaba en al menos 4 tipos distintos de meetings y tambien en el llamado "colloquium", que era la reunion mas seria de todas.

Aqui en Northwestern, en el grupo del profesor Stupp me ha tocado dar mi presentacion mas super, mega formal recientemente, en concreto el 11 de junio.

While I still in Holland I used to attend at least four different kinds of meetings and also the so-called "colloquium" of MST. Here we have to do something similar and the past 11th of June it was my turn :)

Queria escribir sobre ello para que sepais las cosas que hago por aqui, jeje! Despues de este dia me fui de vacaciones dos semanitas y junto con el descanso, mas la motivacion producida por lo bien que se dio la reunion, he vuelto cargadita de energia para seguir trabajando en este laboratorio :)

I wanted to write about it for you to know about the things I do here. After this day we went two weeks on holiday. After resting at home and the motivation I got after the meeting (it went well) I'm back in town full of energy to continue working :)