"Dressing for Downton" at Spadina Museum

Yesterday Mom took us to "Dressing for Downton" Tea at Spadina Museum. She won't let me watch the show but she loves it and she wanted to see the costumes up close. It was pretty cool!
We've been there once before. James Austin was one of the founders of Dominion Bank and Consumers Gas. They compared the lives of James Austin's real life family at Spadina with the lives of the people on Downton Abbey.

Here are some of the pictures that Mom took.
These are the ones that I really like.

I really liked the men's clothes.

Dad has a suit like this but he never wears it.

 Here is a picture of Bert Austin in 1913.

I liked the pocket watch.

These are artifacts from the City of Toronto's collection.

This one is a wedding dress from the 1920s!

We even looked in the wash room....  This is a gas burner! It must have been set up to heat water for shaving.

This is a sitz bath that would have been used to help them feel better.

I liked their shower.

I found out that they make the costumes for all of the City of Toronto Museums at Spadina Museum!

 They had a display which showed how nurses dressed.

 And they also showed the uniform used by "Lady Sybil" on Downtown Abbey.

But, in the library they had a real nurses uniform.

They also had a uniform of a World War 1 artillery officer.
James Percival Austin (Percy) fought in the Great War and he came back with Shell Shock.

Of course, they showed us a place setting.

And we had tea. :-)

Copyright? Schubert's Serenade

Mom taped me and my duet parter playing Serenade by Schubert. She uploaded it to youtube and put it as "unlisted" so she could email the link to my piano teacher to watch it. We started getting copyright notices right away!

Today we saw that there are notices claiming that it is "I HAVE NOTHING" from the 2 minute mark.

Here is a link to the unlisted video. Do you think it sounds like any song called "I HAVE NOTHING"?

By the way... We didn't like the recording so we didn't even use it!

______________________________________________

Update on April 22, 2014
It looks like all of the copyright claims have been released. :-)

"The Travelling Cellist" at Harbord Bakery

Today Mom and I went to see "The Travelling Cellist" perform at Harbord Bakery.

A cellist from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra is performing Albinoni's Adagio each day from March 17 - April 7 for a total of 22 days at different locations in Toronto. It's a part of the Toronto Public Library's Keep Toronto Reading Festival.

In the book The Cellist of Sarajevo a cellist plays this piece every day for 22 days to remember 22 people who died while waiting in line for bread.

Today Joseph Johnson, the Principal Cellist of the TSO performed at Harbord Bakery.

He was amazing.

He warmed up with Bach's Cello Suite Number 1 in G Major.
And after that he played Albinoni's Adagio.

When he was finished he talked a little bit about the book and he offered to take a picture with me.

It was strange being in the bakery, thinking about people waiting in line for bread and some people dying while waiting.

After we left Mom and I had a little disagreement about the name of the song Joseph Johnson used to warm up so we went back to the bakery to find out.... we knew they would still be there because he was going to play it a second time. It turned out that Mom was right. I should have believed her because cello is her favourite instrument.

Here is a link with more information about "The Travelling Cellist"
http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/ktr/the-travelling-cellist.jsp

"The Travelling Cellist" at Scarborough Civic Centre

Today Dad and I went to see "The Travelling Cellist".

In the book The Cellist of Sarajevo, a cellist plays Albinoni's Adagio for 22 days to remember 22 people who died while waiting in line to buy bread.

The Toronto Public Library and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra are putting on 22 performances of Albinoni's Adagio from March 17 - April 7. It's a part of the Keep Toronto Reading Festival.

Today's was at the Scarborough Civic Centre.

We got there early and it was nice to be there without it being for a flu shot! It's actually pretty nice in there.

There's even a buggy in the Rotunda.

Marie Gélinas played beautifully!
I was so into the music that I forgot to take pictures but my Dad remembered. 

Here is a link to more information about "The Travelling Cellist"
http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/ktr/the-travelling-cellist.jsp

Scherzo by Anton Diabelli

I taped Scherzo of Sonatina Op 151, no. 1 by Anton Diabelli this week.
I like it but it's not perfect. There are two notes that aren't clear but it's a fun piece.
It's exciting! :-)

Toronto's First Post Office & St. Lawrence Market

Today was the 180th anniversary of York becoming the city of Toronto. 

Mom and I went on one of our adventures to celebrate. 

We decided to go to Toronto's First Post Office since it was around in 1834. 

It's set up as a small museum and a working Post Office now. 

There is a topographical model of Toronto in 1837 in the back room. It's really cool! It has a lot of details and it's really interesting to look at. 

I could look at the model for hours and hours!

I think this is right where the Post Office is.

I forgot to ask what this is.

Before we left, Mom and I wrote to Dad.
Mom wrote a letter. Here is a part of it.

I drew a picture for Dad but it was really hard to draw using a quill and walnut ink.

We dried the ink with sand and then we folded the paper to make an envelope and we sealed it with wax.

Our letters are in the mail right now!

They are stamped with today's date and the date that Toronto became Toronto.

 After the visit to the Post Office, we went to St. Lawrence Market. It was also here in 1834.

We stopped in at the Market Gallery.

There was an exhibit put on by the Ontario Black History Society. (It will be on until April 19, 2014).

There was information up about influential Black people in Ontario.
I saw these about Samuel Ringgold Ward and Mary Ann Shadd Cary.

I have always looked up to Harriet Tubman and Elijah McCoy and I was very happy to see information about them posted there too.

~~~

Here is a link to Toronto's First Post Office's Website.

Here is a link to the Market Gallery's website.

and 

Here is a link to the Ontario Black History Society's website.

AGO - The Great Upheaval

Today Mom, Dad & I went to the Art Gallery of Ontario to see "The Great Upheaval: Masterpieces from the Guggenheim Collection, 1910 - 1918". Today was the last day we could see it.

It showed how art changed in those 8 years and how the Great War affected the art.

It was a time when there were lots of new inventions like the telephone, radio, automobiles, the kodak brownie (a camera), time lapse photography, aeroplanes, helicopters and unfortunately, mustard gas, armoured tanks and hand grenades.

There were paintings by Marc Chagall, Marcel Duchamp, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso and others.

My favourite painting from the exhibit was Vasily Kandinsky's Sketch for Composition II. It's so bright and colourful!

The AGO did a few videos about the exhibition.
I couldn't figure out how to get the videos here on the blog but here are the links:
The Great Upheaval: Masterpieces from the Guggenheim Collection, 1910-1918
The Great Upheaval: Robert Delauney's 'Red Eiffel Tower' 1911-12
The Great Upheaval: Franz Marc's 'Yellow Cow' 1911


We visited other parts of the AGO today too. Here are couple pictures from other parts of the Gallery.

This set is called "Man Changing into Thunderbird" by Norval Morrisseau.

This one is a mountain landscape by Lawren Harris.

This is Kathleen Munn's Cows on a Hillside from about 1916. It reminded me of some of the works from "The Great Upheaval". 

Here is a picture of me and Mom outside the AGO by the Henry Moore sculpture.