Latest news with #Bergmann
Calgary Herald
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Calgary Herald
Review: Rune Bergmann gives exemplary farewell to orchestra and city
Article content Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. Article content It was a night of finales and farewells. On the last weekend in May, the CPO performed its final pair of concerts of the current season, a season with many highlights (including this one) and with 40 sold-out performances, a company first. Recovering from near bankruptcy some years ago, the CPO is now enjoying some of the strongest support it has had in many years. Article content Article content At least some of the reason for this lies in the astute programming, but perhaps even more lies in the new manner of presentation, not the least by its outgoing conductor, Rune Bergmann, whose smiling face and manner have signalled to all that classical concerts can be both serious and simple fun. Article content Article content Bergmann has been with the orchestra for nine years, which includes the difficult years of COVID-19. It hasn't been easy to bring audiences back, but Bergmann persevered and has led the orchestra in delicate performances of works by Mozart as well as monumental symphonies by Mahler. Article content And it was with Mahler, specifically Mahler's popular Second Symphony (Resurrection), that Bergmann chose to conclude his time with the orchestra. A symphony about farewells, it is also about hope and new life. It is also a symphony by which to measure the growth in the performing stature of the orchestra and the Calgary Philharmonic Chorus, both of which are enjoying a period in which a great many of their recent concerts have been of a very high level. Article content Just this past season, the orchestra performed a splashy Carmina Burana to open its season (also with the CPO Chorus), with concerts featuring world-famous soloists like Jonathan Biss and Honens winner Nicolas Namoradze. It also gave superb performances of Mozart and Elgar with Bergmann at the helm, and a wonderful Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz. String soloists were not ignored either, with outstanding performances by violinists James Ehnes and Diana Cohen, and recently a sold-out appearance with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Article content This list of accomplishments, together with an earlier Beethoven symphony and concerto cycle and several Mahler symphonies, including an impressive performance of the Third Symphony, gives an indication of the wide range of music performed, and with impressive surety and confidence. Article content These qualities marked Bergmann's final appearance with the orchestra. One could only marvel at the authority of the opening cello section solo, as well as the numerous solo turns given to the wind and brass players (especially the solo trumpet of Adam Zinatelli). The percussion section whipped up a storm, and the chorus sang with hushed emotion and, in the final moment, with dramatic grandeur.
Calgary Herald
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Calgary Herald
Review:
Article content Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. Article content It was a night of finales and farewells. On the last weekend in May, the CPO performed its final pair of concerts of the current season, a season with many highlights (including this one) and with 40 sold-out performances, a company first. Recovering from near bankruptcy some years ago, the CPO is now enjoying some of the strongest support it has had in many years. Article content Article content Article content At least some of the reason for this lies in the astute programming, but perhaps even more lies in the new manner of presentation, not the least by its outgoing conductor, Rune Bergmann, whose smiling face and manner have signalled to all that classical concerts can be both serious and simple fun. Article content Article content Bergmann has been with the orchestra for nine years, which includes the difficult years of COVID-19. It hasn't been easy to bring audiences back, but Bergmann persevered and has led the orchestra in delicate performances of works by Mozart as well as monumental symphonies by Mahler. Article content And it was with Mahler, specifically Mahler's popular Second Symphony (Resurrection), that Bergmann chose to conclude his time with the orchestra. A symphony about farewells, it is also about hope and new life. It is also a symphony by which to measure the growth in the performing stature of the orchestra and the Calgary Philharmonic Chorus, both of which are enjoying a period in which a great many of their recent concerts have been of a very high level. Article content Article content Just this past season, the orchestra performed a splashy Carmina Burana to open its season (also with the CPO Chorus), with concerts featuring world-famous soloists like Jonathan Biss and Honens winner Nicolas Namoradze. It also gave superb performances of Mozart and Elgar with Bergmann at the helm, and a wonderful Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz. String soloists were not ignored either, with outstanding performances by violinists James Ehnes and Diana Cohen, and recently a sold-out appearance with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Article content This list of accomplishments, together with an earlier Beethoven symphony and concerto cycle and several Mahler symphonies, including an impressive performance of the Third Symphony, gives an indication of the wide range of music performed, and with impressive surety and confidence. Article content These qualities marked Bergmann's final appearance with the orchestra. One could only marvel at the authority of the opening cello section solo, as well as the numerous solo turns given to the wind and brass players (especially the solo trumpet of Adam Zinatelli). The percussion section whipped up a storm, and the chorus sang with hushed emotion and, in the final moment, with dramatic grandeur.
South China Morning Post
07-03-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Who is Wes Bergmann, whose remarks about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's relationship went viral? He's a reality TV star whose credits include The Traitors and The Real World
Wes Bergmann of The Traitors fame, who's neighbours with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce , regrets spilling the beans about the NFL star's relationship with Taylor Swift Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift in January, in Kansas City, Missouri. Photo: Tribune News Service In February, Bergmann appeared on The Social Game podcast, where he spoke about living next to Kelce in a gated community in Leawood, Kansas City. Owing to the exclusivity of the residential area, he said it was easy to notice when Kelce and Swift started dating. 'I was like the first person to know about any of this stuff,' he claimed, before boasting, 'I beat the validating of [Swift] showing up to games and stuff by like six months.' Unfortunately, fans did not take kindly to Bergmann airing private details about the beginning of Kelce and Swift's romance, prompting him to apologise on X (formerly Twitter). 'I'm so sorry and confused,' he wrote, admitting that the information he shared was 'none of my business'. Advertisement So just who is Wes Bergmann? Here's what we know. Wes Bergmann is a reality TV star Wes Bergmann is on the third season of The Traitors (US). Photo: @westonbergmann/Instagram Bergmann started his entertainment career on the MTV reality show The Real World: Austin in 2005, while he was a student at Arizona State University. His first brush with virality came when he was slapped by fellow contestant Wren, after he let it slip that they had slept together. Today, he is best known for his recurring appearance on several seasons of the competition show The Challenge and its various spin-offs. He also took part in game shows House of Villains and Worst Cooks in America, and produced the business competition show The Blox. Most recently, he appeared in the third season of The Traitors (US). He's married Wes Bergmann and Amanda Hornick on their wedding day in 2018. Photo: @westonbergmann/Instagram Bergmann is married to yoga teacher and lifestyle influencer Amanda Hornick. She is also associate vice-president and manager of campus recruiting at HNTB, an infrastructure company.
Boston Globe
24-02-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Three years into war in Ukraine, Trump ushers in new world for Putin
After three years of grinding warfare and isolation by the West, a world of new possibilities has opened up for Putin with a change of power in Washington. Gone are the statements from the East Room of the White House about the United States standing up to bullies, supporting democracy over autocracy and ensuring freedom will prevail. Gone, too, is Washington's united front against Russia with its European allies, many of whom have begun to wonder if the new American administration will protect them against a revanchist Moscow, or even keep troops in Europe at all. Advertisement Trump, having voiced desires to take Greenland, has pursued a rapid rapprochement with the Kremlin, while sidelining shocked European allies and publicly assailing President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine. It is a rapid shift of fortunes for Putin. He dug in on the battlefield — despite mounting pressures and costs — to wait out Western resolve in a far longer and more onerous conflict than Moscow had expected. Now, the Russian leader may believe his moment has come to shift the balance of power in favor of the Kremlin, not only in Ukraine. 'I think he sees real opportunity, both to win the war in Ukraine, effectively, but also to sideline the U.S. not just from Ukraine but from Europe,' said Max Bergmann, a Russia analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington who worked at the State Department during the Obama administration. The Russian leader's 'grandiose objective,' Bergmann said, is the destruction of NATO, the 32-country military alliance led by the United States, which was established after World War II to protect Western Europe from the Soviet Union. 'I think that is right now all on the table,' Bergmann said. The opening represents one of the biggest opportunities for Putin in his quarter-century in power in Russia. For years, Putin has lamented the weakness Russia showed in the decade after the fall of the Soviet Union and has fixated on reversing the influence the United States has since gained in Europe at the Kremlin's expense. Advertisement Before Russia's invasion of Ukraine three years ago, Putin issued demands to the United States and its European allies that went far beyond Ukraine, proposing the resurrection of Cold War-style spheres of influence in a Europe divided between Moscow and Washington. He demanded that NATO agree not to expand farther east to any nations of the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine. He also asked the United States and its Western European allies not to deploy any military forces or weaponry in the Central and Eastern European countries that once answered to Moscow. Many of those nations, such as Estonia, Poland and Romania, have been NATO members for decades and would be difficult to defend against a Russian invasion without pre-positioned troops and equipment. 'In Putin's view, it's the most powerful countries that should get to determine the rules of the road,' said Angela Stent, emerita professor of government at Georgetown University. 'Smaller countries, whether they like it or not, have to listen to them.' Never mind, Stent said, that Russia lacks a superpower economy. 'But it does have nuclear weapons, it has oil and gas and a veto on the U.N. Security Council,' she said. 'It's just power, hard power.' At the time, the West immediately rejected Putin's prewar proposals as unthinkable. The Russian leader is now almost certain to revive them in impending negotiations with Trump, a longtime skeptic of NATO and U.S. troop presence in Europe. That has prompted a crisis among European allies, who are worried about what the U.S. president might concede. Advertisement 'There is something very big going on at the moment,' said Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King's College London. 'This is not business as usual. This is a very different administration, and it's very hard to see how trans-Atlantic relations will be the same at the end of this.' Even if Trump's return has shifted the geopolitical environment in Putin's favor, the Russian leader has suffered serious setbacks over three years of war, and so far has failed to achieve his goal of bringing Ukraine back into Moscow's orbit. Russia turned the tide on the battlefield, wresting about 1,500 square miles of land from Ukraine last year, but still has not taken the full territory of the four Ukrainian regions the Kremlin formally 'annexed' in 2022. Though Ukrainian forces are reeling from personnel shortages, there has yet to be a vast Russian breakthrough causing a complete collapse of the Ukrainian lines. Putin's gains have also come at a significant cost. Russia is suffering losses from 1,000 to 1,500 dead and wounded per day by some estimates. Russia's war economy is showing strains, with 10% inflation, sky-high interest rates and sputtering economic growth, despite gargantuan state defense outlays. NATO has expanded to include two more nations in Russia's backyard, Finland and Sweden, the opposite of what Putin intended. 'If you're sitting in the Kremlin looking at this, yes, there is an opportunity, but don't get your hopes too high,' said Thomas Graham, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who served as a top White House adviser on Russia during the George W. Bush administration. 'A lot could change quickly, and at the end of the day, Trump is unreliable.' Advertisement To end the war, Graham added, both parties need to agree to stop fighting. Ukraine and its European backers most likely will not simply accept a raw deal that Trump cuts with Putin, despite intense pressure they might face from Washington. 'This is a lot more complicated than simply Putin and Trump sitting down and signing a piece of paper basically prepared by Putin,' Graham said, noting that he 'wouldn't pop the Champagne corks in Moscow right now,' even if Russia appears to be in a better position than it once was. Heading into talks, Trump faces the added difficulty that Putin is not a popular figure among the American public. Any deal seen as Kremlin appeasement could prove difficult to sell at home, though the vast majority of Americans favor a quick end to the conflict, which Trump promised on the campaign trail. Last year, more than 8 in 10 Americans expressed a negative view of Russia, and 88% said they did not have confidence in Putin to do the right thing in international affairs, according to a Pew Research Center poll. Nearly two-thirds of respondents called Russia an enemy of the United States. Trump's own secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who has been leading the talks so far, has in the past called Putin 'bloodthirsty,' 'a butcher' and 'a monster.' Putin, however, has benefited from changes in the information landscape and increasing admiration in the right-wing media universe, led by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who visited Moscow to interview him last year. Three years ago, Ukrainians successfully took to Twitter to popularize their cause around the globe at the outset of the invasion. But disinformation, often friendly to the Kremlin, has flourished on the platform since Elon Musk took over the company in 2022 and later rebranded the social media giant as X. Advertisement Federal prosecutors last year said they had unearthed a covert Russian campaign to spread Kremlin-friendly messages by funneling money to right-wing American influencers through a Tennessee-based media company. The Western countries that lined up against Putin are facing their own problems at home. The two most influential countries in continental Europe — France and Germany — have been mired in political dysfunction for months and gripped by the rise of Kremlin-friendly far-right parties, now enjoying the backing of both Russian and U.S. officials. In the United States, Trump's defense secretary has ordered senior leaders to begin the process of identifying major cuts in military spending. Some incoming top officials at the Pentagon have pushed for a significant withdrawal of U.S. forces from Europe to focus on China, arguing that Europeans can handle their own defense. Putin and his advisers would welcome the change. 'I would imagine if they are smart, they would adhere to Napoleon — when your enemy is destroying itself, don't interfere,' Graham said. 'I think that would be the approach at the moment.' This article originally appeared in
New York Times
24-02-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Three Years Into War in Ukraine, Trump Ushers in New World for Putin
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia took the stage in Sochi, Russia, last fall, two days after Donald J. Trump won the U.S. presidential election, and spoke of the dawn of a new world order. 'In a sense,' Mr. Putin said, 'the moment of truth is coming.' It may have already arrived. After three years of grinding warfare and isolation by the West, a world of new possibilities has opened up for Mr. Putin with a change of power in Washington. Gone are the statements from the East Room of the White House about the United States standing up to bullies, supporting democracy over autocracy and ensuring freedom will prevail. Gone, too, is Washington's united front against Russia with its European allies, many of whom have begun to wonder if the new American administration will protect them against a revanchist Moscow, or even keep troops in Europe at all. Mr. Trump, having voiced desires to take Greenland, has pursued a rapid rapprochement with the Kremlin, while sidelining shocked European allies and publicly assailing President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. It is a rapid shift of fortunes for Mr. Putin. He dug in on the battlefield — despite mounting pressures and costs — to wait out Western resolve in a far longer and more onerous conflict than Moscow had expected. Now, the Russian leader may believe his moment has come to shift the balance of power in favor of the Kremlin, not only in Ukraine. 'I think he sees real opportunity, both to win the war in Ukraine, effectively, but also to sideline the U.S. not just from Ukraine but from Europe,' said Max Bergmann, a Russia analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington who worked at the State Department during the Obama administration. The Russian leader's 'grandiose objective,' Mr. Bergmann said, is the destruction of NATO, the 32-country military alliance led by the United States, which was established after World War II to protect Western Europe from the Soviet Union. 'I think that is right now all on the table,' Mr. Bergmann said. The opening represents one of the biggest opportunities for Mr. Putin in his quarter-century in power in Russia. For years, Mr. Putin has lamented the weakness Russia showed in the decade after the fall of the Soviet Union and has fixated on reversing the influence the United States has since gained in Europe at the Kremlin's expense. Before Russia's invasion of Ukraine three years ago, Mr. Putin issued demands to the United States and its European allies that went far beyond Ukraine, proposing the resurrection of Cold War-style spheres of influence in a Europe divided between Moscow and Washington. He demanded that NATO agree not to expand farther east to any nations of the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine. He also asked the United States and its Western European allies not to deploy any military forces or weaponry in the Central and Eastern European countries that once answered to Moscow. Many of those nations, such as Estonia, Poland and Romania, have been NATO members for decades and would be difficult to defend against a Russian invasion without pre-positioned troops and equipment. 'In Putin's view, it's the most powerful countries that should get to determine the rules of the road,' said Angela Stent, emerita professor of government at Georgetown University. 'Smaller countries, whether they like it or not, have to listen to them.' Never mind, Ms. Stent said, that Russia lacks a superpower economy. 'But it does have nuclear weapons, it has oil and gas and a veto on the U.N. Security Council,' she said. 'It's just power, hard power.' At the time, the West immediately rejected Mr. Putin's prewar proposals as unthinkable. The Russian leader is now almost certain to revive them in impending negotiations with Mr. Trump, a longtime skeptic of NATO and American troop presence in Europe. That has prompted a crisis among European allies, who are worried about what the U.S. president might concede. 'There is something very big going on at the moment,' said Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King's College London. 'This is not business as usual. This is a very different administration, and it's very hard to see how trans-Atlantic relations will be the same at the end of this.' Even if Mr. Trump's return has shifted the geopolitical environment in Mr. Putin's favor, the Russian leader has suffered serious setbacks over three years of war, and so far has failed to achieve his goal of bringing Ukraine back into Moscow's orbit. Russia turned the tide on the battlefield, wresting about 1,500 square miles of land from Ukraine last year, but still has not taken the full territory of the four Ukrainian regions the Kremlin formally 'annexed' in 2022. Though Ukrainian forces are reeling from personnel shortages, there has yet to be a vast Russian breakthrough causing a complete collapse of the Ukrainian lines. Mr. Putin's gains have also come at a significant cost. Russia is suffering losses from 1,000 to 1,500 dead and wounded per day by some estimates. Russia's war economy is showing strains, with 10 percent inflation, sky-high interest rates and sputtering economic growth, despite gargantuan state defense outlays. NATO has expanded to include two more nations in Russia's backyard, Finland and Sweden, the opposite of what Mr. Putin intended. 'If you're sitting in the Kremlin looking at this, yes, there is an opportunity, but don't get your hopes too high,' said Thomas Graham, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who served as a top White House adviser on Russia during the George W. Bush administration. 'A lot could change quickly, and at the end of the day, Trump is unreliable.' To end the war, Mr. Graham added, both parties need to agree to stop fighting. Ukraine and its European backers most likely will not simply accept a raw deal that Mr. Trump cuts with Mr. Putin, despite intense pressure they might face from Washington. 'This is a lot more complicated than simply Putin and Trump sitting down and signing a piece of paper basically prepared by Putin,' Mr. Graham said, noting that he 'wouldn't pop the champagne corks in Moscow right now,' even if Russia appears to be in a better position than it once was. Heading into talks, Mr. Trump faces the added difficulty that Mr. Putin is not a popular figure among the American public. Any deal seen as Kremlin appeasement could prove difficult to sell at home, though the vast majority of Americans favor a quick end to the conflict, which Mr. Trump promised on the campaign trail. Last year, more than eight in 10 Americans expressed a negative view of Russia, and 88 percent said they did not have confidence in Mr. Putin to do the right thing in international affairs, according to a Pew Research Center poll. Nearly two-thirds of respondents called Russia an enemy of the United States. Mr. Trump's own secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who has been leading the talks so far, has in the past called Mr. Putin 'bloodthirsty,' 'a butcher' and 'a monster.' Mr. Putin, however, has benefited from changes in the information landscape and increasing admiration in the right-wing media universe, led by the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who visited Moscow to interview him last year. Three years ago, Ukrainians successfully took to Twitter to popularize their cause around the globe at the outset of the invasion. But disinformation, often friendly to the Kremlin, has flourished on the platform since Elon Musk took over the company in 2022 and later rebranded the social media giant as X. Federal prosecutors last year said they had unearthed a covert Russian campaign to spread Kremlin-friendly messages by funneling money to right-wing American influencers through a Tennessee-based media company. The Western countries that lined up against Mr. Putin are facing their own problems at home. The two most influential countries in continental Europe — France and Germany — have been mired in political dysfunction for months and gripped by the rise of Kremlin-friendly far-right parties, now enjoying the backing of both Russian and American officials. In the United States, Mr. Trump's defense secretary has ordered senior leaders to begin the process of identifying major cuts in military spending. Some incoming top officials at the Pentagon have pushed for a significant withdrawal of American forces from Europe to focus on China, arguing that Europeans can handle their own defense. Mr. Putin and his advisers would welcome the change. 'I would imagine if they are smart, they would adhere to Napoleon — when your enemy is destroying itself, don't interfere,' Mr. Graham said. 'I think that would be the approach at the moment.'
