Latest news with #Gaveau
CTV News
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Century-old piano fine tuned to restore Montreal's Notre-Dame Basilica
The piano was made by famed Parisian manufacturer Gaveau, founded in 1847. A century-old piano has taken centre stage in one of North America's most visited monuments. The Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal is hosting a series of concerts featuring music from its newly acquired instrument to raise money for a years-long restoration project to preserve this jewel of history. The piano was made by famed Parisian manufacturer Gaveau, founded in 1847. Montreal restorer Daniel Farah bought the piano from an estate in 2008. Farah has been in the business of giving new life to old pianos for a quarter of a century. The instrument was in far from mint condition at the time. 'My first thought was that it was a wreck,' says Farah. 'But I could see it was a wonderful design.' Montreal piano Montreal restorer Daniel Farah bought the piano from an estate in 2008. Years of dry winters and summer humidity had inflicted a lot of damage. The piano had to be rebuilt from the strings to the sound board to the housing (the outer structure). 'I stopped counting how much time I spent on it when I reached 800 hours,' he says. His goal was to respect the history of the piano while bringing it into a new era. 'This piano will surprise you sometimes,' says Farah. 'It is from the Impressionist era, where people were trying a lot of different things with music, so it has to have a more open, varied sound.' A sponsored donation led the piano to a new home at the Basilica, through the foundation which is raising money to complete a major undertaking to restore the masterpiece of Gothic revival architecture. From the Maurice 'Rocket' Richard funeral to Celine Dion's wedding, the Basilica has been the site of ceremonies that captured Canada's attention. However, parts of the building were threatening to crumble as the jewel of patrimonial history began to show its age. Workers have been fixing the towers and rebuilding the stone facades since 2020, but still have five years of repairs left. 'The main challenge we have is expertise,' says Notre-Dame Basilica Director of Operations and Tourism Activities Mathieu Verreault. The piano will feature in a series of concerts with proceeds going to the restoration project. The program includes a performance spotlighting jazz music in cinema, which is not exactly traditional church fare. 'It's pretty new that we feature jazz music,' says Verreault, adding that he hopes this will attract young and old. 'Before other Reverends did not allow it. They were not into that modern music.' That modern music will come from an old piano, marking a new chapter in the history of the Notre-Dame Basilica. Inaugural concerts for the restored Gaveau piano will be held at the Sacred Heart Chapel of the Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal: Jazz in Cinema on Saturday July 19, 2025, at 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. Mozart and Schubert Piano trio on Saturday August 9, 2025, at 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m.
The Guardian
24-02-2025
- The Guardian
Rice paddies to mega resorts: declassified spy satellite images reveal Bali's transformation
'I wonder what Bali used to be like?' is a common refrain heard on Indonesia's best-known holiday island. Famous for its lush green rice paddies and stunning beaches, the 'island of the Gods' has undergone rapid change over the past half-century with locals and tourists complaining about the traffic, pollution and badly behaved foreigners that have come with the hotels and resorts that now swamp the island. As the Indonesian government tries to restrict development on the island, new and declassified satellite images from 1965 reveal the extent of Bali's transformation. Published in an interactive map by Nusantara Atlas, the images show how the once tranquil coastlines of Bali hotspots like Seminyak and Canggu have been transformed from sleepy dots on the map into a jungle of shopping strips, huge resorts and villas as far as the eye can see. Nusantara Atlas founder and environmental scientist David Gaveau, who lived in Bali for more than a decade, said he wanted to aid discussions about overtourism and the pace of development. 'Everybody knows Bali has changed, we just don't know where and how,' he said, 'Now we can see.' The images, taken by cold war-era US spy satellite KH-7 Gambit in May 1965, zero in on the southern coastal stretch from Uluwatu to just below the highland area of Ubud. The satellite, active between 1963 and 1967, was the first in the US able to consistently produce high-resolution photographs. The pre-digital films were collected midair by specially equipped aircraft near Hawaii and returned to earth for processing. The satellite typically orbited over Soviet territory and was designed to photograph Soviet missile silos and other targets. Decades on, the images also tell another story of development in south-east Asia, where tourism has reshaped the landscape and way of life. Gaveau said the timing of the images was important because Bali's international airport opened only a few years later, in 1968, sparking the tourism boom that has seen the island become one of Asia's most-visited destinations. Bali's population has increased from about 2 million residents in the 1960s to more than 4 million today, according to Indonesia's statistics bureau. About half a million tourists visit the island each month, government data shows, while a growing number of digital nomads also flock to the island. Bali's provincial government is hoping to hit a record 6.5 million international tourists this year. Ida Bagus Aria Yoga Dharata, from the Bali environmental organisation Walhi, said the map would help with advocating for environmental preservation in Bali. 'People come here because of the culture … The Balinese are very connected to nature, to each other, to God, and there is no other place like this,' Dharata said. 'If that is lost, then Bali is no different.' Chakra Widia, a Balinese conservationist said many farmers no longer saw agriculture as financially viable and were instead selling their land for villas and hotels. Areas such as Canggu, which were once lined with rice paddy fields, have in recent years been replaced by rows of boutiques and villas. 'Rice farming used to be the backbone,' said Widia. 'But now it is tourism.' In October 2024, Balinese and national politicians proposed a two-year moratorium on new tourism-related developments, amid growing concerns about overtourism and environmental degradation. But the Bali governor, Wayan Koster, who was re-elected in January, said he would halt the proposed moratorium, instead promising stricter regulations. In his first term, between 2018 and 2023, Koster also introduced a 150,000 rupiah (A$15) Bali tourism tax levy, intended to fund better protection for Balinese culture and landscapes and for new infrastructure. Early figures showed poor collection rates, with just 35% of visitors paying the tax. Niluh Djelantik, a Bali regional parliamentarian, who is outspoken on the island's challenges, described the changes as 'devastating' but said she was not against development and tourism. Instead, she said, she wanted to see stricter enforcement of existing regulations, including foreigners working illegally and better usage of the tourist tax. 'We are inviting the wrong kind of tourist, the kind who comes here and takes advantage of our systems,' she said. 'I am not against tourism, but how we do it,' she said, 'We need the right intention, to create happiness for Balinese people.'
