1 . Joao Carlos Martins is a famous pianist and conductor. However, his career has been ________ and his life has taken him in many different ________.

As a teenager Martins began to perform in concerts. But in his late twenties, he had to ________ after badly breaking his arm. It was really a terrible time. He couldn’t look at a piano or ________ listen to music. ________, he decided to become the manager of a boxer, who won the world championship later. This ________ Martins to take up the piano and practise much harder. Six years later, he gave his first concert at the Carnegie Hall, which was the most ________ moment of his life. He performed in concerts for years before he had to quit because of the unbearable ________ in his hands caused by too much ________.

Martins, in his forties, became a politician. However, he couldn’t stand this ________, so once again, he went back to the piano. All was going well until something unexpected ________ while leaving a concert. He ________ a serious brain injury and lost all the movement in his right hand. Again, with great ________ he played just with his left hand. Years later he lost the use of the left hand and ________ himself a conductor. Now, in his late seventies, Martins is still taking ________ to work and has conducted over a thousand concerts.

2 . As the saying goes, “Interest is the seed of everything”. Since childhood, Cantero had been living with football that had a _________ effect on her. She had always loved football as well as art, and fortunately she found a way to _________ the two things.

Lili Cantero prepared a new colorful show of her works to take to the World Cup in Qatar. The 29-year-old artist was famous for _________ soccer shoes for stars. Her new artworks included shoes and balls with pictures and designs. Many of them were _________ by the Middle Eastern nation, Qatar, and especially its capital Doha brought her lots of _________ ideas. The city welcomed national teams from the world to _________ in the World Cup.

Cantero _________ sent a pair of shoes to Argentine star Lionel Messi. The shoes had fancy details with black and white image of the _________ and his family. She didn’t know if Messi would even receive the shoes. But _________, she received a photo of Messi holding them. That marked a turning point in her__________. Then her colorful designs __________ other stars. She even met a famous former Brazilian star and gave him a pair of __________ and a football showing a kiss his mother had given him after winning an award in 2005.

In Qatar, Cantero planned to show eight footballs with designs that showed her __________ for eight countries winning the World Cup, thinking that they were __________ of the admiration of all. Finally, the footballs were the centerpiece of the World Cup exhibition, while the boots were presented within three-dimensional __________ looking like the stadiums that Qatar built for the World Cup.

3 . Armenian musician Astrid Poghosyan ________ great pride in the Chinese name she picked for herself, Ma Xingxing. The given name “Xingxing.” literally meaning ________ is inspired by her Armenian first name, while the surname “Ma” is taken from Ma Chao, a famous ________ from China’s Three Kingdoms Period（220-280 AD）.

Poghosyan always puts all her ________ into the projects in which she is involved, whether they are offline or online events,________she believes that every little effort will help her realize her ________ dreams. “I believe music knows no borders, and that cultural exchanges via music are especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic,” she said.

Having studied and worked in China for 12 years, Poghosyan has now become a real China hand, versed in the country’s language and culture. Such a multicultural background has ________ helped her good at her current job because she knows how to use the ________ of a multicultural background in her work.

Her ________ for Chinese culture, including Jackie Chan movies and stories of Mulan, helped her ________ the difficult language-learning process. As she gradually ________ herself in the Chinese language and culture, she also started to make Chinese friends and ________ the vibrant city life of Shanghai.

“Since I first came to Shanghai, I have always been ________ by the kindness and friendliness of the people here. Even when I couldn’t speak Chinese, in the first days, everyone I met gave me a big ________, whether they were sanitation workers on the streets or cashiers in convenience stores. Their smiles have made me feel the ________ of the city.” she said.

4 . In 1482, the year he turned thirty, Leonardo da Vinci left Florence for Milan, where he would end up spending the next seventeen years. Because he was an aspiring polymath (博学家), he enjoyed that Milan was_______with scholars and intellectuals in a wide variety of fields.

Da Vinci regarded himself as the equal of any other in architecture and the composition of buildings. But for his first few years in Milan, he didn’t get any task. He could only pursue his architectural interest mainly on_______.

The best example was his set of plans for a utopian city, which was a favorite topic for Italian Renaissance artists and architects. Milan was_______plague at that time. Leonardo realized that the disease was spread by dirty conditions. He didn’t focus on small_______in engineering and design._______, on multiple pages composed in 1487, he proposed a great concept, one that combined his_______sensibilities with his visions as an urban engineer: an ideal city planned for health and beauty.

Da Vinci regarded cities as living_______that breathe and have fluids that circulate (循环) and waste that needs to move. He then_______a circulation system for urban needs, ranging from commerce to waste removal.

Da Vinci’s vision of the city was pitifully_______. If he had the opportunity of carrying out part of his plan, the nature of cities might have been transformed, with the damage of plagues greatly________.

5 . Derek Paravicini is lucky to be alive. Born three and a half months early, he weighed only 0.6 kilograms and almost _______ three times while he was in hospital. _______, Derek’s early birth left him with some disabilities — he is blind; he can’t tell left from right; he can _______ count to ten.

Yet Derek is a _______ talent. The 41-year-old remembers every one of the thousands of pieces of music he has ever heard and can play them without _______ on the piano — even if he only heard the song once. years ago. Because he is blind, he cannot _______ music. All of the music he plays is in his _______. His brain has been described as a perfectly programmed musical _______. When he hears a chord with ten notes in it, he can even _______ all ten, while most professional musicians can only recognise about five.

Derek was two years old before his family discovered his ________. When he was given an old keyboard, he ________ his family by reproducing the songs he had heard outside. His family then arranged for him to go to a school for the ________ where he met a university professor who helped him to ________ his musical talent.

By the age of nine, Derek had ________ at a large concert hall in London with a famous orchestra, Since then, he has appeared on TV shows and travelled the world ________ performances. He has recorded his own CDs and there is even a book about his life.

6 . Talking about Beijing Opera, we cannot forget to mention one of its greatest performers: Mei Lanfang, a brilliant artist who played an important role in bringing Beijing Opera to the world. Mei Lanfang was born in Beijing in 1894. He started to learn the ______ of Beijing Opera at the age of eight and made his on-stage debut (首次登台) at age eleven. Mei Lanfang worked hard to learn as much as possible from the great artists and______ of Beijing Opera, and by the age of 20, he had become a(n)______ actor in Beijing Opera’s dan role (角).

Mei Lanfang quickly became well-known among Chinese audiences ______ his acting skill. Mei Lanfang’s skill opened doors for him to become friends with people from all over the world, as he often ______ guests from other countries who wanted to meet the young actor. As Mei Lanfang ______ to know ambassadors (大使), European royal families, and celebrities from ______, he ______ bring his beloved Beijing Opera to the rest of the world, so that even more people from other countries might understand and ______ the beauty of Chinese culture and art.

And so, in 1919, Mei Lanfang began to travel abroad, ______ performances in Japan and the Soviet Union (苏联). His ______ were a great success; audiences were fascinated by this ______ opera from the Orient (东方). One of Mei Lanfang’s greatest ______ was to visit the United States, and after cight years of ______, he and his opera group finally brought Beijing Opera to the USA.

Mei Lanfang ______ his whole life to the art of Beijing Opera. He ______ sought to improve his own artistry, creating many unforgettable and beautiful ______ for the stage. His style became known as the “Mei Lanfang school (梅派)”, a(n) ______ graceful style, and is still one of the most popular styles of Beijing Opera today.

Mei Lanfang died in 1961 of heart disease. During his more than 50 years on the stage, Mei Lanfang took traditions from the past and ______ the best parts to create new and enrich old forms of Beijing Opera. Although this great opera master has now joined the heroes of history, he ______ a legacy of cultural wealth for his people and for all future generations.

7 . Ramiro Gomez was a part-time babysitter when I met him, the son of a cleaner and a truck driver. In his spare time, he was a(n) ________. He used to paint pictures of persons, each ________ by the workers he knew.

His pieces were life-size. He’d ________ cardboard boxes into colorful cutouts (剪出的图样) of cleaners, gardeners and babysitters. Gomez set his figures in ________ places. He hoped that his art would stop people in their tracks and make them think about the ________ who work for them and keep their ________ clean.

Now, Gomez is a famous artist. His paintings are ________ in museums across the country. The largest ________ of Gomez’s works lives inside his parents’ home. His mom ________ his works in every room. “My son is an artist,” she often tells everyone who ________ her. The first time Gomez’s mother set foot on Gomez’s college campus, she ________ with a camera. She walked around there for hours, ________ every building and tree.

Years later, when Gomez’s mother ________ for his graduation after work, she had an old white rag (抹布) in her hand, just like the ones she used to clean houses. Seeing that. Gomez felt a bit ________ at first. When the ceremony was over, Gomez walked across the stage and hugged his mother. When seeing her tears, Gomez ________ understood that the rag was used to wipe her tears.

8 . At just 21 years old, Nija Charles is one of today's most popular songwriters.

She has been ________ with Beyonce, Jay Z, Cardi B, and many other today's popular music artists. Their works have been ________ . And she was even included in three Grammy nominations（提名）.

But just a few years ago, Charles was only a（n） ________ in the crowd. She was ________ in a musical family. "My dad is a DJ. My mom is a dancer," Charles ________ . "So growing up in this family, I was always ________ by music and crazily chased after musicians."

Charles said she first ________ music at age 13, when she asked her mom for a mini keyboard because she was ________ to produce. "So she got one for me, and I started tapping on the keys," she said.

Charles continued to learn music at New York University, where she'd make songs in her dormitory and post them online. Soon she was ________ in flying across the country on weekends, performing on stage and then studying at school.

"It was tough for me. There were some classes I ________ had to skip. But yeah, it was must time management and 1 had to ________ and finish my homework before I got on the plane or I'd finish the ________ on the plane. I wrote songs during the weekend. I made sure I studied hard so I could finish ________ that year," she said.

Talking about her success, Charles said, "It's ________ that my favourite artists are now the people I cooperate with. Several years ago, I was at their ________ but now I'm in the studio with them."

9 . Pablo Ruiz Picasso’s family moved to Barcelona in the autumn of 1895, and Pablo entered the local art academy, where his father had assumed his last post as professor of drawing. The family hoped that their son would achieve success as an academic _____ , and in 1897 his eventual _____ in Spain seemed assured; in that year his painting Science and Charity, for which his father modelled for the doctor, was _____ an honourable mention in Madrid at the Fine Arts Exhibition.

The Spanish capital was the _____ next stop for the young artist intent on gaining recognition and _____ family expectations. Pablo duly set off for Madrid in the autumn of 1897 and entered the Royal Academy of San Fernando. But finding the teaching there _____ , he increasingly spent his time recording life around him, in the cafes, on the streets, and in the Prado, where he discovered Spanish painting. Works by those and other _____ would capture Picasso’s imagination at different times during his long career.

Picasso fell _____ in the spring of 1898 and spent most of the _____ year convalescing(逐步康复) in the Catalan village of Horta de Ebro in the company of his Barcelona friend Manuel Pallares. When Picasso ______ Barcelona in early 1899, he was a changed man: he had put on weight; he had learned to live on his own in the open countryside; he spoke ______ ; and, most importantly, he had made the decision to break with his art-school training and to reject his family’s plans for his future. He even began to show a ______ preference for his mother’s surname, and more often than not he signed his works P. R. Picasso; by late 1901 he had dropped the Ruiz altogether.

In Barcelona Picasso moved among a circle of Catalan artists and writers whose eyes were turned ______ Paris. Those were his friends at the café Els Quatre Gats (“The Four Cats”, styled after the Chat Noir (“Black Cat”) in Paris), where Picasso had his first Barcelona exhibition in February 1900, and they were the ______ of more than 50 portraits in the show. In addition, there was a dark, moody “modernista” painting, Last Moments (later painted over), showing the visit of a ______ to the bedside of a dying woman, a work that was accepted for the Spanish section of the Exposition Universelle in Paris in that year. Eager to see his own work in place and to experience Paris firsthand, Picasso set off in the company of his studio mate Carles Casagemas (Portrait of Carles Casagemas, 1899) to conquer, if not Paris, at least a corner of Montmartre.

10 . As a physically fit 89-year-old big band singer, Tony Bennett performed timeless ballads (民歌，情歌) perfectly. He was an exception to the belief of aging and decline.

However, the trouble with his _______ concerned Bennett, especially since it might impact his ability to put on his signature fine-tuned show. Eventually, Bennett was _______ with Alzheimer’s disease in 2017.

After receiving the diagnosis, Bennett insisted on continuing to perform. “Tony has always had a very _______ attitude,” his wife Benedetto says. “He was going to keep going straight ahead _______ he always has.”

As one of only a few artists to produce chart-topping records every decade since the 1950s — _______ more than 60 albums — Bennett is an American icon (偶像). His _______ “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” and “Rags to Riches”, among many others — have earned him 19 Grammy Awards.

_______ the disease, Bennett’s desire to help others connect through music remained strong. He felt it _______ to make people feel good.

In February 2021, Bennett _______ shared that he was living with Alzheimer’s in an interview. Shortly after the news, the ________ from the public was overwhelmingly supportive. In October, Bennett and Lady Gaga released ________ is billed as Bennett’s final studio album, “Love for Sale.” Upon its release, Bennett earned the Guinness World Records ________ for the oldest artist to release an album of new material.

As the disease ________, music has a renewed importance in Bennett’s life. Over seven decades, Bennett’s brave and ________ voice is helping people find joy among life’s hardships. “He gives people courage and hope. And he is ________.”