1 . Musicians born after the year 2000 kicked off the Project Spring Bird music season at the Blackstone Music Plus, showcasing the passion and creativity of Generation Z.
The small orchestras were among the biggest surprises in the festival. Each of the pieces in their repertoire (全部剧目)was performed for the first time. Homewood Symphony Orchestra directors and audience alike marveled at the talent of the young performers.
The small orchestras and musicians are the products of a nurturing program aimed at developing the skills and artistic creativity of young talent. It is strongly supported by Mellon Swift, music director of the Homewood Symphony Orchestra. “For young musicians, growth not only takes time, but also a starting point to bigger stages,Mellon said. “We want to help them cross the barriers and explore their artistic passion.”
Young musicians at the beginning of their careers usually emerge from well-known competitions, but Mellon said he wants to see opportunities become more expansive. “We insist on giving them as much freedom and support as possible, so that they don’t get sidetracked by concerns about some practical elements at the beginning of their careers,” he explained. “All they are required to do is to grow artistically and explore their creative potential and ideas, ” he added.
“If a voice tells us:Just do whatever you want, and we will support you all the way, just imagine what kind of potential could emerge?” wrote conductor Karajan, who is only 21, “The future belongs to us, and it can belong to us now! ”
1. What can we learn about the small orchestras in the festival?| A．Their songs were considered as classics. | B．Their performances amazed the audience. |
| C．They have got chances to be world known. | D．They are faced with few developing problems. |
| A．They rose to fame from fashion shows. |
| B．It was they who spread the popular pieces. |
| C．They are budding talents in the music world. |
| D．It takes them little time to peak in their career. |
| A．Young talents need help and improvement. |
| B．It is a long shot to explore music potential. |
| C．Big stages have been set for the music lovers. |
| D．Freedom is the only source of music inspiration. |
| A．A Big Success: the Project Spring Bird | B．Music Directors: Passion and Creativity |
| C．Generation Z:A Group of Musical Talents | D．Young Musicians: “The future belongs to us” |
2 . For many people, moths are dust - colored pests that eat our clothes and disturb us by flying around lights after dark. Not for artist Joseph Scheer. The pictures he creates bring out the beauty of moths, with colors, shapes, and patterns that have never been seen before so clearly. “Digital tools let you see things you'd never see just looking with your eyes,” Scheer says. Scheer's pictures have been displayed around the world, and one reaction is heard everywhere: “People insist, ‘No, that can't be a moth,’” says Scheer.
Scheer's work began with a moth hunt in the state of New York. Scheer would leave the lights on and the windows open overnight at his university office, and then collect the moths that had flown in. When the building cleaners at the university complained, he moved the hunt to his friend Mark Klingensmith's yard. They set up two lights shining over a plastic container on a white sheet. Then moths appeared from the darkness, flew into the sheet, and fell into the plastic container. “We got a different species every night,” Scheer says. “The patterns and colors were unbelievable.”
After the hunt, they used a powerful scanner to get detailed pictures of moths. Small moths presented special challenges.
The scanner records so much information that a single moth can take 20 minutes to scan. A scan of just two small moths fills an entire CD. All that information means the size of the picture can be increased by 2, 700 percent but still keep all the details and appear perfectly clear. You'd need a microscope to see the details shown in Scheer's prints.
Scheer's work is not only a new form of art. He has also made a valuable contribution to the record of the moths around him. He has helped identify more than a thousand different species. “Not from Alaska or the Amazon,” Klingensmith says. “All from one backyard.”
1. What do people mean by “No, that can't be a moth”?| A．Scheer is highly skilled at drawing | B．They don't like the pictures of moths |
| C．The moths in the pictures are too strange | D．The pictures seem too beautiful to be moths' |
| A．How Scheer caught moths | B．Scheer's working environment |
| C．How Scheer found moths' beauty | D．Scheer's friendship with Klingensmith. |
| A．local moths have bright colors and clear patterns |
| B．a microscope should be used to prepare the pictures |
| C．clear pictures result from much detailed information |
| D．high quality paint must be used to create the pictures |
| A．It is a common form of art. | B．It benefits research on moths. |
| C．It'll get popular in Alaska or the Amazon. | D．It needs to overcome regional limitations. |
3 . Having lived together in the same city for thirty years, it is almost certain that Franz Schubert (1797-1828) and Beethoven (1770-1827) must have met one another on some occasion. However, the surviving evidence cannot be proved and the related accounts disagree with each other. This can be partly explained by Schubert's natural modesty(谦逊)and shyness of character, as well as Beethoven's increasing social distancing in his later years because of his deafness.
Still, we have reason to believe that the admiration between the two great musicians was mutual. Around one month before his death, Beethoven was presented with handwritten copies of various Schubert songs. After looking into the works of the younger composer, Beethoven is said to have spoken excitedly: “Truly, in this Schubert there is a great talent(天赋)!”Schubert also visited Beethoven's sickbed, and on 29 March 1827, he went to his funeral(葬礼). Twenty months later, on 19 November 1828, Schubert would pass away at the age of thirty-one.
On his deathbed, Schubert expressed the wish to listen to one of Beethoven's works. His friend and violinist Karl Holz along with other musicians from the composer's circle played one for him. Just days before Schubert's death, Holz, who had also been a friend of Beethoven, said: “The King of Harmony has sent the King of Song a friendly bidding(请求)to the crossing.”
“Who can ever do anything after Beethoven?” These were said to be the words of Schubert while still at a young age. An admirer of Beethoven, Schubert was influenced by the great composer, whose towering figure had thrown a large shadow(阴影)over the whole of Vienna's musical world. At Schubert's own request, he was buried next to Beethoven in Vienna. Even though they hardly met in the physical world, the two great musicians would stay together in the hereafter.
1. What stopped Schubert and Beethoven from meeting each other?| A．Schubert's personality and Beethoven's disability. | B．Beethoven being much older than Schubert. |
| C．The competitive relationship between them. | D．The long distance between them. |
| A．Beethoven had a great interest in music. | B．Beethoven was productive and talented. |
| C．Beethoven appreciated Schubert's works. | D．Beethoven and Schubert died in the same year. |
| A．A piano player. | B．The King of Song. |
| C．The King of Harmony. | D．A friend of the two musicians. |
| A．To explain the reasons for developing lifelong friendships. |
| B．To describe the relationship between the two musicians. |
| C．To advise people to listen to great musical works. |
| D．To remember two world-famous musicians. |
4 . Christo Javacheff the artist who worked to turn landscapes and buildings into massive, temporary works of art, died on March 2021 at age 84. Christo surprised the world again and again with the imagination and size of the artworks he created.
Christo, born in Bulgaria in 1935, met his wife Jeanne-Claude in Paris in 1959. Together, the two formed a strong partnership that lasted the rest of their lives. They worked as a team to create huge works of art called installations. In these installations, Christo and Jeanne often changed the way buildings or large areas of land looked — a kind of art known as "land art”.
The two were most noted for “wrapping” things so large that most people would never think to wrap them. Many of their projects used huge pieces of cloth or plastic. For example, in 1969, they wrapped 1.6 miles of rocky coastline near Sydney, Australia and it was the largest artwork ever made. In 1995, they used cloth to wrap up the Reichstag, a famous and historic building in Berlin, Germany.
Being extremely large, their art works cost a fortune to create. The artists paid for the projects themselves by selling the plans, drawings, and models they made for each installation. Many projects seemed so unusual that the couple had to work very hard to get permission to create them.
But, like almost all of the artist's work, it was only meant to last a short time. Most of the installations only stayed up for a few weeks or months before being taken down.
“I am an artist, and I have to have courage," Christo said. "Do you know I don't have any artworks that exist? They all go away when they're finished." Christo himself has gone away, leaving behind an art world forever changed by the memory of his huge and daring artworks.
1. For what were the couple best known?| A．Overcoming financial problems. |
| B．Tearing down old-fashioned buildings. |
| C．Inventing innovative building materials. |
| D．Packaging huge landscapes and buildings. |
| A．Considerate and humble. | B．Creative and courageous. |
| C．Enthusiastic and careful. | D．Demanding and generous. |
| A．His artworks were temporary. |
| B．His hard work didn't pay off at last. |
| C．He regretted exhibiting his artworks. |
| D．He didn't expect his works to last long. |
| A．Christo's Collection of Massive Artworks |
| B．Christo's Enormous Influence on Architecture |
| C．Christo: an Artist Who Dreamed and Built Big |
| D．Christo and Jeanne: a Couple Who Warmed the World |
5 . The exact location from where Vincent van Gogh is likely to have painted his final masterpiece, perhaps just hours before his death, has been determined with the help of a postcard.
The scene in Tree Roots, a painting of trunks (树干）and roots growing on a hillside, was first spotted on a card dating from 1900 to 1910 by Van der Veen, the scientific director of the Institute Van Gogh. Following a comparative study of the painting, the postcard and the current condition of the hillside, researchers concluded that it was highly possible that the place where Van Gogh made his final brushstrokes had been unearthed.
The main trunk in the painting has survived the 130 years since the Dutch master’s death. It has long been believed that Van Gogh had been working on Tree Roots shortly before he took his own life with a shot to the chest. Andries Bonger, the brother-in-law of Van Gough's brother Theo, had described in a letter how the “morning before his death” Van Gogh had “painted a forest scene, full of sun and life” Van der Veen said, t4The sunlight painted by Van Gogh suggests that the last brushstrokes were painted towards the end of the afternoon.”
Teio Meedendorp, a senior researcher at the Van Gogh Museum, said the spot, some 150 meters from the hotel where Van Gogh had stayed the last 70 days of his life, would likely have been passed on a number of occasions by him. “The scene on the postcard shows very clear similarities to the shape of the roots on Van Gogh’s painting,” he said. “He must often have passed by the location when going to the fields behind the castle of Auvers, where he painted several times during the last week of his life and where he would take his own life.”
1. What is Tree Roots?| A．A trunk. |
| B．A hillside. |
| C．A drawing. |
| D．A postcard. |
| A．He had a close relationship with his brother. |
| B．What he drew in his paintings all came from real life. |
| C．He was working on his artwork shortly before killing himself. |
| D．He was so sick in his last days that he spent all the time in a hotel. |
| A．In the fields. | B．In a local hotel. |
| C．In the castle of Auvers. | D．In the scene on the postcard. |
| A．To remember a famous painter. Van Gogh. |
| B．To introduce Van Gogh's life and his works. |
| C．To describe the influence of Van Gogh in art. |
| D．To tell the place in Van Gogh’s last painting. |
