Two interesting sites

In thinking about an interesting link to post to my newest blog entry, I remembered that the students in the Mark Twain Intermediate School strings program, where I'm currently student teaching, are planning on attending a concert by the duo Black Violin, two really fascinating performers from South Florida who blend hip-hop with classical violin. Black Violin won the Showtime at the Apollo talent contest a few years ago, and are now widely sought after performers and studio musicians. Their story is very interesting, and you can read about it in greater depth on their website, www.blackviolin.net

Black Violin is pictured above.

A website that I particularly cherish, and one that really reveals one particular possibility inherent in the internet, is Metacritic, a sort of clearing house for content reviews in all different sorts of media, from music, to movies, to video games and to books. It immediately provides for the user a color-coded "score", indicating whether the compiled reviews were generally favorable, lukewarm, or negative. It also provides links to some of the reviews of a given work, allowing the user to instantly read as many reviews as desired before deciding to see, or purchase something. I love it! It's so useful!