Oboist, oboe and recorder teacher, music educator https://xitter.cf/t.co/KyWztgKWPT
London, UK
Joined January 2016
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Θερμά συγχαρητήρια!! Huge congratulations!! 👏👏👏
🎻 Η 18χρονη Σοφία Δημητριάδη από το Λονδίνο αναδείχθηκε νικήτρια του BBC Young Musician 2026, κατακτώντας μία από τις σημαντικότερες διακρίσεις για νέους μουσικούς στη Βρετανία.
🏆 Στον μεγάλο τελικό, που πραγματοποιήθηκε στο Bristol Beacon, εντυπωσίασε με την ερμηνεία της στο Κοντσέρτο για Βιολί του Τσαϊκόφσκι, συνοδευόμενη από την Εθνική Ορχήστρα της Ουαλίας του BBC, υπό τη διεύθυνση του Alpesh Chauhan.
❤️ «Είναι το απόλυτο όνειρό μου», δήλωσε συγκινημένη η νεαρή βιολονίστρια, η οποία είχε γιορτάσει τα 18α γενέθλιά της παίζοντας στον προημιτελικό του διαγωνισμού.
Πηγή βίντεο: @sofiademetriadesviolin
#violin #london #classical #cosmos #tanea
Maria Papathanasiou retweeted
Patrick Stewart in lockdown reading my favorite sonnet, Sonnet 73, “That Time of Year Thou May’st in Me Behold.” RIP.
Maria Papathanasiou retweeted
I just found out that Sir Patrick Stewart has died.
Here is a video he made on the advice he would give to his younger self.
RIP
Maria Papathanasiou retweeted
The purest reaction to timeless beauty. 🎹🥺 You can literally see the music working its magic.
Maria Papathanasiou retweeted
This is one of the most famous paintings in the world, and most people don’t know that its fame began with an insult...
It’s Impression, Sunrise, painted by Claude Monet in 1872 in Le Havre, the port town where he grew up. Looking out over the harbour early one morning, he painted the orange sun rising through the mist, a few dark boats on the water and the shapes of ships fading into the haze. When he was asked for a title for an exhibition catalogue, he admitted it didn’t really look like a view of Le Havre, so he simply said: “Put Impression.”
In 1874, he showed it in Paris alongside a group of young painters who had been shut out of the official art world. The critic Louis Leroy went to see it and wrote a mocking review in a satirical newspaper, joking that even unfinished wallpaper looked more finished than this seascape. He titled it “The Exhibition of the Impressionists” and he meant it as a joke. Instead, he had just named one of the most important art movements in history...
Over a century later, the painting made headlines again, when armed men walked into the Paris museum where it hangs and stole it in broad daylight. It was missing for five years before police finally found it in Corsica. Today it’s back on the wall of the Musée Marmottan Monet: a hazy sunrise that was once mocked, then stolen, and still gave its name to a whole new way of seeing the world and to an entire chapter of art.
Maria Papathanasiou retweeted
The performance Matias Lindfors just gave us in Budapest is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen…
Maria Papathanasiou retweeted
Un profesor le dió un globo🎈a cada alumno que tuvo que inflarlo, escribir su nombre en él y tirarlo al pasillo. El profesor entonces mezcló todos los globos y dio a los estudiantes 5 minutos para que cada uno encontrara su propio globo. Tras la acelerada búsqueda, nadie encontró su globo. En ese momento, el profesor les dijo a los estudiantes que tomaran el primer globo que encontraran y se lo entregaran a la persona cuyo nombre estaba escrito en él. En 5 minutos cada uno tenía su propio globo. El profesor dijo a los estudiantes: - Estos globos son como la felicidad. Nunca la encontraremos si todo el mundo está buscando la suya, pero si nos preocupamos por la felicidad de los demás también encontraremos la nuestra.
Maria Papathanasiou retweeted
This is a hilarious and creative percussion performance by The Bands of HM Royal Marines, recorded at the 2019 Mountbatten Festival of Music at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
The two percussionists combine exceptional musical skill with a distinctly British sense of humor. Alongside their regular percussion instruments, they use unexpected objects, such as pipes, to produce unique sounds. The result is a performance that showcases impressive musicianship while delivering plenty of clever and entertaining moments.
Maria Papathanasiou retweeted
I dare you to watch this without laughing. 😂
This was music class for a group of 3-year-olds in Levittown, New York. The song had a little surprise, and this little boy thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. He laughed so hard he could barely sit up, and within seconds, his classmates joined in.
That’s the thing about joy. It spreads. You can’t help it.
Kids learn so much through music, but I think this little guy might have taught all of us something today: never hold back a good laugh.
For more feel-good stories like this, follow me and comment “NEWSLETTER,” and I’ll send you the sign-up.
🎥: Sara Shonfeld, Musical Minds via ViralHog
#DoGoodCrew #GoodNews #FeelGood #Laughter #MusicClass #KidsBeingKids
Μία συγκλονιστική ερμηνεία, μία πραγματική υπέροχη ψυχή. Καλή σου ανάπαυση στην αγκαλιά του Θεού φιλεύσπλαχνε και μεγαλόκαρδε Γιώργο 🕊️🙏
Το εμβληματικό τραγούδι «Ήτανε μια φορά μάτια μου»σφραγίστηκε από τη συγκλονιστική ερμηνεία του Ξυλούρη, σε μουσική Ξαρχάκου.
Ο #Μαζωνακης το έλεγε με ψυχή
Για αυτό κι ο Ξαρχακος τιμωντας τον είπε ότι ο έκανε το τραγούδι να μοιάζει με προσωπική εξομολόγηση
Ερασιτεχνική λήψη
Maria Papathanasiou retweeted
Children who take music lessons develop a larger corpus callosum, the bridge between the two halves of the brain, and the change is permanent. A 2005 review in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences found that early music training produces structural brain changes that persist into adulthood, even if the person stops playing.
The review was led by Gottfried Schlaug at Harvard Medical School, one of the leading researchers on music and the brain. He found that children who started instrumental training before age seven had a significantly larger anterior corpus callosum than non-musicians, and the size difference was still visible in adults who had not touched an instrument in years.
The corpus callosum carries signals between the left and right hemispheres. A larger one means faster, richer communication between the two sides, and the effect shows up in tasks that have nothing to do with music: spatial reasoning, verbal memory, and the ability to process multiple streams of information at once. The music built the highway, and the brain uses it for everything.
Schlaug also found that musicians had larger cerebellums, the region involved in timing and motor coordination, and more grey matter in the areas that process sound. The brain had physically reorganised itself around the demands of the instrument, and the reorganisation was visible on a scan.
The age window matters. Children who started before seven showed the largest changes. Children who started after ten showed smaller ones. Adults who took up an instrument for the first time showed the least structural change, though they still showed some. The brain is most willing to be rebuilt by music during the years when most parents are debating whether to sign their child up for lessons. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1659…
Maria Papathanasiou retweeted
From today’s Times: ‘Researchers at the University of Cambridge said that regardless of “what or how we read”, sitting down with a book is linked to improved health and problem solving. Benefits include lowering stress and reducing the risk of dementia, and span all types of reading, from comic books to classic novels or hefty non-fiction tomes.’
Maria Papathanasiou retweeted
Yes: handwriting still matters.
A new study has confirmed that writing by hand activates far more complex and widespread neural networks in the brain than typing, underscoring its importance for learning and memory.
Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology used a high-density EEG cap with 256 electrodes to record brain activity in university students. They found that the intricate, sensory-rich movements involved in handwriting, especially cursive, trigger highly synchronized brain waves across extensive areas of the parietal and central regions. These coordinated patterns are strongly linked to memory formation, cognitive processing, and encoding new information.
In contrast, typing, which involves repetitive, simpler finger movements, produced significantly less neural connectivity and engagement. The difference was striking: the brain appears much less active during digital writing.
The researchers conclude that the unique motor and sensory experience of holding a pen plays a key role in brain development and learning. As a result, they argue that handwriting instruction should remain a core part of education to support deeper comprehension and cognitive growth in the next generation.
[ “Handwriting vs. Typing: A High-Density EEG Study on Brain Connectivity During Learning” — Norwegian University of Science and Technology (published in Frontiers in Psychology, 2025)]
Maria Papathanasiou retweeted
For more than 20 years, Norwegian neuroscientist Audrey van der Meer has investigated how handwriting shapes the human brain.
In a landmark 2024 study published in Frontiers in Psychology, her team used high-density EEG caps to monitor brain activity in students while they either wrote by hand with a digital pen or typed on a keyboard.
The difference was dramatic. Handwriting produced a powerful, synchronized burst of neural activity across widespread regions of the brain, linking areas involved in memory formation, sensory processing, and deep learning. In contrast, typing the exact same content caused this rich cognitive network to largely shut down. Because typing uses repetitive, uniform keystrokes, it demands little spatial or cognitive effort, leaving key learning centers quiet and disengaged.
These neurological differences have a direct effect on how we process and remember information. Earlier research by Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer at Princeton University reached similar conclusions. Students who took notes by hand consistently outperformed those using laptops on conceptual understanding tests. Handwriting forces active listening, critical thinking, and real-time summarization, while typing often leads to verbatim transcription with minimal processing.
Our brains function as part of an embodied biological system. Replacing rich physical actions with effortless digital keystrokes may deliver short-term convenience, but it comes at the expense of deeper cognitive engagement.
The solution is simple and timeless: pick up a pen.
[Van der Meer, A. L. H., et al. (2024). Handwriting versus typing: A neurophysiological comparison of brain activity during learning. Frontiers in Psychology, 15. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1234567]
