Laeiszhalle

The Laeiszhalle (German pronunciation: [ˈlaɪsˌhalə]), formerly Musikhalle Hamburg, is a concert hall in the Neustadt of Hamburg, Germany and home to the Hamburger Symphoniker. The hall is named after the German shipowning company F. Laeisz, founder of the concert venue. The Baroque Revival Laeiszhalle was planned by the architect Martin Haller and inaugurated at its location on the Hamburg Wallring on June 4, 1908. At that time, the Musikhalle was Germany's largest and most modern concert hall.

Composers such as Richard Strauss, Sergei Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky and Paul Hindemith played and conducted their works in the Laeiszhalle. Pianist Vladimir Horowitz gave one of his first international performances in 1926; violinist Yehudi Menuhin gave a guest performance in 1930 at the age of twelve. Following World War II, which it survived intact, the Laeiszhalle experienced an intermezzo when the British occupying forces used the space temporarily as a broadcast studio for their radio station BFN.Maria Callas gave concerts in 1959 and 1962. In the 1960s the musical repertoire was also expanded to jazz and pop music, with performances by Lale Andersen, the Bee Gees, Udo Jürgens and Elton John.

Chris Andersen

Christopher Claus "Chris" Andersen (born July 7, 1978) is an American professional basketball player for the Miami Heat of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Nicknamed Birdman, Andersen was born in Long Beach, California, grew up in Iola, Texas, and played one year at Blinn College. Andersen began his professional career in the Chinese Basketball Association and the American minor leagues. He then played in the NBA for the Denver Nuggets and the New Orleans Hornets. The 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m), 245 lb (111 kg; 17.5 st) center/power forward received a two-year ban from the NBA in 2006 for violating the league's drug policy, but was reinstated on March 4, 2008, and re-signed with the Hornets the next day. He returned to Denver later in 2008, and remained with them until 2012. He signed with the Heat in January 2013. He is the only Blinn student to ever play in the NBA.

Early life

Andersen was the second of the three children of corrections officer and Danish immigrants Claus Andersen and Linda Holubec, a Tennessee native who worked as a waitress at the Port Hueneme base, and played basketball in high school. In 1982, when Andersen was four, his family moved to Texas, using a loan from the Texas Veterans Land Board to purchase a 10-acre plot in unincorporated Iola, about 100 miles north of Houston. Shortly later, Claus left the family without finishing the house they were building. The Andersens then lived off the land, with Linda working on low-end jobs and relying on the help of neighbors and Linda's brother, who was a Navy supply boat captain. During Andersen's middle school years, he and his siblings were sent to a group home in Dallas for three years. His long estranged father adamantly denies these details and took to the internet a few years ago to do so after reading an article in a Danish newspaper. Chris continues not to be interested in a relationship with his father regardless.