Joseph Maurice Ravel French:. He is associated with impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer. Born to a music-loving family, Ravel attended France's premier music college, the Paris Conservatoire. After leaving the conservatoire, Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity and incorporating elements of modernism, neoclassicism and, in his works, jazz, he liked to experiment with musical form, as in his best-known work, Boléro, in which repetition takes the place of development. He made some orchestral arrangements of other composers' music, of which his 1922 version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is the best known. A slow and painstaking worker, Ravel composed fewer pieces than many of his contemporaries. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, two piano concertos, ballet music, two operas and eight song cycles.

Many of his works exist in two versions: first, a piano score and an orchestration. Some of his piano music, such as Gaspard de la nuit, is exceptionally difficult to play, his complex orchestral works such as Daphnis et Chloé require skilful balance in performance. Ravel was among the first composers to recognise the potential of recording to bring their music to a wider public. From the 1920s, despite limited technique as a pianist or conductor, he took part in recordings of several of his works. Ravel was born in the Basque town of Ciboure, near Biarritz, 18 kilometres from the Spanish border, his father, Pierre-Joseph Ravel, was an educated and successful engineer and manufacturer, born in Versoix near the Franco-Swiss border. His mother, Marie, née Delouart, had grown up in Madrid. In 19th-century terms, Joseph had married beneath his status – Marie was illegitimate and literate – but the marriage was a happy one; some of Joseph's inventions were successful, including an early internal combustion engine and a notorious circus machine, the "Whirlwind of Death", an automotive loop-the-loop, a major attraction until a fatal accident at Barnum and Bailey's Circus in 1903.

Both Ravel's parents were Roman Catholics. He was baptised in the Ciboure parish church six days; the family moved to Paris three months and there a younger son, Édouard, was born. Maurice was devoted to their mother. Among his earliest memories were folk songs; the household was not rich, but the family was comfortable, the two boys had happy childhoods. Ravel senior delighted in taking his sons to factories to see the latest mechanical devices, but he had a keen interest in music and culture in general. In life, Ravel recalled, "Throughout my childhood I was sensitive to music. My father, much better educated in this art than most amateurs are, knew how to develop my taste and to stimulate my enthusiasm at an early age." There is no record. When he was seven, Ravel started piano lessons with a friend of Emmanuel Chabrier. Without being anything of a child prodigy, he was a musical boy. Charles-René found that Ravel's conception of music was natural to him "and not, as in the case of so many others, the result of effort".

Ravel's earliest known compositions date from this period: variations on a chorale by Schumann, variations on a theme by Grieg and a single movement of a piano sonata. They survive only in fragmentary form. In 1888 Ravel met the young pianist Ricardo Viñes, who became not only a lifelong friend, but one of the foremost interpreters of his works, an important link between Ravel and Spanish music; the two shared an appreciation of Wagner, Russian music, the writings of Poe and Mallarmé. At the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889, Ravel was much struck by the new Russian works conducted by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov; this music had a lasting effect on both Ravel and his older contemporary Claude Debussy, as did the exotic sound of the Javanese gamelan heard during the Exposition.Émile Decombes took over as Ravel's piano teacher in 1889. Aged fourteen, he took part in a concert at the Salle Érard along with other pupils of Decombes, including Reynaldo Hahn and Alfred Cortot. With the encouragement of his parents, Ravel applied for entry to France's most important musical college, the Conservatoire de Paris.

In November 1889, playing music by Chopin, he passed the examination for admission to the preparatory piano class run by Eugène Anthiome. Ravel won the first prize in the Conservatoire's piano competition in 1891, but otherwise he did not stand out as a student; these years were a time of considerable advance in his development as a composer. The musicologist Arbie Orenstein writes that for Ravel the 1890s were a period "of immense growth... from adolescen

Lina Boqvist is a Swedish professional golfer. In 2012 Boqvist became the Swedish Champion in matchplay and in 2013 she won the Nordea Tour order of merit, she ended 2014 as runner-up on the LET Access Series order of merit with one victory in the Onsjö Ladies Open, which gave her a card for the Ladies European Tour in 2015. She finished 44th on the 2015 order of merit, her best result of the 2015 season was a tie for third at Tipsport Golf Masters in the Czech Republic. Boqvist qualified for the 2016 Women's British Open by rising to 23rd on the LET money list after finishing in the top ten at the Lalla Meryem Cup, she qualified as one of the five reserves for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Boqvist posted her career best finish in five years on tour at the 2019 Lalla Meryem Cup and moved up to fifth on the Order of Merit, she shot a career low round of 66 and finished the tournament runner-up to Nuria Iturrioz after they started the final round tied at 10-under. 2014 Onsjö Ladies Open 2012 SM Matchplay DNP = did not play CUT = missed the half-way cut "T" = tied for place Professional European Championships: 2018 Official website Lina Boqvist at the Ladies European Tour official site Lina Boqvist at the Women's World Golf Rankings official site Lina Boqvist at the Golfdata official site

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Thailand was established in 1966 when it was dedicated for missionary work by Gordon B. Hinckley. A previous attempt at missionary work was made in 1854 when Brigham Young sent four missionaries to Thailand; the only missionary to arrive was Elam Luddington whose only baptisms during his four-month service in Thailand were a non-Thai ship captain and his wife on April 9, 1854. The first known baptism of a native in Thailand was for Nangnoi Thitapoora on September 11, 1966; the Book of Mormon was translated twice. The first translation, which took about six years, was completed in 1976 by Srilaksana Suntarahut. A new translation was completed in 2010. Missionary work was challenging in the 1970s and 1980s because of restrictions from the Thai immigration that prohibited more than 100 missionaries in Thailand at a time and required that missionaries leave the country every 90 days to renew their visas. Baptisms grew after 1992, when the law was repealed and missionaries were required to renew their visas only one time during their two-year service.

The Thailand Bangkok mission was established on July 19, 1973 with Paul D. Morris and the first stake in Thailand was organized on June 19, 1995 by Neal A. Maxwell. In April 2015, Thomas S. Monson announced plans to build the first temple in Thailand in Bangkok; as of 2018, the LDS Church reported 22,100 members and one mission in Thailand, with a temple announced in 2015. In the early 1850s, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Brigham Young, sent four missionaries to serve in Siam. Upon arriving in Calcutta, India in 1853, only two of the four missionaries remained assigned to serve in Siam as a result of challenges due to the war between the Burmese government and the East India Trading Company. Elam Luddington and Levi Savage attempted to sail to Siam from Burma, but were forced to return to India when their ship encountered problems, they arrived in Burma in August 1853. Because Savage was too ill to go to Siam, Luddington arrived in Siam alone on April 6, 1854. Luddington's only baptisms were the ship captain, James Trail and his wife, three days after his arrival.

Luddington would spend a little over four months in Siam, working only with European residents as he was unable to speak Thai. During his service, Luddington was stoned poisoned once. Luddington returned to San Francisco on June 27, 1855 due to his lack of success and the language barrier; the influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was absent from Thailand for about a century. Church members in the 1950s and early 1960s held informal church services before they were given official authorization to hold church meetings in Bangkok in 1961; some small congregations of United States servicemen were established on some United States Air Force bases during the Vietnam War. In 1962, president of the South Far East Mission Robert S. Taylor organized the first official congregation of church members. LDS military servicemen added numbers to the group during the war. In 1973 and 1974, Gordon B. Hinckley traveled to Thailand to inquire as to. A Mutual Improvement Association was organized in September 1964, meeting in a private restaurant after having outgrown the living room of a home.

The first non-Thai person baptized in Thailand since 1854 was a serviceman named Jim McElvee. He was baptized on January 21, 1966. On March 27, 1966, Keith E. Garner organized the Thailand District of the Southern Far East Mission with Stirling Merrill as president; the congregation in Bangkok had over 200 members by July 1966, so the Bangkok Branch was organized with Gordon M. Flammer as Branch President; the country was dedicated for missionary work by Gordon B. Hinckley on November 2, 1966 in Lumphini Park; the mission became a part of the Southern Far East Mission, presided over by Keith B. Garner. Hinckely found property for $77,000 for a chapel, purchased in 1967. Due to struggles receiving Thai government approval, it wasn't until February 2, 1968 that missionaries were allowed to enter the country. Six missionaries from Taiwan and Hong Kong were transferred to Bangkok. Soon thereafter, the missionaries began an intensive three week language program at the American University Alumni School and had the missionary lessons translated into Thai by a translator.

Full-time proselyting began on March 6, 1968 and the first missionary lesson was held in the Thai language on March 17 with the help of Anan Eldredge. Boonepluke and Rabiab Klaophin, baptized on May 15, 1968, were the first converts by missionaries in Thailand. President Garner of the Southern Far East Mission made the decision in June 1968 to send missionaries to Korat, the third largest city in Thailand; the influence of the Church grew in Korat, with baptism services held monthly. W. Brent Hardy replaced Garner as president of the Southern Far East Mission in July 1968. Re-translations of the missionary lessons were initiated, but this was difficult because the hired translators were unfamiliar with LDS terminology and the Thai language doesn't have equivalent words for Christian subjects. In December 1968, Ezra Taft Benson a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, attended a quarterly district conference in Bangkok. There, he had the opportunity to meet King Rama IX of Thailand. Benson presented the King with a Thai Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith's Testimony, a copy of Meet the Mormons.

By the end of 1968, there were eight missionaries working in Thailand. In 1969, the numbers had grown to twenty-five missionaries. For a short