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Bruce Adolphe
Bruce Adolphe (born May 31, 1955) is a composer, music scholar, the author of several books on music, and pianist. He is currently Resident Lecturer and Director of Family Concerts of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and founder and creative director of The Learning Maestros, formerly called PollyRhythm Productions. He also founded the nonprofit 501(c)(3) educational organization Artful Thinkers. Adolphe performs a weekly "Piano Puzzler" segment on the nationally broadcast ''Performance Today'' classical music radio program hosted by Fred Child. "Piano Puzzler" was on National Public Radio starting in 2002, and is now on American Public Media. The program is also available as a podcast and from iTunes. Mr. Adolphe is also artistic director of Off the Hook Arts Festival, an interdisciplinary festival combining music, science, and visual arts, based in Fort Collins, Colorado. Biography Adolphe earned a Bachelor of Music and a Master's of Music from Juilliard in 197 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Definition The term is descended from Latin, ''compōnō''; literally "one who puts together". The earliest use of the term in a musical context given by the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' is from Thomas Morley's 1597 ''A Plain and Easy Introduction to Practical Music'', where he says "Some wil be good descanters ..and yet wil be but bad composers". 'Composer' is a loose term that generally refers to any person who writes music. More specifically, it is often used to denote people who are composers by occupation, or those who in the tradition of Western classical music. Writers of exclusively or primarily songs may be called composers, but since the 20th century the terms 'songwriter' or ' singer-songwriter' are more often used, particul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Playwright
A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder (as in a wheelwright or cartwright). The words combine to indicate a person who has "wrought" words, themes, and other elements into a dramatic form—a play. (The homophone with "write" is coincidental.) The first recorded use of the term "playwright" is from 1605, 73 years before the first written record of the term "dramatist". It appears to have been first used in a pejorative sense by Ben Jonson to suggest a mere tradesman fashioning works for the theatre. Jonson uses the word in his Epigram 49, which is thought to refer to John Marston: :''Epigram XLIX — On Playwright'' :PLAYWRIGHT me reads, and still my verses damns, :He says I want the tongue of epigrams ; :I have no salt, no bawdry he doth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts, such as acting, scenery, costume, and sometimes dance or ballet. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble, which since the early 19th century has been led by a conductor. Although musical theatre is closely related to opera, the two are considered to be distinct from one another. Opera is a key part of the Western classical music tradition. Originally understood as an entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, opera has come to include numerous genres, including some that include spoken dialogue such as '' Singspiel'' and '' Opéra comique''. In traditional number opera, singers employ two st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (founded 1972) is a classical music chamber orchestra based in New York City. They have won several Grammy Awards. The orchestra is known for its collaborative leadership style in which the musicians, not a conductor, interpret the score. History The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1972 by Julian Fifer and a group of young musicians. With 71 albums, including the Grammy Award-winning ''Shadow Dances: Stravinsky Miniatures'', and 42 commissioned and premiered original works, Orpheus rotates musical leadership roles for each work. Performing without a conductor, Orpheus presents an annual series at Carnegie Hall and tours extensively to major national and international venues. Collaborators of Orpheus include Fazıl Say, Isaac Stern, Gidon Kremer, Itzhak Perlman, Gil Shaham, Yo-Yo Ma, Mischa Maisky, Emanuel Ax, Richard Goode, Alicia de Larrocha, Radu Lupu, Martha Argerich, Alfred Brendel, Horacio Gutierrez, Murray Perahia, Peter Ser ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Symphony Orchestra
The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1930, its principal performing venue is the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. It also performs for the annual National Memorial Day Concert and ''A Capitol Fourth'' celebrations. History For the first period of its history, the NSO performed in Constitution Hall. During the tenure of the first music director, Hans Kindler, the musicians received a salary of $40.00 per week, for three rehearsals and one concert, for five months of the year. The first female member of the NSO was a harpist, Sylvia Meyer, who joined in 1933. Kindler and the NSO made several 78-rpm recordings for RCA Victor, including the two Roumanian Rhapsodies by George Enescu; much later, in 1960, the NSO would perform the first of these works under the baton of the visiting Romanian conductor George Georgescu, a close associate and favored exponent of the composer.Programme for Natio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brentano String Quartet
The Brentano Quartet is an American string quartet. History Founded in 1992 at the Juilliard School, the quartet's founding members were violinists Mark Steinberg and Serena Canin, violist Misha Amory, and cellist Michael Kannen. At the suggestion of Canin's husband, a pianist, the quartet took its name from Antonie Brentano, who has been proposed as Beethoven's "Immortal Beloved". The quartet made its public New York City concert debut in February 1994. In 1995, the quartet received the Naumburg Award and the Martin Segal Prize. Kannen left the quartet in May 1998, following his wife's injury in an automobile accident, to care for his young child. Nina Lee then joined the quartet as the ensemble's cellist. The quartet has since worked together with Kannen as guest cellist, such as in concerts in March 2008 at the Pennsylvania State University and in September 2014 at Amherst College. Kannen has also returned as a substitute cellist with the quartet when Lee was pregnant. In 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beaux Arts Trio
The Beaux Arts Trio was a noted piano trio, celebrated for their vivacity, emotional depth and wide-ranging repertoire. They made their debut on 13 July 1955, at the Berkshire Music Festival, Lenox, Massachusetts, United States, known today as the Tanglewood Music Center. Their final American concert was held at Tanglewood on 21 August 2008. It was webcast live and archived on NPR Music. Their final concert was in Lucerne, Switzerland on 6 September 2008. The Beaux Arts Trio recorded the entire standard piano trio repertoire. In 2005, the trio celebrated its 50th anniversary with two special CD issues, one featuring their most popular releases through their long years of recording (released by Philips Records), and the other an anniversary collection of new music (released by Warner Records). Throughout its existence, the trio was held together by founding pianist Menahem Pressler. The original members of the trio when it was founded in 1955 were as follows: * Piano: Menahem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sylvia McNair
Sylvia McNair (born June 23, 1956) is an American opera singer and classical recitalist who has also achieved notable success in the Broadway and cabaret genres. McNair, a soprano, has made several critically acclaimed recordings and has won two Grammy Awards. Early life and musical training Sylvia McNair was born in Mansfield, Ohio, the daughter of George and Marilou McNair. She attended and graduated from Lexington High School, just south of Mansfield. As a youth, she studied violin. She originally enrolled in the undergraduate music program at Wheaton College, IL as a violin major, but was encouraged by a violin instructor there to study voice as well. She commenced vocal studies at Wheaton with Margarita Evans, and finding herself more suited to singing, discontinued violin as her major. She earned a Bachelor of Music degree in 1978 from Wheaton and subsequently a Master of Music with Distinction in 1983 from Indiana University (whose music school is now the Jacobs S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carlo Grante
Carlo Grante (born 1960 in L'Aquila) is an Italian classical pianist. He graduated at the National Academy of St Cecilia in Rome with . Later he also studied with Ivan Davis, Rudolf Firkušný, and Alisa Kezheradze. He is known as a performer of mainstream classical composers such as Franz Liszt, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Domenico Scarlatti, as well as highly demanding late romantic and 20th-century composers such as Leopold Godowsky, Ferruccio Busoni, George Flynn, Roman Vlad, Michael Finnissy, Alistair Hinton, and Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji. His discography consists of more than 50 albums. Biography Grante graduated in piano at the Conservatory St. Cecilia in Rome with Sergio Perticaroli, then he studied in the U.S. with Ivan Davis, at the University of Miami and with Rudolf Firkusny at the Juilliard School in New York; he then moved to London, where he studied intensively with Alisa Kezheradze-Pogorelić. Grante is one of the most active among today's recording p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daniel Hope (violinist)
Daniel Hope (born 17 August 1973, Durban, South Africa) is a European classical violinist. Early life and education Hope was born in Durban, South Africa, and is of Irish and Jewish German descent, his maternal grandparents, formerly from Berlin, having escaped Nazism. His father is the novelist Christopher Hope, FRSL, and his mother Eleanor Hope worked as an assistant to Yehudi Menuhin. At age six months, his family moved from South Africa to London, because of his father's anti-apartheid views. In the UK Hope was educated at Highgate School and studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School in Stoke d'Abernon. In 2011 he was appointed Visiting Professor in Violin by the Royal Academy of Music, where he had studied under Zakhar Bron and gained a diploma (DipRAM) and a fellowship (FRAM). Career Hope became the violinist of the Beaux Arts Trio in 2002. His burgeoning career led to his decision to leave the Beaux Arts Trio, which in turn led to the decision to disband the ensemble. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joshua Bell
Joshua David Bell (born December 9, 1967) is an American violinist and conductor. He plays the Gibson Stradivarius. Early life and education Bell was born in Bloomington, Indiana, to Shirley Bell, a therapist, and Alan P. Bell, a psychologist, professor emeritus at Indiana University (IU), and former Kinsey researcher. His father is of Scottish descent and his mother is Jewish (her father was born in Mandatory Palestine and her mother was from Minsk). Bell began playing the violin at age four after his mother discovered that he had taken rubber bands from around the house and stretched them across the handles of his nine dresser drawers to pluck out music he had heard her play on the piano. His parents got a scaled-to-size violin for him when he was five and started giving him lessons. Bell took to the instrument but had an otherwise normal Indiana childhood, playing video games and excelling at sports, especially tennis and bowling. He placed in a national tennis tournamen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Itzhak Perlman
Itzhak Perlman ( he, יצחק פרלמן; born August 31, 1945) is an Israeli-American violinist widely considered one of the greatest violinists in the world. Perlman has performed worldwide and throughout the United States, in venues that have included a State Dinner at the White House honoring Queen Elizabeth II, and at President Barack Obama's inauguration. He has conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Westchester Philharmonic. In 2015, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Perlman has won 16 Grammy Awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and four Emmy Awards. Early life Perlman was born in 1945 in Tel Aviv. His parents, Chaim and Shoshana Perlman, were Jewish natives of Poland and had independently emigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel) in the mid-1930s before they met and later married. Perlman contracted polio at age four and has walked using leg braces and crutches since then and plays ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
