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Ann Mackay
Ann Mackay (born 21 March 1956) is an English soprano. Biography Ann Mackay was born in London, England. She studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf with whom she appeared at London's Wigmore Hall and elsewhere in Britain and Germany Mackay was the recipient of numerous awards before and after attending the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, including Greater London Council's "Outstanding Musician 1979", the Haydn Memorial Award, and the National Federation of Music Societies Award for Young Concert Artists. In 1981, Mackay won the Society of West End Theatre Award for Outstanding First Achievement in Opera ( 1981 Laurence Olivier Awards), presented to her by Joan Sutherland, for her portrayal of Stasi in '' The Gypsy Princess''. In a similar year, she won the Concert Artists Guild of America Amcon Award, following which she gave her New York debut at Carnegie Hall and toured the United States. Mackay is a frequent performer at venues ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soprano
A soprano () is a type of classical singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hertz, Hz to A5 in Choir, choral music, or to soprano C (C6) or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which often encompasses the melody. The soprano voice type is generally divided into the coloratura soprano, coloratura, soubrette, lyric soprano, lyric, spinto soprano, spinto, and dramatic soprano, dramatic soprano. Etymology The word "soprano" comes from the Italian word ''wikt:sopra, sopra'' (above, over, on top of),"Soprano" ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' as the soprano is the highest pitch human voice, often given to the leading female roles in operas. "Soprano" refers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Chamber Orchestra
The English Chamber Orchestra (ECO) is a British chamber orchestra based in London. The full orchestra regularly plays concerts at Cadogan Hall, and their ensemble performs at Wigmore Hall. With a limited performance size, the orchestra specializes in 18th-century music and was created to perform Baroque Music. The orchestra regularly tours in the UK and internationally, and holds the distinction of having the most extensive discography of any chamber orchestra and being the most well-traveled orchestra in the world; no other orchestra has played concerts (as of 2013, according to its own publicity) in as many countries as the English Chamber Orchestra. History The English Chamber Orchestra has its origins in the Goldsbrough Orchestra, founded in 1948 by Lawrence Leonard and Arnold Goldsbrough. The name was considered to prevent success outside of the UK and in 1960 it was changed to the English Chamber Orchestra, when Quintin Ballardie (a principal violinist with the ori ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simon Rattle
Sir Simon Denis Rattle (born 19 January 1955) is a British conductor with German citizenship. He rose to international prominence during the 1980s and 1990s, while music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (1980–1998). Rattle was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic from 2002 to 2018, and music director of the London Symphony Orchestra from 2017 to 2023. He has been chief conductor of Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra since September 2023. Among the world's leading conductors, in a 2015 ''Bachtrack'' poll, he was ranked by music critics as one of the world's best living conductors. Rattle is also the patron of Birmingham Schools' Symphony Orchestra, arranged during his tenure with CBSO in the mid-1990s. The Youth Orchestra is now under the auspices of charitable business Services for Education. He received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music in 2001 at the Classic Brit Awards. Biography Early life Simon Rattle was born in Liver ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willard White
Sir Willard Wentworth White, Order of Merit (Jamaica), OM, Order of the British Empire, CBE (born 10 October 1946) is a Jamaican-born British operatic bass baritone. Early life White was born into a Jamaican family in Kingston, Jamaica, Kingston and attended Excelsior High School (Jamaica), Excelsior High School in Kingston, the same school that produced the poet Louise Bennett-Coverly ("Miss Lou") and the actress Leonie Forbes. His father was a dockworker, his mother a housewife. White first began to learn music by listening to the radio and singing Nat King Cole songs. He was also inspired by the American bass baritone singer and civil rights activist Paul Robeson. White was a founding member of The Jamaican Folk Singers, and trained at the Jamaican School of Music. In a visit to Jamaica, Evelyn Barbirolli, Evelyn Rothwell, the oboist and wife of conductor Sir John Barbirolli, heard him sing and suggested that he go to study in London. Instead, his father bought him a one-way ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss (; ; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer and conductor best known for his Tone poems (Strauss), tone poems and List of operas by Richard Strauss, operas. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early Modernism (music), modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt. Along with Gustav Mahler, he represents the late flowering of German Romanticism, in which pioneering subtleties of orchestration are combined with an advanced harmony, harmonic style. Strauss's compositional output began in 1870 when he was just six years old and lasted until his death nearly eighty years later. His first tone poem to achieve wide acclaim was ''Don Juan (Strauss), Don Juan'', and this was followed by other lauded works of this kind, including ''Death and Transfiguration'', ''Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks'', ''Also sprach Zarathustra'', ''Don Quixote (Strauss), Don Quixote'', ''Ein Heldenleben'', ''Symph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel ( ; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well-known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concerti. Born in Halle, Germany, Handel spent his early life in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712, where he spent the bulk of his career and became a naturalised British subject in 1727. He was strongly influenced both by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition and by composers of the Italian Baroque. In turn, Handel's music forms one of the peaks of the "high baroque" style, bringing Italian opera to its highest development, creating the genres of English oratorio and organ concerto, and introducing a new style into English church music. He is consistently recognized as one of the greatest composers of his age. Handel started three commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera. In 1737, he had a physical breakdown, c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Worshipful Company Of Musicians
The Worshipful Company of Musicians is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. Its history dates back to at least 1350. Originally a specialist guild for musicians, its role became an anachronism in the 18th century, when the centre of music making in London moved from the city to the West End, and for more than a century it was a general guild for figures in the city, with no specific musical role. In the late 19th century, the musical element was revived, and the modern Company promotes all aspects of the art and science of music. History The guild is believed to have been in existence at least as early as 1350, but the earliest official charter known was granted by King Edward IV to his minstrels in 1469. In 1500, the Fellowship of Minstrels was granted incorporation as the Musicians' Company by the Lord Mayor of the City of London, and the company was given the right to regulate all musicians within the city.''The Times'', 19 October 1949, p. 7 In earlier centurie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of the longest-running newspapers in the United States, the ''Times'' serves as one of the country's Newspaper of record, newspapers of record. , ''The New York Times'' had 9.13 million total and 8.83 million online subscribers, both by significant margins the List of newspapers in the United States, highest numbers for any newspaper in the United States; the total also included 296,330 print subscribers, making the ''Times'' the second-largest newspaper by print circulation in the United States, following ''The Wall Street Journal'', also based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' is published by the New York Times Company; since 1896, the company has been chaired by the Ochs-Sulzberger family, whose current chairman and the paper's publ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Rutter
Sir John Milford Rutter (born 24 September 1945) is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music. Biography Born on 24 September 1945 in London, the son of an industrial chemist and his wife, Rutter grew up living over the Globe pub on London's Marylebone Road. He was educated at Highgate School, where fellow pupils included John Tavener, Howard Shelley, Brian Chapple and Nicholas Snowman. As a chorister there, Rutter took part in the first (1963) recording of Britten's '' War Requiem'' under the composer's baton. He thence read music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the choir. Whilst an undergraduate, he had his first compositions published, including the " Shepherd's Pipe Carol". He served as director of music at Clare College from 1975 to 1979, and led the choir to international prominence. In 1981, Rutter founded his own choir, the Cambridge Singers, which he conducts, and with which he has made ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bitter Sweet (operetta)
''Bitter Sweet'' is an operetta in three acts, with book, music and lyrics by Noël Coward. The story, set in nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century England and Austria-Hungary, centres on a young woman's elopement with her music teacher. The songs from the score include "The Call of Life", "If You Could Only Come with Me", " I'll See You Again", "Dear Little Café", "If Love Were All", "Ladies of the Town", "Tokay", "Zigeuner" and "Green Carnation". The show had a long run in the West End from 1929 to 1931, and a more modest one on Broadway in 1929–1930. The work has twice been adapted for the cinema, and the complete score has been recorded for CD. Background Coward wrote the leading role of Sari with Gertrude Lawrence in mind, but the vocal demands of the part were beyond her capabilities. His second choice, Evelyn Laye, refused the role because of a private grievance against the producer of the show, C. B. Cochran.Hoare, p. 202 Coward's third choice, Peggy Wood, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time (magazine), Time'' called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise"."Noel Coward at 70" ''Time'', 26 December 1969, p. 46 Coward attended a dance academy in London as a child, making his professional stage début at the age of eleven. As a teenager he was introduced into the high society in which most of his plays would be set. Coward achieved enduring success as a playwright, publishing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards. Many of his works, such as ''Hay Fever (play), Hay Fever'', ''Private Lives'', ''Design for Living'', ''Pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julian Slade
Julian Penkivil Slade (28 May 1930 – 17 June 2006) was an English writer of musical theatre, best known for the show '' Salad Days'', which he wrote in six weeks in 1954, and which became the UK's longest-running show of the 1950s, with over 2,288 performances. Biography Born in London, England, in 1930, he moved with his family in 1940 to Painswick, Gloucestershire, where he spent his formative years, becoming a young member of the village dramatic society. He was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was the first Footlights Vice President. After leaving Cambridge he went on to the drama school at the Bristol Old Vic. During his time at the Old Vic, Slade wrote incidental music for several productions including '' Two Gentlemen of Verona'' and '' The Duenna''. In 1954, he was asked to write a musical for the Old Vic Summer Season. It was then that he came up with '' Salad Days'' with Dorothy Reynolds. The show was such a success that it move ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
