Astra Blair
Astra Blair (born 2 September 1932) is a British former opera singer, agent, and charity fundraiser. Life and career Blair was born Margaret Jean Waugh in India and educated in England and West Africa. After finishing school Blair took up a scholarship at The Royal Academy of Music with singing as her principal study. Her professional debut was as a mezzo-soprano with Glyndebourne Festival Opera; she later joined the Sadlers Wells Opera, which became the English National Opera. In 1954 she married the opera singer Raimund Herincx and had three children. In 1972 she established Music and Musicians Artists' Management, an operatic and concert agency in London. Early in her musical career Blair and her husband converted part of their Bedfordshire home into a small concert hall and founded the Quinville Concerts Trust to raise funds for disabled children.Evan Senior (ed.)''Music and Musicians'', Volume 18 Hansom Books, 1969, pp. 51, 59, 71 Sir Colin Davis and Sir Charles Groves bec ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Royal Academy Of Music
The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke of Wellington. Famous academy alumni include Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Sir Elton John and Annie Lennox. The academy provides undergraduate and postgraduate training across instrumental performance, composition, jazz, musical theatre and opera, and recruits musicians from around the world, with a student community representing more than 50 nationalities. It is committed to lifelong learning, from Junior Academy, which trains musicians up to the age of 18, through Open Academy community music projects, to performances and educational events for all ages. The academy's museum houses one of the world's most significant collections of musical instruments and artefacts, including stringed instruments by Stradivari, Gu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Charity Fundraisers (people)
Charity may refer to: Giving * Charitable organization or charity, a non-profit organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being of persons * Charity (practice), the practice of being benevolent, giving and sharing * Charity (Christian virtue), the Christian religious concept of unlimited love and kindness * Principle of charity, in philosophy and rhetoric Places * Charity, Missouri, a community in the United States * Charity, Guyana, a small township * Mount Charity, Antarctica * Charity Glacier, Livingston Island, Antarctica * Charity Lake, British Columbia, Canada * Charity Island (Michigan), United States * Charity Island (Tasmania), Australia * Little Charity Island, Lake Huron, Michigan * Charity Creek, Sydney, Australia Entertainment * ''Charity'' (play), an 1874 play by W. S. Gilbert * ''Charity'' (novel), third in the ''Faith, Hope, Charity'' espionage trilogy of novels by Len Deighton * "Charity" (''Dilbert'' episode) * "Charity" (''M ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1932 Births
Year 193 ( CXCIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Sosius and Ericius (or, less frequently, year 946 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 193 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * January 1 – Year of the Five Emperors: The Roman Senate chooses Publius Helvius Pertinax, against his will, to succeed the late Commodus as Emperor. Pertinax is forced to reorganize the handling of finances, which were wrecked under Commodus, to reestablish discipline in the Roman army, and to suspend the food programs established by Trajan, provoking the ire of the Praetorian Guard. * March 28 – Pertinax is assassinated by members of the Praetorian Guard, who storm the imperial palace. The Empire is a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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British Mezzo-sopranos
British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, the English language as spoken and written in the United Kingdom or, more broadly, throughout the British Isles * Celtic Britons, an ancient ethno-linguistic group * Brittonic languages, a branch of the Insular Celtic language family (formerly called British) ** Common Brittonic, an ancient language Other uses *''Brit(ish)'', a 2018 memoir by Afua Hirsch *People or things associated with: ** Great Britain, an island ** United Kingdom, a sovereign state ** Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1800) ** United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1922) See also * Terminology of the British Isles * Alternative names for the British * English (other) * Britannic (other) * British Isles * Brit (other) * Bri ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Living People
Related categories * :Year of birth missing (living people) / :Year of birth unknown * :Date of birth missing (living people) / :Date of birth unknown * :Place of birth missing (living people) / :Place of birth unknown * :Year of death missing / :Year of death unknown * :Date of death missing / :Date of death unknown * :Place of death missing / :Place of death unknown * :Missing middle or first names See also * :Dead people * :Template:L, which generates this category or death years, and birth year and sort keys. : {{DEFAULTSORT:Living people 21st-century people People by status ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Drury Lane. The building is the most recent in a line of four theatres which were built at the same location, the earliest of which dated back to 1663, making it the oldest theatre site in London still in use. According to the author Peter Thomson, for its first two centuries, Drury Lane could "reasonably have claimed to be London's leading theatre". For most of that time, it was one of a handful of patent theatres, granted monopoly rights to the production of "legitimate" drama in London (meaning spoken plays, rather than opera, dance, concerts, or plays with music). The first theatre on the site was built at the behest of Thomas Killigrew in the early 1660s, when theatres were allowed to reopen during the English Restoration. Initial ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fay Weldon
Fay Weldon CBE, FRSL (born Franklin Birkinshaw; 22 September 1931 – 4 January 2023) was an English author, essayist and playwright. Over the course of her 55-year writing career, she published 31 novels, including '' Puffball'' (1980), '' The Cloning of Joanna May'' (1989), ''Wicked Women'' (1995)'' and The Bulgari Connection'' (2000), but was most well-known as the writer of '' The Life and Loves of a She-Devil'' (1983) which was televised by the BBC in 1986. Married three times and with four children, Weldon was a self-declared feminist. Her work features what she described as "overweight, plain women". She said there were many reasons why she became a feminist, including the "appalling" lack of equal opportunities and the myth that women were supported by male relatives. Early life Weldon was born Franklin Birkinshaw to a literary family in Birmingham, England, on 22 September 1931. Her maternal grandfather, Edgar Jepson (1863–1938), her uncle Selwyn Jepson and her ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Michael Parkinson
Sir Michael Parkinson (born 28 March 1935) is an English broadcaster, journalist and author. He presented his television talk show '' Parkinson'' from 1971 to 1982 and from 1998 to 2007, as well as other talk shows and programmes both in the UK and internationally. He has also worked in radio. He has been described by ''The Guardian'' as "the great British talkshow host". Early life Parkinson was born on 28 March 1935 in the village of Cudworth, near Barnsley, then in the West Riding of Yorkshire (since 1974 included in the new metropolitan county of South Yorkshire). The son of a miner, he was educated at Barnsley Grammar School after passing the eleven-plus and in 1951 passed two O-Levels: in art and English language. He was a club cricketer, and both he and his opening partner at Barnsley Cricket Club, Dickie Bird, had trials for Yorkshire together with Geoffrey Boycott. He once kept Boycott out of the Barnsley Cricket Club team by scoring a century and 50 in two succ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jonathan Miller
Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE (21 July 1934 – 27 November 2019) was an English theatre and opera director, actor, author, television presenter, humourist and physician. After training in medicine and specialising in neurology in the late 1950s, he came to prominence in the early 1960s in the comedy revue '' Beyond the Fringe'' with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett. Miller began directing operas in the 1970s. His 1982 production of a "Mafia"-styled ''Rigoletto'' was set in 1950s Little Italy, Manhattan. In its early days, he was an associate director at the National Theatre. He later ran the Old Vic Theatre. As a writer and presenter of more than a dozen BBC documentaries, Miller became a television personality and public intellectual in Britain and the United States. Life and career Early life Miller grew up in St John's Wood, London, in a well-connected Jewish family. His father Emanuel (1892–1970), who was of Lithuanian descent and suffered from severe r ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Shirley Bassey
Dame Shirley Veronica Bassey (; born 8 January 1937) is a Welsh singer. Best known for her career longevity, powerful voice and recording the theme songs to three James Bond films, Bassey is widely regarded as one of the most popular vocalists in Britain. Born in Cardiff, Bassey began performing as a teenager in 1953. In 1959, she became the first Welsh person to gain a number-one single on the UK Singles Chart. In the following decades, Bassey amassed 27 Top 40 hits in the UK, including two number-ones. She became well-known for recording the soundtrack theme songs of the James Bond films '' Goldfinger'' (1964), '' Diamonds Are Forever'' (1971), and '' Moonraker'' (1979). In 2020, Bassey became the first female artist to chart an album in the Top 40 of the UK Albums Chart in seven consecutive decades with her album '' I Owe It All To You''. Bassey has also had numerous BBC television specials, and she hosted her own variety series, '' Shirley Bassey''. In 2011, BBC aired t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kate Adie
Kathryn Adie (born 19 September 1945) is an English journalist. She was Chief News Correspondent for BBC News between 1989 and 2003, during which time she reported from war zones around the world. She retired from the BBC in early 2003 and works as a freelance presenter with '' From Our Own Correspondent'' on BBC Radio 4. Early life Adie was born in Whitley Bay, Northumberland. She was adopted as a baby by a Sunderland pharmacist and his wife, John and Maud Adie, and grew up there. Her birth parents were Irish Catholics and she made contact with her birth family in 1993, establishing a loving relationship lasting more than 20 years with her birth mother 'Babe'. She failed to trace her birth father John Kelly, or his family from Waterford, despite public appeals, she knows only that he had a brother (her blood uncle) Michael. She had an independent school education at Sunderland Church High School, and then studied at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, where she ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |