|
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen (; born 30 June 1958) is a Finnish conducting, conductor and composer. He is the music director of the San Francisco Symphony and conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 2024, he announced his resignation from the San Francisco Symphony upon the expiration of his contract in 2025. Life and career Early work Born in Helsinki, Finland, Salonen graduated from Helsingin Suomalainen Yhteiskoulu (SYK), one of the top high schools in Finland, in 1977 and then went to study French horn, horn and musical composition, composition at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, as well as conducting with Jorma Panula. His conducting classmates included Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Osmo Vänskä. Another classmate on the composition side was the composer Magnus Lindberg and together they formed the new-music appreciation group Korvat auki ("Ears open" in the Finnish language) and the experimental ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra
The Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra (; ; literal English translation: Helsinki City Orchestra; commonly abbreviated as HPO) is an orchestra based in Helsinki, Finland. Founded in 1882 by Robert Kajanus, the Philharmonic Orchestra was the first permanent orchestra in the Nordic countries. Today, its primary concert venue is the Helsinki Music Centre; the current chief conductor is Jukka-Pekka Saraste, who has held his post since the start of the 2023–24 season.. History Early history In 1882, with the backing of two wealthy businessmen ( Waldemar Klärich and Nikolai Sinebrychoff), the Finnish composer and conductor Robert Kajanus founded the Helsinki Orchestral Association (in Finnish: ; in Swedish: ), the first permanent orchestra in the Nordic countries. Kajanus, who took no salary in the first year, conducted the Orchestral Association in its inaugural concert, on 3 October 1882; the program included, among other pieces, Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C&nbs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnus Lindberg
Magnus Gustaf Adolf Lindberg (born 27 June 1958) is a Finnish composer and pianist. He was the New York Philharmonic's composer-in-residence from 2009 to 2012 and the London Philharmonic Orchestra's composer-in-residence from 2014 to 2017. Early life Lindberg was born in Helsinki, where he studied at the Sibelius Academy under Einojuhani Rautavaara and Paavo Heininen, beginning with piano. He attended summer courses in Siena (with Franco Donatoni) and Darmstadt (with Brian Ferneyhough). After graduating in 1981, he traveled widely in Europe, attending private studies with Vinko Globokar and Gérard Grisey in Paris, and observing Japanese drumming and punk rock in Berlin. Compositions and style Lindberg's juvenilia include the large orchestral work ''Donor'', composed at age 16. ''Quintetto dell’Estate'' (1979) is generally held to be Lindberg's first opus. His first piece performed by a professional orchestra was ''Sculpture II'' in 1982, the second part of a trilogy who ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival () is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer, for five weeks starting in late July, in Salzburg, Austria, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart's operas are a focus of the festival; one highlight is the annual performance of Hofmannsthal's play ''Jedermann (play), Jedermann'' (''Everyman''). Since 1967, an annual Salzburg Easter Festival has also been held, organized by a separate organization. History Music festivals were held in Salzburg at irregular intervals since 1877 by the International Mozarteum Foundation but were discontinued in 1910. A festival was planned for 1914, but it was cancelled at the outbreak of World War I. In 1917, Friedrich Gehmacher and Heinrich Damisch formed an organization known as the ''Salzburger Festspielhaus-Gemeinde'' to establish an annual festival of drama and music, emphasizing especially the works of Mozart. At the close of the war in 1918, the festival's revival wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
André Previn
André George Previn (; born Andreas Ludwig Priwin; April 6, 1929 – February 28, 2019) was a German-American pianist, composer, and conductor. His career had three major genres: Hollywood films, jazz, and classical music. In each he achieved success, and the latter two were part of his life until the end. In movies, he arranged and composed music. In jazz, he was a celebrated trio pianist, a piano-accompanist to singers of standards, and pianist-interpreter of songs from the " Great American Songbook". In classical music, he also performed as a pianist but gained television fame as a conductor, and during his last thirty years created his legacy as a composer of art music. Before the age of twenty, Previn began arranging and composing for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He would go on to be involved in the music of more than fifty films and would win four Academy Awards. He won ten Grammy Awards, for recordings in all three areas of his career, and then one more, for lifetime ach ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernest Fleischmann
Ernest Martin Fleischmann (December 7, 1924 – June 13, 2010) was a German-born American impresario who served for 30 years as executive director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which he upgraded to become a top-ranked orchestra. A talented musician, he chose a career on the business aspect of music, rather than a life as a conductor. Fleischmann was born in Frankfurt am Main on December 7, 1924, to Gustav and Toni (née Koch). His Jewish family fled Nazi Germany and emigrated to South Africa. There he learned music as a teenager and made his debut as a professional conductor in 1942, when he was only 17 years old. He earned an undergraduate degree in accounting from the University of the Witwatersrand and received a degree in music from the University of Cape Town. He organized music for the Johannesburg Festival starting in 1956, for which he commissioned William Walton to create the Johannesburg Festival Overture in honor of the city's 70th anniversary. He married Els ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valery Gergiev
Valery Abisalovich Gergiev (, ; ; born 2 May 1953) is a Russian conducting, conductor and opera company director. He is currently general director and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre and of the Bolshoi Theatre and artistic director of the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg. He was formerly chief conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and of the Munich Philharmonic. Early life Gergiev was born in Moscow. He is the son of Tamara Timofeevna (Tatarkanovna) Lagkueva and Abisal Zaurbekovich Gergiev, both of Ossetians, Ossetian origin. He and his siblings were raised in Vladikavkaz in North Ossetia in the Caucasus. He had his first piano lessons in secondary school before going on to study at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, Leningrad Conservatory from 1972 to 1977. His principal conducting teacher was Ilya Musin (conductor), Ilya Musin. His sister, Larissa, is a pianist and director of the Mariinsky's singers' academy. Career In 1978, Gergiev became as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Symphony No
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning common today: a work usually consisting of multiple distinct sections or movements, often four, with the first movement in sonata form. Symphonies are almost always scored for an orchestra consisting of a string section (violin, viola, cello, and double bass), brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments which altogether number about 30 to 100 musicians. Symphonies are notated in a musical score, which contains all the instrument parts. Orchestral musicians play from parts which contain just the notated music for their own instrument. Some symphonies also contain vocal parts (e.g., Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, or Mahler's Second Symphony). Etymology and origins The word ''symphony'' is derived from the Greek word (), meaning ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler (; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic music, Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the Modernism (music), modernism of the early 20th century. While in his lifetime his status as a conductor was established beyond question, his own music gained wide popularity only after periods of relative neglect, which included a ban on its performance in much of Europe during the Nazi Germany, Nazi era. After 1945 his compositions were rediscovered by a new generation of listeners; Mahler then became one of the most frequently performed and recorded of all composers, a position he has sustained into the 21st century. Born in Kingdom of Bohemia, Bohemia (then part of the Austrian Empire) to Jewish parents of humble origins, the German-speaking Mahler displayed his musical gifts at an early age. After graduating from the University of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Tilson Thomas
Michael Tilson Thomas (born December 21, 1944) is an American conductor, pianist, and composer. He is Artistic Director Laureate of the New World Symphony, an American orchestral academy in Miami Beach, Florida, Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, and Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra. He gave his final performance with the San Francisco Symphony in April 2025 while fighting brain cancer. Biography Tilson Thomas was born, on December 21, 1944, in Los Angeles, California, to Ted and Roberta Thomas, a Broadway stage manager and a middle school history teacher, respectively. He is the grandson of Yiddish theater stars Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky, who performed in the Yiddish Theater District in Manhattan. The family talent goes back to Tilson Thomas's great-grandfather, Pincus, an actor and playwright, and before that to a long line of cantors; his father, Theodor Herzl Tomashefsky (Ted Thomas), was also a poet and painter. He was an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra
The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Finnish: ''Radion sinfoniaorkesteri'', Swedish: ''Radions symfoniorkester''; abbreviated as RSO) is a Finnish Radio orchestra, broadcast orchestra based in Helsinki, and the orchestra of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (Yle). The orchestra primarily gives concerts at the Helsinki Music Centre. Primary funding comes from television licence fees from the Finnish population. History The ensemble was founded in 1927 as the Radio Orchestra with ten musicians, with :fi:Erkki Linko, Erkki Linko as its first conductor. Though never holding the title of chief conductor, Linko remained affiliated with the orchestra until 1952. Toivo Haapanen became the orchestra's first chief conductor in 1929 and held the post until his death in 1950. The orchestra performed mainly studio concerts for the first portion of its history. Until World War II, the orchestra gave only 20 public concerts, with freelance musicians to bolster the ranks. After World War II, wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Einojuhani Rautavaara
Einojuhani Rautavaara (; 9 October 1928 – 27 July 2016) was a Finnish composer of classical music. Among the most notable Finnish composers since Jean Sibelius (1865–1957), Rautavaara wrote a List of compositions by Einojuhani Rautavaara, great number of works spanning various styles. These include eight symphony, symphonies, nine operas and fifteen concertos, as well as numerous vocal and chamber music, chamber works. Having written early works using Serialism, 12-tone serial techniques, his later music may be described as Neoromanticism (music), neo-romantic and mystical. His major works include his Piano Concerto No. 1 (Rautavaara), first piano concerto (1969), ''Cantus Arcticus'' (1972) and his seventh symphony, Symphony No. 7 (Rautavaara), ''Angel of Light'' (1994). Life Rautavaara was born in Helsinki in 1928. His father Eino Alfred Rautavaara (né Jernberg; 1876–1939; he changed his last name in 1901) was an opera singer and cantor, and his mother Elsa Katariina Rauta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Niccolò Castiglioni
Niccolò Castiglioni (17 July 1932 – 7 September 1996) was an Italian composer, pianist, and writer on music. Castiglioni was born and raised in Milan, where he began studying piano at the age of 7. He received his performer's diploma from the Milan Conservatory in 1952, and graduated there in composition in 1953. His student compositions were marked by Stravinsky's neo-classicism, but after graduation his style changed under the influence of the Second Viennese School. His interest in twelve-tone technique was joined with musical-political engagement, though this was short-lived. The ''Impromptus I–IV'', identified by the composer as his first true opus, abandoned these expressionistic tensions, and these four short pieces exhibit a close relationship to Webern's aphoristic style, while also moving closer to the European avant garde. Personal contact with Luciano Berio at the RAI electronic music studio in Milan also influenced Castiglioni's direction at that time, and his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
