François Clemmons
François Scarborough Clemmons (born April 23, 1945) is an American singer, actor, writer and teacher. He is known for his appearances as "Officer Clemmons" on the PBS television series ''Mister Rogers' Neighborhood'' from 1968 to 1993. Early life and education Clemmons was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and raised in Youngstown, Ohio. When it was discovered that he had an excellent singing voice, he began performing locally at church functions. He became choir director of his church at the age of 10. His first songs were the spirituals of pre-Civil War America, passed down to him by his mother. He soon branched out across genres, singing with various community groups. For a while, he was the lead singer of a rock 'n' roll group called the Jokers. Clemmons received a Bachelor of Music degree from Oberlin College, and a Master of Fine Arts from Carnegie Mellon University. He also received an honorary degree of Doctor of Arts from Middlebury College. Metropolitan Opera In 1968, Clem ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1833, it is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United States and the second-oldest continuously operating List of coeducational colleges and universities in the United States, coeducational institute of higher learning in the world. The Oberlin Conservatory of Music is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States. In 1835, Oberlin became one of the first colleges in the United States to admit African Americans, and in 1837, the first to admit women (other than Franklin & Marshall College, Franklin College's brief experiment in the 1780s). It has been known since its founding for progressive student activism. The College of Arts & Sciences offers more than 60 majors, minors, and concentrations. Oberlin is a member of the Great Lakes Colle ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Porgy And Bess
''Porgy and Bess'' ( ) is an English-language opera by American composer George Gershwin, with a libretto written by author DuBose Heyward and lyricist Ira Gershwin. It was adapted from Dorothy Heyward and DuBose Heyward's play ''Porgy (play), Porgy'', itself an adaptation of DuBose Heyward's 1925 novel ''Porgy (novel), Porgy''. ''Porgy and Bess'' was first performed in Boston on September 30, 1935, before it moved to Broadway theatre, Broadway in New York City. It featured a cast of classically trained African-American singers—a daring artistic choice at the time. A 1976 #1976 Houston Grand Opera production, Houston Grand Opera production gained it a renewed popularity, and it is now one of the best known and most frequently performed operas. The libretto of ''Porgy and Bess'' tells the story of Porgy, a disabled black street beggar living in the slums of Charleston, South Carolina, Charleston. It deals with his attempts to rescue Bess from the clutches of Crown, her violent ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Alexander Twilight
Alexander Lucius Twilight (September 23, 1795 – June 19, 1857) was an American educator, minister and politician. He was recognized as the first African American to have earned a bachelor's degree from an American college or university, graduating from Middlebury College in 1823. He was ordained as a Congregational minister and worked in education and ministry all his career. In 1829, Twilight became principal of the Orleans County, Vermont, Orleans County Grammar School. There he designed and built Old Stone House Museum, Athenian Hall, the first granite public building in the state of Vermont. In 1836, he was the first African American elected as a state legislator, serving in the Vermont House of Representatives; he was also the only African American ever elected to a state legislature before the Civil War. His house and Athenian Hall are included in the Brownington Village Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). African-American roo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
The Oklahoman
''The Oklahoman'' is the largest daily newspaper in Oklahoma, United States, and is the only regional daily that covers the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, Greater Oklahoma City area. The Alliance for Audited Media (formerly Audit Bureau Circulation) lists it as the 59th largest U.S. newspaper in circulation. ''The Oklahoman'' has been published by Gannett (formerly known as GateHouse Media) owned by Fortress Investment Group and its investor Softbank since October 1, 2018. On November 11, 2019, GateHouse Media and Gannett announced GateHouse Media would be acquiring Gannett and taking the Gannett name. The acquisition of Gannett was finalized on November 19, 2019. Copies are sold for $2 daily or $4 Sundays/Thanksgiving Day; prices are higher outside Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, Oklahoma County and adjacent counties. Ownership The Daily Oklahoman newspaper was founded in 1894 by Samuel W. Small. Small eventually lost the paper and it was owned by a bank who leased the paper to C ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
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]   |
|
Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn ( ; ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions to musical form have led him to be called "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String quartet". Haydn arose from humble origins, the child of working people in a rural village. He established his career first by serving as a chorister at St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna, then through an arduous period as a freelance musician. Eventually he found career success, spending much of his working life as Kapellmeister, music director for the wealthy Esterházy family at their palace of Eszterháza in rural Hungary. Though he had his own orchestra there, it isolated him from other composers and trends in music so that he was, as he put it, "forced to become original". During this period his music circulated widely in publication, eventuall ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Fred Rogers
Fred McFeely Rogers (March 20, 1928 – February 27, 2003), better known as Mister Rogers, was an American television host, author, producer, and Presbyterian minister. He was the creator, showrunner, and host of the preschool television series '' Mister Rogers' Neighborhood'', which ran from 1968 to 2001. Born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Rogers earned a bachelor's degree in music from Rollins College in 1951. He began his television career at NBC in New York City, returning to Pittsburgh in 1953 to work for children's programming at NET (later PBS) television station WQED. He graduated from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary with a bachelor's degree in divinity in 1962 and became a Presbyterian minister in 1963. He attended the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Child Development, where he began his thirty-year collaboration with child psychologist Margaret McFarland. He also helped develop the children's shows ''The Children's Corner'' (1955) for WQED in Pitt ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini (; ; 3 November 1801 – 23 September 1835) was an Italian opera composer famed for his long, graceful melodies and evocative musical settings. A central figure of the era, he was admired not only by the public, but also by many composers who were influenced by his work. His songs balanced florid Ornament (music), embellishment with a deceptively simple approach to lyric setting. Born to a musical family in Sicily, he distinguished himself early and earned a scholarship to study under several noted musicians at Music conservatories of Naples#Conservatorio di San Sebastiano, Naples' Real Collegio di Musica. There he absorbed elements of the Neapolitan School's style and was inspired by performances of Donizetti's and Rossini's operas, among others, in more modern idioms. He wrote his first opera, ''Adelson e Salvini'' (1825), for the conservatory, and his next, ''Bianca e Fernando'' (1826), on a Teatro di San Carlo-affiliated commiss ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian Romantic composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the ''bel canto'' opera style during the first half of the nineteenth century and a probable influence on other composers such as Giuseppe Verdi. Donizetti was born in Bergamo in Lombardy. At an early age he was taken up by Simon Mayr who enrolled him with a full scholarship in a school which he had set up. There he received detailed musical training. Mayr was instrumental in obtaining a place for Donizetti at the Bologna Academy, where, at the age of 19, he wrote his first one-act opera, the comedy '' Il Pigmalione'', which may never have been performed during his lifetime. An offer in 1822 from Domenico Barbaja, the impresario of the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, which followed the composer's ninth opera, led to his move to Naples and his residency there un ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; ; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical period (music), Classical and early Romantic music, Romantic eras. Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a List of compositions by Franz Schubert, vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 ''Lieder'' (art songs in German) and other vocal works, seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of piano and chamber music. His major works include "Erlkönig (Schubert), Erlkönig", "Gretchen am Spinnrade", and "Ave Maria (Schubert), Ave Maria"; the Trout Quintet, ''Trout'' Quintet; the Symphony No. 8 (Schubert), Symphony No. 8 in B minor (''Unfinished''); the Symphony No. 9 (Schubert), Symphony No. 9 in C major (''Great''); the String Quartet No. 14 (Schubert), String Quartet No. 14 in D minor (''Death and the Maiden''); the String Quintet (Schubert), String Quintet in C major; the Impromptus (Schubert), Impromptus for solo piano; the S ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age resulted in List of compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, more than 800 works representing virtually every Western classical genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphony, symphonic, concerto, concertante, chamber music, chamber, operatic, and choir, choral repertoires. Mozart is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Classical music, Western music, with his music admired for its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture". Born in Salzburg, Mozart showed Child prodigy, prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. At age five, he was already competent on keyboard and violin, had begun to compose, and performed before European r ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
StoryCorps
StoryCorps is an American non-profit organization which aims to record, preserve, and share the stories of Americans from all backgrounds and beliefs. Its mission statement is "to help us believe in each other by illuminating the humanity and possibility in us all—one story at a time". StoryCorps grew out of Sound Portraits Productions as a project founded in 2003 by radio producer David Isay. Its headquarters are located in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. StoryCorps is modeled—in spirit and in scope—after the efforts of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) of the 1930s, through which oral history interviews across the United States were recorded. Another inspiration for the organization was oral historian Studs Terkel, who cut the ribbon at the opening of StoryCorps' first recording booth in Grand Central Terminal. To date, StoryCorps has collected and archived interviews with more than 645,000 participants in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |