Gulbenkian Orchestra
The Gulbenkian Orchestra ( pt, Orquestra Gulbenkian) is a Portuguese symphony orchestra based in Lisbon. The orchestra primarily gives concerts at the ''Grande Auditório'' (Grand Auditorium) of the Gulbenkian Foundation. The orchestra, which was founded in 1962 as a chamber orchestra, currently has 66 permanent musicians. History The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation founded the orchestra in 1962 as the ''Orquestra de Câmara Gulbenkian'' (Gulbenkian Chamber Orchestra), consisting of 12 musicians. The ensemble subsequently expanded in size and took on its current name in 1971. The orchestra made its American debut in November 1997 in Newark, New Jersey. Past principal conductors of the orchestra have included Claudio Scimone, Muhai Tang, and Lawrence Foster. In September 2012, the orchestra announced the appointment of Paul McCreesh as its next principal conductor and artistic adviser, with an initial contract of 4 years. McCreesh formally assumed the principal conductorship w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Symphony Orchestra
An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, and double bass * woodwinds, such as the flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, and bassoon * Brass instruments, such as the horn, trumpet, trombone, cornet, and tuba * percussion instruments, such as the timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, and mallet percussion instruments Other instruments such as the piano, harpsichord, and celesta may sometimes appear in a fifth keyboard section or may stand alone as soloist instruments, as may the concert harp and, for performances of some modern compositions, electronic instruments and guitars. A full-size Western orchestra may sometimes be called a or philharmonic orchestra (from Greek ''phil-'', "loving", and "harmony"). The actual number of musicians ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lester Lynch
Lester Lynch is an American operatic baritone. Early life and career Lynch learned to sing in a church choir, and attended Baldwin-Wallace College, the New England Conservatory of Music, and Juilliard. Notable performances Lynch has performed as a baritone, Crown, in ''The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess'' as well as a bass, Garage mechanic, in ''The Great Gatsbys first European performance on December 6, 2015. He reprised the role in 2020. Lynch participated in the 1996 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. He has performed with Luna Pearl Woolf. He has sung at the Festival Napa Valley, and in Bergen, Norway. The Welsh National Opera gave ''The Merchant of Venice'' its British premiere in Cardiff on 16 September 2016, using the Bregenz production. The conductor was Lionel Friend, and the role of Shylock was sung by Lynch.WNO website"''The Merchant of Venice''" accessed 20 August 2016. Lynch is an African American and this in the opinion of the critic of ''The Guardian'' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Antonio Salieri
Antonio Salieri (18 August 17507 May 1825) was an Italian classical composer, conductor, and teacher. He was born in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice, and spent his adult life and career as a subject of the Habsburg monarchy. Salieri was a pivotal figure in the development of late 18th-century opera. As a student of Florian Leopold Gassmann, and a protégé of Christoph Willibald Gluck, Salieri was a cosmopolitan composer who wrote operas in three languages. Salieri helped to develop and shape many of the features of operatic compositional vocabulary, and his music was a powerful influence on contemporary composers. Appointed the director of the Italian opera by the Habsburg court, a post he held from 1774 until 1792, Salieri dominated Italian-language opera in Vienna. During his career, he also spent time writing works for opera houses in Paris, Rome, and Venice, and his dramatic works were widely performed throughout Europe during his lifetime. As the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti (; ; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one of the most important avant-garde composers in the latter half of the twentieth century" and "one of the most innovative and influential among progressive figures of his time". Born in Transylvania, Romania, he lived in the Hungarian People's Republic before emigrating to Austria in 1956. He became an Austrian citizen in 1968. In 1973 he became professor of composition at the Hamburg Hochschule für Musik und Theater, where he worked until retiring in 1989. He died in Vienna in 2006. Restricted in his musical style by the authorities of Communist Hungary, only when he reached the West in 1956 could Ligeti fully realise his passion for avant-garde music and develop new compositional techniques. After experimenting with electronic music in Cologne, Germany, his breakthrough came with orchestral works such as '' Atmosphères'' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hungary's greatest composers. Through his collection and analytical study of folk music, he was one of the founders of comparative musicology, which later became ethnomusicology. Biography Childhood and early years (1881–98) Bartók was born in the Banatian town of Nagyszentmiklós in the Kingdom of Hungary (present-day Sânnicolau Mare, Romania) on 25 March 1881. On his father's side, the Bartók family was a Hungarian lower noble family, originating from Borsodszirák, Borsod. His paternal grandmother was a Catholic of Bunjevci origin, but considered herself Hungarian. Bartók's father (1855–1888) was also named Béla. Bartók's mother, Paula (née Voit) (1857–1939), also spoke Hungarian fluently. A native of Turócszentmár ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Zoltán Kodály
Zoltán Kodály (; hu, Kodály Zoltán, ; 16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method of music education. Life Born in Kecskemét, Hungary, Kodály learned to play the violin as a child. In 1900, he entered the Department of Languages at the University of Budapest and at the same time Hans von Kössler's composition class at the Royal Hungarian Academy of Music. After completing his studies, he studied in Paris with Charles Widor for a year. In 1905 he visited remote villages to collect songs, recording them on phonograph cylinders. In 1906 he wrote a thesis on Hungarian folk song, "Strophic Construction in Hungarian Folksong". At around this time Kodály met fellow composer and compatriot Béla Bartók, whom he took under his wing and introduced to some of the methods involved in folk song collecting. The two became lifelong friend ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sa Chen
Sa Chen (; born 21 November 1979) is a Chinese pianist. She won first prize in the 1994 China International Piano Competition, fourth place in the XIV International Chopin Piano Competition in 2000, fourth place in the Leeds International Piano Competition and was third in the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Biography Both of Chen's parents were members of an art troupe in the People's Liberation Army, and later transferred to the Performing Arts Group of Chongqing City. Her father played the French horn, and her mother was a ballet dancer. She began to study the violin at the age of five, but soon switched to piano. Her first piano teacher was Dan Zhaoyi, who also taught Yundi Li, and she pursued further studies with Joan Havill at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She also received coaching from Fou Ts'ong for a period after the 1996 Leeds Piano Competition. Chen has performed with conductors Sir Simon Rattle, Leonard Slatkin, Yu Long and Edo de W ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Edvard Grieg
Edvard Hagerup Grieg ( , ; 15 June 18434 September 1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the foremost Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. His use of Norwegian folk music in his own compositions brought the music of Norway to fame, as well as helping to develop a national identity, much as Jean Sibelius did in Finland and Bedřich Smetana in Bohemia. Grieg is the most celebrated person from the city of Bergen, with numerous statues which depict his image, and many cultural entities named after him: the city's largest concert building (Grieg Hall), its most advanced music school ( Grieg Academy) and its professional choir (Edvard Grieg Kor). The Edvard Grieg Museum at Grieg's former home Troldhaugen is dedicated to his legacy. Background Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in Bergen, Norway (then part of Sweden–Norway). His parents were Alexander Grieg (1806–1875), a merchant and t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music. Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and other Russian composers gave way to a thoroughly personal idiom notable for its song-like melodicism, expressiveness and rich orchestral colours. The piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninoff's compositional output and he made a point of using his skills as a performer to fully explore the expressive and technical possibilities of the instrument. Born into a musical family, Rachmaninoff took up the piano at the age of four. He studied with Anton Arensky and Sergei Taneyev at the Moscow Conservatory and graduated in 1892, having already composed several piano and orchestral pieces. In 1897, following ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Arabella Steinbacher
Arabella Miho Steinbacher (born 14 November 1981) is a German classical violinist. Biography Steinbacher was born in Munich to a Japanese mother and a German father. When she was three, her mother read that a German violin teacher had recently returned from Japan after studying the Suzuki method. Steinbacher started violin lessons at that time. When she was nine years old, she was enrolled at the Munich College of Music and mentored by Ana Chumachenco. Steinbacher came into contact with Ivry Gitlis, and took part in master classes by Dorothy DeLay and Kurt Sassmannshaus in Aspen, Colorado. She won several important prizes (the Joseph Joachim International Violin Competition in Hanover), and a grant from the Free State of Bavaria in 2001, then became a student of Anne-Sophie Mutter's ''Freundeskreis'' ("Circle of friends"). Steinbacher frequently appears with world-class orchestras around the globe including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, London Sy ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Max Bruch
Max Bruch (6 January 1838 – 2 October 1920) was a German Romantic composer, violinist, teacher, and conductor who wrote more than 200 works, including three violin concertos, the first of which has become a prominent staple of the standard violin repertoire. Early life and education Max Bruch was born in 1838 in Cologne to Wilhelmine (), a singer, and August Carl Friedrich Bruch, an attorney who became vice president of the Cologne police. Max had a sister, Mathilde ("Till"). He received his early musical training under the composer and pianist Ferdinand Hiller, to whom Robert Schumann dedicated his Piano Concerto in A minor. The Bohemian composer and piano virtuoso Ignaz Moscheles recognized the aptitude of Bruch. At the age of nine, Bruch wrote his first composition, a song for his mother's birthday. From then on, music was his passion. His studies were enthusiastically supported by his parents. He wrote many minor early works including motets, psalm settings, piano piec ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Benedict Cumberbatch
Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch (born 19 July 1976) is an English actor. Known for his work on screen and stage, he has received List of awards and nominations received by Benedict Cumberbatch, various accolades, including a British Academy Television Award, a Primetime Emmy Award and a Laurence Olivier Award. He has also been nominated for two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards and four Golden Globe Awards. In 2014, ''Time (magazine), Time'' magazine named him one of the Time 100, 100 most influential people in the world, and in 2015, he was appointed a CBE at Buckingham Palace for services to the performing arts and to charity. Cumberbatch studied drama at the Victoria University of Manchester and obtained a Master of Arts in classical acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He began acting in William Shakespeare, Shakespearean theatre productions before making his West End theatre, West End debut in Richard Eyre's revival of ''Hedda Gabler ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |