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London Voices
London Voices is a London-based choral ensemble founded by Terry Edwards (1939–2022) in 1973. In its early years, it also incorporated the London Opera Chorus and London Sinfonietta Voices and Chorus. In 2004, conductor and composer Ben Parry became co-director of the ensemble and in 2021 the Director and manager. Ben has held prestigious posts as artistic director of the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain, (2012–2023) and assistant director of Music at King's College, Cambridge (2013–2021). London Voices has been involved in many performances, recordings of operas and CD and film soundtracks, including '' The Hobbit'', '' Hunger Games'', the prequel trilogy of '' Star Wars'', ''The Lord of the Rings'' and '' Harry Potter'' series, '' The Iron Lady'', '' Enemy at the Gates'', '' La traviata'', and '' The Passion of the Christ''. They have recorded with such diverse artists as Luciano Pavarotti, Dave Brubeck, Sir Paul McCartney, Jacob Collier, Queen, Deaf Havana, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sting (musician)
Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner (born 2 October 1951), known as Sting, is an English musician, activist, and actor. He was the frontman, principal songwriter and bassist for New wave music, new wave band the Police from 1977 until their breakup in 1986. He launched a solo career in 1985 and has included elements of rock, jazz, reggae, classical, New-age music, new-age, and worldbeat in his music. Sting has sold a combined total of more than 100 million records as a solo artist and as a member of the Police. He has received three Brit Awards, including Brit Award for British Male Solo Artist, Best British Male Artist in 1994 and Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, Outstanding Contribution to Music in 2002; a Golden Globe Award, Golden Globe; an Emmy Award, Emmy; and four Academy Awards, Academy Award nominations. As a solo musician and as a member of the Police, Sting has received 17 Grammy Awards. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian Romantic music, 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 reside ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Storm (Vanessa-Mae Album)
''Storm'' is the seventh album by classical and pop musician Vanessa-Mae. It was released in the UK on her 19th birthday, 27 October 1997. Track listing # "Summer Haze" 3:11 # "Storm" (cover of Antonio Vivaldi: '' The Four Seasons'' - "Summer: III. Presto") 3:43 # "Retro" 3:57 # "Bach Street Prelude" 4:25 # "Leyenda" 6:32 # "(I) Can, Can (You?)" 3:40 # "Happy Valley" 6:32 # "A Poet's Que ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vanessa-Mae
Vanessa-Mae ( zh, s=陈美, p=Chén Měi; born 27 October 1978), also called Vanessa-Mae Vanakorn Nicholson, is a British violinist with album sales reaching several million, having made her the wealthiest entertainer under 30 in the United Kingdom in 2006. She competed under the name Vanessa Vanakorn (; her father's surname) for Thailand in alpine skiing at the 2014 Winter Olympics. She was initially banned from skiing by the International Ski Federation (FIS) after participating in a qualifying race allegedly organised to enable her to qualify for the Winter Olympics. An appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport led to the ban being nullified, citing lack of evidence for her own wrongdoing or any manipulation. The FIS later issued an apology to her. Early life and education Vanessa-Mae was born on 27 October 1978 in Singapore, to Singaporean mother Pamela Soei Luang Tan and Thai father Vorapong Vanakorn. After adoption by a British father, she moved to London at the ag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Claudio Abbado
Claudio Abbado (; 26 June 1933 – 20 January 2014) was an Italian conductor who was one of the leading conductors of his generation. He served as music director of the La Scala opera house in Milan, principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Vienna State Opera, founder and director of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, founder and director of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, founding artistic director of the Orchestra Mozart and music director of the European Union Youth Orchestra. Biography Early life and background The Abbado family for several generations enjoyed both wealth and respect in their community. Abbado's great-grandfather tarnished the family's reputation by gambling away the family fortune. His son, Abbado's grandfather, became a professor at the University of Turin. He re-established the family's reputation and also showe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Verdi Per Due
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi ( ; ; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for List of compositions by Giuseppe Verdi, his operas. He was born near Busseto, a small town in the province of Parma, to a family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron, Antonio Barezzi. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini, and Gaetano Donizetti, whose works significantly influenced him. In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also served briefly as an elected politician. The chorus "Va, pensiero" from his early opera ''Nabucco'' (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, Verdi did not seek to ingratiate hims ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Craft
Robert Lawson Craft (October 20, 1923 – November 10, 2015) was an American conductor and writer. He is best known for his intimate professional relationship with Igor Stravinsky, on which Craft drew in producing numerous recordings and books. Life Craft was born in Kingston, New York, to Raymond and Arpha Craft, and studied music at the Juilliard School. He became particularly interested in early music, such as that of Claudio Monteverdi, Carlo Gesualdo, and Heinrich Schütz, and in contemporary music by the composers of the Second Viennese School and others. Craft met Stravinsky in 1948, and from then until the composer's death in 1971, Craft worked with Stravinsky in a variety of roles, eventually evolving into a full artistic partnership. Craft compiled the libretti for Stravinsky's '' The Flood'' and '' A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer'', and lived with Igor and Vera Stravinsky in Hollywood and later in New York City. He remained close to the composer's widow until he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Flood (Stravinsky)
''The Flood: A musical play'' (1962) is a short biblical drama by Igor Stravinsky on the story of Noah and the flood, originally conceived as a work for television. It contains singing, spoken dialogue, and ballet sequences. It is in Stravinsky's late, serial style. The work was premiered in the United States on the CBS Television Network on 14 June 1962, a production conducted by Robert Craft and choreographed by George Balanchine. Dramatic actors participating in the work included Laurence Harvey (narrator), Sebastian Cabot (Noah), and Elsa Lanchester (Noah's wife, which Lanchester played with a Cockney accent). Robert Craft also conducted the first staged performance, by the Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico in 1962, and again in Hamburg on 30 April 1963. Text The narrative of ''The Flood'' juxtaposes the story of the Creation with that of Noah. The text was compiled by Robert Craft using material from Genesis and the York and Chester cycles of mystery plays. Excerpts from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century classical music, composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernism (music), modernist music. Born to a musical family in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Stravinsky grew up taking piano and music theory lessons. While studying law at the Saint Petersburg State University, University of Saint Petersburg, he met Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and studied music under him until the latter's death in 1908. Stravinsky met the impresario Sergei Diaghilev soon after, who commissioned the composer to write three ballets for the Ballets Russes's Paris seasons: ''The Firebird'' (1910), ''Petrushka (ballet), Petrushka'' (1911), and ''The Rite of Spring'' (1913), the last of which caused a List of classical music concerts with an unruly audience respons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Levine
James Lawrence Levine ( ; June 23, 1943 – March 9, 2021) was an American conductor and pianist. He was music director of the Metropolitan Opera from 1976 to 2016. He was terminated from all his positions and affiliations with the Met on March 12, 2018, over sexual misconduct allegations, which he denied. Levine held leadership positions with the Ravinia Festival, the Munich Philharmonic, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1980 he started the Lindemann Young Artists Development Program, and trained singers, conductors, and musicians for professional careers. After taking an almost two-year health-related hiatus from conducting from 2011 to 2013, during which time he held artistic and administrative planning sessions at the Met, and led training of the Lindemann Young Artists, Levine retired as the Met's full-time Music Director following the 2015–16 season to become Music Director Emeritus. Early years and personal life Levine was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a musical Am ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I Want Magic!
I, or i, is the ninth letter and the third vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''i'' (pronounced ), plural ''ies''. Name In English, the name of the letter is the "long I" sound, pronounced . In most other languages, its name matches the letter's pronunciation in open syllables. History In the Phoenician alphabet, the letter may have originated in a hieroglyph for an arm that represented a voiced pharyngeal fricative () in Egyptian, but was reassigned to (as in English "yes") by Semites because their word for "arm" began with that sound. This letter could also be used to represent , the close front unrounded vowel, mainly in foreign words. The Greeks adopted a form of this Phoenician ''yodh'' as their letter ''iota'' () to represent , the same as in the Old Italic alphabet. In Latin (as in Modern Greek), it was also used to represent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
