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Virgil Thompson
Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoromantic, a neoclassicist, and a composer of "an Olympian blend of humanity and detachment" whose "expressive voice was always carefully muted" until his late opera ''Lord Byron'' which, in contrast to all his previous work, exhibited an emotional content that rises to "moments of real passion". Biography Early years Thomson was born in Kansas City, Missouri. As a child he befriended Alice Smith, great-granddaughter of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter-day Saint movement. During his youth he often played the organ in Grace Church, (now Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral), as his piano teacher was the church's organist. After World War I, he entered Harvard University thanks to a loan from Dr. Fred M. Smith, the president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Chr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Van Vechten
Carl Van Vechten (; June 17, 1880December 21, 1964) was an American writer and artistic photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein. He gained fame as a writer, and notoriety as well, for his 1926 novel ''Nigger Heaven''. In his later years, he took up photography and took many portraits of notable people. Although he was married to women for most of his adult years, Van Vechten engaged in numerous homosexual affairs during his lifetime. Life and career Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he was the youngest child of Charles Duane Van Vechten and Ada Amanda Van Vechten (née Fitch). Both of his parents were well educated. His father was a wealthy, prominent banker. His mother established the Cedar Rapids Public Library and had great musical talent. As a child, Van Vechten developed a passion for music and theatre. He graduated from Washington High School in 1898. After high school, Van Vechten was eager to take the next steps ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lord Byron (opera)
''Lord Byron'' is an opera in three acts by Virgil Thomson to an original English libretto by Jack Larson, inspired by the historical character Lord Byron. This was Thomson's third and final opera. He wrote it on commission from the Ford Foundation for the Metropolitan Opera (Met), but the Met never produced the opera. The first performance was at Lincoln Center, New York City on April 20, 1972, by the music department of the Juilliard School with John Houseman as stage director, Gerhard Samuel as the conductor and Alvin Ailey as the choreographer. A performance of a revised version, by the composer, took place in 1985 with the New York Opera Repertory Theater. The composer himself had great affection for this opera. The premiere production received mixed reviews, with one particularly negative from Harold C. Schonberg, including this description: ...a very bland score, distressingly banal (all those waltzes!) and frequently gaggingly cutesy. The opera has not yet receive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Darius Milhaud
Darius Milhaud (, ; 4 September 1892 – 22 June 1974) was a French composer, conductor, and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as ''The Group of Six''—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and Brazilian music and make extensive use of polytonality. Milhaud is considered one of the key modernist composers.Reinhold Brinkmann & Christoph Wolff, ''Driven into Paradise: The Musical Migration from Nazi Germany to the United States'' (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1999), 133. . He taught many future jazz and classical composers, including |
Les Six
"Les Six" () is a name given to a group of six composers, five of them French and one Swiss, who lived and worked in Montparnasse. The name has its origins in two 1920 articles by critic Henri Collet in '' Comœdia'' (see Bibliography). Their music is often seen as a neoclassic reaction against both the musical style of Richard Wagner and the Impressionist music of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. The members were Georges Auric (1899–1983), Louis Durey (1888–1979), Arthur Honegger (1892–1955), Darius Milhaud (1892–1974), Francis Poulenc (1899–1963), and Germaine Tailleferre (1892–1983). ' In 1917, when many theatres and concert halls were closed because of World War I, Blaise Cendrars and the painter Moïse Kisling decided to put on concerts at 6 , the studio of the painter Émile Lejeune (1885–1964). For the first of these events, the walls of the studio were decorated with canvases by Picasso, Matisse, Léger, Modigliani, and others. Music by Erik Sati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erik Satie
Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (born 17 May 18661 July 1925), better known as Erik Satie, was a French composer and pianist. The son of a French father and a British mother, he studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, Paris Conservatoire but was an undistinguished student and did not obtain a diploma. In the 1880s he worked as a pianist in café-cabarets in Montmartre, Paris, and began composing works, mostly for solo piano, such as his ''Gymnopédies'' and ''Gnossiennes''. He also wrote music for a Rosicrucian sect to which he was briefly attached. After a period in which he composed little, Satie entered Paris's second music academy, the Schola Cantorum de Paris, Schola Cantorum, as a mature student. His studies there were more successful than those at the Conservatoire. From about 1910 he became the focus of successive groups of young composers attracted by his unconventionality and originality. Among them were the group known as Les Six. A meeting with Jean Cocteau in 1915 led to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harvard Glee Club
The Harvard Glee Club (Glee Club or HGC) is a 60-voice, Tenor-Bass choral ensemble at Harvard University. Founded in 1858 in the tradition of English and American glee clubs, it is the oldest collegiate chorus in the United States. The Glee Club is part of the Harvard Choruses of Harvard University, which also include the treble voice Radcliffe Choral Society and the mixed-voice Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum. All three groups are led by Harvard's current Director of Choral Activities Andrew Clark. The Glee Club has long been a fixture of the Boston music scene, performing frequently with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and other ensembles, but this local prominence has lessened in recent years. However, thanks to over 80 annual spring tours to different regions of the United States and appearances at the Kennedy Center Honors and in Leonard Bernstein's popular series ''The Unanswered Question'', the Glee Club has garnered national recognition; tours around the world have br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reorganized Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints
Community of Christ, known legally and from 1872 to 2001 as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS), is an American-based international church, and is the second-largest denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement. The church reports approximately 250,000 members in 1,100 congregations in 59 countries. The church traces its origins to Joseph Smith's establishment of the Church of Christ on April 6, 1830. His eldest son, Joseph Smith III, formally accepted leadership of the church on April 6, 1860, in the aftermath of the 1844 death of Joseph Smith. Community of Christ is a Restorationist faith expression. Still, various practices and beliefs are congruent with mainline Protestant Christianity. While it generally rejects the term ''Mormon'' to describe its members, the church abides by a number of theological distinctions unusual outside Mormonism, including but not limited to: ongoing prophetic leadership, a priesthood polity, the use of the B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frederick M
Frederick may refer to: People * Frederick (given name), the name Given name Nobility = Anhalt-Harzgerode = * Frederick, Prince of Anhalt-Harzgerode (1613–1670) = Austria = * Frederick I, Duke of Austria (Babenberg), Duke of Austria from 1195 to 1198 * Frederick II, Duke of Austria (1219–1246), last Duke of Austria from the Babenberg dynasty * Frederick the Fair (Frederick I of Austria (Habsburg), 1286–1330), Duke of Austria and King of the Romans = Baden = * Frederick I, Grand Duke of Baden (1826–1907), Grand Duke of Baden * Frederick II, Grand Duke of Baden (1857–1928), Grand Duke of Baden = Bohemia = * Frederick, Duke of Bohemia (died 1189), Duke of Olomouc and Bohemia = Britain = * Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707–1751), eldest son of King George II of Great Britain = Brandenburg/Prussia = * Frederick I, Elector of Brandenburg (1371–1440), also known as Frederick VI, Burgrave of Nuremberg * Frederick II, Elector of Brandenburg (1413–1470), Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyman John Harvard (clergyman), John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Its influence, wealth, and rankings have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Harvard was founded and authorized by the Massachusetts General Court, the governing legislature of Colonial history of the United States, colonial-era Massachusetts Bay Colony. While never formally affiliated with any Religious denomination, denomination, Harvard trained Congregationalism in the United States, Congregational clergy until its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized in the 18th century. By the 19th century, Harvard emerged as the most prominent academic and cultural institution among the Boston B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grace And Holy Trinity Cathedral (Kansas City, Missouri)
Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral is an Episcopal cathedral in the Quality Hill neighborhood of downtown Kansas City, Missouri, United States. It is the seat of the Episcopal Diocese of West Missouri. History Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral was established on the west side of Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, in the Quality Hill area, on July 20, 1870 as "Saint Paul's Church." It was renamed "Grace Church" on April 14, 1873 after a two-year campaign by the Senior Warden, John R. Balis (1834–1914), who had suggested that name at the organizational meeting in 1870. Grace Church built a wood frame structure on the southeast corner of Tenth and Central Streets in 1874. The present church structure, located at 415 West 13th Street, was the second worship space constructed for Grace Church, but the first to be built of stone. It was designed by Frederick Elmer Hill (1857–1929) of the prominent New York City firm, McKim, Mead & White. Construction on the present Nave began in June ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latter-day Saint Movement
The Latter Day Saint movement (also called the LDS movement, LDS restorationist movement, or Smith–Rigdon movement) is the collection of independent church groups that trace their origins to a Christian Restorationist movement founded by Joseph Smith in the late 1820s. Collectively, these churches have over 17 million nominal members, including over 17 million belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), 250,000 in Community of Christ, and several other denominations with memberships generally ranging in the thousands of members. The predominant theology of the churches in the movement is Mormonism, which sees itself as restoring again on Earth the early Christian church; their members are most commonly known as Mormons. An additional doctrine of the church allows for prophets to receive and publish modern-day revelations. A minority of Latter Day Saint adherents, such as members of Community of Christ, have been influenced by Prote ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805June 27, 1844) was an American religious and political leader and the founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. Publishing the Book of Mormon at the age of 24, Smith attracted tens of thousands of followers by the time of his death fourteen years later. The religious movement he founded is followed by millions of global adherents and several churches, the largest of which is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Born in Sharon, Vermont, Smith moved with his family to Western New York, following Year Without a Summer, a series of crop failures in 1816. Living in an area of intense religious revivalism during the Second Great Awakening, Smith reported experiencing a series of visions. The First Vision, first of these was in 1820, when he saw "two personages" (whom he eventually described as God the Father and Jesus Christ). In 1823, he said he was visited by Angel Moroni, an angel who directed him to a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
