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Naples
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Naples is the capital of the Italian region Campania and the third-largest municipality in Italy, after Rome and Milan. In 2015, around 975,260 people lived within the administrative limits. The Metropolitan City of Naples had a population of 3,115,320, Naples is the 9th-most populous urban area in the European Union with a population of between 3 million and 3.7 million. About 4.4 million people live in the Naples metropolitan area, Naples is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Bronze Age Greek settlements were established in the Naples area in the second millennium BC, a larger colony – initially known as Parthenope, Παρθενόπη – developed on the Island of Megaride around the ninth century BC, at the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Naples remained influential after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, thereafter, in union with Sicily, it became the capital of the Two Sicilies until the unification of Italy in 1861. Naples was the most-bombed Italian city during World War II, much of the citys 20th-century periphery was constructed under Benito Mussolinis fascist government, and during reconstruction efforts after World War II. The city has experienced significant economic growth in recent decades, and unemployment levels in the city, however, Naples still suffers from political and economic corruption, and unemployment levels remain high. Naples has the fourth-largest urban economy in Italy, after Milan, Rome and it is the worlds 103rd-richest city by purchasing power, with an estimated 2011 GDP of US$83.6 billion. The port of Naples is one of the most important in Europe, numerous major Italian companies, such as MSC Cruises Italy S. p. A, are headquartered in Naples. The city also hosts NATOs Allied Joint Force Command Naples, the SRM Institution for Economic Research, Naples is a full member of the Eurocities network of European cities. The city was selected to become the headquarters of the European institution ACP/UE and was named a City of Literature by UNESCOs Creative Cities Network, the Villa Rosebery, one of the three official residences of the President of Italy, is located in the citys Posillipo district. Naples historic city centre is the largest in Europe, covering 1,700 hectares and enclosing 27 centuries of history, Naples has long been a major cultural centre with a global sphere of influence, particularly during the Renaissance and Enlightenment eras. In the immediate vicinity of Naples are numerous culturally and historically significant sites, including the Palace of Caserta, culinarily, Naples is synonymous with pizza, which originated in the city. Neapolitan music has furthermore been highly influential, credited with the invention of the romantic guitar, according to CNN, the metro stop Toledo is the most beautiful in Europe and it won also the LEAF Award 2013 as Public building of the year. Naples is the Italian city with the highest number of accredited stars from the Michelin Guide, Naples sports scene is dominated by football and Serie A club S. S. C. Napoli, two-time Italian champions and winner of European trophies, who play at the San Paolo Stadium in the south-west of the city, the Phlegraean Fields around Naples has been inhabited since the Neolithic period. The earliest Greek settlements were established in the Naples area in the second millennium BC, sailors from the Greek island of Rhodes established a small commercial port called Parthenope on the island of Megaride in the ninth century BC
2.
Reggio Emilia
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Reggio Emilia is a city in northern Italy, in the Emilia-Romagna region. It has about 170,000 inhabitants and is the comune of the Province of Reggio Emilia. The town is referred to by its more official name of Reggio nellEmilia listen. The inhabitants of Reggio nellEmilia usually call their town by the name of Reggio. In some ancient maps the town is also named Reggio di Lombardia, the old town has an hexagonal form, which derives from the ancient walls, and the main buildings are from the 16th–17th centuries. The comunes territory is totally on a plain, crossed by the Crostolo stream, Reggio began as a historical site with the construction by Marcus Aemilius Lepidus of the Via Aemilia, leading from Piacenza to Rimini. Reggio became an administration centre, with a forum called at first Regium Lepidi, then simply Regium. During the Roman age Regium is cited only by Festus and Cicero, however, it was a flourishing city, a Municipium with its own statutes, magistrates and art collegia. Apollinaris of Ravenna brought Christianity in the 1st century CE, the sources confirm the presence of a bishopric in Reggio after the Edict of Milan. In 440 the Reggio diocese was placed under the jurisdiction of Ravenna by Western Roman Emperor Valentinianus III, at the end of the 4th century, however, Reggio had decayed so much that Saint Ambrose included it among the dilapidated cities. Further damage occurred with the Barbarian invasions, after the deposition of Romulus Augustulus in 476 Reggio was part of Odoacers realm. In 489 it came under Ostrogothic control, from 539 it was part of the Roman Empire, Reggio was chosen as Duchy of Reggio seat. In 773 the Franks took Reggio, charlemagne gave the bishop the authority to exercise royal authority over the city and established the diocese limits. In 888 Reggio was handed over to the Kings of Italy, in 899 the Magyars heavily damaged it, killing Bishop Azzo II. As a result of new walls were built. On 31 October 900 Emperor Louis III gave authority for the erection of a castrum in the citys centre. In 1002 Reggios territory, together with that of Parma, Brescia, Modena, Mantua and Ferrara, were merged into the March of Tuscany, Reggio became a free commune around the end of the 11th or the beginning of the 12th century. In 1167 it was a member of the Lombard League and took part in the Battle of Legnano, in 1183 the city signed the Treaty of Konstanz, from which the citys consul, Rolando della Carità, received the imperial investiture
3.
Maurice Ravel
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Joseph Maurice Ravel was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, in the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as Frances greatest living composer. After leaving the conservatoire Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity, incorporating elements of baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz. He liked to experiment with form, as in his best-known work, Boléro. He made some arrangements of other composers music, of which his 1922 version of Mussorgskys Pictures at an Exhibition is the best known. As a slow and painstaking worker, Ravel composed fewer pieces than many of his contemporaries. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, many of his works exist in two versions, a first, piano score and a later orchestration. Some of his music, such as Gaspard de la nuit, is exceptionally difficult to play. Ravel was among the first composers to recognise the potential of recording to bring their music to a wider public, from the 1920s, despite limited technique as a pianist or conductor, he took part in recordings of several of his works, others were made under his supervision. Ravel was born in the Basque town of Ciboure, France and his father, Pierre-Joseph Ravel, was an educated and successful engineer, inventor and manufacturer, born in Versoix near the Franco-Swiss border. His mother, Marie, née Delouart, was Basque but had grown up in Madrid, in 19th-century terms, Joseph had married beneath his status – Marie was illegitimate and barely literate – but the marriage was a happy one. Both Ravels parents were Roman Catholics, Marie was also something of a free-thinker, a trait inherited by her elder son and he was baptised in the Ciboure parish church six days after he was born. The family moved to Paris three months later, and there a younger son, Édouard, was born and he was close to his father, whom he eventually followed into the engineering profession. Maurice was particularly devoted to their mother, her Basque-Spanish heritage was an influence on his life. Among his earliest memories were folk songs she sang to him, the household was not rich, but the family was comfortable, and the two boys had happy childhoods. Ravel senior delighted in taking his sons to factories to see the latest mechanical devices, in later life, Ravel recalled, Throughout my childhood I was sensitive to music. My father, much better educated in art than most amateurs are, knew how to develop my taste. There is no record that Ravel received any formal schooling in his early years
4.
Manuel de Falla
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Manuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spanish composer. Along with Isaac Albéniz and Enrique Granados, he was one of Spains most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century and his image was on Spains 1970 100-pesetas banknote. Falla was born Manuel María de los Dolores Falla y Matheu in Cádiz and he was the son of José María Falla, a Valencian, and María Jesús Matheu, from Catalonia. In 1889 he continued his lessons with Alejandro Odero and learned the techniques of harmony. At age 15 he became interested in literature and journalism and founded the literary magazines El Burlón, by 1900 he was living with his family in the capital, where he attended the Real Conservatorio de Música y Declamación. He studied piano with José Tragó, a colleague of Isaac Albéniz, in 1897 he composed Melodia for cello and piano and dedicated it to Salvador Viniegra, who hosted evenings of chamber music that Falla attended. In 1899, by vote, he was awarded the first prize at the piano competition at his school of music. He premiered his first works, Romanza para violonchelo y piano, Nocturno para piano, Melodía para violonchelo y piano, Serenata andaluza para violín y piano, and Cuarteto en Sol y Mireya. That same year he started to use de with his first surname, when only the surname is used, however, the de is omitted. In 1900 he composed his Canción para piano and various other vocal and he premiered his Serenata andaluza y Vals-Capricho para piano in the Ateneo de Madrid. Due to the financial position of his family, he began to teach piano classes. Among his early pieces are a number of zarzuelas like La Juana y la Petra, on 12 April 1902 he premiered Los amores de la Inés in the Teatro Cómico de Madrid. The same year he met the composer Joaquín Turina and saw his Vals-Capricho y Serenata andaluza published by the Society of Authors, the following year he composed and performed Allegro de concierto for the Madrid Royal Conservatory competition. Enrique Granados took first prize with his composition of the same title, Falla then began his collaboration with composer Amadeo Vives on the zarzuelas Prisionero de guerra, El cornetín de órdenes and La cruz de Malta. His first important work was the one-act opera La vida breve, in April 1905 he won the first prize in a piano competition sponsored by the firm of Ortiz and Cussó. On 15 May his work Allegro de concierto premiered in the Ateneo de Madrid, Falla moved to Paris in 1907, where he remained for seven years. In 1908 King Alfonso XIII awarded him a grant that enabled him to remain in Paris while he finished his Cuatro piezas españolas. A second production was given the year at the Opéra-Comique, to acclaim from critics such as Pierre Lalo
5.
Richard Strauss
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Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. Strauss was also a prominent conductor in Western Europe and the Americas, enjoying quasi-celebrity status as his compositions became standards of orchestral and operatic repertoire. Strauss was born on 11 June 1864 in Munich, the son of Josephine and Franz Strauss, in his youth, he received a thorough musical education from his father. He wrote his first composition at the age of six and continued to write music almost until his death, during his boyhood Strauss attended orchestra rehearsals of the Munich Court Orchestra, where he received private instruction in music theory and orchestration from an assistant conductor. In 1872 he started receiving violin instruction at the Royal School of Music from Benno Walter, in 1874 Strauss heard his first Wagner operas, Lohengrin and Tannhäuser. The influence of Wagners music on Strausss style was to be profound, but at first his musically conservative father forbade him to study it. Indeed, in the Strauss household, the music of Richard Wagner was viewed with deep suspicion, in later life, Strauss said that he deeply regretted the conservative hostility to Wagners progressive works. Nevertheless, Strausss father undoubtedly had a influence on his sons developing taste. In early 1882 in Vienna he gave the first performance of his Violin Concerto in D minor, playing a piano reduction of the part himself. The same year he entered Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, where he studied philosophy and art history, Strauss learned the art of conducting by observing Bülow in rehearsal. Bülow was very fond of the man and decided that Strauss should be his successor as conductor of the Meiningen Court Orchestra when Bülow resigned in 1885. Strausss compositions at time were indebted to the style of Robert Schumann or Felix Mendelssohn. 1, Op.11, is representative of this period and is a staple of modern horn repertoire, Strauss married soprano Pauline de Ahna on 10 September 1894. She was famous for being irascible, garrulous, eccentric and outspoken, throughout his life, from his earliest songs to the final Four Last Songs of 1948, he preferred the soprano voice to all others, and all his operas contain important soprano roles. The Strausses had one son, Franz, in 1897, Franz married Alice von Grab-Hermannswörth, daughter of a Jewish industrialist, in a Roman Catholic ceremony in 1924. Franz and Alice had two sons, Richard and Christian, some of Strausss first compositions were solo instrumental and chamber works. After 1890 Strauss composed very infrequently for chamber groups, his energies being almost completely absorbed with large-scale orchestral works and operas. Four of his pieces are actually arrangements of portions of his operas, including the Daphne-Etude for solo violin and the String Sextet
6.
Arnold Schoenberg
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Arnold Franz Walter Schoenberg or Schönberg was an Austrian composer, music theorist, and painter. He was associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, by 1938, with the rise of the Nazi Party, Schoenbergs works were labeled degenerate music, because he was Jewish. He moved to the United States in 1934, Schoenbergs approach, both in terms of harmony and development, has been one of the most influential of 20th-century musical thought. Many European and American composers from at least three generations have consciously extended his thinking, whereas others have reacted against it. Schoenberg was known early in his career for simultaneously extending the traditionally opposed German Romantic styles of Brahms, later, his name would come to personify innovations in atonality that would become the most polemical feature of 20th-century art music. In the 1920s, Schoenberg developed the technique, an influential compositional method of manipulating an ordered series of all twelve notes in the chromatic scale. He also coined the term developing variation and was the first modern composer to embrace ways of developing motifs without resorting to the dominance of a melodic idea. Schoenbergs archival legacy is collected at the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna, Arnold Schoenberg was born into a lower middle-class Jewish family in the Leopoldstadt district of Vienna, at Obere Donaustraße 5. His father Samuel, a native of Bratislava, was a shopkeeper and he took only counterpoint lessons with the composer Alexander Zemlinsky, who was to become his first brother-in-law. In his twenties, Schoenberg earned a living by orchestrating operettas, while composing his own works and he later made an orchestral version of this, which became one of his most popular pieces. Strauss turned to a more conservative idiom in his own work after 1909, Mahler adopted him as a protégé and continued to support him, even after Schoenbergs style reached a point Mahler could no longer understand. Mahler worried about who would look after him after his death, Schoenberg, who had initially despised and mocked Mahlers music, was converted by the thunderbolt of Mahlers Third Symphony, which he considered a work of genius. Afterward he spoke of Mahler as a saint, in 1898 Schoenberg converted to Christianity in the Lutheran church. According to MacDonald this was partly to strengthen his attachment to Western European cultural traditions and he would self-identify as a member of the Jewish religion later in life. In October 1901, he married Mathilde Zemlinsky, the sister of the conductor and composer Alexander von Zemlinsky and he and Mathilde had two children, Gertrud and Georg. Gertrud would marry Schoenbergs pupil Felix Greissle in 1921, during the summer of 1908, his wife Mathilde left him for several months for a young Austrian painter, Richard Gerstl. This period marked a change in Schoenbergs work. This was the first composition without any reference at all to a key, also in this year, he completed one of his most revolutionary compositions, the String Quartet No
7.
Igor Stravinsky
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Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian-born composer, pianist, and conductor. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century, Stravinskys compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. His Russian phase which continued with such as Renard, The Soldiers Tale. The works from this tended to make use of traditional musical forms, drawing on earlier styles. In the 1950s, Stravinsky adopted serial procedures, Stravinsky was born on 17 June 1882 in Oranienbaum, a suburb of Saint Petersburg, the Russian imperial capital, and was brought up in Saint Petersburg. It is believed that Stravinsky’s ancestry is traceable back to the 17th and 18th centuries, to the bearers of the Soulima, ivan Sulima, was a famous Ukrainian hetman 1628–1635. Stravinskys family branch most likely came from Stravinskas, polonized Lithuanian land owners and it is still unclear to when exactly the Soulima part of the surname was dropped. Stravinsky recalled his schooldays as being lonely, later saying that I never came across anyone who had any attraction for me. Stravinsky began piano lessons as a boy, studying music theory. In 1890, he saw a performance of Tchaikovskys ballet The Sleeping Beauty at the Mariinsky Theatre, despite his enthusiasm for music, his parents expected him to study law. Stravinsky enrolled at the University of Saint Petersburg in 1901, Stravinskys father died of cancer that year, by which time his son had already begun spending more time on his musical studies than on law. Thereafter, he concentrated on studying music, in 1905, he began to take twice-weekly private lessons from Rimsky-Korsakov, whom he came to regard as a second father. These lessons continued until Rimsky-Korsakovs death in 1908, in 1905 Stravinsky was betrothed to his cousin Katherine Gavrylivna Nosenko, whom he had known since early childhood. Diaghilev was sufficiently impressed by Fireworks to commission Stravinsky to carry out some orchestrations and then to compose a ballet score. The early period of Igor Stravinsky’s work would be incomplete without a research of his life while in Ukraine. From approximately 1890 till 1914 the composer was frequently visiting Ustyluh, town in Volyn Oblast and he spent most of his summers there and that’s where he met his cousin, Katherine Nosenko who he married in 1906. In 1907 Stravinsky designed and built his own house in Ustyluh where his own family stayed often during summer times until 1914 and his new Ukrainian home he called “My heavenly place”. In this house Igor Stravinsky worked on his seventeen early compositions, among which were orchestral fantasy Fireworks, ballets Firebird, Petrushka, currently, after its renovation this house is the only composers house-museum opened to the public
8.
Colorado Springs, Colorado
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Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of El Paso County, Colorado, United States. Colorado Springs is located in the east central portion of the state and it is situated on Fountain Creek and is located 60 miles south of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. At 6,035 feet the city stands over 1 mile above sea level, Colorado Springs is situated near the base of one of the most famous American mountains, Pikes Peak, rising above 14,000 feet on the eastern edge of the Southern Rocky Mountains. The city is home to 24 national governing bodies of sport, the United States Olympic Committee and the United States Olympic Training Center. The city had an population of 456,568 in 2015, ranking as the second most populous city in the state of Colorado, behind Denver. The Colorado Springs, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area had an population of 712,327 in 2016. The city covers 194.9 square miles, making it the most extensive municipality in Colorado, Colorado Springs was ranked number five by U. S. News & World Report on the list of 2016 Best Places to Live in the USA. The Ute, Arapaho and Cheyenne peoples were the first to inhabit the area which would become Colorado Springs, part of the territory included in the United States 1803 Louisiana Purchase, the current city area was designated part of the 1854 Kansas Territory. In 1859, after the first local settlement was established, it part of the Jefferson Territory on October 24. Colorado City at the Front Range confluence of Fountain and Camp creeks was formally organized on August 13,1859 during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush. It served as the capital of the Colorado Territory from November 5,1861, until August 14,1862, in 1871 the Colorado Springs Company laid out the towns of La Font and Fountain Colony, upstream and downstream respectively, of Colorado City. Within a year, Fountain Colony would be renamed Colorado Springs, the El Paso County seat shifted from Colorado City in 1873 to the Town of Colorado Springs. On December 1,1880, Colorado Springs expanded northward with two annexations, the second period of annexations was during 1889–90, and included Seaveys Addition, West Colorado Springs, East End, and another North End addition. In 1891 the Broadmoor Land Company built the Broadmoor suburb, which included the Broadmoor Casino, and by December 12,1895, by 1898, the city was designated into quadrants by the north-south Cascade Avenue and the east-west Washington/Pikes Peak avenues. From 1899 to 1901 Tesla Experimental Station operated on Knob Hill, alexander Airport north of the city opened in 1925, and in 1927 the original Colorado Springs Municipal Airport land was purchased east of the city. In World War II the United States Army Air Forces leased land adjacent to the municipal airfield and this was only one of several military presences in and around Colorado Springs during the war. In November 1950, Ent Air Force Base was selected as the Cold War headquarters for Air Defense Command. The former WWII Army Air Base, Peterson Field, which had been inactivated at the end of the war, was re-opened in 1951 as a U. S. Air Force base
9.
Rosa Raisa
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Rosa Raisa was a Polish-born and Italian-trained Russian-Jewish dramatic operatic soprano who became a naturalized American. She possessed a voice of power and was the creator of Puccini’s last opera, Turandot, at La Scala. She was born as Raitza Burchstein, daughter of Herschel and Frieda Leah Burchstein, in Białystok and her mother died in 1899 and Herschel remarried, Chaya. Along with her cousins she fled Poland when she was 14 due to the Bialystok pogrom, emigrating to the Isle of Capri, there Raitza met Dario Ascarelli and his wife Ester, who recognized her talent and potential and sponsored her at the Naples Conservatory. Her teacher at the conservatory, the contralto Barbara Marchisio, had one of the most prominent Italian singers of the mid-19th century. Marchisio brought Raisa in 1912 to Cleofonte Campanini, an operatic conductor. As she was under 21 years of age, her engagement was confirmed in a handshake, debuts and successes followed rapidly for Raisa. Her first role in Philadelphia was Isabella of Aragon in the United States premiere of Alberto Franchetti’s Cristoforo Colombo, edward Moore, then critic of the Chicago Tribune, stated that hers was a voice the like of whose power had never been heard on that stage. The London company went to Paris and she sang her only Nedda in Pagliacci, the annals of operatic performances in South America oftentimes read as the “greatest” Italian opera to be seen, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires a defining theater. Mocchi took Raisa in May 1915 to South America for a season, first in Buenos Aires and Rosario in Argentina, Montevideo in Uruguay and São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro. All these operas were under the leadership of Gino Marinuzzi, the great Italian conductor, Raisa made her La Scala debut as Francesca upon her return from South America. She performed many Francesca’s and Aida’s as well as Lida in Verdi’s rare early opera La battaglia di Legnano at the Scala and it was after her Francesca at La Scala that she encountered Giacomo Puccini, who visited her after the performance. Raisa did not go to Monte Carlo as she was in the United States and was fearful of the submarine warfare at that stage of the Great War. Falstaff was to play a part in her career for it gave her an only chance to play the non-title role in an opera with baritone Giacomo Rimini, at that time her lover and after 1920 her husband. ”The only problem with Campanini’s prediction was that Amelita Galli-Curci was to take Chicago. After her return to Chicago in 1916, Raisa along with Mary Garden, Edith Mason, Claudia Muzio, essentially Raisa was the company’s dramatic soprano, Mary Garden the French-repertory soprano, Galli-Curci the light coloratura, Edith Mason a lyric, and Claudia Muzio a spinto soprano. Of all these, Claudia Muzio was the one to share some roles with Raisa. This is significant as Claudia Muzio had performed Norma with some success in Italy and South America, Raisa over the next 16 seasons sang almost five hundred times in Chicago and on its transnational tours. She also sang two seasons in Mexico returned to South America for three more seasons
10.
Polio vaccine
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Polio vaccines are vaccines used to prevent poliomyelitis. There are two types, one that uses inactivated poliovirus and is given by injection, and one that uses weakened poliovirus and is given by mouth, the World Health Organization recommends all children be vaccinated against polio. The two vaccines have eliminated polio from most of the world, and reduced the number of each year from an estimated 350,000 in 1988 to 74 in 2015. The inactivated polio vaccines are very safe, mild redness or pain may occur at the site of injection. Oral polio vaccines result in vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis in about three per million doses and this compares with one in two hundred who are paralysed following a polio infection. Both are generally safe to give during pregnancy and in those who have HIV/AIDS but are otherwise well, the first polio vaccine was the inactivated polio vaccine. It was developed by Jonas Salk and came into use in 1955, the oral polio vaccine was developed by Albert Sabin and came into commercial use in 1961. They are on the World Health Organizations List of Essential Medicines, the wholesale cost in the developing world is about 0.25 USD per dose for the oral form as of 2014. In the United States it costs between 25 and 50 USD for the inactivated form, the duration of immunity induced by IPV is not known with certainty, although a complete series is thought to provide protection for many years. OPV also proved to be superior in administration, eliminating the need for sterile syringes, OPV also provided longer lasting immunity than the Salk vaccine. One dose of OPV produces immunity to all three poliovirus serotypes in approximately 50% of recipients, three doses of live-attenuated OPV produce protective antibodies to all three poliovirus types in more than 95% of recipients. OPV produces excellent immunity in the intestine, the site of wild poliovirus entry. The live virus used in the vaccine is shed in the stool, the live virus also has stringent requirements for transport and storage, which are a problem in some hot or remote areas. As with other vaccines, immunity initiated by OPV is probably lifelong. The trivalent OPV has been used to nearly eradicated polio infection worldwide, lead by The Global Polio Eradication Initiative,155 countries switched to use the bivalent between 17 April and 1 May 2016. The bivalent OPV is at more effective against type 1 and 3, the United States as of 2017 continues to recommend the use of a trivalent version, but a fully inactivated version. The World Health Organization recommends three or four starting at two months of age. It can be begun earlier but then additional doses are needed, the inactivated polio vaccines are very safe
11.
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
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The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, based in Chicago, was formed by Theodore Thomas in 1891. The Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a season at the Ravinia Festival. The music director is Riccardo Muti, who began his tenure in 2010, the CSO is one of five American orchestras commonly referred to as the Big Five. Since Thomas, the orchestra has had ten music directors, including Rafael Kubelík, Fritz Reiner, Sir Georg Solti, from 2010 to the present, the incumbent conductor is Riccardo Muti. In 1890 Charles Norman Fay, a Chicago businessman, invited Theodore Thomas to establish an orchestra in Chicago, under the name Chicago Orchestra, the orchestra played its first concert October 16,1891 at the Auditorium Theater. It is one of the oldest orchestras in the United States, along with the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Hall, now a component of the Symphony Center complex, was designed by Chicago architect Daniel H. Burnham and completed in 1904. Maestro Thomas served as director for thirteen years until his death shortly after the orchestras newly built residence was dedicated December 14,1904. The orchestra was renamed Theodore Thomas Orchestra in 1905 and today, in 1905, Frederick Stock became music director, a post he held until his death in 1942. The orchestra was renamed the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1913, subsequent music directors have included Désiré Defauw, Artur Rodziński, Rafael Kubelík, Fritz Reiner, Jean Martinon, Georg Solti, and Daniel Barenboim. His contract has been renewed for five years, through the 2020 season. Many of these guests have also recorded with the orchestra, carlos Kleiber made his only symphonic guest appearances in America with the CSO, in October 1978 and June 1983. The three principal guest conductors of the orchestra have been Carlo Maria Giulini, Claudio Abbado, the CSO holds an annual fundraiser, originally known as the Chicago Symphony Marathon, more recently as Radiothon and Symphonython, in conjunction with Chicago radio station WFMT. As part of the event, from 1986 through 2008, the released tracks from their broadcast archives on double LP/CD collections. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra maintains a home at Ravinia in Highland Park. The CSO helped to inaugurate the first season of the Ravinia Festival in August 1936 and has been in residence at the Festival every summer since, as of 2005, James Conlon holds the title of Ravinia music director. The Chicago Symphony has amassed an extensive discography, recordings by the CSO have earned 62 Grammy Awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. These include several Classical Album of the Year awards, awards in Best Classical Performance in vocal soloist, choral, instrumental, engineering and orchestral categories. On May 1,1916, Frederick Stock and the orchestra recorded the Wedding March from Felix Mendelssohns music to A Midsummer Nights Dream for what was known as the Columbia Graphophone Company
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