1.
Brooklyn
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Brooklyn is the most populous borough of New York City, with a Census-estimated 2,636,735 residents in 2015. It borders the borough of Queens at the end of Long Island. Today, if New York City dissolved, Brooklyn would rank as the third-most populous city in the U. S. behind Los Angeles, the borough continues, however, to maintain a distinct culture. Many Brooklyn neighborhoods are ethnic enclaves, Brooklyns official motto, displayed on the Borough seal and flag, is Eendraght Maeckt Maght which translates from early modern Dutch as Unity makes strength. Since 2010, Brooklyn has evolved into a hub of entrepreneurship and high technology startup firms. The history of European settlement in Brooklyn spans more than 350 years, the neighborhood of Marine Park was home to North Americas first tidal mill. It was built by the Dutch, and the foundation can be seen today, however, the area was not formally settled as a town. Many incidents and documents relating to this period are in Gabriel Furmans early compilation, what is today Brooklyn left Dutch hands after the final English conquest of New Netherland in 1664, a prelude to the Second Anglo–Dutch War. The English reorganized the six old Dutch towns on southwestern Long Island as Kings County on November 1,1683 and this tract of land was recognized as a political entity for the first time, and the municipal groundwork was laid for a later expansive idea of Brooklyn identity. On August 27,1776 was fought the Battle of Long Island, the first major engagement fought in the American Revolutionary War after independence was declared, and the largest of the entire conflict. British troops forced Continental Army troops under George Washington off the heights near the sites of Green-Wood Cemetery, Prospect Park. The fortified American positions at Brooklyn Heights consequently became untenable and were evacuated a few days later, One result of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 was the evacuation of the British from New York City, celebrated by residents into the 20th century. The New York Navy Yard operated in Wallabout Bay for the entire 19th century, the first center of urbanization sprang up in the Town of Brooklyn, directly across from Lower Manhattan, which saw the incorporation of the Village of Brooklyn in 1817. Reliable steam ferry service across the East River to Fulton Landing converted Brooklyn Heights into a town for Wall Street. Ferry Road to Jamaica Pass became Fulton Street to East New York, Town and Village were combined to form the first, kernel incarnation of the City of Brooklyn in 1834. Industrial deconcentration in mid-century was bringing shipbuilding and other manufacturing to the part of the county. Each of the two cities and six towns in Kings County remained independent municipalities, and purposely created non-aligning street grids with different naming systems and it later became the most popular and highest circulation afternoon paper in America. The publisher changed to L. Van Anden on April 19,1842, on May 14,1849 the name was shortened to The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, on September 5,1938 it was further shortened to Brooklyn Eagle
2.
High School of Music & Art
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The building now houses the A. Philip Randolph Campus High School, a school of the New York City Department of Education. New York City Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia started the school in 1936. As the mayor of New York City he wanted to establish a school in which students could hone their talents in music, art. Music & Art was made up of three departments, Art, Instrumental Music, and Vocal Music and it was a magnet school, meant to draw talented students from all boroughs. In 1948, a sister school — the High School of Performing Arts — was created in an effort to harness students’ talents in dance. Future Mad magazine contributors Al Jaffee, Will Elder, Harvey Kurtzman, John Severin, comic book artists Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, did as well, though they were slightly younger than Jaffee and the rest. R. O. Blechman, Milton Glaser, Ed Sorel, other M&A graduates from the 1940s include Bess Myerson, Allan Kaprow, and Hal Linden. Notable graduates from the 1950s included Gloria Davy, Diahann Carroll, Susan Stamberg, Billy Dee Williams, Peter Yarrow, Susan Strasberg, Tony Roberts, James Burrows, and Erica Jong. Notable M&A grads from the 1980s include writers Jonathan Lethem and Lynn Nottage, hip-hop musician Slick Rick, as per Mayor LaGuardias vision, Music & Art and Performing Arts merged on paper in 1961 and were to be combined in one building. The Board of Education posthumously honored Mayor LaGuardia by naming the new building after him, the Training School became the New York Teachers Training College from 1931 to 1933. That school was abolished during the Depression when there was a surplus of teachers for the school system. Architecturally, the building blends in with the gothic revival buildings of the City College campus. Post around 1900 to create a setting that came to be known as “the poor man’s Harvard. ”The tower rooms have dramatic acoustics, the large gymnasium features large Tudor-arch-shaped windows on two sides that at certain times during the day stream sunlight into the room. The auditorium has excellent acoustics, and features diamond-shaped amber windows that during daylight cast a warm glow on its dark wood interior, the iron ends of the auditorium seats have a casting with an image of the Tudor window arches in the gymnasium. The building won status as a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1997, according to the Landmark Commission report, this was not an expensive building for its time, and many of the structural components were left exposed to save money. Note, anyone who graduated after 1984 is considered a graduate of Fiorello H. Phillip Randolph Campus High School
3.
Juilliard School
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The Juilliard School located in the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City, is a performing arts conservatory established in 1905. It is informally referred to as Juilliard, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the leading music schools. In 2016, QS Quacquarelli Symonds ranked it as the worlds best institution for Performing Arts in their global ranking of the discipline. The Institute opened in the former Lenox Mansion, Fifth Avenue and 12th Street and it moved in 1910 to 120 Claremont Avenue in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, onto a property purchased from Bloomingdale Insane Asylum. In 1920, the Juilliard Foundation was created, named after textile merchant Augustus D. Juilliard, in 1924, the foundation purchased the Vanderbilt family guesthouse at 49 E. 52nd Street and established the Juilliard Graduate School. In 1926, the Juilliard School of Music was created through a merger of the Institute of Musical Art, the two schools shared a common Board of Directors and President but retained their distinct identities. The conductor and music-educator Frank Damrosch continued as the Institutes dean, in 1937, Hutcheson succeeded Erskine as president of the two institutions, a job he held until 1945. In 1946, the Institute of Musical Art and the Juilliard Graduate School completely merged to form a single institution, the president of the school at that time was William Schuman, the first winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Schuman established the Juilliard String Quartet in 1946 and the Dance Division in 1951, William Schuman graduated from Columbias Teachers College and attended the Juilliard Summer School in 1932,1933 and 1936. While attending Juilliard Summer School, he developed a dislike for traditional music theory and ear training curricula, finding little value in counterpoint. L&M was Schumans reaction against more formal theory and ear training, the general mandate was to give the student an awareness of the dynamic nature of the materials of music. The quality and degree of each students education in harmony, music history or ear training was dependent on how each composer-teacher decided to interpret this mandate, William Schuman resigned as president of Juilliard after being elected president of Lincoln Center in 1962. Peter Mennin, another composer with experience at the Peabody Conservatory, was elected as his successor. Mennin made significant changes to the L&M program—ending ear training and music history, in 1968, Mennin hired John Houseman to manage a new Drama Division, and in 1969 oversaw Juilliards relocation from Claremont Avenue to Lincoln Center. Polisis many accomplishments include philanthropic successes, broadening of the curriculum, in 2001, the school established a jazz performance training program. In 1999, the Juilliard School was awarded the National Medal of Arts, in 2006, Juilliard received a trove of precious music manuscripts from board chair and philanthropist Bruce Kovner. Many of the manuscripts had been unavailable for generations,2, and manuscripts of Brahmss Symphony No.2 and Piano Concerto No.2
4.
Vladimir Horowitz
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Vladimir Samoylovich Horowitz was a Russian-born American classical pianist and composer. He was acclaimed for his technique, his tone color. He is recognized as one of the greatest pianists of all time, Vladimir Horowitz was born in Kiev in the Russian Empire. There are unsubstantiated claims that Horowitz was born in Berdychiv, however, Horowitz was the youngest of four children of Samuil Horowitz and Sophia Bodik, who were assimilated Jews. Samuil was an electrical engineer and a distributor of electric motors for German manufacturers. Horowitzs grandfather Joachim was a merchant, belonging to the 1st Guild and this status gave exemption from having to reside in the Pale of Settlement. The 1904 date appeared in reference works during the pianists lifetime. Horowitzs uncle, Alexander, was a pupil and close friend of Alexander Scriabin, as a 10-year-old boy, it was arranged for Horowitz to play for Scriabin, who afterwards informed his parents that he was extremely talented. Horowitz received piano instruction from an age, initially from his mother. In 1912 he entered the Kiev Conservatory, where he was taught by Vladimir Puchalsky, Sergei Tarnowsky and his first solo recital was in Kharkiv in 1920. Horowitzs fame grew, and he began to tour Russia where he was often paid with bread, butter and chocolate rather than money. During the 1922–1923 season, he performed 23 concerts of different programs in Petrograd alone. In December 1925, Horowitz immigrated to the West, ostensibly to study with Artur Schnabel in Berlin, privately intending not to return, the 22-year-old pianist had stuffed American dollars and British pound notes into his shoes to finance his initial concerts. On December 18,1925, Horowitz made his first appearance outside his home country and he later played in Paris, London, and New York City. Horowitz gave his United States debut on January 12,1928 and he played Tchaikovskys Piano Concerto No.1 under the direction of Sir Thomas Beecham, who was also making his U. S. debut. Horowitz later commented that he and Beecham had divergent ideas regarding tempos, Horowitzs rapport with his audience was phenomenal. In this debut performance, Horowitz demonstrated an ability to excite his audience. As Downes commented, it has been years since a pianist created such a furor with an audience in this city, in his review of Horowitzs solo recital, Downes characterized the pianists playing as showing most if not all the traits of a great interpreter
5.
Brooklyn College
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Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. Brooklyn Colleges origin began in 1910 with the establishment of a division of the City College for Teachers. The school then began offering evening classes for male college students in 1917. With the merger of these branches, Brooklyn College became the first public coeducational liberal arts college in New York City, the colleges 26-acre campus is known for its beauty, and is often regarded as the poor mans Harvard because of its low tuition and reputation for respectable academics. In 1932, the architect Randolph Evans drafted a plan for the campus on a large plot of land his employer owned in the Midwood section of Brooklyn. He sketched out a Georgian-style campus facing a central quadrangle, Evans presented the sketches to the president of the college at the time, Dr. William A. Boylan. Boylan was pleased with the plans, and the lot of land was purchased for $1.6 million, construction of the new campus began in 1935, with a groundbreaking ceremony attended by then Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and Brooklyn Borough President Raymond Ingersoll. In 1936, then-President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt went to Brooklyn College to lay the cornerstone of the Brooklyn College Gymnasium, President Boylan, Borough President Ingersoll, and President Roosevelt all had buildings on Brooklyn Colleges campus named after them. The campus located in Midwood became the only Brooklyn College campus after the schools Downtown Brooklyn campus was shut down during the 1975 budget emergency, Brooklyn Colleges campus East Quad today looks much as it did when it was originally constructed. The campus also serves as home to the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts complex and its four theaters, the demolition of Gershwin Hall, replaced by The Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts, is the most recent construction on an evolving campus. Other changes to the design include the demolition of Plaza Building, due to its inefficient use of space, poor ventilation. To replace Plaza Building the college constructed West Quad Center, designed by the notable Uruguayan architect Rafael Viñoly, the new building contains classroom space, offices, gymnasiums and a swimming pool. It houses the offices of Registration, Admissions, Financial Aid, the grounds contain a quadrangle with grassy areas and trees. New façades are being constructed on Roosevelt and James halls where they connected with Plaza Building. The 2009–10 CUNYAC championship mens team now plays its home games in the West Quad Center. This follows a major renovation that saw the library moved to a temporary home while construction took place. The Brooklyn College library is now located in its location in a completely renovated and expanded LaGuardia Hall. Noted as one of the most beautiful in the United States, in 2006, the Core Curriculum was revamped, and the 13 required courses were replaced with 15 courses in 3 disciplines, from which students were required to take 11
6.
Sound recording and reproduction
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Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording, prior to the development of analog recording, there were mechanical systems for reproducing instrumental music, such as wind-up music boxes and later, in the late 19th century, player pianos. Analog sound reproduction is the process, with a bigger loudspeaker diaphragm causing changes to atmospheric pressure to form acoustic sound waves. Digital recording and reproduction converts the sound signal picked up by the microphone to a digital form by the process of digitization. This lets the audio data be stored and transmitted by a variety of media. Whereas successive copies of an analog recording tend to degrade in quality, as noise is added. A digital audio signal must be reconverted to analog form during playback before it is amplified and connected to a loudspeaker to produce sound, long before sound was first recorded on cylinders or records, music was recorded—first by written music notation, then also by mechanical devices. Fowler, this. cylinder with raised pins on the surface remained the device to produce and reproduce music mechanically until the second half of the nineteenth century. The Banu Musa brothers also invented an automatic flute player, which appears to have been the first programmable machine, according to Fowler, the automata were a robot band that performed. more than fifty facial and body actions during each musical selection. In the 14th century, Flanders introduced a mechanical bell-ringer controlled by a rotating cylinder, similar designs appeared in barrel organs, musical clocks, barrel pianos, and musical boxes. A music box is a musical instrument that produces sounds by the use of a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc so as to pluck the tuned teeth of a steel comb. They were developed from musical snuff boxes of the 18th century, some of the more complex boxes also have a tiny drum and/or bells, in addition to the metal comb. The fairground organ, developed in 1892, used a system of accordion-folded punched cardboard books, the player piano, first demonstrated in 1876, used a punched paper scroll that could store an long piece of music. The most sophisticated of the rolls were hand-played, meaning that the roll represented the actual performance of an individual. This technology to record a live performance onto a piano roll was not developed until 1904, piano rolls were in continuous mass production from 1896 to 2008. A1908 U. S. Supreme Court copyright case noted that, in 1902 alone, the use of piano rolls began to decline in the 1920s although one type is still being made today. The first device that could record actual sounds as they passed through the air was the phonautograph, the earliest known recordings of the human voice are phonautograph recordings, called phonautograms, made in 1857. They consist of sheets of paper with sound-wave-modulated white lines created by a stylus that cut through a coating of soot as the paper was passed under it
7.
Grammy Award
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A Grammy Award, or Grammy, is an honor awarded by The Recording Academy to recognize outstanding achievement in the mainly English-language music industry. The annual presentation ceremony features performances by prominent artists, and the presentation of awards that have a more popular interest. It shares recognition of the industry as that of the other performance awards such as the Emmy Awards, the Tony Awards. The first Grammy Awards ceremony was held on May 4,1959, to honor, following the 2011 ceremony, The Academy overhauled many Grammy Award categories for 2012. The 59th Grammy Awards, honoring the best achievements from October 2015 to September 2016, was held on February 12,2017, the Grammys had their origin in the Hollywood Walk of Fame project in the 1950s. The music executives decided to rectify this by creating a given by their industry similar to the Oscars. This was the beginning of the National Academy of Recording Arts, after it was decided to create such an award, there was still a question of what to call it, one working title was the Eddie, to honor the inventor of the phonograph, Thomas Edison. They finally settled on using the name of the invention of Emile Berliner, the gramophone, for the awards, the number of awards given grew and fluctuated over the years with categories added and removed, at one time reaching over 100. The second Grammy Awards, also held in 1959, was the first ceremony to be televised, the gold-plated trophies, each depicting a gilded gramophone, are made and assembled by hand by Billings Artworks in Ridgway, Colorado. In 1990 the original Grammy design was revamped, changing the traditional soft lead for a stronger alloy less prone to damage, Billings developed a zinc alloy named grammium, which is trademarked. The trophies with the name engraved on them are not available until after the award announcements. By February 2009,7,578 Grammy trophies had been awarded, the General Field are four awards which are not restricted by genre. Album of the Year is awarded to the performer and the team of a full album if other than the performer. Record of the Year is awarded to the performer and the team of a single song if other than the performer. Song of the Year is awarded to the writer/composer of a single song, Best New Artist is awarded to a promising breakthrough performer who releases, during the Eligibility Year, the first recording that establishes the public identity of that artist. The only two artists to win all four of these awards are Christopher Cross, who won all four in 1980, and Adele, who won the Best New Artist award in 2009 and the other three in 2012 and 2017. Other awards are given for performance and production in specific genres, as well as for other such as artwork. Special awards are given for longer-lasting contributions to the music industry, the many other Grammy trophies are presented in a pre-telecast Premiere Ceremony earlier in the afternoon before the Grammy Awards telecast
8.
RCA Records
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RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. It is one of SMEs three flagship labels, alongside Columbia Records and Epic Records. The label has released multiple genres of music, including pop, rock, hip hop, R&B, blues, jazz, the companys name is derived from the initials of the labels former parent company, the Radio Corporation of America. It is the second oldest recording company in US history, after sister label Columbia Records, RCAs Canadian unit is Sonys oldest label in Canada. It was one of only two Canadian record companies to survive the Great Depression, kelly, Enrique Iglesias, Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon, Kesha, Miley Cyrus, Giorgio Moroder, Jennifer Hudson, DAngelo, Pink, Tinashe, G-Eazy, Pitbull, Zayn and Wizkid. In 1929, the Radio Corporation of America purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company, then the worlds largest manufacturer of phonographs and phonograph records. The company then became RCA Victor but retained use of the Victor Records name on their labels until the beginning of 1946 when the labels were finally switched over to RCA Victor. With Victor, RCA acquired New World rights to the famous Nipper His Masters Voice trademark, in Shanghai, China, in 1931, RCA Victors British affiliate the Gramophone Company merged with the Columbia Graphophone Company to form EMI. This gave RCA head David Sarnoff a seat on the EMI board, in September 1931, RCA Victor introduced the first 33⅓ rpm records sold to the public, calling them Program Transcriptions. In the depths of the Great Depression, the format was a commercial failure, during the early part of the depression, RCA made a number of attempts to produce a successful cheap label to compete with the dime store labels. The first was the short-lived Timely Tunes label in 1931 sold at Montgomery Ward, in 1932, Bluebird Records was created as a sub-label of RCA Victor. It was originally an 8-inch record with a blue label. In 1933, RCA reintroduced Bluebird and Electradisk as a standard 10-inch label, another cheap label, Sunrise, was produced. The same musical couplings were issued on all three labels and Bluebird Records still survives eight decades after Electradisk and Sunrise were discontinued, RCA also produced records for Montgomery Ward label during the 1930s. Besides manufacturing records for themselves, RCA Victor operated RCA Custom which was the leading record manufacturer for independent record labels, RCA Custom also pressed record compilations for The Readers Digest Association. RCA sold its interest in EMI in 1935, but EMI continued to distribute RCA recordings in the UK, RCA also manufactured and distributed HMV classical recordings on the RCA and HMV labels in North America. During World War II, ties between RCA and its Japanese affiliate JVC were severed, the Japanese record company is today called Victor Entertainment and is still a JVC subsidiary. From 1942 to 1944, RCA Victor was seriously impacted by the American Federation of Musicians recording ban, virtually all union musicians could not make recordings during that period
9.
Columbia Records
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Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. the United States division of Sony Corporation. It was founded in 1887, evolving from an enterprise named the American Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the sound business. Columbia Records went on to release records by an array of singers, instrumentalists. It is one of Sony Musics three flagship record labels alongside RCA Records and Epic Records, rather, as above, it was connected to CBS, a broadcasting media company which had purchased the company in 1938, and had been co-founded in 1927 by Columbia Records itself. Though Arista Records was sold to Bertelsmann Music Group, it would become a sister label of Columbia Records through its mutual connection to Sony Music. The Columbia Phonograph Company was founded in 1887 by stenographer, lawyer and New Jersey native Edward Easton and it derived its name from the District of Columbia, where it was headquartered. At first it had a monopoly on sales and service of Edison phonographs and phonograph cylinders in Washington. As was the custom of some of the regional companies, Columbia produced many commercial cylinder recordings of its own. Columbias ties to Edison and the North American Phonograph Company were severed in 1894 with the North American Phonograph Companys breakup, thereafter it sold only records and phonographs of its own manufacture. In 1902, Columbia introduced the XP record, a brown wax record. According to Gracyk, the molded brown waxes may have sold to Sears for distribution. Columbia began selling records and phonographs in addition to the cylinder system in 1901, preceded only by their Toy Graphophone of 1899. For a decade, Columbia competed with both the Edison Phonograph Company cylinders and the Victor Talking Machine Company disc records as one of the top three names in American recorded sound. In order to add prestige to its catalog of artists. The firm also introduced the internal-horn Grafonola to compete with the extremely popular Victrola sold by the rival Victor Talking Machine Company, during this era, Columbia used the famous Magic Notes logo—a pair of sixteenth notes in a circle—both in the United States and overseas. Columbia was split into two companies, one to make records and one to make players, Columbia Phonograph was moved to Connecticut, and Ed Easton went with it. Eventually it was renamed the Dictaphone Corporation, in late 1923, Columbia went into receivership
