1.
Orchestra
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The term orchestra derives from the Greek ὀρχήστρα, the name for the area in front of a stage in ancient Greek theatre reserved for the Greek chorus. A full-size orchestra may sometimes be called an orchestra or philharmonic orchestra. The actual number of employed in a given performance may vary from seventy to over one hundred musicians, depending on the work being played. The term chamber orchestra usually refers to smaller-sized ensembles of about fifty musicians or fewer, the typical orchestra grew in size throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, reaching a peak with the large orchestras called for in the works of Richard Wagner, and later, Gustav Mahler. Orchestras are usually led by a conductor who directs the performance with movements of the hands and arms, the conductor unifies the orchestra, sets the tempo and shapes the sound of the ensemble. The first violin, commonly called the concertmaster, also plays an important role in leading the musicians, the typical symphony orchestra consists of four groups of related musical instruments called the woodwinds, brass, percussion, and strings. The orchestra, depending on the size, contains almost all of the instruments in each group. Chamber orchestra usually refers to smaller-sized ensembles, a chamber orchestra might employ as many as fifty musicians. The term concert orchestra may also be used, as in the BBC Concert Orchestra, the so-called standard complement of doubled winds and brass in the orchestra from the first half of the 19th century is generally attributed to the forces called for by Beethoven. The composers instrumentation almost always included paired flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, the exceptions to this are his Symphony No. 4, Violin Concerto, and Piano Concerto No,4, which each specify a single flute. Beethoven carefully calculated the expansion of this particular timbral palette in Symphonies 3,5,6, the third horn in the Eroica Symphony arrives to provide not only some harmonic flexibility, but also the effect of choral brass in the Trio movement. Piccolo, contrabassoon, and trombones add to the finale of his Symphony No.5. A piccolo and a pair of trombones help deliver the effect of storm and sunshine in the Sixth, for several decades after his death, symphonic instrumentation was faithful to Beethovens well-established model, with few exceptions. Apart from the core orchestral complement, various instruments are called for occasionally. These include the guitar, heckelphone, flugelhorn, cornet, harpsichord. Saxophones, for example, appear in some 19th- through 21st-century scores.6 and 9 and William Waltons Belshazzars Feast, and many other works as a member of the orchestral ensemble. The euphonium is featured in a few late Romantic and 20th-century works, usually playing parts marked tenor tuba, including Gustav Holsts The Planets, cornets appear in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovskys ballet Swan Lake, Claude Debussys La Mer, and several orchestral works by Hector Berlioz
2.
Cadogan Hall
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Cadogan Hall /kəˈdʌɡən/ is a 950-seat capacity concert hall in Sloane Terrace in Chelsea / Belgravia in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England. The resident music ensemble at Cadogan Hall is the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Cadogan Estates offered the RPO the use of the hall as its principal venue in late 2001. The RPO gave its first concert as the resident ensemble of Cadogan Hall in November 2004, Cadogan Hall has also been used as a recording venue. In February 2006, a recording of Mozart symphonies with John Eliot Gardiner, in 2009, art rock band Marillion recorded a concert there which was released on the album Live from Cadogan in 2011. By 1996, the congregation had diminished dramatically and the fell into disuse. Cadogan Estates Ltd purchased the building in 2000 and it was refurbished in 2004 by Paul Davis and Partners architects at a cost of £7.5 million. The changes included new lighting and sound systems and bespoke acoustic ceiling modules in the performance space, official website Cadogan Estates Ltd The Proms page on Cadogan Hall Tim Ashley, Lets not forget about the Cadogan Hall Proms. The Guardian Music Blog,19 July 2007 Media related to Cadogan Hall at Wikimedia Commons List of concert halls
3.
Charles Dutoit
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Charles Édouard Dutoit, OC GOQ is a Swiss conductor, particularly noted for his interpretations of French and Russian 20th-century music. He has made influential recordings of Hector Berliozs Roméo et Juliette and Maurice Ravels ballets Daphnis et Chloé. He currently serves as the Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of Londons Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Dutoit was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, studied there and graduated from the Conservatoire de musique de Genève, where he won first prize in conducting. Then he went to the Accademia Chigiana in Siena by the invitation of Alceo Galliera, in his younger days, he frequently attended Ernest Ansermets rehearsals and had a personal acquaintance with him. He also worked with Herbert von Karajan at Lucerne as a member of the youth orchestra. Dutoit began his music career in 1957 as a viola player with various orchestras across Europe. In January 1959, he made his debut as a conductor with an orchestra of Radio Lausanne. From 1959 he was a guest conductor of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, after this, he was the conductor for Radio Zurich until 1967, when he took over the Bern Symphony Orchestra from Paul Kletzki, where he stayed for eleven years. While head of the Bern Symphony, he conducted the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico from 1973 to 1975. Dutoit was principal guest conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra in the early 1980s, in 1977, Dutoit became the Artistic Director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal. During his tenure, the profile and reputation of the OSM increased as he managed to make it one of the leading orchestras in the French-speaking world. Throughout these years, he called for a new concert hall for Montréal. This unusual public declaration was precipitated by Dutoits beginning the process for two musicians who had publicly challenged his methods. One veteran member of the orchestra was quoted in the press as saying, People dont like his dirty looks, his angry, bitter scowls, his disgusted looks during concerts and rehearsals. Dutoits letter of resignation stated, Following the hostile declarations, I see no choice but to announce my resignation. He and the OSM made many recordings for the Decca/London label, Dutoit first conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1980. From 1990 to 1999, he was director of the orchestras summer concerts at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts. Since 1990, he has been the director and principal conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestras summer festival in Saratoga Springs, New York
4.
Thomas Beecham
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Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet, CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras. From the early 20th century until his death, Beecham was an influence on the musical life of Britain and. Born to an industrial family, Beecham began his career as a conductor in 1899. Among the works he introduced to England were Richard Strausss Elektra, Salome and Der Rosenkavalier, together with his younger colleague Malcolm Sargent, Beecham founded the London Philharmonic, and he conducted its first performance at the Queens Hall in 1932. In the 1940s he worked for three years in the United States where he was director of the Seattle Symphony and conducted at the Metropolitan Opera. After his return to Britain, he founded the Royal Philharmonic in 1946, Beechams repertoire was eclectic, sometimes favouring lesser-known composers over famous ones. His specialities included composers whose works were neglected in Britain before he became their advocate, such as Delius, other composers with whose music he was frequently associated were Haydn, Schubert, Sibelius and the composer he revered above all others, Mozart. Beecham was born in St Helens, Lancashire, in a house adjoining the Beechams Pills laxative factory founded by his grandfather and his parents were Joseph Beecham, the elder son of Thomas, and Josephine, née Burnett. In 1885, with the family firm flourishing financially, Joseph Beecham moved his family to a house in Ewanville, Huyton. Their former home was demolished to make room for an extension to the pill factory and he did not find university life to his taste and successfully sought his fathers permission to leave Oxford in 1898. He studied as a pianist, but had difficulty because of his small hands and he studied composition privately with Frederic Austin in Liverpool, Charles Wood in London, and Moritz Moszkowski in Paris. As a conductor, he was self-taught, Beecham first conducted in public in St Helens in October 1899, with an ad hoc ensemble comprising local musicians and players from the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hallé in Manchester. A month later, he stood in at short notice for the celebrated conductor Hans Richter at a concert by the Hallé to mark Joseph Beechams inauguration as mayor of St Helens, soon afterwards, Joseph Beecham secretly committed his wife to a mental hospital. Thomas and his elder sister Emily helped to secure their mothers release, Beecham was estranged from his father for ten years. Beechams professional début as a conductor was in 1902 at the Shakespeare Theatre, Clapham, with Balfes The Bohemian Girl and he was engaged as assistant conductor for a tour and was allotted four other operas, including Carmen and Pagliacci. A Beecham biographer calls the company grandly named but decidedly ramshackle, though Beechams Carmen was Zélie de Lussan, Beecham was also composing music in these early years, but he was not satisfied with his own efforts and instead concentrated on conducting. In 1906 Beecham was invited to conduct the New Symphony Orchestra, throughout his career, Beecham frequently chose to programme works to suit his own tastes rather than those of the paying public
5.
Glyndebourne Festival Opera
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Glyndebourne Festival Opera is an annual opera festival held at Glyndebourne, an English country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England. Under the supervision of the Christie family, the festival has been held annually since 1934, except in 1941–45 during World War II and 1993 when the theatre was being rebuilt, for a 1994 reopening. Gus Christie, son of Sir George Christie and grandson of festival founder John Christie, since the companys inception, Glyndebourne has been particularly celebrated for its productions of Mozart operas. Recordings of Glyndebournes past historic Mozart productions have been reissued, while Mozart operas have continued to be the mainstay of its repertory, the company has expanded it with productions of Janáček and Handel operas. The primary resident orchestra for the Glyndebourne Festival is the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the festivals associate orchestra is the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. In January 2014, Robin Ticciati became the music director of the company. David Pickard has been director of the festival, since 2001. In November 2015, the announced the appointment of Sebastian F. Schwarz as its general director. Its first placement of advertisements was in 2003, the festival has planned to incorporate power by wind turbine, as part of its green initiatives. Many Glyndebourne attendees come from London, and the event is regarded as part of the English summer season, performances start in the afternoon, enabling Londoners to leave town after lunch, and finish in time for them to catch the last train back. A long interval allows opera-goers the opportunity for picnic dinners on the lawns or in one of the restaurants in the grounds. Annually in London, the company presents a performance at The Proms. In 2003, the Glyndebourne Touring Opera administrative duties were absorbed back into the main Glyndebourne Festival Opera administration, unlike Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Glyndebourne On Tour does receive some subsidy, from the Arts Council England. The schedule involves three weeks of performances at Glyndebourne, and then one week in each of the six cities, the music directors of Glyndebourne Touring Opera and Glyndebourne on Tour are separate from the Glyndebourne Festival Opera music directors. Glyndebourne Festival Opera has also toured internationally, including the Adelaide Festival in 2006 with its production of Flight by Jonathan Dove, Glyndebourne is constituted as a registered charity called Glyndebourne Productions Limited, which is a company limited by guarantee. It has a wholly owned subsidiary, Glyndebourne Enterprises Limited, which carries out merchandising, production hire and media development activities, a related charity called the Glyndebourne Arts Trust carries out fund-raising activities. Glyndebourne Association America allows residents of the United States to make tax efficient donations to Glyndebourne, Glyndebourne has an annual budget of a little over £20 million, as of 2010. The Festival is the major opera season in the United Kingdom which is not state subsidised
6.
Arts Council of Great Britain
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The Arts Council of Great Britain was a non-departmental public body dedicated to the promotion of the fine arts in Great Britain. The Arts Council of Great Britain was divided in 1994 to form the Arts Council of England, the Scottish Arts Council, at the same time the National Lottery was established and these three arts councils, plus the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, became distribution bodies. In 1940, during the Second World War, the Council for the Encouragement of Music, chaired by Lord De La Warr, President of the Board of Education, the Council was government-funded and after the war was renamed the Arts Council of Great Britain. A Royal Charter was granted on 9 August 1946, followed by another in 1967, the Councils first Chairman was John Maynard Keynes who used his influence in Government to secure a high level of funding despite Britains poor finances following the war. The majority of funding was directed to organisations with which Keynes had close ties such as the Royal Opera House and was restricted to Central London. After Keynes death Government funding was reduced but the Arts Council received wide recognition for its contribution to the Festival of Britain thanks to the new Chairman Kenneth Clark, artworks commissioned by the Council for the Festival were retained to form the basis of the Arts Council Collection. The Arts Council commissioned 12 sculptors and 60 painters, who made paintings,114 by 152 centimetres or more. Ultimately the works were to be given to new hospitals, libraries, schools, under the Harold Wilson Government of 1964-70 the Arts Council enjoyed a Golden Age thanks to the close relationship between Chairman Arnold Goodman and the Arts Minister Jennie Lee. This period saw the Council establish a network of organisations across the country as regular client organisations. Since 1987, the gallery has been managed by the South Bank Centre. In 2003 sculpture in the Collection was moved to a base in Yorkshire, during the 1970s and 1980s the Arts Council came under attack for being elitist and politically biased, in particular from the prominent Conservative Party minister Norman Tebbit. The Government grant to the Council was capped effecting a real reduction in funding though it was argued that any shortfall would be made up by increased sponsorship from the private sector. The Secretary-General from 1975–83, Roy Shaw, the last secretary-General to be knighted, faced the task of reconciling the needs of arts organisations with the restricted funding. William Rees-Mogg was an appointment as Chairman and proposed slimming down the Councils responsibilities. This led to a series of clashes with prominent figures from the Arts such as Peter Hall who resigned from the Council in protest, in 1987 the restructure inspired by Rees-Mogg cut by half the number of organisations receiving Arts Council funding. During the same period the Arts Council began encouraging a greater level of sponsorship for the arts. The Arts Council of Great Britain was divided in 1994 to form the Arts Council of England, Scottish Arts Council, at the same time the National Lottery was established and the Arts Council of England became one of the distribution bodies
7.
Rudolf Kempe
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Rudolf Kempe was a German conductor. Kempe was born in Dresden, where from the age of fourteen he studied at the Dresden State Opera School and he played oboe in the opera orchestra of Dortmund and then in the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra, from 1929. Kempe directed the Dresden Opera and the Staatskapelle Dresden from 1949 to 1952, making his first records, including Der Rosenkavalier, ‘He obtains some superlative playing from the Dresden orchestra, ’ commented The Record Guide. He maintained a relationship with the Dresden orchestra for the rest of his life and his international career began with engagements at the Vienna State Opera in the 1951 season, for which he conducted Die Zauberflöte, Simon Boccanegra, and Capriccio. Kempe resisted the appointment, and did not accept the top job at any opera house after leaving Munich in 1954, as a guest conductor, Kempe frequently revisited Munich conducting mostly the Italian repertory. Kempe’s début at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus was in 1960, Kempe was associated with the Royal Philharmonic from 1955. In 1960, he became its Associate Conductor, chosen by the orchestras founder, from 1961 to 1962 he was Principal Conductor of the RPO, and from 1963 to 1975 its Artistic Director. A member of the RPO later said of Kempe, He was a controller of the orchestra. Kempe was like driving a racing-car, following the piano round the bends. Kempe abolished Beechams male-only rule, introducing women into the RPO, in 1970, the RPO named him Conductor for Life, but in 1975, he resigned his post with the orchestra. In the final months of his life, Kempe was the conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra
8.
Vladimir Ashkenazy
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Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy is an internationally recognized solo pianist, chamber music performer, and conductor. He is originally from Russia and has held Icelandic citizenship since 1972 and he has lived in Switzerland since 1978. Ashkenazy has collaborated with well-known orchestras and soloists, in addition, he has recorded a large storehouse of classical and romantic works. His recordings have earned him five Grammy awards plus Icelands Order of the Falcon, Ashkenazy was born in Gorky, Soviet Union, to the pianist and composer David Ashkenazi and to the actress Yevstolia Grigorievna, born Plotnova. His father was Jewish and his mother was the daughter of a family of Russian Orthodox peasants and he began playing piano at the age of six. He was accepted to the Central Music School at age eight studying with Anaida Sumbatyan, Ashkenazy attended the Moscow Conservatory where he studied with Lev Oborin and Boris Zemliansky. He won second prize in the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1955 and he shared the first prize in the 1962 International Tchaikovsky Competition with British pianist John Ogdon. As a student, like many in period, he was harassed by the KGB to become an informer. He did not really cooperate, despite pressures from the authorities, in 1961 he married the Iceland-born Þórunn Jóhannsdóttir, who studied piano at the Moscow Conservatoire. To marry Ashkenazy, Þórunn was forced to give up her Icelandic citizenship, in his memoirs, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev recollects that Ashkenazy had married an Englishwoman and on a visit to London refused to go back to the Soviet Union. Khrushchev mentions that Ashkenazy then went to the Soviet Embassy in London and asked what to do, Khrushchev claims to have been of the opinion that to require Ashkenazy to return to the USSR would have made him an Anti-Soviet. He further claims that this was a example of an artist being able to come and go in and out of the USSR freely. In 1963 Ashkenazy decided to leave the USSR permanently, establishing residence in London where his wifes parents lived, the couple moved to Iceland in 1968 where, in 1972, Ashkenazy became an Icelandic citizen. In 1970 he helped to found the Reykjavík Arts Festival, of which he remains Honorary President, in 1978 the couple and their four children moved to Lucerne, Switzerland. Their fifth child, Alexandra Inga, was born in 1979, as of 1989, Ashkenazy resides in Meggen. His eldest son Vladimir, who uses his nickname Vovka as a name, is a pianist, as well as a teacher at the Imola International Piano Academy. Ashkenazy has recorded a range of piano repertoire, both solo works and concerti. He has also performed and recorded chamber music, midway through his pianistic career, Ashkenazy branched into conducting
9.
Charles Groves
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Sir Charles Barnard Groves CBE was an English conductor. He was known for the breadth of his repertoire and for encouraging contemporary composers, after accompanying positions and conducting various orchestras and studio work for the BBC, Groves spent a decade as conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. His best-known musical directorship was of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, beginning in 1963, from 1967 until his death, Groves was associate conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and in the 1970s he was one of the regular conductors of the Last Night of the Proms. He also served as president of the National Youth Orchestra from 1977, Groves was born in London, the only child of Frederick Groves and Annie. He was a pupil at St Pauls Cathedral School, singing in the Cathedral choir and, from the age of 13, studying the piano and organ. From 1930 until 1932 he was a pupil at Sutton Valence School, in Kent, after leaving Sutton Valence School he attended the Royal College of Music. There, his studies were in lieder and accompanying. He played in the section for Vaughan Williamss Hugh the Drover and Deliuss A Village Romeo. Groves also went into the class, but did not progress beyond the third orchestra. In 1937, while still a student, he accompanied choral rehearsals of Brahmss German Requiem, Verdis Requiem, Groves began his professional career as a freelance accompanist, including work for the BBC. In 1938, he was appointed master of the BBC Music Productions Unit under the direction of Stanford Robinson. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Groves was sent to Evesham, in 1943, he was invited to take charge of the BBC Revue Orchestra, playing mostly light music. During this time Groves conducted Weills Lady in the Dark with Gertrude Lawrence in the lead role, Groves was conductor for the BBC Northern Orchestra in Manchester from 1944 to 1951, conducting several studio concerts every week, and thereby acquiring an exceptionally large repertoire. While in Manchester he met a BBC colleague, Hilary Barchard, feeling the need to move from studio-based work, Groves accepted the conductorship of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra from 1951 to 1961, which he conducted about 150 times each year. He spent nine months of year with the RLPO, where he greatly improved standards of playing. In the other three months he guest conducted concerts and operas in London and overseas and he took the RLPO on highly acclaimed tours of Germany and Switzerland in 1966 and 1968, and Poland in 1970. At one seminar Groves noted the presence in the orchestra, as a percussion player. He found combining administration with conducting too stressful for him, Groves also served as president of the National Youth Orchestra and, especially during the last decade of his career, as guest conductor for numerous orchestras around the world
10.
Charles Mackerras
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Sir Alan Charles Maclaurin Mackerras AC CH CBE was an Australian conductor. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and he was long associated with the English National Opera and Welsh National Opera and was the first Australian chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Mackerras was born in Schenectady, New York, to Australian parents, Alan Mackerras and his father was an electrical engineer and a Quaker. In 1928, when Charles was aged two, the returned to Sydney, Australia. They initially lived in the suburb of Vaucluse, and in 1933 they moved to the then suburb of Turramurra. Mackerras was the eldest of seven children and his siblings were Alastair, Neil, Joan, Elisabeth and twins Malcolm and Colin. They are descendants of the pioneer Australian musician Isaac Nathan, Mackerras studied violin at the age of seven and later the flute. He was setting poems to music at eight and wrote a piano concerto when he was 12, Mackerras initially attended his fathers alma mater, Sydney Grammar School, and also St Aloysius College in Sydney. While at Sydney Grammar, he showed a talent by composing operas and conducting student performances in his early teens. At all-male St Aloysius, he participated in the schools Gilbert and Sullivan productions, playing the roles of Kate in The Pirates of Penzance, Leila in Iolanthe and Ko-Ko in The Mikado. Unconvinced that music was a profession, his parents removed the young Mackerras from temptation by sending him to board at The Kings School. The schools focus on sport and discipline led the young artist to run several times. At age 16, Mackerras studied oboe, piano and composition at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music and he earned additional income from writing orchestral scores from recordings. From 1941 to 1942, Mackerras played the oboe for the J. C. Williamson Company during one of their Gilbert and Sullivan seasons, in 1943, Mackerras joined the ABC Sydney Orchestra, under Malcolm Sargent, as second oboist and at age 19, became principal oboist. On 6 February 1947, Mackerras sailed for England on the RMS Rangitiki intending to pursue conducting and he joined Sadlers Wells Theatre as an orchestral oboist and cor anglais player. He later won a British Council Scholarship, enabling him to study conducting with Václav Talich at the Prague Academy of Music, in August 1947, shortly before the couple set off for Prague, Mackerras married Judy Wilkins, a clarinettist at Sadlers Wells. They had two daughters, Fiona and Catherine, Fiona died of cancer in September 2006. He was also the uncle of the Australian conductor Alexander Briger, in his 1965 performance of The Marriage of Figaro, he added the ornamentation in a historically informed style
11.
Peter Maxwell Davies
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Sir Peter Maxwell Davies CH CBE was an English composer and conductor. In 2004 he was made Master of the Queens Music and his compositions include eight works for the stage, from the monodrama Eight Songs for a Mad King, which shocked the audience in 1969, to Kommilitonen. He wrote ten symphonies, the first from 1973–76, the tenth in 2013, as a conductor, he was Artistic Director of the Dartington International Summer School from 1979 to 1984. From 1992 to 2002 he was associate conductor/composer with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Davies was born in Salford, Lancashire, the son of Thomas and Hilda Davies. At age four, after being taken to a performance of Gilbert and Sullivans The Gondoliers and he took piano lessons and composed from an early age. As a 14-year-old, he submitted a composition called Blue Ice to the radio programme Childrens Hour in Manchester, BBC producer Trevor Hill showed it to resident singer and entertainer Violet Carson, who said, Hes either quite brilliant or mad. Conductor Charles Groves nodded his approval and said, Id get him in, Daviess rise to fame began under the careful mentorship of Hill, who made him the programmes resident composer and introduced him to various professional musicians both in the UK and Germany. Together they formed New Music Manchester, a committed to contemporary music. After graduating in 1956, he studied on an Italian government scholarship for a year with Goffredo Petrassi in Rome, in 1959, Davies became Director of Music at Cirencester Grammar School. He left in 1962 after securing a Harkness Fellowship at Princeton University, there he studied with Roger Sessions, Milton Babbitt and he then moved to Australia, where he was Composer in Residence at the Elder Conservatorium of Music, University of Adelaide, 1965–66. In 1966 Davies returned to the United Kingdom and moved to the Orkney Islands, initially to Hoy in 1971, Orkney hosts the St Magnus Festival, an arts festival founded by Davies in 1977. He frequently used the festival to new works. Davies was Artistic Director of the Dartington International Summer School from 1979 to 1984, in 2000 Davies was Artist in Residence at the Barossa Music Festival when he presented some of his music theatre works and worked with students from the Barossa Spring Academy. Davies is also Composer Laureate of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, for whom he wrote a series of ten Strathclyde Concertos and he was awarded a number of honorary doctorates, including Honorary Doctor of Music from Oxford University in July 2005. He had been President of Making Music since 1989, Davies was made a CBE in 1981 and knighted in 1987. He was appointed Master of the Queens Music in March 2004 but, in a break from the tradition of lifetime tenure and he was made a Freeman of the City of Salford August 2004. On 25 November 2006, he was appointed an Honorary Fellow of Canterbury Christ Church University at a service in Canterbury Cathedral and he was Visiting Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music, and in 2009 became an Honorary Fellow of Homerton College, Cambridge. Davies also received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 2002 Davies was one of the first classical composers to open a music download website, the site became temporarily unavailable after the arrest in June 2007 of Michael Arnold on fraud charges arising from money missing from Daviess business accounts
12.
Yehudi Menuhin
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Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM KBE was an American-born violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in Britain. He is widely considered one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century, Yehudi Menuhin was born in New York City to a family of Belorussian Jews. Through his father Moshe, a rabbinical student and anti-Zionist. In late 1919 Moshe and his wife Marutha became American citizens, yehudis sisters were concert pianist and human rights activist Hephzibah, and pianist, painter and poet Yaltah. Menuhins first violin instruction was at age four by Sigmund Anker, his parents had wanted Louis Persinger to teach him, Menuhin displayed exceptional talent at an early age. His first public appearance, when only seven, was as solo violinist with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 1923, Persinger then agreed to teach him, and accompanied him on the piano for his first few solo recordings in 1928–29. When the Menuhins went to Paris, Persinger suggested Yehudi go to his old teacher, Belgian virtuoso and he did have one lesson with Ysaÿe, but disliked his teaching method and his advanced age. Instead, he went to the Romanian composer and violinist George Enescu, under whose tutelage he made recordings with several piano accompanists and he was also a student of Adolf Busch. In 1929 he played in Berlin, under Bruno Walters baton, according to Henry A. Murray, Menuhin wrote, Actually, I was gazing in my usual state of being half absent in my own world and half in the present. I have usually been able to retire in this way, I was also thinking that my life was tied up with the instrument and would I do it justice. His first concerto recording was made in 1931, Bruchs G minor, under Sir Landon Ronald in London, between 1934 and 1936, he made the first integral recording of Johann Sebastian Bachs sonatas and partitas for solo violin, although his Sonata No. 2, in A minor, was not released until all six were transferred to CD and he and Louis Kentner gave the first performance of William Waltons Violin Sonata, in Zürich on 30 September 1949. He continued performing, and conducting, to an advanced age, Menuhin credited German philosopher Constantin Brunner with providing him with a theoretical framework within which I could fit the events and experiences of life. Menuhin made Lysy his only student, and the two toured extensively throughout the concert halls of Europe. The young protégé later established the International Menuhin Music Academy in Gstaad, Menuhin made several recordings with the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, who had been criticized for conducting in Germany during the Nazi era. Menuhin defended Furtwängler, noting that the conductor had helped a number of Jewish musicians to flee Nazi Germany, in 1957, he founded the Menuhin Festival Gstaad in Gstaad, Switzerland. In 1962, he established the Yehudi Menuhin School in Stoke dAbernon and he also established the music program at The Nueva School in Hillsborough, California, sometime around then. In 1965 he received a knighthood from the British monarchy
13.
Leopold Stokowski
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Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British conductor of Polish and Irish descent. One of the conductors of the early and mid-20th Century, he is best known for his long association with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He was especially noted for his conducting style that spurned the traditional baton. He was also the founder of the All-American Youth Orchestra, the New York City Symphony, the Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra, there is some mystery surrounding his early life. For example, he spoke with an unusual, non-British accent, though he was born and raised in London. On occasion, Stokowski gave his year of birth as 1887 instead of 1882, as in a letter to the Hugo Riemann Musiklexicon in 1950, in Germany there was a corresponding rumour that his original name was simply Stock. However, Stokowskis birth certificate gives his birth on 18 April 1882, at 13 Upper Marylebone Street, Stokowski was named after his Polish-born grandfather Leopold, who died in the English county of Surrey on 13 January 1879, at the age of 49. Samaroff, born Lucy Mary Agnes Hickenlooper, was from Galveston, Texas, for professional and career reasons, she urged him to emphasize only the Polish part of his background once he became a resident of the United States. He studied at the Royal College of Music, where he first enrolled in 1896 at the age of thirteen, in his later life in the US, Stokowski would perform six of the nine symphonies composed by his fellow organ student Ralph Vaughan Williams. Stokowski sang in the choir of the St Marylebone Parish Church, by age 16, Stokowski was elected to a membership in the Royal College of Organists. In 1900, he formed the choir of St. Marys Church, Charing Cross Road, in 1902, he was appointed the organist and choir director of St. Jamess Church, Piccadilly. He also attended The Queens College, Oxford, where he earned a Bachelor of Music degree in 1903, in 1905, Stokowski began work in New York City as the organist and choir director of St. Bartholomews Church. He was very popular among the parishioners, who included members of the Vanderbilt family, Stokowski moved to Paris for additional study in conducting. There he heard that the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra would be needing a new conductor when it returned from a long sabbatical, Stokowski was selected over the other applicants, and took up his conducting duties in late 1909. Stokowskis conducting debut in London took place the week on 18 May with the New Symphony Orchestra at Queens Hall. His engagement as new permanent conductor in Cincinnati was a great success and he introduced the concept of pops concerts and, starting with his first season, he began championing the work of living composers. His concerts included performances of music by Richard Strauss, Sibelius, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Glazunov, Saint-Saëns and he conducted the American premieres of new works by such composers as Elgar, whose 2nd Symphony was first presented there on 24 November 1911. He was to maintain his advocacy of music to the end of his career
14.
Chelsea, London
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Chelsea is an affluent area in West London, bounded to the south by the River Thames. Its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above Sloane Square tube station. The modern eastern boundary is Chelsea Bridge Road and the half of Sloane Street. To the north and northwest, the area fades into Knightsbridge and Brompton, the football club Chelsea F. C. is based at Stamford Bridge in neighbouring Fulham. From 1900, and until the creation of Greater London in 1965, the exclusivity of Chelsea as a result of its high property prices has historically resulted in the term Sloane Ranger being used to describe its residents. Since 2011, Channel 4 has broadcast a reality show called Made in Chelsea. Moreover, Chelsea is home to one of the largest communities of Americans living outside the United States, the word Chelsea originates from the Old English term for landing place for chalk or limestone. Abbot Gervace subsequently assigned the manor to his mother, and it passed into private ownership, the modern-day Chelsea hosted the Synod of Chelsea in 787 AD. King Henry VIII acquired the manor of Chelsea from Lord Sandys in 1536, in 1609 James I established a theological college, King Jamess College at Chelsey on the site of the future Chelsea Royal Hospital, which Charles II founded in 1682. By 1694, Chelsea – always a popular location for the wealthy, Kings Road, named for Charles II, recalls the Kings private road from St Jamess Palace to Fulham, which was maintained until the reign of George IV. One of the important buildings in Kings Road, the former Chelsea Town Hall. Part of the building contains the Chelsea Public Library and this is no longer the case, although housing trusts and Council property do remain. The areas to the west also attract very high prices and this former fashionable village was absorbed into London during the eighteenth century. Many notable people of 18th century London, such as the bookseller Andrew Millar, were married and buried in the district. The memorials in the churchyard of Chelsea Old Church, near the river and these include Lord and Lady Dacre, Lady Jane Cheyne, Francis Thomas, director of the china porcelain manufactory, Sir Hans Sloane, Thomas Shadwell, Poet Laureate. Sir Thomas Mores tomb can also be found there, in 1718, the Raw Silk Company was established in Chelsea Park, with mulberry trees and a hothouse for raising silkworms. At its height in 1723, it supplied silk to Caroline of Ansbach, Chelsea once had a reputation for the manufacture of Chelsea buns, made from a long strip of sweet dough tightly coiled, with currants trapped between the layers, and topped with sugar. The Chelsea Bun House sold these during the 18th century and was patronised by the Georgian royalty, at Easter, great crowds would assemble on the open spaces of the Five Fields – subsequently developed as Belgravia
15.
Royal Festival Hall
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The Royal Festival Hall is a 2, 500-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge and it is a Grade I listed building, the first post-war building to become so protected. The London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment are resident in the hall, the hall was built as part of the Festival of Britain for London County Council, and was officially opened on 3 May 1951. The complex includes several rooms, bars and restaurants. A large head and shoulders bust of Nelson Mandela stands on the walkway between the hall and Hungerford Bridge approach viaduct, originally made in glass-fibre it was repeatedly vandalised until re-cast in bronze. The closest tube stations are Waterloo and, across the river via the Jubilee Bridges, Embankment, the acoustical consultant was Hope Bagenal, working with members of the Building Research Station, Henry Humphreys, Peter Parkin and William Allen. Martin was 39 at the time, and very taken with the Nordic activities of Alvar Aalto, the figure who really drove the project forward was Herbert Morrison, the Labour Party politician. He it was who had insisted that Matthew had Martin as his deputy architect, a 1948 sketch by Martin shows the design of the concert hall as the egg in a box. But the strength of the design was the arrangement of interior space and they were concerned that whilst the scale of the project demanded a monumental building, it should not ape the triumphal classicism of many earlier public buildings. The wide open foyers, with bars and restaurants, were intended to be meeting places for all, because these public spaces were built around the auditorium, they also had the effect of insulating the Hall from the noise of the adjacent railway bridge. The hall they built used modernism’s favourite material, reinforced concrete, alongside more luxurious elements including beautiful woods, the exterior of the building was bright white, intended to contrast with the blackened city surrounding it. The cantilevered boxes are described as looking like drawers pulled out in a hurried burglary. The ceiling was wilfully sculptural, a conceit at the edge of building technology and, as it turns out. Robin Day, who designed the furniture for the auditorium, used a clearly articulated structure in his designs of bent plywood, the foundation stone was laid in 1949 by Prime Minister Clement Attlee on the site of the former Lion Brewery, built in 1837. The first general manager was T. E. Bean, who had managed the Hallé Orchestra. I was overwhelmed by a shock of breathless delight at the originality and beauty of the interior and it felt as if I had been instantly transported far into the future and that I was on another planet, said journalist Bernard Levin of his first impressions of the building. The 7,866 pipe organ was built during 1950–1954 by Harrison & Harrison in Durham, to the specification of the London County Councils consultant, Ralph Downes, however, the design of the organ in its housing made maintenance difficult, and by 2000 it had become unusable. It was consequently completely removed before restoration of the Hall itself began in 2005, and after restoration and updating by Harrison & Harrison, the remainder was reinstalled between 2012 and 2013, and voicing completed in 2014
16.
Royal Albert Hall
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The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London, which holds the Proms concerts annually each summer since 1941. It has a capacity of up to 5,272 seats, the Hall is a registered charity held in trust for the nation and receives no public or government funding. A further 400 events are each year in the non-auditorium spaces. In 1851, the Great Exhibition was held in Hyde Park, the Exhibitions Royal Commission bought Gore House and its grounds on the advice of the Prince. Progress on the scheme was slow and in 1861 Prince Albert died, however, a memorial was proposed for Hyde Park, with a Great Hall opposite. The proposal was approved and the site was purchased with some of the profits from the Exhibition, the Hall was designed by civil engineers Captain Francis Fowke and Major-General Henry Y. D. Scott of the Royal Engineers and built by Lucas Brothers. The designers were heavily influenced by ancient amphitheatres, but had also exposed to the ideas of Gottfried Semper while he was working at the South Kensington Museum. The recently opened Cirque dHiver in Paris was seen in the press as the design to outdo. The Hall was constructed mainly of Fareham Red brick, with terra cotta block decoration made by Gibbs, the dome on top was made of wrought iron and glazed. There was an assembly made of the iron framework of the dome in Manchester, then it was taken apart again and transported to London via horse. When the time came for the structure to be removed from the dome after reassembly in situ. It did drop – but only by five-sixteenths of an inch, the Hall was scheduled to be completed by Christmas Day 1870 and the Queen visited a few weeks beforehand to inspect. The official opening ceremony of the Hall was on 29 March 1871, a welcoming speech was given by Edward, the Prince of Wales, Queen Victoria was too overcome to speak. At some point, the Queen remarked that the Hall reminded her of the British constitution, a concert followed, when the Halls acoustic problems became immediately apparent. Engineers first attempted to solve the strong echo by suspending a canvas awning below the dome, in July 1871, French organist Camille Saint-Saëns performed Church Scene from the Faust by Charles Gounod, The Orchestra described his performance as an exceptional and distinguished performer. Initially lit by gas, the Hall contained a system where its thousands of gas jets were lit within ten seconds. Though it was demonstrated as early as 1873 in the Hall, full electric lighting was not installed until 1888, during an early trial when a partial installation was made, one disgruntled patron wrote to The Times declaring it to be a very ghastly and unpleasant innovation. In May 1877, Richard Wagner himself conducted the first half of each of the eight concerts which made up the Grand Wagner Festival
17.
London Philharmonic Orchestra
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The London Philharmonic Orchestra is one of five permanent symphony orchestras based in London. It was founded by the conductors Sir Thomas Beecham and Malcolm Sargent in 1932 as a rival to the existing London Symphony, the founders ambition was to build an orchestra the equal of any European or American rival. Between 1932 and the Second World War the LPO was widely judged to have succeeded in this regard, after the outbreak of war the orchestras private backers withdrew and the players reconstituted the LPO as a self-governing cooperative. By the 1960s the LPO had regained its earlier standards, in 1993 it was appointed resident orchestra of the Royal Festival Hall on the south bank of the Thames, one of Londons major concert venues. Since 1995 the residency has been held with the Philharmonia. In addition to its work at the Festival Hall and Glyndebourne, the LPO performs regularly at the Congress Theatre, Eastbourne and the Brighton Dome, and tours nationally and internationally. Since Beecham, the orchestra has had ten principal conductors, including Sir Adrian Boult, Bernard Haitink, Sir Georg Solti, Klaus Tennstedt and Vladimir Jurowski. The orchestra has been active in recording studios since its earliest days, since 2005 the LPO has had its own record label, issuing live recordings of concerts. The orchestra has played on film soundtracks, including Lawrence of Arabia. In the 1920s the London Symphony Orchestra was the citys best-known concert, others were the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra, the orchestra of the Royal Philharmonic Society, the BBCs Wireless Symphony Orchestra and Sir Henry Woods Queens Hall Orchestra. All except the last of these were ad hoc ensembles, with little continuity of personnel. This became obvious in 1927 when the Berlin Philharmonic, under Wilhelm Furtwängler, the chief music critic of The Times later commented, the British public. Was electrified when it heard the disciplined precision of the Berlin Philharmonic and this apparently was how an orchestra could, and, therefore, ought to sound. In 1928 they opened discussions about jointly setting up such an ensemble, but after 18 months of negotiations it became clear that the corporation and the conductor had irreconcilable priorities. The BBC went ahead without him, and under its director of music, Adrian Boult, launched the BBC Symphony Orchestra in October 1930, to immense acclaim. Originally Sargent and Beecham envisaged a version of the LSO, but the orchestra. In 1932 Beecham lost patience and agreed with Sargent to set up a new orchestra from scratch, the BBC having attracted a large number of the finest musicians from other orchestras, many in the musical world doubted that Beecham could find enough good players. He was fortunate in the timing of the enterprise, the economy had severely reduced the number of freelance dates available to orchestral players
18.
Walter Legge
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Harry Walter Legge was an influential English classical record producer, most notably for EMI. His recordings include many sets later regarded as classics and reissued by EMI as Great Recordings of the Century and he worked in the recording industry from 1927, combining this with the post of junior music critic of The Manchester Guardian. He was assistant to Sir Thomas Beecham at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, after the war, Legge founded the Philharmonia Orchestra and worked for EMI as a recording producer. In the 1960s he quarrelled with EMI and resigned and he attempted to disband the Philharmonia in 1964, but it continued as an independent body without him. After this he had no permanent job, and confined himself to giving masterclasses with, Legge was born in Shepherds Bush, London, where his father was a tailor. He was educated at the Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith and he excelled in Latin and French, but received no musical training. He left school at 16 and had no formal education. Encouraged by his father he developed a taste for music, and Richard Wagner in particular, in pursuit of which he himself to read music. Between 1933 and 1938 Legge also worked as a critic for The Manchester Guardian. Another famous pre-war recording supervised by Legge, which has been reissued on LP and CD, was Sir Thomas Beechams set of The Magic Flute, Beecham invited Legge to join him at Covent Garden as assistant artistic director. Given a free hand by Beecham he engaged Richard Tauber, Jussi Björling, Maria Reining, Hilde Konetzni, Julius Patzak, during World War II Legges poor eyesight prevented him from serving in the armed forces. In 1941 Legge married the singer Nancy Evans, they divorced in 1948, after the war Legge set to work to refresh EMIs catalogue and its roster of star performers. He set up his base in Vienna, then occupied by the Allies. These performers included Josef Krips, Irmgard Seefried, Ljuba Welitsch, Hans Hotter, Ludwig Weber, Herbert von Karajan, later he was among the first to spot the potential of Maria Callas, whose studio recordings he produced for EMI. The repertoire he chose to record was broad, though not extending much earlier than Handel and among modern composers concentrating on the approachable, from the 1940s to the 1960s he supervised a long series of recordings of the works of William Walton. For these, and for recordings, he founded a new orchestra, Beecham conducted its first concert but was unwilling to be the employee of his former assistant and soon founded the Royal Philharmonic in competition with the Philharmonia. Other eminent musicians whom Legge persuaded to conduct the Philharmonia were Wilhelm Furtwängler, Arturo Toscanini, in its heyday in the 1950s the Philharmonia was widely rated as the finest British orchestra. In 1964, concerned at what he saw as falling standards, Legge disbanded the orchestra, which at once re-formed as the New Philharmonia, without him but with Klemperer as chief conductor
19.
Philharmonia Orchestra
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The Philharmonia Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge, a music record producer for EMI. Since 1995, the orchestra has been based in the Royal Festival Hall, the Philharmonia also has residencies at De Montfort Hall, Leicester, the Corn Exchange, Bedford, and The Anvil, Basingstoke. Esa-Pekka Salonen has been the principal conductor and artistic advisor since 2008. Helen Sprott is the current managing director, The Philharmonia Orchestra performs more than 160 concerts a year and tours widely. The orchestra was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge, as Legge was a recording producer for EMI, it was believed that the orchestra was primarily formed for recording purposes, but that was not Legges intention. After the war, opera resumed at Covent Garden under a different management and his contacts in the musical world during the war enabled him to secure the services of a large number of talented young musicians still serving in the armed forces in 1945. At the Philharmonias first concert on 25 October 1945, more than sixty per cent of the players were officially in the services. Beecham conducted the concert, but as he refused to be Legges employee and Legge refused to control of the orchestra. Herbert von Karajan was closely associated with the Philharmonia in its early years, at first, Legge was against appointing an official principal conductor, feeling that no one conductor should have more importance to the orchestra than Legge himself. But Karajan was principal conductor in all but name and he built the orchestra into one of the finest in the world and made numerous recordings, including all the Beethoven symphonies. In 1954, Karajan was elected director of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Needing to find a new conductor for the orchestra, Legge turned to Otto Klemperer, klemperers name became closely linked with the orchestra during an Indian summer of celebrated recordings. In 1959, Klemperer was named director for life. On 10 March 1964, Legge announced that he was going to disband the Philharmonia Orchestra, at a recording session with Klemperer, a meeting was convened where those present unanimously agreed that they would not allow the orchestra to be disbanded. On 17 March 1964, the members of the orchestra elected their own governing body, the inaugural concert of the New Philharmonia under its own auspices took place on 27 October 1964. It was a performance of Beethovens Symphony No,9, conducted by Klemperer, who was now honorary president of the orchestra. From 1966 until 1972, the chairman of the orchestra was the principal flautist, the orchestra gave many more live performances after it became self-governing than it had under Legges management
20.
George VI of the United Kingdom
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George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death. He was the last Emperor of India and the first Head of the Commonwealth, known as Albert until his accession, George VI was born in the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria, and was named after his great-grandfather Albert, Prince Consort. As the second son of King George V, he was not expected to inherit the throne and spent his life in the shadow of his elder brother. He attended naval college as a teenager, and served in the Royal Navy, in 1920, he was made Duke of York. He married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923 and they had two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, in the mid-1920s, he had speech therapy for a stammer, which he never fully overcame. Georges elder brother ascended the throne as Edward VIII upon the death of their father in 1936, however, later that year Edward revealed his desire to marry divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin advised Edward that for political and religious reasons he could not marry a divorced woman, Edward abdicated in order to marry, and George ascended the throne as the third monarch of the House of Windsor. During Georges reign, the break-up of the British Empire and its transition into the Commonwealth of Nations accelerated, the parliament of the Irish Free State removed direct mention of the monarch from the countrys constitution on the day of his accession. The following year, a new Irish constitution changed the name of the state to Ireland, from 1939, the Empire and Commonwealth – except Ireland – was at war with Nazi Germany. War with Italy and Japan followed in 1940 and 1941, respectively, though Britain and its allies were ultimately victorious in 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union rose as pre-eminent world powers and the British Empire declined. After the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, George remained king of countries, but relinquished the title of Emperor of India in June 1948. Ireland formally declared itself a republic and left the Commonwealth in 1949, George adopted the new title of Head of the Commonwealth. He was beset by problems in the later years of his reign. He was succeeded by his eldest daughter, Elizabeth II, George was born at York Cottage, on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, during the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria. His father was Prince George, Duke of York, the second and eldest-surviving son of the Prince and his mother was the Duchess of York, the eldest child and only daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Teck. His birthday was the 34th anniversary of the death of his great-grandfather, Albert, uncertain of how the Prince Consorts widow, Queen Victoria, would take the news of the birth, the Prince of Wales wrote to the Duke of York that the Queen had been rather distressed. Two days later, he again, I really think it would gratify her if you yourself proposed the name Albert to her. Consequently, he was baptised Albert Frederick Arthur George at St. Mary Magdalenes Church near Sandringham three months later, within the family, he was known informally as Bertie
21.
Victor Olof
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Victor Olof was an English musician, known first as a violinist and conductor and later as a record producer for Decca Records and subsequently for HMV Records. Victor Olof Ahlquist was of Swedish descent and he was born in St Pancras, London, the youngest of five children of Michael Ahlqist, a tailor who retained his Swedish nationality, and his wife Elizabeth. He attended the Guildhall School of Music in London, where he won the Melba Scholarship in 1916 and his violin professor was Kalman Ronay. Among his fellow students were the singers Dora Labbette and Lilian Stiles-Allen, on the advice of the principal of the school, Sir Landon Ronald, he dropped his original surname. In the 1920s Olof founded and led the Victor Olof Sextet, in January 1923 he gave a recital in Vienna which included an arrangement for violin and piano of the Elgar Violin Concerto. In 1928 he married Phyllis Robey, there were two sons of the marriage, at a recording session Arthur Haddy, chief recording engineer of the Decca Record Company, spotted Olofs acute ear for orchestral balance. He recommended to the head of Decca, Edward Lewis, that Olof should be invited to join the company to some of the many recordings planned for the expansion of its classical catalogue. Decca had developed a new recording technique known as ffrr which put the company far ahead of its rivals in the realism of sound on its discs. Olofs first sessions as producer were with Deccas renowned engineer Kenneth Wilkinson, recording Eileen Joyce with Beer and his orchestra in music by Grieg, Debussy and Delius in June 1944. In between supervising sessions of music by composers from Eric Coates to Wagner, Olof conducted some recordings for Decca, mainly of overtures and other short orchestral pieces. At the end of the war, Lewis authorised the expansion of Deccas classical programme to make it international, with recordings in Paris, Amsterdam, Zurich, Geneva, Bayreuth and Vienna. The Decca producer John Culshaw wrote, Within five years of the end of the war Decca was well, Olof was in the thick of this international programme, supervising sessions in all six locations with the exception of Bayreuth. Among those whose recordings Olof supervised for Decca were Josef Krips, Karl Böhm, Erich Kleiber, Lisa della Casa, Cesare Siepi, Wilhelm Backhaus, at EMI, Olof took over from Lawrance Collingwood as producer of Sir Thomas Beechams recordings. He knew Beecham well, having played an important role in assembling the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for the conductor in 1946. The latter, Fred Gaisbergs successor, was responsible for decisions about the artists and repertoire recorded by EMI, Olofs assistant, Peter Andry, wrote in an obituary tribute, He found his new role, within the larger EMI organisation, demanded a different approach. Less autocratic by now, he became the teacher and guide to people who had hitherto been in the Companys outposts. He is fondly remembered by the staff of Pathè Marconi where he set new standards of perfection, not previously achieved. Among the EMI recordings produced by Olof are Beechams set of Carmen, Rudolf Kempes set of Lohengrin, among the other artists whose performances Olof recorded for EMI were Sir Malcolm Sargent, Sir John Barbirolli and Yehudi Menuhin
22.
Reginald Kell
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Reginald Clifford Kell was an English clarinettist. He was noted especially for his career as a soloist and chamber music player and he was the principal clarinettist in leading British orchestras, including the London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, and Royal Philharmonic, and was also active as a solo recording artist. Kell was influential as one of the first clarinettists to employ continuous vibrato to enhance the quality of the instrument. He was also a teacher, serving two different appointments at his alma mater, the Royal Academy of Music in London. In 1948 Kell moved to the United States where he pursued a career and taught. Born in York, England, Kell was awarded a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in London in 1929, while still a student he was engaged as principal clarinettist of the orchestra of the Royal Philharmonic Society. After graduation he was Sir Thomas Beechams choice as first clarinet for the London Philharmonic when the orchestra was formed in 1932 and he left the LPO in 1936 and was succeeded as first clarinet by Bernard Walton. Kell was Arturo Toscaninis principal clarinettist in the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in 1939, and was invited, in addition to his orchestral work Kell taught at the Royal Academy between 1935 and 1939, and played in chamber music. His solo repertoire extended from Corelli and earlier to twentieth century works and he was the first prominent clarinettist to apply vibrato consciously and consistently to his tone, in which respect he modelled himself on the oboist Léon Goossens. Inspired by the singers with whom he came in contact, notably Kirsten Flagstad. During the Second World War Kell was principal clarinettist of the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, when Walter Legge founded the Philharmonia Orchestra in 1945 Kell became its principal clarinettist. At its first concert, conducted by Beecham, Kell was the soloist in Mozarts Clarinet Concerto, in 1948 Kell gave up both positions, he was succeeded at the Philharmonia by Walton, and at the Royal Philharmonic by Brymer. Kell moved to the USA in 1948 making a successful concert and he was also a noted teacher, his best-known pupil being Benny Goodman, who approached him for lessons in 1948–49. Goodman persisted and Kell accepted him as a student in 1952, Kells other pupils included the soloist and conductor Alan Hacker, and Peanuts Hucko. From 1951 to 1957, Kell was trustee and professor at the Aspen Music School in Colorado, Kell returned to England in 1958, taking up an appointment at the Royal Academy of Music. Among his pupils was Harrison Birtwistle, Kell retired from playing in his early fifties, and returned to the US in 1959, where he was director of Boosey & Hawkess band instrument division from 1959 to 1966. He retired in 1966 and died in Frankfort, Kentucky, in 1981, in 2007, the Deutsche Grammophon label issued a multi-CD box set of all of Kells recordings for the American Decca company. As a conductor Kell directed recordings of the two Mozart wind serenades, in C minor, K.388 and E♭ major, with the Kell Chamber Players, the following table lists some of his recordings as a soloist
23.
BBC Symphony Orchestra
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The BBC Symphony Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. Founded in 1930, it was the first permanent salaried orchestra in London, the BBC SO is the principal orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Among its guest conductors in its first years was Arturo Toscanini, after Boults retirement from the BBC in 1950, the orchestra went through a fallow period. Boults successor, Sir Malcolm Sargent, was popular with the public but had poor rapport with his players, as a result of initiatives begun in the 1960s by the BBC controller of music William Glock, performing standards gradually began to rise. Under Andrew Davis in the 1990s and Jiří Bělohlávek in the 2000s the orchestra prospered, by the second decade of the 21st century the BBC SO was once again regarded by critics as of first-class status. Almost from its beginning in November 1922 the BBC had started broadcasting from its 2LO transmitter with its own musical ensembles. The first such groups were the 2LO Dance Band, the 2LO Military Band, the 2LO Light Orchestra, and the 2LO Octette, all of which began broadcasting in 1923. No concert promoter would co-operate with the BBC, regarding it as a dangerous competitor, John Reith, the General Manager of the BBC, invited the opera companys musical director, Percy Pitt, to become the BBCs part-time musical adviser from May 1923. Later in the same year Pitt conducted the BBCs first broadcast symphony concert, Pitt expanded the regular eight-piece studio ensemble to form The Wireless Orchestra of 18 players, augmented to 37 for important broadcasts. There was no thought at this stage that the BBC would maintain a full-scale symphonic orchestra of up to 100 players, with Reiths approval, Pitt engaged various orchestras for a BBC concert series in 1924 at the Methodist Central Hall Westminster. In 1924 the Wireless Orchestra, by then comprising 22 players, was contracted for six concerts a week, in 1927 the BBC and Covent Garden collaborated in a series of public concerts with an orchestra of 150 players under conductors including Richard Strauss and Siegfried Wagner. Although the orchestra was large, it was not good, the BBC attempted to stop its contracted players sending deputies to rehearsals and even to concerts, but was unsuccessful. In January 1928 The Musical Times protested, The B. B. C, … This year at Queens Hall they have assembled an orchestra which sounds as if it were composed in great part of substitutes. In 1927 the BBC took over the responsibility for the Promenade Concerts, at first Henry Wood, the founding conductor, persuaded the corporation to engage his Queens Hall Orchestra for each Prom season, from 1930 onwards, the BBC provided the orchestra. The inadequacy of the BBCs players, and also of the established London orchestras, was shown up by the Berlin Philharmonic, under Wilhelm Furtwängler, in two concerts in 1927. These, and later concerts by the orchestra, gained plaudits from the public and music critics at the expense of the London orchestras. The chief music critic of The Times, Frank Howes, later commented, was electrified when it heard the disciplined precision of the Berlin Philharmonic. This apparently was how an orchestra could, and, therefore, among those determined that London should have a permanent orchestra of similar excellence were Reith and the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham
24.
Dennis Brain
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Dennis Brain was a British virtuoso horn player who was largely credited for popularizing the horn as a solo classical instrument with the post-war British public. With the collaboration of Herbert von Karajan and the Philharmonia Orchestra, Dennis Brain was born in London to a family already well known for producing fine horn players. Brains father, Aubrey, was a teacher and held the principal position in the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Brains mother, Marion Brain, was also a composer and wrote cadenzas to the first, the family tradition also extended to his brother, Leonard Brain, an oboist who performed with Dennis in a wind quintet that Dennis formed. Tina Brain, one of Leonards children, also became a professional horn player, at an early age, Brain was allowed to blow a few notes on his fathers horn every Saturday morning. Aubrey Brain held the belief that students should not study the horn seriously until the teenage years. During these years, Brain studied piano and organ and it was not until the age of 15 that Dennis was to transfer from St Pauls School to the Royal Academy of Music to study horn, under his fathers tutelage. While there, he continued his studies under Max Pirani. Brain debuted in performance on 6 October 1938, playing second horn under his father with the Busch Chamber Players at the Queens Hall and they performed Johann Sebastian Bachs Brandenburg Concerto No.1. Brains first recording was of Mozarts Divertimento in D major, K.334 in February,1939 with the Léner Quartet, again, he played second under his father. At the age of 21, Brain was appointed to the first horn position in the National Symphony Orchestra and this tenure did not last long as he was soon conscripted into the armed forces with his brother in World War II. Both brothers joined the Central Band of the Royal Air Force, when the Royal Air Force Symphony Orchestra was formed, Brain joined it. That ensemble went on a tour of the United States. During the tour, a number of orchestral conductors invited Brain to join their groups after the war, in 1943, Brains solo career truly began when Benjamin Britten wrote his Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings for Peter Pears and Brain. Brain originally played a French instrument, a Raoux piston-valve horn and this type of instrument has a particularly fluid tone and a fine legato, but a less robust sound than the German-made instruments which were becoming common. In 1951 he switched to an Alexander single B♭ instrument, complaining that they want me to play the notes all of the time. By 1945, Brain was the most sought-after horn player in England and he was 24 years old at the time. His father injured himself in a fall and lost much of his stamina to play, after the war, Walter Legge and Sir Thomas Beecham founded the Philharmonia and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, respectively
25.
Concertmaster
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The Concertmaster is the second-most significant person in an orchestra, symphonic band or other musical ensemble after the conductor or director. Another common term in the U. S. is First Chair, in the U. K. the term commonly used is leader. In an orchestra, the concertmaster is the leader of the first violin section, there is another violin section, the second violins, led by the principal second violin. Any violin solo in a work is played by the concertmaster. The concertmaster sits to the left, closest to the audience, in what is called the first chair. The concertmaster makes decisions regarding bowing and other details of violin playing for the violins. He or she leads the orchestra in tuning before concerts and rehearsals, leading the orchestral tuning is not just a mere formality, if the concertmaster believes that a section is not adequately tuned, he or she will signal to the oboe player to play another A. Several larger orchestras have one or more assistant concertmasters, who lead the orchestra in the concertmasters absence, the concertmaster, along with the conductor and section principals, will normally participate in the auditions of important musicians in the orchestra. The concertmaster in a concert band is the principal clarinet, oboe, flute or saxophone. The first-chair clarinet concertmaster will, in practice, play all solos for their instrument. Often the lead flautist will receive similar responsibilities to the concertmaster, depending on several factors such as age, skill. The concertmaster will, in orchestral and wind band settings, also coordinate with other principals and section leaders, in most cases being their senior in terms of group pecking order. In brass bands, the role of concertmaster is often filled by the solo cornet or trumpet. The duties and tasks of the concertmaster are myriad, primarily, he or she acts as the conduit between conductor and orchestra and is accountable to both parties. One of the tasks of the concertmaster is to provide bowings for the 1st violins prior to rehearsal. This entails a great knowledge of playing styles in addition to complete idiomatic understanding of the mechanics of string playing. Ensemble cohesion emanates directly from the contact and connection between these vital front desk positions, the concertmaster assumes responsibility for the tone and execution of the entire section of 1st violins, in addition to performing any solo passages that occur in a given piece. Another primary duty of the concertmaster is to translate instructions from the conductor into specific technical language for the strings, full-time professional orchestras work with several conductors through the course of a regular season
26.
San Francisco Symphony
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The San Francisco Symphony, founded in 1911, is an orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980, the orchestra has performed at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the Citys Hayes Valley neighborhood, the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus are part of the organization. Its current music director is Michael Tilson Thomas, who has held the position since September 1995, among various awards and honors for the orchestra are an Emmy Award and 15 Grammy Awards in the past 25 years. The orchestras first concerts were led by conductor composer Henry Hadley, there were sixty musicians in the Orchestra at the beginning of their first season. The first concert included music by Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Haydn, there were thirteen concerts in the 1911–1912 season, five of which were popular music. Hertz helped to refine the orchestra and arranged for the Victor Talking Machine Company to record it at their new studio in Oakland in early 1925. Hertz also led the orchestra during a number of broadcasts, including on the The Standard Hour. The series began in 1926 when the orchestra faced bankruptcy, Standard Oil of California paid the orchestras debts, the first broadcast aired on the NBC Pacific Network, on October 24,1926. and the broadcasts continued for more than 30 years. After Hertzs retirement in 1930, the orchestra was led by two conductors, Basil Cameron and Issay Dobrowen, the French maestro Pierre Monteux, who had conducted the world premiere of Igor Stravinskys The Rite of Spring, was hired to restore the orchestra. Monteux succeeded to the point where NBC began broadcasting some of its concerts, in 1949, Monteux invited Arthur Fiedler to lead summer pops concerts in the Civic Auditorium. Fiedler also conducted the orchestra at concerts in Sigmund Stern Grove in San Francisco. Fiedlers relationship with the orchestra continued until the mid-1970s, stokowski made a series of RCA Victor recordings with the orchestra in 1952 and 1953. In 1954 the board hired the young Spanish maestro Enrique Jordá as music director, surviving eyewitness and newspaper accounts describe him as having youthful enthusiasm, energy, and charm. Jordá sometimes conducted so vigorously that his baton flew from his hand, szells comments, along with growing dissatisfaction among musicians and the public, led the symphony board to dismiss Jordá. In the fall of 1963, the Austrian conductor Josef Krips became music director and he quickly became known as a benevolent autocrat, and would not tolerate sloppy playing. He soon began to refine the performance of the musicians, particularly of the standard German-Austrian repertoire. One of his innovations was a tradition on New Years Eve, A Night in Old Vienna. Similar concerts continued into the 2000s, though the format has changed in recent years, Krips would not make recordings with the orchestra, insisting they werent ready
27.
Los Angeles Philharmonic
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The Los Angeles Philharmonic is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California, United States. It has a season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Gustavo Dudamel is the current Music Director, and Esa-Pekka Salonen is Conductor Laureate, Deborah Borda is the current President and CEO. Music critics have described the orchestra as the most contemporary minded, forward thinking, talked about and innovative, venturesome, according to Salonen, We are interested in the future. We are not trying to re-create the glories of the past, like so many other symphony orchestras. “Especially since we moved into the new hall, ” continues Borda, “our intention has been to integrate 21st-century music into the everyday activity. ”The orchestra was founded and single-handedly financed in 1919 by William Andrews Clark, Jr. a copper baron, arts enthusiast. He originally asked Sergei Rachmaninoff to be the Philharmonics first music director, however, Rachmaninoff had only moved to New York. The orchestra played its first concert in the Trinity Auditorium in the same year, Clark himself would sometimes sit and play with the second violin section. After Rothwells death in 1927, subsequent Music Directors in the decade of the 1920s included Georg Schnéevoigt, otto Klemperer became Music Director in 1933, part of the large group of German emigrants fleeing Nazi Germany. He conducted many LA Phil premieres, and introduced Los Angeles audiences to important new works by Igor Stravinsky, the orchestra responded well to his leadership, but Klemperer had a difficult time adjusting to Southern California, a situation exacerbated by repeated manic-depressive episodes. Things were further complicated when founder William Andrews Clark died without leaving the orchestra an endowment, the Philharmonics concerts at the Hollywood Bowl also brought in much needed revenue. With that, the managed to make it through the worst of the Great Depression years still intact. He went into a state and was institutionalized. When he escaped, The New York Times ran a cover story declaring him missing, after he was found in New Jersey, a picture of him behind bars was printed in the New York Herald Tribune. He subsequently lost the post of Music Director, though he still would conduct the Philharmonic. He led some important concerts, such as the premiere performance of Stravinskys Symphony in Three Movements in 1946. Sir John Barbirolli was offered the position of Music Director after his contract with the New York Philharmonic expired in 1942 and he declined the offer and chose to return to England instead. The following year, Alfred Wallenstein was chosen by Mudd to lead the orchestra, the former principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic, he had been the youngest member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic when it was founded in 1919
28.
Paramount Pictures
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Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film studio based in Hollywood, California, that has been a subsidiary of the American media conglomerate Viacom since 1994. In 1916, film producer Adolph Zukor contracted 22 actors and actresses and these fortunate few would become the first movie stars. Paramount Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America, in 2014, Paramount Pictures became the first major Hollywood studio to distribute all of its films in digital form only. Paramount is the fifth oldest surviving studio in the world after the French studios Gaumont Film Company and Pathé, followed by the Nordisk Film company. It is the last major film studio headquartered in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. Paramount Pictures dates its existence from the 1912 founding date of the Famous Players Film Company, hungarian-born founder, Adolph Zukor, who had been an early investor in nickelodeons, saw that movies appealed mainly to working-class immigrants. With partners Daniel Frohman and Charles Frohman he planned to offer feature-length films that would appeal to the class by featuring the leading theatrical players of the time. By mid-1913, Famous Players had completed five films, and Zukor was on his way to success and its first film was Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth, which starred Sarah Bernhardt. That same year, another aspiring producer, Jesse L. Lasky, opened his Lasky Feature Play Company with money borrowed from his brother-in-law, Samuel Goldfish, the Lasky company hired as their first employee a stage director with virtually no film experience, Cecil B. DeMille, who would find a site in Hollywood, near Los Angeles, for his first feature film. Hodkinson and actor, director, producer Hobart Bosworth had started production of a series of Jack London movies, Paramount was the first successful nationwide distributor, until this time, films were sold on a statewide or regional basis which had proved costly to film producers. Also, Famous Players and Lasky were privately owned while Paramount was a corporation, in 1916, Zukor maneuvered a three-way merger of his Famous Players, the Lasky Company, and Paramount. Zukor and Lasky bought Hodkinson out of Paramount, and merged the three companies into one, with only the exhibitor-owned First National as a rival, Famous Players-Lasky and its Paramount Pictures soon dominated the business. It was this system that gave Paramount a leading position in the 1920s and 1930s, the driving force behind Paramounts rise was Zukor. In 1926, Zukor hired independent producer B. P. Schulberg and they purchased the Robert Brunton Studios, a 26-acre facility at 5451 Marathon Street for US$1 million. In 1927, Famous Players-Lasky took the name Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation, three years later, because of the importance of the Publix Theatres, it became Paramount Publix Corporation. In 1928, Paramount began releasing Inkwell Imps, animated cartoons produced by Max, the Fleischers, veterans in the animation industry, were among the few animation producers capable of challenging the prominence of Walt Disney. The Paramount newsreel series Paramount News ran from 1927 to 1957, Paramount was also one of the first Hollywood studios to release what were known at that time as talkies, and in 1929, released their first musical, Innocents of Paris
29.
Croydon
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Croydon is a large town in south London, England,9.5 miles south of Charing Cross. The principal settlement in the London Borough of Croydon, it is one of the largest commercial districts outside Central London, with a shopping district. Its population of 52,104 at the 2011 census includes the wards of Addiscombe, Broad Green, Croydon expanded in the Middle Ages as a market town and a centre for charcoal production, leather tanning and brewing. The Surrey Iron Railway from Croydon to Wandsworth opened in 1803 and was the worlds first public railway, later nineteenth century railway building facilitated Croydons growth as a commuter town for London. By the early 20th century, Croydon was an important industrial area, known for car manufacture, metal working, Croydon was amalgamated into Greater London in 1965. Road traffic is diverted away from a largely pedestrianised town centre, East Croydon is a major hub of the national railway transport system, with frequent fast services to central London, Brighton and the south coast. The town is unique in Greater London for its Tramlink light rail transport system, alternative, although less probable, theories of the names origin have been proposed. According to John Corbett Anderson, The earliest mention of Croydon is in the joint will of Beorhtric and Aelfswth, in this Anglo-Saxon document the name is spelt Crogdaene. Crog was, and still is, the Norse or Danish word for crooked, which is expressed in Anglo-Saxon by crumb, from the Danish came our crook and crooked. This term accurately describes the locality, it is a crooked or winding valley, in reference to the valley runs in an oblique. However, there was no long-term Danish occupation in Surrey, which was part of Wessex, and Danish-derived nomenclature is also highly unlikely. The town lies on the line of the Roman road from London to Portslade, later, in the 5th to 7th centuries, a large pagan Saxon cemetery was situated on what is now Park Lane, although the extent of any associated settlement is unknown. By the late Saxon period Croydon was the hub of an estate belonging to the Archbishops of Canterbury, the church and the archbishops manor house occupied the area still known as Old Town. Croydon appears in Domesday Book as Croindene, held by Archbishop Lanfranc and its Domesday assets were,16 hides and 1 virgate,1 church,1 mill worth 5s,38 ploughs,8 acres of meadow, woodland worth 200 hogs. The church had established in the middle Saxon period, and was probably a minster church. A charter issued by King Coenwulf of Mercia refers to a council that had taken place close to the monasterium of Croydon, an Anglo-Saxon will made in about 960 is witnessed by Elfsies, priest of Croydon, and the church is also mentioned in Domesday Book. The will of John de Croydon, fishmonger, dated 6 December 1347, includes a bequest to the church of S John de Croydon, the church still bears the arms of Archbishop Courtenay and Archbishop Chichele, believed to have been its benefactors. In 1276 Archbishop Robert Kilwardby acquired a charter for a market
30.
The Times
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The Times is a British daily national newspaper based in London, England. It began in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register, the Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, itself wholly owned by News Corp. The Times and The Sunday Times do not share editorial staff, were founded independently and have only had common ownership since 1967 and its news and its editorial comment have in general been carefully coordinated, and have at most times been handled with an earnest sense of responsibility. While the paper has admitted some trivia to its columns, its emphasis has been on important public affairs treated with an eye to the best interests of Britain. To guide this treatment, the editors have for long periods been in touch with 10 Downing Street. In these countries, the newspaper is often referred to as The London Times or The Times of London, although the newspaper is of national scope, in November 2006 The Times began printing headlines in a new font, Times Modern. The Times was printed in broadsheet format for 219 years, the Sunday Times remains a broadsheet. The Times had a daily circulation of 446,164 in December 2016, in the same period. An American edition of The Times has been published since 6 June 2006 and it has been heavily used by scholars and researchers because of its widespread availability in libraries and its detailed index. A complete historical file of the paper, up to 2010, is online from Gale Cengage Learning. The Times was founded by publisher John Walter on 1 January 1785 as The Daily Universal Register, Walter had lost his job by the end of 1784 after the insurance company where he was working went bankrupt because of the complaints of a Jamaican hurricane. Being unemployed, Walter decided to set a new business up and it was in that time when Henry Johnson invented the logography, a new typography that was faster and more precise. Walter bought the patent and to use it, he decided to open a printing house. The first publication of the newspaper The Daily Universal Register in Great Britain was 1 January 1785, unhappy because people always omitted the word Universal, Ellias changed the title after 940 editions on 1 January 1788 to The Times. In 1803, Walter handed ownership and editorship to his son of the same name, the Times used contributions from significant figures in the fields of politics, science, literature, and the arts to build its reputation. For much of its life, the profits of The Times were very large. Beginning in 1814, the paper was printed on the new steam-driven cylinder press developed by Friedrich Koenig, in 1815, The Times had a circulation of 5,000. Thomas Barnes was appointed editor in 1817
31.
Musicians' Union (UK)
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The Musicians Union is an organisation which represents over 30,000 musicians working in all sectors of the British music business. The union was founded in 1893 in Manchester by twenty musicians and it registered as the Amalgamated Musicians Union the following year, and grew rapidly, having 22,000 members by 1920. The following year, it merged with the National Orchestral Union of Professional Musicians, however, the introduction of talkie films reduced opportunities for musicians, and membership fell to a low of 7,000 in 1940. After World War II, it again, forming the International Federation of Musicians. It also joined the Confederation of Entertainment Unions and affiliated to the Labour Party, the MU stages regular campaigns in relation to relevant musical and industrial issues. Keep Music Live The union has used the slogan Keep Music Live since 1965, Work Not Play In November 2012 the MU launched a new campaign called Work Not Play, to raise awareness about the growing trend for artists being asked to perform for free. The campaign has been supported by a number of organisations in the industry including notable industry names such as Skiddle. 1893, Joe Williams 1924, E. S. Teale 1931, Fred Dambman 1948, Hardie Ratcliffe 1970, John Morton 1990, Dennis Scard 2000, Derek Kay 2003, John F. Smith Official website Music Supported Here website
32.
Jack Brymer
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John Alexander Brymer OBE was an English clarinettist. The Times called him the leading clarinettist of his generation, perhaps of the century and he was largely self-taught as a player, and he performed as an amateur before being invited by Sir Thomas Beecham to join the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1947. He remained with the orchestra until 1963, two years after Beechams death, Brymer later played in the BBC Symphony and London Symphony Orchestras. He was also associated with chamber music ensembles, and maintained a lifelong pleasure in playing jazz. He held professorships during most of the period from 1950 to 1993, first at the Royal Academy of Music, then at the Royal Military School of Music, and finally at the Guildhall School of Music. He was a frequent broadcaster, both as a player and a presenter, and made recordings of works and with orchestras. He published two volumes of memoirs and a book about the clarinet, Brymer was born in South Shields, in the north east of England, the son of John Alexander Brymer, a builder, and his wife, Mary, née Dixon. Brymer senior played the clarinet, and his son started to attempt to play the instrument at the age of four and he had no formal instruction as a clarinettist, but discovered music and worked out an instrumental technique for himself. While still a boy he encountered, and appreciated, a range of musical styles from jazz and light music to brass-bands. He later insisted that all genres had been of great value to him professionally. Brymer was educated at Westoe Secondary School, South Shields, excelling at rugby football, from 1933 Brymer trained at Goldsmiths College, London University as a generalist teacher. He joined the staff of Heath Clark School, Croydon. Among his fellow students at the College, and later his colleague in the groups, was a string player. They married in 1939 when they were both 24, there was one son of the marriage. Although he had no formal tuition as a clarinettist, Brymer maintained that nobody was entirely self-taught, frederick Thurston and Reginald Kell unwittingly betrayed their methods to me, but I also decided that I wanted to play in certain ways that they had never done. The ability to play the clarinet is the ability to overcome the imperfections of the instrument, theres no such thing as a perfect clarinet, never was and never will be. Other clarinettists whose technique Brymer observed and learned from were Charles Draper, Brymer wrote of his predecessors, They would have been astounded at the things they taught me, without a penny piece changing hands. During the Second World War Brymer served in the Royal Air Force, after his basic training he was promoted to corporal and posted to Morecambe on the north west coast of England as a physical training instructor
33.
Terence MacDonagh
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MacDonagh was born in Woolwich, London, the son of the oboist and cor anglais player James MacDonagh, and the nephew of Thomas MacDonagh, one of the seven leaders of the 1916 Rising. He studied in Paris with Myrtile Morel, and in London with Léon Goossens, in 1926 he joined the Scottish Orchestra, and quickly moved to the British National Opera Company, with which he played from 1926 to 1929. When Adrian Boult was assembling the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1930, in 1937 he was promoted to principal oboist. He also played the oboe damore when needed, though he was not enamoured of the instrument and its always out of tune, has a mind of its own and no bloody répertoire. During the Second World War MacDonagh served in the armed forces and he returned to the BBC in 1945. When Sir Thomas Beecham founded the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1946 his first principal oboe was Peter Newbury, Newbury left the following year and joined the Philharmonia Orchestra, Beecham invited MacDonagh to replace him. The RPO became celebrated for its team of woodwind principals, in which MacDonagh was joined by Jack Brymer, Gwydion Brooke, the Independent described them as arguably the finest ever wind section. Became known as The Royal Family, after Beechams death in 1961, MacDonagh, Brymer and others became unhappy with the management of the RPO, and they moved – in MacDonaghs case moved back – to the BBC Symphony Orchestra. This was MacDonaghs last orchestral position, from 1945 to 1978 MacDonagh was professor of oboe at the Royal College of Music, his students included Edwin Roxburgh, John Warrack, Neil Black, Roy Carter and Anthony Camden. He is credited by the oboist Geoffrey Burgess with introducing a lasting French influence into English oboe playing, MacDonagh was appointed OBE in 1979. He died in London, aged 78, new Haven, Conn, Yale University Press
34.
The Independent
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The Independent is a British online newspaper. The printed edition of the paper ceased in March 2016, nicknamed the Indy, it began as a broadsheet newspaper, but changed to tabloid format in 2003. Until September 2011, the paper described itself on the banner at the top of every newspaper as free from party political bias and it tends to take a pro-market stance on economic issues. The daily edition was named National Newspaper of the Year at the 2004 British Press Awards. In June 2015, it had a daily circulation of just below 58,000,85 per cent down from its 1990 peak. On 12 February 2016, it was announced that The Independent, the last print edition of The Independent on Sunday was published on 20 March 2016, with the main paper ceasing print publication the following Saturday. Launched in 1986, the first issue of The Independent was published on 7 October in broadsheet format and it was produced by Newspaper Publishing plc and created by Andreas Whittam Smith, Stephen Glover and Matthew Symonds. All three partners were former journalists at The Daily Telegraph who had left the paper towards the end of Lord Hartwells ownership, marcus Sieff was the first chairman of Newspaper Publishing, and Whittam Smith took control of the paper. The paper was created at a time of a change in British newspaper publishing. Rupert Murdoch was challenging long-accepted practices of the print unions and ultimately defeated them in the Wapping dispute, consequently, production costs could be reduced which, it was said at the time, created openings for more competition. As a result of controversy around Murdochs move to Wapping, the plant was effectively having to function under siege from sacked print workers picketing outside, the Independent attracted some of the staff from the two Murdoch broadsheets who had chosen not to move to his companys new headquarters. Launched with the advertising slogan It is, and challenging both The Guardian for centre-left readers and The Times as the newspaper of record, The Independent reached a circulation of over 400,000 by 1989. Competing in a market, The Independent sparked a general freshening of newspaper design as well as, within a few years. Some aspects of production merged with the paper, although the Sunday paper retained a largely distinct editorial staff. It featured spoofs of the other papers mastheads with the words The Rupert Murdoch or The Conrad Black, a number of other media companies were interested in the paper. Tony OReillys media group and Mirror Group Newspapers had bought a stake of about a third each by mid-1994, in March 1995, Newspaper Publishing was restructured with a rights issue, splitting the shareholding into OReillys Independent News & Media, MGN, and Prisa. In April 1996, there was another refinancing, and in March 1998, OReilly bought the other 54% of the company for £30 million, brendan Hopkins headed Independent News, Andrew Marr was appointed editor of The Independent, and Rosie Boycott became editor of The Independent on Sunday. Marr introduced a dramatic if short-lived redesign which won critical favour but was a commercial failure, Marr admitted his changes had been a mistake in his book, My Trade
35.
London Symphony Orchestra
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The London Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1904, is the oldest of Londons symphony orchestras. It was set up by a group of players who left Henry Woods Queens Hall Orchestra because of a new rule requiring players to give the orchestra their exclusive services, the LSO itself later introduced a similar rule for its members. From the outset, the LSO was organised on co-operative lines and this practice continued for the orchestras first four decades. The profit-sharing principle was abandoned in the era as a condition of receiving public subsidy for the first time. In the 1950s the orchestra debated whether to concentrate on work at the expense of symphony concerts. By the 1960s the LSO had recovered its position, which it has retained subsequently. In 1966, to perform alongside it in works, the orchestra established the LSO Chorus, originally a mix of professional and amateur singers. As a self-governing body, the orchestra selects the conductors with whom it works, at some stages in its history, it has dispensed with a principal conductor and worked only with guests. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in the Barbican Centre in the City of London, among its programmes there have been large-scale festivals celebrating composers as diverse as Berlioz, Mahler and Bernstein. At the turn of the century there were no permanent salaried orchestras in London. The main orchestras were those of Covent Garden, the Philharmonic Society and he would then engage another player to deputise at him for the original concert and the rehearsals for it. The treasurer of the Philharmonic Society described the system thus, A and he sends B to the first rehearsal. B, without knowledge or consent, sends C to the second rehearsal. Not being able to play at the concert, C sends D, in 1904, the manager of the Queens Hall, Robert Newman and the conductor of his promenade concerts, Henry Wood, agreed that they could no longer tolerate the deputy system. After a rehearsal in which Wood was faced with dozens of unfamiliar faces in his own orchestra, Newman came to the platform and announced, Gentlemen, in future there will be no deputies. Orchestral musicians were not highly paid, and removing their chances of better-paid engagements permitted by the deputy system was a financial blow to many of them. The principal movers were three players and a trumpeter, John Solomon. Busby organised a meeting at St. Andrews Hall, not far from the Queens Hall, invitations were sent to present and former members of the Queens Hall Orchestra
36.
Hartford, Connecticut
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Hartford is the capital of the U. S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, as of the 2010 Census, Hartfords population was 124,775, making it Connecticuts third-largest city after the coastal cities of Bridgeport and New Haven. Census Bureau estimates since then have indicated Hartfords subsequent fall to fourth place statewide as a result of sustained growth in the coastal city of Stamford. Nicknamed the Insurance Capital of the World, Hartford houses many insurance company headquarters, founded in 1635, Hartford is among the oldest cities in the United States. In 1868, resident Mark Twain wrote, Of all the towns it has been my fortune to see this is the chief. Following the American Civil War, Hartford was the richest city in the United States for several decades, today, Hartford is one of the poorest cities in the nation with 3 out of every 10 families living below the poverty line. In sharp contrast, the Hartford metropolitan area is ranked 32nd of 318 metropolitan areas in total economic production, various tribes, all part of the loose Algonquin confederation, lived in or around present-day Hartford. The area was referred to as Suckiaug, meaning Black Fertile River-Enhanced Earth, the first Europeans known to have explored the area were the Dutch, under Adriaen Block, who sailed up the Connecticut in 1614. Dutch fur traders from New Amsterdam returned in 1623 with a mission to establish a trading post, the original site was located on the south bank of the Park River in the present-day Sheldon/Charter Oak neighborhood. This fort was called Fort Hoop, or the House of Hope, in 1633, Jacob Van Curler formally bought the land around Fort Hoop from the Pequot chief for a small sum. It was home to perhaps a couple families and a few dozen soldiers, the area today is known as Dutch Point, and the name of the Dutch fort, House of Hope, is reflected in the name of Huyshope Avenue. The fort was abandoned by 1654, but its neighborhood in Hartford is still known as Dutch Point, the Dutch outpost, and the tiny contingent of Dutch soldiers that were stationed there, did little to check the English migration. The Dutch soon realized they were vastly outnumbered, the House of Hope remained an outpost, but it was steadily swallowed up by waves of English settlers. The English began to arrive 1637, settling upstream from Fort Hoop near the present-day Downtown, the settlement was originally called Newtown, but was changed to Hartford in 1637 in honor of Stones hometown of Hertford, England. Hooker also created the town of Windsor. The etymology of Hartford is the ford where harts cross, the Seal of the City of Hartford features a male deer, which in full maturity was referred to by the medieval hunting term hart. The fledgling colony along the Connecticut River had issues with the authority by which it was to be governed because it was outside of the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Bay Colonys charter. Historians suggest that Hookers conception of self-rule embodied in the Fundamental Orders went on to inspire the Connecticut Constitution, today, one of Connecticuts nicknames is the Constitution State
37.
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
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Bethlehem is a city in Lehigh and Northampton counties in the Lehigh Valley region of the eastern portion of the U. S. state of Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 74,982, making it the seventh largest city in Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie, Reading. Of this,55,639 were in Northampton County, and 19,343 were in Lehigh County, Bethlehem lies in the center of the Lehigh Valley, a region of 731 square miles that is home to more than 800,000 people. Smaller than Allentown but larger than Easton, Bethlehem is the Lehigh Valleys second most populous city, in turn, this metropolitan area comprises Pennsylvanias third-largest metropolitan area and the states largest and most populous contribution to the greater New York City metropolitan area. There are four sections of the city, central Bethlehem, the south side, the east side. Each of these sections blossomed at different times in the citys development, ZIP codes that use the address Bethlehem totaled 116,000 in population in the year 2000. These ZIP codes include Bethlehem Township and Hanover Township, the Norfolk Southern Railways Lehigh Line, runs through Bethlehem heading east to Easton, Pennsylvania and Phillipsburg, New Jersey across the Delaware River. The Norfolk Southern Railways Reading Line runs through Bethlehem heading west to Allentown, in July 2006, Money magazine placed Bethlehem as number 88 on its Top 100 Best Places to Live. The areas along the Delaware River and its tributaries in eastern Pennsylvania were long inhabited by peoples of various cultures. By the time of European contact, these areas were the historic territory of the Algonquian-speaking Lenape Nation and they traded with the Dutch and then English colonists in the mid-Atlantic area. They came to set up missionary communities among the Native Americans and they named the settlement after the Biblical town Bethlehem of Judea, the birthplace of Jesus. Count Zinzendorf said, Brothers, how more fittingly could we call our new home than to name it in honor of the spot where the event we now commemorate took place and we will call this place Bethlehem. And so was Bethlehem named after the birthplace of the Man of Peace, originally it was a typical Moravian Settlement Congregation, where the Church owned all the property. Until the 1850s, only members of the Moravian Church were permitted to land plots in Bethlehem. The historic Brethrens House, Sisters House, Widows House and Gemeinhaus with the Old Chapel are remnants of this period of communal living, the Moravians ministered to regional Lenape Native Americans through their mission in the area, as well as further east in the New York colony. In the historic Bethlehem Gods Acre cemetery, converted Lenape lie buried alongside the Moravians, in 1762, Bethlehem built the first water-works in America to pump water for public use. While George Washington and his troops stayed in Valley Forge, Washington stored his personal effects at the farm of James Burnside in Bethlehem – as of 1998 a historical museum, the prosperous village was incorporated into a free borough in the County of Northampton in 1845. After the Unity Synod of 1848, Bethlehem became the headquarters of the Northern Province of the Moravian Church in North America
38.
The New York Times
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The New York Times is an American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18,1851, by The New York Times Company. The New York Times has won 119 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper, the papers print version in 2013 had the second-largest circulation, behind The Wall Street Journal, and the largest circulation among the metropolitan newspapers in the US. The New York Times is ranked 18th in the world by circulation, following industry trends, its weekday circulation had fallen in 2009 to fewer than one million. Nicknamed The Gray Lady, The New York Times has long been regarded within the industry as a newspaper of record. The New York Times international version, formerly the International Herald Tribune, is now called the New York Times International Edition, the papers motto, All the News Thats Fit to Print, appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page. On Sunday, The New York Times is supplemented by the Sunday Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine and T, some other early investors of the company were Edwin B. Morgan and Edward B. We do not believe that everything in Society is either right or exactly wrong, —what is good we desire to preserve and improve, —what is evil, to exterminate. In 1852, the started a western division, The Times of California that arrived whenever a mail boat got to California. However, when local California newspapers came into prominence, the effort failed, the newspaper shortened its name to The New-York Times in 1857. It dropped the hyphen in the city name in the 1890s, One of the earliest public controversies it was involved with was the Mortara Affair, the subject of twenty editorials it published alone. At Newspaper Row, across from City Hall, Henry Raymond, owner and editor of The New York Times, averted the rioters with Gatling guns, in 1869, Raymond died, and George Jones took over as publisher. Tweed offered The New York Times five million dollars to not publish the story, in the 1880s, The New York Times transitioned gradually from editorially supporting Republican Party candidates to becoming more politically independent and analytical. In 1884, the paper supported Democrat Grover Cleveland in his first presidential campaign, while this move cost The New York Times readership among its more progressive and Republican readers, the paper eventually regained most of its lost ground within a few years. However, the newspaper was financially crippled by the Panic of 1893, the paper slowly acquired a reputation for even-handedness and accurate modern reporting, especially by the 1890s under the guidance of Ochs. Under Ochs guidance, continuing and expanding upon the Henry Raymond tradition, The New York Times achieved international scope, circulation, in 1910, the first air delivery of The New York Times to Philadelphia began. The New York Times first trans-Atlantic delivery by air to London occurred in 1919 by dirigible, airplane Edition was sent by plane to Chicago so it could be in the hands of Republican convention delegates by evening. In the 1940s, the extended its breadth and reach. The crossword began appearing regularly in 1942, and the section in 1946
39.
Olin Downes
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Edwin Olin Downes, better known as Olin Downes, was an American music critic, known as Sibeliuss Apostle for his championship of the music of Jean Sibelius. As critic of The New York Times, he exercised influence on musical opinion. Downes was born in Evanston, Illinois, USA and it was in those two cities that he made his career as a music critic – first with The Boston Post and then with The New York Times. The most conspicuous of Downess topics was the music of Sibelius and he met the composer during the latters visit to the U. S. in 1914. For his constant proselytizing on Sibeliuss behalf, Downes was dubbed Sibeliuss Apostle, in 1937 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the White Rose of Finland, in recognition of his promotion of Sibeliuss music. Downes was a guest speaker at Sibeliuss 75th birthday celebration in 1940, in addition to scores of articles, Downes published two books on the subject of Sibelius. The first, Sibelius, was published in Finnish only, a collection of Downess articles on the subject translated by Paul Sjöblom, the other, Sibelius the Symphonist, was Downess last book, published posthumously. S. Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians says of Downes that his reviews strongly influenced contemporary popular musical opinion in the USA although the taste defined in them has dated. He disparaged many composers later held in esteem, ranging from the romantic to the atonal, including Elgar, Webern. Downes opined that Weberns music did not matter, and that the music of Louis Gruenberg was more important, with performers, too, Downes was strongly partisan. From the 1930s to the 1950s, Downes was the chairman of the Metropolitan Opera Quiz and this position was later taken by his son, musicologist Edward O. D. Downes. The Cincinnati Conservatory of Music awarded Downes an honorary doctorate in 1939 and his papers, housed at the University of Georgia, include about 50,000 letters to and from composers, musicologists, performers and critics. Downes died in New York City at the age of 69, the lure of music, depicting the human side of great composers, with stories of their inspired creations. New York, Harper & Bros.1918, New York, Broadcast Music Inc. G. Ricordi & Co. Charles Scribners Sons,1952. New York, Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York,1956, Olin Downes on Music, a selection from his writings during the half-century 1906 to 1955. New York, Simon and Schuster,1957, barbirolli, Conductor Laureate, The Authorised Biography. Bakers Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Vol.2
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The Proms
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In 2009 the total number of concerts reached 100. The season is a significant event in British culture, in classical music, Jiří Bělohlávek described the Proms as the worlds largest and most democratic musical festival. Prom is short for promenade concert, a term originally referred to outdoor concerts in Londons pleasure gardens. In fact this tradition has been revived in parks and stately homes around the UK at promenade concerts such as the Battle Proms. In the context of the BBC Proms, promming refers to the use of the areas inside the hall for which ticket prices are much lower than for the reserved seating. Single-concert standing tickets for either the arena or gallery can be only on the day of the concert. Proms concert-goers, particularly those who stand, are referred to as prommers or promenaders. Prommers can buy full-season tickets instead for guaranteed entry to every concert in the season, some prommers are particularly keen in their attendance. The annual series of Proms continuing today had their roots in that movement and they were inaugurated on 10 August 1895 in the Queens Hall in Langham Place by the impresario Robert Newman, who was fully experienced in running similar concerts at His Majestys Theatre. Newman wished to generate an audience for concert hall music by offering low ticket prices and an informal atmosphere. He stated his aim to Henry Wood in 1894 as follows, I am going to run nightly concerts, popular at first, gradually raising the standard until I have created a public for classical and modern music. Dr George Cathcart, an otolaryngologist, gave financial backing to Newman for the series on condition that Henry Wood be employed as the sole conductor, Wood, aged 26, seized this opportunity and built the Queens Hall Orchestra as the ensemble specially devoted to performing the promenade concerts. This coincided with the adoption of lower pitch by other leading orchestras. Although the concerts gained a following and reputation, Newman went bankrupt in 1902. Wood received a knighthood in 1911, in 1914 anti-German feeling led Speyer to surrender his role, and music publishers Chappell & Co. took control of the concerts. Although Newman remained involved in planning, it was Woods name which became most closely associated with the Proms. As conductor from the first concert in 1895, Sir Henry was largely responsible for building the repertoire heard as the series continued from year to year. While including many popular and less demanding works, in the first season there were substantial nights devoted to Beethoven or Schubert, distinguished singers including Sims Reeves and Signor Foli appeared
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Basil Cameron
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Basil Cameron, CBE was an English conductor. He was born Basil George Cameron Hindenberg in Reading, Berkshire, England and he took up the violin at age 8, and later studied for four years at the Berlin Hochschule. He began his career studying with Joseph Joachim and Leopold Auer, later joining the London Symphony Orchestra. In 1912, Hindenberg began conducting at the resort of Torquay. He led festivals of Wagner and of Richard Strauss with the Torquay orchestra, during World War I, Cameron served in the British Army from November 1915 to August 1918. He had dropped the name Hindenberg professionally in September 1914 and took a break from his conducting career, after the war, Cameron led orchestras in many other British resorts. Laudatory reviews by George Bernard Shaw and Percy Grainger increased his renown, in 1930 he guest-conducted with the San Francisco Symphony, and was later invited to become its music director, where from 1930 and 1932 he served as joint music director with Issay Dobrowen. In 1932 he moved to the Seattle Symphony, in 1938, he returned to England where he remained for the rest of his career. In 1940, he joined the staff of the Proms as an associate conductor to Sir Henry Wood. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1957, Cameron was married twice, first to Frances James, and second to Phyllis MacQueen
