1.
Los Angeles
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Los Angeles, officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L. A. is the cultural, financial, and commercial center of Southern California. With a census-estimated 2015 population of 3,971,883, it is the second-most populous city in the United States, Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the United States. The citys inhabitants are referred to as Angelenos, historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was founded on September 4,1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence, in 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4,1850, the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California, nicknamed the City of Angels, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, and sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles also has an economy in culture, media, fashion, science, sports, technology, education, medicine. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index, the city is home to renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields, and is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States. The Los Angeles combined statistical area has a gross metropolitan product of $831 billion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Greater Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. The city has hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984 and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and thus become the second city after London to have hosted the Games three times. The Los Angeles area also hosted the 1994 FIFA mens World Cup final match as well as the 1999 FIFA womens World Cup final match, the mens event was watched on television by over 700 million people worldwide. The Los Angeles coastal area was first settled by the Tongva, a Gabrielino settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning poison oak place. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2,1769, in 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. The Queen of the Angels is an honorific of the Virgin Mary, two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto with a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small town for decades, but by 1820. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, during Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta Californias regional capital
2.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
3.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
4.
University of California, Los Angeles
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The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university in the Westwood district of Los Angeles, California, United States. It became the Southern Branch of the University of California in 1919 and it offers 337 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines. UCLA enrolls about 31,000 undergraduate and 13,000 graduate students, and had 119,000 applicants for Fall 2016, including transfer applicants, the university is organized into six undergraduate colleges, seven professional schools, and four professional health science schools. Fourteen Nobel laureates, three Fields Medalists, two Chief Scientists of the U. S. Air Force and three Turing Award winners have been faculty, researchers, or alumni, the university was elected to the Association of American Universities in 1974. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2015–2016 ranked UCLA 16th in the world for academics, in 2015-2016, UCLA ranked 12th in the world by the Academic Ranking of World Universities and 31st in the 2016/17 QS World University Rankings. UCLA student-athletes compete as the Bruins in the Pac-12 Conference, the Bruins won 126 national championships, including 113 NCAA team championships, more than any other university. UCLA student-athletes, coaches and staff won 251 Olympic medals,126 gold,65 silver and 60 bronze, UCLA student-athletes competed in every Olympics since 1920 with one exception, and won a gold medal in every Olympics that the United States participated in since 1932. The State Normal School at Los Angeles opened on August 29,1882, the facility included an elementary school where teachers-in-training could practice their technique with children. That elementary school is related to the present day version, UCLA Lab School, in 1887, the school became known as the Los Angeles State Normal School. In 1914, the moved to a new campus on Vermont Avenue in East Hollywood. However, David Prescott Barrows, the new President of the University of California, the same legislation added its general undergraduate program, the College of Letters and Science. After the athletic teams entered the Pacific Coast conference in 1926, the Southern Branch student council adopted the nickname Bruins, in 1927, the Regents renamed the Southern Branch the University of California at Los Angeles. In the same year, the state broke ground in Westwood on land sold for $1 million, less than one-third its value, by real estate developers Edwin and Harold Janss, the campus in Westwood opened to students in 1929. The original four buildings were the College Library, Royce Hall, the Physics-Biology Building, the first undergraduate classes on the new campus were held in 1929 with 5,500 students. A timeline of the history can be found on its website, during its first 32 years, UCLA was treated as an off-site department of UC. As such, its presiding officer was called a provost, in 1951, UCLA was formally elevated to co-equal status with UC Berkeley, and its presiding officer Raymond B. Allen was the first chief executive to be granted the title of chancellor. The appointment of Franklin David Murphy to the position of Chancellor in 1960 helped spark an era of growth of facilities. By the end of the decade, UCLA had achieved distinction in a range of subjects
5.
Allison & Allison
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Allison & Allison was the architectural firm of James Edward Allison and his brother David Clark Allison. Originally based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1910 the Allisons moved to Los Angeles in Southern California, at first they specialized in public schools. The notable projects by this include, Riverview United Presbyterian Church. J George Becht Hall, Clarion University, Clarion, PA, friday Morning Club Building, Downtown Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles. Wilshire United Methodist Church, with Moorish Revival La Giralda Tower, first Baptist Church of Los Angeles, Westmoreland and 8th Street, Los Angeles. Western Pacific Building, South Broadway, Downtown Los Angeles, first Unitarian Church of Los Angeles, MacArthur Park district, Los Angeles,1927 The Janss Dome—Janss Investment Company Building, Westwood Village. Beverly Hills Post Office, Beverly Hills, California, with Ralph Flewelling, robinsons Department Store, Downtown Los Angeles flagship store, modernization of street facades with Edward Mayberry. Hollywood Post Office in Hollywood, with Claud Beelman & WPA artists, Allison & Allison buildings Architects from Los Angeles, California
6.
Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio
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The Basilica of SantAmbrogio is a church in Milan, northern Italy. One of the most ancient churches in Milan, it was built by St. Ambrose in 379–386, the first name of the church was in fact Basilica Martyrum. When St. Ambrose arrived in Milan, the churches were in conflict with each other over the conflict between Arianism and the Nicene Creed as well as numerous local issues. He was firmly in support of the Nicene side of the conflict and he did this through both preaching and construction. He built three or four churches surrounding the city, Basilica Apostolorum, Basilica Virginum, and Basilica Martyrum, a fourth church, Basilica Salvatoris is attributed to him as well, but may not actually be from the 4th century. These churches were dedicated with anti-Arian language and as symbols of the wealth, initially, the basilica was outside the city of Milan, but over the following centuries, the city grew up around it. It became a center of life and a community of canons developed in the church. In 789, a monastery was established within the basilica grounds, the canons, however, retained their own community and identity instead of fading away. Two, separate, distinct religious communities shared the basilica, in the 11th century, the canons adopted orders and became Canons Regular. There were now two separate monastic orders following different rules living in the basilica, the canons were in the northern building, the cloister of the canons, while the monks were in the two southern buildings. The two towers symbolize the division in the basilica, the 9th century Torre dei Monaci tower was used by the monks to call the faithful to the monks mass. The monks supported themselves, partly, from the offerings given after mass, however, the canons did not have a bell tower and were not allowed to ring bells until they finished their own tower in the 12th Century. The monastery and church became a landholder in northern Italy. On 4 August 1528 it was the so-called Peace of St. Ambrose, in 1492 the Benedictines commissioned Donato Bramante, structural architect of St. Peters Basilica, to renovate the new rectory. In August 1943 the Allied bombings heavily damaged the basilica, in particular the apse, as a result of this a new building, painted in pink, was constructed to house the Abbotts offices and the museum. The church is built in brickwork of different origins and colors, with parts of stone. The current Romanesque church was begun around 1080, the nave dates to about 1128 and the rib vaults of the nave are from about 1140. The altar occupies about the place as in the time of St. Ambrose
7.
1994 Northridge earthquake
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The 1994 Northridge earthquake occurred on January 17, at 4,30,55 a. m. PST and had its epicenter in Reseda, a neighborhood in the north-central San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles and it had a duration of approximately 10–20 seconds. The peak ground velocity at the Rinaldi Receiving Station was 183 cm/s, in addition, two 6.0 Mw aftershocks occurred, the first about one minute after the initial event and the second approximately 11 hours later, the strongest of several thousand aftershocks in all. The death toll was 57, with more than 8,700 injured, in addition, property damage was estimated to be between $13 and $40 billion, making it one of the costliest natural disasters in U. S. history. The earthquake struck in the San Fernando Valley about 20 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, although given the name Northridge, the epicenter was located in the community of Reseda, it took several days to pinpoint the epicenter in detail. This was the first instance with a hypocenter directly beneath a U. S. city since the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, the National Geophysical Data Center placed the hypocenters geographical coordinates at 34°12′47″N 118°32′13″W and at a depth of 11.4 miles. It occurred on a previously undiscovered fault, now named the Northridge blind thrust fault, several other faults experienced minor rupture during the main shock and other ruptures occurred during large aftershocks, or triggered events. Damage occurred up to 85 miles away, with the most damage in the west San Fernando Valley, the exact number of fatalities is unknown, with sources estimating it at 60 or over 60, to 72, where most estimates fall around 60. The official death toll was placed at 57,33 people died immediately or within a few days from injuries sustained, some counts factor in related events such as a mans suicide possibly inspired by the loss of his business in the disaster. More than 8,700 were injured including 1,600 who required hospitalization, the Northridge Meadows apartment complex was one of the well-known affected areas in which sixteen people were killed as a result of the buildings collapse. The Northridge Fashion Center and California State University, Northridge also sustained very heavy damage—most notably, the earthquake also gained worldwide attention because of damage to the vast freeway network, which serves millions of commuters every day. Because of the morning darkness, he likely did not realize that the elevated roadway below him had collapsed. When the interchange was rebuilt one year later, it was renamed the Clarence Wayne Dean Memorial Interchange in his honor. Additional damage occurred about 50 miles southeast in Anaheim as the scoreboard at Anaheim Stadium collapsed onto several hundred seats, the stadium was vacant at the time. Although several commercial buildings also collapsed, loss of life was minimized because of the morning hour of the quake. Also, because of seismic activity in California, area building codes dictate that buildings incorporate structural design intended to withstand earthquakes. However, the damage caused revealed that some structural specifications did not perform as intended, because of these revelations, building codes were revised. Some structures were not red-tagged until months later, because damage was not immediately evident, the quake produced unusually strong ground accelerations in the range of 1.0 g
8.
Marian Anderson
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Marian Anderson was an American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century. Music critic Alan Blyth said, Her voice was a rich, most of her singing career was spent performing in concert and recital in major music venues and with famous orchestras throughout the United States and Europe between 1925 and 1965. Although offered roles with many important European opera companies, Anderson declined and she preferred to perform in concert and recital only. She did, however, perform opera arias within her concerts and she made many recordings that reflected her broad performance repertoire of everything from concert literature to lieder to opera to traditional American songs and spirituals. Between 1940 and 1965 the German-American pianist Franz Rupp was her permanent accompanist, Anderson became an important figure in the struggle for black artists to overcome racial prejudice in the United States during the mid-twentieth century. In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution refused permission for Anderson to sing to an audience in Constitution Hall. The incident placed Anderson into the spotlight of the community on a level unusual for a classical musician. She sang before a crowd of more than 75,000 people and her performance as Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdis Un ballo in maschera at the Met was the only time she sang an opera role on stage. She participated in the civil movement in the 1960s, singing at the March on Washington for Jobs. Marian Anderson was born on February 27,1897, in Philadelphia, the daughter of John Berkley Anderson and her father sold ice and coal at the Reading Terminal in downtown Philadelphia and eventually opened a small liquor business as well. Prior to her marriage, Andersons mother had attended the Virginia Seminary. As she did not obtain a degree, Annie Anderson was unable to teach in Philadelphia under a law that was applied only to black teachers and she therefore earned an income caring for small children. Marian was the eldest of the three Anderson children and her two sisters, Alice and Ethel, also became singers. Ethel married James DePreist and their son, James Anderson DePreist was a noted conductor. Andersons parents were both devout Christians and the family was active in the Union Baptist Church in South Philadelphia. Marians aunt Mary, her fathers sister, was active in the churchs musical life and, noticing her nieces talent. In that role she got to perform solos and duets, often with her aunt Mary, Marian was also taken by her aunt to concerts at local churches, the YMCA, benefit concerts, and other community music events throughout the city. Anderson credited her aunts influence as the reason she pursued a singing career, beginning as young as six, her aunt arranged for Marian to sing for local functions where she was often paid 25 or 50 cents for singing a few songs
9.
Pipe organ
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The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through organ pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre. Most organs have multiple ranks of pipes of differing timbre, pitch, a pipe organ has one or more keyboards played by the hands, and a pedalboard played by the feet, each keyboard has its own group of stops. The keyboard, pedalboard, and stops are housed in the organs console, the smallest portable pipe organs may have only one or two dozen pipes and one manual, the largest may have over 20,000 pipes and seven manuals. A list of some of the most notable and largest pipe organs in the world can be viewed at List of pipe organs. The origins of the organ can be traced back to the water organ in Ancient Greece, in the 3rd century BC. By the 6th or 7th century AD, bellows were used to supply organs with wind, beginning in the 12th century, the organ began to evolve into a complex instrument capable of producing different timbres. A pipe organ with great leaden pipes was sent to the West by the Byzantine emperor Constantine V as a gift to Pepin the Short, King of the Franks, in 757. Pepins son Charlemagne requested a similar organ for his chapel in Aachen in 812, by the 17th century, most of the sounds available on the modern classical organ had been developed. From that time, the organ was the most complex man-made device - a distinction it retained until it was displaced by the telephone exchange in the late 19th century. Pipe organs are installed in churches, synagogues, concert halls, schools and they are used in the performance of classical music, sacred music, secular music, and popular music. The beginning of the 21st century has seen a resurgence in installations in concert halls, the organ boasts a substantial repertoire, which spans over 500 years. The organ is one of the oldest instruments used in European classical music that has commonly been credited as having derived from Greece. Its earliest predecessors were built in Ancient Greece in the 3rd century BC. The word organ is derived from the Greek όργανον, a term for an instrument or a tool, via the Latin organum. The Greek engineer Ctesibius of Alexandria is credited with inventing the organ in the 3rd century BC and he devised an instrument called the hydraulis, which delivered a wind supply maintained through water pressure to a set of pipes. The hydraulis was played in the arenas of the Roman Empire, the 9th century Persian geographer Ibn Khurradadhbih, in his lexicographical discussion of instruments, cited the urghun as one of the typical instruments of the Eastern Roman Empire. It was often used in the Hippodrome in the capital of Constantinople
10.
Zubin Mehta
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Zubin Mehta is an Indian conductor of Western classical music. He is the Music Director for Life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Mehta is also the chief conductor of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino festival. Mehta was born into a Parsi family in Bombay, India, while in school, Mehta was taught to play the piano by Joseph de Lima, who was his first piano teacher. Mehta initially intended to study medicine, but eventually became a student in Vienna at the age of 18. Also at the academy along with Mehta were conductor Claudio Abbado. Mehtas first marriage was to Canadian soprano Carmen Lasky in 1958 and they have a son, Mervon, and a daughter, Zarina. Two years after the divorce, Carmen married Mehtas brother, Zarin Mehta, in July 1969, Mehta married Nancy Kovack, an American former film and television actress. Mehta, a permanent resident of the United States, retains his Indian citizenship, in 1958, Mehta made his conducting debut in Vienna. The same year he won the International Conducting Competition in Liverpool and was appointed assistant conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Mehta soon rose to the rank of chief conductor when he was made Music Director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in 1960, a post he held until 1967. In 1978 Mehta became the Music Director and Principal Conductor of the New York Philharmonic and remained there until his resignation in 1991, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra appointed Mehta its Music Advisor in 1969, Music Director in 1977, and made him its Music Director for Life in 1981. Since 1985, Mehta has been conductor of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence. Additionally, from 1998 until 2006, Mehta was Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the Munich Philharmonic named him its Honorary Conductor. Since 2005, Mehta has been the conductor of the Palau de les Arts. Mehta conducted the Vienna New Years Concert in 1990,1995,1998,2007 and 2015 and he has also made a recording of Indian instrumentalist Ravi Shankars Sitar Concerto No. 2, with Shankar and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, in between those appearances he conducted the historic 1992 production of Tosca in which each act took place in the actual setting and at the actual time specified in the score. This production starred Catherine Malfitano in the role, Plácido Domingo as Cavaradossi. On 29 August 1999, he conducted Mahler Symphony No,2, at the vicinity of Buchenwald concentration camp in the German city of Weimar, with both the Bavarian State Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, sitting alongside each other. The making of this production was chronicled in a documentary called The Turandot Project which Mehta narrated, on 26 December 2005, the first anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami, Mehta and the Bavarian State Orchestra performed for the first time in Chennai at the Madras Music Academy
11.
George Gershwin
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George Jacob Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwins compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known, among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris as well as the opera Porgy and Bess. Gershwin studied piano under Charles Hambitzer and composition with Rubin Goldmark, Henry Cowell and he began his career as a song plugger, but soon started composing Broadway theatre works with his brother Ira Gershwin, and Buddy DeSylva. He moved to Paris intending to study with Nadia Boulanger, who refused him, after returning to New York City, he wrote Porgy and Bess with Ira and the author DuBose Heyward. Initially a commercial failure, Porgy and Bess is now considered one of the most important American operas of the twentieth century, Gershwin moved to Hollywood and composed numerous film scores until his death in 1937 from a malignant brain tumor – glioblastoma multiforme. Gershwins compositions have been adapted for use in films and for television. Many celebrated singers and musicians have covered his songs, Gershwin was of Russian Jewish and Ukrainian Jewish ancestry. His grandfather, Jakov Gershowitz, had served for 25 years as a mechanic for the Imperial Russian Army to earn the right of travel and residence as a Jew. His teenage son, Moishe Gershowitz, worked as a cutter for womens shoes. Moishe Gershowitz met and fell in love with Roza Bruskina, the daughter of a furrier in Vilnius. She and her family moved to New York due to increasing anti-Jewish sentiment in Russia, Moishe, faced with compulsory military service if he remained in Russia, moved to America as soon as he could afford to. Once in New York, he changed his first name to Morris, Gershowitz lived with a maternal uncle in Brooklyn, working as a foreman in a womens shoe factory. When he married Rose on July 21,1895, Gershowitz soon Americanized his name to Gershwine. Their first child was born on December 6,1896, Gershwin then moved his family into a second-floor apartment on Brooklyns Snediker Avenue. Their second son, soon to be renamed George, was born at there on September 26,1898 and his birth certificate identifies him as Jacob Gershwine, with the surname pronounced Gersh-vin in the Russian and Yiddish immigrant community. He was named after his grandfather, the one time Russian army mechanic, American practice by then was to give children a first and a middle name, but had no other. He changed the spelling of his name to Gershwin when he became a professional musician, George and Ira lived in many different residences, as their father changed dwellings with each new enterprise which he became involved in. Mostly, the boys grew up around the Yiddish Theater District and they frequented the local Yiddish theaters, with George occasionally appearing onstage as an extra
12.
Leonard Bernstein
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Leonard Bernstein was an American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the US to receive worldwide acclaim, according to music critic Donal Henahan, he was one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history. Bernstein was the first conductor to give a series of lectures on classical music, starting in 1954. He was a skilled pianist, often conducting piano concertos from the keyboard, as a composer he wrote in many styles encompassing symphonic and orchestral music, ballet, film and theatre music, choral works, opera, chamber music and pieces for the piano. Many of his works are performed around the world, although none has matched the tremendous popular. He was born Louis Bernstein in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the son of Ukrainian-Jewish parents Jennie and Samuel Joseph Bernstein and he was not related to film composer Elmer Bernstein, but the two men were friends, and even shared a certain physical similarity. Within the world of music, they were distinguished from each other by the use of the nicknames Bernstein West. His family spent their summers at their home in Sharon. His grandmother insisted that his first name be Louis, but his parents called him Leonard. He officially changed his name to Leonard when he was fifteen, to his friends and many others he was simply known as Lenny. His father, Sam Bernstein, was a businessman and owner of a hair product store in downtown Lawrence, it is no longer standing on the corners of Amesbury, Sam initially opposed young Leonards interest in music. Despite this, the elder Bernstein took him to concerts in his teenage years. As a child, Bernstein attended the Garrison Grammar School and Boston Latin School, as a child he was very close to his younger sister Shirley, and would often play entire operas or Beethoven symphonies with her at the piano. He had a variety of teachers in his youth, including Helen Coates. After graduation from Boston Latin School in 1935, Bernstein attended Harvard University, one of his friends at Harvard was philosopher Donald Davidson, with whom he played piano four hands. Bernstein wrote and conducted the score for the production Davidson mounted of Aristophanes play The Birds in the original Greek. Bernstein reused some of this music in the ballet Fancy Free, during his time at Harvard he was briefly an accompanist for the Harvard Glee Club. Bernstein also mounted a student production of The Cradle Will Rock, Blitzstein, who heard about the production, subsequently became a friend and influence on Bernstein
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