1.
Performance
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A performance, in the performing arts, generally comprises an event in which a performer or group of performers present one or more works of art to an audience. Usually the performers participate in rehearsals beforehand, the means of expressing appreciation can vary by culture. Chinese performers will clap with the audience at the end of a performance, in Japan, folk performing-arts performances commonly attract individuals who take photographs, sometimes getting up to the stage and within inches of performers faces. Sometimes the dividing line between performer and the audience may become blurred, as in the example of theatre where audience members get involved in the production. Theatrical performances can take place daily or at some other regular interval, performances can take place at designated performance spaces, or in a non-conventional space, such as a subway station, on the street, or in somebodys home. Theatrical performances, especially when the audience is limited to only a few observers and this increase takes place in several stages relative to the performance itself, including anticipatory activation, confrontation activation and release period. The same physiological reactions can be experienced in other mediums, such as instrumental performance, heart rate shares a strong, positive correlation with the self reported anxiety of performers. Other physiological responses to public performance include perspiration, secretion of the adrenal glands, a performance may also describe the way in which an actor performs. In a solo capacity, it may refer to a mime artist, comedian, conjurer. Audio electronics Entertainment Live sound mixing Performance science Rock festival Sound technology Spectacle Stadium Stagecraft Theater
2.
Audience
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An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature, theatre, music, video games, or academics in any medium. Audience members participate in different ways in different kinds of art, some events invite overt audience participation and others allowing only modest clapping and criticism, media audience studies have become a recognized part of the curriculum. Audience theory offers insight into audiences in general. These insights shape our knowledge of just how audiences affect and are affected by different forms of art, the biggest art form is the mass media. Films, video games, radio shows, software, and other formats are affected by the audience and its reviews, in the age of easy Internet participation and citizen journalism, professional creators share space, and sometimes attention, with the public. American journalist Jeff Jarvis said, Give the people control of media, the corollary, Dont give the people control of media, and you will lose. Whenever citizens can exercise control, they will, tom Curley, President of the Associated Press, similarly said, The users are deciding what the point of their engagement will be — what application, what device, what time, what place. In rhetoric, some depend on circumstance and situation, and are characterized by the individuals that make up the audience. Sometimes these audiences are subject to persuasion and engage with the ideas of the speaker, ranging in size and composition, this audience may come together and form a composite of multiple groups. An immediate audience is a type of audience that is composed of individuals who are subjects with a speaker. This audience directly listens to, engages with, and consumes the rhetorical text in an unmediated fashion, in measuring immediate audience reception and feedback, one can depend on personal interviews, applause, and verbal comments made during and after a rhetorical speech. In contrast to immediate audiences, mediated audiences are composed of individuals who consume rhetorical texts in a manner that is different from the time or place in which a speaker presents text. Audiences who consume texts or speeches through television, radio and Internet are considered mediated audiences because those mediums separate the rhetor and the audience. In measuring mediated audience reception and feedback, one can depend on opinion polls and ratings, as well as comments, theoretical audiences are imagined for the purpose of helping a speaker compose, practice, or a critic to understand, a rhetorical text or speech. The universal audience is an audience that serves as an ethical. The concept of the audience has received criticism for being idealistic because it can be considered as an impediment in achieving persuasive effect with particular audiences. Yet, it still may be useful as a guide for a speaker. An ideal audience is an imagined, intended audience
3.
Camera
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Thumb|A2016 Nikon D810 A camera is an optical instrument for recording or capturing images, which may be stored locally, transmitted to another location, or both. The images may be individual still photographs or sequences of images constituting videos or movies, the camera is a remote sensing device as it senses subjects without physical contact. The word camera comes from camera obscura, which means dark chamber and is the Latin name of the device for projecting an image of external reality onto a flat surface. The modern photographic camera evolved from the camera obscura, the functioning of the camera is very similar to the functioning of the human eye. A camera may work with the light of the spectrum or with other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. A still camera is a device which creates a single image of an object or scene. All cameras use the basic design, light enters an enclosed box through a converging lens/convex lens. A shutter mechanism controls the length of time that light can enter the camera, a display, often a liquid crystal display, permits the user to view scene to be recorded and settings such as ISO speed, exposure, and shutter speed. A movie camera or a video camera operates similarly to a camera, except it records a series of static images in rapid succession. When the images are combined and displayed in order, the illusion of motion is achieved, the forerunner to the photographic camera was the camera obscura. The oldest known record of this principle is a description by Han Chinese philosopher Mozi, Mozi correctly asserted that the camera obscura image is inverted because light travels in straight lines from its source. In the 11th century Arab physicist Ibn al-Haytham s wrote very influential essays about experiments with light through an opening in a darkened room. The use of a lens in the opening of a wall or closed window shutter of a room to project images used as a drawing aid has been traced back to circa 1550. Since the late 17th century portable camera obscura devices in tents, before the development of the photographic camera, it had been known for hundreds of years that some substances, such as silver salts, darkened when exposed to sunlight. The first person to use this chemistry to create images was Thomas Wedgwood, to create images, Wedgwood placed items, such as leaves and insect wings, on ceramic pots coated with silver nitrate, and exposed the set-up to light. These images werent permanent, however, as Wedgwood didnt employ a fixing mechanism and he ultimately failed at his goal of using the process to create fixed images created by a camera obscura. The first permanent photograph of an image was made in 1826 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce using a sliding wooden box camera made by Charles. Niépce had been experimenting with ways to fix the images of a camera obscura since 1816, the photograph Niépce succeeded in creating shows the view from his window
4.
Oxygen
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Oxygen is a chemical element with symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the group on the periodic table and is a highly reactive nonmetal. By mass, oxygen is the third-most abundant element in the universe, after hydrogen, at standard temperature and pressure, two atoms of the element bind to form dioxygen, a colorless and odorless diatomic gas with the formula O2. This is an important part of the atmosphere and diatomic oxygen gas constitutes 20. 8% of the Earths atmosphere, additionally, as oxides the element makes up almost half of the Earths crust. Most of the mass of living organisms is oxygen as a component of water, conversely, oxygen is continuously replenished by photosynthesis, which uses the energy of sunlight to produce oxygen from water and carbon dioxide. Oxygen is too reactive to remain a free element in air without being continuously replenished by the photosynthetic action of living organisms. Another form of oxygen, ozone, strongly absorbs ultraviolet UVB radiation, but ozone is a pollutant near the surface where it is a by-product of smog. At low earth orbit altitudes, sufficient atomic oxygen is present to cause corrosion of spacecraft, the name oxygen was coined in 1777 by Antoine Lavoisier, whose experiments with oxygen helped to discredit the then-popular phlogiston theory of combustion and corrosion. One of the first known experiments on the relationship between combustion and air was conducted by the 2nd century BCE Greek writer on mechanics, Philo of Byzantium. In his work Pneumatica, Philo observed that inverting a vessel over a burning candle, Philo incorrectly surmised that parts of the air in the vessel were converted into the classical element fire and thus were able to escape through pores in the glass. Many centuries later Leonardo da Vinci built on Philos work by observing that a portion of air is consumed during combustion and respiration, Oxygen was discovered by the Polish alchemist Sendivogius, who considered it the philosophers stone. In the late 17th century, Robert Boyle proved that air is necessary for combustion, English chemist John Mayow refined this work by showing that fire requires only a part of air that he called spiritus nitroaereus. From this he surmised that nitroaereus is consumed in both respiration and combustion, Mayow observed that antimony increased in weight when heated, and inferred that the nitroaereus must have combined with it. Accounts of these and other experiments and ideas were published in 1668 in his work Tractatus duo in the tract De respiratione. Robert Hooke, Ole Borch, Mikhail Lomonosov, and Pierre Bayen all produced oxygen in experiments in the 17th and the 18th century but none of them recognized it as a chemical element. This may have been in part due to the prevalence of the philosophy of combustion and corrosion called the phlogiston theory, which was then the favored explanation of those processes. Established in 1667 by the German alchemist J. J. Becher, one part, called phlogiston, was given off when the substance containing it was burned, while the dephlogisticated part was thought to be its true form, or calx. The fact that a substance like wood gains overall weight in burning was hidden by the buoyancy of the combustion products
5.
Al Jolson
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Al Jolson was an American singer, film actor, and comedian. At the peak of his career, he was dubbed The Worlds Greatest Entertainer and his performing style was brash and extroverted, and he popularized a large number of songs that benefited from his shamelessly sentimental, melodramatic approach. Numerous well-known singers were influenced by his music, including Bing Crosby, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart, Dylan once referred to him as somebody whose life I can feel. Broadway critic Gilbert Seldes compared him to the Greek god Pan, claiming that Jolson represented the concentration of our national health, in the 1930s, Jolson was Americas most famous and highest-paid entertainer. Between 1911 and 1928, Jolson had nine sell-out Winter Garden shows in a row, more than 80 hit records, and 16 national and international tours. Although he is best remembered today as the star of the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was the first star to entertain troops overseas during World War II. After a period of inactivity, his stardom returned with The Jolson Story, for which Larry Parks played Jolson, the formula was repeated in a sequel, Jolson Sings Again. In 1950, he became the first star to entertain GIs on active service in the Korean War. He died just weeks after returning to the U. S. partly owing to the exertion of performing. Defense Secretary George Marshall posthumously awarded him the Medal of Merit, According to the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, Jolson was to jazz, blues, and ragtime what Elvis Presley was to rock n roll. Being the first popular singer to make a spectacular event out of singing a song and his specialty was performing on stage runways extending out into the audience. According to music historian Larry Stempel, No one had heard anything quite like it before on Broadway, author Stephen Banfield agreed, writing that Jolsons style was arguably the single most important factor in defining the modern musical. Jolson also enjoyed performing in blackface makeup, a convention since the mid-19th century. With his unique and dynamic style of singing black music, such as jazz and blues, as early as 1911, he became known for fighting against black discrimination on Broadway. Al Jolson was born as Asa Yoelson in the Jewish village of Srednik now known as Seredžius, near Kaunas in Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire. He was the fifth and youngest child of Moses Rubin Yoelson and Nechama Naomi Cantor, his four siblings were Rose, Etta, another sister who died in infancy, and Hirsch. Jolson claimed not to know when he was born, and later chose to claim he was born on May 26,1886. His one-time sister-in-law, Margaret Weatherwax, claimed Jolson was the age as their father, Ralph
6.
Brian Wilson
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Brian Douglas Wilson is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer best known for being the multi-tasking leader and co-founder of the rock band the Beach Boys. After signing with Capitol Records in 1962, Wilson wrote or co-wrote more than two dozen Top 40 hits for the group, in the mid-1960s, Wilson composed, arranged and produced Pet Sounds, considered one of the greatest albums ever made. The intended follow-up to Pet Sounds, Smile, was canceled for various reasons, as he suffered repeated nervous breakdowns, Wilsons contributions to the Beach Boys diminished, and his erratic behavior led to tensions with the band. He remains a member of the Beach Boys corporation, Brother Records Incorporated, Wilsons work with the Beach Boys helped raise pop music to the level of high art. Wilson effectively set a precedent that allowed bands and artists to enter a recording studio and his songs became inextricably tied with the zeitgeist of the early 1960s, and he helped develop the sound of the wistful Flower Power era that proceeded. In later years, Wilson was regarded as a godfather to an era of musicians who were inspired by his melodic sensibilities, chamber pop orchestrations. His honors include being inducted into the 1988 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and winning Grammy Awards for Brian Wilson Presents Smile and The Smile Sessions. In lists published by Rolling Stone, Wilson ranked 52 for the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time in 2008 and 12 for the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time in 2015. In 2012, music publication NME ranked Wilson number 8 in its 50 Greatest Producers Ever list and he is an occasional actor and voice actor, having appeared in television shows, films, and other artists music videos. His life was portrayed in the 2014 biopic Love & Mercy, Brian Douglas Wilson was born on June 20,1942, at Centinela Hospital in Inglewood, California, the son of Audree Neva and Murry Wilson. He was the eldest of three boys, his brothers were Dennis and Carl. He has English, Swedish, Dutch, German, and Irish ancestry, when Brian was two, the family moved from Inglewood to 3701 West 119th Street in nearby Hawthorne, California. Murry Wilson said, He was very clever and quick, I just fell in love with him. At about age two, Brian heard George Gershwins Rhapsody in Blue, which had an emotional impact on him. A few years later, he was discovered to have diminished hearing in his right ear. The exact cause of hearing loss is unclear, though theories range from him simply being born partially deaf to a blow to the head from his father, or a neighborhood bully. While Brians father Murry was ostensibly a reasonable provider, he was often abusive, a minor musician and songwriter, he also encouraged his children in this field in numerous ways. At an early age, Brian was given six weeks of lessons on a toy accordion and, at seven and eight, at Hawthorne High School, Brian was on the football team as a quarterback, played baseball and was a cross-country runner in his senior year
7.
Lorde
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Ella Marija Lani Yelich-OConnor, better known by her stage name Lorde, is a New Zealand singer-songwriter and record producer. Born in Takapuna and raised in Devonport, Auckland, she became interested in performing as a child, in her early teens, she signed with Universal Music Group and was later paired with songwriter and record producer Joel Little, who has co-written and produced most of Lordes works. Her first major release, The Love Club EP, was released commercially in March 2013, the EP reached number two on the national record charts in both New Zealand and Australia. In mid-2013, Lorde released her debut single Royals and it became an international crossover hit and made Lorde the youngest solo artist to achieve a US number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100 since 1987. In late 2013, she released her studio album, Pure Heroine. The record topped the charts in New Zealand and Australia. Its following singles included Tennis Court, Team, No Better and Glory, in 2014, Lorde released Yellow Flicker Beat as a single from the soundtrack for The Hunger Games, Mockingjay – Part 1. Lordes music consists of such as dream pop and indietronica. She has earned two Grammy Awards, a Brit Award and ten New Zealand Music Awards, in 2013, she was named among Times most influential teenagers in the world, and in the following year, she was part of Forbess 30 Under 30 list. Of Croatian and Irish descent, Ella Yelich-OConnor was born in Takapuna to Vic OConnor, an engineer, and Sonja Yelich. She was raised in the suburb of Devonport with her two sisters, Jerry and India, and her brother, Angelo. At age five, she joined a group and developed public speaking skills. At that same time, Lorde was attending Vauxhall School and later Belmont Intermediate School and her mother encouraged her to read a range of genres, which Lorde cited as a lyrical influence, I guess my mum influenced my lyrical style by always buying me books. Shed give me a mixture of kid and adult books too, I remember reading Feed by M. T. Anderson when I was six, and her giving me Salinger and Carver at a young age, Lorde played netball at a young age alongside Vauxhall classmate Eliza McCartney, who later became an Olympic bronze medallist in the pole vault. In May 2009, Lorde and musician friend Louis McDonald won the Belmont Intermediate School annual talent show as a duo, on August 13,2009, Lorde and McDonald were invited in for a chat on Jim Moras Afternoons show on Radio New Zealand. There, they performed covers of Pixie Lotts Mama Do and Kings of Leons Use Somebody, in 2009 Maclachlan signed her to UMG for development. While working on her career, she attended Takapuna Grammar School from 2010 to 2013
8.
Maya Angelou
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Maya Angelou was an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and was credited with a list of plays, movies and she received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood, the first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, tells of her life up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition and acclaim. She was an actor, writer, director, and producer of plays, movies, in 1982, she earned the first lifetime Reynolds Professorship of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She was active in the Civil Rights Movement and worked with Martin Luther King Jr. beginning in the 1990s, she made around 80 appearances a year on the lecture circuit, something she continued into her eighties. With the publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and she was respected as a spokesperson for black people and women, and her works have been considered a defense of black culture. Her works are used in schools and universities worldwide although attempts have been made to ban her books from some U. S. libraries. Angelous most celebrated works have been labeled as fiction. She made an attempt to challenge the common structure of the autobiography by critiquing, changing and expanding the genre. Her books center on themes such as racism, identity, family and travel. Marguerite Annie Johnson was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 4,1928, the child of Bailey Johnson, a doorman and navy dietitian, and Vivian Johnson. Angelous older brother, Bailey Jr. nicknamed Marguerite Maya, derived from My or Mya Sister, four years later, the childrens father came to Stamps without warning and returned them to their mothers care in St. Louis. At the age of eight, while living with her mother, Angelou was sexually abused and raped by her mothers boyfriend and she told her brother, who told the rest of their family. Freeman was found guilty but was jailed for one day. Four days after his release, he was murdered, probably by Angelous uncles, Angelou became mute for almost five years, believing, as she stated, I thought, my voice killed him, I killed that man, because I told his name. And then I thought I would never again, because my voice would kill anyone. Shortly after Freemans murder, Angelou and her brother were sent back to their grandmother, Angelou credits a teacher and friend of her family, Mrs. Bertha Flowers, with helping her speak again. When Angelou was 14, she and her brother moved in with their once again
9.
Barbra Streisand
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Barbara Joan Barbra Streisand is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and filmmaker. She is among a group of entertainers who have been honored with an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award. Streisand is one of the music artists of all time, with more than 68.5 million albums in the United States. She starred in the critically acclaimed Funny Girl, for which she won the Academy Award, with the release of Yentl in 1983, Streisand became the first woman to write, produce, direct, and star in a major studio film. The film won an Oscar for Best Score and a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Musical, Streisand received the Golden Globe Award for Best Director, the first woman to win that award. The RIAA and Billboard recognize Streisand as holding the record for the most top 10 albums of any recording artist. According to Billboard, Streisand holds the record for the female with the most number one albums, Billboard also recognizes Streisand as the greatest female of all time on its Billboard 200 chart and one of the greatest artists of all time on its Hot 100 chart. Barbara Joan Streisand was born on April 24,1942, in Brooklyn, New York and her mother had been a soprano singer in her youth and considered a career in music, but later became a school secretary. Her father was a school teacher at the same school. Streisands family was Jewish, her grandparents emigrated from Galicia and her maternal grandparents from the Russian Empire. Her father earned a degree from City College of New York in 1928 and was considered athletic. As a student, he spent his summers outdoors, once working as a lifeguard, hed try anything, his sister Molly said. He married Ida in 1930, two years after graduating, and became a respected educator with a focus on helping underprivileged. In August 1943, a few months after Streisands first birthday, her father died suddenly at age 34 from complications from an epileptic seizure, the family fell into near-poverty, with her mother working as a low-paid bookkeeper. As an adult, Streisand remembered those early years as always feeling like an outcast, explaining and her mother tried to pay their bills but could not give her daughter the attention she craved, When I wanted love from my mother, she gave me food, Streisand says. Streisand recalls that her mother had a voice and sang semi-professionally on occasion. During a visit to the Catskills when Streisand was thirteen, she told Rosie ODonnell, she and that session was the first time Streisand ever asserted herself as an artist, which also became her first moment of inspiration as an artist. She has a brother, Sheldon, and a half-sister
10.
Adele
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Adele Laurie Blue Adkins MBE is an English singer-songwriter. After graduating from the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology in 2006, in 2007, she received the Brit Awards Critics Choice award and won the BBC Sound of 2008 poll. Her debut album,19, was released in 2008 to commercial and critical success and it is certified seven times platinum in the UK, and three times platinum in the US. An appearance she made on Saturday Night Live in late 2008 boosted her career in the US, at the 51st Grammy Awards in 2009, Adele received the awards for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. She released her studio album,21, in early 2011. The album has been certified 16 times platinum in the UK, in the US, it has held the top position longer than any album since 1985, and is certified diamond. The album has sold over 31 million copies worldwide, the success of 21 earned Adele numerous mentions in the Guinness Book of World Records. 21 is the number one album by a female solo artist in the history of the UK. In 2012, Adele released Skyfall, which she co-wrote and recorded for the James Bond film of the same name. The song won an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, after taking a three-year break, Adele released her third studio album,25, in 2015. It became the years best-selling album and broke first week records in the UK. 25 was her album to be certified diamond in the US and earned her five Grammy Awards, including her second Grammy Award for Album of the Year. The lead single, Hello, became the first song in the US to sell one million digital copies within a week of its release. Her third concert tour, Adele Live 2016, visited Europe, North America and Oceania, in 2011,2012 and 2016, Billboard named Adele Artist of the Year. In 2012, she was listed at five on VH1s 100 Greatest Women in Music. Time magazine named her one of the most influential people in the world in 2012 and 2016, with sales of more than 100 million records, Adele is one of the best-selling recording artists in the world. Adele Laurie Blue Adkins was born on 5 May 1988 in Tottenham, London, to an English mother, Penny Adkins, Evans left when Adele was two, leaving her mother to raise her. She began singing at age four and asserts that she became obsessed with voices, growing up, Adele spent most of her time singing rather than reading, the last book she read was Roald Dahls Matilda when she was six years old
11.
Lady Gaga
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Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, known professionally as Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She performed initially in theater, appearing in school plays. From there, Akon noticed her vocal abilities and helped her to sign a joint deal with Interscope Records and her debut album The Fame was a critical and commercial success that produced international chart-topping singles such as Just Dance and Poker Face. A follow-up EP, The Fame Monster, was met with a reception and Bad Romance, Telephone. Her second full-length album Born This Way was released in 2011, topping the charts in more than 20 countries, including the United States, the album produced the number-one single Born This Way. Her third album Artpop, released in 2013, topped the US charts, in 2014, Gaga released a collaborative jazz album with Tony Bennett titled Cheek to Cheek, which became her third consecutive number one in the United States. For her work in the television series American Horror Story, Hotel, with her fifth studio album Joanne, she became the first woman to have four US number one albums in the 2010s. In February 2017, Gaga headlined the Super Bowl LI halftime show which had an audience of over 150 million across various platforms worldwide. With global album and single sales of 27 million and 146 million respectively, as of January 2016 and her achievements include twelve Guinness World Records, three Brit Awards, and six Grammy Awards. She is also the first artist to win the Songwriters Hall of Fames Contemporary Icon Award, in 2013, Gaga finished second on Times readers poll of the most influential people of the past ten years, while in 2015, she was named Billboards Woman of the Year. Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was born on March 28,1986 and she is the elder daughter of Cynthia Louise Cindy and Internet entrepreneur Joseph Joe Germanotta. Gaga has three Italian grandparents and one American grandparent, as well as French Canadian ancestry, Gagas sister Natali is a fashion student. From age 11, she attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart and she described her academic life in high school as very dedicated, very studious, very disciplined but also a bit insecure. I used to get made fun of for being too provocative or too eccentric. I didnt fit in, and I felt like a freak, in 2014, Gaga said she was raped at the age of 19. She stated, I went through some things that Im able to laugh now, because Ive gone through a lot of mental and physical therapy. Gaga later said that she suffers from posttraumatic stress disorder because of the rape, and that support from doctors, family, and friends really saved my life. Gaga began playing the piano at the age of four, wrote her first piano ballad at 13 and she performed lead roles in high school productions, including Adelaide in Guys and Dolls and Philia in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
12.
Mariah Carey
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Mariah Carey is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. In 1990, Carey rose to fame with the release of Vision of Love from her eponymous debut album, the album produced four chart-topping singles in the US and began what would become a string of commercially successful albums which solidified the singer as Columbias highest selling act. Carey and Boyz II Men spent a record sixteen weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 in 1995–1996 with One Sweet Day, following a contentious divorce from Sony Music head Tommy Mottola, Carey adopted a new image and traversed towards hip hop with the release of Butterfly. In 1998, she was honored as the worlds best-selling recording artist of the 1990s at the World Music Awards, Carey parted with Columbia in 2000, and signed a record-breaking $100 million recording contract with Virgin Records America. In the weeks prior to the release of her film Glitter and its soundtrack in 2001. The project was received and led to a general decline in the singers career. Careys recording contract was out for $50 million by Virgin. After a relatively unsuccessful period, she returned to the top of music charts with The Emancipation of Mimi, Carey once again ventured into film with a well-received supporting role in Precious, and was awarded the Breakthrough Performance Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Throughout her career, Carey has sold more than 200 million records worldwide, according to the RIAA, she is the third-best-selling female artist in the United States, with 63.5 million certified albums. With the release of Touch My Body, Carey gained her 18th number-one single in the United States, in 2012, the singer was ranked second on VH1s list of the 100 Greatest Women in Music. Mariah Carey was born in Huntington, New York, to Patricia and her mother is of Irish descent, while her father had African-American and Afro-Venezuelan ancestry. The surname Carey was adopted by her Venezuelan grandfather, Francisco Núñez, Patricia was an occasional opera singer and vocal coach before she met Alfred in 1960. As he began earning a living as an engineer, the couple married later that year. After their elopement, Patricias family disowned her for marrying a black man, Carey later explained that she felt neglected by her maternal family while growing up, which affected her greatly. In the years between the births of Careys older sister Alison and herself, the Carey family struggled within the community due to their ethnicity, Careys name was derived from the song They Call the Wind Maria, originally from the 1951 Broadway musical Paint Your Wagon. When Carey was three, her parents divorced, after their separation, Alison moved in with her father, while the other two children, Mariah and brother Morgan, remained with their mother. Carey grew apart from her father and would stop seeing him altogether. By age four, she recalled that she had begun to sneak the radio under her covers at night, during elementary school, she excelled in subjects that she enjoyed, such as music, art, and literature, but did not find interest in others
