1.
Folk music
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Folk music includes both traditional music and the genre that evolved from it during the 20th century folk revival. The term originated in the 19th century, but is applied to music older than that. Some types of music are also called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways, as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers and it has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. Starting in the century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is called contemporary folk music or folk revival music to distinguish it from earlier folk forms. Smaller, similar revivals have occurred elsewhere in the world at other times and this type of folk music also includes fusion genres such as folk rock, folk metal, electric folk, and others. Even individual songs may be a blend of the two, a consistent definition of traditional folk music is elusive. The terms folk music, folk song, and folk dance are comparatively recent expressions and they are extensions of the term folklore, which was coined in 1846 by the English antiquarian William Thoms to describe the traditions, customs, and superstitions of the uncultured classes. Traditional folk music also includes most indigenous music, however, despite the assembly of an enormous body of work over some two centuries, there is still no certain definition of what folk music is. Some do not even agree that the term Folk Music should be used, Folk music may tend to have certain characteristics but it cannot clearly be differentiated in purely musical terms. One meaning often given is that of old songs, with no known composers, the fashioning and re-fashioning of the music by the community that give it its folk character. Such definitions depend upon processes rather than abstract musical types, one widely used definition is simply Folk music is what the people sing. For Scholes, as well as for Cecil Sharp and Béla Bartók, Folk music was already. seen as the authentic expression of a way of life now past or about to disappear, particularly in a community uninfluenced by art music and by commercial and printed song. In these terms folk music may be seen as part of a schema comprising four types, primitive or tribal, elite or art, folk. Music in this genre is often called traditional music. Although the term is only descriptive, in some cases people use it as the name of a genre
2.
Palo Alto, California
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Palo Alto is a charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area of the United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley and it is named after a coast redwood tree called El Palo Alto. Palo Alto was established by Leland Stanford Sr. when he founded Stanford University, following the death of his son and it has also served as an incubator to several other high-technology companies such as Google, Facebook, Logitech, Intuit, Pinterest, and PayPal. As of the 2010 census, the total resident population is 64,403. Palo Alto is one of the most expensive cities in the United States, the recorded history of Palo Alto dates back to 1769, when Gaspar de Portolá noted an Ohlone settlement. This remains an area of known Indian mounds, a plaque at Middlefield Road and Embarcadero Road commemorates the area. The city got its name from a tall coast redwood tree, named El Palo Alto, a plaque there recounts the story of the Portolà expedition, a 63-man, 200-horse expedition from San Diego to Monterey from November 7–11,1769. The group overshot Monterey in the fog and when they reached modern-day Pacifica, they ascended Sweeney Ridge, thinking the bay was too wide to cross, the group retraced their journey to Monterey, never becoming aware of the Golden Gate entrance to the Bay. Located south of the San Francisquito Creek, west of todays I-280, in 1835, Rafael Soto and family settled near the San Francisquito Creek near Newell and Middlefield, selling goods to travelers. Rafael Soto died in 1839, but his wife, Maria Antonia Mesa, was granted Rancho Rinconada del Arroyo de San Francisquito in 1841, in 1839, their daughter María Luisa Soto married John Coppinger, who was the grantee of Rancho Cañada de Raymundo. Rancho Cañada de Raymundo was West of San Francisquito Creek, and began at Alambique Creek, the border of Rancho Corte de Madera. Bear Gulch Creek flowed on his land in Portola Valley, the rancho also abutted Buelnas grant near Skyline Boulevard and Matadero Creek. Upon Coppingers death, Maria inherited it and later married a visiting boat captain, Greer owned a home on the site that is now Town & Country Village on Embarcadero and El Camino Real. Greer Avenue and Court are named for him, to the west of Rafael Soto, near El Camino and following the Creek, was Rancho San Francisquito granted in 1839 to Antonio Buelna and wife Maria Concepcion. To the south of the Sotos, the brothers Secundino and Teodoro Robles in 1849 bought Rancho Rincon de San Francisquito from José Peña, where the Joness house was, then east down Arastradero Rd. to the north property line of Alta Mesa Memorial Park and Terman Park. The property then went along the bay to the Embarcadero, a boundary in the day, then up to the Stanford University gates, up Galvez. The grant was bounded on the south by Mariano Castros Rancho Pastoria de las Borregas grant across San Antonio Road, thats the Robles Rancho, about 80% of Palo Alto and Stanford University. It was whittled down by 1863 through courts to 6,981 acres, stories say their grand hacienda was built on the former meager adobe of José Peña near Ferne off San Antonio Road, midway between Middlefield and Alma Street
3.
Classical music
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Classical music is art music produced or rooted in the traditions of Western music, including both liturgical and secular music. The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common-practice period, Western staff notation is used by composers to indicate to the performer the pitches, tempo, meter and rhythms for a piece of music. This can leave less room for such as improvisation and ad libitum ornamentation. The term classical music did not appear until the early 19th century, the earliest reference to classical music recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is from about 1836. This score typically determines details of rhythm, pitch, and, the written quality of the music has enabled a high level of complexity within them, J. S. The use of written notation also preserves a record of the works, Musical notation enables 2000s-era performers to sing a choral work from the 1300s Renaissance era or a 1700s Baroque concerto with many of the features of the music being reproduced. That said, the score does not provide complete and exact instructions on how to perform a historical work, even if the tempo is written with an Italian instruction, we do not know exactly how fast the piece should be played. Bach was particularly noted for his complex improvisations, during the Classical era, the composer-performer Mozart was noted for his ability to improvise melodies in different styles. During the Classical era, some virtuoso soloists would improvise the cadenza sections of a concerto, during the Romantic era, Beethoven would improvise at the piano. The instruments currently used in most classical music were largely invented before the mid-19th century and they consist of the instruments found in an orchestra or in a concert band, together with several other solo instruments. The symphony orchestra is the most widely known medium for music and includes members of the string, woodwind, brass. The concert band consists of members of the woodwind, brass and it generally has a larger variety and number of woodwind and brass instruments than the orchestra but does not have a string section. However, many bands use a double bass. Many of the used to perform medieval music still exist. Medieval instruments included the flute, the recorder and plucked string instruments like the lute. As well, early versions of the organ, fiddle, Medieval instruments in Europe had most commonly been used singly, often self accompanied with a drone note, or occasionally in parts. From at least as early as the 13th century through the 15th century there was a division of instruments into haut, during the earlier medieval period, the vocal music from the liturgical genre, predominantly Gregorian chant, was monophonic, using a single, unaccompanied vocal melody line. Polyphonic vocal genres, which used multiple independent vocal melodies, began to develop during the medieval era, becoming prevalent by the later 13th
4.
Jazz
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Jazz is a music genre that originated amongst African Americans in New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in Blues and Ragtime. Since the 1920s jazz age, jazz has become recognized as a form of musical expression. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms, Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Although the foundation of jazz is deeply rooted within the Black experience of the United States, different cultures have contributed their own experience, intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as one of Americas original art forms. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on different national, regional, and local musical cultures, New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. In the 1930s, heavily arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging musicians music which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed in the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electric instruments. In the early 1980s, a form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful. Other styles and genres abound in the 2000s, such as Latin, the question of the origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm, a term dating back to 1860 meaning pep. The use of the word in a context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Its first documented use in a context in New Orleans was in a November 14,1916 Times-Picayune article about jas bands. In an interview with NPR, musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of the slang connotations of the term, saying, When Broadway picked it up. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, the American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century. Jazz has proved to be difficult to define, since it encompasses such a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions, in the opinion of Robert Christgau, most of us would say that inventing meaning while letting loose is the essence and promise of jazz. As Duke Ellington, one of jazzs most famous figures, said, although jazz is considered highly difficult to define, at least in part because it contains so many varied subgenres, improvisation is consistently regarded as being one of its key elements
5.
RCA Records
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RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. It is one of SMEs three flagship labels, alongside Columbia Records and Epic Records. The label has released multiple genres of music, including pop, rock, hip hop, R&B, blues, jazz, the companys name is derived from the initials of the labels former parent company, the Radio Corporation of America. It is the second oldest recording company in US history, after sister label Columbia Records, RCAs Canadian unit is Sonys oldest label in Canada. It was one of only two Canadian record companies to survive the Great Depression, kelly, Enrique Iglesias, Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon, Kesha, Miley Cyrus, Giorgio Moroder, Jennifer Hudson, DAngelo, Pink, Tinashe, G-Eazy, Pitbull, Zayn and Wizkid. In 1929, the Radio Corporation of America purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company, then the worlds largest manufacturer of phonographs and phonograph records. The company then became RCA Victor but retained use of the Victor Records name on their labels until the beginning of 1946 when the labels were finally switched over to RCA Victor. With Victor, RCA acquired New World rights to the famous Nipper His Masters Voice trademark, in Shanghai, China, in 1931, RCA Victors British affiliate the Gramophone Company merged with the Columbia Graphophone Company to form EMI. This gave RCA head David Sarnoff a seat on the EMI board, in September 1931, RCA Victor introduced the first 33⅓ rpm records sold to the public, calling them Program Transcriptions. In the depths of the Great Depression, the format was a commercial failure, during the early part of the depression, RCA made a number of attempts to produce a successful cheap label to compete with the dime store labels. The first was the short-lived Timely Tunes label in 1931 sold at Montgomery Ward, in 1932, Bluebird Records was created as a sub-label of RCA Victor. It was originally an 8-inch record with a blue label. In 1933, RCA reintroduced Bluebird and Electradisk as a standard 10-inch label, another cheap label, Sunrise, was produced. The same musical couplings were issued on all three labels and Bluebird Records still survives eight decades after Electradisk and Sunrise were discontinued, RCA also produced records for Montgomery Ward label during the 1930s. Besides manufacturing records for themselves, RCA Victor operated RCA Custom which was the leading record manufacturer for independent record labels, RCA Custom also pressed record compilations for The Readers Digest Association. RCA sold its interest in EMI in 1935, but EMI continued to distribute RCA recordings in the UK, RCA also manufactured and distributed HMV classical recordings on the RCA and HMV labels in North America. During World War II, ties between RCA and its Japanese affiliate JVC were severed, the Japanese record company is today called Victor Entertainment and is still a JVC subsidiary. From 1942 to 1944, RCA Victor was seriously impacted by the American Federation of Musicians recording ban, virtually all union musicians could not make recordings during that period
6.
Saratoga, California
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Saratoga /ˌsærəˈtoʊɡə/ is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. It is located on the west side of the Santa Clara Valley, directly west of San Jose, the population was 29,926 at the 2010 census. Located on the Western edge of the Silicon Valley, Saratoga is known locally for its suburban feel, wineries. Major attractions of Saratoga include Villa Montalvo, Hakone Gardens, the 2016 Coldwell Banker Home Listing Report listed Saratoga as the most expensive housing market in the United States. In 2010 Bloomberg Businessweek named Saratoga the most expensive suburb in California. In 2008 CNN/Money ranked Saratoga number 4 in its listing of top-earning towns, Saratoga also was ranked by Forbes in 2009 as one of Americas top 20 most-educated small towns. Bloomberg Businessweek also named Saratogas zip code 95070 the 18th richest zip code in America in 2011 and this area was already discovered by the Natives Americans. An early map noted the area as Campbells Gap, in 1851 Martin McCarthy, who had leased the mill, built a toll road down to the Santa Clara Valley, and founded what is now Saratoga as McCarthysville. The toll gate was located at the present day intersection of Big Basin Way and 3rd St. giving the town its first widely used name, in 1867 the town received a post office under the name of McCarthysville. Saratoga in 1906 Industry soon sprang up and at its pinnacle the town had a factory, grist mill, tannery. To commemorate this newfound productivity the town was renamed again in 1863 as Bank Mills, in the 1850s Jud Caldwell discovered springs which were called Pacific Congress Springs because the water had a mineral content similar to Congress Springs, in Saratoga Springs, New York. In 1865 the town received its name, Saratoga, after the city in New York. At the same time a hotel called Congress Hall was constructed at the springs, named after the famous resort Congress Hall at Saratoga Springs. Californias Congress Hall attracted tourists to the area until it burned down in 1903 and these events would eventually lead to Saratoga being listed as a California Historical Landmark in 1950. Saratoga became agricultural, as did much of the rest of the valley, after World War II the town quickly became urbanized, and it incorporated in 1956 mostly to avoid being annexed to San Jose. A slogan during the campaign to incorporate the city of Saratoga was Keep it rural, today the city serves as a bedroom community for upper-middle class Silicon Valley tech workers. Saratoga is a general law city under California law, meaning that the organization and it has a council-manager form of government. The city council is made up of five elected by the public. The council appoints a mayor and vice-mayor from its membership, with the serving in the absence of the mayor
7.
San Jose, California
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San Jose, officially the City of San José, is the economic, cultural, and political center of Silicon Valley and the largest city in Northern California. With an estimated 2015 population of 1,026,908, it is the third most populous city in California and the tenth most populous in United States. Located in the center of the Santa Clara Valley, on the shore of San Francisco Bay. San Jose is the county seat of Santa Clara County, the most affluent county in California. San Jose is the largest city in both the San Francisco Bay Area and the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area, which contain 7.7 million and 8.7 million people respectively. Before the arrival of the Spanish, the area around San Jose was inhabited by the Ohlone people, San Jose was founded on November 29,1777, as the Pueblo of San José de Guadalupe, the first civilian town founded in Spanish Alta California. When California gained statehood in 1850, San Jose became the states first capital, following World War II, San Jose experienced an economic boom, with a rapid population growth and aggressive annexation of nearby cities and communities carried out in the 1950s and 60s. The rapid growth of the high-technology and electronics industries further accelerated the transition from a center to an urbanized metropolitan area. Results of the 1990 U. S. Census indicated that San Jose had officially surpassed San Francisco as the most populous city in Northern California, by the 1990s, San Jose and the rest of Silicon Valley had become the global center for the high tech and internet industries. San Jose is considered to be a city, notable for its affluence. San Joses location within the high tech industry, as a cultural, political. San Jose is one of the wealthiest major cities in the United States and the world, and has the third highest GDP per capita in the world, according to the Brookings Institute. Major global tech companies including Cisco Systems, eBay, Adobe Systems, PayPal, Brocade, Samsung, Acer, Prior to European settlement, the area was inhabited by several groups of Ohlone Native Americans. The first lasting European presence began with a series of Franciscan missions established from 1769 by Junípero Serra, San Jose came under Mexican rule in 1821 after Mexico broke with the Spanish crown. It then became part of the United States, after it capitulated in 1846, on March 27,1850, San Jose became the second incorporated city in the state, with Josiah Belden its first mayor. San Jose was Californias first state capital, and hosted the first, today the Circle of Palms Plaza in downtown is the historical marker for the first state capital. The city was a station on the Butterfield Overland Mail route, in the period 1900 through 1910, San Jose served as a center for pioneering invention, innovation, and impact in both lighter-than-air and heavier-than-air flight. These activities were led principally by John Montgomery and his peers, the City of San Jose has established Montgomery Park, a Monument at San Felipe and Yerba Buena Roads, and John J. Montgomery Elementary School in his honor
8.
Music of Hawaii
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The music of Hawaii includes an array of traditional and popular styles, ranging from native Hawaiian folk music to modern rock and hip hop. Hawaiis musical contributions to the music of the United States are out of proportion to the small size. Styles like slack-key guitar are well-known worldwide, while Hawaiian-tinged music is a frequent part of Hollywood soundtracks, Hawaii also made a contribution to country music with the introduction of the steel guitar. Music of Hawaiian people is largely religious in nature, and includes chanting, Hawaiian music has had a notable impact on the music of other Polynesian islands, Peter Manuel called the influence of Hawaiian music a unifying factor in the development of modern Pacific musics. Aprils Aloha Week is a popular tourist attraction, as is the Molokai Music Festival held around Labor Day, there was also a Hawaii International Jazz Festival, which ran from 1993 until 2007. The annual Pacific Rim Jazz Festival occurs in mid-autumn at the Hawaii Convention Center, the annual Manoa Jazz & Heritage Festival takes place in early autumn at the Andrews Amphitheatre on the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa campus. Large music venues in Hawaii include the University of Hawaii at Hilo Performing Arts Center, a 560-seat venue and cultural exhibition center on Kauai is the Kauai Community College Performing Arts Center. In Honolulu, the Neal S. Blaisdell Center Arena, Concert Hall, other venues for Hawaiian music on Oahu include the Waikiki Shell an establishment used primarily for concerts and entertainment purposes. Over the years local, as well as international artists have graced the stage there. It is unique outdoor theater located in Kapiolani Park and this venue seats 2,400 persons, with the capacity to hold up to 6,000 more on the lawn area. Concerts, graduation ceremonies and hula shows are popular at this site. The historic Lanai Theatre is a landmark on Lanai, dating back to the 1930s. Hawaii is home to a number of renowned institutions in several fields. The Honolulu Symphony Orchestra is an important part of the musical history. The Orchestra has collaborated with local institutions, like the Hawaii Opera Theatre and the Oʻahu Choral Society, which sponsors the Honolulu Symphony Chorus. Numerous businesses have been created supporting the musical styles and instruments suited to the Hawaiian musical tradition. Hawaiian folk music includes several varieties of chanting and music meant for highly ritualized dance, Traditional Hawaiian music and dance was functional, used to express praise, communicate genealogy and mythology, and accompany games, festivals and other secular events. The Hawaiian language has no word that translates precisely as music, Hawaiian folk music is simple in melody and rhythm, but is complex and rich in the poetry, accompanying mimetic dance, and subtleties of vocal styles
9.
Singer-songwriter
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Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose, and perform their own musical material, including lyrics and melodies. The genre began with the folk-acoustic tradition, singer-songwriters often provide the sole accompaniment to an entire composition or song, typically using a guitar or piano. Singer-songwriter is used to define popular music artists who write and perform their own material, such an artist performs the roles of composer, lyricist, vocalist, instrumentalist, and often self-manager. Most records by artists have a similarly straightforward and spare sound that placed emphasis on the song itself. The term has also used to describe songwriters in the rock, folk, and pop music genres including Henry Russell, Aristide Bruant, Hank Williams. Song topics include political protest, as in the case of the Almanac Singers, Pete Seeger, the concept of a singer-songwriter can be traced to ancient bardic oral tradition, which has existed in various forms throughout the world. Poems would be performed as chant or song, sometimes accompanied by a harp or other similar instrument, after the invention of printing, songs would be written and performed by ballad sellers. Usually these would be versions of existing tunes and lyrics, which were constantly evolving and this developed into the singer-songwriting traditions of folk culture. The term singer-songwriter in North America can be traced back to singers who developed works in the blues and folk music style. Early to mid-20th century American singer-songwriters include Lead Belly, Jimmie Rodgers, Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker, Blind Willie McTell, Lightnin Hopkins, Son House, the tradition of writing topical songs was established by this group of musicians. This focus on social issues has greatly influenced the singer-songwriter genre, artists who had been primarily songwriters, notably Carole King, Townes Van Zandt, and Neil Diamond, also began releasing work as performers. In contrast to the approach of most prior country and folk music. The adjectives confessional and sensitive were often used singer-songwriter style, in the rock band era, members were not technically singer-songwriters as solo acts. However, many were singer-songwriters who created songs with band members. Many others like Eric Clapton found success as singer-songwriters in their later careers, there were hints of cross-pollination, but rock and folk music had remained largely separate genres, often with different audiences. An early attempt at fusing elements of folk and rock was highlighted in the Animals House of the Rising Sun, dylan plugged an entire generation into the milieu of the singer-songwriter. In the mid- to late 1960s, bands and singer-songwriters began to proliferate the underground New York art/music scene. Lotti Golden, in her Atlantic debut album Motor-Cycle, chronicled her life in NYCs East Village in the late 60s counterculture, visiting subjects such as gender identity, kate Bush remained distinctive throughout with her idiosyncratic style
10.
Pop music
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Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid 1950s. The terms popular music and pop music are used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular. Pop and rock were synonymous terms until the late 1960s, when they were used in opposition from each other. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music. Pop music is eclectic, and often borrows elements from other such as urban, dance, rock, Latin. Identifying factors include generally short to medium-length songs written in a format, as well as the common use of repeated choruses, melodic tunes. David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, according to Pete Seeger, pop music is professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music, the music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs. Pop music, as a genre, is seen as existing and developing separately, pop music continuously evolves along with the terms definition. The term pop song was first recorded as being used in 1926, Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues and hillbilly music. The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pops earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience. Since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the meaning of non-classical mus, usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles. Grove Music Online also states that, in the early 1960s pop music competed terminologically with beat music, while in the USA its coverage overlapped with that of rock and roll. From about 1967, the term was used in opposition to the term rock music. Whereas rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of music, pop was more commercial, ephemeral. It is not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward, and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative. It is, provided from on high rather than being made from below, pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged. The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment, the lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions
11.
Yanni
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Yiannis Chryssomallis, known professionally as Yanni, is a Greek composer, keyboardist, pianist, and music producer who has spent his adult life in the United States. Yanni continues to use the musical shorthand that he developed as a child, blending jazz, classical, soft rock and his breakthrough concert, Live at the Acropolis, yielded the second best-selling music concert video of all time. At least sixteen of Yannis albums have peaked at No.1 in Billboards Top New Age Album category, a longtime fundraiser for public television, Yannis compositions have been used on commercial television programs, especially for sporting events. He has written scores and the music for an award-winning British Airways television commercial. Yanni popularized the combination of electronic synthesizers with a full scale symphony orchestra. He has employed musicians of various nationalities and has incorporated a variety of instruments to create music that has been called an eclectic fusion of ethnic sounds. Influenced by his encounters with cultures around the world, Yanni has been called a global artist and his music is said to reflect his “one world. His parents encouraged him to learn at his own pace and in his own way, the self-taught musician continues to use the musical shorthand that he developed as a child, rather than employing traditional musical notation. Yanni set a Greek national record in the 50-meter freestyle swimming competition at age 14, in November 1972, Yanni moved from Greece to the United States to attend the University of Minnesota beginning in January 1973, majoring in psychology. For a time he earned money by washing dishes at the student union and he received a B. A. degree in psychology in 1976. During his time as a student, Yanni played in a rock band and continued to study piano. Upon graduating, when he dedicated himself exclusively to music for one year and found he was the happiest he had ever been. In 1977 Yanni joined the Minneapolis-based rock group Chameleon, performing with its founder, drummer Charlie Adams with whom he would work into the 2010s, while in Minneapolis, Yanni also worked with choreographer Loyce Houlton to provide music for dance works produced by the Minnesota Dance Theatre. After touring with Chameleon from 1980 to 1984, Yanni moved to Los Angeles in pursuit of movie soundtrack work, in 1980 Yanni recorded his first album Optimystique, which Atlantic Records re-released in 1984 and Private Music re-released in 1989. A highlight of the tour was a performance with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra that elicited a positive review, considered seminal to Yannis public recognition, Yannis emergence was said to be timed perfectly with the growing popularity of contemporary instrumental music. Yanni gained visibility as the result of his November 1990 appearances in People magazine and on The Oprah Winfrey Show with actress Linda Evans, however, high-visibility appearances on public television, best-selling records and videos, and overflow concerts earned him recognition beyond his relationship with Evans. Dare to Dream, released in 1992, was Yanni’s first Grammy-nominated album and it included Aria, a song based on Léo Delibes The Flower Duet and popularized by an award-winning British Airways commercial. A second Grammy-nominated album, In My Time, followed in 1993, without financial backing, Yanni risked $2 million of his personal fortune in the Acropolis production in a strategy to boost his artistic profile and open new markets for his music
12.
Vangelis
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Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou, known professionally as Vangelis, is a Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, and orchestral music. In the early 1980s, Vangelis formed a partnership with Jon Anderson, the lead singer of progressive rock band Yes. In 1981, he composed the score for the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire, Vangelis was born 29 March 1943, in Agria, near Volos, Greece. Largely a self-taught musician, he began composing at the age of three. His earliest memory is playing piano, some percussion and whatever else that was available that made a noise, right from the start, I was only interested in playing my own music. He refused to take piano lessons, and throughout his career did not have substantial knowledge of reading or writing musical notation. When he was six, Vangeliss parents enrolled him at a specialist music school in Athens and he recalls I was lucky not to go because music schools close doors rather than open them. He studied painting, an art he practices, at the Athens School of Fine Arts. Vangelis said in an interview with Life, when asked about his lack of ability to read music, When the teachers asked me to something, I would pretend that I was reading it. I didnt fool them, but I didnt care, when Vangelis was twelve years he became interested in the jazz music, and with the social movement to rock and roll. Based in Athens, the band played a mixture of cover versions and their own material. The Forminx released nine hit singles and a Christmas EP before disbanding in 1966 at the peak of their success. A film being made about them at the time, which was directed by Theo Angelopoulos, was never fully completed. Vangelis spent the two years mostly studio-bound, writing and producing for other Greek artists. Around the time of the student riots in 1968, Vangelis founded progressive rock band Aphrodites Child together with Demis Roussos, Loukas Sideras, and Anargyros Silver Koulouris. After an unsuccessful attempt to enter the UK, they found a home in Paris where they recorded their first single, other singles followed, including two albums, which, in total, sold over 20 million copies. The record sales led the company to request a third album, and Vangelis went on to conceive the double-album 666, based on Revelation. It is often listed as one of the best progressive rock albums, one of the many remarkable features of this album is Irene Papass guest participation
