|
A Flowering Tree
''A Flowering Tree'' is an opera in two acts composed by John Adams with libretto by Adams and Peter Sellars, and commissioned by the New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna, the San Francisco Symphony, the Barbican Centre in London, the Lincoln Center in New York City, and the Berliner Philharmoniker. The story is based on an ancient Indian folk tale of the same title with translations by Attipat Krishnaswami Ramanujan.Boosey & Hawkes''A Flowering Tree''accessed 28 November 2014 The opera resembles Mozart's ''The Magic Flute'' in some ways; both operas adapt folk tales, in this case one from southern India, "describing a young couple undergoing rituals and trials to discover the transfiguring power of love." This parallel was intended by the composer as the opera was commissioned to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth. It is set for a small cast of three singers (baritone for the narrator, tenor for the prince, and lyric soprano for Kamudha), a large chorus (SATB), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Adams (composer)
John Coolidge Adams (born February 15, 1947) is an American composer and conductor whose music is rooted in minimalism. Among the most regularly performed composers of contemporary classical music, he is particularly noted for his operas, which are often centered around recent historical events. Apart from opera, his ''oeuvre'' includes orchestral, concertante, vocal, choral, chamber, electroacoustic and piano music. Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, Adams grew up in a musical family, being regularly exposed to classical music, jazz, musical theatre and rock music. He attended Harvard University, studying with Kirchner, Sessions and Del Tredici among others. Though his earliest work was aligned with modernist music, he began to disagree with its tenets upon reading John Cage's '' Silence: Lectures and Writings''. Teaching at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Adams developed his own minimalist aesthetic, which was first fully realized in ''Phrygian Gates'' (1977) a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eric Owens (bass-baritone)
Eric Owens (born July 11, 1970) is an American operatic bass-baritone. He has performed both in new works and reinterpreted classic repertoire. In 1996 he won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Life and career Born in Philadelphia, Owens began studying the piano at the age of 6 at the Settlement Music School. In junior high school his interest shifted to the oboe and he began studying the oboe at the Settlement Music School with English-horn player Louis Rosenblatt of the Philadelphia Orchestra. He later continued his oboe studies with Laura Ahlbeck, a second oboe in the Metropolitan Opera orchestra, while attending Central High School in Philadelphia. During his senior year at Central High, he entered the pre-college program at Temple University's Boyer College of Music and Dance where he began studying singing seriously with George Massey. He matriculated to Temple as a Freshman in 1989 and earned a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from the school in 1993 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuosity. It is a non-transposing instrument and typically its music is written in the bass and tenor clefs, and sometimes in the treble. There are two forms of modern bassoon: the Buffet (or French) and Heckel (or German) systems. It is typically played while sitting using a seat strap, but can be played while standing if the player has a harness to hold the instrument. Sound is produced by rolling both lips over the reed and blowing direct air pressure to cause the reed to vibrate. Its fingering system can be quite complex when compared to those of other instruments. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band, and chamber music literature, and is occasionally heard in pop, r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bass Clarinet
The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B clarinet. Bass clarinets in other keys, notably C and A, also exist, but are very rare (in contrast to the regular A clarinet, which is quite common in classical music). Bass clarinets regularly perform in orchestras, wind ensembles and concert bands, and occasionally in marching bands, and play an occasional solo role in contemporary music and jazz in particular. Someone who plays a bass clarinet is called a bass clarinettist or a bass clarinetist. Description Most modern bass clarinets are straight-bodied, with a small upturned silver-colored metal bell and curved metal neck. Early examples varied in shape, some having a doubled body making them look similar to bassoons. The bass clarinet is fairly heavy and is suppor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches. The clarinet family is the largest such woodwind family, with more than a dozen types, ranging from the BB♭ contrabass to the E♭ soprano. The most common clarinet is the B soprano clarinet. German instrument maker Johann Christoph Denner is generally credited with inventing the clarinet sometime after 1698 by adding a register key to the chalumeau, an earlier single-reed instrument. Over time, additional keywork and the development of airtight pads were added to improve the tone and playability. Today the clarinet is used in classical music, military bands, klezmer, jazz, and other styles. It is a standard fixture of the orchestra and concert band. Etymology The word ''clarinet'' may have entered the English language via the Fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Recorder (musical Instrument)
The recorder is a family of woodwind musical instruments in the group known as ''internal duct flutes'': flutes with a whistle mouthpiece, also known as fipple flutes. A recorder can be distinguished from other duct flutes by the presence of a thumb-hole for the upper hand and seven finger-holes: three for the upper hand and four for the lower. It is the most prominent duct flute in the western classical tradition. Recorders are made in various sizes with names and compasses roughly corresponding to various vocal ranges. The sizes most commonly in use today are the soprano (also known as descant, lowest note C5), alto (also known as treble, lowest note F4), tenor (lowest note C4), and bass (lowest note F3). Recorders were traditionally constructed from wood or ivory. Modern professional instruments are almost invariably of wood, often boxwood; student and scholastic recorders are commonly of molded plastic. The recorders' internal and external proportions vary, but the bore i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Horn
The cor anglais (, or original ; plural: ''cors anglais''), or English horn in North America, is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family. It is approximately one and a half times the length of an oboe, making it essentially an alto oboe in F. The cor anglais is a transposing instrument pitched in F, a perfect fifth lower than the oboe (a C instrument). This means that music for the cor anglais is written a perfect fifth higher than the instrument sounds. The fingering and playing technique used for the cor anglais are essentially the same as those of the oboe, and oboists typically double on the cor anglais when required. The cor anglais normally lacks the lowest B key found on most oboes, and so its sounding range stretches from E3 (written B) below middle C to C6 two octaves above middle C. Description and timbre The pear-shaped bell (called Liebesfuß) of the cor anglais gives it a more covered timbre than the oboe, closer in tonal quality to the oboe d'am ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oboe
The oboe ( ) is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. A soprano oboe measures roughly long, with metal keys, a conical bore and a flared bell. Sound is produced by blowing into the reed at a sufficient air pressure, causing it to vibrate with the air column. The distinctive tone is versatile and has been described as "bright". When the word ''oboe'' is used alone, it is generally taken to mean the treble instrument rather than other instruments of the family, such as the bass oboe, the cor anglais (English horn), or oboe d'amore. Today, the oboe is commonly used as orchestral or solo instrument in symphony orchestras, concert bands and chamber ensembles. The oboe is especially used in classical music, film music, some genres of folk music, and is occasionally heard in jazz, rock, pop, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Concert Flute
The Western concert flute is a family of transverse (side-blown) woodwind instruments made of metal or wood. It is the most common variant of the flute. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist (in British English), flutist (in American English), or simply a flute player. This type of flute is used in many ensembles, including concert bands, military bands, marching bands, orchestras, flute ensembles, and occasionally jazz bands and big bands. Other flutes in this family include the piccolo, the alto flute, and the bass flute. A large repertory of works has been composed for flute. Predecessors The flute is one of the oldest and most widely used wind instruments. The precursors of the modern concert flute were keyless wooden transverse flutes similar to modern fifes. These were later modified to include between one and eight keys for chromatic notes. "Six-finger" D is the most common pitch for keyless wooden transverse flutes, which continue to be used to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piccolo
The piccolo ( ; Italian for 'small') is a half-size flute and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. Sometimes referred to as a "baby flute" the modern piccolo has similar fingerings as the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher. This has given rise to the name ottavino (), by which the instrument is called in Italian and thus also in scores of Italian composers. Piccolos are often orchestrated to double the violins or the flutes, adding sparkle and brilliance to the overall sound because of the aforementioned one-octave transposition upwards. The piccolo is a standard member in orchestras, marching bands, and wind ensembles. History Since the Middle Ages, evidence indicates the use of octave transverse flutes as military instruments, as their penetrating sound was audible above battles. In cultured music, however, the first piccolos were used in some of Jean Philippe Rameau's works in the first half of the 18th century. Sti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Omaha World-Herald
The ''Omaha World-Herald'' is a daily newspaper in the midwestern United States, the primary newspaper of the Omaha-Council Bluffs metropolitan area. It was locally owned from its founding in 1885 until 2020, when it was sold to the newspaper chain Lee Enterprises by its most recent local owner, Warren Buffett, chairman of Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway. For more than a century it circulated daily throughout the entirety of Nebraska — a state that is 430 miles long. It also circulated daily throughout the entirety of Iowa, as well as in parts of Kansas, South Dakota, Missouri, Colorado and Wyoming. It retrenched during the financial crisis of 2008, ending far-flung circulation and restricting daily delivery to an area in Nebraska and Iowa within an approximately 100-mile radius of Omaha. Background The newspaper was the world's last to print both daily morning and afternoon editions, a practice it ended in March 2016. The World-Herald was the largest employee-owned newspaper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Rountree
Christopher Rountree is an American conductor known for founding the Los Angeles chamber grouwild Up an ensemble that blends new music, classical repertoire, performance art and pop. Wild Up was named "Best Classical Music of 2012" by the Los Angeles Times. Rountree has also conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Brooklyn new music festival, the San Diego Symphony, the Colorado Symphony, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra. He has worked with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, New York's Prototype Festival and Beth Morrison Projects, and assisted conductor Alan Pierson on the critically acclaimed opera "Dog Days." He is a lecturer in conducting at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He also serves as "Artistic Advisor for New Music" for the American Youth Symphony. Rountree is known for his lively conducting style, with the ''Los Angeles Times'' writing in one wild Up review, "Rountree punches out rhythms as if they were going ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
