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A Lovely Way To Spend Christmas
''A Lovely Way to Spend Christmas'' is the third studio and first Christmas album released by American singer and actress Kristin Chenoweth. Released on October 14, 2008, the album sees Chenoweth collaborating with jazz musician John Pizzarelli on " Sleigh Ride/Marshmallow World". Chenoweth stated she had desired to record a Christmas album since signing with Sony Classical in 2000 after being inspired by Barbra Streisand's '' A Christmas Album'' as a child. ''Broadway World'' (December 1, 2008). Retrieved on December 2, 2008. The album has peaked at #77 on the [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kristin Chenoweth
Kristin Dawn Chenoweth (; born Kristi Dawn Chenoweth; July 24, 1968)Kristin Chenoweth Biography '' The Biography Channel'' , accessed December 1, 2014; according to her autobiography, she was named Kristi Dawn Chenoweth upon her adoption five days after her birth. is an American actress and singer, with credits in , film, and television. In 1999, she won a |
Barbra Streisand
Barbara Joan "Barbra" Streisand (; born April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress and director. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success in multiple fields of entertainment, and is among the few performers List of people who have won Academy, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Awards, awarded an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT). Streisand began her career by performing in nightclubs and Broadway theaters in the early 1960s. Following her guest appearances on various television shows, she signed to Columbia Records, insisting that she retain full artistic control, and accepting lower pay in exchange, an arrangement that continued throughout her career, and released her debut ''The Barbra Streisand Album'' (1963), which won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Throughout her recording career, Streisand has topped the US Billboard 200, ''Billboard'' 200 chart with 11 albums—a record for a woman—including ''People (Barbra Streisand album), People'' (1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter DeRose
Peter DeRose (or De Rose) (March 10, 1896 – April 23, 1953) was an American composer of jazz and pop music during the era of Tin Pan Alley. Biography A native of New York City, he showed a gift for all things musical at an early age. He learned to play the piano from an older sister. F.B. Haviland published his first song, "Tiger Rose Waltzes", when he was eighteen years old. After graduating from DeWitt Clinton High School in 1917, he found a job at a music store as a stock room clerk. His composition "When You're Gone, I Won't Forget" led to a job at the New York office of Italian music publisher G. Ricordi & Co. In 1923, he met May Singhi Breen when she performed on radio with the ukulele group The Syncopators. A relationship developed, and she left the group to join DeRose in a musical radio show on NBC called ''The Sweethearts of the Air'' in which he played piano and she played ukulele. The show lasted for 16 years, during which time the two entertainers were married. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leroy Anderson
Leroy Anderson ( ) (June 29, 1908 – May 18, 1975) was an American composer of short, light concert pieces, many of which were introduced by the Boston Pops Orchestra under the direction of Arthur Fiedler. John Williams described him as "one of the great American masters of light orchestral music." Early life Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts to Swedish parents, Anderson was given his first piano lessons by his mother, who was a church organist. He continued studying piano at the New England Conservatory of Music. In 1925, Anderson entered Harvard College, where he studied musical harmony with Walter Spalding, counterpoint with Edward Ballantine, canon and fugue with William C. Heilman, orchestration with Edward B. Hill and Walter Piston, composition, also with Piston, and double bass with Gaston Dufresne. He also studied organ with Henry Gideon. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude in 1929 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa."Syncopated Clock, Indeed"; ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gloria Shayne Baker
Gloria Shayne Baker (September 4, 1923 – March 6, 2008) was an American composer and songwriter best known for composing the "Do You Hear What I Hear?" Christmas carol in 1962 with her then husband, Noël Regney. Early life Baker was born as Gloria Adele Shain to a Jewish family in Brookline, Massachusetts, on September 4, 1923, daughter of Attorney Mark Shain and Professor Rose Wies Shain, she grew up next door to Joseph and Rose Kennedy and their children, including John F. Kennedy. She began her music career as part of a singing trio, The Shain Sisters, alongside her older sisters, Esther and Thelma. She changed the spelling of her last name from Shain to Shayne early on in her career for professional reasons. She earned her bachelor's degree from the Boston University School of Music. She moved to New York City during the 1940s, where she worked as a pianist performing on demos and in front of live audiences. She also arranged music for composers such as Stephen Sondheim a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noël Regney
Noël Regney (born Léon Schlienger; 19 August 1922 – 22 November 2002), was a French World War II veteran and songwriter who is best known for composing the Christmas standard "Do You Hear What I Hear?" with his then-wife Gloria Shayne Baker in 1962. Originally from Alsace, France, he moved to New York City and then eventually Connecticut. Life and career He was born Léon Schlienger in Strasbourg, Alsace, France. Léon Schlienger, written backwards, is Noël Regnei (-lhcS). He grew up Catholic, but later became a Unitarian Universalist. He was drafted into the Nazi army despite being a Frenchman like many other "''Malgré-nous''". As an Alsatian, he spoke the German dialect Alsatian as fluently as French. It is said that he soon deserted, joined a group of French Resistance fighters, and became a double agent working for the French. He led a party of Nazis into an ambush, was shot in the arm, but survived. Eventually, while touring the United States, accompanying Lucienne Boyer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Do You Hear What I Hear?
"Do You Hear What I Hear?" is a song written in October 1962, with lyrics by Noël Regney and music by Gloria Shayne. The pair, married at the time, wrote it as a plea for peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Regney had been invited by a record producer to write a Christmas song, but he was hesitant due to the commercialism of Christmas. It has sold tens of millions of copies and has been covered by hundreds of artists. Synopsis "Do You Hear What I Hear?" tells a story loosely based upon the story of the Nativity of Jesus as told in the Gospel of Matthew, incorporating fragments of the annunciation to the shepherds from the Gospel of Luke, though Jesus is never mentioned by name or explicitly identified. A "night wind" tells a lamb of a star, following which the lamb tells his young shepherd that he also hears a loud song. They are each led to a "mighty king," whom they tell of a child in the cold and ask to bring the child silver and gold (much as the Biblical Magi, which in tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jule Styne
Jule Styne (; born Julius Kerwin Stein; December 31, 1905 – September 20, 1994) was an English-American songwriter and composer best known for a series of Broadway musicals, including several famous frequently-revived shows that also became successful films: ''Gypsy,'' '' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,'' and '' Funny Girl.'' Early life Styne was born to a Jewish family in London, England. His parents, Anna Kertman and Isadore Stein, were emigrants from Ukraine, the Russian Empire, and ran a small grocery. Even before his family left Britain, he did impressions on the stage of well-known singers, including Harry Lauder, who saw him perform and advised him to take up the piano. At the age of eight, he moved with his family to Chicago, where he began taking piano lessons. He proved to be a prodigy and performed with the Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit Symphonies before he was ten years old. Career Before Styne attended Chicago Musical College, he had already attracted the attention o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sammy Cahn
Samuel Cohen (June 18, 1913 – January 15, 1993), known professionally as Sammy Cahn, was an American lyricist, songwriter, and musician. He is best known for his romantic lyrics to films and Broadway songs, as well as stand-alone songs premiered by recording companies in the Greater Los Angeles Area. He and his collaborators had a series of hit recordings with Frank Sinatra during the singer's tenure at Capitol Records, but also enjoyed hits with Dean Martin, Doris Day and many others. He played the piano and violin, and won an Oscar four times for his songs, including the popular hit " Three Coins in the Fountain". Among his most enduring songs is "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!", cowritten with Jule Styne in 1945. Life and career Cahn was born Samuel Cohen in the Lower East Side of New York City, the only son (he had four sisters) of Abraham and Elka Reiss Cohen, who were Jewish immigrants from Galicia, then ruled by Austria-Hungary. His sisters, Sadye, Pearl, Flor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Christmas Waltz
"The Christmas Waltz" is a Christmas song written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne for Frank Sinatra, who recorded it in 1954 as the B-side of a new recording of " White Christmas", in 1957 for his album ''A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra'', and in 1968 for ''The Sinatra Family Wish You a Merry Christmas''. Cahn recalls, "One day during a very hot spell in Los Angeles the phone rang and it was Jule Styne to say, 'Frank wants a Christmas song.'". Cahn resisted. "Jule, we're not going to write any Christmas song. After Irving Berlin's ' White Christmas'? The idea's just ridiculous." Styne was emphatic, however. "'Frank ''wants'' a Christmas song.'" The two met in Styne's apartment to begin work on the project, and Cahn asked the composer, "'Hey, Jule, has there ever been a Christmas waltz?' He said no. I said, 'Play that waltz of yours.' He did so," and Cahn began work on the lyrics of "The Christmas Waltz", which many other artists have also recorded. Referring to the line that go ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buck Ram
Samuel "Buck" Ram (November 21, 1907 – January 1, 1991) was an American songwriter, and popular music producer and arranger. He was one of BMI's top five songwriters/air play in its first 50 years, alongside Paul Simon, Kris Kristofferson, Jimmy Webb, and Paul McCartney. He is best known for his long association with The Platters and also wrote, produced and arranged for the Penguins, the Coasters, the Drifters, Ike and Tina Turner, Ike Cole, Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Ella Fitzgerald, and many others. He was also known as Ande Rand, Lynn Paul or Jean Miles. Biography He was born Samuel Ram in Chicago, Illinois in 1907, to Jewish parents. Ram was a talent manager with his own firm, Personality Productions and an A&R man when Tony Williams, the brother of singer Linda Hayes, auditioned for him. Ram was looking for a group to sing the songs he wrote and found the voice he was looking for in Williams. He transformed the Platters and changed their rhythm and blues style, buil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Kent
Walter Kent (born Walter Maurice Kaufman, November 29, 1911 – March 2, 1994) was an American composer and conductor. Some notable compositions are: "I'll Be Home for Christmas", "I'm Gonna Live Till I Die" and " (There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover". Early life Walter Kent was born to a Jewish family on November 29, 1911 in New York City. He graduated from Townsend Harris Hall High School. Kent received a scholarship to attend the Juilliard School of Music in New York where he chose to pursue advanced study of the violin. Kent was also involved in private music study with Leopold Auer and Samuel Gardner. He also received more formal education at City College of New York. After completion of his university education, Kent conducted his own orchestra in New York, performing in theatres and on the radio. Additionally, Kent became a freelance architect following his education, continuing to write music in his spare time. Career Following his completion of h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
