Beacon Arts Centre
The Beacon Arts Centre is a performing arts and community art venue in Greenock, serving the Inverclyde area of Scotland. It is owned and operated by Greenock Arts Guild Ltd., a charitable organisation with core funding from Creative Scotland and Inverclyde Council The guild formed in 1946, and adapted a disused Victorian architecture, Victorian swimming pool building on Campbell Street as their Arts Guild Theatre. A small theatre opened in 1949, followed by the Main Auditorium in 1955. It became a receiving house for touring shows, as well as producing house with half the performances amateur, as well as providing classes and workshops in music, art and drama. In January 2013 the Arts Guild moved to their new Beacon Arts Centre on Greenock's waterfront, at Customhouse Quay. Its main performance spaces are the Main Auditorium and The Studio theatre space. A Gallery Suite hosts exhibitions and provides multifunction meeting, rehearsal and functions space. Full height glazed w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Greenock
Greenock (; sco, Greenock; gd, Grianaig, ) is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council areas of Scotland, council area in Scotland, United Kingdom and a former burgh of barony, burgh within the Counties of Scotland, historic county of Renfrewshire (historic), Renfrewshire, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. It forms part of a contiguous urban area with Gourock to the west and Port Glasgow to the east. The United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 UK Census showed that Greenock had a population of 44,248, a decrease from the 46,861 recorded in the United Kingdom Census 2001, 2001 UK Census. It lies on the south bank of the Clyde at the "Tail of the Bank" where the River Clyde deepens into the Firth of Clyde. History Name Place-name scholar William J. Watson wrote that "Greenock is well known in Gaelic as Grianáig, dative of grianág, a sunny knoll". The Scottish Gaelic place-name ''Grianaig'' is relatively common, with another (Greenock) near Calla ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Beacon Arts Centre From A8
A beacon is an intentionally conspicuous device designed to attract attention to a specific location. A common example is the lighthouse, which draws attention to a fixed point that can be used to navigate around obstacles or into port. More modern examples include a variety of radio beacons that can be read on radio direction finders in all weather, and radar transponders that appear on radar displays. Beacons can also be combined with semaphoric or other indicators to provide important information, such as the status of an airport, by the colour and rotational pattern of its airport beacon, or of pending weather as indicated on a weather beacon mounted at the top of a tall building or similar site. When used in such fashion, beacons can be considered a form of optical telegraphy. For navigation Beacons help guide navigators to their destinations. Types of navigational beacons include radar reflectors, radio beacons, sonic and visual signals. Visual beacons range from ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dorothy Paul
Dorothy Paul (born 1937 as Dorothy Pollock) is a Scottish stage and screen actress, comedian, and entertainer. She performed onstage often at the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow. Acting career Originating from the Dennistoun area of Glasgow, she started her main career in the late 1960s, with her first credited roles in television shows such as ''The Revenue Men'', '' Sutherland's Law'' and ''Garnock Way''. She also featured in the 2005 film ''Festival'', playing Micheline's Mother. After many successful years with various stage performances, including ''Dorothy Paul: Live'', she had made guest appearances in ''Still Game'' and ''Taggart''. ''The Steamie'' In December 1988, Paul starred as Magrit in the television adaptation of the play ''The Steamie'', written by Tony Roper. In the show, she featured alongside fellow cast members Eileen McCallum, Katy Murphy and Peter Mullan. Paul received a BAFTA nomination for her performance, and the adaptation is generally favoured as one o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera is the national opera company of Scotland, and one of the five national performing arts companies of Scotland. Founded in 1962 and based in Glasgow, it is the largest performing arts organisation in Scotland. History Scottish Opera was founded by conductor Alexander Gibson in 1962. In 1975 it purchased the Theatre Royal in Glasgow from Scottish Television re-opening it as the first national opera house for Scotland in October 1975 with ''Die Fledermaus''. In March 2005, the management of the Theatre Royal was transferred to the Ambassador Theatre Group, but remains the home of Scottish Opera and of Scottish Ballet. Scottish Opera dealt with various financial troubles, related to lack of funding and accusations of fiscal profligacy, during the first part of the 2000s. Its cycle of Richard Wagner's ''Ring'' was critically acclaimed, but also was highly draining of the company's financial resources. In 2004, a financial restructuring plan had called for the elimin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Scottish Arts Council
The Scottish Arts Council ( gd, Comhairle Ealain na h-Alba, sco, Scots Airts Cooncil) was a Scottish public body responsible for the funding, development and promotion of the arts in Scotland. The Council primarily distributed funding from the Scottish Government as well as National Lottery funds received via the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The Scottish Arts Council was formed in 1994 following a restructuring of the Arts Council of Great Britain, but had existed as an autonomous body since a royal charter of 1967. In 2010 it merged with Scottish Screen to form Creative Scotland. Activities The Council funded all the major areas of the arts, seeking to maintain balance between the many diverse communities of Scotland. In addition, it funded cultural groups and events affiliated with immigrant communities and minorities in Scotland. It sponsored two book awards: * The Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award (worth £5,000); and * The Scottish Arts Council ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century. Vaughan Williams was born to a well-to-do family with strong moral views and a progressive social life. Throughout his life he sought to be of service to his fellow citizens, and believed in making music as available as possible to everybody. He wrote many works for amateur and student performance. He was musically a late developer, not finding his true voice until his late thirties; his studies in 1907–1908 with the French composer Maurice Ravel helped him clarify the textures of his music and free it from Teutonic influences. Vaughan Williams is among the best ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sybil Thorndike
Dame Agnes Sybil Thorndike, Lady Casson (24 October 18829 June 1976) was an English actress whose stage career lasted from 1904 to 1969. Trained in her youth as a concert pianist, Thorndike turned to the stage when a medical problem with her hands ruled out a musical career. She began her professional acting career with the company of the actor-manager Ben Greet, with whom she toured the US from 1904 to 1908. In Britain she played in old and new plays on tour and in the West End theatre, West End, often appearing with her husband, the actor and director Lewis Casson. She joined the the Old Vic, Old Vic company during the First World War, and in the early 1920s George Bernard Shaw, Bernard Shaw, impressed by seeing her in a tragedy, wrote ''Saint Joan (play), Saint Joan'' with her in mind. She starred in it with great success. She became known as Britain's leading tragedienne, but also appeared frequently in comedy. During the Second World War, Thorndike and her husband toured ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Malcolm Sargent
Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent (29 April 1895 – 3 October 1967) was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works. The musical ensembles with which he was associated included the Ballets Russes, the Huddersfield Choral Society, the Royal Choral Society, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, and the London Philharmonic, Hallé, Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC Symphony and Royal Philharmonic orchestras. Sargent was held in high esteem by choirs and instrumental soloists, but because of his high standards and a statement that he made in a 1936 interview disputing musicians' rights to tenure, his relationship with orchestral players was often uneasy. Despite this, he was co-founder of the London Philharmonic, was the first conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic as a full-time ensemble, and played an important part in saving the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from disbandment in the 1960s. As chief conductor of London's ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, (; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. A member of the Terry family theatrical dynasty, he gained his first paid acting work as a junior member of his cousin Phyllis Neilson-Terry's company in 1922. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art he worked in repertory theatre and in the West End theatre, West End before establishing himself at the Old Vic as an exponent of William Shakespeare, Shakespeare in 1929–31. During the 1930s Gielgud was a stage star in the West End and on Broadway theatre, Broadway, appearing in new works and classics. He began a parallel career as a director, and set up his own company at the Sondheim Theatre, Queen's Theatre, London. He was regarded by many as the finest Prince Hamlet, Hamlet of his era, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera '' Peter Grimes'' (1945), the '' War Requiem'' (1962) and the orchestral showpiece ''The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra'' (1945). Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, the son of a dentist, Britten showed talent from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and privately with the composer Frank Bridge. Britten first came to public attention with the '' a cappella'' choral work '' A Boy was Born'' in 1934. With the premiere of ''Peter Grimes'' in 1945, he leapt to international fame. Over the next 28 years, he wrote 14 more operas, establishing himself as one of the leading 20th-century composers in the genre. In addition to large-sca ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). Following the Allied victory over the Central Powers in 1918, the RAF emerged as the largest air force in the world at the time. Since its formation, the RAF has taken a significant role in British military history. In particular, it played a large part in the Second World War where it fought its most famous campaign, the Battle of Britain. The RAF's mission is to support the objectives of the British Ministry of Defence (MOD), which are to "provide the capabilities needed to ensure the security and defence of the United Kingdom and overseas territories, including against terrorism; to support the Government's foreign policy objectives particularly in promoting international peace and security". The R ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |