Crystal Records
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Crystal Records
Crystal Records is an American producer and distributor of classical chamber and solo music recordings. The company was founded in 1966 by Peter George Christ (born 1938) and is incorporated in the state of Washington. Christ, who has served as president of Crystal Records since its inception, is also an oboist and founding member of the Westwood Wind Quintet (founded 1959). Crystal Records produced vinyl records featuring woodwind and brass musicians, but, eventually expanded to percussion, strings, orchestra, accordion, organ, and vocal. Peter Christ Christ has played the oboe in orchestras and in chamber ensembles large and small, and has taught the instrument at a variety of colleges and universities. But, he holds a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics from UCLA (1960) and a Master of Arts in Mathematics from San Diego State University (1962). He studied music, but has no formal degree in it. His main oboe teacher for six years was Bert Gassman – former principal of the ...
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Chamber Music
Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers, with one performer to a part (in contrast to orchestral music, in which each string part is played by a number of performers). However, by convention, it usually does not include solo instrument performances. Because of its intimate nature, chamber music has been described as "the music of friends". For more than 100 years, chamber music was played primarily by amateur musicians in their homes, and even today, when chamber music performance has migrated from the home to the concert hall, many musicians, amateur and professional, still play chamber music for their own pleasure. Playing chamber music requires special skills, both musical and social, that differ from the skills required for playing solo or symphonic works. ...
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Larry Combs
Larry Combs (born December 31, 1939) is an American clarinetist and educator. Early life and education Combs was born in South Charleston, West Virginia. He received a bachelor of music degree with distinction as well as the Performer's Certificate in 1961 from the Eastman School of Music where he studied with Stanley Hasty. He later studied with Leon Russianoff in New York from 1962-1965. Career Combs played clarinet with the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, and the Santa Fe Opera before joining the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1974. He was appointed principal clarinet of the CSO by Sir Georg Solti in 1978. He has appeared as a soloist with the orchestra on many occasions. He retired from the CSO following the 2007–2008 season to spend more time teaching clarinet students at DePaul University. He retired from DePaul in 2018. He is also a founding member of the Chicago Chamber Musicians in 1986. He has performed the Brahms Clarinet Trio ...
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Armando Ghitalla
Armando Ghitalla (June 1, 1925 – 14 December 2001) was an American orchestral trumpeter. He studied at the Juilliard School, and performed in the New York City Opera, the New York City Ballet, and the Houston Symphony. He was a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 28 years, and served as principal trumpet (succeeding Roger Voisin) for fifteen. He was also active as a soloist, and was the first trumpeter to record the Trumpet Concerto in E by Johann Nepomuk Hummel. Ghitalla was born in Alpha, Illinois, and his family moved to Knoxville, Illinois, shortly after he was born. At age 8, he decided he wanted to play the trumpet. He graduated from Knoxville High School in 1942 and enrolled at Illinois Wesleyan University. He entered the U.S. Navy a year later. He played trumpet in a Navy dance band and never went overseas. After the war, he used the G.I. Bill to enroll in Juilliard School of Music in New York City. He served on the faculties of Boston University, the New England ...
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Trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard B or C trumpet. Trumpet-like instruments have historically been used as signaling devices in battle or hunting, with examples dating back to at least 1500 BC. They began to be used as musical instruments only in the late 14th or early 15th century. Trumpets are used in art music styles, for instance in orchestras, concert bands, and jazz ensembles, as well as in popular music. They are played by blowing air through nearly-closed lips (called the player's embouchure), producing a "buzzing" sound that starts a standing wave vibration in the air column inside the instrument. Since the late 15th century, trumpets have primarily been constructed of brass tubing, usually bent twice into a rounded rectangular shape. There are many distinc ...
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Frøydis Ree Wekre
Frøydis Ree Wekre (born 31 July 1941 in Oslo) is a Norwegian musician. She studied in Oslo, Sweden, Russia, and the United States. Originally a piano and violin player, Wekre did not take up the horn until age 17, having become fascinated with its sound. Her choice for the horn was also partly inspired by her having heard that it was a particularly difficult instrument to play. After only two years of studying horn with Wilhelm Lanzky-Otto and Vitaly Bujanovsky, she was invited to join the Norwegian Opera Orchestra. She obtained a post with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra in 1961, where she became co-principal horn in 1965. Wekre stayed with the orchestra until her retirement in 1991. Wekre is horn and wind chamber music professor at the Norwegian Academy of Music. She is an active lecturer and participates in juries at international competitions. Her book ''Thoughts on Playing the Horn Well'' has been translated into several languages. Frøydis Ree Wekre has been an honorary ...
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John Cerminaro
John Paul Cerminaro, Jr. (born April 7, 1947) is an American horn player who is best known for his principal tenures with two notable American orchestras, the New York Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He was later principal horn of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. Early life Cerminaro was born in Grimes County, Texas, to John and Frances (Felder) Cerminaro, both public school music educators. He was raised in Dallas, where he studied horn with Alfred Resch. His solo debut performance came with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra at the age of 16. Following his graduation from Sunset High School in Dallas, Cerminaro studied at the Juilliard School, where he was awarded an Elsie and Walter W. Naumburg Scholarship. He was a student and later faculty member at the Aspen Music Festival. Career In 1969 Cerminaro joined the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein. Other conductors he played under in New York include Erich Leinsdorf, Zubin Mehta and Pierre Boulez. In 1 ...
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Horn (instrument)
A horn is any of a family of musical instruments made of a tube, usually made of metal and often curved in various ways, with one narrow end into which the musician blows, and a wide end from which sound emerges. In horns, unlike some other brass instruments such as the trumpet, the bore gradually increases in width through most of its length—that is to say, it is conical rather than cylindrical. In jazz and popular-music contexts, the word may be used loosely to refer to any wind instrument, and a section of brass or woodwind instruments, or a mixture of the two, is called a horn section in these contexts. Types Variations include: *Lur (prehistoric) *Shofar *Roman horns: ** Cornu **Buccina * Dung chen *Dord * Sringa * Nyele *Wazza *Alphorn *Cornett *Serpent * Ophicleide *Natural horn **Bugle **Post horn *French horn *Vienna horn *Wagner tuba *Saxhorns, including: **Alto horn (UK: tenor horn), pitched in E ** Baritone horn, pitched in B * Valved bugles, including ** c ...
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Kenneth Tse
Kenneth Tse 謝德驥 (born 1972) is a Chinese American classical saxophonist. Tse was mainly self-taught as a youth until he met world-renowned saxophone artist and pedagogue Eugene Rousseau in 1989. He then studied at the Indiana University School of Music with Rousseau from 1993 to 1998, where he received his BM, MM, and Artist Diploma. Rousseau has called him "a brilliant saxophonist, worthy of any stage in the world." Tse earned a doctorate degree at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign studying under saxophonist Debra Richtmeyer. Biography Kenneth Tse started his performance career in 1996 as the winner of the prestigious New York Artists International Award, which resulted in an acclaimed debut recital at Carnegie Hall, after which he was hailed as “a young virtuoso” by the New York Times. The Alex Award from the National Alliance for Excellence led to another Carnegie Hall performance. These are but two of the multitude of awards that Tse has garnered in les ...
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Harvey Pittel
Harvey Pittel (born June 22, 1943) is an American saxophonist who performs principally in North America, and was the Professor of Saxophone at the University of Texas at Austin Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music in the College of Fine Arts. Biography Harvey Pittel began his musical education in at the age of 7 at Clifford Street Elementary School in Los Angeles California. Pittel Pursued his undergraduate degree in Music Education at the University of Southern California. He perused his Master of Music degree in Saxophone Performance under the tutelage of Fred Hemke at Northwestern University. During the Vietnam War Pittel Enlisted in The Navy and performed with the West Point Military Academy Band. During this time he began further studies with Joe Allard of the Juilliard School. Just after leaving the West Point Band, Pittel won the Concert Artists Guild Competition and through this made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1971 playing to such acclamation he was re-presented by th ...
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Saxophone
The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to produce a sound wave inside the instrument's body. The pitch is controlled by opening and closing holes in the body to change the effective length of the tube. The holes are closed by leather pads attached to keys operated by the player. Saxophones are made in various sizes and are almost always treated as transposing instruments. Saxophone players are called '' saxophonists''. The saxophone is used in a wide range of musical styles including classical music (such as concert bands, chamber music, solo repertoire, and occasionally orchestras), military bands, marching bands, jazz (such as big bands and jazz combos), and contemporary music. The saxophone is also used as a solo and melody instrument or as a member of a horn section in som ...
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Contrabassoon
The contrabassoon, also known as the double bassoon, is a larger version of the bassoon, sounding an octave lower. Its technique is similar to its smaller cousin, with a few notable differences. Differences from the bassoon The reed is considerably larger than the bassoon's, at in total length (and in width) compared with for most bassoon reeds. The large blades allow ample vibration that produces the low register of the instrument. The contrabassoon reed is similar to an average bassoon's in that scraping the reed affects both the intonation and response of the instrument. Contrabassoons feature a slightly simplified version of bassoon keywork, though all open toneholes on bassoon have necessarily been replaced with keys and pads due to the physical distances. In the lower register, its fingerings are nearly identical to bassoon. However, the octave mechanism used to play in the middle register works differently than on bassoon, and the upper register fingerings are of ...
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Arthur Weisberg
Arthur Weisberg (April 4, 1931 – January 17, 2009) was an American clarinetist, bassoonist, conductor, composer and author. Biography Weisberg was born in New York City. He attended The High School of Music & Art, majoring in bassoon and studying with Simon Kovar, and graduating in 1948. Soon after leaving Juilliard, he found notable success securing the principal chairs with the Houston and Baltimore Symphony Orchestras and second bassoon with the Cleveland Orchestra, before coming back to New York City. After pursuing study of conducting with Jean Morel he again returned to the bassoon as principal for Symphony of the Air as well as bassoonist of the New York Woodwind Quintet for 14 years. In the realm of conducting he has conducted the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and the Sjaellands and Aalborg Symphonies of Denmark. Weisberg founded and conducted the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. Weisberg also extensively taught, having held posts at t ...
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