HOME
*





David Robertson (conductor)
David Eric Robertson (born July 19, 1958) is an American conductor. He was chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and was formerly music director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra from 2005 until 2018. He is Director of Orchestral Studies at Juilliard. Biography Early life Robertson was born and raised in Malibu, California, and grew up in a music-loving family. His father was a research scientist at Hughes Laboratory and his mother studied literature, but later had a career as a baker. In grade school, he played French horn and violin, and first conducted at age 12. He later studied horn, composition, and conducting as a college student at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Career After his college years, Robertson began to receive conducting offers in Europe and performed often in both symphonic and operatic repertoire. His early career lectured under the rubric of the U.S. Information Agency in the Middle East and around the world on the subject of mus ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


WikiProject Classical Music
A WikiProject, or Wikiproject, is a Wikimedia movement affinity group for contributors with shared goals. WikiProjects are prevalent within the largest wiki, Wikipedia, and exist to varying degrees within Wikimedia project, sister projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikidata, and Wikisource. They also exist in different languages, and translation of articles is a form of their collaboration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CBS News noted the role of Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine in maintaining the accuracy of articles related to the disease. Another WikiProject that has drawn attention is WikiProject Women Scientists, which was profiled by ''Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian'' for its efforts to improve coverage of women scientists which the profile noted had "helped increase the number of female scientists on Wikipedia from around 1,600 to over 5,000". On Wikipedia Some Wikipedia WikiProjects are substantial enough to engage in cooperative activities with outside organization ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Hans Vonk (conductor)
Hans Vonk (18 June 1942 – 29 August 2004) was a Dutch conductor. Early and middle years Vonk was born in Amsterdam, the son of Franciscus Cornelis and Wilhelmina Vonk. His father was a violinist in the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and died when Vonk was age three. Vonk studied piano with Jaap Spaanderman at the Amsterdam Conservatory and law at Amsterdam University. During this time, he made a living from gigs as a jazz pianist. He later studied conducting with Hermann Scherchen and Franco Ferrara. Vonk debuted as a conductor with the Netherlands National Ballet. He later married the ballerina, Jessie Folkerts. He also served as assistant conductor with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and associate conductor with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London. Vonk held chief conductor positions with De Nederlandse Opera (1976-1985), the Residentie Orkest (1980–1991) and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. From 1985 to 1990, he was principal conductor of both the Staatsk ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition resulted in more than 800 works of virtually every genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral repertoire. Mozart is widely regarded as among the greatest composers in the history of Western music, with his music admired for its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture". Born in Salzburg, in the Holy Roman Empire, Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. His father took him on a grand tour of Europe and then three trips to Italy. At 17, he was a musician at the Salzburg court b ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


The Makropulos Affair (opera)
''The Makropulos Affair'' (or ''The Makropoulos Case'', ''The Makropulos Secret'', or, literally, ''The Makropulos Thing''; Czech ''Věc Makropulos'') is a Czech opera in 3 acts, with music and libretto by Leoš Janáček. Janáček based his opera on the play ''Věc Makropulos'' by Karel Čapek. Composed between 1923 and 1925, ''The Makropulos Affair'' was his penultimate opera and, like much of his later work, was inspired by his infatuation with Kamila Stösslová, a married woman much younger than himself. The opera received its world premiere at the National Theatre in Brno on 18 December 1926, conducted by František Neumann. Composition history Janáček had seen the play early in its run in Prague on 10 December 1922, and immediately saw its potential as an opera. He entered into a correspondence with Čapek, who was accommodating towards the idea, although legal problems in securing the rights to the play delayed work. When these problems were cleared on 10 September 19 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Leoš Janáček
Leoš Janáček (, baptised Leo Eugen Janáček; 3 July 1854 – 12 August 1928) was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist, and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and other Slavic musics, including Eastern European folk music, to create an original, modern musical style.Sehnal and Vysloužil (2001), p. 175 Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research. While his early musical output was influenced by contemporaries such as Antonín Dvořák, his later, mature works incorporate his earlier studies of national folk music in a modern, highly original synthesis, first evident in the opera ''Jenůfa'', which was premiered in 1904 in Brno. The success of ''Jenůfa'' (often called the "Moravian national opera") at Prague in 1916 gave Janáček access to the world's great opera stages. Janáček's later works are his most celebrated. They include operas such as ''Káťa Kabanová'' and ''The Cunning Little Vixen'', the Sinfonietta, the ''Glag ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager. As of 2018, the company's current music director is Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The Met was founded in 1883 as an alternative to the previously established Academy of Music opera house, and debuted the same year in a new building on 39th and Broadway (now known as the "Old Met"). It moved to the new Lincoln Center location in 1966. The Metropolitan Opera is the largest classical music organization in North America. Until 2019, it presented about 27 different operas each year from late September through May. The operas are presented in a rotating repertory schedule, with up to seven performances of four different works staged each week. Performances are ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Ojai Music Festival
The Ojai Music Festival is an annual classical music festival in the United States. Held in Ojai, California (75 miles northwest of Los Angeles), for four days every June, the festival presents music, symposia, and educational programs emphasizing adventurous, eclectic, and challenging music, principally by contemporary composers. A secondary focus of the Festival is the discovery or rediscovery of rare or little known works by past masters. The primary performance venue is the Libbey Bowl, an open-air setting not far from the center of Ojai. History Background Before the music festival itself was established, the Ojai valley itself had attracted artists, musicians and thinkers. In the early 1920s, a trust organized by Annie Besant, the head of the Theosophical Society, bought in the valley. This land was eventually used for the official residence of her young Indian protégé, Jiddu Krishnamurti. Krishnamurti proved to be a respected spiritual thinker in his own ri ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Los Angeles Philharmonic
The Los Angeles Philharmonic, commonly referred to as the LA Phil, is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from July through September. Gustavo Dudamel is the current Music Director, Esa-Pekka Salonen is Conductor Laureate, Zubin Mehta is Conductor Emeritus, and Susanna Mälkki is Principal Guest Conductor. John Adams is the orchestra's current Composer-in-Residence. Music critics have described the orchestra as the most "contemporary minded", "forward thinking", "talked about and innovative", and "venturesome and admired" orchestra in America. According to Salonen, "We are interested in the future. We are not trying to re-create the glories of the past, like so many other symphony orchestras." "Especially since we moved into the new hall", continues Deborah Borda (former CEO), "our intention has been to integrate 21st-century ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Last Night Of The Proms
The BBC Proms or Proms, formally named the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts Presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in central London. The Proms were founded in 1895, and are now organised and broadcast by the BBC. Each season consists of concerts in the Royal Albert Hall, chamber music concerts at Cadogan Hall, additional Proms in the Park events across the UK on the Last Night of the Proms, and associated educational and children's events. The season is a significant event in British culture and in classical music. Czech conductor Jiří Bělohlávek described the Proms as "the world's largest and most democratic musical festival". ''Prom'' is short for ''promenade concert'', a term which originally referred to outdoor concerts in London's pleasure gardens, where the audience was free to stroll around while the orchestra was playing. In the con ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

BBC Symphony Orchestra
The BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO) is a British orchestra based in London. Founded in 1930, it was the first permanent salaried orchestra in London, and is the only one of the city's five major symphony orchestras not to be self-governing. The BBC SO is the principal broadcast orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The orchestra was originally conceived in 1928 as a joint enterprise by the BBC and the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, but the latter withdrew the next year and the task of assembling and training the orchestra fell to the BBC's director of music, Adrian Boult. Among its guest conductors in its first years was Arturo Toscanini, who judged it the finest orchestra he had ever conducted. During and after the Second World War, Boult strove to maintain standards, but the senior management of the post-war BBC did not allocate the orchestra the resources to meet competition from new and well-funded rivals. After Boult's retirement from the BBC in 1950, ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Guide To Strange Places
''Guide to Strange Places'' is an orchestral composition by the American composer John Adams. The work was commissioned by the Amsterdam broadcasting company VARA, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. It was given its world premiere by the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Adams at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, on October 6, 2001. Adams, John (2001)Guide to Strange Places: Program Note Retrieved May 8, 2016. Composition ''Guide to Strange Places'' is composed in a single movement and has a duration of roughly 24 minutes. Background Adams first conceived the work when he stumbled across a guidebook called ''Guide Noir de la Provence Mystérieuse'' (''The Black Guide to Mysterious Places of Provence'') while vacationing with his family in France. He later wrote: Instrumentation The work is scored for a large orchestra comprising piccolo, two flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass c ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

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]