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Desto Dubb
Desto Records was an American record label. It was founded in 1951 by Horace Grenell who had a mail order business of selling children's records and was looking to expand genres. The first issue was a three disc edition of ''The Beggars Opera''. It released albums sporadically over the next decade, but in 1964 expanded to become one of the main distributors of contemporary classical music by American composers. Artists published included Dominick Argento, Leslie Bassett, Jack Beeson, Luciano Berio, Henry Brant, Henry Cowell, George Crumb, Norman Dello Joio, Irving Fine, Lou Harrison, Charles Ives, Ulysses Kay, Ezra Laderman, Otto Luening, Peter Mennin, Gian Carlo Menotti, Douglas Moore, Lawrence Moss, Ned Rorem, Gunther Schuller, Roger Sessions, Joel Spiegelman, William Grant Still, William Sydeman, Randall Thompson, Vladimir Ussachevsky, and Charles Wuorinen. In 1974 Grenell sold the label to the owners of CMS Records of Mount Vernon, New York. The two companies were merged and th ...
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Record Label
A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing, promotion, and enforcement of copyright for sound recordings and music videos, while also conducting talent scouting and development of new artists, and maintaining contracts with recording artists and their managers. The term "record label", derives from the circular label in the center of a vinyl record which prominently displays the manufacturer's name, along with other information. Within the mainstream music industry, recording artists have traditionally been reliant upon record labels to broaden their consumer base, market their albums, and promote their singles on streaming services, radio, and television. Record labels also provide publicists, who assist performers in gaining positi ...
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Peter Mennin
Peter Mennin (born Mennini) (May 17, 1923 in Erie, Pennsylvania – June 17, 1983 in New York City) was a prominent American composer, teacher and administrator. In 1958, he was named Director of the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and in 1962 became President of the Juilliard School, a position he held until his death in 1983. Under his leadership, Juilliard moved from Claremont Avenue to its present location at Lincoln Center. Mennin is responsible for the addition of drama and dance departments at Juilliard. He also started the Master Class Program, and brought many artists to teach including Maria Callas, Pierre Fournier and others. Biography Born Peter Mennini in Erie, Pennsylvania on May 17, 1923, Mennin was the son of Italian immigrants Amalia (née Benacci) and Attilio Mennini and the younger brother of composer Louis Mennini. Musically gifted from an early age, he started his first orchestral piece at eleven and completed his first symphony (out of nine he would ...
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Mount Vernon, New York
Mount Vernon is a city in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County, New York (state), New York, United States. It is an inner suburb of New York City, immediately to the north of the Borough (New York City), borough of the Bronx. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, Mount Vernon had a population of 73,893, making it the eighth most populous city in the state (2010). Mount Vernon has two major sections. South-side Mount Vernon is more urban while north-side Mount Vernon is more residential. Mount Vernon's downtown business district is on the city's south side, which features the City Hall, Mount Vernon's main post office, Mount Vernon Public Library, office buildings, and other municipal establishments. History The Mount Vernon area was first settled in 1664 by families from Connecticut as part of the Eastchester (town), New York, Town of Eastchester. Mount Vernon became a Administrative divisions of New York (state)#Village, village in 1853, and a Adminis ...
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Charles Wuorinen
Charles Peter Wuorinen (; June 9, 1938 – March 11, 2020) was an American composer of contemporary classical music based in New York City. He performed his works and other 20th-century music as pianist and conductor. He composed more than 270 works, including orchestral music, chamber music, solo instrumental and vocal works, and operas such as ''Brokeback Mountain''. Salman Rushdie and Annie Proulx have collaborated with him. Wuorinen's work has been called serialist, but he came to disparage that term as meaningless. His ''Time's Encomium'', his only purely electronic piece, received the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Wuorinen also taught at several institutions, including Columbia University and Manhattan School of Music. Life and career Background Wuorinen was born on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. His father, John H. Wuorinen, the chair of the history department at Columbia University, was a noted scholar of Scandinavian affairs, who also worke ...
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Vladimir Ussachevsky
Vladimir Alexeevich Ussachevsky (November 3, 1911 in Hailar, China – January 2, 1990 in New York, New York) was a composer, particularly known for his work in electronic music. Biography Vladimir Ussachevsky was born in the Hailar District of China, in modern-day Inner Mongolia to an Imperial Russian Army officer assigned to protect Trans-Siberian Railway interests. He emigrated to the United States in 1930 and studied music at Pomona College in Claremont, California (B.A., 1935), as well as at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York (M.M., 1936, Ph.D., 1939). Ussachevsky's early, neo-Romantic works were composed for traditional instruments, but in 1951 he began composing electronic music.Salzman, Eric"Vladimir Ussachevsky: Electronic And Acoustic Works 1957-1972" Liner notes. New World Records. He served as president of the American Composers Alliance from 1968 to 1970 and was an advisory member of the CRI record label, which released recordings of a number ...
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Randall Thompson
Randall Thompson (April 21, 1899 – July 9, 1984) was an American composer, particularly noted for his choral works. Career Randall attended The Lawrenceville School, where his father was an English teacher. He then attended Harvard University, became assistant professor of music and choir director at Wellesley College, and received a doctorate in music from the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music. He went on to teach at the Curtis Institute of Music (serving as its Director 1941/1942), at the University of Virginia, and at Harvard University. He is particularly noted for his choral works. He was an honorary member of the Rho Tau chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity at Appalachian State University. Thompson composed three symphonies and numerous vocal works including ''Americana'', '' The Testament of Freedom'', '' Frostiana'', and '' The Peaceable Kingdom'', inspired by Edward Hicks's painting. His most popular and recognizable choral work is his anthem, ' ...
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William Sydeman
William is a masculine given name of Norman French origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of England in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. It is sometimes abbreviated "Wm." Shortened familiar versions in English include Will, Wills, Willy, Willie, Liam, Bill, and Billy. A common Irish form is Liam. Scottish diminutives include Wull, Willie or Wullie (as in Oor Wullie or the play ''Douglas''). Female forms are Willa, Willemina, Wilma and Wilhelmina. Etymology William is related to the German given name ''Wilhelm''. Both ultimately descend from Proto-Germanic ''*Wiljahelmaz'', with a direct cognate also in the Old Norse name ''Vilhjalmr'' and a West Germanic borrowing into Medieval Latin ''Willelmus''. The Proto-Germanic name is a ...
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William Grant Still
William Grant Still Jr. (May 11, 1895 – December 3, 1978) was an American composer of nearly two hundred works, including five symphonies, four ballets, nine operas, over thirty choral works, plus art songs, chamber music and works for solo instruments. Born in Mississippi, he grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas, attended Wilberforce University and Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and was a student of George Whitefield Chadwick and later, Edgard Varèse. Because of his close association and collaboration with prominent African-American literary and cultural figures, Still is considered to have been part of the Harlem Renaissance. Often referred to as the "Dean of Afro-American Composers," Still was the first American composer to have an opera produced by the New York City Opera. Still is known primarily for his first symphony, ''Afro-American Symphony'' (1930), which was, until 1950, the most widely performed symphony composed by an American. Also of note, Still was the ...
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Joel Spiegelman
Joel Spiegelman is an American composer, conductor, concert pianist, harpsichordist, recording artist, arranger, author and teacher. As a composer, Spiegelman has been widely known for his blending of techniques from traditional classical music, dodecaphonic music, aleatoric music, gospel, Russian folk, and electronic idioms. He has written original music for string quartet, piano trio, piano quintet, chamber music with percussion, solo instruments, wind ensembles, symphony orchestra, ballet, film, choral and vocal music. Personal life Joel Spiegelman was born in Buffalo, New York on January 23, 1933, to Jenny Simon Spiegelman (b. Brailov, Ukraine, 1906) and Dr. Harry Spiegelman (b. Zhitomir, Ukraine, 1905). Both were immigrants from the Russian Empire, arriving in the United States as small children during the early years of the 20th century. His mother, Jenny Simon Spiegelman, was the chief influence on his early musical development. Herself a pianist, she steered him to h ...
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Roger Sessions
Roger Huntington Sessions (December 28, 1896March 16, 1985) was an American composer, teacher and musicologist. He had initially started his career writing in a neoclassical style, but gradually moved further towards more complex harmonies and postromanticism, and finally the twelve-tone serialism of the Second Viennese School. Sessions' friendship with Arnold Schoenberg influenced this, but he would modify the technique to develop a unique style involving rows to supply melodic thematic material, while composing the subsidiary parts in a free and dissonant manner. Life Sessions was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a family that could trace its roots back to the American Revolution. His mother, Ruth Huntington Sessions, was a direct descendant of Samuel Huntington, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence. Roger studied music at Harvard University from the age of 14. There he wrote for and subsequently edited the ''Harvard Musical Review''. Graduating at age 18, he went on ...
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Gunther Schuller
Gunther Alexander Schuller (November 22, 1925June 21, 2015) was an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, educator, publisher, and jazz musician. Biography and works Early years Schuller was born in Queens, New York City, the son of German parents Elsie (Bernartz) and Arthur E. Schuller, a violinist with the New York Philharmonic. He studied at the Saint Thomas Choir School and became an accomplished French horn player and flute player. At age 15, he was already playing horn professionally with the American Ballet Theatre (1943) followed by an appointment as principal hornist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (1943–45), and then the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York, where he stayed until 1959. During his youth, he attended the Precollege Division at the Manhattan School of Music, later going on to teach at the school. But, already a high school dropout because he wanted to play professionally, Schuller never obtained a degree from any in ...
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Ned Rorem
Ned Rorem (October 23, 1923 – November 18, 2022) was an American composer of contemporary classical music and writer. Best known for his art songs, which number over 500, Rorem was the leading American of his time writing in the genre. Although he wrote works for piano, orchestra and chamber ensemble and solo instruments, he considered all of his music vocal and song-like in nature. Rorem's interest in song centered not around the human voice, but the setting of poetry, as he was deeply familiar with and fond of English literature. A writer himself, he kept—and later published—numerous diaries in which he spoke candidly of his exchanges and relationships with many cultural figures of America and France. Born in Richmond, Indiana, Rorem found an early interest in music, studying with Margaret Bonds and Leo Sowerby among others. He developed a strong enthusiasm for French music—particularly the Impressionist composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel—which remained th ...
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