|
Eric Parkin
Eric Parkin (24 March 1924 – 3 February 2020) was an English pianist. Parkin was born in Stevenage and attended Alleynes Grammar School there. He studied at Trinity College of Music with the Anglo-French pianist Frank Laffitte and with George Oldroyd. He also studied conducting with Charles Kennedy Scott and composition with Henry Geehl. He began working in the 1940s as a cocktail pianist at The May Fair Hotel, making his classical debut at the Wigmore Hall in 1948 with a recital of Beethoven and Chopin. Parkin quickly became a frequent broadcaster on BBC Radio. Having met the composer John Ireland he made his Proms debut playing the Ireland Piano Concerto in 1953, with Malcolm Sargent and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Although his musical interests spanned the Classical and Romantic periods, he became best known for his recorded performances and recitals of 20th Century British music, including works by William Baines, Arnold Bax, William Blezard, Frank Bridge, Alan Bush, Geo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stevenage
Stevenage ( ) is a large town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, about north of London. Stevenage is east of junctions 7 and 8 of the A1(M), between Letchworth Garden City to the north and Welwyn Garden City to the south. In 1946, Stevenage was designated the United Kingdom's first New Town under the New Towns Act. Etymology "Stevenage" may derive from Old English ''stiþen āc'' / ''stiðen āc'' / ''stithen ac'' (various Old English dialects cited here) meaning "(place at) the stiff oak". The name was recorded as ''Stithenæce'' in c.1060 and as ''Stigenace'' in the Domesday Book in 1086. History Pre-Conquest Stevenage lies near the line of the Roman road from Verulamium to Baldock. Some Romano-British remains were discovered during the building of the New Town, and a hoard of 2,000 silver Roman coins was discovered during house-building in the Chells Manor area in 1986. Other artefacts included a dodecahedron toy, fragments of amphorae for imported wine, bone hairpin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Gow (composer)
__NOTOC__ David Godfrey Gow (6 April 1924 - 23 February 1993) was an English composer (of Scottish descent) and teacher. Life Gow was born in London. His ancestors included the 18th Century Scottish fiddler Niel Gow and his son Nathaniel (a connection he acknowledged in his ''Six Diversions on an Ancestral Theme''). He studied at the Royal College of Music with Gordon Jacob and Frank Merrick, where he gained his first recognition as a composer, winning the Clements Prize with his Clarinet Quintet (1945). He then took further composition lessons with Alan Bush and took an M Mus degree at Durham University. He began regular composition in the 1950s, but later disowned many of his early works. After a period teaching further education evening classes in London, Gow was appointed music lecturer at Swindon Technical College in 1962. He stayed on there until retirement. He also lectured at Bristol University, and from 1969 was closely involved with music courses for the Open Unive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unicorn-Kanchana
Unicorn-Kanchana is a British independent record label founded by John Goldsmith (died 2020), a former London police officer. Originally known as Unicorn Records, the name Kanchana was added later to distinguish the company from Unicorn Digital of Montréal, Canada which many progressive rock bands like Mystery are signed to. In Hindu and Buddhist mythology, the female name ''Kanchana'' means an Apsara, a spirit of the clouds and waters. The label specialised mainly in classical music and film soundtracks. Artists signed to the label included Andrzej Panufnik, Jascha Horenstein, Jennifer Bate, Henry Herford and Peter Maxwell Davies. The label also released several recordings of lesser-known British composers, including Havergal Brian, George Dyson and Cipriani Potter. Additionally, under licence it released four discs of recordings made in London by the American composer Alan Hovhaness, thereby introducing the composer to a European audience. The Leicestershire Schools Symp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Priory Records
Priory Records is a record company in the UK founded in 1980, and devoted mostly to church music and organ music. Important projects have included the complete Psalms sung by cathedral choirs to Anglican chant, all of the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis settings by Herbert Howells, the "British Church Composer Series", the "Choral and Music from English Cathedrals", the "Music for Evensong" and, more recently, all the hymns in the complete New English Hymnal Series. There are also three discs of the Communion Service settings of Stanford and four further discs featuring settings of the Te Deum and Jubilate (by various composers). The collection of CDs "Great European Organs" is dedicated to the discovery of European organs with the participation of the following organists: Kevin Bowyer, Daniel Roth, Nicolas Kynaston, Graham Barber, David Briggs, John Scott, Gerard Brooks, Jane Watts, Roger Sayer, Colin Walsh, Christopher Herrick, Stephen Farr, John Scott Whiteley, Stephen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chandos Records
Chandos Records is a British independent classical music recording company based in Colchester. It was founded in 1979 by Brian Couzens. Background Chandos Records arose from a band music publisher Chandos Music, founded in 1963, and Chandos Productions, a record production company which produced LPs for Classics for Pleasure, and, especially, RCA Records, RCA's work in the UK. Its first record was Bloch's Sacred Service (ABR1001). Important early recordings were made with Mariss Jansons, Nigel Kennedy and the King's Singers – before they moved to bigger contracts with EMI.Anderson C. "Thirty years of Chandos. Ralph and Brian Couzens talk about th ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lyrita
Lyrita is a British European classical music, classical music record label, specializing in the works of List of British classical composers, British composers. Lyrita began releasing LP album, LPs in October 1959 as Lyrita Recorded Edition for sale by mail order subscription. The founder of the company, Richard Itter (5 April 1928 - 1 March 2014) of Burnham, Buckinghamshire, was a businessman and record collector. Having heard many poor records, he determined to make only good ones. Lyrita concentrated on the work of United Kingdom composers. At first this consisted of the piano music of Arnold Bax, Gordon Jacob, E.J. Moeran and Michael Tippett amongst others. The earliest recordings were made in the music room of Itter's home. Itter was responsible for the engineering, production, and editing of the recordings. If he managed to sell 100 copies Itter was able to break even. RCS.2 was the first catalog number, and Gordon Jacob wrote a composition specifically for this album, " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Argo Records (UK)
Argo Records is a record label founded by Harley Usill and Cyril Clarke in 1951 with the intention of recording "British music played by British artists", but the company's releases expanded to include spoken word recordings and other projects. Genres Argo's first issue, ''Music from Bali'', was dedicated to the Indonesian gamelan (ensemble) recorded at the Winter Garden Theatre, London. The catalogue eventually ran to 1,000 items. In 1953, Usill was introduced to Indian musician Deben Bhattacharya, who was responsible for field recordings of traditional music in India. Bhattacharya had been frustrated by the absence of recordings he could use for his BBC Radio broadcasts. Around the same time, Walter Harris recorded an amateur Brazilian choir in Rio de Janeiro. Such recordings as these appeared in the labels "Living Traditions" series. Taking advantage of the capacity of the longer playing time of LP records, Argo embarked on recording the complete works of William Shakes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Composers". The open, slowly changing harmonies in much of his music are typical of what many people consider to be the sound of American music, evoking the vast American landscape and pioneer spirit. He is best known for the works he wrote in the 1930s and 1940s in a deliberately accessible style often referred to as "populist" and which the composer labeled his "vernacular" style. Works in this vein include the ballets ''Appalachian Spring'', ''Billy the Kid'' and ''Rodeo'', his ''Fanfare for the Common Man'' and Third Symphony. In addition to his ballets and orchestral works, he produced music in many other genres, including chamber music, vocal works, opera and film scores. After some initial studies with composer Rubin Goldmark, Copland ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Barber
Samuel Osmond Barber II (March 9, 1910 – January 23, 1981) was an American composer, pianist, conductor, baritone, and music educator, and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century. The music critic Donal Henahan said, "Probably no other American composer has ever enjoyed such early, such persistent and such long-lasting acclaim." Principally influenced by nine years' composition studies with Rosario Scalero at the Curtis Institute and more than 25 years' study with his uncle, the composer Sidney Homer, Barber's music usually eschewed the experimental trends of musical modernism in favor of traditional 19th-century harmonic language and formal structure embracing lyricism and emotional expression. However, he adopted elements of modernism after 1940 in some of his compositions, such as an increased use of dissonance and chromaticism in the '' Cello Concerto'' (1945) and '' Medea's Dance of Vengeance'' (1955); and the use of tonal ambiguity and a narrow use of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albert Roussel
Albert Charles Paul Marie Roussel (; 5 April 1869 – 23 August 1937) was a French composer. He spent seven years as a midshipman, turned to music as an adult, and became one of the most prominent French composers of the interwar period. His early works were strongly influenced by the impressionism of Debussy and Ravel, while he later turned toward neoclassicism. Biography Born in Tourcoing ( Nord), Roussel's earliest interest was not in music but mathematics. He spent time in the French Navy, and in 1889 and 1890, he served on the crew of the frigate ''Iphigénie'' and spent several years in southern Vietnam. These travels affected him artistically, as many of his musical works would reflect his interest in far-off, exotic places. After resigning from the Navy in 1894, he began to study harmony in Roubaix, first with Julien Koszul (grandfather of composer Henri Dutilleux), who encouraged him to pursue his formation in Paris with Eugène Gigout; Roussel then continued ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francis Poulenc
Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (; 7 January 189930 January 1963) was a French composer and pianist. His compositions include songs, solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. Among the best-known are the piano suite '' Trois mouvements perpétuels'' (1919), the ballet ''Les biches'' (1923), the ''Concert champêtre'' (1928) for harpsichord and orchestra, the Organ Concerto (1938), the opera ''Dialogues des Carmélites'' (1957), and the '' Gloria'' (1959) for soprano, choir, and orchestra. As the only son of a prosperous manufacturer, Poulenc was expected to follow his father into the family firm, and he was not allowed to enrol at a music college. Largely self-educated musically, he studied with the pianist Ricardo Viñes, who became his mentor after the composer's parents died. Poulenc also made the acquaintance of Erik Satie, under whose tutelage he became one of a group of young composers known collectively as ''Les Six''. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Stoker
Richard Stoker (8 November 1938 – 24 March 2021) was a British composer, writer, actor and artist. There was a strong musical tradition in Stoker's family, and he showed an early aptitude, intrigued by the piano keyboard as soon as he was tall enough to reach it. He started playing the piano at the age of six, started to compose at the age of seven, and went to an uncle for piano lessons. At 15 he went to Huddersfield Technical College, studying with Harold Truscott and Winifred Smith. After initial encouragement from Eric Fenby, Arthur Benjamin and Benjamin Britten, he entered the Royal Academy of Music in 1958 and studied under Lennox Berkeley. He won several prizes at the RAM, culminating in the Mendelssohn Scholarship in 1962, which took him to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger. Returning to London in 1963 he was invited to teach at the RAM, and was a Professor of Composition there for over 20 years. He later became Hon Treasurer and a Founder member of the Royal Academ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Stevenage")
