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J'Nai Bridges
J’Nai Bridges is a two time Grammy-Award winning American mezzo-soprano. She is a winner of the Marian Anderson Award and has performed for the Metropolitan Opera, Washington National Opera, and San Francisco Opera. BET has described her as ''The Beyoncé of opera''. Early life and education Bridges grew up in Lakewood, Washington, and attended high school at the Charles Wright Academy in Tacoma. Her focus was originally on basketball, but she became interested in singing after taking choir as an elective. After deciding to focus on music, she attended the Manhattan School of Music and then the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia for graduate school. While participating in a young artists' program at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, she was mentored by Renée Fleming. Career She names Black opera stars Denyce Graves, Shirley Verrett, Kathleen Battle, and Jessye Norman, at whose funeral she sang, as inspirations. Bridges sang at the Kennedy Center for the first tim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saint-Georges International Music Festival
The Saint-Georges International Music Festival (French: Festival International de Musique Saint-Georges) is a prominent music festival held in Guadeloupe, celebrating the life and works of Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Joseph Bologne, Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges. It had its inaugural launch in 2011 and has since become one of the largest List of classical music festivals, classical music festivals in the Caribbean. Purpose According to the festival's website and press releases, the festival has three goals: * Celebrate the life and music of Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Joseph Bologne, Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a contemporary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Mozart and one of the earliest known composers of African origin. * Promote diversity in classical music by bringing together exceptional artists from a variety of backgrounds and ethnicity. * Provide opportunities for under-represented artists (performers, composers, educators and students) to develop their talent and receive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kathleen Battle
Kathleen Deanna Battle (born August 13, 1948) is an American operatic soprano known for her distinctive vocal range and tone. Born in Portsmouth, Ohio, Battle initially became known for her work within the concert repertoire through performances with major orchestras during the early and mid-1970s. She made her opera debut in 1975. Battle expanded her repertoire into lyric soprano and coloratura soprano roles during the 1980s and early 1990s, until her eventual dismissal from the Metropolitan Opera in 1994. She later has focused on recording and the concert stage. After a 22-year absence from the Met, Battle performed a concert of spirituals at the Metropolitan Opera House in November 2016. Life and career Early years and musical education Battle was born in Portsmouth, Ohio, US, the youngest of seven children. Her father was a steelworker, and her mother was an active participant in the gospel music of the family's African Methodist Episcopal church. Battle attended Portsmouth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified in an outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019. Attempts to contain it there failed, allowing the virus to spread to other areas of Asia and later worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020, and a pandemic on 11 March 2020. As of , the pandemic had caused more than cases and confirmed deaths, making it one of the deadliest in history. COVID-19 symptoms range from undetectable to deadly, but most commonly include fever, dry cough, and fatigue. Severe illness is more likely in elderly patients and those with certain underlying medical conditions. COVID-19 transmits when people breathe in air contaminated by droplets and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samson And Delilah (opera)
''Samson and Delilah'' (french: Samson et Dalila, links=no), Op. 47, is a grand opera in three acts and four scenes by Camille Saint-Saëns to a French libretto by Ferdinand Lemaire. It was first performed in Weimar at the (Grand Ducal) Theater (now the Staatskapelle Weimar) on 2 December 1877 in a German translation. The opera is based on the Biblical tale of Samson and Delilah found in Chapter 16 of the Book of Judges in the Old Testament. It is the only opera by Saint-Saëns that is regularly performed. The second act love scene in Delilah's tent is one of the set pieces that define French opera. Two of Delilah's arias are particularly well known: "" ("Spring begins") and "" ("My heart opens itself to your voice", also known as "Softly awakes my heart"), the latter of which is one of the most popular recital pieces in the mezzo-soprano/contralto repertoire. Composition history In the middle of the 19th century, a revival of interest in choral music swept France, and Saint ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carmen
''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the Carmen (novella), novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first performed by the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 3 March 1875, where its breaking of conventions shocked and scandalised its first audiences. Bizet died suddenly after the 33rd performance, unaware that the work would achieve international acclaim within the following ten years. ''Carmen'' has since become one of the most popular and frequently performed operas in the classical Western canon, canon; the "Habanera (aria), Habanera" from act 1 and the "Toreador Song" from act 2 are among the best known of all operatic arias. The opera is written in the genre of ''opéra comique'' with musical numbers separated by dialogue. It is set in southern Spain and tells the story of the downfall of Don José, a naïve soldier who is seduced by the wiles of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Girls Of The Golden West (opera)
''Girls of the Golden West'' is an opera in two acts with music by John Adams and a libretto by Peter Sellars. The San Francisco Opera commissioned the work jointly with Dallas Opera, the Dutch National Opera (De Nationale Opera) and Teatro La Fenice in Venice. The opera was premiered in San Francisco on November 21, 2017. The running time is 160 minutes. Composition history The opera is inspired by the 1851/1852 letters of Louise Clappe, who lived for a year and a half in the mining settlement of Rich Bar (now Diamondville, California) during the California Gold Rush. Clappe published the letters under the pen name Dame Shirley. The libretto is also sourced from other literature of the period, including newspaper articles and the writings of Mark Twain. Adams wrote, "To be able to set to music the authentic voices of these people, whether from their letters or their songs or from newspaper accounts from their time, is a great privilege for me." Sellars, who also directed the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
Josefa Segovia
Josefa Segovia, also known as Juanita or Josefa Loaiza, was a Mexican-American woman who was executed by hanging in Downieville, California, on July 5, 1851. She was found guilty of murdering a local miner, Frederick Cannon. She is known to be the first and only woman to be hanged in California.Gutierrez, Margo, and Matt S. Meier. ''Encyclopedia of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement''. Greenwood, 2000. Print. p. 135-136. Early life and controversy about her name Not much is known about the early life of Josefa Segovia. The date of her birth is unknown.Blea, Irene I. ''U.S. Chicanas and Latinas Within a Global Context: Women of Color at the Fourth World Women's Conference''. Praeger, 1997. 89–90. eBook. Josefa's actual name has been a topic of debate among historians and scholars. Before the Chicano Civil Rights Movement, most scholars stated that Josefa had no recorded last name. In Gordon Young's ''Days of 49'', he says that her name was "Juanita". Hubert Bancroft, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Glass
Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up from repetitive phrases and shifting layers. Glass describes himself as a composer of "music with repetitive structures", which he has helped evolve stylistically. Glass founded the Philip Glass Ensemble, with which he still performs on keyboards. He has written fifteen operas, numerous chamber operas and musical theatre works, fourteen symphony, symphonies, twelve concertos, nine string quartets and various other chamber music, and several film scores. Three of his film scores have been nominated for an Academy Award. Life and work 1937–1964: Beginnings, early education and influences Philip Glass was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on January 31, 1937, the son of Ida (née Gouline) and Benjamin Charles Glass. His family were Lithuanian Je ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Akhnaten (opera)
''Akhnaten'' is an opera in three acts based on the life and religious convictions of the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV), written by the American composer Philip Glass in 1983. The libretto is by Philip Glass in association with Shalom Goldman, Robert Israel, Richard Riddell, and Jerome Robbins. According to the composer, this work is the culmination of his two other biographical operas, ''Einstein on the Beach'' (about Albert Einstein) and ''Satyagraha'' (about Mahatma Gandhi). These three people were all driven by an inner vision which altered the age in which they lived: Akhenaten in religion, Einstein in science, and Gandhi in politics. The text, taken from original sources, is sung in the original languages, linked together with the commentary of a narrator in a modern language, such as English or German. Egyptian texts of the period are taken from a poem of Akhenaten himself, from the ''Book of the Dead'', and from extracts of decrees and letters from the Amarn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nefertiti
Neferneferuaten Nefertiti () ( – c. 1330 BC) was a queen of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the great royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for a radical change in national religious policy, in which they promoted a form of proto-monotheism centred on the sun god Aten. With her husband, she reigned at what was arguably the wealthiest period of ancient Egyptian history. Some scholars believe that Nefertiti ruled briefly as Neferneferuaten after her husband's death and before the ascension of Tutankhamun, although this identification is a matter of ongoing debate.Dodson, Aidan, Amarna Sunset: ''Nefertiti, Tutankhamun, Ay, Horemheb, and the Egyptian Counter-Reformation''. The American University in Cairo Press. 2009, . If Nefertiti did rule as Pharaoh, her reign was marked by the fall of Amarna and relocation of the capital back to the traditional city of Thebes. She was made famous by her bust, now in Berlin's Neues Museum. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Los Angeles Opera
The Los Angeles Opera is an American opera company in Los Angeles, California. It is the fourth-largest opera company in the United States. The company's home base is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, part of the Los Angeles Music Center. Leadership Spanish tenor and conductor Plácido Domingo was general director of Los Angeles Opera from 2003 to 2019. Domingo sang 27 different roles with the company. He has also conducted 16 different operas and numerous concerts with the company. Domingo resigned in October 2019 following numerous accusations of sexual misconduct. Los Angeles Opera subsequently hired the law firm of Gibson Dunn, under the leadership of former United States Attorney and Superior Court Judge Debra Wong Yang, to conduct an independent investigation of the accusations. After interviewing 44 individuals, Gibson Dunn found that Domingo neither engaged in sexual quid pro quo nor any professional retaliation against women who rebuffed his advances. They also concluded t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
