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James Walker (conductor)
James Walker (9 April 1912 – 20 August 1988) was an Australian musician known both as a conductor of ballet and opera and as a recording producer supervising classical recording sessions. As a conductor Walker was musical director of the International Ballet company from 1947 to 1953 and of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1968 to 1971 in succession to Isidore Godfrey. For D'Oyly Carte he supervised and sometimes conducted recordings from the 1950s to the 1970s. Before and after his years with D'Oyly Carte Walker was a producer for Decca Records, working with a large number of international artists including Benjamin Britten, Pierre Monteux, Renata Tebaldi, Herbert von Karajan and Vladimir Ashkenazy. Many of the 1950s and 1960s recordings produced by Walker have been transferred to CD and remain in the catalogues. Biography Early years Walker was born in Ashfield, New South Wales. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Walker (conductor)
James Walker (9 April 1912 – 20 August 1988) was an Australian musician known both as a conductor of ballet and opera and as a recording producer supervising classical recording sessions. As a conductor Walker was musical director of the International Ballet company from 1947 to 1953 and of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1968 to 1971 in succession to Isidore Godfrey. For D'Oyly Carte he supervised and sometimes conducted recordings from the 1950s to the 1970s. Before and after his years with D'Oyly Carte Walker was a producer for Decca Records, working with a large number of international artists including Benjamin Britten, Pierre Monteux, Renata Tebaldi, Herbert von Karajan and Vladimir Ashkenazy. Many of the 1950s and 1960s recordings produced by Walker have been transferred to CD and remain in the catalogues. Biography Early years Walker was born in Ashfield, New South Wales. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernest Irving
Kelville Ernest Irving (6 November 1878 – 24 October 1953) was an English music director, conductor and composer, primarily remembered as a theatre musician in London between the wars, and for his key contributions to British film music as music director at Ealing Studios from the 1930s to the 1950s. Early life Irving was born in Godalming, Surrey, and from the age of seven sang in the choir at Godalming Parish Church. He attended Charterhouse School.Lamb, Andrew'Irving, (Kelville) Ernest'in ''The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (2004) Other than that he was self-taught, and began his career applying for music director jobs advertised in ''The Stage''. His first professional job conducting an orchestra was for the musical burlesque ''Villiano the Vicious'' at the Theatre Royal, Maidenhead in 1895. He then spent the next two decades learning his trade by touring with productions (of variable quality) all around the UK - in his own words conducting "third rate opera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Culshaw
John Royds Culshaw, OBE (28 May 192427 April 1980) was a pioneering English classical record producer for Decca Records. He produced a wide range of music, but is best known for masterminding the first studio recording of Wagner's ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'', begun in 1958. Largely self-educated musically, Culshaw worked for Decca from the age of 22, first writing album liner notes and then becoming a producer. After a brief period working for Capitol Records, Culshaw returned to Decca in 1955 and began planning to record the ''Ring'' cycle, employing the new stereophonic technique to produce recordings of unprecedented realism and impact. He disliked live recordings from opera houses, and sought to put on disc specially made studio recordings that would bring the operas fully to life in the listener's mind. In addition to his Wagner recordings, he supervised a series of recordings of the works of Benjamin Britten, with the composer as conductor or pianist, and recordings of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
Peter Andry (record Producer)
Peter Edward Andry, (10 March 1927 – 7 December 2010) was a classical record producer and an influential executive in the recording industry, active from the 1950s to the 1990s. Born in Hamburg, Andry spent his formative years in Melbourne, Australia, where he became a professional flautist, with ambitions to be a conductor. After moving to England, where he studied with William Lloyd Webber and Sir Adrian Boult, he played the flute in the orchestra of a ballet company, with occasional chances to conduct. In 1953 he switched career, joining the Decca Record Company as a producer. Less than three years later he moved to Decca's rival, HMV Records, part of the EMI group, where he rose to become head of the group's classical operations. After retiring from EMI in 1988, Andry headed a new classical label Warner Classics, before retiring finally from the recording industry in 1996. Life and career Early years Andry was born in Hamburg, the younger of two brothers. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joan Rimmer
Joan Rimmer (11 December 1918 – 29 December 2014) was an English musicologist who specialised in the history of musical instruments (especially the Irish harp) and in historical dance forms. She was also a pioneer in ethnomusicology who presented, in the course of 30 years, numerous programmes on traditional music from around to the world on BBC radio. Life and career Rimmer was born in the Battersea district of London, to Marion (nee Layzell), a bookkeeper, and Edmund Rimmer, a musician, and grew up in Kensington. At age 12, she gained a scholarship to the Royal College of Music where she later studied piano with Cyril Smith and won the Hopkinson Gold Medal, graduating in 1939. She became a music teacher at Putney High School and Roehampton Training College while also giving public piano recitals. In 1948, Rimmer began a long association with the BBC, which lasted about 30 years. Initially she was a station pianist, presented educational programmes for children, and produced ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Manchester Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, the paper's main news ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
St James's Theatre
The St James's Theatre was in King Street, St James's, London. It opened in 1835 and was demolished in 1957. The theatre was conceived by and built for a popular singer, John Braham; it lost money and after three seasons he retired. A succession of managements over the next forty years also failed to make it a commercial success, and the St James's acquired a reputation as an unlucky theatre. It was not until 1879–1888, under the management of the actors John Hare and Madge and W. H. Kendal that the theatre began to prosper. The Hare-Kendal management was succeeded, after brief and disastrous attempts by other lessees, by that of the actor-manager George Alexander, who was in charge from 1891 until his death in 1918. Under Alexander the house gained a reputation for programming that was adventurous without going too far for the tastes of London society. Among the plays he presented were Oscar Wilde's ''Lady Windermere's Fan'' (1892) and ''The Importance of Being Earn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eleanor Farjeon
Eleanor Farjeon (13 February 1881 – 5 June 1965) was an English author of children's stories and plays, poetry, biography, history and satire. Several of her works had illustrations by Edward Ardizzone. Some of her correspondence has also been published. She won many literary awards and the Eleanor Farjeon Award for children's literature is presented annually in her memory by the Children's Book Circle, a society of publishers. She was the sister of thriller writer Joseph Jefferson Farjeon. Biography Eleanor Farjeon was born on 13 February 1881. The daughter of Benjamin Farjeon and Maggie (Jefferson) Farjeon, Eleanor came from a literary family; her two younger brothers, Joseph and Herbert Farjeon, were writers, while the eldest, Harry Farjeon, was a composer. Her father was Jewish. Farjeon, known to the family as "Nellie", was a small, timid child, who had poor eyesight and suffered from ill-health throughout her childhood. She was educated at home, spending much of her ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbert Farjeon
Herbert (Bertie) Farjeon (5 March 1887 – 3 May 1945) was a major figure in the British theatre from 1910 until his death. He was a presenter of revues in London's West End, a theatre critic, lyricist, librettist, playwright, theatre manager and researcher. Early life His father was the novelist Benjamin Leopold Farjeon. His mother, Margaret Jefferson, was the daughter of the American actor, Joseph Jefferson. His sister was Eleanor Farjeon, the writer of children's verse and stories. His brothers were Harry Farjeon, the composer, and J. Jefferson Farjeon, who wrote novels. He was a conscientious objector in the First World War. Career His first play to be performed, ''Friends'', was put on at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin in 1917. Subsequently, he had several plays performed in London. He was better known for his revues than for his "straight" plays, however. These included: ''Spread It Abroad'', ''The Two Bouquets'', ''Nine Sharp'', ''Little Revue'', ''Diversion'' and ''Light a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harlequinade
''Harlequinade'' is a British comic theatrical genre, defined by the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' as "that part of a pantomime in which the harlequin and clown play the principal parts". It developed in England between the 17th and mid-19th centuries. It was originally a slapstick adaptation or variant of the Commedia dell'arte, which originated in Italy and reached its apogee there in the 16th and 17th centuries. The story of the Harlequinade revolves around a comic incident in the lives of its five main characters: Harlequin, who loves Columbine; Columbine's greedy and foolish father Pantaloon (evolved from the character Pantalone), who tries to separate the lovers in league with the mischievous Clown; and the servant, Pierrot, usually involving chaotic chase scenes with a bumbling policeman. Originally a mime (silent) act with music and stylised dance, the harlequinade later employed some dialogue, but it remained primarily a visual spectacle. Early in its development, it ach ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pantomime
Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speaking countries, especially during the Christmas and New Year season. Modern pantomime includes songs, gags, slapstick comedy and dancing. It employs gender-crossing actors and combines topical humour with a story more or less based on a well-known fairy tale, fable or folk tale.Reid-Walsh, Jacqueline. "Pantomime", ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature'', Jack Zipes (ed.), Oxford University Press (2006), Pantomime is a participatory form of theatre, in which the audience is encouraged and expected to sing along with certain parts of the music and shout out phrases to the performers. Pantomime has a long theatrical history in Western culture dating back to the era of classical theatre. It developed partly from the 16th century c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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