Ken Medema
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Ken Medema
Kenneth Peter Medema (born December 7, 1943) is an American musician and singer-songwriter who has been performing in the United States, Canada, and Europe for more than forty years. Some of his best known songs began as live improvisations. Medema was born almost blind; his eyes only let him tell light from shadow and see outlines of major objects. He began playing the piano when he was five years old, and three years later began taking lessons in classical music through braille music, playing by ear and improvising in different styles. In 1969, he majored in music therapy at Michigan State University in Lansing, studying both piano and voice. Afterwards he worked as a music therapist in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and later at Essex County Hospital in New Jersey. In 1973, he began performing and recording his own songs while at Essex County Hospital. "I had a bunch of teenagers who were really hurting," he says, "and I started writing songs about their lives. Then I thought, 'Why d ...
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Grand Rapids
Grand Rapids is a city and county seat of Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 198,917 which ranks it as the second most-populated city in the state after Detroit. Grand Rapids is the central city of the Grand Rapids metropolitan area, which has a population of 1,087,592 and a combined statistical area population of 1,383,918. Situated along the Grand River approximately east of Lake Michigan, it is the economic and cultural hub of West Michigan, as well as one of the fastest-growing cities in the Midwest. A historic furniture manufacturing center, Grand Rapids is home to five of the world's leading office furniture companies and is nicknamed "Furniture City". Other nicknames include "River City" and more recently, "Beer City" (the latter given by ''USA Today'' and adopted by the city as a brand). The city and surrounding communities are economically diverse, based in the health care, information technology, auto ...
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Shawnee Press
Shawnee Press, Inc., was an independent print and recorded music publisher and for a time, the largest educational music publisher in the world. The Company published several music types including choral, vocal, instrumental, and classroom in a variety of styles. Shawnee Press was founded in 1939 by famed bandleader/choirmaster from the Golden Age of radio and television, Fred Waring. Waring and his famous singing group “The Pennsylvanians” achieved national prominence on radio and television in the 1930s through the 1970s. As the group grew in popularity, school and church choral directors began requesting copies of Waring’s unique arrangements, and Waring responded by starting a music publisher based in New York City. Originally named "Words and Music" the new venture included Jack Benny as one of the original investors along with Waring. Waring eventually bought out the other investors and moved the company to his native Pennsylvania, 80 miles outside of New York Cit ...
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Blind Musicians
Blind musicians are singers or instrumentalists, or in some cases singer-accompanists, who are legally blind. Resources Historically, many blind musicians, including some of the most famous, have performed without the benefit of formal instruction, since such instruction relies extensively on written musical notation. However, today there are many resources available for blind musicians who wish to learn Western music theory and classical notation. Louis Braille, the man who created the braille alphabet for the blind, also created a system of classical notation for the blind called Braille music. This system allows the blind to read and write music much as the sighted do. The largest collection of Braille musical scores is located at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Outside the U.S., the largest collection of braille music scores is stored at the National Library for the Blind in England. Computer technology and the Internet make it possible in theory for blind m ...
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Musicians From Grand Rapids, Michigan
A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who write both music and lyrics for songs, conductors who direct a musical performance, or performers who perform for an audience. A music performer is generally either a singer who provides vocals or an instrumentalist who plays a musical instrument. Musicians may perform on their own or as part of a group, band or orchestra. Musicians specialize in a musical style, and some musicians play in a variety of different styles depending on cultures and background. A musician who records and releases music can be known as a recording artist. Types Composer A composer is a musician who creates musical compositions. The title is principally used for those who write classical music or film music. Those who write the music for popular songs may be ...
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American Male Singer-songwriters
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soccer * ...
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21st-century American Composers
The 1st century was the century spanning AD 1 ( I) through AD 100 ( C) according to the Julian calendar. It is often written as the or to distinguish it from the 1st century BC (or BCE) which preceded it. The 1st century is considered part of the Classical era, epoch, or historical period. The 1st century also saw the appearance of Christianity. During this period, Europe, North Africa and the Near East fell under increasing domination by the Roman Empire, which continued expanding, most notably conquering Britain under the emperor Claudius ( AD 43). The reforms introduced by Augustus during his long reign stabilized the empire after the turmoil of the previous century's civil wars. Later in the century the Julio-Claudian dynasty, which had been founded by Augustus, came to an end with the suicide of Nero in AD 68. There followed the famous Year of Four Emperors, a brief period of civil war and instability, which was finally brought to an end by Vespasian, ninth Roman emper ...
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American Male Composers
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soccer * ...
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Living People
Related categories * :Year of birth missing (living people) / :Year of birth unknown * :Date of birth missing (living people) / :Date of birth unknown * :Place of birth missing (living people) / :Place of birth unknown * :Year of death missing / :Year of death unknown * :Date of death missing / :Date of death unknown * :Place of death missing / :Place of death unknown * :Missing middle or first names See also * :Dead people * :Template:L, which generates this category or death years, and birth year and sort keys. : {{DEFAULTSORT:Living people 21st-century people People by status ...
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1943 Births
Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 – WWII: The Soviet Union announces that 22 German divisions have been encircled at Stalingrad, with 175,000 killed and 137,650 captured. * January 4 – WWII: Greek-Polish athlete and saboteur Jerzy Iwanow-Szajnowicz is executed by the Germans at Kaisariani. * January 11 ** The United States and United Kingdom revise previously unequal treaty relationships with the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China. ** Italian-American anarchist Carlo Tresca is assassinated in New York City. * January 13 – Anti-Nazi protests in Sofia result in 200 arrests and 36 executions. * January 14 – January 24, 24 – WWII: Casablanca Conference: Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States; Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; and Generals Charles de Gaulle and Henri Giraud of the Free French forces meet secretly at the Anfa Hotel in Casablanca, Morocco, to plan the ...
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Uncle Remus
Uncle Remus is the fictional title character and narrator of a collection of African American folktales compiled and adapted by Joel Chandler Harris and published in book form in 1881. Harris was a journalist in post-Reconstruction era Atlanta, and he produced seven Uncle Remus books. He did so by introducing tales that he had heard and framing them in the plantation context. He wrote his stories in a dialect which was his interpretation of the Deep South African-American language of the time. For these framing and stylistic choices, Harris's collection has garnered controversy since its publication. Structure ''Uncle Remus'' is a collection of animal stories, songs, and oral folklore collected from southern black Americans. Many of the stories are didactic, much like those of Aesop's Fables and Jean de La Fontaine's stories. Uncle Remus is a kindly old freedman who serves as a story-telling device, passing on the folktales to children gathered around him, like the traditional ...
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New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware River and Pennsylvania; and on the southwest by Delaware Bay and the state of Delaware. At , New Jersey is the fifth-smallest state in land area; but with close to 9.3 million residents, it ranks 11th in population and first in population density. The state capital is Trenton, and the most populous city is Newark. With the exception of Warren County, all of the state's 21 counties lie within the combined statistical areas of New York City or Philadelphia. New Jersey was first inhabited by Native Americans for at least 2,800 years, with the Lenape being the dominant group when Europeans arrived in the early 17th century. Dutch and Swedish colonists founded the first European settlements in the state. The British later seized control o ...
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Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the largest by area east of the Mississippi River.''i.e.'', including water that is part of state territory. Georgia is the largest state by land area alone east of the Mississippi and Michigan the second-largest. Its capital is Lansing, and its largest city is Detroit. Metro Detroit is among the nation's most populous and largest metropolitan economies. Its name derives from a gallicized variant of the original Ojibwe word (), meaning "large water" or "large lake". Michigan consists of two peninsulas. The Lower Peninsula resembles the shape of a mitten, and comprises a majority of the state's land area. The Upper Peninsula (often called "the U.P.") is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac, a channel that joins Lak ...
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