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Kensington Symphony Orchestra
Founded in 1956, London's Kensington Symphony Orchestra is a non-professional orchestra in Britain. It attracts top non-professional players from around London for its concerts at St John's, Smith Square, Cadogan Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and other venues in London. It finances its concerts through ticket sales, charitable donations and corporate support, and through its playing members who pay subscription fees. History KSO has only had two principal conductors — its founder, Leslie Head, and the current conductor, Russell Keable who has been with the orchestra since 1983. Under Leslie Head Head was a 33-year-old freelance horn player and part-time conductor when he first assembled Kensington Symphony Orchestra at Queen Alexandra House, next door to the Royal Albert Hall and across the road from the Royal College of Music in Kensington. Head’s original concept was that this would be a repertoire orchestra, one that provided conservatoire students with the opportunity to re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kensington Symphony Orchestra Logo Medium
Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up by Kensington Gardens, containing the Albert Memorial, the Serpentine Gallery and Speke's monument. South Kensington and Gloucester Road are home to Imperial College London, the Royal College of Music, the Royal Albert Hall, Natural History Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, and Science Museum. The area is also home to many embassies and consulates. Name The manor of ''Chenesitone'' is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086, which in the Anglo-Saxon language means "Chenesi's ton" (homestead/settlement). One early spelling is ''Kesyngton'', as written in 1396. History The manor of Kensington, in the county of Middlesex, was one of several hundred granted by King William the Conqueror (1066-1089) to Geoffrey de Montbray (or Mowbray), Bishop of Coutances in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Nevsky (Prokofiev)
''Alexander Nevsky'' (''russian: Александр Невский'') is the score composed by Sergei Prokofiev for Sergei Eisenstein's 1938 film ''Alexander Nevsky''. The subject of the film is the 13th century incursion of the knights of the Livonian Order into the territory of the Novgorod Republic, their capture of the city of Pskov, the summoning of Prince Alexander Nevsky to the defense of Rus', and his subsequent victory over the crusaders in 1242. The majority of the score's song texts were written by the poet Vladimir Lugovskoy. In 1939, Prokofiev arranged the music of the film score as the cantata, ''Alexander Nevsky'', Op. 78, for mezzo-soprano, chorus, and orchestra. It is one of the few examples ('' Lieutenant Kijé'' is another) of film music that has found a permanent place in the standard repertoire, and has also remained one of the most renowned cantatas of the 20th century. Eisenstein, Prokofiev, and Lugovskoy later collaborated again on another historical epi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wilfred Josephs
Wilfred Josephs (24 July 1927 – 17 November 1997) was an English composer. Life Born in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, the fourth and youngest son of Russian and South Shields Jewish parents, Wilfred Josephs had his first musical studies in Newcastle with Arthur Milner, and showed early promise, but was persuaded by his parents to take up a 'sensible' career. He subsequently became a dentist, qualifying as a Bachelor of Dental Surgery of the University of Durham in 1951. He later studied at the Guildhall School in London. In 1963 his ''Requiem'', a complete setting of the Hebrew Kaddish, written in memory of the Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust, won the first International Composing Competition of the City of Milan and La Scala – then the biggest musical award in the world, after which he gave up dentistry and became a full-time composer. The Requiem was performed by Nino Sanzogno in Milan, Maurice Handford for the BBC, Max Rudolf in Cincinnati, and Giulini in Chi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Villiers Stanford
Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (30 September 1852 – 29 March 1924) was an Anglo-Irish composer, music teacher, and conductor of the late Romantic music, Romantic era. Born to a well-off and highly musical family in Dublin, Stanford was educated at the University of Cambridge before studying music in University of Music and Theatre Leipzig, Leipzig and Berlin. He was instrumental in raising the status of the Cambridge University Musical Society, attracting international stars to perform with it. While still an undergraduate, Stanford was appointed organist of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1882, aged 29, he was one of the founding professors of the Royal College of Music, where he taught composition for the rest of his life. From 1887 he was also Professor of Music (Cambridge), Professor of Music at Cambridge. As a teacher, Stanford was sceptical about modernism, and based his instruction chiefly on classical principles as exemplified in the music of Johannes Brahms, Brahms ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arnold Bax
Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, (8 November 1883 – 3 October 1953) was an English composer, poet, and author. His prolific output includes songs, choral music, chamber pieces, and solo piano works, but he is best known for his orchestral music. In addition to a series of symphonic poems, he wrote seven symphonies and was for a time widely regarded as the leading British symphonist. Bax was born in the London suburb of Streatham to a prosperous family. He was encouraged by his parents to pursue a career in music, and his private income enabled him to follow his own path as a composer without regard for fashion or orthodoxy. Consequently, he came to be regarded in musical circles as an important but isolated figure. While still a student at the Royal Academy of Music Bax became fascinated with Ireland and Celtic culture, which became a strong influence on his early development. In the years before the First World War he lived in Ireland and became a member of Dublin literary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton (29 March 19028 March 1983) was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera. His best-known works include ''Façade'', the cantata ''Belshazzar's Feast'', the Viola Concerto, the First Symphony, and the British coronation marches ''Crown Imperial'' and '' Orb and Sceptre''. Born in Oldham, Lancashire, the son of a musician, Walton was a chorister and then an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford. On leaving the university, he was taken up by the literary Sitwell siblings, who provided him with a home and a cultural education. His earliest work of note was a collaboration with Edith Sitwell, ''Façade'', which at first brought him notoriety as a modernist, but later became a popular ballet score. In middle age, Walton left Britain and set up home with his young wife Susana on the Italian island of Ischia. By this time, he had ceased to be regarded as a moderni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Federation Of Music Societies
Making Music (formerly the National Federation of Music Societies) is a UK membership organisation for leisure-time music groups of all musical genres, representing over 200,000 musicians and promoters of all levels and experience. Making Music provides them with practical services, guidance, artistic development opportunities and a collective voice for advocacy. Mission Making Music aims at supporting , standing for and celebrating groups of people who make and presente music in their leisure time across the UK. The organisation plans to do this in four ways. # Lobbying and advocacy: creating opportunities to take part in music making, and conveying the needs of its members to decision-makers in government and elsewhere. #Practical resources: insurance schemes, guidance, tools and discounts. #Networking and development: training events to provide support via a team of managers in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. #Artistic support: Making Music selects profes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arts Council Of Great Britain
The Arts Council of Great Britain was a non-departmental public body dedicated to the promotion of the fine arts in Great Britain. It was divided in 1994 to form the Arts Council of England (now Arts Council England), the Scottish Arts Council (later merged into Creative Scotland), and the Arts Council of Wales. At the same time the National Lottery was established and these three arts councils, plus the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, became distribution bodies. History In January 1940, during the Second World War, the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA), was appointed to help promote and maintain British culture. Chaired by Lord De La Warr, President of the Board of Education, the council was government-funded and after the war was renamed the Arts Council of Great Britain. Reginald Jacques was appointed musical director, with Sir Henry Walford Davies and George Dyson also involved. John Denison took over after the war. A royal charter was grante ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gurre-Lieder
' is a large cantata for five vocal soloists, narrator, chorus and large orchestra, composed by Arnold Schoenberg, on poems by the Danish novelist Jens Peter Jacobsen (translated from Danish to German by ). The title means "songs of Gurre", referring to Gurre Castle in Denmark, scene of the medieval love-tragedy (related in Jacobsen's poems) revolving around the Danish national legend of the love of the Danish king Valdemar Atterdag (Valdemar IV, 1320–1375, spelled Waldemar by Schoenberg) for his mistress Tove, and her subsequent murder by Valdemar's jealous wife Queen Helvig (a legend which is historically more likely connected with his ancestor Valdemar I). Composition In 1900, Schoenberg began composing the work as a song cycle for soprano, tenor and piano for a competition run by the ''Wiener Tonkünstler-Verein'' (Vienna Composers' Association). It was written in a lush, late-romantic style heavily influenced by Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. According to Schoenberg, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School. As a Jewish composer, Schoenberg was targeted by the Nazi Party, which labeled his works as degenerate music and forbade them from being published. He immigrated to the United States in 1933, becoming an American citizen in 1941. Schoenberg's approach, bοth in terms of harmony and development, has shaped much of 20th-century musical thought. Many composers from at least three generations have consciously extended his thinking, whereas others have passionately reacted against it. Schoenberg was known early in his career for simultaneously extending the traditionally opposed German Romantic styles of Brahms and Wagner. Later, hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Tomlinson (bass)
Sir John Rowland Tomlinson (born 22 September 1946) is an English Bass (voice type), bass. Tomlinson was born in Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, England. He trained as a civil engineer at Manchester University before deciding on a career in opera at age 21. He studied with Patrick McGuigan at the Royal Northern College of Music and with Otakar Kraus. He is now President of the RNCM. Whilst studying at the RNCM, he was a member of the Manchester Universities Gilbert and Sullivan Society (MUGSS). He sings regularly with the Royal Opera, London, Royal Opera and English National Opera, and has appeared with all the major British opera companies. He sang at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany every year from 1988 to 2006, as Wotan, the Wanderer, King Marke, Titurel, Gurnemanz, Hagen and the Dutchman. In 2008, he created the title role in Harrison Birtwistle's opera The Minotaur (opera), ''The Minotaur'' at the Royal Opera House. Honours * He was given an Honorary title (academic), Honorary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Puccini (Lucca, 22 December 1858Bruxelles, 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long line of composers, stemming from the late-Baroque era. Though his early work was firmly rooted in traditional late-19th-century Romantic Italian opera, he later developed his work in the realistic ''verismo'' style, of which he became one of the leading exponents. His most renowned works are ''La bohème'' (1896), ''Tosca'' (1900), '' Madama Butterfly'' (1904), and ''Turandot'' (1924), all of which are among the most frequently performed and recorded of all operas. Family and education Puccini was born Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini in Lucca, Italy, in 1858. He was the sixth of nine children of Michele Puccini (1813–1864) and Albina Magi (1830–1884). The Puccini family was established in Lucca as a local musi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
