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Mass In D (Smyth)
The Mass in D by Ethel Smyth is a setting of the mass ordinary for vocal soloists, chorus and orchestra. Background Smyth composed the Mass following a renewal of her High Anglican belief,Collis (1984), p. 49 stimulated by reading a copy of ''The Imitation of Christ'', by Thomas à Kempis, while she was ill in Munich on Christmas Eve 1889. The book belonged to her Catholic friend Pauline Trevelyan, to whom Smyth dedicated the Mass. She composed much of it while a guest of Empress Eugénie at Cape Martin,St John (1959), p. 83 near Monaco, in the summer of 1891. Eugénie was also a friend of Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo .... In October 1891, Smyth was staying with Eugénie on the estate of Balmoral Castle when the Queen paid a visit. Smyth gave a re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethel Smyth
Dame Ethel Mary Smyth (; 22 April 18588 May 1944) was an English composer and a member of the women's suffrage movement. Her compositions include songs, works for piano, chamber music, orchestral works, choral works and operas. Smyth tended to be marginalised as a ‘woman composer’, as though her work could not be accepted as mainstream. Yet when she produced more delicate compositions, they were criticised for not measuring up to the standard of her male competitors. Nevertheless, she was granted a damehood, the first female composer to be so honoured. Family background Ethel Smyth was the fourth of eight children. The youngest was Robert ("Bob") Napier Smyth (1868–1947), who rose to become a Brigadier in the British Army. She was the aunt of Lieutenant General Sir Ralph Eastwood. She was born in Sidcup, Kent, which is now in the London Borough of Bexley. While 22 April is the actual day of her birth, Smyth habitually stated it was 23 April, the day that was celebrated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ben Davies (tenor)
Ben Davies (6 January 1858 – 28 March 1943) was a Welsh tenor singer, who appeared in opera with the Carl Rosa Opera Company, in operetta and light opera, and on the concert and oratorio platform. He was spoken of as a successor of Edward Lloyd, as a leading British tenor, and retained something of his style and repertoire in concert performance. Training and operatic career, 1881–1891 Ben Davies was born in Pontardawe, Wales. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London under Alberto Randegger and Signor Fiori. He made his debut in 1881 in Michael Balfe's ''The Bohemian Girl'', and in the following ten years devoted himself principally to the operatic stage. In 1883 he created the role of Gringoire in Arthur Goring Thomas's '' Esmeralda'', in the first Carl Rosa season at Drury Lane Theatre: his future wife Clara Perry was in the cast as Fleur-de-lys. In that time he began to assume the mantle of Edward Lloyd, as the leading British operatic tenor. In 1887 he p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhattan), 57th Streets. Designed by architect William Burnet Tuthill and built by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, it is one of the most prestigious venues in the world for both classical music and popular music. Carnegie Hall has its own artistic programming, development, and marketing departments and presents about 250 performances each season. It is also rented out to performing groups. Carnegie Hall has 3,671 seats, divided among three auditoriums. The largest one is the Stern Auditorium, a five-story auditorium with 2,804 seats. Also part of the complex are the 599-seat Zankel Hall on Seventh Avenue, as well as the 268-seat Joan and Sanford I. Weill Recital Hall on 57th Street. Besides the auditoriums, Carnegie Hall contains offices on its t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monmouth Civic Chorus
Monmouth Civic Chorus is a community chorus in Monmouth County, New Jersey, USA. Monmouth Civic Chorus was established in 1949 and draws its members primarily from the Monmouth County community. Its performances encompass choral classics, premieres, rare and contemporary music, musical theater, opera, and operetta. Monmouth Civic Chorus has performed on tour in Europe and the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. In addition to concerts, Monmouth Civic Chorus offers community outreach performances and awards vocal scholarships to high school seniors of outstanding vocal promise. History William Gordon Pagdin founded Monmouth Civic Chorus in 1949. The Gilbert and Sullivan operetta ''The Pirates of Penzance'' was the Chorus's first performance in May 1950 at the Carlton Theater (now the Count Basie Center for the Arts) in Red Bank, New Jersey. Monmouth Civic Chorus's second performance, in January 1951 was ''Messiah (Handel)''. Monmouth Civic Chorus continued to perform ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Brunelle
Philip Brunelle (born July 1, 1943) is an American choral scholar, conductor and organist. He is the founder of VocalEssence. In the course of an international career as a choral and opera conductor Brunelle has been awarded Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit and made an Honorary Member of the Order of the British Empire as well as receiving Hungary's Kodály Medal, the Ohtli medal from Mexico, and Sweden's Royal Order of the Polar Star. He has received honorary doctoral degrees from Gustavus Adolphus College, St. John's University (Collegeville, MN), St. Olaf College, United Theological Seminary, and the University of Minnesota. Life and career Brunelle was born in Faribault, Minnesota and studied at the University of Minnesota School of Music. His father, an Evangelical United Brethren minister, died when he was 13. While still in his teens, Brunelle worked as a professional church organist, and at the age of 19 he became a full-time member of the Minnesota Orc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
VocalEssence
VocalEssence is a non-profit choral music organization based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Each year the organization presents a series of concerts featuring the 130-voice VocalEssence Chorus and its core group, a 32-voice professional mixed chorus called the Ensemble Singers, along with guest soloists and instrumentalists. VocalEssence was founded in 1969 under the name Plymouth Music Series as a community music program of ''Plymouth Congregational Church'' and incorporated as a separate 501(c)(3) organization with its own board of directors in 1979. The organization changed its name to VocalEssence in 2002. It has 10 full- and part-time staff members including artistic director Philip Brunelle and Managing Director Mary Ann Aufderheide. VocalEssence has commissioned over 130 new works ranging from brief a cappella pieces to full scale choral and symphonic works. VocalEssence has co-commissioned operas with Opera Theatre of St. Louis ''(Loss of Eden'' by Cary John Franklin) and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Of Teck
Mary of Teck (Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes; 26 May 186724 March 1953) was List of British royal consorts, Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, from 6 May 1910 until 20 January 1936 as the wife of King-Emperor George V. Born and raised in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom, Mary was the daughter of Francis, Duke of Teck, a German nobleman, and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, a granddaughter of King George III and a minor member of the British royal family. She was informally known as "May", after the month of her birth. At the age of 24, she was betrothed to her second cousin once removed Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, the eldest son of the Edward VII, Prince of Wales and second in line to the throne. Six weeks after the announcement of the engagement, he died unexpectedly during an 1889–1890 pandemic, influenza pandemic. The following year, she became ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet, Order of the Companions of Honour, CH (29 April 18798 March 1961) was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Liverpool Philharmonic and The Hallé, Hallé orchestras. From the early 20th century until his death, Beecham was a major influence on the musical life of United Kingdom, Britain and, according to the BBC, was Britain's first international conductor. Born to a rich industrial family, Beecham began his career as a conductor in 1899. He used his access to the family fortune to finance opera from the 1910s until the start of the Second World War, staging seasons at Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Drury Lane and Her Majesty's Theatre, His Majesty's Theatre with international stars, his own ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Queen's Hall
The Queen's Hall was a concert hall in Langham Place, London, opened in 1893. Designed by the architect Thomas Knightley, it had room for an audience of about 2,500 people. It became London's principal concert venue. From 1895 until 1941, it was the home of the promenade concerts ("The Proms") founded by Robert Newman together with Henry Wood. The hall had drab decor and cramped seating but superb acoustics. It became known as the "musical centre of the ritishEmpire", and several of the leading musicians and composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries performed there, including Claude Debussy, Edward Elgar, Maurice Ravel and Richard Strauss. In the 1930s, the hall became the main London base of two new orchestras, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. These two ensembles raised the standards of orchestral playing in London to new heights, and the hall's resident orchestra, founded in 1893, was eclipsed and it disbanded in 1930. The new ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adrian Boult
Sir Adrian Cedric Boult, CH (; 8 April 1889 – 22 February 1983) was an English conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family, he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was conductor of the City of Birmingham Orchestra in 1924. When the British Broadcasting Corporation appointed him director of music in 1930, he established the BBC Symphony Orchestra and became its chief conductor. The orchestra set standards of excellence that were rivalled in Britain only by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), founded two years later. Forced to leave the BBC in 1950 on reaching retirement age, Boult took on the chief conductorship of the LPO. The orchestra had declined from its peak of the 1930s, but under his guidance its fortunes were revived. He retired as its chief conductor in 1957, and later accepted the post of pre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fantasio (Smyth)
''Fantasio'' is an opera in two acts composed by Ethel Smyth. The German-language libretto was written by Smyth and Henry Bennet Brewster. Described in the libretto as a ''phantastische Comödie'' (fantastic comedy), it was based on Alfred de Musset's 1834 play of the same name. The opera premiered at the Deutsches Nationaltheater in Weimar on 24 May 1898. Performance history Smyth turned to composing opera on the advice of conductor Hermann Levi, who praised her aptitude for dramatic composition when she showed him her Mass in D in Munich. The idea of adapting a play by Alfred de Musset came from her friend Empress Eugénie. From 1894, Smyth made frequent trips around Europe trying to arrange a premiere for ''Fantasio''. She received a string of rejections, but conductor Felix Mottl at Karlsruhe became interested. It was eventually staged at Weimar thanks to support from Mottl, who wrote to the Weimar conductor Bernhard Stavenhagen, and from Charles Alexander, Grand Duke of Sa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hermann Levi
Hermann Levi (7 November 1839 – 13 May 1900) was a German Jewish orchestral conductor. Levi was born in Giessen, Germany, the son of a rabbi. He was educated at Giessen and Mannheim, and came to Vinzenz Lachner's notice. From 1855 to 1858 Levi studied at the Leipzig Conservatory, and after a series of travels which took him to Paris, he obtained his first post as music director at Saarbrücken, which post he exchanged for that at Mannheim in 1861. From 1862 to 1864 he was chief conductor of the German Opera in Rotterdam, then till 1872 at Karlsruhe, when he went to Munich, a post he held until 1896, when ill health compelled him to resign. Levi also taught at the Leipzig Conservatory, where his pupils included the conductor Emil Steinbach. Levi's name is indissolubly connected with the increased public appreciation of Wagner's music. He was a longtime friend of Wagner; when preparing for the inaugural Bayreuth Festival, he wrote to his father, "Wagner is the best and nobles ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
