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Mo Li Hua
''Mo Li Hua'' () is a Chinese folk song from the Jiangnan region. The song dates back to the 18th century. Over time, many regional variations were created, and the song gained popularity both in China and abroad. It has been used during events such as 2004 Summer Olympics, 2008 Summer Olympics and 2010 Shanghai Expo opening ceremony, and during the 2011 Chinese protests. History and popularity It was created during the Qianlong era (1735–1796) of the Qing dynasty. There are several regional versions of the song, with different lyrics and melody. One version of the song describes a custom of giving jasmine flowers, popular in the southern Yangtze delta region of China. Another, longer version describes the fear of plucking the flower. It has been played on ancient metal bells ( bianzhong) and modern jade chimes. It uses the five note (pentatonic) scale ubiquitous in Chinese music. The tune is one of ''xiaodiao'' ("short tunes"), popular in Chinese urban areas. In 180 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Folk Music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, music that is played on traditional instruments, music about cultural or national identity, music that changes between generations (folk process), music associated with a people's folklore, or music performed by custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that. Starting in the mid-20th century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is sometimes called contemporary folk music or folk rev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pentatonic
A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to the heptatonic scale, which has seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale). Pentatonic scales were developed independently by many ancient civilizations and are still used in various musical styles to this day. There are two types of pentatonic scales: those with semitones (hemitonic) and those without (anhemitonic). Types Hemitonic and anhemitonic Musicology commonly classifies pentatonic scales as either ''hemitonic'' or ''anhemitonic''. Hemitonic scales contain one or more semitones and anhemitonic scales do not contain semitones. (For example, in Japanese music the anhemitonic ''yo'' scale is contrasted with the hemitonic ''in'' scale.) Hemitonic pentatonic scales are also called "ditonic scales", because the largest interval in them is the ditone (e.g., in the scale C–E–F–G–B–C, the interval found between C–E and G–B). (This should not be con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ian Johnson (writer)
Ian Johnson (born July 27, 1962) is a Canadian-born American writer and independent scholar known for his long-time reporting and a series of books on China and Germany. His Chinese name is Zhang Yan (張彦). Johnson writes regularly for ''The New York Review of Books'' and ''The New York Times'', and speaks in Europe and North America. He has taught university courses at The Beijing Center for Chinese Studies, and has been an adviser to ''The Journal of Asian Studies''. Johnson won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage in the ''Wall St. Journal'' of the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. His reporting from China was also honored in 2001 by the Overseas Press Club and the Society of Professional Journalists. In 2017 he won Stanford University's Shorenstein Prize for his body of work covering Asia. In 2019 he won the American Academy of Religion's "best in-depth newswriting" award. In 2020, Johnson's journalist visa was canceled amid US-China tensions over trad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jiang Zemin
Jiang Zemin (17 August 1926 – 30 November 2022) was a Chinese politician who served as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1989 to 2002, as chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2004, and as president of China from 1993 to 2003. Jiang was paramount leader of China from 1989 to 2002. He was the core leader of the third generation of Chinese leadership, one of only four core leaders alongside Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Xi Jinping. Jiang Zemin came to power unexpectedly as a compromise candidate following the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, when he replaced Zhao Ziyang as CCP general secretary after Zhao was ousted for his support for the student movement. At the time, Jiang had been the party leader of the city of Shanghai. As the involvement of the "Eight Elders" in Chinese politics steadily declined, Jiang consolidated his hold on power to become the "paramount leader" in the country during the 1990s. Urged by D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macau
Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a population of about 680,000 and an area of , it is the most densely populated region in the world. Formerly a Portuguese colony, the territory of Portuguese Macau was first leased to Portugal as a trading post by the Ming dynasty in 1557. Portugal paid an annual rent and administered the territory under Chinese sovereignty until 1887. Portugal later gained perpetual colonial rights in the Sino-Portuguese Treaty of Peking. The colony remained under Portuguese rule until 1999, when it was transferred to China. Macau is a special administrative region of China, which maintains separate governing and economic systems from those of mainland China under the principle of " one country, two systems".. The unique blend of Portuguese and Chinese arc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It has 193 member states and 12 associate members, as well as partners in the non-governmental, intergovernmental and private sector. Headquartered at the World Heritage Centre in Paris, France, UNESCO has 53 regional field offices and 199 national commissions that facilitate its global mandate. UNESCO was founded in 1945 as the successor to the League of Nations's International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation.English summary). Its constitution establishes the agency's goals, governing structure, and operating framework. UNESCO's founding mission, which was shaped by the Second World War, is to advance peace, sustainable development and human rights by facilitating collaboration and dialogue among nations. It pursues this objective t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kenny G
Kenneth Bruce Gorelick (born June 5, 1956), known professionally as Kenny G, is an American smooth jazz saxophonist, composer, and producer. His 1986 album ''Duotones'' brought him commercial success. Kenny G is one of the best-selling artists of all time, with global sales totaling more than 75 million records. Early life Kenny G was born in Seattle, Washington to a Jewish family. His mother was a Canadian Jew from Saskatchewan, Canada. He came into contact with the saxophone when he heard a performance on ''The Ed Sullivan Show''. He started playing the saxophone, a Buffet Crampon alto, in 1966 when he was 10 years old. Kenny G attended Whitworth Elementary School, Sharples Junior High School (renamed Kurose Middle School), Franklin High School, and the University of Washington, all in his home city of Seattle. When he entered high school he failed at his first attempt to get into the jazz band but auditioned again the following year and earned first chair. His Frankl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pearl S
A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carbonate (mainly aragonite or a mixture of aragonite and calcite) in minute crystalline form, which has deposited in concentric layers. The ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other shapes, known as baroque pearls, can occur. The finest quality of natural pearls have been highly valued as gemstones and objects of beauty for many centuries. Because of this, ''pearl'' has become a metaphor for something rare, fine, admirable and valuable. The most valuable pearls occur spontaneously in the wild, but are extremely rare. These wild pearls are referred to as ''natural'' pearls. ''Cultured'' or ''farmed'' pearls from pearl oysters and freshwater mussels make up the majority of those currently sold. Imitation pearls are also widely s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Good Earth
''The Good Earth'' is a historical fiction novel by Pearl S. Buck published in 1931 that dramatizes family life in a Chinese village in the early 20th century. It is the first book in her ''House of Earth'' trilogy, continued in ''Sons'' (1932) and '' A House Divided'' (1935). It was the best-selling novel in the United States in both 1931 and 1932, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1932, and was influential in Buck's winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938. Buck, who grew up in China as the daughter of American missionaries, wrote the book while living in China and drew on her first-hand observation of Chinese village life. The realistic and sympathetic depiction of the farmer Wang Lung and his wife O-Lan helped prepare Americans of the 1930s to consider Chinese as allies in the coming war with Japan. The novel was included in ''Life'' Magazine's list of the 100 outstanding books of 1924–1944. In 2004, the book returned to the bestseller list when chosen by the te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harold Powers
Harold Stone Powers (August 5, 1928 – March 15, 2007) was an American musicologist, ethnomusicologist, and music theorist. Career Born in New York City on August 5, 1928, he earned his B.Mus. in piano from Syracuse University in 1950 and an MFA in composition and musicology from Princeton University in 1952. As a Fulbright Fellow, he studied Indian music in Madras for two years before continuing at Princeton where he received a Ph.D. in musicology. His dissertation was on “The Background of the South Indian Raga System.” Powers taught at Harvard University from 1958 to 1960 and at the University of Pennsylvania from 1961 to 1973 before returning to Princeton where he was named the Scheide Professor of Music History in 1995 and in 2001 assumed Emeritus status. Powers returned to India several times to study music there on John D. Rockefeller III and Fulbright Senior fellowships. Powers was known for intensive study of both Renaissance music and music theory and several ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Ashbrook
William Ashbrook (January 28, 1922 – March 31, 2009) was an American musicologist, writer, journalist, and academic. He was perhaps best noted as a historian, researcher and popularizer of the works of Italian opera composer Gaetano Donizetti. Biography Ashbrook was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania in 1946, and a Master's degree in musicology from Harvard University in 1947.Gossett, Philip, "In Memory of William Ashbrook", ''Opera Quarterly'', November 18, 2009 Ashbrook began an academic career by teaching humanities and then, for nearly twenty years, was a member of the English Department at Indiana State University at Terre Haute. He retired in 1974 as Distinguished Professor Emeritus. From 1974 to 1984 he was professor of opera at the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts (now the University of the Arts). Ashbrook died in Denver, Colorado at the age of 87. Ashbrook as o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turandot
''Turandot'' (; see below) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, posthumously completed by Franco Alfano in 1926, and set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. ''Turandot'' best-known aria is "Nessun dorma", which became globally popular in the 1990s following Luciano Pavarotti's performance of it for the 1990 FIFA World Cup. Though Puccini first became interested in the subject matter when reading Friedrich Schiller's 1801 adaptation,. ''Freely translated from Schiller by Sabilla Novello:'' . he based his work more closely on the earlier play ''Turandot'' (1762) by Count Carlo Gozzi. The original story is one of the seven stories in the epic ''Haft Peykar''—a work by twelfth-century Persian poet Nizami ( 1141–1209). Nizami aligned his seven stories with the seven days of the week, the seven colors, and the seven planets known in his era. This particular narrative is the story of Tuesday, as told to the king of Iran, Bahram V (), by his c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
