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Nancy Argenta
Nancy Argenta is a Canadian soprano singer, best known for performing music from the pre-classical era. She has won international acclaim, and is considered one of the leading Handel sopranos of her time. Life She was born in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada. She spent her early years in the settlement of Argenta, from which she later took her professional name (to avoid being mistaken for another Canadian soprano, Nancy Hermiston.) At the age of 11 she started formal voice lessons with Dr. Amy Ferguson of Nelson, and sang with one of the school choirs at L.V. Rogers High School in Nelson. By that time, she was frequently making trips to Vancouver, British Columbia, so she could hear musical events and have additional singing lessons. After graduation from high school in 1975, she was a student of Jacob Hamm in Vancouver and of Martin Chambers at the University of Western Ontario, graduating in 1980. The same year she won 1st prize in the Sophie Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté Comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nelson, British Columbia
Nelson is a city located in the Selkirk Mountains on the West Arm of Kootenay Lake in the British Columbia Interior, Southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada. Known as "The Queen City", and acknowledged for its impressive collection of restored heritage buildings from its glory days in a regional silver rush, Nelson is one of the three cities forming the commercial and population core of the West Kootenay region, the others being Castlegar, British Columbia, Castlegar and Trail, British Columbia, Trail. The city is the seat of the Regional District of Central Kootenay, British Columbia, Regional District of Central Kootenay. It is represented in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, provincial legislature by the riding of Nelson-Creston, and in the Parliament of Canada by the riding of Kootenay—Columbia. History Founding The western Kootenay region of British Columbia, where the city of Nelson is situated, is part of the traditional territories of the Sinixt (or Lak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hippolyte Et Aricie
('' Hippolytus and Aricia'') was the first opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau. It was premiered to great controversy by the Académie Royale de Musique at its theatre in the Palais-Royal in Paris on October 1, 1733. The French libretto, by Abbé Simon-Joseph Pellegrin, is based on Racine's tragedy ''Phèdre''. The opera takes the traditional form of a with an allegorical prologue followed by five acts. Early audiences found little else conventional about the work. Background Rameau was almost 50 when he wrote ''Hippolyte et Aricie'' and there was little in his life to suggest he was about to embark on a major new career as an opera composer. He was famous for his works on music theory as well as books of harpsichord pieces. The closest he had come to writing dramatic music was composing a few secular cantatas and some popular pieces for the Paris fairs for his friend Alexis Piron. Yet Rameau's eagerness to write an opera is shown by a letter he wrote in October 1727 to Antoine Houd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard works such as the ''Goldberg Variations'' and ''The Well-Tempered Clavier''; organ works such as the '' Schubler Chorales'' and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor; and vocal music such as the ''St Matthew Passion'' and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Bach revival he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music. The Bach family already counted several composers when Johann Sebastian was born as the last child of a city musician in Eisenach. After being orphaned at the age of 10, he lived for five years with his eldest brother Johann Christoph, after which he continued his musical education in Lüneburg. From 1703 he was back in Thuringia, working as a musician for Protestant c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Fairy-Queen
''The Fairy-Queen'' (1692; Purcell catalogue number Z.629) is a semi-opera by Henry Purcell; a "Restoration spectacular". The libretto is an anonymous adaptation of William Shakespeare's comedy '' A Midsummer Night's Dream''. First performed in 1692, ''The Fairy-Queen'' was composed three years before Purcell's death at the age of 35. Following his death, the score was lost and only rediscovered early in the twentieth century. Purcell did not set any of Shakespeare's text to music; instead he composed music for short masques in every act but the first. The play itself was also slightly modernised in keeping with seventeenth-century dramatic conventions, but in the main the spoken text is as Shakespeare wrote it. The masques are related to the play metaphorically, rather than literally. Many critics have stated that they bear no relationship to the play. Recent scholarship has shown that the opera, which ends with a masque featuring Hymen, the God of Marriage, was composed for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell (, rare: September 1659 – 21 November 1695) was an English composer. Purcell's style of Baroque music was uniquely English, although it incorporated Italian and French elements. Generally considered among the greatest English opera composers, Purcell is often linked with John Dunstaple and William Byrd as England's most important early music composers. No later native-born English composer approached his fame until Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, William Walton and Benjamin Britten in the 20th century. Life and work Early life Purcell was born in St Ann's Lane, Old Pye Street, Westminster – the area of London later known as Devil's Acre, a notorious slum – in 1659. Henry Purcell Senior, whose older brother Thomas Purcell was a musician, was a gentleman of the Chapel Royal and sang at the coronation of King Charles II of England. Henry the elder had three sons: Edward, Henry and Daniel. Daniel Purcell, the youngest of the b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque music, Baroque composer well known for his opera#Baroque era, operas, oratorios, anthems, concerto grosso, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training in Halle (Saale), Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712, where he spent the bulk of his career and Handel's Naturalisation Act 1727, became a naturalised British subject in 1727. He was strongly influenced both by the middle-German polyphony, polyphonic choral tradition and by composers of the Italian Baroque. In turn, Handel's music forms one of the peaks of the "high baroque" style, bringing Italian opera to its highest development, creating the genres of English oratorio and organ concerto, and introducing a new style into English church music. He is consistently recognized as one of the greatest composers of his age. Handel started three c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sigiswald Kuijken
Sigiswald Kuijken (; born 16 February 1944) is a Belgian violinist, violist, and conductor known for playing on period and original instruments. Biography Kuijken was born in Dilbeek, near Brussels. He was a member of the Alarius Ensemble of Brussels between 1964 and 1972 and formed La Petite Bande in 1972. Since 1971 he has taught Baroque violin at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. He is noted for using the older technique of resting the violin on the shoulder without a shoulder rest, rather than held under the chin. He is a member of the Kuijken String Quartet, which he formed in 1986. In recent years, he has also performed as conductor of symphonies of the Romantic era. His brothers are also known for historically informed performance: Barthold Kuijken is a flutist and recorder player and Wieland Kuijken, also a member of the Kuijken Quartet, is a cellist and gambist. They all have worked extensively with harpsichordist Gustav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roger Norrington
Sir Roger Arthur Carver Norrington (born 16 March 1934) is an English conductor. He is known for historically informed performances of Baroque, Classical and Romantic music. In November 2021 Norrington announced his retirement. Life Norrington is the son of Sir Arthur Norrington, and his brother is Humphrey Thomas Norrington. He studied at The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Dragon School, Oxford, Westminster School, Clare College, Cambridge and the Royal College of Music under Adrian Boult among others. Norrington played the violin, and worked as a tenor through the 1960s. In 1962 he founded the Schütz Choir (later the Schütz Choir of London). Conductor in Britain and US From 1969 to 1984, Norrington was music director of Kent Opera. In 1978, he founded the London Classical Players and remained their musical director until 1997. From 1985 to 1989, he was principal conductor of the Bournemouth Sinfonietta. He is also president of the Oxford Bach Choir. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Eliot Gardiner
Sir John Eliot Gardiner (born 20 April 1943) is an English conductor, particularly known for his performances of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach. Life and career Born in Fontmell Magna, Dorset, son of Rolf Gardiner and Marabel Hodgkin, Gardiner's early musical experience came largely through singing with his family and in a local church choir. As a child he grew up with the celebrated Haussmann portrait of J. S. Bach, which had been lent to his parents for safe keeping during the Second World War. A self-taught musician who also played the violin, he began to study conducting at the age of 15. He was educated at Bryanston School, then studied history at King's College, Cambridge, where his tutor was the social anthropologist Edmund Leach."John Eliot Gardiner", in ''Contemporary Musicians'' (1999), Detroit: Gale While an undergraduate at Cambridge he launched his career as a conductor with a performance of Vespro della Beata Vergine by Monteverdi, in King's College Chapel on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Hogwood
Christopher Jarvis Haley Hogwood (10 September 194124 September 2014) was an English conductor, harpsichordist, writer, and musicologist. Founder of the early music ensemble the Academy of Ancient Music, he was an authority on historically informed performance and a leading figure in the early music revival of the late 20th century. Early life and education Born in Nottingham, Hogwood went to The Skinners' School, Royal Tunbridge Wells, and then studied Music and Classics at Pembroke College, Cambridge, graduating in 1964. He went on to study performance and conducting under Raymond Leppard, Mary Potts and Thurston Dart, and later with Rafael Puyana and Gustav Leonhardt. He also studied in Prague with Zuzana Ruzickova for a year, under a British Council scholarship. Career In 1967, Hogwood co-founded the Early Music Consort with David Munrow. In 1973 he founded the Academy of Ancient Music, which specializes in performances of Baroque and Classical music using period instrum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seiji Ozawa
Seiji (written: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , or in hiragana) is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, Japanese ski jumper *, Japanese racing driver *, Japanese politician *, Japanese film director and producer *, Japanese golfer *, Japanese basketball player *, Japanese actor *, Japanese politician *, Japanese rugby union player *, Japanese film director *, Japanese footballer *Seiji Inagaki (born 1973), Japanese hurdler *, Japanese musician and record producer * Seiji Kameyama (亀山 晴児, born 1979), Japanese rapper better known as WISE *, Japanese footballer *, Japanese aviator *, Japanese politician *, Japanese footballer *, Japanese anime director *, Japanese professional baseball player *, Japanese footballer *Seiji Kubo (born 1973), Japanese footballer *, Japanese cross-country skier *, Japanese voice actor *, Japanese photographer *, Japanese politician *, Japanese politician *, Japanese sport wrestler *, Japanese manga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trevor Pinnock
Trevor David Pinnock (born 16 December 1946 in Canterbury, England) is a British harpsichordist and conductor. He is best known for his association with the period-performance orchestra The English Concert, which he helped found and directed from the keyboard for over 30 years in baroque and classical music. He is a former artistic director of Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra and founded The Classical Band in New York. Since his resignation from The English Concert in 2003, Pinnock has continued his career as a conductor, appearing with major orchestras and opera companies around the world. He has also performed and recorded as a harpsichordist in solo and chamber music and conducted and otherwise trained student groups at conservatoires. Trevor Pinnock won a Gramophone Award for his recording of Bach's ''Brandenburg Concertos'' with the European Brandenburg Ensemble, an occasional orchestra formed to mark his 60th birthday. Biography and career Early life Trevor Pi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
