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Peter Stanley Lyons
Peter Stanley Lyons (6 December 1927 – 28 November 2006) was an English Marxist choral conductor and a headmaster of Witham Hall School. Early life Peter Stanley Lyons was born in Atherfold Road, London, SW9, to Harold Lyons, who was the sommelier at London's Savoy Hotel and Dorchester Hotel. Peter was educated at Alleyn's School, and at Rossall School, where he was Captain of Soccer, and at St John’s College, Cambridge. He won a choral scholarship to St John's in 1946, but completed National Service in the Royal Corps of Signals, with whom he boxed for the British Army, and in the Royal Regiment of Artillery, before he in 1948 entered Cambridge University where he read Modern Languages without honours (BA 1950, MA 1955) and was tutored by C. W. Guillebaud. Lyons was awarded St. John's College Cambridge Colours for Soccer during the 1949 - 1950 season, and was a member of the team that won the Inter-Collegiate Cup for Soccer.Lyons, Peter S., ''The Eagle'', St John's Coll ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Romans as '' Londinium'' and retains its medieval boundaries.See also: Independent city § National capitals The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has for centuries hosted the national government and parliament. Since the 19th century, the name "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between the counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which largely comprises Greater London, governed by the Greater London Authority.The Greater London Authority consists of the Mayor of London and the London Assembly. The London Mayor is distinguished fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Corps Of Signals
The Royal Corps of Signals (often simply known as the Royal Signals – abbreviated to R SIGNALS or R SIGS) is one of the combat support arms of the British Army. Signals units are among the first into action, providing the battlefield communications and information systems essential to all operations. Royal Signals units provide the full telecommunications infrastructure for the Army wherever they operate in the world. The Corps has its own engineers, logistics experts and systems operators to run radio and area networks in the field. It is responsible for installing, maintaining and operating all types of telecommunications equipment and information systems, providing command support to commanders and their headquarters, and conducting electronic warfare against enemy communications. History Origins In 1870, 'C' Telegraph Troop, Royal Engineers, was founded under Captain Montague Lambert. The Troop was the first formal professional body of signallers in the British Army and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Lanchbery
John Arthur Lanchbery OBE (15 May 1923 – 27 February 2003) was an English-Australian composer and conductor, famous for his ballet arrangements. He served as the Principal Conductor of the Royal Ballet from 1959 to 1972, Principal Conductor of the Australian Ballet from 1972 to 1977, and Musical Director of the American Ballet Theatre from 1978 to 1980. He continued to conduct regularly for the Royal Ballet until 2001. Lanchbery was widely considered (including by Nureyev) to be the greatest ballet conductor of his time, and to be ‘a conductor and music director of unmatched experience’ who was ‘directly responsible for raising the status and the standards of musical performance'. Maina Gielgud, Artistic Director of Australian Ballet, stated that "He anchberyis not only the finest conductor for dance of his generation and probably well beyond". One critic wrote that ‘the music was always on its best behaviour’ when Lanchbery was conducting. He was also famous for h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer. He is best known for 14 comic opera, operatic Gilbert and Sullivan, collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including ''H.M.S. Pinafore'', ''The Pirates of Penzance'' and ''The Mikado''. His works include 24 operas, 11 major orchestral works, ten choral works and oratorios, two ballets, incidental music to several plays, and numerous church pieces, songs, and piano and chamber pieces. His hymns and songs include "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and "The Lost Chord". The son of a military bandmaster, Sullivan composed his first anthem at the age of eight and was later a soloist in the boys' choir of the Chapel Royal. In 1856, at 14, he was awarded the first Mendelssohn Scholarship by the Royal Academy of Music, which allowed him to study at the academy and then at the Felix Mendelssohn College of Music and Theatre, Leipzig Conservatoire in Germany. His graduation piece, inc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Requiem (Verdi)
The ''Messa da Requiem'' is a musical setting of the Catholic funeral mass (Requiem) for four soloists, double choir and orchestra by Giuseppe Verdi. It was composed in memory of Alessandro Manzoni, whom Verdi admired. The first performance, at the San Marco church in Milan on 22 May 1874, marked the first anniversary of Manzoni's death. The work was at one time referred to as the Manzoni Requiem. Considered too operatic to be performed in a liturgical setting, it is usually given in concert form of around 90 minutes in length. Musicologist David Rosen calls it "probably the most frequently performed major choral work composed since the compilation of Mozart's Requiem". Composition history After Gioachino Rossini's death in 1868, Verdi suggested that a number of Italian composers collaborate on a ''Requiem'' in Rossini's honor. He began the effort by submitting the concluding movement, the " Libera me". During the next year a '' Messa per Rossini'' was compiled by Verdi and twelv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Vincenzo Bellini, whose works significantly influenced him. In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated a sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. The chorus "Va, pensiero" from his early opera ''Nabucco'' (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, Verdi did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements. As he became professionally successful, he was able ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orfeo Ed Euridice
' (; French: '; English: ''Orpheus and Eurydice'') is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck, based on Orpheus, the myth of Orpheus and set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. It belongs to the genre of the ''azione teatrale'', meaning an opera on a mythological subject with choruses and dancing. The piece was first performed at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 5 October 1762, in the presence of Empress Maria Theresa. ''Orfeo ed Euridice'' is the first of Gluck's "reform" operas, in which he attempted to replace the abstruse plots and overly complex music of ''opera seria'' with a "noble simplicity" in both the music and the drama. The opera is the most popular of Gluck's works, and was one of the most influential on subsequent Opera in German, German operas. Variations on its plot—the underground rescue mission in which the hero must control, or conceal, his emotions—can be found in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Mozart's ''The Magic Flute'', Ludwig van Beethoven, Beetho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald (Ritter von) Gluck (; 2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the Holy Roman Empire, he gained prominence at the Habsburg court at Vienna. There he brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices for which many intellectuals had been campaigning. With a series of radical new works in the 1760s, among them '' Orfeo ed Euridice'' and '' Alceste'', he broke the stranglehold that Metastasian '' opera seria'' had enjoyed for much of the century. Gluck introduced more drama by using orchestral recitative and cutting the usually long da capo aria. His later operas have half the length of a typical baroque opera. Future composers like Mozart, Schubert, Berlioz and Wagner revered Gluck very highly. The strong influence of French opera encouraged Gluck to move to Paris in November 1773. Fusing the traditions ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maria Callas
Maria Callas . (born Sophie Cecilia Kalos; December 2, 1923 – September 16, 1977) was an American-born Greek soprano who was one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century. Many critics praised her ''bel canto'' technique, wide-ranging voice and dramatic interpretations. Her repertoire ranged from classical ''opera seria'' to the ''bel canto'' operas of Gaetano Donizetti, Donizetti, Vincenzo Bellini, Bellini and Gioachino Rossini, Rossini and, further, to the works of Giuseppe Verdi, Verdi and Giacomo Puccini, Puccini; and, in her early career, to the music dramas of Richard Wagner, Wagner. Her musical and dramatic talents led to her being hailed as ''La Divina'' ("the Divine one"). Born in Manhattan, New York City, to Greek immigrant parents, she was raised by an overbearing mother who had wanted a son. Maria received her musical education in Greece at age 13 and later established her career in Italy. Forced to deal with the exigencies of 194 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Counter-tenor
A countertenor (also contra tenor) is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range is equivalent to that of the female contralto or mezzo-soprano voice types, generally extending from around G3 to D5 or E5, although a sopranist (a specific kind of countertenor) may match the soprano's range of around C4 to C6.A sopranist is a term used to describe a countertenor whose vocal range is so high it is equivalent to that of a soprano; however, this term is widely used falsely. Countertenors often are baritones or tenors at core, but only on rare occasions do they use their lower vocal range, instead preferring their falsetto or high head voice. The nature of the countertenor voice has radically changed throughout musical history, from a modal voice, to a modal and falsetto voice, to the primarily falsetto voice which is denoted by the term today. This is partly because of changes in human physiology and partly because of fluctuations in pitch. The term first came into us ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robin Orr
Robert Kemsley (Robin) Orr (2 June 1909 – 9 April 2006) was a Scottish organist and composer. Life Born in Brechin, and educated at Loretto School, he studied the organ at the Royal College of Music in London under Walter Galpin Alcock, and piano with Arthur Benjamin.Griffiths, Paul. 'Orr, Robin [Robert/nowiki> (Kemsley)' in'' Grove Music Online">obert">Griffiths, Paul. 'Orr, Robin [Robert/nowiki> (Kemsley)' in'' Grove Music Online/ref> He then continued his studies at Pembroke College, Cambridge under Cyril Rootham. Following studies with Alfredo Casella and Nadia Boulanger in Paris he returned to Cambridge in 1938 as Organist of Choir of St John's College, Cambridge, St John's College, succeeding Rootham. During his war service in the Royal Air Force Herbert Howells deputised for him. After World War II he became a lecturer at Cambridge and a professor at the Royal College of Music, then Gardiner Professor of Music at Glasgow University from 1956 to 1965. While in Glasgow he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Choir Of St John's College, Cambridge
The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge is considered to be one of the finest collegiate choirs in the world. It is part of the English cathedral tradition, having been founded to sing the daily liturgy in the College Chapel, though it is set apart from other English choirs of this tradition by the frequent inclusion of Continental works in its repertoire and its emphasis on polyphonic interpretations. Alongside the choir of King's College, Cambridge, it is one of the two most famous collegiate choirs in Cambridge, having had over 90 recordings published. The early records of the choirs are obscure, but it is known that its origins can be traced to the original foundation of the College in 1511. The present arrangement of the choir began in 1670. The Choir consists of fifteen Choral Scholars and twenty Choristers and Probationers, all of whom are members of St John's College, many of whom have proceeded to become distinguished musicians. Choir Until 2022, the choir followe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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