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Symphony Of The New World
The Symphony of the New World was a symphony orchestra based in New York City. It was the first racially integrated orchestra in the United States. The Symphony gave its debut concert on 6 May 1965 at Carnegie Hall, conducted by Benjamin Steinberg, who said of the orchestra: "We have a lot of talent in this city, and we have to create the opportunities to present it to the public". The symphony's musicians were graduates of music schools such as Juilliard, Eastman School of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, and the New England Conservatory. Its performances were broadcast on the Voice of America and Armed Forces Radio to audiences worldwide. ''Ebony'' magazine pronounced it, "for both artistic and sociological reasons, a major development in the musical history of the United States". Steinberg continued as music director and conductor until 12 December 1971, when a dispute between him and some of the orchestra's members resulted in his resignation backstage shortly before t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benjamin Steinberg (conductor)
Benjamin Steinberg (March 15, 1915 – January 29, 1974) was an American concert violinist, conductor, and civil rights activist, who is best remembered as the founding artistic director of the Symphony of the New World, the first racially integrated orchestra in the United States, its premiere concert was at New York City's Carnegie Hall on May 6, 1965. Early years Benjamin Steinberg was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 15, 1915, to Moses and Annie Steinberg. His parents were from Odessa (then part of Czarist Russia, now the Ukraine) and had fled to the United States following the anti-Jewish Odessa pogroms#1905 Pogrom, Odessa pogrom of 1905 and the failed 1905 Russian Revolution, Russian Revolution that year. Benjamin first performed violin on the concert stage as an 11-year old in 1927. Career in music Violinist Steinberg was a violinist in the String section#Seating arrangement, first violin section of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, playing on their nationwide radio b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joe Wilder
Joseph Benjamin Wilder (February 22, 1922 – May 9, 2014) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Wilder was awarded the Temple University Jazz Master's Hall of Fame Award in 2006. The National Endowment for the Arts honored him with its highest honor in jazz, the NEA Jazz Masters Award for 2008. Biography Wilder was born into a musical family led by his father Curtis, a bassist and bandleader in Philadelphia. Wilder's first performances took place on the radio program "Parisian Tailor's Colored Kiddies of the Air". He and the other young musicians were backed up by such illustrious bands as Duke Ellington's and Louis Armstrong's that were also then playing at the Lincoln Theater. Wilder studied at the Mastbaum School of Music in Philadelphia, but turned to jazz when he felt that there was little future for an African-American classical musician. At the age of 19, Wilder joined his first touring big band, Les Hite's band. Wilder was one of the first thousand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zero Mostel
Samuel Joel "Zero" Mostel (February 28, 1915 – September 8, 1977) was an American actor, comedian, and singer. He is best known for his portrayal of comic characters such as Tevye on stage in ''Fiddler on the Roof'', Pseudolus on stage and on screen in ''A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum'', and Max Bialystock in the original film version of Mel Brooks' '' The Producers'' (1967). Mostel was a student of Don Richardson, and he used an acting technique based on muscle memory. He was blacklisted during the 1950s; his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee was well publicized. Mostel later starred in the Hollywood Blacklist drama film ''The Front'' (1976) alongside Woody Allen, for which Mostel was nominated for the British Academy Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. Mostel was an Obie Award and three-time Tony Award winner. He is also a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame, inducted posthumously in 1979. Early life Mostel was born in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gian Carlo Menotti
Gian Carlo Menotti (, ; July 7, 1911 – February 1, 2007) was an Italian composer, librettist, director, and playwright who is primarily known for his output of 25 operas. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship. One of the most frequently performed opera composers of the 20th century, his most successful works were written in the 1940s and 1950s. Highly influenced by Giacomo Puccini and Modest Mussorgsky, Menotti further developed the verismo tradition of opera in the post-World War II era. Rejecting atonality and the aesthetic of the Second Viennese School, Menotti's music is characterized by expressive lyricism which carefully sets language to natural rhythms in ways that highlight textual meaning and underscore dramatic intent. Like Wagner, Menotti wrote the libretti of all his operas. He wrote the classic Christmas opera '' Amahl and the Night Visitors'' (1951), along with over two dozen other operas intended to appe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hershy Kay
Hershy Kay (November 17, 1919 – December 2, 1981) was an American composer, arranger, and orchestrator. He is most noteworthy for the orchestrations of several Broadway shows, and for the ballets he arranged for George Balanchine's New York City Ballet. Biography The son of a Philadelphia printer, Kay became a student at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute (1936-1940) where he studied cello and composition under Randall Thompson, in whose classes he was a fellow student of Leonard Bernstein. In New York he played in various pit orchestras and started arranging music to escape playing the cello. Self-taught as an orchestrator, for his first professional project Kay orchestrated several songs for Brazilian soprano Elsie Houston's show at the Rainbow Room in 1940. When Leonard Bernstein commissioned Kay to orchestrate his musical comedy ''On the Town'' in 1944, Kay became one of the most sought after orchestrators on Broadway. Later collaborations with Bernstein include ''Peter Pan'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He famously wrote about the period that "the Negro was in vogue", which was later paraphrased as "when Harlem was in vogue." Growing up in a series of Midwestern towns, Hughes became a prolific writer at an early age. He moved to New York City as a young man, where he made his career. He graduated from high school in Cleveland, Ohio, and soon began studies at Columbia University in New York City. Although he dropped out, he gained notice from New York publishers, first in ''The Crisis'' magazine and then from book publishers, and became known in the creative community in Harlem. He eventually graduated from Lincoln University. In addition to poetry, Hughes wrote plays and short sto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruby Dee
Ruby Dee (October 27, 1922 – June 11, 2014) was an American actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, and civil rights activist. She originated the role of "Ruth Younger" in the stage and film versions of ''A Raisin in the Sun'' (1961). Her other notable film roles include ''The Jackie Robinson Story'' (1950) and ''Do the Right Thing'' (1989). Dee was married to Ossie Davis, with whom she frequently performed until his death in 2005. For her performance as Mama Lucas in '' American Gangster'' (2007), Dee was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Female Actor in a Supporting Role. Dee was a Grammy, Emmy, Obie and Drama Desk winner. She was also a National Medal of Arts, Kennedy Center Honors and Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award recipient. Early life Dee was born on October 27, 1922, in Cleveland, Ohio, [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Creston
Paul Creston (born Giuseppe Guttoveggio; October 10, 1906 – August 24, 1985) was an Italian American composer of classical music. Biography Born in New York City to Sicilian immigrants, Creston was self-taught as a composer. His work tends to be fairly conservative in style, with a strong rhythmic element. His pieces include six symphonies; a number of concertos, including two for violin, one for marimba and orchestra (premiered by Ruth Stuber), one for one piano, one for two pianos, one for accordion and one for alto saxophone (the latter dedicated to Cecil Leeson); a fantasia for trombone and orchestra (composed for and premiered by Robert Marsteller). Also for alto saxophone he wrote a Rapsodie for Jean-Marie Londeix; a suite (1935) and a sonata (Op. 19, 1939), both dedicated to Cecil LeesonLiley, Thomas, "The Repertoire Heritage", in Ingham, Richard (1998). , pages 55, 57. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. . (the sonata was arranged by Marco Ciccone f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Composers". The open, slowly changing harmonies in much of his music are typical of what many people consider to be the sound of American music, evoking the vast American landscape and pioneer spirit. He is best known for the works he wrote in the 1930s and 1940s in a deliberately accessible style often referred to as "populist" and which the composer labeled his "vernacular" style. Works in this vein include the ballets ''Appalachian Spring'', ''Billy the Kid'' and ''Rodeo'', his ''Fanfare for the Common Man'' and Third Symphony. In addition to his ballets and orchestral works, he produced music in many other genres, including chamber music, vocal works, opera and film scores. After some initial studies with composer Rubin Goldmark, Copland ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein ( ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first American conductor to receive international acclaim. According to music critic Donal Henahan, he was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history". Bernstein was the recipient of many honors, including seven Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, sixteen Grammy Awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Kennedy Center Honors, Kennedy Center Honor. As a composer he wrote in many genres, including symphonic and orchestral music, ballet, film and theatre music, choral works, opera, chamber music and works for the piano. His best-known work is the Broadway theatre, Broadway musical ''West Side Story'', which continues to be regularly performed worldwide, and has been adapted into two (West Side Story (1961 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Barber
Samuel Osmond Barber II (March 9, 1910 – January 23, 1981) was an American composer, pianist, conductor, baritone, and music educator, and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century. The music critic Donal Henahan said, "Probably no other American composer has ever enjoyed such early, such persistent and such long-lasting acclaim." Principally influenced by nine years' composition studies with Rosario Scalero at the Curtis Institute and more than 25 years' study with his uncle, the composer Sidney Homer, Barber's music usually eschewed the experimental trends of musical modernism in favor of traditional 19th-century harmonic language and formal structure embracing lyricism and emotional expression. However, he adopted elements of modernism after 1940 in some of his compositions, such as an increased use of dissonance and chromaticism in the '' Cello Concerto'' (1945) and '' Medea's Dance of Vengeance'' (1955); and the use of tonal ambiguity and a narrow use of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Washington Afro-American
''The Washington Afro-American'' newspaper is the Washington, D.C., edition of '' The Afro-American Newspaper''. History The newspaper was founded in 1892 by Civil War veteran, Sgt. John H. Murphy, Sr. Murphy merged his church publication, ''The Sunday School Helper'', with two other church publications, ''The Ledger'' and ''The Afro-American'', and the publication rose to prominence under the control of his tenth-born child, Carl J. G. Murphy, who served as its editor for 45 years. There have been as many as 13 editions of the newspaper in major cities across the country; today, there are just two: one in Baltimore, the other in Washington, D.C. Call numbers Because of its varied titles over the years, ''The Washington Afro-American'' has received numerous different call numbers from the Library of Congress and OCLC: *''The Afro-American'' (1936–1937): ** ** *''Washington Afro American'' (1937–1964): ** ** *''Washington Afro-American'' (1930s–1964): ** ** ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
