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Sigma Alpha Iota
Sigma Alpha Iota () is a women's music fraternity. Formed to "uphold the highest standards of music" and "to further the development of music in America and throughout the world", it continues to provide musical and educational resources to its members and the general public. Sigma Alpha Iota operates its own national philanthropy, Sigma Alpha Iota Philanthropies, Inc. Sigma Alpha Iota is a member of the National Interfraternity Music Council and the Professional Fraternity Association. History Founding Sigma Alpha Iota (Alpha Chapter) was founded on June 12, 1903 at the University School of Music in Ann Arbor, Michigan by seven women: Elizabeth A. Campbell, Frances Caspari, Minnie Davis Sherrill, Leila Farlin Laughlin, Nora Crane Hunt, Georgina Potts, and Mary Storrs Andersen. The next chapter of the fraternity, Beta, was chartered in 1904 at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Chapters have now been chartered at over 300 universities, conservatories, and colleges ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Michigan School Of Music, Theatre & Dance
The University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance is an undergraduate and graduate institution for the performing arts in the United States. It is part of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. The school was founded by Calvin Brainerd Cady in 1880 as the Ann Arbor School of Music, and it was later incorporated into the University of Michigan with Cady joining the faculty. The School is located on the University of Michigan's North Campus, which is also home to the College of Engineering, the Stamps School of Art & Design, and the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. History The school was founded in 1880. Administrators and Deans include Charles Sink, Earl V. Moore, James B. Wallace, Allen Britton, Paul Boylan, Karen Wolff (2000–05), Christopher Kendall (2005–15), Aaron Dworkin (2015-18), and David Gier (2018–present). The school was originally independent of the university. Notable alumni Well known alumni include playwright Arthur Miller, act ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward MacDowell
Edward Alexander MacDowell (December 18, 1860January 23, 1908) was an American composer and pianist of the late Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites ''Woodland Sketches'', ''Sea Pieces'' and ''New England Idylls''. ''Woodland Sketches'' includes his most popular short piece, " To a Wild Rose". In 1904 he was one of the first seven Americans honored by membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Studies Edward MacDowell was born in New York City to Thomas MacDowell, a Manhattan milk dealer, and Frances “Fanny” Mary Knapp.Robin Rausch (Music Specialist at the Library of Congress)MacDowell by E. Douglas Bomberger (review) ''Notes'', Volume 71, Number 2, December 2014, pp. 280-283. DOI: 10.1353/not.2014.0150Alan Levy ''American National Biography Online''. February 2000. Retrieved December 18, 2015. He received his first piano lessons from Juan Buitrago, a Colombian violinist who was living with the MacDowell family at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dika Newlin
Dika Newlin (November 22, 1923 – July 22, 2006) was a composer, pianist, professor, musicologist, and punk rock singer. She received a Ph.D. from Columbia University at the age of 22. She was one of the last living students of Arnold Schoenberg and was a Schoenberg scholar and a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond from 1978 to 2004. She performed as an Elvis impersonator and played punk rock while in her seventies in Richmond, Virginia. She was featured in the documentary '' Dika: Murder City''. Early life Dika Newlin was born in Portland, Oregon. Her name was chosen by her mother and refers to an Amazon in one of Sappho's poems. Her parents were academics and her family moved to East Lansing, Michigan, so that her father could teach English at Michigan State University. Neither of her parents were musicians, but her grandmother was a piano teacher and her uncle a composer. Newlin was able to read the dictionary by age 3 and started piano lessons at age ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joan Wall
Joan Boyd Wall (born in Baton Rouge) is a retired American operatic mezzo-soprano, voice teacher, and author on the art of singing. In 1957 she was a finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. She was a principal performer at the Metropolitan Opera, and the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and in Amsterdam, Boston, Philadelphia, Fort Worth and other US cities. Wall was the coordinator of vocal studies at Texas Woman's University for many years. She was appointed Professor Emerita in 2008 following a teaching career of 44 years at TWU. Wall is the author of ''International Phonetic Alphabet for Singers: A manual for English and foreign language diction'' (Pst. Incorporated, 1989); a text which is widely used as a university/music conservatory textbook in the United States. She has co-authored several books on singing, including ''Anyone Can Sing: How to become the singer you always wanted'' (Doubleday, 1978), ''Diction for Singers, Mastering the Fundamentals: Excellence ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radie Britain
Radie Britain (17 March 189923 May 1994) was a Texas-born pianist, writer, music educator and composer of symphonic music. Life Radie Britain was born near Silverton, Texas, the daughter of Edgar Charles and Katie (Ford) Britain. She studied at Clarendon College in Texas, and at the American Conservatory in Chicago with Heniot Levy, graduating with a Bachelor of Music degree in piano in 1921. After completing her degree, Britain taught music for a year at Clarendon College and privately in Amarillo. In 1922 she studied with organist Pietro Yon in Dallas, in 1923 with Marcel Dupré in Paris, and in 1924 with Adele Aus der Ohe in Berlin and Albert Noelte in Munich who encouraged her to pursue composition. She made her debut as a composer in Munich in May 1926. She returned to Texas after the death of her sister, and later taught at the Girvin Institute of Music and Allied Arts in Chicago. She composed orchestral works in the tradition of German post-romanticism during these yea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Florence Birdwell
Florence Gillam Birdwell (December 31, 1924 – February 15, 2021), sometimes referred to as Flo Birdwell, was an American educator, musician, and singer. She taught musical theater and opera singing for more than six decades. She served as a professor of voice at the Bass School of Music at Oklahoma City University from 1946 to 2013, and afterwards periodically teaching masterclasses as a professor emeritus. Life and career Born Florence Gillam Hobin in Douglas, Arizona, Birdwell was the daughter of Warner and Grace (Gillam) Hobin. She was raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Lawton, Oklahoma. She studied voice under Inez Silberg at Oklahoma City University (OCU), where she earned undergraduate (1945) and graduate degrees. After additional instruction, Birdwell returned to OCU where she joined the voice faculty. Birdwell received the Governor's Arts Award in 1985 from Oklahoma governor George Nigh. In 1990, OCU established the Florence Birdwell Vocal Scholarship Fund in her hono ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Katherine Hoover
Katherine Hoover (December 2, 1937 – September 21, 2018) is remembered by the National Flute Association as an "artist—flutist, teacher, entrepreneur, poet, and, most notably, a distinguished composer". Her work received many honors, including a National Endowment Composer's Fellowship, an Academy of Arts and Letters Award in composition, the National Flute Association's Lifetime Achievement Award. There are two works where she cowrote under the pseudonym Kathryn Scott. Her career as a composer began at a time when few women composers earned recognition in classical music in the 1970s. As shown in her list of known work, below, she has composed pieces for solo flute, mixed ensembles, chamber orchestra, choir acapella, full orchestra and many other combinations of instruments and voice. Some of her flute pieces incorporated Native American themes. Early life and education Hoover was born in Elkins, West Virginia, on December 2, 1937. Her mother was a painter/artist and edit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marilyn J Ziffrin
Marilyn Jane Ziffrin (August 7, 1926 - March 16, 2018) was an American composer and music educator. Biography Marilyn Ziffrin was born in Moline, Illinois, to parents Betty S. and Harry B. Ziffrin, (both children of Russian immigrants who emigrated from Belogorodka, Ukraine. Harry, who grew up in the then Tri Cities, of Rock Island & Moline, IL, and Davenport, Iowa, and Betty, who grew up in St. Louis, were first cousins; their fathers were brothers, and they both were first cousins of Lester Ziffren, the famous journalist, and Paul Ziffren, the Democratic Party leader from Los Angeles. Ziffrin, a graduate of Moline, IL public schools, where her father owned a liquor distributorship, began studying piano at age four with Louise Cervin who had studied with Theodor Leschetizky. Ziffrin also studied clarinet and saxophone and soon began composing with a piano piece called "Ode to a Lost Pencil." Ziffrin graduated from the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1948, and receive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sesame Street
''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) and was created by Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett. It is known for its images communicated through the use of Jim Henson's Muppets, and includes short films, with humor and cultural references. It premiered on November 10, 1969, to positive reviews, some controversy, and high viewership. It has aired on the United States national public television provider PBS since its debut, with its first run moving to premium channel HBO on January 16, 2016, then its sister streaming service HBO Max in 2020. ''Sesame Street'' is one of the longest-running shows in the world. The show's format consists of a combination of commercial television production elements and techniques which have evolved to reflect changes in American culture and audien ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loretta Long
Loretta Mae Long ( Moore; born October 4, 1938) is an American actress. She played the character of Susan Robinson on ''Sesame Street'' from 1969 to 2017. Long is also a consultant and public speaker on issues of multiculturalism and education. Career Long earned her Ph.D. in urban education in 1973 from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst while she was starring on ''Sesame Street''. She has acted in musicals (such as ''Guys and Dolls'') and appeared on the ''Flip Wilson Show'' with other ''Sesame Street'' cast members during its first season. In the early years, she voiced a few female Muppet voices, including Suzetta (Roosevelt Franklin's mother) and one of the Anything Muppet backup singers in "Mahna Mahna", as well as other Muppets where a female voice was needed. Long's character, Susan Robinson, and Bob (Bob McGrath) were the only two remaining non-puppeteer actors on Sesame Street from its first episode before they were phased out of the show in 2016; Will Lee (Mr. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jessye Norman
Jessye Mae Norman (September 15, 1945 – September 30, 2019) was an American opera singer and recitalist. She was able to perform dramatic soprano roles, but refused to be limited to that voice type. A commanding presence on operatic, concert and recital stages, Norman was associated with roles including Beethoven's Leonore, Wagner's Sieglinde and Kundry, Cassandre and Didon by Berlioz and Bartók's Judith. ''The New York Times'' music critic Edward Rothstein described her voice as a "grand mansion of sound", and wrote that "it has enormous dimensions, reaching backward and upward. It opens onto unexpected vistas. It contains sunlit rooms, narrow passageways, cavernous halls." Norman trained at Howard University, the Peabody Institute, and the University of Michigan. Her career began in Europe, where she won the ARD International Music Competition in Munich in 1968, which led to a contract with the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Her operatic début came as Elisabeth in Wagner's ''Ta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Libby Larsen
Elizabeth Brown Larsen (born December 24, 1950) is a contemporary American classical composer. Along with composer Stephen Paulus, she is a co-founder of the Minnesota Composers Forum, now the American Composers Forum. A former holder of the Papamarkou Chair at John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress, Larsen has also held residencies with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Biography Early life Libby Larsen was born on December 24, 1950, in Wilmington, Delaware, the daughter of Robert Larsen and Alice Brown Larsen. She was the third of five daughters in the family, and at the age of three, Libby and her family moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her first musical experience dates from the time when she was three years old. She observed her older sister's piano lessons at home; later, she imitated what she had heard. Her formal music education began at the Saint Joseph of Carondelet nuns at Christ the King School. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
