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Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891, the ensemble has been based in the Symphony Center since 1904 and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival. Klaus Mäkelä was named music director-designate in 2024, with his first contractual season to begin in 2027. The orchestra's most recent music director is Riccardo Muti, whose tenure spanned the seasons from 2010 to 2023, and he continues to perform on occasion as director-emeritus. The CSO is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". History In 1890, Charles Norman Fay, a Chicago businessman, invited Theodore Thomas to establish an orchestra in Chicago. Under the name "Chicago Orchestra", the orchestra played its first concert October 16, 1891, at the Auditorium Theater. It is one of the oldest orchestras in the United States, along with the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Symphony Center
Symphony Center is a music complex located at 220 South Michigan Avenue in the Loop area of Chicago, Illinois. Home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO); Chicago Symphony Chorus; Civic Orchestra of Chicago; and the Institute for Learning, Access, and Training; Symphony Center includes the 2,522-seat Orchestra Hall, which dates from 1904; Buntrock Hall, a rehearsal and performance space named for the CSO trustee and benefactor Dean L. Buntrock; Grainger Ballroom, an event space overlooking Michigan Avenue and the Art Institute of Chicago; a public multi-story rotunda; Forte, a restaurant and café; and administrative offices. In June 1993, plans to significantly renovate and expand Orchestra Hall were approved and the $110 million project resulting in Symphony Center, completed in 1997. Designed by architect Daniel Burnham, Orchestra Hall was designated a National Historic Landmark on April 19, 1994. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Alan Blyth
Geoffrey Alan Blyth (27 July 1929 – 14 August 2007) was an English music critic, author, and musicologist who was particularly known for his writings within the field of opera. He was a specialist on singers and singing. Born in London, Blyth's earliest musical experiences were at Rugby School. He attended the music lectures of Professor Jack Westrup. After graduation from Pembroke College, Oxford, where he read history, he returned to London and worked in journalism and publishing. He wrote reviews, interviews, and obituaries for ''The Times'' and for ''Gramophone (magazine), Gramophone''. He was a long-time contributor to the British magazine ''Opera (British magazine), Opera''.Baker, Janet, and Max Loppert. "Alan Blyth, 1929–2007", ''Opera Magazine'' (2007): 1168–1171. Personal life Blyth was married first to the German-born Ursula Zumloh, who died in 2000, and then to the Buddhist scholar Sue Hamilton. For the last two decades of his life, he lived in Lavenham, Suff ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
George Szell
George Szell (; June 7, 1897 – July 30, 1970), originally György Széll, György Endre Szél, or Georg Szell, was a Hungarian-born American conductor, composer and pianist. Considered one of the twentieth century's greatest conductors, he was music director of the Cleveland Orchestra of Cleveland, Ohio, and recorded much of the standard classical repertoire in Cleveland and with other orchestras. Szell came to Cleveland in 1946 to take over its respected if undersized orchestra, which was struggling to recover from the disruptions of World War II. By the time of his death he was credited, to quote the critic Donal Henahan, with having built it into "what many critics regarded as the world's keenest symphonic instrument." Through his recordings, Szell has remained a presence in the classical music world long after his death, and his name remains synonymous with that of the Cleveland Orchestra. While on tour with the Orchestra in the late 1980s, then-Music Director Chr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Cleveland Orchestra
The Cleveland Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Cleveland, Ohio. Founded in 1918 by the pianist and impresario Adella Prentiss Hughes, the orchestra is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the " Big Five". The orchestra plays most of its concerts at Severance Music Center. Its current music director is Franz Welser-Möst. History Founding and early history (1918–1945) The Cleveland Orchestra was founded in 1918 by music-aficionado Adella Prentiss Hughes, businessman John L. Severance, Father John Powers, music critic Archie Bell, and Russian-American violinist and conductor Nikolai Sokoloff, who became the orchestra’s first music director. A former pianist, Hughes served as a local music promoter and sponsored a series of “Symphony Orchestra Concerts” designed to bring top-notch orchestral music to Cleveland. In 1915, she helped found the Musical Arts Association, which presented Cleveland performances of the Ballets Russes in 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf (born Erich Landauer; February 4, 1912 – September 11, 1993) was an Austrian-born American conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a reputation for exacting standards as well as an acerbic personality. He also published books and essays on musical matters. Biography Leinsdorf was born to a Jewish family in Vienna, and was studying music at a local school by the age of 5. He played the cello and studied composition. In his teens, Leinsdorf worked as a piano accompanist for singers. He studied conducting at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and later at the University of Vienna and the Vienna Academy of Music. From 1934 to 1937 he worked as an assistant to the noted conductors Bruno Walter and Arturo Toscanini at the Salzburg Festival. In November 1937, Leinsdorf travelled to the United States to take up a position as assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein ( ; born Louis 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-born conductor to receive international acclaim. Bernstein was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history" according to music critic Donal Henahan. List of awards and nominations received by Leonard Bernstein, Bernstein's honors and accolades include seven Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, and 16 Grammy Awards (including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, Lifetime Achievement Award) as well as an Academy Award for Best Original Score, Academy Award nomination. He received the Kennedy Center Honor in 1981. As a composer, Bernstein wrote in many genres, including symphonic and orchestral music, ballet, film and theatre music, choral works, opera, chamber music, and pieces for the pian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
William Mann (critic)
William Somervell Mann (14 February 19245 September 1989) was an English music critic. Born in India, he was educated at Winchester College, Winchester and University of Cambridge, Cambridge, studying music with several prominent composers, before taking up a career as a critic. For most of his career he was on the staff of ''The Times'' in London, where his radical views were in contrast with the paper's traditional outlook. He published many books and articles in musical journals. After leaving ''The Times'' Mann was director of the Bath International Music Festival, Bath Festival for a year. Life and career Mann was born in Madras, India,Sadie, Stanley"Mann, William S." ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford Music Online, accessed 2 March 2012 the son of Gerald and Joyce Mann."Mann, William Somervell" ''Who Was Who'', A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Edinburgh Festival
__NOTOC__ This is a list of Arts festival, arts and cultural festivals regularly taking place in Edinburgh, Scotland. The city has become known for its festivals since the establishment in 1947 of the Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe which runs alongside it. The latter is the largest event of its kind in the world. The term ''Edinburgh Festival'' is commonly used, but there is no single festival; the various festivals are put on by separate, unrelated organisations. However they are widely regarded as part of the same event, particularly the various festivals that take place simultaneously in August each year. The term ''Edinburgh Festival'' is often used to refer more specifically to the Fringe, being the largest of the festivals; or sometimes to the International Festival, being the original "official" arts festival. Within the industry, people refer to all the festivals collectively as the ''Edinburgh Festivals'' (plural). The festivals ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Chicago Defender
''The Chicago Defender'' is a Chicago-based online African-American newspaper. It was founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott and was once considered the "most important" newspaper of its kind. Abbott's newspaper reported and campaigned against Jim Crow-era violence and urged black people in the American South to settle in the north in what became the Great Migration. Abbott worked out an informal distribution system with Pullman porters who surreptitiously (and sometimes against southern state laws and mores) took his paper by rail far beyond Chicago, especially to African American readers in the southern United States. Under his nephew and chosen successor, John H. Sengstacke, the paper dealt with racial segregation in the United States, especially in the U.S. military, during World War II. Copies of the paper were passed along in communities, and it is estimated that at its most successful, each copy was read by four to five people. In 1919–1922, the ''Defender'' attracted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Moses Barenboim (; born 15 November 1942) is an Argentines, Argentine-Israeli classical pianist and conductor based in Berlin, who also has Spain, Spanish and State of Palestine, Palestinian citizenship. From 1992 until January 2023, Barenboim was the general music director of the Berlin State Opera and "Staatskapellmeister" of its orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin. Barenboim previously served as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris and La Scala in Milan. Barenboim is known for his work with the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra, a Seville-based orchestra of young Arab and Israeli musicians, and as a resolute critic of the Israeli-occupied territories, Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. Barenboim has received many awards and prizes, including seven Grammy Award, Grammy awards, an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, France's Legion of Honour as a Commander, Grand Officier and Grand Cross, and the Gran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Georg Solti
Sir Georg Solti ( , ; born György Stern; 21 October 1912 – 5 September 1997) was a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor, known for his appearances with opera companies in Munich, Frankfurt, and London, and as a long-serving music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Born in Budapest, he studied there with Béla Bartók, Leó Weiner, and Ernő Dohnányi. In the 1930s, he was a '' répétiteur'' at the Hungarian State Opera and worked at the Salzburg Festival for Arturo Toscanini. His career was interrupted by the rise of the Nazis' influence on Hungarian politics, and being Jewish, he fled the increasingly harsh Hungarian anti-Jewish laws in 1938. After conducting a season of Russian ballet in London at the Royal Opera House, he found refuge in Switzerland, where he remained during the Second World War. Prohibited from conducting there, he earned a living as a pianist. After the war, Solti was appointed musical director of the Bavarian State Oper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
