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Chris Merritt
Chris Merritt (born September 27, 1952, in Oklahoma City) is an American tenor. Education Merritt began piano studies at 8 years of age with Viola Knight. During this time, he also studied art at the Oklahoma Museum of Art. At 9 years of age he began dance studies under Jewel Grigsby. He credits Al Ossenkopp, one of the music teachers at his Oklahoma City high school, with inspiring him to take up a singing career. Finally, Merritt began singing lessons in the preparatory department of Oklahoma City University at 15 years of age. His teacher was Florence Gillam Birdwell. By this time, he had already changed piano studies to Oklahoma City University (OCU) preparatory department with Dr. Robert Laughlin. It was also at OCU where he made his first operatic appearance in Douglas Moore's ''The Ballad of Baby Doe'', at the age of 17, in a university production and singing alongside university-school-mate Leona Mitchell. At 18 and 19 years of age he performed and studied at Inspiration ...
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Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, and is the 8th largest city in the Southern United States. The population grew following the 2010 census and reached 687,725 in the 2020 census. The Oklahoma City metropolitan area had a population of 1,396,445, and the Oklahoma City–Shawnee Combined Statistical Area had a population of 1,469,124, making it Oklahoma's largest municipality and metropolitan area by population. Oklahoma City's city limits extend somewhat into Canadian, Cleveland, and Pottawatomie counties, though much of those areas outside the core Oklahoma County area are suburban tracts or protected rural zones ( watershed). The city is the eighth-largest in the United States by area including consolidated city-counties; it is the second-largest, after Houston, not ...
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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 (music), classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the Holy Roman Empire, he gained prominence at the House of Habsburg, 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 (Gluck), Alceste'', he broke the stranglehold that Metastasio, 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 ...
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Handel
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training in 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 became a naturalised British subject in 1727. He was strongly influenced both by the middle-German 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 commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera. In 1737, he had a physical break ...
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Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition resulted in more than List of compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 800 works of virtually every genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphony, symphonic, concerto, concertante, chamber music, chamber, operatic, and choir, choral repertoire. Mozart is widely regarded as among the greatest composers in the history of Western music, with his music admired for its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture". Born in Prince-Archbishopric of Salzburg, Salzburg, in the Holy Roman Empire, Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on Keyboard instrument, keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of fi ...
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Carmina Burana (Orff)
' is a cantata composed in 1935 and 1936 by Carl Orff, based on 24 poems from the medieval collection '' Carmina Burana''. Its full Latin title is ' ("Songs of Beuern: Secular songs for singers and choruses to be sung together with instruments and magical images"). It was first performed by the Oper Frankfurt on 8 June 1937. It is part of '' Trionfi'', a musical triptych that also includes ''Catulli Carmina'' and ''Trionfo di Afrodite''. The first and last sections of the piece are called "" ("Fortune, Empress of the World") and start with "O Fortuna". Text In 1934, Orff encountered the 1847 edition of the '' Carmina Burana'' by Johann Andreas Schmeller, the original text dating mostly from the 11th or 12th century, including some from the 13th century. was a young law student and an enthusiast of Latin and Greek; he assisted Orff in the selection and organization of 24 of these poems into a libretto mostly in secular Latin verse, with a small amount of Middle High German a ...
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Carl Orff
Carl Orff (; 10 July 1895 – 29 March 1982) was a German composer and music educator, best known for his cantata ''Carmina Burana'' (1937). The concepts of his Schulwerk were influential for children's music education. Life Early life Carl Orff (full name Karl Heinrich Maria Orff) was born in Munich on 10 July 1895, the son of Paula Orff (née Köstler, 1872–1960) and Heinrich Orff (1869–1949). His family was Bavarian and was active in the Imperial German Army; his father was an army officer with strong musical interests, and his mother was a trained pianist. The composer's grandfathers, Carl von Orff (1828–1905) and Karl Köstler (1837–1924), were both major generals and also scholars. His paternal grandmother, Fanny Orff (née Kraft, 1833–1919), was Catholic of Jewish descent. His maternal grandmother was Maria Köstler (née Aschenbrenner, 1845–1906). Orff had one sibling, a younger sister named Maria ("Mia", 1898–1975), who married the architect Alwin ...
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Symphony No
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning common today: a work usually consisting of multiple distinct sections or movements, often four, with the first movement in sonata form. Symphonies are almost always scored for an orchestra consisting of a string section (violin, viola, cello, and double bass), brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments which altogether number about 30 to 100 musicians. Symphonies are notated in a musical score, which contains all the instrument parts. Orchestral musicians play from parts which contain just the notated music for their own instrument. Some symphonies also contain vocal parts (e.g., Beethoven's Ninth Symphony). Etymology and origins The word ''symphony'' is derived from the Greek word (), meaning "agreement or concord of sound", "concert of ...
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Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical music repertoire and span the Transition from Classical to Romantic music, transition from the Classical period (music), Classical period to the Romantic music, Romantic era in classical music. His career has conventionally been divided into early, middle, and late periods. His early period, during which he forged his craft, is typically considered to have lasted until 1802. From 1802 to around 1812, his middle period showed an individual development from the styles of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and is sometimes characterized as heroic. During this time, he began to grow increasingly Hearing loss, deaf. In his late period, from 1812 to 1827, he extended his innovations in musical form and expression. Beethoven was born in Bo ...
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Bruckner
Josef Anton Bruckner (; 4 September 182411 October 1896) was an Austrian composer, organist, and music theorist best known for his symphonies, masses, Te Deum and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, strongly polyphonic character, and considerable length. Bruckner's compositions helped to define contemporary musical radicalism, owing to their dissonances, unprepared modulations, and roving harmonies. Unlike other musical radicals such as Richard Wagner and Hugo Wolf, Bruckner showed extreme humility before other musicians, Wagner in particular. This apparent dichotomy between Bruckner the man and Bruckner the composer hampers efforts to describe his life in a way that gives a straightforward context for his music. Hans von Bülow described him as "half genius, half simpleton". Bruckner was critical of his own work and often reworked his compositions. There are several version ...
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Wiener Symphoniker
The Vienna Symphony (Vienna Symphony Orchestra, german: Wiener Symphoniker) is an Austrian orchestra based in Vienna. Its primary concert venue is the Vienna Konzerthaus. In Vienna, the orchestra also performs at the Musikverein and at the Theater an der Wien. History In 1900, Ferdinand Löwe founded the orchestra as the ''Wiener Concertverein'' (Vienna Concert Society). In 1913 it moved into the Konzerthaus, Vienna. In 1919 it merged with the Tonkünstler Orchestra. In 1933 it acquired its current name. Despite a lull in concert attendance after the introduction of radio during the 1920s, the orchestra survived until the invasion of Austria in 1938 and became incorporated into the German Culture Orchestras. As such, they were used for purposes of propaganda until, depleted by assignments to work in munitions factories, the orchestra closed down on September 1, 1944. Their first post-war concert occurred on September 16, 1945, performing Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 3. Under t ...
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St Matthew Passion
The ''St Matthew Passion'' (german: Matthäus-Passion, links=-no), BWV 244, is a '' Passion'', a sacred oratorio written by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1727 for solo voices, double choir and double orchestra, with libretto by Picander. It sets the 26th and 27th chapters of the Gospel of Matthew (in the Luther Bible) to music, with interspersed chorales and arias. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest masterpieces of Baroque sacred music. The original Latin title translates to "The Passion of our Lord J susC[hrist">rist.html" ;"title="susC[hrist">susC[hristaccording to the Evangelist Matthew".Markus Rathey. 2016. ''Bach's Major Vocal Works. Music, Drama, Liturgy'', Yale University Press History The ''St Matthew Passion'' is the second of two Passion settings by Bach that have survived in their entirety, the first being the '' St John Passion'', first performed in 1724. Versions and contemporaneous performances Little is known with certainty about the creation proc ...
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ORF (broadcaster)
('Austrian Broadcasting Corporation'; ORF) is an Austrian national public broadcaster. Funded from a combination of television licence fee revenue and limited on-air advertising, ORF is the dominant player in the Austrian broadcast media. Austria was the last country in continental Europe after Albania to allow nationwide private television broadcasting, although commercial TV channels from neighbouring Germany have been present in Austria on pay-TV and via terrestrial overspill since the 1980s. History of broadcasting in Austria The first unregulated test transmissions in Austria began on 1 April 1923 by Radio Hekaphon, run by the radio pioneer and enthusiast Oskar Czeija ( de; 1887–1958), who applied for a radio licence in 1921; first in his telephone factory in the Brigittenau district of Vienna, later in the nearby TGM technical college. On 2 September, it aired a first broadcast address by Austrian President Michael Hainisch (1858–1940). One year later, a powe ...
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