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Houston Symphony Orchestra
The Houston Symphony is an American orchestra based in Houston, Texas. The orchestra is resident at the Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts. History The first concert of what was to become the Houston Symphony took place on June 21, 1913, sponsored by the Houston philanthropist Ima Hogg. Initially, the orchestra was composed of only 35 part-time musicians. Despite its small stature and budget, the orchestra and its first conductor, Julien Paul Blitz, enjoyed a good response and continued to perform. He conducted until 1916, then Paul Bergé, until the orchestra disbanded in 1918. The orchestra reformed in 1930, still as a semi-professional orchestra, and gave its first full season of concerts the following year conducted by Uriel Nespoli. In the spring of 1936, the symphony society officially became the Houston Symphony Society. Ernst Hoffmann began his tenure that year with increased support from the Society and began hiring professional musicians. The orches ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Hans Graf
Hans Graf (born 15 February 1949 in Marchtrenk) is an Austrian conductor. Biography As a child, Graf learned the violin and the piano. He studied at the Musikhochschule in Graz, Austria, and graduated with diplomas in piano and conducting. He also participated in conducting master classes with Franco Ferrara, Sergiu Celibidache, and Arvīds Jansons. He received a state scholarship at the Leningrad Conservatory with Jansons. For the 1975/1976 season Graf was music director of the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra in Baghdad. After winning the Karl Böhm conductor's competition in 1979, he made his debut at the Vienna State Opera in 1981 with Stravinsky's '' Petrouchka''. From 1984 to 1994, Graf was music director of the Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg, where he recorded the complete symphonies and other works by Mozart. From 1994 to 1996, he held the position of music director of the Basque National Orchestra. He was music director of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
James Austin (musician)
James Lyle Austin (born November 29, 1937) is an American trumpeter and teacher. Austin earned his undergraduate degree from the Eastman School of Music, where he was featured as trumpet and cornet soloist on many of the recordings of the Eastman Wind Ensemble under the direction of Frederick Fennell. Before completing his studies at Eastman, he accepted an offer from Leopold Stokowski to become the Principal Trumpet of the Houston Symphony, effective following his graduation. He continued in this position from 1960–1977, under the direction of several orchestral conductors including Stokowski, André Previn, John Barbirolli, and Lawrence Foster. Simultaneously, he served as Principal Trumpet in the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra and the Houston Chamber Orchestra. Austin has enjoyed a long association with the University of Houston Moores School of Music The Rebecca and John J. Moores School of Music is the music school of the University of Houston. The Moores School offers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Arlene Alda
Arlene Alda ( Weiss; born March 12, 1933) is an American photographer and writer. She began her career playing clarinet professionally, then moved on to photography and writing children's books. She is married to actor Alan Alda. Early life Alda was born Arlene Weiss in the Bronx, New York City to Jewish parents. She attended Evander Childs High School and Hunter College, graduating in January 1954 as a music major, Phi Beta Kappa, Cum Laude. She became a member of the National Orchestra, a training orchestra, conducted by Leon Barzin. She studied clarinet with Abraham Goldstein and Leon Russianoff, becoming a member of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, playing assistant first clarinet and bass clarinet under the baton of Leopold Stokowski. Weiss played first clarinet in the Ridgefield Orchestra. She pursued an early interest in photography by studying with Mort Shapiro and Lou Bernstein, ultimately changing careers and becoming a photographer and writer. As a photographer, A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Christoph Eschenbach
Christoph Eschenbach (; born 20 February 1940) is a German pianist and conductor. Early life Eschenbach was born on 20 February 1940 in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland) as Christoph Ringmann. His parents were Margarethe (née Jaross), a singer and teacher of piano, and Heribert Ringmann, a conductor and musicologist in Breslau and Posen. He was orphaned during World War II. His mother died giving birth to him. His father continued to conduct until the very end of 1943, when he conducted the Brahms Requiem in Breslau, before being inducted into the German army. He was killed by Russian forces in Thuringen in 1945. His grandmother cared for him, but she died in the winter of 1945/46 at a refugee camp in Mecklenburg. As a result of this trauma, Eschenbach did not speak for a year, until he was asked if he wanted to play music. Wallydore Eschenbach (née Jaross), his mother's cousin, adopted him in 1946 and began to teach him to play the piano from 1948 through 1959. He lived ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Sergiu Comissiona
Sergiu Comissiona (Hebrew: סרג'ו קומיסיונה; June 16, 1928 – March 5, 2005) was a Romanian- Israeli- American conductor and violinist. Biography Early life Born in Bucharest, Romania in a Jewish family, he began violin studies at the age of five, was hired as a violinist by the Romanian State Ensemble while still in his teens, making his conducting debut at the age of 17. In his twenties he was named principal conductor of the Romanian National Opera, which he led from 1955 to 1959. Career He fled the Communist regime in 1959 and emigrated to Israel. In 1960 he founded the Ramat Gan Chamber Orchestra, which he led until 1967. He also directed the Haifa Symphony from 1959 until 1966. He made his American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1965 and emigrated to the United States in 1968. Later he was also music director of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Sweden, from 1966 to 1977, and became chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic in Hilv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Lawrence Foster
Lawrence Foster (born October 23, 1941) is an American conductor of Romanian ancestry. Early life Foster was born in Los Angeles, California, to Romanian parents. His father died when Foster was three years old. He was later adopted by his stepfather which is why the last name is not traditionally Romanian. Foster studied conducting with German conductor Fritz Zweig and piano with Joanna Grauden, both in Los Angeles. His other teachers and mentors have included: Karl Böhm, Bruno Walter, Henry Lewis, and Franz Waxman. Career Foster became the conductor of the San Francisco Ballet at the age of 18, and served as assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta. He was awarded the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize at Tanglewood in 1966. In 1969 he was named chief guest conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London. He has held music directorships with the Houston Symphony, the Ojai Music Festival, the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Duis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
André Previn
André George Previn (; born Andreas Ludwig Priwin; April 6, 1929 – February 28, 2019) was a German-American pianist, composer, and conductor. His career had three major genres: Hollywood films, jazz, and classical music. In each he achieved success, and the latter two were part of his life until the end. In movies, he arranged and composed music. In jazz, he was a celebrated trio pianist, a piano-accompanist to singers of standards, and pianist-interpreter of songs from the " Great American Songbook". In classical music, he also performed as a pianist but gained television fame as a conductor, and during his last thirty years created his legacy as a composer of art music. Before the age of twenty, Previn began arranging and composing for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He would go on to be involved in the music of more than fifty films and would win four Academy Awards. He won ten Grammy Awards, for recordings in all three areas of his career, and then one more, for lifetime ach ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
John Barbirolli
Sir John Barbirolli ( Giovanni Battista Barbirolli; 2 December 189929 July 1970) was a British conductor and cellist. He is remembered above all as conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, which he helped save from dissolution in 1943 and conducted for the rest of his life. Earlier in his career he was Arturo Toscanini's successor as music director of the New York Philharmonic, serving from 1936 to 1943. He was also chief conductor of the Houston Symphony from 1961 to 1967, and was a guest conductor of many other orchestras, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic, with all of which he made recordings. Born in London of Italian and French parentage, Barbirolli grew up in a family of professional musicians. After starting out as a cellist, he was given the chance to conduct, from 1926 with the British National Opera Company, and then with Covent Garden's touring company. O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ferenc Fricsay
Ferenc Fricsay (; 9 August 1914 – 20 February 1963) was a Hungarian conductor. From 1960 until his death, he was an Austrian citizen. Biography Fricsay was born in Budapest in 1914 and studied music under Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, Ernst von Dohnányi, and Leó Weiner. With these and other faculty at the Budapest Academy of Music he studied piano, violin, clarinet, trombone, percussion, composition and conducting. Fricsay made his first appearance as a conductor at age 15, substituting for his father at the podium of the Young Musicians Orchestra of Budapest. In 1930, at the age of 16, he succeeded his father as conductor of the Young Musicians Orchestra. On graduating in 1933, Fricsay became répétiteur for the chorus of the Budapest Opera; then, from 1933 to 1943, he was music director of the Szeged Philharmonic Orchestra in the third largest city in Hungary; he also served as director of its military band from 1933. In 1942, he was court-martialed by the governm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Efrem Kurtz
Efrem Kurtz (; November 7, 1900June 27, 1995) was a Russian conductor. Life and career Kurtz was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia. He studied at the Saint Petersburg conservatory with Alexander Glazunov and Nikolai Tcherepnin, among others. He then pursued graduate studies at Riga University and the Stern Conservatory in Berlin. He later was a pupil of Arthur Nikisch in Leipzig. Kurtz made his conducting debut in Berlin in 1921 while a student at the Stern Conservatory when he substituted for an ill Nikisch to accompany the dancer Isadora Duncan on tour. This led to a number of concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic. From 1924 to 1933 he conducted the Stuttgart Philharmonic, and in 1928, Kurtz was engaged by Anna Pavlova to accompany her dancing, which he did until her death in 1931. From 1933 to 1941 he was conductor of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, touring with them extensively. His work in Monte Carlo included conducting the premiere of ''Gaîté Parisienne''.Anderson ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Frank St
Frank, FRANK, or Franks may refer to: People * Frank (given name) * Frank (surname) * Franks (surname) * Franks, a Germanic people in late Roman times * Franks, a term in the Muslim world for all western Europeans, particularly during the Crusades Currency * Liechtenstein franc or frank, the currency of Liechtenstein since 1920 * Swiss franc or frank, the currency of Switzerland since 1850 * Westphalian frank, currency of the Kingdom of Westphalia between 1808 and 1813 * The currencies of the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland (1803–1814): ** Appenzell frank ** Aargau frank ** Basel frank ** Berne frank ** Fribourg frank ** Glarus frank ** Graubünden frank ** Luzern frank ** Schaffhausen frank ** Schwyz frank ** Solothurn frank ** St. Gallen frank ** Thurgau frank ** Unterwalden frank ** Uri frank ** Zürich frank Places * Frank, Alberta, Canada, an urban community, formerly a village * Franks, Illinois, United States, an unincorporated community * Franks, Missouri, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
