Portal:Music
The Music Portal
Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise expressive content. However, definitions of music vary depending on culture, though it is an aspect of all human societies and a cultural universal. While scholars agree that music is defined by a few specific elements, there is no consensus on their precise definitions. The creation of music is commonly divided into musical composition, musical improvisation, and musical performance, though the topic itself extends into academic disciplines, criticism, philosophy, psychology, and therapeutic contexts. Music may be performed using a vast range of instruments, including the human voice to sing, and thus is often credited for its extreme versatility and opportunity for creativity.
In some musical contexts, a performance or composition may be to some extent improvised. For instance, in Hindustani classical music, the performer plays spontaneously while following a partially defined structure and using characteristic motifs. In modal jazz, the performers may take turns leading and responding while sharing a changing set of notes. In a free jazz context, there may be no structure whatsoever, with each performer acting at their discretion. Music may be deliberately composed to be unperformable or agglomerated electronically from many performances. Music is played in public and private areas, highlighted at events such as festivals, rock concerts, and orchestra performances, and heard incidentally as part of a score or soundtrack to a film, TV show, opera, or video game. Musical playback is the primary function of an MP3 player or CD player, and a universal feature of radios and smartphones.
Besides just entertainment, music often plays a key role in social activities, religious rituals, rite of passage ceremonies, celebrations, and cultural activities. The music industry includes songwriters, performers, sound engineers, producers, tour organizers, distributors of instruments, accessories, and sheet music. Compositions, performances, and recordings are assessed and evaluated by music critics, music journalists, and music scholars, as well as amateurs. (Full article...)
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Bull Headed Lyre of Ur, found in the Royal Cemetery at Ur, is the best known of the ancient Lyres of Ur (from History of music)The
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Frances Densmore recording Blackfoot chief Mountain Chief on a cylinder phonograph in 1916 (from Music industry)
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- Terracotta statue of a Parthian lute player (from
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vinyl format rose toward the end of the 2010s. (from Album era)US vinyl sales in units, 1995–2020; while album sales overall declined, those in the
- Sheet music for part of the
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- Drawing of the tablet with the Hymn to
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Taylor Swift, a longtime adherent to album-era rollouts, surprise-released her albums instead in 2020. (from Album era)
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Cologne Pride, 2013 (from Music industry)A live musical performance at
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Pink Floyd (1973) performing The Dark Side of the Moon, a leading commercial success of the LP era (from Album era)
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The Rolling Stones in 1967 (from Album era)
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Apple Inc.'s online iTunes store, which sells digital files of songs and musical pieces–along with a range of other content, such as digital files of TV shows and movies (from Music industry)The logo for
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recording studio (from Music industry)Musicians working in a
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hip hop producers repurposed them as sampling sources, contributing to the development of record collecting. (from Album era)As LPs fell out of favor to CDs,
- Two musicians of the
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concert (from Music industry)An audience watching a
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Circular definition of "musicality" (from Elements of music)
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The Beatles (1964) have been credited by music historians for heralding the album era. (from Album era)
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Guillaume Du Fay (left), with Gilles Binchois (right) in a c. 1440 Illuminated manuscript copy of Martin le Franc's Le champion des dames (from History of music)
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Kanye West (2007) emerged during the decade as an important hip-hop producer and album artist. (from Album era)
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Stevie Wonder, among the era's innovative artists (from Album era)
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audio mixer in a recording studio (from Music industry)A studio engineer working with an
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Platinum records by Elvis Presley, Prince, Madonna, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Bruce Springsteen, at Julien's Auctions (from Album era)
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Perotin from the Codex Guelf.1099 (from History of music)Alleluia nativitas by
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Made in the Dark is the third studio album by the English indietronica band Hot Chip, released on 4 February 2008 through EMI Records internationally and Astralwerks and DFA Records in the United States. Comprising 13 tracks, a defining feature of the album is the strong presence of romantic ballads. The title ballad was described as "sublime" by one critic, although not all the ballads received universal praise. Alexis Taylor, the main contributor to the lyrics, said he was proud of the album lyrically and felt that feeling of love and happiness, partly the result of his recent marriage, had contributed to the album's romantic tone.
Critics stated that songs such as "Ready for the Floor" and "Bendable Poseable" were reminiscent of their previous release, The Warning. The style of the album was not considered as big a leap forward as the changes evident between Coming on Strong (2004) to The Warning (2006). It was said that Hot Chip had honed their music by using quirks of their musical style to make more accomplished music. However, some critics felt that the album lacked focus, containing too many varied elements; it was described as "loveable but flawed". Commercially, Made in the Dark peaked at number four on the UK Album Chart, number 25 on the Australian album charts, and entered at number 109 on the US Billboard 200. Several singles have been released from the album, including "Shake a Fist", "Ready for the Floor", which reached number six on the UK Singles Chart, and "One Pure Thought". (Full article...) -
Angeline Quinto (born November 26, 1989) is a Filipino singer, actress, and television personality. Known for her vocal range and soulful singing style, Quinto's music has garnered critical praise for its lyrical content and themes of love, heartbreak, and empowerment. It has been featured in the soundtracks of films and television series in the Philippines.
Born in Sampaloc, Manila, Quinto first achieved recognition after winning the television talent show Star Power in 2011. She signed with Star Music and collaborated with songwriter and producer Jonathan Manalo to start recording material for her first effort, a self-titled studio album, which was supported by the single "Patuloy Ang Pangarap" ("The Dream Continues"). The album was certified double platinum by the Philippine Association of the Record Industry, and earned Quinto an Aliw Award for Best New Artist. Her next album, Fall In Love Again (2012), featured theme songs from films and television series. With Sana Bukas pa ang Kahapon (2014), Quinto became the first Filipino artist to record all the songs for a television show soundtrack. She reinvented her image and style with succeeding releases, Higher Love (2013) and @LoveAngelineQuinto (2017), gaining praise for her artistic growth and maturity. (Full article...) -
"Talk That Talk" is a song recorded by Barbadian singer Rihanna for her 2011 studio album of the same name. It features a rap verse by American rapper Jay-Z, who had previously collaborated with Rihanna on her song "Umbrella" in 2007 and "Run This Town" in 2009. The song was written by Jay-Z, Ester Dean, together with the Norwegian production duo Stargate. Def Jam Recordings serviced the track to urban contemporary radio in the United States on January 17, 2012, as the third single from Talk That Talk. It was released in France as a CD single on March 26. "Talk That Talk" is a hip hop song with R&B beats, rough drums and unrefined synths, and has a similar style to Rihanna's 2010 single "Rude Boy". It contains a brief sample of "I Got a Story to Tell" by the Notorious B.I.G. Therefore, the Buckwild, Sean Combs, Chucky Thompson, and the Notorious B.I.G. are credited as songwriters despite the Notorious B.I.G's death in 1997.
The single was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration at the 2013 ceremony. The song appeared on several charts worldwide; it reached number 31 on the US Billboard Hot 100, number 25 on the UK Singles Chart, and the top ten in Israel and Norway. It was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting digital downloads of over one million copies in the US. Rihanna performed "Talk That Talk" on television shows such as The Jonathan Ross Show and Saturday Night Live, and included it on the set lists of the 2013 Diamonds and the 2014 The Monster Tour with Eminem. (Full article...) -
Osbert Parsley (1510/1511 – 1585) was an English Renaissance composer and chorister. Few details of his life are known, but he evidently married in 1558, and lived for a period in the parish of St Saviour's Church, Norwich. A boy chorister at Norwich Cathedral, Parsley worked there throughout his musical career. He was first mentioned as a lay clerk, was appointed a "singing man" in c. 1534, and was probably the cathedral's unofficial organist for half a century. His career spanned the reigns of Henry VIII and all three of his children. After the Reformation of 1534, the lives of English church musicians changed according to the official policy of each monarch.
Parsley wrote mainly church music for both the Latin and English rites, as well as instrumental music. His Latin settings are considered to be more fluent and attractive-sounding than those he wrote to be sung in English. His longest composition, Conserva me, domine, was in a graceful polyphonic style. Parsley's other liturgical works include Daily Offices (two morning services and an evening service), and the five-part Lamentations (notable for the difficulty in singing the top notes of the highest part). His instrumental music, nearly all for viols, including six consort pieces, was written in a style that combines both his Latin and English vocal styles. Some of his incomplete instrumental music has survived. (Full article...) -
Title TK is the third studio album by American alternative rock band the Breeders, released on May 20 and 21, 2002 by 4AD in the United Kingdom and Elektra Records in the United States, and on May 10 by P-Vine Records in Japan. The album—whose name means "title to come" in journalistic shorthand—generated three singles: "Off You", "Huffer", and "Son of Three". Title TK reached the top 100 in France, Germany, the UK, and Australia, and number 130 in the US.
Following multiple changes in personnel after the release of Last Splash (1993), singer and songwriter Kim Deal was the only remaining constant member of the Breeders by 1996. The next year, she returned to the studio in an attempt to record a follow-up album, but her behavior—including drug use and demanding expectations—alienated many of the musicians and engineers with whom she worked. (Full article...) -
Odyssey Number Five is the fourth studio album by the Australian rock band Powderfinger, produced by Nick DiDia and released on 4 September 2000 by Universal Music. It won the 2001 ARIA Music Award for Highest Selling Album, Best Group and Best Rock Album. The album is the band's shortest yet, focusing on social, political, and emotional issues that had appeared in prior works, especially Internationalist.
The album produced four singles. The most successful, "My Happiness", reached #4 on the ARIA Singles Chart, won the 2001 ARIA Music Award for "Single of the Year", and topped Triple J's Hottest 100 in 2000. The album also featured "These Days", which topped Triple J's Hottest 100 in 1999. The album ranked at number 1 in Triple J's Hottest 100 Australian Albums of All Time poll in 2011. (Full article...) -
This Year's Model is the second studio album by the English singer-songwriter Elvis Costello, released on 17 March 1978 through Radar Records. After being backed by Clover for his debut album My Aim Is True (1977), Costello formed the Attractions—keyboardist Steve Nieve, bassist Bruce Thomas and drummer Pete Thomas (no relation)—as his permanent backing band. Recording sessions took place at London's Eden Studios in eleven days between late 1977 and early 1978. Nick Lowe returned as producer, and Roger Béchirian acted as engineer. Most of the songs were written prior to the sessions, and debuted live during the latter half of 1977.
Embracing new wave, power pop and punk rock, the songs draw from bands such as the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. The lyrics explore subjects such as technologies of mass control and failing relationships, but in a manner that some reviewers found misogynistic. Echoing the lyrics of some of the tracks, the cover artwork, designed by the English graphic artist Barney Bubbles, shows Costello behind a camera on a tripod, emphasising his role as an observer. (Full article...) -
Branded to Kill (Japanese: 殺しの烙印, Hepburn: Koroshi no Rakuin) is a 1967 Japanese yakuza film directed by Seijun Suzuki and starring Joe Shishido, Koji Nanbara, Annu Mari and Mariko Ogawa. The story follows contract killer Goro Hanada as he is recruited by a mysterious woman named Misako for a seemingly impossible mission. When the mission fails, he is hunted by the phantom Number One Killer, whose methods threaten his life and sanity.
Branded to Kill was designated by its production company and distributor, Nikkatsu, as a low-budget B movie. Dissatisfied with the original script, the studio called in Suzuki to rewrite and direct the film shortly prior to the start of production. Suzuki came up with many of his ideas for the project the night before or on the set while filming, and welcomed ideas from his colleagues; the screenplay is credited to Hachiro Guryu, a writing collective that consisted of Suzuki and seven other writers, including his frequent collaborators Takeo Kimura and Atsushi Yamatoya. Suzuki gave the film a satirical, anarchic and visually eclectic bent, which the studio had previously warned him away from. The brief turnaround Suzuki was given to make Branded to Kill meant that post-production on the film was completed only a day before its pre-scheduled release on June 15, 1967. (Full article...) -
"No Me Queda Más" ("There's Nothing Left for Me") is a song by American singer Selena on her fourth studio album, Amor Prohibido. It was released as the third single from the album in October 1994 by EMI Latin. "No Me Queda Más" was written by Ricky Vela, and production was handled by Selena's brother A.B. Quintanilla. A downtempo mariachi and pop ballad, "No Me Queda Más" portrays the ranchera storyline of a woman in agony after the end of a relationship. Its lyrics express an unrequited love, the singer wishing the best for her former lover and his new partner.
Praised by music critics for its emotive nature, "No Me Queda Más" was one of the most successful singles of Selena's career. It topped the United States Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart for seven non-consecutive weeks, her third successive number-one song. It was Selena's first number-one track on the US Regional Mexican Airplay chart, and became the most successful US Latin single of 1995. It has been ranked the ninth-best Tejano recording by Billboard magazine and the eleventh-best Hot Latin Songs chart single in 2011. (Full article...) -
Mckenna Grace (born June 25, 2006) is an American actress and singer. Born in Grapevine, Texas, she began acting professionally at age five and relocated to Los Angeles, California, as a child. Her earliest roles included Jasmine Bernstein in the Disney XD sitcom Crash & Bernstein (2012–2014) and Faith Newman in the soap opera The Young and the Restless (2013–2015). After several small roles, she starred as a child prodigy in Gifted (2017), a breakthrough for which she received a nomination for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer.
Grace subsequently appeared in the films I, Tonya (2017), Troop Zero (2019), and Captain Marvel (2019). During this time, she appeared in several horror projects, including The Bad Seed (2018), The Haunting of Hill House (2018), and Annabelle Comes Home (2019). For playing an abused teenager in The Handmaid's Tale (2021–2022), Grace was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series, making her the first child recognized for a guest acting Emmy. She appeared in the supernatural comedy films Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024) as Phoebe Spengler, receiving critical praise and a Critics' Choice Super Award nomination. In 2022, Grace wrote, executive produced, and starred in The Bad Seed Returns, and portrayed Jan Broberg in A Friend of the Family. (Full article...) -
Sir James Paul McCartney CH MBE (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One of the most successful composers and performers of all time, McCartney is known for his melodic approach to bass-playing, versatile and wide tenor vocal range, and musical eclecticism, exploring genres ranging from pre–rock and roll pop to classical, ballads, and electronica. His songwriting partnership with Lennon is the most successful in modern music history.
Born in Liverpool, McCartney taught himself piano, guitar, and songwriting as a teenager, having been influenced by his father, a jazz player, and rock and roll performers such as Little Richard and Buddy Holly. He began his career when he joined Lennon's skiffle group, the Quarrymen, in 1957, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960. Sometimes called "the cute Beatle", McCartney later immersed himself in the London avant-garde scene and played a key role in incorporating experimental aesthetics into the Beatles' studio productions. Starting with the 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, he gradually became the band's de facto leader, providing creative impetus for most of their music and film projects. Many of his Beatles songs, including "And I Love Her", "Yesterday", "Eleanor Rigby", and "Blackbird", rank among the most covered songs in history. Although primarily a bassist with the Beatles, he played a number of other instruments, including keyboards, guitars, and drums, on various songs. (Full article...) -
Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television personality. She is known for her influence on modern pop music and her camp style, being dubbed the "Queen of Camp" by Vogue and Rolling Stone. At 16, Perry released a gospel record titled Katy Hudson (2001) under Red Hill Records, which was commercially unsuccessful. She moved to Los Angeles at 17 to venture into secular music, and later adopted the stage name "Katy Perry" from her mother's maiden name. She recorded an album while signed to Columbia Records, but was dropped before signing to Capitol Records.
Perry rose to fame with One of the Boys (2008), a pop rock record containing her debut single "I Kissed a Girl" and follow-up single "Hot n Cold", which reached number one and three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 respectively. The disco-influenced pop album Teenage Dream (2010) spawned five U.S. number one singles—"California Gurls", "Teenage Dream", "Firework", "E.T.", and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"— the only album by a female singer to do so. A reissue of the album titled Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection (2012) subsequently produced the U.S. number one single "Part of Me". Her empowerment-themed album Prism (2013) had two U.S. number one singles, "Roar" and "Dark Horse". Both their respective music videos made Perry the first artist to have multiple videos reach one billion views on Vevo and YouTube. The electropop album Witness (2017) featured themes of feminism and a political subtext, while Smile (2020) was influenced by motherhood and her mental health journey. Afterwards, she embarked on her Las Vegas concert residency titled Play (2021–2023), receiving critical acclaim and commercial success. (Full article...) -
"This Charming Man" is a song by the English rock band the Smiths, written by guitarist Johnny Marr and singer Morrissey. Released as the group's second single in October 1983 on the independent record label Rough Trade, it is defined by Marr's jangle pop guitar riff and Morrissey's characteristically morose lyrics, which revolve around the recurrent Smiths themes of sexual ambiguity and lust. A different version, from the John Peel Show on BBC Radio 1, was included on the compilation album Hatful of Hollow in 1984.
Feeling detached from the early 1980s mainstream gay culture, Morrissey wrote "This Charming Man" to evoke an older, more coded and self-aware underground scene. The singer said of the song's lyrics: "I really like the idea of the male voice being quite vulnerable, of it being taken and slightly manipulated, rather than there being always this heavy machismo thing that just bores everybody." (Full article...) -
The Symphony No. 3, Op. 36, also known as the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs (Polish: Symfonia pieśni żałosnych), is a symphony in three movements composed by Henryk Górecki in Katowice, Poland, between October and December 1976. The work is indicative of the transition between Górecki's earlier dissonant style and his later more tonal style and "represented a stylistic breakthrough: austerely plaintive, emotionally direct and steeped in medieval modes". It was premièred on 4 April 1977, at the Royan International Festival, with Stefania Woytowicz as soprano and Ernest Bour as conductor.
A solo soprano sings Polish texts in each of the three movements. The first is a 15th-century Polish lament of Mary, mother of Jesus; the second a message written on the wall of a Gestapo cell during World War II; and the third a Silesian folk song of a mother searching for her son killed by the Germans in the Silesian uprisings. The first and third movements are written from the perspective of a parent who has lost a child, and the second movement from that of a child separated from a parent. The dominant themes of the symphony are motherhood, despair and suffering. (Full article...) -
Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies is a music reference book by American music journalist and essayist Robert Christgau. It was first published in October 1981 by Ticknor & Fields. The book compiles approximately 3,000 of Christgau's capsule album reviews, most of which were originally written for his "Consumer Guide" column in The Village Voice throughout the 1970s. The entries feature annotated details about each record's release and cover a variety of genres related to rock music.
Christgau's reviews are informed by an interest in the aesthetic and political dimensions of popular music, a belief that it could be consumed intelligently, and a desire to communicate his ideas to readers in an entertaining, provocative, and compact way. Many of the older reviews were rewritten for the guide to reflect his changed perspective and matured stylistic approach. He undertook an intense preparation process for the book during 1979 and 1980, which temporarily hindered both his awareness of current music and his marriage to fellow writer Carola Dibbell, whom he later credited as an influence on his work. (Full article...)
Selected pictures
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Photograph credit: Eugène Pirou; restored by Adam CuerdenJules Massenet (12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic era, best known for his operas. Between 1867 and his death, he wrote more than forty stage works in a wide variety of styles, from opéra comique to grand depictions of classical myths, romantic comedies and lyric dramas, as well as oratorios, cantatas and ballets. Massenet had a good sense of the theatre and of what would succeed with the Parisian public. Despite some miscalculations, he produced a series of successes that made him the leading opera composer in France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By the time of his death, he was regarded as old-fashioned; his works, however, began to be favourably reassessed during the mid-20th century, and many have since been staged and recorded. This photograph of Massenet was taken by French photographer Eugène Pirou in 1875.
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Photograph: Bain News Service; restoration: Adam CuerdenFranz Lehár (1870–1948) was an Austro-Hungarian composer mainly known for his operettas, the most successful and best known being The Merry Widow. He also wrote sonatas, symphonic poems and marches.
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Photograph credit: Carl Van Vechten; restored by Adam CuerdenWilliam Grant Still (1895–1978) was an American composer of nearly 200 works, including five symphonies and nine operas. Often referred to as the "Dean of Afro-American Composers", Still was the first American composer to have an opera produced by the New York City Opera. His first symphony, entitled Afro-American Symphony, was until 1950 the most widely performed symphony composed by an American. Born in Mississippi, he grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas, attended Wilberforce University and Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and was a student of George Whitefield Chadwick and later Edgard Varèse. Still was the first African American to conduct a major American symphony orchestra and the first to have an opera performed on national television. Due to his close association and collaboration with prominent African-American literary and cultural figures, he is considered to be part of the Harlem Renaissance movement.
This picture of Still was taken by Carl Van Vechten in 1949; the photograph is in the collection of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. -
Photograph: Stefan KrauseHenrik Freischlader (b. 1982) is a German blues guitarist and singer. He began his career in 1998, and established his own label, Cable Car Records, in 2009.
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Photo: ChrisHamburgOceana (born 1982) is a German singer of German/Martiniquen descent. She is shown here performing at the Radio Hamburg Top 820.
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Photograph: Sven-Sebastian SajakHayley Williams (born December 27, 1988) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and businesswoman. She serves as the lead vocalist, primary songwriter and occasional keyboardist of the rock band Paramore. Born in Meridian, Mississippi, Williams moved to Franklin, Tennessee, at the age of fifteen after her parents divorced. In 2004, she formed Paramore alongside Josh Farro, Zac Farro, and Jeremy Davis. The band currently consists of Williams, Farro and Taylor York. They have released five studio albums: All We Know Is Falling (2005), Riot! (2007), Brand New Eyes (2009), Paramore (2013) and After Laughter (2017).
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Photograph credit: Carl Van Vechten; restored by Adam CuerdenBessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. She is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and was a major influence on fellow blues singers, as well as jazz vocalists.
Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, her parents died when Smith was young, and she and her sister survived by performing on the streets of Chattanooga, Tennessee. She began touring and performed in a group that included Ma Rainey, and then went out on her own. Her successful recording career began in the 1920s, until an automobile accident ended her life at age 43. -
Photograph: AiluraNina Sublatti (b. 1995) is a Georgian singer, songwriter, and model. Having previously won the 2013 Georgian edition of Idol, she achieved international attention when she represented her country in Eurovision Song Contest 2015 with her song "Warrior". She has since served as a judge on X Factor Georgia and Idols.
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Photograph: Achim RaschkaSimon Neil (b. 1979) is a Scottish vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter. Born in Irvine, he established the band Biffy Clyro in 1995 with James and Ben Johnston. He has also played with JP Reid of Sucioperro in Marmaduke Duke, using the pseudonym "The Atmosphere", and started a solo career.
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Photograph: Avinoam MichaeliAida is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, it was commissioned by Cairo's Khedivial Opera House and had its première there on 24 December 1871, in a performance conducted by Giovanni Bottesini.
This picture shows the set for a performance of Aida by the Israeli Opera in 2011. -
Graphic: Giuseppe PalantiMédée is a French-language opera by the composer Luigi Cherubini. Set in the ancient city of Corinth, Greece, it features a libretto by François-Benoît Hoffman and is based on Euripides's tragic play Medea and Pierre Corneille's play Médée. The opera premiered in 1797 at the Théâtre Feydeau in Paris. The long-lost final aria, which Cherubini appears to have deleted from his original manuscript, was discovered by researchers from the University of Manchester and Stanford University by employing X-ray techniques to reveal areas that the composer had blackened out.
This picture shows the title page for a vocal score of the 1909 hybrid version of Médée. -
Alexz Johnson (b. 1986) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and actress, best known for roles as Jude Harrison in the CTV series Instant Star (character shown here), Annie Thelan in the Disney Channel series So Weird, and as Erin Ulmer in the 2006 horror film Final Destination 3. Her album Voodoo was released in 2010.
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Photograph credit: William P. Gottlieb; restored by Adam CuerdenBilly Strayhorn (November 29, 1915 – May 31, 1967) was an American jazz composer, pianist, lyricist, and arranger, best remembered for his long-time collaboration with bandleader and composer Duke Ellington that lasted nearly three decades. Though classical music was Strayhorn's first love, his ambition to become a classical composer went unrealized because of the harsh reality of a black man trying to make his way in the world of classical music, which at that time was almost completely white. He was introduced to the music of pianists like Art Tatum and Teddy Wilson at age 19, and the artistic influence of these musicians guided him into the realm of jazz, where he remained for the rest of his life. This photograph of Strayhorn was taken by William P. Gottlieb in the 1940s.
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Illustration credit: unknownAriadne auf Naxos ('Ariadne on Naxos'), Op. 60, is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Combining slapstick comedy and consummately beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention. The opera was originally conceived as a 30-minute divertissement to be performed at the end of Hofmannsthal's adaptation of Molière's play Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. Besides the opera, Strauss provided incidental music to be performed during the play. In the end, the opera was ninety minutes long, and the performance of the play and opera together totalled over six hours. It was first performed at the Staatsoper Stuttgart on 25 October 1912, directed by Max Reinhardt. The combination of the play and opera proved to be unsatisfactory to the audience: those who had come to hear the opera resented having to wait until the play finished. The work was revised in 1916, with the play being replaced by a prologue, and first performed at the Vienna State Opera on 4 October of that year.
This picture is the cover of a vocal score of the revised edition of Ariadne auf Naxos, published in 1916.
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Today's Birthdays
- Birthdays in Music: May 27
- Kenny Dennis, American drummer, turns 94.
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- Marc Copland, American alto saxophonist and jazz pianist, turns 76.
- Dee Dee Bridgewater, American jazz vocalist, turns 74.
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- Chris Colfer, American singer and actor, turns 34.
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Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikispecies
Directory of species -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wikivoyage
Free travel guide -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus