Performing Arts in Credo: Music

Jazz trumpeter and singer, born in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. His melodic inventiveness, expressed with uninhibited tone and range on the trumpet, established the central role of the improvising soloist in jazz, especially in a series of recordings known as the ‘Hot Fives’ and ‘Hot Sevens’ (1925–8).

British pop group, formed in Liverpool, NW England, UK in 1960. ‘Beatlemania’ spread around the world in 1964, buoyed by international hits such as ‘She Loves You’ and ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand.’ If greatness is measured in terms of commercial success and popularity, The Beatles are the greatest popular musicians of the century.

Born in Accrington, Lancashire, he began his career as a clarinettist. While in Manchester he formed, with other young musicians including Peter Maxwell Davies and John Ogdon, the New Manchester Group for the performance of modern music.

British pop singer and composer; an important influence in experimental rock music; born in Brixton, London, UK. His career blossomed throughout the 1970s as he adopted a range of extreme stage images to suit a variety of musical styles.

Musician, dancer, composer, producer, bandleader, and philanthropist; born in Barnwell, South Carolina, USA. One of the most significant figures in black pop music, he began his singing career in Macon, GA with the Gospel Starlighters.

American composer, b. Los Angeles. A leading figure in the musical avant-garde from the late 1930s. He attended Pomona College and later studied with Arnold Schoenberg, Adolph Weiss, and Henry Cowell.

Musician, born in Kingsland, Arkansas, USA. A singer, guitarist, and songwriter, he was born into a poor cotton-farming family and became one of the greatest stars of country music.

Singer, pianist, and composer, born in Albany, Georgia, USA. He lost his sight (from glaucoma) when he was six. A major influence on popular black music during his early years, he influenced both white musicians and audiences.

Rock guitarist and singer, born in Ripley, Surrey, SE England, UK. In the 1960s he was in British rhythm-and-blues bands The Yardbirds and John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, then ‘supergroups’ Cream and Blind Faith. He has since played and recorded with most of the great names of rock music.

Musician, born in Montgomery, Alabama, USA. By 1950 he had become the first black male to attain mainstream acceptance as a popular singer, and he released a continual series of hit records over the remainder of his career.

Popular singer and actor, born in Tacoma, Washington, USA. Became one of the earliest crooners who established a clear split between classical and popular singing.

Jazz trumpeter, born in Alton, Illinois, USA. During 1949–69, he was at the forefront of jazz, developing or advancing several significant and contrasting styles and trends, all of which highlighted his intensely personal sensibilities.

Musician, born in McComb, Mississippi, USA. He became one of the earliest black stars of rock ’n’ roll, making many television appearances and touring widely through the mid-1960s.

US folk and rock songwriter and singer. Born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota, on May 24, 1941, Bob Dylan is best known as the author of such anthems about modern injustice as “Blowin' in the Wind,”“Hard Rain's Gonna Fall,”“The Times They Are A-Changin',” and “Masters of War.”

From The Columbia Encyclopedia:
American jazz musician and composer, b. Washington, D.C. Ellington made his first professional appearance as a jazz pianist in 1916. By 1918 he had formed a band, and after appearances in nightclubs in Harlem he became one of the most famous figures in American jazz.

A pioneer synthesizer player with Roxy Music, Eno later earned a reputation as a leading avant-garde figure in rock-music circles, and explored the potential of ambient music in such albums as Music for Airports (1979).

Soul singer, born in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. Although she began recording at age 18, it was at Atlantic Records (1966) that she worked with experienced rhythm-and-blues musicians and was encouraged to use her gospel roots.

US guitarist, songwriter, and leader of the group the Grateful Dead. Closely involved with the San Francisco hippie movement and the use of drugs such as LSD, the band first played ‘psychedelic’ rock but moved on to a more diverse repertory of rock styles in the 1970s.

Jazz trumpeter and composer, born in Cheraw, South Carolina, USA. John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie worked in prominent swing bands (1937–44), including those of Benny Carter and Charlie Barnet.

Singer, musician, and songwriter, born in Liverpool, Merseyside, NW England, UK. He played lead guitar and sang with the Beatles, and developed an interest in Indian music and Eastern religion.

Rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter, born in Seattle, Washington, USA. After his 1965 discharge from the army, he explored electronic tricks on his guitar at ear-splitting amplitude, to which he added stage gimmicks, playing behind his back or with his teeth. He learned basic blues licks as a sideman for Little Richard and the Isley Brothers.

Billie Holiday is considered one of the greatest jazz singers of all time. Her inimitable phrasing – singing slightly behind the beat – gave her songs an air of wistfulness that was purely instinctive, for she had no training or technical knowledge.

Singer and film actress, born in Newark, New Jersey, USA. In 1988 she broke a US chart record with seven consecutive number 1 hits, overtaking the previous record of six achieved by The Beatles and The Bee Gees.

Popular singer and songwriter, born in Gary, Indiana, USA.. He was a child star with his brothers in a popular Motown soul group, the Jackson Five, and had his first solo hits in the early 1970s. His second solo album, Thriller (1982), sold over 30 million copies and made him a superstar. Dubbed the King of Pop, he was widely regarded as the most successful entertainer of all time, and had been preparing for a new concert series "This Is It" at the time of his death.

Singer, born in Dartford, Kent, SE England, UK. He attended the London School of Economics, but left to form his own rock group, The Rolling Stones, together with Keith Richards, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, and Brian Jones.

Pop star, composer, songwriter, and recording artist, born in Liverpool, Merseyside, NW England, UK. He was the Beatles rhythm guitarist, keyboard player, and vocalist, and a partner in the Lennon–McCartney song-writing team.

Musician, songwriter, and composer. The Beatles’ bass guitarist, vocalist, and member of the Lennon–McCartney songwriting team.

Trombonist and bandleader, born in Clarinda, Iowa, USA. He achieved a distinctive sound with a saxophone–clarinet combination, his many successes including ‘Moonlight Serenade’ (his theme song), ‘Little Brown Jug’, and ‘In the Mood’ (1939).

Jazz musician, born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, USA. One of the key innovators of modern jazz. As a jazz pianist and composer, Monk's spare style and unusual harmonic sense made him one of the most influential modern jazz musicians.

Country-pop singer and songwriter, born in Vernon, Texas, USA. Had a succession of smash hits including ‘Cryin’’ (1961), ‘Blue Bayou’, ‘In Dreams’ (both 1963), and ‘Oh, Pretty Woman’ (1964). With a near-operatic vocal range and a sound once described as 'the slow fall of teardrops', Orbison was one of the most distinctive singers of the sixties.

Jazz musician and composer, born in Kansas City, Kansas, USA . A leader of the bop movement in jazz, Parker is best remembered for his smooth, moody improvisations.

Popular singer and film actor, born in Tupelo, Mississippi, USA. As a boy he sang with his local Assembly of God church choir, which emulated the style of African-American psalm singing.

Rock group, members Mick Jagger (1943–) vocals, Keith Richards (1943–) guitar, Bill Wyman (1941–) bass, Charlie Watts (1942–) drums, Ron Wood (1947–) guitar, former member Brian Jones (1944–69) guitar, one of the longest-running and most successful popular music groups to emerge in the 1960s.

Popular singer and film actress, born in Detroit, Michigan, USA. Lead singer of the extremely successful trio, the Supremes, she went solo in 1969, recording the hits ‘Reach Out and Touch Somebody’s Hand’ and ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ in 1970. She portrayed singer Billie Holliday in the film Lady Sings the Blues (1972) and by the late 1970s achieved superstar status with live and televised concerts.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
English pop singer. Following success as a member of The Springfields, she had a string of solo hits with ‘I Only Want To Be With You’ (1964), ‘You Don't Have To Say You Love Me’ (1966), and ‘Son of a Preacher Man’ (1968).

Musician, born in Freehold, New Jersey, USA. Promoted as the new Bob Dylan, his highly-anticipated debut album was released in 1973, but not until his third album, Born to Run (1975), did he enjoy widespread commercial success.

From The Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular MusicIn contrast to the more exploratory and innovatory solo careers of his fellow Beatles, Starr successfully sustained his cheerful, easy-going Beatles persona in a series of pop hits throughout the seventies. In the process he became one of the grand old men of rock.

Irish rock group formed in Dublin in 1977. U2 became one of the most popular and successful rock bands of the 1980s and 1990s, managing to sustain their fan base throughout two decades by clever reinvention.

Musician, born in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, USA. One of the last of the great country blues singers and a primary innovator of modern Chicago blues. Guitarist, singer, and songwriter; his songs include “Rollin' Stone” (1948) and “Got my Mojo Working” (1954). Raised on the Stovall Plantation in Clarksdale, MS, where Waters began playing harmonica and guitar while working as a sharecropper.

Avant-garde rock musician and composer, born in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. He led the satirical ‘underground’ band The Mothers of Invention.

Slow melancholy jazz music of Black American origin, a typical piece consisting of three four-bar phrases and making use of blue notes. Popular music has evolved over many decades and has now divided and sub-divided into hundreds of different styles and genres. Blues music has influenced popular music through its style, mood, lyrics, and structure.

Country music is a genre that developed out of the folk traditions of primarily white, working-class Americans living in the rural south and Appalachia. It is a blend of Anglo-Celtic fiddle tunes, traditional ballads, cowboy songs, and African American blues and work songs.

Genre of pop music, the 1980s offspring of soul music, funk, hip hop, and disco music. The term ‘dance’ has come to cover music made by and for disc jockeys (DJs) and played to club audiences on vinyl records as a component of live sets.

Music composed completely or partly of electronically generated and/or modified sounds. A form of music consisting of sounds produced by oscillating electric currents either controlled from an instrument panel or keyboard or prerecorded on magnetic tape.

Music which is played on traditional instruments or sung in the tradition style, handed down from generation to generation, and relating to the music of a particular area or group of people. Folk music often springs from rural areas, where it is passed on by listening and repeating, and is usually performed by amateurs.

American religious musical form that owes much of its origin to the Christian conversion of West Africans enslaved in the American South.

An eclectic, expanding collection of 20th century styles, principally instrumental and of Black American creation.

A type of commercial modern music with wide popular appeal, especially among the young, and usually being tuneful, repetitive and having an insistent rhythmic beat. Any contemporary music not categorizable as jazz or classical. Pop music contains strong rhythms of African origin, simple harmonic structures often repeated to strophic melodies, and the use of electrically amplified instruments.

Punk rock emerged in the UK and the USA in the 1970s. The music was played mainly on the guitar, to accompany loud, often provocative lyrics dealing with emotive and political issues. Punk rock was seen as both shocking and inspiring, influencing much subsequent pop music.

Type of music originating in the United States in the mid-1950s and increasingly popular throughout much of the world. Essentially hybrid in origin, rock music includes elements of several black and white American music styles: black guitar-accompanied blues; black rhythm and blues, noted for saxophone solos; black and white gospel music; white country and western music; and the songs of white popular crooners and harmony groups.

First staged in Switzerland in 1956, the event is now transmitted in over 40 countries. Eurovision is actually the name given to the Europe-wide TV distribution network run by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

The Woodstock music festival was held in Bethel, New York, on August 15, 16, and 17, 1969. Performers such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, Grateful Dead, The Who, and Jefferson Airplane were among the many who appeared on stage at the event.

Spanish composer and pianist; born in Camprodón, NE Spain. A student of Franz Liszt, he composed piano works based on Spanish folk music.

German composer and organist, b. Eisenach; one of the greatest and most influential composers of the Western world. He brought polyphonic baroque music to its culmination, creating masterful and vigorous works in almost every musical form known in his period.

Hungarian pianist and composer whose works, including the music for the opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle (1911) and Concerto for Orchestra (1943), combine Eastern European folk music with dissonant harmonies. His works often use modality; music is highly dissonant and contrapuntal, but not atonal.

German composer. He is universally recognized as one of the greatest composers of the Western European music tradition. Beethoven's work crowned the classical period and also effectively initiated the romantic era in music. Beethoven was born into a family of musicians who had served at the Bonn court of the Elector of Cologne since 1733.

Italian composer. His work, usually involving electronic sound, combines serial techniques with commedia dell'arte and antiphonal practices, as in Alleluiah II (1958) for five instrumental groups.

Conductor and composer, born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, USA. He played piano from childhood, and studied at Harvard and the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia.

German composer, pianist, and conductor. He is considered one of the greatest composers of symphonic music and songs.

Italian pianist, composer, and music critic.

Polish composer and pianist; made famous while teaching and playing music for aristocracy and the upper class across Europe. As a performer, Chopin revolutionized the technique of pianoforte-playing, turning the hands outward and favoring a light, responsive touch.

French composer, exponent of musical impressionism.

Czech composer. His Romantic music extends the classical tradition of Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms and displays the influence of Czech folk music. He wrote nine symphonies; tone poems; operas, including Rusalka (1900); large-scale choral works; the Carnival (1891-92) and other overtures; violin and cello concertos; chamber music; piano pieces; and songs.

Composer, born in Broad Heath, Hereford and Worcester, WC England, UK. From 1924 he was Master of the King’s Musick.

US composer, conductor, and pianist. His stylistically varied works, including the cantata The Prairie (1944) and Time Cycle for soprano and orchestra (1960), express an ironic view of tradition.

Spanish-born British composer. His achievement was to unite atonal methods with the colours and rhythms of his native Spain.

American composer, b. Baltimore. Considered one of the most innovative of contemporary composers, he was a significant figure in the development of minimalism in music.

Russian composer. His style fits between that of the Russian national school of The Five and that of the Western European ‘cosmopolitan’ composers.

Australian-born US experimental composer and pianist.

Norwegian nationalist composer. Much of his music is written on a small scale, particularly his songs, dances, sonatas, and piano works, and strongly identifies with Norwegian folk music.

English composer, b. Halle, Germany. Handel was one of the greatest masters of baroque music, most widely celebrated for his majestic oratorio Messiah.

Austrian composer, one of the greatest masters of classical music. He established the basic forms of symphonic music and string quartet, which were to be a model and inspiration for the works of Mozart, and of Beethoven, who studied under Haydn.

German composer and teacher. His operas Cardillac (1926, revised 1952) and Mathis der Maler/Mathis the Painter (1933-35) are theatrically astute and politically aware.

Austrian pianist and composer. Following in the steps of Mozart (his teacher), his melodies are graceful if somewhat overly symmetrical and ‘square’.

US composer. He experimented with atonality, quarter tones, and clashing time signatures, decades before the avant-garde movement.

Hungarian pianist and composer. His expressive, romantic, and frequently chromatic works include piano music (Transcendental Studies, 1851), Masses and oratorios, songs, organ music, and a symphony.

Austrian composer and conductor. He composed nine large-scale symphonies incorporating folk music and pastoral imagery, with many using voices, including Symphony No 2, the ‘Resurrection’ (1884-86).

French composer and pianist. A member of the group of composers known as Les Six, he was extremely prolific in a variety of styles and genres, influenced by jazz, the rhythms of Latin America, and electronic composition.

Austrian composer, b. Salzburg. Mozart represents one of the great peaks in the history of music. His works, written in almost every conceivable genre, combine luminous beauty of sound with classical grace and technical perfection.

Polish composer. His expressionist works, such as the Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (1961) for strings, use cluster and percussion effects.

US composer. His minimalist music employs simple patterns carefully superimposed and modified to highlight constantly changing melodies and rhythms.

Austrian composer, b. Vienna. He revolutionized modern music by abandoning tonality and developing a twelve-tone, "serial" technique of composition.

Composer, born in Vienna, Austria.His major works include the Trout Piano Quintet (1819), his C major symphony (1825), and his B minor symphony (1822), known as the ‘Unfinished’.

Russian composer. His music is chromatically tonal/modal, expressive, and sometimes highly dramatic; it was not always to official Soviet taste.

German composer of avant-garde music. He explored new musical sounds and compositional techniques from the 1950s.

Japanese composer. He was mainly self-taught and was initially influenced by Schoenberg, Messiaen, and musique concrète.

Russian composer, b. Kamsko-Votkinsk. He is a towering figure in Russian music and one of the most popular composers in history.

Brazilian composer and conductor. He absorbed Russian and French influences in the 1920s to create neo-baroque works in Brazilian style, using native colours and rhythms.

Austrian composer. He wrote spare, enigmatic miniatures combining a pastoral poetic with severe structural rigor.

Romanian-born French composer of Greek parentage. He evolved a method of ‘stochastic’ composition using the mathematics of chance and probability and also employing computers.

Music in which deliberate use is made of chance or indeterminacy; the term chance music is preferred by many composers. The indeterminate aspect may affect the act of composition, the performance, or both.

Elaborate and often lengthy solo song with instrumental accompaniment. In the 16th cent. it was a melody improvised over a strophic bass line, and a distinction was made between instrumental, vocal, and dance arias.

In music, systematic avoidance of harmonic or melodic reference to tonal centers (see key). The term is used to designate a method of composition in which the composer has deliberately rejected the principle of tonality.

Music intended for performance in a small room or chamber, rather than in the concert hall, and usually written for instrumental combinations, played with one instrument to a part, as in the string quartet.

Term used to describe music composed or performed with the aid of a computer.

Musical composition usually for an orchestra and a soloist or a group of soloists.

Musical composition employing chorus, orchestra, and soloists and usually, but not necessarily, a setting of a sacred libretto without stage action or scenery.

Or plainchant, the unharmonized chant of the medieval Christian liturgies in Europe and the Middle East; usually synonymous with Gregorian chant, the liturgical music of the Roman Catholic Church. Still in the Roman Catholic and some Anglican churches: music for unaccompanied voices, sung in unison.

A religious folk song of American origin, particularly associated with African-American Protestants of the southern United States.

A bellows-operated, hand-held wind instrument sounded by free reeds. It consists in effect of two reed organs, each with its own keyboard, joined by a rectangular bellows. The organ in the player's right hand is the higher pitched of the two.

Any of a family of wind instruments in which one or more reedpipes are attached to a windbag, usually made of animal skin. Ancient origin of this musical instrument was probably in Mesopotamia from which it was carried east and west by Celtic migrations. It was used in ancient Greece and Rome and has been long known in India. Some form of bagpipe was later used in nearly every European country; it was particularly fashionable in 18th-century France, where it was called the musette.

A family of tubular wind instruments or aerophones made of brass (most often) or other metal, and sounded by the buzzing of the player's lips. Air is made to vibrate by means of the player’s lips and breath, usually through a narrow mouthpiece.

Any of a family of single-reed woodwind instruments of cylindrical bore. It is one of the four main orchestral woodwinds, but did not join the orchestra until after the middle of the 18th century.

Any of a class of percussion instruments consisting of a frame or hollow vessel of wood, metal, or earthenware with a membrane of hide or plastic stretched across one or both ends. Drums are usually sounded by striking the membrane with the hands, a stick, or pair of sticks.

Side-blown woodwind instrument with a long history, capable of intricate melodies and a wide range of expression. The player holds the flute horizontally, and to the right, and blows across an end hole. The air current is split by the opposite edge of the hole, causing the air column inside the instrument to vibrate and produce a sound.

Plucked, fretted string instrument. It may be called the classical guitar, the Spanish guitar (because of its origins), or the acoustic guitar (to differentiate it from the electric guitar). A musical instrument with a body generally shaped like a figure eight, a long fretted neck, and strings. The fingerboard has frets (strips of metal showing where to place the finger to obtain different notes), and the 6 or 12 strings are plucked or strummed with the fingers or a plectrum.

Stringed musical instrument of ancient origin, the strings of which are plucked with the fingers. Harps were found in paintings from the 13th cent. B.C. at Thebes. In different forms it was played by peoples of nearly all lands throughout the ages. The harp was particularly popular with the Irish from the 9th century. They adopted the small instrument still in use, called the Irish harp, as a national symbol.

Woodwind instrument of conical bore, its mouthpiece having a double reed. The instruments possessing these general characteristics may be referred to as the oboe family, which includes the English horn, the bassoon, and the contrabassoon or double bassoon. The oboe was developed in the mid-17th century in France from various older double-reed instruments.

A musical wind instrument in which sound is produced by one or more sets of pipes controlled by a keyboard, each pipe producing only one pitch by means of a mechanically produced or electrically controlled wind supply.

Or pianoforte, musical instrument whose sound is produced by vibrating strings struck by felt hammers that are controlled from a keyboard. The piano's earliest predecessor was the dulcimer. The first piano was made c.1709 by Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731), a Florentine maker of harpsichords, who called his instrument gravicembalo col piano e forte.

Musical wind instrument of the flute family, made of wood, varying in length, and having an inverted conical bore (largest end near the mouthpiece).

Brass wind musical instrument of cylindrical bore, twice bent on itself, having a sliding section that lengthens or shortens it and thus regulates the pitch.

Brass wind musical instrument of part cylindrical, part conical bore, in the shape of a flattened loop and having three piston valves to regulate the pitch.

Family of stringed musical instruments having wooden bodies whose backs and fronts are slightly convex, the fronts pierced by two ƒ-shaped resonance holes. A descendant of ancient Asian instruments such as the rebab (Arabia), sarinda (India) and the erhu (China), the violin is a small, usually wooden stringed instrument played with a bow.