AUTHORITATIVE | CURATED | First 500 words Free

• Personalities
• Classical
• Conductor
• Contemporary Classical

b. 1935 Japanese conductor Having abandoned an intended career as a pianist through injury, he toured Japan with Bernstein in 1961 and was made assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic later that year. After spells with the symphony orchestras in Toronto, 1965–69, and San Francisco, 1969–76, he served as music director of the Boston Symphony ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Modern Era

(Ot-to-re’-no Res-pe’-ge) 1879–1936 Italian composer As a young man, making his living as a violinist, Respighi studied briefly with Rimsky-Korsakov. This, and a remarkable ear, made him a master orchestrator, and his three sets of Roman Pictures (Pines, Fountains and Festivals of Rome) are vividly colourful and dramatic. His popular suites of Ancient Airs and ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Conductor
• Contemporary Classical

b. 1941 Italian conductor Muti won the Guido Cantelli International Conductors’ Competition in 1967. He was appointed principal conductor of the Florence Maggio Musicale in 1969. Principal conductor and music director of the New Philharmonia Orchestra 1973–82, and of the Philadelphia Orchestra 1980–92, he went on to become music director of La Scala, Milan 1986–2005 and of the ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Modern Era

1896–1985 American composer Influenced early in his career by Stravinsky and Bloch, whose teaching assistant he was in the early 1920s, and resident for some years in Europe (where he encountered Schoenberg’s music and witnessed the rise of Fascism), Sessions was regarded in the US as a more European than American composer. Though friendly with Copland (they organized a ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Contemporary Classical

(To-roo Ta-ke-mit-soo) 1930–96 Japanese composer Born in Tokyo, Takemitsu encountered the music of Debussy and Messiaen shortly after World War II. His Requiem for Strings (1957), bearing the latter’s stylistic imprint, was praised by Stravinsky. In 1964 he met Cage, who not only stimulated his experiments with graphic scores but also encouraged him to reassess his stance towards ...

• Styles & Forms
• Acid Jazz
• Jazz

Acid jazz is a lively, groove-oriented music style that combines elements from jazz, funk and hip hop, with an emphasis on jazz dance. The term ‘acid jazz’ was first used during the late 1980s, both as the name of an American record label and the title of a British jazz funk, ‘rare groove’ compilation series. Interest ...