(Singer-songwriter, b. 1988) English singer-songwriter Jessie J (real name Jessica Cornish) began her career writing songs for Miley Cyrus and Chris Brown. Her debut single ‘Do It Like A Dude’ peaked at No. 2 in the UK in 2010; while her first album Who You Are (2011) spawned six Top 10 hits, including the title track ‘Nobody’s Perfect’ and ...
Jimi Hendrix remains the most innovative and influential rock guitarist in the world. He changed the way the guitar was played, transforming its possibilities and its image. Other guitarists had toyed with feedback and distortion, but Hendrix turned these and other effects into a controlled, personalized sound that generations of guitarists since have emulated and embellished. He was ...
(Yo-an’-nez Se-kon’-ya) c. 1370–1412 Franco-Flemish composer and theorist Ciconia was active principally in Italy. For many years he was regarded as the main link between Machaut and Du Fay, and although other influential composers have now come to the fore, he is still seen as one of the most important figures of his generation. He wrote songs in French and ...
c. 1390–1453 English composer Dunstaple was the best known of an influential group of English composers which included Power. To judge by the number of his works in continental manuscripts, he was probably one of the most important composers of his day in Europe, although he may not have travelled particularly widely. He wrote early Mass cycles, including ...
(Zhä-no’ de Les-koo-rel’) fl. early 14th century French poet and composer Very little is known about Jehannot de Lescurel; his works survive only in an appendix to the most important manuscript of the Roman de Fauvel. This constitutes a collection of some 32 monophonic songs, a polyphonic rondeau and two longer poems. The works are ordered alphabetically but the sequence ...
(Yo-an’-nes O’-ka-gem) c. 1425–97 Franco-Flemish composer Born in St Ghislain near Mons (now in Belgium), Ockeghem is first recorded as a singer at the Church of Our Lady, Antwerp, in 1443. He joined the French royal chapel in 1451, becoming chapel-master by 1454. In 1459 King Charles VII appointed him treasurer of the abbey of St Martin of Tours. ...
(Yo-an’-nes Tink’-tôr-is) 1430–after 1511 French theorist Tinctoris attended university at Orléans and worked for most of his adult life at the Aragonese court in Naples. There he produced the most authoritative body of theoretical writing on music of his time. He was familiar with current musical practices, and dedicated one of his treatises to his contemporaries Ockeghem and Busnoys. His surviving ...
(Zhak Är’-ka-delt) c. 1505–68 French composer Although probably of French birth, Arcadelt spent much of his adulthood in the great Italian cities of Florence, Rome and Venice. He is best known for madrigals (although he composed Masses, motets and chansons as well), including some of the genre’s most precious gems. They are almost all easy to sing, but ...
c. 1562–1628 English composer and keyboard player The English composer and keyboard player John Bull was by all evidence an extraordinary musician. His name headed the list of members of the Chapel Royal who attended the funeral of Elizabeth I in 1603. He was also an organ-builder and a scholar. A Catholic with a difficult personality, he often found himself ...
1563–1626 English composer and lutenist Dowland was the greatest lute-song composer of the early seventeenth century. His conversion to Catholicism in the early 1580s may have contributed to his lack of professional success. Twice disappointed in applications for a post at court, he travelled and then worked on the continent. By November 1598 he was employed at the court of ...
(Kla-man’ Zhan-kan’) c. 1485–1558 French composer Janequin’s failure to procure a stable and lucrative job may have been due to the fact that he spent most of his career outside Paris, the centre of French culture. Nevertheless, he became the principal exponent of the narrative chanson, a form popular in the mid-sixteenth century. These songs are often relatively long ...
(Zhos-kan’ da Pra) c. 1440–1521 Franco-Flemish composer In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, there were at least five musicians by the name of Josquin belonging to musical establishments around Europe. Most were singers, with perhaps a small-time composer among them. As a result much ambiguity surrounds the Josquin who was undoubtedly the greatest composer of his generation. ...
(Klod Le Zhön) c. 1530–1600 French composer Le Jeune mixed in French humanist circles, participating in the Académie de Poésie et de Musique, a circle of poets and musicians dedicated to reviving the ideals of classical sung verse. He was the principal composer to experiment with musique mesurée, the attempt to set text according to the principles of ancient ...
(Zhan Moo-tôn’) c. 1459–1522 French composer Having held various church jobs in France, Mouton joined the French royal court in 1502 and remained there for the rest of his life. Many of his motets are occasional works – written for a particular personage or special event that was taking place at court. He was probably among the musicians present at the ...
(Ya’-kob Ob’-rekht) c. 1450–1505 Franco-Flemish composer Obrecht, who has long lived in the shadow of his more famous contemporary Josquin, may begin to receive the attention he deserves now that changes in Josquin’s biography show that many of the musical developments once attributed to him first appeared in Obrecht’s music. Innovator or not, Obrecht was a composer of considerable ...
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David Bowie
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