Composed: 1984–87 Premiered: 1987, Houston Libretto by Alice Goodman Act I On 21 February 1972, representatives of the Chinese armed forces are waiting at an airfield outside Beijing in order to greet President Richard Nixon on his arrival. The presidential Boeing, The Spirit of ’76, taxies to a halt. Nixon disembarks with his wife, Pat, ...
1899–1970 English conductor Born in London to an Italian musical family, Barbirolli made his debut as a cellist at the age of 17 before pursuing a career conducting. In the 1920s and 30s he conducted the British National Opera Company, the Covent Garden Opera Company and the Scottish Orchestra. He succeeded Toscanini as permanent conductor of the New York ...
b. 1943 English conductor Gardiner founded the Monteverdi Choir in 1964 and the Monteverdi Orchestra in 1968, when he conducted the Monteverdi Vespers at the Promenade Concerts in London. He was artistic director of the Göttingen Handel Festival 1981–90 and music director of the Lyons Opera 1983–88. He has given many performances of French Baroque opera, including the first ...
1944–2013 English composer Tavener first had his music performed while studying at the Royal Academy of Music, but came to wider attention with the premiere of his dramatic cantata The Whale at the London Sinfonietta’s inaugural concert in 1968. The Beatles’ Apple label recorded both it and Tavener’s next work, the Celtic Requiem – an often unsettling blend of ...
Malcolm John ‘Mac’ Rebennack Jr., a.k.a. ‘Dr. John the Night Tripper’, was born in New Orleans in November 1940. The singer and pianist began his professional career while he was still a teenager. He backed local favourites including Joe Tex and Professor Longhair on guitar and keyboards, produced and arranged sessions at Cosmio Studio, also frequented ...
(Piano, singer-songwriter, b. 1942) A highly respected exponent of Southern R&B, Mac Rebennack had 15 years of recording and production experience as a session player before he released his first LP, 1968’s Gris Gris. Frequently adding jazz, rock, psychedelia and voodoo to the R&B mix, his prolific output is unpredictably eclectic, although his ...
From a shy piano player, Elton John became one of the most extrovert performers of the 1970s. He has sold over 250 million records worldwide and is now almost a national institution. Born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 25 March 1947, he won a part-time piano scholarship to London’s Royal Academy Of Music at the age of 11. By the ...
(Fiddle, vocals, 1875–1949) Carson’s June 1923 disc of ‘The Old Hen Cackled And The Rooster’s Going To Crow’ and ‘Little Old Log Cabin In The Lane’ was the first country record made in the South, in a temporary studio in Atlanta. A farmer by trade, Carson had been famous for years in Northern Georgia as an entertainer ...
(Vocals, b. 1951) Indiana-born Mellencamp endured several years of hard apprenticeship and some unsuccessful recordings for MCA before he was rechristened John Cougar by Bowie’s manager Tony DeFries. His 1979 debut album charted in the US, and a handful of minor hits followed. In 1982, American Fool made him a big star in the States, and delivered ...
b. 1932 American composer Early work as a studio pianist in Hollywood led to pockets of work in the 1960s. During the 1970s, he produced music for a number of films including The Towering Inferno (1974). Following collaborations with Steven Spielberg in the mid-1970s, Williams wrote music to Star Wars (1977). Stylistically, he adopts the romantic breadth of ...
(Folklorists, John Avery Lomax 1867–1948; Alan Lomax 1915–2002) John Lomax was born in Goodman, Mississippi and raised near Fort Worth, Texas. Although his initial interest lay in cowboy songs, a pre-teen friendship with a servant named Nat Blythe sparked an interest in black music. With the 1910 publication of Cowboy Songs And Other Frontier Ballads, his ...
Guitar One magazine declared him a ‘modern-day master of the Telecaster’. In the 2007 Guitar World readers’ poll, his instrumental guitar tour de terror The Devil Knows My Name was named Best Shred Album of 2007. Also in 2007, he graced the covers of Guitar Player and Guitarist magazines, while in 2008, he was featured on the ...
John Abercrombie (b. 1944) is a stylist who has managed to incorporate flavours of folk and rock along with world-music influences into his jazz-based repertoire. He was a highly influential fusion guitarist in the late Sixties and Seventies and has had an abundant career, working solo and with a multitude of collaborators, including Billy Cobham, Ralph Towner, ...
b. 1947 American composer Adams has played a significant role in introducing contemporary music to American audiences, working as adviser to a number of organizations, including the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Although his basic compositional style relies on minimalist processes, his music sets itself apart from the style in its ability to generate dramatic momentum and narrative tension. ...
b. 1947, American One of the most influential musical figures of his generation, John Adams draws on numerous genres, including jazz, ragtime, swing, pop and rock. Indeed, although he has often been labelled a minimalist, Adams is more expressive than many such composers; his mature works blend the rhythmic energy associated with this ...
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