Composers in Red Sneakers was a Boston-based composers collective founded in 1981 by Thomas Oboe Lee, Christopher Stowens, Robert Aldridge, Roger Bourland, Amy Reich, and Gary Philo. Concerts were given in the Old Cambridge Baptist Church and in Harvard University's Sanders Theatre. One of their early advocates was Richard Dyer, the music critic of The Boston Globe . [1] The group appeared at Symphony Space in New York City in 1985 and produced an eponymous LP that same year. [2] [3] [4] Their concerts were marked by an irreverent attitude including humorous, pre-recorded introductions and skits. [5]
The consortium subsequently recruited many new composers including Richard Cornell, Herman Weiss, Jean Hasse, Michael Carnes, Lansing McLoskey, Margaret McAllister, [6] Francine Trester, [7] Howard Frazin, Thomas Schnauber, Delvyn Case, Ronald Bruce Smith, Ken Ueno, and Peter Van Zandt Lane. By 2010, Composers in Red Sneakers ceased operations.
John Towner Williams is an American composer and conductor. In a career that has spanned seven decades, he has composed some of the most popular, recognizable and critically acclaimed film scores in cinema history. Williams has won 25 Grammy Awards, five Academy Awards, seven British Academy Film Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. With 53 Academy Award nominations, he is the second-most nominated person, after Walt Disney. His compositions are often considered the epitome of orchestral film music and he is considered among the greatest composers in the history of cinema. Williams is known for his collaborations with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, and has worked with such diverse directors as Alfred Hitchcock, Brian De Palma, Robert Altman, Chris Columbus, Oliver Stone, Richard Donner, Irvin Kershner, Sydney Pollack, Mark Rydell, Mark Robson, Jean-Jacques Annaud, and J. J. Abrams. He has a very distinct sound that mixes romanticism, impressionism and atonal music with complex orchestration.
The Philadelphia Orchestra is an American symphony orchestra, based in Philadelphia. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, the orchestra is based at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, where it performs its subscription concerts, numbering over 130 annually, at Verizon Hall.
Eugene Ormandy was a Hungarian-born American conductor and violinist, best known for his association with the Philadelphia Orchestra, as its music director. His 44-year association with the orchestra is one of the longest enjoyed by any conductor with any American orchestra. Ormandy made numerous recordings with the orchestra, and as guest conductor with European orchestras, and achieved three gold records and two Grammy Awards. His reputation was as a skilled technician and expert orchestral builder.
John Harris Harbison is an American composer, known for his symphonies, operas, and large choral works.
Michael Page Carnes (1950) is an American composer of contemporary classical music.
John Sherwood de Lancie was an American oboist and arts administrator. He was principal oboist of the Philadelphia Orchestra for 23 years and also director of the Curtis Institute of Music.
Daron Aric Hagen is an American composer, writer, and filmmaker.
Bernard Rands is a British-American contemporary classical composer. He studied music and English literature at the University of Wales, Bangor, and composition with Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna in Darmstadt, Germany, and with Luigi Dallapiccola and Luciano Berio in Milan, Italy. He held residencies at Princeton University, the University of Illinois, and the University of York before emigrating to the United States in 1975; he became a U.S. citizen in 1983. In 1984, Rands's Canti del Sole, premiered by Paul Sperry, Zubin Mehta, and the New York Philharmonic, won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He has since taught at the University of California, San Diego, the Juilliard School, Yale University, and Boston University. From 1988 to 2005 he taught at Harvard University, where he is Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music Emeritus.
Uri Caine is an American classical and jazz pianist and composer.
The Philadelphia Youth Orchestra (PYO) is an American youth orchestra that is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The orchestra's current music director is Louis Scaglione.
Thomas Oboe Lee is a Chinese American composer.
Christopher Chapman Rouse III was an American composer. Though he wrote for various ensembles, Rouse is primarily known for his orchestral compositions, including a Requiem, a dozen concertos, and six symphonies. His work received numerous accolades, including the Kennedy Center Friedheim Award, the Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition, and the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He also served as the composer-in-residence for the New York Philharmonic from 2012 to 2015.
The 1986 New York Mets season was the Mets' 25th season in the National League. They improved from a 98–64 record in 1985 to finish the season with a franchise record 108–54 record, giving them the division title. They went on to defeat the Houston Astros in six games in the NLCS and the American League champion Boston Red Sox in seven games in the World Series. This is their last championship to date.
Peter Watchorn is an Australian-born harpsichordist who has combined a virtuosic keyboard technique, musical scholarship and practical experience in the construction of harpsichords copied from original instruments of the 17th and 18th centuries. As well as presenting many solo public performances and broadcasts of baroque keyboard music and participating in choral and orchestral performances, he has made numerous commercial CD recordings of solo harpsichord music from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Gary Goldschneider was a writer, pianist, composer, and personologist. He is known for writing the Secret Language personological book series, based on astrology, numerology, and tarot, in which he studied and assessed character traits of over 14,000 people to generalize birth characteristics for each day of the year. In addition, Goldschneider has performed several "marathon" piano pieces, such as playing all 32 of Beethoven's sonatas in one sitting. Goldschneider's most successful Beethoven Marathon took place in Amsterdam on August 19, 1984. Attended by an estimated 10.000 people it made front-page headlines all over the country.
The Artaria String Quartet is an American string quartet based in Minnesota and now in residence at Sundin Music Hall on the campus of Hamline University. Previously the Quartet was in residence at Viterbo University and Boston College. Originally formed in Boston, the quartet was mentored by members of the Budapest, La Salle, Kolisch, and Juilliard quartets. Artaria centers on string quartet performance and education.
The New England Ragtime Ensemble was a Boston chamber orchestra dedicated to the music of Scott Joplin and other ragtime composers.
Caballos de vapor, sinfonía de baile is a ballet score composed by the Mexican composer Carlos Chávez in 1926–32. An abridged concert version is published as Suite sinfónica del ballet Caballos de vapor.
Robert Bloom was an oboist with an orchestral and solo career, a composer and arranger contributing to the oboe repertory, and a teacher of several successful oboists. Bloom is considered seminal in the development of an American school of oboe playing.
Joseph Franklin is a composer, an artist-administrator, and writer. Known as the co-founder and long-time executive-artistic director of the Relache Ensemble, Inc., he has produced concerts and concert series’, international tours, residency programs, recordings, radio programs, and media events. He has composed musical works for mixed instrumental/vocal ensembles, film, video, theater, and dance and is the author of Settling Scores: A Life in the Margins of American Music, published by Sunstone Press. Joseph is the founder and president of Metadesign Associates, a consulting and project development entity.