Luke Tan (born 1977), alias Michael Luchtan, is a country singer and songwriter. His songs are generally on the topics of life and death, the sadness of separation, and the despair of misfits. He criticizes society for hypocrisy and materialism. One of his songs was selected by Neil Young for a compilation of anti-war songs. In 2007, he released a serialized multi-media project over the internet in association with the street newspaper Street Roots called "Ghosts In The Flophouse". He is currently the director for the Asheville Tango Orchestra.
Michael Luchtan was born in 1977 in Arkansas and grew up in Georgia. He studied computer science at the University of Georgia, in Athens. While there, he began playing with local and visiting artists such as Sacred Geometry. During his PhD studies, Luchtan moved to Lexington, Georgia. His first performance was for the local American Legion post, where he sang old country songs. He then began performing under the name Racecar at local venues. Some works have also been released under the name of My Alien Ways.
In the Summer of 2004, he left his job as a Programming Specialist in Bioinformatics for the Kissinger Research Group at the University of Georgia to dedicate his life to his music and ideals.
In 2006, he sold the farm in Lexington, Georgia and released a series of original content podcasts called "Stubbornly Curious" as he traveled across the United States in an RV.
His song "Revolution or Suicide", was made part of Neil Young's compilation "Living With War Today", a selection of war protest songs.
He created a weekly podcast in conjunction with the Portland Radio Authority called Altered Sound, which takes found sounds, alters, and arranges them in an experimental manner. It ran for eight episodes.
He has translated and interpreted the works of Mexican singer songwriter José Alfredo Jiménez
In 2010, he founded the Asheville Tango Orchestra.
Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer, bandoneon player, and arranger. His works revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music. A virtuoso bandoneonist, he regularly performed his own compositions with a variety of ensembles. In 1992, American music critic Stephen Holden described Piazzolla as "the world's foremost composer of Tango music".
"Gloomy Sunday", also known as the "Hungarian Suicide Song", is a popular song composed by Hungarian pianist and composer Rezső Seress and published in 1933.
Benjamin Scott Folds is an American singer-songwriter from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. After playing in several small independent bands throughout the late 80s and into the early 90s, Folds came to prominence as the eponymous frontman and pianist of the alternative rock trio Ben Folds Five from 1993 to 2000, and again during their reunion from 2011 to 2013. He has recorded a number of solo albums – the most recent of which, What Matters Most, was released in June 2023. He has also collaborated with musicians such as Regina Spektor, "Weird Al" Yankovic, and yMusic, and undertaken experimental songwriting projects with actor William Shatner and authors such as Nick Hornby and Neil Gaiman. Since May 2017, he has been the first artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
Tango is a style of music in 2
4 or 4
4 time that originated among European and African immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay. It is traditionally played on a solo guitar, guitar duo, or an ensemble, known as the orquesta típica, which includes at least two violins, flute, piano, double bass, and at least two bandoneóns. Sometimes guitars and a clarinet join the ensemble. Tango may be purely instrumental or may include a vocalist. Tango music and dance have become popular throughout the world.
José Alfredo Jiménez Sandoval was a Mexican singer-songwriter, whose songs are regarded as the basis of modern Regional Mexican music and Rancheras.
Tan Dun is a Chinese-born American composer and conductor. A leading figure of contemporary classical music, he draws from a variety of Western and Chinese influences, a dichotomy which has shaped much of his life and music. Having collaborated with leading orchestras around the world, Tan is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Grawemeyer Award for his opera Marco Polo (1996) and both an Academy Award and Grammy Award for his film score in Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). His oeuvre as a whole includes operas, orchestral, vocal, chamber, solo and film scores, as well as genres that Tan terms "organic music" and "music ritual."
Joseph Will Oldham is an American singer-songwriter and actor. From 1993 to 1997, he performed and recorded in collaboration with dozens of other musicians under variations of Palace. After briefly publishing music under his own name, in 1998 he adopted Bonnie "Prince" Billy as the name for most of his work.
Osvaldo Pedro Pugliese was an Argentine tango musician. He developed dramatic arrangements that retained strong elements of the walking beat of salon tango but also heralded the development of concert-style tango music. Some of his music, mostly since the 1950s, is used for theatrical dance performances. In Buenos Aires, Pugliese is often played later in the evening when the dancers want to dance more slowly, impressionistically and intimately.
John Warren Vanderslice is an American musician, songwriter, record producer, and recording engineer. He is the owner and founder of Tiny Telephone, an analog recording studio in North Oakland. He has released sixteen full-length studio albums and five remix records and EPs on Dead Oceans and Barsuk Records and has collaborated with musicians such as the Mountain Goats, St. Vincent, and Spoon.
"El Choclo" is a popular song written by Ángel Villoldo, an Argentine musician. Allegedly written in honour of and taking its title from the nickname of the proprietor of a nightclub, who was known as "El Choclo". It is one of the most popular tangos in Argentina. The song became popular in the United States under the name "Kiss of Fire" after English language words written by Lester Allen and Robert Hill were added to the song. The English version of the song was first recorded by Louis Armstrong, and later became a number 1 charting song with over a million record sales for singer Georgia Gibbs.
Gustavo Alfredo Santaolalla is an Argentine composer and musician. Known for his minimalist approach to composing, he rose to fame for creating the scores for Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Babel (2006), for which he received two Academy Awards for Best Original Score in consecutive years. Santaolalla also gained recognition for his work on The Last of Us game series, composing the 2013 title and its 2020 sequel. He returned to reprise his themes and co-compose the score for the 2023 television adaptation.
Manchester Orchestra is an American indie rock band from Atlanta, Georgia, that formed in 2004. The group's current line-up is composed of lead singer, songwriter and rhythm guitarist Andy Hull, lead guitarist Robert McDowell, bassist Andy Prince and drummer Tim Very. Hull is the band's only original member, having overseen every iteration of the band to date. Former drummer Jeremiah Edmond parted ways with the band in January 2010 to focus on his family and on running the band's record label, Favorite Gentlemen. The band's original bassist, Jonathan Corley, parted ways with the band in 2013. Keyboardist/percussionist Chris Freeman announced his departure from the band in September 2016.
La Traviata is a 1983 Italian film written, designed, and directed by Franco Zeffirelli. It is based on the 1853 opera La traviata with music by Giuseppe Verdi and libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. Soprano Teresa Stratas, tenor Plácido Domingo, and baritone Cornell MacNeil starred in the movie, in addition to singing their roles. The film premiered in Italy in 1982 and went into general release there the following year. It opened in theatres in the U.S. on April 22, 1983. The movie's soundtrack with James Levine conducting the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus won a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording.
Eduardo Makaroff is an Argentine musician, songwriter and producer. He is best known as one of the founders of Gotan Project, which has brought together the broad universe of tango with electronic music. He is currently a founding and active member of Plaza Francia Orchestra and Müller & Makaroff, both with long time collaborator Christoph H. Müller.
Pepita Jiménez is a lyric comedy or comic opera with music written by the Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz. The original opera was written in one act and used an English libretto by Albéniz's patron and collaborator, the Englishman Francis Money-Coutts, which is based on the novel of the same name by Juan Valera. The opera was later adapted several times, first by the composer and later by others, into numerous languages and different constructs, including both a two-act version and a three-act version.
Tim Bergling, known professionally as Avicii, was a Swedish DJ, remixer, and record producer. At age 16, he began posting his remixes on electronic music forums, which led to his first record deal. He rose to prominence in 2011 with his single "Levels". His debut studio album, True (2013), blended electronic music with elements of multiple genres and received generally positive reviews. It peaked in the top 10 in more than 15 countries and topped international charts; the lead single, "Wake Me Up", topped most music markets in Europe and reached number four in the United States.
Elvino Vardaro was an Argentine tango composer and violinist.
Brent Cobb is an American country music singer-songwriter and artist. Cobb has released six studio albums and one EP. His most recent album, Southern Star, was released on September 22, 2023. Providence Canyon was his second major-label LP with Low Country Sound, an imprint of Elektra. His previous album Shine On Rainy Day peaked at number 17 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart. Cobb also received a 2018 Grammy Award nomination for this album. Cobb has written songs for a variety of country artists, including Luke Bryan, Kellie Pickler, Kenny Chesney, Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town, The Oak Ridge Boys as well as many others.
Juan Nepomuceno Arvizu Santelices, was an acclaimed lyric tenor in Mexico and a noted interpreter of the Latin American bolero and tango on the international concert stage, on the radio and in film. He was widely noted for his interpretations of the works of Agustin Lara and María Grever and was nicknamed "The Tenor With the Silken Voice".
Augusto Pedro Berto was an Argentine composer and bandoneón player who was the first composer to spread popular Argentine music in Europe. He is best known for his tango compositions.