Leonard Bernstein was an American composer, conductor, pianist, music educator, author, and lifelong humanitarian. He was one of the most significant American cultural personalities of the 20th century. According to music critic Donal Henahan, he was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history".
EXPO is an orchestral composition by the Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg. It was the first work commissioned by the New York Philharmonic under the conductor Alan Gilbert, and was Lindberg's first commission as the orchestra's composer-in-residence. The piece was first performed on September 16, 2009 at Avery Fisher Hall, New York City, during Alan Gilbert's inaugural concert with the New York Philharmonic. EXPO was the first newly commissioned work to open the New York Philharmonic's concert season since the premiere of Aaron Copland's Connotations under Leonard Bernstein on September 23, 1962.
Finlandia, Op. 26, is a tone poem by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. It was written in 1899 and revised in 1900. The piece was composed for the Press Celebrations of 1899, a covert protest against increasing censorship from the Russian Empire, and was the last of seven pieces performed as an accompaniment to a tableau depicting episodes from Finnish history. The premiere was on 2 July 1900 in Helsinki with the Helsinki Philharmonic Society conducted by Robert Kajanus. A typical performance takes between 7½ and 9 minutes depending on how it is performed.
Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, known in English as Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, is a symphonic poem for orchestra by Claude Debussy, approximately 10 minutes in duration. It was composed in 1894 and first performed in Paris on 22 December 1894, conducted by Gustave Doret. The flute solo was played by Georges Barrère.
Connotations is a classical music composition for symphony orchestra written by American composer Aaron Copland. Commissioned by Leonard Bernstein in 1962 to commemorate the opening of Philharmonic Hall in New York City, United States, this piece marks a departure from Copland's populist period, which began with El Salón México in 1936 and includes the works he is most famous for such as Appalachian Spring, Lincoln Portrait and Rodeo. It represents a return to a more dissonant style of composition in which Copland wrote from the end of his studies with French pedagogue Nadia Boulanger and return from Europe in 1924 until the Great Depression. It was also Copland's first dodecaphonic work for orchestra, a style he had disparaged until he heard the music of French composer Pierre Boulez and adapted the method for himself in his Piano Quartet of 1950. While the composer had produced other orchestral works contemporary to Connotations, it was his first purely symphonic work since his Third Symphony, written in 1947.
Wallingford Constantine Riegger was an American music composer, well known for orchestral and modern dance music, and film scores. He was born in Albany, Georgia, but lived much of his life in New York City. He is noted for being one of the first American composers to use a form of twelve-tone technique.
The Havanaise in E major, Op. 83, is a composition for violin and orchestra based on the habanera rhythm, written in 1887 by French composer, Camille Saint-Saëns for Cuban violinist Rafael Diaz Albertini. It is one of the standards of the classical concertante repertoire.
"Romance Anónimo" is a piece for guitar, also known as "Estudio en Mi de Rubira", "Spanish Romance", "Romance de España", "Romance de Amor", "Romance of the Guitar", "Romanza" and "Romance d'Amour" among other names.
"Solar" is a composition written by Chuck Wayne and later recorded and copyrighted with small alterations by Miles Davis. It first appeared on Davis's 1954 album Miles Davis Quintet and is considered a modern jazz standard.
Four Anniversaries is a composition for piano written in 1948 by the American composer Leonard Bernstein.
Terry Riley: Cadenza on the Night Plain is a studio album by the Kronos Quartet, the first album-length recording of a collaboration between the quartet and American composer Terry Riley.
The Concert is a live album by Barbra Streisand, released in September 1994 through Columbia Records. The album reached a peak position of number ten on the Billboard 200. The Concert was certified platinum in Australia, Canada and the United States. The song "Ordinary Miracles" was released as a CD-single by Columbia Records including a studio version of the track produced by Walter Afanasieff. It was arranged and conducted by Marvin Hamlisch. An abbreviated version of the album titled The Concert: Highlights was also released with a different cover art and was certified gold by the RIAA, while the double album received a triple-platinum certification.
Alma Elizabeth Deutscher is a British composer, pianist and violinist.
The Missa Brevis by Leonard Bernstein is a musical setting of parts of the mass ordinary in Latin for a mixed a cappella choir with countertenor solo and percussion. It is also Bernstein's last complete choral work, due to his death a year after its completion in 1989.
The Unanswered Question is a lecture series given by Leonard Bernstein in the fall of 1973. This series of six lectures was a component of Bernstein's duties as the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry for the 1972/73 academic year at Harvard University, and is therefore often referred to as the Norton Lectures. The lectures were both recorded on video and printed as a book, titled The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard.
"The Gypsy's Wife" is a song written by the Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen that was first released on his sixth studio album Recent Songs (1979). Live recordings of it appear as the fourth track on Field Commander Cohen: Tour of 1979 (2001) and as the thirteenth track on Cohen's Live in London (2009). It continued to feature regularly in his stage performances until his death.
Irving Berlin's 100th Birthday Celebration was a concert special held in his honor at Carnegie Hall on May 11, 1988. It was aired on CBS television two weeks later, on May 27. At the 40th annual Emmy Awards later that summer, on August 28, it won two Emmys for outstanding variety, music or comedy program. Berlin himself did not attend, as he had retired from public life.
I Hate Music: A cycle of Five Kid Songs for Soprano and Piano is a 1943 song cycle by Leonard Bernstein.
