A musical ensemble, also known as a music group or musical group, is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music, with the ensemble typically known by a distinct name. Some music ensembles consist solely of instruments, such as the jazz quartet or the orchestra. Some music ensembles consist solely of singers, such as choirs and doo wop groups. In both popular music and classical music, there are ensembles in which both instrumentalists and singers perform, such as the rock band or the Baroque chamber group for basso continuo and one or more singers. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles. Some ensembles blend the sounds of a variety of instrument families, such as the orchestra, which uses a string section, brass instruments, woodwinds and percussion instruments, or the concert band, which uses brass, woodwinds and percussion.
Kyle Eugene Gann is an American professor of music, critic, analyst, and composer who has worked primarily in the New York City area. As a music critic for The Village Voice and other publications, he has supported progressive music, including such "downtown" movements as postminimalism and totalism.
The New York City Opera (NYCO) is an American opera company located in Manhattan in New York City. The company has been active from 1943 through 2013, and again since 2016 when it was revived.
Rare Earth is an American rock band affiliated with Motown's Rare Earth record label, which prospered from 1970–1972. Although not the first white band signed to Motown, Rare Earth was the first big hit-making act signed by Motown that consisted only of white members.
Umphrey's McGee is an American rock band originally from South Bend, Indiana. Formed by students at the University of Notre Dame in 1997, UM has continued to add members. The band experiments with many musical styles, including rock, metal, funk, jazz, blues, reggae, electronic, bluegrass, and folk. They have toured regularly and released several albums.
Frances Yeend was an American classical soprano who had an active international career as a concert and opera singer during the 1940s through the 1960s. She had a long and fruitful association with the New York City Opera (NYCO) between 1948 and 1958, after which she joined the roster of principal sopranos at the Metropolitan Opera where she sang between 1961 and 1963. She also had an extensive concert career, particularly in the United States. By 1963 she had sung in more than 200 orchestral concerts in North American with major symphonies like the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra among others.
Armando Peraza was a Latin jazz percussionist and a member of the rock band Santana. Peraza played congas, bongos, and timbales.
Joseph Rosenstock was a Polish Jewish conductor.
Laudir Soares de Oliveira was a Brazilian musician and producer mostly renowned for his time as percussionist with the band Chicago.
Mrnorth is an alternative rock band from Dublin, Ireland now working under the American label Rock Ridge Music. Its members include Colin Smith on Vocals/guitar, his cousins Emmett O'Malley and Oisin O'Malley on guitars/vocals and bass/keyboards, respectively, and drummer/percussionist Adrian Mordaunt.
Beverly Wolff was an American mezzo-soprano who had an active career in concerts and operas from the early 1950s to the early 1980s. She performed a broad repertoire which encompassed operatic and concert works in many languages and from a variety of musical periods. She was a champion of new works, notably premiering compositions by Leonard Bernstein, Gian Carlo Menotti, Douglas Moore, and Ned Rorem among other American composers. She also performed in a number of rarely heard baroque operas by George Frideric Handel with the New York City Opera (NYCO), the Handel Society of New York, and at the Kennedy Center Handel Festivals.
The Bob Cole Conservatory of Music is the school of music at California State University, Long Beach. In March 2008, the music department was renamed the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music in honor of an endowment gift of $16.4 million from the estate of Robert "Bob" Cole. Cole, a Long Beach real estate investor, long-time music lover, and amateur pianist, died in 2004. Following its disbursement, the gift will benefit the students of the conservatory in the form of scholarships and other awards.
Geraldine McMillian is an American soprano who has had an active career in concerts and operas since the mid-1980s.
Hanan Alattar is an American operatic soprano and actress who has had an active international career in concerts and in operas since the early 2000s. She has performed with many leading opera companies and orchestras in the United States and Europe, collaborating with such notable conductors as Plácido Domingo, James Conlon and Miguel Harth-Bedoya.
Founded in 1976, the Elgin Youth Symphony Orchestra (EYSO) is the oldest and largest youth orchestra program in northwest Illinois and is composed of three full orchestras, two string orchestras, a brass choir, a percussion ensemble, and a large Chamber Music Institute.
Der gerettete Alberich is a concerto for percussion and orchestra by the American composer Christopher Rouse. The work was jointly commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. It was completed June 7, 1997, and premiered January 15, 1998 in Cleveland, Ohio with the Cleveland Orchestra under conductor Christoph von Dohnányi. The piece is dedicated to percussionist Evelyn Glennie, who performed the solo during the world premiere. Rouse composed the work as an informal musical sequel to Richard Wagner's four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen.
Fanfare Ritmico is a single-movement orchestral composition by the American composer Jennifer Higdon. The work was commissioned by The Women's Philharmonic as part of The Fanfares Project. It was given its world premiere in March 2000 by conductor Apo Hsu and the Women's Philharmonic.
Takuya Hirano is a Japanese percussionist and recording artist with the group Tao Of Sound.
A rock band or pop band is a small musical ensemble which performs rock music, pop music or a related genre. The four-piece band is the most common configuration in rock and pop music. Before the development of the electronic keyboard, the configuration was typically two guitarists, a bassist, and a drummer. Another common formation is a vocalist who does not play an instrument, electric guitarist, bass guitarist, and a drummer. Instrumentally, these bands can be considered as trios.
