The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) is an American orchestra based in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The ASO's main concert venue is Atlanta Symphony Hall in the Woodruff Arts Center.
The NBC Symphony Orchestra was a radio orchestra conceived by David Sarnoff, the president of the Radio Corporation of America, the parent corporation of the National Broadcasting Company especially for the conductor Arturo Toscanini. The NBC Symphony Orchestra performed weekly radio broadcast concerts with Toscanini and other conductors and several of its players served in the house orchestra for the NBC Radio Network. NBC encouraged the public’s perception of the Orchestra as a full-time organization exclusively at Toscanini’s beck and call, but Fortune disclosed in 1938 that these instrumentalists played other radio—and, later, television—broadcasts: “the Toscanini concerts have been allocated only fifteen of the thirty hours a week each man works, including rehearsals.”
The Nutcracker, Op. 71, is an 1892 two-act classical ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, set on Christmas Eve at the foot of a Christmas tree in a child's imagination featuring a Nutcracker doll. The plot is an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' 1844 short story The Nutcracker, itself a retelling of E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 short story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The ballet's first choreographer was Marius Petipa, with whom Tchaikovsky had worked three years earlier on The Sleeping Beauty, assisted by Lev Ivanov. Although the complete and staged The Nutcracker ballet was not initially as successful as the 20-minute Nutcracker Suite that Tchaikovsky had premiered nine months earlier, it became popular in later years.
Robert Russell Bennett was an American composer and arranger, best known for his orchestration of many well-known Broadway and Hollywood musicals by other composers such as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers.
Robert Lawson Shaw was an American conductor most famous for his work with his namesake Chorale, with the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. He was known for drawing public attention to choral music through his wide-ranging influence and mentoring of younger conductors, the high standard of his recordings, his support for racial integration in his choruses, and his support for modern music, winning many awards throughout his career.
"The Little Drummer Boy" is a popular Christmas song written by American composer Katherine Kennicott Davis in 1941. First recorded in 1951 by the Austrian Trapp Family, the song was further popularized by a 1958 recording by the Harry Simeone Chorale; the Simeone version was re-released successfully for several years, and the song has been recorded many times since.
A Charlie Brown Christmas is the eighth studio album by the American jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi. It was released in December 1965 by Fantasy Records to coincide with the television debut of the television special A Charlie Brown Christmas featuring the Peanuts comic characters.
"(There's No Place Like) Home for the Holidays" is a 1954 song commonly associated with the Christmas and holiday season. The lyrics detail the joys of being in your home community during the holidays and give examples of how some people will travel long distances to be with their loved ones. The music was composed by Robert Allen, with the lyrics written by Al Stillman.
This album is a 1950 recording of selections from George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess, sung by the noted opera stars Robert Merrill and Risë Stevens. The album featured no black singers at all, even though the opera was written for a mostly African-American cast. It was recorded by RCA Victor on September 12 and September 13, 1950. The album was originally released on one twelve-inch 331⁄3 rpm LP with the catalog number LM 1124.
"The Christmas Song" is a Christmas song written in 1945 by Robert Wells and Mel Tormé. The Nat King Cole Trio first recorded the song in June 1946.
"Mary's Boy Child", also known as "Mary's Little Boy Child", is a 1956 Christmas song written by Jester Hairston. It is widely performed as a Christmas carol.
Dynagroove is a recording process introduced in 1963 by RCA Victor that, for the first time, used analog computers to modify the audio signal used to produce master discs for LPs. The intent was to boost bass on quiet passages, and reduce the high-frequency tracing burdens (distortion) for the less-compliant, "ball" or spherical-tipped playback cartridges then in use. With boosted bass, tracing demands could be reduced in part by reduced recording levels, sometimes supplemented by peak compression. This added top-end margin permitted selective pre-emphasis of some passages for greater perceived (psychological) brilliance of the recording as a whole. As with any compander, the program material itself changed the response of the Dynagroove electronics that processed it. But, because the changes were multiple and algorithmic, RCA justifiably referred to the analog device as a computer.
John T. Halloran was an American composer and choral director.
Martin Gold was an American composer, pianist, and bandleader born in New York City, New York, United States. He was the pianist and arranger for the Korn Kobblers, a popular 1940s novelty group billed as "America's most nonsensical dance band", but was probably best known as the composer of the song "Tell Me Why", which was a hit for The Four Aces in 1951.
The Robert Shaw Chorale was a renowned professional choir founded in New York City in 1948 by Robert Shaw, a Californian who had been drafted out of college a decade earlier by Fred Waring to conduct his glee club in radio broadcasts.
Merry Christmas is a Christmas-themed compilation album by Bing Crosby that was released in 1945 on Decca Records. It has remained in print through the vinyl, CD, and downloadable file eras, currently as the disc and digital album White Christmas on MCA Records, a part of the Universal Music Group, and currently on vinyl as Merry Christmas on Geffen Records. It includes Crosby's signature song "White Christmas", the best-selling single of all time with estimated sales of over 50 million copies worldwide. The album was certified 4× Platinum by RIAA for selling over 4 million copies in United States. The original 1945 release and subsequent re-releases and re-packages spent a total of 39 weeks at no. 1 on the Billboard pop albums chart.
The discography of Sergio Franchi, the Italian-American tenor (1926–1990), consists of a total of thirty-five albums: Two live albums, and thirty-three studio albums. The studio albums are further identified as collaborations, and nine are compilation albums. The Live category included an LP album (1965) and a CD album of selected songs extracted from Franchi's twenty-four Live TV appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. This discography also includes thirty single and EP albums recorded or released in various venues.
"The Christmas Waltz" is a Christmas song written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne for Frank Sinatra, who recorded it in 1954 as the B-side of a new recording of "White Christmas", in 1957 for his album A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra, and in 1968 for The Sinatra Family Wish You a Merry Christmas.
Perry Como Sings Merry Christmas Music was Perry Como's first Christmas album, originally issued by RCA Victor as a 78 RPM album set in 1946. The original release included "O Little Town of Bethlehem" which was replaced in 1947 by Irving Berlin's famous song "White Christmas". This album, along with Como's later stereophonic Christmas collections, Season's Greetings from Perry Como (1959) and The Perry Como Christmas Album (1968), are among the all time best-selling Christmas albums. RCA has reissued Merry Christmas Music on LP, tape and compact disc several times.
