Wallace & Gromit is a British stop-motion animated comedy franchise created by Nick Park and produced by Aardman Animations. It consists of four short films, two feature-length films and has spawned numerous spin-offs and TV adaptations. The series centres on Wallace, a good-natured, eccentric, cheese-loving inventor, and Gromit, his loyal and intelligent anthropomorphic beagle. The first short film, A Grand Day Out, was finished and released in 1989. Wallace was voiced by actor Peter Sallis until 2010 when he was succeeded by Ben Whitehead. While Wallace speaks very often, Gromit is largely silent and has no dialogue, communicating through facial expressions and body language.
Aardman Animations Limited is a British animation studio based in Bristol. It is known for films and television series made using stop-motion and clay animation techniques, particularly those featuring its plasticine characters from Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep, and Morph. After some experimental computer-animated short films during the late 1990s, beginning with Owzat (1997), Aardman entered the computer animation market with Flushed Away (2006). As of February 2020, it had earned $1.1 billion worldwide, with an average $135.6 million per film.
Tasmin Elizabeth Little is an English classical violinist. She is a concerto soloist and also performs as a recitalist and chamber musician. She has released numerous albums, winning the Critics Award at the Classic Brit Awards in 2011 for her recording of Elgar's Violin Concerto.
Jacqueline Mary du Pré was a British cellist, considered by many as one of the greatest of all time. Achieving mainstream popularity at a young age, du Pré won Britain's most prestigious cello award at age 11, made her adult debut at 17, and became a fully established artist by 20. At 21, she married the acclaimed conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim, forming a celebrated musical couple.
Peter John Sallis was an English actor. He was known for his work on British television. He was the voice of Wallace in the Academy Award-winning Wallace & Gromit films and played Norman "Cleggy" Clegg in Last of the Summer Wine from its 1973 inception until the final episode in 2010, making him the only actor to appear in all 295 episodes. Additionally, he portrayed Norman Clegg's father in the prequel series First of the Summer Wine.
Bruno Maderna was an Italian composer, conductor and academic teacher.
Haydn Wood was a 20th-century English composer and concert violinist, best known for his 200 or so ballad style songs, including the popular Roses of Picardy.
Leonidas Kavakos is a Greek violinist and conductor. He has won several international violin competition prizes, including the Sibelius, Paganini, Naumburg, and Indianapolis competitions. He is an Onassis Foundation scholar. He has also recorded for record labels such as Sony/BMG and BIS. As a conductor, he was an artistic director of the Camerata Salzburg and has been a guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Nicola Joy Nadia Benedetti is an Italian-Scottish classical solo violinist and festival director. Her ability was recognised when she was a child, including the award of BBC Young Musician of the Year when she was 16. She works with orchestras in Europe and America as well as with Alexei Grynyuk, her regular pianist. Since 2012, she has played the Gariel Stradivarius violin.
Hugh Wood was a British composer.
Iain Farrington is a British pianist, organist, composer and arranger. He performs regularly with some of the country's leading singers, instrumentalists and choirs, as well as giving solo recitals.
Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death is a 2008 British stop-motion animated short film produced by Aardman Animations and created by Nick Park. It is the fourth short to star his characters Wallace and Gromit, the first one since A Close Shave in 1995.
Iain Sutherland is a British conductor. Previously he had been an orchestral and session violinist in London playing in the LPO, Philharmonia, RPO and ECO under such conductors as Boult, Sargent, Groves, Solti and Klemperer. He is a graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland where he studied under Prof. Horace Fellowes, and in London under the eminent Russian Prof. Sacha Lasserson. He returned to Scotland as the conductor of the BBC Scottish Radio Orchestra. His remit with the BBC SRO included TV as well as Radio. He was Musical Director for many Light Entertainment series with Stanley Baxter, Kenneth McKellar, Moira Anderson and Andy Stewart.On a more serious level he twice took the SRO to appear at the Edinburgh Festival.
Watson Douglas Buchanan Forbes was a Scottish violist and classical music arranger. From 1964 to 1974 he was Head of Music for BBC Scotland.
Benjamin Whitehead is an English actor. He is best known as the current voice of Wallace in the Wallace and Gromit franchise following Peter Sallis' retirement and subsequent death.
There has been more than one Horrible Histories Prom in the BBC's annual Proms concert series. The Horrible Histories entertainment franchise is aimed at children, and these concerts have introduced children to classical music.
Aardman Animations is an animation studio in Bristol, England that produces stop motion and computer-animated features, shorts, TV series and adverts.
Eugen Sîrbu or Sârbu, known professionally as Eugene Sârbu, was a Romanian classical violinist. He had an international career as a soloist, recitalist and conductor. In 1978, he won both the Paganini Competition and the Carl Flesch International Violin Competition. He premiered works from living composers including Einojuhani Rautavaara, written for him, he recorded violin concertos by Sibelius and Mozart.
Arthur Hinton was an English composer and conductor. His wife was the internationally famous pianist Katharine Goodson, who gave the first performance of his Piano Concerto in D minor in 1905.
