Results for "composer/conductor"

Jim Knapp Orchestra

Born: July 28, 1939

Jim Knapp, director of the Jim Knapp Orchestra, trumpet player, composer, and teacher was born in Chicago, received BA and MA degrees in Music Composition from the University of Illinois, and lives in Seattle. He has served as director of The Composers and Improvisors Orchestra and has led various small jazz groups such as Ohio Howie and the Temple of Boom, and the J- Word. After developing the Jazz Program at Cornish College, he continues to teach there with the academic rank of professor. The list of courses taught at Cornish include 16th Century Counterpoint, Improvisation, Composition, Arranging, Jazz Theory II, Composition Seminar (string quartets), Standards, Jazz Orchestra, Ensembles, Rhythm, Sight-reading and Trumpet. Jim has received a National Endowment for the Arts "Jazz Composition Fellowship", a Seattle Arts Commission "Individual Artist Music Composition" grant, a "Special Projects Music Composition" award from the King County Arts Commission, and support from Meet the Composer and Artist Trust

Berangere Maximin

Berangere was born on the remote French colonial island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean and moved to France at the age of fifteen. A resident of Paris since 2002, she has performed as a singer in rock and world music bands around Perpignan and also studied electroacoustic music with Denis Dufour at the conservatory of this town. 'Working out of her own Home Sweet Home Studio in Paris, she creates landscapes that pull you in and hold your attention with a keen sense of detail and subtle sense of surprise. A seductive and beautiful debut CD from one of the most personal and passionate new voices in electroacoustic music.' Tzadik

Ken Darby

Born: May 13, 1909

Born in Hebron, NE. Composer How The West Was Won(1963), songwriter "Make Mine Music" (1946), choral director, conductor, arranger, singer and author, educated at Christian College and a student of Tibor Serly, Ernst Toch, Herman Hand, and Victor Young. Darby originated the King's Men male vocal quartet in 1929 and appeared on radio, films, concerts, television and recordings. Later he led and arranged music for the Ken Darby Singers. He was a writer and production supervisor for Walt Disney Studios, and associate producer of many record albums. He was choral and vocal director on the 1946 Disney film classic, Song of the South, Pinocchio, his Singers backing up Cliff Edwards on the classic "When You Wish Upon a Star" (1940). His choral group, the Ken Darby Singers, sang backup for Bing Crosby on the original 1942 Decca Records studio recording of "White Christmas." They also sang on the first album ever made of the songs from The Wizard of Oz, in 1940, a film on which Darby had worked. However, the album was a studio cast recording, not a true soundtrack album, although it did feature Judy Garland, and it did not use the film's original arrangements. He was Marilyn Monroe's vocal coach for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and There's No Business Like Show Business (1954). He also composed the Elvis Presley hit "Love Me Tender" for the movie of the same name, but signed the rights over to his wife, Vera Matson, whose name appears as co-lyricist with Elvis Presley for royalty purposes. Joining ASCAP in 1946, his chief musical collaborator was Gordon Jenkins. His other popular-song compositions include "The Chool Song", "Love Song of Kalua", "Saga of the Ponderosa", "Ports of Paradise", "Merry Christmas Neighbor", "Endless Prairie" and "Whispering Wind". Other notable film credits include (as vocal or choral music director): The Wizard of Oz (1939), So Dear To My Heart (1949),Wasbash Avenue and My Blue Heaven (both 1950), River of No Return, Three Coins In The Fountain, There's No Business Like Show Business and The Egyptain(all 1954), Daddy Long Legs(1955), Carousel, The King And I, Bus Stop and Love Me Tender (all 1956), An Affair to Remember and The Three Faces of Eve(both 1957), South Pacific (1958) and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965).

Leonard Bernstein

Born: August 25, 1918

A presence on Broadway, in Hollywood, at Carnegie Hall and the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein was a major force in twentieth century music. His exuberant and dramatic style caught the heart of America, bringing classical music to thousands of people from diverse backgrounds. More than any American conductor before him, Bernstein expanded the audience of classical music while maintaining a deep artistic integrity. Bernstein was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1918. His parents were first generation Jewish immigrants from Russia. Though he began learning the piano at age ten, his family hoped he would follow a more practical route, and sent him to the Boston Latin School. After graduating, he attended Harvard University, where he majored in music. His interest was in becoming a concert pianist, but upon graduating he began to seriously study orchestration at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. More important than any of the formal training, however, were the summers he spent in Tanglewood, Massachusetts, studying with the great conductor Serge Koussevitzky. In 1942, Koussevitzky invited Bernstein to be the assistant conductor at Tanglewood. Though very young for a conductor, his flamboyant style and emotionally charged performances caught the attention of others in the classical music community--one of whom was Arthur Rodzinzki, who appointed him assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic. It was at the New York Philharmonic that Bernstein got his big break. Asked to fill in for an ailing guest conductor, Bernstein (then only twenty-five) conducted a difficult and energetic performance with only an evening's preparation. Impressing all who came, Bernstein found himself on the cover of The New York Times--an instant celebrity. Within two years he was named the director of the New York City Symphony. He spent much of the 1950s conducting, teaching, and becoming involved in composing for non- classical genres. Of his many popular efforts of the time, On the Waterfront (1954), Candide (1956), and West Side Story (1957) are the best known. For On the Waterfront he received an Academy Award, and for nearly everything he did, he received the acclaim of an adoring public. In 1957, Bernstein returned to the New York Philharmonic, where he was to make his greatest contribution to the music world. The versatile musical genius that had made him a success on Broadway and in the classical concert halls of the world, found its true home at Lincoln Center. For the next eleven seasons, Bernstein would energize the Philharmonic and American classical music in a way no other director had done. Taking advantage of the recent technological advance of television, Bernstein presented classical music to a wider audience. While he toured throughout the world, visiting seventeen different countries, he also concentrated on creating accessible performances for the average American. For both children and adults, he created shows which were both entertaining and educational. By the time of his resignation from the Philharmonic, he had conducted nine hundred and thirty nine concerts with the orchestra--an unprecedented amount.

Jan Steinsdörfer

Born: February 8, 1990

I was born in Sokolov, Czech republic. I started play piano when I was 7 years old. Nowadays I study KJJ (jazz conservatory) in Prague and I am a member of few bands. In former times I cooperated with Orchestr Václava Hybše, Zbyněk Drda, Eva Urbanová, Back Side Big Band and many others. Now I play with these bands: Jan Steinsdörfer Q, Sixin, Eliška Ptáčková Band, Okamžitý filmový orchestr.

Issie Barratt

Born: November 29, 1964

Issie Barratt is an internationally active composer, arranger, conductor, baritone player, record producer and educator who has performed at a majority of leading venues in Northern Europe, south east India, central America and the east coast of Canada. She has been awarded many commissions from ensembles that include the Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, Bohuslän Big Band (Sweden), Norwegian Wind Ensemble, Voice of the North, Conservatoires UK Big Band and National Youth Choir of Great Britain, with her music often featuring international acclaimed soloists, frequently sharing the billing with fellow record label composers, Mike Gibbs and John Warren. Issie’s music has been featured in many festivals and conferences, including the Cheltenham Jazz Festival’s 2001 Rising Star series, the Leeds International Jazz Conferences 2002-2007, the International Association of Jazz Educators conference 2008 in Toronto, Copenhagen Jazz Festival 2010, Montreux Jazz Festival 2010 and the International Real-time Music Symposium 2011 in Oslo and recorded by the Delta Sax Quartet (“Dedicated to you but you weren’t listening”), Bohuslän Big Band (“Letter to Billie”) and Vortex Foundation Big Band (“Charybdis”) as well as her own 21-piece jazz orchestra ("Astral Pleasures") and contemporary quartet ("The Meinrad Iten Suite") both recorded on her own record label www.fuzzymoonrecords.co.uk (established in 2008)

Ian Bederman

Intuitive music orchestra

Kelly Fentons Bottomless Cup Jazz Orchestra

Born: July 3, 1978

A lover of stories and a slave to her overactive imagination, New York City based composer Kelly Fenton uses her music to do just that, tell a story. Deriving inspiration from comic books, myths, and real life stories, Kelly’s programmatic music is enriched with symbolism and honesty, and open to interpretation. While it’s the stories and people she meets that give her the motivation to compose, she strives for her music to be accessible to all listeners, regardless of whether or not they hear the story she deemed to portray. Born in 1978 on a military base in Okinawa, Japan, Kelly grew up with her three siblings, mother, and Marine Corps Officer father, on and around numerous military bases across the United States

Pete M Wyer

Born: March 24, 1964

Pete M. Wyer is from a self-taught background. He started out as a guitarist touring and recording with bands in the 1980’s and 90’s. He has since written scores for the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Operas House, Opera North, Welsh National Opera, the American Opera Project, Juilliard, BBC Television and Radio, WNYC New Sounds Live. He is the creator of a series of ground-breaking projects, including a new system of music writing called time-structured scoring, which was used for the collaboration with poet Steve Dalachinsky 'Insomnia Poems' which was created for BBC radio 3 in 2009 and performed for the 10th anniversary in 2019 at Cafe Oto, London. His immersive installations, nicknamed 'iForests' have attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors, the largest, at Descanso Gardens, Los Angeles, used 72 independent audio speakers spread across an area of woodland and featured a choir of 72 voices

Jeffrey Fisher

Born: March 18, 1948

Currently performing as jazz/world fusion pianist 7/15/16 Highland Springs Resort Grand Oak Steakhouse with drummer Jennifer Vallely Fisher has performed with jazz great Frank Morgan, the Thelonius Monk-inspired traditional jazz group Evidence Quartet, the Charles Connally Texas Blues Band, Stax Records vocalist Lee Sain, folksinger Sun-Day Martinez, Spanish music legend Antonio Apodaca, world-music bandleader Achyutan, and New Mexico's Trio Jalapeno, among others. Fisher even performed Gaelic music on ice instruments at a ski resort situated at 11,000-feet elevation. Training Beyond the world of music, Jeffrey is a truly eclectic person