Leonard Bernstein
.... would sneak over to the piano and experiment. When he was eleven, his
aunt sent her piano to his house for his family to keep for storage. “I made
love to it right away” he recalled (Musicians p. 65). He could escape from all
his frustrations and sadness by playing the piano. His parents didn't like the
fact that he was always at the piano, they wanted him to concentrate on his
school work. They thought of piano playing as a waste of time because it stood
in the way of Leonard's learning his father's business, which they planned for
him to eventually take over.
At the age of ten, Leonard found a piano teacher .....
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Madonna
.... out of the University
of Michigan and decided to pursue a career elsewhere. She knew that she wanted
to either continue in the field of dance or somewhere in the music industry.
She believed that she had greater opportunities in these careers in a large,
diversified metropolitan city like New York City.
Once in New York City, she joined a band and began writing musical notes,
lyrics, and songs. This was the start of her music career. However, she still
wanted to pursue her dance career. She always had two career objectives in mind
and believed she would definitely achieve one or both of them.
She joined Alvin Alley Theater's .....
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Charles Darwin: His Life Story Of Dicovery
.... was the
great English poet Erasmus Darwin. His early school training was at a small
school house in Shrewsbury. After which his father put him into Edinburgh
University in 1825 to 1827 for medical studies. Darwin showed no interest in
being a physician after witnessing several major operations without anesthesia.
He was then sent to be a pastor in the Church of England. He studied at Christ
College at Cambridge University in 1828.
He lost his interest in Holy order by the and became interested in
something never before, Natural History. In 1831 he graduated from Cambridge
with a B.A. He met many connections who were his .....
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Jonathan Larson
.... the results of the tests taken the previous evening for food poisoning.
The employee on the other end of the line claimed no results could be found but
tried to assure Larson that if any thing serious had been found he would have
been notified immediately. The rest of the day, Larson spent being nursed by
Eddie Rosenstine.
Evening. Brian Carmody found his roommate in bed, short of breath and
mumbling in a low voice. The only food he could seemingly stomach was Jell-O and
some tapioca pudding.
January 23. Afternoon. Jonathan called his father in Albuquerque
complaining of chest and lower back pains and a small deg .....
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Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
.... While Mozart was working on the "Magic Flute" in
1791 an emissary requested a requiem mass written by Mozart but he never got to
finish this because he died. He supposedly died of typhoid fever, in Vienna on
December 5, 1791. His funeral was attended by a few friends. Mozart died young
and had an unsuccessful career, but he ranks as one of the greatest composer of
all time. With more than six hundred works it shows that even as a child he had
a feel of the resources of musical composition as well as an original
imagination. His instrumental works include symphonies, divertimentos, sonatas,
chamber music for a number of i .....
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Robert Schumann
.... Lyceum.
He once played Moscheles' Alexander March variations, which demanded
considerable dexterity.
At the public Lyceum Robert was active as both pianist and public
speaker. When he was fourteen, Kuntzsch decided that his pupil had progressed
beyond the point where he could give further help, and declined to teach him
anymore.
Shortly before leaving the Lyceum, Schumann collaborated with his
brother Karl in preparing a new edition of Forcellini's Latin dictionary,
Lexicon Totius Latinatinis.
Although now very busy as a composer, Robert yearned for affection. He
soon fell for seventeen-year-old Ernestine von Fricken, who cam .....
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Aaron Copland
.... American music." He traveled throughout America,
getting a taste of what the "common man" was listening to. During these travels
he strayed into Mexico, and wrote the highly successful El Salon Mexico. A quote
from the fall of 1932 sums up his intentions in writing this piece: "Any
composer who goes outside his native land wants to return bearing musical
souvenirs." This is exactly what he did. The piece is a lively adaptation of
Frances Toor's Cancionero Mexicano, with a very loose tempo, and heavy use of
the horn section.
It was after the success of El Salon Mexico that Copland proceeded to
produce what is now considered the .....
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George Bizek
.... him his
alphabet.
Bizet was enrolled in the Paris Conservatory when he was nine years old.
This was a special exception arranged by his uncle who taught at the
Conservatory, since Bizet was still a year younger than the minimum age
requirement. Here he studied piano, organ, singing, harp, strings, woodwinds,
and composition. His instructors were the composers Charles Gounod, who is
known for his opera Faust, and who is considered the greatest musical influence
in Bizet's life. And Jacque Halevy, who wrote the opera LaJuive, is also
considered an important musical influence. He had a unique, unstructured
teaching style. Ha .....
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Albert Camus
.... of right and wrong.” He maintained that suicide cannot be
regarded as an adequate response to the “experience of absurdity.” He says that
suicide is an admission of incapacity, and such an admission is inconsistent
with that human pride to which Camus openly appeals. Camus states, “there is
nothing equal to the spectacle of human pride.”
Furthermore, Camus also dealt with the topic of revolution in his essay
The Rebel. Camus rejected what he calls “metaphysical revolt,” which he sees as
a “radical refusal of the human condition as such,” resulting either in suicide
or in a “demonic attempt to remake the world in the image of m .....
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Mohandas Gandhi
.... years old.
When he was 19 he defied custom by going abroad to study. He studied law
at University College in London. Fellow students snubbed him because he was an
Indian. In his lonely hours he studied philosophy. In his reading he discovered
the principle of nonviolence as enunciated in Henry David Thoreau's "Civil
Disobedience," and he was persuaded by John Ruskin's plea to give up
industrialism for farm life and traditional handicrafts--ideals similar to many
Hindu religious ideas.
In 1891 Gandhi returned to India. Unsuccessful in Bombay, he went to
South Africa in 1893. At Natal he was the first so-called "colo .....
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Aristotle (384 -322 BC)
.... was charged
with impiety (lack of reverence to the gods) by the Athenians. The Athenians
probably did this because they resented
Lu-2 Aristotle's friendship with Alexander, the man who conquered
them. Aristotle fled to Euboea. He died there the next year.
ETHICS
Aristotle believed that there was no way to make an accurate resolution of human
decisions since an individual had his or her own choice. He did, however, say
that all human beings want "happiness" and that there are many ways in which
this goal can be achieved.
He also believed that "full excellence" can only be reached by the mature male
adult of t .....
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The Philosopher, Aristotle
.... were known as sophists with whom
much contempt was held by such philosophers as Socrates. "The greatest school
of Rhetoric in all Greece was at this period held in Athens by the renowned
Isocrates, who was at the zenith of his reputation."(Collins p. 11) A competitor
with this school was Plato's Academy of philosophy which is where Aristotle
arrived at in the year 367 B.C.. Plato became Aristotle's teacher and soon
realized the massive potential and sheer intellect that Aristotle possessed.
Aristotle was born in 384 B.C. in a town just outside the borders of the
Macedonian Empire, called Stageira. He was rumored to hav .....
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