__NOTOC__ Year 1846 (MDCCCXLVI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar and a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar.

Events of 1846

January 5 – The United States House of Representatives votes to stop sharing the Oregon Territory with the United Kingdom.

February 10 – Many Mormons begin their migration west from Nauvoo, Illinois to the Great Salt Lake, led by Brigham Young.

February 18 – Beginning of the Galician peasant revolt.

February 19 – In Austin, Texas, the newly formed Texas state government is officially installed.

February 26 – The Liberty bell is cracked while being rung for George Washington's birthday.

March 10 – Prince Osahito, fourth son of deceased Emperor Ninko of Japan, becomes Emperor Kōmei.

April 25 – Mexican-American War: Open conflict begins over border disputes of Texas' boundaries.

May 8 – Mexican-American War – Battle of Palo Alto: Zachary Taylor defeats a Mexican force north of the Rio Grande at Palo Alto, Texas in the first major battle of the war.

May 13 – Mexican-American War: The United States declares war on Mexico.

May 16 – Under the leadership of British Prime Minister Robert Peel, the British Parliament repeals the Corn Laws, replacing the old Colonial mercantile trade system with Free Trade.

16 May– revolutionary insurrection in Portugal (would be crushed by royalist troops on 22 February on the next year)

May 17 – The Saxophone is patented by Adolphe Sax.

May 25 – The Royal Geographical Society awards Paweł Edmund Strzelecki a Gold Medal "for exploration in the south eastern portion of Australia".

June 10 – Mexican-American War: The California Republic declares independence from Mexico.

June 14 – Bear Flag Revolt: American settlers in Sonoma, California start a rebellion against Mexico and proclaim the California Republic.

June 15

* The Oregon Treaty establishes the 49th parallel as the border between the United States and Canada, from the Rocky Mountains to the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

* Launceston Church Grammar School opens for the first time.

June 16 – Pope Pius IX succeeds Pope Gregory XVI as the 255th pope.

July 7 – Acting on instructions from Washington, DC, Commodore John Drake Sloat orders his troops to occupy Monterey and Yerba Buena thus beginning the United States annexation of California.

September – The Second Carlist War, or the War of the Matiners or Madrugadores begins in Spain.

September 19 – The Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to two children in La Salette, France.

September 23 – Discovery of Neptune: The planet is observed for the first time by German astronomers Johann Gottfried Galle and Heinrich Louis d'Arrest as predicted by the British astronomer John Couch Adams and the French astronomer Urbain Le Verrier, although the planet did not get its current name for many years.

October 1 – Christ College, Tasmania opens with the hope that it would develop along the lines of an Oxbridge college and provide the basis for university education in Tasmania. Today, it is the oldest tertiary instituition in Australia.

December 28 – Iowa is admitted as the 29th U.S. state.

Undated

The portion of the District of Columbia that was ceded by Virginia in 1790 is re-ceded to Virginia.

Electric Telegraph Company founded in Britain.

Elias Howe patents the sewing machine.

Rotary printing press invented, making rapid printing of newspapers possible.

Cholera epidemic in England.

Ongoing events

Mexican-American War (1846–1848)

Great Irish Famine (1845–1849)

Births

January 5 – Rudolf Christoph Eucken, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1926)

January 27 – M. Lewis Clark American founder of Kentucky Derby (d. 1899)

February 2 – Francis Marion Smith, American borax magnate (d. 1931)

February 9 – Wilhelm Maybach, German automobile designer (d. 1929)

February 18 – Wilson Barrett, English actor (d. 1904)

February 26 – William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, American frontiersman (d. 1917)

March 6 – Henry Radcliffe Crocker, British dermatologist (d. 1909)

April 4 – Comte de Lautreamont, French writer (d. 1870)

May 3 – Sir Edmund Elton, 8th Baronet, English inventor and studio potter (d. 1920)

May 5 – Henryk Sienkiewicz, Polish author, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1916)

May 25 – Princess Helena of the United Kingdom (d. 1923)

June 11 – William Louis Marshall, American general and engineer (d. 1920)

June 27 – Charles Stewart Parnell, Irish political leader (d. 1891)

July 17 – Tokugawa Iemochi, the 14th shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japanese (d. 1866)

July 26 – Texas Jack Omohundro, American frontier scout, actor, and cowboy (d. 1880)

August 23 – Alexander Milne Calder, American sculptor (d. 1923)

September 16 – Anna Kingsford, British spiritual writer, doctor, feminist and pioneering vegetarian.

November 25 – Carrie Nation, American temperance advocate (d. 1911)

Deaths

February 21 – Emperor Ninko of Japan (b. 1800)

March 17 – Friedrich Bessel, German mathematician and astronomer (b. 1784)

May 23 – Franciszek Ksawery Drucki-Lubecki, Polish politician (b. 1778)

June 1 – Pope Gregory XVI (b. 1765)

June 8 – Rodolphe Töpffer, Swiss author, painter, and caricature artist (b. 1799)

August 16 – Sylvain Charles Valée, Marshal of France (b. 1773)

September 14 – Jacques Dupre, Louisiana State Representative, State Senator, and Governor (b.1773)

September 23 – John Ainsworth Horrocks, English-born explorer of South Australia (b. 1818)

September 26 – Thomas Clarkson, English Abolitionist (b. 1760)

November 6

* Karol Marcinkowski, Polish physician and social activist (b. 1800)

* Alexander Chavchavadze, Georgian Romantic poet and military figure (b. 1786)

18 December – Emilie Högquist, Swedish dramatic star (d. 1812)

Sir Paolo Tosti (April 9, 1846December 2, 1916) was an Italian, later British, composer and music teacher.

Life

Francesco Paolo Tosti received most of his music education in his native Ortona, Italy, as well as the conservatory in Naples. Tosti began his music education at the Royal College of San Pietro a Majella at the age of eleven.

Once recovered from his illness, Tosti moved to Ancona, where his poverty was such that for weeks at a time he subsisted on nothing but oranges and stale bread. His travels brought him to Rome, where his fortunes turned. He met the pianist and composer Giovanni Sgambati, who became his patron. Sgambati arranged for Tosti to give a concert at the Sala Dante at which the Princess Margherita of Savoy (who later became Queen of Italy) was present. She was so impressed with his performance that she appointed him her singing professor. She later appointed him curator of the Musical Archives of Italy at the Court.

Works

Tosti is remembered for his light, expressive songs, which are characterized by natural, singable melodies and sweet sentimentality. He is also known for his editions of Italian folk songs entitled "Canti popoliari Abruzzesi".

His style became very popular during the Belle Époque and is often known as salon music. His most famous works are Serenata (lyrics: Cesareo), Goodbye (lyrics: George J. Whyte Mellville) which is sometimes performed in Italian as Addio (lyrics: Rizzelli), and the popular Neapolitan song, Marechiare, the lyrics of which are by the prominent Neapolitan dialect poet, Salvatore Di Giacomo.

As a composer, Tosti is exceptional. Since the beginning of the recording era, numerous recording artists specializing in classical Italian repertoire have recorded Tosti songs, yet Tosti never composed opera. Notable examples on recording include Alessandro Moreschi (the only castrato who ever recorded) singing "Ideale", Nellie Melba singing "Mattinata" and Jussi Björling singing "L'alba separa dalla luce l'ombra".

References

External links

Category:1846 births Category:1916 deaths Category:Italian composers Category:British composers Category:Romantic composers Category:Italian songwriters Category:British songwriters Category:Knights Bachelor Category:English people of Italian descent

Dame Nellie Melba GBE (19 May 186123 February 1931), born Helen Porter Mitchell, was an Australian opera soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian Era and the early 20th century due to the purity of her lyrical voice and the brilliance of her technique. Melba was the first Australian to achieve international recognition as a classical musician. She and May Whitty were the first stage performers to be granted damehoods of the Order of the British Empire.

Family and Relationships

Melba was born at Doonside in Richmond, Victoria to a musical family, attending the prestigious Presbyterian Ladies' College, where her musical talent emerged. Her birth certificate lists her parents, David and Isabella Mitchell, as former residents of Forfarshire, Scotland. This ties in with local legend which states that, prior to moving to Australia, her parents lived in what is now a ruined cottage in the valley below the farm of "Glackburn" in Glen Prosen, Angus. (The County of Angus was formerly known as Forfarshire.)

Melba's father encouraged her to undertake music lessons while growing up. However, he detested the idea of her having a professional career when she grew up on account of her gender. Aged 16, for example, Melba's father urged her friends to refrain from attending a concert she performed at. They were married shortly after, in the December of the same year. They had one son named George. The marriage swiftly ran into trouble. Melba found herself musically and socially stifled in the marital home: frequent rain kept her house-bound, the humid climate provoked rot in the piano, and her husband "did all he could to halt her progress". On 19 January 1884 she escaped back to Melbourne, and began working on her career. She and Armstrong did attempt to maintain their relationship for a time - he accompanied her to Europe - but he became bored and joined the British army; reluctant to give up the marriage altogether, he continued to make occasional visits to Melba and their son, but after a particularly venomous argument at the time of Melba's Brussels debut in 1887, they both effectively regarded the marriage as over.

In the early 1890s, a scandal occurred after the news of her affair with Philippe, Duke of Orleans, the heir of the Bourbon pretender to the French throne, became public. Having met in England in 1890, the pair had swiftly embarked on a affair. They were seen frequently together in London, which excited some gossip, but far more suspicion arose when Melba travelled across Europe to St Petersburg to sing for the Tsar: the Duke followed closely behind her on the journey across Europe, and they were spotted together in Paris, Brussels, Vienna, and St Petersburg, a succession of meetings no-one could believe to be coincidence; the news that the pair had been seen sharing a box at the Vienna Opera served as effective proof to all but the most innocent or forgiving. The journalists of the day being neither, the story was soon spread across the mainstream media. Charles Armstrong, angry and embarrassed at being so publicly cuckolded (Melba and he were still legally married), filed divorce proceedings on the grounds of Melba's adultery, naming the Duke as co-respondent; he was eventually persuaded to quietly drop the case, but the damage was done, and the Duke decided that a two-year African safari (naturally, sans Melba) would be appropriate. He and Melba did not resume their relationship, Melba having decided - or having been forced to decide by the circumstances - that discretion, and the attendant loneliness, were necessary if she were to maintain her position. Her marriage to Armstrong was finally terminated when, having emigrated to the United States with their son, he divorced her in Texas in 1900.

Career

Débuts at Brussels, London and Paris

Having established herself on the concert circuit in Melbourne, in 1886 the chance to travel to Europe arose when she travelled to London but was offered nothing by either Sir Arthur Sullivan or Carl Rosa. She then went to Paris to study with the foremost teacher Mathilde Marchesi, and had her first starring role (as Gilda) at the Théâtre de La Monnaie, Brussels on 12 October 1887. It was at this time, on Marchesi's advice, that she adopted the stage name of "Melba" - a contraction of the name of her native city.

In that year (1887) Melba had her Covent Garden début, but made so little impression that they only offered her the role of Oscar for the next season there. Melba however persuaded the influential patroness Lady de Grey to adopt her cause, and returned instead as Donizetti's Lucia on 1 June 1888. This was an immense success, and established her unshakeable influence over the theatre's management over the next four decades.

Her opening success in Paris was as Ophélie in Hamlet by Ambroise Thomas, After giving one concert in Dunedin she travelled to Christchurch and gave a concert in Wellington. She also undertook strenuous tours of small Australian country towns where she would often perform only in a wooden hall, like the Prince of Wales Opera House in Gulgong. The concerts were sold out and the windows were left open, partly because of the heat and partly because Melba wanted Australians to hear her. Many even listened from underneath the floor, the halls being built up off the ground and the wooden structure providing excellent acoustics. Her attitude to these concerts and the audiences attending was summed up in her advice to Clara Butt, when the contralto was planning a similar Australian tour: "Sing 'em muck - it's all they understand!" To another colleague and compatriot, Peter Dawson, she described his home city of Adelaide as "that city of the three P's— Parsons, Pubs and Prostitutes."

In order to increase her fees, she took the highly entrepreneurial step of ostentatiously moving to a hotel in Monte Carlo in the hope that the engaged prima donna would fall ill and that she would be asked to substitute, at a high fee. Her total savings at that time were just £400 and she was at one point "feeling desperate". This proved successful, and in 1904 she sang the title role in the world premiere of Camille Saint-Saëns's Hélène at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo. Despite her fame, and her studies with the great composers of the day such as Charles Gounod, the only other role created by her was Elaine by Herman Bemberg (Giacomo Puccini wrote the role of Cio Cio San with Melba in mind, but she never sang it). She was, however, the first to sing the role of Nedda in Pagliacci in London in 1892 (soon after its Italian premiere), and in New York in 1893. In this year her first tour of the United States had to be postponed for a week as King Oscar II of Sweden had requested an unscheduled Royal command performance before she left. King Oscar had been so excited by her previous performance that he had stood twice, forcing the audience to stand also in the middle of the opera. Melba was also the first to sing Mimi in Puccini's La bohème in New York.

Honours

She was appointed Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1918 for her charity work during World War I, and was elevated to Dame Grand Cross of the British Empire in 1927. She and Dame May Whitty were the first entertainers to be awarded the honour of Dame Commander of the British Empire.

Melba was the first Australian to appear on the cover of Time magazine, in April 1927. She was selected to sing the then national anthem, God Save the King, at the official opening of the Parliament House in Canberra, on 9 May 1927, the day on which Canberra became Australia's capital city.

Legends and anecdotes

Melba was known for her demanding, temperamental diva persona. John McCormack, on the night of his London debut, attempted to take a bow with her on stage, but she pushed him back forcefully, saying "In this house, no one takes a bow with Melba." When recording with lesser studio artists, she would never try to hide her contempt for them, once dismissing tenor Ernest Pike as "one of the bloody chorus". the American contralto Louise Homer she described as possessing "the world's most beautiful voice". The Australian painter Hugh Ramsay, living in poverty in Paris, was given financial assistance by Melba, who also helped him to forge connections in the artistic world.

"Farewells"

She then left for Europe and later developed a fever in Egypt which she never quite shook off. She is also well remembered in Australia for her seemingly endless series of "farewell" tours between her last stage performances in the mid 1920s and her final, last concerts in Australia in Sydney on 7 August 1928, Melbourne on 27 September 1928 and Geelong in November 1928. In 1946–1948 the ABC produced a popular radio series on Melba starring Glenda Raymond, who became one of the foundation singers of the Australian Opera (later Opera Australia) in 1956. Later the Australian Broadcasting Commission produced a more authentic mini-series on her life "Melba" (1987), starring Linda Cropper miming Yvonne Kenny, which does not quite convey the more exciting side to her story.

Death

She returned to Australia but died in St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney in 1931, aged 69, of septicaemia which had developed from facial surgery in Europe some weeks before. The funeral motorcade was over a kilometre long, and her death made front-page headlines in Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Europe. Billboards in many countries said simply "Melba is dead". Part of the event was filmed for posterity. Melba was buried in the cemetery at Lilydale, near Coldstream. Her headstone bears Mimi's farewell words: "" (Farewell, without bitterness).

Recordings

Melba's first recordings were made c.1895-96, recorded on cylinders at the Bettini Phonograph Lab in New York. A reporter from Phonoscope magazine was impressed - "The next cylinder was labelled ‘Melba’ and was truly wonderful, the phonograph reproducing her wonderful voice in a mar vellous manner, especially the high notes which soared away above the staff and were rich and clear." Melba was less impressed- "Never again, I said to myself as I listened to the scratching, screeching result. Don’t tell me I sing like that, or I shall go away and live on a desert island." The recordings never reached the general public - destroyed on Melba's orders, it is suspected - and Melba would not venture into a recording studio for another eight years.

Melba can be heard singing on several Mapleson Cylinders, early attempts at 'live' recording, made by the Metropolitan Opera House librarian Lionel Mapleson in the auditorium there during performances. These cylinders are often poor in quality, due to the inherent nature of the early recording process, the placement of the equipment (particularly poor in the case of those Melba is heard in), and repeated playings of favourite cylinders by Mapleson over many years; they do, however, preserve something of the quality of the young Melba's voice and performance that is sometimes lacking from her commercial recordings. Ironically, the cylinder she is most renowned for, Queen Marguerite's cabaletta from Les Huguenots, may not in fact feature her, but rather her contemporary Suzanne Adams: the sonics of the recording do not match others of the same year, and the paper evidence points to Adams; but the singer sounds more like the Melba rather than the Adams both known from their commercial recordings.

Melba made numerous gramophone (phonograph) records of her voice in England and America between 1904 (when she was already aged in her 40s) and 1926 for the Gramophone & Typewriter Company and the Victor Recording Company. Most of these recordings, consisting of operatic arias, duets and ensemble pieces and songs, have been re-released on CD for contemporary audiences. Melba had been persuaded back into the studio by G&T;, who applied the persuasions of Landon Ronald and Camille Saint-Saëns, and demonstrated to her through the playing of records of Caruso that recording was now improved enough to set down a life-like account of a singer's voice.

The poor audio fidelity of the Melba recordings reflects the limitations of the early days of commercial sound recording. Melba's acoustical recordings (especially those made after her initial 1904 session) fail to capture vital overtones to the voice, leaving it without the body and warmth it possessed - albeit to a limited degree - in life. Despite this, they still reveal Melba to have had an almost seamlessly pure lyric soprano voice with effortless coloratura, a smooth legato and accurate intonation. Melba had perfect pitch and critic Michael Aspinall says of her on the complete London recordings issued on LP, that there are only two rare lapses from pitch in the entire set. Even so they are hard to hear. The recordings give an idea of the voice which people described as silvery and disembodied, with the notes forming in the theatre as if by magic and floating up through the theatre like a floating star. Like Adelina Patti, and unlike the more vibrant-voiced Luisa Tetrazzini, Melba's exceptional purity of tone was probably one of the major reasons why British audiences, with their strong choral and sacred music traditions, idolised her.

Melba's official "farewell" to Covent Garden on 8 June 1926, in the presence of King George V and Queen Mary, was recorded by HMV, as well as broadcast. The programme included Act 2 of Roméo et Juliette (not recorded because Charles Hackett was not under contract to HMV), followed by the opening of Act 4 of Otello (Desdemona's "Willow Song" and "Ave Maria") and Acts 3 and 4 of La bohème (with Aurora Rettore, Browning Mummery, John Brownlee and others). The conductor was Vincenzo Bellezza. At the conclusion Lord Stanley of Alderley made a formal address and Melba gave her (tearful) farewell speech. In a pioneering venture, eleven sides (78rpm) were recorded via a landline to Gloucester House (London), though in the event only three of these were published. The full series (including both speeches) was included in a 1976 HMV reissue. Despite the technical inadequacy of these early electric 'live' recordings, they bear witness to the lovely and unimpaired quality of her voice, even if her breath support was not what it had formerly been.

As was the case in many of her performances, most of Melba's recordings were made at 'French Pitch' (A=435 Hz), rather than the British early 20th century standard of A=452 Hz, or the modern standard of A=440 Hz. This, and the technical inadequacies of the early recording process (discs were frequently recorded faster or slower than the supposed standard of 78rpm, whilst the conditions of the cramped recording studios - kept very warm to keep the wax at the necessary softness when cutting - would wreak havoc with instrumental tuning during recording sessions), means that playing her recordings back in the speed and pitch she made them at is not always a simple matter.

Legacy

Coldstream

In 1909, she bought property at Coldstream, a small town 50 km east of Melbourne and around 1912 had Coombe Cottage built. The architect was John Grainger, father of the composer Percy Grainger. The house is located at the current juncture of Maroondah Highway and Melba Highway (named in her honour). Coombe Cottage is now the residence of Melba's granddaughter, Pamela, Lady Vestey (the mother of the 3rd Lord Vestey). Melba also set up a music school in Richmond, which she later merged into the Melbourne Conservatorium. .]] Melba became associated with the song "Home sweet home". She inherited it from Adelina Patti as Prima Donna Assoluta and after many performances the piano would be wheeled out and she would accompany herself singing the song, so bittersweet for her as home was an 11,000 mile sea voyage away when in England. Joan Sutherland later continued the tradition of singing "Home sweet home" and sang it after her own farewell performance in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots at the Sydney Opera House in 1990.

Melba, the last of the 19th century tradition of bel canto sopranos, is one of only two singers with a marble bust in the foyer of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The other is Adelina Patti. Sydney Town Hall has a marble relief bearing the inscription "Remember Melba", unveiled during a World War II charity concert in memory of Melba and her World War I charity work and patriotic concerts. Melba was closely associated with the Melbourne Conservatorium, and this institution was renamed the Melba Memorial Conservatorium of Music in her honour in 1956. The music hall at the University of Melbourne is known as Melba Hall.

In 1953, Patrice Munsel played the title role in Melba, a biopic about the singer.

The suburb Melba, Australian Capital Territory is named after Nellie Melba. All the streets are named after composers, singers and other musically notable Australians.

The current Australian 100 dollar note features the image of her face.

'Melba' House at the school Melbourne Girls College in Richmond, Melbourne, uses her name to remember a strong feminist set on leading and achieving.

Her name is associated with four foods, all of which were created by the French chef Auguste Escoffier:

Peach Melba, a dessert

Melba sauce, a sweet purée of raspberries and redcurrant

Melba toast, a crisp dry toast

Melba Garniture, chicken, truffles and mushrooms stuffed into tomatoes with velouté.

Film

In 1953 a biopic entitled Melba was released. It was produced by Horizon Pictures and directed by Lewis Milestone. Nellie Melba was played by Patrice Munsel.

Appearances in fiction

Melba makes an appearance in the 1946 novel Lucinda Brayford by Martin Boyd. Melba attends a garden party thrown by Julie and Fred Vane, mother of the eponymous heroine: "Melba sang two or three songs, Down in the Forest, Musetta's song from Boheme, and finally Home, Sweet Home. She is described as having the "loveliest voice in the world".

See also

Eva Mylott

Landon Ronald

2MT

Notes

Literature

Michael Aspinall, Nellie Melba: The London Recordings 1904-1926, Insert booklet to HMV reissue LP set RLS 719 (limited edition), (EMI, London 1976).

Ann Blainey, I am Melba Australian edn, (Black Inc. 2008); Marvelous Melba: The Extraordinary Life of a Great Diva, American Edition (Ivan R. Dee, 2009).

John Frederick Cone, ''Oscar Hammerstein's Manhattan Opera Company (University of Oklahoma Press 1966)

Arthur Eaglefield Hull, A Dictionary of Modern Music and Musicians (Dent, London and Toronto 1924).

Emma Eames, Some Memories and Reflections (D. Appleton & Co., 1927).

John Hetherington, Melba, a Biography (Faber and Faber, London 1967). (Contains extensive bibliography)

Nellie Melba, Melba Method (Chappell, London & Sydney 1926).

Agnes Murphy, Melba: A Biography (Chatto & Windus, London 1909).

George Bernard Shaw, Music in London (Constable, London 1931-33).

External links

Biography at Australian Dictionary of Biography online

The Nellie Melba Collection at the Performing Arts Collection, the Arts Centre, Melbourne (costumes, news clippings, objects, programmes (national & international), scrapbooks, vocal manuscripts)

International Jose Guillermo Carrillo Foundation - digitally remastered MP3 files from Melba's recordings 1905-1910.

The Reserve Bank of Australia page on Melba

Dress worn by Dame Nellie Melba

Nellie Melba - includes her 1906 recording of the Aubade from the opera by Edouard Lalo Le Roi d'Ys (1888)

Nellie Melba at the National Film and Sound Archive

Category:1861 births Category:1931 deaths Category:Deaths from sepsis Category:ARIA Award winners Category:ARIA Hall of Fame inductees Category:Australian female singers Category:Australian opera singers Category:Australian sopranos Category:Australian autobiographers Category:Australian women writers Category:Operatic sopranos Category:Dames Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire Category:Australian dames Category:Former students of PLC Melbourne Category:Singers from Melbourne Category:Infectious disease deaths in New South Wales Category:Australian people of Scottish descent Category:Women of the Victorian era Category:People of the Edwardian era

Name	Carlos Santana
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Carlos Augusto Alves Santana
Born	July 20, 1947Autlán de Navarro, JaliscoMexico
Instrument	Vocals, guitar, percussion
Genre	Rock, latin rock, blues rock, funk, jazz fusion
Occupation	Musician, songwriter
Years active	1966–present
Label	Arista, Polydor, Columbia, Polygram
Associated acts	Santana, Los Lonely Boys
Notable instruments	PRS Santana II Yamaha SG175 Gibson SG
Url	Santana.com

Carlos Augusto Alves Santana (born July 20, 1947) is a Mexican American rock guitarist. Santana became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana, which pioneered rock, salsa and jazz fusion. The band's sound featured his melodic, blues-based guitar lines set against Latin and African rhythms featuring percussion instruments such as timbales and congas not generally heard in rock music. Santana continued to work in these forms over the following decades. He experienced a resurgence of popularity and critical acclaim in the late 1990s. Rolling Stone named Santana number 15 on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time in 2003. He has won 10 Grammy Awards and 3 Latin Grammy Awards.

Biography

Early life

Santana was born in Autlán de Navarro, Jalisco, Mexico. His father was a mariachi violinist, and Carlos learned to play the violin at age five and the guitar at age eight. His younger brother, Jorge Santana, would also become a professional guitarist. Young Carlos was heavily influenced by Ritchie Valens at a time when there were very few Latinos in American rock and pop music. The family moved from Autlán de Navarro to Tijuana, the city on Mexico's border with California, and then San Francisco. Carlos stayed in Tijuana but joined his family in San Francisco later and graduated from James Lick Middle School and Mission High School there. He graduated from Mission High in 1965. Javier Bátiz, a famous guitarist from Tijuana, said to have been Carlos's guitar teacher who taught him to play a different style of guitar soloing. After learning Batiz's techniques, Santana would make them his own as well.

In San Francisco, he got the chance to see his idols, most notably B.B. King, perform live. He was also introduced to a variety of new musical influences, including jazz and folk music, and witnessed the growing hippie movement centered in San Francisco in the 1960s. After several years spent working as a dishwasher in a diner and busking for spare change, Santana decided to become a full-time musician. In 1966, he gained prominence by a series of accidental events all happening on the same day. Santana was a frequent spectator at Bill Graham's Fillmore West. During a Sunday matinee show, Paul Butterfield was slated to perform there but was unable to do so as a result of being intoxicated. Bill Graham assembled an impromptu band of musicians he knew primarily through his connections with the Grateful Dead, Butterfield's own band and Jefferson Airplane, but he had not yet picked all of the guitarists at the time. Santana's manager, Stan Marcum, immediately suggested to Graham that Santana join the impromptu band and Graham assented. During the jam session, Santana's guitar playing and solo gained the notice of both the audience and Graham. During the same year, Santana formed the Santana Blues Band, with fellow street musicians, David Brown and Gregg Rolie (bassist and keyboard player, respectively).

In 2005, Herbie Hancock approached Santana to collaborate on an album again using the Supernatural formula. Possibilities was released on August 30, 2005, featuring Carlos Santana and Angélique Kidjo on "Safiatou". Also, in 2005, fellow Latin star Shakira invited Santana to play the soft rock guitar ballad "Illegal" on her second English-language studio album Oral Fixation Vol. 2.

Santana's 2005 album All That I Am consists primarily of collaborations with other artists; the first single, the peppy "I'm Feeling You", was again with Michelle Branch and The Wreckers. Other musicians joining the mix this time included Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Kirk Hammett from Metallica, hip-hop/reggae star Sean Paul and R&B; singer Joss Stone. In April and May 2006, Santana toured Europe, where he promoted his son Salvador Santana's band as his opening act.

In 2007, Santana appeared, along with Sheila E. and José Feliciano, on Gloria Estefan's album 90 Millas, on the single "No Llores". He also teamed again with Chad Kroeger for the hit single "Into the Night".

In 2008, Santana started working with his long-time friend, Marcelo Vieira, on his solo album Marcelo Vieira's Acoustic Sounds, which is due to be released at the end of the year. It features tracks such as "For Flavia" and "Across the Grave", the latter featuring heavy melodic riffs by Santana.

Carlos Santana performed at the 2009 American Idol Finale with the top 13 finalists, which starred many acts such as KISS, Queen and Rod Stewart. On July 8, 2009, Carlos Santana appeared at the Athens Olympic Stadium in Athens with his 10-member all-star band as part of his "Supernatural Santana – A Trip through the Hits" European tour. On July 10, 2009, he also appeared at Philip II Stadium in Skopje. With 2.5 hours concert and 20 000 people, Santana appeared for the first time in that region. "Supernatural Santana – A Trip through the Hits" is currently playing at The Hard Rock hotel in Las Vegas, where it will play through 2011.

Santana is featured as a playable character in the music video game Guitar Hero 5. A live recording of his song "No One To Depend On" is included in game, which was released on September 1, 2009.

Carlos recently opened a chain of upscale Mexican restaurants called "Maria Maria". It is a combined effort with Chef Roberto Santibañez. They are located in Tempe, Arizona, Mill Valley (now closed), Walnut Creek and Danville, California, Austin, Texas, and Boca Raton, Florida.

Influences

Around the age of 8, Santana "fell under the influence" of blues performers like B.B. King and John Lee Hooker. He also credits Jimi Hendrix, Mike Bloomfield and Peter Green as important influences; he considered Bloomfield a direct mentor, writing of a key meeting with Bloomfield in San Francisco in the foreword he wrote to a biography of Bloomfield, Michael Bloomfield: If You Love These Blues-An Oral History in 2000.

Equipment

Guitars and effects

Santana played a red Gibson SG Special with P-90 pickups at the Woodstock festival. From 1976 until 1982, his main guitar was a Yamaha SG 175B and sometimes a white Gibson SG Custom with 3 open coil pick-ups. In 1982 he started to use a custom made PRS guitar, which became his main instrument around 1988. Santana currently uses a Santana II model guitar using PRS Santana III pickups with nickel covers and a tremolo, with .009-.042 gauge D'Addario strings. Santana's guitar necks and fretboards are constructed out of a single solid piece of Brazilian Rosewood; this helps create the smooth, singing, glass-like tone that he is famous for.

Carlos Santana also uses a classical guitar, the Alvarez Yairi CY127CE with Alvarez tension nylon strings.

Santana does not use many effects pedals. His PRS guitar is connected to a Mu-Tron wah wah pedal (or, more recently, a Dunlop 535Q wah) and a T-Rex Replica delay pedal, then through a customized Jim Dunlop amp switcher which in turn is connected to the different amps or cabinets.

Previous setups include an Ibanez Tube Screamer right after the guitar.

In the song "Stand Up" from the album Marathon, Santana uses a Heil talk box in the guitar solo.

Amplifiers

The Santana lead guitar tone is produced by a humbucker equipped guitar (Gibson/Yamaha/PRS) into a small but effective preamp (consisting of Gain & Master Volume controls) for the Mesa Boogie [ref. as above]. He also literally put the Boogie in Mesa Boogie: 'Santana exclaimed to Smith, "Shit, man. That little thing really Boogies!" It was this statement that brought the Boogie name to fruition.'

Specifically, Santana combines a Mesa/Boogie Mark I head running through a Boogie cabinet with Altec 417-8H (or recently JBL E120s) speakers, and a Dumble Overdrive Reverb and/or a Dumble Overdrive Special running through a Brown or Marshall 4x12 cabinet with Celestion G12M "Greenback" speakers, depending on the desired sound. Shure KSM-32 microphones are used to pick up the sound, going to the PA. Additionally, a Fender Cyber-Twin Amp is mostly used at home.

Personal life

Carlos Santana became a naturalized American citizen in 1965.

Discography

Awards and nominations

References

Sources

Soul Sacrifice; The Carlos Santana Story Simon Leng 2000

Space Between The Stars Deborah Santana 2004

Rolling Stone "The Resurrection of Carlos Santana" Ben Fong Torres 1972

New Musical Express "Spirit of Santana" Chris Charlesworth November 1973

Guitar Player Magazine 1978

Rolling Stone "The Epic Life of Carlos Santana" 2000

Santana I – Sony Legacy Edition: liner notes

Abraxas – Sony Legacy Edition: liner notes

Santana III – Sony Legacy edition: liner notes

Viva Santana – CBS CD release 1988; liner notes

Power, Passion and Beauty – The Story of the Legendary Mahavishnu Orchestra Walter Kolosky 2006

Best of Carlos Santana – Wolf Marshall 1996; introduction and interview

Further reading

Chipley Slavicek, Louise. Carlos Santana, Chelsea House Publications or Facts on File, 2006, 119 p., ISBN 0-7910-8844-8

Leng, Simon. Soul Sacrifice: The Santana Story, Firefly-S.A.F. Publishing, 2000, 224 p., ISBN 0-946719-29-2. Republ. as Santana, Catedra, 2002, ISBN 84-376-1947-5

McCarthy, Jim; Ron Sansoe, Ron, foreword by Carlos Santana. Voices of Latin Rock: The People and Events That Created This Sound, Omnibus Press, 2004 and Hal Leonard Publishing, 2005, 316 p., ISBN 0-634-08061-X

Miller, Hal; Santana Debbie; Faulkner, John (ed.), w/ a foreword by Bill Graham. Santana: A Retrospective of the Santana Band's Twenty Years in Music, San Francisco Mission Cultural Center, 1987 or 1988, 50p., no ISBN. Includes a 4-p genealogical tree w/ the members's name for every Santana band from 1966.

Molenda, Michael (ed.). Guitar Player Presents Carlos Santana, Backbeat Books, 2010, 124 p., ISBN 978-0-87930-976-3

Remstein, Henna. Carlos Santana (Latinos in the Limelight), Chelsea House Publications, 2001, 64 p., ISBN 0-7910-6473-5

Shapiro, Marc. Carlos Santana: Back on Top, St-Martin's Press, 2000 and 2002, 288 p., ISBN 0-312-28852-2

Sumsion, Michael. Maximum Santana: The Unauthorized Biography of Santana, Chrome Dreams, 2003, ISBN 1-84240-107-6. A CD-audio biog

Weinstein, Norman. Carlos Santana: A Biography, Greenwood Press, 2009, 152 p., ISBN 978-0313354205

Woog, Adam. Carlos Santana: Legendary Guitarist, Lucent Books, 2006, 104 p., ISBN 1-59018-972-8

External links

Official website

Milagro Foundation

2006 Carlos Santana Interview

Concerts online at Wolfgang's Vault

Santana's Gear

Category:1947 births Category:Living people Category:American Christians Category:American musicians of Mexican descent Category:American rock guitarists Category:Arista Records artists Category:Blues-rock musicians Category:Columbia Records artists

Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Latin Grammy Award winners Category:Lead guitarists Category:Mexican Christians Category:Mexican immigrants to the United States Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:People from Autlán, Jalisco Category:People from Tijuana Category:San Francisco Bay Area musicians Category:Santana (band) members Category:World music musicians Category:World Music Awards winners *

Name	Carl Zeiss
Caption	Carl Zeiss
Birth date	September 11, 1816
Birth place	Weimar, Germany
Death date	December 03, 1888
Death place	Jena, Germany
Nationality	German
Ethnicity	German
Field	Optics
Work institutions	Carl Zeiss AG
Alma mater	University of Jena
Known for	Optical Lenses

Carl Zeiss (11 September 1816 – 3 December 1888) was a maker of optical instruments commonly known for the company he founded, Carl Zeiss Jena (now: Carl Zeiss AG). Zeiss made contributions to lens manufacturing that have aided the modern production of lenses. Raised in Weimar, Germany, he became a notable lens maker in the 1840s when he created high quality lenses that were "wide open", or in other words, had a very large aperture range that allowed for very bright images. He did this in the city of Jena at a self opened workshop, where he started his lens making career. At first his lenses were only used in the production of microscopes, but when cameras were invented, his company began manufacturing high quality lenses for cameras.

Youth

Zeiss began his life in pre-imperial Germany where he went to a grammar school, and undertook apprenticeship under Dr. Friedrich Körner, mechanic and supplier to the court. He later attended lectures in mathematics, experimental physics, anthropology, mineralogy and optics at the University of Jena. After seven years he opened a small workshop with hardly any tools. He made many lenses but had little recognition until 1847 when he hired his second and third apprentice.

Life

In 1847 Carl Zeiss started making microscopes full-time. His first innovation was making simpler microscopes that only used one lens and were therefore only intended for dissecting work. He sold around 23 of them in his first year of production. He soon decided that he needed a new challenge so he began making compound microscopes. He first created the Stand I which went to market in 1857.

In 1861 he was awarded a gold medal at the Thuringian Industrial Exhibition for his designs. They were considered to be among the best scientific instruments in Germany. By this point he had about 20 people working under him with his business still growing. In 1866 the Zeiss workshop sold their 1,000th microscope.

In 1872 he joined up with physicist Ernst Abbe. Their combined efforts lead to the discovery of the Abbe sine condition. Theoretically, the Abbe sine condition could greatly improve how well lenses could be made. However, a form of glass strong enough to fully test the theory did not exist at the time. Abbe then met Otto Schott, a 30 year old glass chemist who had just received his doctorate. They collaborated and soon produced a new type of glass in 1886 that could fully use the Abbe sine condition. This new type of glass made possible a new class of microscope objective: the apochromatic (often abbreviated 'apo'). Zeiss used water immersion to form a compensating eyepiece which produced images with little or no color distortion.

His son had entered the business with him but retired soon after Carl Zeiss's death of natural causes on 3 December 1888. The business was incorporated as the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung in 1889. It gained an international reputation for the manufacture of optical instruments of all kinds, and remains in business to this day.

Publications

Auerbach, Das Zeisswerk und die Carl Zeiss-Stiftung in Jena (third edition, Jena, 1907)

See also

Calculation of glass properties - a significant contribution to the success of the companies Zeiss and Schott

Optical Museum Jena

External links

Carl Zeiss Biography

Zeiss Company History Site

Zeiss/Abbe Fact Sheet

First simple microscope made by Carl Zeiss in 1847/1848

Early compound microscope made by Carl Zeiss

Category:1816 births Category:1888 deaths Category:Microscopists Category:Carl Zeiss Jena Category:People from Weimar Category:People from Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach Category:University of Jena alumni