Steel is a metal alloy whose major component is iron, with carbon content between 0.02% and 2.14% by mass.

Photomicrograph of annealed steel. The heterogeneous, lamellar microstructure, called pearlite, consists of the phases cementite (light) and ferrite (dark).

An alloy is a mixture or metallic solid solution composed of two or more elements.^[1] Complete solid solution alloys give single solid phase microstructure, while partial solutions give two or more phases that may or may not be homogeneous in distribution, depending on thermal (heat treatment) history. Alloys usually have different properties from those of the component elements.

Alloy constituents are usually measured by mass. Alloys are usually classified as substitutional or interstitial alloys, depending on the atomic arrangement that forms the alloy. They can be further classified as homogeneous, consisting of a single phase, heterogeneous, consisting of two or more phases, or intermetallic, where there is no distinct boundary between phases.

Theory[link]

Alloying a metal is done by combining it with one or more other metals or non-metals that often enhance its properties. For example, steel is stronger than iron, its primary element. The physical properties, such as density, reactivity, Young's modulus, and electrical and thermal conductivity, of an alloy may not differ greatly from those of its elements, but engineering properties such as tensile strength^[2] and shear strength may be substantially different from those of the constituent materials. This is sometimes a result of the sizes of the atoms in the alloy, because larger atoms exert a compressive force on neighboring atoms, and smaller atoms exert a tensile force on their neighbors, helping the alloy resist deformation. Sometimes alloys may exhibit marked differences in behavior even when small amounts of one element occur. For example, impurities in semi-conducting ferromagnetic alloys lead to different properties, as first predicted by White, Hogan, Suhl, Tian Abrie and Nakamura.^[3][4] Some alloys are made by melting and mixing two or more metals. Bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, was the first alloy discovered, during the prehistoric period now known as the bronze age; it was harder than pure copper and originally used to make tools and weapons, but was later superseded by metals and alloys with better properties. In later times bronze has been used for ornaments, bells, statues, and bearings. Brass is an alloy made from copper and zinc.

Unlike pure metals, most alloys do not have a single melting point, but a melting range in which the material is a mixture of solid and liquid phases. The temperature at which melting begins is called the solidus, and the temperature when melting is just complete is called the liquidus. However, for most alloys there is a particular proportion of constituents (in rare cases two)—the eutectic mixture—which gives the alloy a unique melting point.

Terminology[link]

The term alloy is used to describe a mixture of atoms in which the primary constituent is a metal. The primary metal is called the base, the matrix, or the solvent. The secondary constituents are often called solutes. If there is a mixture of only two types of atoms, not counting impurities, such as a copper-nickel alloy, then it is called a binary alloy. If there are three types of atoms forming the mixture, such as iron, nickel and chromium, then it is called a ternary alloy. An alloy with four constituents is a quaternary alloy, while a five-part alloy is termed a quinary alloy. Because the percentage of each constituent can be varied, with any mixture the entire range of possible variations is called a system. In this respect, all of the various forms of an alloy containing only two constituents, like iron and carbon, is called a binary system, while all of the alloy combinations possible with a ternary alloy, such as alloys of iron, carbon and chromium, is called a ternary system.^[5]

Substitutional alloy

Interstitial alloy

When a molten metal is mixed with another substance, there are two mechanisms that can cause an alloy to form, called atom exchange and the interstitial mechanism. The relative size of each atom in the mix plays a primary role in determining which mechanism will occur. When the atoms are relatively similar in size, the atom exchange method usually happens, where some of the atoms composing the metallic crystals are substituted with atoms of the other constituent. This is called a substitutional alloy. Examples of substitutional alloys include bronze and brass, in which some of the copper atoms are substituted with either tin or zinc atoms. With the interstitial mechanism, one atom is usually much smaller than the other, so cannot successfully replace an atom in the crystals of the base metal. The smaller atoms become trapped in the spaces between the atoms in the crystal matrix, called the interstices. This is referred to as an interstitial alloy. Steel is an example of an interstitial alloy, because the very small carbon atoms fit into interstices of the iron matrix. Stainless steel is an example of a combination of interstitial and substitutional alloys, because the carbon atoms fit into the interstices, but some of the iron atoms are replaced with nickel and chromium atoms.^[6]

Alloys are often made to alter the mechanical properties of the base metal, to induce hardness, toughness, ductility, or other desired properties. Most metals and alloys can be work hardened by creating defects in their crystal structure. These defects are created during plastic deformation, such as hammering or bending, and are permanent unless the metal is recrystallized. However, some alloys can also have their properties altered by heat treatment. Nearly all metals can be softened by annealing, which recrystallizes the alloy and repairs the defects, but not as many can be hardened by controlled heating and cooling. Many alloys of aluminium, copper, magnesium, titanium, and nickel can be strengthened to some degree by some method of heat treatment, but few respond to this to the same degree that steel does.^[6]

At a certain temperature, the base metal of steel, iron, undergoes a change in the arrangement of the atoms in its crystal matrix, called allotropy. This allows the small carbon atoms to enter the interstices of the crystal. When this happens, the carbon atoms are said to be in solution, or mixed with the iron. If the iron is cooled slowly, the carbon atoms will no longer be soluble with the iron, and will be forced out of solution; into the spaces between the crystals. If the steel is cooled quickly, a diffusionless (martensite) transformation occurs, in which the carbon atoms become trapped in solution. This causes the iron crystals to deform intrinsically when the crystal structure tries to change to its low temperature state, inducing great hardness. However, most heat-treatable alloys are precipitation hardening alloys, which produce the opposite effects that steel does. When heated to form a solution and then cooled quickly, these alloys become much softer than normal and then harden as they age. The solutes in these alloys will precipitate over time, forming intermetallic phases, which are difficult to discern from the base metal. These intermetallic alloys appear homogeneous in crystal structure, but tend to behave heterogeneous, becoming hard and somewhat brittle.^[6]

In practice, some alloys are used so predominantly with respect to their base metals that the name of the primary constituent is also used as the name of the alloy. For example, 14 karat gold is an alloy of gold with other elements. Similarly, the silver used in jewelry and the aluminium used as a structural building material are also alloys.

The term "alloy" is sometimes used in everyday speech as a synonym for a particular alloy. For example, automobile wheels made of an aluminium alloy are commonly referred to as simply "alloy wheels", although in point of fact steels and most other metals in practical use are also alloys.

History[link]

A meteorite is shown below a hatchet that was forged from meteoric iron.

Bronze axe 1100 BC

The use of alloys by humans started with the use of meteoric iron, a naturally occurring alloy of nickel and iron. As no metallurgic processes were used to separate iron from nickel, the alloy was used as it was.^[7] Meteoric iron could be forged from a red heat to make objects such as tools, weapons, and nails. In many cultures it was shaped by cold hammering into knives and arrowheads. They were often used as anvils. Meteoric iron was very rare and valuable, and difficult for ancient people to work.^[8]

Iron is usually found as iron ore on Earth, except for one deposit of native iron in Greenland, which was used by the Inuit people.^[9] Native copper, however, was found worldwide, along with silver, gold and platinum, which were also used to make tools, jewelry, and other objects since Neolithic times. Copper was the hardest of these metals, and the most widely distributed. It became one of the most important metals to the ancients. Eventually, humans learned to smelt metals such as copper and tin from ore, and, around 2500 BC, began alloying the two metals to form bronze, which is much harder than its ingredients. Tin was rare, however, being found mostly in Great Britain. In the Middle East, people began alloying copper with zinc to form brass.^[10] Ancient civilizations took into account the mixture and the various properties it produced, such as hardness, toughness and melting point, under various conditions of temperature and work hardening, developing much of the information contained in modern alloy constitution diagrams.^[11]

The first known smelting of iron began in Anatolia, around 1800 BC. Called the bloomery process, it produced very soft but ductile wrought iron and, by 800 BC, the technology had spread to Europe. Pig iron, a very hard but brittle alloy of iron and carbon, was being produced in China as early as 1200 BC, but did not arrive in Europe until the Middle Ages. These metals found little practical use until the introduction of crucible steel around 300 BC. These steels were of poor quality, and the introduction of pattern welding, around the 1st century AD, sought to balance the extreme properties of the alloys by laminating them, to create a tougher metal.^[11]

Mercury had been smelted from cinnabar for thousands of years. Mercury dissolves many metals, such as gold, silver, and tin, to form amalgams (an alloy in a soft paste, or liquid form at ambient temperature). Amalgams have been used since 200 BC in China for plating objects with precious metals, called gilding, such as armor and mirrors. The ancient Romans often used mercury-tin amalgams for gilding their armor. The amalgam was applied as a paste and then heated until the mercury vaporized, leaving the gold, silver, or tin behind.^[12] Mercury was often used in mining, to extract precious metals like gold and silver from their ores.^[13]

Many ancient civilizations alloyed metals for purely aesthetic purposes. In ancient Egypt and Mycenae, gold was often alloyed with copper to produce red-gold, or iron to produce a bright burgundy-gold. Silver was often found alloyed with gold. These metals were also used to strengthen each other, for more practical purposes. Quite often, precious metals were alloyed with less valuable substances as a means to deceive buyers.^[14] Around 250 BC, Archimedes was commissioned by the king to find a way to check the purity of the gold in a crown, leading to the famous bath-house shouting of "Eureka!" upon the discovery of Archimedes' principle.^[15]

While the use of iron started to become more widespread around 1200 BC, mainly because of interruptions in the trade routes for tin, the metal is much softer than bronze. However, very small amounts of steel, (an alloy of iron and around 1% carbon), was always a byproduct of the bloomery process. The ability to modify the hardness of steel by heat treatment had been known since 1100 BC, and the rare material was valued for use in tool and weapon making. Because the ancients could not produce temperatures high enough to melt iron fully, the production of steel in decent quantities did not occur until the introduction of blister steel during the Middle Ages. This method introduced carbon by heating wrought iron in charcoal for long periods of time, but the penetration of carbon was not very deep, so the alloy was not homogeneous. In 1740, Benjamin Huntsman began melting blister steel in a crucible to even out the carbon content, creating the first process for the mass production of tool steel. Huntsman's process was used for manufacturing tool steel until the early 1900s.^[16]

With the introduction of the blast furnace to Europe in the Middle Ages, pig iron was able to be produced in much higher volumes than wrought iron. Because pig iron could be melted, people began to develop processes of reducing the carbon in the liquid pig iron to create steel. Puddling was introduced during the 1700s, where molten pig iron was stirred while exposed to the air, to remove the carbon by oxidation. In 1858, Sir Henry Bessemer developed a process of steel making by blowing hot air through liquid pig iron to reduce the carbon content. The Bessemer process was able to produce the first large scale manufacture of steel.^[16] Once the Bessemer process began to gain widespread use, other alloys of steel began to follow, such as mangalloy, an alloy of steel and manganese, which exhibits extreme hardness and toughness.^[17]

In 1906, precipitation hardening alloys were discovered by Alfred Wilm. Precipitation hardening alloys, such as certain alloys of aluminium, titanium, and copper, are heat-treatable alloys that soften when quenched (cooled quickly), and then harden over time. After quenching a ternary alloy of aluminium, copper, and magnesium, Wilm discovered that the alloy increased in hardness when left to age at room temperature. Although an explanation for the phenomenon was not provided until 1919, duralumin was one of the first "age hardening" alloys to be used, and was soon followed by many others. These alloys became widely used in many forms of industry, including the construction of modern aircraft.^[18]

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Alloys

• List of alloys
• Intermetallics
• Heat treatment
• CALPHAD (method)

References[link]

External links[link]

Look up alloy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Surface Alloys
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Alloys". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

Bethany Hamilton
Personal information
Born	Bethany Meilani Hamilton (1990-02-08) February 8, 1990 (age 22) Kauai, Hawaii, United States
Nickname	B-Ham, Bethy, Beth
Residence	Kauai, Hawaii
Height	5 ft 11 in (1.80 m)
Weight	130 lb (59 kg)
Surfing career
Best year	2002
Sponsors	Rip Curl
Major achievements	ESPY Award (2004) NSSA National Helping Kids Champion (2005) 2nd place, ASP World Junior Championships (2008)
Website	BethanyHamilton.com

Bethany Meilani Hamilton (born February 8, 1990) is an American professional surfer. She is known for surviving a shark attack in which she lost her left arm, and for overcoming the injury to ultimately return to professional surfing. She wrote about her experience in the 2004 autobiography Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board. In April 2011, the feature film Soul Surfer was released, based on the book and additional interviews. Hamilton has appeared on several shows since the loss of her arm.

Surfing career[link]

Placings in surf competitions
Year	Event and place	Country
1998	Rell Sun Menehune: 1st place	United States
2002	Open Women's Division of the National Scholastic Surfing Association: 1st place	United States
2004	NSSA Regional Event: 5th place	United States
2005	NSSA National Competition: 1st place	United States
2005	O'Neill Island Girl Junior Pro tournament: 1st place	United States
2006	NSSA National Championship: 18-and-under Finalist: 5th place	United States
2006	Hawaii Team Highlights: 4th at Brazil event and 5th at World Games event in USA.	United States
2007	NSSA Regionals: 5th Place	United States
2007	Women's Pipeline Championship: 4th Place	United States
2008	US Open of Surfing - Huntington Beach, CA: 5th Place	United States
2008	Roxy Pro Surf Festival - Phillip Island, AUS: 3rd Place	Australia
2009	Rio Surf International in Rio de Janiero, Brazil: 3rd place	Brazil
2009	Billabong ASP World Junior Championship - AUS: 2nd Place	Australia

Shark attack and recovery[link]

On October 31, 2003, at the age of 13 , Hamilton went for a morning surf along Tunnels Beach, Kauai with best friend Alana Blanchard and Alana's father and brother. Around 7:30 a.m., with numerous turtles in the area, she was lying on her surfboard with her left arm dangling in the water, when a 14–15 foot long tiger shark attacked her,^[1] ripping her left arm off just below the shoulder. The Blanchards helped paddle her back to shore, then Alana's father fashioned a tourniquet out of a surfboard leash and wrapped it around the stump of her arm, before rushing her to Wilcox Memorial Hospital. By the time she had gotten there she had lost over 60% of her blood. Her father was supposed to have knee surgery that morning, but she took his place in the operating room. She then spent seven more days in recovery at the hospital.

Despite the trauma of the incident, Hamilton was determined to return to surfing and did get back into the water. Less than one month after the incident, she returned to her board and went surfing again. Initially, she adopted a custom-made board that was longer and slightly thicker, making it easier to paddle. She has observed that she has to kick a lot more to make up for the loss of her left arm. After teaching herself to surf with one arm, on January 10, she entered a major competition. She is now back to using competitive performance short-boards.

In July 2004, Hamilton won the Best Comeback Athlete ESPY Award.^[2] She was also presented with a special "courage award" at the 2004 Teen Choice Awards.

In 2005, Hamilton took 1st place in the National Scholastic Surfing Association (NSSA) National Championships, a goal she had been trying to achieve since before the shark attack. In 2008, she began competing full-time on the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Qualifying Series (WQS). In her first competition against many of the world's best women surfers, she finished 2nd.

Media[link]

Since the attack, she has been a guest on numerous television shows, including The Biggest Loser, 20/20, Good Morning America, Inside Edition, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Today Show and The Tonight Show, as well as in magazines People, Time and American Girl. Additionally, she was the cover story in the premier issue of niNe magazine.^[3]

In 2004, MTV Books published Hamilton's book, Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board (ISBN 0-7434-9922-0), which describes her ordeal. Her story is also told in the 2007 short subject documentary film, Heart of a Soul Surfer, directed by Becky Baumgartner. Described as a "faith-based documentary", the film addresses Hamilton's courage and faith in Jesus Christ in the aftermath of the shark attack, and follows her quest for spiritual meaning.^[4][5]

On Aug 07, 2009, she was a contestant on Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? and won $25,000. On May 16, 2010, she appeared on an episode of ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

In March 2011, Bethany did a video for the Christian organization, I Am Second, telling about her struggle after the shark attack and how she trusted in God to get her through it.

On April 8, 2011, a docudrama feature film Soul Surfer, based on her 2004 book, was released. Hamilton is portrayed by AnnaSophia Robb—with Dennis Quaid, Helen Hunt, Craig T. Nelson, Carrie Underwood and Kevin Sorbo also starring in the film. Hamilton performs all the one-armed surfing stunts in the film.

On the Weekend of August 20, 2011, Bethany was a guest speaker at Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas. A video can be seen at its website showing Pastor Ed Young interviewing Bethany. Fellowship Church saw over 25,000 people in attendance across the three services that is offered at five different campuses around the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex and in Miami, Florida.

On October 11, 2011, she appeared on the TLC series 19 Kids and Counting, in the episode titled "Duggars Under the Sea", when the Duggar family visited her, in Atlanta, Georgia.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• CBS News interview

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (February 2010)

Cassadee Pope
Background information
Birth name	Cassadee Blake Pope
Born	(1989-08-28) August 28, 1989 (age 22) West Palm Beach, Florida, United States
Genres	Pop punk,[1] pop rock, power pop
Occupations	Singer-songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, violin, drums
Years active	2008–present
Associated acts	Hey Monday, Stephen Jerzak
Website	Official Website
Notable instruments
Fender Electric and Acoustic Guitar

Cassadee Blake Pope (born August 28, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter and musician and the lead vocalist of the pop punk band Hey Monday. With the band she has released a studio album, Hold on Tight and three extended plays. She went solo after Hey Monday's hiatus which was announced in December 2011, but reassured fans that the band was not "broken up." In early 2012 she played her first acoustic solo tour.

Biography[link]

In 2004, Pope started singing in local bands. She began as a singer in the award-winning St. Ann School Jazz Band while in middle school in West Palm Beach. While in high school in Wellington, Florida, Pope formed the band Blake (titled after her middle name) with good friend Mike Gentile. The project disbanded before being signed. In 2008, she and Gentile then, with Alex Lipshaw, Michael "Jersey" Moriarty, and Elliot James, founded the pop punk band Hey Monday. At the end of 2009, Pope confirmed via her Twitter that Elliot James had departed the band. She appeared in Fall Out Boy's video for "America's Suitehearts", from their 2008 album Folie à Deux. In the video, Pope plays a girl wearing large glasses talking by the telephone who is then kidnapped. She also provided guest vocals for The Cab's remix version of their song "Take My Hand" that appeared on Fall Out Boy's mixtape, Welcome to the New Administration, and appeared in the music video for it the following summer of 2009. On October 7, 2008, Hey Monday released their first studio album, Hold on Tight. Pope wrote two songs and co-wrote the other nine songs. She had a guest appearance as herself in the Degrassi: The Next Generation TV Movie, Degrassi Goes Hollywood, along with Pete Wentz. With Hey Monday being sponsored by clothing company Glamour Kills, Pope has subsequently modelled for their online store. On March 15, 2010, Pope announced via her Twitter that she had finished recording vocals for Hey Monday's EP Beneath It All, and that it was to be released on August 17, 2010. She also makes a brief appearance in All Time Low's CD/DVD, Straight to DVD, released in May 2010. Cassadee along with her bandmates as well as band members of Stereo Skyline appeared on an episode of MTV's Silent Library. She has performed guest vocals live for We the Kings's song We'll Be a Dream replacing Demi Lovato (original vocals on the song) as well as live vocals for The Academy Is..., All Time Low, Attack Attack!, The Cab, Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy, This Providence, and I See Stars. The Christmas EP was released on December 6, 2011. It was followed later that month by an announcement that Hey Monday have taken an indefinite hiatus on good terms, while the band members pursue individual side projects, with Pope going solo. In early 2012, she will be embarking on a solo acoustic tour on the west and east coasts of the United States.^[2][3] Pope has been dating Rian Dawson, the drummer of All Time Low since December, 2009.

She's currently writing and recording new songs for an Ep. The following songs have been confirmed and performed on her solo acoustic tour: "My Best Friend Hates You", "I Told You So", "Lunatic", "I Guess We're Cool", "Secondhand Love", and "Proved You Wrong". Cassadee's self-titled Ep will be released on May 22nd 2012. ^[4]

She released her debut self titled EP on May 22nd, 2012.

Tattoos[link]

She has a smiley face on her hand because “The smiley face was from when we showcased for Columbia and it was on my great grandpa’s birthday. And I used to call him ‘pappy’, but when I was really young I couldn’t say ‘pappy’ I called him ‘happy.’ And we ended up getting signed, so I know he’s looking after us.”

She also has sheet music coming out of a birds mouth, because she loves music and birds. She then got another bird & ribbon tattoo on the other side of her arm. This tattoo, however, has the letters BND on it, because Hey Monday opened for Fall Out Boy on the “Believers Never Die Tour Part Deux” tour. She then got a branch connecting the 2 birds and recently got clouds and a background for her birds.^[5]

Tours[link]

Tour name	Participating bands	Continent	Participating from - to
Solo Acoustic Tour	Cassadee Pope, Stephen Jerzak, Justin Young, Darling Parade, It Boys	North America	January 27 - February 24, 2012

Discography[link]

Hey Monday[link]

Solo[link]

Guest Appearances[link]

Albums[link]

Live[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hey Monday

• Official Website
• MTV Profile
• Hey Monday on Myspace
• Youtube Channel
• Tumblr.com
• Interview with Hey Monday on Shockhound.com
• Interview with Bombshellzine.com
• ChangeTheRecord.net interview with Cassadee Pope
• [1]

Discography[link]

Amanda Somerville (born March 7, 1979) is an American singer-songwriter and vocal coach.

Biography[link]

Personal life[link]

Somerville was born in Flushing, Michigan,^[1] and attended Flushing Senior High School and the University of Michigan in Flint, Michigan. Somerville moved to Wolfsburg, Germany in 1999 where she has since resided, working mainly in Germany and the Netherlands.^[2]

Singing career[link]

Somerville has written and recorded with bands After Forever, Edguy, Kamelot, Epica, Avantasia and Docker's Guild, and has produced two solo albums.^[3] Her music focuses on soft and elegant pop rock with some hard rock, folk and soul music influences.

She has collaborated with several of these metal bands alongside producers Sascha Paeth and Michael Rodenberg, which took her to collaborate with multi-instrumentalist Robert Hunecke-Rizzo co-writing the rock opera Aina. Later she made a similar collaboration with guitarist Sander Gommans (After Forever), providing vocals and lyrical concept for the project HDK.^[2] In 2008, she toured America with Dutch heavy metal band Epica, while regular vocalist Simone Simons recovered from a staph infection.^[1]

In 2010, she has collaborated with Michael Kiske (ex-Helloween singer) on a musical project entitled Kiske/Somerville. The band is a melodic metal act put together by Frontiers Records, as similar project as Allen/Lande. Songwriting and producing was made by Primal Fear bassist Mat Sinner with collaboration by guitarist Magnus Karlsson (Allen/Lande, also from Primal Fear), Sander Gommans, Jimmy Kresic and Amanda herself. Their first single, Silence was released on August 20. Their self-titled album was released on 24 September 2010 by Frontiers Records, after the single accompanied by a music video for Silence.

Amanda was also one of the live guest vocalists for Tobias Sammet's metal opera Avantasia two world tours in 2008 and 2010. Her role onstage was mainly singing backing vocals during the whole setlist and lead vocals for the song Farewell.^[4]

In 2011, Amanda has finally released her first heavy metal-oriented project called Trillium with the record company Frontiers Records. The project has contributions by Sascha Paeth, Michael Rodenberg, Sander Gommans and a guest appearance of Jørn Lande on a duet vocal track with Amanda.^[5]

Discography[link]

Solo[link]

• In the Beginning there was... (2000)
• Blue Nothing (EP, 2000)
• Never Alone (EP, 2003)
• Windows (2009)

Aina[link]

• Days of Rising Doom (2003)

HDK[link]

• System Overload (2008)

Kiske/Somerville[link]

• Kiske/Somerville (2010)

Trillium[link]

• Alloy (2011)

Collaborations[link]

Somerville's contributions include vocals, coaching, production and choir conductor:

• After Forever – Invisible Circles (2004), Remagine (2005), After Forever (2007); vocal coach, vocalist, producer
• Aina - Days of Rising Doom (2003); conceptualist, lyrical editor, co-writer, vocalist, vocal coach
• Andre Matos – Time to Be Free (2007), Mentalize (2009); lyrical choir, vocalist and lyrical editor
• Asrai – Touch in the Dark (2004): lyrical editor
• Avantasia – The Scarecrow (2008); The Flying Opera (live album) (2011): vocalist
• The Boyscout – Blood Red Rose (2011); vocalist
• Docker's Guild – The Mystic Technocracy - Season 1: The Age of Ignorance (2012); vocalist
• Edguy – Hellfire Club (2004), Rocket Ride (2006); vocalist, lyrical editor
• Epica – The Phantom Agony (2003), We Will Take You with Us (2004), Consign to Oblivion (2005), The Road to Paradiso (2006), The Divine Conspiracy (2007), live session singer for USA Canada tour (2008), Design Your Universe (2009); vocal coach, vocalist, co-writer, producer, Requiem for the Indifferent (2012)
• HDK – System Overload (2008); vocalist, co-producer, co-writer, lyrical editor, engineer
• Kamelot – The Black Halo (2005), Ghost Opera (2007), Poetry For The Poisoned (2010); vocalist, lyrical editor
• Luca Turilli – Prophet of the Last Eclipse (2002); vocalist
• Mob Rules – Hollowed Be Thy Name (2002); vocalist
• Shaman – Ritual (2002), Reason (2005); vocalist, lyrical editor
• Virgo – Virgo (2001); worked as vocalist, lyrical editor
• Sebastien - Tears Of White Roses (2010); vocalist
• Serenity - Death & Legacy (2011); vocalist
• DesDemon - Through the Gates (2011); vocals on Into Shadow
• PelleK - Bag of Tricks (2012); vocals on Send My Message Home

References[link]

Notes[link]

• "Signierstunde von Amanda Somerville. Ball mit allen Unterschriften der VfL-Profis zu gewinnen. Amanda Somerville: "Ich trete gern in den Dialog mit den Menschen."" (in German). VfL Wolfsburg-Presseservice. 2003-12-12. http://www.presseportal.de/story.htx?nr=508963. Retrieved 2008-05-07. 

External links[link]

• Official Site
• MySpace page

Karen Schindler Alloy (born August 3, 1977) is an American comedian and Regional Emmy award-winning entertainer,^[1] best known for her work on YouTube under the name spricket24. As of February 2012, Alloy's videos have received over 65 million views and have over 234,000 subscribers,^[2][3] and the spricket24 channel is ranked among YouTube's top 50 in several categories, and is among the top 100 most subscribed channels all-time on BlogTV.^[4] She has lived in Minnesota, but now resides near Chicago. Alloy was vegan^[5] but may love bacon, although this could have been the a characteristic of a character she played in a video.^[6]

BlogTV Childbirth[link]

On July 16, 2009, Alloy went into labor and gave her fans live updates during her delivery. It was declared blogTV's very first live birth. Despite hospital restrictions preventing a video feed, the live text chat had over 400 viewers. Alloy's third child, Lulu Augustine Alloy, was born at 11:22 p.m. CDT and was 22" and 8 lbs, 12 oz.^[7]

2009 Emmy Award[link]

In 2009, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences – one of the three governing bodies that provide Emmy Awards – awarded Alloy a regional Emmy in the Advanced Media Writer category^[1] for her video 2012: The End of The World.^[8] This was the first time an award had been given in this category. Alloy accepted the award from the Upper Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences at a ceremony held on January 21, 2010.^[1]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Karen Alloy at the Internet Movie Database

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