New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

The College's official name, College of St Mary, is the same as that of the older Oriel College; hence, it has been referred to as the "New College of St Mary" and is now almost always called "New College". The College is one of the most famous and academically successful of the Oxford colleges and ranks high on the Norrington Table. For 2010-2011, it was ranked three among all of the Oxford colleges. The College stands along Holywell Street and New College Lane (known for Oxford's Bridge of Sighs), next to All Souls College, Harris Manchester College, Hertford College, The Queen's College and St Edmund Hall.

The College is one of the main choral foundations of the University of Oxford. The College Choir has recorded over one hundred albums, and has been awarded two Gramophone Awards.

In 2006 the College had an estimated financial endowment of £143m. That year the College sold an area of land in Buckinghamshire for £55m, and the subsequent extra endowment income was put towards academic development, salaries, and repair to buildings.

Oxford ⁱ/ˈɒksfəd/ is a city in central southern England, the home of the University of Oxford. The city is the county town of Oxfordshire, and forms a district within the county. It has a population of just under 165,000, of whom 153,900 live within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles (80 km) north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames (also sometimes known as the Isis locally) run through Oxford and meet south of the city centre.

Oxford has a diverse economic base. Its industries include motor manufacturing, education, publishing and a large number of information technology and science-based businesses.

Buildings in Oxford demonstrate an example of every English architectural period since the arrival of the Saxons, including the iconic, mid-18th century Radcliffe Camera. Oxford is known as the "city of dreaming spires", a term coined by poet Matthew Arnold in reference to the harmonious architecture of Oxford's university buildings. The University of Oxford is the oldest university in the English-speaking world.

Stewart Brand (born December 14, 1938 in Rockford, Illinois) is an American writer, best known as editor of the Whole Earth Catalog. He founded a number of organizations including The WELL, the Global Business Network, and the Long Now Foundation. He is the author of several books, most recently Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.

Brand attended Phillips Exeter Academy, before studying biology at Stanford University, from which he graduated in 1960. He was married to Lois Jennings, an Ottawa Native American and mathematician. As a soldier in the U.S. Army, he was a parachutist and taught infantry skills; he was later to express the view that his experience in the military had fostered his competence in organizing.^{[citation needed]} A civilian again, in 1962 he studied design at San Francisco Art Institute, photography at San Francisco State College, and participated in a legitimate scientific study of then-legal LSD, in Menlo Park, California.

Brand has lived in California ever since. He and his wife, Ryan Phelan, live on Mirene, a 64-foot (20 m)-long working tugboat. Built in 1912, the boat is moored in a former shipyard in Sausalito, California. He works in Mary Heartline, a grounded fishing boat about 100 yards (91 m) away. A favorite item of his is a table on which Otis Redding is said to have written “(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay”. Brand acquired it from an antiques dealer in Sausalito.

Franz Joseph Haydn (  /ˈdʒoʊzəf ˈhaɪdən/; German pronunciation: [ˈjoːzɛf ˈhaɪdən] ( listen); 31 March 1732 – 31 May 1809), known as Joseph Haydn, was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms. He was also instrumental in the development of the piano trio and in the evolution of sonata form.

A lifelong resident of Austria, Haydn spent much of his career as a court musician for the wealthy Esterházy family on their remote estate. Isolated from other composers and trends in music until the later part of his long life, he was, as he put it, "forced to become original". At the time of his death, he was one of the most celebrated composers in Europe.

Joseph Haydn was the brother of Michael Haydn, himself a highly regarded composer, and Johann Evangelist Haydn, a tenor. He was also a close friend of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and a teacher of Ludwig van Beethoven.

Jean Racine (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ ʁaˈsin]), baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine (22 December 1639 – 21 April 1699), was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France (along with Molière and Corneille), and an important literary figure in the Western tradition. Racine was primarily a tragedian, producing such 'examples of neoclassical perfection' as Phèdre,Andromaque, and Athalie, although he did write one comedy, Les Plaideurs, and a muted tragedy,Esther, for the young.

Racine's plays displayed his mastery of the dodecasyllabic alexandrine; his verse is renowned for elegance, purity, speed, and fury, and for what Robert Lowell described as a 'diamond-edge', and the 'glory of its hard, electric rage'. The language effects of Racine's works are widely considered to be untranslatable, although many eminent poets have attempted to do so, including Lowell, Ted Hughes, and Derek Mahon into English, and Schiller into German. The latest to attempt to translate Racine's plays into English, and the first to render the plays in rhymed heroic couplets, earned a 2011 American Book Award for the poet Geoffrey Argent. Racine's dramaturgy is marked by his psychological insight, the prevailing passion of his characters, and the nakedness of both the plot and stage.