A flute sonata is a sonata usually for flute and piano, though occasionally other accompanying instruments may be used. Flute sonatas in the Baroque period were very often accompanied in the form of basso continuo.

Sir James Galway OBE (born 8 December 1939) is a virtuoso flute player from Belfast, Northern Ireland, nicknamed "The Man With the Golden Flute". Following in the footsteps of Jean-Pierre Rampal, he became one of the first flute players to establish an international career as a soloist.

Galway went to London as a teenager to study the flute. He studied at the Royal College of Music under John Francis and then at the Guildhall School of Music under Geoffrey Gilbert. He then studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Gaston Crunelle and Jean-Pierre Rampal and also privately with Marcel Moyse.

After his education time he spent fifteen years as an orchestral player. Galway played with the Philharmonia Orchestra as it rose to prominence in the 1950s.^{[citation needed]}

He then played with Sadler's Wells Opera, Covent Garden Opera, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He auditioned for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Herbert von Karajan, and was principal flute of that orchestra from 1969 to 1975. To Karajan's surprise and dismay, after a period of some disagreement, Galway decided that he would leave to pursue a solo career.^{[citation needed]}

Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃sis ʒɑ̃ maʁsɛl pulɛ̃k]) (7 January 1899 – 30 January 1963) was a French composer and a member of the French group Les Six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music. Critic Claude Rostand, in a July 1950 Paris-Presse article, coined the term "half monk, half thug" (translated by Ivry from "le moine et le voyou"), a phrase that would often be used to describe Poulenc.

Poulenc was born in Paris in 1899. His father Emile Poulenc was a second generation director of the Poulenc, and later Rhône-Poulenc, chemical corporation. His mother, an amateur pianist, taught him to play. He was introduced to Ricardo Viñes in 1914, a champion of the music of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, and became his pupil shortly afterwards. He was a capable pianist, and the keyboard dominated his early compositions.

In 1916 a childhood friend, Raymonde Linossier (1897-1930), introduced Poulenc to Adrienne Monnier's bookshop, the Maison des Amis des Livres. There he met avant-garde poets such as Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Paul Eluard and Louis Aragon. He was to set many of their poems to music.

William John "Bill" Bennett (born July 31, 1943) is an American conservative pundit, politician, and political theorist.

He served as United States Secretary of Education from 1985 to 1988. He also held the post of Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (or "Drug Czar") under George H. W. Bush. In 2000, he co-founded K12, a for-profit online education corporation which is publicly traded.

Bennett's admitted problem gambling has sparked controversy, with critics arguing that gambling is incompatible with his promotion of staunch social conservative values.

Bennett was born in Brooklyn but later moved to Washington, D.C., where he attended Gonzaga College High School. He graduated from Williams College, where he was a member of The Kappa Alpha Society, and went on to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in Political Philosophy. He also has a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

From 1976 to 1981 he was the executive director of the National Humanities Center, a private research facility in North Carolina. In 1981 President Ronald Reagan appointed him to head the National Endowment for the Humanities, where he served until Reagan appointed him Secretary of Education in 1985. Reagan originally nominated Mel Bradford to the position, but due to Bradford's pro-Confederate views Bennett was appointed in his place. This event was later marked as the watershed in the divergence between paleoconservatives, who backed Bradford, and neoconservatives, led by Irving Kristol, who supported Bennett. It was in 1986 that Bennett switched from the Democratic to the Republican party. Bennett resigned from this post in 1988, and later that year was appointed to the post of Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy by President George H. W. Bush. He was confirmed by the Senate in a 97-2 vote.

Michala Petri (born 7 July 1958 in Copenhagen, Denmark) is a Danish recorder player. Petri is sought after as a soloist with many noted orchestras, including the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. She has released 34 recordings, toured extensively over four continents, and has had dozens of pieces written for her. Her debut as a soloist was in 1969.

Petri, who began playing the recorder at the age of three, is noted for her virtuosity and versatility across a wide range of styles, from the baroque repertoire of the height of the instrument's popularity to contemporary works written particularly for her. She has premiered dozens of works, by composers Malcolm Arnold, Gordon Jacob and Richard Harvey, as well as Daniel Börtz, Erik Haumann, Hans Kunstovny, Erling Bjerno, Thomas Koppel, Ove Benzen, Vagn Holmboe, Piers Hellawell, Gary Kulesha, Asger Lund Christiansen, Egil Harder, Michael Berkeley, Butch Lacy, Miklos Maros, Ezra Laderman, Jens Bjerre, Henning Christiansen, Niels Viggo Bentzon, Axel Borup Jørgensen, and Gunnar Berg.