Picardy (French: Picardie, French pronunciation: [pikaʁdi]) is one of the 27 regions of France. It is located in the northern part of France.

The historical province of Picardy stretched from north of Noyon to Calais, via the whole of the Somme department and the north of the Aisne department. The province of Artois (Arras area) separated Picardy from French Flanders.

In the 5th century the area was occupied by the Franks, and in the feudal period it encompassed the six countships of Boulogne, Montreuil, Ponthieu, Amiénois, Vermandois, and Laonnois.

The name "Picardy" (which may have referred to a Frankish tribe of picards or pike-bearers) was not used until the 12th or 13th century. During this time, the name applied to all lands where the Picard language was spoken, which included all the territories from Paris to the Netherlands. In the Latin Quarter of Paris, people identified a "Picard Nation" (Nation Picarde) of students at Sorbonne University, most of whom actually came from Flanders.

John Milford Rutter CBE (born (1945-09-24)24 September 1945) is a British composer, conductor, editor, arranger and record producer, mainly of choral music.

Born in London, Rutter was educated at Highgate School, where a fellow pupil was John Tavener. He read music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the choir. He served as director of music at Clare College from 1975 to 1979 and led the choir to international prominence.

In 1974, Rutter visited the United States at the invitation of choral musician Melvin (Mel) Olson and conducted the premiere of his cantata "Gloria" in Omaha, Nebraska, in the Witherspoon Hall of Joslyn Art Museum. The composition, commissioned by Olson's Voices of Mel Olson chorale, has become a much-performed favourite over the years.^{[citation needed]}

In 1981 Rutter founded his own choir, the Cambridge Singers, which he conducts and with which he has made many recordings of sacred choral repertoire (including his own works), particularly under his own label Collegium Records. He resides at Duxford in Cambridgeshire and frequently conducts many choirs and orchestras around the world.

Mario Lanza (January 31, 1921 – October 7, 1959) was an American tenor and Hollywood movie star of the late 1940s and the 1950s. The son of Italian emigrants, he began studying to be a professional singer at the age of 16. He was born Alfred Arnold Cocozza. He changed his name when he signed with MGM. His mother's maiden name was Maria Lanza.

After appearing at the Hollywood Bowl in 1947, Lanza signed a seven-year contract with MGM's head, Louis B. Mayer, who saw his performance and was impressed by his singing. Prior to this, the adult Lanza had sung only two performances of an opera. The following year (1948), however, he would sing the role of Pinkerton in Puccini's Madama Butterfly in New Orleans.^{[citation needed]}

His movie debut was in That Midnight Kiss (1949) with Kathryn Grayson and Ethel Barrymore. The following year, in The Toast of New Orleans, his featured popular song "Be My Love" became his first million-selling hit. In 1951, he played the role of Enrico Caruso (1873–1921), his tenor idol, in the biopic, The Great Caruso, which produced another million-seller with "The Loveliest Night of the Year" (a song which used the melody of Sobre las Olas). The Great Caruso was the top-grossing film that year.

Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra,  /sɨˈnɑːtrə/, (December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and film actor.

Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the "bobby soxers", he released his first album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra in 1946. His professional career had stalled by the 1950s, but it was reborn in 1953 after he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in From Here to Eternity.

He signed with Capitol Records in 1953 and released several critically lauded albums (such as In the Wee Small Hours, Songs for Swingin' Lovers, Come Fly with Me, Only the Lonely and Nice 'n' Easy). Sinatra left Capitol to found his own record label, Reprise Records in 1961 (finding success with albums such as Ring-a-Ding-Ding!, Sinatra at the Sands and Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim), toured internationally, was a founding member of the Rat Pack and fraternized with celebrities and statesmen, including John F. Kennedy. Sinatra turned 50 in 1965, recorded the retrospective September of My Years, starred in the Emmy-winning television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music, and scored hits with "Strangers in the Night" and "My Way".

Lambert Murphy (1885–1954) was an American tenor, born in Springfield, Massachusetts. While pursuing an academic course at Harvard University, he studied singing under T. L. Cushman in Boston from 1904 to 1908. He graduated from Harvard in 1908 with his younger brother, Ray D. Murphy (1887–1964) (future chairman of the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States 19xx-1952), where they were both in the Harvard Glee Club, Harvard Quartet and the Pi Eta Society.

Having filled positions in several important churches in Boston, Brookline, and Fairhaven, he went to New York in 1910 as soloist of St. Bartholomew's. After further study under Isidore Luckstone, he was engaged (1911) as a member of the Metropolitan Opera. Murphy made his reputation chiefly as a concert singer, appearing at many of the great festivals.

He was a recording artist for the Victor Talking Machine Company. One well-known recorded hit was "Smiles" from The Passing Show of 1918 and was popular during World War I. Lambert performed and recorded many duets with baritone Reinald Werrenrath. Mr. Murphy premiered in the tenor solo role in the quartets in Verdi's Requiem in Boston (year?). After retiring from active concert work, he gave private voice instruction. During WWII he was a product inspector for the Western Electric Company.