The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra (Czech: Filharmonici města Prahy) is a professional philharmonic symphony orchestra. It is predominantly composed of Czech and Slovak classical and jazz musicians. The orchestra started out, after World War II, in 1947, as the in-house full orchestra regularly playing music for film, television and animation productions at the world famous Barrandov Film Studios, in Prague, as well as the historic Krátký Film productions (meaning "short film," in Czech), and the former Czechoslovak Television.

At the time, it was somewhat smaller than today and it was called the Filmový symfonický orchestr (FISYO) (The Film Symphony Orchestra) or was sometimes known as the Film Symphony of Prague. Many wonderful international films were done by this orchestra in the early days. Recordings have been made for film production companies such as Paramount, Sony, Lucasfilm and many others in the Smečky Sound Recording Studio. David Lynch returned again in 1997 to record his Lost Highway, and yet again in 2001 to record Mulholland Drive.

Prague ( /ˈprɑːɡ/; Czech: Praha pronounced [ˈpraɦa] ( listen)) is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic and fourteenth largest city in European Union. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of nearly 2.0 million. The city has a temperate oceanic climate with warm summers and chilly winters.

Prague has been a political, cultural, and economic centre of central Europe with waxing and waning fortunes during its 1,100 year existence. Founded during the Romanesque and flourishing by the Gothic and Renaissance eras, Prague was the seat of two Holy Roman Emperors and thus then also the capital of the Holy Roman Empire. It was an important city to the Habsburg Monarchy and its Austro-Hungarian Empire and after World War I became the capital of Czechoslovakia. The city played major roles in the Protestant Reformation, the Thirty Years' War, and in modern history generally as the principal conurbation in Bohemia and Moravia whose second city is Brno.

Bedřich Smetana (Czech pronunciation: [ˈbɛdr̝ɪx ˈsmɛtana] ( listen); 2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music. Internationally he is best known for his opera The Bartered Bride, for the symphonic cycle Má vlast ("My Fatherland") which portrays the history, legends and landscape of the composer's native land, and for his First String Quartet From My Life.

Smetana was naturally gifted as a pianist, and gave his first public performance at the age of six. After his conventional schooling, he studied music under Josef Proksch in Prague. His first nationalistic music was written during the 1848 Prague uprising, in which he briefly participated. After failing to establish his career in Prague, he left for Sweden, where he set up as a teacher and choirmaster in Gothenburg, and began to write large-scale orchestral works. During this period of his life Smetana was twice married; of six daughters, three died in infancy.

Myleene Angela Quinn (née Klass; born 6 April 1978) is an English singer, pianist, media personality and occasional model. She was formerly a member of the defunct British pop band Hear'Say. Her net worth was estimated at £11 million in April 2012.

Klass was born in Gorleston, Norfolk, England to an Anglo-Austrian father and a Filipina mother. She comes from six generations of classical musicians on her father's side: Klass's grandmother was an opera singer and her grandfather left his violin to her, which she went on to play. Klass began to learn the piano and violin from the age of four and then the harp at 12. She took Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music exams in violin, piano and voice. She received an A grade in A-level music, and became a Norfolk County scholar.

Klass attended St. Mary's Roman Catholic Primary School, then Cliff Park High school in Gorleston, before going to Notre Dame High School, Norwich for a short time.^{[citation needed]} While at school, she spent her Saturdays studying singing at the Junior Department of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama,^{[citation needed]} and later took a musical theatre course at the Royal Academy of Music, University of London.^{[citation needed]}

Hans Florian Zimmer, German pronunciation: [hans ˈfloːʁi̯aːn ˈtsɪmɐ]; (born 12 September 1957) is a German film composer and music producer. He has composed music for over 100 films, including award winning film scores for The Lion King (1994), Crimson Tide (1995), Gladiator (2000), The Last Samurai (2003),The Dark Knight (2008), and Inception (2010).

Zimmer spent the early part of his career in the United Kingdom before moving to the United States. He is the head of the film music division at DreamWorks studios, and works with other composers through the company which he founded, Remote Control Productions.

Zimmer's works are notable for integrating electronic music sounds with traditional orchestral arrangements. He has received four Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, a Classical BRIT Award, and an Academy Award. He was also named on the list of Top 100 Living Geniuses, published by The Daily Telegraph.

Zimmer was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. As a young child, he lived in Königstein-Falkenstein, where he played the piano at home, but had piano lessons only briefly as he disliked the discipline of formal lessons. He moved to London as a teenager, where he attended Hurtwood House school. In an interview with the German television station ZDF in 2006, he commented: "My father died when I was just a child, and I escaped somehow into the music and music has been my best friend."