Benjamin Fain (Russian: Вениамин Моисеевич Файн, Hebrew: בינימין פיין) (February 17, 1930) is a known physicist, professor-emeritus, former refusenik.
Fain was born on 17 February 1930 in a Jewish family in Kiev. His father was a mathematician, he instilled in the child a love to science as well as a strong national sentiment.
Benjamin Fain was named after his grandfather, murdered in Proskurov pogrom. During the Second World War the family was evacuated and changed several places. After the end of the war the family stayed in Dushanbe, where Fain graduated from school. He became a student in Moscow Institute of Energetics. During the first year in Moscow he visited synagogue and attempted to learn Hebrew and Yiddish languages. Fain was strongly impressed by historical visit of the first Israeli ambassador in USSR Golda Meir. Fain managed to pass in 1950 to a Phaculty of Physics in Gorky University. He graduated there with summa cum laude, his instructor was a future Nobel prize winner Vitaly Ginzburg.
Tim Fain is an American violinist.
A native of Santa Monica, California, violinist Tim Fain is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studied with Victor Danchenko, and The Juilliard School, where he worked with Robert Mann. Before Curtis, Fain studied with Eduard Schmieder in Los Angeles. The “charismatic young violinist with a matinee idol profile, strong musical instincts, and first rate chops” (Boston Globe) was featured as the sound of Richard Gere ’s violin in Bee Season. As The Washington Post recently raved, “Fain has everything he needs for a first-rate career.”
He made his New York concerto debut at Alice Tully Hall with Gerard Schwarz and the New York Chamber Symphony, and at Lincoln Center ’s Mostly Mozart Festival with the Orchestra of St. Luke's. Performing works from Beethoven and Tchaikovsky to Richard Danielpour and Philip Glass, he has been soloist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico and Oxford Symphony Orchestra, and with the Brooklyn Philharmonic. He appeared as soloist with the Philip Glass Ensemble at Carnegie Hall in a concert version of Einstein on the Beach, and gave a special performance of the Beethoven Violin Concerto at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra. Other recent and upcoming performances include appearances with the Champaign Urbana Symphony Orchestra, the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra, Illinois Symphony Orchestra and the Maryland Symphony Orchestra, as well as recitals for the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and in Utah, Maryland, Syracuse and elsewhere throughout the United States.
Benjamin Millepied (born 10 June 1977) is a French danseur, best known for his work as choreographer in the movie Black Swan (in which he also plays a small role).
Millepied was born in Bordeaux, France and raised in Dakar, Senegal. He is the youngest and third child of three sons. His ballet training started at the age of eight with his mother, a former ballet dancer. Between the ages of 13 and 16 he studied with Michel Rahn at the Conservatoire National in Lyon, France.
In the summer of 1992 he attended classes at the School of American Ballet (SAB) and returned to study full time in 1993, with a scholarship from the French Ministry (Bourse Lavoisier or Lavoisier Scholarship). Early in his career Millepied was mentored by famed choreographer Jerome Robbins, who took a strong interest in him. At SAB's 1994 Spring Workshop he originated a principal role in Jerome Robbins' premiere of 2 and 3 Part Inventions and also received the Prix de Lausanne. Millepied joined New York City Ballet's corps de ballet in 1995, was promoted to soloist in 1998 and became principal dancer in 2002. In 2010, he was made Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture. On 26 October 2011, it was announced that Millepied would retire from New York City's Ballet.
Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer. One of the highest profile composers writing "classical" music today, he is often said to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. His music is also often controversially described as minimalist, along with the work of the other "major minimalists" La Monte Young, Terry Riley and Steve Reich.
He has lately distanced himself from the "minimalist" label, describing himself instead as a composer of "music with repetitive structures." Though his early mature music shares much with what is normally called "minimalist", he has since evolved stylistically. Currently, he describes himself as a "Classicist", pointing out that he is trained in harmony and counterpoint and studied such composers as Franz Schubert, Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with Nadia Boulanger.
Glass is a prolific composer: he has written works for the musical group which he founded, the Philip Glass Ensemble (with which he still performs on keyboards), as well as operas, musical theatre works, ten symphonies, eleven concertos, solo works, chamber music including string quartets and instrumental sonatas, and film scores. Three of his film scores have been nominated for Academy Awards.
Nico Muhly /ˈniːkoʊ ˈmjuːli/ (born August 26, 1981, in Vermont) is a contemporary classical music composer, who has worked and recorded with classical and pop/rock musicians. He currently lives in the Lower East Side section of Manhattan in New York City.
Muhly was born in Vermont and raised in Providence, Rhode Island. His mother, Bunny Harvey, is a painter and teacher at Wellesley College, and his father, Frank Muhly, is a documentary filmmaker.
As a child, Muhly sang in the choir at Grace Episcopal Church in Providence, and he started to study piano at 10.
Muhly went on to study at The Wheeler School in Providence, then moved on to Columbia University where he got his undergraduate degree in English and to the Juilliard School where he graduated with his Master's degree in Music and studied composition with John Corigliano and Christopher Rouse.
In 2005, Muhly was commissioned by Colorado Academy, a private school in Colorado, to write a song for the opening of their new Fine Arts building.