Concerto Köln

Concerto Köln is a Baroque music chamber ensemble.

The group formed in 1985, one of many groups associated with the surging interest in period instruments in that decade. Its members consisted mainly of recent graduates of conservatories from across Europe. They began touring the Continent, often making appearances at major festivals. In 1992 they founded the Cologne Festival of Early Music with the aid of Deutschland Radio. They receive no government subsidies, and do not have a permanent conductor, though the group has an artistic director, Martin Sandhoff.

Their repertory stretches from early Baroque on through the Classical Era and as far into the nineteenth century as Mendelssohn. They have also done a number of collaborative works, such as a disc juxtaposing Turkish folk music with pieces in a Turkish style by composers such as Mozart. They have recorded frequently with, among others, René Jacobs, Daniel Harding, Louis Langrée, David Stern, Ivor Bolton, Marcus Creed, Christopher Moulds and Evelino Pidò.

The Four Seasons

The Four Seasons, originally referring to the traditional seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter, may refer to:

Music and dance

Visual arts

Film and television

Concerto

A concerto (from the Italian: concerto, plural concerti or, often, the anglicised form concertos) is a musical composition, whose characteristics have changed over time. In the 17th century, "sacred works for voices and orchestra were typically called concertos." J. S. Bach "was thus reflecting a long-standing tradition when he used the title `concerto' for many of the works that we know as cantatas.". But in recent centuries, up to the present, a concerto is a piece usually composed in three parts or movements, in which (usually) one solo instrument (for instance, a piano, violin, cello or flute) is accompanied by an orchestra or concert band.

The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words conserere (meaning to tie, to join, to weave) and certamen (competition, fight): the idea is that the two parts in a concerto, the soloist and the orchestra or concert band, alternate episodes of opposition, cooperation, and independence in the creation of the music flow.

German language

German (Deutsch [ˈdɔʏtʃ]) is a West Germanic language that derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. A portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. Languages which are most similar to German include Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, the continental Scandinavian languages and Luxembourgish. A Germanophone is a speaker of the German language either natively or by preference.

German is the most widely spoken (and official) language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Italian province of South Tyrol (Italian: Alto Adige) and Liechtenstein; it is also an official, but not majority language of Belgium and Luxembourg. With slightly different standardized variants (German, Austrian, and Swiss Standard German), German is a pluricentric language. German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. Due to the limited intelligibility between certain varieties and Standard German, as well as the lack of an undisputed, scientific difference between a "dialect" and a "language", some German varieties or dialect groups (e.g. Low German/Plautdietsch) are alternatively referred to as "languages" and "dialects".

Keith Jarrett

Keith Jarrett (born May 8, 1945) is an American pianist and composer who performs both jazz and classical music.

Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey, moving on to play with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s he has enjoyed a great deal of success as a group leader and a solo performer in jazz, jazz fusion, and classical music. His improvisations draw from the traditions of jazz and other genres, especially Western classical music, gospel, blues, and ethnic folk music.

In 2003, Jarrett received the Polar Music Prize, the first (and to this day only) recipient not to share the prize with a co-recipient, and in 2004 he received the Léonie Sonning Music Prize.

In 2008, he was inducted into the Down Beat Hall of Fame in the magazine's 73rd Annual Readers' Poll.

Early years

Keith Jarrett was born on May 8, 1945, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to a mother of Slovenian descent and a father of either French or Scots-Irish descent. He grew up in suburban Allentown with significant early exposure to music. Jarrett possesses absolute pitch, and he displayed prodigious musical talents as a young child. He began piano lessons just before his third birthday, and at age five he appeared on a TV talent program hosted by the swing bandleader Paul Whiteman. Jarrett gave his first formal piano recital at the age of seven, playing works by composers including Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Saint-Saëns, and ending with two of his own compositions. Encouraged especially by his mother, Jarrett took intensive classical piano lessons with a series of teachers, including Eleanor Sokoloff of the Curtis Institute.