- published: 10 Jun 2010
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In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.
The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. Three majors groups of rocks are defined: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. The scientific study of rocks is called petrology, which is an essential component of geology.
Rocks are generally classified by mineral and chemical composition, by the texture of the constituent particles and by the processes that formed them. These indicators separate rocks into three types: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. They are further classified according to particle size. The transformation of one rock type to another is described by the geological model called the rock cycle.
Igneous rocks are formed when molten magma cools and are divided into two main categories: plutonic rock and volcanic. Plutonic or intrusive rocks result when magma cools and crystallizes slowly within the Earth's crust (example granite), while volcanic or extrusive rocks result from magma reaching the surface either as lava or fragmental ejecta (examples pumice and basalt).
Nolwenn Leroy, (born 28 September 1982 in Saint-Renan, Finistère, Brittany), is a French singer and songwriter, discovered by the French television reality show Star Academy. She is best known for her two Number One singles "Cassé" and "Nolwenn Ohwo!".
Leroy's parents left Saint-Renan, with her, when she was four years old. After living in Paris, Lille, and Guingamp, her mother Murielle Leroy and her younger sister settled with Leroy's grandparents in Saint-Yorre. Her mother had been divorced from her father, professional footballer Jean-Luc Le Magueresse, in 1993.
She studied at the "Collège des Célestins" in Vichy. When Leroy was eleven, her music teacher noticed her musical talents and encouraged her to learn the violin. At the age of thirteen she won "Les écoles du désert", a contest sponsored by the Cora supermarket chain, consequently travelling with a humanitarian mission from Gao to Timbuktu, Mali; she later claimed this had a profound influence on her.
In July 1998, she was awarded a scholarship by the Vichy Rotary Club to travel to Cincinnati, Ohio, as an exchange student. While there, she also attended the Performing Arts School. Returning to France, and speaking fluent English, she began classical singing classes at the Vichy music conservatory. From 2001 she studied law at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, for a potential alternative career to music.
Yann Tiersen (born 23 June 1970) is a musician from France. His musical career is split between studio albums, collaborations and film soundtracks with a distinctive sound that is always involved. It can be recognized by its use of a large variety of instruments; primarily the guitar, synthesizer or violin together with instruments like the melodica, xylophone, toy piano, harpsichord, accordion and typewriter.
Tiersen is often mistaken as a composer of soundtracks, himself saying "I'm not a composer and I really don't have a classical background", but his real focus is on touring and studio albums which just happen to often be suitable for film. His most famous soundtrack for the film Amélie was primarily made up of tracks taken from his first two studio albums.
Yann Tiersen was born in Brest in the Finistère département in Brittany in northwestern France, in 1970, into a family of Belgian and Norwegian origins. He started learning piano at the age of four, violin at the age of six, and received classical training at several musical academies, including those in Rennes, Nantes, and Boulogne. In the early 1980s when he was a teenager he was influenced by the punk subculture, and bands like The Stooges and Joy Division. In 1983, at the age of 13, he broke his violin, bought an electric guitar, and formed a rock band. Tiersen was now living in Rennes, and this turned out to be the perfect place for his musical career. In fact, Rennes is home to the three-day music festival Rencontres Trans Musicales, held annually in December, giving him the opportunity to see acts like Nirvana, Einstürzende Neubauten, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Cramps, Television, and Suicide. A few years later, when his band broke up, Tiersen bought a cheap mixing desk, an 8-track reel-to-reel audio tape recording, and started recording music solo with a synthesizer, a sampler, and a drum machine.