Alex North

Alex North (December 4, 1910 – September 8, 1991) was an American composer best known for his many film scores, including A Streetcar Named Desire (one of the first jazz-based film scores), Viva Zapata!, Spartacus, Cleopatra, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. He was the first composer to receive an Honorary Academy Award.

Early life

North was born Isadore Soifer in Chester, Pennsylvania to Russian Jewish parents.

Career

North managed to integrate his modernism into typical film music leitmotif structure, rich with themes. One of these became the famous song, "Unchained Melody". Nominated for fifteen Oscars but unsuccessful each time, North is one of only two film composers to receive the Lifetime Achievement Academy Award, the other being Ennio Morricone. North's frequent collaborator as orchestrator was the avant-garde composer Henry Brant. He won the 1968 Golden Globe award for his music to The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968).

His best-known film scores include A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, Viva Zapata!, The Rainmaker, Spartacus, The Misfits, Cleopatra, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Dragonslayer and Under the Volcano. His music for The Wonderful Country makes use of Mexican and American motifs.

Soundtrack

A soundtrack, also written sound track, can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the synchronized recorded sound.

Origin of the term

In movie industry terminology usage, a sound track is an audio recording created or used in film production or post-production. Initially the dialogue, sound effects, and music in a film each has its own separate track (dialogue track, sound effects track, and music track), and these are mixed together to make what is called the composite track, which is heard in the film. A dubbing track is often later created when films are dubbed into another language. This is also known as a M & E track (music and effects) containing all sound elements minus dialogue which is then supplied by the foreign distributor in the native language of its territory.

Armin van Buuren

Armin van Buuren (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈɑrmɪn vɑn ˈbyːrə(n)]; born 25 December 1976) is a Dutch trance producer, DJ and radio personality.

Since 2001, Van Buuren has hosted a weekly radio show called A State of Trance, which currently has more than 20 million weekly listeners in 74 countries on over 150 FM radio stations. This radio show propelled him to stardom and helped cultivate an interest in trance music around the world.

Van Buuren has won a number of accolades. He has been ranked the World No. 1 DJ by DJ Magazine in their annual Top 100 DJs fan poll a record of five times, 4 years in a row. He is currently ranked World No. 4 on DJ Magazine's list for 2015. In 2014, he was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording for his single "This Is What It Feels Like" featuring Trevor Guthrie, which makes him the fourth trance artist ever to receive a Grammy nomination. In the United States, he holds the record for most entries (21) on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart. His 2008 studio album, Imagine, entered the Dutch album chart at No. 1, a first for a trance artist in Dutch music history.

Coronation Street

Coronation Street (informally known as Corrie) is a British soap opera created by Granada Television and shown on ITV since 9 December 1960. The programme centres on Coronation Street in Weatherfield, a fictional town based on Salford, its terraced houses, café, corner shop, newsagents, textile factory and The Rovers Return pub. The fictional street was built in the early 1900s and named in honour of the coronation of King Edward VII.

The programme was conceived in 1960 by scriptwriter Tony Warren at Granada Television in Manchester. Warren's initial kitchen sink drama proposal was rejected by the station's founder Sidney Bernstein, but he was persuaded by producer Harry Elton to produce the programme for thirteen pilot episodes. Within six months of the show's first broadcast, it had become the most-watched programme on British television, and is now a significant part of British culture. This show has been one of the most financially lucrative programmes on British commercial television, underpinning the success of Granada Television and ITV.

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Dutch: Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest, pronounced [ˌkoːnɪnklək kɔnˈsɛrtxəbʌu̯ɔrˌkɛst]) is a symphony orchestra in the Netherlands, based at the Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw (concert hall). In 1988, Queen Beatrix conferred the "Royal" title upon the orchestra. It is considered one of the world's leading orchestras, having topped numerous polls.

History

The Concertgebouw opened on 11 April 1888. The Concertgebouw Orchestra was established several months later, and gave its first concert in the Concertgebouw on 3 November 1888, conducted by the orchestra's first chief conductor, Willem Kes.

1888–1945: Kes and Mengelberg

Kes served as the orchestra's chief conductor from its 1888 founding to 1895. In 1895, Willem Mengelberg became chief conductor and remained in this position for fifty years, an unusually long tenure for a music director. He is generally regarded as having brought the orchestra to a level of major international significance, with a particular championing of such then-contemporary composers as Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss.