Symphony

A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often written by composers for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning common today: a work usually consisting of multiple distinct sections or movements, often four, with the first movement in sonata form. Symphonies are scored for string (violin, viola, cello and double bass), brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments which altogether number about 30–100 musicians. Symphonies are notated in a musical score, which contains all the instrument parts. Orchestral musicians play from parts which contain just the notated music for their instrument. A small number of symphonies also contain vocal parts (e.g., Beethoven's Ninth Symphony).

Origins

The word symphony is derived from Greek συμφωνία (symphonia), meaning "agreement or concord of sound", "concert of vocal or instrumental music", from σύμφωνος (symphōnos), "harmonious". The word referred to an astonishing variety of different things, before ultimately settling on its current meaning designating a musical form.

Symphonic metal

Symphonic metal is a subgenre of metal music which combines the characteristics of this genre, such as heavy drums and guitars, with different elements of classical music including symphonic instruments, choirs and on occasion, a full symphony orchestra. Keyboards reminiscent of power metal also often find a dominant place in this subgenre. Symphonic metal bands often feature classically trained female vocalists, giving rise to the nickname opera metal or operatic metal, and it is not uncommon for them to feature a second vocalist performing growls, a more common characteristic of gothic metal. Perhaps the most typical and prominent examples of symphonic metal bands are Finnish band Nightwish, Swedish band Therion and Dutch band Epica, all three of which place a large focus on elements prevalent in film scores on top of the more basic classical components utilized more widely in the genre.

Musical characteristics

The main musical influences on symphonic metal are early gothic metal, power metal and symphonic rock.

Chrono Trigger

Chrono Trigger (Japanese: クロノ・トリガー, Hepburn: Kurono Torigā) is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1995. Chrono Trigger's development team included three designers that Square dubbed the "Dream Team": Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Square's Final Fantasy series; Yuji Horii, a freelance designer and creator of Enix's popular Dragon Quest series; and Akira Toriyama, a freelance manga artist famed for his work with Dragon Quest and Dragon Ball. Kazuhiko Aoki produced the game,Masato Kato wrote most of the plot, while composer Yasunori Mitsuda scored most of the game before falling ill and deferring the remaining tracks to Final Fantasy series composer Nobuo Uematsu. The game's story follows a group of adventurers who travel through time to prevent a global catastrophe.

Square re-released a ported version by Tose in Japan for Sony's PlayStation in 1999, later repackaged with a Final Fantasy IV port as Final Fantasy Chronicles in 2001 for the North American market. A slightly enhanced Chrono Trigger, again ported by Tose, was released for the Nintendo DS on November 25, 2008, in North America and Japan, and went on sale in Australia on February 3, 2009 and in Europe on February 6, 2009. The game was never released in PAL territories before the Nintendo DS version.

Clean Bandit

Clean Bandit is an English electronic group founded in Cambridge, England, in 2009. The group consists of Jack Patterson, Luke Patterson, Grace Chatto, and Neil Amin-Smith.

Their 2010 single "Mozart's House", released on Black Butter Records, reached number 17 on the UK Singles Chart. In January 2014, they scored their first UK Singles Chart-topping single with "Rather Be", a collaboration with Jess Glynne, featuring elements of both classical and dance music. "Rather Be" remained at the top of the chart for four weeks. In 2014, they achieved their first US Top 10 single with "Rather Be" peaking at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. The group had its largest performance in summer of 2015 in Baku, Azerbaijan, at the closing ceremony of 2015 European Games, which had over 68,000 attendances.

In 2015, "Rather Be" won the Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording.

History

2006–12: formation and career beginnings

Band members Jack Patterson, Grace Chatto, and Neil Amin-Smith met while studying as undergraduates at Jesus College, University of Cambridge. At the time, Amin-Smith was leading a string quartet together with Chatto, who both attended Westminster School.

Zara Larsson

Zara Maria Larsson (pronounced [ˈsɑːra maˈriːa ˈlɑːʂɔn]; born 16 December 1997) is a Swedish singer and songwriter. She received national fame for winning the 2008 season of the talent show Talang, the Swedish version of Got Talent. Zara signed with the record label TEN Music Group in 2010 and released her debut EP album Introducing, in January 2013. The single "Uncover" topped the charts in Sweden and Norway. By February 2013 her single "Uncover" was certified Platinum by Universal Music Sweden. In July 2013 the album Introducing was certified Triple Platinum. Zara also signed a three-year contract with Epic Records in the United States in April 2013. She lives with her mother, father and her younger sister.

Early life

Zara Larsson was born on 16 December 1997 in Stockholm, Sweden. She has one younger sister, Hanna.

Career

2007–11: Career beginnings

Larsson was a finalist of the Swedish talent show called Talang in 2007, which is the Swedish version of Britain´s Got Talent. In 2008 Larsson won the Talang competition at age 10, and received the prize money of 500,000 SEK. "My Heart Will Go On" was later released as Larsson's debut single. A video of her performance in the final has received over 15 million views on YouTube.