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Pons, Lily

(Encyclopedia)Pons, Lily pänz, Fr. pôNs [key], 1904–76, French-American coloratura soprano. Pons studied piano at the Paris Conservatory. She made her debut in Delibes's Lakmé at Mulhouse, Alsace, in 1928. She...

Ligeti, György

(Encyclopedia)Ligeti, György, 1923–2006, Hungarian composer. He studied music in Romania and Hungary, and was a teacher at the Budapest Academy of Music until he fled to Vienna (1956) after the Soviet invasion o...

Bolcom, William

(Encyclopedia)Bolcom, William (William Elden Bolcom), 1938–, American composer, b. Seattle, Wash. He attended the Univ. of Washington (B.A., 1958) and studied composition at Mills College and Stanford (D.M.A., 19...

Blitzstein, Marc

(Encyclopedia)Blitzstein, Marc (Marcus Samuel Blitzstein), 1905–64, American composer, pianist, and librettist, b. Philadelphia. After attending the Univ. of Pennsylvania and the Curtis Institute of Music, he stu...

Glazunov, Aleksandr Konstantinovich

(Encyclopedia)Glazunov, Aleksandr Konstantinovich əlyĭksänˈdər kənstəntyēˈnəvĭch gläzo͞oˈnôf [key], 1865–1936, Russian composer, director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, 1906–30. He assisted ...

Nelsons, Andris

(Encyclopedia)Nelsons, Andris, 1978–, Latvian conductor. He studied piano and trumpet, and was a trumpeter with the Latvian National Opera as a teenager. After studying conducting in St. Petersburg, Russia, he ma...

Bliss, Sir Arthur

(Encyclopedia)Bliss, Sir Arthur, 1891–1975, English composer. Bliss's teachers included Charles Stanford, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Gustav Holst. He was made Master of the Queen's Musick in 1953. His early work...

Scharwenka, Franz Xaver

(Encyclopedia)Scharwenka, Franz Xaver fränts ksävârˈ shärvĕngˈkä [key], 1850–1924, Polish-German pianist and composer. He founded his own conservatories in Berlin (1881) and New York City (1891). Beginnin...

Chabrier, Alexis Emmanuel

(Encyclopedia)Chabrier, Alexis Emmanuel älĕksēˈ ĕmänüĕlˈ shäbrēāˈ [key], 1841–94, French composer. His best-known works are an orchestral rhapsody, España (1883); an opera, Le Roi malgré lui (1887)...

Evans, Bill

(Encyclopedia) Evans, Bill, 1929-80, American jazz pianist and composer, b. Plainfield, N.J., as William John Evans, Southeastern Louisiana Univ. (B.Mus., 1950). Eva...