Bilingual Biographer

viernes, noviembre 06, 2009

jueves, octubre 29, 2009

Exploring * Garden of Praise

Garden of Praise
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Tests on Line

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Biographies

viernes, octubre 09, 2009

Sir John Lennon / UK / Beatles

John Lennon
1940–1980, singer, guitarist, songwriter, born in Liverpool, England. British singer, guitarist and harmonica player for The Beatles. After The Beatles broke up in 1970, Lennon launched a successful solo career, releasing Imagine (1971). See more on John Lennon and the Beatles

John Lennon
Rock Musician / Songwriter Born: 9 October 1940 Died: 8 December 1980 (shot to death) Birthplace: Liverpool, England Best known as: One of The Beatles

As half of The Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartney were one of the most successful songwriting teams of the century. Together they wrote dozens of hit tunes, ranging from "Help!" and "Ticket to Ride" to "Penny Lane" and "Let It Be." Lennon's romance with Yoko Ono was a major influence on his post-Beatles career, and he collaborated with her on everything from the modern pop hymn "Imagine" to avant-garde noise and poetry. The Beatles broke up in 1970, and Lennon followed with a solo career marked by uneven recordings and public pleas for world peace. After a reclusive five years as a family man, Lennon released an album with Yoko in 1980, Double Fantasy. As their new song "Just Like Starting Over" was reaching the top of the charts, Lennon was shot to death outside his New York home by Mark David Chapman, a schizophrenic fan.

Extra credit:
Lennon published two illustrated books of poetry and wit in the mid-1960s, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works... His son Julian Lennon is also a singer and musician... Lennon's political positions gained him the enmity of J. Edgar Hoover's F. B. I. and the U.S. State Department, and researchers are still trying to get files on Lennon made public.
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jueves, octubre 01, 2009

miércoles, septiembre 30, 2009

Chuck Berry / Oct 18th / 1926 / USA

Chuck Berry * Oct / 18 / 1926
American rock music guitarist, singer, and songwriter
Born in San Jose, Calif.

He was brought up in St. Louis, Mo., where he still lives.

Berry is widely regarded as one of the leading pioneers of rock music, having blended the blues with country music and added a rhythm-and-blues beat, and he is thought by many to be the inventor of the rock music form. His distinctive playing of the electric guitar and his witty lyrics were a major inspiration for the English pop renaissance and for a wide variety of other rock musicians.
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A dynamic performer, he also became known for his signature crouching and gliding “duck walk.” Berry produced a string of hits in the late 1950s, including “Maybellene,” “Rock and Roll Music,” “Roll Over Beethoven,” and “Johnny B. Goode.”
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In 1962 he was sentenced to two years in prison on the charge of transporting a minor across state lines for immoral purposes.
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His creative output subsequently dwindled and he cut his last record in 1981, butt he continued to be an active and popular performer into the 21st cent. Berry was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.
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Martina Navratilova
tennis player (1956)
Jean-Claude Van Damme

martes, septiembre 29, 2009

Celia Cruz / Oct 21st / 1929 - 2003 / Cuba

Cruz, Celia
Cruz, Celia, 1929–2003,
Cuban-American singer, b. Havana.

The “Queen of Salsa” began singing as a teenager, and in 1950 joined Sonora Matancera, Cuba's most popular band.

She left Cuba a year after Fidel Castro came to power (1960) and was an exile in the United States for the rest of her life. Over the years Cruz sang with nearly every major Latin band, and was particularly noted for her appearances with Tito Puente's orchestra.

A fiery performer who wore skintight costumes and billowing blonde wigs, she sang (in Spanish) a range of Afro-Cuban songs, from traditional Santería chants to popular mambos, cha-chas, and the salsa for which she was famous.

An international star and an icon to the Cuban-American community, she toured widely, sang in clubs and concert venues, and made more than 70 recordings.
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More on Celia Cruz from Infoplease: Celia Cruz -
Celia Cruz Age: 77
Cuban singer whose rich contralto voice, persistently upbeat songs, and effusive ...

lunes, septiembre 28, 2009

Alfred Nobel / Oct 21st / 1833–96

Alfred Nobel
Oct 21st / 1833–96
Swedish chemist and inventor.

Educated in St. Petersburg, Russia, he traveled as a youth and returned to St. Petersburg in 1852 to assist his father in the development of torpedoes and mines.
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Manufacture of a mixture of nitroglycerine and gunpowder, developed cooperatively by the family, was begun in the small Nobel works in Heleneborg, near Stockholm, in 1863. After a number of serious explosions, which killed several people, Nobel continued experimentation with nitroglycerine in order to find a safer explosive.

In 1866 he perfected a combination of nitroglycerine and kieselguhr, a diatomaceous earth, to which he gave the name dynamite.
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His other inventions include an explosive gelatin more powerful than dynamite and the smokeless powder Ballistite.
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Nobel, who inclined toward pacifism, had long had reservations about his family's industry, and he developed strong misgivings about the potential uses of his own invention.
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On his death in San Remo, Italy, he left a fund from the interest of which annual awards, called Nobel Prizes, were to be given for work in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, and literature, and toward the promotion of international peace.

domingo, septiembre 27, 2009

Franz Liszt / Oct 22 / 1811 - 1886

October 22
Franz Liszt
1811–86, Hungarian composer and pianist.

Liszt was a revolutionary figure of romantic music and was acknowledged as the greatest pianist of his time.

He made his debut at nine, going thereafter to Vienna to study with Czerny and Salieri.
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In Paris (1823–25) he knew all the principal artistic figures of the period and was influenced by Berlioz, Chopin, and Paganini.
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He lived with Mme d'Agoult (better known by her pen name, Daniel Stern) from 1833 to 1844, and they had three children; their daughter Cosima became the wife of Hans von Bülow and later of Wagner.
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As a piano virtuoso, Liszt enthralled his audiences with his expressive interpretations and grand style of playing, augmented with dramatic gestures.
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In 1848 he decided to make a career as a composer, and became musical director to the duke of Weimar.
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He remained at Weimar until 1859, and two years later went to Rome, where he became an abbé (1865).
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During the years between 1880 and 1885, in Rome, Weimar, and Budapest, he taught most of the famous pianists of the succeeding generation. In his compositions he favored program music over traditional musical forms.
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Liszt originated the symphonic poem, and although he wrote symphonies, such as the Faust Symphony (1857), most of his orchestral pieces, including Les Préludes and Mazeppa (both 1854), are symphonic poems.
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In his Sonata in B Minor (1853) he developed the technique of transformation of themes, which completely altered the concept of sonata construction. This technique, together with his chromatic harmony, strongly influenced both Wagner and Richard Strauss.
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For the piano Liszt composed prolifically in addition to transcribing many works of other composers.
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His most outstanding works for the piano include Années de pèlerinage (1855–83), Douze Études d'exécution transcendante (final version, 1852), Six Paganini Études (final version, 1851), concertos in E Flat (1855) and A (1848–61), and 20 Hungarian Rhapsodies (of which he published 19).
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Some of his most popular pieces, including Liebestraüme (c.1850), are characterized by lyrical, romantic sentiment; many of his later compositions are somber in tone, full of dissonance and unusual harmonic effects that foreshadow 20th-century music.
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Also Born on October
Catherine Deneuve
actress (1943)
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