Portal:Music

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The Music Portal

Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all human societies. Definitions of music vary widely in substance and approach. While scholars agree that music is defined by a small number of specific elements, there is no consensus as to what these necessary elements are. Music is often characterized as a highly versatile medium for expressing human creativity. Diverse activities are involved in the creation of music, and are often divided into categories of composition, improvisation, and performance. Music may be performed using a wide variety of musical instruments, including the human voice. It can also be composed, sequenced, or otherwise produced to be indirectly played mechanically or electronically, such as via a music box, barrel organ, or digital audio workstation software on a computer.

Music often plays a key role in social events and religious ceremony. The techniques of making music are often transmitted as part of a cultural tradition. Music is played in public and private contexts, highlighted at events such as festivals and concerts for various different types of ensembles. Music is used in the production of other media, such as in soundtracks to films, TV shows, operas, and video games.

Listening to music is a common means of entertainment. The culture surrounding music extends into areas of academic study, journalism, philosophy, psychology, and therapy. The music industry includes songwriters, performers, sound engineers, producers, tour organizers, distributors of instruments, accessories, and publishers of sheet music and recordings. Technology facilitating the recording and reproduction of music has historically included sheet music, microphones, phonographs, and tape machines, with playback of digital musics being a common use for MP3 players, CD players, and smartphones. (Full article...)

General images - load new batch

The following are images from various music-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1The Bull Headed Lyre of Ur, found in the Royal Cemetery at Ur, is the best known of the ancient Lyres of Ur (from History of music)
Image 2A Rhodes College student listening to the 1969 Yes LP on campus, c. 1970 (from Album era)
Image 3Taylor Swift, a longtime adherent to album-era rollouts, surprise-released her albums instead in 2020. (from Album era)
Image 4The monumental Bianzhong of Marquis Yi of Zeng, c. 5th century BCE, from Hubei (from History of music)
Image 5A musician in a recording studio (from Music industry)
Image 6Alleluia nativitas by Perotin from the Codex Guelf.1099 (from History of music)
Image 7Circular definition of "musicality" (from Elements of music)
Image 8The Japanese boy band Arashi, who had the world's best-selling album (5x20 All the Best!!) in 2019 (from Album era)
Image 9A young man browsing through a record store in Bonn, West Germany, June 1988 (from Album era)
Image 10An HMV record shop in Wakefield, England closing its operation in 2013 (from Album era)
Image 11Kanye West (2007) emerged during the decade as an important hip-hop producer and album artist. (from Album era)
Image 12The Rolling Stones in 1967 (from Album era)
Image 13US vinyl sales in units, 1995–2020; while album sales overall declined, those in the vinyl format rose toward the end of the 2010s. (from Album era)
Image 14Platinum records by Elvis Presley, Prince, Madonna, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Bruce Springsteen, at Julien's Auctions (from Album era)
Image 15A smartphone displaying playlists on Spotify, 2010. The streaming service became a dominant and redefining platform for music consumption through the decade. (from Album era)
Image 16A studio engineer working with an audio mixer in a recording studio (from Music industry)
Image 17c. 379 CE Bas relief of Sassanid women playing the chang in Taq-e Bostan, Iran (from History of music)
Image 18Musicians working in a recording studio (from Music industry)
Image 19Drawing of the tablet with the Hymn to Nikkal (c. 1400 BCE), the oldest of the Hurrian songs (from History of music)
Image 20Terracotta statue of a Parthian lute player (from History of music)
Image 21Frank Sinatra (c. 1955), an early pop album artist (from Album era)
Image 22As LPs fell out of favor to CDs, hip hop producers repurposed them as sampling sources, contributing to the development of record collecting. (from Album era)
Image 23J. S. Bach (from History of music)
Image 24A live musical performance at Cologne Pride, 2013 (from Music industry)
Image 25Sheet music for part of the Missa Papae Marcelli by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (from History of music)
Image 26Pink Floyd (1973) performing The Dark Side of the Moon, a leading commercial success of the LP era (from Album era)
Image 27Notation indicating differing pitch, dynamics, articulation, and instrumentation (from Elements of music)
Image 28Stevie Wonder, among the era's innovative artists (from Album era)
Image 29Two musicians of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220 CE), Shanghai Museum (from History of music)
Image 30Frances Densmore at the Smithsonian Institution in 1916 where she was recording Blackfoot chief Mountain Chief for the Bureau of American Ethnology. In this picture, Mountain Chief is listening to a recording. (from Music industry)
Image 31Clara and Robert Schumann (from History of music)
Image 32Beyoncé (2016) popularized the surprise-album strategy of the 2010s. (from Album era)
Image 33An example of mechanically printed sheet music (from Music industry)
Image 34The Beatles (1964) have been credited by music historians for heralding the album era. (from Album era)
Image 35An audience watching a concert (from Music industry)
Image 36The portable Discman CD player, which was released in 1984 and precipitated the displacement of LPs (from Album era)
Image 37Guillaume Du Fay (left), with Gilles Binchois (right) in a c. 1440 Illuminated manuscript copy of Martin le Franc's Le champion des dames (from History of music)
Image 38A radio broadcasting system from 1906 (from Music industry)
Image 39An LP record on a phonograph (from Album era)
Image 40The logo for Apple Inc.'s online iTunes store, which sells digital files of songs and musical pieces–along with a range of other content, such as digital files of TV shows and movies (from Music industry)
Image 41A young couple listening to music on an iPod Mini, 2006 (from Album era)

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Featured articles - load new batch

Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.

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Perry in 2024

Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television personality. Perry is one of the best-selling music artists in history, having sold over 143 million units worldwide. She is known for her influence on pop music and her camp style, being dubbed the "Queen of Camp" by Vogue and Rolling Stone.

At 16, Perry released a gospel record titled Katy Hudson (2001) under Red Hill Records, which was commercially unsuccessful. She moved to Los Angeles at 17 to venture into secular music, and later adopted the stage name "Katy Perry" from her mother's maiden name. She recorded an album while signed to Columbia Records, but was dropped before signing to Capitol Records. Perry rose to fame with One of the Boys (2008), a pop rock record containing her debut single "I Kissed a Girl" and follow-up single "Hot n Cold", which reached number one and three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 respectively. (Full article...)
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Debussy c. 1900 by Atelier Nadar

(Achille) Claude Debussy (French: [aʃil klod dəbysi]; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Born to a family of modest means and little cultural involvement, Debussy showed enough musical talent to be admitted at the age of ten to France's leading music college, the Conservatoire de Paris. He originally studied the piano, but found his vocation in innovative composition, despite the disapproval of the Conservatoire's conservative professors. He took many years to develop his mature style, and was nearly 40 when he achieved international fame in 1902 with the only opera he completed, Pelléas et Mélisande. (Full article...)
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Wish You Were Here is the ninth studio album by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released on 12 September 1975 through Harvest Records in the UK and Columbia Records in the US, their first for the label. Based on material Pink Floyd composed while performing in Europe, Wish You Were Here was recorded over numerous sessions throughout 1975 at EMI Studios in London.

The lyrics express alienation and criticism of the music business. The bulk of the album is taken up by "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", a nine-part tribute to the Pink Floyd co-founder Syd Barrett, who had left seven years earlier due to his deteriorating mental health. Barrett coincidentally visited during the recording. As with their previous release, The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Pink Floyd employed studio effects and synthesisers. Guest singers included Roy Harper, who provided the lead vocals on "Have a Cigar", and Venetta Fields, who added backing vocals to "Shine On You Crazy Diamond". To promote the album, Pink Floyd released the double A-side single "Have a Cigar" / "Welcome to the Machine". (Full article...)
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Ima Hogg, c. 1900

Ima Hogg (July 10, 1882 – August 19, 1975), known as "The First Lady of Texas", was an American society leader, philanthropist, mental health advocate, patron and collector of the arts, and one of the most respected women in Texas during the 20th century. Hogg was an avid art collector, and owned works by Picasso, Klee, and Matisse, among others. Hogg donated hundreds of pieces of artwork to Houston's Museum of Fine Arts and served on a committee to plan the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. An enthusiastic collector of early American antiques, she also served on a committee tasked with locating historical furniture for the White House. She restored and refurbished several properties, including the Varner plantation and Bayou Bend, which she later donated to Texas arts and historical institutions who maintain the facilities and their collections today. Hogg received numerous awards and honors, including the Louise E. du Pont Crowninshield Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Santa Rita Award from the University of Texas System, and an honorary doctorate in fine arts from Southwestern University.

Hogg was the daughter of Sarah Ann "Sallie" Stinson and James Stephen "Big Jim" Hogg, later attorney general and governor of the state. Ima Hogg's first name was taken from The Fate of Marvin, an epic poem written by her uncle Thomas Hogg. She endeavored to downplay her unusual name by signing her first name illegibly and having her stationery printed with "I. Hogg" or "Miss Hogg". Although it was rumored that Hogg had a sister or sisters, whose names were suggested to be "Hoosa Hogg", "Ura Hogg" or "Wera Hogg", she had only brothers. Hogg's father left public office in 1895, and soon after, her mother was diagnosed with tuberculosis. When Sarah died later that year, Jim Hogg's widowed elder sister moved to Austin to care for the Hogg children. Between 1899 and 1901, Hogg attended the University of Texas at Austin; she then moved to New York City to study piano and music theory for two years. After her father's death in 1906, she traveled to Europe and spent two years studying music under Xaver Scharwenka in Vienna. When she returned to Texas, she established and managed the Houston Symphony Orchestra and served as president of the Symphony Society. (Full article...)
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Albert William Ketèlbey (/kəˈtɛlbi/; born Ketelbey; 9 August 1875 – 26 November 1959) was an English composer, conductor and pianist, best known for his short pieces of light orchestral music. He was born in Birmingham and moved to London in 1889 to study at Trinity College of Music. After a brilliant studentship he did not pursue the classical career predicted for him, becoming musical director of the Vaudeville Theatre before gaining fame as a composer of light music and as a conductor of his own works.

For many years Ketèlbey worked for a series of music publishers, including Chappell & Co and the Columbia Graphophone Company, making arrangements for smaller orchestras, a period in which he learned to write fluent and popular music. He also found great success writing music for silent films until the advent of talking films in the late 1920s. (Full article...)
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Aaliyah is the third and final studio album by American R&B singer Aaliyah. It was released on July 7, 2001, by Blackground Records and Virgin Records. Because of its packaging design, it is also known as "The Red Album". Aaliyah started to work on the album in 1998, but rescheduled its recording around her developing film career. She resumed recording in 2000 at Sing Sing Studios in Australia, where she shot her role for the 2002 film Queen of the Damned during the day and recorded songs at night. Additional recording took place at Manhattan Center and Sony Music Studios in New York and Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles, among other locations. Through her recording contract with Blackground, the singer worked primarily with the record label's in-house crew of writers and producers, including Bud'da, J. Dub, Rapture, and Eric Seats, as well as longtime collaborator Timbaland.

Aaliyah is described in critical commentaries as an album of R&B, neo soul, and dance-pop, while drawing on an array of other genres such as funk, hip hop, alternative rock, electronica, and Latin music. The album's producers incorporated synthesizer melodies, fragmented beats, distorted guitar, and eccentrically manipulated vocals and song structures, while much of the lyrics were written by singer-songwriter Static Major, who shared a close friendship and strong rapport with Aaliyah. The resulting songs deal with the complexities of romantic love and different stages in a relationship. Aaliyah viewed the album as a reflection of herself as both a young adult and a matured vocalist. (Full article...)
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Fórmula, Vol. 1 is the debut studio album by American singer Romeo Santos, released on November 8, 2011, by Sony Music Latin. It is Santos's first album as a solo artist following the break-up of American bachata group Aventura, of which he was the lead singer. The record contains fifteen tracks, most of which were composed by Santos and co-produced with Ivan Chevere. The album experiments with the sound of bachata and other genres including R&B and flamenco. It features several Anglophone and Hispanophone guest artists including Usher, Tomatito, Mario Domm, and Lil Wayne. Recording for the album took place in 2011 at The Castle, Fight Klub, and EMG Studios in New York City. A deluxe edition of the album containing five extra tracks was released exclusively in Walmart retail stores in the United States.

In the U.S., Formula, Vol. 1 peaked at number one on the Billboard Top Latin Albums and Billboard Tropical Albums charts and was the best-selling Latin album of 2012. It was certified three times platinum (Latin field) by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipping 300,000 copies and had sold 328,000 copies in the U.S. by February 2014. It ranked number thirteen, twenty-six, and seventy-seven on the Argentine, Mexican, and Spanish album charts respectively. (Full article...)
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"Deja Vu" (stylized in all lowercase) is a song by American singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo. It was released on April 1, 2021, through Geffen and Interscope Records, as the second single from her debut studio album, Sour (2021). Rodrigo wrote the song with its producer Dan Nigro, with Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff, and St. Vincent receiving writing credits for its interpolation of Swift's 2019 song "Cruel Summer". An incorporation of various pop sub-genres, "Deja Vu" explores themes of nostalgia, heartbreak, and the complexity of moving on from a past relationship. Olivia Rodrigo reflects on the memories associated with her previous relationship and the struggle to let go, even as she acknowledges that the new couple is creating their own memories.

"Deja Vu" received acclaim from music critics, many of whom considered it a strong follow-up to "Drivers License" (2021) and praised its lyrics. In the United States, the song debuted at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 and made Rodrigo the first artist to debut their first two singles in the chart's top 10. It eventually peaked at number three. "Deja Vu" reached the top 10 in Ireland, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Canada, Latvia, the United Kingdom, Portugal, and the Czech Republic. (Full article...)
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Santiago performing in 2017

Joseph Alberto Santiago (born June 10, 1965) is a Filipino-American guitarist and composer. Active since 1986, Santiago is best known as the co-founder and lead guitarist of the alternative rock band Pixies. After the band's breakup in 1993, Santiago produced musical scores for film and television documentaries, and he formed The Martinis with his ex-wife, Linda Mallari. He also contributed to albums by Charles Douglas and former Pixies band-mate Frank Black. Santiago resumed his role as the Pixies' lead guitarist when they reunited in 2004.

Santiago has described his guitar technique as "angular and bent", and he cites Les Paul, George Harrison, Chet Atkins, Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass and Jimi Hendrix as major influences on his style. His guitar playing, as part of the Pixies' sound, was held in high regard by critics: MTV's Laurel Bowman commented that Santiago's "sonic plow was the key element in the Pixies' monstrous presence". (Full article...)
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The composer at the piano, c. 1910

Der 100. Psalm (The 100th Psalm), Op. 106, is a composition in four movements by Max Reger in D major for mixed choir and orchestra, a late Romantic setting of Psalm 100. Reger began composing the work in 1908 for the 350th anniversary of Jena University. The occasion was celebrated that year with the premiere of Part I, conducted by Fritz Stein on 31 July. Reger completed the composition in 1909. It was published that year and premiered simultaneously on 23 February 1910 in Chemnitz, conducted by the composer, and in Breslau, conducted by Georg Dohrn.

Reger structured the text in four movements, as a choral symphony. He scored it for a four-part choir with often divided voices, a large symphony orchestra, and organ. He requested additional brass players for the climax in the last movement when four trumpets and four trombones play the melody of Luther's chorale "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott". Reger used both late-Romantic features of harmony and dynamics, and polyphony in the Baroque tradition, culminating in the final movement, a double fugue with the added instrumental cantus firmus. (Full article...)
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Bleed American is the fourth studio album by the American rock band Jimmy Eat World, released on July 24, 2001, by DreamWorks Records. The album was re-released as Jimmy Eat World following the September 11 attacks; that name remained until 2008, when it was re-released with its original title returned.

Following the commercial failure and lack of recognition for their third studio album Clarity (1999) from Capitol Records, Jimmy Eat World were dropped by the label in late 1999. Aside from working odd jobs, the band toured to raise money for their next album. It was recorded with Mark Trombino and the band served as producers in October and November 2000 at the Cherokee and Harddrive studios in Los Angeles, respectively. The musical style was more direct and accessible than its predecessor, with simpler chord structures. (Full article...)
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Makeba during a performance

Zenzile Miriam Makeba (/məˈkeɪbə/ mə-KAY-bə, Xhosa: [máˈkʼêːɓà̤] ; 4 March 1932 – 9 November 2008), nicknamed Mama Africa, was a South African singer, songwriter, actress, and civil rights activist. Associated with musical genres including Afropop, jazz, and world music, she was an advocate against apartheid and white-minority government in South Africa.

Born in Johannesburg to Swazi and Xhosa parents, Makeba was forced to find employment as a child after the death of her father. She had a brief and allegedly abusive first marriage at the age of 17, gave birth to her only child in 1950, and survived breast cancer. Her vocal talent had been recognized when she was a child, and she began singing professionally in the 1950s, with the Cuban Brothers, the Manhattan Brothers, and an all-woman group, the Skylarks, performing a mixture of jazz, traditional African melodies, and Western popular music. In 1959, Makeba had a brief role in the anti-apartheid film Come Back, Africa, which brought her international attention, and led to her performing in Venice, London, and New York City. In London, she met the American singer Harry Belafonte, who became a mentor and colleague. She moved to New York City, where she became immediately popular, and recorded her first solo album in 1960. Her attempt to return to South Africa that year for her mother's funeral was prevented by the country's government. (Full article...)
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Silent Alarm is the debut studio album by English rock band Bloc Party. Recorded in Copenhagen and London in mid-2004 with Paul Epworth as producer, it was released on 2 February 2005, by Wichita Recordings. The album peaked at number three on the UK Albums Chart. In the United States, it entered the Billboard 200 at number 114 and the Billboard Independent Albums at number seven. “Helicopter”, the double A-side "So Here We Are/Positive Tension", "Banquet" and "The Pioneers" were released as singles. Silent Alarm went on to achieve worldwide sales of over one million copies.

Bloc Party aimed to create an album that appealed to followers of different musical genres. Building on the arrangements in their demo songs recorded in 2004, the band members moulded tracks largely through live takes during the Silent Alarm studio sessions. The compositional focus was on rhythm and the drum and bass parts, while lyricist Kele Okereke's writing examined the feelings and hopes of young adults, including views on global politics. Following the album's completion, Bloc Party embarked on promotional tours before its release. (Full article...)
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Walter Bache

Walter Bache (/ˈbeɪtʃ/; 19 June 1842 – 26 March 1888) was an English pianist and conductor noted for his championing the music of Franz Liszt and other music of the New German School in England. He studied privately with Liszt in Italy from 1863 to 1865, one of the few students allowed to do so, and continued to attend Liszt's master classes in Weimar, Germany regularly until 1885, even after embarking on a solo career. This period of study was unparalleled by any other student of Liszt and led to a particularly close bond between Bache and Liszt. After initial hesitation on the part of English music critics because he was a Liszt pupil, Bache was publicly embraced for his keyboard prowess, even as parts of his repertoire were questioned.

Bache's major accomplishment was the establishment of Liszt's music in England, to which he selflessly devoted himself between 1865 and his death in 1888. This was at the height of the War of the Romantics, when conservative and liberal musical factions openly argued about the future of classical music and the merits of the compositions written in their respective schools. Bache featured several of the orchestral and choral works through an annual series of concerts, which he single-handedly funded, organised and promoted. Likewise, he played an annual series of solo recitals that incorporated Liszt's piano music. (Full article...)
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Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall is the sixth album (and first live album) by the Canadian-American singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright, released through Geffen Records in December 2007. The album consists of live recordings from his sold-out June 14–15, 2006, tribute concerts at Carnegie Hall to the American actress and singer Judy Garland. Backed by a 36-piece orchestra conducted by Stephen Oremus, Wainwright recreated Garland's April 23, 1961, concert, often considered "the greatest night in show business history". Garland's 1961 double album, Judy at Carnegie Hall, a comeback performance with more than 25 American pop and jazz standards, was highly successful, initially spending 95 weeks on the Billboard charts and garnering five Grammy Awards (including Album of the Year, Best Album Cover, Best Solo Vocal Performance – Female and Best Engineering Contribution – Popular Recording).

For his album, Wainwright was also recognized by the Grammy Awards, earning a 2009 nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. While the tribute concerts were popular and the album was well received by critics, album sales were limited. Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall managed to chart in three nations, peaking at number 84 in Belgium, number 88 in the Netherlands and number 171 on the United States' Billboard 200. (Full article...)

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Selected pictures

Image 1
Mike Dirnt
Photograph: Sven-Sebastian Sajak
Mike Dirnt (b. 1972) is an American musician, songwriter and composer. He is best known as the co-founder, bassist, backing and occasional lead vocalist of American punk rock band Green Day. He has played in several other bands, including The Frustrators.
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Elvis Presley meets Richard Nixon
Photograph: Oliver F. Atkins
American singer Elvis Presley meeting then-president Richard Nixon on December 21, 1970. During the meeting, the singer expressed his patriotism and his contempt for hippies, the growing drug culture, and the counterculture in general. Presley then asked Nixon for a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge, to signify official sanction of his patriotic efforts. Nixon gave Presley the badge and expressed a belief that Presley could send a positive message to young people and that it was therefore important he retain his credibility.
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Nelly Martyl
Photograph credit: Jean Reutlinger; restored by Adam Cuerden
Nelly Martyl (1884–1953) was a French opera singer. She sang in the premieres of several operas, including Leborne's La Catalane (1907), Erlanger's La Sorcière (1912), and Massenet's Amadis (1922). Martyl joined the Red Cross as a nurse during the First World War, and served at the Battle of Verdun in 1916, where she was known as la fée de Verdun (the Fairy of Verdun), and at the Second Battle of the Aisne in 1917. She continued as a nurse after the war to help with the 1918 epidemic of Spanish flu. She was awarded the Croix de Guerre with the carte du combattant (signifying service under particular hazard) in 1920.
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Ane Brun
Photo: Benoît Derrier; edit: Keraunoscopia
Ane Brun (b. 1976) is a Norwegian songwriter, guitarist and vocalist. She has recorded eight albums, starting in 2003 with Spending Time with Morgan.
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Henrik Freischlader
Photograph: Stefan Krause
Henrik Freischlader (b. 1982) is a German blues guitarist and singer. He began his career in 1998, and established his own label, Cable Car Records, in 2009.
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Jules Massenet
Photograph credit: Eugène Pirou; restored by Adam Cuerden
Jules Massenet (12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic era, best known for his operas. Between 1867 and his death, he wrote more than forty stage works in a wide variety of styles, from opéra comique to grand depictions of classical myths, romantic comedies and lyric dramas, as well as oratorios, cantatas and ballets. Massenet had a good sense of the theatre and of what would succeed with the Parisian public. Despite some miscalculations, he produced a series of successes that made him the leading opera composer in France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By the time of his death, he was regarded as old-fashioned; his works, however, began to be favourably reassessed during the mid-20th century, and many have since been staged and recorded. This photograph of Massenet was taken by French photographer Eugène Pirou in 1875.
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Hayley Williams
Photograph: Sven-Sebastian Sajak
Hayley Williams (born December 27, 1988) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and businesswoman. She serves as the lead vocalist, primary songwriter and occasional keyboardist of the rock band Paramore. Born in Meridian, Mississippi, Williams moved to Franklin, Tennessee, at the age of fifteen after her parents divorced. In 2004, she formed Paramore alongside Josh Farro, Zac Farro, and Jeremy Davis. The band currently consists of Williams, Farro and Taylor York. They have released five studio albums: All We Know Is Falling (2005), Riot! (2007), Brand New Eyes (2009), Paramore (2013) and After Laughter (2017).
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Médée
Graphic: Giuseppe Palanti
Médée is a French-language opera by the composer Luigi Cherubini. Set in the ancient city of Corinth, Greece, it features a libretto by François-Benoît Hoffman and is based on Euripides's tragic play Medea and Pierre Corneille's play Médée. The opera premiered in 1797 at the Théâtre Feydeau in Paris. The long-lost final aria, which Cherubini appears to have deleted from his original manuscript, was discovered by researchers from the University of Manchester and Stanford University by employing X-ray techniques to reveal areas that the composer had blackened out.

This picture shows the title page for a vocal score of the 1909 hybrid version of Médée.
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Thomas Linley the elder
Painting: Thomas Gainsborough
Thomas Linley the elder (17 January 1733 – 19 November 1795) was an English bass singer and musician. He began his musical career at age 11 in Bath, becoming apprentice to the organist Thomas Chilcot. Linley married in 1752 and fathered eight children, supporting the family by working as a music teacher. As his children grew he developed their musical talent and was able to draw an increasing amount of income from their concerts. When the Bath Assembly Rooms opened in 1771, Linley became musical director and continued to promote his children's careers. He was eventually able to move to London with the thousands of pounds which he had amassed from their concerts. In addition to his children Linley taught tenor Charles Dignum, singer and actress Anna Maria Crouch, and novelist Frances Sheridan. He collaborated with his son Thomas Linley the younger in penning the comic opera The Duenna, with libretto by his son-in-law Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

This picture is an oil-on-canvas painting created around 1770 by Thomas Gainsborough, showing Linley holding his "Elegies for Three Voices". It hangs in the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London.
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Le mage
Poster credit: Alfredo Leonardo Edel; restored by Adam Cuerden
Le mage is an opera in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Jean Richepin. First performed at the Paris Opera in 1891, it has rarely been performed since its premiere run of 31 performances, and is one of Massenet's least-known operas. A rare complete concert performance took place at the Massenet Festival in Saint-Étienne in 2012. This poster by Alfredo Edel was produced for the opera's premiere on 16 March 1891.
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Carl Nielsen
Photograph: Georg Lindstrøm; restoration: Adam Cuerden
Carl Nielsen (1865–1931) was a Danish musician, conductor and violinist, widely recognized as his country's most prominent composer. Initially playing in a military band before attending the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, he premiered his Op. 1, Suite for Strings, in 1888, at the age of 23. His early music was inspired by composers such as Brahms and Grieg, but he soon developed his own style. By the time of his death, he had produced 419 known works; some of these, such as his opera Maskarade (1906), have become integral to Denmark's national heritage.
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Thelonious Monk
Photograph credit: William P. Gottlieb; restored by Adam Cuerden
Thelonious Monk (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer, and the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington. He had a unique improvisational style and famously remarked, "The piano ain't got no wrong notes". He made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "'Round Midnight", and a wide range of other compositions. He was renowned for a distinctive dress style, which included suits, hats, and sunglasses. He had disappeared from the scene by the mid-1970s and made only a few appearances during the final decade of his life. This 1947 photograph of Monk was taken by the American photographer William P. Gottlieb in Minton's Playhouse, a jazz club in New York.
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Zürich Opera House
Photograph: Roland Fischer
The Zürich Opera House is an opera house in the Swiss city of Zürich. Located at the Sechseläutenplatz, it has been the home of the Zürich Opera since the current building was completed in 1891. It also houses the Bernhard-Theater Zürich.
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Nina Sublatti
Photograph: Ailura
Nina Sublatti (b. 1995) is a Georgian singer, songwriter, and model. Having previously won the 2013 Georgian edition of Idol, she achieved international attention when she represented her country in Eurovision Song Contest 2015 with her song "Warrior". She has since served as a judge on X Factor Georgia and Idols.
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Franz Lehár
Photograph: Bain News Service; restoration: Adam Cuerden
Franz Lehár (1870–1948) was an Austro-Hungarian composer mainly known for his operettas, the most successful and best known being The Merry Widow. He also wrote sonatas, symphonic poems and marches.
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... that a performance by Milkie Way at the 2021 Heavy Music Awards got its Twitch stream banned for three days?
... that Max Weil, founder of the Halifax Symphony Orchestra, spent his later years in real estate?
... that one critic interpreted a SZA song as being about her fears about the growing influence of AI in the music industry?
... that Samuel Barber said that he could not adequately play his own Piano Sonata?
... that the radio program Radio City Music Hall of the Air employed approximately 10,000 musicians during the first eight years of its broadcast history?