Percy Aldridge Grainger (8 July 1882 – 20 February 1961) was an Australian-born pianist, composer, and champion of the saxophone and the Concert band. He was born in Brighton, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. His father was an architect who emigrated from London, England, and his mother, Rose, was the daughter of hoteliers from Adelaide, South Australia, also of English immigrant stock. His father was an alcoholic.
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, known generally as Felix Mendelssohn (February 3, 1809 Hamburg, Germany – November 4, 1847 Leipzig) was a German composer and conductor of Jewish parentage of the early Romantic period. His work includes symphonies, concertos, oratorios, piano and chamber music. After a long period of relative denigration due to changing musical tastes in the late 19th century, his creative originality is now being recognized and re-evaluated, and he is now amongst the most popular composers of the Romantic era.
Lonely Drifter Karen was born from the union of three people with very different geographical and musical backgrounds (from folk and rock to cabaret, experimental, classical, indie pop & more). Started as a solo project by Viennese-born Tanja Frinta while she was living in Sweden, LDK became a band when Tanja moved to Barcelona and met Italian drummer Giorgio Menossi and Mallorcan keyboard player and arranger Marc Meliá Sobrevias.
Andrew McCormack was born in Roehampton, United Kingdom in 1978. He began learning the piano at the age of thirteen and, at sixteen, commenced studies at Pimlico School, where he had jazz lessons with Andrea Vicari, in their specialist music department. In 1996 Andrew received a scholarship to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he had both classical piano lessons, with Andrew Ball and Paul Roberts, as well as studying jazz piano with Simon Purcell. He also began composition lessons with Matthew King whilst he was in his final year.
Edmund Cottam is a Manchester based singer songwriter (previously, and still often know as just Ed Cottam). Imagine what a quintessentially Victorian Englishman would sound like after being affected by Nick Cave’s whole back catalogue. “His voice is incredibly distinct, a bit reminiscent of Antony and the Johnsons (he’s probably fed up of being described thus) but my knowledge of haunting melodramatic singers is limited. It’s kind of like you’d think Edgar Allen Poe might sing like, resonant and melancholy and a touch gothic and fragile.”
"New Zealand born, Sydney based Aron Ottignon is only 24, but he has already developed a boldly original approach to composition and performance. Some of his tunes are built around strong melodic hooks that have the instant appeal of a cleverly constructed pop song. Others hang on the barest of harmonic pegs and are instead pinned to an insistent, pulsating rhythm (or series of rhythms). Silvery piano melodies, thumping bass riffs, rolling rhythms, and spiky, sometimes ferocious percussion breaks"Jessica Nichols The Age 13/07/05
The Big I Am are a four piece band based in London. Their music is a combination of soaring and heartfelt acoustic moments and something altogether more raw and anthemic, retaining throughout their distinctive sense of rhythm and melody and ability to affect the listener. Originally formed in Oxford in 2000 before shifting the whole operation to the big smoke in 2004, TBIA have been taking some of London's darkest, dingiest gig venues by storm. Their In Your Arms EP has attracted siginficant interest and more recording is planned early in 2008.
Sara Groves (born in 1972) is an American singer/songwriter from Burnsville, Minnesota, near the Twin Cities and has some family in Vineland, NJ. Sara received her Bachelor of Science degree in History and English in 1994 from Evangel University, a private Christian university in Springfield, Missouri. Sara spent four years teaching high school in Rosemount, Minnesota before recording her first album, Past the Wishing, in 1998.
Peter Donohoe CBE born in Manchester, 18 June 1953 is the premier English pianist of his generation. He started his musical career as a percussionist with the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and he still occasionally performs with Percussion. He was awarded joint-second prize in the 1982 International Tchaikovsky Competition with Vladimir Ovchinnikov (no first prize was awarded that year).
