Cultural Kaleidoscope: Music

American music has its own history. The development of American music has gone through different changes connected with the life of the country and its people due to the fact, that the USA is a country of many nations and cultures. American music was very much influenced by their representatives in the 20th century. The rhythmic and lyrical styles of African American music had a great impact on American music in general.

Later, elements from the blues and old-time music were adapted and transformed into popular genres. Early in the twentieth century, Lois Armstrong and Duke Ellington developed jazz. Between the 1920s and the 1950s appeared country music, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll. In the 1960s Bob Dylan became one of America's greatest songwriters, and James Brown introduced funk.

The end of the 20th century was crowned with hip hop and house music. American pop stars, such as Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and Madonna have become world-famous stars.

In the early years of the 21st century there is a great amount of different types of music, although the music of the 20th century continues to live. For example, the classical genre of music attracts more and more listeners. American composers keep on creating their beautiful music. Most orchestras sound better than ever. Most opera companies enjoy the increasing number of their audience, the half of which is the people of 18 to 24 years old.

Those who are not fond of classical music, jazz or country music, prefer to listen to pop music. Pop music still calls the attention to many people around the world. As the world has never lost its appetite for the latest American sounds and stars.

Dear participants of our contest!

We offer you to enter to the world of American music and complete the tasks.

Task 1

Classical music: Study the information about famous representatives of classical music in the USA and fill in the tables. Give all the answers in English.

1. America discovered him as a classic only in the 60-70 years, despite the fact that he wrote his main works in the first quarter of the 20th century. He is considered the first national classic of the USA, who managed to capture in his music the energetic spirit of America, its history and a motley mixture of cultural traditions.

One of his most popular and easiest-to-understand (but far from the most typical) plays lay in his desk for forty years before the public heard it. In the movie "Lovers" (Belle du Seigneur, 2012) directed by Glenio Bonder, this play sounds like an unrequited plea for peace and a premonition of the impending inescapable nightmare of the Second World War.

In addition to this play, another one was written. Both plays underwent a later revision in 1930-1935 and received an independent life, performed both separately and together.

2. This composer used different layers of American music - ragtime, jazz, cowboy dances, Mexican and Latin American folklore. At the same time, he worked in all genres from symphony and ballet to film music. He became the embodiment of the "gold standard" of national classics and the most performed American composer in the USA.

One of the most famous musical works of the American composer was written in 1942 for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under the baton of conductor Eugene Goossens. It was written in response to the entry of the United States into World War II. It was partly inspired by the famous speech of 1942, in which Vice President Henry A. Wallace proclaimed the advent of the "Century of the Common Man." An excerpt from this piece was used by the Rolling Stones as the opening act on their '75 American tour and '76 European tour, where they presented the album Black and Blue. Also, it sounded on September 21, 2012 at Los Angeles International Airport, when the space shuttle “Endeavour” landed after its last flight.

3. This man is the brightest figure of the musical culture of the USA. He is very talented multi-musician, the famous conductor (a student of Sergei Koussevitzky), who discovered Mahler and Ives to the world. He is a great composer, pianist and, without exaggeration, a great educator. Also, he is a lecturer and writer who influenced the perception of classical music by an entire generation of Americans. He conducted many of the world's leading orchestras, chief conductor of the New York Philharmonic (1958-1969). For the first time he performed many works by American composers. He is the author of ballets, symphonies, musicals and other musical works.

His most famous musical includes 11 musical sets. The action of the musical takes place in New York in the mid-1950s, tells about the confrontation of two street gangs - "Jets", who are the descendants of white immigrants, and "Sharks", who are Puerto Ricans.

The musical is often staged in educational institutions, regional theaters and even opera houses of a global scale. The first production of this musical in Russia took place in 1965 on the stage of the Moscow Operetta Theater.

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THE WORKSHEET TO FILL IN THE ANSWERS

Task 2

Pop and Rock artists: listen to the compositions and fill out the table.

THE WORKSHEET TO FILL IN THE ANSWERS