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American music and ballet.
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What states of the USA make up New England?
Made up of the northernmost five states along the Atlantic seaboard plus Vermont and parts of New York.
The region was named New England in 1616 by the English explorer John Smith and the designation was made official in 1620.
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National parks, conservation and recreation areas, administrative division of the UK.
In the UK there are many National Forest Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Heritage Coasts and World Heritage Sites.
There are 7 national parks in England. They are: Dartmoor, Exmoor, Lake District, Northumberland, North York Moors, The Peak District and Yorkshire Dales.
In Wales there are 3 nat.parks: Snowdonia, Brecon Beacons and the Pembrokshire coast.
In Scotland there are 3 nat.parks: Loch Lomond, Fife Clyde Muirshiel and Pentland Hills.
The World Heritage Sites are 15 in number: Canterbury Cathedral, Maritime Greenwich,Palace of Westminster, Tower of London, Stonehenge, City of Bath, Hadrian’s Wall and others.
Stonehenge is the most famous prehistoric monument in Britai which is situated on Salisbury Plain in the county of Wiltshire and is said that it was used as a massive astronomical clock. Hadrian’s Wall was built in 122-138 by Romans to ensure the safety of the zone occupied by them from Scots.
To areas by Outstanding Natural Beauty refers the Giant’s Causeway which is a massive formation of some 40 000 basalt columns descending like a giant staircase into the sea and which lies on the north coast of Northern Ireland near Portrash, county Antrim.
Administrative division. The UK is the political name of the country which is made of England Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Several islands off the British coast are also part of the UK (The Isle of Wight, Orkney Islands, Hebrides, Shetland Islands) and the Isles of Scilly, though the Cannel Islands and the Isle of Man are not. England is situated between latitudes 50 and 57north, longitudes 2 east and 6 west. Scotland- between latitudes 50 and 61 north and longitudes 1(gradus)) 45’ and 6 (gradus)) 14’ west. Wales – between latitudes 51 (gr) 40’ and 53(gr) 50’ north, longitudes 2 gr 30’ and 5gr 30’ west. Northern Ireland – latitudes 54-55gr 30’ north, longitudes 5 gr 30’ and 8gr 20’ west.
England, Wales and Northern Ireland are divided into counties, Scotland - into regions. England covers the territory of 130 000 sq.km, Scotland – 78 783 sq.km, Wales – 20 766 sq.km, N.Ireland – 13 483 sq.km.
The capitals are London – on the Thames, Edinbutgh - on the Bay of Fifth of Forth, Cardiff – on the Bristol Channel.
American music and ballet.
Music. Any large city in the US can provide musical choices to satisfy every taste. Performances of jazz, pop and rock bands, symphony orchestras, opera, chamber music, blues, folk, country and blue grass music, and musical theater have become a part of the daily offering at concert halls across the country. Historians give the honor of being America’s first native composer to Francis Hopkinson. Music experts, however, credit William Billings with being a revolutionary force in early American song.
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Of all the forms of popular singing and theater to emerge in early 19th century America, none was as fluential – or so characteristically American – as the minstrel show. In these shows, which appeared in the 1820s and lasted well into this century, white performers in costume impersonated black song, storytelling and dance. The minstrel show produced Stephen Foster.
Also popular in the late 1800s was marching band music. The most prominent composer and bandleader was John Philip Sousa, who first gained fame as director of the US Marine Corps Band.
The blues which developed from African folk songs and Christian religious music, is typically a lamenting song with an undercurrent of resignation and often humor. The greatest blues singers were Gertrude “Ma” Rainey and Bessie Smith. Among the most popular modern blues musicians were Muddy Waters and B.B.King.
Jazz emerged as blues and Dixieland musicians refined their instrumental styles. By 1920, jazz had spread from the South as black musicians moved to Chicago and New York City. The most influential of the early jazz musicians was Luis Armstrong, a trumpeter. Born in New Orleans, one of the early centres of jazz. Each new jazz generation has explored new directions. The early 1940s saw the rise of a complicated style known as “bebop” championed by trumpeter “Dizzy” Gillespie and saxophonist Charlie Parker.
Since the 1940s, America’s composers have tended to move in very different directions. Some drawing more directly on traditional influences and popular culture, have gained popularity through their scores for American musical has become a unique form of entertainment combining song, dance, comedy and drama. Among the most successful composer-lyricist teams was Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein.
For most people around the world the sound American music is the sound of rock and roll. First popularized in the 1950s by white musicians performing mixtures of southern gospel, ‘country music’ and black rhythm and blues, rock-and-roll quickly became a second language for American youth. Elvis Presley was the early “King of rock and Roll” selling over 500 million records. Bob Dylan first emerged as the leading singer-songwriter of the folk music explosion in the US. His protest songs became anthems of social range.
Bluegrass music a mixture of folk country and blues also gained a broad audience through the music of Bill Monroe and others.
Rock and roll seemed to lose its almost revolutionary momentum in the 1970-1980s. Some artists stood out including guitarist –songwriter Bruce Springsteen, singer-composer Stevie Wonder and singer Michael Jackson.
Reggae a trancelike variation of rock music with a Caribbean beat was popularized by Jamaican Bob Marley. And rap music in which someone talks on one sound track and rhythm is played on another sound track, also became popular in the 1980s. The first hit rap song “The Message” talked about inner city decay.
Ballet. Closely linked to the development of modern American music was a new art form-modern dance-that emerged in the early years of this century. Rejecting classical ballet techniques, its innovators sought to express the most basic and immediate expression of human feeling in new styles suited to the modern age. Among the earliest American champions of this attitude was Isadora Duncan. Duncan, who stressed pure, unstructured movement, sought to create a dance “that might be the divine expression of the human spirit through the medium of the body’s movement”. The main development of American modern dance was to flow from the work of another early dancer and choreographer Ruth St.Denis. St.Denis and her partner – husband Ted Shawn found inspiration in Eastern thought and philosophy.St.Denis company produced the dancers who would create the two dominant views of modern dance. Doris Humphrey looked outward for inspiration to society and human conflict. Martha Graham whose New York –based company has become perhaps the best known in modern dance, stressed the guiding principles of inward –based passion, grounded in the act of breathing.
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