Avril (singer)

Judith Nyambura Mwangi (born 30 April 1986), better known by her mononym Avril, is a Kenyan singer-songwriter, actress and entertainer. She was formerly signed to Ogopa Deejays, one of the leading music production and record labels in Kenya. As a singer, she is popularly known for her singles "Mama", "Kitu Kimoja" and "Hakuna Yule". As an actress, she is best known for playing Miss B'Have on Shuga: Love, Sex, Money (2012). Avril's contribution to the Kenyan Entertainment Industry has earned her one Nzumari Award, one Kisima Music Award, one Golden Mic Award and two Chaguo La Teeniez Awards.

Life and career

Biography and music career

Avril was born and raised in Nakuru, the former capital of the Rift Valley Province. She was very active in drama and music festivals whilst in high school. She later relocated to Nairobi to pursue an undergraduate education. In 2005, she partook in the Jaza Lorry initiative and met talent manager Emmanuel Banda of Ogopa Deejays Production. Although Banda tried convincing her to venture into music, Avril remained hesitant at the time. She enrolled at the University of Nairobi in 2006 and studied design. During her second year at UoN, she changed her mind about music and recorded her first single ("Mama") after signing a record deal with Ogopa. The song was released in 2009 and sent to radio stations across Kenya. Avril was later featured on Colonel Mustapha's "Mtaani dot com" (sometimes stylised as "mtaani.com"). The music video for "Mtaani dot com" was released and uploaded onto YouTube on 15 October 2009.

Singing

Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of tonality, rhythm, the use of sustained tones and a variety of vocal techniques. A person who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung without accompaniment or with accompaniment by musical instruments. Singing is often done in a group of other musicians, such as in a choir of singers with different voice ranges, or in an ensemble with instrumentalists, such as a rock group or baroque ensemble. Singers may also perform as soloist with accompaniment from a piano (as in art song and in some jazz styles) or with a symphony orchestra or big band. There are a range of different singing styles, including art music styles such as opera and Chinese opera, religious music styles such as Gospel, traditional music styles, world music, jazz, blues and popular music styles such as pop and rock.

Singing can be formal or informal, arranged or improvised. It may be done for religious devotion, as a hobby, as a source of pleasure, comfort, or ritual, as part of music education, or as a profession. Excellence in singing requires time, dedication, instruction, and regular practice. If practice is done on a regular basis then the sounds can become more clear and strong. Professional singers usually build their careers around one specific musical genre, such as classical or rock, although there are singers with crossover success (singing in more than one genre). They typically take voice training provided by voice teachers or vocal coaches throughout their careers.

Singer Motors

Singer Motors Limited was a British motor vehicle manufacturing business, originally a bicycle manufacturer founded as Singer & Co by George Singer, in 1874 in Coventry, England. Singer & Co's bicycle manufacture continued. From 1901 George Singer's Singer Motor Co made cars and commercial vehicles.

Singer Motor Co was the first motor manufacturer to make a small economy car that was a replica of a large car, showing a small car was a practical proposition. It was much more sturdily built than otherwise similar cyclecars. With its four-cylinder ten horsepower engine the Singer Ten was launched at the 1912 Cycle and Motor Cycle Show at Olympia. William Rootes, Singer apprentice at the time of its development and consummate car-salesman, contracted to buy 50, the entire first year's supply. It became a best-seller. Ultimately Singer's business was acquired by his Rootes Group in 1956, which continued the brand until 1970, a few years following Rootes' acquisition by the American Chrysler corporation.

Singer (naval mine)

The Singer was a naval mine made and deployed by the Confederacy during the American Civil War. It was a manually laid moored contact mine.

Development

During the American Civil War, Matthew Fontaine Maury, a Confederate government official established the Torpedo Bureau and the Torpedo Corps in Richmond, Virginia to oversee the development and deployment of new types of naval mines. Maury was convinced that the only way to defend the coastlines against Union assaults was through the widespread use of naval mines. Mines were inexpensive and easily produced on a large scale. The low cost and large volume of mines produced would supplement the small naval forces of the Confederacy and make it possible to defend against the superior fleet of the Union navy. The efforts of the Torpedo Bureau and the Torpedo Corps proved to be worth the investment of the Confederacy. For the relative low cost of the mines they did a tremendous amount of damage to the Union forces, sinking a total of 27 Union naval vessels.

Avril

Avril means April in French and other languages. It may also refer to:

People

Places

Avril (name)

Avril is both a given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include:

Given name:

Surname:

Fictional characters:

Avril (Frédéric Magnon)

Fred Avril, aka Avril / Frédéric Magnon (4 December 1974) is a French electronic musician and film composer. As a singer/songwriter/producer/ multi-instrumentalist, Fred Avril has been majorly influenced by film scoring over the years. After earning international praise for his two albums, one of which earned him the prestigious Prix Constantin Prize (the French equivalent of the Mercury Prize), and receiving comments like: "Best beats since Kraftwerk", new adventures awaited him.

He got his start in film music thanks to an invitation from Xavier Jamaux to work with him in his studio. Johnnie To, who asked the Frenchman to handle the "Mad Detective" soundtrack, was delighted with Avril's work, perceiving in it exactly what he was seeking for the score of his upcoming quasi-musical "Sparrow". A year later, Sparrow's soundtrack was nominated at both the Hong Kong Film Awards and Golden Horse Awards, the film being a box-office hit in China. Impressed with the final scene (ten minutes of music, a ballet for pickpockets and umbrellas composed by Avril) Swedish Six Drummers, known for their online videos, asked him to bring musical life to their sonic experiments and create the score for "Sound of Noise", their first feature. Once again, the score was an essential component to the story featuring musicians rebelling against conformity who plot a "sonic bombing". The film received various prizes and the score won the Stockholm Music Award. Working closely with a director, defining a sound identity for each character, composing chords for a particular scene, shaping the sensations delivered on screen, have become a frantic yet riveting exercise and the blueprint for most of Avril's works.