Austin Maestro

The Austin Maestro is a five-door hatchback small family car (and two-door van derivative) that was produced from 1983 to 1987 by Austin, and from 1988 until 1995 by Rover. The car was produced at the former Morris plant in Cowley, Oxford. Today, the redeveloped factory produces the BMW MINI. A performance version of the Maestro was sold by MG as the MG Maestro from 1983 until 1991. Later models have sometimes been referred to as the Rover Maestro, but the model never wore the Rover badge. Descendants of the Maestro are still being produced in China.

Background

British Leyland was created in 1975 when the bankrupt British Leyland Motor Corporation was nationalised. In 1977 the South African-born corporate troubleshooter, Sir Michael Edwardes, was recruited as chairman to sort out the troubled firm. Part of Edwardes' plan was to introduce a completely new range of mass-market models to replace the current offerings, designed and built using state-of-the-art technology. The new range eventually decided upon consisted of a new vehicle for each of the small, lower-medium and upper-medium market segments.

Maestro

Maestro (/ˈmaɪstroʊ/; Italian: [maˈestro]) (from the Italian maestro, meaning "master" or "teacher") is an honorific title of respect. The term is most commonly used in the context of Western classical music and opera, in line with the ubiquitous use of Italian musical terms.

The word maestro is most often used in addressing or referring to conductors. Less frequently, one might refer to respected composers, performers, impresarios, and music teachers. In the world of Italian opera, the term is also used for musicians who act as répétiteurs and assistant conductors during performances (maestro sostituto or maestro collaboratore). Even the prompter (maestro suggeritore) may be referred to by this title.

Usage outside music

By extension, it is used in English to designate a master in an artistic field, usually someone with strong knowledge who instructs others in the field, though the term may sometimes be conferred through sheer respect for an artist's works. The word is sometimes used in fine arts such as painting and sculpture, though their "master", as in Old Master, is far more common. Maestro is used in the sport of fencing, for a fencing instructor, and may be used in other sports to convey respect for an individual's skill.

Maestro (rapper)

Wesley Williams (born March 31, 1968 in Toronto, Ontario), better known as Maestro and Maestro Fresh-Wes, is a Canadian rapper, record producer, and actor. His pioneering status and outstanding achievements have led to him being referred to as the "Godfather of Canadian hip hop".

In 1989 he became the first Canadian rapper to have a Top 40 hit, "Let Your Backbone Slide". In 1991 he collaborated on the one-off single "Can't Repress the Cause", a plea for greater inclusion of hip hop music in the Canadian music scene, with Dance Appeal, a supergroup of Toronto-area musicians that included Devon, Dream Warriors, B-Kool, Michie Mee, Lillian Allen, Eria Fachin, HDV, Dionne, Thando Hyman, Carla Marshall, Messenjah, Jillian Mendez, Lorraine Scott, Lorraine Segato, Self Defense, Leroy Sibbles, Zama and Thyron Lee White.

After the success of his 1991 album, The Black Tie Affair, Maestro's career faltered as he attempted to break into the United States market. However, he returned to the Canadian charts in 1998, with the hit singles "Stick to Your Vision" and "416/905 (T.O. Party Anthem)".

Maestro (Taj Mahal album)

Maestro is an album by American blues artist Taj Mahal. It was nominated for Best Contemporary Blues Album at the 2009 Grammy Awards (but lost out to Dr. John and the Lower 911's City That Care Forgot).
The release of Maestro marked the 40th anniversary of Taj Mahal's career as a recording artist. It features numerous guest artists: Los Lobos appear on Never Let You Go and TV Mama, Jack Johnson shares vocals on a re-recording of Taj's classic Further On Down the Road, and Ben Harper's vocals can be heard on Dust Me Down. Other guest appearances include Angélique Kidjo (on Zanzibar) and Ziggy Marley (on Black Man, Brown Man). Furthermore, Taj Mahal teams up again with the Phantom Blues Band (with whom he had recorded the Grammy nominated albums Señor Blues and Shoutin' in Key), Toumani Diabaté (with whom he had recorded the album Kulanjan) and his daughter Deva Mahal (with whom he had recorded several children's albums in the past).

Track listing

Fen

A fen is one of the main types of wetland, the others being grassy marshes, forested swamps, and peaty bogs. Along with bogs, fens are a kind of mire. Fens are usually fed by mineral-rich surface water or groundwater. They are characterised by their water chemistry, which is pH neutral or alkaline, with relatively high dissolved mineral levels but few other plant nutrients. They are usually dominated by grasses and sedges, and typically have brown mosses in general including Scorpidium or Drepanocladus. Fens frequently have a high diversity of other plant species including carnivorous plants such as Pinguicula. They may also occur along large lakes and rivers where seasonal changes in water level maintain wet soils with few woody plants. The distribution of individual species of fen plants is often closely connected to water regimes and nutrient concentrations.

Fens have a characteristic set of plant species, which sometimes provide the best indicators of environmental conditions. For example, fen indicator species in New York State include Carex flava, Cladium mariscoides, Potentilla fruticosa, Pogonia ophioglossoides and Parnassia glauca.

Car (surname)

Car is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

Car (Greek mythology)

Car or Kar (Greek: Κάρ) is a name in Greek mythology that refers to two characters who may or may not be one and the same.

The name "Car" is unrelated to the English word "car" (vehicle).

Car of Megara

According to Pausanias, Car was the king of Megara and the son of Phoroneus (and Cerdo). His tomb was located on the road from Megara to Corinth. The acropolis at Megara derived its name Caria from him.

Car of the Carians

Herodotus mentions a (probably) different Car, brother of Lydus and Mysus; the three brothers were believed to have been the ancestral heroes and eponyms of the Carians, the Lydians and the Mysians respectively. This Car was credited by Pliny the Elder with inventing the auspicia.

Car was also said to have founded the city Alabanda, which he named after Alabandus, his son by Callirhoe (the daughter of the river god Maeander). In turn, Alabandus's name is said to have been chosen in commemoration of his Car's victory in a horse fight— according to the scholar Stephanus of Byzantium, "Alabandos" was the Carian word for "winner in a horse fight". Another son of Car, Idrieus, had the city Idrias named after himself.