Bryn Terfel Jones CBE (Welsh pronunciation: [ˈbrɨn ˈtɛrvɛl]; born 9 November 1965) is a Welsh bass-baritone opera and concert singer. Terfel was initially associated with the roles of Mozart, particularly Figaro and Don Giovanni, but has subsequently shifted his attention to heavier roles, especially those by Wagner.
Bryn Terfel Jones was born in Pant Glas, Caernarfonshire, North Wales, the son of a farmer. His first language is Welsh. He knew of another Welsh baritone named Bryn Jones, so chose Bryn Terfel as his professional name. He had an interest in and talent for music from a very young age. A family friend taught him how to sing, starting with traditional Welsh songs. After winning numerous competitions for his singing, he moved to London in 1984 and entered the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where he studied under Rudolf Piernay. He graduated in 1989, winning both the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Award and the Gold Medal. The same year he came second behind Dmitri Hvorostovsky in the Cardiff BBC Singer of the World Competition, but won the Lieder Prize.
"Rule, Britannia!" is a British patriotic song, originating from the poem "Rule, Britannia" by James Thomson and set to music by Thomas Arne in 1740. It is strongly associated with the Royal Navy, but also used by the British Army.
This British national air was originally included in Alfred, a masque about Alfred the Great co-written by Thomson and David Mallet and first performed at Cliveden, country home of Frederick, Prince of Wales (the eldest son of George II and father of the future George III, as well as the great-grandfather of Queen Victoria), on 1 August 1740, to commemorate the accession of George II and the third birthday of the Princess Augusta.
Frederick, a German prince who arrived in England as an adult and was on very bad terms with his father, was making considerable efforts to ingratiate himself and build a following among his subjects-to-be (which came to naught, as he predeceased his father and never became king). A masque linking the prince with both the medieval hero-king Alfred the Great's victories over the Vikings and with the current building of British sea power — exemplified by the recent successful capture of Porto Bello from the Spanish by Admiral Vernon on 21 November 1739, avenging in the eyes of the British public Admiral Hosier's disastrous Blockade of Porto Bello of 1726–27 — went well with his political plans and aspirations.
Rule Britannia is a series of online documentary episodes produced by VICE Films. In 2011 the episode "Swansea Love Story" was a Webby Award Official Honoree.
VICE debuted the television documentary series Rule Britannia on VBS.tv in 2010. Most are between 15 minutes and half an hour.
Swansea was featured in the episode "Swansea Love Story", which covers a heroin epidemic in the UK. It was directed by Andy Capper, and was a Webby Award Official Honoree.
Rule Britannia is Daphne du Maurier's last novel, published in 1972 by Victor Gollancz.
Set in the late 1970s in Poldrea, a small village in Cornwall, the novel describes the relationship of Emma, a young woman, and her grandmother, Mad, a famous retired actress. They share their existence with several local children recruited by Mad. One morning, Emma wakes to the sound of airplanes overhead. An American warship has anchored in the harbour. Emma and Mad discover that barricades have been set up on the roads and American soldiers are marching over the fields. After hours of civil confusion, an announcement is made by the Prime Minister: Due to recent economic and military failures on the Continent, the United Kingdom and the United States of America have joined together as a single nation, one that will ultimately include all the English-speaking nations of the world. Mad and Emma become convinced that something far more sinister is going on, and they set out to find the truth.
An orchestra (/ˈɔːrkᵻstrə/ or US /ˈɔːrˌkɛstrə/; Italian: [orˈkɛstra]) is a large instrumental ensemble used in classical music that contains sections of string (violin, viola, cello and double bass), brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. Other instruments such as the piano and celesta may sometimes be grouped into a fifth section such as a keyboard section or may stand alone, as may the concert harp and, for 20th and 21st century compositions, electric and electronic instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ὀρχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus. The orchestra grew by accretion throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, but changed very little in composition during the course of the 20th century.
The BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO) is a British orchestra based in London. Founded in 1930, it was the first permanent salaried orchestra in London, and is the only one of the city's five major symphony orchestras not to be self-governing. The BBC SO is the principal orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
The orchestra was originally conceived in 1928 as a joint enterprise by the BBC and the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, but the latter withdrew the next year; and the task of assembling and training the orchestra fell to the BBC's director of music, Adrian Boult. Among its guest conductors in its first years was Arturo Toscanini, who judged it the finest orchestra he had ever conducted. During and after the Second World War, Boult strove to maintain standards, but the senior management of the post-war BBC did not allocate the orchestra the resources to meet competition from new and well-funded rivals.
After Boult's retirement from the BBC in 1950, the orchestra went through a fallow period. Boult's successor, Sir Malcolm Sargent, was popular with the public but had poor rapport with his players, and orchestral morale dropped. Sargent's successor, Rudolf Schwarz, made little public impact, and although the BBC appointed high-profile chief conductors in the 1960s and 70s – Antal Doráti, Colin Davis, Pierre Boulez and Gennady Rozhdestvensky – the BBC SO remained underfunded and could not attract enough good players to rival the leading London orchestras.
Coordinates: 53°29′56″N 2°39′25″W / 53.499°N 2.657°W / 53.499; -2.657
Bryn (which is Welsh for hill) is a component ward of the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, Greater Manchester, England. It is part of the larger town of Ashton-in-Makerfield and is geographically indistinguishable from it, but forms a separate local council ward. The population of this ward at the 2011 census was 11,662. Served by Bryn railway station, Bryn is home to the Three Sisters Recreation Area which has been created from three large spoil tips which remain from Bryn's role in Lancashire's coal mining past. The recreation area is also the site of the Three Sisters Race Circuit, which provides race driving instruction and plays host to kart racing events and motorcycle road race meetings at clubman level.
The former Bryn (or Brynne) Hall was the seat of the Gerard family beginning in the thirteenth century or earlier. It was a "safe house" for the English Roman Catholic martyr and saint Edmund Arrowsmith and his hand was reportedly preserved there after his execution. The house, dating to the fourteenth century, has now completely collapsed and remaining stones been cleared.
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
T'was Grace that taught my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear
The hour I first believed.
Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come;
'Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far
and Grace will lead me home.
The Lord has promised good to me.
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.
Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.
When we've been here ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we've first begun.
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,