Sequoia

Sequoyah (1767–1843), inventor of the Cherokee syllabary.

Sequoia, Sequoya or Sequoyah may also refer to:

Biology

Geography

Sequoia (composition)

Sequoia is an orchestral composition by the American composer Joan Tower. The work was commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra with support from the Jerome Foundation. It was first performed on May 18, 1981 in Alice Tully Hall by the American Composers Orchestra under the conductor Dennis Russell Davies. The piece is dedicated to the concertmistress and first horn player of the orchestra, Jean and Paul Ingraham, respectively.Sequoia was Tower's first major orchestral composition and one of the composer's most performed works.

Composition

Sequoia has a duration of roughly 16 minutes and is composed in three continuous movements. The music is abstractly inspired by the genus of redwood coniferous trees called sequoias of the Northern California coastal forests. Tower described her influences in the score program notes, writing:

In Sequoia, that concept is not only very much present in the score but it actually led to the title (which is meant in an abstract rather than a pictorial sense). What fascinated me about sequoias, those giant California redwood trees, was the balancing act nature had achieved in giving them such great height.

Sequoia (genus)

Sequoia is a genus of redwood coniferous trees in the subfamily Sequoioideae of the family Cupressaceae. The only extant species of the genus is Sequoia sempervirens in the Northern California coastal forests ecoregion of Northern California and Southwestern Oregon in the United States. The two other genera, Sequoiadendron and Metasequoia, in the subfamily Sequoioideae are closely related to Sequoia. It includes the largest trees in the world.

Several extinct species have been named from fossils, including Sequoia affinis, Sequoia chinensis of China, Sequoia langsdorfii, Sequoia dakotensis of South Dakota (Maastrichtian), and Sequoia magnifica.

Etymology

The name Sequoia was first published as a genus name by the Austrian botanist Stephan Endlicher in 1847. However, he left no specific reasons for choosing that name, and there is no record of anyone else speaking to him about its origin.

The most common modern guess is that Endlicher, a published linguist as well as a botanist, named the genus in honor of Sequoyah, the inventor of the first Cherokee writing system. As far back as the 1860s, it has also been suggested that the name is instead an alteration of the Latin word for "sequence", since the species is known to be a follower or remnant of massive ancient, extinct species, and thus the next in a sequence.

Sneaker

Sneaker may refer to:

Sneakers are a type of casual shoes.

Sneakers may also refer to:

See also

Sneaker (band)

Sneaker was a West Coast American rock band, active from 1973 to 1983. The band is best known for its Billboard Hot 100 Top 40 hit single, "More Than Just the Two of Us", from its first album, Sneaker (1981). They also had a minor hit with "Don't Let Me In", a song written by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker from Steely Dan.

Sneaker was composed of Tim Torrance on guitars, Mitch Crane on vocals and guitars, Michael Carey Schneider on vocals and keyboards, Mike Hughes on drums, Michael Cottage on bass guitar, and Jim King on keyboards, synthesizers, and vibes. The band cited as its primary musical influences Steely Dan, The Eagles and The Doobie Brothers. They released 2 studio albums on Handshake Records and Tapes, Sneaker in 1981 (which included their Top 40 hit, "More Than Just the Two of Us") and Loose In The World in 1982. Both albums were produced by Jeff "Skunk" Baxter. In 2001, Cool Sound Records, a Japanese record label, released Early On, a collection of their early recordings and, in 2003, released Footprints In Japan, a 1982 live recording from Osaka & Tokyo, Japan.

Sneakers

Sneakers (also known as athletic shoes, tennis shoes, or trainers) are shoes primarily designed for sports or other forms of physical exercise. Sneakers have evolved to be used for casual everyday activities. The term generally describes a type of footwear with a flexible sole made of rubber or synthetic material and an upper part made of leather or synthetic materials. Examples of such shoes include athletic footwear such as: basketball shoes, tennis shoes, cross trainers and other shoes worn for specific sports.

Names and etymology

"Sneakers" is the more common term used in the Northeastern United States and southern Florida. The term is also used in North Carolina. The British English equivalent of "sneaker" in its modern form is "trainer". In some urban areas in the United States, the slang for sneakers is kicks. Other terms include training shoes or trainers (British English), sandshoes, gym boots or joggers (Geordie English in the UK), running shoes, runners or gutties (Canadian English, Australian English, Scottish English and Hiberno-English), sneakers (North American English, Australian English and New Zealand English), tennis shoes (North American English and Australian English), gym shoes, tennies, sports shoes, sneaks, takkies (South African English and Hiberno-English), rubber shoes (Philippine English) or canvers (Nigerian English).