Lucius Annaeus Seneca

(c. 1 BC – 65 AD) 

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a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero. Some of his works include Moral Letters, a collection of essays on moral problems; a series of verse tragedies marked by violence and bloodshed, including Thyestes, Hercules, and Medea; and Natural Questions, a loosely arranged compilation of information on natural science.

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an American musical with a script by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and choreography by Jerome Robbins. The musical's plot and story are based on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Set in New York City in the mid-1950s, the musical explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds. The members of the Sharks from Puerto Rico are taunted by the Jets, a white working-class group. The young protagonist, Tony, one of the Jets, falls in love with Maria, the sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks. The dark theme, sophisticated music, extended dance scenes, and focus on social problems marked a turning point in American musical theatre. Bernstein's score for the musical has become extremely popular.

Leonard Bernstein

(August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990)

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an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim. He was probably best known to the public as the longtime music director of the New York Philharmonic, for conducting concerts by many of the world's leading orchestras, and for writing the music for West Side Story, as well as Candide, Wonderful Town, and On the Town. He was a skilled pianist, often conducting and playing piano concertos at the same time. As a composer he also wrote symphonies and other concert music, but most of his fame as a composer during his lifetime was based on the tremendous success of West Side Story.

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asserts that everything that can happen will happen.

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a late 19th century artistic and literary movement in Western Europe, primarily in France. Decadence was the name given to a number of late nineteenth-century writers who valued artifice over the earlier Romantics' naïve view of nature. For the most part, they were influenced by the tradition of the Gothic novel and by the poetry and fiction of Edgar Allan Poe, and were associated with Symbolism or Aestheticism.

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a late nineteenth-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the movement had its roots in Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire. The works of Edgar Allan Poe, which Baudelaire greatly admired and translated into French, were a significant influence and the source of many stock tropes and images.

Distinct from, but related to, the movement in literature, symbolism in art represents an outgrowth of the darker, gothic side of Romanticism; but where Romanticism was impetuous and rebellious, symbolist art was static and hieratic.

Frederic Sackrider Remington

(October 4, 1861 – December 26, 1909)

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an American painter, illustrator, sculptor, and writer who specialized in depictions of the Old American West, specifically concentrating on the last quarter of the 19th century American West and images of cowboys, American Indians, and the U.S. Cavalry.

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a Latin epic poem written by Virgil in the late 1st century BC that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who traveled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas's wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed.

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a philosophical argument put forward by British philosopher G. E. Moore in §13 of Principia Ethica (1903), to refute the equating of the property good with some non-moral property, whether naturalistic (e.g. pleasure) or meta-physical (e.g. God's command).

John William Coltrane

(September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967)

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an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz.

As his career progressed, Coltrane and his music took on an increasingly spiritual dimension. Coltrane influenced innumerable musicians, and remains one of the most significant tenor saxophonists in jazz history. He received many posthumous awards and recognition.

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a form of dance characterized by a tapping sound that is created from metal plates attached to both the ball and heel of the dancer's shoe. These metal plates, when tapped against a suitable surface, create a percussive sound and as such tap dance is both a form of dance as well as the act of playing a musical instrument.

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a window whose frame is set at an angle with respect to the face of the wall.

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an architectural term that historically denoted an upper level of a Roman basilica or of the nave of a Romanesque or Gothic church, the walls of which rise above the rooflines of the lower aisles and are pierced with windows. In modern usage, clerestory refers to any high windows above eye level. In either case, the purpose is to bring outside light, fresh air, or both into the inner space.

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glass that has been colored in some way; used for church windows.

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a comic novel by the English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding. First published on 28 February 1749, Tom Jones is among the earliest English prose works describable as a novel.

Tom Jones is a foundling discovered on the property of a very kind, wealthy landowner, Squire Allworthy, in Somerset in England's West Country. Tom grows into a vigorous and lusty, yet honest and kind-hearted, youth. He develops affection for his neighbour's daughter, Sophia Western. However, Tom's status as a bastard causes Sophia's father and Allworthy to oppose their love; this criticism of class friction in society acted as a biting social commentary. The inclusion of prostitution and sexual promiscuity in the plot was also original for its time, and also acted as the foundation for criticism of the book's "lowness."

Jules Gabriel Verne

( February 8, 1828 – March 24, 1905)

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a French Breton author who pioneered the science-fiction genre. He is best known for novels such as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel before air travel and practical submarines were invented, and before practical means of space travel had been devised. Verne is often popularly referred to as the "Father of Science Fiction".

Around the World in Eighty Days

ou Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours

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a classic adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne, first published in 1873. In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a £20,000 wager (equal to £1,324,289 today) set by his friends at the Reform Club. It is one of Verne's most acclaimed works.

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the tradition of lyric and song writing in Germany which flourished in the 12th century and continued into the 14th century. People who wrote and performed Minnesang are known as Minnesingers. They wrote love poetry in the courtly love tradition in German during the Middle Ages.

a symphonic poem, a piece of orchestral music in a single continuous section a movement in which the content of a poem, a story or novel, a painting, a landscape or another non-musical source is illustrated or evoked, by Claude Debussy.

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(the stranger or the outsider)

a novel by Albert Camus, published in 1942, his best-known work. Its theme and outlook are often cited as examples of existentialism, though Camus did not consider himself an existentialist; in fact, its content explores various philosophical schools of thought.
The title character is Meursault, an Algerian who seemingly irrationally kills an Arab man whom he recognises in French Algiers.

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky

(17 June 1882 – 6 April 1971)

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a Russian-born, naturalised French, later naturalised American, composer, pianist, and conductor. Widely acknowledged as one of the most important and influential composers of 20th century music, he wrote music notable for its stylistic diversity.

His most important works include The Firebird, Pulcinella, The Soldier's Tale, Apollon Musagete, his Symphony of Psalms, Symphony in Three Movements, The Rite of Spring, Orpheus, and L'Histoire du Soldat.

John Philip Sousa

(November 6, 1854 – March 6, 1932)

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an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era, known particularly for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition, he is known as "The March King" or the "American March King."

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Although Rousseau wrote it as an epistolary novel, a philosophical theory about authenticity permeates through it. He explores autonomy and authenticity as moral values. A common interpretation is that Rousseau values the ethics of authenticity over rational moral principles. Acting inauthentically is self-destructive.

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a work by philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The text was written in 1754 in response to a prize competition of the Academy of Dijon answering the prompt: What is the origin of inequality among men, and is it authorized by natural law?

François-Marie Arouet

(21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778) 

pen name Voltaire

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a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion and free trade. He was an outspoken supporter of social reform, despite strict censorship laws and harsh penalties for those who broke them. As a satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma and the French institutions of his day.

Voltaire was one of several Enlightenment figures whose works and ideas influenced important thinkers of both the American and French Revolutions.

George Bernard Shaw

(26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950)

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an Irish socialist playwright. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, his main talent was for drama. Nearly all his writings deal sternly with prevailing social problems, but have a vein of comedy to make their stark themes more palatable. Shaw examined education, marriage, religion, government, health care, and class privilege. He was most angered by what he perceived as the exploitation of the working class, and most of his writings censure that abuse.

Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser

(August 27, 1871 – December 28, 1945)

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an American novelist and journalist. He pioneered the naturalist school and is known for portraying characters whose value lies not in their moral code, but in their persistence against all obstacles, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of choice and agency.

Lorraine Hansberry

(May 19, 1930 – January 12, 1965)

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the artistic branch of the Black Power movement. It was started in Harlem by writer and activist Amiri Baraka. Time Magazine describes the Black Arts Movement as the "single most controversial moment in the history of African-American literature — possibly in American literature as a whole."

Eugene O'Neill

(16 October 1888 – 27 November 1953)

Frank Lloyd Wright

(June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959)

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an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 projects. Wright promoted organic architecture, was a leader of the Prairie School movement of architecture, and developed the concept of the Usonian home. His work includes original and innovative examples of many different building types. Wright also often designed many of the interior elements of his buildings, such as the furniture and stained glass.

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a word used by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright to refer to his vision for the landscape of the United States, including the planning of cities and the architecture of buildings. Wright proposed the use of the adjective Usonian to describe the particular New World character of the American landscape as distinct and free of previous architectural conventions.

Ieoh Ming Pei

(born 26 April 1917)

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a Chinese-American architect, often called a master of modern architecture. Among his many famous buildings are the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the John Hancock Tower in Boston, MA, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum in Cleveland, OH.

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Literally "circle of the leg". Actually, half-circles made by the pointed foot, returning through first position to repeat; creating the letter 'D' on the floor. 

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a ballet position in which the feet are turned outward, with one heel in front of the other.

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a widely used term for a variety of beating movements done with the leg either extended or bent.

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Literally, "step". In ballet, the term often refers to a combination of steps which make up a dance.

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a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.

The harpsichord was widely used in Renaissance and Baroque music. During the late 18th century it gradually disappeared from the musical scene with the rise of the piano, but in the 20th century it made a resurgence.

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a vocal music composition, usually written for one voice with piano or orchestral accompaniment. By extension, the term "art song" is used to refer to the genre of such songs.

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the singing range between soprano and tenor.