Around Asia, Bhumibol Adulyadej was simply known as King Bhumibol the Great, ninth and longest-reigning monarch in Thai history. At the time of his death on 13 October 2016 he had been on the throne for over 70 years, and

For countless decades, visitors have come to Hong Kong to experience the sights and sounds of a bustling metropolis where Chinese roots and colonial connections converge to shape a dynamic commercial and cultural landscape. Travelers during the later parts of

As far as composers go, Franz Xaver Scharwenka (1850-1924) is not necessarily a household name. Born in a small Polish town he took first piano lessons at the age of 3, and when his family moved to Berlin he became

When the young French baron Pierre de Coubertin first proposed a major international competition to revive the ancient Greek Olympic Games, reaction was decidedly mixed. Yet he stubbornly persisted and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) organized the first modern Olympic

Today, the German-Swiss composer Joachim Raff (1822-1882) is primarily remembered as an assistant to Franz Liszt in Weimar. In fact, he actually lived in the Villa Altenburg, Franz Liszt’s home in Weimar. He was Liszt’s secretary and copyist, and apparently

The modern era of the trombone as a solo instrument began on 6 April 1815, when Friedrich August Belcke performed a potpourri with obbligato trombone by Carl Heinrich Meyer with the Gewandhaus orchestra in Leipzig. A critic for the Allgemeine

It started like a fairy tale, as it often does. In 1925, she was the hottest French musical ticket in New York City. Germaine Tailleferre had just arrived on a huge wave of personal and artistic success stemming from her

William Grant Still (1895-1978) is called ‘the dean of African-American composers’ and throughout his life, worked in all genres of music, from jazz, where he was an arranger for both W.C. Handy and Artie Shaw, to Broadway, where he played