Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, CBE (born 2 October 1951), usually known by his stage name Sting, is a British musician from Newcastle upon Tyne. Prior to a distinguished solo career, he was the lead singer, principal composer, and bassist of the 1970s/1980s rock band The Police.

Sumner was born in Wallsend, near Newcastle upon Tyne in northeast England, to Audrey Cowell and her husband, Ernest Sumner. He is the eldest of four children and has a brother, Philip, and two sisters, Angela and Anita. His father managed a dairy, and as a boy Sumner would often assist him with the early morning milk delivery rounds. Sumner was raised in the Roman Catholic tradition, due to the influence of his paternal grandmother, who was from an Irish family.

Sumner attended St. Cuthbert’s Grammar School in Newcastle upon Tyne, and then the University of Warwick, but did not graduate. After jobs as a bus conductor, a construction labourer, and a tax officer, he attended Northern Counties Teachers’ Training College from 1971 to 1974. He then worked as a teacher at St. Paul’s First School in Cramlington for two years.

From an early age, Gordon Sumner knew that he wanted to be a musician. His first music gigs were wherever he could get a job, performing evenings, weekends, and during vacations from college and teaching. He played with local jazz bands such as the Phoenix Jazzmen, the Newcastle Big Band, and Last Exit.

He has stated that he gained his nickname while with the Phoenix Jazzmen. He once performed wearing a black and yellow jersey with hooped stripes that bandleader Gordon Solomon had noted made him look like a bumblebee; thus Sumner became “Sting.” He uses Sting almost exclusively, except on official documents. In a press conference, he once jokingly stated that even his children call him “Sting”. However, his current wife Trudie Styler, affectionately refers to him by his real name, Gordon.

Toni Michelle Braxton (born October 7, 1966) is a six-time Grammy Award winning American R&B singer. She is most notable for her dark, deep, thick contralto vocals, which are low even by contralto standards.

Braxton was born in Severn, Maryland, and is the oldest of six children. She attended Richard Henry Lee Elementary School, Corkran Middle School, and Glen Burnie High School in Glen Burnie, Maryland. Her father was a clergyman, and the Braxton children were raised in a strict religious household. Braxton’s first performing experience was singing with a church choir. She attended Bowie State University to obtain a teaching degree but decided to pursue a musical career.

Braxton and her four sisters (Traci, Trina, Towanda, and Tamar) began performing as The Braxtons in the late 1980s and were signed to Arista Records in 1989. Their first single, “The Good Life”, was released in 1990. Though the song was not very successful, it attracted the attention of producing team Antonio “L.A.” Reid and Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds.

With Braxton’s low register sounding similar to that of Anita Baker, Reid and Babyface recruited her to record a demo of “Love Shoulda Brought You Home”, a song that they had written specifically for Baker to appear on the soundtrack to the Eddie Murphy film, Boomerang. Baker passed on the song but suggested that Braxton herself record the final version. The endorsement worked in Braxton’s favor, as her recording was included on the soundtrack along with “Give U My Heart”, a duet by Braxton and Babyface. Both songs garnered radio attention in the closing months of 1992 and effectively introduced Braxton to the record buying public. Braxton, meanwhile, was signed to Reid and Edmonds’ Arista-distributed imprint, LaFace Records, and immediately began recording her solo debut album.

Braxton entered the studio in 1995 to begin recording her sophomore album, Secrets. The album, released in 1996, is her most successful work to date. Braxton, Babyface, and Reid stuck with the same formula for the album but added more soul to the sound. Braxton has said about the album, “The motivation for this album was to include a little bit of everything. Our aim was to come up with material that would have a familiar ‘feel’ to the people who bought the first album without being musically redundant.” Along with Babyface, Braxton also worked with R. Kelly, Tony Rich, and David Foster on the album. Braxton was the co-executive producer of the album and co-wrote two of its songs, including the 1997 single “How Could An Angel Break My Heart” which was also later included on a Princess Diana memorial album.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (baptized as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart; January 27, 1756 - December 5, 1791) was a prolific and highly influential composer of Classical music. His enormous output of more than six hundred compositions includes works that are widely acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. Mozart is among the most enduringly popular of European composers, and many of his works are part of the standard concert repertoire.

Family and early years

Mozart was born to Leopold and Anna Maria Pertl Mozart, in the front room of 9 Getreidegasse in Salzburg, the capital of the sovereign Archbishopric of Salzburg, in what is now Austria, then part of the Holy Roman Empire. His only sibling who survived beyond infancy was an older sister: Maria Anna, nicknamed Nannerl. Mozart was baptized the day after his birth at St. Rupert’s Cathedral. The baptismal record gives his name in Latinized form as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangeus Theopheilus Mozart. Of these names, the first two refer to John Chrysostom, one of the Church Fathers, and they were names not employed in everyday life, while the fourth, meaning “beloved of God”, was variously translated in Mozart’s lifetime as Amadeus (Latin), Gottlieb (German), and Amad (French). Mozart’s father Leopold announced the birth of his son in a letter to the publisher Johann Jakob Lotter with the words “…the boy is called Joannes Chrysostomus, Wolfgang, Gottlieb”. Mozart himself preferred the third name (see Mozart’s name).

Mozart’s father Leopold (1719 - 1787) was one of Europe’s leading musical teachers. His influential textbook Versuch einer grndlichen Violinschule, or “Essay on the fundamentals of violin playing”, was published in 1756, the year of Mozart’s birth. He was deputy kapellmeister to the court orchestra of the Archbishop of Salzburg, and a prolific and successful composer of instrumental music. Leopold gave up composing when his son’s outstanding musical talents became evident. They first came to light when Wolfgang was about three years old, and Leopold, proud of Wolfgang’s achievements, gave him intensive musical training, including instruction in clavier, violin, and organ. Leopold was Wolfgang’s only teacher in his earliest years. A note by Leopold in Nannerl’s music book - the Nannerl Notenbuch - records that little Wolfgang had learned several of the pieces at the age of four. Mozart’s first compositions, a small Andante (K. 1a) and Allegro (K. 1b), were written in 1761, when he was five years old.[1] Around the time when he was five or six years old, he could play the piano blindfolded and with his hands crossed over one another.

During his formative years, Mozart made several European journeys, beginning with an exhibition in 1762 at the Court of the Elector of Bavaria in Munich, then in the same year at the Imperial Court in Vienna and Prague. A long concert tour spanning three and a half years followed, taking him with his father to the courts of Munich, Mannheim, Paris, London (where Wolfgang Amadeus played with the famous Italian cellist Giovanni Battista Cirri), The Hague, again to Paris, and back home via Z??rich, Donaueschingen, and Munich. During this trip Mozart met a great number of musicians and acquainted himself with the works of other great composers. A particularly important influence was Johann Christian Bach, who befriended Mozart in London in 1764-65. Bach’s work is often taken to be an inspiration for Mozart’s music. They again went to Vienna in late 1767 and remained there until December 1768. On this trip Mozart contracted smallpox, and his healing was considered by Leopold as a proof of God’s intentions concerning the child.

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As composer, Montanan Philip Aaberg writes music that puts the listener smack in the New American West with all its bittersweet complexity. As world-class keyboardist, he stands virtually alone in his ability to go to the heart and soul of any musical style, sounding as if he were born playing that music and that music alone, still keeping his singular ‘voice’. In fact, it is all ONE MUSIC to him.

His musical career is as varied and expansive as the Montana landscape he calls home. His music discovers what is possible, breaking down boundaries between genres to create a sound that’s rooted in tradition but that’s not afraid to blend, experiment, and re-invent itself at every turn.
Phil’s performances have consistently drawn standing ovations, leaving crowds dazzled by his dynamic, emotional range and captivated by his unique compositions and between-song repartee.

He finds devoted listeners among rock, country, new age, blues, jazz, and classical music fans, and his range of performances includes everything from solo piano concertos with the Boston Pops Orchestra to appearances with luminaries like Peter Gabriel Elvin Bishop, and John Hiatt. He tours and records in two duos: with slide guitar innovator Roy Rogers, and with master fiddler Darol Anger. Phil has been a guest on over two hundred albums, from multi-million selling pop and country to experimental jazz with bassoonist Paul Hanson. His album “Live From Montana” was nominated for a 2002 Grammy. In addition, his performance on PBS’s “All-American Jazz” was nominated for an Emmy.

For Johnny A., the guitar has held a lifelong fascination, her six strings exerting a powerful influence and addictive beauty since the first time he held them. The pursuit of this musical lady with the perfect shape has driven his years - shaping the course of his life - taking him places he never could have imagined. Through inspiring moments of ecstatic improvisation, deep contemplation and inevitable gaps of frustration it has been a stormy affair with a tempestuous hollow-body lover, but the marriage has been nothing less than remarkable.

Johnny A. is widely regarded as one of America’s finest contemporary guitarists. Gibson thinks so - their Custom Shop designed a Signature Edition guitar per his specific requests which, when it was marketed in 2003, placed him in an exclusive club that included legends like BB King, Wes Montgomery, Chet Atkins, Joe Perry, Pat Martino and Les Paul himself. The public thinks so too - Johnny A.’s latest works have sold many thousands of copies as well as being his personal best. The most recent CD’s - 2004’s Get Inside and 1999’s Sometime Tuesday Morning, are the critically acclaimed solo culmination of a lifetime of learning, sharing and bonding in a long parade of bands and players.

As a bright-eyed six-year old in Malden, Massachusetts, Johnny became fascinated with the drums, a habit his father encouraged by buying him a kit. There were lessons and the Jr. High School marching band, but as fun as the skins were, he realized that their melodic capability was quite limited. Rhythm had taken a backseat to melody and since the most melodic instrument in any 60’s beat group was guitar, those six-strings now began their inexorable pull on Johnny A’s life. Once the four “mop-tops” from Liverpool dropped like a bomb from Ed Sullivan’s studio into his living room in 1964, his course was set.