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double bass

(Encyclopedia)double bass, bowed stringed musical instrument, the contrabass of the modern orchestral string section. It originated as a double-bass viol, an instrument described as early as 1566. A true double-bas...

Gilberto, João

(Encyclopedia)Gilberto, João (João Gilberto Prado Pereira de Oliveira), 1931–2019, Brazilian guitarist, singer, and songwriter. With Carlos Jobim and others, he created the cool, sophisticated Brazilian popular...

Ellis, Havelock

(Encyclopedia)Ellis, Havelock (Henry Havelock Ellis), 1859–1939, English psychologist and author. He became a qualified physician but devoted himself to scientific study and writing. Although the first volume of ...

Levertov, Denise

(Encyclopedia)Levertov, Denise lĕvˈərtôfˌ [key], 1923–97, Anglo-American poet, b. Ilford, England. Educated in England, she came to the United States in 1948. Her spare, emotional poems hint at an intuitive ...

Khachaturian, Aram Ilich

(Encyclopedia)Khachaturian, Aram Ilich ərämˈ ĭlyēchˈ khäˌchəto͞oryänˈ [key], 1903–78, Russian composer of Armenian parentage, b. Tiflis (now Tbilisi). Khachaturian moved to Moscow in the early 1920s a...

Tyler, Anne

(Encyclopedia)Tyler, Anne, 1941–, American novelist, b. Minneapolis. Her witty and perceptive fiction, which is often set in the American South and frequently in and around Baltimore, portrays vivid contemporary ...

Wilson, Sir Angus

(Encyclopedia)Wilson, Sir Angus, 1913–91, English novelist, b. South Africa. As a novelist, he attempted to delineate a society in which traditional values have lost their force and human relationships are corrup...

Doctorow, E. L.

(Encyclopedia)Doctorow, E. L. (Edgar Lawrence Doctorow) dŏkˈtərōˌ [key], 1931–2015, American novelist, b. New York City. The author of a dozen novels, Doctorow is known for his skillful blending of fiction a...

Arapaho

(Encyclopedia)Arapaho ərăpˈəhō [key], Native North Americans of the Plains whose language belongs to the Algonquian branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). Their own...

performance art

(Encyclopedia)performance art, multimedia art form originating in the 1970s in which performance is the dominant mode of expression. Perfomance art may incorporate such elements as instrumental or electronic music,...