Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Memnon mĕmˈnŏn [key], in Greek mythology, king of Ethiopia, son of Tithonus and Eos. In the Trojan War he fought against the Greeks, and after he had killed Antilochus, he himself was killed by Ach...

(Encyclopedia) dog racing, trials of speed between dogs. Now contested on oval tracks, the sport developed from the ancient practice of coursing, in which specially trained dogs chase game animals in the open field....

(Encyclopedia) Prince Rupert, city (1991 pop. 16,620), W British Columbia, Canada, on Kaien Island, in Chatham Sound near the mouth of the Skeena River, S of the Alaska border. A railroad and highway terminus and an...

(Encyclopedia) Oliveros, Pauline, 1932–2016, American composer and musician, b. Houston, Tex., studied Univ. of Houston, San Francisco State College (B.A., 1957). She began playing the accordion as a child, and it...

(Encyclopedia) Henry, Pierre Georges, 1927–2017, French composer noted for his contributions to electronic music. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatory, where he met Pierre...

(Encyclopedia) electronic music or electro-acoustic music, term for compositions that utilize the capacities of electronic media for creating and altering sounds. Initially, a distinction must be made between the te...

(Encyclopedia) Langevin, Paul läNzhəvăNˈ [key], 1872–1946, French physicist and chemist. He was professor of experimental physics at the Collège de France from 1909 and at the École municipale de Physique e...

(Encyclopedia) Bridgeport, city (2020 pop. 148,654), Fairfield co., SW Conn., on Long Island Sound; inc. 1836. Long a chief industrial city in Connecticut, it makes el...

(Encyclopedia) castrato kăsträˈtō [key] [Ital.,=castrated], a male singer with an artificially created soprano or alto voice, the result of castration in boyhood. The combination of the larynx of a youth and the...

(Encyclopedia) Block, Adriaen, fl. 1610–24, Dutch navigator. Eager to establish a fur trade with the Native Americans, Amsterdam merchants sent (1613) Block and another Dutch navigator to explore the region discov...