Michael Joe Jackson

A star was born on August 29, 1958 in Gary, Indiana. Singer, songwriter, dancer, actor Michael Joe Jackson started on the road to stardom while at Garnett Elementary School in Gary. Michael performed for his class by singing Climb Every Mountain. Within just a few years, he took his act to the stage joining his brothers as The Jackson Five. They were entertaining at Mr. Lucky’s, also in Gary, Indiana. Michael was only 8. By the time he was 11, Michael, the youngest of the five brothers, was the lead singer of the group.

And their hits were hitting the top of the charts: I Want You Back, ABC, The Love You Save, I’ll Be There. Then young Michael started recording solo hits like Ben, also #1.

And the hits just kept on coming ... and the awards came with them: A Grammy for Best Male R&B Vocal in 1979 for Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough, 5 Grammy Awards in 1983 -- Best Male Pop Vocal and Album of the Year (Thriller), Best Male R & B vocal and Best R & B song (Billie Jean), and Best Recording for Children: E.T., the Extraterrestrial; 2 in 1984 -- Record of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal (Beat It); another in 1985 with Lionel Richie for Song of the Year (We are the World); a Best Music Video/Short Form Grammy in 1989 for Leave Me Alone; and finally, The Legend Award Grammy -- for the living legend in the music industry, Michael Jackson.

Whether Michael sings with his brothers, his sisters, alone or in duets with fellow performers, the results are hit, after hit, after hit ... The Girl is Mine and Stay, Stay, Stay with Paul McCartney; I Jusr Can’t Stop Loving You with Siedah Garrett; Rock with You, Bad, Smooth Criminal ... Ease on Down the Road with Diana Ross (from Broadway’s The Wiz in which Michael played the scarecrow). Michael, the actor, was also seen as a hologram, Captain Eo in Epcot Center’s multimedia show.

A celebrity for most of his life, he is both magic and tragic ... the gloved one’s fame and infamy well-known throughout the world: he made $70 million from Thriller; he paid $50 million for the rights to the Beatles’ 251 songs; his Bad album was number one in 23 countries; he has an amusement park and zoo at his California estate; he married and divorced Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of the King of Rock.

He remarried, became a father ... and the rest of the story is still being written .... To date, Michael Jackson remains the King of Pop.

Leos Janácek lived from 1854 until 1928. It was relatively late in life that the Moravian composer Janácek won more than local recognition. He made his early career in the capital of his native province, Brno, coupling an interest in regional folk music with a study of speech intonations, echoed in his instrumental as well as vocal writing. His opera Jenufa was first staged in Brno in 1904, but it was the performance in Prague in 1915 that brought the work of the composer a much wider public. The seven operas that followed have formed a very idiosyncratic part of current operatic repertoire, culminating in From the House of the Dead, completed in 1928, the year of Janácek's death, and based on the novel by Dostoyevsky.

The best known of Janácek's music for orchestra is the Sinfonietta, derived from an original festival piece of 1926. To this may be added the rhapsody based on the work of Gogol, Taras Bulba, and the Lachian Dances, based on folk-dances.

Joseph Joachim lived from 1831 until 1907. He was a Hungarian violinist, conductor and composer whose exceptional talent was recognized by Mendelssohn. He was also a close friend of Brahms. His music had much in common with the music of Schumann.

Billy Joel

Elton Dwight John was born in 1947 and is a rock singer and pianist. He was born in Pinner, NW Greater London, England. He played the piano by ear from age four, and studied at the Royal Academy of Music at 11. From 1967, he and Bernie Taupin began writing songs such as "Rocket Man' (1972), "Honky Cat' (1972), and "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' (1973). Their publisher pressed John to perform them, for which he obscured his short, plump, myopic physique in a clownish garb that included huge glasses, sequinned and fringed jump suits, and ermine boots. The top pop star of the 1970s, he later became chairman (1976 to 1990) and then honorary life president in 1990 of the Watford Football Club and a stock-market speculator. Despite health problems in 1993 brought about by his stressful lifestyle he continues to perform live across the world.

James Price Johnson, Ragtime composer