0_Wizard
I love to play piano. The piano has been around for over 300 years.
The piano is an acoustic, stringed musical instrument invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700 (the exact year is uncertain), in which the strings are struck by hammers.
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Piano
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Bradley Joseph
Bradley Joseph (born 1965) is an American composer, arranger, and producer of contemporary instrumental music. His compositions include works for orchestra, quartet, and solo piano, while his musical style ranges from "quietly pensive mood music to a rich orchestration of classical depth and breadth". Active since 1983, Joseph has performed in front of millions of people around the world. He played various instruments in rock bands throughout the Midwest until 1989 when Greek composer Yanni hired him for his core band after hearing a tape of his original compositions. He was a featured concert keyboardist with Yanni through six major tours, most recently in 2003 for the 60-city "Ethnicity" tour.
Art Tatum
Arthur Tatum Jr. (, October 13, 1909 – November 5, 1956) was an American jazz pianist. Tatum is widely considered one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time. His performances were hailed for their technical proficiency and creativity, which set a new standard for jazz piano virtuosity. Critic Scott Yanow wrote, "Tatum's quick reflexes and boundless imagination kept his improvisations filled with fresh (and sometimes futuristic) ideas that put him way ahead of his contemporaries." For a musician of such stature, there is little published information available about Tatum's life. Only one full-length biography has been published, "Too Marvelous for Words" (1994), by James Lester.
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American rock band formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson; their cousin Mike Love; and their friend Al Jardine. Distinguished by their vocal harmonies and early surf songs, they are one of the most influential acts of the rock era. The band drew on the music of jazz-based vocal groups, 1950s rock and roll, and black R&B to create their unique sound, and with Brian as producer, composer, and de facto leader, they pioneered novel approaches to popular music form and production. He later arranged his compositions for studio orchestras and explored a variety of other styles, often incorporating classical or jazz elements and unconventional recording techniques in innovative ways.
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004), known professionally as Ray Charles, was an American jazz & blues singer-songwriter, musician, and composer. Among friends and fellow musicians he preferred being called "Brother Ray." He was often referred to as "The Genius." Charles was blind from the age of seven. He pioneered the soul music genre during the 1950s by combining blues, rhythm and blues, and gospel styles into the music he recorded for Atlantic Records. He also contributed to the integration of country music, rhythm and blues and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, most notably with his two "Modern Sounds" albums.
Steinway &amp; Sons
Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway, () is an American-German piano company, founded in 1853 in Manhattan, New York City, the United States, by German immigrant Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg (later known as Henry E. Steinway). The company's growth led to the opening of a factory in Queens, New York City, the United States, and a factory in Hamburg, Germany. The factory in Queens supplies the Americas and the factory in Hamburg supplies the rest of the world. Steinway has been described as a prominent piano company, known for making pianos of high quality and for inventions within the area of piano development.
Piano
The piano is an acoustic, stringed musical instrument invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700 (the exact year is uncertain), in which the strings are struck by hammers. It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys (small levers) that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. The word "piano" is a shortened form of "pianoforte", the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument, which in turn derives from "gravicembalo col piano e forte" and "fortepiano". The Italian musical terms "piano" and "forte" indicate "soft" and "loud" respectively, in this context referring to the variations in volume (i.e., loudness) produced in response to a pianist's touch or pressure on the keys: the greater the velocity of a key press, the greater the force of the hammer hitting the strings, and the louder the sound of the note produced and the stronger the attack.
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947), is an English singer, pianist, and composer. He has worked with lyricist Bernie Taupin as his songwriting partner since 1967; they have collaborated on more than 30 albums to date. In his five-decade career Elton John has sold more than 300million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world. He has more than fifty Top 40 hits, including seven consecutive No. 1 US albums, 58 "Billboard" Top 40 singles, 27 Top 10, four No. 2 and nine No. 1. For 31 consecutive years (1970–2000) he had at least one song in the "Billboard" Hot 100.
1_Apprentice
Piano Forte. Soft and loud. 
0_Wizard
I usually play the music of Bradley Joseph, the American composer and arranger. Have you heard of him?
Bradley Joseph (born 1965) is an American composer, arranger, and producer of contemporary instrumental music.
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Bradley Joseph
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Bradley Joseph
Bradley Joseph (born 1965) is an American composer, arranger, and producer of contemporary instrumental music. His compositions include works for orchestra, quartet, and solo piano, while his musical style ranges from "quietly pensive mood music to a rich orchestration of classical depth and breadth". Active since 1983, Joseph has performed in front of millions of people around the world. He played various instruments in rock bands throughout the Midwest until 1989 when Greek composer Yanni hired him for his core band after hearing a tape of his original compositions. He was a featured concert keyboardist with Yanni through six major tours, most recently in 2003 for the 60-city "Ethnicity" tour.
Christmas Around the World
Christmas Around the World is Bradley Joseph's fourth album reaching NAV's top 100 radio playlist. "In a thousand different ways, people join together every year to celebrate Christmas with their own unique customs and traditions. Pianist Bradley Joseph has hand-picked songs from around the world and recreated them with his own unique style. Each melody contains history and meaning that has endured for centuries." In a review for "Wind and Wire Magazine", Michael Debbage writes, "Jules Verne took his characters "Around The World In Eighty Days". However, musician Bradley Joseph takes us around the world in one play of this 51-minute-long CD.
Rapture (Bradley Joseph album)
Rapture is the second album by Bradley Joseph, and his debut album on the Narada label, released in March 1997. This is an instrumental album in which Joseph wrote and conducted all of the scores. In addition to incorporating a core band including violinist Charlie Bisharat and drummer Charlie Adams, he used a 50-piece orchestra. It is an "expression of a life's work and dreams", featuring intimate piano pieces, quartets and full orchestrations, "combining smooth jazz with contemporary instrumental themes". It reached New Age Voice (NAV)'s "Airwaves Top 30" at No. 15 in July 1997. During his years of worldwide concert tours as keyboardist with Yanni and Sheena Easton, Bradley Joseph released his debut album, "Hear the Masses" in 1994.
The Journey Continues (Bradley Joseph album)
The Journey Continues is Bradley Joseph's sixth album. A sequel to "Solo Journey", this album was written after sound checks during Yanni's "Ethnicity" World Tour. "Soft piano to calm, compose, and renew". "At the beginning of 2003, I embarked on my sixth tour with Yanni traveling 27,000 miles throughout North America. It was remarkable to play arenas in 60 of our country's greatest cities including Madison Square Garden in New York Cityand the Los Angeles Hollywood Bowl. The special audiences and beautiful cities inspired me to compose after sound checks, and I began writing my sixth CD, "The Journey Continues".
For the Love of It (album)
For the Love of It is the 12th studio album released by Bradley Joseph on the Robbins Island Music label (see 2005 in music). ""Before world tours and recording studios there was a time when Bradley Joseph played piano just 'For The Love Of It'. He grew up listening to, learning, and performing these classic melodies. Recorded for the first time by Bradley, these are some of his favorite songs."" ("Robbins Island", "The Gallery", and "Blue Rock Road" written by Bradley Joseph).
Connotations (Copland)
Connotations is a classical music composition for symphony orchestra written by American composer Aaron Copland. Commissioned by Leonard Bernstein in 1962 to commemorate the opening of Philharmonic Hall (now David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts) in New York City, United States, this piece marks a departure from Copland's populist period, which began with "El Salón México" in 1936 and includes the works he is most famous for such as "Appalachian Spring", "Lincoln Portrait" and "Rodeo". It represents a return to a more dissonant style of composition in which Copland wrote from the end of his studies with French pedagogue Nadia Boulanger and return from Europe in 1924 until the Great Depression.
History of music in Paris
The city of Paris has been an important center for European music since the Middle Ages. It was noted for its choral music in the 12th century, for its role in the development of ballet during the Renaissance, in the 19th century it became famous for its music halls and cabarets, and in the 20th century for the first performances of the Ballets Russes, its jazz clubs, and its part in the development of serial music. Paris has been home to many important composers, to name a few: Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Niccolò Piccinni, Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, Jacques Offenbach, Georges Bizet, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Hector Berlioz, Paul Dukas, Gabriel Fauré, César Franck, Charles Gounod, Jules Massenet, Vincent d'Indy, Camille Saint-Saëns, Erik Satie, Igor Stravinsky, Sidney Bechet...
1_Apprentice
No I haven't. What type of music did he compose?
0_Wizard
Of course, he writes instrumentals. His famous album "Rapture" was released in 1997.
Rapture is the second album by Bradley Joseph, and his debut album on the Narada label, released in March 1997.
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Rapture (Bradley Joseph album)
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Bradley Joseph
Bradley Joseph (born 1965) is an American composer, arranger, and producer of contemporary instrumental music. His compositions include works for orchestra, quartet, and solo piano, while his musical style ranges from "quietly pensive mood music to a rich orchestration of classical depth and breadth". Active since 1983, Joseph has performed in front of millions of people around the world. He played various instruments in rock bands throughout the Midwest until 1989 when Greek composer Yanni hired him for his core band after hearing a tape of his original compositions. He was a featured concert keyboardist with Yanni through six major tours, most recently in 2003 for the 60-city "Ethnicity" tour.
BioShock 2
BioShock 2 is a first-person shooter video game developed by 2K Marin and published by 2K Games. It is the sequel to the 2007 video game "BioShock" and was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows, the PlayStation 3, and the Xbox 360 on February 9, 2010. Feral Interactive released an OS X version of the game on March 30, 2012. Set in the fictional underwater dystopian city of Rapture, the game's story takes place eight years after the events of the first "BioShock". Assuming control of Subject Delta, a hulking Big Daddy, players are tasked with fighting through "splicers", the psychotic human population of the city, using weapons and an array of genetic modifications.
Rapture
The Rapture is an eschatological term used by certain Christians, particularly within branches of American Evangelicalism, referring to a purported end time event when all elect Christian believers—living and resurrected dead— will rise into the sky and join Christ for eternity. Some adherents believe this event is predicted and described in Paul's First Epistle to the Thessalonians in the Bible, where he uses the Greek "harpazo" (ἁρπάζω), meaning to snatch away or seize. Though it has been used differently in the past, the term is now often used by certain believers to distinguish this particular event from the "Second Coming" of Jesus Christ to Earth mentioned in Second Thessalonians, Gospel of Matthew, First Corinthians, and Revelation, usually viewing it as preceding the Second Coming and followed by a thousand year millennial kingdom.
Characters of the BioShock series
The "BioShock" series is a collection of story-driven first person shooters in which the player explores dystopian settings created by Ken Levine and his team at Irrational Games. The first two games, "BioShock" and its direct sequel, "BioShock 2", take place in the underwater city of Rapture in the 1950s and 1960s, which was influenced heavily by Ayn Rand's Objectivism. The third installment, "BioShock Infinite", is set aboard the floating air-city of Columbia in 1912, designed around the concept of American Exceptionalism. Though "Infinite" is not a direct sequel to the previous games, the game is thematically linked; a short scene within the core "Infinite" game returns to Rapture, while the downloadable content "" tie in many of the plot elements between "BioShock" and "BioShock Infinite".
Rapture (BioShock)
Rapture is a fictional city in the "BioShock" series published by 2K Games. It is an underwater city that is the main setting for the games "BioShock" and "BioShock 2". The city also briefly appears in "BioShock Infinite", and is featured in its DLC, "". The game's back-story describes the city as envisioned by business tycoon Andrew Ryan in the mid-1940s as a means to create a utopia for mankind's greatest artists and thinkers to prosper in a laissez-faire environment outside of increasing oppression by the world's governments. However, the lack of government made many people uneasy, and the masses turned toward political activists like Atlas who advocated stability under a government, turning the city into a dystopia; and on the eve of 1959, a civil war broke out, leaving much of Rapture's population dead.
BioShock
BioShock is a first-person shooter video game developed by 2K Boston (later Irrational Games) and 2K Australia, and published by 2K Games. The game was released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 platforms in August 2007; a PlayStation 3 port by Irrational, 2K Marin, 2K Australia and Digital Extremes was released in October 2008, and an OS X port by Feral Interactive in October 2009. A mobile version was developed by IG Fun. The game's concept was developed by Irrational's creative lead, Ken Levine, and incorporates ideas by 20th century dystopian and utopian thinkers such as Ayn Rand, George Orwell, and Aldous Huxley, as well as historical figures such as John D. Rockefeller.
Rapture Ruckus
Rapture Ruckus is a Christian Hip Hop/Rock Band from Wellington, New Zealand signed to BEC Recordings. They have released four Albums: "Rapture Ruckus" in 2002, "I Believe" in 2006, "Rapture Ruckus Live at World's End" in 2008, and "Rapture Ruckus" in 2010 as debut album with BEC Recordings. "I Believe" won an award for Best Gospel/Christian Album at the New Zealand Music Awards, "Rapture Ruckus Live at World's End" debuted at No. 7 on the New Zealand album charts and "Rapture Ruckus" (2010) was nominated for a Dove Award for Best Rap/Hip Hop Album. Headed by Brad Dring, they have been a headline act at Parachute Music Festival several times and now in the US at Jesus Jam, Creation Festival, Sonshine Festival and Three Rivers Festival.
1_Apprentice
I must be a total philistine. His music has never even crossed my radar.
0_Wizard
Rapture also refers to a time when all Christian believers will rise into the sky and join Jesus Christ.  Have you heard of the rapture?
The Rapture is an eschatological term used by certain Christians, particularly within branches of American Evangelicalism, referring to a purported end time event when all elect Christian believers—living and resurrected dead— will rise into the sky and join Christ for eternity.
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Rapture
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Rapture
The Rapture is an eschatological term used by certain Christians, particularly within branches of American Evangelicalism, referring to a purported end time event when all elect Christian believers—living and resurrected dead— will rise into the sky and join Christ for eternity. Some adherents believe this event is predicted and described in Paul's First Epistle to the Thessalonians in the Bible, where he uses the Greek "harpazo" (ἁρπάζω), meaning to snatch away or seize. Though it has been used differently in the past, the term is now often used by certain believers to distinguish this particular event from the "Second Coming" of Jesus Christ to Earth mentioned in Second Thessalonians, Gospel of Matthew, First Corinthians, and Revelation, usually viewing it as preceding the Second Coming and followed by a thousand year millennial kingdom.
Post-tribulation rapture
In Christian eschatology, the post-tribulation rapture doctrine is the belief in a combined resurrection and rapture of all believers coming after the great tribulation. This doctrine holds that there is a resurrection of dead believers and rapture or translation (or a taking-up/catching-away) of living believers in Jesus Christ at the end of the age (or the "End time"). Post-tribulationists believe that Christians will remain on the Earth throughout a whole 7-year Tribulation period which includes the last three and a half years, which some differentiate by calling the last three and a half years the Great Tribulation period.
List of Left Behind characters
This a list of characters in the "Left Behind" novel series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Abdullah Ababneh is a former Jordanian fighter pilot, first officer for the Phoenix 216, Royal Jordanian Air Force, Amman; lost divorced wife and two children in Rapture; former first officer, Phoenix 216; a principal Trib Force pilot assigned to Petra; witnessed the Glorious Appearing; now residing near the Valley of Jehoshaphat, Israel. Albie (no real name given, named for the town Al Basrah) was a Middle East black market arms dealer who became a believer and a member of the Tribulation Force. He helped Rayford rescue Hattie Durham from a detention center in Colorado in "The Mark", using the name Marcus Elbaz.
Christian theology
Christian theology is the theology of Christian belief and practice. Such study concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, as well as on Christian tradition. Christian theologians use biblical exegesis, rational analysis and argument. Theologians may undertake Christian theology in order:   or for a variety of other reasons. Systematic theology as a discipline of Christian theology formulates an orderly, rational and coherent account of Christian faith and beliefs. Systematic theology draws on the foundational sacred texts of Christianity, while simultaneously investigating the development of Christian doctrine over the course of history, particularly through philosophical evolution.
Christian eschatology
Christian eschatology is a major branch of study within Christian theology dealing with the "last things." Eschatology, from two Greek words meaning "last" (ἔσχατος) and "study" (-λογία), is the study of 'end things', whether the end of an individual life, the end of the age, the end of the world and the nature of the Kingdom of God. Broadly speaking, Christian eschatology is the study concerned with the ultimate destiny of the individual soul and the entire created order, based primarily upon biblical texts within the Old and New Testament. Christian eschatology looks to study and discuss matters such as death and the afterlife, Heaven and Hell, the Second Coming of Jesus, the resurrection of the dead, the Rapture, the Tribulation, Millennialism, the end of the world, the Last Judgment, and the New Heaven and New Earth in the world to come.
Seventh-day Adventist theology
The theology of the Seventh-day Adventist Church resembles that of Protestant Christianity, combining elements from Lutheran, Wesleyan/Arminian, and Anabaptist branches of Protestantism. Adventists believe in the infallibility of Scripture and teach that salvation comes through faith in Jesus Christ. The 28 fundamental beliefs constitute the church's official doctrinal position. The denomination also has a number of distinctive doctrines which differentiate it from other Christian churches. There are very few teachings held exclusively by Seventh-day Adventists. Some of their views which differ from most Christian churches include: the perpetuity of the seventh-day Sabbath, the unconsciousness of man in death, conditional immortality, an atoning ministry of Jesus Christ in the heavenly sanctuary, and an “investigative judgment” that commenced in 1844.
Christianity
Christianity is a Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life, teachings, and miracles of Jesus of Nazareth, known by Christians as the Christ, or "Messiah", who is the focal point of the Christian faiths. It is the world's largest religion, with over 2.4 billion followers, or 33% of the global population, known as Christians. Christians make up a majority of the population in 158 countries and territories. They believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity whose coming as the Messiah (the Christ) was prophesied in the Old Testament. Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization.
1_Apprentice
I have heard of that rapture. I imagine that if it occurs I'll be forced to slog it out in the hell on earth. The degree of my sin is exquisite.