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Thomas Schippers was an American conductor. He was highly-regarded for his work in opera. Of Dutch ancestry and son of the owner of a large... appliance store, Schippers was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He began playing piano at age four. After graduating from high school at age 13, he attended the Curtis Institute and the Juilliard School. Schippers made his debut at the New York City Opera at age twenty-one, and the Metropolitan Opera at twenty-three. He conducted world premieres of now well known music by Gian Carlo Menotti and Samuel Barber. He conducted child actor Chet Allen in a theatrical version of Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors. Schippers conducted in all the major opera houses of the United States and Europe, most notably the Metropolitan Opera and La Scala, and founded Italy's Spoleto festival with Menotti and once described his perfect orchestra as being composed of "One-third Italian musicians for their line, one-third Jewish for their sound, a sprinkling of Germans for solidity.
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Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake". Michigan is the 8th most populous of the 50 United States, with the 11th most extensive total area. Its capital is Lansing, and the largest city is Detroit. Michigan has the longest freshwater coastline of any political subdivision in the world,... being bounded by four of the five Great Lakes, plus Lake Saint Clair. Michigan is one of the leading U.S. states for recreational boating. The state has 64,980 inland lakes and ponds. A person in the state is never more than six miles from a natural water source or more than 85 miles from a Great Lakes shoreline. It is the largest state by total area east of the Mississippi River. Michigan is the only state to consist of two peninsulas. The Lower Peninsula, to which the name Michigan was originally applied, is often noted to be shaped like a mitten.
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