Giovanni Marks | th

Giovanni Sgambati (May 28, 1841, Rome – December 14, 1914, Rome) was an Italian composer. Born to an Italian father and an English mother, Sgambati, who lost his father early, received his early education at Trevi, in Umbria, where he wrote some church music and obtained experience as a singer and conductor. In 1860 he settled in Rome, and took up the work of winning acceptance for the best German music, then, as always, neglected in Italy. The influence and support of Franz Liszt, who was in Rome from 1861, was naturally of the greatest advantage to him, and concerts...

Nikki Giovanni has written more than two dozen books, including volumes of poetry, illustrated children’s books, and three collections of essays. The civil rights and black power movements informed her early poetry, collected in Black Feeling, Black Talk (1968), Black Judgement (1968), and Re: Creation (1970). Giovanni then wrote poems for children throughout the next decade. Those Who Ride the Night Winds (1983) acknowledged notable black figures. Giovanni collected her essays in the 1988 volume Sacred Cows...and Other Edibles. Her three most recent works are Love Poems, Blues: For All the Changes, and Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea; Poems and Not...

Niko Marks is an artist/writer/producer. He along with Michael Banks ("mad mike")of Submerge Records,Scott Weatherspoon and Raphael Merriwethers formed the house group known as Members Of The House during the mid 1990's. Niko was the lead vocalist as well as writer for many of their songs. He has worked as a producer and songwriter for Vangaurd Productions with Michael J. Powell (Producer for Anita Baker), worked with Carl Craig, played with Stevie Wonder. You can check out more about Niko on www.myspace.com/nikomarks. .

Giovanni Paisiello (or Paesiello) (May 9, 1740 – June 5, 1816), was an Italian composer of the Classical era. Paisiello was born at Taranto, where he attended the Jesuit college. The beauty of his singing voice attracted so much attention that in 1754 he was sent to the Conservatorio di S. Onofrio at Naples, where he studied under Francesco Durante, and in due course became assistant master. For the theatre of the Conservatorio, which he left in 1763, he wrote some intermezzi, one of which attracted so much notice that he was invited to write two operas, La Pupilla and...