Problem: John Adams (October 30 [O.S. October 19] 1735 - July 4, 1826) was an American statesman and Founding Father who served as the first Vice President (1789-97) and second President of the United States (1797-1801). He was a lawyer, diplomat, political theorist, and a leader of the movement for American independence from Great Britain. He was also a dedicated diarist and correspondent, particularly with his wife and closest advisor Abigail. Adams collaborated with his cousin, revolutionary leader Samuel Adams, but he established his own prominence prior to the American Revolution.

John Adams was born on October 30, 1735 (October 19, 1735 Old Style, Julian calendar) to John Adams Sr. (1691-1761) and Susanna Boylston (1708-1797). He had two younger brothers, Peter and Elihu. Adams' birthplace was then in Braintree, Massachusetts (now Quincy, Massachusetts), and is preserved at Adams National Historical Park. Adams' mother was from a leading medical family of present-day Brookline, Massachusetts. His father was a deacon in the Congregational Church, a farmer, a cordwainer, and a lieutenant in the militia. His great-grandfather, Henry Adams, emigrated to Massachusetts from Braintree, Essex, England around 1638. John Sr. also served as a selectman (town councilman) and supervised the building of schools and roads. Adams often praised his father and recalled their close relationship.  Though raised in modest surroundings, Adams felt an acute responsibility to live up to his family's heritage of reverence. He was a direct descendant of Puritans who came to the American wilderness in the 1630s, established a colonial presence in America, and profoundly affected the culture, laws, and traditions of their region. Journalist Richard Brookhiser wrote that Adams' Puritan ancestors "believed they lived in the Bible. England under the Stuarts was Egypt; they were Israel fleeing ... to establish a refuge for godliness, a city upon a hill." By the time of John Adams' birth in 1735, Puritan tenets such as predestination were no longer as widely accepted, and many of their stricter practices had moderated with time, but Adams "considered them bearers of freedom, a cause that still had a holy urgency." It was a value system which he believed in and wished to live up to. Adams emphatically recalled that his parents "held every Species of Libertinage in... Contempt and horror," and portrayed "pictures of disgrace, or baseness and of Ruin" from any debauchery.  Adams, as the eldest child, was under a mandate from his parents to obtain a formal education. This began at age six at a Dame school for boys and girls, which was conducted at a teacher's home and centered upon The New England Primer. Shortly thereafter, Adams attended Braintree Latin School under Joseph Cleverly, where studies included Latin, rhetoric, logic, and arithmetic. Adams' reflections on early education were in the negative mostly, including incidents of truancy, a dislike for his master, and a desire to become a farmer. All questions on the matter ended when his father commanded that he remain in school saying, "You shall comply with my desires." Deacon Adams also retained a new school master named Joseph Marsh, and his son responded positively.

What was his mothers name?

Answer with quotes: Susanna Boylston (1708-1797).


Problem: Previn was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of Charlotte (nee Epstein) and Jack Previn (Jakob Priwin), who was a lawyer, judge, and music teacher. He is said to be "a distant relative of" the composer Gustav Mahler. However, in a pre-concert public interview at the Lincoln Center, in May 2012, Previn laughed at the suggestion that he is related to Mahler. The year of his birth is uncertain.

Previn's recording repertoire as a conductor is focused on the standards of classical and romantic music, with notable exceptions like Anton Bruckner, most of Gustav Mahler and opera in general, instead favoring the symphonic music of contemporaries like Hector Berlioz, Johannes Brahms and Richard Strauss and with a special emphasis on violin and piano concertos and ballets. Just very few recordings deal with music before Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (both favourites of Previn's programmes) or contemporary avant-garde art music based on atonality, minimalism, serialism, stochastic music etc. Instead, in 20th-century music Previn's repertoire highlights specific composers of late romanticism and modernism like Samuel Barber, Benjamin Britten, George Gershwin, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Serge Prokofiev, Serge Rachmaninoff, Maurice Ravel, Dmitri Shostakovich, Richard Strauss, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Harold Shapero and William Walton.  His recordings of works by Gershwin, Korngold (especially the Violin Concerto in D major op. 35, which he recorded three times with Itzhak Perlman, Gil Shaham and Anne-Sophie Mutter), Prokofiev (esp. the 5 piano concertos with Vladimir Ashkenazy and the LSO, Romeo and Juliet op. 64 with the LSO, and the Symphonies 1 and 5, the score to Alexander Nevsky, and the Symphony-Concerto for Cello & Orchestra with Heinrich Schiff as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic), Rachmaninoff (esp. the Symphony No. 2 E minor op. 27 and The Bells op. 35), Shostakovich, Richard Strauss (esp. the recordings of all tone poems with the Vienna Philharmonic) Tchaikowsky (esp. the three ballets Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker), Vaughan Williams (a complete cycle of the nine symphonies for RCA), and Walton (esp. the Symphony No. 1 B-flat minor and Belshazzar's Feast) have been particularly prized.  Previn recorded mostly for EMI, Telarc and Deutsche Grammophon.

What channels on televison?

Answer with quotes: