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Berkshire
Berkshire or Berks , former county, S central England. Part of the ancient kingdom of Wessex and the birthplace of King Alfred , the county of Berkshire was abolished as an administrative entity in 1998 and divided into the unitary authorities of Bracknell Forest, West Berkshire, Reading, Slo...
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Pittsfield
Pittsfield city (1990 pop. 48,622), seat of Berkshire co., W Mass., between mountain ranges, on branches of the Housatonic River; inc. as a town 1761, as a city 1889. The city is the metropolis of the Berkshire resort area. Once a farming community, it developed industrially in the 19th cent. as a ...
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Reading
Reading rĕd´Ĭng , city (1991 pop. 194,727), S central England, on the Kennet River near its influx to the Thames. The city of Reading, which was the seat of the former county of Berkshire, is a market center with iron founding, engineering, malting, brewing, and biscuit and seed ind...
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New England Conservatory of Music
New England Conservatory of Music at Boston, Mass.; coeducational; est. 1867, chartered and opened 1870. It is closely associated with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood. Jordan Hall, its main auditorium, is noted for recitals and performances by outstanding ...
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Newbury
Newbury town (1991 pop. 31,488), West Berkshire, S central England. In a farming region, Newbury trades in wool, malt, and farm products. Paper, furniture, and metal products are also made. In the Middle Ages the town was an important textile manufacturing center. The 16th-century cloth hall contai...
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Serge Koussevitzky
Serge Koussevitzky (Sergei Aleksandrovich Koussevitzky) , 1874-1951, Russian-American conductor, studied in Moscow. He began his career as a double bass player. In 1908 he made his debut as a conductor in Berlin. In 1910 he and his wife, Natalie, formed an orchestra that Koussevitzky conducted unt...
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Amy Robsart
Amy Robsart , 1532-60, maiden name of the wife of Robert Dudley, later earl of Leicester , a favorite of Queen Elizabeth I of England. When Lady Dudley was found dead at the foot of a staircase in Cumnor Hall, Berkshire, rumor had it that her husband had arranged her murder so that he might be free...
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Berkshire Festival
Berkshire Festival , summer music festival, held since 1937 at "Tanglewood," a former estate in the adjoining towns of Stockbridge and Lenox, Mass. The Berkshire Festivals were begun in 1934 at a farm in Stockbridge. Henry Hadley conducted an orchestra composed largely of members of the New Y...
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Thames
Thames tĕmz , Rom. Tamesis, principal river of England, c.210 mi (340 km) long. It rises in four headstreams (the Thames or Isis, Churn, Coln, and Leach) in the Cotswold Hills, E Gloucestershire, and flows generally eastward across S England and through London to the North Sea at The Nore. I...
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Elias Ashmole
Elias Ashmole , 1617-92, English archaeologist and antiquary. He made exhaustive antiquarian studies, especially The Institution, Laws and Ceremonies of the Order of the Garter (1672) and The Antiquities of Berkshire (3 vol., 1719). In 1677 he donated to the Univ. of Oxford a collection of curio...
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