Michael Later

Gems: The Duets Collection may bear a title that suggests it’s a compilation, but this 2011 effort is a brand-new album containing nothing but new collaborations between Michael Bolton and similarly minded travelers of the middle of the road…

Michael Bolton had an extensive (though not very successful) career under his real name, Michael Bolotin, before emerging in the mid-'80s as a major soft rock balladeer. He first turned up on RCA Records in the mid-'70s, singing cover tunes and his own blue-eyed soul songs in a gruff, Joe Cocker-like voice. Neither record buyers nor critics were much interested by the result. He then became the lead singer of Blackjack, a heavy metal band that made two albums for Polydor before splitting up in the early '80s. Looking to relaunch his career, he changed his name to Michael Bolton and signed to Columbia Records as a solo artist in 1983.

Michael Learns to Rock (also known as MLTR) is a Danish pop/soft rock band that performs songs in English. Formed in 1988, the band has sold over 11 million records worldwide, mainly in Asia, and in addition, another 6 million or more paid downloads for their single "Take Me To Your Heart" which was awarded "most downloaded single of the year 2006". The band has recorded eight studio albums as well as a number of live and greatest hits albums. The band's eighth studio album, Scandinavia, was released in 2012.

Most popular to theater audiences from his title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber's version of The Phantom of the Opera, Michael Crawford was in fact a star of the British stage and screen for almost two decades before that. Born in Wiltshire, England, in 1942, he began singing in the school choir and, while still a teenager, changed his name from Dumble-Smith to the more charismatic Crawford and began working in radio, television, and film. After first stepping on the London stage in the early '60s, Crawford's first regular television series was the BBC's 1960s show Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life; he appeared in several films as well (The War Lover, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and a starring turn in How I Won the War, which also featured John Lennon).

The circumstances surrounding the composition and first performance of the Suite in B flat major, Op 4, were to prove enormously significant for Strauss’s career. Von Bülow decided to give the premiere of the new work in Munich in the winter of 1884 during an orchestral tour. Furthermore, since the players had already familiarized themselves with the music in Meiningen that autumn, he thought it would be appropriate if the composer himself conducted this performance according to his own interpretation.