title: Mercedes-Benz W124

text: Much of the 124's engineering and many of its features were advanced automotive technology at its introduction, incorporating innovations that have been adopted throughout the industry. It had one of the lowest coefficient of drag (Cd) of any vehicle of the time (0.28 for the 200/200D model for the European market with 185/65 R15 tires) due to its aerodynamic body, that included plastic molding for the undercarriage to streamline airflow beneath the car, reducing fuel consumption and wind noise. It had a single windscreen wiper that had an eccentric mechanism at its base that extended the wiper's reach to the top corners of the windscreen (more than if it had traveled in a simple arc). The saloon/sedan, coupés and convertibles had optional rear headrests that would fold down remotely to improve rearward visibility when required. This feature was not available for the T-model because of its specific layout (no space to store the retractable headrests), but the estate serially came with a "neighbour-friendly" rear door that was pulled in the shut-position silently and automatically by a sensor-controlled servomotor. This allowed the use of a tighter fitting rear gate, minimizing the cabin noise in the T-model - sometimes an area of concern for station wagons.


title: Mercedes-Benz W124

text: The estate cars (chassis designation S124) came in 5 or 7-seat models, the 7-seater having a rear-facing bench seat that folded flush luggage compartment cover and an optional (in the US until 1994) retractable cargo net. To provide a flat loading floor with the seat folded down, the T-model's rear seat squab was mounted about higher than in saloons, robbing rear seat passengers of some head room. The S124 estate continued in production alongside the new W210 until the S210 estate launched more than a year later. A two-door coupé version was also built, with the chassis designation C124.


title: Mercedes-Benz W124

text: The E 320, E 220, and E 200 cabriolets ceased production in 1997. Indian assembly (in a joint-venture with Telco called Mercedes-Benz India) began in March 1995. Offered with five-cylinder diesel engines built by Mercedes' Indian partner Bajaj Tempo, the W124 was replaced there in December 1997.


title: Mercedes-Benz W124

text: The pre-facelift models from 1985 to 1993 used the model designations: 200/200 T (carburettor), 200 E/200 TE (originally intended for Italian market due to Italy's tax rates on cars larger than 2 liters; available in Germany since September 1988), 200 CE, 230 E/230 TE, 230 CE, 260 E (saloon only), 300 E/TE, 300 CE, 300 E-24/300 CE-24/300 TE-24 valve, 400 E (not in the UK), & 500 E (LHD only in the UK). Diesel models consisted of the following designations; the 200 D/200 TD (not in the UK), 250 D/250 TD and the 300 D/300 TD. Facelift models produced from 1993 to 1996 used the following model designations: E 200, E 220, E 280, E 320, E 420 (not in the UK) & E 500 (LHD only in the UK). Both saloon and estate versions of the facelifted model carried the same model designation on their boot lid, i.e. the T was no longer used for estate versions. In the UK post-facelift diesels were E 250 Diesel (saloon only) and E 300 Diesel (saloon & estate) models. The W124 was also offered as a long wheelbase saloon targeted for taxi companies, but the more luxury equipped version was also used as a limousine.


title: Mercedes-Benz W124

text: The table gives preproduction to end of production as per Daimler. Daimler lists November 1984 as the start of production for the series but also lists 1985 as part of preproduction for any specific early model. No regular deliveries occurred in 1984.


title: Mercedes-Benz W124

text: Mercedes-Benz sold a high performance version of the W124, the 500 E, created in close cooperation with and assembled by Porsche. It used the 5.0 L 32-valve V8 M119 Engine based on the engine from the 500 SL (R129) roadster. Porsche engineered the suspension and chassis design with a performance bias. Mercedes entered an agreement with Porsche to assemble the vehicles at their plant in Zuffenhausen, as the automaker was in crisis, and its factory capacitiy was underutilized.


title: Mercedes-Benz W124

text: Porsche also constructed the chassis for the 400 E, which was in essence identical to the 500 E's chassis.


title: Mercedes-Benz W124

text: In some countries, the final batch of W124 was sold as the limited edition "Masterpiece" in 1995. Following the impending release of its successor, the Mercedes-Benz W210, the remaining units of W124 were fitted with additional accessories found in stock models such as walnut wood steering wheel (optional), airbag for front passenger, walnut center console glove box, electric rear blind and rear seat side window sunshade (optional). There were also 4 unique pieces of accessories fitted to Masterpieces which were not available to any other W124 around the world – gear knob engraved with the word "Masterpiece", stainless door sills engraved with "Mercedes Benz", "Masterpiece" label on the right side of the boot and the brand new 6-hole light alloy wheels.


title: Mercedes-Benz W124

text: The W124 gained a good reputation for reliability. In 1995 the diesel engined version topped the "upper middle class" category in a reliability survey of 4–6-year-old cars undertaken by the German Automobile Association (ADAC), with 11.8 recorded breakdowns per 1,000 vehicles for four-year-old cars and 21.6 for six-year-old ones: this compared with 14.6 breakdowns per 1,000 cars for four-year-old Audi 100s and 27.3 for six-year-old big Audis.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training in Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712, where he spent the bulk of his career and became a naturalised British subject in 1727. He was strongly influenced both by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition and by composers of the Italian Baroque. In turn, Handel's music forms one of the peaks of the "high baroque" style, bringing Italian opera to its highest development, creating the genres of English oratorio and organ concerto, and introducing a new style into English church music. He is consistently recognized as one of the greatest composers of his age.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Handel started three commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera. In 1737, he had a physical breakdown, changed direction creatively, and addressed the middle class and made a transition to English choral works. After his success with "Messiah" (1742), he never composed an Italian opera again. His orchestral "Water Music" and "Music for the Royal Fireworks" remain steadfastly popular. One of his four coronation anthems, "Zadok the Priest", has been performed at every British coronation since 1727. Almost blind, he died in 1759, a respected and rich man, and was given a state funeral at Westminster Abbey.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Handel composed more than forty opere serie over a period of more than thirty years. Since the late 1960s, interest in Handel's music has grown. The musicologist Winton Dean wrote that "Handel was not only a great composer; he was a dramatic genius of the first order." His music was admired by Classical-era composers, including Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Handel was born in 1685 (the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach and Domenico Scarlatti) in Halle, Duchy of Magdeburg (then part of Brandenburg-Prussia). His parents were Georg Händel, aged 63, and Dorothea Taust. His father was an eminent barber-surgeon who served the court of Saxe-Weissenfels and the Margraviate of Brandenburg.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Halle was a relatively prosperous city, home of a salt-mining industry and centre of trade (and member of the Hanseatic League). The Margrave of Brandenburg became the administrator of the archiepiscopal territories of Mainz, including Magdeburg when they converted, and by the early 17th century held his court in Halle, which attracted renowned musicians. Even the smaller churches all had "able organists and fair choirs", and humanities and the letters thrived (Shakespeare was performed in the theatres early in the 17th century). The Thirty Years' War brought extensive destruction to Halle, and by the 1680s it was impoverished. However, since the middle of the war the city had been under the administration of the Duke of Saxony, and soon after the end of the war he would bring musicians trained in Dresden to his court in Weissenfels.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: The arts and music, however, flourished only among the higher strata (not only in Halle but throughout Germany), of which Handel's family was not a member. Georg Händel (senior) was born at the beginning of the war and was apprenticed to a barber in Halle at the age of 14 after his father died. When he was 20, he married the widow of the official barber-surgeon of a suburb of Halle, inheriting his practice. With this, Georg determinedly began the process of becoming self-made; by dint of his "conservative, steady, thrifty, unadventurous" lifestyle, he guided the five children he had with Anna who reached adulthood into the medical profession (except his youngest daughter, who married a government official). Anna died in 1682. Within a year Georg married again, this time to the daughter of a Lutheran minister, Pastor Georg Taust of the Church of St. Bartholomew in Giebichenstein, who himself came from a long line of Lutheran pastors. Handel was the second child of this marriage; the first son was stillborn. Two younger sisters were born after the birth of George Frideric: Dorthea Sophia, born on 6 October 1687, and Johanna Christiana, born on 10 January 1690.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Early in his life Handel is reported to have attended the "Gymnasium" in Halle, where the headmaster, , was reputed to be an ardent musician. Whether Handel remained there, and if he did for how long, is unknown, but many biographers suggest that he was withdrawn from school by his father, based on the characterization of him by Handel's first biographer, John Mainwaring. Mainwaring is the source for almost all information (little as it is) of Handel's childhood, and much of that information came from J.C. Smith, Jr., Handel's confidant, and copyist. Whether it came from Smith or elsewhere, Mainwaring frequently relates misinformation. It is from Mainwaring that the portrait comes of Handel's father as implacably opposed to any musical education. Mainwaring writes that Georg Händel was "alarmed" at Handel's very early propensity for music, "took every measure to oppose it", including forbidding any musical instrument in the house and preventing Handel from going to any house where they might be found. This did nothing to dampen young Handel's inclination; in fact, it did the reverse. Mainwaring tells the story of Handel's secret attic spinet: Handel "found means to get a little clavichord privately convey'd to a room at the top of the house. To this room he constantly stole when the family was asleep". Although both John Hawkins and Charles Burney credited this tale, Schoelcher found it nearly "incredible" and a feat of "poetic imagination" and Lang considers it one of the unproven "romantic stories" that surrounded Handel's childhood. But Handel had to have had some experience with the keyboard to have made the impression in Weissenfels that resulted in his receiving formal musical training.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Sometime between the ages of seven and nine, Handel accompanied his father to Weissenfels, where he came under the notice of one whom Handel thereafter always regarded throughout life as his benefactor, Duke Johann Adolf I. Somehow Handel made his way to the court organ in the palace chapel of the Holy Trinity, where he surprised everyone with his playing. Overhearing this performance and noting the youth of the performer caused the Duke, whose suggestions were not to be disregarded, to recommend to Georg Händel that Handel be given musical instruction. Handel's father engaged the organist at the Halle parish church, the young Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, to instruct Handel. Zachow would be the only teacher that Handel ever had. Because of his church employment, Zachow was an organist "of the old school", reveling in fugues, canons, and counterpoint. But he was also familiar with developments in music across Europe and his own compositions "embraced the new concerted, dramatic style". When Zachow discovered the talent of Handel, he introduced him "to a vast collection of German and Italian music, which he possessed, sacred and profane, vocal and instrumental compositions of different schools, different styles, and of every master". Many traits considered "Handelian" can be traced back to Zachow's music. At the same time Handel continued practice on the harpsichord, and learned violin and organ, but according to Burney his special affection was for the "hautbois" (oboe). Schoelcher speculates that his youthful devotion to the instrument explains the large number of pieces he composed for oboe.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: With respect to instruction in composition, in addition to having Handel apply himself to traditional fugue and cantus firmus work, Zachow, recognising Handel's precocious talents, systematically introduced Handel to the variety of styles and masterworks contained in his extensive library. He did this by requiring Handel to copy selected scores. "I used to write like the devil in those days", Handel recalled much later. Much of this copying was entered into a notebook that Handel maintained for the rest of his life. Although it has since disappeared, the notebook has been sufficiently described to understand what pieces Zachow wished Handel to study. Among the chief composers represented in this exercise book were Johann Krieger, an "old master" in the fugue and prominent organ composer, Johann Caspar Kerll, a representative of the "southern style" after his teacher Girolamo Frescobaldi and imitated later by Handel, Johann Jakob Froberger, an "internationalist" also closely studied by Buxtehude and Bach, and Georg Muffat, whose amalgam of French and Italian styles and his synthesis of musical forms influenced Handel.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Mainwaring writes that during this time Zachow had begun to have Handel assume some of his church duties. Zachow, Mainwaring asserts, was "often" absent, "from his love of company, and a cheerful glass", and Handel, therefore, performed on organ frequently. What is more, according to Mainwaring, Handel began composing, at the age of nine, church services for voice and instruments "and from that time actually did compose a service every week for three years successively." Mainwaring ends this chapter of Handel's life by concluding that three or four years had been enough to allow Handel to surpass Zachow, and Handel had become "impatient for another situation"; "Berlin was the place agreed upon." Carelessness with dates or sequences (and possibly imaginative interpretation by Mainwaring) makes this period confused.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Handel's father died on 11 February 1697. It was German custom for friends and family to compose funeral odes for a substantial burgher like Georg, and young Handel discharged his duty with a poem dated 18 February and signed with his name and (in deference to his father's wishes) "dedicated to the liberal arts." At the time Handel was studying either at Halle's Lutheran Gymnasium or the Latin School.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Mainwaring has Handel travelling to Berlin the next year, 1698. The problem with Mainwaring as an authority for this date, however, is that he tells of how Handel's father communicated with the "king" during Handel's stay, declining the Court's offer to send Handel to Italy on a stipend and that his father died "after his return from Berlin." But since Georg Händel died in 1697, either the date of the trip or Mainwaring's statements about Handel's father must be in error. Early biographers solved the problem by making the year of the trip 1696, then noting that at the age of 11 Handel would need a guardian, so they have Handel's father or a friend of the family accompany him, all the while puzzling over why the elder Handel, who wanted Handel to become a lawyer, would spend the sum to lead his son further into the temptation of music as a career. Schoelcher for example has Handel travelling to Berlin at 11, meeting both Bononcini and Attilio Ariosti in Berlin and then returning at the direction of his father. But Ariosti was not in Berlin before the death of Handel's father, and Handel could not have met Bononcini in Berlin before 1702. Modern biographers either accept the year as 1698, since most reliable older authorities agree with it, and discount what Mainwaring says about what took place during the trip or assume that Mainwaring conflated two or more visits to Berlin, as he did with Handel's later trips to Venice.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Perhaps to fulfil a promise to his father or simply because he saw himself as "dedicated to the liberal arts", on 10 February 1702 Handel matriculated at the University of Halle. That university had only recently been founded. In 1694, the Elector of Brandenburg Frederick III (later Prussian King Frederick I) created the school, largely to provide a lecture forum for the jurist Christian Thomasius who had been expelled from Leipzig for his liberal views. Handel did not enrol in the faculty of law, although he almost certainly attended lectures. Thomasius was an intellectual and academic crusader, who was the first German academic to lecture in German and also denounced witch trials. Lang believes that Thomasius instilled in Handel a "respect for the dignity and freedom of man's mind and the solemn majesty of the law", principles that would have drawn him to and kept him in England for half a century. Handel also there encountered theologian and professor of Oriental languages August Hermann Francke, who was particularly solicitous of children, especially orphans. The orphanage he founded became a model for Germany, and undoubtedly influenced Handel's own charitable impulse, when he assigned the rights of "Messiah" to London's Foundling Hospital.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Shortly after commencing his university education, Handel (though Lutheran) on 13 March 1702 accepted the position of organist at the Calvinist Cathedral in Halle, the Domkirche, replacing J. C. Leporin, for whom he had acted as assistant. The position, which was a one-year probationary appointment, showed the foundation he had received from Zachow, for a church organist and cantor was a highly prestigious office. From it he received 5 thalers a year and lodgings in the run-down castle of Moritzburg.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Around this same time, Handel made the acquaintance of Telemann. Four years Handel's senior, Telemann was studying law at Leipzig and was assisting cantor Johann Kuhnau (Bach's predecessor at the Thomaskirche there). Telemann recalled forty years later in an autobiography for Mattheson's "Grundlage": "The writing of the excellent Johann Kuhnau served as a model for me in fugue and counterpoint; but in fashioning melodic movements and examining them Handel and I were constantly occupied, frequently visiting each other as well as writing letters."


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Although Mainwaring records that Handel wrote weekly when assistant to Zachow and as probationary organist at Domkirche part of his duty was to provide suitable music, no sacred compositions from his Halle period can now be identified. Mattheson, however, summarised his opinion of Handel's church cantatas written in Halle: "Handel in those days set very, very long arias and sheerly unending cantatas which, while not possessing the proper knack or correct taste, were perfect so far as harmony is concerned."


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Early chamber works do exist, but it is difficult to date any of them to Handel's time in Halle. Many historians until recently followed Chrysander and designated the six trio sonatas for two oboes and basso continuo as his first known composition, supposedly written in 1696 (when Handel was 11). Lang doubts the dating based on a handwritten date of a copy (1700) and stylistic considerations. Lang writes that the works "show thorough acquaintance with the distilled sonata style of the Corelli school" and are notable for "the formal security and the cleanness of the texture." Hogwood considers all of the oboe trio sonatas spurious and even suggests that some parts cannot be performed on oboe. That authentic manuscript sources do not exist and that Handel never recycled any material from these works makes their authenticity doubtful. Other early chamber works were printed in Amsterdam in 1724 as opus 1, but it is impossible to tell which are early works in their original form, rather than later re-workings by Handel, a frequent practice of his.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Handel's probationary appointment to Domkirche expired in March 1703. By July Handel was in Hamburg. Since he left no explanation for the move biographers have offered their own speculation. Donald Burrows believes that the answer can be found by untangling Mainwaring's confused chronology of the trip to Berlin. Burrows dates this trip to 1702 or 1703 (after his father's death) and concluded that since Handel (through a "friend and relation" at the Berlin court) turned down Frederick's offer to subsidise his musical education in Italy (with the implicit understanding that he would become a court musician on his return), Handel was no longer able to expect preferment (whether as a musician, lawyer or otherwise) within Brandenburg-Prussia. Since he was attracted to secular, dramatic music (by meeting the Italians Bononcini and Attilio Ariosti and through the influence of Telemann), Hamburg, a free city with an established opera company, was the logical choice. The question remains, however, why Handel rejected the King's offer, given that Italy was the centre of opera. Lang suggests that influenced by the teachings of Thomasius, Handel's character was such that he was unable to make himself subservient to anyone, even a king. Lang sees Handel as someone who could not accept class distinctions that required him to regard himself as a social inferior. "What Handel craved was personal freedom to raise himself out of his provincial milieu to a life of culture." Burrows notes that, like his father, Handel was able to accept royal (and aristocratic) favours without considering himself a court servant; and so, given the embarrassed financial condition of his mother, Handel set off for Hamburg to obtain experience while supporting himself.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: In 1703, he accepted a position as violinist and harpsichordist in the orchestra of the Hamburg Oper am Gänsemarkt. There he met the composers Johann Mattheson, Christoph Graupner and Reinhard Keiser. Handel's first two operas, "Almira" and "Nero", were produced in 1705. He produced two other operas, "Daphne" and "Florindo", in 1708. It is unclear whether Handel directed these performances.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: According to Mainwaring, in 1706 Handel travelled to Italy at the invitation of Ferdinando de' Medici. (Other sources say Handel was invited by Gian Gastone de' Medici, whom Handel had met in 1703–1704 in Hamburg.) Ferdinando, who had a keen interest in opera, was trying to make Florence Italy's musical capital by attracting the leading talents of his day. In Italy, Handel met librettist Antonio Salvi, with whom he later collaborated. Handel left for Rome and since opera was (temporarily) banned in the Papal States, composed sacred music for the Roman clergy. His famous "Dixit Dominus" (1707) is from this era. He also composed cantatas in pastoral style for musical gatherings in the palaces of duchess Aurora Sanseverino (whom Mainwaring called "Donna Laura") one of the most influential patrons from the Kingdom of Naples, and cardinals Pietro Ottoboni, Benedetto Pamphili and Carlo Colonna. Two oratorios, "La resurrezione" and "Il trionfo del tempo", were produced in a private setting for Ruspoli and Ottoboni in 1709 and 1710, respectively. "Rodrigo", his first all-Italian opera, was produced in the Cocomero theatre in Florence in 1707. "Agrippina" was first produced in 1709 at Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo in Venice, owned by the Grimanis. The opera, with a libretto by Cardinal Vincenzo Grimani, ran for 27 nights successively. The audience, thunderstruck with the grandeur and sublimity of his style, applauded for "Il caro Sassone" ("the dear Saxon" – referring to Handel's German origins).


title: George Frideric Handel

text: In June 1710, Handel became "Kapellmeister" to German prince George, the Elector of Hanover, but left at the end of the year. It is likely he was also invited by Charles Montagu the former ambassador in Venice to visit England. He visited Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici and her husband in Düsseldorf on his way to London. With his opera "Rinaldo", based on "La Gerusalemme Liberata" by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso, Handel enjoyed great success, although it was composed quickly, with many borrowings from his older Italian works. This work contains one of Handel's favourite arias, "Cara sposa, amante cara", and the famous Lascia ch'io pianga.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Handel went back to Halle twice, to attend the wedding of his sister and the baptism of her daughter, but decided to settle permanently in England in 1712. In the summer of 1713, he lived at Mr. Mathew Andrews' estate in Barn Elms, Surrey. He received a yearly income of £200 from Queen Anne after composing for her the "Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate", first performed in 1713.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: One of his most important patrons was the 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork, a young and extremely wealthy member of an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family. While living in the mansion of Lord Burlington, Handel wrote "Amadigi di Gaula", a "magic" opera, about a damsel in distress, based on the tragedy by Antoine Houdar de la Motte.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: The conception of an opera as a coherent structure was slow to capture Handel's imagination and he composed no operas for five years. In July 1717 Handel's "Water Music" was performed more than three times on the River Thames for King George I and his guests. It is said the compositions spurred reconciliation between Handel and the king, supposedly annoyed by the composer's abandonment of his Hanover post.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: In 1717, Handel became house composer at Cannons in Middlesex, where he laid the cornerstone for his future choral compositions in the "Chandos Anthems". Romain Rolland wrote that these anthems (or Psalms) stood in relation to Handel's oratorios, much the same way that the Italian cantatas stood to his operas: "splendid sketches of the more monumental works." Another work, which he wrote for The 1st Duke of Chandos, the owner of Cannons, was "Acis and Galatea": during Handel's lifetime, it was his most performed work. Winton Dean wrote that "the music catches breath and disturbs the memory".


title: George Frideric Handel

text: In 1719, the Duke of Chandos became one of the composer's important patrons and a primary subscriber to his new opera company, the Royal Academy of Music, though his patronage declined after Chandos lost large sums of money in the South Sea Bubble, which burst in 1720 in one of history's greatest financial cataclysms. Handel himself invested in the South Sea Company in 1716, when its share prices were low and sold them before the "bubble" burst in 1720. In 1720, Handel invested in the slave-trading Royal African Company (RAC), following in the steps of his patron (the Duke of Chandos was one of the leading investors in the RAC). As noted by music historian David Hunter, 32 per cent of the subscribers and investors in the Royal Academy of Music, or their close family members, held investments in the RAC as well.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: In May 1719, The 1st Duke of Newcastle, the Lord Chamberlain, ordered Handel to look for new singers. Handel travelled to Dresden to attend the newly built opera. He saw "Teofane" by Antonio Lotti, and engaged members of the cast for the Royal Academy of Music, founded by a group of aristocrats to assure themselves a constant supply of baroque opera or opera seria. Handel may have invited John Smith, his fellow student in Halle, and his son Johann Christoph Schmidt, to become his secretary and amanuensis. By 1723 he had moved into a Georgian house at 25 Brook Street, which he rented for the rest of his life. This house, where he rehearsed, copied music, and sold tickets, is now the Handel House Museum. During twelve months between 1724 and 1725, Handel wrote three successful operas, "Giulio Cesare", "Tamerlano" and "Rodelinda". Handel's operas are filled with da capo arias, such as "Svegliatevi nel core". After composing "Silete venti", he concentrated on opera and stopped writing cantatas. "Scipio", from which the regimental slow march of the British Grenadier Guards is derived, was performed as a stopgap, waiting for the arrival of Faustina Bordoni.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: In 1727, Handel was commissioned to write four anthems for the Coronation ceremony of King George II. One of these, "Zadok the Priest", has been played at every British coronation ceremony since. The words to "Zadok the Priest" are taken from the King James Bible. In 1728, John Gay's "The Beggar's Opera", which made fun of the type of Italian opera Handel had popularised in London, premiered at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre and ran for 62 consecutive performances, the longest run in theatre history up to that time. After nine years the Royal Academy of Music ceased to function but Handel soon started a new company.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: The Queen's Theatre at the Haymarket (now Her Majesty's Theatre), established in 1705 by architect and playwright John Vanbrugh, quickly became an opera house. Between 1711 and 1739, more than 25 of Handel's operas premièred there. In 1729, Handel became joint manager of the theatre with John James Heidegger.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Handel travelled to Italy to engage new singers and also composed seven more operas, among them the comic masterpiece "Partenope" and the "magic" opera "Orlando". After two commercially successful English oratorios "Esther" and "Deborah", he was able to invest again in the South Sea Company. Handel reworked his "Acis and Galatea" which then became his most successful work ever. Handel failed to compete with the Opera of the Nobility, who engaged musicians such as Johann Adolph Hasse, Nicolo Porpora and the famous castrato Farinelli. The strong support by Frederick, Prince of Wales caused conflicts in the royal family. In March 1734 Handel composed a wedding anthem "This is the day which the Lord hath made", and a serenata "Parnasso in Festa" for Anne, Princess Royal.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Despite the problems the Opera of the Nobility was causing him at the time, Handel's neighbour in Brook Street, Mary Delany, reported on a party she invited Handel to at her house on 12 April 1734 where he was in good spirits:I had Lady Rich and her daughter, Lady Cath. Hanmer and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Percival, Sir John Stanley and my brother, Mrs. Donellan, Strada [star soprano of Handel's operas] and Mr. Coot. Lord Shaftesbury begged of Mr. Percival to bring him, and being a profess'd friend of Mr. Handel (who was here also) was admitted; I never was so well entertained at an opera! Mr. Handel was in the best humour in the world, and played lessons and accompanied Strada and all the ladies that sang from seven o'clock till eleven. I gave them tea and coffee, and about half an hour after nine had a salver brought in of chocolate, mulled white wine, and biscuits. Everybody was easy and seemed pleased.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: In 1733, the Earl of Essex received a letter with the following sentence: "Handel became so arbitrary a prince, that the Town murmurs." The board of chief investors expected Handel to retire when his contract ended, but Handel immediately looked for another theatre. In cooperation with John Rich he started his third company at Covent Garden Theatre. Rich was renowned for his spectacular productions. He suggested Handel use his small chorus and introduce the dancing of Marie Sallé, for whom Handel composed "Terpsicore". In 1735, he introduced organ concertos between the acts. For the first time, Handel allowed Gioacchino Conti, who had no time to learn his part, to substitute arias. Financially, "Ariodante" was a failure, although he introduced ballet suites at the end of each act. "Alcina", his last opera with a magic content, and "Alexander's Feast or the Power of Music" based on John Dryden's "Alexander's Feast" starred Anna Maria Strada del Pò and John Beard.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Early 1737 he had produced "Arminio" and "Giustino", completed "Berenice", revived "Partenope", and continued with "Il Parnasso in Festa", "Alexander's Feast", and the revised "The Triumph of Time and Truth" which premiered on 23 March. In April Handel suffered a mild stroke, or "rheumatic palsy", resulting in temporary paralysis in his right hand and arm. After brief signs of a recovery, he had a relapse in May, with an accompanying deterioration in his mental capacities. He had strong competition from John Frederick Lampe; "The Dragon of Wantley" was first performed at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket in London on 16 May 1737. It was a parody of the Italian opera seria.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: In Autumn 1737 the fatigued Handel reluctantly followed the advice of his physicians and went to take the cure in the spa towns of Royal Tunbridge Wells, Aix-la-Chapelle (Burtscheid) in September. All the symptoms of his "disorder" vanished by November. On Christmas Eve Handel finished the score of Faramondo, but its composition was interrupted by that of the Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline. On Boxing Day he began the composition of Serse, the only comic opera that Handel ever wrote and worked with Elisabeth Duparc.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: A harp and organ concerto (HWV 294) and "Alexander's Feast" were published in 1738 by John Walsh. He composed music for a musical clock with a pipe organ built by Charles Clay; it was bought by Gerrit Braamcamp and was in 2016 acquired by the Museum Speelklok in Utrecht. "Deidamia", his last opera, a co-production with the Earl of Holderness, was performed three times in 1741. Handel gave up the opera business, while he enjoyed more success with his English oratorios.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: "Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno", an allegory, Handel's first oratorio was composed in Italy in 1707, followed by "La resurrezione" in 1708 which uses material from the Bible. The circumstances of "Esther" and its first performance, possibly in 1718, are obscure. Another 12 years had passed when an act of piracy caused him to take up "Esther" once again. Three earlier performances aroused such interest that they naturally prompted the idea of introducing it to a larger public. Next came "Deborah", strongly coloured by the coronation anthems and "Athaliah", his third English Oratorio. In these three oratorios Handel laid the foundation for the traditional use of the chorus which marks his later oratorios. Handel became sure of himself, broader in his presentation, and more diverse in his composition.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: It is evident how much he learned from Arcangelo Corelli about writing for instruments, and from Alessandro Scarlatti about writing for the solo voice; but there is no single composer who taught him how to write for chorus. Handel tended more and more to replace Italian soloists with English ones. The most significant reason for this change was the dwindling financial returns from his operas. Thus a tradition was created for oratorios which was to govern their future performance. The performances were given without costumes and action; the singers appeared in their own clothes.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: In 1736, Handel produced "Alexander's Feast". John Beard appeared for the first time as one of Handel's principal singers and became Handel's permanent tenor soloist for the rest of Handel's life. The piece was a great success and it encouraged Handel to make the transition from writing Italian operas to English choral works. In "Saul", Handel was collaborating with Charles Jennens and experimenting with three trombones, a carillon and extra-large military kettledrums (from the Tower of London), to be sure "...it will be most excessive noisy". "Saul" and "Israel in Egypt", both from 1739, head the list of great, mature oratorios, in which the da capo aria became the exception and not the rule. "Israel in Egypt" consists of little else but choruses, borrowing from the "Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline". In his next works, Handel changed his course. In these works he laid greater stress on the effects of orchestra and soloists; the chorus retired into the background. "L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato" has a rather diverting character; the work is light and fresh.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: During the summer of 1741, The 3rd Duke of Devonshire invited Handel to Dublin, capital of the Kingdom of Ireland, to give concerts for the benefit of local hospitals. His "Messiah" was first performed at the New Music Hall in Fishamble Street on 13 April 1742, with 26 boys and five men from the combined choirs of St Patrick's and Christ Church cathedrals participating. Handel secured a balance between soloists and chorus which he never surpassed.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: In 1747, Handel wrote his oratorio "Alexander Balus". This work was produced at Covent Garden Theatre in London, on 23 March 1748, and to the aria "Hark! hark! He strikes the golden lyre", Handel wrote the accompaniment for mandolin, harp, violin, viola, and violoncello. Another of his English oratorios, "Solomon", was first performed on 17 March 1749 at the Covent Garden Theatre. "Solomon" contains a short and lively instrumental passage for two oboes and strings in act 3, known as "The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba".


title: George Frideric Handel

text: The use of English soloists reached its height at the first performance of "Samson". The work is highly theatrical. The role of the chorus became increasingly important in his later oratorios. "Jephtha" was first performed on 26 February 1752; even though it was his last oratorio, it was no less a masterpiece than his earlier works.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: In 1749, Handel composed "Music for the Royal Fireworks"; 12,000 people attended the first performance. In 1750, he arranged a performance of "Messiah" to benefit the Foundling Hospital, a children's home in London. The performance was considered a great success and was followed by annual concerts that continued throughout his life. In recognition of his patronage, Handel was made a governor of the Hospital the day after his initial concert. He bequeathed a copy of "Messiah" to the institution upon his death. His involvement with the Foundling Hospital is today commemorated with a permanent exhibition in London's Foundling Museum, which also holds the "Gerald Coke Handel Collection". In addition to the Foundling Hospital, Handel also gave to a charity that assisted impoverished musicians and their families.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: In August 1750, on a journey back from Germany to London, Handel was seriously injured in a carriage accident between The Hague and Haarlem in the Netherlands. In 1751, one eye started to fail. The cause was a cataract which was operated on by the great charlatan Chevalier Taylor. This did not improve his eyesight and possibly made it worse. He was completely blind by 1752. He died in 1759 at home in Brook Street, at the age of 74. The last performance he attended was of "Messiah". Handel was buried in Westminster Abbey. More than three thousand mourners attended his funeral, which was given full state honours.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Handel never married and kept his personal life private. His initial will bequeathed the bulk of his estate to his niece Johanna, but four codicils distributed much of his estate to other relations, servants, friends and charities.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Handel owned an art collection that was auctioned posthumously in 1760. The auction catalogue listed approximately seventy paintings and ten prints (other paintings were bequeathed).


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Handel's compositions include 42 operas, 25 oratorios, more than 120 cantatas, trios and duets, numerous arias, odes and serenatas, solo and trio sonatas, 18 concerti grossi, and 12 organ concertos. His most famous work, the oratorio "Messiah" with its "Hallelujah" chorus, is among the most popular works in choral music and has become the centrepiece of the Christmas season. The Lobkowicz Palace in Prague holds Mozart's copy of "Messiah", complete with handwritten annotations. Among the works with opus numbers published and popularised in his lifetime are the Organ concertos Op. 4 and Op. 7, together with the Opus 3 and Opus 6 Concerti grossi; the latter incorporates an earlier organ concerto, "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale", in which birdsong is imitated in the upper registers of the organ. Also notable are his 16 keyboard suites, especially "The Harmonious Blacksmith".


title: George Frideric Handel

text: The first published catalogue of Handel's works appeared as an appendix to Mainwaring's "Memoirs". Between 1787 and 1797 Samuel Arnold compiled a 180-volume collection of Handel's works—however, it was far from complete. Also incomplete was the collection produced between 1843 and 1858 by the English Handel Society (founded by Sir George Macfarren).


title: George Frideric Handel

text: The 105-volume "Händel-Gesellschaft" ("Handel Society") edition was published between 1858 and 1902 – mainly due to the efforts of Friedrich Chrysander. For modern performance, the realisation of the basso continuo reflects 19th-century practice. Vocal scores drawn from the edition were published by Novello in London, but some scores, such as the vocal score to "Samson", are incomplete.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: The continuing "Hallische Händel-Ausgabe" edition was first inaugurated in 1955 in the Halle region in Saxony-Anhalt, East Germany. It did not start as a critical edition, but after heavy criticism of the first volumes, which were performing editions without a critical apparatus (for example, the opera "Serse" was published with the title character recast as a tenor, reflecting pre-war German practice), it repositioned itself as a critical edition. Influenced in part by cold-war realities, editorial work was inconsistent: misprints are found in abundance and editors failed to consult important sources. In 1985, a committee was formed to establish better standards for the edition. The reunification of Germany in 1990 removed communication problems, and the volumes issued have since shown a significant improvement in standards.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Between 1978 and 1986 the German academic Bernd Baselt catalogued Handel's works in his "Händel-Werke-Verzeichnis" publication. The catalogue has achieved wide acceptance and is used as the modern numbering system, with each of Handel's works designated an "HWV" number--for example, "Messiah" is catalogued as "HWV 56".


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Handel's works were collected and preserved by two men: Sir Samuel Hellier, a country squire whose musical acquisitions form the nucleus of the Shaw-Hellier Collection, and the abolitionist Granville Sharp. The catalogue accompanying the National Portrait Gallery exhibition marking the tercentenary of the composer's birth calls them two men of the late eighteenth century "who have left us solid evidence of the means by which they indulged their enthusiasm". With his English oratorios, such as "Messiah" and "Solomon", the coronation anthems, and other works including "Water Music" and "Music for the Royal Fireworks", Handel became a national icon in Britain, and featured in the BBC series, "The Birth of British Music: Handel – The Conquering Hero".


title: George Frideric Handel

text: After his death, Handel's Italian operas fell into obscurity, except for selections such as the aria from "Serse", "Ombra mai fu". The oratorios continued to be performed but not long after Handel's death they were thought to need some modernisation, and Mozart orchestrated German versions of "Messiah" and other works. Throughout the 19th century and first half of the 20th century, particularly in the Anglophone countries, his reputation rested primarily on his English oratorios, which were customarily performed by choruses of amateur singers on solemn occasions. The centenary of his death, in 1859, was celebrated by a performance of "Messiah" at The Crystal Palace, involving 2,765 singers and 460 instrumentalists, who played for an audience of about 10,000 people.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Recent decades have revived his secular cantatas and what one might call 'secular oratorios' or 'concert operas'. Of the former, "Ode for St. Cecilia's Day" (1739) (set to texts by John Dryden) and "Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne" (1713) are noteworthy. For his secular oratorios, Handel turned to classical mythology for subjects, producing such works as "Acis and Galatea" (1719), "Hercules" (1745) and "Semele" (1744). These works have a close kinship with the sacred oratorios, particularly in the vocal writing for the English-language texts. They also share the lyrical and dramatic qualities of Handel's Italian operas. As such, they are sometimes fully staged as operas. With the rediscovery of his theatrical works, Handel, in addition to his renown as instrumentalist, orchestral writer, and melodist, is now perceived as being one of opera's great musical dramatists.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: The original form of his name, Georg Friedrich Händel, is generally used in Germany and elsewhere, but he is known as "Haendel" in France. A different composer, Jacob Handl or Händl (1550–1591) is usually known by the Latin form Jacobus Gallus that appears in his publications.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Handel has generally been accorded high esteem by fellow composers, both in his own time and since. Johann Sebastian Bach attempted, unsuccessfully, to meet Handel while he was visiting Halle. (Handel was born in the same year as Bach and Domenico Scarlatti.) Mozart is reputed to have said of him, "Handel understands affect better than any of us. When he chooses, he strikes like a thunder bolt." To Beethoven he was "the master of us all... the greatest composer that ever lived. I would uncover my head and kneel before his tomb." Beethoven emphasised above all the simplicity and popular appeal of Handel's music when he said, "Go to him to learn how to achieve great effects, by such simple means."


title: George Frideric Handel

text: Since 1831, when William Crotch raised the issue in his "Substance of Several Lectures on Music," scholars have extensively studied Handel's "borrowing" of music from other composers. Summarising the field in 2005, Richard Taruskin wrote that Handel "seems to have been the champion of all parodists, adapting both his own works and those of other composers in unparalleled numbers and with unparalleled exactitude." Among the composers whose music has been shown to have been re-used by Handel are Alessandro Stradella, Gottlieb Muffat, Alessandro Scarlatti, Domenico Scarlatti Giacomo Carissimi, Georg Philipp Telemann, Carl Heinrich Graun, Leonardo Vinci, Jacobus Gallus, Francesco Antonio Urio, Reinhard Keiser, Francesco Gasparini, Giovanni Bononcini, William Boyce, Henry Lawes, Michael Wise, Agostino Steffani, Franz Johann Habermann, and numerous others.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: In an essay published in 1985, John H. Roberts demonstrated that Handel's borrowings were unusually frequent even for his own era, enough to have been criticised by contemporaries (notably Johann Mattheson); Roberts suggested several reasons for Handel's practice, including Handel's attempts to make certain works sound more up-to-date and more radically, his "basic lack of facility in inventing original ideas" – though Roberts took care to argue that this does not "diminish Handel's stature", which should be "judged not by his methods, still less by his motives in employing them, but solely by the effects he achieves."


title: George Frideric Handel

text: After Handel's death, many composers wrote works based on or inspired by his music. The first movement from Louis Spohr's Symphony No. 6, Op. 116, "The Age of Bach and Handel", resembles two melodies from Handel's "Messiah". In 1797, Ludwig van Beethoven published the "12 Variations in G major on "See the conqu’ring hero comes" from Judas Maccabaeus by Handel", for cello and piano. In 1822, Beethoven composed the overture "The Consecration of the House", which also bears the influence of Handel. Guitar virtuoso Mauro Giuliani composed his "Variations on a Theme by Handel", Op. 107 for guitar, based on Handel's Suite No. 5 in E major, HWV 430, for harpsichord.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: In 1861, using a theme from the second of Handel's harpsichord suites, Johannes Brahms wrote the "Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel", Op. 24, one of his most successful works (praised by Richard Wagner). Several works by the French composer Félix-Alexandre Guilmant use Handel's themes; for example, his "March on a Theme by Handel" uses a theme from "Messiah". French composer and flautist Philippe Gaubert wrote his "Petite marche" for flute and piano based on the fourth movement of Handel's Trio Sonata, Op. 5, No. 2, HWV 397. Argentine composer Luis Gianneo composed his "Variations on a Theme by Handel" for piano. In 1911, Australian-born composer and pianist Percy Grainger based one of his most famous works on the final movement of Handel's Suite No. 5 in E major (just like Giuliani). He first wrote some variations on the theme, which he titled "Variations on Handel's 'The Harmonious Blacksmith' ". Then he used the first sixteen bars of his set of variations to create "Handel in the Strand", one of his most beloved pieces, of which he made several versions (for example, the piano solo version from 1930). Arnold Schoenberg's Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra in B-flat major (1933) was composed after Handel's Concerto Grosso, Op. 6/7.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: In the Lutheran Calendar of Saints Handel and Bach share the date July 28 with Heinrich Schütz, and Handel and Bach are commemorated in the calendar of saints prepared by the Order of Saint Luke for the use of the United Methodist Church. The Book of Common Worship of the Presbyterian Church (USA) (Westminster John Knox Press, 2018) commemorates him on 20 April.


title: George Frideric Handel

text: In 1942, Handel was the subject of the British biographical film "The Great Mr. Handel" directed by Norman Walker and starring Wilfrid Lawson. It was made at Denham Studios by the Rank Organisation, and shot in Technicolor. He is also the central character in the television films "God Rot Tunbridge Wells!" (1985) and "Handel's Last Chance" (1996) and the stage play "All the Angels" (2015). Handel was portrayed by Jeroen Krabbé as the antagonist in the film "Farinelli" (1994).


title: Delta Goodrem

text: Delta Lea Goodrem AM (born November 9, 1984) is an Australian singer, songwriter, and actress. Goodrem signed to Sony Music at the age of 15. Her debut album, "Innocent Eyes" (2003), topped the ARIA Albums Chart for 29 non-consecutive weeks. It is one of the highest-selling Australian albums and is the second-best-selling Australian album of all time with over four million copies sold.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: Goodrem's second album, "Mistaken Identity" (2004), was created while she was suffering from cancer. It became her second number-one album. In 2007, Goodrem released "Delta", her third number-one album, which saw another number-one single, "In This Life". Her fourth studio album, "Child of the Universe" (2012), produced the single "Sitting on Top of the World". In 2016, her fifth album, "Wings of the Wild", became her fourth number-one album on the ARIA Albums Chart, while giving her another number-one single, "Wings". Goodrem's most recent and fifth number-one album, "Bridge over Troubled Dreams" was released May 2021.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: Goodrem has a total of nine number-one singles and 17 top-ten hits on the ARIA Singles Chart. She has sold over eight million albums globally and overall has won three World Music Awards, 9 ARIA Music Awards, an MTV Video Music Award and several other awards. She served as a coach on "The Voice Australia" from 2012 to 2013 and again from 2015 to 2020. During her one-season hiatus in 2014, she served as a coach on "The Voice Kids", and coached eventual winner Alexa Curtis. She was reportedly paid A$2 million per season after negotiating an increase from her initial $800,000. She coached eventual winners of the show in season five in 2016 and again in season six in 2017. With the release of her Christmas album Only Santa Knows, she has a Christmas show ever year, hosted by Channel 9.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: Goodrem was born on 9 November 1984, to Lea (née Parker) and Denis Goodrem. She has a younger brother, Trent.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: Goodrem appeared in an American advertisement aged seven for the Galoob toy company, alongside fellow Australian Bec Cartwright, and began playing piano at the same age while taking up singing, dancing and acting lessons. She appeared in adverts for companies such as Optus and Nesquik, and had several minor roles in episodes of Australian television shows including "Hey Dad..!", "A Country Practice", and "Police Rescue".


title: Delta Goodrem

text: While residing in Glenhaven, she attended the Hills Grammar School in neighbouring Kenthurst, from kindergarten until Year 11.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: At the age of thirteen, Goodrem recorded a five-song demo CD, financed through her television work. It was sent to the Sydney Swans (of which Goodrem is a supporter) and they passed it onto Glenn Wheatley. Wheatley signed Goodrem to an artist development deal with independent label, Empire Records.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: Between June 1999 and September 2000, Goodrem worked with producers Paul Higgins and Trevor Carter on thirteen tracks for an album to be called "Delta". A later report on these sessions described Goodrem as "an ambitious 15-year-old keen to emulate the pop sound of the Spice Girls, Britney Spears and Mandy Moore." Most of the tracks were written by Carter, although Goodrem co-wrote two and self-wrote the song "Love". Goodrem did a photoshoot for the album (some of the photos have surfaced), and recorded a home-made style music video for the song "Say" which has since leaked onto the internet. Higgins took the album to Village Roadshow, which offered to market and distribute the album, but the deal was blocked by Goodrem's parents. The album has yet to surface, though it became the subject of a lawsuit in 2004.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: At the age of 15, Goodrem signed a record deal with Sony and began work on an album of pop–dance songs including the unsuccessful debut single, "I Don't Care", which peaked at number sixty four on the ARIA Singles Chart in November 2001. The album and proposed second single "A Year Ago Today" were pushed aside as a result, allowing Goodrem and Sony to re-evaluate her future musical direction. In 2002, Goodrem took up the role as shy school girl and aspiring singer Nina Tucker in the popular soap "Neighbours", which helped re-launch Goodrem's music career. The piano-based ballad "Born to Try", co-written by Audius Mtawarira, premiered on the show and reached number one on the ARIA Singles Chart and number three in the UK. Born to Try was certified triple Platinum in Australia for sales of over 210,000 copies. Goodrem's role on the show scored her a Logie for "Most Popular New Talent" at the 2003 Logie Awards In January 2003, "Lost Without You" topped the ARIA Singles Chart and reached number four in the UK. it was certified double platinum for sales over 140,000 copies in Australia.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: Goodrem's largely self-penned debut album, "Innocent Eyes", was released on 24 March 2003 in Australia and debuted at number one on the ARIA Album Charts, breaking Australian records previously held by John Farnham's "Whispering Jack" (1986) by staying at number one for 29 consecutive weeks, while tying with Neil Diamond's "Hot August Night" (1972) as the second-longest charting number one album with a total of 29 weeks at top spot. It was the highest-selling album in Australia of 2003 and sold 1.2 million copies in Australia, and over 4 million worldwide. The album also charted highly in the UK, peaking at number two. The album's third single "Innocent Eyes" again reached number one on the ARIA Singles Chart and number nine in the UK. it was certified Platinum in Australia for sales over 70,000 copies.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: On 8 July 2003, at the age of 18, Goodrem was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. She was forced to put all working commitments on hold while undertaking treatment for the disease. In an exclusive interview with "The Australian Women's Weekly", Goodrem revealed that, since 2002, she had suffered from a head-to-toe rash, fatigue, weight loss, night sweats, and a lump on her neck. "I was doing sit-ups when I felt something pop in my neck. I reached down and I felt a small lump at the base of my throat. It wasn't sore, it wasn't visible, but I could feel it." As part of her treatment, Goodrem undertook chemotherapy, which resulted in the loss of her hair, and radiation therapy. The news of her diagnosis made newspaper and television headlines and an outpouring of support was shown by fans and the general public alike. Goodrem thanked them during "The Visualise Tour" for all the letters and well wishes she received.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: The album's fourth single, "Not Me, Not I", was released following the announcement Goodrem had been diagnosed with cancer. It became her fourth consecutive number one single in Australia, overtaking the previous effort of three number-ones from Kylie Minogue's debut album, "Kylie" (1988). It was certified Platinum for sales over 70,000 copies. In early August, Goodrem announced she would not renew her contract with Glenn Wheatley. Her mother, Lea Goodrem, replaced him as her manager. Later that month, Goodrem won seven ARIA Awards, including "Best Female Artist", surpassing Natalie Imbruglia's previous record of six awards in 1999. As Delta was too unwell to perform at the ceremony herself, singer Darren Hayes performed a rendition of "Lost Without You" as a tribute, bringing an overwhelmed Goodrem to tears. Her first full-length DVD "Delta" became the highest-selling music DVD by an Australian artist in Australia ever, with a certification of 11× platinum. The Australian-only release "Predictable" became her fifth consecutive number one on the ARIA Singles Chart in December and was certified double Platinum for sales of over 140,000 copies.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: After announcing in late December 2003 that she was in remission, Goodrem began work on her second studio album. Goodrem received two nominations at the 2004 Logie Awards including a Gold Logie nomination for "Most Popular Personality on Australian Television".


title: Delta Goodrem

text: In March 2004, while Goodrem was still undergoing cancer treatment, Paul Higgins and Trevor Carter announced plans to release the album they had recorded with the then 15-year-old Goodrem in 1999 and 2000. They shopped the album around and ignited a bidding war amongst record companies. After the success of "Innocent Eyes", industry experts expected that bidding for the album could attract figures anywhere between $1.5 million and $15 million. When Goodrem and her family disapproved of the album's release, a lawsuit was filed. Goodrem's lawyers claimed the album was made up of unfinished demo recordings which were not fit for commercial release. After much coverage in the media, the case was settled in mediation. In exchange for not releasing the album, Higgins and Carter received an unspecified payout.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: In September 2004, she became the face of soft drink company Pepsi in Australia, appearing on the product, billboards, TV advertisements and performing an exclusive show for competition winners. In October Goodrem launched her own lingerie line titled "Delta by Annabella".


title: Delta Goodrem

text: Goodrem's second album, "Mistaken Identity", was released in Australia on 8 November 2004 and debuted at number one on the ARIA Albums chart. It was certified five times platinum for sales of 350,000 copies. The album spent 46 weeks in the top fifty. It also reached number seven in New Zealand, and peaked at number 25 in the UK. The album's lead single, "Out of the Blue", which was co-written and produced by Guy Chambers, was released prior to the album on 8 October 2004. "Out of the Blue" debuted at number one on the ARIA Singles Chart and number nine in the UK. This was Goodrem's sixth straight number-one single in Australia. It was certified platinum in Australia.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: The second single, "Mistaken Identity", released as a single only in Australia, debuted at number seven and was certified Gold. "Almost Here", a duet with Irish singer and then boyfriend Brian McFadden, was released as the third single and reached number three in the UK and became her seventh ARIA number one, along with her first number one in Ireland. It was certified platinum in Australia. "A Little Too Late" was released only in Australia and peaked at number 13. "Be Strong" was released as the album's fifth and final single in Australia as a digital download on 17 October 2005. At the time of release, digital downloads were not included as part of the main singles chart, therefore it was ineligible to chart. Much of the album, in particular "Extraordinary Day", was inspired by her battle with cancer. Reflecting on that period of her life, Goodrem said "It's weird to see pictures of that time. In some ways the fact that I was so sick was so out there, and yet I kept it really private. No-one saw me on the days I was really sick. I was 18 when I was diagnosed and I had a number one album and single in the country. And in the UK, I was number two. It was such a bipolar year".


title: Delta Goodrem

text: In March 2005, Goodrem starred in her first film role in "Hating Alison Ashley", a film based on the children's novel by Robin Klein, with Goodrem acting the title character. The film performed poorly at the box office and was not a critical success, with some critics citing Goodrem's performance as too robotic and detached. April 2005 saw Goodrem relocate to New York to launch her career in the United States with a reworked version of "Lost Without You". She appeared in the last two episodes of the short-lived American series "North Shore" in a bid to gain greater exposure. "Lost Without You" proved to be modestly successful, peaking at number eighteen on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, but Goodrem was reportedly dissatisfied with its performance. Plans to release a hybrid of her first two albums were later terminated and Goodrem put America on hold. In July, Goodrem embarked on her first headline concert tour of Australia, "The Visualise Tour". Ticket prices, $90 each, came under criticism for being higher than most international acts touring Australia at the time and this initially led to slow sales. By the time the concerts were due to take place, many venues sold out after tickets were reduced to $60. Once the tour concluded, over 80,000 tickets had been bought in total making The Visualise Tour one of Australia's highest-selling local tours. "" was released in November and became Goodrem's second No. 1 DVD.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: On 15 March 2006, Goodrem performed a new song, "Together We Are One", at the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony in front of 80,000 spectators and up to 1.5 billion television viewers worldwide. The song, written specifically for the event, was released in Australia, where it peaked at number two on the ARIA Singles Chart. It was performed by the Top 5 contestants on season five of "American Idol". In June 2006, Goodrem signed to Modest! Entertainment for her worldwide management. In October 2006, Goodrem promoted in Japan with the release of an updated version of "Innocent Eyes" and the Japan-only single "Flawed", which reached number one on the Japanese download chart. The album peaked at number eight on the Japanese international chart (excluding Japanese artists) and number nineteen on the official Japanese album chart (including Japanese artists). In November, Goodrem appeared with Westlife on UK talent series "The X Factor" to perform a duet titled "All Out of Love", which appeared on the boy band's ninth LP, "The Love Album". She was in Melbourne on Christmas Eve to headline the annual Carols by Candlelight.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: Goodrem's third studio album, the eponymous "Delta", was released in Australia on 20 October 2007. Goodrem described the material as "...a lot lighter" compared to her previous album "Mistaken Identity". She has also stated, "As people become more aware of your life, they can pinpoint what songs are about. On this album, I've tried to remove a lot of that and just write great pop songs, songs that are from my heart but there's no baggage with them". The album debuted at number one on the ARIA Albums Chart, making it her third number one album in her home country. and received platinum certification for shipments of 70,000 records, though sales were much lower; only 23,000 copies were sold during the first week. In December the album was certified 2× platinum. It eventually was certified 3× platinum in 2008. In New Zealand, the album debuted at number twelve on the RIANZ Albums Chart.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: On 10 August 2007, Goodrem was in Los Angeles to film the music video for the album's lead single "In This Life", which is also the opening theme for the anime "Deltora Quest", based on the novels by fellow Australian Emily Rodda. The video premiered on 31 August on "Sunrise". "In This Life" was officially released on 15 September. It debuted at number one on the Australian Singles Chart, becoming Goodrem's eighth number-one single in Australia. It was certified platinum.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: The second single, "Believe Again" was released on 10 December. It debuted and peaked at number two on the ARIA Singles Chart and was certified Gold. The third single, "You Will Only Break My Heart", was released on 29 March 2008 and peaked at number fourteen. The fourth single to be lifted from the album was "I Can't Break It to My Heart", which debuted and peaked at number thirteen.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: In 2008, Goodrem focused on promoting music in Japan and the United States. She released "In This Life" on 23 January in Japan. She followed that up by releasing "Delta" on 20 February. The album peaked at number eight on the Japanese international chart and number 39 on the overall chart. The album sold almost 5,000 copies in its first week, 1,000 copies more than her previous album in Japan and overall sold over 30,000 copies in Japan. In the United States, Goodrem released "In This Life" on 15 April 2008. "In This Life" was released to US radio on 9 April. It was first released to the Triple A radio format, and then to the Adult Contemporary and Hot Adult Contemporary formats. On 17 June 2008, Goodrem appeared for the second time on any "Billboard" chart with the single, debuting at number 40 on the Hot Adult Top 40 Tracks chart. The song later peaked at No. 21. According to Nielsen SoundScan, the track sold 7,000 digital downloads in the week ending on 24 June 2008. The song also charted at number 20 on the Hot Adult Top 40 Recurrents. The album was then released on 15 July 2008 in the United States and Canada under the label Mercury Records. It peaked at number 18 on the U.S. iTunes Store. It later debuted at number 116 on the US Billboard Album Chart and No. 1 on Billboard's Top Heatseekers with sales of 6,000 copies. Overall the album sold over 21,000 copies in the United States.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: In July 2008, it was announced that Goodrem would embark on a national tour of Australia, titled the Believe Again Tour. She originally announced nine dates in seven cities, but later announced more shows, performing 14 in eight cities. The tour ran from 9 January to 4 February 2009. A concert DVD of the tour was released on 18 September 2009. It was called . It peaked at number one on the Australian ARIA DVD Chart and was certified Gold for sales over 7,500 copies.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: Goodrem also recorded a duet, "Right Here With You", with Olivia Newton-John to help raise money for Newton-John's cancer hospital in Melbourne.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: Goodrem was nominated for two awards at the 2008 ARIA Awards – Highest Selling Single and Highest Selling Album – and won the award for Highest Selling Album of 2008. At the 2008 World Music Awards, held on 9 November in Monaco, Goodrem received her third World Music Award for World's Best Selling Australian Artist. In March 2010, Goodrem and Guy Sebastian were chosen by the Jackson estate to perform at the Australian launch of "Michael Jackson's This Is It" DVD. The invitation-only event was attended by the film's director Kenny Ortega, Jackson's choreographer Travis Payne, and Jackson's brother Jackie Jackson. Goodrem and Sebastian performed "Earth Song".


title: Delta Goodrem

text: On 24 November 2011, Goodrem was confirmed to be a part of the judging panel of the Australian version of "The Voice" which aired in early 2012, coaching alongside Keith Urban, Joel Madden, and Seal. Some of Goodrem's decisions on the show sparked criticism, with comments she was "all style" and "little substance". Rachael Leahcar was Goodrem's contestant in the final four. This was after Goodrem chose Leahcar over Glenn Cunningham, who was Goodrem's back up singer on her Believe Again Tour in 2009. Leahcar finished third. Goodrem returned for season two in 2013, again with Madden and Seal, with Ricky Martin replacing Urban. Goodrem's finalist for season two was Celia Pavey who also finished third.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: On 30 March 2012, Goodrem announced the release of her new single, "Sitting on Top of the World". The song debuted and peaked at number two on the ARIA Singles Chart and was certified double platinum. It also peaked at number twenty-three in New Zealand and was certified Gold. The album's second single, "Dancing with a Broken Heart" was released on 10 August 2012. It debuted and peaked at number 15 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and is Goodrem's second lowest charting single to date. The third single, "Wish You Were Here", was released on 12 October 2012. It debuted at number seven on the ARIA Charts and later peaked at number five, and was certified Platinum. Goodrem's fourth studio album, "Child of the Universe" was released on 26 October 2012, which debuted at number two on the ARIA Charts and spent ten weeks in the top 50. It was certified Gold in its second with for sales of 35,000 copies. Along with the release of the album, Goodrem embarked on her tour, "An Evening with Delta: The Top of My World Shows", which supported the album release with a series of stripped-back shows, starting in Brisbane on 27 October then two Sydney shows on 31 October 2012 and 2 November 2012 and finishing with Melbourne on 7 and 8 November 2012. Rachael Leahcar was the tour's opening act. Goodrem was featured on the album "Spirit of Christmas 2012", singing "Blue Christmas". In November, she also recorded a Christmas EP titled "Christmas". It was released on 14 December 2012 in Australia and New Zealand.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: On 1 February 2013, it was confirmed that Goodrem had signed with US manager Irving Azoff. Goodrem performed at the Mardi Gras in Sydney in March 2013. She performed dance version of some of her songs including "Born to Try", "Lost Without You", "Predictable", "Believe Again", "Child of the Universe" and "Sitting on Top of the World". In May 2013, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu joined Goodrem for a special performance of "Bayini" on "The Voice Australia", in celebration of National Reconciliation Week. The song was later released on iTunes and debuted at number four on the ARIA Singles Chart on 10 June 2013. On 17 June 2013, Goodrem released her new single "Heart Hypnotic", which she also performed on the live finale of "The Voice".


title: Delta Goodrem

text: Goodrem celebrated 10 years since releasing her multi-platinum album "Innocent Eyes" which topped the Australian ARIA Charts and reached number two on the UK Albums Chart by releasing "" on 29 November 2013, which debuted and peaked at number 22 on the ARIA Albums Chart. On 26 November 2013, it was announced that Goodrem would not be returning to "The Voice Australia" for the third season in 2014 but instead chose to be a part of the new Australian version of "The Voice Kids". Goodrem revealed on her Twitter account that the decision was made because this would give her more time on her music career and more time to work on her new album. The show premiered on 22 June 2014 and finished on 10 August. Goodrem was a coach alongside Joel Madden, who teamed up with his brother Benji Madden, and Mel B. Darren McMullen hosted "The Voice Kids" while also remaining on the original version. Goodrem attended the 2014 AACTA Awards where she performed "Kissing You" in tribute to Baz Luhrmann's film "Romeo + Juliet". Goodrem joined the Australian and New Zealand leg of Andrea Bocelli's Passion For Life Tour in September 2014. To celebrate being part of the tour, Goodrem released a cover of Martika's 1991 single "Love... Thy Will Be Done" on 12 September 2014.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: It was announced on 13 January 2015, that Goodrem was returning as a judge "The Voice Australia" for the show's fourth season. Goodrem's single "Only Human" was released on 13 March to coincide with her return as Nina Tucker for "Neighbours" 30th anniversary. She returned for three episodes starting from 16 March. Goodrem also appeared in a documentary special celebrating the anniversary titled "", which aired in Australia and the UK. She joined the Australian leg of Ricky Martin's One World Tour in April as his supporting act. She also revealed that she has been working with DNA and Jon Hume.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: On 24 July 2015, Goodrem released "Wings" as the lead single from her fifth studio album Wings of the Wild. The song peaked at number one on the ARIA Charts and was certified double platinum. Goodrem also promoted the single in New Zealand and the UK. From October 2015 to February 2016, Goodrem made her musical theatre debut playing Grizabella in an Australian version of "Cats". She performed the role in the Sydney, Hobart, Melbourne and Brisbane legs of the show. "Dear Life" was released on 6 May 2016 as the second single from "Wings of the Wild". The single debuted and peaked at number three on the ARIA Singles Chart and was later certified Platinum. "Enough" featuring American rapper Gizzle was released as the third single on 24 June 2016 and debuted at number forty six on the ARIA Singles Chart. It later peaked at number twenty seven in its third week on the chart.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: "Wings of the Wild" was released on 1 July 2016. "The River" was later released with a story music video for the tour in September 2016, while she was in New Zealand. She toured Wings of the Wild in Australia in October and November 2016.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: Goodrem made her debut on the television drama "House Husbands" in 2017. In 2017, she became the V8 Supercars Australia ambassador, promoting the sport and being the official performer at the racing events throughout the year.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: In 2017, an advertisement for Apple Music featuring Goodrem was criticised by the Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB) for promoting unsafe driving. Complaints about the video to the bureau stated that it "does not promote safe driving" and features Goodrem placing her head and arms outside a moving a vehicle and "moving around in a motor vehicle with no clearly visible safety belt". In response to the complaints, Apple Inc. said that it felt "confident" that the advertisement did not breach the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) Advertiser Code of Ethics standards and saw no issues relating to car safety, with both individuals in the car wearing lap seat belts. The ASB said that people may not realise that vintage cars are fitted with lap seatbelts which are not clearly seen in the video. The advertisement was pulled from screening and would not re-air until Apple re-edited it with all parts featuring Goodrem's arms and hands outside of the car window removed.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: On 15 February 2018, Goodrem released a single, "Think About You", which was also released for streaming and download on her website on 16 February 2018. The song was written by Goodrem in collaboration with songwriters Julian Bunetta and John Ryan. "Think About You" is described as being a "feel good, upbeat song with an irresistible catchy groove", yet is also noted for its cheeky sexualised lyrics that earned it to be called a "sexy upbeat banger" by reviewers. Goodrem reinvented her look which included colouring her hair darker for this promotional video.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: Goodrem played Olivia Newton-John in the Newton-John biopic called "" and released a covers soundtrack album called "I Honestly Love You" in May 2018.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: Goodrem announced in December 2019 that she was "living in a music bubble", working on her sixth studio album.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: In January 2020, she released a charity single, "Let It Rain", in aid of the 2019–2020 bushfires in Australia. She was inspired to write "Let It Rain" after seeing the devastation from the bushfires across Australia. She teamed with Apple Music, Sony Music and iHeart radio for the release. All proceeds went to aid with Red Cross bushfire relief.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: While continuing to work on "The Voice", Goodrem released the singles "Keep Climbing" and "Paralyzed" and announced the Bridge Over Troubled Dreams Tour of Australia and New Zealand, scheduled to begin in March 2022. She had to cancel the New Zealand portion of the tour for COVID-19 related reasons on March 2, 2022. Delta officially started the tour in March 2022 and at the Brisbane performance some of it was recorded for a Red Cross appeal (Australia Unites: Red Cross Flood Appeal) It was received well and called "simply Delta Goodrem's best tour yet. She's taken elements of things she's learnt from every tour in the past, and curated a night full of euphoric highs and big singalong's for pop fans who've been longing to be inside an arena together again". She then took the tour to Europe in October


title: Delta Goodrem

text: On 12 November 2020, with no prior announcement and despite teasing an album of original material, Goodrem released her sixth studio album and first Christmas album, "Only Santa Knows". To support the album, Goodrem announced her own Christmas special "Christmas with Delta", which aired on Nine Network on 12 December. She did a second show in 2021 set in Luna Park for the Deluxe edition re-release of the project


title: Delta Goodrem

text: In early December 2020, Goodrem left "The Voice" for a second time, and in early 2021 announced the release of her seventh studio album "Bridge over Troubled Dreams" for May of that year, alongside an autobiographical and photographic book bearing the same name. Goodrem spent most of 2020 and 2021 doing Bunkerdown Sessions for her fans on her Instagram and Facebook pages. In December 2021, Goodrem took issue with an Instagram post by NSW Health, who later apologised, that used her image with two needles pointing at her head to personify the Delta variant in an effort to advertise the booster vaccine.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: In June 2022, Goodrem announced she was opening for Backstreet Boys on the second North American leg of their DNA World Tour. On 28 July 2022, Goodrem made a cameo appearance as Nina Tucker in the final "Neighbours" episode.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: On 24 September 2022, Goodrem joined British singer Robbie Williams who was performing at the 2022 AFL Grand Final held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia; the pair performed the 2000 Williams/Kylie Minogue collaboration "Kids".


title: Delta Goodrem

text: In 2004, Goodrem began a nine-month relationship with Australian tennis player Mark Philippoussis. Her comeback single, "Out of the Blue", was written about his support during her cancer battle. Later in 2004, Goodrem began dating former Westlife singer Brian McFadden, with whom she collaborated on the duet "Almost Here". They were engaged, but the pair ended their relationship in April 2011. In May 2011, Goodrem started dating Nick Jonas. They broke up in February 2012. Goodrem has been in a relationship with fellow musician Matthew Copley since late 2017.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: In February 2020, James Joseph Lafferty pleaded guilty at Downing Centre Local Court to stalking and intimidating Goodrem; including writing her over 300 poems and Instagram messages along with visiting Goodrem's apartment on Valentine's Day and the following day.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: On 16 August 2020, Goodrem released a six-minute video detailing the back story behind her song "Paralyzed". In the video, she revealed that after having her salivary gland removed, she faced serious complications that led to the paralysis of a nerve in her tongue, which left her having to re-learn to speak.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: In 2022, Goodrem was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2022 Australia Day Honours for "significant service to the not-for-profit sector, and to the performing arts".


title: Delta Goodrem

text: Goodrem's repertoire falls under the pop and adult contemporary styles, and heavily features the piano, which she usually plays barefoot while performing live. She is known for her soprano voice, which in a review of "Delta" was described as crystalline, fierce and illuminating in quality. Goodrem has endorsed many products such as WII, Sanitarium, So Good, Nesquik, Sunsilk and Pepsi. She has also released an underwear range, Delta by Anabella (Briefly 2004–2006) and a self-titled perfume in April 2017, which by June that same year had sold 30,000 bottles and made $1 million in sales. This was followed by fragrances "Dream" in 2018, "Destiny" in 2019 and "Power" in 2022.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: Goodrem was honoured with a wax figure at Madame Tussauds in Sydney's Darling Harbour, which opened in April 2012.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: Her debut album, 2003's "Innocent Eyes", made her one of Australia's highest-selling female recording artists, spending 29 weeks at No. 1, selling over 1.2 million copies in Australia and another 4.5 million internationally, debuting at number 2 in the UK and breaking various records in the process.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: In 2004, Goodrem released "Mistaken Identity", her second studio album, which entered the ARIA charts at number one and spawned two number-one singles and quickly gained multi-platinum status. In 2005, Goodrem embarked on "," her debut concert tour of Australia, combining songs from both "Innocent Eyes" and "Mistaken Identity". Goodrem released her third studio album, self-titled "Delta", on 20 October 2007 to yet another number-one debut, gaining multi-platinum status within the first few months of release. Goodrem also shifted attention to different markets, releasing the album in the Far East and the USA. In January 2009, Goodrem embarked on the of Australia to support her third studio album. Her fourth album, "Child of the Universe", had two platinum singles, "Sitting On Top of the World" and "Wish You Were Here". Her fifth album, "Wings of the Wild", became her fourth number-one album on the ARIA Albums Chart, producing the number-one single "Wings" and "Dear Life"; it went platinum and peaked at number 3. Her fifth Australian number one album came in 2021 with the release of Bridge Over Troubled Dreams. Which took her total of number of weeks charting at 1 in the album charts to 33 weeks in Australia.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: Goodrem has a total of nine number-one singles and 17 top-ten hits on the ARIA Singles Chart. She has sold over nine million albums globally.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: Goodrem is a long-standing supporter of various charities and foundations, serving as Patron of The Kinghorn Cancer Centre, Sydney (a joint venture between St Vincent's Hospital and the Garvan Institute of Medical Research) and an ambassador for Starlight Children's Foundation, Make-A-Wish Foundation and Sony Foundation Australia.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: In May 2005, Goodrem helped launch "Teen Info on Cancer", a UK website aimed at supporting young teenage sufferers. In November 2005, Goodrem became an ambassador for Research Australia's "Thank You Day", which honours the country's health and medical researchers and received a Thank You Day Celebrity Advocacy Award "in recognition of her efforts in raising funds and awareness for Australian medical research and charities".


title: Delta Goodrem

text: In 2007 Goodrem was the face of Alternative Hair, in aid of cancer charity Leukaemia Research. Goodrem is also a member of RADD (Recording Artists, Actors And Athletes Against Drink Driving), a group of celebrities raising awareness of the risks of drunk driving. In 2011 Goodrem became an ambassador for The Kinghorn Cancer Centre, Sydney.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: On 27 October 2017, she was featured on a cover of The Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends", to raise money for the Sony Foundation's project Friends4Youth.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: In 2020, Goodrem released a charity single titled "Let It Rain", and also performed as part of three major charity concerts, Fire Fight Australia to raise funds for the 2019–2020 Australia bushfire crisis, as well as One World: Together at Home and Music from the Home Front to raise money in support of the COVID-19 pandemic. In October of the same year, Goodrem participated in the 20th year of Ralph Lauren's Pink Pony campaign to raise money for cancer care and research. In the same month, Goodrem partnered with Remembering Wildlife to help raise funds for cheetah conservation efforts.


title: Delta Goodrem

text: In June 2020, Goodrem launched the Delta Goodrem Foundation in partnership with St. Vincent's Hospital and The Kinghorn Cancer Centre. The foundation aims to raise funds for the acceleration of innovative blood cancer research. In July 2022, the Delta Goodrem Foundation partnered with Revlon in donating portions of lipstick sales to cancer charity Look Good Feel Better.


title: Shinedown

text: Shinedown is an American rock band from Jacksonville, Florida, formed by singer Brent Smith in 2001 after the dissolution of Dreve, his previous band. Smith, still under contract with record label Atlantic Records, recruited the band's original lineup of Jasin Todd as guitarist, Brad Stewart on bass, and Barry Kerch on drums. Consistent for the first two album cycles, several lineup changes followed in the late 2000s, eventually stabilizing with Smith and Kerch alongside Zach Myers on guitar and Eric Bass on bass. The group has released seven studio albums: "Leave a Whisper" (2003), "Us and Them" (2005), "The Sound of Madness" (2008), "Amaryllis" (2012), "Threat to Survival" (2015), "Attention Attention" (2018), and "Planet Zero" (2022).


title: Shinedown

text: Shinedown has the most number one singles on the "Billboard" Mainstream Rock charts with 18, and all of their released singles have reached the top 5 on the chart. Additionally, on June 3, 2021, Shinedown was ranked #1 by Billboard on the Greatest of All Time Mainstreams Rock Artists chart released to celebrate the Mainstream Rock Chart's 40th Anniversary. To date, the band has sold more than 10 million records worldwide.


title: Shinedown

text: The band's origins trace back to frontman Brent Smith's prior band, Dreve, which had signed a record deal with Atlantic Records in 2000. The record label, unhappy with Dreve as a whole, dropped the band prior to releasing an album, but retained Smith, who they felt was worth developing separately as an artist. Atlantic signed Smith to a development deal where record representatives helped him with his song writing ability, and helped him recruit members for a new band, which would become Shinedown. Smith moved to Jacksonville, Florida and began work on the project in 2001. The first member he recruited was bassist Brad Stewart, through local Jacksonville music producer Pete Thornton. Smith and Stewart began recording demos together in a small local studio, whose owner recommended they meet with her fiancé, guitarist Jasin Todd, who Smith brought in as the third member. The original lineup was rounded out by drummer Barry Kerch, who was the seventh drummer the band had auditioned for the spot. The four worked together on creating demos, and submitted their work-in-progress material to Atlantic, who approved of the material and green-lighted a full-length album.


title: Shinedown

text: The resulting work was the band's debut album, "Leave a Whisper", which was released May 27, 2003. While not an immediate success, through the extensive touring and successful singles, eventually certified platinum by the RIAA in the United States, indicating sales of over 1 million. Four singles were released from the album: "Fly from the Inside", "45", a cover of the Lynyrd Skynyrd song, "Simple Man", and "Burning Bright". All four singles charted in the top five of the "Billboard" Mainstream Rock charts, peaking at fifth, third, fifth, and second, respectively. The band toured extensively in support of the album, playing over 400 live shows over the course of 2003 and 2004. The band ended up touring for 24 months straight, doing various tours with Van Halen, Seether, and Three Doors Down. The band later released a live DVD titled "Live from the Inside" that documented the live shows of the touring cycle.


title: Shinedown

text: The band did not start work on a follow-up album until 2005, with the band finding the touring lifestyle too hectic to start writing or recording material. This, however, left the band with limited time to record new music, with their record label pressuring the band to get the album out in a six-month time period. Despite the time restrictions, the label did not pressure the band on the album's musical direction after the commercial success of "Leave a Whisper". The band worked with music producer Tony Battaglia, and chose to go in a more "mature" and "stripped down" direction for the album's sound, Kerch describing it as just "pure rock." During the same time, the band was also approached by Hollywood Records to record a song for a tribute album for the band Queen, something the band agreed to out of their respect for the band. They recorded a cover of the track "Tie Your Mother Down," which was released on "" (2005).


title: Shinedown

text: The band released their second studio album, "Us and Them", on October 4, 2005. The album debuted higher than "Leave a Whisper" on the "Billboard" 200 chart, peaking at number 23 versus "Leave a Whisper"'s number 53 peak, but the album ultimately sold less than its predecessor. Despite this, the band's three singles from the album, "Save Me", "I Dare You", and "Heroes" ended up being more successful than their prior album's singles. The lead single, "Save Me" was the band's first to reach the number one spot on the Mainstream Rock Charts, and held the position for twelve weeks in a row. The second single, "I Dare You", also peaked at number 2 on the same chart. Notably, both songs were also the band's first to have crossover success on the "Billboard" Hot 100 charts, hitting 72 and 88 respectively.


title: Shinedown

text: The band again toured heavily in support of the album, including the 2006 iteration of the SnoCore Tour with Seether, Flyleaf, and Halestorm, and later opening for Godsmack and Rob Zombie co-headlining tour of North America. Promotional support came from other areas as well; then-"American Idol" contestant Chris Daughtry performed "I Dare You" live on the show, helping its crossover appeal, and was used as a theme song for WrestleMania 22. The success of the singles helped propel sales of the album in the long run, ultimately being certified platinum by the RIAA on March 19, 2018, signifying 1 million album sales.


title: Shinedown

text: Work on a third studio album began in early 2007. While the record label requested an album to be created in six months, Smith declined, stating that he was not happy with the results of working under the time restraints on the last album, and wished to take his time on the album. The label agreed to this, ultimately allowing Smith to take eighteen months to prep the album. Part of the long development time was due to internal issues within band members; during this time, Smith fired both Stewart and Todd from the band. Smith let Stewart go due to disagreements with the direction of the band, feeling that Stewart was no longer happy or committed to the band. Todd was fired due to major disagreements with Smith, and personal problems that were getting in the way of the band. Then-touring guitarist, Zach Myers, later recounted that both Smith and Todd were going through significant substance abuse issues at the time with drugs and alcohol, which lead to much infighting between the two. The band almost broke up during the period, but Smith firing Todd and stopping his drug use helped eliminate the internal issues, and helped the band move forward.


title: Shinedown

text: Smith spent much of 2007 writing new material with Rick Beato of Black Dog Sound Recording Studios in Stone Mountain, GA, for the third album. Sessions were prolific, with Smith writing over 60 songs during the period, though that he now lacked a guitarist and bassist was a constant concern. Smith recruited a number of studio musicians for its recording sessions; Dave Barrett contributed most of the album's guitars, Tim Pierce contributed some additional guitar, and Chris Chaney contributed most of the album's bass guitar. The rough demos were sent from the record label to music producer Rob Cavallo, who, upon hearing them, told Smith he wanted to produce the album.


title: Shinedown

text: The final result, "The Sound of Madness", was released on June 24, 2008. It debuted at number eight on the "Billboard" 200 top album charts, selling 50,000 copies in its opening week. In order to start touring in support of the album, Smith assembled a new official lineup for the band, consisting of Nick Perri of Silvertide on lead guitar, Eric Bass on bass guitar, and upgrading touring member, Zach Myers to a permanent rhythm guitarist position. Perri toured only briefly with the band in 2008, before leaving to pursue a solo career, a move Smith was fine with, as he felt the band operated better as a quartet, leaving Myers as the primary guitarist.


title: Shinedown

text: Through multiple successful single releases, and extensive touring, the album ended up being the band's best-selling, staying on the "Billboard" 200 charts for 120 consecutive weeks, and eventually being certified double platinum in the United States, indicating two million units sold. Six singles were released from the album: "Devour", "Second Chance", "Sound of Madness", "If You Only Knew", "The Crow & the Butterfly", and "Diamond Eyes (Boom-Lay Boom-Lay Boom)"; each one topping a Billboard rock music chart. Of particular note was "Second Chance", which crossed over to the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 7, and eventually being certified triple platinum, indicating three million units of the single sold.


title: Shinedown

text: The band, with its new lineup, once again toured extensively in support of the album release, spending over two years on live performances. Of note, the band headlined the "Carnival of Madness" tour, which involved larger, 10,000 capacity arena venues, and a later "Anything and Everything Tour," which involved acoustic performances in smaller venues and Q&A (question and answer) sessions with the crowd. "Somewhere in the Stratosphere", a live album/DVD, was released in May 2011, documenting performances from both tours.


title: Shinedown

text: Work on a fourth studio album began in February 2011, with the band spending the first half of the year writing and demoing over 33 songs. The band again decided to work with Cavallo as a producer, but moved into a new sound and lyrical direction on the album, capturing a more of a message of "empowerment, perseverance, and inspiration", inspired by Smith's then-recent change of getting sober and living a healthier lifestyle, and the new band members contributing to the writing process for the first time on an album. The recording process wrapped up about a year later in February 2012, and the album, "Amaryllis," was released the next month, on March 27, 2012, in 30 countries simultaneously, through a joint release between Atlantic and Roadrunner Records in countries Atlantic did not distribute into. "Amaryllis" debuted at number four on the "Billboard 200" charts, selling 106,000 copies in its opening week. While the opening sales doubled the debut of "The Sound of Madness", overall sales fell well short, with the album only being certified Gold, indicating a half million copies sold.