I believe the most famous things about United Kingdom are the Royal Family, William Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, bad weather, strange food and finally the music. There’s too much to write about the Royal Family, Shakespear is great but it’s the other maturita topic, Holmes just a book character, writing and talking about bad weather isn’t my cup of tea ;), strange food is just pretty strange topic, so the only, and I believe great, opiton is music. Whether classical or popular, it’s a great theme for a United Kingdom essay. The most prominent British composers at the turn of the century were Sir Edward Elgar and Frederic Delius; in the first half of the 20th century Ralph Vaughan Williams and Sir William Walton emerged. The many important post-1945 British composers include Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Richard Rodney Bennet, and Sir Harrison Birtwistle. In the 20th century a renaissance of British opera occurred through the work of Sir Michael Tippett and Benjamin Britten.
Interest in Classical music, opera, and dance has also grown markedly since 1980. Britain has many professional orchestras. The leading symphony orchestras include the London Philharmonic, the London Symphony, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Hallé in Manchester, the City of Birmingham Symphony, and the Ulster and Royal Scottish orchestras. Chamber orchestras include the English Chamber Orchestra, the Academy of St Martin-in-the Field, and the Bournemouth Sinfonietta. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) maintains six orchestras and has sponsored (since 1927) one of the most popular annual musical events, the Promenade Conncerts at the Royal Albert Hall, which celebrated their centenary in 1994. In addition to the Royal Opera House company, based at Covent Garden in London, each of the countries of the United Kingdom has a national opera company, singing mainly in English. Leeds-based Opera North tours the north of England. Each summer an opera season, attracting an international cast, is held at Glyndebourne, East Sussex; a new Ł33 million auditorium was opened for the 1994 season.
In the late 20th century, Britain has been an important source of popular music, in particular of the various manifestations of rock music, beginning with the Beatles and the Roling Stones in the 1960s. The work of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber helped to make the musical the most popular form of theatrical entertainment in Britain in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s.