Artists
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Franz Liszt *X 22 1811 / The Life You Give
Franz Liszt, Hungarian form Liszt Ferenc, born October 22, 1811, Doborján, kingdom of Hungary, Austrian Empire [now Raiding, Austria], is the piano virtuoso and composer who composed many notable compositions — 12 symphonic poems, two (completed) piano concerti, several sacred choral works, and a great variety of solo piano pieces. Youth and early training Liszt’s…
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Celia Cruz *X 21 1925 — La Vida Que Das / The Life You Give
See the biography in English below A lo largo de más de medio siglo de trayectoria artística, la indiscutible Reina de la Salsa grabó alrededor de setenta álbumes y ochocientas canciones, cosechó veintitrés discos de oro y recibió cinco premios Grammy. Mucho más relevantes, sin embargo, fueron las innumerables giras y conciertos que prodigó por…
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Days with Guiseppe Verdi: La Traviata
La Traviata is one of the cornerstones of the operatic repertory. The score is littered with fantastic tunes that are now wildly famous (even those who aren’t at all operatically versed will know many of the arias from countless TV ads), but beyond that, the coherence of the whole piece makes it a masterpiece. The…
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Days with Giuseppe Verdi: Ernani / featuring Luciano Pavarotti *X 12 1935
Music: Giuseppe VerdiLibretto: Francesco Maria Piave`ACT I: THE BANDIT Spain, 1519. Don Juan of Aragon has lost his title and wealth during a civil war. Taking the name Ernani, he leads a band of outlaws in the mountains. He tells his men of his love for Elvira and his daring plan to rescue her from…
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Days with Giuseppe Verdi: Simon Boccanegra
Music: Giuseppe Verdi Libretto: Francesco Maria Piave World premiere: Teatro la Fenice, Venice, 1857 (original version); Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1881 (revised version). PROLOGUE Genoa, 14th century. Paolo and Pietro, leaders of the plebeians, are conspiring to overthrow the aristocracy. They name the popular former pirate Simon Boccanegra as their candidate for the office of…
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musicus organicus — Days with Giuseppe Verdi *X 9 1813
It is a wonderful world, nevertheless. This sentiment could be seen as the central motivation which led to an on-going compilation of birthdates for hundreds of individuals who, beyond their to us recognizable presence on earth, have contributed music, words, pictures, thinking, and views on life which have been engraved in our planet’s DNA, some…
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Steve Reich *X 3 1936 — The Life You Give
Steve Reich, born Stephen Michael Reich, October 3, 1936, in New York, New York, U.S.A., is the composer who was one of the leading exponents of Minimalism, a style based on repetitions and combinations of simple motifs and harmonies. Reich was the son of an attorney and a singer-lyricist. He majored in philosophy at Cornell…
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Sting *X 2 1951 / The Life You Give
Sting, born Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, October 2, 1951, in Wallsend, Northumberland, England), is the singer and songwriter known both for being the front man of the band the Police and for his successful solo career that followed. His musical style was distinguished by its intermingling of pop, jazz, world music, and other genres. Early…
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T. S. Eliot *IX 26 1888 / The Life You Give
T.S. Eliot, born Thomas Stearns Eliot, September 26, 1888, in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A., is the poet, playwright, literary critic, and editor, and leader of the Modernist movement in poetry in such works as The Waste Land (1922) and Four Quartets (1943). Eliot exercised a strong influence on Anglo-American culture from the 1920s until late…
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Pedro Almodóvar *IX 25 1949 — The Life You Give / La Vida Que Das
Pedro Almodóvar, born Pedro Mercedes Almodóvar Caballero, September 25, 1949, in Calzada de Calatrava, Spain, is the filmmaker known for colourful melodramatic films that often feature sexual themes. As a young man, Almodóvar moved to Madrid with the hopes of attending the Spanish national film school, but it had recently been closed under dictator Francisco…
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Days with Pedro Almodóvar: Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown (1988)
Almodovar’s First MasterpieceFebruary 23, 2010 by Emanuel Levy With the exception of “Talk to Her,” the 2003 feature in which the two protagonists are men (and straight men at that), and “Bad Education,” there are not many men in Almodovar’s films. At times, there are no men at all, and if there are, the men…
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Vladimir Horowitz *IX 18 1903 / The Life You Give
Vladimir Horowitz, born September 18 [Old Style], 1903, in Berdichev, Russia [now in Ukraine], is the virtuoso pianist in the Romantic tradition who was celebrated for his flawless technique and an almost orchestral quality of tone. Horowitz’s performances of works by Franz Liszt, Sergey Rachmaninoff, Frédéric Chopin, Aleksandr Scriabin, Domenico Scarlatti, and Sergey Prokofiev were…
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Jessye Norman *IX 15 1945 — The Life You Give
Jessye Norman, born Jessye Mae Norman on September 15, 1945, in Augusta, Georgia, U.S.A., is the operatic soprano, one of the finest of her day, who also enjoyed a successful concert career. Norman was reared in a musical family. Both her mother and grandmother were pianists and her father sang in church, as did the…
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Arnold Schönberg *IX 13 1874 — The Life You Give
Arnold Schoenberg, born Arnold Franz Walter Schönberg, September 13, 1874 in Vienna, Austria, is the composer who created new methods of musical composition involving atonality, namely serialism and the 12-tone row. He was also one of the most-influential teachers of the 20th century; among his most-significant pupils were Alban Berg and Anton Webern. Schoenberg’s father,…
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Caspar David Friedrich *IX 5 1774 / The Life You Give
Caspar David Friedrich, born September 5, 1774, in Greifswald, Pomerania [now in Germany], is one of the leading figures of the German Romantic movement. His vast, mysterious, atmospheric landscapes and seascapes proclaimed human helplessness against the forces of nature and did much to establish the idea of the Sublime as a central concern of Romanticism.…
Sila Blume 