Artists
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The Life You Give: Joseph Beuys *1921
Joseph Beuys was born in Krefeld, a small city in northwest Germany. He was an only child, to the merchant Josef Jakob Beuys and his wife Johanna Maria Margarete Hulsermann. The two were a devout Catholic couple of the northern Rhine-Westphalian middle-class. Just months after Beuys’s birth, the family moved south to the industrial town…
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The Life You Give: Carla Bley *1936 or 1938
A highly regarded pianist, composer, and arranger, Carla Bley has been at the forefront of avant-garde jazz and modern creative music since the ’60s. She initially emerged as a composer, working closely with her first husband, pianist Paul Bley, as well as progressive artists like George Russell and Jimmy Giuffre. She is a founder of…
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Salvador Dalí *V 11 1904 / La Vida Que Das — The Life You Give
See english text below Salvador Dalí nació el 11 de mayo de 1904 a las 8,45 de la mañana en el pueblo de Figueres, Girona. Bautizado como Salvador, Domingo, Felipe, Jacinto Dalí, hijo de Salvador Dalí i Cusí, notario, y Felipa Doménech. Nació nueve meses y diez días exactos después de enterrado un primer Salvador…
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Johannes Brahms *V 7 1833 / The Life You Give
Johannes Brahms, (born May 7, 1833, Hamburg [Germany]—died April 3, 1897, Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now in Austria]), German composer and pianist of the Romantic period, who wrote symphonies, concerti, chamber music, piano works, choral compositions, and more than 200 songs. Brahms was the great master of symphonic and sonata style in the second half of the…
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Pyotr Tchaikovsky *V 7 1840 / The Life You Give
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, also spelled Chaikovsky, Chaikovskii, or Tschaikowsky, born April 25 [May 7, New Style], 1840, in Votkinsk, Russia, is the most popular Russian composer of all time. His music has always had great appeal for the general public in virtue of its tuneful, open-hearted melodies, impressive harmonies, and colourful, picturesque orchestration, all of…
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Orson Welles *V 6 1915 — The Life You Give
Orson Welles, born George Orson Welles, May 6, 1915, Kenosha, Wisconsin, U.S.A., is the motion-picture actor, director, producer, and write who’s innovative narrative techniques and use of photography, dramatic lighting, and music to further the dramatic line and to create mood made his Citizen Kane (1941)—which he wrote, directed, produced, and acted in—one of the…
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Twentieth Century Vienna Fruits
In the wake of such influential studies as Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin’s Wittgenstein’s Vienna (1973) and Carl Schorske’s Fin-de-siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (1979), scholars from diverse fields have come to recognize that in the years from about 1890 to 1918 the imperial city of Vienna comprised a unique historico-cultural nexus. The fact that…
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The Life You Give: Ella Fitzgerald *1917
Ella Fitzgerald, born Ella Jane Fitzgerald, on April 25 1917 in Newport News, Virginia, U.S.A., is the jazz singer who became world famous for the wide range and rare sweetness of her voice. She became an international legend during a career that spanned some six decades. As a child, Fitzgerald wanted to be a dancer,…
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The Life You Give: Barbra Streisand *1942
Barbra Streisand, born Barbara Joan Streisand, April 24, 1942, in Brooklyn, New York, is the singer, composer, actress, director, and producer who was considered by many to be the greatest popular singer of her generation. The first major female star to command roles as a Jewish actress, Streisand redefined female stardom in the 1960s and…
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The Life You Give: Sergey Prokofiev *1891
Sergey Prokofiev, born Sergey Sergeyevich Prokofiev, on April 23 1891, in Sontsovka, Ukraine, is the composer who wrote in a wide range of musical genres, including symphonies, concerti, film music, operas, ballets, and program pieces. Prokofiev (Prokofjev in the transliteration system of the Russian Academy of Sciences) was born into a family of agriculturalists. Village…
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The Life You Give: Ethel Smyth *1858
Dame Ethel Smyth, born Ethel Mary Smyth, on April 22, 1858, in London, is the composer whose work was notably eclectic, ranging from conventional to experimental. Born into a military family, Smyth studied at the Leipzig Conservatory and was encouraged by Johannes Brahms and Antonín Dvořák. She first gained notice with her sweeping Mass in…
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The Life You Give: Germaine Tailleferre *1892
Of significance as the sole female member of the post-World War I group of French composers known as Les Six, Germaine Tailleferre remained a prominent — if somewhat inaccessible — musician long after the disintegration of that group during the middle and late 1920s. She left behind, at her death in 1983 at the age…
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The Life You Give: Charlie Chaplin *1889
Charlie Chaplin, byname of Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin, (born April 16, 1889, London, England—died December 25, 1977, Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland), British comedian, producer, writer, director, and composer who is widely regarded as the greatest comic artist of the screen and one of the most important figures in motion-picture history.Early life and career Chaplin was named after…
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The Life You Give: Leonardo da Vinci *1452
Leonardo da Vinci, born April 15, 1452, in Anchiano, near Vinci, Republic of Florence [Italy], is the painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose skill and intelligence, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. His Last Supper (1495–98) and Mona Lisa (c. 1503–19) are among the most widely popular…
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The Life You Give: Carmen McRae *1920
Carmen McRae, born April 8, 1920, New York, N.Y., U.S.A., is the jazz vocalist and pianist who from an early emulation of vocalist Billie Holiday grew to become a distinctive stylist, known for her smoky voice and her melodic variations on jazz standards. Her scat improvisations were innovative, complex, and elegant. McRae studied classical piano…
Sila Blume 