Artists
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The Life You Give: Tom Waits *1949
Tom Waits, born December 7, 1949, in Pomona, California, is a singer-songwriter and actor whose gritty, sometimes romantic depictions of the lives of the urban underclass won him a loyal if limited following and the admiration of critics and prominent musicians who performed and recorded his songs. Born into a middle-class California family but enamoured…
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The Life You Give: Jean-Luc Godard *1930
Jean-Luc Godard, born December 3, 1930, Paris, France, is a French Swiss film director who came to prominence with the New Wave group in France during the late 1950s and the ’60s. Early life and career Godard’s first feature film, À bout de souffle (1960; Breathless), which was produced by François Truffaut, his colleague on…
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The Life You Give: Maria Callas *1923
Maria Callas, original name Maria Cecilia Sophia Anna Kalogeropoulos, born December 2, 1923, New York, New York, was an American-born Greek operatic soprano who revived classical coloratura roles in the mid-20th century with her lyrical and dramatic versatility. Callas was the daughter of Greek immigrants and early developed an interest in singing. Accompanied by her…
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The Life You Give: William Blake! *1757
William Blake, born Nov. 28, 1757, in London, England, was engraver, artist, poet, and visionary, author of exquisite lyrics in Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794) and profound and difficult “prophecies,” such as Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793), The First Book of Urizen (1794), Milton (1804[–?11]), and Jerusalem (1804[–?20]). These…
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The Life You Give: Helmut Lachenmann *1935
“Expression is created on the reverse face of that on which the composer is working…destruction, deflation, and disintegration. But during this process expressive energy radiates out in the first instance like a creative serenity — freedom even.” — Helmut Lachenmann Join us listening to his compositionsat 11pm EST, November 27, at The Aristipposian Poet, on…
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The Life You Give: Tina Turner *1939
Tina Turner, original name Anna Mae Bullock, (born November 26, 1939, Brownsville, Tennessee, U.S.), American-born singer who found success in the rhythm-and-blues, soul, and rock genres in a career that spanned five decades. Turner was born into a sharecropping family in rural Tennessee. She began singing as a teenager and, after moving to St. Louis,…
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The Life You Give: Trisha Brown *1936
Happy Birthday, Trisha Brown! Born November 25, 1936, Aberdeen, Washington, U.S.A, dancer and choreographer whose avant-garde and postmodernist work explores and experiments in pure movement, with and without the accompaniments of music and traditional theatrical space. Brown studied modern dance at Mills College in Oakland, California (B.A., 1958). Her style began developing after she met…
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The Life You Give: Scott Joplin 1868
Ragtime in The Aristipposian Poet Club, tonight at 11pm EST, on Clubhouse. Scott Joplin, (born 1867/68, Texas — composer and pianist known as the “king of ragtime” at the turn of the 20th century. Joplin spent his childhood in northeastern Texas, though the exact date and place of his birth are unknown. By 1880 his…
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Happy Birthday, Alfred Schnittke!
Join us listening to Schnittke on Clubhouse — The Aristipposian Poet, at 6pm EST., today, November 24. Alfred Schnittke, (born Nov. 24, 1934, Engels, Volga German Autonomous S.S.R. [now in Saratov oblast, Russia]—died Aug. 3, 1998, Hamburg, Germany), postmodernist Russian composer who created serious, dark-toned musical works characterized by abrupt juxtapositions of radically different, often…
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Alfredo Kraus, in Massenet’s opera “Werther” in 1976
Join us today at 1:55pm EST, as we listen to Alfredo Kraus, in Werther, by Jules Massenet, at the Opera, Blood, and Tears Club, on Clubhouse. One of the most stylistic, professional and refined tenors of the century, Spanish tenor Alfredo Kraus passed away recently in Madrid after a long and outstanding career in the…
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Happy Birthday, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec! 1864
During his brief artistic career, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec captured the lively and often sordid atmosphere of Montmartre’s late 19th-century dance halls, cabarets, and theaters. Recording the performances he viewed and the establishments he visited on a nightly basis, he functioned as artist and narrator: his paintings, drawings, prints, and posters expose the complexities of the…
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Happy Birthday, Manuel de Falla! 1876
Manuel María de los Dolores Falla y Matheu was born November 23, 1876, in Cádiz, Spain, and is the most distinguished Spanish composer of the early 20th century. In his music he achieved a fusion of poetry, asceticism, and ardour that represents the spirit of Spain at its purest. Falla took piano lessons from his…
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The Devils of Loudon — Opera by Krzysztof Penderecki, based in Aldous Huxley’s nonfiction book.
One of Huxley’s most important later works is The Devils of Loudun (1952), a detailed psychological study of a historical incident in which a group of 17th-century French nuns were allegedly the victims of demonic possession. (Encyclopedia Britannica) Penderecki writes the music and libretto based on this book. It is a historical narrative of supposed demonic possession, religious fanaticism, sexual…
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Happy Birthday, Björk! 1965
Born on November 21, 1965, in Reykjavik, Iceland, Björk founded the band the Sugarcubes in 1986 before striking out on her own to a hugely successful solo career in 1993. She is known for such albums as Debut, Post, Vespertine, Medülla, Volta and Biophilia, and for songs like “I’ve Seen It All”, “Human Behaviour” and…
Sila Blume 