Celebration Day
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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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Tatiana Troyanos *IX 12 1938 — The Life You Give
The dynamic mezzo-soprano Tatiana Troyanos was born into a singing family; her Greek father was a tenor, and her German mother a soprano. Born in New York, Troyanos studied at the Juilliard School with Hans J. Heinz, while singing occasionally in the New York area (she was a member of the original chorus for the…
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Arvo Pärt *IX 11 1935 — The Life You Give
Arvo Pärt, born September 11, 1935, in Paide, Estonia, is the composer who developed a style based on the slow modulation of sounds such as those produced by bells and pure voice tones, a technique reminiscent of the medieval Notre-Dame school and the sacred music of Eastern Orthodoxy; Pärt was a devout Orthodox Christian. His…
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Theodor Adorno *IX 11 1903 — The Life You Give
Theodor Adorno, born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund, on Sept. 11, 1903, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, is the philosopher who also wrote on sociology, psychology, and musicology. Adorno obtained a degree in philosophy from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt in 1924. His early writings, which emphasize aesthetic development as important to historical evolution, reflect the influence…
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Henry Purcell *IX 10 1659 / The Life You Give
Henry Purcell, born September 10 1659, London, England, is the composer of the middle Baroque period, most remembered for his more than 100 songs; a tragic opera, Dido and Aeneas; and his incidental music to a version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream called The Fairy Queen. Purcell, the most important English composer of his…
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Antonin Dvořák *IX 8 1841 / The Life You Give
Antonín Dvořák, born Antonín Leopold Dvořák, September 8, 1841, in Nelahozeves, Bohemia, Austrian Empire [now in Czech Republic], is the first Bohemian composer to have achieved worldwide recognition, noted for turning folk material into 19th-century Romantic music. Dvořák was born, the first of nine children, in Nelahozeves, a Bohemian village on the Vltava River north…
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Angela Gheorghiu *IX 7 1965 / The Life You Give
Angela Gheorghiu, born Angela Burlacu on September 7, 1965, in Adjud, Romania, is an operatic lyric soprano noted for her powerful voice and commanding stage presence. Gheorghiu early realized her love of singing, and she was supported by her family in working toward a career in opera. She left home at age 14 to study…
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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.…
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Freddie Mercury *IX 5 1946 / The Life You Give
Freddie Mercury, born Farrokh Bulsara on September 5, 1946, in Stone Town, Zanzibar [now in Tanzania], is the rock singer and songwriter whose flamboyant showmanship and powerfully agile vocals, most famously for the band Queen, made him one of rock’s most dynamic front men. Bulsara was born to Parsi parents who had emigrated from India…
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John Cage *IX 5 1912 / The Life You Give
John Cage, born John Milton Cage, Jr., September 5, 1912, in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., is the avant-garde composer whose inventive compositions and unorthodox ideas profoundly influenced mid-20th-century music. The son of an inventor, Cage briefly attended Pomona College and then traveled in Europe for a time. Returning to the United States in 1931, he…
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Giacomo Meyerbeer *IX 5 1791 — The Life You Give
Giacomo Meyerbeer, born Jakob Liebmann Meyer Beer, September 5, 1791, in Tasdorf, near Berlin, Germany, is the opera composer who established in Paris a vogue for spectacular romantic opera. Born of a wealthy Jewish family, Meyerbeer studied composition in Berlin and later at Darmstadt, where he formed a friendship with C.M. von Weber. His early…
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Amy Beach *IX 5 1867 — The Life You Give
Amy Marcy Beach, born Amy Marcy Cheney, on September 5, 1867, in Henniker, New Hampshire, U.S.A., is the pianist and composer known for her Piano Concerto (1900) and her Gaelic Symphony (1894), the first symphony by an American woman composer. Amy Cheney had already demonstrated precocious musical talent when the family moved to Boston in…
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Anton Bruckner *IX 4 1824 — The Life You Give
Anton Bruckner, born Josef Anton Bruckner, Sept. 4, 1824, in Ansfelden, Austria, is the composer of a number of highly original and monumental symphonies. He was also an organist and teacher who composed much sacred and secular choral music. Bruckner was the son of a village schoolmaster and organist in Upper Austria. He showed talent…
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Engelbert Humperdinck *IX 1 1854 — The Life You Give
Engelbert Humperdinck, born September 1, 1854, in Siegburg, Prussia [Germany], is the composer known for his opera Hänsel und Gretel. Humperdinck studied at Cologne and at Munich. In 1879 a Mendelssohn scholarship enabled him to go to Italy, where he met Richard Wagner, who invited him to assist in the production of Parsifal at Bayreuth.…
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Itzhak Perlman *VIII 31 1945 — The Life You Give
Itzhak Perlman, born August 31, 1945, in Tel Aviv, Palestine [now Tel Aviv–Yafo, Israel]) is a violinist known for his brilliant virtuoso technique. His refinement of detail led many to regard him as one of the finest performers of the major violin repertoire of his time. Perlman was drawn to the violin after hearing it…
Sila Blume 