Celebration Day
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Leontyne Price *II 10 1927 — The Life You Give
Metropolitan Opera audiences began an extraordinary love affair with American soprano Leontyne Price immediately upon her debut on January 27, 1961. She was by then an internationally heralded singer and an experienced, refined musician and artist. But more than anything, it was the sheer beauty of her voice that excited her listeners. What they heard…
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Gerhard Richter *II 9 1932 — The Live You Give
Gerhard Richter, born on February 9, 1932, in Dresden, Germany, is the painter known for his diverse painting styles and subjects. His deliberate lack of commitment to a single stylistic direction has often been read as an attack on the implicit ideologies embedded in the specific histories of painting. Such distaste for aesthetic dogma has…
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Carole King *II 9 1942 — The Life You Give
Carole King, born Carol Joan Klein, on February 9 1942, in New York, New York, U.S.A., is the songwriter and singer (alto) who was one of the most prolific female musicians in the history of pop music. King’s mother was the source of her early music education. While still in high school, King began arranging…
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Alban Berg *II 9 1885 — The Life You Give
Alban Berg, born Alban Maria Johannes Berg, on February 9 1885, in Vienna, Austria, is the composer who wrote atonal and 12-tone compositions that remained true to late 19th-century Romanticism. He composed orchestral music (including Five Orchestral Songs, 1912), chamber music, songs, and two groundbreaking operas, Wozzeck (1925) and Lulu (1937). Apart from a few…
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Sebastião Salgado *II 8 1944 — The Life You Give
Born in Aimorés, Brazil, Sebastião Salgado trained as an economist before becoming a photographer in the early 1970s. He earned an MA in economics from São Paulo University in 1968 and a PhD in economics from the University of Paris in 1971. His work at the International Coffee Organization in London required him to make…
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Claudio Arrau *II 6 1903 — The Life You Give
Claudio Arrau, born February 6 1903, in Chillán, Chile, was one of the most-renowned pianists of the 20th century. Arrau’s father, an eye doctor, died when Arrau—the youngest of three children—was one year old. His mother supported the family by giving piano lessons and must have been gratified when her own son proved to be…
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William S. Burroughs *II 5 1914 — The Life You Give
The elder statesman of literature’s Beat Generation — and, by extension, of the American underground culture — few figures outside of the musical sphere exerted a greater influence over rock & roll than novelist William S. Burroughs. A provocative, controversial figure famed for his unique cut-up prose aesthetic, Burroughs lived the rock lifestyle years before…
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Rosa Parks *II 4 1913 — The Life You Give
Rosa Parks, born Rosa Louise McCauley, on February 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama, U.S.A., is the civil rights activist whose refusal to relinquish her seat on a public bus precipitated the 1955–56 Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama, which became the spark that ignited the civil rights movement in the United States. Born to parents James…
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Felix Mendelssohn *II 3 1809 — The Life You Give
Felix Mendelssohn, born Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, on February 3 1809, in Hamburg, Germany, is, as composer, pianist, musical conductor, and teacher, one of the most-celebrated figures of the early Romantic period. In his music Mendelssohn largely observed Classical models and practices while initiating key aspects of Romanticism—the artistic movement that exalted feeling and the…
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Jascha Heifetz *II 2 1901 — The Life You Give
Jascha Heifetz, born February 2 [Jan. 20, Old Style] 1901, in Vilna, Lithuania, Russian Empire [now Vilnius, Lithuania] was the Russian-born American violinist noted for his conscientious musical interpretation, his smooth tone, and his technical proficiency. His name became associated with musical perfection. Heifetz studied violin from age three and at six performed Felix Mendelssohn’s…
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Hugo von Hofmannsthal *II 1 1874 — The Life You Give
Hugo von Hofmannsthal, born on February 1, 1874, in Vienna, Austria, is the poet, dramatist, and essayist who made his reputation with his lyrical poems and plays and became internationally famous for his collaboration with the German operatic composer Richard Strauss. The only child of a bank director, Hofmannsthal studied law at Vienna. At 16…
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Renata Tebaldi *II 1 1922 — The Life You Give
Renata Tebaldi, born February 1, 1922, in Pesaro, Italy, is an operatic soprano, a star at both Milan’s La Scala and New York City’s Metropolitan Opera. Tebaldi received her early musical training from her mother, a singer, and studied at the Parma Conservatory. At age 18 she sang for Carmen Melis, of the Arrigo Boito…
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Franz Schubert *I 31 1797 — The Life You Give
Franz Schubert, born Franz Peter Schubert on January 31, 1797, in Himmelpfortgrund, near Vienna, Austria, is the composer who bridged the worlds of Classical and Romantic music, noted for the melody and harmony in his songs (lieder) and chamber music. Among other works are Symphony No. 9 in C Major (The Great; 1828), Symphony in…
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Philip Glass *I 31 1937 — The Life You Give
No other composer, no public figure has ever played consequential roles in my life like Phillip Glass. It all began with a physical, mental, perhaps even spiritual shock in 1982, when I sat in Carnegie Hall and experienced his music for the first time. That year I moved to Boston, where, not long after that,…
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José Martí *I 28 1853 — The Life You Give
José Martí, born January 28, 1853, in Havana, Cuba, is the poet and essayist, patriot and martyr, who became the symbol of Cuba’s struggle for independence from Spain. His dedication to the goal of Cuban freedom made his name a synonym for liberty throughout Latin America. As a patriot, Martí organized and unified the movement…
Sila Blume 