Celebration Day
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Luciano Berio *X 24 1925 — The Life You Give
Luciano Berio, born October 24, 1925, in Oneglia, Italy, is the musician, whose success as theorist, conductor, composer, and teacher placed him among the leading representatives of the musical avant-garde. His style is notable for combining lyric and expressive musical qualities with the most advanced techniques of electronic and aleatory music. Berio studied composing and…
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Pelé *X 23 1940 The Life You Give
Pelé, born Edson Arantes do Nascimento, October 23, 1940, in Três Corações, Brazil, is the football (soccer) player, in his time probably the most famous and possibly the best-paid athlete in the world. He was part of the Brazilian national teams that won three World Cup championships (1958, 1962, and 1970). After playing for a…
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Celia Cruz *X 21 1925 — The Life You Give
Celia Cruz, born Úrsula Hilaria Celia Caridad Cruz Alfonso, October 21, 1925, in Havana, Cuba, is the singer who reigned for decades as the “Queen of Salsa Music,” electrifying audiences with her wide-ranging soulful voice and rhythmically compelling style. Cruz grew up in Santos Suárez, a district of Havana, in an extended family of 14.…
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Charles Ives *X 20 1874 — The Life You Give
Charles Ives, born Charles Edward Ives, October 20, 1874, in Danbury, Connecticut, U.S.A., is the significant composer known for a number of innovations that anticipated most of the later musical developments of the 20th century. Ives received his earliest musical instruction from his father, who was a bandleader, music teacher, and acoustician who experimented with…
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Elfriede Jelinek *X 20 1946 — The Life You Give / Das Leben, das Du gibst
Elfriede Jelinek, born October 20, 1946, in Mürzzuschlag, Austria, is the novelist, playwright, and poet noted for her controversial works on gender relations, female sexuality, and popular culture. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004. Jelinek received her education in Vienna, where the combination of her academic studies with a rigorous program…
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Emil Gilels *X 19 1916 — The Life You Give
Emil Gilels, born Emil Grigoryevich Gilels, Oct. 6 [Oct. 19, New Style], 1916, in Odessa, Ukraine, is the concert pianist admired for his superb technique, tonal control, and disciplined approach. Gilels began piano studies at age 6 and gave his first public concert in 1929 at age 13. In 1933 he gained top honours in…
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Happy Birthday, Wynton Marsalis *X 18 1961
The most famous musician in contemporary jazz, Wynton Marsalis had a major impact almost from the start. In the early ’80s, it was major news that a young and talented Black musician would choose to make a living playing acoustic jazz rather than fusion, funk, or R&B. Marsalis’ arrival on the scene started the “Young…
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Oscar Wilde *X 16 1854 — The Life You Give
Oscar Wilde, born Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, October 16, 1854, Dublin, Ireland—died November 30, 1900, Paris, France), Irish wit, poet, and dramatist whose reputation rests on his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), and on his comic masterpieces Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). He was a…
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Paul Simon *X 13 1941 — The Life You Give
Paul Simon, born Paul Frederic Simon, October 13, 1941, in Newark, New Jersey, U.S.A., is the singer-songwriter who brought a highbrow sensibility to rock music. One of the most paradoxical figures in rock-and-roll history, Simon exemplified many of the principles against which the music initially reacted. From his first big hit, “The Sounds of Silence,”…
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Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan *X 13 1948 — The Life You Give
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, born Pervez Fateh Ali Khan, October 13, 1948, in Lyallpur [now Faisalabad], Pakistan, is the singer considered to have been one of the greatest performers of qawwali, a Sufi Muslim devotional music characterized by simple melodies, forceful rhythms, and energetic improvisations that encourage a state of euphoria in the listener. Nusrat’s…
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Luciano Pavarotti *X 12 1935 — The Life You Give
Luciano Pavarotti, born October 12, 1935, in Modena, Italy, is the operatic lyric tenor who was considered one of the finest bel canto opera singers of the 20th century. Even in the highest register, his voice was noted for its purity of tone, and his concerts, recordings, and television appearances—which provided him ample opportunity to…
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Thelonious Monk *X 10 1917 — The Life You Give
Thelonious Monk, born Thelonious Sphere Monk, Oct. 10, 1917, in Rocky Mount, N.C., U.S.A., is the pianist and composer who was among the first creators of modern jazz. As the pianist in the band at Minton’s Playhouse, a nightclub in New York City, in the early 1940s, Monk had great influence on the other musicians…
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Giuseppe Verdi *X 9/10 1813 — The Life You Give
Giuseppe Verdi, born Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi, October 9/10, 1813, Roncole, near Busseto, duchy of Parma , Italy, is the leading Italian composer of opera in the 19th century, noted for operas such as Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore (1853), La traviata (1853), Don Carlos (1867), Aida (1871), Otello (1887), and Falstaff (1893) and for his…
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Camille Saint-Saëns *XI 9 1835 — The Life You Give
Camille Saint-Saëns, in full Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns, (born October 9, 1835, Paris, France—died December 16, 1921, Algiers [Algeria]), composer chiefly remembered for his symphonic poems—the first of that genre to be written by a Frenchman—and for his opera Samson et Dalila. Saint-Saëns was notable for his pioneering efforts on behalf of French music, and he was…
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Edwin Fischer *X 6 1886 — The Life You Give
Edwin Fischer was a Swiss pianist, conductor, and educator during the first half of the 20th century. He was known for his expressive interpretations of the piano music of J.S. Bach and Mozart. Fischer was born in 1886 in Basle, Switzerland, and he started playing the piano when he was four years old. Both of…
Sila Blume 