Celebration Day
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Bing Crosby *V 3 1903 — The Life You Give
Bing Crosby, born Harry Lillis Crosby, on May 3, 1903, in Tacoma, Washington, U.S.A., is the singer, actor, and songwriter who achieved great popularity in radio, recordings, and motion pictures. He became the archetypal crooner of a period when the advent of radio broadcasting and talking pictures and the refinement of sound-recording techniques made the…
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The Life You Give: Alessandro Scarlatti *1660
Alessandro Scarlatti, born Pietro Alessandro Gaspare Scarlatti, May 2, 1660, Palermo, Sicily, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies [now in Italy], was a composer of operas and religious works. Scarlatti was sent to Rome at about the age of 12; there he met Bernardo Pasquini, by whom he was greatly influenced. The first of his 115…
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The Life You Give: Ludwig Wittgenstein *1889
Ludwig Wittgenstein, born Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein, on April 26, 1889, Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now in Austria], is the philosopher, regarded by many as the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. Wittgenstein’s two major works, Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung (1921; Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1922) and Philosophische Untersuchungen (published posthumously in 1953; Philosophical Investigations), have inspired a vast secondary literature…
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“Turandot” (Puccini) premiered today in 1926
Composer: Giacomo PucciniLibretto: Giuseppe Adami, Renato SimoniWorld premiere: Teatro alla Scala, Milan, April 1926. Principal roles:Princess Turandot – sopranoThe Emperor Altoum, her father – tenor Timur, the deposed King of Tartary – bass The Unknown Prince (Calaf), his son — tenor Liù, a slave girl — soprano ACT IPeking, in the mythic past. Outside the…
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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: Samuel Beckett *1906
Samuel Beckett, born Samuel Barclay Beckett, on April 13, 1906, in Foxrock, County Dublin, Ireland, was author, critic, and playwright, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. He wrote in both French and English and is perhaps best known for his plays, especially En attendant Godot (1952; Waiting for Godot). Samuel Beckett was…
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The Life You Give: André Previn *1929
Known as a successful classical conductor, jazz pianist, and composer of jazz, classical, and film music, André Previn frequently bridged the gap between popular and so-called “serious” music, and in doing so broadened the horizons of both. A German-American who fled Nazi Germany with his family in his youth, he went on to win four…
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The Life You Give: Maya Angelou *1928
Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson, on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A., is the poet, memoirist, and actress whose several volumes of autobiography explore the themes of economic, racial, and sexual oppression. Although born in St. Louis, Angelou spent much of her childhood in the care of her paternal grandmother in rural…
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The Life You Give: Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin *April 1 1755
Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, born Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, on April 1, 1755, in Belley, France, was lawyer, politician, [judge, violinist}, and author of a celebrated work on gastronomy, Physiologie du goût (The Physiology of Taste). Brillat-Savarin followed the family profession of law. A deputy of the Third Estate at the Estates-General of 1789, he was forced to flee…
Sila Blume 