Clubhouse Events
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“Don Giovanni” (Mozart) premiered X 29 1787
Don Juan is a figure which crosses boundaries: the boundary between the sexes, the boundary between the classes and the boundary between life and death showing that even cemetery walls don’t stop him. He is said to have already loved 2065 women, 1003 in Spain alone, 640 in Italy, 231 in Germany and 100 in…
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Jon Vickers *X 29 1926 — The Life You Give
While Jon Vickers was best known as a Wagnerian heldentenor, he was also capable of singing lieder, baroque opera, spinto Italian roles, and even the comic role of Vasek in The Bartered Bride. His voice and physique both radiated power, and his stage presence was one of the most impressive of his era. Like many…
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Francis Bacon *X 28 1909 — The Life You Give
Francis Bacon, born October 28, 1909, Dublin, Ireland, is the painter whose powerful, predominantly figural images express isolation, brutality, and terror. The son of a racehorse trainer, Bacon was educated mostly by private tutors at home until his parents banished him at age 16, allegedly for pursuing his homosexual leanings. Self-taught as an artist, he…
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Niccolò Paganini *X 27 1782 — The Life You Give
Niccolò Paganini, born October 27, 1782, in Genoa, republic of Genoa [Italy], is the composer and principal violin virtuoso of the 19th century. A popular idol, he inspired the Romantic mystique of the virtuoso and revolutionized violin technique. After initial study with his father, Paganini studied with a local violinist, G. Servetto, and then with…
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Conlon Nancarrow *X 27 1912 — The Life You Give
Conlon Nancarrow was an iconoclastic American composer who wrote in an utterly new way using new instrumental resources. While isolated from the main currents of music, he was virtually ignored by the public and his colleagues until the 1970s. In the 1980s composer György Ligeti said Nancarrow was writing “the best music by any living…
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Johann Strauss II *X 25 1825 The Life You Give
Johann Strauss II, born October 25, 1825, Vienna, Austria, “the Waltz King,” is the composer famous for his Viennese waltzes and operettas. Strauss was the eldest son of the composer Johann Strauss I. Because his father wished him to follow a nonmusical profession, he started his career as a bank clerk. He studied the violin…
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Sofia Gubaidulina *X 24 1931 — The Life You Give
Sofia Gubaidulina, born October 24, 1931, Chistopol, Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic [now Tatarstan, Russia]), is the composer whose works fuse Russian and Central Asian regional styles with the Western classical tradition. During her youth, Gubaidulina studied music in the city of Kazan, the capital of her home republic. She had lessons at the Kazan…
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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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pinna this!
pinna – noun pin·na | \ ˈpi-nə \plural pinnae\ ˈpi-ˌnē, -ˌnī \ or pinnas• a projecting body part (such as a feather, wing, or fin)• the largely cartilaginous projecting portion of the external ear• conducive to the inner ear, in which, with the judgment of other body parts — in flesh and beyond it —…
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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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