Music
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Joan Sutherland *XI 7 1926 — The Life You Give
Joan Sutherland, in full Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, born November 7, 1926, in Sydney, Australia, is the operatic soprano who was considered the leading coloratura of the 20th century. The daughter of a gifted singer, she studied piano and voice with her mother until 1946, when she won a vocal competition and began studying voice…
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Adolphe Sax *XI 6 1814 — The Life You Give
Adolphe Sax, born Antoine-Joseph Sax, November 6, 1814, in Dinant, Belgium, is the maker of musical instruments and inventor of the saxophone. Sax was the son of Charles Joseph Sax (1791–1865), a maker of wind and brass instruments, as well as of pianos, harps, and guitars. Adolphe studied the flute and clarinet at the Brussels…
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György Cziffra *XI 5 1921 — The Life You Give
György Cziffra was one of the most celebrated and individual piano virtuosos of the postwar decades in Europe, especially noted for his powers of improvisation and as a Liszt pianist. He was born in a shantytown called Angels Court on the outskirts of Budapest to a family of gypsy musicians. The family was desperately poor,…
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Vincenzo Bellini *XI 3 1801 — The Life You Give
Vincenzo Bellini, born November 3, 1801, in Catania, Sicily [Italy], is the died operatic composer with a gift for creating vocal melody at once pure in style and sensuous in expression. His influence is reflected not only in later operatic compositions, including the early works of Richard Wagner, but also in the instrumental music of…
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Keith Emerson *XI 2 1944 — The Life You Give
Throughout his career with the Nice, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and as a solo artist, Keith Emerson proved himself perhaps the greatest, most technically accomplished keyboardist in rock history. For all his reputation as an innovator and master of classically influenced rock, Emerson began his career playing R&B; the Nice got their first big break…
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Omara Portuondo! *X 29 1930 — The Life You Give
Omara Portuondo, born October 29 1930 in Havana, Cuba, is a singer whose career has spanned over half a century. Portuondo was born one of three sisters; her mother came from a wealthy Spanish family, and had created a scandal by running off with and marrying a black professional baseball player. Omara started her career…
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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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Mahalia Jackson *X 26 1911 — The Life You Give
Mahalia Jackson, born October 26, 1911, in New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A., is the gospel music singer, known as the “Queen of Gospel Song.” Jackson was brought up in a strict religious atmosphere. Her father’s family included several entertainers, but she was forced to confine her own musical activities to singing in the church choir and…
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as sound to the ear, as music in the listener
As background, as instruction, or as aesthetic interest, sound is always outside of us. Sound surrounds us perpetually. Music, on the other hand, as language, as expression, as impression, as necessity, music occurs within us. Music is recognized only within the individual. Listening to notes being played on a given instrument, as informed to the…
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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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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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Renata Tarragó *X 23 1927 — The Life You Give
Renata Tarragó Fábregas is the guitarist and vihuelist (*) who was a teacher and performer, both as a solo artist and an accompanist. She was the first female guitarist to record Joaquín Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, and was the editor of the first published edition of the Concierto de Aranjuez score. Tarragó was born in…
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Franz Liszt *X 22 1811 / The Life You Give
Franz Liszt, Hungarian form Liszt Ferenc, born October 22, 1811, Doborján, kingdom of Hungary, Austrian Empire [now Raiding, Austria], is the piano virtuoso and composer who composed many notable compositions — 12 symphonic poems, two (completed) piano concerti, several sacred choral works, and a great variety of solo piano pieces. Youth and early training Liszt’s…
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Celia Cruz *X 21 1925 — La Vida Que Das / The Life You Give
See the biography in English below A lo largo de más de medio siglo de trayectoria artística, la indiscutible Reina de la Salsa grabó alrededor de setenta álbumes y ochocientas canciones, cosechó veintitrés discos de oro y recibió cinco premios Grammy. Mucho más relevantes, sin embargo, fueron las innumerables giras y conciertos que prodigó por…
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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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