Music
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Henry Cowell *III 11 1897 / The Life You Give
Of all the early twentieth century American musical revolutionaries, perhaps composer Henry Cowell wielded the most vivid and far-reaching influence. Born in 1897 to a rural California family, Cowell began to study the violin at age five, though his parents’ hopes of creating a prodigy on the instrument remained unfulfilled when the lessons had to…
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Arthur Honegger *III 10 1892 / The Life You Give
Born in France to Swiss parents, Arthur Honegger was a major twentieth century composer whose musical style was more cosmopolitan than either French or Swiss. An almost exact contemporary of Prokofiev (1891-1953), he rivaled Poulenc as the most successful member of Les Six and was without doubt among the greatest French composers of his day.…
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Samuel Barber *III 9 1910 — The Life You Give
Early years Barber was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, the son of Marguerite McLeod (née Beatty) and Samuel LeRoy Barber. At a very early age, Barber became profoundly interested in music, and it was apparent that he had great musical talent and ability. At the age of nine he wrote to his mother: Dear Mother:…
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Ornette Coleman *III 9 1930 — The Life You Give
Ornette Coleman, born Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman, on March 9, 1930, in Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.A., is the jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader who was the principal initiator and leading exponent of free jazz in the late 1950s. Coleman began playing alto, then tenor saxophone as a teenager and soon became a working musician in…
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Heitor Villa-Lobos *III 5 1887 / The Life You Give
Heitor Villa-Lobos, born March 5, 1887, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is the composer, and one of the foremost Latin American composers of the 20th century, whose music combines indigenous melodic and rhythmic elements with Western classical music.Villa-Lobos’s father was a librarian and an amateur musician. Under the influence of his father’s weekly musical get-togethers,…
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Antonio Vivaldi *III 4 1678 / The Life You Give
Antonio Vivaldi, born Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, on March 4 1678, in Venice, Republic of Venice [Italy], is the composer and violinist who left a decisive mark on the form of the concerto and the style of late Baroque instrumental music. Vivaldi’s main teacher was probably his father, Giovanni Battista, who in 1685 was admitted as…
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Bedřich Smetana *III 2 1824 — The Life You Give
Bedřich Smetana, born March 2, 1824, in Leitomischl, Bohemia, Austrian Empire [now Litomyšl, Czech Republic], was composer of operas and symphonic poems, and founder of the Czech national school of music. He was the first truly important Bohemian nationalist composer. Smetana studied music under his father, an amateur violinist. He early took up piano under…
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Frédéric Chopin *III 1 1810 — The Life You Give
Frédéric Chopin, Fryderyk Franciszek Szopen, on March 1, 1810, in Żelazowa Wola, near Warsaw, Duchy of Warsaw [now in Poland], was the composer and pianist of the Romantic period, best known for his solo pieces for piano and his piano concerti. Although he wrote little but piano works, many of them brief, Chopin ranks as…
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Gioachino Rossini *February 29 1792 / The Life You Give
Gioachino Rossini, born Gioachino Antonio Rossini, on February 29 1792, in Pesaro, Papal States [Italy], is the composer noted for his operas, particularly his comic operas, of which The Barber of Seville (1816), Cinderella (1817), and Semiramide (1823) are among the best known. Of his later, larger-scale dramatic operas, the most widely heard is William…
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Georg Friedrich Händel *II 23 1685 — The Life You Give
George Frideric Handel, German (until 1715) Georg Friedrich Händel, Händel also spelled Haendel, (born February 23, 1685, Halle, Brandenburg [Germany]—died April 14, 1759, London, England), German-born English composer of the late Baroque era, noted particularly for his operas, oratorios, and instrumental compositions. He wrote the most famous of all oratorios, Messiah (1741), and is also…
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wwwm – pianissimo: Russians & Ukrainians
As an expression of a global state and mindset, this is an action, rather than a reaction or reactionary response to the efforts that prevail in being humans. Just a space for listening and absorbing music without contradictory boundaries. musicus, organicuscelebrates the piano withRussians & UkrainiansFebruary 22 at 9 pm ESTas one of several events…
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Andrés Segovia *II 21 1893 — La Vida Que Das / The Life You Give
Andrés Segovia (Linares, España, 1893 – Madrid, 1987) Guitarrista y pedagogo español. Junto a Narciso Yepes, fue el principal responsable de la consolidación de la guitarra como instrumento de concierto, a un nivel comparable al que ocupan el violín y el piano, al menos en cuanto a la calidad de las piezas. Guitarrista a pesar…
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The Piano — International Piano Day
The piano, also called pianoforte, French piano or pianoforte, German Klavier, is a keyboard musical instrument having wire strings that sound when struck by felt-covered hammers operated from a keyboard. The standard modern piano contains 88 keys and has a compass of seven full octaves plus a few keys. The vibration of the strings is…
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Renée Lynn Fleming *II 14 1959 / The Life You Give
Renée Fleming, born February 14, 1959, in Indiana, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., is a soprano noted for the beauty and richness of her voice and for the thought and sensitivity she brings to the texts. Fleming’s repertoire is extraordinarily broad, spanning three centuries and ranging from Handel and Mozart through 19th-century bel canto to the works of…
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Peter Gabriel *II 13 1950 — The Life You Give
There is a complex, dotted, and cloudy line that divides or unites an individual in two. I am referring to what seems to be two sources and periods in the life of Peter Gabriel, as I see, hear, and think about his music. One Gabriel is the period during his work as front man to…
Sila Blume 