Music
-
Claudio Monteverdi *V 15 1567 / The Life You Give
Claudio Monteverdi, baptized May 15, 1567, Cremona, Duchy of Milan [Italy], is the composer in the late Renaissance, seen as most important developer of the then new genre, the opera. He also did much to bring a “modern” secular spirit into church music. Monteverdi, the son of a barber-surgeon and chemist, studied with the director…
-
The Life You Give: Brian Eno *1948
Brian Eno, born Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno, May 15, 1948, in Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, is producer, composer, keyboardist, and singer who helped define and reinvent the sound of some of the most popular bands of the 1980s and ’90s and who created the genre of ambient music. While…
-
Stevie Wonder *V 13 1950 / The Life You Give
Stevie Wonder, born Steveland Judkins or Steveland Morris, May 13, 1950, in Saginaw, Michigan, U.S.A., is the singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, a child prodigy who developed into one of the most creative musical figures of the late 20th century. Blind from birth and raised in inner-city Detroit, he was a skilled musician by age eight.…
-
The Life You Give: Carla Bley *1936 or 1938
A highly regarded pianist, composer, and arranger, Carla Bley has been at the forefront of avant-garde jazz and modern creative music since the ’60s. She initially emerged as a composer, working closely with her first husband, pianist Paul Bley, as well as progressive artists like George Russell and Jimmy Giuffre. She is a founder of…
-
Bono *V 10 1960 / The Life You Give
Bono, born Paul David Hewson, May 10, 1960, in Dublin, Ireland, is lead singer for the popular Irish rock band U2 and prominent human rights activist. He was born of a Roman Catholic father and a Protestant mother (who died when he was just age 14). In Dublin in 1977, he and school friends David…
-
Milton Babbitt *V 10 1916 / The Life You Give
Milton Babbitt, born Milton Byron Babbitt, on May 10, 1916, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., is the composer and theorist known as a leading proponent of total serialism—i.e., musical composition based on prior arrangements not only of all 12 pitches of the chromatic scale (as in 12-tone music) but also of dynamics, duration, timbre (tone colour),…
-
Billy Joel *V 9 1949 / The Life You Give
Billy Joel, born William Martin Joel, on May 9, 1949, in Bronx, New York, U.S.A., is singer, pianist, and songwriter in the pop ballad tradition whose numerous hit songs in the 1970s and ’80s made him an enduring favourite on the concert circuit. Joel, whose father was a German Jewish immigrant, was raised in Hicksville,…
-
Keith Jarrett *V 8 1945 / The Life You Give
Keith Jarrett, born May 8, 1945, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., is a jazz pianist, composer, and saxophonist considered to be one of the most original and prolific jazz musicians to emerge during the late 20th century. He was also a noted classical pianist. A child prodigy, Jarrett began studying the piano at age three and…
-
Johannes Brahms *V 7 1833 / The Life You Give
Johannes Brahms, (born May 7, 1833, Hamburg [Germany]—died April 3, 1897, Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now in Austria]), German composer and pianist of the Romantic period, who wrote symphonies, concerti, chamber music, piano works, choral compositions, and more than 200 songs. Brahms was the great master of symphonic and sonata style in the second half of the…
-
Pyotr Tchaikovsky *V 7 1840 / The Life You Give
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, also spelled Chaikovsky, Chaikovskii, or Tschaikowsky, born April 25 [May 7, New Style], 1840, in Votkinsk, Russia, is the most popular Russian composer of all time. His music has always had great appeal for the general public in virtue of its tuneful, open-hearted melodies, impressive harmonies, and colourful, picturesque orchestration, all of…
-
The Life You Give: Ron Carter *1937
Ron Carter, born Ronald Levin Carter, on May 4, 1937 in Ferndale, Michigan, USA, is known for Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), House of Gucci (2021) and What Happens in Vegas (2008). He was previously married to Janet Hasbrouch. The epitome of class and elegance without the stuffiness, Ron Carter has been a…
-
The Life You Give: Bartolomeo Cristofori *1655
Bartolomeo Cristofori, born Bartolomeo di Francesco Cristofori, May 4, 1655, in Padua, Republic of Venice, Italy, is the harpsichord maker generally credited with the invention of the piano, called in his time gravicembalo col piano e forte, or “harpsichord that plays soft and loud.” The name refers to the piano’s ability to change loudness according…
-
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…
-
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…
Sila Blume 