Category: Personalities
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The Life You Give: William Blake! *1757
William Blake, born Nov. 28, 1757, in London, England, was engraver, artist, poet, and visionary, author of exquisite lyrics in Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794) and profound and difficult “prophecies,” such as Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793), The First Book of Urizen (1794), Milton (1804[–?11]), and Jerusalem (1804[–?20]). These […]
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The Life You Give: Stefan Zweig *1881
Stefan Zweig, born November 28, 1881, in Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Empire [now in Austria] was a writer who achieved distinction in several genres — poetry, essays, short stories, and dramas — most notably in his interpretations of imaginary and historical characters. Zweig was raised in Vienna. His first book, a volume of poetry, was published in […]
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The Life You Give: Jimi Hendrix *1942
Though his active career as a featured artist lasted a mere four years, Hendrix altered the course of popular music and became one of the most successful and influential musicians of his era. An instrumentalist who radically redefined the expressive potential and sonic palette of the electric guitar, he was the composer of a classic […]
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The Life You Give: Helmut Lachenmann *1935
“Expression is created on the reverse face of that on which the composer is working…destruction, deflation, and disintegration. But during this process expressive energy radiates out in the first instance like a creative serenity — freedom even.” — Helmut Lachenmann Join us listening to his compositionsat 11pm EST, November 27, at The Aristipposian Poet, on […]
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The Life You Give: Tina Turner *1939
Tina Turner, original name Anna Mae Bullock, (born November 26, 1939, Brownsville, Tennessee, U.S.), American-born singer who found success in the rhythm-and-blues, soul, and rock genres in a career that spanned five decades. Turner was born into a sharecropping family in rural Tennessee. She began singing as a teenager and, after moving to St. Louis, […]
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The Life You Give: Virgil Thomson *1896
Virgil Thomson, (born November 25, 1896, Kansas City, Missouri, USA ), American composer, conductor, and music critic whose forward-looking ideas stimulated new lines of thought among contemporary musicians. Thomson studied at Harvard University and later in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, a noted teacher of musical composition. There he was influenced by early 20th-century French composers, […]
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The Life You Give: Scott Joplin 1868
Ragtime in The Aristipposian Poet Club, tonight at 11pm EST, on Clubhouse. Scott Joplin, (born 1867/68, Texas — composer and pianist known as the “king of ragtime” at the turn of the 20th century. Joplin spent his childhood in northeastern Texas, though the exact date and place of his birth are unknown. By 1880 his […]
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Happy Birthday, Alfred Schnittke!
Join us listening to Schnittke on Clubhouse — The Aristipposian Poet, at 6pm EST., today, November 24. Alfred Schnittke, (born Nov. 24, 1934, Engels, Volga German Autonomous S.S.R. [now in Saratov oblast, Russia]—died Aug. 3, 1998, Hamburg, Germany), postmodernist Russian composer who created serious, dark-toned musical works characterized by abrupt juxtapositions of radically different, often […]
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Alfredo Kraus, in Massenet’s opera “Werther” in 1976
Join us today at 1:55pm EST, as we listen to Alfredo Kraus, in Werther, by Jules Massenet, at the Opera, Blood, and Tears Club, on Clubhouse. One of the most stylistic, professional and refined tenors of the century, Spanish tenor Alfredo Kraus passed away recently in Madrid after a long and outstanding career in the […]
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Happy Birthday, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec! 1864
During his brief artistic career, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec captured the lively and often sordid atmosphere of Montmartre’s late 19th-century dance halls, cabarets, and theaters. Recording the performances he viewed and the establishments he visited on a nightly basis, he functioned as artist and narrator: his paintings, drawings, prints, and posters expose the complexities of the […]
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Happy Birthday, Manuel de Falla! 1876
Manuel María de los Dolores Falla y Matheu was born November 23, 1876, in Cádiz, Spain, and is the most distinguished Spanish composer of the early 20th century. In his music he achieved a fusion of poetry, asceticism, and ardour that represents the spirit of Spain at its purest. Falla took piano lessons from his […]
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The Devils of Loudon — Opera by Krzysztof Penderecki, based in Aldous Huxley’s nonfiction book.
One of Huxley’s most important later works is The Devils of Loudun (1952), a detailed psychological study of a historical incident in which a group of 17th-century French nuns were allegedly the victims of demonic possession. (Encyclopedia Britannica) Penderecki writes the music and libretto based on this book. It is a historical narrative of supposed demonic possession, religious fanaticism, sexual […]
Sila Blume 