Personalities
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Tatiana Troyanos *IX 12 1938 — The Life You Give
The dynamic mezzo-soprano Tatiana Troyanos was born into a singing family; her Greek father was a tenor, and her German mother a soprano. Born in New York, Troyanos studied at the Juilliard School with Hans J. Heinz, while singing occasionally in the New York area (she was a member of the original chorus for the…
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Neil Peart *IX 12 1952 — The Life You Give
Ask just about any rock drummer who their influences are and chances are Rush’s Neil Peart will be high on the list. With his technically demanding, precise, and deeply complex rhythmic style, few rock drummers scaled the heights that Peart did both on record and on-stage as part of the renowned Canadian prog rock trio…
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The Life You Give: Arvo Pärt *IX 11 1935
Arvo Pärt, born September 11, 1935, in Paide, Estonia, is the composer who developed a style based on the slow modulation of sounds such as those produced by bells and pure voice tones, a technique reminiscent of the medieval Notre-Dame school and the sacred music of Eastern Orthodoxy; Pärt was a devout Orthodox Christian. His…
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The Life You Give: Theodor Adorno *IX 11 1903
Theodor Adorno, born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund, on Sept. 11, 1903, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, is the philosopher who also wrote on sociology, psychology, and musicology. Adorno obtained a degree in philosophy from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt in 1924. His early writings, which emphasize aesthetic development as important to historical evolution, reflect the influence…
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The Life You Give: Antonin Dvořák *IX 8 1841
Antonín Dvořák, born Antonín Leopold Dvořák, September 8, 1841, in Nelahozeves, Bohemia, Austrian Empire [now in Czech Republic], is the first Bohemian composer to have achieved worldwide recognition, noted for turning folk material into 19th-century Romantic music. Dvořák was born, the first of nine children, in Nelahozeves, a Bohemian village on the Vltava River north…
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The Life You Give: Angela Gheorghiu *IX 7 1965
Angela Gheorghiu, born Angela Burlacu on September 7, 1965, in Adjud, Romania, is an operatic lyric soprano noted for her powerful voice and commanding stage presence. Gheorghiu early realized her love of singing, and she was supported by her family in working toward a career in opera. She left home at age 14 to study…
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Happy Birthday, Roger Waters! (IX 6 1943)
Roger Waters is Pink Floyd’s grand conceptualist, the driving force behind such albums as Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, and The Wall. In the wake of Syd Barrett’s departure, Waters emerged as a formidable songwriter, but it’s this stretch of ’70s albums — each one nearly symphonic in its reach —…
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The Life You Give: John Cage *IX 5 1912
John Cage, born John Milton Cage, Jr., September 5, 1912, in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., is the avant-garde composer whose inventive compositions and unorthodox ideas profoundly influenced mid-20th-century music. The son of an inventor, Cage briefly attended Pomona College and then traveled in Europe for a time. Returning to the United States in 1931, he…
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Robert the Devil, by Giacomo Meyerbeer *IX 5 1791 / TLYG
Giacomo Meyerbeer, born Jakob Liebmann Meyer Beer, September 5, 1791, in Tasdorf, near Berlin, Germany, is the opera composer who established in Paris a vogue for spectacular romantic opera. Born of a wealthy Jewish family, Meyerbeer studied composition in Berlin and later at Darmstadt, where he formed a friendship with C.M. von Weber. His early…
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The Life You Give: Anton Bruckner *IX 4 1824
Anton Bruckner, born Josef Anton Bruckner, Sept. 4, 1824, in Ansfelden, Austria, is the composer of a number of highly original and monumental symphonies. He was also an organist and teacher who composed much sacred and secular choral music. Bruckner was the son of a village schoolmaster and organist in Upper Austria. He showed talent…
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Charlie Parker *VIII 29 1920 / The Life You Give
Charlie Parker, born Charles Parker, Jr., also called Bird or Yardbird, on August 29, 1920, in Kansas City, Kansas, U.S.A., is the alto saxophonist, composer, and bandleader, a lyric artist generally considered the greatest jazz saxophonist. Parker was the principal stimulus of the modern jazz idiom known as bebop, and—together with Louis Armstrong and Ornette…
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The Life You Give: Hermann Nitsch *VIII 29 1938
Hermann Nitsch was an Austrian avant-garde painter, composer, and performance artist who worked in experimental and multimedia modes. He was a co-founder of the notorious art movement known as the Viennese Aktionists. With his project Orgien Mysterien Theater (“the Orgiastic Mystery Theater”), Nitsch immersed his audiences in scenes and symbols heavily charged with meaning: religious…
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The Life You Give: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe *VIII 28 1749
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, born August 28, 1749, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, is the poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, critic, and amateur artist, considered the greatest German literary figure of the modern era. Goethe is the only German literary figure whose range and international standing equal those of Germany’s supreme philosophers (who…
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The Life You Give: Jorge Luis Borges *VII 24 1899
Jorge Luis Borges, born Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo, August 24, 1899, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is the poet, essayist, and short-story writer whose works became classics of 20th-century world literature. Borges was reared in the then-shabby Palermo district of Buenos Aires, the setting of some of his works. His family, which had been…
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The Life You Give: Karlheinz Stockhausen *VIII 22 1928
Karlheinz Stockhausen, born Aug. 22, 1928, in Mödrath, near Cologne, Germany, is the composer, and important creator and theoretician of electronic and serial music who strongly influenced avant-garde composers from the 1950s through the ’80s. Stockhausen studied at the State Academy for Music in Cologne and the University of Cologne from 1947 to 1951. In…
Sila Blume 