Personalities
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The Life You Give: Ethel Smyth *1858
Dame Ethel Smyth, born Ethel Mary Smyth, on April 22, 1858, in London, is the composer whose work was notably eclectic, ranging from conventional to experimental. Born into a military family, Smyth studied at the Leipzig Conservatory and was encouraged by Johannes Brahms and Antonín Dvořák. She first gained notice with her sweeping Mass in…
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The Life You Give: Germaine Tailleferre *1892
Of significance as the sole female member of the post-World War I group of French composers known as Les Six, Germaine Tailleferre remained a prominent — if somewhat inaccessible — musician long after the disintegration of that group during the middle and late 1920s. She left behind, at her death in 1983 at the age…
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The Life You Give: Charlie Chaplin *1889
Charlie Chaplin, byname of Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin, (born April 16, 1889, London, England—died December 25, 1977, Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland), British comedian, producer, writer, director, and composer who is widely regarded as the greatest comic artist of the screen and one of the most important figures in motion-picture history.Early life and career Chaplin was named after…
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The Life You Give: Leonardo da Vinci *1452
Leonardo da Vinci, born April 15, 1452, in Anchiano, near Vinci, Republic of Florence [Italy], is the painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose skill and intelligence, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. His Last Supper (1495–98) and Mona Lisa (c. 1503–19) are among the most widely popular…
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The Life You Give: Samuel Beckett *1906
Samuel Beckett, born Samuel Barclay Beckett, on April 13, 1906, in Foxrock, County Dublin, Ireland, was author, critic, and playwright, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. He wrote in both French and English and is perhaps best known for his plays, especially En attendant Godot (1952; Waiting for Godot). Samuel Beckett was…
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The Life You Give: Carmen McRae *1920
Carmen McRae, born April 8, 1920, New York, N.Y., U.S.A., is the jazz vocalist and pianist who from an early emulation of vocalist Billie Holiday grew to become a distinctive stylist, known for her smoky voice and her melodic variations on jazz standards. Her scat improvisations were innovative, complex, and elegant. McRae studied classical piano…
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The Life You Give: André Previn *1929
Known as a successful classical conductor, jazz pianist, and composer of jazz, classical, and film music, André Previn frequently bridged the gap between popular and so-called “serious” music, and in doing so broadened the horizons of both. A German-American who fled Nazi Germany with his family in his youth, he went on to win four…
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The Life You Give: Maya Angelou *1928
Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson, on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A., is the poet, memoirist, and actress whose several volumes of autobiography explore the themes of economic, racial, and sexual oppression. Although born in St. Louis, Angelou spent much of her childhood in the care of her paternal grandmother in rural…
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The Life You Give: Milan Kundera *April 1 1929
Milan Kundera, born April 1, 1929, in Brno, Czechoslovakia [now in Czech Republic]), is novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet whose works combine erotic comedy with political criticism and philosophical speculation. The son of a noted concert pianist and musicologist, Ludvik Kundera, the young Kundera studied music but gradually turned to writing, and he…
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The Life You Give: Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin *April 1 1755
Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, born Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, on April 1, 1755, in Belley, France, was lawyer, politician, [judge, violinist}, and author of a celebrated work on gastronomy, Physiologie du goût (The Physiology of Taste). Brillat-Savarin followed the family profession of law. A deputy of the Third Estate at the Estates-General of 1789, he was forced to flee…
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The Life You Give: Hans Christian Andersen *1805
Hans Christian Andersen, born April 2, 1805, Odense, near Copenhagen, Denmark, is the master of the literary fairy tale whose stories achieved wide renown. He is also the author of plays, novels, poems, travel books, and several autobiographies. While many of those works are almost unknown outside Denmark, his fairy tales are among the most…
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The Life You Give: Shirley Verrett *March 31 1931
Shirley Verrett was one of America’s finest opera stars and recital singers, and was one of the remarkable generation of great African-American singers who came to international prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. She studied voice in Los Angeles with Anna Fitziu and Hall Johnson. In 1955, she won the nationally broadcast CBS program Arthur…
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The Life You Give: Joseph Haydn *1732
Joseph Haydn, born Franz Joseph Haydn, on March 31, 1732, in Rohrau, Austria, is the composer who was one of the most important figures in the development of the Classical style in music during the 18th century. He helped establish the forms and styles for the string quartet and the symphony. Early years Haydn was…
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The Life You Give: Pierre Boulez *1925
Pierre Boulez, born March 26, 1925, in Montbrison, France, is the most significant French composer of his generation, as well as a noted conductor and music theorist who championed the work of 20th-century composers.Boulez, the son of a steel manufacturer, majored in mathematics at the Collège de Saint-Étienne, where he also took music lessons; he…
Sila Blume 