Personalities
-
The Life You Give: Dolora Zajick *March 24 1952
Dolora Zajick (ZAH-chik) is among the world’s leading dramatic mezzo-sopranos, unsurpassed in Verdi’s mezzo roles. Birgit Nilsson in 1991 stated that “Zajick’s voice is the only one existing today without any competition in the world.” She comes from a large family of Czech descent. As a pre-medical student at the University of Nevada, she took…
-
The Life You Give: Modest Mussorgsky *1839
Modest Mussorgsky, born Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, on March 9 [March 21, New Style], 1839, in Karevo, Russia, was the composer noted particularly for his opera Boris Godunov (final version first performed 1874), his songs, and his piano piece Pictures from an Exhibition (1874). Mussorgsky, along with Aleksandr Borodin, Mily Balakirev, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, and César Cui,…
-
Johann Sebastian Bach, and the beginnings of a musical family
A pretty noise they must have made together! However, he learnt to keep time, and this apparently was the beginning of music in our family.” Johann Sebastian Bach, referring to his great-great-grandfather Veit Bach, a Lutheran baker who used to take his cittern to the mill, and play it while the mill was grinding. (Source:…
-
The Life You Give: Sviatoslav Richter *1915
Sviatoslav Richter, born Sviatoslav Teofilovich Richter, on March 7 [March 20, New Style], 1915, Zhitomir, Ukraine, Russian Empire [now Zhytomyr, Ukraine], is the pianist whose technical virtuosity combined with subtle introspection, made him one of the preeminent pianists of the 20th century. Though his repertoire was enormous, he was especially praised for his interpretations of…
-
The Life You Give: Bernd Alois Zimmermann *1918
One of the most important German composers to emerge during the post-World War II era, Bernd Alois Zimmermann was born in the outskirts of Cologne in 1918. His schooling at the Cologne Musikhochschule was interrupted when he was drafted for military service in the early days of the Second World War. Discharged in 1942, Zimmermann…
-
The Life You Give: Henry Cowell *1897
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…
-
The Life You Give: Arthur Honegger *1892
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.…
-
Happy Birthday, Gary Numan! *1958
Gary Numan is an influential English singer, composer, and musician. Most widely known for his chart-topping 1979 hits “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” (when in Tubeway Army) and “Cars”, Numan achieved his peak of mainstream popularity in the late 70s and early 80s but maintains a loyal cult following. Numan, whose signature sound consists of heavy synthesizer…
-
The Life You Give: Maurice Ravel *1875
Maurice Ravel, born Joseph-Maurice Ravel, on March 7 1875, Ciboure, France, was the composer of Swiss-Basque descent, noted for his musical craftsmanship and perfection of form and style in such works as Boléro (1928), Pavane pour une infante défunte (1899; Pavane for a Dead Princess), Rapsodie espagnole (1907), the ballet Daphnis et Chloé (first performed…
-
La Vida Que Das / The Life You Give: Gabriel García Márquez *1927
Gabriel José García Márquez nació en Aracataca (Colombia) en 1928. Cursó estudios secundarios en San José a partir de 1940 y finalizó su bachillerato en el Colegio Liceo de Zipaquirá, el 12 de diciembre de 1946. Se matriculó en la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad Nacional de Cartagena el 25 de febrero de 1947,…
-
The Life You Give: Antonio Vivaldi *1678
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…
-
The Life You Give: Simon Estes *March 2 1938
One of just a few African-American male singers who has had a top-rank international operatic career, bass-baritone Simon Estes grew up in Iowa in a house without heat or indoor plumbing. He sang in church as a youth, but when he enrolled at the University of Iowa in the late ’50s he had never heard…
-
The concept of The Life You Give, and why Frédéric Chopin
As a pianist, Chopin was unique in acquiring a reputation of the highest order on the basis of a minimum of public appearances—few more than 30 in the course of his lifetime. His original and sensitive approach to the keyboard allowed him to exploit all the resources of the piano of his day. He was…
-
The Life You Give: Roger Daltrey *March 1 1944
The Who lead singer Roger Daltrey forged a parallel solo career beginning in 1973, when the group had begun to fall apart in the aftermath of Quadrophenia. Born March 1, 1944 in London, Daltrey grew up in the same Shepherd’s Bush neighborhood as future Who bandmates Pete Townshend and John Entwistle, performing with them as…
-
The Life You Give: Rudolf Steiner *1861
Rudolf Steiner, born February 27 1861, in Kraljević, Austria, was a spiritualist, lecturer, and founder of anthroposophy, a movement based on the notion that there is a spiritual world comprehensible to pure thought but accessible only to the highest faculties of mental knowledge. Attracted in his youth to the works of Goethe, Steiner edited that…
Sila Blume 