celebration
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Dario Fo *III 24 1926 — The Life You Give
Dario Fo, born March 24, 1926, in Leggiuno-Sangiano, Italy, is the avant-garde playwright, manager-director, and actor-mime who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997 though he often faced government censure as a theatrical caricaturist with a flair for social agitation. Fo’s first theatrical experience was collaborating on satirical revues for small cabarets and…
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Agnes Martin *III 22 1912 — The Life You Give
Agnes Martin, born March 22 1912, in Macklin, Saskatchewan, Canada, is known as a painter. She moved to the U.S. in 1931 and became a U.S. citizen in 1950. She studied at Columbia University and taught at the University of New Mexico. In 1958 she had her first solo exhibition. Martin was a prominent exponent…
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Johann Sebastian Bach *III 21 1685 — The Life You Give
Johann Sebastian Bach, born March 21 [March 31, New Style], 1685, in Eisenach, Thuringia, Ernestine Saxon Duchies [Germany], was a composer of the Baroque era, the most celebrated member of a large family of north German musicians. Although he was admired by his contemporaries primarily as an outstanding harpsichordist, organist, and expert on organ building,…
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Bernd Alois Zimmermann *III 20 1918 — The Life You Give
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…
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Christa Ludwig *III 16 1928 — The Life You Give
Christa Ludwig was one of the most admired mezzo-sopranos of her generation, with a wide repertoire of both lieder and opera. She brought a fine sense of musicianship as well as drama to her performances. Her roles ranged from Dorabella in Così fan Tutte to Brangane in Tristan und Isolde and Clytemnestra in Elektra, and…
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Johann Strauss *III 14 1804 — The Life You Give
Johann Strauss I, born March 14, 1804, Vienna, is one of the principal composers of Viennese waltzes. Strauss became a viola player in the dance orchestra of Michael Pamer, a composer of light music. Later he conducted the orchestra of Josef Lanner and in 1826 performed at the gardens of the “Zwei Tauben” the Täuberl-walzer,…
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Henry Cowell *III 11 1897 — The Life You Give
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…
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Maurice Ravel *III 7 1875 — The Life You Give
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…
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Gabriel García Márquez *III 6 1927 — La Vida Que Das / The Life You Give
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,…
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Heitor Villa-Lobos *III 5 1887 — The Life You Give
Heitor Villa-Lobos, born March 5, 1887, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is the composer, and one of the foremost Latin American composers of the 20th century, whose music combines indigenous melodic and rhythmic elements with Western classical music. Villa-Lobos’s father was a librarian and an amateur musician. Under the influence of his father’s weekly musical…
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Antonio Vivaldi *III 4 1678 — The Life You Give
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…
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Bedřich Smetana *III 2 1824 — The Life You Give
Bedřich Smetana, born March 2, 1824, in Leitomischl, Bohemia, Austrian Empire [now Litomyšl, Czech Republic], was composer of operas and symphonic poems, and founder of the Czech national school of music. He was the first truly important Bohemian nationalist composer. Smetana studied music under his father, an amateur violinist. He early took up piano under…
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Gioachino Rossini *II 29 1792 — The Life You Give
Gioachino Rossini, born Gioachino Antonio Rossini, on February 29 1792, in Pesaro, Papal States [Italy], is the composer noted for his operas, particularly his comic operas, of which The Barber of Seville (1816), Cinderella (1817), and Semiramide (1823) are among the best known. Of his later, larger-scale dramatic operas, the most widely heard is William…
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Renata Scotto *II 24 1934 –The Life You Give
Renata Scotto’s long and successful operatic career was marked by a rare combination of dramatic intensity and vocal flexibility, which allowed her to traverse a wide variety of styles. She believed strongly in the theatrical elements of performing and always focused her energies on the meaning of a text. She also felt much of the…
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Georg Friedrich Händel *II 23 1685 — The Life You Give
George Frideric Handel, German (until 1715) Georg Friedrich Händel, Händel also spelled Haendel, (born February 23, 1685, Halle, Brandenburg [Germany]—died April 14, 1759, London, England), German-born English composer of the late Baroque era, noted particularly for his operas, oratorios, and instrumental compositions. He wrote the most famous of all oratorios, Messiah (1741), and is also…
Sila Blume 