celebration
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Klaus Kinski *X 18 1926 – The Life You Give
Klaus Kinski, born Klaus Günter Karl Nakszynski on October 18 1926, in Zoppot, Germany [now Sopot, Poland] is the intense, eccentric actor who had a stage and film career of more than 40 years and who was best known for his riveting performances in the films of Werner Herzog. Kinski’s family moved from Poland to…
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Luciano Pavarotti *X 12 1935 — The Life You Give
Luciano Pavarotti, born October 12, 1935, in Modena, Italy, is the operatic lyric tenor who was considered one of the finest bel canto opera singers of the 20th century. Even in the highest register, his voice was noted for its purity of tone, and his concerts, recordings, and television appearances—which provided him ample opportunity to…
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Thelonious Monk *X 10 1917 — The Life You Give
Thelonious Monk, born Thelonious Sphere Monk, on October 10 1917, in Rocky Mount, N.C., U.S.A., is the pianist and composer who was among the first creators of modern jazz. As the pianist in the band at Minton’s Playhouse, a nightclub in New York City, in the early 1940s, Monk had great influence on the other…
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Alberto Giacometti *X 10 1901 – The Life You Give
Alberto Giacometti, born October 10, 1901, in Borgonovo, Switzerland, is the sculptor and painter, best known for his attenuated sculptures of solitary figures. His work has been compared to that of the existentialists in literature. Giacometti displayed precocious talent and was much encouraged by his father, Giovanni, a Post-Impressionist painter, and by his godfather, Cuno…
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Edwin Fischer *X 6 1886 — The Life You Give
Edwin Fischer was a Swiss pianist, conductor, and educator during the first half of the 20th century. He was known for his expressive interpretations of the piano music of J.S. Bach and Mozart. Fischer was born in 1886 in Basle, Switzerland, and started playing the piano when he was four years old. Both of his…
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Steve Reich *X 3 1936 — The Life You Give
Steve Reich, born Stephen Michael Reich, October 3, 1936, in New York, New York, U.S.A., is the composer who was one of the leading exponents of Minimalism, a style based on repetitions and combinations of simple motifs and harmonies. Reich was the son of an attorney and a singer-lyricist. He majored in philosophy at Cornell…
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Julie Andrews *X 1 1935 — The Life You Give
Julie Andrews, born Julia Elizabeth Wells on October 1, 1935, in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England, is a motion-picture, stage, and musical star noted for her crystalline four-octave voice and her charm and skill as an actress. At the age of 10, Andrews began singing with her pianist mother and singer stepfather (whose last name she legally…
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Miguel de Cervantes *IX 29 1547 — The Life You Give
Miguel de Cervantes, born Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, September 29?, 1547, in Alcalá de Henares, Spain, is the novelist, playwright, and poet, the creator of Don Quixote (1605, 1615) and the most important and celebrated figure in Spanish literature. His novel Don Quixote has been translated, in full or in part, into more than 60…
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Bryan Ferry *IX 26 1945 — The Life You Give
While fronting Roxy Music in the 1970s and early ’80s, Bryan Ferry devised a blueprint for art rock, and as a solo performer, he brilliantly updated the parameters of the pop songbook. Although Ferry’s solo career has included several excellent self-penned tracks, he’s best-known for his adventurous interpretations of songs from the rock and pop…
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Dmitri Shostakovich *IX 25 1906 — The Life You Give
Dmitri Shostakovich, born Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, on September 12 [September 25, New Style], 1906, in St. Petersburg, Russia, is the composer renowned particularly for his 15 symphonies, numerous chamber works, and concerti, many of them written under the pressures of government-imposed standards of Soviet art. Shostakovich was the son of an engineer. He entered the…
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Pedro Almodóvar *IX 25 1949 — The Life You Give / La Vida Que Das
Pedro Almodóvar, born Pedro Mercedes Almodóvar Caballero, September 25, 1949, in Calzada de Calatrava, Spain, is the filmmaker known for colourful melodramatic films that often feature sexual themes. As a young man, Almodóvar moved to Madrid with the hopes of attending the Spanish national film school, but it had recently been closed under dictator Francisco…
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William Faulkner *IX 25 1897 — The Life You Give
William Faulkner (born September 25, 1897, New Albany, Mississippi, U.S.—died July 6, 1962, Byhalia, Mississippi) was an American novelist and short-story writer who was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature. Youth and early writings As the eldest of the four sons of Murry Cuthbert and Maud Butler Falkner, William Faulkner (as he later spelled…
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Mark Rothko * IX 25 1903 — The Life You Give
Mark Rothko, born September 25, 1903, in Dvinsk, Russian Empire [now Daugavpils, Latvia], is the painter whose works introduced contemplative introspection into the melodramatic post-World War II Abstract Expressionist school. His use of color as the sole means of expression led to the development of Color Field Painting. Early life and education Rothko was born…
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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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Arvo Pärt *IX 11 1935 — The Life You Give
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…
Sila Blume 