celebration
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Carl Orff *VII 10 1895 — The Life You Give
Carl Orff, born July 10, 1895, in Munich, Germany, is the composer known particularly for his operas and dramatic works and for his innovations in music education. Orff studied at the Munich Academy of Music and with the German composer Heinrich Kaminski and later conducted in Munich, Mannheim, and Darmstadt. His Schulwerk, a manual describing…
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Gustav Mahler *VII 7 1860 — The Life You Give
Gustav Mahler, born July 7, 1860, in Kaliště, Bohemia, Austrian Empire, is the composer and conductor, noted for his 10 symphonies and various songs with orchestra, which drew together many different strands of Romanticism. Although his music was largely ignored for 50 years after his death, Mahler was later regarded as an important forerunner of…
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George Sand * VII 1 1804 — The Life You Give
George Sand, Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dudevant, née Dupin, born July 1, 1804, in Paris, France, is the Romantic writer known primarily for her so-called rustic novels. She was brought up at Nohant, near La Châtre in Berry, the country home of her grandmother. There she gained the profound love and understanding of the countryside that were to…
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Jean-Paul Sartre *VI 21 1905 — The Life You Give
Jean-Paul Sartre, born June 21, 1905, in Paris, France, is the philosopher, novelist, and playwright, best known as the leading exponent of existentialism in the 20th century. In 1964 he declined the Nobel Prize for Literature, which had been awarded to him “for his work which, rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of…
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Thank you, Alfred Brendel!
January 5 1931 – June 17 2025 (Excerpts from the BBC Obituary) Alfred Brendel, who was considered one of the world’s most accomplished pianists, has died at the age of 94. His representatives confirmed the composer and poet died peacefully in London surrounded by his loved ones on Tuesday. Most critics have acknowledged him as…
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Paul McCartney *VI 18 1942 — The Life You Give
Paul McCartney, born James Paul McCartney, June 18, 1942, in Liverpool, England, is the vocalist, songwriter, composer, bass player, poet, and painter whose work with the Beatles in the 1960s helped lift popular music from its origins in the entertainment business and transform it into a creative, highly commercial art form. He is also one…
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Éva Marton *VI 18 1943 — The Life You Give
Hungarian soprano Eva Marton has enjoyed a highly successful career on the world’s leading operatic stages since the late ’60s. With her powerful, attractive voice she has managed to score numerous successes in the Italian spinto roles of Verdi and Puccini, the heftier roles of Wagner and Richard Strauss, and the more delicate but equally…
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Charles Gounod *VI 17 1818 / The Life You Give
Charles Gounod, born Charles-françois Gounod, June 17, 1818, in Paris, France, is a composer noted particularly for his operas, of which the most famous is Faust. Gounod’s father was a painter, and his mother was a capable pianist who gave Gounod his early training in music. He was educated at the Lycée Saint-Louis, where he…
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Igor Stravinsky *VI 17 1882 — The Life You Give
Igor Stravinsky, born Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky, June 5 [June 17, New Style], 1882, Oranienbaum [now Lomonosov], near St. Petersburg, Russia, is the composer whose work had a revolutionary impact on musical thought and sensibility just before and after World War I, and whose compositions remained a touchstone of modernism for much of his long working…
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Edvard Grieg *VI 15 1843 — The Life You Give
Edvard Grieg, born Edvard Hagerup Grieg, June 15, 1843, in Bergen, Norway, is the composer who was a founder of the Norwegian nationalist school of music. His father, Alexander Grieg, was British consul at Bergen. The Grieg (formerly Greig) family was of Scottish origin, the composer’s grandfather having emigrated after the Battle of Culloden. His…
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Richard Strauss *VI 11 1864 — The Life You Give
Richard Strauss, born Richard Georg Strauss, June 11, 1864, Munich, Germany, is an outstanding Romantic composer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His symphonic poems of the 1890s and his operas of the following decade have remained an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. Strauss’s father, Franz, was the principal horn player of…
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Hugh Laurie *VI 11 1959 — The Life You Give
Hugh Laurie, born James Hugh Calum Laurie, June 11, 1959, in Oxford, England, is the comic actor perhaps best known for his role on the television series House (2004–12). Laurie was educated at Eton College and Selwyn College, Cambridge. His father won a gold medal at the 1948 London Olympics as a member of the…
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Tom Jones *VI 7 1940 — The Life You Give
Tom Jones, born Thomas John Woodward, June 7, 1940, in Pontypridd, Wales, is the singer with broad musical appeal who first came to fame as a sex symbol with a fantastic voice and raucous stage presence. He was known best for his songs “It’s Not Unusual,” “What’s New, Pussycat?,” “Green, Green Grass of Home,” and…
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Martha Argerich *VI 5 1941 — La Vida Que Das / The Life You Give
Martha Argerich, born June 5, 1941 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is the pianist known for her recordings and performances of chamber music, particularly of works by Olivier Messiaen, Sergey Prokofiev, and Sergey Rachmaninoff. A prodigy, Argerich was performing professionally by age eight. In 1955 she went to Europe, where her teachers included Friedrich Gulda and…
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Federico García Lorca *VI 5 1898 — La Vida Que Das / The Life You Give
See English text below Federico García Lorca (Fuentevaqueros, 5 de junio de 1898 – camino Víznar a Alfacar, 1936). Poeta y dramaturgo español, adscrito a la generación del 27. Desde pequeño entra en contacto con las artes a través de la música y el dibujo. En 1915 comienza a estudiar Filosofía y Letras, así como…
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