celebration
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Mauricio Kagel *1931
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Kagel proved to be one of the most versatile, creative, and witty composers to come of age in the second half of the twentieth century. He studied piano, theory, violoncello, organ, singing, and conducting, and was self-taught as a composer. Kagel also studied philosophy and literature extensively during his college…
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The Life You Give: Edita Gruberova *1946
Edita Gruberova, born December 23, 1946, in Bratislava, was a Slovak soprano and one of the most acclaimed coloraturas of recent decades. She is noted for her great tonal clarity, agility, and ability to sing high notes with great power, making her an ideal Queen of the Night in her early years. In recent years,…
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The Life You Give: Teresa Carreño *1853
Teresa Carreño, born María Teresa Gertrudis de Jesús Carreño García on December 22, 1853 in Caracas, is the celebrated Venezuelan pianist of great power and spirit, who was known to her public as the “Valkyrie of the piano.” She was given her first piano lessons by her father, Manuel Antonio Carreño, a politician and talented…
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The Life You Give: András Schiff *1953
András Schiff is among the most prominent members of a generation of Hungarian pianists born in the years following World War II, along with such artists as Zoltán Kocsis, Dezso Ránki, and Jenö Jandó. Of this remarkable group, Schiff has achieved the strongest international reputation, due not only to his decision to pursue his career…
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The Life You Give: Jean Genet *1910
Jean Genet, born Dec. 19, 1910, in Paris, France, was a criminal and social outcast turned writer who, as a novelist, transformed erotic and often obscene subject matter into a poetic vision of the universe and, as a dramatist, became a leading figure in the avant-garde theatre, especially the Theatre of the Absurd. Genet, an…
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The Life You Give: Steve Biko *1946
Steve Biko, born Bantu Stephen Biko on December 18, 1946, in King William’s Town, South Africa, was founder of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa. His death from injuries suffered while in police custody made him an international martyr for South African Black nationalism. After being expelled from high school for political activism, Biko…
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The Life You Give: Nostradamus *1503
Nostradamus (Michel de Notredame, born December 14, 1503, Saint-Rémy, France, was an astrologer and physician, and the most widely read seer of the Renaissance. Nostradamus began his medical practice in Agen, sometime in the 1530s, despite not only never having taken a medical degree but also apparently having been expelled from medical school. In 1544…
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The Life You Give: Antoni Tàpies *1923
Antoni Tàpies (Antoni Tàpies Puig, marqués de Tàpies), born December 13, 1923, in Barcelona, Spain, was a Catalan artist, credited with introducing contemporary abstract painting into Spain. He began as a Surrealist but developed into an abstract artist under the influence of French painting and achieved an international reputation. In 1943 Tàpies began studying for…
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Happy Birthday, Edvard Munch! *1863
Edvard Munch was a prolific yet perpetually troubled artist preoccupied with matters of human mortality such as chronic illness, sexual liberation, and religious aspiration. He expressed these obsessions through works of intense color, semi-abstraction, and mysterious subject matter. Following the great triumph of French Impressionism, Munch took up the more graphic, symbolist sensibility of the…
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Happy Birthday, Elliott Carter! *1908
Elliott Carter, born December 11, 1908, in New York, New York, was a composer, and musical innovator whose erudite style and novel principles of polyrhythm, called metric modulation, won worldwide attention. He was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music, in 1960 and 1973.Carter, who was born of a wealthy family, was educated at Harvard…
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Happy Birthday, Willie Mae Thornton! *1926
Willie Mae (Big Mama) Thornton, born December 11, 1926, in Montgomery, Alabama, was an American blues musician. Her introduction to music, as with most fellow blues legends, started in the Baptist church. The daughter of a minister, she and her six siblings began to sing at a very early age. While still a child, Willie…
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Weekly Woman: Gloria Coates *1938
An American composer who has made her career for the most part in Germany, Gloria Coates was born in Wisconsin in 1938. As a child, she sang on local radio and in her early teens, she took top honors at a National Federation of Music Clubs Composition Contest. This girl from rural Wisconsin headed over…
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I died for beauty but was scarce
I died for beauty but was scarceAdjusted in the tomb,When one who died for truth was lainIn an adjoining room. He questioned softly why I failed?“For beauty,” I replied.“And I for truth, the two are one;We brethren are,” he said. And so, as kinsmen met a night,We talked between the rooms,Until the moss had reached…
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The Life You Give: Elisabeth Schwarzkopf *1915
Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, born Dec. 9, 1915, in Jarotschin, near Posen, Germany, [now Poznań, Poland] was a soprano who performed in the major opera houses of the Western world and is remembered especially for her mastery of German songs known as lieder. Schwarzkopf studied at the Berlin High School for Music from 1934, winning various…
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“When the music’s over”
When the music’s overWhen the music’s over, yeahTurn out the lightsTurn out the lightsFor the music is your special friendDance on fire as it intendsMusic is your only friendUntil the endUntil the endCancel my subscription to the resurrectionSend my credentials to the house of detentionI got some friends insideThe face in the mirror won’t stopThe…
Sila Blume 