Happy Birthday
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John Cage *IX 5 1912 / The Life You Give
John Cage, born John Milton Cage, Jr., September 5, 1912, in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., is the avant-garde composer whose inventive compositions and unorthodox ideas profoundly influenced mid-20th-century music. The son of an inventor, Cage briefly attended Pomona College and then traveled in Europe for a time. Returning to the United States in 1931, he…
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Giacomo Meyerbeer *IX 5 1791 — The Life You Give
Giacomo Meyerbeer, born Jakob Liebmann Meyer Beer, September 5, 1791, in Tasdorf, near Berlin, Germany, is the opera composer who established in Paris a vogue for spectacular romantic opera. Born of a wealthy Jewish family, Meyerbeer studied composition in Berlin and later at Darmstadt, where he formed a friendship with C.M. von Weber. His early…
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Amy Beach *IX 5 1867 — The Life You Give
Amy Marcy Beach, born Amy Marcy Cheney, on September 5, 1867, in Henniker, New Hampshire, U.S.A., is the pianist and composer known for her Piano Concerto (1900) and her Gaelic Symphony (1894), the first symphony by an American woman composer. Amy Cheney had already demonstrated precocious musical talent when the family moved to Boston in…
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Anton Bruckner *IX 4 1824 — The Life You Give
Anton Bruckner, born Josef Anton Bruckner, Sept. 4, 1824, in Ansfelden, Austria, is the composer of a number of highly original and monumental symphonies. He was also an organist and teacher who composed much sacred and secular choral music. Bruckner was the son of a village schoolmaster and organist in Upper Austria. He showed talent…
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Engelbert Humperdinck *IX 1 1854 — The Life You Give
Engelbert Humperdinck, born September 1, 1854, in Siegburg, Prussia [Germany], is the composer known for his opera Hänsel und Gretel. Humperdinck studied at Cologne and at Munich. In 1879 a Mendelssohn scholarship enabled him to go to Italy, where he met Richard Wagner, who invited him to assist in the production of Parsifal at Bayreuth.…
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Itzhak Perlman *VIII 31 1945 — The Life You Give
Itzhak Perlman, born August 31, 1945, in Tel Aviv, Palestine [now Tel Aviv–Yafo, Israel]) is a violinist known for his brilliant virtuoso technique. His refinement of detail led many to regard him as one of the finest performers of the major violin repertoire of his time. Perlman was drawn to the violin after hearing it…
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Maria Montessori *VIII 31 1870 — The Life You Give
Maria Montessori, born August 31, 1870, in Chiaravalle, near Ancona, Italy, is the educator and originator of the educational system that bears her name. The Montessori system is based on belief in the creative potential of children, their drive to learn, and the right of each child to be treated as an individual. After graduating…
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Peter Maffay *VIII 30 1949 — The Life You Give
Peter Maffay was the best-selling German pop star of his generation, wielding his celebrity to become a powerful advocate for antiwar efforts and an outspoken critic of domestic abuse. Born Peter Alexander Makkay on August 30, 1949, in Brasov, Romania, he was 14 when his family relocated to his parents’ native Germany. Soon after, he…
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Charlie Parker *VIII 29 1920 — The Life You Give
Charlie Parker, born Charles Parker, Jr., also called Bird or Yardbird, on August 29, 1920, in Kansas City, Kansas, U.S.A., is the alto saxophonist, composer, and bandleader, a lyric artist generally considered the greatest jazz saxophonist. Parker was the principal stimulus of the modern jazz idiom known as bebop, and—together with Louis Armstrong and Ornette…
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Hermann Nitsch *VIII 29 1938 — The Life You Give
Hermann Nitsch is an avant-garde painter, composer, and performance artist who worked in experimental and multimedia modes. He was a co-founder of the notorious art movement known as the Viennese Aktionists. With his project Orgien Mysterien Theater (“the Orgiastic Mystery Theater”), Nitsch immersed his audiences in scenes and symbols heavily charged with meaning: religious imagery,…
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Leo Tolstoy *VIII 28 1828 — The Life You Give
Leo Tolstoy, born August 28 [September 9, New Style], 1828, in Yasnaya Polyana, Tula province, Russian Empire, is the author, master of realistic fiction, and one of the world’s greatest novelists. He is best known for his two longest works, War and Peace (1865–69) and Anna Karenina (1875–77), which are commonly regarded as among the…
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe *VIII 28 1749 — The Life You Give
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, born August 28, 1749, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, is the poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, critic, and amateur artist, considered the greatest German literary figure of the modern era. Goethe is the only German literary figure whose range and international standing equal those of Germany’s supreme philosophers (who…
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Rebecca Clarke *VIII 27 1886 — The Life You Give
Rebecca Helferich Clarke, born on August 27 1886, is the classical composer and violist, internationally renowned as a viola virtuoso who also became one of the first female professional orchestral players in London. In many respects, Rebecca Clarke had a troubled childhood. Her father maintained a strict sense of Victorian morals and could be quite…
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Jorge Luis Borges *VII 24 1899 — The Life You Give
Jorge Luis Borges, born Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo, August 24, 1899, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is the poet, essayist, and short-story writer whose works became classics of 20th-century world literature. Borges was reared in the then-shabby Palermo district of Buenos Aires, the setting of some of his works. His family, which had been…
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Stephen Fry *VIII 24 1957 — The Life You Give
Stephen Fry (born August 24, 1957, London, England) is a British actor, comedian, author, screenwriter, and director, known especially for his virtuosic command and comical manipulation of the English language—in both speech and writing. He is especially admired for his ability to desacralize even the most serious or taboo of topics. Fry spent most of…
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