Happy Birthday
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W. B. Yeats *VI 13 1865 — The Life You Give
William Butler Yeats, born June 13, 1865, in Sandymount, Dublin, Ireland, poet, dramatist, and prose writer, is one of the greatest English-language poets of the 20th century. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. Yeats’s father, John Butler Yeats, was a barrister who eventually became a portrait painter. His mother, formerly Susan Pollexfen,…
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Anne Frank *VI 12 1929 — The Life You Give
Anne Frank, born Annelies Marie Frank, June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, February/March 1945, is the girl whose diary of her family’s two years in hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands became a classic of war literature. Early in the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler, Anne’s father, Otto Frank (1889–1980), a…
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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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Barbara *VI 9 1930 — The Life You Give
Although Barbara certainly didn’t like the thought of it, she actually was part of the legendary club formed by her friend Jacques Brel, Georges Brassens, Léo Ferré, and Edith Piaf. A truly generous and humble woman, Barbara insisted on living up to her audience’s expectations and was constantly questioning her success. As an artist, she…
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Robert Schumann *VI 8 1810 — The Life You Give
Robert Schumann, born Robert Alexander Schumann, June 8, 1810, in Zwickau, Saxony [Germany], is the Romantic composer renowned particularly for his piano music, songs (lieder), and orchestral music. Many of his best-known piano pieces were written for his wife, the pianist Clara Schumann. Schumann’s father was a bookseller and publisher. After four years at a…
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Paul Gauguin *VI 7 1848 — The Life You Give
Paul Gauguin, born Eugène-Henri-Paul Gauguin, June 7, 1848, in Paris, France, is the painter, printmaker, and sculptor who sought to achieve a “primitive” expression of spiritual and emotional states in his work. The artist, whose work has been categorized as Post-Impressionist, Synthetist, and Symbolist, is particularly well known for his creative relationship with Vincent van…
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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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Thomas Mann *VI 6 1875 — The Life You Give
Thomas Mann, born June 6, 1875, in Lübeck, Germany, is the novelist and essayist whose early novels—Buddenbrooks (1900), Der Tod in Venedig (1912; Death in Venice), and Der Zauberberg (1924; The Magic Mountain)—earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. Early literary endeavoursMann’s father died in 1891, and Mann moved to Munich, a centre…
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Laurie Anderson *VI 5 1947 — The Life You Give
Laurie Anderson, born June 5, 1947, in Wayne, Illinois, U.S.A., is the performance artist, composer, and writer whose work explores a remarkable range of media and subject matter. Anderson began studying classical violin at five years of age and later performed with the Chicago Youth Symphony. In 1966 she moved to New York City, where…
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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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Cecilia Bartoli *VI 4 1966 — The Life You Give
Cecilia Bartoli, born June 4, 1966, in Rome, Italy), is an operatic mezzo-soprano who achieved global stardom with her outstanding vocal skills and captivating stage presence. Both of Bartoli’s parents were members of the Rome Opera chorus, and she joked that when she was a child, her babysitters were the likes of Rossini and Verdi.…
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Dagmar Krause *VI 4 1950 — The Life You Give
It seems odd to consider the work of Dagmar Krause as specifically rock, mainly due to her superb talent singing non-rock popular music. It is because of her association with German progressive rockers Slapp Happy, and British avant-garde prog rockers Henry Cow and the Art Bears that Krause becomes a suitable subject for inclusion in…
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Allen Ginsberg *VI 3 1926 — The Life You Give
Allen Ginsberg, born June 3, 1926, in Newark, New Jersey, U.S.A., is the poet whose epic poem Howl (1956) is considered to be one of the most significant products of the Beat movement. Ginsberg grew up in Paterson, New Jersey, where his father, Louis Ginsberg, himself a poet, taught English. Allen Ginsberg’s mother, whom he…
Sila Blume 