Music
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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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The Life You Give: Sammy Davis, Jr. *1925
Sammy Davis, Jr., born December 8, 1925 in New York, New York, was a singer, dancer, and entertainer. At age three Davis began performing in vaudeville with his father and uncle, Will Mastin, in the Will Mastin Trio. Davis studied tap dancing under Bill (“Bojangles”) Robinson but never received a formal education. After serving in…
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Happy Birthday, Ray Shulman *1949 (Gentle Giant)
Ray Shulman was born on December 8 1949, as the younger of three boys to a family of Scottish-Jewish descent in Portsmouth, England. With his brothers, Derek, and Phil, the progressive rock group Gentle Giant was active from 1970 to 1980. Ray was Gentle Giant’s bassist, while also playing trumpet, violin, viola, cello, vocals, drums,…
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The Life You Give: Tom Waits *1949
Tom Waits, born December 7, 1949, in Pomona, California, is a singer-songwriter and actor whose gritty, sometimes romantic depictions of the lives of the urban underclass won him a loyal if limited following and the admiration of critics and prominent musicians who performed and recorded his songs. Born into a middle-class California family but enamoured…
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La Damnation de Faust (Berlioz) premiered today in 1846
“La Damnation de Faust” Opus 24Dramatic Legend for four soloists, children’s chorus, seven-part choir, and orchestra Composer: Hector Berlioz Librettists: Hector Berlioz, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, & Almire GandonnièrePremiere: December 6 1846 On this recording: Kenneth Riegel —- Tenor [Faust]José van Dam —- Bass [Méphistophélès]Frederica von Stade —- Mezzo-soprano [Marguerite] Malcolm King —- Bass [Brander]…
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The Life You Give: Ozzy Osbourne *1948
Ozzy Osbourne, born John Michael Osbourne on December 3, 1948, Birmingham, England, is the musician who gained a loyal following as the vocalist for the heavy metal group Black Sabbath before embarking on a successful solo career. Raised in a working-class family, Osbourne dropped out of school at age 15 and held several low-paying jobs.…
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“Samson and Delilah” by Camille Saint-Saëns (premiered 12.2.1877)
Opera, Blood, and Tears presents Samson and Delilah (by Camille Saint-Saëns)December w at 11:55pm ESTon Clubhouse Composer: Camille Saint-Saëns Librettist: Ferdinand Lemaire ACT I Gaza, 1150 B.C. In a square in Gaza, a group of Hebrews beg Jehovah for relief from their bondage to the Philistines; Samson, their leader, rebukes them for their lack of…
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The Life You Give: Maria Callas *1923
Maria Callas, original name Maria Cecilia Sophia Anna Kalogeropoulos, born December 2, 1923, New York, New York, was an American-born Greek operatic soprano who revived classical coloratura roles in the mid-20th century with her lyrical and dramatic versatility. Callas was the daughter of Greek immigrants and early developed an interest in singing. Accompanied by her…
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Betthupferl / Gaetano Donizetti— String Quartetts
String Quartet No. 5 in E Minor String Quartet No. 4 in D Major String Quartet No. 6 in G Minor Listening at 12 Midnight EST in the Aristipposian Poet Clubon Clubhouse
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The Life You Give: Gaetano Donizetti *1797
Gaetano Donizetti, born on Nov. 29, 1797, in Bergamo, Cisalpine Republic, was an Italian opera composer whose numerous operas in both Italian and French represent a transitional stage in operatic development between Rossini and Verdi. Among his major works are Lucia di Lammermoor (1835), La fille du régiment (1840), and La favorite (1840). In his…
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The Life You Give: Jimi Hendrix *Nov 27 1942
Though his active career as a featured artist lasted a mere four years, Hendrix altered the course of popular music and became one of the most successful and influential musicians of his era. An instrumentalist who radically redefined the expressive potential and sonic palette of the electric guitar, he was the composer of a classic…
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The Life You Give: Helmut Lachenmann *1935
“Expression is created on the reverse face of that on which the composer is working…destruction, deflation, and disintegration. But during this process expressive energy radiates out in the first instance like a creative serenity — freedom even.” — Helmut Lachenmann Join us listening to his compositionsat 11pm EST, November 27, at The Aristipposian Poet, on…
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Weekly Woman: Sofia Gubaidulina — composer
Sofia Gubaidulina *1931, Russian composer, whose works fuse Russian and Central Asian regional styles with the Western classical tradition. The Aristipposian Poet presentsWeekly Woman: Sofia GubaidulinaNovember 25 at 9pm ESTon Clubhouse During her youth, Gubaidulina studied music in the city of Kazan, the capital of her home republic. She had lessons at the Kazan Music…
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Happy Birthday, Alfred Schnittke!
Join us listening to Schnittke on Clubhouse — The Aristipposian Poet, at 6pm EST., today, November 24. Alfred Schnittke, (born Nov. 24, 1934, Engels, Volga German Autonomous S.S.R. [now in Saratov oblast, Russia]—died Aug. 3, 1998, Hamburg, Germany), postmodernist Russian composer who created serious, dark-toned musical works characterized by abrupt juxtapositions of radically different, often…
Sila Blume 