Today's Birthdays

Thomas Campion (1567-1620)
Jan Ladislav Dussek (1760-1812)
Roy Harris (1898-1979)
Franco Zeffirelli (1923-2019)
Mel Powell (1923-1998)
Paata Burchuladze (1951)

and

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Judy Bloom (1938)

And courtesy of the New Music Box:

On February 12, 1924 at New York's Aeolian Hall, self-named 'King of Jazz' Paul Whiteman presented An Experiment in Modern Music, a concert combining "high art" and "hot jazz." The concert featured newly commissioned works from Victor Herbert, Jerome Kern, Edward MacDowell, Irving Berlin, Ferde Grofé, and Rudolf Friml, but the highlight of the program was the world premiere performance of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

Review of Newport Symphony concert featuring Rachel Barton Pine

Guest review by Joshua Lickteig

NEWPORT, Ore. — As crisp as the cool sunny sea of January’s 17th day this year in Newport, the only year-round symphony of Oregon’s coast played a program of works spanning the 20th century, in a chronology that progressed from impressionism to post-minimalism and looped back to the late Romantic. Unifying the thread, each work has clear roots in dance, even if at times more about the idea of dancing than act itself.

Falla’s folk-musical remnants of pre-urban life, Stravinsky’s sometimes wry polystylistic assemblage of former worlds from scraps of evidence, Adams’ meta-foxtrot depicting Mao and Madame Mao perhaps in a ballroom during the Cultural Revolution, and the brief motivic interlacings and lilts and waltz-like qualities of lyrical sections of Glazunov.

The night began with a light though pensive mood altogether as music director and conductor Adam Flatt addressed the audients of the 371-seat (Alice Silverman) proscenium theatre, nearly seven-eighths full. In his preconcert talk, Flatt (also director of Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra and Colorado Ballet), considered the early 1900s as discourse amongst composers, exploring the personal worlds, styles of life, and artistic methods of the era’s and its preceding ‘große Persönlichkeiten’, or big personalities. Onstage, the emerald-green chairs and purple-lit glow from behind white acoustic panels was giving ethereally to the room.

Rachel Barton Pine – acclaimed violinist known for dazzling performance across repertoires, who debuted with the Chicago Symphony at age 10 and became the first American and youngest gold medal winner of the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition – joined the discussion with her instrument, a 1742 Guarneri del Gesù violin, which she jested one day would be called the ‘ex-Pine’ (it has illustrious history with virtuosos like Antonio Bazzini and Brahms’s protégé Marie Soldat and passed through the Wittgenstein family). She talked amiably with the concertgoers and noted, “I love variety. My favorite piece is whatever I’m playing that night.” About Concerto for Violin in A Minor, Op. 82 by Alexander Glazunov (b. 1865), the featured soloist shared, “It is a wild romp of lots of colorful instruments . . . Incredible lyrical writing.” Pine first learned the work at the age of fifteen and has recorded its performance with the Russian National Orchestra. She spoke about the overall flow of the piece, its micro-details of phrasing and the violin’s imitation of other instruments; also of a secondary theme that weaves through the opening and middle sections, while loose hints of cadenza seek their culmination in the finale’s accelerated and exhilarating conclusion. On the notorious finger-twisting solo passage, Pine mentioned it requires about as much practice as the rest of the concerto itself, and added, “There is no coincidence [the notes] are all in that rich dark [lowest] G-string.”

After the talk, Executive Director Dan Howard reminded the crowd of a baroque event, “Music On the Bayfront”, on Valentine’s Day (a Saturday), at Pacific Maritime Heritage Center, which will showcase harpsichord and period instruments, and the upcoming annual Gala March 28th. From the string section, in a get-to-know-the-orchestra moment, he introduced violinist Alistair Kok, who expressed appreciation for the arts community’s support and the fulfilling experience of working professionally with local and regional musicians.

Spanish Dance No. 1 from La vida Breve, which Flatt earlier called a ‘bonbon’, whirs by, and its derivations of fiery flamenco and ‘zapateado’ (footwork) with the castanets give a glimpse of (b. 1876) Manuel de Falla’s creative philosophy and patriotic aesthetic; he is known to have urged colleagues to reject the notion of ‘universal’ musical formulae (i.e. the ethos of pre-existing German canon).

Next, the orchestra exhibits Pulcinella: what Flatt voiced critics would call “a new postwar objectivism— dispensing with romantic notions of expressing the heart.” It was performed last by the NSO in mid-November 2008. Igor Stravinsky (b.1882) presents the matter of old music, not the manner — “almost a taxidermied animal ”—  through discontinuity, irregularities, and sometimes angularities. Commissioned by impresario Sergei Diaghilev as a ballet (with Picasso designing costumes and sets), the 1920 work reimagines 18th-century music through a distinctly modern lens. To better suit for concert performance, Stravinsky revised it in 1947. Throughout the suite (I-VII) the orchestra embraced its moments of hilarity: rude sounds and clownishness punctuate sprightly string bass solos across many short movements. They unfolded the finale like an actual memory in the glimmer of winter frost, perhaps reaching back to folksongs and dances from Stravinsky’s childhood near the Polish-Ukrainian border. Utterances could be heard in the crowd lamenting the extant era’s continued power of myth.

Beyond intermission, the symphony brings a focused and scientific precision to The Chairman Dances, from the cutting-room floor of one of our most prominent living composers, John Adams’ (b. 1947) opera Nixon in China. The 13-minute concert piece differs in orchestration from the operatic setup. The entire work, as Flatt put it, belongs to the “so-called CNN operas”—works depicting modern historical events. This foxtrot is a surreal fantasy sequence from a presidential banquet, where Madame Mao hangs paper lanterns, changes into a tight cheongsam slit up the hip, and signals the orchestra to play before dancing alone. As Mao descends from his portrait to join her, days past are brought to their minds, and music plays on a gramophone. The NSO brilliantly conjured the wind-up and gradual slowdown of the contraption: the perceived music skips as the stylus gets stuck, and in the suspension of coherent sound, the sizzle with cymbal shimmers, pedal bass drum, and hi-hat snare are mechanical in quality yet awake. The whole percussion batterie—including triangle, glockenspiel, xylophone, vibraphone, crotales, bell tree, castanets, sandblocks, woodblocks, and timpani—functioned with excellence. An almost-hidden 9-foot Steinway Grand D tucked behind the harp anchored textures.

In Glazunov’s dramatic (and unpausing) concerto of wreathed themes the orchestra and soloist exchanged ideas smoothly and affectionately. Pine’s playing was spellbinding. For an encore, she offered Maud Powell’s 1919 violin transcription of the spiritual Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen, originally arranged by J. Rosamond Johnson. The pioneering American violinist Powell created this adaptation to support Johnson’s New York Music School Settlement for Colored People, featuring it in her final performances. Pine’s revival of this work honors Powell’s legacy.

Musicians met with listeners after the performance in the lobby, where refreshments & sandwiches were served, and Pine greeted and spoke with many. The 37th season continues its standard programming with “Listening for Shakespeare” March 21st-22nd.

Joshua D. Lickteig is an artist and engineer born near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His latest books are Half Moon Day Sun (2021) and Ten Control Mills (2015), some poems from which appeared in Don Russell’s plays Dreams of Drowning (2022) and iTopia (2016). He lives in Portland, Oregon, and is an ongoing contributor to the Concordia News.

Today's Birthdays

Rudolf Firkušný (1912-1994)
Sir Alexander Gibson (1926-1995)
Michel Sénéchal (1927-2018)
Cristopher Dearnley (1930-2000)
Jerome Lowenthal (1932)
Gene Vincent (1935-1971)
Edith Mathis (1938-2025)
Alberto Lysy (1935-2009)
Christine Cairns (1959)

and

Thomas Edison (1847-1931)
Elizabeth Bisland (1861-1929)
Philip Dunne (1908-1992)
Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909-1993)
Pico Iyer (1957)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1841, was given the first documented American performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 at the New York's Broadway Tabernacle, by the German Society of New York, Uri Corelli Hill conducting.

Review: A Night of Light and Color: Oregon Symphony’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Bruch Violin Concerto, and Anna Clyne’s Color Field

Photo credit: Oregon Symphony

Guest review by Thomas Meinzen

Amid Portland’s winter light festival, it seemed fitting that the Oregon Symphony began their Pictures at an Exhibition program (February 7) with the bright hues Yellow, Red, and Orange in the three-movement Color Field by Anna Clyne.

Clyne’s work references Mark Rothko’s 1961 painting Orange, Red, Yellow, in which bright, blurred rectangles appear to float off the page, each distorting how the audience views the color above and below. Likewise, Clyne’s first movement, Yellow, seemed to float into the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, with open chords and quiet, subtly shifting strings. Silvered with high notes of bowed crotales, Yellow conjured the spacious, ethereal feeling of early morning light.

Building in richness and grandeur, the movement introduced a Serbian folk melody in the deep movement of the basses, conjuring images of something great and old emerging from shadow into light. Adopted by the higher strings and winds, this melody lent the piece increasing shape and structure, while still maintaining the meditative impression of a great, open vista. In many ways, the piece captured the qualities of light in a way that was more tender and transcendent than the festival’s displays. Sometimes the description outshines the real thing.

Following Yellow, Red was joltingly fast and furious, with rumbling timpani and bass drums, strings screaming down scales, and declarations of fiery brass. Stampeding advances alternated with moments of calm, crescendo-ing to a bold, sudden conclusion.

Yet it was Orange, the third and final movement, that proved most captivating. The resonance and reverb of percussionist Stephen Kehner’s work on the glockenspiel was the signature of this movement, bookending it with a mystical sense of space and color. An incremental layering of voices began with the oboe and swelled to include nearly every member of the orchestra, bringing the open feeling of Yellow into conversation with the bold intensity of Red. This rounded out an exquisite, contemplative composition.

While the opener left listeners in quiet reverie, the Oregon Symphony truly fulfilled its duty to dazzle with Gil Shaham’s marvelous performance of the Max Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor. The Bruch showcased the delicate touch and remarkable fluidity and energy of the GRAMMY award-winning violinist.

Shaham’s notes emerged tenderly from a backdrop of gently held chords, rising through the orchestra’s sound and flying across virtuosic passages with ease and elegance. As conductor Daniel Danzmayr deftly guided the orchestra from swells of melody to sudden restraint, the clear tones of Shaham’s 1699 “Countess Polignac” Stradivarius soared into the hall, a vector of energy which carried the orchestra to new heights. Shaham himself seemed caught up in the concerto’s vigor, stepping forward into cadenzas and even bouncing on the balls of his feet during the triumphant Finale. And the audience was right there with him, rising to a long standing-ovation after the Bruch and again after Shaham’s encore, the Tempo di Borea and Double from Bach’s Violin Partita No. 1 in B minor—a brilliant display of dexterity, precision, and passion.

Photo credit: Oregon Symphony

 And yet, the night’s titular event was still ahead: Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (arranged by Ravel). As Danzmayr shared, Mussorgsky wrote Pictures as a piano suite after attending an exhibition of the paintings of Viktor Hartmann in 1874, a fellow Russian artist and friend of Mussorgsky who had died the previous year. Never performed publicly in Mussorgsky’s life, Pictures was first published by Rimsky-Korsakov in 1886, and eventually arranged for orchestra by several musical luminaries, most enduringly by Ravel in 1922.

Although it abandons classical forms and was met with skepticism by Mussorgsky’s peers, Pictures at an Exhibition is renowned for good reason. With a bold brass entrance, its grand Promenade theme remains in the ear for days, an asymmetrical meter lending the theme a hook that belies its simplicity. And the whole ten-movement work tugs at the imagination, richly illustrating scenes ranging from the somber and pensive to the playful and strange.

The diverse voices and exposed moments of Pictures also provided a great opportunity for the orchestra to showcase each member’s individual talents and timbre. The haunting alto saxophone solo in The Old Castle was particularly evocative; the tight articulations of muted trumpets in Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle also revealed excellent control. Perhaps most impressive, however, was the performance of tubist JáTtik Clark: after a sensitive euphonium feature in Bydlo, he commanded incredible power in The Hut on Fowl’s Legs and the final expression of the Promenade. I kept looking for additional tubas, but those astounding decibels were all from Clark.

Beyond individual musicianship, however, it was the power of the symphony’s cohesion and collective might that brought down the house in the grand finale, The Great Gate of Kiev, which featured a massive bell from the Netherlands made especially for this concert and engraved for the Oregon Symphony. This final declamatory movement was towering and triumphant, concluding the night and garnering an immediate standing ovation. Under Danzmayr’s leadership, the Oregon Symphony continues to astonish and delight.

Thomas Meinzen is a composer, pianist, writer, and ecologist. Thomas studied music composition and orchestration with John David Earnest and Eric Funk. He has worked across the U.S. and Costa Rica as an avian field biologist and currently teaches natural history, ecology, arboriculture, and music through several local nonprofits, in addition to coordinating Portland tree-planting efforts with Friends of Trees. An avid bicyclist, birder, and public transit advocate, you can find his writing at greenbirder.substack.com and music at thomasmeinzen.bandcamp.com.

Today's Birthdays

Johann Melchior Molter (1696-1765)
Adelina Patti (1843-1919)
Jean Coulthard (1908-2000)
Joyce Grenfell (1914-2001)
Cesare Siepi (1923-2010)
Leontyne Price (1927)
Jerry Goldsmith (1929-2004)
Roberta Flack (1937-2025)
Barbara Kolb (1939-2024)
Yuja Wang (1987)

and

Charles Lamb (1775-1834)
Boris Pasternak (1890-1960)
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)
Åsne Seierstad (1970)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1921, Charles Ives hears Igor Stravinsky's "The Firebird" Ballet Suite at an all-Russian program by the New York Symphony at Carnegie Hall. Also on the program were works of Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Rachmaninoff (with Rachmaninoff as piano soloist). Walter Damrosch conducted.

Review of Tines-Ruckus concert published in Classical Voice North America

My review of this unique concert is available in CVNA here.

Today's Birthdays

Ferdinando Carulli (1770-1841)
Franz Xaver Witt (1834-1888)
Alban Berg (1885-1935)
Harald Genzmer (1909-2007)
Hildegard Behrens (1937-2009)
Ryland Davies (1943-2023)
Paul Hillier (1949)
Jay Reise (1950)
Marilyn Hill Smith (1952)
Amanda Roocroft (1966)

and

Amy Lowell (1874-1925)
James Stephens (1882-1950)
Brendan Behan (1923-1964)
J.M. (John Maxwell) Coetzee (1940)
Alice Walker (1944)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1893, Verdi's opera, "Falstaff," was first performed in Milan at the Teatro alla Scala. This was Verdi's last opera.

Today's Birthdays

Jacob Praetorius (1586-1651)
André Grétry (1741-1813)
Osian Ellis (1928-2021)
John Williams (1932)
Elly Ameling (1933)
Margaret Brouwer (1940)
Stephen Roberts (1948)
Irvine Arditti (1953)

and

Jules Verne (1828-1905)
Kate Chopin (1850-1904)
Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)
Neal Cassady (1926-1968)
John Grisham (1955)

and from the Composers Datebook:

1880 - German opera composer Richard Wagner writes a letter to his American dentist, Dr. Newell Still Jenkins, stating "I do no regard it as impossible that I decide to emigrate forever to America with my latest work ["Parsifal"] and my entire family" if the Americans would subsidize him to the tune of one million dollars.

Today's Birthdays

Wilhelm Stenhammar (1871-1927)
Ossip Gabrilovich (1878-1936)
Eubie Blake (1883-1983)
Claudia Muzio (1889-1936)
Quincy Porter (1897-1966)
Edmond De Luca (1909-2004)
Lord Harewood (1923-2011)
Maruis Constant (1925-2004)
Stuart Burrows (1933-2025)
Wolfgang van Schweintz (1953)
Andy Akiho (1979)

and

Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957)
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951)
Gay Talese (1932)

Today's Birthdays

Henry Litolff (1818-1891)
Karl Weigl (1881-1949)
Andre Marchal (1894-1980)
Claudio Arrau (1903-1991)
Stephen Albert (1941-1992)
Bob Marley (1945-1981)
Bruce J. Taub (1948)
Matthew Best (1957)
Sean Hickey (1970)

and

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)
Eric Partridge (1894-1979)
George Herman "Babe" Ruth (1895-1948)
Mary Douglas Leakey (1913-1996)
Deborah Digges (1950-2009)
Michael Pollan (1955)

Today's Birthdays

 Ole Bull (1810-1880)

Christian Gottlob Neefe (1748-1798)
Ricardo Viñes (1875-1943)
Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969)
Jussi Björling (1911-1960)
Sir John Pritchard (1921-1989)
Luc Ferrari (1929-2005)
John Poole (1934-2020)
Ivan Tcherepnin (1943-1998)
Josef Protschka (1944)
Phylis Bryn-Julson (1945)

and

Martin Marty (1928-2025)
Henry Louis "Hank" Aaron (1934-2021)
John Guare (1938)
William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)
Christopher Guest (1948)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1887, Verd's: opera "Otello" premiered in Milan at the Teatro all Scala, with the composer conducting (and cellist Arturo Toscanini in the orchestra).

Review in CVNA of Oregon Symphony concert and last-minute rescue by pianist Ying Li

Pianist Ying Li flew in from New York City at the last minute to rescue Oregon Symphony's concert that featured Grieg's Piano Concerto. You can read all about it in my review, which has been published in Classical Voice North America here.

Today's Birthdays

Eustache du Caurroy (1549-1609)
Carl Michael Bellman (1740-1795)
Aristide Cavaillé‑Coll (1811-1899)
Yrjo Kilpinen (1892-1952)
Bernard Rogers (1893-1968)
Erich Leinsdorf (1912-1993)
Jutta Hipp (1925-2003)
Martti Talvela (1935-1989)
François Dumeaux (1978)

and also

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)
Gavin Ewart (1916-1995)
Betty Friedan (1921-2006)
Robert Coover (1932-2024)

Today's Birthdays

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594)
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847)
Sidney Lanier (1842-1881)
Priaulx Rainier (1903-1986)
Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-1975)
Blas Galindo Dimas (1910-1993)
Jehan Alain (1911-1940)
Helga Dernesch (1939)

and

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946)
Georg Trakl (1887-1914)
Norman Rockwell (1894-1978)
Alvar Aalto (1898-1978)
James Michener (1907-1997)
Simone Weil (1909-1943)
Richard Yates (1926-1992)
Paul Auster (1947)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1844, Berlioz's "Roman Carnival" Overture, in Paris was premiered at the Salle Herz, with the composer conducting.

Today's Birthdays

Louis Marchand (1669-1732)
Leo Fall (1873-1925)
Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962)
Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987)
Stan Getz (1927-1991)
Skip Battin (1934-2003)
Martina Arroyo (1937)
Sir Andrew Davis (1944)
Ursula Oppens (1944)
Eliane Aberdam (1964)

And

James Joyce (1882-1941)
James Dickey (1923-1997)
Tom Smothers (1937-2023)

Today's Birthdays

Francesco Stradivari (1671-1743)
Francesco Maria Veracini (1690-1768)
Johan Joachim Agrell (1701-1765)
Victor Herbert (1859-1924)
Julius Conus (1869-1942)
Clara Butt (1872-1936)
Sándor Veress (1907-1999)
Mozart Camargo Guarnieri (1907-1993)
Renata Tebaldi (1922-2004)
Ursula Mamlok (1928-2016)
Michael G. Shapiro (1951)

and

Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
S. J. Perelman (1904-1979)
Muriel Spark (1918- 2006)
Galway Kinnell (1927-2014)

Today's Birthdays

François Devienne (1759-1803)
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Caroline Miolan‑Carvalho (1827-1895)
James Huneker (1857-1921)
Ernest John Moeran (1894-1950)
Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940)
Nathan Milstein (1904-1992)
Benjamin Frankel (1906-1973)
Alan Lomax (1915-2002)
Jaap Schröder (1925-2020)
Odetta (1930-2008)
Philip Glass (1937)
Stephen Cleobury (1948)
Donna Summer (1948-2012)
George Benjamin (1960)
Jennifer Higdon (1962)

and

Henri Matisse (1869-1954)
Zane Grey (1872-1939)
John O'Hara (1905-1970)
Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

Today's Birtdays

Johann Joachim Quantz (1697-1773)
Charles Martin Loeffler (1861-1935)
Walter Damrosch (1862-1950)
Mitch Leigh (1928-2014)
Lynn Harrell (1944-2020)
Silvia Marcovici (1952)
Gerald Finley (1960)

and

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)
Barbara Tuchman (1912-1989)
Shirley Hazzard (1931-2016)
Richard Brautigan (1935-1984)

Today's Birthdays

Georg Christoph Wagenseil (1715-1777)
Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782-1871)
Frederic Hymen Cowen (1852-1935)
Frederick Delius (1862-1934)
Havergal Brian (1876-1972)
Blanche Selva (1884-1942)
Luigi Nono (1924-1990)
Myer Fredman (1932-2014)
Malcolm Binns (1936)
Cho-Liang Lin (1960)

and

W. C. Fields (1880-1946
Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)
Edward Abbey (1927-1989)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1826 was the premiere of Schubert's String Quartet in D minor, "Death and the Maiden," as a unrehearsed reading at the Vienna home of Karl and Franz Hacker, two amateur musicians. Schubert, who usually played viola on such occasions, could not perform since he was busy copying out the parts and making last-minute corrections.
and from The Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1845 that Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven” was published in the New York Evening Mirror. It was a huge sensation: Abraham Lincoln memorized it and Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a fan letter to Poe. He was paid $9 for “The Raven,” and it was extensively reprinted without his permission, but there was nothing he could do about it. He had written an unsigned article for the Mirror before about copyright law saying, “Without an international copyright law, American authors may as well cut their throats,” but there was no such law until 1891. His income in 1844 was $424; in 1845, he made $549.

Today's Birthdays

Antonio Bartolomeo Bruni (1757-1821)
Ferdinand Herold (1791-1833)
Alexander Mackenzie (1822-1892)
Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982)
Vittorio Rieti (1898-1994)
Michael Head (1900-1976)
Ronnie Scott (1927-1996)
Acker Bilk (1929-2014)
Sir John Tavener (1944-2013)
Richard Danielpour (1956)

and

Colette (1873-1954)
Jackson Pollock (1912-1956)
Claes Oldenburg (1929-2022)
David Lodge (1935-2025)

Today's Birthdays

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Juan Crisostomo Arriage (1806-1826)
Edouard Lalo (1823-1892)
Jerome Kern (1885-1945)
Jack Brymer (1915-2003)
Skitch Henderson (1918-2005)
Helmut Zacharias (1920-2002)
Fritz Spiegl (1926-2003)
John Ogdon (1937-1989)
Jean-Philippe Collard (1948)
Emanuel Pahud (1970)
James Ehnes (1976)

and

Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)
Dmitry Mandeleyev (1834-1907)
Mikhail Baryshnikov (1948)

Today's Birthdays

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (1732-1795)
Maria Augusta von Trapp (1905-1987)
Stéphane Grappelli (1908-1997)
Jimmy Van Heusen (1913-1990)
Warren Benson (1924-2005)
Jacqueline du Pré (1945-1987)
Frédéric Lodéon (1952)
Mikel Rouse (1957)
Ēriks Ešenvalds (1977)
Gustavo Dudamel (1981)

and

Mary Mapes Dodge (1831-1905)
Seán MacBride (1904-1988)
Jules Feiffer (1929-2025)
Christopher Hampton (1946)
Ellen DeGeneres (1958)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1790, Mozart's opera, "Così fan tutte," was premiered in Vienna at the Burgtheater.

Today's Birthdays

Jan Blockx (1851-1912)
Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886-1954)
Julia Smith (1905-1989)
Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994)
Alfred Reed (1921-2005)
Etta James (1938-2012)
Russell Peck (1945-2009)

and

Robert Burns (1759-1796)
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

Today's Birthdays

Farinelli (Carlo Maria Broschi) (1705-1782)
Frederick II the Great (1712-1786)
Muzio Clementi (1752-1832)
E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776-1822)
Evelyn Barbirolli (1911-2008)
Norman Dello Joio (1913-2008)
Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915-1940)
Gottfried von Einem (1918-1996)
Leon Kirchner (1919-2009)
Neil Diamond (1941)
Yuri Bashmet (1953)
Warren Zevon (1947-2003)

and

William Congreve (1670-1729)
Edith Wharton (1862-1937)
Desmond Morris (1928)

Danzmayr concert with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra cancelled because of bad weather

The harsh winter storm has put the kibosh on David Danzmayr's appearance wtih the Atlanta Symphony tonight. Brrr! Hopefully, he can catch a flight back to Portland to lead the Oregon Symphony later this week.

Today's Birthdays

Muzio Clementi (1752-1832)
Rutland Boughton (1878-1960)
Django Reinhardt (1910-1953)
Milton Adolphus (1913-1988)
Eli Goren (1923-2000)
Chita Rivera (1933-2024) Cécile Ousset (1936)
Teresa Zylis-Gara (1936-2021)
John Luther Adams (1953)
Mason Bates (1977)

and

Stendhal (1783-1842)
Edouard Manet (1832-1883)
Derek Walcott (1930-2017)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1894, Czech composer Antonin Dvorák presents a concert of African-American choral music at Madison Square Concert Hall in New York, using an all-black choir, comprised chiefly of members of the St. Philip's Colored Choir. On the program was the premiere performance of Dvorák's own arrangement of Stephen Foster's "Old Folks at Home," which featured vocal soloists Sissierette Jones and Harry T. Burleigh.

Oregon Symphony concert with Kwak and Stenz in Oregon Arts Watch

 My review of a rewarding Oregon Symphony concert from last weekend has been published in OAW here.

Today's Birthdays

Claude-Bénigne Balbastre (1727-1799)
Charles Tournemire (1870-1939)
Hans Erich Apostel (1901-1972)
Robin Milford (1903-1959)
Rosa Ponselle (1897-1981)
Henri Dutilleux (1916-2013)
William Warfield (1920-2002)
Leslie Bassett (1923-2016)
James Louis ("J.J.") Johnson (1924-2001)
Aurèle Nicolet (1926-2016)
Uto Ughi (1944)
Myung-whun Chung (1953)

and

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781)
Lord Byron (1788-1824)
August Strindberg (1849-1912)
Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948)
Howard Moss (1922-1987)
Joseph Wambaugh (1937-2025)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day, in 1907, the Metropolitan Opera production of Richard Strauss' opera "Salome," with soprano Olive Fremstad in the title role, creates a scandal. The opera is dropped after a single performance, and not staged at the Met again until the 1930s.

Review: Young Artists highlight Vancouver Symphony concert

It is very impressive to see accomplished, professionals solo with an orchestra, but when the featured artists are super-talented teenagers and even younger, it is pretty astounding. Such was the case at the Vancouver Symphony’s concert on January 18th at Skyview Concert Hall, when the three gold medalists from the orchestra’s Young Adult Competition took the stage. Violinist Hana Gottesman, saxophonist Jacob Peizner, and pianist Wilson Liu dazzled the audience with their artistry in performing difficult concertos with the orchestra under music director Salvador Brotons – all of which made a strong case for the arts in the education of our nation’s youth.

First in the program lineup was Gottesman, a 17-year-old violinist from Bellevue, Washington, who started violin lessons when she was just six. She played Maurice Ravel’s “Tzigane”, which opens with a long and treacherous cadenza, impeccably. She gave some notes a real zing, and collaborated deftly with the orchestra to convey the gypsy-inspired themes of the piece.

Next came Peizner, age 17, who is a senior at Oregon Episcopal School. He delivered a sparkling rendition of Jacques Ibert’s “Concertino da camera for alto saxophone and eleven instruments.” During the first part of the piece, he negotiated a seemingly endless series of runs with elan. He expressed the beginning of the second part with great sensitivity and conquered the cadenza to bring the piece to a joyful conclusion.

After intermission, Liu wowed concertgoers with a stellar performance of the first movement from Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20. Although he is only eleven years old, Liu showed an artistic level way, way above his age, expressing the piece with perfectly calibrated dynamics and technical precision. He handled delicate passages with the utmost care, but he could also spring into a passionate section with unbridled gusto. He demonstrated an innate musicality that was flat-out jaw dropping, and the audience rewarded him with an enthusiastic standing ovation.

For the purely orchestral portion of the concert, Brotons led his forces in a rousing interpretation of Richard Strauss’s “Til Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks.” Jeong Yoon Lee, who usually is the VSO’s principal second violinist, took over the concertmaster position and excelled with her solos. Principal hornist Daniel Partridge announced the prankster’s theme with panache, and Ricky Smith expertly handled all of the tricky passages for the E-flat clarinet, as if to channel the trickster directly.

Since the piece relates to several escapades, it would have been nice to have had some projected text to accompany the music. That would help American audiences, who don’t know the stories, understand the music more.

Brotons gave a very humorous introduction to the Suite from the from Richard Strauss’s opera “Der Rosenkavalier.” The horns sounded glorious as they launched the first volleys. Principal oboist Alan Juza contributed substantially with his playing. The performance – highlighted by its wistful waltz tune – had just the right sentiment to evoke scenes from the opera.

The concert began on a much different note – with the orchestra eliciting space travel in “Mothership” by Mason Bates. This piece blends electronic and acoustical sounds in a very effective way. A heavy, pulsating beat establishes a rhythmic drive that permeates much of the time, but there is a section – given over to the cellos – that was briefly soothing. The orchestra then gathers its forces to create a sound of a spaceship taking off and whirling into the sky.

Judging from the smiles that I saw, it seemed that the orchestra really enjoyed cutting loose on the piece. The audience applauded the piece with vigor, and I think that I noticed Brotons smiling. Since Brotons is a composer, himself, I will have to find out if he has tried to write an orchestral piece that uses electronics. You never know…

Today's Birthdays

Henri Duparc (1848-1933)
Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977)
Webster Booth (1902-1984)
Placido Domingo (1941)
Richie Havens (1941-2013)
Edwin Starr (1942-2003)
Suzanne Mentzer (1957)
Frank Ticheli (1958)

and

Louis Menand (1952)

Today's Birthdays

Johann Hermann Schein (1586-1630)
Ernest Chausson (1855-1899)
Julius Conus (1869-1942)
Józef Hofmann (1876-1957)
Huddie William Ledbetter (Lead Belly) (1889-1949)
Walter Piston (1894-1976)
Eva Jessye (1895-1992)
Yvonne Loriod (1924-2010)
David Tudor (1926-1996)
Antonio de Almeida (1928-1997)
Iván Fischer (1951)

and

George Burns (1896-1996)
Alexandra Danilova (1903-1997)
Federico Fellini (1920-1993)
Edward Hirsch (1950)
Tami Hoag (1959)

Today's Birthdays

Louis‑Nicolas Clérambault (1676-1749)
George Frederick Bristow (1825-1898)
Fritz Reiner (1888-1963)
Paul Dessau (1894-1979)
Edith Piaf (1915-1963)
Dalton Baldwin (1931-2019)
Phil Ochs (1940-1976)
William Christie (1944)
Marianne Faithfull (1946)
Olaf Bär (1957)
Steven Esserlis (1958)
Rebecca Saunders (1967)

and

Italo Svevo (1861-1928)
Constance Garnett (1861-1946)

Today's Birthdays

César Cui (1835-1918)
Emmanuel Chabrier (1841-1894)
John Laurence Seymour (1893-1986)
Berthold Goldschmidt (1903-1996)
Anthony Galla-Rini (1904-2006)
John O'Conor (1947)
Anthony Pople (1955-2003)
Christoph Prégardien (1956)

and

Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869)
Rubén Darío (1867-1916)
A. A. Milne (1882-1956)
Oliver Hardy (1892-1957)

FYI: Roget's "Thesaurus" has never been out of print since it was first published in 1852.

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1958, "What Does Music Mean?", broadcast, the first of a series of televised New York Philharmonic "Young People's Concerts" on CBS-TV hosted by Leonard Bernstein. The series continued until 1972, with 53 different programs hosted by Bernstein.

Today's Birthdays

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
John Stanley (1712-1786)
Johann Gottfried Müthel (1728-1788)
François‑Joseph Gossec (1734-1829)
Henk Badings (1907-1987)
Oscar Morawetz (1917-2007)
Annie Delorie (1925-2009)
Donald Erb (1927-2008)
Jean Barraqué (1928-1973)
Sydney Hodkinson (1934-2021)
Dame Gillian Weir (1941)
Anne Queffélec (1948)
Augustin Dumay (1949)
Nancy Argenta (1957)
Gérard Pesson (1958)

and

Anne Brontë (1820-1849)
William Stafford (1914-1993)
Luis López Nieves (1950)
Sebastian Junger (1962)

Classical Voice North America - looking back on 2025

I wrote a short but sweet missive that looks back on the articles and authors who contributed to Classical Voice North America and have helped to boost it as a national magazine for classical music. The article provides a lot of links to all sorts of concerts and events that we covered. You can read all about it right here.

Today's Birthdays

Niccoló Piccinni (1728-1800)
Henri Büsser (1872-1973)
Daisy Kennedy (1893-1981)
Ernesto Halffter (1905-1989)
Ethel Merman (1908-1984)
Roger Wagner (1914-1992)
Ernesto Bonino (1922-2008)
Pilar Lorengar (1928-1996)
Marilyn Horne (1934)
Richard Wernick (1934-2015)
Gavin Bryars (1943)
Brian Ferneyhough (1943)
Katia Ricciarelli (1946)

and

Robert Service (1874-1958)
Anthony Hecht (1923-2004)
William Kennedy (1928)
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1969)
Susan Sontag (1933-2004)
Mary Karr (1955)
Lin-Manuel Miranda (1980)

Preview: Vancouver Symphony to present Young Artists Showcase

One of the most awesome concerts of the Vancouver Symphony’s season will take place this upcoming weekend (January 17 and 18) when three of the nation’s top young talents will perform with the orchestra. This is the 31st Young Artist Showcase, featuring the winners of VSO’s annual competition, which was held in October at First Presbyterian Church. An esteemed panel of judges (Zuill Bailey, Dr. Julia Hwakyu Lee, Philippe Quint, Dr. Ken Selden, and Dr. Igor Shakhman) determined the winners in the piano, brass/woodwind, and strings categories. The gold medalists were pianist Wilson Liu, violinist Hana Gottesman, and , alto saxophonist Jacob Peizner. Each of them received $5,000 and the opportunity to perform with the VSO.

To find out more about these extremely talented young musicians, I contacted each one by phone, starting with Wilson Liu. Although Liu is only eleven years old, he is already a veteran winner of competitions, including the 2025 International Young Artist Concerto Competition At age seven, Liu entered The Juilliard School Pre-College Division where he won the Bachauer Prize with full scholarship and Concerto Competition. He studies with Hung-Kuan Chen and Tema Blackstone.

When he was four and a half years old, Liu started playing on a small electric piano and moved to an upright a year later. Although Wilson’s parents are not musical, he was encouraged by them.

“I don’t sing well, so I stayed with the piano, and that’s been a good choice,” said Liu. “I love the vast range of possibilities that I can get from the keyboard. If you experiment with color, every different way that you play a note comes out differently.”

During the weekdays Liu practices two to three hours, but over the weekend he dedicates more time. He will play the first movement from Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 with the VSO.

“One of the things that I find fascinating about this concerto,” said Liu, “is that it is one of the two concertos that he wrote in a minor key. The first one was in C minor, and this one is in D minor. So it has a sense of darkness that is a bit unusual for Mozart’s concertos. I always wonder if the people who heard it for the first time were scared by the music. It also has a four-note motif – a quick upward motion – that is so cool that Beethoven, Schubert and other composers stole the idea and used it in their music. For example, Beethoven’s Sonata No. 111 uses the same thing.”

Gold medalist Hana Gottesman is a 17-year-old violinist from Bellevue, Washington, who has won top prizes at Royal Maas International, UK International, Coeur d’Alene National Young Artist, MTNA National, and Seattle Young Artist Music Festival competitions. She has appeared as a soloist with the Northwest Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Northwest, and SEEN Orchestra of Chicago.

Gottesman started when she was about six. She grew up in a musical household.

“My mom plays the piano and my dad is a violist,” said Gottesman. “I love classical music and the violin in particular. That has kept me focused.”

Gottesman, who attends schools in Bellevue, has studied violin with Jan Coleman and currently works with Simon James. With the Vancouver Symphony, she will play Ravel’s “Tzigane.”

“’Tzigane’ opens with an improvisational feeling – like gypsy fiddling – which relates to the title, which means gypsy,” said Gottesman. “It’s a piece that constantly shifts in mood and character, and that is fun to share with the audience. It opens with a long, challenging cadenza. The first page is all on the G string. I like to give the high G a lot of vibrato so that it sounds intense. I really enjoy the incredible variety of colors that this piece offers.”

“When the orchestra comes in,” said Gottesman, “and the main theme of the piece is finally exposed, it is fun to listen to how that that is repeated through the rest of the piece – with all of the variations. The music evolves into something else at the end.”

Jacob Peizner, age 17, is a senior at Oregon Episcopal School and a student of Phil Baldino and Kenneth Radnofsky. Peizner was one of ten saxophonists internationally selected for the 2024 Boston University’s Tanglewood Saxophone Workshop and was co-principal saxophone for the 2025 Tanglewood Young Artists Orchestra and Wind-Ensemble. He is the principal saxophonist in the Portland Youth Philharmonic and has soloed with the PYP Camerata ensemble.

Peizner started playing saxophone when he was a sixth grader.

“I chose it because I like jazz and saxophone is cool, said Peizner. “I grew up in a musical family. My mom plays flute, and my grandmother plays piano. I play clarinet and piano, also.”

With the VSO, he will play Jacques Ibert’s “Concertino da camera for alto saxophone and eleven instruments.”

“It was composed for Sigurd Raschèr, one of the pioneers of classical saxophone,” said Peizner. “He could play four octaves on the saxophone, which was very rare. Ibert’s composition has some really high notes that are very challenging to play. I am going to take them, using what we call ‘extended technique.’ It’s a very tricky piece. There’s a lot of fast passages with tricky keys. The piece is literally a ‘little chamber concerto.’ I like to keep that in mind. It shouldn’t be played heavily or taken to seriously. It has jazzy elements.”

In addition to the soloes by the gold medalists, the VSO, under Music Director Salvador Brotons, will play Mason Bates' "Mothership," and the Suite from the from Richard Strauss’s “Der Rosenkavalier,” as well as his symphonic poem “Till Eulenspeigel’s Merry Pranks.”

Today's Birthdays

Ivor Novello (1893-1951)
Elie Siegmeister (1909-1991)
Malcolm Frager (1935-1991)
Don "Captain Beefheart" Van Vliet (1941-2010)
Aaron Jay Kernis (1960)

and

Molière (1622-1673)
Franz Grillparzer (1791-1872)
Andreas William Heinesen (1900-1991)
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)
Frank Conroy (1936-2005)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1941 Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time" was premiered at Stalag VIII-A, a German prisoner of war camp in Görlitz (Silesia), with the composer at the piano and fellow-prisoners Jean Le Boulaure (violin), Henri Akoka (clarinet), and Etienne Pasquier (cello).

Today's Birthdays

Ludwig von Köchel (1800-1877)
Jean de Reszke (1850-1925)
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)
Louis Quilico (1925-2000)
Zuzana Ruzickova (1927-2017)
Siegmund Nimsgern (1940)
Mariss Jansons (1943-2019)
Kees Bakels (1945)
Nicholas McGegan (1950)
Ben Heppner (1956)
Andrew Manze (1965)

and

John Dos Passos (1896-1970)
Emily Hahn (1905-1997)
John Oliver Killens (1916-1987)
Maureen Dowd (1952)

Review of Christine Goerke singing Wagner with the Oregon Symphony

 My review of last Saturday's concert of Wagner hits with Christine Goerke and the Oregon Symphony has been posted on Classical Voice North America here.

Today's Birthdays

Christoph Graupner (1683-1760)
Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel (1690-1749)
Vassili Kalinnikov (1866-1901)
Richard Addinsell (1904-1977)
Daniil Shafran (1923-1997)
Renato Bruson (1936)
Paavo Heininen (1938-2022)
William Duckworth (1943-2012)
Richard Blackford (1954)
Wayne Marshall (1961)
Juan Diego Flórez (1973)

and

Horatio Alger (1832-1899)
Lorrie Moore (1957)

Today's Birthdays

Reinhard Keiser (1674-1739)
Jacques Duphly (1715-1789)
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948)
Pierre Bernac (1899-1979)
William Pleeth (1916-1999)
Leo Smit (1921-1999)
Morton Feldman (1926-1987)
Salvatore Martirano (1927-1995)
Anne Howells (1941)
Viktoria Postnikova (1944)
Lori Laitman (1955)

and

Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)
Jack London (1876-1916)
Haruki Murakami (1949)

Today's Birthdays

Christian Sinding (1856-1941)
Reihold Glière (1875-1956)
Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986)
Mark DeVoto (1940)
York Höller (1944)
Drew Minter (1955)
Alex Shapiro (1962)

and

William James (1842-1910)
Aldo Leopold (1887-1948)
Alan Paton (1903-1988)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1925, Copland's Symphony for Organ and Orchestra was premiered at Aeolian Hall in New York City by the New York Symphony conducted by Walter Damrosch, with Nadia Boulanger the soloist.

Today's Birthdays

Jean Martinon (1910-1976)
Sidney Griller (1911-1993)
Dean Dixon (1915-1976)
Milton Babbitt (1916-2011)
Max Roach (1924-2007)
Sherrill Milnes (1935)
Rod Stewart (1945)
James Morris (1947)
Mischa Maisky (1948)
Rockwell Blake (1951)
Charles Norman Mason (1955)
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg (1961)

and

Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962)
Philip Levine (1928-2015)
Stephen E. Ambrose (1936-2002)

Today's Birthdays

John Knowles Paine (1839-1906)
Rudolf Bing (1902-1997)
Herva Nelli (1909-1994)
Henriette Puig‑Roget (1910-1992)
Pierre Pierlot (1921-2007)
Joan Baez (1941)
Scott Walker (1944)
Jimmy Page (1944)
Waltraud Meier (1956)
Hillevi Martinpelto (1958)
Nicholas Daniel (1962)

and

Karel Čapek (1890-1938
Kurt Tucholsky (1890-1935)
Richard Halliburton (1901-1939)
Brian Friel (1929-2015)
Michiko Kakutani (1955)

Today's Birthdays

Jean Gilles (1668-1705)
Lowell Mason (1792-1872)
Sigismond Thalberg (1812-1871)
Hans von Bülow (1830-1894)
Jaromir Weinberger (1896-1967)
Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988)
Giorgio Tozzi (1923-2011)
Robert Starer (1924-2001)
Benjamin Lees (1924-2010)
Elvis Presley (1935-1977)
Zdeněk Mácal (1936-2023)
Robert Moran (1937)
Evgeny Nesterenko (1938-2021)
Elijah Moshinsky (1946)
Paul Dresher (1951)
Vladimir Feltsman (1952)

and

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913)
Bronislava Nijinska (1891-1972)
Stephen Hawking (1942-2018)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1923, the first broadcast in England of an opera direct from a concert hall took place, Mozart's "The Magic Flute" via the BBC from London.

Today's Birthdays

Clara Haskil (1895-1960)
Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
John Brownlee (1900-1969)
Nicanor Zabaleta (1907-1993)
Günter Wand (1912-2002)
Ulysses Kay (1917-1995)
John Lanigan (1921-1996)
Jean-Pierre Rampal (1922-2000)
Tommy Johnson (1935-2006)
Iona Brown (1941-2004)
Richard Armstrong (1943)
Janine Jansen (1978)

and

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)
Hugh Kenner (1923-2003)
Nicholson Baker (1957)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1955, Marian Anderson made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Ulrica in Verdi's "Un Ballo in Mascera" (A Masked Ball). She was the first African-American singer to perform as an opera soloist on the Met stage. Subsequent distinguished African-American singers who performed as members of the Met company included Robert McFerrin, Sr. (Bobby McFerrin Jr.’s father), Leontyne Price, Martina Arroyo, Kahtleen Battle and Jessye Norman.

Article about chamber music in Hong Kong published in The Strad

I was in Hong Kong a few weeks ago for some concerts by the Musicus Society. I learned a lot about the group and how it started fifteen years ago after interviewing Artistic Director and cellist, Trey Lee and President Chui-Inn Lee. I think that you'll enjoy reading my article which has been published in The Strad here.  

Today's Birthdays

Max Bruch (1838-1920)
Georges Martin Witkowski (1867-1943)
Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)
Karl Straube (1873-1950)
Earl Kim (1920-1998)
Alexander Baillie (1956)

and

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
Khalil Gibran (1883-1931)
E.L. Doctorow (1931-2015)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1733, this notice appears in the Leipzig newspaper Nachtricht auch Frag u. Anzeiger: "Tonight at 8 o'clock there will be a Bach Concert at the Zimmermann Coffeehouse on Catharine Street". This presumably featured secular vocal works, chamber music and concertos performed by the Leipzig Collegium, an ensemble directed by J.S. Bach.

Today's Birthdays

Johann Georg Pisendel (1687-1755)
Constanza Mozart (1762-1842)
Peter Wolle (1792-1871)
Frederick Converse (1871-1940)
Nikolai Medtner (1880-1951)
Nicolai Roslavets (1881-1944)
Reginald Smith-Brindle (1917-2003)
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920-1995)
Laszlo Heltay (1930-2019)
Alfred Brendel (1931-2025)
Maurizio Pollini (1942-2024)

and

Stella Gibbons(1902-1989)
Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921-1990)
W. D. Snodgrass (1926-2009)
Umberto Eco (1932-2016)
Ngugi wa Thiong'o (1938)
Charlie Rose (1942)

Today's Birthdays

Giovanni Pergolesi (1710-1736)
Johann Friedrich Agricola (1720-1774)
Josef Suk (1874-1935)
Frank Wess (1922-2013)
Grace Bumbry (1937-2023)
Joseph Turrin (1947)
Margaret Marshall (1949)
Ronald Corp (1951)
Peter Seiffert (1954)
Boris Berezovsky (1969)

and

Sir Issac Newton (1642-1727)
Jacob Grimm (1785-1863)
Louis Braille (1809-1852)
Augustus John (1878-1961)
Doris Kearns Goodwin (1943)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1950, RCA announces it will produce long play records as Columbia did two years earlier (RCA had unsuccessfully attempted to compete with Columbia's new 33.3-rpm LPs by issuing some of their classical catalog as multiple disc 45-rpm sets).

Today's Birthdays

Victor Borge (1909-2000)
Ronald Smith (1922-2004)
Sir George Martin (1926-2016)
H. K. Gruber (1943)
David Atherton (1944)

and

J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

and from the Composers Datebook

On this date in the year 1843 in Paris, the comic opera “Don Pasquale” by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti received its first performance.
also:

On this day in 1925, German conductor and composer Wilhelm Furtwängler made his American debut, conducting the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall.

Today's Birthdays

Frantisek Xaver Brixi (1732-1771)
Mily Balakirev (1837-1910)
Michael Tippett (1905-1998)
Barbara Pentland (1912-2000)
Gardner Read (1913-2005)
Irina Arkhipova (1925-2010)
Alberto Zedda (1928-2017)
Peter Eötvös (1944)
Janet Hilton (1945)
Vladimir Ovchinnikov (1958)
Tzimon Barto (1963)
Robert Fertitta (1970)
Eric Whitacre (1970)

and

Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)
Christopher Durang (1949)
Lynda Barry (1956)

Today's Birthdays - Happy New Year!

Charles Racquet (1598-1664)
Frederick William Gaisberg (1873-1951)
Edwin Franko Goldman (1878-1956)
Artur Rodzinski (1892-1958)
Erich Schmid (1907-2001)
Trude Rittmann (1908-2005)
Milt Jackson (1923-1999)
Richard Verreau (1926-2005)
Maurice Béjart (1927-2007)
Bernard Greenhouse (1916-2011)
Alberto Portugheis (1941)

And

Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673)
J. D. Salinger (1919-2010)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1585, composer Giovanni Gabrieli became the second organist at St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice. His uncle, the composer Andrea Gabrieli, was the first organist.

On this day in 1908, Gustav Mahler made his conducting debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, leading a performance of Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde."