Today's Birthdays

John Alden Carpenter (1876-1951)
Sergueï Bortkiewicz (1877-1952
Guiomar Novaes (1895-1979)
Geraldine Farrar (1882-1967)
Roman Maciejewski (1910-1998)
George Malcolm (1917-1997)
Joseph Rouleau (1929-2019)
Osmo Vänskä (1953)
Markus Stenz (1965)

and

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)
Linus Pauling (1901-1994)
Stephen Spender (1909-1995)
Zero Mostel (1915-1977)
Frank Gehry (1929)
John Fahey (1939-2001)
Stephen Chatman (1950)
Colum McCann (1965)
Daniel Handler (1970)

and from the Composers Datebook

On this date in 1882, the Royal College of Music is founded in London.

Preview of PYP concert and young double-bass phenom in The Oregonian

 My review of the upcoming Portland Youth Philharmonic concert has been posted on Oregonlive here. It was a pleasure to interview Maggie Carter and PYP's musical director David Hattner on Zoom. I hope that you enjoy reading the article. 

Today's Birthdays

Sir Hubert Parry (1848-1918)
Lotte Lehmann (1888-1976)
Marian Anderson (1897-1993)
Elizabeth Welch (1904-2003)
Viktor Kalabis (1923-2006)
Mirella Freni (1935-2020)
Morten Lauridsen (1943)
Gidon Kremer (1947)
Frank-Peter Zimmermann (1956)

and

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
John Steinbeck (1902-1968)
Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990)
Ralph Nadar (1934)
N. Scott Momaday (1934)

Today's Birthdays

Anton (Antoine) Reicha (1770-1836)
Alfred Bachelet (1864-1944)
Emmy Destinn (1878-1930)
Frank Bridge (1879-1941)
Witold Rowicki (1914-1989)
Antoine Dominique "Fats" Domino (1928-2017)
Lazar Berman (1930-2005)
Johnny Cash (1932-2005)
David Thomas (1943)
Guy Klucevsek (1947)
Emma Kirkby (1949)
Richard Wargo (1957)
Carlos Kalmar (1958)

and

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)
Victor Hugo (1802-1885)
John George Nicolay (1832-1901)
Elisabeth George (1949)

Today's Birthdays

Armand-Louis Couperin (1727-1789)
Antoine Reicha (1770-1836)
Enrico Caruso (1873-1921)
Dame Myra Hess (1890-1965)
Victor Silvester (1900-1978)
Davide Wilde (1935)
Jesús López-Cobos (1940)
George Harrison (1943-2001)
Lucy Shelton (1944)
Denis O'Neill (1948)
Melinda Wagner (1957)

and

Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793)
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919)
Karl Friedrich May (1842–1874)
Anthony Burgess (1917-1993)
John C. Farrar (1896-1974)

And from the New Music Box:

On February 25, 1924, the first issue of the League of Composers Review was published. Under the editorial leadership of Minna Lederman, this publication—which soon thereafter changed its name to Modern Music (in April 1925)—was the leading journalistic voice for contemporary music in America for over 20 years and featured frequent contributions from important composers of the day including Aaron Copland, Elliott Carter, John Cage, Marc Blitzstein, Henry Cowell, Lehman Engel, and Marion Bauer. Its final issue appeared in the Fall of 1946.

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1682, Italian composer Alessandro Stradella, age 37, is murdered in Genoa, apparently in retaliation for running off with a Venetian nobleman's mistress.

Snow and ice has caused Oregon Symphony cancellation

 

From the Press Release: 

The February 25, 2023 concert, Carmina Burana with the Oregon Symphony, has been canceled.

We regretfully announce that the Oregon Symphony has canceled the Saturday performance of Carmina Burana scheduled for February 25, 2023 (7:30pm) at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. The inclement weather we have been experiencing did not allow the entire ensemble to adequately prepare, and the road conditions impacted the orchestra’s ability to gather and properly rehearse. We are also concerned about patrons’ safety due to current icy road conditions. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. The concerts on Sunday February 26 at 2pm, and Monday, February 27 at 7:30pm will proceed as scheduled with a program that solely includes Carmina Burana with no intermission. We hope that you will consider exchanging into either of those two concert dates. As a ticketholder, please choose from the following options and call the Oregon Symphony Ticket Office at 503-228-1353 or email us at orsymphony@orsymphony.org: Apply the value of your ticket(s) to the performance of Carmina Burana on Sunday 2/26 at 2pm or Monday 2/27 at 7:30pm Apply the value of your ticket(s) to another concert in the 2022/23 Season Donate your ticket(s) and receive a tax deduction for the total ticket value. Exchange your ticket(s) for an emailed gift certificate. Receive a refund for the value of the ticket(s). In order for the Oregon Symphony to expeditiously manage purchased tickets that are impacted by canceled concerts, ticketholders will have until Thursday, May 25, 2023 to act (see options listed above) on any funds associated with the concert. After May 25, 2023, if no action has been taken, these funds will automatically convert to a tax-deductible donation. A receipt for this donation is available upon request by calling 503-228-1353 or emailing orsymphony@orsymphony.org.

Preview of Third Angle event - Chinese silent film with music by Min Xiao-Fen

 My latest preview is of an interesting silent film from China that was made in the 1930s. Pipa player Min Xiao-Fen and guitarist Rez Abassi will accompany the film as part of a unique Third Angle concert. Here is the link to the Oregonlive posting. It will be in the printed edition today.

Today's Birthdays

Antoine Boësset (1587-1643)
Samuel Wesley (1766-1837)
Johann Baptist Cramer (1771-1858)
Arrigo Boito (1842-1918)
Luigi Denza (1846-1922)
Arnold Dolmetsch (1858-1940)
Michel Legrand (1932)
Renato Scotto (1934)
Jiří Bělohlávek (1946

and

Wilhelm (Carl) Grimm (1786-1859)
Winslow Homer (1836-1910)
George Augustus Moore (1852-1933)
Mary Ellen Chase (1887-1973)
Weldon Kees (1914-1955)
Jane Hirshfield (1953)
Judith Butler (1956)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1955, Carlisle Floyd's opera "Susannah" received its premiere at Florida State University in Tallahassee. According to Opera America, this is one of the most frequently-produced American operas during the past decade.

VSO preview with Orli Shaham in Schumann concerto and Portland Symphonic Choir in Puccini Messa di Gloria

 

My preview of the this weekend's Vancouver Symphony concert with Orli Shaham playing the Schumann Piano Concerto and the Portland Symphonic Choir singing Puccini's Messa di Gloria is now posted online in The Columbian here.  It will be in the printed edition tomorrow morning.

Today's Birthdays

John Blow (1649-1708)
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
Sir Hugh Roberton (1874-1952)
Albert Sammons (1886-1957)
Dave Apollon (1897-1972)
Elinor Remick Warren (1905-1991)
Martindale Sidwell (1916-1998)
Hall Overton (1920-1972)
Régine Crespin (1927-2007)

and

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) - blogger of the 17th Century
W. E B. Du Bois (1868-1963)
Karl Jaspers (1883-1969)
William L. Shirer (1904-1993)
John Camp (1944

Tidbit from the New York Times obit: In the early 1930s, William Shirer and his wife shared a house with the guitarist Andres Segovia.

From The Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1940 that Woody Guthrie wrote the lyrics to “This Land Is Your Land."

The melody is to an old Baptist hymn. Guthrie wrote the song in response to the grandiose “God Bless America,” written by Irving Berlin and sung by Kate Smith. Guthrie didn’t think that the anthem represented his own or many other Americans’ experience with America. So he wrote a folk song as a response to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America,” a song that was often accompanied by an orchestra. At first, Guthrie titled his own song “God Blessed America” — past tense. Later, he changed the title to “This Land Is Your Land,” which is the first line of the song.

Today's Birthdays

Niels Wilhelm Gade (1817-1890)
York Bowen (1884-1961)
Benno Moiseiwitsch (1890-1963)
Joseph Kerman (1924-2014)
George Zukerman (1927-2023)
Steven Lubin (1942)
Lowell Liebermann (1961)
Rolando Villazón (1972)

and

George Washington (1732-1799)
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
Edward Gorey (1925-2000)
Gerald Stern (1925-2022)
Ishmael Reed (1938)
Terry Eagleton (1943)

Today's Birthdays

Carl Czerny (1791-1857)
Leo Delibes (1836-1891)
Charles Marie Widor (1844-1945)
Kenneth Alford (1881-1945)
Andres Segovia (1893-1987)
Nina Simone (1933-2003)
Elena Duran (1949)
Simon Holt (1948)

and

Anaïs Nin (1903-1977)
W. H. Auden (1907-1973)
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996)
Ha Jin (1956)
Chuck Palahniuk (1962)
David Foster Wallace (1962-2008)

Today's Birthdays

Johann Peter Salomon (1749-1815)
Charles‑Auguste de Bériot (1802-187)
Mary Garden (1874-1967)
Vasyl Oleksandrovych Barvinsky (1888-1963
Robert McBride (1911-2007)
Ruth Gipps (1921-1999)
Toshiro Mayuzumi (1929-1997)
Christoph Eschenbach (1940)
Barry Wordsworth (1948)
Cindy McTee (1953)
Riccardo Chailly (1953)
Chris Thile (1981)

and

Russel Crouse (1893-1966)
Louis Kahn (1901-1974)
Ansel Adams (1902-1984)
Robert Altman (1925-2006)
Richard Matheson (1926-2013)

Today's Birthdays

Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805)
Louis Aubert (1877-1968)
Arthur Shepherd (1880-1958)
Grace Williams (1906-1977)
Stan Kenton (1912-1979
Timothy Moore (1922-2003)
George Guest (1924-2002)
György Kurtág (1926)
Michael Kennedy (1926-2014)
Jean-Pierre Ponnelle (1932-1988)
Smokey Robinson (1940)
Penelope Walmsley-Clark (1949)
Darryl Kubian (1966)

and

André Breton (1896-1966)
Carson McCullers (1917-1967)
Amy Tan (1952)
Siri Hustvedt (1955)
Jonathan Lethem (1964)

Today's Birthdays

Giovanni Battista Vitali (1632-1692)
Pietro Giovanni Guarneri (1655-1720)
Gustave Schirmer, Jr. (1864-1907)
Marchel Landowski (1915-1999)
Rolande Falcinelli (1920-2006)
Rita Gorr (1926-2012)
Yoko Ono (1933)
Marek Janowski (1939)
Marlos Nobre (1939)
Donald Crockett (1951)

and

Sholem Aleichem (1859-1916)
Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957)
Wallace Stegner (1909-1993)
Jack Gilbert (1925-2012)
Len Deighton (1929)
Toni Morrison (1931-2019)
George Pelecanos (1957)

Today's Birthdays

Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713)
Henri Vieuxtemps (1820-1881)
Sr. Edward German (1862-1936)
Leevi Madetoja (1887-1947)
Andres Segovia (1893-1987)
Marian Anderson (1893-1993)
Paul Fetler (1920-2018)
Ron Goodwin (1925-2003)
Fredrich Cerha (1926)
Lee Hoiby (1926-2011)
Anner Bylsma (1944)
Karl Jenkins (1944)

and

Isabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904)
Ronald Knox (1888-1957)
Jack Gilbert (1925-2012)
Chaim Potok (1929-2002)
Ruth Rendell (1930-2015)
Mo Yan (1955)

From the New Music Box:

On February 17, 1927, a sold-out audience attends the world premiere of The King's Henchman. an opera with music by composer, music critic and future radio commentator Deems Taylor and libretto by poet Edna St. Villay Millay, at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. The New York Times review by Olin Downes on the front page the next morning hailed it as the "best American opera." The opera closed with a profit of $45,000 and ran for three consecutive seasons. It has not been revived since and has yet to be recorded commercially.

Today's Birthdays

Charles Avison (1709-1770)
Willem Kes (1856-1934)
Selim Palmgren (1878-1951)
Maria Korchinska (1895-1979)
Alec Wilder (1907-1980)
Machito (1908-1984)
Sir Geraint Evans (1922-1992)
Eliahu Inbal (1936)
John Corigliano (1938)
Sigiswald Kuiljken (1944)

and

Nikolai Leskov (1831-1895)
Henry Brooks Adams (1838-1918)
Van Wyck Brooks (1886-1963)
Richard Ford (1944)

Today's Birthdays

Michael Praetorius (1571-1621)
Jean‑François Lesueur (1760-1837)
Friedrich Ernst Fesca (1789-1826)
Heinrich Engelhard Steinway (1797-1871)
Robert Fuchs (1847-1927)
Marcella Sembrich (1858-1935)
Walter Donaldson (1893-1947)
Georges Auric (1899-1983)
Harold Arlen (1905-1986)
Jean Langlais (1907-1991)
Norma Procter (1928-2017)
John Adams (1947)
Christopher Rouse (1949)
Kathryn Harries (1951)
Christian Lindberg (1958)

and

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)
Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947)
Art Spiegelman (1948)
Matt Groening (1954)

Today's Birthdays

Pietro Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676)
Alexander Dargomizhsky (1813-1869)
Ignaz Friedman (1882-1948)
Jack Benny (1894-1974)
Wyn Morris (1929-2010)
Steven Mackey (1956)
Renée Fleming (1959)

and

Frederick Douglass (1814-1895)
Carl Bernstein (1944)

and

On this day in 1895, Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of Being Earnest opened in London. He wrote the first draft in just 21 days, the fastest he’d ever written anything.

Today's Birthdays

Fernando Sor (1778-1839)
Leopold Godowsky (1870-1938)
Feodor Chaliapin (1873-1938)
Tennessee Ernie Ford (1919-1991)
Eileen Farrell (1920-2002)
Yfrah Neaman (1923-2003)
Colin Matthews (1946)
Peter Gabriel (1950)
Raymond Wojcik (1957-2014)
Philippe Jaroussky (1978)

and

William Roughead (1870–1952)
Ricardo Güiraldes (1886-1927)
Grant Wood (1891-1942)
Georges Simenon (1903-1989)
Elaine Pagels (1943

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1914, ASCAP (The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) is formally organized in New York City, with composer Victor Herbert as its first director.

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.

Beethoven Third Piano Concerto with Emanuel Ax and Oregon Symphony receives five stars

The Oregon Symphony celebrated Beethoven with inspired performances of his Third Piano Concerto and his Second Symphony at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall (February 6) . With Immanuel Ax at the keyboard, the concerto received a superb interpretation that glistened and the symphonic work, with music director David Danzmayr on the podium, was equally impressive. The program also featured a scintilatingly brief piece by South Korean composer Unsuk Chin, who chose to honor Beethoven with her music.

Warm applause greeted Ax when he shuffled his way to center stage. This was Ax’s seventh appearance with the orchestra, and his artistry at the Steinway was as fresh as ever. After the long orchestral introduction, he fashioned elegant lines that were also robust and formed a terrific series of exchanges with the orchestra. Ax created soft sections that elided perfectly with his fellow musicians, and whenever he had to play in the lower register during a big forte section he always managed to cut through the orchestral sound. His trills were immaculate and he provided lots of dynamic contrast, including marvelous cadenzas. The last movement sprang ahead – all jaunty and fun – sparkling into the finale.

Tumultuous, sustained applause and cheering followed the conclusion, and after returning to the stage a couple of times, Ax obliged the audience with a heartfelt performance of Schubert’s “Rosamunde.” That caused another round of boisterous round of acclaim. Ax then took the hand of concertmaster Sarah Kwak, and together they walked to the wings – a gracious signal of conclusion if there ever was one.

After intermission, the orchestra, urged on by the incisive and vigorous conducting of Danzmayr, delivered an outstanding performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in D Major. Punchy, little jabs accented passages in the first movement, and I especially enjoyed how the musicians tapered phrases to that that they had the effect of falling away. The silken sound of the violins in the second movement created the sense of being transported to another realm – a wonderful treatment on a Monday evening for anyone who has had a tough day at work. A highlight of the second movement was a quiet passage that featured the perfectly blended sound of principal clarinetist James Shields and principal bassoonist Carin Miller. Their ability to listen to each other pointed out one of the many strong points of the orchestra, and that quality across the entire ensemble made the Beethoven thrilling from beginning to end. The sudden crescendos in the third movement, the strong horn calls and the dramatic pauses in the fourth add to the uplifting feeling of the performance, which was rewarded with a standing ovation.

Unsuk Chin’s “Subito con forza” at the beginning of the concert was a bit of the teaser. Written in 2020, it contained little snippets of Beethoven here and there. I probably missed most of the quotes, but I did hear a bit of the “Coriolan Overture” and another from “Fidelio.” The piece, which lasted only five minutes, conveyed the energy of Beethoven’s spirit in a restless, almost disjointed way that was very original – kind of like Beethoven. It made me wish that Chin could have extended it another five minutes. Well, Beethoven wrote three versions of the “Lenore Overture.” So maybe Chin could add another version of “Subito con forza.”

There are so many albums of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto and Second Symphony available that one doesn’t need another, but I have to say that the Oregon Symphony’s performances on Monday evening were absolutely stellar and worthy of any recording label.

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)
Alberto Lysy (1935-2009)
Christine Cairns (1959)

and

Thomas Edison (1847-1931)
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.

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)
Barbara Kolb (1939)
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.

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)
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.

Weilerstein makes Bach Cello Suites a performance for the ages

Weilerstein called back to the stage a fourth or fifth time

In the three hundred years since J. S. Bach wrote his Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, no other composer has come close to writing solo music for the cello that can rival what the Baroque genius did. That towering accomplishment was put on display by Alisa Weilerstein, one of the great cellists of our time, in a recital presented by Chamber Music Northwest on Saturday, February 3rd, at First Baptist Church. Weilerstein gave an unbelievably incisive and heartfelt performance of all six suites, sweeping the standing-room-only audience off its collective feet.

In his introductory remarks, CMNW’s co-artistic director, Soovin Kim, mentioned that the performance was originally scheduled to take place two years ago. But the pandemic and the birth of Weilerstein’s baby interrupted those plans.

In my preview of this concert, published in The Oregonian, Weilerstein described the Bach suites as a journey through life. “The first suite is childhood. It is very pure, innocent, and optimistic. The second is adolescence – full of angst and darkness – kind of a tortured character and very volatile as well. The third suite evokes ones prime. It is very regal and confident. It has the optimism of a young adult ready to take on the world. The fourth suite is mid-life – more wondering and complex. This is where things take a turn and get more interesting and complicated. The fifth suite is tragic, desolate, devastated, lonely, isolation. The sixth suite is by far the longest – almost twice the length of the first suite – it expresses experience, learned wisdom.”

Her description of the suites was absolutely spot on. But even if you followed the music, which absorbed just over three hours (including a 30-minute intermission), in such an encompassing emotional arc, it was just flat-out incredible to witness Weilerstein’s artistry and technical wizardry plus the fact that she had memorized a hell of a lot of notes.

Each suite had a similar pattern, opening with a prelude, followed by dances – combinations of allemande, courante, sarabande, menuet, bourée, and gavotte – and always ending with a gigue. Bach didn’t give any tempos or dynamics. So each time they are played, you will hear a completely unique performance.

Weilerstein brought out the rich complexity of the music, as if it were a kind of sonic tapestry. I loved the first suite for the way that it alternated between playful and soothing passages. Weilerstein gave it a bright ending, but it wasn’t too bright. A part of the second suite offered long, drawn-out chords that seemed to be questioning, and it an agitated section that was not overwrought. The third suite seemed to probe dark and lighter characters in a direct way, ending with phrases that sounded almost like a folk tune. The fourth suite was highlighted by immaculate runs, lovely trills, and passages that suggested the image of taffy being pulled. A more serious and at times, argumentative flavor marked the fifth suite, and at one point Weilerstein pulled back a line so that it became soft and then deliciously super-soft. The sixth suite travelled all over the place – with sudden dives to the lowest notes and some really gnarly fingerings – the result of which was stunning – as if placing you on a new vista

Throughout the first three suites, Weilerstein used almost no vibrato. For the last three, she gradually introduced a little bit of vibrato but that was it. She created a myriad of sounds from tender to demonstrative, from languid to energetic, from lonely to optimistically exuberant.

At the conculsion, the audience erupted with wild applause and cheers that went on and on. It looked like at least fifty people lined up to get her autograph on the program afterwards.

Weilerstein's superb performance was life-enhancing. If you get to chance to hear her play Bach suites, don’t miss out – you will not regret it.

Today's Birthdays

Jacob Praetorius (1586-1651)
André Grétry (1741-1813)
Osian Ellis (1928-2021)
John Williams (1932)
Elly Ameling (1933)
Gundula Janowitz (1937)
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)
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)
Ivan Tcherepnin (1943-1998)
Josef Protschka (1944)
Phylis Bryn-Julson (1945)

and

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).

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)

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)

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)