Today's Birthdays

Francesco Durante (1684-1755)
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Serge Diaghliev (1872-1929)
Clemens Krauss (1893-1954)
John Mitchinson (1932-2021)
Herb Alpert (1935)
Nelly Miricioiu (1952)
Robert Gambill (1955)
Jake Heggie (1961)

and

René Descartes (1596-1650)
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852)
Octavio Paz (1914-1998)
Cesar Chavez (1927-1993)
Marge Piercy (1936)

Today's Birthdays

Tommaso Traetta (1727-1779)
Ted Heath (1900-1969)
Sandor Szokolay (1931-2013)
John Eaton (1935-2015)
Gordon Mumma (1935)
Eric Clapton (1945)
Maggie Cole (1952)
Margaret Fingerhut (1955)
Sabine Meyer (1959)

and

Francisco Jose de Goya (1746-1828)
Anna Sewell (1820-1878)
Paul Verlaine (1844-1896)
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)
Sean O'Casey (1880-1964)

Today's Birthdays

Henri Lutz (1864-1928)
Rosina Lhévinne (1880-1976)
Sir William Walton (1902-1983)
E Power Biggs (1906-1977)
Sir Richard Rodney Bennett (1936-2012)
Guher Pekinel (1953)
Suher Pekinel (1953)

and

Ronald Stuart Thomas (1913-2000)
Eugene McCarthy (1916-2005)
Judith Guest (1936)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1871, Royal Albert Hall is formally opened in London by Queen Victoria.

Today's Birthdays

Joseph Weigl (1766-1846)
Willem Mengelberg (1871-1951)
Paul Whiteman (1890-1967)
Rudolf Serkin (1903-1991)
Jacob Avshalomov (1919-2013)
Robert Ashley (1930-2014)
Martin Neary (1940)
Samuel Ramey (1942)
Richard Stilgoe (1942)

and

Raphael (1483-1520)
Nelson Algren (1909-1981)
Mario Vargas Llosa (1936)
Russell Banks (1940-2023)
Iris Chang (1968-2004)
Lauren Weisberger (1977)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1842, the Vienna Philharmonic plays its first concert (as the "Vienna Court Orchestra") in the Redoutensaale under the director of composer Otto Nicolai, the director of the Vienna Court Opera. The program included Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, his concert aria "Ah, Perfido," and the "Leonore" No. 3 and "Consercration of the House" Overtures, along with other vocal selections by Mozart and Cherubini.

Today's Birthdays

Vincent d'Indy (1851-1931)
Patty Smith Hill (1868-1946)
Ferde Grofé (1892-1972)
Anne Ziegler (1910-2003)
Sarah Vaughn (1924-1990)
Mstislav Rostropovich (1927-2007)
Paul Ruders (1949)
Maria Ewing (1950)
Bernard Labadie (1963)

and

Henri Murger (1822-1861)
Heinrich Mann (1871-1950)
Edward Steichen (1879-1973)
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969)
Budd Schulberg (1914-2009)
Louis Simpson (1923-2012)
Julia Alvarez (1950)
John O'Farrell (1962)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this date in 1808, Franz Joseph Haydn makes his last public appearance at a performance of his oratorio "The Creation" in Vienna in honor of the composer's approaching 76th birthday. Beethoven and Salieri attend the performance and greet Haydn.

Today's Birthdays

Josef Slavík (1806-1833)
Wilhelm Backhaus (1884-1969)
André Cluytens (1905-1967)
Harry Rabinowitz (1916-2016)
Pierre Boulez (1925-2016)
Kyung Wha Chung (1948)

and

Edward Bellamy (1850-1898)
A. E. Housman (1859-1936)
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Joseph Campbell (1904–1987)
Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)
Gregory Corso (1930-2001)

Today's Birthdays

Johann Adolph Hasse (1699-1783)
Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957)
Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
Haydn Wood (1882-1959)
Magda Olivero (1910-2014)
Julia Perry (1924-1979)
Cecil Taylor (1929-2018)
Sir Elton John (1947)

and

Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)
Gloria Steinem (1934)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1949, Shostakovich (accompanied by KGB "handlers") arrives in New York for his first visit to America, for the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace, held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. His anti-Western statements and criticism of Igor Stravinsky embarrassed his American sponsors, including Aaron Copland, and later provided political fodder for the notorious Red-hunter, Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Today's Birthdays

John Antes (1740-1811)
Maria Malibran (1808-1836)
Fanny Crosby (1820-1915)
Byron Janis (1928-2024)
Christiane Eda-Pierre (1932-2020)
Benjamin Luxon (1937)

and

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990)
Dwight Macdonald (1906-1982)
Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-2021)
Dario Fo (1926-2016)
Ian Hamilton (1938-2001)
Martin Walser (1927-2024)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1721, J.S. Bach dedicates his six "Brandenburg" Concertos to Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg, whose orchestra apparently never performed them.

Review: Chien-Kim-Watkins Trio - Beethoven Mini-Fest - in Oregon ArtsWatch

 My review of the performance by the Chien-Kim+Watkins Trio of Beethoven's nine piano trios has been published in Oregon ArtsWatch here.

Today's Birthdays

Léon Minkus (1826-1917)
Eugène Gigout (1844-1925)
Franz Schreker (1878-1934)
Josef Locke (1917-1999)
Norman Bailey (1933-2021)
Boris Tishchenko (1939-2010)
Michael Nyman (1944)
David Grisman (1945)

and

Roger Martin du Gard (1881-1958)
Louis Adamic (1898-1951)
Erich Fromm (1900-1980)
Kim Stanley Robinson (1952)
Gary Joseph Whitehead (1965)

Today's Birthdays

Carl Rosa (1842-1889)
Hamisch MacCunn (1868-1916)
Joseph Samson (1888-1957)
Martha Mödl (1912-2001)
Fanny Waterman (1920-2020)
Arthur Grumiaux (1921-1986)
Stephen Sondheim (1930-2021)
Joseph Schwantner (1943)
George Benson (1943)
Alan Opie (1945)
Rivka Golani (1946)
Andrew Lloyd Webber (1948
Edmund Barham (1950-2008)

and

Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641)
Louis L'Amour (1908-1988)
Edith Grossman (1936-2023)
James Patterson (1940)
Billy Collins (1941)
James McManus (1951)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1687, Italian-born French composer Jean Baptiste Lully, age 54, in Paris, following an inadvertent self-inflicted injury to his foot (by a staff with which he would beat time for his musicians) which developed gangrene.

Today's Birthdays

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Modeste Moussorgsky (1839-1881)
Eddie James "Son" House (1902-1988)
Nikos Skalkottas (1904-1949)
Paul Tortelier (1914-1990)
Nigel Rogers (1935-2022)
Owain Arwel Hughes (1942)
Elena Firsova (1950)
Ann MacKay (1956)

and

Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978)
Nizar Qabbani (1923-1998)
Ved Mehta (1934-2021)

From the New Music Box:

On March 21, 1771, the Massachusetts Gazette published an announcement for a musical program including "select pieces on the forte piano and guitar." It is the earliest known reference to the piano in America.

Today's Birthdays

Beniamino Gigli (1890-1957)
Lauritz Melchoir (1890-1973)
Sviatoslav Richter (1915-1997)
Dame Vera Lynn (1917-2020)
Bernd Alois Zimmermann (1918-1970)
Marian McPartland (1918-2013)
Henry Mollicone (1946-2022)

and

Ovid (43 BC - AD 17)
Ned Buntline (1823-1886)
Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)
Peter Schjeldahl (1942-2022)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1928, the New York Symphony and the New York Philharmonic Society united to form the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York - now known as simply "The New York Philharmonic."

Today's Birthdays

Francesco Gasparini (1661-1727)
Max Reger (1873-1916)
Elizabeth Maconchy (1907-1994)
Nancy Evans (1915-2000)
Dinu Lipatti (1917-1950)
Robert Muczynski (1929-2010)
Ornette Coleman (1930-2015)
Myung-Wha Chung (1944)
Carolyn Watkinson (1949)
Mathew Rosenblum (1954)

and

Tobias Smollett (1721-1771)
Nikolay Gogol (1809-1852)
Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890)
Philip Roth (1933-2018)

Today's Birthdays

Johann Christoph Vogel (1756-1788)
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)
Paul Le Flem (1881-1984)
Gian Francesco Malipiero (1882-1973)
Willem van Hoogstraten (1884-1965)
John Kirkpatrick (1905-1991)
Nobuko Imai (1943)
James Conlon (1950)
Jan-Hendrik Rootering (1950)
Courtney Pine (1964)

and

Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898)
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
Manly Hall (1901-1990)
George Plimpton (1927-2003)
Christa Wolf (1929-2011)
John Updike (1932-2009)

Today's Birthdays

Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729)
Manuel García II (1805-1906)
Joseph Rheinberger (1839-1901)
Giuseppe Borgatti (1871-1950)
Brian Boydell (1917-2000)
Nat "King" Cole (1917-1965)
John LaMontaine (1920-2013)
Stephen Dodgson (1924-2013)
Betty Allen (1927-2009)
Rudolf Nureyev (1938-1993)
John Lill (1944)
Michael Finnissy (1946)
Patrick Burgan (1960)

and

Edmund Kean (1787-1833)
Frank B. Gilbreth (1911-2001)
Penelope Lively (1933)

Review: Ehnes, Heyward, and the organ shine with the Oregon Symphony

James Ehnes in rehearsal with the Oregon Symphony under Jonathon Heyward

The Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall has benefited a lot from the acoustical upgrade that was done in the fall of 2020 (see my article in The Oregonian), but if there were still some lingering doubts about the improved sound, they were laid to rest when the organ came in at full blast in the final movement of Saint-Saëns’s “Organ Symphony.” WHUMFP! Up until this weekend’s Oregon Symphony concerts, you could hear the organ, but it never had the requisite grandiose power needed to make that piece memorable. This time, at the concert on March 11, the sound was awesome, and that made all the difference. The audience felt it and followed the finale with a roaring standing ovation.

The enthusiasm also recognized guest conductor Jonathon Heyward, who made his debut on the podium with the orchestra. Heyward is the newly appointed Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony and Lincoln Center’s Summer Orchestra. He is also in his fourth year as Chief Conductor of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie. The Oregon Symphony was fortunate to secure Heyward’s services for the concert, which, in addition to the Saint-Saëns, included a terrific Brahms Violin Concerto with Canadian virtoso James Ehnes.

A perennial favorite with Portland audiences, Ehnes conveyed the Brahms marvelously. His immaculate technique made the trickiest passages look effortless, but beyond the technical wizardry, he expressed the bewitching beauty of the slower sections – especially in the long cadenza of the first movement where he threaded the needle with elegant trills. In the brash and rustic third movement, Ehnes produced sounds that delightfully alternated between gliding and skittering, dotted with accented notes.

All in all, it was a masterful performance that generated thunderous applause from all corners of the house. The acclamation brought Ehnes back to center stage several times, and he offered an encore, Eugène Ysaÿe’s Sonata No. 3 ("Ballade"), which he played with such intensity and artistry that it brought down the house again.

Conducting without a baton, Heyward deftly synced up with Ehnes throughout the Saint-Saëns and elicited excellent playing from the orchestra. He eschewed the stick in the Saint-Saëns as well, urging the orchestra with precise gestures that were never overdramatic. The musicians responded with plenty of verve whenever it was required. Douglas Schneider commanded the organ magnificently and the beguiling effect of piano four hands with Sequoia and Chuck Dillard at the keyboard added a crystalline underlayment. The brass choir in the fourth movement helped to amp up the finale, which – with the organ going full tilt – was glorious.

I am guessing that it may be a long time before Heyward returns to the Schnitz, since he is in such high demand, but it should be noted that there is an ongoing connection between Baltimore and Portland. That’s because two former Oregon Symphony musicians are members of the Baltimore Symphony. They are Principal Trombonist Aaron LaVere and Bassist Nina DeCesare

- -

PS. At the concert I sat a couple rows behind Oregon Symphony Creative Chair Gabriel Kahane, his parents, the conductor and pianist Jeffrey Kahane and Martha Kahane. Also in that row was Chamber Music Northwest’s artistic power couple Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim, and super cellist Paul Watkins. Music Director David Danzmayr and his partner, violinist Aromi Park also stopped by. A pretty illustrious group!

Today's Birthdays

Enrico Tamberlik (1820-1889)
Henny Youngman (1906-1998)
Christa Ludwig (1928-2021)
Sir Roger Norrington (1934)
Teresa Berganza (1935-2022)
David Del Tredici (1937-2023)
Claus Peter Flor (1953)

and

James Madison (1751-1836)
Maxim Gorky (1868-1936)
César Vallejo (1892-1938)
Sid Fleischman (1920-2010)
Alice Hoffman (1952)

Deanna Tham advances in La Maestra competition

 According to this posting on Facebook from the La Maestra competition (in Paris). Oregon Symphony Associate Conductor Deanna Tham has made it past the initial round (of 14 candidates) to the semi-finals - seven finalists. Yay!

Today's Birthdays

Charles Dibdin (1745-1814)
Eduard Strauss (1835-1916)
Johan Halvorsen (1864-1935)
Colin McPhee (1900-1964)
Lightnin' Hopkins (1912-1982)
Ben Johnston (1926-2019)
Nicolas Flagello (1928-1994)
Jean Rudolphe Kars (1947)
Isabel Buchanan (1954)
)
and

Richard Ellmann (1918-1987)
Ben Okri (1959)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1985, Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, age 22, makes his operatic debut at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples, singing the lead tenor role in Domenico Morelli's comic opera "L'Amico Francesco."

Today's Birthdays

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)
Johann Gottlieb Goldberg (1727-1756)
Pierre-Louis Couperin (1755-1789)
Johann Strauss Sr. (1804-1849)
Lawrance Collingwood (1887-1982)
Witold Rudziński (1913-2004)
Quincy Jones (1933)
Phillip Joll (1954)

and

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Sylvia Beach (1887-1962)
Max Shulman (1919-1988)
Diane Arbus (1923-1971)

Today's Birthdays

Hugo Wolf (1860-1903)
Alec Rowley (1892-1958)
Irène Joachim (1913-2001)
Jane Rhodes (1929-2011)
Alberto Ponce (1935-2019)
Lionel Friend (1945)
Julia Migenes (1949)
Wolfgang Rihm (1952)
Anthony Powers (1953)
Moses Hogan (1957-2003)
Terence Blanchard (1962)

and

Janet Flanner (1892-1978)
George Seferis (1900-1971)

Preview of Portland Opera's The Snowy Day in The Oregonian

 I've written a preview of this inventive opera production of a beloved children's book. You can read it in Oregonlive here. It will appear in print edition of The Oregonian this Friday.

Today's Birthdays

Thomas Arne (1710-1778)
Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911)
Hans Knappertsbusch (1888-1965)
Ralph Shapey (1921-2002)
Norbert Brainin (1923-2005)
Philip Jones (1928-2000)
Helga Pilarczyk (1935-2011)
Liza Minnelli (1946)
James Taylor (1948)

and

George Berkeley (1685-1753)
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916)
Vaslav Nijinsky (1889-1950)
Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)
Edward Albee (1928-2016)
Virginia Hamilton (1934-2002)
Naomi Shihab Nye (1952)
Carl Hiaasen (1953)
David Eggers (1970)

Today's Birthdays

Carl Ruggles (1876-1971)
Henry Cowell (1897-1965)
Xavier Montsalvage (1912-2002)
Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992)
Sarah Walker (1943)
Tristan Murail (1947)
Bobby McFerrin (1950)
Katia Labèque (1950)

and

Torquato Tasso (1544-1495)
Ezra Jack Keats (1916-1983)
Douglas Adams (1952-2001)

Today's Birthdays

Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749-1838)
Dudley Buck (1839-1909)
Pablo de Sarasate (1844-1908)
Arthur Honnegger (1892-1955)
Dame Eva Turner (1892-1990)
Bix Biederbecke (1903-1931)
Sir Charles Groves (1915-1992)
William Blezard (1921-2003)
Andrew Parrott (1947)
Stephen Oliver (1950-1992)

and

Henry Watson Fowler (1858-1933)
Zelda Fitzgerald (1900-1948)
Heywood Hale Broun (1918-2001)
David Rabe (1940)

World premiere of Phoenix at Seattle's Music of Remembrance - interview with composer Sahba Aminikia and librettist Zara Houshmand

 

Sahba Aminikia and Zara Houshmand

On September 20, 2022, 16-year-old Nika Shakarami joined other Iranian girls and citizens in protesting the death of Mahsa Amini, who died in the custody of the Iranian morality police after appearing in public without the mandated head covering. The teenager’s bravery was the stuff of legends: Nika climbed atop an overturned garbage bin, set her headscarf on fire in full view of hostile police forces, and chanted “death to the dictator” as the flames engulfed it. A few hours later, she went missing – and 10 days later, she was dead.

These deaths sparked worldwide outrage and fueled public protests in Iran for months. Now, Nika’s story has inspired a new musical work, written by the Iranian American creative team of composer Sahba Aminikia and librettist Zara Houshmand. Phoenix, or Qaqnus in Persian, receives its world premiere on March 10, 2024, at Benaroya Hall in Seattle - commissioned and presented by Music of Remembrance. The piece is scored for three female voices, representing three generations of Iranian women who share the challenges that have demanded their courage and the deep cultural history underlying the current uprising.

I was able to interview Sahba and Zara recently. Both are residents of San Franciso. These were separate conversations via Zoom. So, I'll start with Sahba Aminikia.

"I have been in the U.S. for the past 18 years," said Aminikia. "I was persecuted because I belong to the Baháʼí Faith. The Iranian authorities denied my right to education. After living for a few years in the U.S. to pursue my education, I returned to Iran, but was arrested in 2010 and tortured and told not to return. I have been in the U.S. ever since."

"Zara and I had weekly conversations about Phoenix," said Aminikia. "I have a vision of how I wanted the music presented. We are living on a double-edged sword. Some of us come from Iran but others are not from Iran. There is a lack of human rights in Iran. I am a victim of it. But I think that I can find a way in the middle to bring up the topic of human rights."

"Phoenix has a string quintet and three female singers – one alto and two sopranos," continued Aminikia. "They represent three generations of Iranian women that I grew up with: grandmother (alto), mother (soprano), and teenage daughter (soprano). They tell of their expectations of life. The current generation wants to pursue equality. Two generations before, my grandmother’s expectation was different. She did not have the expectation of human rights. The new generation is more radical and wants to see results faster. So the three generations sing about what they have experienced."

"For the concert, we are doing the text in English," added Aminikia. "The music is very harmonic and very melodic, and it is very emotional. It has a lot of ornamentation – as is common in Iranian music It’s a culture where you can improvise on three notes for two hours."

Here is part of my conversation with Zara Houshmand.

My mother is American and my father is Iranian," said Houshmand. "My family moved to Iran for a while."

"The Women’s Movement in Iran and the idea of the phoenix was something Sahba and I have been thinking about," continued Houshmand. "I’ve been working for several years on a family book-length memoir based on the stories of the elder women in my family in Iran. I’ve done a lot of interviews a long time ago."

"I had been on a writer’s retreat in Turkey when the demonstrations for women’s right broke out in Iran," added Houshmand.  "After I returned home I wanted to work on something that was faster, more spontaneous and more collaborative. I had worked with Sahba on several other projects, using my translations of Persian literature, but the Phoenix became the first time that I had done a libretto for music."

"I have done a lot of writing for theater, but for the libretto I had each character tell stores of what happened to them," noted Houshmand. "Their stories are minimalist, but there is an echo of how each generation had to face the same challenges in dealing with the men in their lives."

"In the Iranian folklore the legend of phoenix, it’s a female bird," said Houshmand. "She lays no eggs, but regenerates herself from the fire. So there is a repetition of challenges in life but with something new that comes out of it."

Soprano Vanessa Isiguen, mezzo-soprano Rachel Hauge, and soprano Madeline Ross in rehearsal

Review of Metropolitan Youth Symphony concert published in Oregon ArtsWatch

 

My review of the MYS concert ("Rooted") is now published in OAW.

Review of Portland Youth Philharmonic concert published on Oregon ArtsWatch

My musings about the latest PYP concert has been posted on OAW here.

Today's Birthdays

Josef Mysliveczek (1737-1781)
Archie Camden (1888-1979)
Dame Isobel Baillie (1895-1983)
Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
Thomas Schippers (1930-1977)
Ornette Coleman (1930-2015)
David Matthews (1943)
Kalevi Aho (1949)
Howard Shelley (1950)
Anna Clyne (1980)

and

Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512)
Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962)
Mickey Spillane (1918-2006)
David Pogue (1963)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1831, Italian violin virtuoso Nicolo Paganini makes his Parisian debut a the Opéra. Composers in the audience include Meyerbeer, Cherubini, Halvéy. and Franz Liszt (who transcribes Pagnini's showpiece "La Campanella" for piano). Also in attendance are the many famous novelists and poets, including George Sand, Victor Hugo, Alfred de Mussset and Heinrich Heine.

Today's Birthdays

Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613)
Carl Philip Emanuel Bach (1714-1788)
Avril Coleridge-Taylor (1903-1998)
Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000)
Dick Hyman (1927)
Christian Wolff (1934)
Robert Tear (1939-2011)
Barthold Kuijken (1949)
Simon Halsey (1958)

and

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935)
Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932)
Leslie Fiedler (1917-2003)
Neil Postman (1931-2003)
John McPhee (1933)
Leslie A. Fiedler (1948)
Jeffrey Eugenides (1960)

Today's Birthdays

John Wilbye (1574-1638)
Tomaso Antonio Vitali (1663-1745)
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Heino Eller (1887-1970)
Christopher Seaman (1942)
Uri Segal (1944)
Townes Van Zandt (1944-1997)
Nicholas Kraemer (1945)
Clive Gillinson (1946)
Okko Kamu (1946)
Montserrat Figueras (1948-2011)
Michael Chance (1955)

and

William York Tindall (1903-1981)
William Boyd (1952)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1897, Johannes Brahms attends his last concerts and hears his Symphony No. 4 conducted by Hans Richter.

Today's Birthdays

Oscar Straus (1870-1954)
Julius Rudel (1921-2014)
Sarah Caldwell (1924-2006)
Wes Montgomery (1923-1968)
Ronald Stevenson (1928-2015)
Lorin Maazel (1930-2014)
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa (1944)
Stephen Schwartz (1948)
Marielle Labèque (1952)
Mark Gresham (1956)
Yannick Nézet-Séguin (1975)

and

Michelangelo (1475-1564)
Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
Ring Lardner (1885-1933)
Gabriel García Márquez (1928-2014)
Willie Mays (1931)
Dick Fosbury (1947-2023)

Today's Birthday

Alphonse Hasselmans (1845-1912)
Arthur Foote (1853-1937)
Pauline Donalda (1882-1970)
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)
Anthony Hedges (1931-2019)
Barry Tuckwell (1931-2020)
Sheila Nelson (1936-2020)
Richard Hickox (1948)

and

Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594)
Frank Norris (1870-1902)
Leslie Marmon Silko (1948)

From The Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1750 that the first Shakespearean play was presented in America. Richard III was performed by the actors of Walter Murray and William Kean’s troupe from Philadelphia. Theater was still new in the colonies. And though it was popular in Philadelphia, that city still preferred to pride itself on its scientific and literary achievements, so Murray and Kean set out for New York City.

Through the 1700s, New York’s primary form of entertainment was drinking. By the time Murray and Kean arrived in February of 1750, there were 10,000 city residents and over 150 taverns. Murray and Kean set up shop in a two-story wooden structure on Nassau Street, slightly east of Broadway.

Today's Birthdays

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
Carlos Surinach (1915-1997)
Cecil Aronowitz (1916-1978)
Samuel Adler (1928)
Bernard Haitink (1929-2021)
Aribert Reimann (1936)
Ralph Kirshbaum (1946)
Leanna Primiani (1968)

and

Khaled Hosseini (1965)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1801,the U.S. Marine Band performed for Thomas Jefferson's inaugural. Jefferson, an avid music lover and amateur violinist, gave the Marine Band the title "The President's Own." Since that time, the band has played for every presidential inaugural.

The Score with Edmund Stone in The Oregonian

 

I've got a fun story about The Score and its creator Edmund Stone in Oregonlive this morning. You can access it here. It will run in the print edition of The Oregonian on Friday.

Musica Maestrale presents Songs of the Spanish Renaissance this weekend

 Musica Maestrale presents

Si me llaman a mí:

Songs of the Spanish Renaissance

Camila Parias, soprano

Hideki Yamaya, vihuela

Boston-based soprano Camila Parias and MM artistic director Hideki Yamaya on vihuela perform villancicos, romances, and sonetos of 16th-century Spain by Luys Milan, Luys de Narbaez, Alonso Mudarra, and Miguel de Fuenllana. A native of Colombia, Ms. Parias is a renowned specialist of Renaissance and Baroque repertoire of Spain and Latin America. This will be her Oregon debut.

Friday, March 8, 7:00PM: Astoria

Peace First Lutheran Church: 565 12th St. Astoria

Tickets: https://musicamaestrale.ludus.com/200448506

Advance: $22 general; $12 student
At the door: $25 general; $15 student

Saturday, March 9; 4:00PM: Beaverton

St. Bart’s Episcopal Church: 11265 SW Cabot St. Beaverton

Free admission; suggested donation $20 per adult

Sunday, March 10; 4:00PM: Portland

The 2509: 2509 NE Clackamas St. Portland

Tickets: https://musicamaestrale.ludus.com/200448505

Advance: $22 general; $12 student
At the door: $25 general; $15 student

Today's Birthdays

Eugen d'Albert (1864-1932)
Henry Wood (1869-1944)
Federico Moreno Torroba (1891-1982)
Margaret Bonds (1913-1972)
Frank Wigglesworth (1918-1996)
Doc Watson (1923-2012)
Martin Lovett (1927-2020)
Florence Quivar (1944)
Roberta Alexander (1949)
Katia Labèque (1950)

and

James Merrill (1926-1995)
Ira Glass (1959)

From the Writer's Almanac:

Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata was published on this date in 1802. Its real name is the slightly less evocative “Piano Sonata No. 14 in C Sharp Minor, Opus 27, No. 2,” and its Italian subtitle is translated as “almost a fantasy.” In 1832, five years after Beethoven’s death, a German critic compared the sonata to the effect of moonlight shining on Lake Lucerne, and the interpretation became so popular that, by the end of the century, the piece was universally known as the “Moonlight Sonata.” Beethoven himself had attributed the emotion of the piece to sitting at the bedside of a friend who had suffered an untimely death.

It was on this day in 1875 that the opera Carmen appeared on stage for the first time at the Opéra-Comique in France. When it premiered, the audience was shocked by the characters of Carmen, a gypsy girl, and her lover, Don José. The opera ran for 37 performances even though it came out late in the season, and it came back the next season, too.

Nietzsche heard Carmen 20 different times, and thought of it as a musical masterpiece. Tchaikovsky first heard Carmen in 1880. Bizet died of a heart attack just three months after the opera's debut.

It was on this day in 1931 that "The Star-Spangled Banner" became the official national anthem of the United States.

The lyrics come from a poem written by Francis Scott Key more than a century before, "Defence of Fort McHenry." He'd spent a night toward the end of the War of 1812 hearing the British navy bombard Baltimore, Maryland. The bombardment lasted 25 hours — and in the dawn's early light, Francis Scott Key emerged to see the U.S. flag still waving over Fort McHenry. He jotted the poem "Defence of Fort McHenry" on the back of an envelope. Then he went to his hotel and made another copy, which was printed in the Baltimore American a week later.

The tune for the Star-Spangled Banner comes from an old British drinking song called "To Anacreon in Heaven," which was very popular at men's social clubs in London during the 1700s. Francis Scott Key himself did the pairing of the tune to his poem. It was a big hit.

For the next century, a few different anthems were used at official U.S. ceremonies, including "My Country Tis of Thee" and "Hail Columbia." The U.S. Navy adopted "The Star-Spangled Banner" for its officialdom in 1889, and the presidency did in 1916. But it wasn't until this day in 1931 — just 80 years ago — that Congress passed a resolution and Hoover signed into law the decree that "The Star-Spangled Banner" was the official national anthem of the United States of America.

Today's Birthdays

Hélène de Montgeroult (1764-1836)
Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884)
Tom Burke (1890-1969)
Kurt Weill (1900-1950)
Marc Blitzstein (1905-1965)
John Gardner (1917-2011)
Robert Simpson (1921-1997)
Bernard Rands (1934)
Simon Estes (1938)
Robert Lloyd (1940)
Lou Reed (1942)

and

Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) (1904-1991)
Mikhail S Gorbachev (1931)
Tom Wolfe (1931-2018)
John Irving (1942)

and from the Composers Datebook:

Starting on this day in 1967 and continuing over the next two weeks, Russian cellist Mstsilav Rostropovich performed 26 works for cello and orchestra at 8 concerts with the London Symphony at Carnegie Hall in New York City -- including some world premieres!

Today's Birthdays

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
Dimitri Mitropoulos (1896-1960)
Glenn Miller (1904-1944)
Leo Brouwer (1939)
Moray Welsh (1947)
Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson (1954-2006)
Galina Gorchakova (1962)
Thomas Adès (1971)

and

Oskar Kokoschka (1866-1980)
Ralph Ellison (1913-1994)
Robert Lowell (1917-1977)
Richard Wilbur (1921-2017)