Today's Birthdays

Christian Cannabich (1731-1798)
Julius Rietz (1812-1877)
Benjamin Johnson Lang (1837-1909)
Francesco Tamagno (1850-1905)
Roger Sessions (1896-1985)
Earl "Fatha" Hines (1905-1983)
Johnny Otis (1921-2012)
Nigel Kennedy (1956)
Michel Petrucciani (1962-1999)

and

Charles Portis (1933-2020)

Today's Birthdays

Sir John Goss (1800-1880)
Tito Schipa (1888-1965)
Marlene Dietrich (1904-1992)
Oscar Levant (1906-1972)

and

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
Charles Olson (1910-1970)
Wilfrid Sheed (1930-2011)
Chris Abani (1966)
Sarah Vowell (1969)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1841, Franz Liszt performs at the Singakademie in Berlin. Women swooned and the general audience reacts with such uncontrolled enthusiasm that Heinrich Heine coins the term "Lisztomania" to describe their fanatical devotion to the performer, which soon swept through most of Europe.

Today's Birthdays

Maurice Gendron (1920-1990)
Thea King (1925-2007)
Earle Brown (1926-2002)
Phil Specter (1940-2021)
Wayland Rogers (1941-2020)
Harry Christophers (1953)
Andre-Michel Schub (1953)
Gabriella Smith (1991)

and

Thomas Gray (1716-1771)
Henry Miller (1891-1980)
Jean Toomer (1894-1867)
Juan Felipe Herrera (1948)
David Sedaris (1958)

Today's Birthdays

Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)
Jean‑Joseph de Mondonville (1711-1772)
Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint‑George (1745-1799)
Cosima Wagner (1837-1930)
Lina Cavalieri (1874-1944)
Giuseppe de Luca (1876-1950)
Gladys Swarthout (1900-1969)
Cab Calloway (1907-1994)
Noël Lee (1924-2013)
Noel Redding (1945-2003)
Jon Kimura Parker (1959)
Ian Bostridge (1964)

and

Dorothy Wordsworth (1771-1855)
Clara Barton (1821-1912)
Rod Serling (1924-1975)

Merry Christmas!

Today's Birthdays

Peter Cornelius (1824-1874)
Nikolai Roslavets (1881-1944)
Lucrezia Bori (1887-1960)
Charles Wakefield Cadman (1881-1946)
Sir Vivian Dunn (1908-1995)
Teresa Stich-Randall (1927-2007)
Mauricio Kagel (1931-2008)
Arnold Östman (1939-2023)
Libby Larsen (1950)
Hans-Jürgen von Bose (1953)
Vasyl Slipak (1974-2016)

and

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
Anthony Fauci (1940)
Dana Gioia (1950)

and from The Writer's Almanac

Today is Christmas Eve. One of the best modern Christmas Eve stories is a true one, and it happened in 1914, in the trenches of World War I. The “war to end all wars” was raging, but German and British soldiers had been engaging in unofficial ceasefires since mid-December. The British High Command was alarmed, and warned officers that fraternization across enemy lines might result in a decreased desire to fight. On the German side, Christmas trees were trucked in and candles lit, and on that Christmas Eve in 1914, strains of Stille Nacht — “Silent Night” — reached the ears of British soldiers. They joined in, and both sides raised candles and lanterns up above their parapets. When the song was done, a German soldier called out, “Tomorrow is Christmas; if you don’t fight, we won’t.”

The next day dawned without the sound of gunfire. The Germans sent over some beer, and the Brits sent plum pudding. Enemies met in no man’s land, exchanging handshakes and small gifts. Someone kicked in a soccer ball, and a chaotic match ensued. Details about this legendary football match vary, and no one knows for sure exactly where it took place, but everyone agrees that the Germans won by a score of three to two.

At 8:30 a.m. on December 26, after one last Christmas greeting, hostilities resumed. But the story is still told, in a thousand different versions from up and down the Western Front, more than a century later.

On Christmas Eve in 1906, the first radio program was broadcast. Canadian-born Professor Reginald Aubrey Fessenden sent his signals from the 420-foot radio tower of the National Electric Signaling Company, at Brant Rock on the Massachusetts seacoast. Fessenden opened the program by playing “O Holy Night” on the violin. Later he recited verses from the Gospel of St. Luke, then broadcast a gramophone version of Handel’s “Largo.” His signal was received up to five miles away.

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1920, the last operatic appearance ever of the Italian tenor Enrico Caruso took place in an evening performance of Halevy's "La Juive" (The Jewess) at the old Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Caruso would die in Naples (where he made his operatic debut on March 15, 1895) at the age of 48 on August 2, 1921.

Today's Birthdays

Joseph Boismortier (1689-1755)
Ross Lee Finney (1906-1997)
Claudio Scimone (1934-2018)
Ross Edwards (1943)
Edita Gruberová (1946-2021)
Elise Kermani (1960)
Han-Na Chang (1982)

and

Harriet Monroe (1860-1936)
Norman Maclean (1902–1990)
Robert Bly (1926-2021)
Carol Ann Duffy (1955)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1989, Leonard Bernstein led the first of two public performances of Beethoven's Ninth at the Philharmonie in West Berlin, with an international orchestra assembled to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall. The second performance occurred on December 25 at the Schauspielhaus in East Berlin.

Today's Birthdays

Carl Friedrich Abel (1723-1787)
Giovanni Bottesini (1821-1889)
Teresa Carreño (1853-1917)
Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
Franz Schmidt (1874-1939)
Edgard Varèse(1883-1965)
Joseph Deems Taylor (1885-1966)
Alan Bush (1900-1995)
Andre Kostelanetz (1901-1980)
David Leisner (1953)
Jean Rigby (1954)
Zhou Tian (1981)

and

Jean Racine (1639-1699)
Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982)
Donald Harrington (1935-2009)

Today's Birthdays

Zdeněk Fibich (1850-1900)
André Turp (1925-1991)
Frank Zappa (1940-1993)
Roger Lasher Nortman (1941)
Michael Tilson Thomas (1944)
András Schiff (1953)
Kim Cascone (1955)
Thomas Randle (1958)
Jonathan Cole (1970)

and

Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)
Maud Gonne (1866-1953)
Edward Hoagland (1932)

Today's Birthdays

Henry Hadley (1871-1937)
Vagn Holmboe (1909-1996)
Gordon Getty (1933)
John Harbison (1938)
Roger Woodward (1942)
Mitsuko Uchida (1948)
Hobart Earler (1960)

and

Elizabeth Benedict (1954)
Sandra Cisneros (1954)
Nalo Hopkinson (1960)

Review: Liz Callaway and the Vancouver Symphony warm things up for the holidays

A buoyant crowd filled Skyview Concert Hall to the brim for the Vancouver Symphony’s Holiday Pops concert on December 14th. The standing-room-only event generated plenty of good vibes for an upbeat program that featured Broadway vocalist Liz Callaway. It was a return appearance for Callaway, who made her debut with the orchestra in 2021, and given the reaction of the audience, the second time around was another love-fest with the orchestra’s Music Director Salvador Brotons on the podium.

The program was delightfully sprinkled with tunes from the Big Apple and Hollywood, plus American Christmas numbers, and a few European favorites that required audience participation. In the midst of it all, Callaway, one of the most consummate entertainers on the planet, charmed listeners with her singing and personal tidbits that were topped with nuggets of self-deprecating humor. In her own way, she turned the 1,150-seat venue into an intimate club – albeit with a 65-piece orchestra.

“I like to think of this song as my personal philosophy,” said Callaway before singing her first number, “Cockeyed Optimist” (by Oscar Hammerstein II) from “South Pacific.” She followed that by recalling her start on Broadway, doing numerous auditions and surviving five callbacks before landing a part in Stephen Sonheim’s “Merrily We Role Along,” She delivered her two very brief solos from that show, which closed after two weeks after it opened. She told us about her work with Sondheim and her love for his music, captured in her Grammy-nominated album, “To Steve With Love, and then sang “Send in the Clowns” from his musical, “A Little Night Music.”

We also learned that Callaway plays tennis with Stephen Schwartz, the composer of “Godspell” and “Pippen.” She asked us to imagine her a little green and gave a thrilling rendition of Schwartz’s “Defying Gravity” from “Wicked.” To close out her first set of songs, she dialed back to her five-year stint on Broadway as Grizabella and conveyed a heartfelt “Memory” from Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s “Cats.”

Delving into the holiday treasure chest, Callaway sang “Joy to the World” in an arrangement by William Holford and Lowell Mason that allowed her to slip in a phrase from the rock group Three Dog Night. With a quintet of musicians from the orchestra – guitar, flute, bass, piano, and trap set – Callaway perched herself on a stool and crooned Frank Loesser’s “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve.” Next came “Once Upon a December” and “Journey to the Past” (Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens) from the animated movie “Anastasia.” Callaway’s final number left a warm glow with “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (in an arrangement by Ryan Nowlin, Hugh Martin, and Ralph Blaine).

The orchestra launched the concert with a spirited performance of the Overture to Rossin’s opera “William Tell.” The accelerando and crescendos into the finale got concertgoers hearts pumping, but the Johann Strauss Jr's “Auf der Jagd Polka” (On the Hunt Polka) turned out to be a surprise hit. That’s because everyone got a small paper bag to blow up and pop at when Brotons cued them. Brotons divided the audience into three areas from left to right, and folks really got into the noise-making. The paper-bag smashing was in lieu of a stage gun (watch this ensemble on YouTube use a rifle fired by the conductor), and the participation was totally enthusiastic.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Snow Maiden Suite” ushered in the second half of the concert with enchanting melodies. Brotons relinquished the podium to bass trombonist Douglas Peebles for Leroy Anderson’s beloved “Sleigh Ride.” It would have been conducted by Colleen Duggan, who won the opportunity to lead the orchestra at its annual gala. But she was ill and designated Peebles to take her place, and he did a fine job.

It was noteworthy that Callaway didn’t quickly exit the stage after she concluded her portion of the program. Instead she remarked how she “loved the sound of the orchestra,” and she helped Brotons to lead the clapping portion of Johann Strauss Sr's “Radetsky March” to close out the concert. Her genuine enthusiasm added to the exuberant atmosphere, and that sent everyone home with a smile.

P.S.: Peter Frajola, recently retired from the Oregon Symphony, was the concertmaster for this performance, and seated next to him was another fine violinist, Lily Burton.

Today's Birthdays

Louis‑Nicolas Clérambault (1676-1749) George Frederick Bristow (1825-1898) Fritz Reiner (1885-1963)
Paul Dessau (1894-1979)
Edith Piaf (1915-1963)
Dalton Baldwin (1931-2019)
Phil Ochs (1940-1976)
William Christie (1944)
Marianne Faithfull (1946)
Christopher Robson (1953)
Olaf Bär (1957)
Steven Esserlis (1958)
Rebecca Saunders (1967)

and

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

and from The Writer's Almanac:

It’s the birthday of French chanteuse Édith Piaf (1915). Piaf was born Édith Giovanna Gassion in Belleville, on the outskirts of Paris. Her mother was a café singer and a drug addict, and her father was a street performer who specialized in acrobatics and contortionism. Neither of them particularly cared for Piaf, so she mostly grew up with her grandmother, who ran a brothel. Piaf was looked after by prostitutes and later claimed that she was blind from the ages of three to seven because of keratitis, or malnutrition, though this was never proved.

Her father reclaimed her when she was nine and Piaf began singing with him on street corners until he abandoned her again. She lived in shoddy hotel rooms in the red-light district of Paris and sang in a seedy café called Lulu’s, making friends with pimps, hookers, lowlifes, and gamblers, until she was discovered by an older man named Louis Leplée.

Leplée ran a nightclub off the Champs-Élysées. He renamed Piaf La Môme Piaf, “The Little Sparrow,” dressed her entirely in black, and set her loose on the stage. Piaf was a hit, and recorded two albums in one year, becoming one of the most popular performers in France during World War II.

Édith Piaf died on the French Riviera at the age of 47. More than 40,000 people came to her funeral procession. Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina named a small planet after Piaf; it’s called 3772 Piaf. Her songs have been covered by Madonna, Grace Jones, and even Donna Summer.

Édith Piaf’s last words were, “Every damn thing you do in this life, you have to pay for.”

Listening to music after 70 linked to sharp drop in dementia risk, study finds

Austrialian magagine, Limelight, points to research that supporting music listening as a way for seniors to decrease the chance of getting dementia. Here's a link to the article.

Review of Portland Opera's Everest

 

My review of Everest has been published in Oregon Arts Watch here. I hope that you enjoy reading it.

Today's Birthdays

Charles Wesley (1707-1788)
Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826)
Edward MacDowell (1860-1908)
Fletcher Henderson (1897-1952)
Rita Streich (1920-1987)
William Boughton (1948)
David Liptak (1949)
Christopher Theofanidis (1967)

and

Saki - H. H. Munro (1870-1916)
Paul Klee (1879-1940)
Christopher Fry (1907-2005)
Abe Burrows (1910-1985)

Today's Birthdays

Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Arthur Fiedler (1894-1979)
Ray Noble (1903-1975)
Art Neville (1937-2019)

and

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)
Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939)
William Safire (1929-2009)
John Kennedy Toole (1937-1969)

and from The Writer's Almanac:

It's the day that The Nutcracker ballet was performed for the first time in St. Petersburg, Russia (1892). Czar Alexander III, in the audience, loved the ballet, but the critics hated it. Tchaikovsky wrote that the opera that came before The Nutcracker "was evidently very well liked, the ballet not. ... The papers, as always, reviled me cruelly." Tchaikovsky died of less than a year later, before The Nutcracker became an international success.

Today's Birthdays

François Adrien Boieldieu (1775-1834)
Augusta Holmès (1847-1903)
Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967)
Turk Murphy (1915-1987)
Steve Allen (1921-2000)
Dame Thea King (1925-2007)
Alice Parker (1925-2023)
Kenneth Gilbert (1931-2020)
Rodion Shchedrin (1932-2025)
Philip Langridge (1939-2010)
Trevor Pinnock (1946)
Isabelle van Keulen (1966)

and

Jane Austin (1775-1817)
George Santayana (1863-1952)
Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)
Sir Noel Coward (1899-1973)
Noël Coward (1899-1973)
V. S. Pritchett (1900-1997)

Today's Birthdays

Michel‑Richard Delalande (1657-1726)
Lotte Schöne (1891-1981)
Stan Kenton (1911-1979)
Ida Haendel (1924-2020)
Eddie Palmieri (1936-2025)
Nigel Robson (1948)
Jan Latham-Koenig (1953)

and

Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof (1859-1917)
Maxwell Anderson (1888-1959)
Freeman Dyson (1923-2020)
Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928-2000)
Edna O'Brien (1930-2024)

Today's Birthdays

Maria Agata Szymanowska (1789-1831)
Joseph Jongen (1873-1953)
Georges Thill (1897-1984)
Spike Jones (1911-1965)
Rosalyn Tureck (1914-2003)
Dame Ruth Railton (1915-2001)
Ron Nelson (1929-2023)
Christopher Parkening (1947)
Thomas Albert (1948)
John Rawnsley (1949)

and

Shirley Jackson (1919-1965)
Amy Hempel (1951)

Today's Birthdays

Anna Milder-Hauptman (1785-1838)
Alexis de Castillon (1838-1873)
Josef Lhévinne (1874-1944)
Eleanor Robson Belmont (1879-1979)
Samuel Dushkin (1891-1976)
Victor Babin (1908-1972)
Alvin Curran (1938)

and

Mary Todd Lincoln (1818-1882)
Kenneth Patchen (1911-1972)
James Wright (1927-1980)
Lester Bangs (1948-1982)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1836, at a musical soiree at Chopin's apartments in Paris, the female writer "George" Sand, determined to make a good impression with her host, arrives wearing white pantaloons and a scarlet sash (the colors of the Polish flag). Paris Opéra tenor Adolphe Nourit sings some Schubert songs, accompanied by Franz Liszt. Liszt and Chopin play Moschele's Sonata in Eb for piano four-hands.

Today's Birthdays

Andrey Schulz‑Evler (1852-1905)
Kurt Atterberg (1887-1974)
Frank Sinatra (1915-1998)
Philip Ledger (1937-2012)
Margaret Tan (1945)
Donald Maxwell (1948)
Jaap van Zweden (1960)
Julie Ann Giroux (1961)
David Horne (1970)
Evren Genis (1978)

and

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)
Edvard Munch (1863-1944)
John Osborne (1929-1994)

Today's Birthdays

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
Joseph Jongen (1873-1953)
Mieczyslaw Karlowicz (1876-1909)
Leo Ornstein (1893-2002)
Elliott Carter (1908-2012)
David Ashley White (1944)
Neil Mackie (1946)

and

Grace Paley (1922-2007)
Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006)
Grace Paley (1922-2007)
Jim Harrison (1937-2016)
Thomas McGuane (1939)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1918, Russian-born conductor Nikolai Sokoloff leads the first concert of the Cleveland Orchestra at Gray's Armory, presented as a benefit for St. Ann's Church. His program included Victor Herbert's "American Fantasy," Bizet's "Carmen" Suite, two movements of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4, Liadov's "Enchanted Lake," and Liszt's "Les Préludes".

Liz Callaway returns for holiday fun with the VSO in its annual Holiday Concert

This weekend (December 13 and 14) at Skyview Concert Hall, Liz Callaway will add glitz to the VSO’s Holiday Concert, singing seasonal selections and tunes from her Broadway and film career. It’s a return appearance for the Grammy-nominated vocalist, who helped the orchestra back in December of 2021 to usher out the COVID blues and reinvigorate Skyview Concert Hall, which had been closed for a year because of the pandemic.

Callaway has been featured in Broadway shows like “Merrily We Roll Along,” “Cats,” “Miss Saigon,” “The Three Musketeers,” “The Look of Love,” and “Baby” for which she received a Tony Award nomination. Her animated film credits include “Anastasia,” “Aladdin,” “King of Thieves,” “The Return of Jafar,” “The Swan Princess,” “Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride,” and “Beauty and the Beast,” She can be heard as Speaker of God on season two of Amazon’s “Hazbin Hotel” series.

Since her performance with the VSO, Callaway has maintained a busy schedule.

“I’ve been touring all over the place, doing lots of concerts,” she said during a phone call. “My last album, a tribute to Stephen Sondheim album was nominated in 2023 for a Grammy award – for Best Traditional Pop Vocal category. I was in the same category as Bruce Springsteen. Neither of us won. But it was a huge, big deal, and now I have the Grammy nomination framed on the wall at home.”

Not one to rest on her laurels, Callaway is working on a new album.

“I am working on an album of Stephen Schwartz songs,” she said. “He co-wrote the music for ‘Wicked.’ But that recording won’t be released until February or March. But in the meantime, I will sing ‘Defying Gravity’ from ‘Wicked’ with the VSO. That’s on the first half of concert, which will feature a medley of Broadway tunes. The second half will be more holiday oriented.”

In addition to the “Wicked” number concertgoers will hear Callaway sing Oscar Hammerstein’s “Cockeyed Optimist” from “South Pacific,” Sondheim’s “Broadway Baby” from “Follies,” a medley of tunes from “Merrily We Roll Along,” and “Send in the Clowns” from “A Little Night Music.” She will close her first part of the program with Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s “Memory” from “Cats.”

For the second half, Calaway will do an arrangement of “Joy to the World,” plus Frank Loesser’s “What Are You Doing New Year's Eve.” She will also sing “Once Upon a December” and “Journey to the Past” from “Anastasia,” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

“I love the songs,” she said, “And I like to talk to the audience and tell stories. So, I’ve put a lot of thought into the selections. like to talk to the audience and tell stories. I have a lot of fans who know me from the animated movie ‘Anastasia.’ So I will be singing my two big songs from that film in the show. I can’t wait to sing with the VSO and maestro Brotons. It’s a fantastic orchestra and people are ready to celebrate the holidays with live music.

Callaway’s fans can also catch her on her Substack newsletter, “Between Flights,” which she fills with songs, recipes, and her schedule. She and her sister Ann Hampton Callaway will perform at 54 Below – a night club in New York City – from January 14 - 17, and some of the shows are livestreamed.

Of course, the VSO concert will also feature several purely orchestral pieces. They are Rossini’s “William Tell Overture,” Johann Strauss Jr’s “Hunting Polka,” Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Snow Maiden Suite,” and Leroy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride,” and Johan Strauss Sr’s “Radetzky March.”

Callaway’s discography contains 46 recordings, and she will be signing CDs at the concert. Already, according to the VSO website, Sunday’s show is sold out and there are only a few tickets left for Sunday’s event. Fortunately, there is a livestream option that can accommodate more listeners.

Today's Birthdays

César Franck (1822-1890)
Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)
Morton Gould (1913-1996)
Sesto Bruscantini (1919-2003)
Nicholas Kynaston (1941-2025)
Julianne Baird (1952)
Kathryn Stott (1958)
Sarah Chang (1980)

and

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Melvil Dewey (1851-1931)
Adolf Loos (1870-1933)

Fred Child to take over the reins at All Classical Radio

 

credit: courtesy of All Classical Radio

From the Press Release:

All Classical Radio today announced that award-winning broadcaster and arts advocate Fred Child will become its next President and CEO, beginning January 2, 2026. Child, who will relocate to Oregon from New York City for the position, is particularly admired for his 25-year run as host of the nationally syndicated classical music radio program Performance Today, heard on hundreds of public radio stations nationwide. His appointment marks the next chapter in All Classical Radio’s ongoing evolution as a global media network amplifying classical music, arts, and culture.

“Fred has been a leader in connecting music-makers with music-lovers, and advancing access to the arts with a passion and approach that is absolutely infectious. He brings an ambitious strategic vision for our arts network, guided by a deep understanding of and appreciation for public media. We are proud to welcome him to All Classical Radio,” says All Classical Radio Board Chair Elaine Durst.

All Classical Radio is a nationally recognized arts and culture network. The public radio station boasts a local reach of nearly 250,000 regular listeners through broadcast radio and 400,000 monthly visitors through its website, representing listeners across the United States and in over 100 countries worldwide. With its International Children’s Arts Network (ICANradio.org), All Classical’s second station designed for youth, families, and educators, the network offers 48 hours of enriching curated content daily.

“It is a joy to return to my hometown of Portland and an honor to join this beloved institution,” says Child. “All Classical Radio delivers essential culture as a free global resource, and does so with a team of uniquely talented personalities. Their creativity inspires me to envision what we can do together through our shared experience of great music, outstanding performances, and engaging storytelling.”

In addition to hosting Performance Today, Child served as the Emmy-winning announcer for PBS’s Live From Lincoln Center, as well as the host of NPR’s Creators @ Carnegie. Before joining American Public Media, Child was Music Director and Director of Cultural Programming at WNYC in New York, host of a live daily performance and interview program on WNYC, and, for a decade, a host at Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Child has also anchored numerous major live concert broadcasts, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s first concerts from Walt Disney Concert Hall, the New York Philharmonic’s world premiere of John Adams’s On the Transmigration of Souls, the Last Night of the Proms from Royal Albert Hall in London, New Year’s concerts by the New York Philharmonic, and Seiji Ozawa’s final concert with the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood.

Child grew up in Portland, Oregon, where he studied classical piano and jazz. He also dabbles in guitar, percussion, and bagpipes. He is currently an avid student of South Indian music and dance. His wife is composer Wang Jie.

Child’s appointment comes at a time of transition for the organization. Last December, All Classical Radio officially welcomed the public into its new broadcasting and office headquarters, home to five state-of-the-art production studios, the Irving Levin Performance Hall, and the James DePreist Recording Studio. In July, Congress’s budget rescission package eliminated $500,000 in critical annual support previously approved for All Classical Radio. The network has been heartened by the community support in closing the resulting revenue gap and continues to evaluate how it can best position itself in this new funding landscape. 

All Classical Radio partnered with URL Media to conduct this search. Child succeeds Suzanne Nance, who announced her departure earlier this year after 10 years with All Classical Radio. Since July, Greg Arntson has served as the media network’s Interim Chief Executive Officer. 

Today's Birthdays

Emile Waldteufel (1837-1915)
Joaquin Turina (1882-1949)
Conchita Supervia (1895-1936)
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (1915-2006)
Dennis Eberhard (1943-2005)
Donny Osmond (1957)
Joshua Bell (1967)

and

John Milton (1608-1674)
Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908)
Léonie Adams (1899-1988)
Ödön von Horváth (1901-1938)

From the Writer's Almanac:

Milton coined more than 600 words, including the adjectives dreary, flowery, jubilant, satanic, saintly, terrific, ethereal, sublime, impassive, unprincipled, dismissive, and feverish; as well as the nouns fragrance, adventurer, anarchy, and many more.

Today's Birthdays

Claude Balbastre (1724-1799)
Frantisek Xaver Dussek (1731-1799)
Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)
Manuel Ponce (1882-1948)
Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959)
Gérard Souzay (1918-2004)
Moisei Vainberg (1919-1996)
James Galway (1939)

and

Horace (65-8 B.C.)
Diego Rivera (1886-1957)
James Thurber (1894-1961)
James Tate (1948-2015)
Mary Gordon (1949
Bill Bryson (1951)

Today's Birthdays

Bernardo Pasquini (1637-1710)
Hermann Goetz (1840-1876)
Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945)
Ernst Toch (1887-1964)
Rudolf Friml (1879-1972)
Richard Franko Goldman (1910-1980)
Daniel Jones (1912-1993)
Helen Watts (1927-2009)
Harry Chapin (1942-1981)
Daniel Chorzempa (1944-2023)
Tom Waits (1949)
Kathleen Kuhlmann (1950)
Krystian Zimerman (1956)

and

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680)
Willa Cather (1873-1947)
Joyce Cary (1888-1957)
Noam Chomsky (1928)
Susan Isaacs (1943)

Today's Birthdays

Orazio Vecchi (1550-1605)
Johann Christoph Bach (1642-1703)
Ira Gershwin (1896-1983)
Dave Brubeck (1920-2012)
Nikolaus Harnoncourt (1929-2016)
Henryk Górecki (1933-2010)
Tomas Svoboda (1939-2022)
John Nelson (1941)
Daniel Adni (1951)
Bright Sheng (1955)
Matthew Taylor (1964)

and

Baldassare Castiglione (1478-1529)
The Encyclopedia Brittanica (1768)
Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898-1995)

Today's Birthdays

Francesco Geminiani (1687-1762)
Vitezslav Novák (1870-1949)
"Little" Richard Wayne Penniman (1935-2020)
José Carreras (1946)
Krystian Zimerman (1956)
Osvaldo Golijov (1960)

and

Christina (Georgina) Rossetti (1830-1894)
Joan Didion (1934-2021)
Calvin Trillin (1935)
John Berendt (1939)
Lydia Millet (1968)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1704, George Frideric Handel (age 19) refuses to turn over the harpsichord to Johann Mattheson (age 23) during a performance of Mattheson's opera "Cleopatra," leading to a sword duel between the two. It is said that during the swordplay, Handel was saved by a button on his coat that deflected Mattheson's mortally-directed blade. The two reconciled on December 30 that year, dining together and attending a rehearsal of Handel's opera "Almira," becoming, as Mattheson put it: "better friends than ever."

Reviews in Opera magazine

My review of OrpheusPDX's production of Il sogno di Scipione (Dream of Scipione) appeared in the December issue of Opera. In the September issue, the magazine published my review of Portland Opera's production of Falstaff. The June issue contained my review of The Shining, which Portland Opera presented in March. Opera is based in London and is considered the leading opera-reviewing publication in English.

Today's Birthdays

André Campra (1660-1744)
Michel Pignolet de Montéclair (1667-1737)
Sir Hamilton Harty (1879-1949)
Alex North (1910-1991)
Yvonne Minton (1938)
Lillian Watson (1947)
Andrew Penny (1952)

and

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1891)
Samuel Butler (1835-1902)
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
Cornell Woolrich (1903-1968)

Profile of Lajos Balogh in Oregon Arts Watch

I really enjoyed interviewing Lajos Balogh at his home. You can read my profile of him in Oregon Arts Watch here.

Today's Birthdays

Nicolo Amati (1596-1684)
André Campra (1660-1744)
Antonio Soler (1729-1783)
Émile Waldteufel (1837-1915)
Anton Webern (1883-1945)
Halsey Stevens (1908-1989)
Ivan Sollertinsky (1902-1944)
Machito - Fransico Grillo (1909-1984)
Nino Rota (1911-1979)
Irving Fine (1914-1962)
Charles Craig (1919-1997)
Paul Turok (1929-2012)
José Serebrier (1938)
Matt Haimovitz (1970)

and

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)
Anna Freud (1895-1982)
Zlata Filipović (1980)

Today's Birthdays

Harry T. Burleigh (1866-1949)
Rudolf Friml (1879-1972)
Harriet Cohen (1895-1967)
Sir John Barbirolli (1899-1970)
Robert Moevs (1920-2007)
Maria Callas (1923-1977)
Jörg Demus (1928-2019)
Galina Grigorjeva (1962)

and

Georges-Pierre Seurat (1859-1891)
T. Coraghessan Boyle (1948)
George Saunders (1958)
Ann Patchertt (1963)

And from the Composers Datebook: On this day in 1717, J.S. Bach is allowed to leave the Duke’s Court at Weimar. He had been imprisoned since Nov. 6th by his former employer Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Weimar for accepting a new post at Prince Leopold’s court at Cöthen without first asking permission.

Today's Birthdays

François‑Xavier Richter (1709-1789)
Ernest (Louis-Etienne-Ernest) Reyer (1832-1909)
Agathe Grøndahl (1847-1907)
Lou Rawls (1933-2006)
Gordon Crosse (1937-2021
Bette Midler (1945)
Rudolf Buchbinder (1946)
Leontina Vaduva (1960)