Today's Birthdays

Henri Tomasi (1901-1971)
George Melly (1926)
Edward Cowie (1943)
Jean-Bernard Pommier (1944)
Heiner Goebbels (1952)
Artur Pizarro (1968)

and

Ted Hughes (1930-1998)
V. S. Naipaul (1932)
Jonathan Franzen (1959)

Today's Papers

Heinrich Marschner (1795-1861)
Gabriel Pierné (1863-1937)
Jacinto Guerrero (1895-1951)
Ralph Downes (1904-1993)
Bill Evans (1929-1980)
Sarah Brightman (1959)
Franz Welser-Möst (1960)

and

William Maxwell (1908-2000)
Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)

Movement to reinstate Katy Wagner-West as Grant High School Choir Director

Please sign up on Facebook to help reinstated Katy Wagner-West as Grant High School Choir Director. She has been abruptly laid off from her work due to budget cuts. Because of her strong commitment to Grant High School and especially because of her work with the Grant High School Royal Blues, there's got to be a way to get Katy Wagner-West reinstated. You can start with the Facebook page here:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=105883026135238

Today's Birthdays

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912)
Albert Spalding (1888-1953)
Jaques Ibert (1890-1952)
Leon Theremin (1896-1993)
Lukas Foss (1922-2009)
Aldo Ciccolini (1925)
Oscar Peterson (1925)
Rita Hunter (1933-2001)
Anne Marie Owens (1955)
James O'Donnell (1961)

The Woodstock music festival began on this day in 1969.

and

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)
Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859)
T. E. Lawrence (1888-1935)
Julia Child (1912-2004)
Benedict Kiely (1919-2007)

Today's Birthdays

Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876)
Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1892-1988)
Pierre Schaeffer (1910-1955)
Jan Koetsier (1911-2006)
Ferruccio Tagliavini (1913-1995)
Georges Prêtre (1924)
Yuri Kholopov (1932-2003)
Cecilia Gasdia (1960)
Beta Moon (1969)

and

John Galsworthy (1867-1933)

Today's Birthdays

Sir George Grove (1820-1900)
John Ireland (1879-1962)
Luis Mariano (1914-1970)
George Shearing (1919)
Louis Frémaux (1921)
Don Ho (1930-2007)
Sheila Armstrong (1942)
Kathleen Battle (1948)
Gregory Vajda (1973)

and

Nikolaus Lenau (1802-1850)

Today's Birthdays

Giovanni Legrenzi (1626-1690)
Heinrich Biber (1644-1704)
Porter Wagoner (1927-2007)
Buck Owens (1929-2006)
Huguette Tourangeau (1940)
David Munrow (1942-1976)
Pat Metheny (1954)
Stuart MacRae (1976)

and

Robert Southey (1773-1843)
Edith Hamilton (1867–1963)
Donald Justice (1925-2004)
William Goldman (1931)
Anthony Swofford (1970)

Today's Birthdays

J. Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954)
Ginette Neveu (1919-1949)
Raymond Leppard (1927)
Alun Hoddinott (1929-2008)
Tamás Vásáry (1933)

Today's Birthdays

Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936)
Douglas Moore (1893-1969)
Leo Fender (1909-1991)
Marie-Claire Alain (1926)
Edwin Carr (1926-2003)
John Aldis (1929)
Alexander Goehr (1932)
Giya Kancheli (1935)
Bobby Hatfield (1940-2003)
Dmitri Alexeev (1947)
Eliot Fisk (1958)

and

Mark Doty (1953)

Lutes on stage

This past weekend Angela Meade and André Flynn appeared on stage as soloists in Portland Summerfest's production of "Il Trovatore." Meade and Flynn happen to be graduates of Pacific Lutheran University. Go Lutes!

Today's Birthdays

Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947)
Solomon Cutner (1902-1988)

and

Izaak Walton (1593-1683)
John Dryden (1631-1700)
Philip Larkin (1922-1985)

Today's Birthdays

Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944)
Adolf Busch (1891-1952)
André Jolivet (1905-1974)
Benny Carter (1907-2003)
Josef Suk (1929)
Jacques Hétu (1938)

and

Elizabeth Tallent (1954)

Today's Birthdays

Henry Litolff (1818-1891)
Sir Granville Bantock (1868-1946)
Karel Husa (1921)
Felice Bryant (1925-2003)
Rahsaan Roland Kirk (1936-1977)
Garrison Keillor (1942)
Ian Hobson (1952)
Christian Altenburger (1957)

Rep Singers founder and conductor to retire

David Stabler has published a fine aritcle about Gil Seeley in the Oregonian. This next season will be Seeley's last at the helm of the Oregon Repertory Singers. In case you missed reading the article, it is posted here.

Today's Birthdays

Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677)
Mary Carr Moore (1873-1957)
Karl Ulrich Schnabel (1909-2001)
Udo Reinemann (1942)

and

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

Jennifer Choi back in Portland as concertmaster of South Pacific orchestra

Many locals may still remember one of Portland's finest violinists, Jennifer Choi. She's back in town during the national tour of South Pacific as the concertmaster of the pit orchestra. Besides the fine playing of Choi and the ensemble, you should catch one of the remaining shows if you can. It's just terrific. There's not a weak spot anywhere to be found.

Today's Birthdays

Leonardo Leo (1694-1744)
Ambroise Thomas (1811-1896)
Hans Gál (1890-1987)
Erich Kleiber (1890-1956)
Stoika Milanova (1945)
Mark O'Connor (1961)

and

Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893)
Conrad Aiken (1889-1973)
Wendell Berry (1934)

Today's Birthdays

Henry Berger (1844-1929)
Albert W. Ketèlbey (1875-1959)
Louie "Satchmo" Armstrong (1901-1971)
William Schuman (1910-1992)
Arthur Butterworth (1923)
Jess Thomas (1927-1993)
David Bedford (1937)
Simon Preston (1938)
Deborah Voigt (1960)
Olga Neuwirth (1968)

and

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
Raoul Wallenberg (1912-1947?)

Today's Birthdays

Louis Gruenberg (1884-1964)
Antonio Lauro (1917-1986)
Tony Bennett (1926)
James Tyler (1940)
Simon Keenlyside (1959)

and

Ernie Pyle (1900-1944)
P. D. James (1920)
Hayden Carruth (1921-2008)
Diane Wakoski (1937)

Today's Birthdays

Sir Arthur Bliss (1891-1975)
Karl Amadeus Hartmann (1905-1963)
Marvin David Levy (1932)
Anthony Payne (1936)
Gundula Janowitz (1937)
Richard Einhorn (1952)
Angel Lam (1978)

and

Irving Babbitt (1865-1933)
Isabel Allende (1942)

Today's Birthdays

Francis Scott Key (1779-1843)
Morris Stoloff (1898-1980)
William Steinberg (1899-1978)
Lionel Bart (1930-1999)
Ramblin' Jack Elliott (1931)
Jordi Savall (1941)
André Gagnon (1942)
Jerry Garcia (1942-1995)

and

Herman Melville (1819-1891)
Ernst Jandl (1925-2000)
Madison Smartt Bell (1957)

Today's Birthdays

Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739)
Robert Planquette (1848-1903)
Norman Del Mar (1919-1994)
Steuart Bedford (1939)
Reinhard Goebel (1952)
Randall Davidson (1953)

and

Primo Levi (1919-1987)
J. K. Rowling (1965)

Today's Birthday

Gerald Moore (1899-1987)
Meredith Davies (1922)
Moshe Atzmon (1931)
Paul Anka (1941)
Teresa Cahill (1944)
Alexina Louie (1949)
Christopher Warren-Green (1955)

and

Emily Brontë (1818 - 1848)
Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929)
Henry Moore (1898-1986)
William Gass (1924)

Today's Birthdays

Sigmund Romberg (1887-1951)
Charles Farncombe (1919-2006)
Avet Terterian (1929-1994)
Mikis Theodorakis (1925)
Peter Schreier (1935)
Bernd Weikl (1942)
Olga Borodina (1963)

and

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)
Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006)
Paul Taylor (1930)
T.J. Stiles (1964)

Portland Viol Consort, others to present free concert Thursday July 29th in Forest Grove

In conjunction with the Viola da Gamba Society of America's annual conclave, which is being held this year at Pacific University in Forest Grove, a free concert will take place tonight, July 29th, at the Taylor Meade Performance Arts Center in McCready Hall at 730 pm. In addition to the Portland Viol Consort, performing a set entitled "The Humors of Mr. Dowland" (featuring his Lachrimaes), Parthenia and Friends and Hallifax and Jeffery will also perform.

Information, including maps and driving directions, can be found at the VdGSA's website here.

Today's Birthdays

Rudy Vallée (1901-1986)
Frank Loesser (1910-1969)
Kenneth Alwyn (1925)
Riccardo Muti (1941)

and

Ludwig A Feuerbach (1804-1872)
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
Beatrix Potter (1866-1843)
Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
Malcolm Lowry (1909-1957)
John Ashbery (1927)

Today's Birthdays

Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829)
Enrique Granados (1867-1916)
Ernő Dohnanyi (1877-1960)
Igor Markevitch (1912-1983)
Mario del Monaco (1915-1982)
Leonard Rose (1918-1984)
Carol Vaness (1952)

and

Joseph Mitchell (1908-1996)
Elizabeth Hardwick (1916-2007)

dramma per musica resurrected

Bob Kingston's opera blog, dramma per musica, is up and running again. It will be great to read his observations once more. Huzzah!

Today's Birthdays

Serge Koussevitsky (1874-1951)
Georges Favre (1905-1993)
Tadeusz Baird (1928-1981)
Alexis Weissenberg (1929)
Anthony Gilbert (1934)
Roger Smalley (1943)
Angela Hewitt (1958)
Mick Jagger (1943)

and

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
Carl Jung (1875-1961)
Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973)
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)

Today's Birthdays

Alfredo Casella (1883-1946)
Maureen Forrester (1930)

and

Elias Canetti (1905-1994)

Today's Birthdays

Adolphe Charles Adam (1803-1856)
Ernest Bloch (1880-1959)
Robert Farnon (1917-2005)
Ruggiero Ricci (1918)
Guiseppe de Stefano (1921-2008)
Wilfred Josephs (1927-1997)
Peter Serkin (1947)
Philippe Hurel (1955)

and

Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870)
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?)
Robert Graves (1895-1985)
Frank Wedekind (1864-1918)

Today's Birthdays

Franz Berwald (1796-1868)
Johann Vesque von Püttlingen (1803-1883)
Edouard Colonne (1838-1910)
Francesco Cilea (1866-1950)
Leon Fleisher (1928)
Bernard Roberts (1933)
Maria João Pires (1944)
Susan Graham (1960)

and

Raymond Chandler (1888-1959)
Vikram Chandra (1961)

and from the Writer's Almanac:
It was on this day in 1829 that William Burt received a patent for the "typographer." It was a typewriter that looked more like a record player. It had a swinging arm that picked up ink and then printed a letter, and then the paper was manually adjusted to make space for the next letter.

Today's Birthdays

Hans Rosbaud (1895-1962)
Licia Albanese (1913)
George Dreyfus (1928)
Ann Howard (1936)
Nigel Hess (1953)
Eve Beglarian (1958)

and

Edward Hopper (1882-1967)
Raymond Chandler (1888-1959)
Alexander Calder (1898-1976)
Tom Robbins (1936)

Today's Birthdays

Anton Kuerti (1938)
Isaac Stern (1920-2001)
Cat Stevens (1948)
Margaret Ahrens (1950)

and

Hart Crane (1899-1932)
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
Tess Gallagher (1943)
Garry Trudeau (1948)

The Grove Dictionary of American Music

I'll be contributing three articles to the The Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2nd Edition. This new edition will serve as a comprehensive update to the original 1986 edition (eds. H. Wiley Hitchcock and Stanley Sadie). The second edition will be published as part of Grove Music Online and as an eight-volume print publication. I'll contribute articles on Helmuth Rilling, the Oregon Bach Festival, and Arvo Pärt. The pay for these articles is not sumptuous, but it will be fun to be published by the Oxford University Press.

I was contacted about the possibility of writing for The Grove Dictionary of American Music because of my membership with the Music Critics Association of North America. Some critics eschew membership in this organization, but it has been very beneficial to my writing.

Today's Birthdays

Gaston Carraud (1864-1920)
Déodat de Séverac (1872-1921)
Vilém Tauský (1910-2004)
Michael Gielen (1927)
Nam June Paik (1932)
Hukwe Zawose (1938-2003)
Carlos Santana (1947)
Bob Priest (1951)

and

Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374)
Pavel Kohout (1928)
Cormac McCarthy (1933)

Today's Birthdays

Boyd Neel (1905-1981)
Louis Kentner (1905-1987)
Robert Mann (1920)
Gerd Albrecht (1935-2014)
Nicholas Danby (1935-1937)
Dominic Muldowney (1952)
David Robertson (1958)
Carlo Rizzi (1960)
Mark Wigglesworth (1964)
Evelyn Glennie (1965)
Russell Braun (1965)

and

Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930)

Today's Birthdays

Giovanni Bononcini (1670-1747)
Pauline Viardot (1821-1910)
Julius Fučík (1872-1916)
Kurt Masur (1927)
Screamin' Jay Hawkins (1929-2000)
R. Murray Schafer (1933)
Ricky Skaggs (1954)
Tobias Picker (1954)

and

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863)
Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979)
Harry Levin (1912-1994)
Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933)
Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005)
Elizabeth Gilbert (1969)

Today's Birthdays

Isaac Watts (1674-1748)
Sir Donald F. Tovey (1875-1940)
Eleanor Steber (1914-1990)
Vince Guaraldi (1928-1976)
Peter Schickele (1935)
Michael Roll (1946)
Dauwn Upshaw (1960)

and

Theodore Presser Co. tribute to Peter Schickele:

www.youtube.com/theodorepresser#p/a/u/1/qskPkyxO3AA

Galen Huckins and Filmusik collaborators to present the animation classic 'Gulliver's Travels' at the Hollywood Theatre

Regular readers of this blog will know that I'm a huge fan of Huckins' work with his ingenious Filmusik project. I can't recommend it highly enough for music, film, and theater nuts, or anyone who just wants to have a great time seeing something really original. This should be a brilliant bit of fun, with or without the kids along. I will be reviewing this show on Friday July 23rd.

Following is a press release from Filmusik:

This summer Filmusik is turning a local movie theatre into a Hollywood Soundstage. A team of 30 Portland professionals from the field of movie soundtracks create the sound for a classic animation live in the pit. As the movie plays on the big screen, 4 cartoon actors give voice to the on-screen characters, sound effects artists create the noises from over a hundred foley props and the Filmusik Chamber ensemble performs the music from the film including many musical numbers and several sing-a-longs. For cartoon buffs, family, new music lovers and anyone who's ever wanted to know how they make that funny noise when Daffy Duck falls over. Filmusik: Gulliver's Travels is a new way to experience movies and sound. Incidentally, it's also the only place in town where you can sing along to a bouncing ball with a live orchestra and chorus backing you up!

Hollywood Theatre
July 16th, 21st, 23rd at 7pm
July 18th at 2pm
TICKETS $12/$10 Children, Students & Seniors

Tickets and more information available at www.filmusik.com
Also at the Hollywood Theatre box office at 4122 NE Sandy Boulevard
Or by calling (503) 281-4215

Oregon has always been particularly gifted when it comes to cartoon voice-over actors. Mel Blanc, graduate of Lincoln High School was the most widely recognized voice actor in the world, the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and hundreds of others. Filmusik: Gulliver's Travels features 4 contemporary Portland talents: James Dineen, Todd Tolces, Chris Porter and Bill Barry. They have their hands full dubbing this cartoon with a cast of colorful singing Lilliputians. The voice-overs are directed by Sam A. Mowry, long time radio actor and Filmusik collaborator

“For the voice actor, everyone of us, it started when we watched the Saturday morning cartoons. We copied the voices, learned what made an exciting vocal choice or dynamic characters. Even before we knew thats what we learned. I’ve been lucky enough to work on some original animation projects and we have Todd Tolces, one of Will Vinton’s stalwarts during their heyday. Using your voice to add that final sparkle to such an amazing film is really quite magical. Recreating these classic cartoon legends with fidelity to the original, but being your own man, or king or giant for that matter is a dream come true for all of us. This is going to be amazing.”
- Sam A. Mowry – Voice-over Director

David Ian and his team of film Foley artists create the sound effects live. Tapping shoes together for footsteps, rattling doorknobs and crinkling cellophane. The props are flying as they keep time with the movie, matching every rattle, whistle and explosion.


"As a long time fan of the Fleischer Bros. work, it's a thrill for me to be able to work with this wonderful animation.
It's also a delight to be able to gently update some of the SFX while preserving that "vintage sound" that is so much part of the experience."
- Marc Rose - Sound Designer

The originally composed score by Galen Huckins draws on elements from the musical-toon era of the film with a more contemporary sensibility. The ensemble features strings, piano, clarinets and an arsenal of percussion.

"Music from animation tends to be very fast paced, the characters move with a musical rhythm of their own that the score adapts and transforms to its own purposes. It sounds a little schizophrenic played by itself, but its a lot of fun to perform.
- Galen Huckins - Composer

Fleischer's animated feature from 1939 tells Jonathon Swift’s travel adventure in a Betty Boop meets Moby Dick sort of way. There’s songs and dance, live sound effects, live voices and live music. It’s like Fantasia if Mickey Mouse were Goliath and the orchestra was right in your lap! With an original score performed live by the Filmusik Chamber ensemble and a cast of 20 performers. GULLIVER'S TRAVELS is a movie experience not to miss. It's a rare chance to see professional soundtrack artists at work. Get yourself some popcorn and be prepared to sing along!!

Today's Birthdays

Antoine François Marmontel (1816-1898)
Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931)
Goffredo Petrassi (1904-2003)
Bella Davidovich (1928)
Bryden Thomson (1928-1991)
Geoffrey Burgon (1941)
Pinchas Zukerman (1948)
Richard Margison (1954)
Joanna MacGregor (1959)
James MacMillan (1959)
Helmut Oehring (1961)

and

Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792)
Roald Amundsen (1872-1928)
Ginger Rogers (1911-1995)
Tony Kushner (1956)

Today's Birthdays

Ronald Binge (1910-1979)
Jack Beeson (1921-2010)
Julian Bream (1933)
Sir Harrison Birtwistle (1934)
Linda Ronstadt (1946)
John Casken (1949)
Richard Margison (1954)
Gérard Lesne (1956)

and

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669)
Walter Benjamin (1892-1940)
Iris Murdoch (1919-1999)
Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)
Arianna Huffington (1950)

Today's Birthdays

Gerald Finzi (1901-1956)
Woody Guthrie (1912-1967)
Piero Bellugi (1924)
Unsuk Chin (1961)

and

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)
Gustav Klimt (1862-1918)
Frank Raymond Leavis (1895-1978)
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902-1991)

Today's Birthdays

Sir Reginald Goodall (1905-1990)
Carlo Bergonzi (1924)
Jeanne Loriod (1928-2001)
Per Nørgård (1932)
Albert Ayler (1936-1970)
Jennifer Smith (1946)

and

John Clare (1793-1864)
Isaak Babel (1894-1941)

Today's Birthdays

Anton Arensky (1861-1906)
George Butterworth (1885-19116)
Kirsten Flagstad (1895-1962)
Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960)
Van Cliburn (1934)
Gerd Albrecht (1935)
Richard Stolzman (1942)
Roger Vignoles (1943)

and

Julius Caesar (100 BC - 44 BC)
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
George Eastman (1854-1932)
Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920)
Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

Today's Birthdays

Antônio Carlos Gomes (1836-1896)
Liza Lehmann (1862-1918)
Nicolai Gedda (1925)
Herbert Blomstedt (1927)
Hermann Prey (1929-1998)
Francis Bayer (1938-2004)
Liona Boyd (1949)
Suzanne Vega (1960)

and

E. B. White (1899-1985)
Harold Bloom (1930)

and

From the New Music Box:
On July 11, 1922, German conductor Alfred Hertz lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the first concert performed at the Hollywood Bowl, an open-air auditorium built in a natural canyon.

and

From the Writer's Almanac:
Fifty years ago today, Harper Lee's (books by this author) only novel, To Kill a Mockingbird,was published, the story narrated by six-year-old Scout Finch in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama. It was an immediate best-seller, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and an instant American classic. It continues to sell incredibly well, with 30 million copies still in print.

The book's title appears in a scene in chapter 10, where Scout remembers something her dad, Atticus, has said and asks her neighbor Miss Maudie about it.

"I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it.

"Your father's right," she said. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

Today's Birthdays

Henri Weiniawski (1835-1880)
Carl Orff (1895-1982)
Ljuba Welitsch (193-1996)
Ian Wallace (1919)
Josephine Veasey (1930)
Jerry Herman (1931)
Arlo Guthrie (1947)
Graham Johnson (1950)
Béla Fleck (1958)

and

Marcel Proust (1871-1922)
Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
Alice Munro (1931)

Today's Birthdays

Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936)
Dame Elizabeth Lutyens (1906-1983)
David Diamond (1915-2005)
David Zinman (1936)
Paul Chihara (1938)
John Mark Ainsley (1963)

and

Oliver Sacks (1933)

Tuesday Rupp going to Yale

One of Portland's best young singers, mezzo-soprano Tuesday Rupp, will soon travel East to attend the Institute of Sacred Music/Yale Divinity School. This is a two year program that will result in a Master of Arts in Religion with a music concentration. If you would like to hear Rupp one more time before she leaves, she will be singing with The Julians vocal ensemble at Great Hall Restaurant (1406 SW Broadway) at 8 pm on July 16th.

PS: According to the Oregon Bach Festival program, James Taylor, who sang the tenor solos in last night's brilliant performance of Mendelssohn's "Elijah," is an associated professor of voice and adviser to the Program in Voice: Early Music, Oratorio, and Chamber Ensemble for the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale School of Music.

Today's Birthdays

Percy Grainger (1882-1961)
George Antheil (1900-1959)
Billy Eckstine (1914-1993)
Susan Chilcott (1963-2003)
Raffi Cavoukian (1948)
Zhou Long (1953)

and

Philip Johnson (1906-2005)
J. F. Powers (1917-1999)

Stephen Marc Beaudoin new interim director of PHAME Academy

Congratulations are in order for multi-talented Stephen Marc Beaudoin, who is the new interim managing director of PHAME Academy. SMB has a posting about this on his blog here.

Kent Nagano to leave Bayerishe Staatsoper

Musical America cites reports from the German press that Kent Nagano is resigning early from the Bayerishe Staatsoper. Here's the jist from MA:

German press is reporting that Kent Nagano will step down as music director of the Bayerische Staatsoper. His contract expires in 2013. He has been in the job since 2006 and last extended his contract in April of 2009.

According to the South German newspaper Süddeutschen Zeitung, Nagano will leave because of "cultural and political developments in Munich over the last month."

The move has left the media baffled. One report claims that Nagano is leaving because of clashes with Intendant Nikolaus Bachler. Another claims that the conductor doesn’t like the Strauss-Mozart-Wagner repertoire and therefore the Staastsintendant Wolfgang Heubisch had to make a decision to fire him in order to begin his summer "Politpause" (legislative/administrative break) with a clear head, ready for the fall.

All seem to be questioning the Bavarian government's competence in the move, since Nagano has such a strong track record and has been doing well in the job.

Russian pianist Mikhail Pletnev accused of child molestation

The Guardian has filed this report: Mikhail Pletnev charged with child molestation in Thailand.

Today's Birthdays

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Gian Carlo Menotti (1911-2007)
Cor de Groot (1914-1993)
Doc Severinson (1927)
Joe Zawinul (1932-2007)
Ringo Starr (1940)
Michaela Petri (1958)

and

Lion Feuchtwanger (1884-1958)
Marc Chagall (1887-1985)
David McCullough (1933)

Today's Birthdays

Alberto Nepomuceno (1864-1920)
Hans Eisler (1898-1962)
Dorothy Kirsten (1910-1992)
Ernst Haefliger (1919-2007)
Bill Haley (1925-1981)
Maurice Hasson (1934)
Vladimir Ashkenazy (1937)
Stephen Hartke (1952)


and

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)

Today's Birthdays

Wanda Landowska (1879-1958)
Jan Kubelík (1880-1940)
Gordon Jacob (1895-1984)
George Rochberg (1918-2005)
János Starker (1924)
Matthias Bamert (1942)
Alexander Lazarev (1945)
Paul Daniel (1958)
Isabelle Poulenard (1961)

and

Jean Cocteau (1889-1963)
Barbara Frischmuth (1941)
Craig Nova (1945)

Today's Birthdays

Louis-Claude Daquin (1694-1772)
Stephen Foster (1826-1864)
Roy Henderson (1899-2000)
Louis Armstrong (1900-1971)
Flor Peeters (1903-1986)
Mitch Miller (1911)
Tibor Varga (1921-2003)
Cathy Berberian (1925-1983)

and

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
Lionel Trilling (1905-1975)

Clarification

Readers of this blog should know that I'm not the author of pdxclassical, the twitter feed. I write for this blog and for Oregon Music News and some print publications, and I own up to my reviews.

PS: I have received emails asking about this matter.

Today's Birthdays

Leoš Janáček (1854-1928)
Carlos Kleiber (1930-2004)
Brigitte Fassbaender (1939)

adn

Franz Kafka (1883-1924)
Sir Tom Stoppard (1937)
Dave Berry (1947)

McGegan to replace ailing Jeffrey Kahane at Oregon Bach Festival

Conductor and pianist Jeffrey Kahane has withdrawn from the Oregon Bach Festival because of illness. He was replaced by Robert Levin for last evening's recital with Thomas Quasthoff (review to come on Oregon Music News). For tomorrow night's gala, the Festival will engage Nicholas McGegan He will conduct the Poulenc two piano concerto, Mozart Sinfonia, and the two Quasthoff show tunes. More later on Oregon Music News.

Today's Birthdays

Christoph W. Gluck (1714-1787)
Earl Hawley Robinson (1910-1991)
Frederick Fennell (1914-2004)

and

Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556)
Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724-1803)
Hermann Hesse (1877-1962)
Tyrone Guthrie (1900-1971)

Today's Birthdays

Thomas Andrew Dorsey (1899-1993)
Hans Werner Henze (1926)
Andrae Crouch (1942)
Philip Brunelle (1943)
Sioned Williams (1953)
Nikolai Demidenko (1955)
Paul Daniel (1958)

and

George Sand (1804-1876)
William Strunk Jr. (1969-1946)
Twyla Tharp (1941)

Today's Birthdays

Georg Anton Benda (1722-1795)
John Duke (1899-1984)
Lena Horne (1917)
James Loughran (1931)
Giles Swayne (1946)
Stephen Barlow (1954)
Esa-Pekka Salonen (1958)

and

John Gay (1685-1732)
Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004)

Today's Birthdays

Aarre Merikanto (1893-1958)
Nelson Eddy (1901-1967)
Leroy Anderson (1908-1975)
Frank Loesser (1910-1969)
Bernard Hermann (1911-1975)
Rafael Kubelik (1914-1996)
James Dick (1940)
Joelle Wallach (1946)
"Little Eva" Boyd 1945-2003)
Anne-Sophie Mutter (1963)

and

Antoine de Saint Exupéry (1900-1944)
James K. Baxter (1926-1972)
Oriana Fallaci (1929-2006)

and from The Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1888 that a snippet of George Frideric Handel's oratorio "Israel in Egypt" was recorded on a wax cylinder. It is one of the earliest surviving recordings of music.

In December of 1877, Thomas Edison (books by this author) filed for a patent for his phonograph, a device to record and play back sound. It all started with a little toy he made — when you spoke into a funnel, the vibrations it made on a diaphragm engaged a ratchet wheel and made a little figure of a man saw wood. He wrote later: "I reached the conclusion that if I could record the movements of the diaphragm properly, I could cause such record to reproduce the original movements imparted to the diaphragm by the voice, and thus succeed in recording and reproducing the human voice." And he did just that.

In 1888, the Handel Festival was held at the Crystal Palace in London, a royal tradition that was celebrated regularly since 1784. The performance of his oratorio "Israel in Egypt" took place on Friday at 2 p.m., with doors opening at 11 and a cost between 7 and 25 shillings. Almost 24,000 people attended the show.

Thomas Edison had an agent named Colonel George Gouraud who sold phonographs to the European market and lived in South London. For the "Israel in Egypt" concert, Gouraud got permission to put the phonograph in the theater's press gallery. There was an orchestra of about 500, and a choir of at least 3,000 people. The recording is scratchy and the music is indistinct not only because the technology was so new, but also because there were so many voices and the phonograph was too far away. But it is still recognizable as choral music, and it is the earliest live concert that survives.

A year later, the Columbia Phonograph Company started up and sold gramophones for peoples' homes. In 1890, they produced the first record catalog, which was a one-page list of wax cylinders; two years later Emile Berliner offered discs in place of cylinders. Over the next few years, the recording industry took off, and many homes had some sort of phonograph in them.

Today's Birthdays

Napoléon Coste (1805-1883)
Joseph Joachim (1831-1907)
Richard Rodgers (1902-1979)
Arnold Shaw (1909-1989)
Sergiu Celibidache (1912-1996)
George Lloyd (1913-1998)
Giselher Klebe (1925)
Philip Fowke (1950)
Thomas Hampson (1955)

and

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)
John Wesley (1703-1791)
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936)
Mark Helprin (1947)

Today's Birthdays

Friedrich Silcher (1789-1860)
Toti Dal Monte (1893-1975)
Karel Reiner (1910-1979)
George Theophilus Walker (1922)
Ruth Schönthal (1924-2006)
Anno Moffo (1932-2006)
Hugh Wood (1932)
Daniel Asia (1953)
Nancy Gustafson (1956)
Magnus Lindberg (1958)
Robert King (1960)

and

James Smithson (1765-1829)
Frank O'Hara (1926-1966)
Lucille Clifton (1936)
Alice McDermott (1953)

Today's Birthdays

Hugues Cuénod (1902)
Wolfgang Windgassen (1914-1974)
Giuseppe Taddei (1916)
Syd Lawrence (1923-1998)
Jacob Druckman (1928-1996)
Claudio Abbado (1933)

and

Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973)

Today's Birthdays

Gustave Charpentier (1860-1956)
Arthur Tracy (1899-1997)
Bill Russo (1928-2003)
Kurt Schwertsik (1935)
Carly Simon (1945)

and

Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926)
George Abbott (1887-1995)
George Orwell (1903-1950)

Today's Birthdays

Harry Partch (1901-1974)
Pierre Fournier (1906-1986)
Milton Katims (1909-2006)
Denis Dowling (1910-1984)
Terry Riley (1935)

and

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
John Ciardi (1916 - 1986)

Oregon Symphony's president inks another 4 years

Charles Noble reports on his blog that Elaine Calder has signed an agreement to be the Oregon Symphony's president for another four years. This is terrific news for the orchestra because Calder has done a tremendous job of keeping the budget in line, growing the orchestra's audience, carefully managing the endowment, and maintaining a harmonious relationship with orchestra members and staff and donors. Not a mean feat! Three cheers for Calder and the orchestra. This bodes well for the future.

Today's Birthdays

Carl Reinecke (1824-1910)
Mieczyslaw Horszowski (1892-1993)
George Russell (1923)
Adam Faith (1940-2003)
James Levine (1943)
Nigel Osborne (1948)
Nicholas Cleobury (1950)
Sylvia McNair (1956)

and

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966)

Today's Birthdays

Francesco Manfredini (1684-1762)
Étienne Nicolas Méhul (1763-1817)
Frank Heino Damrosch (1859-1937)
Jennie Tourel (1900-1973)
Walter Leigh (1905-1942)
Sir Peter Pears (1910-1986)
Hans-Hubert Schönzeler (1925-1997)
Pierre Thibaud (1929-2004)
Libor Pešek (1933)
Pierre Amoyal (1949)
Christopher Norton (1953)

and

Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970)
Joseph Papp (1921-1991)

Today's Birthdays

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (1732-1795)
Harry Newstone (1921-2006)
Lalo Schifrin (1932)
Diego Masson (1935)
Philippe Hersant (1948)
Judith Bingham (1952)
Jennifer Larmore (1958)

and

Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1972)
Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)
Ian McEwan (1942)

Today's Birthdays

Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880)
Wilfred Pelletier (1896-1982)
Chet Atkins (1924-2001)
Ingrid Haebler (1926)
Eric Dolphy (1928-1964)
Arne Nordheim (1931)
Mickie Most (1938-2003)
Brian Wilson (1942)
Anne Murray (1945)
André Watts (1946)
Lionel Richie (1949)

and

Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948)
Lillian Hellman (1905-1984)
Vikram Seth (1952)

Today's Birthdays

François Rebel (1701-1775)
Johann Wenzel Stamitz (1717-1757)
Carl Zeller (1842-1898)
Alfredo Catalani (1854-1893)
Sergei Taneyev (1856-1915)
Guy Lombardo (1902-1977)
Edwin Gerschefski (1909-1988)
Anneliese Rothenberger (1926)
Elmar Oliveira (1950)
Philippe Manoury 1952)

and

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
Tobias Wolff (1945)
Sir Salman Rushdie (1947)

Today's Birthdays

Ignaz Pleyel (1757-1831)
Sir George Thalben-Ball (1896-1987)
Edward Steuermann (1892-1964)
Manuel Rosenthal (1904-2003)
Sir Paul McCartney (1942)
Hans Vonk (1942-2004)
Anthony Halstead (1945)
Diana Ambache (1948)
Eva Marton (1948)
Peter Donohoe (1953)

and

Richard Powers (1957)

Today's Birthdays

Charles Gounod (1818-1893)
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
Hermann Reutter (1900-1985)
Einar Englund (1916-1999)
Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006)
Sir Edward Downes (1924)
Christian Ferras (1933-1982)
Gérard Grisey (1946-1998)
Derek Lee Ragin (1958)

and

M. C. Escher (1898-1972)
John Hersey (1914–1993)
Ron Padgett (1942)

Opera Theater Oregon holding auditions for upcoming project

Know any great singers with a penchant for drama, or are you one yourself? Read on then; the following message is from Katie Taylor, artistic director of Opera Theater Oregon.


Dear Friends of OTO,

General auditions for upcoming OTO projects are Sunday, June 27, 4:00 - 8:00 pm.

Auditions are by appointment only, so please drop a line if you'd like to sign up. No phone calls, please! - - I'm really terrible about returning them - - but text messages fine, as long as you include your full name, voice type and email address.

We'll send instructions regarding location and audition format when we assign your time slot.

Auditions are open to singers (chorus and principal) and instrumentalists. Since OTO's goal is to bring opera back into pop culture, here are some of the qualities we look for in performers:

Great voice/musicianship

Acting chops

Charisma

Ability to pick up music from sheet music or by ear (not required, but very helpful)

Ability to sing/play other types of music stylistically.

Flexibility (our shows place unusual demands on the performer ((don't worry - nothing immoral or dangerous)), and singing in a bar or movie theater for a noisy, enthusiastic crowd that has had a few beers is quite different from what many opera singers are used to)

A few specific roles we are looking to fill this time around:

ALL ROLES, OTO 'Werther' (Massenet), 6 performances in February 2011; 3-day film shoot in early- to mid-September. As usual, we're cutting the show to 90 minutes and rescripting it in English. This production updates the story to a small New England town at the end of the Korean War. The production will be done in the style of the lavish '50s melodramas of Douglas Sirk and Vincente Minnelli. The live production will incorporate closeups and flashbacks projected directly onto the set. Roles include:

Werther (tenor) - 20s/30s - a drifter, pensive and dreamy; intensely lonely; orphaned in childhood, served overseas in the medical corps. Back stateside after the war ends, he drifts to the idyllic New England hometown described to him by a dying officer (Albert), and meets and falls in love with the officer's fiancee (Charlotte).

Charlotte (mezzo soprano or soprano with good low register) - mid- to late 20s - responsible for taking care of her father and her younger sisters from an early age, Charlotte has never been allowed to be young. Before she died, Charlotte's mother made Charlotte promise to marry Albert, knowing he would be solid and dependable. Werther ignites Charlotte's hunger for reckless passion and, as time goes on, also engages her eternal, guilt-ridden sense of duty.

Albert (baritone) - 20s/30s - Charlotte's fiance - declared MIA early in the war and believed dead. The telegram announcing his discovery in a liberated POW camp goes missing, and he arrives home to an empty house. Albert's experiences in the war have changed him from an uncomplicated, sweet young man to a traumatized mess, still desperately pretending to be an uncomplicated, sweet young man. Albert believes that marrying Charlotte and resuming his former life will restore his untroubled peace of mind and make him well again.

Sophie (soprano) - early 20s, late teens - the eldest of Charlotte's little sisters, exuberant Sophie actually is what Albert once was - untroubled contentment, joy in life, ignorance of pain and suffering, an energetic, uncomplicated fondness for festivals and holidays. Unequipped to understand the tragedy unfolding in her peaceful home, the only thing she knows how to do is to try to restore cheer.

Officer O'Mara (Le Bailli) (baritone) - 50s - Father of Charlotte - career police officer; proud member of the fraternal order of the Moose (Lodge No. 79).

Officer Schmidt (Schmidt) - 50s - crony and lodge brother of Officer O'Mara.

Officer Riley (Johann) - 50s - crony and lodge brother of Officer O'Mara.
Charlotte's sisters - four girls, Adele, Jeanette, Yvette and Collette, ages 10-18
CHORUS (townspeople, soldiers, students)

Most of the roles in Werther will be cast locally. We do, however, expect the principal roles for this production to be difficult to cast, and are willing to consider bringing in an out-of-town performer. Written and directed by Katie Taylor, arrangements and musical direction by Erica Melton; film direction by Jen Wechsler; technical direction by Robin Greenwood.

If none of these roles suit you, we'd still love to hear you! Sometimes we choose projects based on who we've heard that we'd like to work with.

All the best,
--
Katie Taylor
Artistic Director
Opera Theater Oregon
www.operatheateroregon.com
Tel: 503 234 4515

Today's Birthdays

Niccolò Vito Piccinni (1728-1800)
Helen Traubel (1899-1972)
Willi Boskovsky (1909-1990)
Sergiu Comissiona (1928-2005)
Lucia Dlugoszewski (1931-2000)
Jerry Hadley (1952-2007)
David Owen Norris (1953)

and

Joyce Carol Oates (1938)

Today's Birthdays

Franz Danzi (1763-1826)
Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)
Ernestine Schumann‑Heink (1861-1936)
Guy Ropartz (1864-1955)
Robert Russell Bennett (1894-1981)
Sir Thomas Armstrong (1898-1994)
Otto Luening (1900-1996)
Geoffrey Parsons (1929-1995)
Waylon Jennings(1937-2002)
Harry Nilsson (1941-1994)
Paul Patterson (1947)
Rafael Wallfisch (1953)
Robert Cohen (1959)

and

Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827)

Nicholas McGegan awarded an Order of the British Empire

This tidbit of news from Schwalbe and Partners, Nicholas McGegan's agents:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NICHOLAS MCGEGAN, OBE

Nicholas McGegan, one of the world’s leading conductors of baroque and classical repertoire, has been made an OBE (Officer of the British Empire) ‘for services to music overseas’ in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list published on June 12th 2010.

British honours are awarded on merit, for exceptional achievement or service; Orders of the British Empire are awarded mainly to civilians and service personnel for public service or other distinctions.

His other awards include the Halle Handel Prize, and an honorary professorship at Georg-August University, Gottingen.

Today's Birthdays

Simon Mayr (1763-1845)
John McCormack (1884-1945)
Heddle Nash (1894-1961)
Rudolf Kempe (1910-1976)
Stanley Black (1913-2002)
Natalia Gutman (1942)
Lang Lang (1982)

and

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)
John Bartlett (1820-1905)

Today's Birthdays (June 13)

Elisabeth Schumann (1888-1952)
Carlos Chavez (1899-1978)
Alan Civil (1929-1989)
Gwynne Howell (1938)
Sarah Connolly (1963)
Alain Trudel (1966)

and

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
William S. Burroughs (1914-1997)

Bellevue, Washington gets $25 million for new concert hall

According to this article in the Seattle Times, the Tateuchi Foundation is giving $25 million toward the creation of a 2,000-seat performance center in downtown Bellevue.

Today's Birthdays

Vanni Marcoux (1877-1962)
Leon Goossens (1897-1988)
Maurice Ohana (1913-1992)
Ian Partridge (1938)
Chick Corea (1941)
Oliver Knussen (1952)

and

Egon Schiele (1890-1918)
Anne Frank (1929-1945)

Today's Birthdays

Francesco Antonio Bonporti (1672-1749)
Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Shelly Manne (1920-1984)
Carlisle Floyd (1926)
Antony Rooley (1944)
Douglas Bostock (1955)
Conrad Tao (1994)

and

Ben Jonson (1572-1637)
William Styron (1925-2006)
Athol Fugard (1932)

Interact with Cathedral

From the New Music Box:

On June 10, 1997, Cathedral, an on-going interactive work of music and art designed specifically for the internet by media artist Nora Farrell and composer William Duckworth, made its debut on the web. Its primary components are: the PitchWeb, a virtual musical instrument designed to allow site visitors to perform with each other online; the Cathedral Band, a group of improvising musicians who gives periodic live performances from venues around the world, during which global PitchWeb players frequently sit in; and the Website, which features a variety of interactive musical, artistic, and text-based experiences, all focused on 5 mystical moments in time (the building of the Pyramids and Chartres Cathedral, the Ghost Dance Movement among the Plains Indians of North America, the dropping of the Atomic Bomb, and the birth of the World Wide Web

Today's Birthdays

Heinrich von Herzogenberg (1843-1900)
Frederick Loewe (1904-1988)
Ralph Kirkpatrick (1911-1984)
Bruno Bartoletti (1925)
Mark-Anthony Turnage (1960)

and

Gustave Courbet (1819-1877)
Saul Bellow (1915-2005)
Maurice Sendak (1928)

Today's Birthday

Otto Nicolai (1810-1849)
Carl Nielsen (1865-1931)
Cole Porter (1891-1964)
Dame Gracie Fields (1898-1979)
Ingolf Dahl (1912-1970)
Les Paul (1915-2009)
Franco Donatoni (1927-2000)
Charles Wuorinen (1938)
Ileana Cotrubas (1939)

Michael Kaiser tells arts world to mix it up

According to this report in the Huffington Post, Michael Kaiser has seen too much of the same arts programming during his national tour of all 50 states. Kaiser, the president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, is on the verge of completing his tour with a presentation in Boise, Idaho and admits to seeing a lot of fine artistic events, yet he concludes: "But I was depressed to see how many venues I visited presented performances that were entirely interchangeable with performances at other venues."

It would be interesting to know more details on this. Hopefully, he will file a more a thorough report (for the public) sometime in the near future.

Today's Birthdays

Tomaso Albinoni (1671-1750)
Nicolas Dalayrac (1753-1809)
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942)
Reginald Kell (1906-1981)
Emanuel Ax (1949)

and

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959)

Today's Birthdays

Leopold Auer (1845-1930)
George Szell (1897-1970)
Ilse Wolf (1921-1999)
Philippe Entremont (1934)
Neeme Järvi 1937)
Sir Tom Jones (1940)
Jaime Laredo (1941)
Prince (1958)
Roberto Alagna (1963)
Olli Mustonen (1967)

and

Paul Gaugin (1848-1903)
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)
Nikki Giovanni (1943)
Orham Pamuk (1952)
Louise Erdrich (1954)

Today's Birthdays

Aram Khachaturian (1903-1978)
Vincent Persichetti (1915-1987)
Iain Hamilton (1922-2000)
Serge Nigg (1924)
Klaus Tennstedt (1926-1998)
Louis Andriessen (1939)

and

Pierre Corneille (1606-1684)
Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837)
Thomas Mann (1875-1955)
Maxine Kumin (1925)

On meeting John Wooden

Although this blog is dedicated to classical music, I have to tell about meeting the great basketball coach John Wooden, who died yesterday at the age of 99. During my first two years at Pacific Lutheran University, I played on the chess club and in my sophomore year went to a state regional chess tournament at Washington State University in Pullman. The UCLA mens basketball team happened to be in town, so my college roommate, Dick Harris (who was also on the chess team), and I went to the game in which we saw the Bruins thrash the Cougars. The next morning, Dick and I and another member of the chess club (I have forgotten his name) went to a breakfast spot that was attached to a motel. As we stepped into the restaurant, I immediately saw Bill Walton and other members of the UCLA team. They were standing around near a bar (that was closed) in separate part of the restaurant. My chess colleagues and I took a booth in the main eating area, and noticed that Wooden was talking to the WSU basketball coach George Raveling in a booth about ten feet from us. The chess friend (whose name I can't recall) said that his younger brother had an autograph collection of famous people, and he wanted Wooden's signature. But the fellow was too chicken to ask Wooden for it, because he would have to interrupt Wooden and Raveling's conversation. Dick didn't want to do it either. So, after some deliberation, I took it upon myself to get the autograph. One of us had a pen and I took a paper napkin with me. I quietly stood at the table where Wooden and Raveling were talking and, after a few seconds, they acknowledged my presence. I mumbled something about getting their autographs and placed the napkin and pen in front of them. They signed it without saying much of anything, but also without looking annoyed. I said thank you and returned to the booth and gave the napkin to my friend. He was ecstatic. We ate our breakfast, and watched as Wooden and Raveling departed. The rest of the day seemed brighter...

Today's Birthdays

Sir Arthur Somervell (1863-1937)
Sir Robert Mayer (1879-1985)
Daniel Pinkham (1923-2006)
Peter Schat (1935-2003)
Anna Reynolds (1936)
Martha Argerich (1941)
Bill Hopkins (1943-1981)

and

John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946)
Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936)
Alfred Kazin (1915–1998)
Sir David Hare (1947)

Today's Birthdays

Evgeny Mravinsky (1903-1988)
Alan Shulman (1915-2002)
Robert Merrill (1917-2004)
Irwin Bazelon (1922-1995)
Anthony Braxton (1945)
Cecilia Bartoli (1966)

and

Josef Sittard (1846-1903)
Karl Valentin (1882-1948)
Robert Anderson (1917-2009)

Today's Birthdays

Jan Peerce (1904-1984)
Valerie Masterson (1937)
Curtis Mayfield (1942-1999)
Greg Sandow (1943)
Lynne Dawson (1956)

and

Josephine Baker (1906-1975)
Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997)
Larry McMurtry (1936)

Today's Birthdays

James Cutler Dunn Parker (1828-1916)
Felix Weingartner (1863-1942)
Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
Jozef Cleber (1916-1999)
Marvin Hamlisch (1944)
Mark Elder (1947)
Neil Shicoff (1949)
Michel Dalberto (1955)

and

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

The influence of Ernest Bloch

From the New Music Box:

On June 1, 1925, Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch conducted the premiere of his Concerto Grosso No. 1 for strings and piano in Cleveland. That work was a pivotal composition of neo-classicism and foreshadowed subsequent concertos for orchestra written and premiered in the United States by his student Roger Sessions (Pulitzer Prize 1982) as well as Béla Bartók (1943), Elliott Carter (1970), and Steven Stucky (#1 - Pulitzer Prize Finalist 1989, and #2 - Pulitzer Prize Winner 2005).

Today's Birthdays

Georg Muffat (1653-1704)
Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857)
Werner Janssen (1899-1990)
Percy Whitlock (1903-1946)
Nelson Riddle (1921-1985)
Edo de Waart (1941)
Richard Goode (1943)
Frederica von Stade (1945)
Arlene Sierra (1970)

and

Naguib Surur (1932-1978)