Gustav Holst (1874-1934)
Meinrad Schütter (1910-2006)
Jill Gomez (1942)
Andrei Gavrilov (1955)
Nina Rautio (1957)

and

Sir Edmund Gosse (1849-1928)
H(erbert) G(eorge) Wells (1866-1946)
Sir Allen Lane (1902-1970)

Today's Birthdays

Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton (1885-1941)
David Sheinfeld (1906-2001)
John Dankworth (1927)
Jane Manning (1938)
Laurie Spiegel (1945)
John Harle (1956)

and

Upton Sinclair (1878-1968)
Maxwell Perkins (1884-1947)
Donald Hall (1928)

Today's Birthdays

Allan Pettersson (1911-1980)
Kurt Sanderling (1912)
Blanche Thebom (1918)
Arthur Wills (1926)
Bonaventura Bottone (1950)

and

William Golding (1911-1993)
Roger Angell (1920)

Today's Birthdays

Johann Gottfried Walther (1684-1748)
Lord Berners (1883-1950)
Arthur Benjamin (1893-1960)
Meredith Willson (1902-1984)
Josef Tal (1910-2008)
Norman Dinerstein (1937-1982)
Thomas Fulton (1949)
John McGlinn (1953)
Anna Netrebko (1970)

and

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
Paul Zimmer (1934)
Alberto Ríos (1952)

Today's Birthdays

Vincenzo Tommasini (1878-1950)
Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920)
Isang Yun (1917-1995)
Hank Williams (1923-1953)
Vincent La Selva (1929)

and

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
Frank O'Connor (1903-1966)
Ken Kesey (1935-2001)

Today's Birthdays

Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979)
Hans Swarowsky (1899-1975)
B. B. King (1925)

and

John Gay (1685-1732)
Henry Louis Gates Jr. (1950)

Today's Birthdays

Bruno Walter (1876-1962)
Frank Martin (1890-1974)
Richard Arnell (1917)
Cannonball Adderley (1928-1975)
Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos (1933)
Jessye Norman (1945)
Richard Suart (1951)

and

Robert Benchley (1899-1945)
James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)
Agatha Christie (1890-1976)

Today's Birthdays

Michael Haydn (1737-1806)
Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842)
Vittorio Gui (1885-1972)
Alice Tully (1902-1993)
Martyn Hill (1944)
Raul Gimenez (1950)

and

Eric Bentley (1916)
Renzo Piano (1937)

Today's Birthdays

Clara Schumann (1819-1896)
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
Robert Ward (1917)
Maurice Jarre (1924-2009)
Mel Tormé (1925-1999)
Nicolai Ghiaruv (1929-2004)
Werner Hollweg (1936-2007)
Arleen Auger (1939-1993)
Steve Kilbey (1954)
Andreas Staier (1955)

and

Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941)
J.B. Priestley (1894-1984)
Roald Dahl (1916-1990)

Today's Birthdays

Gideon Waldrop (1919-2000)
Tatiana Troyanos (1938-1993)
Barry White (1944-2003)
John Mauceri (1945)
Vladimir Spivakov (1946)
Leslie Cheung (1956-2003)

and

H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)
Alfred A. Knopf Sr. (1892-1984)

Today's Birthdays

Friedrich Kuhlau (1786-1832)
Vally Weigl (1894-1982)
Harry Somers (1925-1999)
Sir John Drummond (1934)
Arvo Pärt(1935)
Bonaventura Bottone (1950)
Catherine Bott (1952)

and

O. Henry (1862-1910)
D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930)

Today's Birthdays

Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
Niccolò Jommelli (1714-1774)
Judith Nelson (1939)
Christopher Hogwood (1941)
Sir Thomas Allen (1944)
Michael Schønwandt (1953)

and

Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961)
Franz Werfel (1890-1945)
Cyril Connolly (1903-1974)
Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002)

Today's Birthdays

Joan Cererols (1618-1680)
Edwin Lemare (1865-1934)
James Blades (1901-1999)
Otis Redding (1941-1967)
Miriam Fried (1946)
David Rosenboom (1947)
Adam Fischer (1949)
Rachel Masters (1958)

and

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

Lorin Wilkerson does W-Week classical calendar

Lorin Wilkerson if filling in for Brett Campbell at the Willamette Week newspaper - as is classical calendar guy. Way to go Lorin!

Today's Birthdays

Nicolas de Grigny (1672-1703)
Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
Ninon Vallin (1886-1961)
Lionel Salter (1914-2000)
Christoph von Dohnányi (1929)
Eric Salzman (1933)
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (1934)
Dezső Ránki (1951)
Ilan Volkov (1976)

and

Wilhelm Raabe (1931-1910)
Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)
Ann Beattie (1947)
Michael Schermer (1954)

Today's Birthdays

François Philidor (1726-1794)
Joan Cross (1900-1993)
Sir Harry Secombe (1921-2001)
Arthur Ferrante (1921)
Leonard Rosenman (1924-2008)
Hugh Aitken (1924)
Sonny Rollins (1930)
Buddy Holly (1938-1959)
Jean-Yves Thibaudet (1961)
Angela Gheorghiu (1965)

and

Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951)
Edith Sitwell (1887-1964)

Today's Birthdays

Anton Diabelli (1781-1858)
Sir Henry Walford Davies (1869-1941)
William Kraft (1923)
Arthur Oldham (1926-2003)
Evgeny Svetlanov (1928-2002)
Joan Tower (1938)
Cynthia Haymon (1958)
Detlev Glanert (1960)
Shih-Hui Chen (1962)

and

Robert Pirsig (1928)

Today's Birthdays

Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782)
Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864)
Amy Beach (1867-1944)
John Cage (1912-1993)
Peter Racine Fricker (1920-1990)
Karita Mattila (1960)
Marc-André Hamelin (1961)
Lars Vogt (1970)

and

Ward Just (1935)
Jonathan Kozol (1936)

Today's Birthdays

Anton Bruckner (1824-1896)
Darius Milhaud (1892-1974)
Frederic Curzon (1899-1973)
Rudolf Schock (1915-1986)
Irwin Gage (1939)
René Pape (1964)

and

Richard Wright (1908-1960)

Huge crowd hears Oregon Symphony at Waterfront Park

Today, while purchasing some coffee at Caffe D'arte in NE Portland, I overheard a young fellow talking about the Oregon Symphony concert last night at Waterfront Park. He said that the place was packed, and he really enjoyed the orchestra and the ballet and the fireworks. Here's a picture from the orchestra's Facebook page. It looks like they had a huge audience.

Today's Birthdays

Pietro Locatelli (1695-1764)
Robert Thurston Dart (1921-1971)
Rudolf Kelterborn (1931)
Valerie Coleman (1970-)

and
Sally Benson (1897-1972)
Loren Eiseley (1907-1977)
Malcolm Gladwell (1963)
Kiran Desai (1971)

Reviews in print

My review of the Bach Orchestral Suites as performed by the Portland Baroque Orchestra in May is on page 48 of the September/October issue of the American Record Guide. A compilation of my reviews from this summer's Oregon Bach Festival will appear in the November/December issue. You can get a copy of the American Record Guide at Classical Millennium.

The July issue of Opera has printed my review of Portland Opera's Cosi fan tutte on page 858. The Central Library has a subscription to this magazine.

Today's Birthdays

George Böhm (1661-1733)
David Blake (1936)
Greg A. Steinke (1942)
John Zorn (1953)
Paul Goodwin (1956)

and

Joseph Roth (1894-1939)

Today's Birthdays

Emanuel Schikaneder (1751-1812)
Engelbert Humperdinck (1854-1921)
Conway Twitty (1933-1993)
Seiji Ozawa (1935)
Júlia Várady (1941)
Leonard Slatkin (1944)

Today's Birthdays

Amicare Ponchielli (1834-1886)
Alma Mahler (1879-1964)
Ifor James (1931-2004)
Wieland Kuijken (1938)
Itzak Perlman (1945)
Daniel Harding (1975)

and

Maria Montessori (1870-1952)
Willaim Shawn (1907-1992)
William Saroyan (1908-1981)
Alan Jay Lerner (1918-1986)

Today's Birthdays

Ernesto Cavallini (1807-1874)
George Frederick Root (1820-1895)
Buddy Rich (1917-1987)
Regina Resnik (1922)
David Schiff (1945)
Simon Bainbridge (1952)
Dimitris Sgouros (1969)

and

Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825)
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851)
Molly Ivins (1944-2007)

Today's Birthdays

Helge Rosvaenge (1897-1972)
Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
Charlie Parker (1920-1955)
Norman Platt (1920-2004)
Gilbert Amy (1936)
Anne Collins (1943)
Lucia Valentini Terrani (1946-1998)
Michael Jackson (1958-2009)
Kevin Walczyk (1964)

and

John Locke (1632-1704)
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809-1894)

Today's Birthdays

Umberto Giordano (1867-1948)
Alfred Baldwin Sloane (1872-1925)
Ivor Burney (1890-1937)
Karl Böhm (1894-1981)
Paul Henry Lang (1901-1991)
Richard Tucker (1913-1975)
John Shirley-Quirk (1931)
Imogen Cooper (1949)

and

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
John Betjeman (1906-1984)

Today's Birthdays

Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979)
Eric Coates (1886-1957)
Lester Young (1909-1959)
Ann Murray (1949)
Sian Edwards (1959)

and

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)
Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945)
C. S. Forester (1899-1966)
William Least Heat-Moon (1939)

Today's Birthdays

Willem de Fesch (1687-1761)
Arthur Loesser (1894-1969)
Wolfgang Sawallisch (1923)
Nicholas Braithwaite (1939)
Sally Beamish (1956)
Branford Marslis (1960)

and

Julio Cortázar (1914-1984)

Today's Birthdays

Robert Stolz (1880-1975)
Stefan Wolpe (1902-1972)
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
José Van Dam (1940)
Keith Tippett (1947)
Elvis Costello (1954)

and

Brian Moore (1921-1999)
Martin Amis (1949)

Today's Birthdays

Alessandro Marcello (1669-1747)
Théodore Dubois (1837-1924)
Richard Meade (1932)
Stephen Paulus (1949)
Carlo Curley (1952)

and

Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
Max Beerbohm (1872-1956)

Today's Birthdays

Moritz Moszkowski (1854-1925)
Ernst Krenek (1900-1991)
William Primrose (1903-1982)
Constant Lambert (1905-1951)
Carl Dolmetsch (1911-1977)
Mark Russell (1932)
Brad Mehldau (1970)

and

Edgar Lee Masters (1869-1950)

Today's Birthdays

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
John Lee Hooker (1917-2001)
Ivry Gitlis (1922)
Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007)
Tori Amos (1963)

and

Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004)
Ray Bradbury (1920)
Annie Proulx (1935)

Today's Birthdays

Lili Boulanger (1893-1918)
Count (William) Basie (1904-1984)
Tommy Reilly (1919-2000)
Gregg Smith (1931)
Dame Janet Baker (1933)

and

X. J. Kennedy (1929)

Today's Birthdays

Jacopo Peri (1561-1633)
Mario Bernardi (1930)
Dame Anne Evans (1941)
Maxim Vengerov (1974)

and

Eliel Saarinen (1873-1950)
Paul Tillich (1886-1965)
H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937)
Eero Saarinen (1910-1961)
Heather McHugh (1948)

Today's Birthdays

Georges Enescu (1881-1955)
Allan Monk (1942)
Gerard Schwarz (1947)
Rebecca Evans (1963)

and

Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)
Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
Frank McCourt (1930-2009)

Today's Birthdays

Antonio Salieri (1750-1825)
Benjamin Godard (1849-1895)
Basil Cameron (1884-1975)
Ernest MacMillan (1893-1973)
Dame Moura Lympany (1916-2005)
Goff Richards (1944)
Tan Dun (1957)

and

Alain Robbe-Grillet (1922-2008)

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)