Category: people

“Writing on her blog, Not Another Music History Cliche!, and standing as a pillar of classical music’s niche on Twitter, Linda elegantly deployed her encyclopedic knowledge, research skills, and quick wit to cut through common classical music anecdote-myths, such as The Rite of Spring provoking a riot at its premiere. Not content to simply explain the truth and leave it there, she also delved several layers deeper to analyze why the myths persisted, and urged her readers to think critically about the information they were fed by advertising and clickbait.” Zoë Madonna pays tribute. – VAN

Had Turing lived longer, perhaps the state of artificial intelligence would encompass more than drearily corporate banalities such as the Amazon checkout window making suggestions about what you might like for your next purchase, Google offering up a few words for how to complete a sentence in progress, or a South Korean genius having his soul crushed by a roomful of statistics wonks—not to mention more chillingly Orwellian developments, such as facial-recognition software. – The New Yorker

Mr. Heath’s saxophone sound was spare but playful, with a beaming tone that exuded both joy and command. But his reputation rested equally on his abilities as a composer and arranger for large ensembles, interpolating bebop’s crosshatched rhythms and extended improvisations into fulsome tapestries. – The New York Times

Olney, 71 and regarded as “the founding father of Americana,” was performing at a songwriters’ festival in Florida when he suffered a fatal heart attack. “‘He was very still, sitting upright with his guitar on, wearing the coolest hat and a beautiful rust suede jacket we laughed about because it was raining … outside the boathouse where we were playing,’ singer Amy Rigby, who said she was sitting next to him onstage, wrote on Facebook.” – The Washington Post

Davis followed rather literally in her mother’s footsteps when she wrote the sequels to her mother’s bestselling and beloved children’s book. But she didn’t write the children’s books until she got sober – and that was after she was pregnant and had a son whose weak heart killed him when he was young. “His death from heart disease in 1990 became the subject of Ms. Davis’s 1995 memoir, I’ll Love You Forever, Anyway. An account of her grief made all the more anguishing by her guilt, it stood in stark contrast to the cheerful children’s tales for which she was known.” – The New York Times

Tanega’s “Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog,” which was truly a recounting of her life with her cat named Dog, smashed through 1966 and was covered by Barry McGuire, jazz artists, Yo La Tengo, They Might Be Giants and many others, has died. Tanega also wrote for Dusty Springfield, with whom she had a relationship. She said as she was touring with her first album, “‘The folkies don’t like me and the rock ’n’ rollies don’t like me.’ … She nonetheless enjoyed performing, she said: “’ just want to sing for people. You might say it’s mass love.'” – The New York Times

Larkin won four Tonys for his work as a designer on Broadway. “Larkin won his Tonys in a remarkable run in the mid-1950s, for Ondine, The Teahouse of the August Moon, No Time for Sergeants and Inherit the Wind. The last three of those plays were running simultaneously on Broadway. Mr. Larkin was still in his 20s.” He also designed movies like Tootsie and Miss Congeniality, and was the co-designer of the George Clinton band’s famous Mothership. – The New York Times

While his father was alive, he drew many of the maps of Middle-earth in the original edition of The Lord of the Rings; after JRR’s death, “his son was left to sift through the files and notebooks, and over the [next] two decades … he published The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, Beren And Lúthien and The History of Middle-earth, which fleshed out the complex world of elves and dwarves created by his father.” – The Guardian

He started playing the horn at age 13 and within two years landed a position in the Melbourne Symphony; by age 19, he had gone to Britain and played in orchestras there; at age 24, he was appointed first horn in the London Symphony. After 13 years, he left the LSO for a full-time career as a soloist (then, as now, very rare for his instrument), making more than 50 recordings, and developed an additional career as a conductor. – Gramophone

“When I suggest to Gladwell he has an unusually relaxed attitude towards criticism, he returns to a theme from the night before: success is wasted on the successful. ‘The weird thing about people who become successful is that they don’t understand that they now have the freedom to let their guard down: you know – it’s fine’.” – New Statesman