Category: people

“Although Pablo Picasso left his native Málaga as a child,” and came back to visit once at age 19, “the city has done its utmost to call attention to its connection to him.”

“The thing I admire most about this country is if you’re talented you will be rewarded. It is the thing about England that makes it different – that foreigners have played a really large part in its history. It is extremely diverse and cosmopolitan and … embraces all forms of culture and people from everywhere.”

“One of the first home-grown American cellists to achieve fame, Bernard Greenhouse, who has died aged 95, was best known as a great chamber musician, although he was also a superb soloist. The bulk of his 32-year career was spent with the Beaux Arts Trio, of which he was a founder member.”

“As director of the Théâtre de Monte-Carlo,” René Blum “tried to rebuild the Ballets Russes of his friend Diaghilev after he died in 1929. Blum poured his energy and money into the company, renamed it the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, but was plagued at every step by power battles.”

“There he is, sawing wood.”

“It’s no surprise that it’s hard to stay the “world’s oldest” for very long. These people are, after all, really old. What’s surprising is just how consistent the numbers have been. Just seven people whose ages could be fully verified by the Gerontology Research Group have ever made it past 115.”

“In one sense, July has been enjoying the Platonic ideal of creative success in the age of the hyphenate artist” with successes in film, literature and digital media as well as legions of fans. “Yet despite this (or perhaps because of it) she has also become the unwilling exemplar of an aggravating boho archetype: the dreamy, young hipster whose days are filled with coffee, curios and disposable enchantments.”

“[He] was considered the equal of Leonard Warren and Robert Merrill, the other stellar American Verdi baritones during the second half of the 20th century. From 1959 to 1987, he sang 26 roles in more than 600 appearances at the Metropolitan Opera alone.”

“The University of Toronto professor of English credited with foreseeing the Internet 30 years before it was invented and broadcasting scores of ideas about how electronic communications media was changing the way humans think has been redeemed from labels of McLuhanacy and psuedo-scientific charlatanism.”

George Wein “has survived at the top – on a couple of occasions by the skin of his teeth – by following each twist of the jazz canon and doing the maths. When we talked at his Upper East Side apartment, his conversation was peppered with break-even points, audience figures and the demographics of public taste. Short, sharp sentences spilled into each other as he spoke of the what, how and why of his musical career with an improviser’s energy.”