Category: people

“Frieda Hughes dismisses “myths” about her father’s behaviour towards Plath, claiming his mother-in-law poisoned the poets’ marriage. The claim has sparked a literary row, with others who knew Hughes and Plath well disputing Frieda’s view.”

“Admirers reward her for simply existing, dreaming up awards with which to bedeck her, among them the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, which she received, no doubt for some good reason, from the National Ethnic Coalition.” She is, in short, America’s Great Singer. And now she’s singing Death Cab for Cutie?

“Ted was one of the latter 20th century’s most important museum directors. He was, in some ways, single-handedly responsible for turning the Kimbell from an institution with a great building into one whose collection matched its architecture in quality.”

“[O]n Thursday afternoon, he was back at work at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, where he sat in on rehearsals for Los Angeles Opera’s upcoming production of Wagner’s ‘Götterdämmerung.’ … He also said that he has already begun singing again but only privately.”

“During her career, Thebom was prized equally for the rich maturity of her voice, her face and figure (which also received their due in a number of films, including The Great Caruso), her profound acting ability and innate musical intelligence, and even her long tresses (at one time, her hair descended over 6 feet, far longer than her reach).”

“Over the centuries, depending on the prevailing political winds, Confucius has been revered in his homeland as social visionary or despised as moral despot. In the West, his name …simply means ‘China’ to most people.” He is “an abstraction.” A new exhibit in New York helps match the idea of Confucius to the actual Kong Fuzi.

“‘My father’s first love was his music, and as a child, candidly, I resented that,’ Governor Patrick … told a crowd at Berklee College of Music last night as he dedicated his father’s musical collection to the school. ‘I didn’t understand it because I missed him as a father.'”

Bill T. Jones’s musical about the late Nigerian superstar has stormed Broadway and sparked an international resurgence of interest in his music. Back in Lagos, son Femi is a major musician in his own right, and daughter Yeni runs the city’s music mecca, New Afrika Shrine. They’re bemused by the international Fela revival and furious that the rich men their father railed against might co-opt the hit show.

“He doesn’t often give interviews but when he does he’s routinely described as ‘taciturn’ and ‘private’; his answers are ‘curt’ or ‘terse’. … [But] it transpires that Sam Shepard isn’t actually cold or taciturn or intimidating at all. Or at least the Sam Shepard I meet isn’t, because it turns out that there seem to be several different Shepards co-existing side by side.”

He’s one of the most popular classical composers alive, despite the fact that he is notoriously reluctant to grant interviews, especially to discuss his own music. BBC4 producer Simon Broughton recounts how he and actor Simon Russell Beale, host of the series Sacred Music, wooed Pärt into speaking with them on camera.