Category: people

“A minor streptococcus epidemic, which probably originated in a military hospital, had erupted when Mozart died in 18th century Vienna, according to research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The scientists ascertained that strep probably caused his death by analyzing the local death records for the winter of 1791 and the years before and after.”

“Friends say [Annie] Leibovitz has begun to think of herself less as a celebrity artist leading a charmed life and more as a single mother of three fighting to keep a roof over her head and food on her family’s table.” But she is still the photographer “responsible for some of the world’s most iconic magazine covers,” and so the question remains: “How on earth could something like this have happened to Annie Leibovitz?”

“David Drew, a music critic and musicologist who almost single-handedly rescued the work of Kurt Weill from neglect and promoted him to his present position as an important 20th-century composer, died on July 25 in London. … Mr. Drew, a lifelong champion of under-recognized 20th-century composers, took on the cause of Weill, regarded as little more than as an appendage to Bertolt Brecht, shortly after the composer’s death in 1950.”

William Golding was an 18-year-old Oxford student at the time of “[t]he attack, on a 15-year-old named Dora,” which “is among the revelations about the Nobel prize-winning novelist in a new biography. It also turns out that when he was a school-teacher, Golding would pitch the boys in his care against each other in a real-life forerunner of his famous work.”

“Ernst Katz, who nurtured thousands of young musicians during 72 years as the founding conductor of the Jr. Philharmonic Orchestra of California,” which he launched during the Depression, died Tuesday. “The 10,000 youths who have performed in the orchestra since its founding were charged no fees to participate. If they needed instruments, Katz lent them. If they couldn’t afford the tuxedos required for performances, Katz paid for them.”

Meryl Streep is now “not merely one of Hollywood’s favourite names, but one with a Midas touch. Her latest film, Julie & Julia, in which she plays the kitchen guru Julia Child, … has sent Child’s 1961 book Mastering the Art of French Cooking back to the top of bestseller lists, as well as triggering a boom in interest in French cuisine classes in the US.” After Streep’s performance in the ABBA musical Mamma Mia, “not only did the Swedish group’s Gold collection top the album charts, there was also a surge in demand from couples who wanted to marry on the Greek island of Skopelos, as in the film.”

The auteur of ultraviolence “can now see the day when he’ll lay down his blood-splattered camera and begin a new career as a novelist. That day will be March 27, 2023, his 60th birthday.” Tarantino says, “I don’t really want to make ‘old men’ movies. I don’t want to be worried about making my day and getting up and going through all the stuff to make movies. … When I’m 60 will be my time to be a man of letters.”

His “expressionistic, free-jazz drumming helped define the experimental style of John Coltrane’s final years.” His playing was described as “a multi-rhythmic, polytonal propellant, helping fuel Coltrane’s flights of free-jazz fancy.”

“As the honorees entered, the audience greeted each with whoops and cheers (Sidney Poitier got a round of applause that nearly rivaled the president’s). … Hearty laughter followed [President Obama’s] opener for Chita Rivera: ‘Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero knows that adversity comes with a difficult name.'”

“At one stage, in the mid-90s, he disappeared so completely that rumours swept around London that he had died, perhaps of Aids, perhaps of drugs.” It turned out that he was holed up in his mother’s house, battling addiction and demons. Clark “came back in the early Noughties … [and from] 2005-7 he was artistic associate at the Barbican and developed three new Stravinsky ballets.” Now he’s back at Edinburgh after 21 years.