Category: people

“British novelist Terry Pratchett said Thursday he will donate $1 million to fund research into Alzheimer’s disease, the incurable illness he was diagnosed with last year… Pratchett is best known for his Discworld fantasy series. More than 55 million copies of his books have been sold worldwide.”

Tim Page has been one of America’s most prominent music critics for more than a decade, working primarily for the Washington Post and earning a reputation as a tough but fair writer. Few of his readers would guess that he has suffered his whole life from Asperger’s Syndrome. In fact, Page himself didn’t recognize his affliction until quite late in life…

Welsh composer Alun Hoddinott has died at 78, a year after undergoing major heart surgery. Hoddinott “had a partnership with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales spanning seven decades.” The orchestra plans to name its new concert hall after him.

Osvaldo Golijov may wind up being thought of as the preeminent composer of our age. But it’s clear that he still approaches each new project without assuming that he will complete it successfully. “Writing music is always the struggle in the beautiful tension between fear and desire.”

Composer Jake Heggie has become known for his opera based on unusually dark themes, even by operatic standards, but once you get to know him, you start to understand his fascination with difficult personal stories. He’s had a rough life, himself, and much of what he has learned through pain emerges in his music.

Julian Kuerti was to conduct Beethoven’s “Emperor” concerto with the Boston Symphony, featuring renowned pianist Leon Fleisher. But when Fleisher was struck by stomach flu on Tuesday afternoon, and was unable to play, Kuerti’s father Anton, the famed Canadian pianist, made sure the show went on for his son.

“I tend to become uncooperative — and occasionally downright hostile — when people ask me what my plays ‘are about.’ Especially the new ones.”

Classical pianist Anton Kuerti and SCTV alumnus Eugene Levy are two of the latest group of Canadians to be honoured with the country’s most distinguished performing arts award.

“Sommer, onetime contributor to High Fidelity/Musical America, among other publications, was acting director of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at the time that she retired, in 2001. She served as chief of the Music Division from 1997-2001 and, prior to that, was for ten years head of the Music Division’s circulating collections.”

He made some controversial comments last fall. “What would normally have gone unnoticed in the introduction to the revision of an academic book instead made the papers.”