Category: people

Ismail Gulgee, one of Pakistan’s most senior and internationally renowned artists, was discovered brutally murdered along with his wife Zareen and a maid in their house in Karachi.

“There are enduring things about Dylan that pervade his persona. But he remains somewhat elusive. People feel like they don’t quite know him. People are still grasping the forces that shaped him. Some can only see him on a pedestal.”

“What is it about Edward McGuire that has made him a pioneering force in Scottish music over the past three decades, yet never appropriately acknowledged as a prophet in his own land? Sure, there are aspects of his musical style that may have put big publishers off… But there is also an irresistible charm.”

“Mike Leigh is going for a remarkable treble at the Berlin Film Festival, which opened yesterday. The director is vying to join the exalted list of film-makers who have directed a winner of each of the three major festival prizes, the Palme d’Or of Cannes, the Golden Lion of Venice and Berlin’s Golden Bear.”

Artist Ed Ruscha, who helped to create the ever-widening genre known as “pop art” is 70, which is itself hard to believe. But he remains deeply connected to the world of contemporary art, and even has a few unexpected favorites: Tracey Emin, for example.

Alan Gilbert may be the most famous conductor that no one knows anything about. The music director designate of the New York Philharmonic has built a sturdy reputation in his still-young career, but he’s still essentially an unknown to most American critics and concertgoers. And that lack of superficial flash and self-promotion may just tell you all you need to know about his style of music-making.

“A 50-year-old man who was struck and killed by a train in [the San Francisco Bay Area] on Sunday morning has been identified as Jorge Liderman, a prominent local composer and a professor in the music department at UC Berkeley. Liderman was struck by a Richmond-bound train at 9:42 a.m. in what appeared to be a suicide”

The 36-year-old star soprano and her fiance, Uruguayan baritone Erwin Schrott, are expecting a child this autumn

”One of my kids jumped into my arms,” the composer says somewhat sheepishly, ”and he bent my finger back.” The doctor operated quickly to prevent future impairment. Still recovering, Glass is out of commission as a performer but otherwise will ”completely participate” during his two-day visit.

“Poetry doesn’t need much promotion. It is doing quite well in this country. I gave a reading the other night in Concord, N.H., with two former poet laureates — Donald Hall and Maxine Kumin –and 740 people came. That’s a lot of people!”