Category: people

“Endlessly prolific, whether in fashion or out of it, he composed 362 works, including the world’s longest opera, Licht, a sequence of seven pieces – one for every day of the week. The whole piece lasts 29 hours.”

The eminent musicologist, author, teacher, editor and scholar of American as well as baroque music, died Dec. 5 after a long battle with cancer.

“Bowers, who has held the interim director spot since August, was appointed to the permanent job after a nationwide search. SAL runs several lecture and teaching series, as well as educational programs devoted to reading, writing and the discussion of literature.”

“One of the greatest Cuban percussionists ever died Wednesday night in Cleveland of complications from emphysema. The diminutive Carlos ‘Patato’ Valdés not only enjoyed a great musical career, but revolutionized the playing of his instrument, the tall Cuban hand-drums commonly known as congas. Hospitalized with emphysema, he was 81.”

Norval Morrisseau, arguably the most prominent First Nations artists in Canada, and a painter referred to in all seriousness as “the Picasso of the North,” has died. “The hyperbole is forgivable. They are part of the legend – the story of a true primitive who emerged from the Northern Ontario wilderness to awe the sophisticates in the major art centres of the world.”

The New York-based ballet company says 35-year-old Jennifer Alexander died Sunday night at the scene of the crash on Route 3 in East Rutherford.

“Gauguin lived in the village of Atuona from 1901 until his death two years later. He built his own Maori-style hut, “la Maison du Jouir” (house of pleasure), and dug a well just outside. The Marquesans did not use wells, but springs, and after Gauguin died it was filled with rubbish from his home.”

It just makes me a little nervous, and I try not to think about it too much. I think classical music is really strange because it seems to thrive on the word “greatness.” You know, you have great performers, and every concert by the San Francisco Symphony has to be great, and all the composers are great, and at the same time people are whispering, “Classical music’s dead.”

“Newman’s most important achievement was his deep and lasting impact on how non-profit arts groups build their audience bases. He was responsible, virtually by himself, for the now almost universal use of subscription ticket sales in the performing arts.”

In the Schjeldahlian universe, Chicago is “a place where you can get a perspective on the rest of the world”–sort of like a beach in the Bahamas, and about as influential. New York, on the other hand, is one of very few “transmitter” cities.