Category: people

A student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology causes a security panic at Boston’s Logan Airport when an “art project” consisting of a circuit board, battery and some clay sewn into her sweatshirt is mistaken for a bomb.

“The Frenchman’s extensive tours and appearances on camera brought his silent art to people across the globe. His comic and tragic sketches appealed on a universal level, with each audience interpreting his performance in its own way.”

“Some crazy ghouls have figured out a macabre marketing concept that they hope rich people with more money than brains will snap up, taking 10 strands of Ludwig van Beethoven’s hair and somehow turning them into a trio of half-carat fake diamonds.”

“Natalie Clein is a long-haired, good-looking English cellist with wide-open eyes and a winning smile.” And yes, she knows what you’re thinking, and she appreciates the comparison and all, but she’s really not trying to be the new Jacqueline duPre. Norman Lebrecht says that it’s time to stop such silly attempts to recapture the magical moments of the past, and embrace new young artists on their own merits.

When Luciano Pavarotti died last month, eulogists and obituary writers the world over wrote of his singularly incomparable voice, and of his superstar status in an age when classical musicians are relegated to general obscurity. “And yet … and yet … This most beautiful tenor voice in living memory seemed gradually to lose its bearings… Before his death, he said repeatedly that he wanted to be remembered as an opera singer, but that was the profession he seemed to have betrayed.”

Jean Sibelius was a prolific composer throughout most of his career, but amazingly, he produced not a single significant work in the last 30 years of his life. “It’s a creative silence all but unparalleled in music,” but the Finn never really stopped composing, and the reasons behind his withdrawal are complicated.

In 1961 Rudolf Nureyev defected to the West. “The KGB wanted him back. His celebrated teacher, Alexander Pushkin, and his devoted student friend, Tamara Zakrzhevskaya, were ordered to write pleading letters; his father, a loyal communist, was pressed to fetch him; and Soviet sympathisers in Paris tried to destroy his confidence by pelting him with missiles and catcalls on stage.”

“Alex Romero, a dancer and choreographer who directed Elvis Presley’s dancing for the movie ‘Jailhouse Rock’ and also worked with Presley on three other films, has died. He was 94.”

“The evening was filled with Ms. Sills’s singing and images on a giant screen, from a childhood television appearance to later performances. At the end, in the aria ‘Adieu notre petite table,’ from Massenet’s ‘Manon,’ the last notes fell to her: ‘Adieu!’ “

“Tess Gallagher is nothing if not proof that poetry can transform a life. Her alcoholic father beat her; her brother died in a car accident at the age of 15; her second husband was an alcoholic; and her third, Carver, died young of lung cancer. Yet I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to another interviewee who has laughed so much or been so open.”