Category: people

“Award-winning theater and opera director Dietmar Pflegerl died on Thursday, May 17, at age 63 in his hometown of Klagenfurt, the capital of the southern Austrian state of Kärnten. He had been diagnosed with cancer five years ago, but adamantly refused to let it interfere with his work.”

“Until he builds his first building at the age of 52, he has spent no more than three weeks working as a professional architect. A theorist, he conceives of beautiful but commercially improbable, ostensibly unviable buildings – ostensibly, because some of the same mad designs he once scrawled in his basement office are now the toast of the architecture world. Indeed, from nowhere, Libeskind vaults into the rarefied world of celebrity. People accost him in restaurants, take his picture on subway platforms. He is lavished with prizes, commissions, money. He designs furniture, grand pianos, opera, becomes a media darling and a household name.”

Violinist Maxim Vengerov puts down his violin at a concert in London last week and conducts the orchestra onstage. What happened? “It’s just a temporary injury, and my hand is recovering now. I slipped in the bathroom! Very silly, very silly. Unexpected.”

“The 78-year-old appeared disorientated during a gig in Iowa. The musician has a history of hypertension and diabetes. Tests indicated that the stroke affected the left side of his brain, impairing his speech and speech recognition, a spokeswoman said.”

“The least showmanlike of performers, Stephen Hough, 45, is recognised by his peers as a pianist’s pianist – a contemplative artist with an encyclopaedic knowledge of music and a microscopic command of detail. Six years ago he won a ‘Genius Fellowship’, half a million dollars from the MacArthur Foundation, its only musical recipient. He has been marked out as Nobel class. And now he’s fervently composing.”

If the New York City Council approves a nomination already endorsed by the local community board, the corner of East 48th Street and Second Avenue will be called Kurt Vonnegut Way — and, mind you, the neighborhood is a bit more selective about its street namings than the rest of the city is. Bestowing the honor on Vonnegut, who died last month at age 84, “was a ‘no-brainer,’ board members said.”

“Stanley Holden, whose Chaplinesque blend of wistfulness and wit made him one of the finest character dancers in Britain’s Royal Ballet before he settled in Los Angeles and became one of the area’s most popular ballet teachers, died on Friday in Thousand Oaks, Calif.”

“It’s this idea of letting things unfold in front of you. You’re not doing journalism, you really do have a point of view. And it’s done with a 35-millimeter camera, black and white. … I just aim the camera and take the pictures.”

Much has been said about Mstislav Rostropovich’s legacy as a conductor and performer since his death last month. But Rostropovich was also one of the most inspirational teachers of his generation, and that side of him is being remembered at cello gatherings around the world.

By age 80, most musicians have long since stopped performing in public, but Charles Rosen remains not only an active pianist and scholar, he is one of New York’s more influential musical figures. “His curiosity and passion remain insatiable when he is engaged with the many composers he does like… The rhythm of Mr. Rosen’s brain, meanwhile, is still so fast that a fly on the wall of his mind would beg for mercy.”