Category: people

What frequently gets lost in discussions of great classical composers is their actual personality, and in no case is that a greater shame than that of Johannes Brahms. “Cutting irony was a prime Brahmsian mode, and he wielded his wit with special gusto when skewering friends. He was master of the quick putdown… Brahms’ wounding irony, his obliqueness in all things, were part of the armor of a relentlessly private man.”

Six months ago playwright Alan Ayckbourn suffered a stroke. “After a summer of recuperation, Ayckbourn, on a sofa at his Scarborough townhouse with a view of sun-glittered sea, is recognisable as the friendly, energetic presence of interviews before his illness, although his enthusiastic, actorly voice occasionally snags, like a tape played on dodgy sprockets in his long-ago days as a studio-manager for BBC radio.”

“Jonathan Miller is in a state of disgruntlement. Despite his congeniality and his mischievous good humor, things are getting him down.” At 72, he says New York, where his City Opera production of “The Elixir of Love” opens Saturday, will soon be crossed off the list of places where he’s willing to work. ” ‘I even have to pay my own hotel. It took three hours to get the papers I need to work here. And another seven hours flying here. And what do I get in return? The New York Times.’ “

“Isabel Bigley, who won a Tony award in 1951 playing Sarah Brown, the Salvation Army missionary who falls in love with a handsome gambler in the raucous Broadway hit ‘Guys and Dolls,’ died Saturday in Los Angeles.”

“As his fans well know but newcomers absorb with a jolt, the 46-year-old Quasthoff is a thalidomide victim, one of thousands of deformed children born to women who took the drug for insomnia or morning sickness during pregnancy. He spent much of his early childhood in an institution for the severely handicapped and grew up to receive music’s highest accolades, including three Grammy awards.”

The violinist, who is 43, says she’ll retire in two years. ” ‘It is my plan to stop when I reach my 45th birthday,’ the German-born violin virtuoso declared Sunday evening in an interview with the French-German television channel Arte.”

“Duplicity, codes, death threats, propaganda, the U.S.S.R. vs. the West — composer Dmitri Shostakovich’s life had all the elements of a Cold War spy drama. And the intrigue continues more than three decades after his death in 1975… Far from being a cut-and-dry commemoration of some distant figure, Shostakovich’s centennial has given a sharp crescendo to the controversy surrounding his participation in the oppressive Soviet system.”

Running for mayor of Toronto three years ago, David Miller painted himself as the arts candidate, a politician who recognized the inherent value of culture in a diverse city. More incredibly, he delivered on his promises. “In the midst of an era of city budget shortfalls and money crunches, the Miller regime has increased cultural grants for both the Toronto Arts Council and major institutions like the National Ballet and the AGO by $2 million, up to $15.2 million a year. This year, culture was one of only three major departments to have its funding increased, alongside the [transit system] and the police service.”

“Martha Holmes, a photographer for Life magazine for 40 years, who was known for her intimate portraits but also for covering sports at a time when that was male turf, died on Sept. 19 at her home in Manhattan. She was 83.”

That’s what they call Richard Li, who just gave Ottawa’s National Arts Center $1 million. He’s the son of one of the richest men in the world and a patron of the arts…