Category: people

Jay Greenberg has been seemingly everywhere this week, his shy-looking face standing in stark contrast to his accomplishments: still just 14, Greenberg has written five symphonies and countless other works, and his latest have just been recorded by the London Symphony and the Juilliard Quartet. But does the label of “genius” really apply here? Tim Smith says it does: “The orchestration is remarkably assured, showing a keen ear for how sections of instruments can complement and play off each other. There’s a clear sense of direction and purpose to the work, a build-up of drama and tension that ends with a blaze of high-spirited energy.”

Daniel Johnson was stunned when he read Gunther Grass’s admission that he served in the Waffen SS during World War II, and following Grass’s subsequent complain that he feels “attacked” in the wake of his confession, Johnson wants to explain his own feeling of betrayal. “You do not need me to tell you that, for a German of your generation, frankness about your activities during the Third Reich is not merely a moral imperative, but a sine qua non for any kind of public role… All the evidence points to you having been not only a fanatical Nazi but a dangerous one too, eager to wear the death’s head insignia of the SS.”

Author Salman Rushdie is defending Gunther Grass’s body of work, saying that the “disappointing” news of Grass’s service to the Third Reich doesn’t diminish his literary accomplishments. “Grass has spent his adult life opposing the ideas he espoused as a child and that in itself is an act of courage, he’s a friend of mine and I don’t intend to change that.”

Charles Barr, the 31-year old Cleveland Orchestra bass player who was killed last week when his bicycle was struck by a truck, was memorialized Wednesday by friends and colleagues. “Barr, with a mop of honey hair and intense, inquisitive eyes that seemed to burn through his glasses, joined the orchestra in 2002 and fast became a favorite of musicians and stagehands alike. Those who saw him perform were drawn into his kinetic, charismatic orbit.” Barr was also well-known to musicians throughout the U.S. – more than 500 people attended the service.

Writer Gunther Grass says his accomplishments as a writer are being denigrated after he admitted being in the Nazi SS during World War II. “What I’m experiencing is an attempt to make me persona non grata, to cast doubt about everything I did in my life after that. And that later life was marked by shame.”

“Annely Juda, who has died aged 91, was the doyenne of British art dealers. Tiny but formidable, she could strike terror into the heart of an errant artist. She said what she thought, whether it was asked for or not, and over 40 years built up a reputation as one of the most discerning of contemporary dealers, with a stable of artists loyal to her personally, as well as to her gallery.”

The singer is battling pancreatic cancer. “I was a fortunate and happy man. After that, this blow arrived. And now I am paying the penalty for this fortune and happiness. I feel the tumor inside. I’m working on it,” he said “However, I am and will be optimistic until death.”

“From the early 1960’s, Mr. Sacharow was an active director of Off and Off Off Broadway productions, winning an Obie for his production of Len Jenkin’s “Five of Us.” Much of his success came from an association with Edward Albee; Mr. Sacharow directed “Beckett/Albee” at the Century Theater in 2003 and won a Lucille Lortel Award in 1994 for his direction of Mr. Albee’s “Three Tall Women” at the Vineyard Theater.”

“Julio Galán, a provocative Neo-Expressionist Mexican painter, died on Aug. 4 en route back to his home in Monterrey, Mexico. He was 46. … Throughout an astoundingly varied, often uneven range of images, he laced references to his childhood and his sexual identity with allusions to Catholicism, the Mexican Baroque, pre-Columbian cultures, retablos and folk art. The result was a kind of postmodern Symbolism: overripe, often perverse, yet mesmerizing.”

Author Gunther Grass has admitted to a German newspaper that he served in Hitler’s Waffen SS during World War II. “Grass, 78, is regarded as the literary spokesman for the generation of Germans that grew up in the Nazi era and survived the war… He was long been active in left-wing politics as a sometimes-critical supporter of the Social Democratic Party and is regarded by many as an important moral voice who has opposed xenophobia and war.” He says that a deep sense of shame has consumed him for years regarding his service in the Third Reich’s much-feared paramilitary force.