July 20: On This Day in Music

today

 

Be sure your student reads and listens to Today’s Daily Listening Assignment

 

 

 

• 1872 ~ Déodat de Séeverac, French composer

• 1913 ~ Sally Ann Howes, Singer

• 1932 ~ Nam June Paik, Korean-born American avant-guard composer

• 1938 ~ Jo Ann Campbell, Singer

• 1940 ~ Billboard magazine published its first listing of best-selling singles. 10 tunes were listed.

• 1943 ~ John Lodge, Guitar with Justin Hayward, singer with the Moody Blues

• 1944 ~ T.G. Shepherd (William Bowder), Country Singer

• 1946 ~ Kim Carnes, Grammy Award-winning singer, co-wrote the score to Flashdance

• 1946 ~ John Almond, Reeds, keyboards, vibes with Johnny Almond and the Music Machine

• 1947 ~ Carlos Santana, Mexican-born American rock guitarist

• 1958 ~ Mick McNeil, Keyboards with Simple Minds

• 1961 ~ Stop the World, I Want to Get Off opened in London. The show went to Broadway in 1962.

• 1963 ~ Dino Esposito, Singer

• 1963 ~ Ray Conniff received two gold-record awards – for the albums, Concert in Rhythm and Memories are Made of This – on Columbia Records. Conniff recorded dozens of albums of easy listening music for the label. He had been a trombonist and arranger with Bunny Berigan, Bob Crosby, Harry James, Vaughn Monroe and Artie Shaw.

• 1964 ~ Chris Cornell, Grammy Award-winning musician: drums, singer, songwriter with Soundgarden

• 1966 ~ Stone Gossard, Rock Musician

Daily Listening Assignments ~ July 20, 2023

 

Today’s Listening assignment is Dance of the Hours by Amilcare Ponchielli. This is a short ballet and is the act 3 finale of the opera La Gioconda. It depicts the hours of the day through solo and ensemble dances. The opera was first performed in 1876 and was revised in 1880.

Later performed on its own, the Dance of the Hours was at one time one of the best known and most frequently performed ballets.

It became even more widely known after its inclusion in the 1940 Disney animated film Fantasia where it is depicted as a comic ballet featuring anthropomorphized ostriches, hippopotamuses, elephants, and alligators.

 

From Fantasia

 

Orchestral version

 

Ballet

 

Piano

 

Spike Jones

 

 

And, who could forget Allan Sherman’s version, Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh?