Category Archives: musicians

Is This Beethoven’s Last Work for Piano?

Posted by MaryO on

Arts-SMH

 

 

IS THIS Beethoven’s last work for piano? The Sydney musicologist Peter McCallum believes it is.

The 32 bars of handwritten musical notation caught his eye when he was studying the composer’s last sketchbook in Berlin a couple of years ago. But it has required some detective work to determine what the great composer – whose handwriting was famously chaotic – intended.

“I didn’t know it was a piano piece until I actually sat down and tried to write it out,” says McCallum. “Beethoven almost never used clefs or key signatures so you have to think about it … but once you do crack the code it’s clear.”

McCallum, who is associate professor in musicology at the University of Sydney and the Herald’s classical music critic, believes the piece was written about October 1826, just a few months before the composer died in March 1827.

“Beethoven always jotted down ideas, it was almost compulsive,” he says. “The amount of paper he covered in the last three years of his life was quite amazing. There are a lot of little ideas that crop up that don’t go anywhere. But this was more than a little idea. It actually has a right hand and a left hand and it’s got phrasing marks and staccato marks in a few places. So it’s quite clear it was a complete piece.”

Now the pianist Stephanie McCallum has used her husband’s transcription to make the first recording of the piece. Bagatelle in F minor is just 54 seconds long and is the final piece on her CD Fur Elise, Bagatelles For Piano By Ludwig Van Beethoven.

Although most of Beethoven’s sketchbooks have been studied in detail, the final sketchbook – housed in Berlin’s State Library – has attracted little attention.

Although his later works are often seen as spiritual, the fragment has a different quality, says Peter McCallum. “It’s slightly melancholy. But it’s a pleasant little thing and it’s quite easy to play. What I like about it is that a child could enjoy playing it. We could give Fur Elise a rest for a while.”

From: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/09/04/1220121428067.html

July 24 ~ Today in Music History

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OCMS1803 ~ Adolphe Adam, Opera Composer, composer of Oh, Holy Night
More information about Adam


• 1849 ~ Georgetown University in Washington, DC, became the first college to offer a doctor of music degree. It was presented to Professor Henry Dielman.

• 1880 ~ Ernest Bloch, Swiss-born American composer and conductor
More information about Bloch

• 1908 ~ Cootie (Charles) Williams, Trumpeter with Echoes of Harlem born. He performed with Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman; band leader for Cootie Williams Sextet and Orchestra

• 1915 ~ Bob Eberly (Robert Eberle), Singer born. He performed with Kitty Kallen, sang with the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra & on TV’s Top Tunes; brother of singer Ray Eberle

• 1921 ~ Billy Taylor, Jazz Piano. He was also the leader of the Billy Taylor Trio, Orchestra; coofounder of Jazzmobile ’65; the music director of The David Frost Show; and performed jazz segments on Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt

• 1934 ~ Rudy Collins, Drummer with Dizzy Gillespie quintet

• 1938 ~ Clarinet virtuoso and big band leader Artie Shaw recorded his now-classic, Begin the Beguine, for Bluebird Records in New York City. Shaw was married to Ava Gardner at the time.

• 1941 ~ Barbara Jean Love, Singer with Friends of Distinction

• 1942 ~ Heinz Burt, Musician, bass with The Tornados

• 1947 ~ Mick Fleetwood, British rock drummer

• 1947 ~ Peter Serkin, American pianist

• 1951 ~ Lynval Golding, Musician, guitarist with The Specials

• 1956 – After a decade together as the country’s most popular comedy team, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis called it quits this night. They did their last show at the Copacabana nightclub in New York City. The duo ended their relationship exactly 10 years after they had started it.

• 1958 ~ Pam Tillis, Country Singer

• 2000 ~ Violinist Oscar Shumsky, a brilliant performer who trained generations of successful younger artists, died at the ate of 83 from heart disease. Shumsky displayed his musical talent at an early age, first picking up a violin when he was 3 years old. His father, an amateur player who recognized his son’s brilliance, took him to the Curtis Institute of Music, where he was accepted as a student by violinist Leopold Auer and was later taught by Efrem Zimbalist. At the age of 9, Shumsky performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and after graduating from Curtis in 1936, he began playing around the world to widespread critical acclaim. He later branched into conducting. Shumsky was featured at Lincoln Center’s “Great Performer Series.” He trained generations of violinists at some of the nation’s most prestigious music schools, including the Curtis Institute, the Peabody Conservatory, Yale University and, for 25 years, at the Juilliard School.

• 2001 ~ Charles Henderson, editor of The American Organist, died at the age of 84. Henderson, who edited the journal for more than a decade, starting in 1973, conducted a production of Britten’s “Noye’s Fludde” broadcast nationally on CBS television in 1964. He was on the faculty of the Union Theological Seminary’s School of Sacred Music, and from 1976 to 1983 was the organist at the First Presbyterian Church in Milford, N.J. Born in West Chester, Pa., Henderson studied music at Bucknell University, the Juilliard School, Syracuse University and the Fontainebleau School in France.

Listen to the instrument da Vinci invented but never got to hear

Posted by MaryO on

viola-organista

It’s startling to think of the multitude of objects Leonardo da Vinci conceptualized, and it’s a tad heartbreaking to realize he saw so few of them actualized.

But nearly 500 years after da Vinci sketched his plans for a musical instrument he dubbed the Viola Organista, Polish concert pianist Slawomir Zubrzycki spent more than 5,000 hours making da Vinci’s idea a reality.

In 2013, Zubryzcki debuted the instrument at the Academy of Music in the southern Polish city of Krakow. As reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, Zubryzcki said, “This instrument has the characteristics of three we know: the harpsichord, the organ and the viola da gamba.”

Watch the performance in the YouTube video below; you’ll recognize the pieces. And if you listen to the audio without watching Zubryzcki at the keyboard, you may think you’re hearing a small chamber ensemble rather than one person playing a single instrument.

via Listen to the instrument da Vinci invented but never got to hear | Classical MPR.

July 23 ~ Today in Music History

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• 1757 ~ Domenico Scarlatti, Italian composer and harpsichordist, died. He composed over 500 keyboard sonatas, using new techniques and achieving brilliant effects.

• 1796 ~ Franz Adolf Berwald, Swedish composer and violinst

• 1916 ~ Ben Weber, American composer and winner of the Thorne Music Award in 1965

• 1925 ~ Gloria DeHaven, Singer

• 1928 ~ Leon Fleisher, American pianist and conductor

• 1934 ~ Steve Lacy (Lackritz), Jazz musician, soprano sax

• 1941 ~ Sonny Dunham and his orchestra recorded the tune that was to become Mr. Dunham’s theme song. Memories of You was Bluebird record #11239.

• 1940 ~ Gary Stites, Singer

• 1943 ~ Tony Joe White, Country Singer

• 1945 ~ Dino Danelli, Musician, drummer with The (Young) Rascals

• 1946 ~ Andy Mackay, Musician, saxophone, woodwinds with Roxy Music

• 1947 ~ David Essex (Cook), Rock Singer

• 1940 ~ (John Donald) Don Imus, Radio DJ & talk-show host

• 1950 ~ Blair Thornton, Musician, guitar with Bachman-Turner Overdrive

• 1961 ~ Martin Gore, Musician with DePeche Mode

• 1966 ~ Frank Sinatra hit the top of the pop album chart with his Strangers in the Night. It was the first #1 Sinatra LP since 1960. The album’s title song had made it to number one on the pop singles chart on July 2nd.

• 1969 ~ Three Dog Night received a gold record for the single, One. It was the first of seven million-sellers for the pop-rock group.

• 1985 ~ Kaye Kyser, Bandleader, passed away
More information about Kyser

• 2000 ~ Yoshimi Takeda, a former director of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, died at the age of 67 of complications from cancer. He had been music director and resident conductor of the NMSO from 1974 to 1984, holding the post concurrently with that of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra. Takeda made his debut with the Tokyo Symphony in 1958. He began his U.S. career in 1962 as a Kulas Fellow with the Cleveland Orchestra in a conductor advanced training program. He came to the NMSO in 1970 after six years as the Honolulu Symphony’s associate director.

• 2002 ~ Clark Gesner, who created the musical “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown,” died of a heart attack while visiting the Princeton Club in Manhattan. He was 64. Gesner’s well-known musical, based on Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip, opened in March 1967 in a New York theater and went on to tour nationally. The 14-song show featured Gary Burghoff as Charlie Brown and Bob Balaban as Linus. It made a monthlong leap to Broadway in the early 1970s, and was revived on Broadway in 1999. Gesner, who was born in Maine, attended Princeton and was active in the Triangle Club, the university’s theater troupe.

July 22 ~ Today in Music History

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• 1597 ~ Virgilio Mazzocchi, Composer

• 1635 ~ Pietro Antonio Tamburini, Composer, died at the age of 45

• 1642 ~ Johann Quirsfeld, Composer

• 1651 ~ Ferdinand Tobias Richter, Composer

• 1721 ~ François-Joseph Krafft, Composer

• 1786 ~ Vaclav Kalous, Composer ~ died at the age of 71

• 1794 ~ Jean-Benjamin de La Borde, Composer ~ died at the age of 59

• 1830 ~ Herbert Stanley Oakeley, Composer

• 1833 ~ Benjamin Hanby, Composer

• 1848 ~ Lucien Fugère, French baritone

• 1871 ~ Akos Buttykai, Composer

• 1873 ~ Ettore Pozzoli, Composer

• 1878 ~ Ernest R. Ball, Composer

• 1879 ~ Gustaf Heintze, Composer

• 1889 ~ Frederick Preston Search, Composer

• 1893 ~ Katherine Lee Bates wrote America the Beautiful in Colorado

• 1913 ~ Licia Albanese, Italian-born American soprano. She is best remembered for her roles at New York’s Metropolitan Opera and for her recording of La Boheme conducted by Arturo Toscanini.

• 1919 ~ De Falla and Massine’s “Three-cornered Hat”, premiered in London

• 1924 ~ Margaret Whiting, Pop Singer

• 1932 ~ Florenz Ziegfeld, U.S. theatrical producer and impresario, died. He was famed for his “Follies” spectacular revues which ran every year from 1907 to 1931.

• 1933 ~ Caterina Jarboro became the first black prima donna of an opera company. The singer performed Verdi’s “Aida” with the Chicago Opera Company at the Hippodrome in New York City.

• 1937 ~ Chuck Jackson, Singer

• 1937 ~ Hal Kemp and his orchestra recorded the now-standard tune, Got a Date with an Angel, for Victor Records in Hollywood, California. The distinctive vocal on the tune is provided by Skinnay Ennis.

• 1940 ~ George Clinton, Singer

• 1941 ~ Thomas Wayne (Perkins), Singer

• 1944 ~ Estelle Bennett, Singer with The Ronettes

• 1944 ~ Richard Davies, Keyboards, singer with Supertramp

• 1945 ~ Bobby Sherman, Singer, actor and founder of TAC-5, a paramedics group

• 1947 ~ Don Henley, Drummer, singer with Shiloh; The Eagles, songwriter

• 1959 ~ Benjamin Britten’s “Missa Brevis” in D premiered

• 1963 ~ The Beatles released “Introducing the Beatles”

• 1967 ~ The Billboard singles chart showed that Windy, by The Association, was the most popular record in the U.S. for the fourth straight week. The Los Angeles~based sextet would make way for Jim Morrison and The Doors a week later when Light My Fire became the hottest record of the mid~summer.

• 1977 ~ Tony Orlando announced his retirement from show business. Orlando was performing in Cohasset, MA when he said that he had finally decided to call it quits. Orlando had two solo hits in 1961 (Halfway to Paradise and Bless You) and 14 hits with his backup singers,Telma Hopkins and Joyce Vincent, (known as Dawn) through the mid~1970s. He also hosted a weekly TV variety show with Dawn from 1974~1976.

• 1985 ~ Bruce Springsteen became the hottest ticket in the rock concert biz as 70,000 Cleveland fans lined up (in less than three hours) to grab tickets to see the ‘Boss’.

• 2001 ~ Bob Ferguson, who wrote the standard Wings of a Dove and produced records for Dolly Parton, Porter Wagoner and other country music stars, died at the age of 73. Ferguson, a native of Willow Springs, Mo., was hired in 1955 to produce films for the Tennessee Game & Fish Commission. He worked there until 1960, when he wrote and produced the No. 1 hit Wings of a Dove for Ferlin Husky. As a staff producer at RCA Records in the 1960s and early ’70s, Ferguson worked with artists like Parton, Connie Smith, Danny Davis and the Nashville Brass, Jim Ed Brown, George Hamilton IV and Archie Campbell. He wrote The Carroll County Accident, a No. 2 hit for Wagoner. It was named the best country song of 1969 by the Country Music Association.

• 2002 ~ Jazz singer Marion Montgomery, who frequently performed on British television and was known for her smooth, versatile voice, died. She was 67. Montgomery, was born in Natchez, Miss., and lived in England for more than 30 years. She was well-known to television audiences as a resident singer on the British Broadcasting Corp. talk show “Parkinson” through the 1970s and was widely praised for her smooth voice and intimate, relaxed singing style. Montgomery worked as a cabaret singer in Las Vegas, New York and Los Angeles before moving to Britain. She starred in the West End production of “Anything Goes” in 1969 and recorded a one-woman show for the BBC in 1975. Her albums included “Swings for Winners and Losers” (1963), “Let There Be Marion Montgomery,” (1963) and “Sometimes in the Night” (1989).

July 21 ~ Today in Music History

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• 1748 ~ Louis-Henry Paisible, Composer

• 1779 ~ Gottlob Wiedebein, Composer

• 1782 ~ Placidus Cajetan von Camerloher, Composer, died at the age of 63

• 1797 ~ Franz Schoberlechner, Composer

• 1865 ~ Robert Kahn, Composer

• 1870 ~ Josef Strauss, Austrian composer, died at the age of 42

• 1896 ~ Jean Rivier-Villemomble France, Composer

• 1898 ~ Ernest Willem Mulder, Composer

• 1898 ~ Sara Carter, Vocalist/guitarist with the Carter Family

• 1903 ~ Theodore Karyotakis, Composer

• 1906 ~ Daniel Ayala Perez, Composer

• 1915 ~ Floyd McDaniel ~ blues singer/guitarist

• 1920 ~ Isaac Stern, American concert violinist
Read quotes by and about Stern
More information about Stern

• 1920 ~ Manuel Valls Gorina, Composer

• 1921 ~ Billy Taylor, Orchestra leader on the David Frost Show

• 1922 ~ Kay Starr (Katherine Starks), Pop Singer

• 1925 ~ Lovro Zupanovic, Composer

• 1926 ~ Albert Fuller, American harpsichordist

• 1926 ~ Norman Jewison, Director of Jesus Christ, Superstar, Fiddler on the Roof

• 1927 ~ Stefan Niculescu, Composer

• 1931 ~ Leon Schidlowsky, Composer

• 1931 ~ Ted Husing was master of ceremonies for the very first CBS-TV program. The gala show featured singer Kate Smith, composer George Gershwin and New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker.

• 1935 ~ Kaye Stevens, Singer and comedienne on the Jerry Lewis Show

• 1938 ~ Anton Emil Kuerti, Composer

• 1938 ~ Paul Hindemith and Leonide Massines ballet premiered in London

• 1947 ~ Cat Stevens (Steven Demitri Georgiou) (Muslim name: Yusuf Islam), British folk-rock singer and songwriter

• 1948 ~ Donald Nichols Tweedy, Composer, died at the age of 58

• 1950 ~ Albert Riemenschneider, Composer, died at the age of 71

• 1958 ~ The last of Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts programs aired on CBS-TV. Many artists got their start on Talent Scouts, including Tony Bennett, Pat Boone, The McGuire Sisters and a singer named Connie Francis, who not only sang, but played the accordion, as well.

• 1962 ~ Dmitri Shostakovitch completed his 13th Symphony

• 1964 ~ Dmitri Shostakovitch completed his 10th String quartet

• 1969 ~ Just one day after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, Duke Ellington and a portion of his band performed a 10-minute composition on ABC-TV titled Moon Maiden. The work featured piano, drums, bass and vocals.

• 1973 ~ Bad, Bad Leroy Brown reached the top spot on the Billboard pop-singles chart, becoming Jim Croce’s first big hit. Croce died in a plane crash two months later (September 20, 1973).

• 1976 ~ “Guys & Dolls” opened at Broadway Theater New York City for 239 performances

• 1994 ~ Dorothy Collins, Singer on Your Hit Parade, died at the age of 67

• 1995 ~ Edwin “Russell” House, Saxophonist, died at the age of 65

• 2000 ~ Iain Hamilton, the Scottish composer who turned Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” into an opera at the age of 78. Hamilton wrote four symphonies and dozens of orchestral and chamber works but is known best for his vocal music, which includes a cantata based on the poems of Robert Burns. “Anna Karenina” premiered at the English National Opera in 1981 to critical acclaim. His other operas include “Agamemnon”, “The Catiline Conspiracy”, based on a Ben Jonson play, and an adaptation of Peter Shaffer’s play “The Royal Hunt of the Sun”. From 1961 to 1978 he was a professor of music at Duke University in North Carolina.

• 2000 ~ Barbra Streisand announced final concerts

• 2001 ~ Norman Hall Wright, the last surviving writer who worked on the Disney film Fantasia 2000, died at the age of 91. Wright studied at the University of Southern California before being hired by Walt Disney Productions. He started as an animator but later became a writer, producer and director. Wright developed the story of The Nutcracker Suite sequence for Fantasia 2000. He also was responsible for a sequence in Bambi. He wrote several cartoon shorts for Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy and also produced several Wonderful World of Disney television programs.

• 2002 ~ Gus Dudgeon, a respected music producer who worked on many of Elton John’s hit recordings, died in a car crash in western England. He was 59. Dudgeon produced Rocket Man, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Your Song, Daniel and Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me. Dudgeon also produced David Bowie’s Space Oddity and worked with other stars, including Chris Rea and Joan Armatrading. But it was his partnership with Sir Elton in the 1970s for which he will be best remembered. Dudgeon began his career in the early 1960s as a tea boy, running errands at Olympic Studios in London before joining Decca Records. He engineered the Zombies’ classic She’s Not There and the groundbreaking Blues Breakers album by John Mayall with Eric Clapton, before moving into producing.

• 2015 ~ Theodore Meir Bikel,  Austrian-American actor, folk singer, musician, composer, and activist, died at the age of 91.

July 20 ~ Today in Music History

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• 1872 ~ Déodat de Séeverac, French composer

• 1913 ~ Sally Ann Howes, Singer

• 1932 ~ Nam June Paik, Korean-born American avant-guarde 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 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 andArtie Shaw.

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

• 1966 ~ Stone Gossard, Rock Musician

July 19 ~ Today in Music History

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• 1592 ~ Erhard Buttner, Composer

• 1735 ~ Garret Wesley Mornington, Composer

• 1742 ~ Jean-Baptiste Davaux, Composer

• 1750 ~ Alessio Prati, Composer

• 1782 ~ Jonathan Blewitt, Composer

• 1789 ~ John Martin, English painter

• 1797 ~ Johann Gottlieb Schneider, Composer

• 1811 ~ Vincenz Lachner, German organist, conductor and composer

• 1906 ~ Klauss Egge, Norwegian composer

• 1913 ~ Charles Teagarden, trumpeter, bandleader, brother of Jack

• 1926 ~ Sue Thompson (Eva McKee), singer of Norman and Sad Movies (Make Me Cry)

• 1937 ~ George Hamilton IV, Singer

• 1939 ~ Jack Teagarden and his orchestra recorded Aunt Hagar’s Blues for Columbia Records. Teagarden provided the vocal on the session recorded in Chicago, IL.

• 1941 ~ Natalya Besamertnova, Ballet Dancer with the Bolshoi ballet

• 1942 ~ The Seventh Symphony, by Dmitri Shostakovitch, was performed for the first time in the United States by Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra.

• 1942 ~ Vikki Carr (Florencia Bisenta deCasilla Martinez Cardona), Pop Singer

• 1946 ~ Alan Gorrie, Rock Singer with the Average White Band

• 1947 ~ Bernie Leadon, Musician, guitar with The Eagles

• 1947 ~ Brian Harold May, Musician, guitarist, singer and songwriter with Queen, who had the 1975 UK No.1 single Bohemian Rhapsody, which returned to No.1 in 1991. Queen scored over 40 other UK Top 40 singles, and also scored the 1980 US No.1 single Crazy Little Thing Called Love. May had the solo 1992 UK No.5 single Too Much Love Will Kill You. May was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005 for ‘services to the music industry and his charity work’. May earned a PhD in astrophysics from Imperial College, London, in 2007.

• 1949 ~ Singer Harry Belafonte began recording for Capitol Records on this day. The first sessions included They Didn’t Believe Me and Close Your Eyes. A short time later, Capitol said Belafonte wasn’t “commercial enough,” so he signed with RCA Victor (for a very productive and commercial career).

• 1952 ~ Allen Collins, Musician, guitar with Lynyrd Skynyrd

• 1952 ~ “Paint Your Wagon” closed at Shubert Theater New York City after 289 performances

• 1966 ~ Frank Sinatra married actress Mia Farrow this day.

• 1963 ~ Kelly Shiver, Country Singer

• 1980 ~ Billy Joel, pianist, singer-songwriter, and composer, earned his first gold record with It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me, which reached the top of the Billboard pop music chart. He would score additional million-sellers with Just the Way You Are, My Life, Uptown Girl (for girlfriend and later, wife and supermodel Christie Brinkley) and We Didn’t Start the Fire. Joel reached the top only one other time, with Tell Her About It in 1983.

• 2000 ~ H. LeBaron Taylor, a Sony executive who pioneered the mass marketing of music rooted in black culture and fostered minority development in the corporate world, died at the age of 65 of a heart attack. He was recognized by Ebony magazine as one of the top 50 black executives in corporate America. In the 1970s, Taylor was at CBS Records, leading its Black Music Marketing department, which sold music originating in black culture and styles that sprang from it, such as blues, soul, rap and hip-hop.

July 13 ~ Today in Music History

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• 1668 ~ Van Marco Cesti’s opera “Il Pomo d’Oro,” premiered in Vienna

• 1813 ~ Johann Friedrich Peter, Composer, died at the age of 67

• 1844 ~ Johann Gansbacher, Composer, died at the age of 66

• 1866 ~ C.C. Birchard, Music Publisher

• 1877 ~ Karl Erb, German tenor

• 1884 ~ John Francis Larchet, Composer

• 1889 ~ Carli Zoeller, Composer, died at the age of 49

• 1891 ~ Franco Casavola, Composer

• 1894 ~ Juventino Rosas, Composer, died at the age of 26

• 1898 ~ Guglielmo Marconi patented the radio

• 1903 ~ August Reissmann, Composer, died at the age of 77

• 1906 ~ Harry Sosnik, American orchestra leader of the Jack Carter Show and Your Hit Parade

• 1909 ~ David Branson, Composer

• 1909 ~ Paul Constantinescu, Composer

• 1909 ~ Washington Castro, Composer

• 1913 ~ Ladislav Holoubek, Composer

• 1915 ~ Paul Williams, Jazz saxophonist and band leader Williams played with Clarence Dorsey in 1946, and then made his recording debut with King Porter in 1947 for Paradise before forming his own band later that year.
More information about Williams

• 1921 ~ Ernest Gold, Composer

• 1921 ~ Charles Scribner Jr, Music publisher

• 1923 ~ Asger Hamerik (Hammerich) German composer, died at the age of 80

• 1924 ~ Carlo Bergonzi, Italian tenor

• 1926 ~ Meyer Kupferman, American composer

• 1928 ~ Donal Michalsky, Composer

• 1932 ~ Per Nørgård, Danish composer
More information about Nørgård

• 1934 ~ Roger Reynolds, Composer

• 1936 ~ Izydor Lotto, Composer, died at the age of 91

• 1939 ~ Frank Sinatra made his recording debut with the Harry James band. Frankie sang Melancholy Mood and From the Bottom of My Heart.

• 1942 ~ Roger McGuinn, Musician, guitarist and vocalist with the Byrds (1965 US & UK No.1 single ‘Mr Tambourine Man’). He was the only member of The Byrds to play on the hit, the others being session players. He toured with Bob Dylan in 1975 and 1976 as part of Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, and later worked with fellow ex-Byrds Gene Clark and Chris Hillman to form “McGuinn, Clark and Hillman”.

• 1951 ~ Arnold Schoenberg, Austrian-born composer, died in Los Angeles; he was best known for his 12-note serial method and his composition Verklaerte Nacht and his opera “Moses und Aaron.”
More information about Schoenberg

• 1942 ~ Stephen Jo Bladd , American drummer with the J Geils Band

• 1954 ~ Louise Mandrell, American country singer with the Mandrell Sisters

• 1958 ~ Karl Erb, German tenor, died on 81st birthday

• 1959 ~ Dedicated to the One I Love, by The Shirelles, was released. The tune went to number 83 on the Top 100 chart of “Billboard” magazine. The song was re-released in 1961 and made it to number three on the charts.

• 1961 ~ Lawrence Donegan, Musician, bass with Lloyd Cole & The Commotions

• 1965 ~ Neil Thrasher, Country Singer

• 1973 ~ Martian Negrea, Composer, died at the age of 80

• 1973 ~ The Everly Brothers called it quits during a concert at the John Wayne Theatre in Buena Park, CA. Phil Everly walked off the stage in the middle of the show and brother Don said, “The Everly Brothers died ten years ago.” The duo reunited a decade later for a short time.

• 1976 ~ Max Butting, Composer, died at the age of 87

• 1978 ~ Antonio Veretti, Composer, died at the age of 78

• 1979 ~ George Harrison released Faster

• 1985 ~ Duran Duran took A View to a Kill, from the James Bond movie of the same name, to the top of the record charts this day. The song stayed on top for two weeks.Live and Let Die by Wings and Nobody Does It Better by Carly Simon — both James Bond themes — got only as high as number two on the record charts.

• 1985 ~ Live Aid, a rock concert masterminded by Bob Geldof, took place in London and Philadelphia and raised over 60 million dollars for famine in Africa.

• 1992 ~ Carla van Neste, Belgian violinist, died at the age of 78

• 1994 ~ Eddie Boyd, Blues vocalist and pianist, died at the age of 79

Local Event August 1, 7:00 PM

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Barbershop

 

 

The Harmony Heritage Singers will present a Barbershop Harmony Concert on Saturday, August 1 at 7:00 pm at the Greenbriar Commons Park (next to the pool).

Free sodas and pretzels

Bring your chair or blanket

Rain Date: Sunday, August 2 at 7:00 pm

Barbershop harmony is music in a very pure form created with nothing but human voices coming together to create a rich and satisfying texture that is pleasing to the ears and invigorating to the soul. The barbershop style is unaccompanied vocal music characterized by four-part chords. The melody is sung by the lead, with the tenor harmonizing above the melody, the bass singing the lowest notes, and the baritone completing the chord.

For more about the barbershop style, please click here.

About the Harmony Heritage Singers:

We are the Harmony Heritage Singers, a group of retired gentlemen who enjoy singing together in the distinctive barbershop style. Under our director, Bob Wachter, we rehearse twice a month during the day at Sherwood Regional Library in the Mount Vernon neighborhood. We also present about 25 performances a year, mostly at retirement communities and seniors groups in Northern Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia.