Browsing: This Day in Music

Here are your daily headlines in classical music and the arts! After the illumination of Jacques-Cartier Bridge, the Montreal-based firm Moment Factory had received has been called to illuminate the Notre-Dame Basilica. Both events are part of the 375th anniversary festivities in Montreal. [Radio-Canada] [Canoë] [TVA] [CNW-Newswire] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh5a3Hd7lrY CANADA Interview with violinist from Trois-Rivières Antoine Bareil, for the Quartango band. [La Presse] Death of Quebecois artist Claire Guérette. She was well-known for his textile works. [La Presse] INTERNATIONAL Estonia is working on the project named “An instrument for each kid,” who, as the title said, try to democratise music for all. The project takes place in…

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A hundred years ago this week, on November 7, 1916, soprano Rayén Quitral was born in the small village of Iloca, near the world’s end in southern Chile. At the height of her career, she would tour Europe, Canada and the United States, and she would become a regular in Latin-American cities as Santiago, Mexico and Buenos Aires. Rayén Quitral, whose name means flower of fire in the language of the Mapuche people, would perform honouring her first nations’ heritage and dressed in traditional costumes and jewelry.  She would become known for her of role as Queen of the Night…

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Romantic composer Robert Schuman died of pneumonia on this day in music in 1856. The young Schumann wasn’t the most technically gifted pianist, but had immense promise as a composer. In what was perhaps an immediately tragic accident, Schumann injured his hand and his chances at being a successful show pianist. Yet, in the long run, this injury diverted his attention to composition. In this earlier period, Schumann would produce classics as the piano cycles, Papillons and Carnaval, influential works still regularly pored over in conservatories. Around the same time, Schumann would also co-found one of the most influential music…

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Probably the most famous Hungarian pianist not named Franz, Pozsony’s Ernő Dohnányi would carve out a prolific career full of virtuosic renown and panache. The young Dohnanyi entered the Budapest conservatory at seventeen to study piano and composition with a student of Liszt and a disciple of Brahms before making his debut a year later. His transcendent keyboard skills would quickly garner him renown in the music world with an elderly Brahms organizing the Vienna Premiere of Dohnányi’s Piano Quintet Opus No. 1. After the conservatory Dohnányi would be greeted with rapturous crowds, almost on par with Liszt’s famously riotous…

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This day in music, we celebrate Angela Hewitt’s birthday. Of a musical family, Angela Hewitt turns fifty-eight today as one of Canada’s and the world’s finest musicians. Hewitt began piano lessons at three before a meteoric rise led to her first full-length recital at nine with the Royal Conservatory of Toronto. Hewitt’s pivotal success was her capture of Toronto’s 1985 International Bach Piano Competition, held in honour of Glenn Gould. The win garnered not only accolades, but more importantly, led to a relationship with recording company, Deutsche Grammophon. With DG, Hewitt’s recording of English Suite No. 6 launched a legacy…

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This day in music in 1828, Ignaz Bösendorfer was granted a piano-making license. Son of a carpenter, Ignaz Bösendorfer was an Austrian piano maker in the nineteenth century who founded the iconic Bösendorfer Company. Founded in the historically rich center of Vienna, Bösendorfer has an incomparable place in classical music and piano lore. The ornate and sophisticated aesthetic build combined with its innovative mechanical action make a piano that is still a status symbol. Of Bösendorfer’s advocates and ambassadors, Franz Liszt and his rapturous displays of virtuosity stands at the fore. Before finding Bösendorfer, a young Liszt broke all of the pianos…

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Behind various iconic Disney movies, Alan Menken was born in New York City to a pianist father and an actress-dancer mother, foreshadowing the musical theatre path of Menken’s own career. With precocious composing abilities to immersion in American pop masters as Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein and the arrival of rock in his teens, Menken grew up in line with major trends of twentieth century music. After graduating from New York University—Steinhardt with a musicology degree, Menken would first find fame with acclaimed playwright Howard Ashman by adapting Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater…

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Born in what is now Ukraine, violinist Isaac Stern would immigrate to America at the age of one and go on to become one of the greatest instrumentalists of the twentieth century. His dedication to the arts showed through his dedication of Carnegie Hall as its president and his wide repertoire of recordings. Known for his powerful tone and directness of emotion, Stern proved that virtuosity is not the only way to musicality. As a pedagogue and advocate, Stern fought ardently for arts funding and notably discovered Yo-Yo Ma. Isaac Stern – Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor Op. 64

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Legendary Mexican guitarist Carlos Santana, who brought Latin fire to American rock with his group Santana, was born this day in music. Mixing American influences of B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix with Latin ones of Tito Puente and Mongo Santamaria, Santana continued to develop the genre of electric blues. With such classics as “Smooth,” “Black Magic Woman,” and “Oye Como Va,” Santana endures as a pioneer and legend of contemporary music. Santana – “Oye Como Va”

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Perhaps one of the most idiosyncratic composers, Dmitry Shostakovich became a symbol of anti-totalitarianism and a bulwark against Axis powers. Symphony No. 7, considered by many to be his greatest work, was originally dedicated to the achievements of Vladimir Lenin, but later to the completion of Leningrad and the power of its people. With latent poignancy and impassioned melodies, the Symphony would become a powerful propaganda tool used both by the Americans and the Soviets to promote an allied resistance to the German encroachment. Though receiving mixed reviews in America for its bombast, the Symphony was a success after its debut…

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