If you like cats, you’d better like Vaughan Williams, and if you like Vaughan Williams, you’d better tune in today between 4 and 6 p.m. EDT, as I’ll be celebrating his birthday, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
** Coming up at 6 p.m.: Spooky comedies for Hallowe’en on “Picture Perfect!” **
Well, I’ve got egg on my face. How could I, who own practically two shelves full of his operas and oratorios, do a five hour radio show and not salute George Frideric Handel on his birthday? The sad fact of the matter is that my head is full of arcane composer birthdays, but Handel’s is not one of them. So I apologize, Georg. It’s not quite belated yet, but too late to give you the kind of gift you deserve.
I hope this overlaid saxophone quartet (with cute dogs) makes things better.
Right smack dab in the middle of the Christmas season, too. I wonder if he had a problem with getting only one gift for the two occasions. Happy birthday, Beethoven!
I bought me a cat!
Aaron Copland shares a candid moment with a lounging, four-legged friend.
Happy birthday to America’s great composer!
As was the case with Mark Twain, reports of the death of Swedish tenor Nicolai Gedda were greatly exaggerated. Gedda was reported to have passed in May. In the Age of Social Media, the news swept opera lovers like a pandemic, only to be retracted the next day when it was reported that Gedda was indeed alive and well.
It must have been a shock to the artist to find news of his demise posted all over the internet. Yet how many of us will be so lucky as to be able to eavesdrop on the kind comments and tributes delivered on our own passing?
Nicolai Gedda on his 90th birthday is doubly blessed, to have lived a good life and to have survived a good death.
Happy birthday, N.G.!
Aaron Copland (92) Beethoven (95) Composer (114) Film Music (120) Film Score (143) Film Scores (255) Halloween (94) John Williams (185) KWAX (229) Leonard Bernstein (100) Marlboro Music Festival (125) Movie Music (135) Opera (198) Philadelphia Orchestra (88) Picture Perfect (174) Princeton Symphony Orchestra (106) Radio (87) Ralph Vaughan Williams (85) Ross Amico (244) Roy's Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner (290) The Classical Network (101) The Lost Chord (268) Vaughan Williams (103) WPRB (396) WWFM (881)