Walburga Wegner

25 AUGUST 1908 Birth of Walburga Wegner Soprano in Cologne. Died 25 February 1993. Debut as Suzuki in Madama Butterfly (Puccini) 1940 Teachers: Clemens Glettenburg, Maria Philippi.

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Fred Crane dies at 90

Fred Crane, a former longtime Los Angeles classical music radio station announcer who achieved a slice of film immortality as an actor who played one of the handsome Tarleton twins in the 1939 movie classic "Gone With the Wind," has died. He was 90.
Crane, who had been hospitalized for a few weeks with diabetes-related complications, died of a blood clot in his lung Thursday in a hospital near Atlanta, said his wife, Terry. Crane was the oldest surviving adult male cast member of "Gone With the Wind," producer David O. Selznick's epic production of the Margaret Mitchell novel starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh. Crane became a part-time announcer at Los Angeles classical radio station KFAC in 1946. He continued to act, mostly in television, until the mid-1960s, when he began working full time at KFAC.

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Valery Gergiev, led a pro-Russian classical concert in South Ossetia

The principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, Valery Gergiev, led a pro-Russian classical concert in the ruins of the capital of South Ossetia to celebrate a crushing battlefield victory over Georgia. (Thursday evening, 21 August 2008).

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Tenor Mark Lundberg dies at age 50

Lundberg's management company says the singer died Friday, 15 August 2008, in Long Island after a brief illness. The cause of death wasn't released. Lundberg made his debut in Brussels in the 2006-07 season as Tristan in "Tristan und Isolde." He sang bass and baritone for many years before making the transition to dramatic tenor roles. Lundberg was to perform the role of Samson in "Samson & Dalila" with the Pitsburgh Opera later this year. Officials there say he competed at the regional finals of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions as a bass, baritone and tenor.

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Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams, OM (October 12, 1872 – August 26, 1958) was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He arranged a number of Christian hymns, harmonizing the ancient chanted prayers to popular melodies. He was also a collector of English folk music and song.

Why Ralph Vaughan Williams should be as revered as Shakespeare
By Simon Heffer
It is always good to have an excuse to contemplate the condition of our culture, and the 50th anniversary of the death of Ralph Vaughan Williams, which falls next Tuesday, provides one.

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Beaux Arts Trio Bids Farewell

After a dominating 53-year run, the Beaux Arts Trio has decided to break up. It will play its final U.S. concert at the Tanglewood Festival — the very location where the venerable ensemble gave its first public concert on July 13, 1955...LISTEN to NPR feature.

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Leonard Bernstein

(August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) LEONARD BERNSTEIN...was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was the first conductor born and educated in the United States of America to receive world-wide acclaim. He is perhaps best known for his long conducting relationship with the New York Philharmonic. Orchestras all over the country are looking back on the life and legacy of the late Leonard Bernstein this year in observance of his 90th birthday. Last winter, the Philadelphia Orchestra hosted a festival of star performances, premieres and seminars. Bernstein's birthday party continues this week when the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra returns to Verizon Hall, to play a program titled "Make Mine Bernstein."

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Sabine Heinefetter Soprano Born 19 Aug 1809 Mainz Died 18 Nov 1872 at Illenau, Baden. Beginning life as a strolling harpist, she was noticed by a Frankfort musician, who instructed her in music. In 1825 she studied under Spohr at Cassel, and under Tadolini in Paris. In 1829 she sang at the Paris Italian opera with Sontag and Malibran, and in 1835 accepted an engagement at the Dresden court theater. Great success in Berlin, Vienna, Milan, and other cities with chief rôles in Romeo, Anna Bolena, Norma, and Rosine. In 1844 she appeared for the last time in Frankfort. In 1853 she married a French merchant named Marquet, in Marseilles.
Debut in Mandarin (Ritter) Teachers:- Giovanni Tadolini, Davide Banderali Created Adina in Elisir D'Amore (Donizetti).

Alexander Slobodyanik dies

Mr. Slobodyanik was a Ukrainian-born pianist who earned stardom in the former Soviet Union with his virtuosity and emotional interpretations of Romantic composers...

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Donald Erb dies...

Donald Erb, longtime composition teacher at the Cleveland Institute of Music has passed away.

Donald Erb was born in Youngstown, Ohio, January 17, 1927 and died August 12, 2008. He was an American composer best known for large orchestral works such as Concerto for Brass and Orchestra and Klangfarbenfunk.

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Opera Conductor Rescigno Dies

Nicola Rescigno, who founded opera companies in Chicago and Dallas and conducted for the Met, has died after injuries from a fall in Italy. He was 92 and is survived by Aldo Marcoaldi, his partner of 40 years, the New York Times reported.

A native of Manhattan who studied at Julliard, Rescigno made his debut at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and began conducting for a touring San Carlo Opera at the age of 27. He later founded the Chicago Lyric Theater and the Dallas Opera. He was "a favorite conductor of Maria Callas," the newspaper said, and conducted for her US debut in Chicago in 1954.

Composer Tadashi Hattori dies at 100

2 AUGUST 2008...Classical composer and conductor Tadashi Hattori died at his home in Tokyo. He was 100. He created music for everything from opera to orchestra to television to radio.

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Seattle Symphony violinist Ralph Heino dead at 91

Ralph Victor Heino Sr., a Seattle Symphony violinist,
composer and longshore worker, has died of a stroke at age 91. ...

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Martha Argerich

Martha Argerich, who for almost two decades gave very few solo recitals, has always felt uneasy in the spotlight offstage as well. But Ms. Argerich, a brilliant musician whose playing combines prodigious technique with uncanny musicality, overcame her shyness and granted Georges Gachot a three-hour interview...MORE

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Former Cleveland Orchestra harpist Alice Chalifoux dies at 100

Alice Chalifoux, the diminutive, salty-tongued and beloved former principal harp of the Cleveland Orchestra, died Thursday at the age of 100 at Blue Ridge Hospice in Winchester, Va. MORE

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Pianist Watts cancels SPAC appearances

Pianist André Watts, who was scheduled to perform Tuesday at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center’s Chamber Music Festival and then on Wednesday with The Philadelphia Orchestra, has had to cancel his performances because of tendinitis in his left forearm...MORE

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Birth Centennial of Miloslav Kabeláč

1 AUGUST 1908 Birth of Czech composer Miloslav KABELAC in Prague. He died in Prague, 15 JUNE 1971. Miloslav Kabeláč was a prominent Czech composer and conductor. Kabeláč was a Czech symphonists, whose work can be compared with Antonín Dvořák or Bohuslav Martinů. New ways of expression presentated by Kabeláč in his eight symphonies and the perspectives opened by him to modern understanding and conception of this traditional genre have not yet penetrated our general conscience in a way corresponding to their importance and impact. In the totalitarian period Kabeláč's work found itself on the periphery of official attention and was performed only sporadically and in a limited choice of compositions...MORE from Wikipedia Bio

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