On This Day

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On This Day
8 May: Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales Was Premiered
On 21 September 1927, Anton Webern penned an extended letter to Maurice Ravel. “Although we have never met, I write on behalf of my mentor Arnold Schoenberg to express his thanks for all your efforts to facilitate his upcoming appearance
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On This Day
7 May: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Was Born
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, born on 7 May 1840 deep within the Ural Mountains roughly 600 miles east of Moscow, had Ukrainian, German, and French ancestry. His father Ilya Petrovitch Tchaikovsky, a mining engineer and manager of an iron works, traced
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On This Day
6 May: Nathalie Stutzmann Was Born
Nathalie Stutzmann, born 6 May 1965 in Suresnes, France, was the first female conductor named principal guest conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra in December 2020. One year later, she was appointed the music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra with
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On This Day
5 May: Cédric Tiberghien Was Born
In 1999, BBC Radio 3 launched their “New Generation Artists Scheme” as part of its commitment to young musical talent. Each autumn six or seven young artist at the beginning of careers on the national and international music scene join
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On This Day
4 May: Haydn’s Symphony in D “London” Was Premiered
Although Joseph Haydn had a wicked sense of humour, he musically never left anything to chance. When he accepted commissions away from his working place at Eszterháza, he conducted extensive research about the performers, the concert hall, and related matters
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On This Day
2 May: Philippe Herreweghe Was Born
The Belgian conductor and chorus director Philippe Herreweghe, born on 2 May 1947, is frequently credited with restoring the freshness and purity of Baroque choral music. As a critic wrote, “Herreweghe crafts intimate performances that try to impress with lean
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On This Day
May 1: Antonín Dvořák Died
The Prague-based, Czech language music magazine Dalibor reports on 2 May. “Our nation has received a terrible, terrible blow, Antonín Dvořák is no more. Yesterday, at half past twelve in the afternoon, he died from sudden heart failure, having been
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On This Day
29 April: Zubin Mehta Was Born
When Zubin Mehta made his conducting debut at New York Carnegie Hall in 1967 a critic wrote, “Mehta has the capacity to control every sound made by an orchestra, and he does this with the simplest of gestures, every one
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