While pianists Yuja Wang and Lang Lang have undoubtedly achieved mass-market appeal, Igor Levit has, at least in German-speaking countries, become a political figure and social advocate. He is not only considered one of the best pianists of the century,
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Samuel Osmond Barber, born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, on 9 March 1910, went on to become one of the most celebrated, honored and most frequently performed American composer of the 20th century. A critic writes, “Probably no other American composer
Tenor Mark Padmore, born in London on 8 March 1961, came of age singing in choirs oriented toward Renaissance and Baroque music, and as a soloist he specialized in Baroque opera and choral music. Padmore grew up in Canterbury, and
Virtuosity is totally intoxicating. To me, there is nothing ambivalent in a performance of a piece of music of such complexity that only the most exceptional artists can tackle it. It’s like an athletic event of the most demanding physicality,
Maurice Ravel was born on 7 March 1875 in the Basque town Ciboure, Basses-Pyrénées located in France, situated close to the Spanish border near Biarritz. It was the village where his Basque mother, Marie Ravel, née Delouart, was born and
Picasso’s 1937 oil painting Guernica is considered one of the ‘most moving and powerful anti-war painting in history.’ The work is enormous, standing 3.49 meters (11 ft 5 in) tall and 7.76 meters (25 ft 6 in) across. The picture
On 17 July 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 with 283 passengers and 15 crew on board was shot down while flying over eastern Ukraine. Everybody on that flight was killed by a surface-to-air-missile launched from pro-Russian separatist-controlled territory in Ukraine.
Marie Duplessis (1824-1847) was one of the most famous and sought-after French courtesans of her time. Born on 15 January 1824, her father wasn’t a particularly pleasant man, and early on sold his daughter to a variety of men. It