MUSIClassical ALLEGRO
Topic: NEWS composers
A plaque is to be unveiled in Berlin on Wednesday (23 APR 2008) in commemoration of Jean Sibelius, the famous Finnish composer, who lived in the city for some time. Sibelius lived in a house at Marienstrasse 4, on which the plaque is to be fastened, while studying in Berlin in 1889-1890. The rich musical life and colourful society of Berlin were an important source of inspiration to Sibelius, who wrote to his friend that he was "like a fish in water" in the German capital. WEB LINKS | IMAGES | SHOP Jean Sibelius
Sir John Tavener seriously ill in hospital following a heart attack. The 63-year-old, who suffers from a rare genetic disorder, fell ill just weeks before the world premiere of his ambitious Requiem took place in Liverpool, as part of the city's European Capital of Culture celebrations. Tavener, who survived a stroke when he was just 30, has Marfan Syndrome, an inherited condition that attacks the body's connective tissue. 
Experts have digitally rebuilt the face of 18th century German composer Johann Sebastian Bach -- and say the results may surprise his fans. Using his bones and computer modeling, they have come up with an image of a thick-set man with closely-shorn white hair. The new Bach face, the creation of Scottish forensic anthropologist Caroline Wilkinson, will go on display at the Bachhaus museum in the eastern German town of Eisenach, Bach's birthplace, next month.
The Brazilian's Rich Legacy Has Been Too Long Forgotten Here
On Tuesday, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Elliott Carter celebrates his 99th birthday by attending the first U.S. staging of his characteristically dense opera "What Next?" It's 40 minutes of musical searching by a handful of characters brought together in a car accident. The production includes soprano and new-music specialist Susan Narucki, plus the Juilliard-affiliated ensemble AXIOM and conductor Jeffrey Milarsky. 
One of just two surviving pages from a Mozart manuscript has been sold at an auction in London for £110,900. The folio, from the composer's draft for the Sinfonia Concertante, has set a new record for a single page of his work, which has stood since 1998. The item was purchased from Sotheby's by dealers based in London who were bidding on behalf of a private client. The violin, viola and orchestral work was composed in 1779, securing Mozart's standing as a great composer aged 23. 
It is a pity that this major cultural landmark in Romanian history is not as popular as it should be, for it is, without a doubt, one of the best museums in the country. Not only it is dedicated to the greatest Romanian composer, George Enescu, but it is also hosted in a beautiful villa, on the main avenue of the capital, Calea Victorie, No 141. 
Philip Glass is without a doubt America’s most famous living composer of classical music. In fact, he may be America’s only famous living composer of classical music—the single one who would draw nods of recognition (or irritation) if you were to start waving eight-by-ten glossies of modern-music masters at passersby in Times Square. His Hollywood film scores, his collaborations with pop stars such as David Bowie and Linda Ronstadt, his ubiquity as a purveyor of motorized musical melancholy, all have placed him at an altitude of celebrity that eludes even the loftiest of his colleagues—Steve Reich, John Adams, Elliott Carter, and the rest. 
Georges Bizet is opera’s one-hit wonder, right? Wrong, toreador breath. More than a decade before “Carmen,” the French composer who would die at 36 wrote what remains one of the most tuneful operas in the repertoire. Granted “The Pearl Fishers,” which the Lyric Opera of Kansas City opens Saturday at the Lyric Theatre, suffers from dramatic and narrative flaws. (“The action strains credulity at times,” wrote Hugh MacDonald with inimitable British understatement.) 
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the death of classical composer Jean Sibelius. Musician David Was says the composer's work was in danger of falling out of fashion, but is recently enjoying a burst of new interest. 