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Nexhmije Pagarusha (Albanian pronunciation: [neˈd͡ʒmijɛ pagaˈɾuʃa]; 7 May 1933 – 7 February 2020) was a Kosovo-Albanian singer and actress, often referred to as the Queen of Albanian music. Pagarusha gained acclaim as a recording artist in Kosova and neighbouring countries for her distinct soprano vocal range, which she displayed performing various Kosovan folk songs during her career, which spanned 36 years, from 1948, in her debut in Radio Prishtina, to 1984, in her final concert in Sarajevo. Her music style was not limited just to Albanian music, as she performed rock, pop, funk, opera/classical, and many more.
more...Johannes Brahms ; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the “Three Bs” of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.
Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, voice, and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. He worked with leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim (the three were close friends). Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire.
Brahms has been considered both a traditionalist and an innovator, by his contemporaries and by later writers. His music is rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters. Embedded within those structures are deeply Romantic motifs. While some contemporaries found his music to be overly academic, his contribution and craftsmanship were admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The detailed construction of Brahms’s works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers.
more...Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (/tʃaɪˈkɒfski/ chy-KOF-skee; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the current classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture, his First Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, the Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, several symphonies, and the opera Eugene Onegin.
Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant as there was little opportunity for a musical career in Russia at the time and no system of public music education. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching that Tchaikovsky received there set him apart from composers of the contemporary nationalist movement embodied by the Russian composers of The Five with whom his professional relationship was mixed.
Tchaikovsky’s training set him on a path to reconcile what he had learned with the native musical practices to which he had been exposed from childhood. From that reconciliation, he forged a personal but unmistakably Russian style. The principles that governed melody, harmony, and other fundamentals of Russian music diverged from those that governed Western European music, which seemed to defeat the potential for using Russian music in large-scale Western composition or for forming a composite style, and it caused personal antipathies that dented Tchaikovsky’s self-confidence. Russian culture exhibited a split personality, with its native and adopted elements having drifted apart increasingly since the time of Peter the Great. That resulted in uncertainty among the intelligentsia about the country’s national identity, an ambiguity mirrored in Tchaikovsky’s career.
Despite his many popular successes, Tchaikovsky’s life was punctuated by personal crises and depression. Contributory factors included his early separation from his mother for boarding school followed by his mother’s early death, the death of his close friend and colleague Nikolai Rubinstein, his failed marriage with Antonina Miliukova, and the collapse of his 13-year association with the wealthy patroness Nadezhda von Meck. Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality, which he kept private, has traditionally also been considered a major factor though some scholars have played down its importance. His dedication of his Sixth symphony to his nephew Vladimir “Bob” Davydov and his feelings expressed about Davydov in letters to others, especially following Davydov’s suicide, have been cited as evidence for a romantic love between the two. Tchaikovsky’s sudden death at the age of 53 is generally ascribed to cholera, but there is an ongoing debate as to whether cholera was indeed the cause and whether the death was accidental or intentional.
While his music has remained popular among audiences, critical opinions were initially mixed. Some Russians did not feel it was sufficiently representative of native musical values and expressed suspicion that Europeans accepted the music for its Western elements. In an apparent reinforcement of the latter claim, some Europeans lauded Tchaikovsky for offering music more substantive than exoticism, and said he transcended the stereotypes of Russian classical music. Others dismissed Tchaikovsky’s music as deficient because it did not stringently follow Western principles.
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The celestial object showcased in this week’s Hubble Picture of the Week is the spiral galaxy UGC 9684, which lies around 240 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Boötes. This image shows an impressive example of several classic galactic features, including a clear bar in the galaxy’s centre, and a halo surrounding its disc.
The impetus for this Hubble image was a study into the host galaxies of Type-II supernovae. These cataclysmic stellar explosions take place throughout the Universe, and are of great interest to astronomers, so automated surveys scan the night sky and attempt to catch sight of them. The supernova which brought UGC 9684 to Hubble’s attention occurred during 2020. It has faded from view in this image, which was taken in 2023.
Remarkably, the 2020 supernova in this galaxy isn’t the only one that’s been seen there — four supernova-like events have been spotted in UGC 9684 since 2006, putting it up there with the most active supernova-producing galaxies. It turns out that UGC 9684 is a quite active star-forming galaxy, calculated as producing one solar mass worth of stars every few years! This level of stellar formation makes UGC 9684 a veritable supernova factory, and a galaxy to watch for astronomers hoping to examine these exceptional events.
[Image Description: A spiral galaxy in the centre of a dark background, surrounded by a few distant galaxies and nearby stars. The galaxy is tilted diagonally and partially towards the viewer. Its disc is cloudy and threaded with dust, without clear arms. A bar of light extends across the disc from the glowing core. A faint halo of gas surrounds the disc.]
David Friesen (born May 6, 1942) is an American jazz bassist. He plays double bass and electric upright bass.
Friesen began playing bass while serving in the United States Army in Germany. He played with John Handy and Marian McPartland and following this, with Joe Henderson; in 1975, he toured in Europe with Billy Harper. His first album as a session leader appeared that year. In 1976, he began collaborating with guitarist John Stowell; the pair would work together often. He appeared with Ted Curson at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1977. Following this, he worked with Ricky Ford, Duke Jordan, Mal Waldron, and Paul Horn. His 1989 album Other Times, Other Places reached No. 11 on the U.S. Billboard Top Jazz Albums chart. He has also played with Chick Corea, Michael Brecker, Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon, Kenny Garrett, and Dizzy Gillespie.
more...Hasaan Ibn Ali (born William Henry Langford, Jr.; May 6, 1931 – 1980) was an American jazz pianist and composer.
Ibn Ali was strongly influenced by Elmo Hope, and his playing was rapid and intense, retaining a sense of rhythm even when his style became increasingly unconventional. Only one recording of his playing – The Max Roach Trio Featuring the Legendary Hasaan – was released in his lifetime. Ibn Ali built a reputation in Philadelphia, where he influenced musicians including John Coltrane, but he remained little known elsewhere.
Hasaan Ibn Ali was born William Henry Langford, Jr. in Philadelphia on May 6, 1931. His mother was a domestic worker. In 1946 (aged 15), he toured with trumpeter Joe Morris‘s rhythm and blues band.In 1950, he played locally with Clifford Brown, Miles Davis, J. J. Johnson, Max Roach, and others. Based in Philadelphia, Ibn Ali freelanced and acquired a reputation locally as “an original composer and theorist”, in musicologist Lewis Porter‘s words. The pianist performed with Horace Arnold in New York City in 1959, and again in 1961–62, in a trio with Henry Grimes.
more...Denys Justin Wright (6 May 1924 – 8 February 1992), known professionally as Denny Wright, was a British jazz guitarist.
A session musician for many years, Wright frequently acted as arranger and “fixer” for recording sessions. He was a prolific jazz and orchestra composer. He led many bands, from small ensembles to night club bands to orchestras. He worked with Latin American and Jamaican bands, including Kenny Graham‘s Afro-Cubists and Mike McKenzie‘s Quartet. He played with the Carl Barriteau orchestra, the Decca Recordshouse band under Phil Green, and occasionally the Glenn Miller band. Wright was voted the 1980 BBC Jazz Society Musician of the Year.
During his career he worked with Stéphane Grappelli, Lonnie Donegan, Johnny Duncan, Digby Fairweather, Ella Fitzgerald, Ken Snakehips Johnson, Billy Eckstine, Fapy Lafertin, Russ Conway, Biréli Lagrène, Humphrey Lyttelton, Nigel Kennedy, and George Shearing.
Although best known as a guitarist, his favourite instrument was piano, the only musical instrument he would play at home. Travellin’ Blues by Johnny Duncan and the Bluegrass Boys features Wright’s piano-playing.
more...In 1975 The Powderhorn Puppet Theater later to become In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater launched the first Mayday Procession and Event in Powderhorn Park. I worked with HOBT starting in 1985 touring to Sweden and Denmark. Previously I had done one of the first Drum Jams on Mayday in Powderhorn park in or around 1974 prior to HOBT.
Mentored by Bread and Puppet, HOBT became not only a hallmark national puppet company but a channel for social activism and social justice. And also setting a mark in artistic and community innovation across the USA attracting up to audiences of 20 to 30,000 attendees. I had probably worked on between 30 and 40 Mayday celebrations marching in the Parade with the Community Band and working as Cue Director for the Mayday Ceremony, along with most often featuring some of my ensembles premiering the MAROONS starting in the late 80’s. Later featuring Positive Vibrations, the Beau Koo Jacks, The Candlestyx, Cleo Patrix, guest artists and much more.
2019 was the final year Mayday was hosted by HOBT with minimal funding and also diminished in tone. So Mayday metamorphosed prior to the pandemic and became suddenly very slightly attended. HOBT changed hands with many artistic mentors stepping down and retiring their decades long devotion to Mayday.
Today the Twin Cities community has resurrected Mayday, not like what it once was but anew and determined to continue the awesome tradition of a Celebration of our local culture and the diversity and the embracing of all nations uniting as one community.
Messier 83 or M83, also known as the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy and NGC 5236, is a barred spiral galaxy approximately 15 million light-years away in the constellation borders of Hydra and Centaurus. Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille discovered M83 on 17 February 1752 at the Cape of Good Hope. Charles Messier added it to his catalogue of nebulous objects (now known as the Messier Catalogue) in March 1781.
It is one of the closest and brightest barred spiral galaxies in the sky, and is visible with binoculars.It has an isophotal diameter at about 36.24 kiloparsecs (118,000 light-years). Its nickname of the Southern Pinwheel derives from its resemblance to the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101).
Adolphe Paul Barbarin (May 5, 1899 – February 17, 1969) was an American jazz drummer from New Orleans.
Barbarin grew up in New Orleans in a family of musicians, including his father Isidore, three of his brothers (including Louis), and his nephew (Danny Barker). He was a member of the Silver Leaf Orchestra and the Young Olympia Band. He moved to Chicago in 1917 and worked with Freddie Keppard and Jimmie Noone. From 1925–1927, he was a member of King Oliver‘s band.
During the following year, he moved to New York City and played in Luis Russell‘s band for about four years. He left Russell and worked as a freelance musician, but he returned to Russell’s band when it supported Louis Armstrong. For a brief time beginning in 1942, he worked for Red Allen‘s sextet, with Sidney Bechet in 1944 and Art Hodes in 1953. In 1955, he founded the Onward Brass Band in New Orleans. He spent the rest of his life as the leader of that band.
Barbarin died on February 17, 1969, while playing snare drums during a Mardi Gras parade. Record producer Al Rose said that his funeral “attracted one of the great mobs in New Orleans funeral history.
more...Stanley Cowell (May 5, 1941 – December 17, 2020) was an American jazz pianist and co-founder of the Strata-East Records label.
Cowell was born in Toledo, Ohio. He began playing the piano around the age of four, and became interested in jazz after seeing Art Tatum at the age of six. Tatum was a family friend.
After high school, Cowell studied classical piano with Emil Danenberg at Oberlin Conservatory of Music He included “Emil Danenberg” in his 1973 suite “Musa: Ancestral Dreams”. During his time at Oberlin, he played with jazz multi-instrumentalist Roland Kirk, which proved to be formative. He went on to receive a graduate degree in classical piano from the University of Michigan. He moved to New York in the mid-1960s.
more...J. B. Lenoir March 5, 1929 – April 29, 1967) was an American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter, active in the Chicago blues scene in the 1950s and 1960s.
Lenoir was born in Monticello, Mississippi. His full given name was simply “J. B.”; the letters were not initials. Lenoir’s guitar-playing father introduced him to the music of Blind Lemon Jefferson, which became a major influence. During the early 1940s, Lenoir worked with the blues artists Sonny Boy Williamson II and Elmore James in New Orleans. He was later influenced by Arthur Crudup and Lightnin’ Hopkins.
In 1949, he moved to Chicago, where Big Bill Broonzy helped introduce him to the blues community. He began to perform at local nightclubs, with musicians such as Memphis Minnie, Big Maceo Merriweather, and Muddy Waters, and became an important part of the city’s blues scene. Lenoir began recording in 1951 for J.O.B. Records and Chess Records. His recording of “Korea Blues” was licensed to and released by Chess, as having been performed by J. B. and his Bayou Boys. His band included the pianist Sunnyland Slim, the guitarist Leroy Foster, and the drummer Alfred Wallace.
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