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Opera Director Elijah Moshinsky Dead Of COVID At 75

"He made his operatic debut in 1975 when he directed a stripped-back Peter Grimes at the Royal Opera House. The production was so successful that it was subsequently mounted by Paris Opera and La Scala, as well as being seen in Tokyo and Los Angeles. So began a distinguished career spanning five decades. Though Moshinsky was especially renowned for...

The Quiet Tragedy Of The Man Who Oversaw New York’s New Train Station

It is impossible to know what drives a person to suicide. But in his final months, his mental state took a turn for the worse as pressure grew to finish the project and stress mounted over costs, according to dozens of interviews with friends, family and colleagues. - The New York Times

Dealing With The Legacy Of Abuser, Murderer, And Music Producer Phil Spector

Long before he murdered Lana Clarkson, it was clear Phil Spector (who died over the weekend) was not a good guy. "Ronnie Spector’s 1990 autobiography Be My Baby laid bare the full horror of their marriage: the house surrounded by barbed wire and guard dogs; the threats to kill her, either himself or via a hitman; the gold-plated, glass-topped...

Helga Weyhe, Germany’s Oldest Bookseller, 98

The store, which has endured through the creation of Germany, two world wars, Communism, and reunification, not to mention Amazon, was a family affair. "Weyhe was a lifeline of sorts to her customers. She traveled far and wide after East Germans were generally allowed to leave for tourism, bringing back her infectious enthusiasm for the outside world. 'She brought...

Artist Kim Tschang-Yuel, 91, Painter Of Water – And The Trauma Of War

"Kim’s drops can seem to sit miraculously atop his raw canvases or be in the midst of gliding down them, leaving a trail of moisture. They glimmer with light and cast shadows, and while vividly present, they are always on the verge of evanescing." - The New York Times

Mary Catherine Bateson, Author Of ‘Composing A Life’ And Daughter Of Margaret Mead, 81

Bateson, an anthropologist like her famous parents Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, had a busy and famously documented life. "Still, it wasn’t her babyhood, her lineage or her scholarship — an expert on classical Arabic poetry, she was as polymathic as her mother — that brought Dr. Bateson renown; it was her 1989 book Composing a Life, an examination of...

Howard Johnson, Pioneering Virtuoso Of Jazz Tuba, Dead At 73

"Before Johnson, in instances wherein the tuba was part of a jazz arrangement, it was typically confined to bass parts. Johnson demonstrated a prowess that allowed him to play melodic lines, even lead parts. … He was a featured player in the Mingus, Carla Bley, and Gil Evans big bands; he also put in time with Charlie Haden's Liberation...

Robert Cohan, Who Brought Contemporary Dance To Great Britain, Dead At 95

"A New Yorker who performed with Martha Graham's dance company, often partnering Graham herself, Cohan moved to London where, in 1967, he became the first artistic director of the venue The Place, as well as the London Contemporary Dance School and the company London Contemporary Dance Theatre. His partnership with the founder of those organisations, Robin Howard, changed the...

New Memoir’s Accusations of Incest Rattle French Intelligentsia And Its Culture Of Silence

In the book, La familia grande, prominent attorney Camille Kouchner, the daughter of Bernard Kouchner, former foreign minister and co-founder of Doctors Without Borders, says that her stepfather — political scientist and well-known pundit Olivier Duhamel, chairman (until last week) of the body that oversees the renowned Paris university Sciences Po — sexually abused her twin brother for two...

Jazz Pianist Frank Kimbrough Dead At 64

"Casual of gesture but deeply focused in demeanor, had an understated style that could nonetheless hold the spotlight in trio settings, or fit slyly into Schneider's 18-piece big band. In many ways, his playing reflected the Romantic, floating manner of his first jazz influence, Bill Evans. But his off-kilter style as both a player and a composer...

Author Ved Mehta, 86

Known for a 12-volume autobiography and more than a dozen more books, many of which got their start as New Yorker articles (he was a staff writer for decades), he had a carefully honed prose style full of vivid description — despite the fact that he had been blind from age 3. (His sense of hearing was said to...

Patricia Loud, Matriarch Of America’s First Reality TV Family, Dead At 94

"Ms. Loud was a California mother of five. She drank, she plotted her divorce, she adored, and accepted, her openly gay son. She did it all in Santa Barbara and all on camera — in 1973. Loving, boisterous, witty, resilient and sometimes angry and hurt, she did not act like most women on television at the time. But she...

After 43 Years, Chicago Tribune Arts Critic Howard Reich Retires

He reflects on his career and (in typical fashion) leaves readers with a basketful of music, book and video recommendations. - Chicago Tribune

Author Jacqueline Woodson Gets A Lot Done, But How?

The MacArthur Fellow, who has also won the National Book Award and lives with her partner and two children in Brooklyn, is building Baldwin Arts, an artists colony for writers, composers, and visual artists of color. Lots of free time there, right? "We all find our space. In my bubble, I’m working on a book or a screenplay, going...

Carol Johnson, Whose Landscape Architecture Transformed The Country, 91

Johnson, who was also known for her public housing project designs, became famous for her "large-scale public projects, which often involved environmental remediation. For the Mystic River State Reservation, a nature preserve in Eastern Mass., a commission she received in the 1970s, she transformed a toxic landfill into a public park. The John F. Kennedy Park along the Charles River in Cambridge,...

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