MUSIClassical ALLEGRO
Topic: NEW CDs
DECCA CELEBRATES THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF West Side Story WITH A NEW RECORDING FEATURING ITALIAN TENOR VITTORIO AND INTERNATIONAL SINGING SENSATION HAYLEY WESTENRA WITH MUSIC COMPOSED BY LEONARD BERNSTEIN BUY IT (August 31, 2007- New York, NY)-- One of the most lauded musicals ever written, West Side Story is still as relevant and well-loved today as it ever was. In this 50th anniversary year of the musical, Decca has assembled some of the biggest classical crossover stars to record a brand new version of the musical. The new recording will be in stores on September 25th and features the angelic soprano Hayley Westenra as Maria and Italian tenor, Vittorio as Tony with music by Leonard Bernstein. This new interpretation of West Side Story is one of the only major recordings of this masterpiece to have been made since the 1984 version with Mr. Bernstein himself conducting. This updated project was also authorized by the Bernstein foundation in New York. With a bright young cast and timeless tunes, this is set to become the recording of choice for the 21st Century West Side Story lover. Hayley Westenra and Vittorio have nothing short of great chemistry and their passionate singing brings the characters to life. This modern take promises to reinvigorate the classic and bring it to a whole new audience.
The John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has announced 24 "Genius Grants" of $500,000 each. Robert Siegel talks with four of the winners: spider silk biologist Cheryl Hayashi; Yoky Matsuoka, leader in the field of neurorobotics; Dr. Linda Cooper, who studied how race, ethnicity and gender influence the doctor/patient relationship; and classically trained vocalist Dawn Upshaw [photo]. 
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1898 Birth of American composer and pianist George GERSHWIN in Brooklyn, NY. aka Jacob Gershovitz. d-LA, CA, 11 JUL 1937. 
Wednesday [26 SEP 2007] marks the 50th anniversary of the first staging of the Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents musical West Side Story. It's been performed globally and translated into languages as diverse as Czech and Korean. 
Anna Netrebko and Nathan Gunn are both hugely successful singers with the kind of camera-melting good looks that many pop idols would kill for. But you're not likely to see them on MTV. That's because Gunn and Netrebko, both 36, are opera stars, who happen to get as much attention for their pulchritude as they do for their vocal prowess...
1907 FP of Jean Sibelius' Third Symphony, in Helsinki. Composer conducting. The Symphony No. 3 in C Major Op. 52 by Sibelius is a good-natured, triumphant, and deceptively simplistic piece written in 1907. The first performance was given by the Helsinki Philharmonic Society conducted by the composer on 25 September 1907. The first recording was made by Robert Kajanus with the London Symphony Orchestra for the HMV label in January 1934...
RALEIGH - It's usually Robert Ward in the audience, listening to musicians play what he has written. But on his 90th birthday, the roles were reversed. Close to 300 admirers -- many of them the Triangle's most accomplished musicians and opera singers -- rose to their feet in an ovation and an operatic round of "Happy Birthday" while the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer had the stage all to himself. 
Northeast Los Angeles is the epicenter of an unparalleled cultural revolution – and its leader is a Latina woman. Sonia Marie de León de Vega is a member of a very small and select group of women in the United States in charge of a high-ranking orchestra. Her mission, she says, is only one: To bring classical music to her community, to Latinos. A consummate orchestra and opera conductor, she is also the founder of the “Santa Cecilia Orchestra” of Eagle Rock. 
Lina Bruna Rasa was born on 24 Sept 1907 in Padua, Italy (Padova) and began musical studies at the age of fourteen. It was very apparent from the beginning that she was a dramatic soprano and that her instincts as an actress would play a major role in her stage development. So impressed were her teachers, that she was persuaded to make an unscheduled debut at Venice’s Teatro La Fenice on 20 May 1925, singing “Suicidio” from La Gioconda. Lina was seventeen years old! 