MUSIClassical ALLEGRO
Topic: MILESTONES 2008
Roger Louis Voisin, who at 17 became the youngest musician ever to join the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has died after a long illness. He was 89. Voisin, who died Wednesday, 13 FEB 2008, at a Newton nursing home, was a member of the BSO's trumpet section from 1935 to 1973 and was principal trumpet from 1950 to 1965. He was born in Angers, France, before moving to Boston at age 11. Voisin received much of his early training from his father, Rene, also a member of the BSO. MORE | WEB LINKS | SHOP ROGER VOISIN
Internationally renowned Danish soprano Inga Nielsen has died of cancer in Copenhagen at the age of 61, hospital sources and her family said Monday, 11 FEB 2008. Born on June 2, 1946, Nielsen, who died Sunday evening at the Gentofte hospital in northern Copenhagen, had for the past 30 years belonged to the international opera elite and was especially famous for her interpretations of Mozart. Nielsen, who released her first Danish record at the tender age of nine, hit the world stage in 1975 when she joined the Frankfurt opera. She stayed there for five years before going freelance and was subsequently hailed for performances on opera stages around the world, including in Berlin, Vienna, Rome, Paris, London and New York. 
Jorge Liderman, a prominent San Francisco area composer and a professor in the music department at UC Berkeley, was struck by a Richmond-bound train at Monday, February 4, 2008 9:42 a.m. in what appeared to be a suicide. Liderman was a fixture on the Bay Area's classical music scene since joining the Berkeley faculty in 1989. His music - full of melody, rhythmically vital and scored with a keen ear for instrumental color - was performed regularly both here and abroad, and his discography included almost a dozen CDs. 
Evelyn Barbirolli, a distinguished oboe player and widow of the conductor Sir John Barbirolli, has died. She was 97. Barbirolli died Sunday, 27 JAN 2008, in London. The cause of death was not announced. In 1948, she had the honour of giving the first performance of a newly discovered oboe concerto by Mozart, during a tour of Austria with the Halle Orchestra. Born Evelyn Rothwell, she took up the oboe at 17 to fill a gap in her school orchestra. Though she recalled she could "barely play the thing," within a year she won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. John Barbirolli offered her a position in the Covent Garden Touring Orchestra and they married in 1939. She adopted the surname Barbirolli only after he died in 1970. 
Kenins passed away Sunday 20 JAN 2008 at age 88. The Latvian-born musician, a professor emeritus of the University of Toronto, was known for his chamber music as well for composing eight symphonies, 12 concertos, three cantatas, an oratorio, choral works and several educational pieces. Kenins left Latvia for France following the Second World War, landing in Toronto in 1951 to serve as organist and music director at St. Andrews Latvian Lutheran Church. He joined U of T the following year, inspiring music students and future talents including Edward Laufer, Bruce Mather, Imant Raminsh, Arthur Ozolins and James Rolfe. 
Pier Miranda Ferraro, an Italian tenor who sang in the 1960s and 1970s and was noted for his interpretation of Giuseppe Verdi's "Otello," died Friday 18 JAN 2008, at his home in Milan, family members said. He was 83. 
Giuliano Ciannella, an active exponent of the lyric tenor and Verdi repertory in the 1980s, has died, 13 JAN 2008. A student of Carlo Bergonzi, the tenor made his professional debut at Teatro Nuovo, Milan, in 1974, and arrived at La Scala in 1976, as Cassio in Otello. His first appearances with the Met were as Alfredo in spring 1979 Parks concerts of La Traviata: his official Met debut came the following autumn, as Cassio in a season-opening Otello that was also telecast on Live from the Met. 
Sergej Larin, a Russian tenor who found praise in European and American houses singing lirico-spinto roles as well as Russian repertory that included Boris Godunov's Grigory and Onegin's Lensky, has died following a long illness. Larin, who would have been 52 in March, died on January 13, 2008, in Bratislava. 