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The German avant garde composer Hans Otte died on Christmas Day, 2007. His minimalistic work explored music through its most basic elements of sound. Following closely in Stockhausen's footsteps, the avant-garde pianist, Otte, died just a few weeks after his 81st birthday. 
Prague, Dec 21 (CTK) - Czech composer Jiri Pauer died in Prague Friday [21 DEC 2007] at the age of 88, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra general director Vaclav Riedlbauch told CTK. Pauer was chief of the Prague National Theatre's Opera and he was the theatre director in 1979-1989. He participated in the organisation of the Prague Spring music festivals, was a professor at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts (AMU) and headed the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra for over 20 years. Pauer composed many pieces, many of which focus on the brass orchestral instruments, symphonies, and further orchestra pieces, a horn concerto and a trumpet concerto, chamber music pieces, and piano pieces. He also composed five operas.
Our annual retrospective of the major figures in classical music who left us during the year is especially significant for 2007 with the list including the deaths of four of the world's most honored and respected performers: tenors Luciano Pavarotti and Jerry Hadley, cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich and soprano Beverly Sills.
Zara Dolukhanova, a well-known singer died [5 DEC 2007] at the age of 90, in Moscow. The years of her creative activities are closely related with the Soviet Communist years. She was the first actress to play Cinderella in that opera, and Rozina in “Barber of Seville”. Dolukhanova popularized many folk works.
Zara Dolukhanova was born in 1918, in Moscow. Elena Makaryan, her mother, was a musician, and Aghasi Makaryan, her father, played the flute in amateur symphonic orchestras. The singer’s soft and fascinating voice was heard in European, Asian, American and other concert halls. Dolukhanova was a laureate of the Soviet Socialist Countries state prize and Lenin prize. She was awarded Honored Actress title in 1952 and Armenian Civil Actress title in 1955.
Andrew Imbrie, the composer of many arresting and impeccably crafted musical works and a generous teacher to several generations of younger composers, died Wednesday, 5 DEC 2007, at his Berkeley, California home after a long illness. He was 86. Mr. Imbrie's music, which included operas, symphonies, concertos and a wealth of chamber scores, was a predominating presence in the musical life of the Bay Area for many decades. His opera "Angle of Repose," based on Wallace Stegner's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, was commissioned and premiered by the San Francisco Opera in 1976.
Karlheinz Stockhausen, one of the most important and controversial postwar composers who helped shape a new understanding of sound through electronic compositions, died at his home in western Germany. He was 79. Stockhausen, who gained fame through his avant-garde works in the 1960s and '70s and later composed works for huge theaters and other projects, died in the town of Kuerten on Wednesday, 5 DEC 2007, his publisher, the Stockhausen Verlag, said. No cause of death was given.
Frank Guarrera [photo c 1953], a lyric baritone who sang at the Metropolitan Opera for nearly 30 years, died on Friday 23 NOV 2007, at his home in Bellmawr, N.J. He was 83. With his slender but firm voice and winning stage presence, Mr. Guarrera was a fixture at the Met in a number of roles: Escamillo in “Carmen” (his debut role in 1948), Marcello in “La Bohème,” Valentin in “Faust.” His final role at the Met was Gianni Schicchi, which he last sang in 1976. After his retirement from the stage, he taught at the University of Washington in Seattle for 10 years, a stint that ended when his wife, Adelina, suffered a stroke and he brought her back to the East to care for her; she died in 2000.
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