FAREWELL TO…
Jessye Norman Born 1945 Soprano
A seemingly elemental force, Jessye Norman transcended boundaries and brought a unique presence to every role she sang on stage, from Purcell’s Dido to Strauss’s Salome. As a public figure, she became very much America’s soprano, singing at the inaugurations of two presidents, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Born in Augusta, Georgia, and trained in her home country, Norman actually established herself on the European stage long before her American opera debut (at the NY Met in 1982). Singing gospel music in church as a child stood in her good stead, and she even entered competitions aged just seven; but it was the voices of the African-americans Leontyne Price and Marian Anderson that inspired her to pursue life as a professional singer. If they could do it, so could she. Education and charitable work were passionate focuses later in her life and she founded the Jessye Norman School of the Arts in Augusta in 2003, offering free education in the arts to disadvantaged young people.
Paul Badura-skoda Born 1927 Pianist
By the age of 30, Paul Badura-skoda had already made 50 recordings, by which time the Austrian pianist had also been performing with the Vienna Philharmonic for nearly a decade. It was Edwin Fischer who inspired Badura-skoda as a teenager, and he went on to study with Fischer for years following formal studies in Vienna. An early distaste for period instruments was soon quashed, and he eventually amassed a collection of early pianos so large that he had to buy the house next door to store them. Badura-skoda will above all be remembered for his refined, gentle approach to performing and his modern- and periodinstrument recordings of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.
Also remembered…
Georgian composer Giya Kancheli (born 1935) dreamed of writing bigband music before Stravinsky turned his world upside down. With his creativity stifled in the USSR, he headed west in 1991 and went on to become an artist whose independence of spirit and style in works such as his seven symphonies and Vom Winde beweint won many fans. Christopher Rouse (born 1949) won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his Trombone Concerto in 1993. Known for his emotionally intense neo-romantic style, he taught at both the Eastman and Juilliard schools of music and was a composer-in-residence at the New York Philharmonic. His major works included a 90-minute Requiem (2001). The tenor Marcello Giordani (born 1963) was a favourite at the New York Met, where he notched up some 250 performances, most notably in operas by Verdi and Puccini. Born in Sicily, Giordani moved to Milan to continue his training, and debuted at La Scala in 1988.