FAREWELL TO…
Alvin Lucier Born 1931 Composer
It was while on a Fulbright Scholarship in Rome that a young Alvin Lucier experienced the work of John Cage. He also met and made friends with Frederic Rzewski in the Italian capital. Both encounters would have a big impact on the course that his own music would take. Born in New Hampshire, Lucier studied two summers at Tanglewood with Lukas Foss and Aaron Copland, with formal education at Yale and Brandeis. As a choir director at the latter institution, he would also encounter like-minded artists David Behrman, Gordon Mumma and Robert Ashley. Together they established the Sonic Arts Group (later Sonic Arts Union), touring with their cutting-edge, experimental music and sound installations. Fascinated by the possibilities of sound, Lucier’s works – such as Music on a Long Thin Wire and I Am Sitting in a Room – were more concerned with aural constructs and their effects rather than melody. Aside from his creative exploits, Lucier was a firm fixture at Wesleyan University, Connecticut, where he taught from 1970.
Carlos Marín Born 1968 Baritone Marín’s worldwide fame as one quarter of the multi-million-selling vocal group Il Divo is just part of the Spanish baritone’s life in music. Though born in Germany, he spent formative years in Madrid and was a precocious talent. Dubbed ‘Carlos The Little Caruso’, he had recorded two albums by the age of ten. Marín received coaching from the likes of Montserrat Caballé and Alfredo Kraus, and would enjoy a varied stage career that would see him perform in both opera and musical theatre – indeed he was just as at home in Les Misérables as he was in La traviata. In 2003, producer Simon Cowell oversaw the formation of an international vocal quartet and Il Divo was born. Together with David Miller, Urs Bühler and Sébastien Izambard, Marín would attract an enormous following, selling out venues across the globe and notching up some 28 million album sales over the last 17 years.
Also remembered…
German pianist Evelinde Trenker (born 1933) studied with both Walter Gieseking and Wilhelm Kempff. She was the artistic director of the International Lübeck Chamber Music Festival.
Andrei Hoteev (born 1946), a Leningrad-born Russian pianist, gained a reputation for his research, performance and recording of original versions of works by, in particular, Musorgsky and Tchaikovsky.