Haydn expert H.C. Robbins Landon dies at 83

LONDON - H.C. Robbins Landon, a musicologist noted for his pioneering research on Franz Joseph Haydn and for writing popular works on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, has died at age 83. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts and studied music at Swarthmore College and Boston University. He subsequently moved to Europe where he worked as a music critic. From 1947 he undertook research in Vienna on Joseph Haydn, a composer on whom he became an authority. His book Symphonies of Joseph Haydn was published in 1955, and the five volume Haydn: Chronicle and Works followed at the end of the 1970s. He also edited a number of Haydn's works.
Robbins Landon published work on other 18th century composers, including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven and Antonio Vivaldi. He coined the term barococo. In 1994 a controversy erupted over the appearance of various piano sonatas which Robbins Landon at first declared to be newly discovered Haydn works, but then concluded were fakes. He died on November 20, 2009 in Rabastens, France....wikipedia.

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Elisabeth Soderstrom

Swedish soprano Elisabeth Soderstrom, an international opera star, has died in Stockholm early Friday 20 NOV 2009 of complications from a stroke.
Soderstrom was 82. She made her debut in 1947 at the Drottningholm Palace Theatre, singing in one of Mozart's lesser-known works.
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Al Martino, Godfather singer who had first British No 1, dies aged 82

Al Martino, the singer who played the Frank Sinatra-type role of Johnny Fontane in the film The Godfather, has died at the age of 82. The Italian-American crooner was known for his hit songs Here in My Heart, Spanish Eyes, Can’t Help Falling in Love and Volare, in a career that spanned more than five decades. Martino was born in South Philadelphia as Alfred Cini, and worked as a bricklayer in his parents' masonry business as a young man. He served in the US Marines during the Second World War, and was wounded during the invasion of Iwo Jima. A longtime resident of Beverly Hills, California, Martino died at his childhood home in the Philadelphia suburb of Springfield, in Delaware County.

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Alicia de Larrocha dies at age 86

Alicia de Larrocha, a diminutive Spanish pianist esteemed for her elegant Mozart performances and regarded as an incomparable interpreter of Albéniz, Granados, Mompou and other Spanish composers, died on Sept. 25, 2009. She was 86. Alicia de Larrocha y de la Calle was born in Barcelona on May 23, 1923, to Eduardo de Larrocha and Maria Teresa de la Calle. Although her mother gave up any ambition of a performing career when she married, Ms. de Larrocha's aunt was a piano teacher at the Academia Marshall, a school founded by the pianist Frank Marshall, who was also a Granados student.
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Arthur Ferrante Dies at 88

Arthur Ferrante, of the superb twin-piano team of Ferrante and Teicher, has passed away at the age of 88. Lou Teicher, you'll recall, died in August of 2008. The Los Angeles Times obituary can be read here: Arthur Ferrante Dies at 88.
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Fred Mills, 70

Fred Mills, a trumpeter who played for 24 years with the Canadian Brass, has died in an automobile accident. He was 70.
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Conductor ERICH KUNZEL dies at age 74

Erich Kunzel, Jr. (March 21, 1935 – September 1, 2009) was an American conductor and long time conductor of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. Kunzel was born in New York City. He was a timpanist and music arranger at his high school in Greenwich, Connecticut and received his first music degree from Dartmouth College. He also studied at Harvard and Brown universities. From 1960 to 1965 he conducted the Rhode Island Philharmonic. From 1965 to 1977 he was associate conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
When the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra board of trustees created the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra (CPO) in 1977, Kunzel was named conductor.
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CHRIS CONNOR, vocalist was 81

Chris Connor, a Kansas City native and prominent big-band jazz singer of the 1940s, ‘50s and beyond, died on Saturday 29 August 2009, of cancer. She was 81.
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Hildegard Behrens dies, 72

Soprano Hildegard Behrens, one of the finest Wagnerian performers of her generation, has died while traveling in Japan. She was 72.
Jonathan Friend, artistic administrator of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, said Tuesday in an e-mail to opera officials that Behrens felt unwell while traveling to a festival near Tokyo. She went to a Tokyo hospital, where she died of an apparent aneurism.
Friend's e-mail was shared with The Associated Press by Jack Mastroianni, director of IMG Artists.
Her funeral was planned in Vienna.
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Guitarist/inventor Les Paul dead at 94

Les Paul, who pioneered the solid-body electric guitar later wielded by a legion of rock 'n' roll greats, died Thursday of complications from pneumonia. He was 94.
According to Gibson Guitar, Paul died at White Plains Hospital. His family and friends were by his side...MORE - SHOP Les Paul

Conductor Sir Edward Downes was 85

Renowned British conductor Sir Edward Thomas Downes, CBE, has died at the age of 85, after travelling to right-to-die clinic Dignitas with his wife.
He and his wife Joan, 74, both chose to end their lives at the Swiss clinic, their family said in a statement.
According to the statement, the couple "died peacefully, and under circumstances of their own choosing".
The Birmingham-born conductor enjoyed a 40-year relationship with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.

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Harve Presnell dies of cancer, age 75

Harve Presnell (September 14, 1933 - June 30, 2009) was a Golden Globe-winning American film, musical theatre and television actor and singer.
His height, booming voice, and operatic training landed him the role of Johnnie Brown in Meredith Willson's musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown on stage which premiered on Broadway in 1960. He later reprised the role in the 1964 film version. He appeared as a cavalry scout in The Glory Guys (1965) and sang the stirring "They Call the Wind Maria" in the 1969 film Paint Your Wagon. Presnell did some other film and television work in the 1960s and early 1970s, but for the next couple of decades concentrated primarily on stage work, playing Rhett Butler in the West End production of Scarlett and touring the United States as Daddy Warbucks in Annie and its sequel, Annie Warbucks, among other productions.

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