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.
CBC Arts
Available Recordings

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.
MORE
SHOP Erich Kunzel

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.

Wikipedia Bio

Available Recordings

Swedish composer Erland von Koch dead, 98 years old

Erland von Koch received his diploma as an organist and cantor from the Music Conservatory in Stockholm in 1935. He spent the following years studying composition, conducting, and piano in Germany and France. After a couple of years at the Swedish Radio, he worked as a teacher of music theory at the conservatory in Stockholm from 1953-1975. He became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in 1957, and was named a Professor in 1968. Among his awards were the Royal Swedish Academy of Music's medal for contributions to music in 2000. He was a versatile composer and wrote five symphonies, 12 Scandinavian dances, the Impusli and Oxberg trilogies, 12 concerti for solo instruments, numerous solo works, string quartets, the children's opera Pelle Svanslos, five ballets, songs, psalms, and film music.(among other things, he wrote the music for one of Ingmar Bergman's early films). "I strive for a simple, clear melodic style, preferably associated with folk music, and with a clear-cut rhythmic profile. I want my harmony to be uncomplicated," he said about his own composing. Erland von Koch passed away at the end of January, three months before his 99th birthday.

WEB - IMAGES - SHOP Erland von Koch

Composer Lucas Foss

Lukas Foss was born as Lukas Fuchs assumed on August 15, 1922 in Berlin, Germany, and died February 1, 2009 in New York City. He was an American composer, conductor, pianist, and professor. He studied with Julius Goldstein. He moved to Paris in 1933 where he studied piano with Lazare Lévy, composition with Noël Gallon, orchestration with Felix Wolfes, and flute with Louis Moyse. In 1937 he moved to America and studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, with Sergei Koussevitzky during the summers from 1939 to 1943 at the Berkshire Music Center, and, as a special student, composition with Paul Hindemith at Yale University from 1939 to 1940

BIO - WEB - Images - SHOP Lucas Foss

George Perle, Composer and Theorist, Dies at 93

For many years Mr. Perle was most widely known as a theorist and author. He published his first articles on 12-tone music in 1941 and became the most eloquent spokesman for the style. His 1962 book, “Serial Composition and Atonality: An Introduction to the Music of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern,” became a classic text that was published in many translations. He set forth his own method in “Twelve-Tone Tonality” in 1977. But his most revolutionary writing was on Berg. Considered an authority on the composer by the early ’60s, Mr. Perle was granted access to Berg’s unpublished manuscript for the opera “Lulu” in 1963. When he ascertained that the third act, long thought to be an unfinished sketch, was actually about three-fifths complete and cast an entirely new light on the opera, he protested publicly that Berg’s publisher was repressing an important part of the work. His efforts led to the completion of the third act and the presentation of the complete opera in 1979.

Wiki Bio - WEB - SHOP George Perle

Veronika Dudarova, conductor

Russian conductor Veronika Dudarova who led Moscow orchestras for 60 years has died at the age of 92. Dudarova became a conductor at the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra in 1947 and in 1960 was named chief conductor and artistic director. She left the orchestra in 1989. From 1991 until the end of her life she headed the Symphony Orchestra of Russia, which she had founded.

WEB - IMAGES - SHOP Veronika Dudarova

Cellist Valentin Berlinsky dies at 83

Valentin Berlinsky, for six decades the cellist of the Borodin Quartet, one of the most renowned string quartets in the world and by all accounts the longest continuously playing one, died on 15 December 2008, in Moscow. He was 83 and had lived in Moscow most of his life. The death was announced on the quartet’s Web site, [LINK], which gave no cause.

WEB - SHOP Borodin Quartet

MITCHELL LURIE, Clarinetist, 86

Mitchell Lurie, a world-renowned clarinetist and clarinet teacher who taught for many years at USC and the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, has died. He was 86. Lurie, who had been in ill health in recent years, died of pneumonia 24 November 2008 at his home in West Los Angeles.

MORE - NEWS - WEB - SHOP Mitchell Lurie

Conductor Richard Hickox dies suddenly

Opera Australia has been shocked by the sudden death of British conductor Richard Hickox, the company's music director. Hickox, 60, suffered a heart attack in London. The news was still filtering out tonight to members of Opera Australia. A shocked Murray Black, The Australian's Sydney opera and classical music critic, said one of Hickox's legacies would be his versatility as a conductor.

MORE - WEB - IMAGES - SHOP Richard Hickox

John Pennink

John Pennink, 78, a retired concert pianist, died of a heart attack Aug. 31 at his home in Huntingdon Valley, PA...MORE

Conductor Vernon Handley has died

Vernon Handley, one of the best-loved and most respected of British conductors, has died. Throughout his life he was a devoted champion of British repertoire, making some of the most intuitive and masterful recordings of works by Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Holst. It was also through Handley’s tireless – and most importantly, convincing – advocacy that many will have first developed a love of composers such as Bliss, Finzi, Howells, Rubbra and Bridge. In fact, of Handley’s 160 recordings, over 90 were of British music, including 87 works which had not been recorded before. His discography includes all the symphonies of Bax, Vaughan Williams, Stanford, Malcolm Arnold and Robert Simpson, and all the major works of Elgar.

MORE - WEB - IMAGES - SHOP Vernon Handley

Classical announcer Fred Crane dies at 90

Fred Crane, a former longtime Los Angeles classical music radio station announcer who achieved a slice of film immortality as an actor who played one of the handsome Tarleton twins in the 1939 movie classic "Gone With the Wind," has died. He was 90.
Crane, who had been hospitalized for a few weeks with diabetes-related complications, died of a blood clot in his lung Thursday in a hospital near Atlanta, said his wife, Terry. Crane was the oldest surviving adult male cast member of "Gone With the Wind," producer David O. Selznick's epic production of the Margaret Mitchell novel starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh. Crane became a part-time announcer at Los Angeles classical radio station KFAC in 1946. He continued to act, mostly in television, until the mid-1960s, when he began working full time at KFAC.

MORE - WEB