Cesare Siepi - February 10, 1923 – July 5, 2010

Cesare Siepi

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The operatic bass fled Fascist Italy and later rose to fame both as a staple of the Metropolitan Opera and one of the most celebrated singers to play the title role in "Don Giovanni".
 He died in Atlanta at age 87 on July 5, 2010.

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Jimmy Dean (August 10, 1928 – June 13, 2010)

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Jimmy Ray Dean (August 10, 1928 – June 13, 2010) was an American country music singer, television host, actor and businessman. Although he may be best known today as the creator of the Jimmy Dean Sausage brand, he first rose to fame for his 1961 country crossover hit "Big Bad John"; and became a national television personality in the 1960s. His acting career included a supporting role in the 1971 James Bond movie, Diamonds Are Forever. He lived near Richmond, Virginia, and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2010. Dean died on June 13, 2010, of natural causes at his Varina, Virginia home at the age of 81. He is survived by his second wife Donna.

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Lena Horne, Jazz Singer Who Broke Color Barriers, Dies at 92

Lena Horne, the jazz singer who broke color barriers in Hollywood and fought for civil rights during a seven-decade career that took her from the Cotton Club in Harlem to Hollywood and the Broadway stage, has died. She was 92. She died Sunday 9 MAY 2010 at the New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center,

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Giulietta Simionato

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Giulietta Simionato, an Italian mezzo-soprano whose instantly recognizable voice was wildly popular with audiences, died May 5, 2010 in Rome. She would have turned 100 on May 12.

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Jazz guitarist Herb Ellis dies at 88

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Renowned jazz guitarist Herb Ellis, 88, died at his home in Los Angeles on March 28. He had Alzheimer's disease. The death was confirmed by his son, Mitchell Ellis. Mr. Ellis was a member during the 1950s of the Oscar Peterson trio, which served as the house recording band for Verve Records and accompanied a who's-who of jazz greats, including Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, Harry "Sweets" Edison and Ben Webster. It has been said that in Herb Ellis, virtuoso jazz pianist Peterson found his truest musical peer.

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Blanche Thebom (September 19, 1918 – March 23, 2010)

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Blanche Thebom, a mezzo-soprano who sang more than 350 performances with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, has died at age 94. From the 1944 to 1967, Thebom was a star of the Met, part of a wave of American opera singers to gain international fame. She was best known for her Wagner performances, including roles as Brangaene in "Tristan and Isolde" and Fricka in "Die Walkuere."

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Kathryn Grayson film soprano dies at 88

Kathryn Grayson, whose beauty and lilting soprano voice brightened such popular MGM musicals of the 1940s and '50s as "Anchors Aweigh," "Show Boat" and "Kiss Me Kate," has died. She was 88. MORE in Wiki Bio
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Art Van Damme

Art Van Damme (April 9, 1920 in Norway, Michigan – February 15, 2010) was a jazz accordionist who had many popular albums for Columbia Records in the mid 20th Century. In the Wikipedia bio it is noted he began playing the accordion at age nine and started classical study when his family moved to Chicago in 1934. In 1941 he joined Ben Bernie's band as an accordionist. He adapted Benny Goodman's music to the accordion. From 1945 to 1960 he worked for NBC, performing on The Dinah Shore Show, Tonight, The Dave Garroway Show and other radio and TV shows with Garroway. He recorded 130 episodes of the 15-minute The Art Van Damme Show for NBC Radio. MORE
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Irina Konstantinovna Arkhipova

(Russian: Ирина Константиновна Архипова) (2 January 1925 – 11 February 2010) was a Russian mezzo-soprano, and later contralto, opera singer. She sang leading roles first in Russia at the Sverdlovsk Opera and the Bolshoi Theater, and then throughout Europe and in the United States.

Before switching to voice, she studied architecture. She studied at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1954 she debuted in Sverdlovsk, and was made a member of the Bolshoi Theatre in 1956. She was named a People's Artist of the USSR ten years later.

Arkhipova was at the height of her career in the 1960s and 1970s, during which time she was an international star, interpreting both Russian and Italian repertoire. Her technique was irreproachable, and she had great expressive power. She has been compared with Christa Ludwig. One of her most celebrated roles is as Marfa in Khovanshchina by Modest Mussorgsky, as recorded with Boris Khaikin in 1972.

She died in Moscow on 11 February 2010, aged 85.[1]

Johnny Dankworth

Sir John Phillip William Dankworth, CBE (20 September 1927 – 6 February 2010), known in his early career as Johnny Dankworth, was an English jazz composer, saxophonist and clarinetist. He was the husband of jazz singer Dame Cleo Laine, who survives him; they married in 1958.

King Sister Yvonne Burch dies at 89

Yvonne King Burch, who gained early fame as one of the singing King Sisters during the big band era before launching her entire extended musical clan into show business as the King Family, has died. She was 89.

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Leon Kirchner, serious composer (1919-2009)

Leon Kirchner (January 24, 1919 – September 17, 2009) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. G. Schirmer, Inc./Associated Music Publishers and the Music Sales Group are saddened to announce the passing of Leon Kirchner.

Leon Kirchner has made an indelible mark on contemporary music through his own remarkable style — in his words, "an artist must create a personal cosmos, a verdant world...powered by conviction and necessity." Like Arnold Schoenberg, his mentor, Kirchner weaved the past and the present, creating music that masterfully conveys our contemporary world.

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The Four Aces, Al Alberts, dies at 87

Al Alberts, a founding member of the singing group, The Four Aces, and a longtime TV talent show host in Philadelphia, has died. He was 87.
Chris Alberts says his father died Friday at home in Arcadia, Fla. He says the apparent cause of death was complications from kidney failure.
Alberts featured child singers and dancers on his "Al Alberts Showcase" for more than three decades in Philadelphia.
He was a founding member of The Four Aces, which recorded such hits as "Three Coins in the Fountain," and "Love is a Many Splendored Thing."

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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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