Brigitte Engerer, Concert Pianist, Dies at 59

Brigitte Engerer, a Russian-trained French pianist known for her immense sound, prodigious technique and probing musicality, died on June 23 in Paris. She was 59.

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Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Bountiful German Baritone, Dies at 86

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the German baritone whose beautiful voice and mastery of technique made him the 20th century’s pre-eminent interpreter of art songs, died on Friday, May 18, 2012, at his home in Bavaria. He was 86. NYTimes | Wikipedia

Roman Totenberg, Violinist and Teacher, Dies at 101

Roman Totenberg, a Polish-born violin prodigy who came of age in the era of expressive players like Fritz Kreisler and Jascha Heifetz, shared their virtuosity and influenced generations of musicians as a teacher, died on Tuesday 8 May 2012, at his home in Newton, Mass. He was 101. Roman Totenberg (1 January 1911 – 8 May 2012) Roman Totenberg was the father of National Public Radio journalist Nina Totenberg NYTimes Obit | Wikipedia

Mort Lindsey, TV Bandleader and Accompanist to Stars, Dies at 89

Mort Lindsey, who led Merv Griffin’s television orchestra, accompanied Barbra Streisand on the piano in Central Park and played with Judy Garland in her celebrated comeback concert at Carnegie Hall, died on Friday May 4, 2012 at his home in Malibu, Calif. He was 89. 

Mort Lindsey, (March 21, 1923, Newark, New Jersey – May 4, 2012)

NYTimes Obit 

 

Zvi Zeitlin, Violinist Who Championed Modernist Composers, Dies at 90

NYTimes By MARGALIT FOX
Mr. Zeitlin was an internationally renowned violinist who was closely associated with the work of modernist composers like Aaron Copland and Lukas Foss. Wikipedia

Hugo Fiorato, Conductor at City Ballet, Dies at 98

Hugo Fiorato, a former child prodigy who became the conductor of the New York City Ballet and one of its most enduring influences, died on Monday [23 APR 2012] in Boston. He was 98. NYTimes

Bert Weedon, Guitarist and teacher, dies at 91

Bert Weedon, a British guitarist and recording artist whose popular instructional manual “Play in a Day” taught the instrument to a generation of young hopefuls such as  Pete Townshend, Eric Clapton, John Lennon and Paul McCartney — died on Friday 20 April 2012, at his home in Beaconsfield, in the English county of Buckinghamshire. He was 91.      Wikipedia

Lili Chookasian, 90, Contralto

Lili Chookasian (August 1, 1921 – April 10, 2012) was an American contralto who appeared with many of the world's major symphony orchestras and opera houses. She began her career in the 1940s as a concert singer but did not draw wider acclaim until she began singing opera in her late thirties. She arose as one of the world's leading contraltos during the 1960s and 1970s, and notably had a long and celebrated career at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1962 through 1986. She was admired for her sonorous, focused tone as well as her excellent musicianship. She often chose, against tradition, to sing oratorios from memory.

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Jane Taylor, Bassoonist of Dorian Quintet, Dies at 79

Jane Taylor, the founding bassoonist of the Dorian Wind Quintet, one of the premier ensembles to involve that uneasy alliance of flute, oboe, clarinet, French horn and bassoon, died on Sunday, April 8, 2012 in Manhattan. She was 79.

Retires | NYTimes Obit

Maurice André, Trumpeter, Dies at 78

Maurice André (May 21, 1933 – February 25, 2012) was a French trumpeter, active in the classical music field. He died in Bayonne, in southwest France. He was 78. His family confirmed the death to the news agency Agence France-Presse, declining to specify the cause. Mr. André, was esteemed as a trumpeter for his warm, robust tone; lightning technique; and clarion high notes, whose stratospheric reaches could prompt waves of applause from audiences.

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Charles Anthony Dies at 82; Sang 2,928 Times at Met

Charles Anthony Caruso (né Calogero Antonio Caruso, on July 15, 1929 - February 15, 2012), better known by his stage name of Charles Anthony, was an American tenor noted for his portrayal of comprimario characters in opera. Anthony had the distinction of appearing in more performances at the Metropolitan Opera than any other performer. He celebrated his fiftieth anniversary with the company in 2004, and gave his farewell in the role of the aged Emperor Altoum in Turandot, at the Met, on January 28, 2010.

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Dory Previn...(October 22, 1925 – February 14, 2012), American lyricist, singer-songwriter and poet has died

Ms. Previn, the lyricist for three Oscar-nominated songs, became famous for her own confessional albums in the early 1970s. During the late 1950s and 1960s she was a lyricist on songs intended for motion pictures and, with her first husband, André Previn, received several Academy Award nominations. In the 1970s, after their divorce, she released six albums of original songs and an acclaimed live album. Previn's lyrics from this period are characterized by their originality, irony and honesty in dealing with her troubled personal life as well as more generally about relationships, sexuality, religion and psychology. She continued to work until her death as a writer of song lyrics and prose.

Pop Diva Whitney Houston dead at 48

Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) was an American singer, actress, producer, and model. Houston was the most awarded female act of all time, according to Guinness World Records. Her list of awards includes 2 Emmy Awards, 6 Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards, 22 American Music Awards, among a total of 415 career awards as of 2010. Houston was also one of the world's best-selling music artists, having sold over 170 million albums, singles and videos worldwide. Inspired by prominent soul singers in her family, including her mother Cissy Houston, cousins Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick, and her godmother Aretha Franklin, Houston began singing with New Jersey church's junior gospel choir at age 11. After she began performing alongside her mother in night clubs in the New York City area, she was discovered by Arista Records label head Clive Davis. Houston released seven studio albums and three movie soundtrack albums, all of which have diamond, multi-platinum, platinum or gold certification. On February 11, 2012, Houston was found dead in her guest room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, in Beverly Hills, California. On February 13th in 1993, Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You'' from the soundtrack to "The Bodyguard'' topped Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart for the 13th week. That ties "End of the Road'' from Boyz II Men as the longest-running No. 1 song of the rock era.




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Camilla Williams, Barrier-Breaking Opera Star, Dies at 92

Camilla Ella Williams (October 18, 1919 – January 29, 2012) was an American operatic soprano, and the first African American to have received a contract with a major American opera company.

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Paavo Berglund, Finnish Conductor, Dies at 82

Paavo Berglund, a Finnish conductor renowned for his commanding interpretations of Sibelius’s symphonies and tone poems, died on Jan. 25 at his home in Helsinki. He was 82.
Paavo Allan Engelbert Berglund (April 14, 1929 – January 25, 2012) was a Finnish conductor.
Born in Helsinki, Berglund studied the violin as a child, and played an instrument made by his grandfather. By age 15, he had decided on music as his career, and by 18 was playing in restaurants. He joined the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Finnish RSO) in 1949, unique among the instrumentalists in being accommodated for seating to account for the fact that he was left-handed.

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Composer/arranger/ pianist Dr. Clare Fischer has died

Clare Fischer (October 22, 1928 – January 26, 2012) was an American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader. After graduating from Michigan State University, he became the pianist and arranger for the vocal group The Hi-Lo’s in the late 1950s. Fischer went on to work with Dizzy Gillespie and Donald Byrd, and became known for his Latin and bossa nova recordings in the 1960s. He composed the jazz standard, "Pensativa". Fischer was nominated for eleven Grammy Awards, winning two for his albums, Clare Fischer and Salsa Picante Present 2+2 (1981) and Free Fall (1986), where he merged Latin and vocal music. Fischer also became an in-demand arranger for pop albums, working with Prince, Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, Celine Dion, Robert Palmer, and many others.

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Gustav Leonhardt (30 May 1928 – 16 January 2012)

Gustav Leonhardt was a highly renowned Dutch keyboard player, conductor, musicologist, teacher and editor. Leonhardt was a leading figure in the movement to perform music on period instruments. He played professionally the harpsichord, pipe organ, claviorganum (a combination of a harpsichord and an organ), clavichord and fortepiano.

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Alexis Weissenberg, Pianist, Dies at 82

(July 26, 1929 – January 8, 2012) 

Born into a Jewish family in Bulgaria, Sofia, Weissenberg began taking piano lessons at the age of three from Pancho Vladigerov. He gave his first public performance at the age of eight. After emigrating to what was then Palestine in 1945, where he studied under Leo Kestenberg, he went to the Juilliard School in 1946 to study with Olga Samaroff. He also consulted Artur Schnabel and Wanda Landowska. In 1947 he made his New York debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of George Szell playing Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3. Between 1957 and 1966 he took an extended sabbatical for the purpose of studying and teaching. He resumed his career in 1966 by giving a recital in Paris; later that year he played Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in Berlin conducted by Herbert von Karajan, who praised him as "one of the best pianists of our time".

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Robert Brookmeyer (December 19, 1929 – December 16, 2011) was an American jazz valve trombonist, pianist, arranger, and composer.

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Brookmeyer first gained widespread public attention as a member of Gerry Mulligan's quartet from 1954 to 1957. He later worked with Jimmy Giuffre before rejoining Mulligan's Concert Jazz Band. In the late 1950s he moved to New York City to work as a freelance arranger. In the 1960s he also worked as a studio musician, co-led a quintet with Clark Terry and worked in and wrote for the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. In 1980 this band recorded an album of his compositions/arrangements on which two tracks featured Clark Terry. After a period in Europe, he returned to the United States, where he continued to write and record. Bob Brookmeyer also taught jazz composition at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.

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Soprano Montserrat Figueras has died in Spain, age 69

Montserrat Figueras, the glamorous, powerfully emotive Catalan soprano who along with her husband, Jordi Savall, created ensembles that revitalized the performance of early music, died on Wednesday, 23 NOVEMBER 2011, at her home in Bellaterra, Spain. She was 69.

Montserrat Figueras García (Barcelona, 15 March 1942 – 23 November 2011) was a Catalan soprano who specialized in early music. Figueras was born in Barcelona, Catalonia, and began studying early singing techniques together with her sister Pilar Figueras in 1966 and developed an approach and technique for singing early music which combined historical fidelity with vitality.
In 1974 she and Jordi Savall, her husband since 1968, Lorenzo Alpert and Hopkinson Smith formed Hespèrion XX, an early music ensemble. Figueras and her husband were members of a newer version of that ensemble, Hespèrion XXI. They also founded the groups La Capella Reial de Catalunya and Le Concert des Nations. Figueras also performed and recorded regularly as a solo artist. She and her husband performed with their children: daughter Arianna and son Ferran.
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