Friday, March 2, 2012

Poets, Prophets, Sculptors, Painters, Architects, Composers, Mystics, Authors, Playwrights, Mathematicians, Astronomers....

From Parabola:


PARABOLA CALENDAR
Sunday, March 4 
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina 
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (March 4, 1678 – July 28, 1741), nicknamed il Prete Rosso ("The Red Priest") because of his auburn hair, was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe. Vivaldi is known mainly for composing instrumental concertos, especially for the violin, as well as sacred choral works and over 40 operas. His best known work is a series of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons.

Many of his compositions were written for the female music ensemble of the Ospedale della Pietà, a home for abandoned children where Vivaldi worked between 1703 and 1740. Vivaldi also had some success with stagings of his operas in Venice, Mantua and Vienna. After meeting the Emperor Charles VI, Vivaldi moved to Vienna hoping for preferment. The Emperor died soon after Vivaldi's arrival, and the composer died a pauper, without a steady source of income.

Though Vivaldi's music was well received during his lifetime, it later declined in popularity until its vigorous revival in the first half of the 20th century. Today, Vivaldi ranks among the most popular and widely recorded Baroque composers.

Tuesday, March 6
Gabriel García Márquez 
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez (born March 6, 1928 is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982, and is the earliest winner of this prize to be still alive. He pursued a self-directed education that resulted in his leaving law school for a career in journalism. From early on, he showed no inhibitions in his criticism of Colombian and foreign politics. In 1958, he married Mercedes Barcha; they have two sons, Rodrigo and Gonzalo.

He started as a journalist, and has written many acclaimed non-fiction works and short stories, but is best-known for his novels, such as One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985). His works have achieved significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success, most notably for popularizing a literary style labeled as magical realism, which uses magical elements and events in otherwise ordinary and realistic situations. Some of his works are set in a fictional village called Macondo, and most of them express the theme of solitude.
Photo: Marques with "One Hundred Years of Solitudeon his head.

Saturday, March 8
Kenneth Grahame 
Kenneth Grahame (March 8, 1859 – July 6, 1932) was a Scottish writer, most famous for The Wind in the Willows (1908), one of the classics of children's literature. He also wrote The Reluctant Dragon; both books were later adapted into Disney films.

Saturday, March 10
Toshitsugu Takamatsu 
Toshitsugu Takamatsu was born on 10 March 1889 (the 23rd year of Meiji) in Akashi, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan and died on 2 April 1972. He was a martial artist who taught and formed many following Grandmasters of martial art. He has been called "The Last Shinobi."

No comments:

Post a Comment