Happy Birthday Schubert

Another composer who died tragically young.
Only 31 - even younger than Mozart.

Here is the etching I did of him last year.
I have also done a profile of him on my composer website at:
52composers.com

Happy Birthday Wolfgang

Today is Mozart's birthday.
Happy Birthday Wolfgang!

I have just found on YouTube some beautiful animations by the late Emanuele Luzzati, Italian ilustrator and stage designer.

Together with Giulio Gianini he produced some stunning animations and they won an Oscar nomination for their production of Rossini's Thieving Magpie

Here is a link to the first part of Mozart's Magic Flute.

Brilliant!

Arcangelo Corelli

I have finished my Corelli portrait and put a short profile on 52composers.com

He was one of the few great composers to die a very rich man. Thanks to the patronage first of Queen Christina of Sweden, then of various cardinals, he amassed not only great wealth but also a fantastic art collection.

I will be making available prints next month.

Photographers protest in Tafalgar Square

Today professional and amateur photographers protested in London's Trafalgar Square about the increasing phenomenon of police 'stopping and searching' anyone (including tourists) photographing certain public buildings or police officers.
Last week the European Court of Human Rights ruled that this indiscriminate practice is illegal, so the government has appealed.
Meanwhile - be warned!!

Read the story here

'The Welder' - Art of the Day on EBSQ

Yesterday my painting 'The Welder' was featured as Art of the Day on the home page of EBSQ - the excellent site for Self Representing Artists.

Victorian exercise bike

If you really can't face cycling outside in this weather then get one of these gadgets to enable you to exercise indoors:

Aerial Velocipede

Even better than the Ice Cycle I suggested yesterday would be the Aerial Velocipede.
This would be useful all year round. Great idea - pity it never took off!

Ice Cycle

Where can I get one of these?
Just the job for cycling in this weather.
A large spiked wheel, steerable runners, great!

300th Anniversary of Pergolesi's birth

Today is the tercentenary of the birth of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, the 'Father of Comic Opera'.
He only had 26 birthdays while on this earth - if he had lived longer would he have been another Mozart? But then Mozart died young as well at 35.

So here is my new portrait of Pergolesi which I completed last week. I have also published a profile of him on my site www.52composers.com

January anniversaries of famous composers

Here is a list of anniversaries of some prominent classical composers that fall in January:

4/1/1710 Pergolesi born
6/1/1872 Scriabin born
6/1/1838 Bruch born
7/1/1899 Poulenc born
27/1/1756 Mozart born
27/1/1813Verdi died
29/1/1862 Delius born
30/1/1963 Poulenc died
31/1/1797 Schubert born

2010 Classical composer anniversaries

2009 was a great year for famous composer anniversaries and 2010 is also a good year. Strangely a lot more anniversaries of births than of deaths.

Births:
Scarlatti (Alessandro) 350 years
Pergolesi 300 years
Cherubini 250 years
Chopin 200 years
Schumann 200 years
Albeniz 150 years
Mahler 150 years
Stravinsky 100 years

Deaths:
Balakirev 100 years

Happy New Year everyone!

I wish everyone a happy and successful new year - and indeed a happy and successful new decade. Let's hope it doesn't go as fast as the last one. I can't believe it is 10 years since the millenium celebrations.

So today we went to the London New Year Parade. It was the first sunny day we have had for some time and there were lots of happy faces (and gossepimples). It is a great show and there were participants from 20 different countries.

Of particular interest are the several marching bands who come all the way from the States just for this parade. So I got some good photos of sousaphones to use on my Sousa page on my 52composers.com site.