He had an international career in a wide repertory and was a star at English National Opera, but his greatest contribution was in British music. Britten wrote several roles for him, and he made over 100 recordings, with his performances of Elgar, Britten, Walton, and British art song being highlights. - Presto Music
"(He) was considered one of the most original and prolific musical voices in Europe and the most performed German composer of contemporary classical music. … He insisted that great art results from aesthetic liberty and intellectual rigor, not adherence to predetermined ideas about beauty." - The New York Times
His goal: “to ask questions, not to provide ready-made answers, to say, in effect, look at this, see how much more beautiful and strange and full of possibility is the world than can be imagined by the mythographers at Time or NBC.” - Harper's
Josh Hartnett, raising goats (and four children) in Hampshire, says, that “‘unlike when he’s in New York or LA, ‘where people only want to talk about your career,’ he says, here ‘nobody cares,’ which is just how he likes it.” - The Guardian (UK)
He was “a big-picture scholar,” readable to non-academics as well as other scholars, and “the theories about resistance to power that he extrapolated led to a new view of supposedly primitive peoples and to a new academic field, resistance studies.” - The New York Times
“Ms. O’Brien grew up in a newly independent and staunchly Catholic Ireland with firm ideas about the roles of women, who had no lawful access to abortion, contraception or divorce. In much of her work, Ms. O’Brien limned characters who yearned to break free.” - Washington Post (MSN)
Few currently active conductors have developed such a natural affinity with the recording studio. The independent producer Andrew Keener, who collaborated on his UK recordings, tells me that Slatkin always stood out as ‘a conductor who is totally studio wise, and who knew how to apportion time in the studio. - Gramophone
"His exquisite, relaxed playing (of the 21-stringed hard) mixed the ancient and modern, as he switched from pieces that dated back hundreds of years to his own compositions that he said reflected influences ranging from other African artists to Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding and Pink Floyd." - The Guardian
When Mr. Gottlieb, who died last June at 92, wasn’t heartlessly lancing thousands of words out of Robert Caro’s biographical volumes or marking up the manuscripts of Toni Morrison and Salman Rushdie, he loved watching movies. Along the course of his career, he built a vast collection of books on Hollywood’s golden age. - The New York Times
Born into a very old and eminent family (though one no longer, by his day, very rich), he wrote about the American aristocracy with skepticism and even scorn. Twice he reinvented one of the country's oldest magazines, attracting readers, attention and respect (though never profit). - The Washington Post (MSN)
"(He) fashioned a 43-year career at The Inquirer that featured hundreds of influential stories about Philadelphia’s art and culture and the people who shaped them. He first covered cultural life ... in 1989 and, until he retired in 2022, focused as much on the newsmakers as the culture they created." - The Philadelphia Inquirer
"A multi-instrumentalist who sang and played guitar, keyboards and harmonica, Mr. Mayall was better known as a bandleader who had a superb eye for talent and a steadfast devotion to the purity of the blues." He also helped launch the careers of Eric Clapton and Fleetwood Mac. - The Washington Post (MSN)
As little as possible, actually. "I promised myself to only practise when I wanted to, and then I didn’t want to for 15 months! I just pigged out and watched Netflix. I let my brain drift into stupid movies. ... But after six months I got sick of (it).” - The Telegraph (UK)
Darren Walker announced Monday that he would step down as the president of the Ford Foundation at the end of 2025 after what will have been a consequential 12-year tenure in which he shifted the institution’s focus to inequality and oversaw the distribution of $7 billion in grants. - The New York Times
Mowry, in a 40-year career, was an “actor and director known both for his personal gentleness and generosity and for his deep, profoundly captivating onstage speaking voice.” - Oregon ArtsWatch
