Obituaries

[pbrower2a]

05-08-2016, 08:32 AM
Isao Tomita (冨田 勲 Tomita Isao?, 22 April 1932 – 5 May 2016), often known simply as Tomita, was a Japanese music composer, regarded as one of the pioneers of electronic music and space music, and as one of the most famous producers of analog synthesizer arrangements. In addition to creating note-by-note realizations, Tomita made extensive use of the sound design capabilities of his instrument, using synthesizers to create new sounds to accompany and enhance his electronic realizations of acoustic instruments. He also made effective use of analog music sequencers and the Mellotron and featured futuristic science fiction themes, while laying the foundations for synth-pop music and trance-like rhythms. Many of his albums are electronic versions and adaptations of famous classical music pieces and he received four Grammy Award nominations for his 1974 album Snowflakes Are Dancing.

By the late 1960s, Isao turned to electronic music with the impetus of Wendy Carlos and Robert Moog's work with synthesizers. Isao acquired a Moog III synthesizer and began building his home studio. He eventually realized that synthesizers could be used to create entirely new sounds in addition to mimicking other instruments. His first electronic album was Electric Samurai: Switched on Rock, released in Japan in 1972 and in the United States in 1974. The album featured electronic renditions of contemporary rock and pop songs, while utilizing speech synthesis in place of a human voice. He then started arranging Claude Debussy's impressionist pieces for synthesizer and, in 1974, the album Snowflakes are Dancing was released; it became a worldwide success and was responsible for popularizing several aspects of synthesizer programming. The album's contents included ambience, realistic string simulations; an early attempt to synthesize the sound of a symphony orchestra; whistles, and abstract bell-like sounds, as well as a number of processing effects including: reverberation, phase shifting, flanging, and ring modulation. Quadrophonic versions of the album provided a spatial audio effect using four speakers. A particularly significant achievement was its polyphonic sound, created prior to the era of polyphonic synthesizers. Tomita created the album's polyphony as Carlos had done before him, with the use of multitrack recording, recording each voice of a piece one at a time, on a separate tape track, and then mixing the result to stereo or quad. It took 14 months to produce the album. In his early albums, he also made effective use of analog music sequencers, which he used for repeated pitch, filter or effects changes. Tomita's modular human whistle sounds would also be copied in the presets of later electronic instruments. His version of "Arabesque No. 1" was later used as the theme to the astronomy television series Jack Horkheimer: Star Gazer (originally titled Star Hustler) seen on most PBS stations; in Japan, parts of his version of "Rêverie" were used for the opening and closing of Fuji TV's transmissions; in Spain, "Arabesque No. 1" was also used for the intro and the outro for the children TV program "Planeta Imaginario" (imaginary planet).

Following the success of Snowflakes Are Dancing, Tomita released a number of "classically" themed albums, including arrangements of: Igor Stravinsky's The Firebird, Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, and Gustav Holst's The Planets. Holst: The Planets introduced a science fiction "space theme" This album sparked controversy on its release, as Imogen Holst, daughter of Gustav Holst, refused permission for her father's work to be interpreted in this way. The album was withdrawn, and is, consequently, rare in its original vinyl form.

While working on his classical synthesizer albums, Tomita also composed numerous scores for Japanese television and films, including the Zatoichi television series, two Zatoichi feature films, the Oshi Samurai (Mute Samurai) television series and the Toho science fiction disaster film, Catastrophe 1999, The Prophesies of Nostradamus (U.S. title: Last Days of Planet Earth) in 1974. The latter blends synthesizer performances with pop-rock and orchestral instruments. It and a few other partial and complete scores of the period have been released on LP and later CD over the years in Japan. While not bootlegs, at least some of these releases were issued by film and television production companies without Tomita's artistic approval.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isao_Tomita

pbrower2a
 
05-08-2016, 06:52 PM (This post was last modified: 05-10-2016, 01:01 AM by pbrower2a.)
The obituary thread was interesting. I think that we might well be advised to separate categories here. "Arts", "Theater/TV/radio/stage", "Literature", "Academia", "Journalism", and "Religion" may belong in the "Culture and Values" area in the appropriate threads as needed. Politics? I already have one for foreign officials and hangers-on. We will need one fore Americans. Entrepreneurs and business executives go into business and economics. Maybe I could have recognized Ronald Reagan both as a film star and a politician.

Recently I had a dog mentioned as a hero.

Where would I put a sport star, an animal (let us say a winner of a major sporting event), let alone a high-profile criminal (let us say Charles Manson, who can roast in Hell)?

Or maybe we could go back to the original that begins with Johnny Carson. I have no idea of how to load it. I have my own civics lesson on same-sex marriage, and putting it in was tedious.

re Tomita: His synthesizer performances were often derided by musical purists. Tough. Transcription is a stock of trade of performers and even composers. Such composers as Respighi, Schoenberg, and Busoni transcribed works of J S Bach for their own use. Bach did so himself.

If I had the talent for transcribing music, I would have a very different approach to Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition from that of Isao Tomita. I would attempt to catch the spirit of the organ concertos of Georg Friedrich Handel. It is hard to imagine that a period-instrument orchestra would play such an arrangement... but the organ-like sounds would well serve the Promenades and fade into the chamber-like sonorities reminiscent of a period orchestra of Handel's time, with the organ becoming the star of the climactic Great Gate of Kiev. It would be an anachronism -- but if it works -- who cares?


pbrower2a

Joe Temperley (Lochgelly, Scotland, 20 September 1929 – 11 May 2016) was a Scottish saxophonist. He has performed on various instruments but is most associated with the baritone saxophone and bass clarinet.
Life
He first achieved prominence in the United Kingdom as a member of Humphrey Lyttelton's band from 1958-1965. In 1965, he moved to New York City where he performed and/or recorded with Woody Herman, Buddy Rich, Joe Henderson, Duke Pearson, the Jazz Composer's Orchestra, The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra and Clark Terry, among many others. In October 1974, he toured and recorded with the Duke Ellington Orchestra as a replacement for Harry Carney.[1]
Temperley played in the Broadway show Sophisticated Ladies in the 1980s, and his film soundtrack credits include Cotton Club, Biloxi Blues, Brighton Beach Memoirs, When Harry Met Sally, and Tune In Tomorrow, composed by Wynton Marsalis.
He was a guest mentor of the Fife Youth Jazz Orchestra also known as FYJO[2] program in Scotland, co-founded by Richard Michael and Dr Colin Thompson, which now enrolls 30 young musicians ages 7–18.
Temperley released several albums as a leader, including Nightingale (1991) with Brian Lemon, Sunbeam and Thundercloud with pianist Dave McKenna (1996), With Every Breath (1998) and Double Duke (1999) with several fellow Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra members. He was an original member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and served on the faculty of the Juilliard School for Jazz Studies.[3]
Temperley died in Edinburgh, Scotland on 11 May 2016, aged 86.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Temperley


[b]Dan '82[/b]


http://www.tennessean.com/story/entertai.../80932338/

Quote: Wrote:Guy Charles Clark, the gravel-voiced troubadour who crafted a vast catalog of emotionally charged, intricately detailed works that illuminated and expanded the literary possibilities of popular song, died in Nashville Tuesday morning after a long illness.

Mr. Clark, a Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer, had been in declining health for years, including a lengthy cancer battle. He was 74 years old, and the author of 13 compelling studio albums...



http://www.tennessean.com/story/entertai.../80932338/

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Huguette Dreyfus, harpsichordist

Huguette Dreyfus began taking piano lessons at the age of four years. In 1946, she began working with renowned piano teacher Lazare Lévy. In 1950, having learned that music historian Norbert Dufourcq was to give special classes on the music of Johann Sebastian Bach (in recognition of the bicentennial of Bach's death) at the Conservatoire de Paris, she entered into the class and remained there for four years. In addition to her piano class, she also studied the harpsichord at the Académie Chigiana de Siena under Ruggero Gerlin, who was a student of harpsichord-reviver Wanda Landowska. In 1958, Dreyfus won the Geneva international harpsichord competition, becoming a prominent figure of ancient Renaissance and Baroque music and of the revival of the harpsichord in France.

Her favorite instrument was a harpsichord from Johann Heinrich Hemsch, a German harpsichord maker. His best instruments were made in Paris in the 18th century and are often comparable to those made by Blanchet, another celebrated harpsichord maker.

Dreyfus taught at the Schola Cantorum, at the Sorbonne in Paris, and at the National Conservatory of Music and Dance of Lyon(CNSMD de Lyon). She taught as well at the International Academy of Organ and old music of Saint-Maxima-la-Sainte-Baume, and at the Villecroze Academie de Musique. In this regard, the quality and the significant number of harpsichordists who identify with her teaching, such as Christophe Rousset, Olivier Baumont, Yannick Le Gaillard, Noëlle Spieth, and Jory Vinikour speaks for itself. She was part of the jury of the International Harpsichord Competition of Paris.

Her numerous concerts, master classes and recordings led her to work with numerous musical personalities: Eduard Melkus, Luciano Sgrizzi, Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini, Pierre Boulez, Paul Kuentz, Lionel Rogg, Alfred Planyavsky, Jean-Pierre Rampal, and more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguette_Dreyfus


pbrower2a

Jane Little was a musician who played double bass for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra from age 16 until the day she died at age 87. According to Guinness World Records, she held the world record for longest tenure with an orchestra. She made her debut on February 4, 1945. Little set the record on February 1, 2016. The previous record holder was Frances Darger, who played violin for 70 years for the Utah Symphony until his retirement in 2012.
She was married to Warren Little, the principal flutist of the ASO, for 41 years before his death.
Little collapsed on stage while performing There's No Business Like Show Business on May 15, 2016 and died later that day. She was undergoing treatment for myeloma at the time.[1][2][3][4]