August 10 Dateline

Birthdays

1865 - Alexander Glazunov, Russian composer, music teacher, and conductor of the late Russian Romantic period. He served as director of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory between 1905 and 1928 and was instrumental in the reorganization of the institute into the Petrograd Conservatory (then the Leningrad Conservatory), following the Bolshevik Revolution. He continued heading the Conservatory until 1930, though he had left the Soviet Union in 1928 and did not return. Glazunov successfully reconciled nationalism and cosmopolitanism in Russian music. While he was the direct successor to Balakirev's nationalism, he tended more towards Borodin's epic grandeur while absorbing a number of other influences. These included Rimsky-Korsakov's orchestral virtuosity, Tchaikovsky's lyricism and Taneyev's contrapuntal skill.

1874 - Herbert C. Hoover, 31st U.S. President. He was an engineer, businessman, and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he held office during the onset of the Great Depression. Before serving as president, Hoover led the Commission for Relief in Belgium, served as the director of the U.S. Food Administration, and served as the 3rd U.S. Secretary of Commerce.

1889 - Charles Brace Darrow, American inventor, best known for his modification of the design of the Monopoly board game, which was based on Lizzie Magie's original invention The Landlord's Game. He became the first millionaire game designer in history, and although Magie patented her invention she received only $500.

1893 - Douglas Stuart  Moore, American composer, educator, and author. He wrote music for the theater, film, ballet and orchestra, but his greatest fame is associated with his operas The Devil and Daniel Webster and The Ballad of Baby Doe. Moore also composed several popular songs whilst at Yale together with poet and Hotchkiss School mate Archibald MacLeish and later in collaboration with John Jacob Niles. He wrote the Yale fight song Goodnight, Harvard, later published under the collective title "Songs my Mother never taught Me".

1909 - Brian Easdale, English composer of operatic, orchestral, choral and film music. His opera works include the operas Rapunzel, The Corn King, and The Sleeping Children. His orchestral works include Five pieces for orchestra, Six Poems, and Tone Poem. For choir, Easdale wrote the Missa Coventrensis. Easdale also composed sseveral film and theatre music. His film scores included several for Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, including Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, The Small Back Room, The Elusive Pimpernel, The Battle of the River Plate, Miracle in Soho, The Queen's Guards and Powell's Peeping Tom. He was the first British composer to win an Academy Award for Best Original Music Score, for his music for The Red Shoes.

1959 - Rosanna Lisa Arquette, American actress, film director, and film Producer. She was nominated for an Emmy Award for her performance in the TV film The Executioner's Song, and won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for the film Desperately Seeking Susan. Her other film roles include After Hours, The Big Blue, Pulp Fiction, and Crash. She also directed the documentary Searching for Debra Winger, and starred in the ABC sitcom What About Brian?

Leftie:
None known

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 10 August - On This Day.

Featuring:

 

Alexander Glazunov's The Seasons, Op. 67, performed by Minnesota Orchestra, with Edo de Waart, conducting.  This music is used for an allegorical ballet in one act, four scenes, by the choreographer Marius Petipa. The work was composed in 1899, and was first performed by the Imperial Ballet in 1900 in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Historical Events

1519 - Ferdinand Magellan, Portuguese explorer, leaves Seville, Spain, on his way to becoming the first person to circumnavigate the globe.

1675 - Charles II lays the foundation stone for the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, London. Later, it becomes the zero point for longitude, beginning the world's 24 noon time zones. 

August 9 Dateline

Birthdays

1874 - Reynaldo Hahn - Venezuelan-French composer, conductor, and music critic, diarist, theatre director, and salon singer. Best known as a composer of songs, he wrote in the French classical tradition of the mélodie. (French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky sings Hahn's L'heure exquise, excerpt from Chansons grises No.5. YouTube, uploaded by medici.tv. Accessed August 9, 2010.)

1875 - Albert William Ketelbey, English composer, conductor and pianist, best known for his short pieces of light orchestral music. After a brilliant studentship he did not pursue the classical career predicted for him, instead, becoming musical director of the Vaudeville Theatre before gaining fame as a composer of light music and as a conductor of his own works. (In a Monastery Garden)

1919 - Leona Woods Marshall Libby, American physicist who  helped build the first nuclear reactor and the first atomic bomb.

1927 - Robert Archibald Shaw, English actor, novelist, and playwright. He was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his role as Henry VIII in the drama film A Man for All Seasons. He played the conned mobster Doyle Lonnegan in The Sting and the shark hunter Quint in Jaws. His other notable film roles include From Russia with Love, Battle of Britain, Young Winston, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Robin and Marian and Black Sunday. Beginning his career in theatre, Shaw joined the Royal Shakespeare Company after the WWII and appeared in productions of Macbeth, Henry VIII, Cymbeline, and other Shakespeare plays.

1938 - Rod Laver (Rodney George Laver), AC, MBE, Australian former tennis player. He was the No. 1 ranked professional from 1964 to 1970, spanning four years before and three years after the start of the Open Era in 1968. He was also the No. 1 ranked amateur in 1961–62. The Laver Cup Tournament and the Rod Laver Arena are named after him.

1963 - Whitney Elizabeth Houston, American singer and actress. She was cited as the most awarded female artist of all time by Guinness World Records and is one of the best-selling recording artists of all time, with estimated sales of over 200 million records worldwide. Houston released seven studio albums and two soundtrack albums, all of which have been certified diamond, multi-platinum, platinum, or gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Her crossover appeal on the popular music charts as well as her prominence on MTV influenced several African-American female artists.

 
1968 - Gillian Leigh Anderson, OBE, American-British actress. Her credits include the roles of FBI Special Agent Dana Scully in the series The X-Files, ill-fated socialite Lily Bart in Terence Davies' film The House of Mirth, DSU Stella Gibson on the BBC crime drama television series The Fall, and sex therapist Jean Milburn in the Netflix comedy-drama Sex Education. Among other honours, Anderson has won a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

1968 - Eric Bana, AM (born Eric Banadinović), Australian actor. He gained critical recognition in the biographical crime film Chopper, and Hollywood's attention for his performance in the war film Black Hawk Down and the title character in Hulk. Bana played Hector in the movie Troy, the lead in Steven Spielberg's historical drama and political thriller Munich, Henry VIII in The Other Boleyn Girl, and the villain Nero in the science-fiction film Star Trek, and played Henry DeTamble in The Time Traveler's Wife. In 2013, he played Lt. Cmdr. Erik S. Kristensen in the war film Lone Survivor. He received Australia's highest film and television awards for his performances in Chopper, Full Frontal and Romulus, My Father.

Lefties:
Former Tennis player Rod Laver 

 

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 9 August - On This Day.

Historical Events

1483 - In Italy, the Sistine Chapel opens in Vatican, Rome. Pope Sixtus IV led the first mass in the chapel on this day, consecrating and dedicating it to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.         

1936 - At the Berlin Olympics, Jesse Owens, of the 4 x 100-metre men's relay, becomes the first American to win four gold medals at a single games.