July 19, 2024 - In 1961, a new and difficult work for strings announced the arrival of a composer with a new and difficult name for non-Polish speakers to pronounce: Krzysztof Penderecki.
August 15, 2020 - When a flying saucer circled over Washington, DC, in the classic 1951 sci-fi film, “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” it did so to music played on an electronic instrument known as the Theremin. Its Russian inventor, Leon Theremin, was born in St. Petersburg on today’s date in 1896. In 1927 Theremin traveled to America, where he obtained a patent for an electronic instrument he called the Thereminovox. In the 1930s, Theremin arranged concerts for his creation at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
December 19, 2016 - The Stanley Kubrick film "A Clockwork Orange" opened in New York City on this date in 1971. The music was composed, and in some cases re-composed, by Wendy Carlos. As in his earlier hit, "2001: A Space Odyssey," Kubrick used classical music. This time, however, in keeping with the film's futuristic storyline, the classics were adapted and arranged for Moog synthesizer by Wendy Carlos. The Main Title music, which we're sampling, was Purcell's "Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary."