#Virgil Thomson

[dabiconcordia]

"Try a thing you haven't done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time, to figure out whether you like it or not." ― Virgil Thomson

[davidhudson]

Virgil Thomson, November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989.

With Leonard Bernstein, Walter Piston, William Schuman, and Aaron Copland in 1970.

[citizenscreen]

1983 Kennedy Center honorees: actor James Stewart, ballet dancer Katherine Dunham, (L-R) standing: director Elia Kazan, composer Virgil Thomson, and entertainer Frank Sinatra. #DailyStewart

[dweemeister]

Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz (June 25, 1982)

Linus is quoting an excerpt from the libretto to Virgil Thomson's opera Four Saints on the Grass by Gertrude Stein.

[lesser-known-composers]

Virgil Thomson (1896-1989): Quartetto per archi n.2 (1932)

III. Adagio sostenuto IV. Allegretto

Juilliard Quartet

[sunset-supergirl]

Happy birthday Virgil Thomson

[famousdeaths]

Virgil Thomson was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as...

Link: Virgil Thomson

[mygrandmotherspiano]

Try a thing you haven’t done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time to figure out whether you like it or not.

Virgil Thomson

[sivavakkiyar]

Found this early piece (Fads & Fancies In The Academy) of Cage’s a while ago and geeked out about it: it’s pure fun, not really something I ever expected to find from him. The movement titles are wonderful

despite the presentation it had been written in 1940

[t-jfh]

Giant Waterlily - Botanicum illustration by Katie Scott

© 2023 Copyright Katie Scott • https://katie-scott.com

You are not a drop in the ocean; you are the entire ocean in a drop.

— Rumi

Ajahn Sumedho reflects on the Buddha’s teaching of The Four Noble Truths.

YouTube video via Buddhism now >> You don't have to believe these Four Noble Truths — but realise them. Asalha Puja Dhamma Reflection by Ajahn Sumedho [Filmed 1 August 2023 / 52mins.+10secs.]:

In this Dhamma talk, Ajahn Sumedho reflects on the Buddha’s teaching of The Four Noble Truths. Filmed on Asalha Puja day (1 August 2023) at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery, England UK.

Amaravati Buddhist Monastery, UK, Thai Forest Tradition of Ajahn Chah

Amaravati website: https://amaravati.org

•

[cartermagazine]

Today In History

Leontyne Price, world-renowned opera singer, and the first African American singer to achieve an international reputation in opera—made her formal debut at the Metropolitan Opera House on this date January 27, 1961.

Both of Price’s grandfathers had been Methodist ministers in Black churches in Mississippi, and she sang in her church choir as a girl. Only when she graduated from the College of Education and Industrial Arts (now Central State College) in Wilberforce, Ohio, in 1948 did she decide to seek a career as a singer.

She studied for four years at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, where she worked under the former concert singer Florence Page Kimball, who remained her coach in later years. Her debut took place in April 1952 in a Broadway revival of Four Saints in Three Acts by Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein.

Leontyne Price performance in that production, which subsequently traveled to Paris, prompted Ira Gershwin to choose her to sing the role of Bess in his revival of Porgy and Bess, which played in New York City from 1952 to 1954 and then toured the United States and Europe. The year 1955 saw her triumphant performance of the title role in the National Broadcasting Company’s television production of Tosca, and she sang leading roles in other operas on television in the next few years.

CARTER™️ Magazine

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The Hotel Chelsea (also known as the Chelsea Hotel and the Chelsea) is a hotel at 222 West 23rd Street in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Built between 1883 and 1884, the hotel was designed by Philip Hubert in a style described variously as Queen Anne Revival and Victorian Gothic. The 12-story Chelsea, originally a housing cooperative, has been the home of numerous writers, musicians, artists, and entertainers, some of whom still lived there in the 21st century. As of 2022, most of the Chelsea is a luxury hotel. The building is a New York City designated landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places.

The front facade of the Hotel Chelsea is 11 stories high, while the rear of the hotel rises 12 stories. The facade is divided vertically into five sections and is made of brick, with some flower-ornamented iron balconies; the hotel is capped by a high mansard roof. The Hotel Chelsea has thick load-bearing walls made of masonry, as well as wrought iron floor beams and large, column-free spaces. When the hotel opened, the ground floor was divided into an entrance hall, four storefronts, and a restaurant; this has been rearranged over the years, with a bar and the El Quijote restaurant occupying part of the ground floor. The Chelsea was among the first buildings in the city with duplex and penthouse apartments, and there is also a rooftop terrace. The hotel originally had no more than 100 apartments; it was subdivided into 400 units during the 20th century and has 155 units as of 2022. The idea for the Chelsea arose after Hubert & Pirsson had developed several housing cooperatives in New York City. Developed by the Chelsea Association, the structure quickly attracted authors and artists after opening. Several factors, including financial hardships and tenant relocations, prompted the Chelsea's conversion into an apartment hotel in 1905. Knott Hotels took over the hotel in 1921 and managed it until about 1942, when David Bard bought it out of bankruptcy. Julius Krauss and Joseph Gross joined Bard as owners in 1947. After David Bard died in 1964, his son Stanley operated it for 43 years, forming close relationships with many tenants. The hotel underwent numerous minor changes in the late 20th century after falling into a state of disrepair. The Krauss and Gross families took over the hotel in 2007 and were involved in numerous tenant disputes before the Chelsea closed for a major renovation in 2011. The hotel changed ownership twice in the 2010s before BD Hotels took over in 2016, and the Chelsea reopened in 2022.

Over the years, the Chelsea has housed many notables such as Arthur Miller, Bob Dylan, Arthur C. Clarke, Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Virgil Thomson. The Chelsea received much commentary for the creative culture that Bard helped create within the hotel. Critics also appraised the hotel's interior—which was reputed for its uncleanliness in the mid- and late 20th century—and the quality of the hotel rooms themselves. The Chelsea has been the setting or inspiration for many works of popular media, and it has been used as an event venue and filming location.

Over the years, the Chelsea has become particularly well-known for its residents, who have come from all social classes. The New York Times described the hotel in 2001 as a "roof for creative heads", given the large number of such personalities who have stayed at the Chelsea; the previous year, the same newspaper had characterized the list of tenants as "living history". The journalist Pete Hamill characterized the hotel's clientele as "radicals in the 1930s, British sailors in the 40s, Beats in the 50s, hippies in the 60s, decadent poseurs in the 70s". Although early tenants were wealthy, the Chelsea attracted less well-off tenants by the mid-20th century, and many writers, musicians, and artists lived at the Hotel Chelsea when they were short on money. Accordingly, the Chelsea's guest list had almost zero overlap with that of the more fashionable Plaza Hotel crosstown. New York magazine wrote that "people who lived in the hotel slept together as often as they celebrated holidays together", particularly under Stanley Bard's tenure. Despite the high number of notable people associated with the Chelsea, its residents typically desired privacy and frowned upon those who used their relationships with their neighbors to further their own careers.

The Hotel Chelsea has housed numerous literary figures, some of whom wrote their books there. Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey while staying at the Chelsea, calling the hotel his "spiritual home" despite its condition. Thomas Wolfe lived in the hotel before his death in 1938, writing several books such as You Can't Go Home Again; he often walked around the halls to gain inspiration for his writing. William S. Burroughs also lived at the Chelsea. While living at the Chelsea, Edgar Lee Masters wrote 18 poetry books, often wandering the hotel for hours. Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (who lived with his wife Caitlin Thomas) was staying in room 205 when he became ill and died in 1953, while American poet Delmore Schwartz spent the last few years of his life in seclusion at the Chelsea before he died in 1966. Irish poet Brendan Behan, a severe alcoholic who had been ejected from the Algonquin Hotel, lived at the hotel for several months before his death in 1964. Many poets of the Beat poetry movement also lived at the Chelsea before the Beat Hotel in Paris became popular.

Other authors, writers, and journalists who stayed or lived at the hotel have included: Henry Abbey, poet Nelson Algren, writer Léonie Adams, poet; lived with husband William Troy Sherwood Anderson, writer Ben Lucien Burman, writer Henri Chopin, poet and musician Ira Cohen, poet and filmmaker Gregory Corso, poet Hart Crane, poet Quentin Crisp, writer and actor Jane Cunningham Croly, journalist Katherine Dunn, novelist and journalist Edward Eggleston, writer James T. Farrell, novelist Allen Ginsberg, poet John Giorno, poet Maurice Girodias, publisher Pete Hamill, journalist Bernard Heidsieck, poet O. Henry, writer Herbert Huncke, poet Clifford Irving, novelist and reporter Charles R. Jackson, author Theodora Keogh, novelist Jack Kerouac, writer Suzanne La Follette, journalist John La Touche, lyricist Jakov Lind, novelist Mary McCarthy, novelist and political activist Arthur Miller, playwright Jessica Mitford, author Vladimir Nabokov, novelist Eugene O'Neill, playwright Joseph O'Neill, novelist Claude Pélieu, poet and artist Rene Ricard, poet James Schuyler, poet Sam Shepard, playwright and actor Valerie Solanas, writer Benjamin Stolberg, publicist and author Richard Suskind, children's writer William Troy, critic; lived with wife Léonie Adams Mark Twain, writer Gore Vidal, writer Arnold Weinstein, librettist Tennessee Williams, playwright Yevgeny Yevtushenko, poet

The Chelsea was particularly popular among rock musicians and rock and roll musicians in the 1970s. These included Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, who allegedly stabbed his girlfriend Nancy Spungen to death at the hotel in 1978; after Vicious's death, their room was split into two units to prevent the room from being turned into a shrine. Numerous rock bands frequented the Chelsea as well, including the Allman Brothers, the Band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the Byrds, Country Joe and the Fish, Jefferson Airplane, Lovin' Spoonful, Moby Grape, the Mothers of Invention, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Sly and the Family Stone, and the Stooges. The Kills wrote much of their album No Wow at the Chelsea prior to its release in 2005. The Grateful Dead once performed on the roof.

[Chris Stein]

[eddy25960]

Maurice Grosser (1903 – 1986) was an American painter and writer and longtime companion of Virgil Thomson. Grosser was born on October 23, 1903, in Huntsville, Alabama.

[dabiconcordia]

"Try a thing you haven't done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time, to figure out whether you like it or not." by Virgil Thomson

[lesser-known-composers]

Virgil Thomson (1896-1989) - A Solemn Music (1949)

University of Michigan Symphony Band

H. Robert Reynolds, conductor

[sunset-supergirl]

Happy birthday Virgil Thomson