composer

1Jun

By Web TeamNo Comments

India, Noteworthy, Profiles

Wajid Khan, music composer

Wajid Khan, Bollywood music composer, died on June 1, 2020, from complications due to suspected Covid-19 infection. The composer of Sajid-Wajid fame was admitted to a hospital in Mumbai and was reportedly on ventilator. Wajid, who along with his brother Sajid Khan produced music for many Bollywood hits including Dabangg, Wanted and Jai Ho, had been suffering from kidney problem for the past few years. Sanjay Tandon of the Indian Performing Right Society (IPRS) confirmed the news to a website, saying that he had received a message that he was not well and that he had been hospitalised. Singer Sonu Nigam was among the first A-listers to confirm the news. "Mybrother Wajid left us," he posted on his official Instagram handle sonunigamofficial Sajid-Wajid were the sons of tabla...

21Apr

By Web TeamNo Comments

Noteworthy, Profiles, Russia

Alexander Kuzmich Vustin, composer

Alexander Kuzmich Vustin a Russian composer died in Moscow on 19 April 2020 from pneumonia, or COVID-19. His works, including the opera The Devil in Love, were played and recorded internationally. Vustin studied composition first with Grigory Frid at a regional music college, and later with Vladimir Ferè at the Moscow Conservatory, graduating in 1969. Between 1969 and 1974, Vustin worked as a music editor at USSR Radio. From 1974 he worked as an editor at the Kompozitor publishing house. Vustin composed from 1963, but regarded only works written since 1972 as valid. His musical language is distinctive by the remarkable organization of its musical texture. Vustin uses the twelve-tone technique, but in his own original way. His first notable compositions were written in the mid...

10Apr

By Web TeamNo Comments

Noteworthy, Profiles, United Kingdom

Dmitri Smirnov, composer

Dmitri Nikolaevich Smirnov –a Russian-British composer and academic teacher, who also published as Dmitri N. Smirnov and D. Smirnov-Sadovsky – died on 9 April 2020 due to Covid-19. He wrote operas, symphonies, string quartets and other chamber music, and vocal music from song to oratorio. Many of his works were inspired by the art of William Blake. Smirnov was born in Minsk into a family of opera singers: his parents were Nikolay Senkin-Sadovsky and Eugenia Smirnova. His family moved to Ulan-Ude and then Bishkek, where he spent most of his childhood. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory from 1967 to 1972, composition with Nikolai Sidelnikov, instrumentation with Yuri Kholopov, and analysis with Edison Denisov. He also studied privately wit...

Mike Longo, jazz pianist, composer & author

24Mar

By Web TeamNo Comments

Noteworthy, Profiles, United States

Mike Longo, jazz pianist, composer & author

Michael Josef Longo ‑ an American jazz pianist, composer, and author ‑ died in Manhattan on March 23, 2020, three days after his 83rd birthday, from complications of COVID-19. Longo was born in Cincinnati, Ohio to parents who had a musical background. His father played bass, his mother played organ at church, and his music training began at a young age. Mike recalled seeing Sugar Chile Robinson playing boogie woogie piano: "The first time I saw him, man, he knocked me out. I must have been three or four years old. He played after the Count Basie show, so I went home and started picking out boogie woogie bass lines." His parents took him for formal lessons at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music at four. He moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida soon after. At the ag...