Visit DempseyBooks!
January is
National Hot Tea Month
===============================
Tweet us today with author birthdays!
Sunday January 23
 |
Elvira Lindo (b. 1962) – Spanish-U.S. novelist, radio writer, screenwriter – Lo que me queda por vivir (2010) |
Read the Wikipedia article for Elvira Lindo
———————————————
Monday January 24
| Vítězslava Kaprálová (b. 1915) – Czechoslovakian composer – April Preludes (1937)
|
 |
Read a detailed biographical essay about Vítězslava Kaprálová
“In 1932 Vítězslava’s parents separated which may explain the second song of the two that make up her Opus 4, Osirely ( Orphaned) which may express her loneliness and the many visits she made to a sanatorium in Smokovec. The song Tatov k narozeninam from Opus 18 is dedicated to ‘Dad on his birthday’ 26 March 1937. Similarity the song K narozeninam me maminsky is entitled ‘For the birthday of my mum’.
Vítězslava had an affinity with poetry and some believe her songs are her best work. Like Martinů, she was an ardent nature lover and loved to stay at Tri Studne among the pine trees and lakes.”
Read another biography here
“When she died in exile in France at the age of twenty–five, Vítĕzslava Kaprálová (1915–40) was on the threshold of a successful international career as a composer and conductor. During her short life, she composed no fewer than fifty works (many of which were published), conducted orchestras in Prague, London, and Paris, was praised by music critics across Europe, and was awarded the Smetana Award by the Bendřich Smetana Foundation.
Kaprálová was largely forgotten by the music community in France and in Czechoslovakia. Several of the works she completed at the end of her life were premiered in the years immediately following the war; however, Kaprálová and her works were soon lost in the shadows of history.
Starting in the last two decades of the twentieth century, interest in Kaprálová began to re–emerge. Perhaps Kaprálová, a promising composer and musician and young victim of World War II, is now once again on her way to becoming an important part of the early Czechoslovak modernist movement.”
Listen to a Radio Praha – Cesky Rozhlas radio feature about Vítězslava Kaprálová
“The story of Vítězslava Kaprálová’s is one of a 25-year-old girl who had a career in music of five years. However, even today, 70 years after her death, she remains an inspiration to many as a tragic but heroic figure, particularly for many female composers and conductors.”
Classical pianist Daniela Hlinkova performs Kapralova’s April Preludes
Read about Kapralova’s songs in this article by Timothy Cheek
Navzdy (Forever) Kapralova: Reevaluating Czech composer
Vitezslava Kapralova through her thirty songs
“The song ‘Navzdy,’ from the group of three songs of the same name, shows many of her traits. The poet is Jan Carek (1898-1966). Like most of Kapralova’s poets, he was a living Czech writer with whom Kapralova was in communication, and he admired her settings of his poems. Kapralova made the following changes in the poem, condensing some of Carek’s words into more succinct phrases that flow and soar more easily:
A section:
Wild geese are flying south,
someone will leave and again will return,
someone will leave and will never return.
B section:
I don’t know if somewhere the sky is more beautiful than here,
but you would not count anywhere more stars
when the night is clear, clear.
A section:
Wild geese are flying south,
someone will leave and again will return,
someone will leave and will never return.
The autobiographical content of the poem has already been mentioned–Kapralova was contemplating leaving her home for further study, and the song is about someone leaving her native land. “
http://www.kapralova.org/journal5.pdf
Visit the Kapralova Society website for more information about Vítězslava Kaprálová
———————————————
Tuesday January 25
 |
David Grossman (b. 1954) – Israeli author, activist |
Read the Authors Calendar entry for David Grossman
Read the Wikipedia article about David Grossman
———————————————
Wednesday January 26
| Henry Jaglom (b. 1938 or 1941) – U.K.-U.S. film director, playwright – Festival in Cannes (2001) |  |
Read the Wikipedia article about Henry Jaglom
Read the Internet Movie Database filmography for Henry Jaglom here
Read the AllMovieBlog interview of Henry Jaglom (November 2010)
http://blog.allmovie.com/2010/11/24/henry-jaglom-the-amg-interview/
Visit HenryJaglom.com
———————————————
Thursday January 27
 |
Djavan (b. 1949) – Brazilian singer/songwriter |
Read the Wikipedia article about Djavan
Watch Djavan perform “Um Amor Puro” live
http://www.videosurf.com/video/djavan-um-amor-puro-ao-vivo-60949084
Watch the studio recording of “Palco”
———————————————
Friday January 28
| Arnaldur Indriðason (b. 1961) – Icelandic crime fiction novelist - |  |
Read the Wikipedia article about Arnaldur Indriðason
Read a 2006 U.K. Guardian profile article about Arnaldur Indridason
Indridason’s incorporation of aspects of the Icelandic literary tradition of saga, such as the sometimes bloodthirsty repercussions of actions down the generations, further root the stories deep in this most idiosyncratic culture and landscape.
This attention to local verisimilitude has, paradoxically, seen Indridason become the latest in a line of Scandinavian thriller writers to spectacularly break out of their home markets in recent years. “You would not immediately have thought of Reykjavik as one of Europe’s prominent murder centres,” wrote Marcel Berlins, but Indridason’s Icelandic capital “is as dark, scary and lethal as Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/jun/17/featuresreviews.guardianreview11
Read the PBS “Masterpiece Mystery” description of Indridason and his novels
Q: You’ve said that Alfred Hitchcock is your favorite director—why, and do you have a favorite film?
Indridason: Possibly it is the blend of humor with the murder and mayhem that interests me the most. This is most evident in the first pages of [my book] Silence of the Grave where a toddler is gnawing on a bone of someone who was murdered 60 years before. One of my favorites is Strangers on a Train. It’s absolutely beautiful.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/spotlight/aindridason.html?v=h
———————————————
Saturday January 29
| Leslie Bricusse (b. 1931) – U.K. lyricist, composer, playwright – “What Kind of Fool Am I” |  |
Read the Wikipedia article about Leslie Bricusse
Leslie Bricusse musicography
More about Leslie Bricusse
“Bricusse was brought up in comparatively unstarry Pinner, Middlesex. His father worked for The Sunday Times and young Leslie was destined for journalism, too, until he was seduced by the musicals. ‘England was a pretty depressing place to be (in wartime) and the MGM musical films were a great form of escapism,’ he recalls. ‘I used to go from school, against all permissions because of the air-raids, to the Empire in Leicester Square. It was like Shangri-La.’ “
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article587534.ece
Listen to Shirley Bassey perform “What Kind of Fool Am I?”
and Lesley Gore’s uptempo cover of “Fool”
=======================
Visit the online used bookstore DempseyBooks at:
Twitter Updates – follow LitBirthdays on Twitter
=========================================
At Dempsey Books
