Louis Moreau Gottschalk was the original 19th-century musical rebel. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1829, he was a music prodigy, making his public debut at age 11. When he was 13, he went to Paris with his father and

In his monumental painting, The Wedding at Cana (1563), the Italian painter Paolo Veronese (1528-1588) portrayed the biblical story of the marriage at Cana (John 2:1-11) where Jesus saves the celebration by his miraculous conversion of water into wine. The

The French neo-classical painter Jean-Auguste-Domique Ingres (1780-1867) was very much a student of the academic painter Jacques-Louis David and brought David’s classical and restrained model into the nineteenth century. In addition to his considerable painting skills, he was also a

The American artist Beauford Delaney was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1901 and showed skill in drawing from an early age. His activities in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance as a pastel portraitist brought him into conjunction with

Richard Strauss used the world of literature in his song settings, from sixteenth-century poems by Shakespeare to the poems of his contemporaries such as Richard Dehmel. His experience in writing operas also developed his song-writing abilities. His first song, “Weihnachtslied’

The signs of greatness can include many things, but being crowned by Apollo, the god of music and the arts (among many other attributes), is a definite signal. Marc’Antonio Pasqualini (1614-1691) was a celebrated male soprano from Rome, first singing

I’ve been traveling extensively throughout the world, and for me personally, Hong Kong International Airport still ranks as one of the best such facilities in the world! Built on a large artificial island, it replaced the old Kai Tak Airport

In America, we tend to think of music as something done by children, or professionals, or, perhaps done by adults who are still channeling their inner child (a nod to Mr. Jagger, now hitting a youthful 75). In other countries,