Word: vocalisms
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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DIED. Roger Sessions, 88, influential, uncompromising composer of reconditely complex orchestral, chamber and vocal works; in Princeton, N.J. Revered by fellow musicians, Sessions adapted such modernist techniques as Stravinskian neoclassicism and Schoenbergian serialism to his individual style, allowing lyricism and emotional color to come through the bursts and layers of sound. Almost all his works, however, are dense, dissonant and difficult both to perform and to listen to, with the result that some compositions waited years for premieres; among his best-known and least inaccessible works were his score for The Black Maskers (1923) and Symphony...
...Trade Representative for the past four years, William E. Brock, 54, has been a vocal opponent of the protectionism that many labor leaders have demanded for their beleaguered industries. As a four-term Republican Congressman and a one-term Senator from Tennessee until 1976, Brock was so conservative, the AFL-CIO says, that he voted with labor on only 14% of the issues that mattered most to it. Earlier, as an executive of his family's candy company, he supported its nonunion-shop policy. So when President Reagan selected Brock last week to replace Raymond Donovan as Secretary of Labor...
Today Handel's 41 operas, once so fashionable, are infrequently performed. This is due to changing tastes and the disappearance of the singers for whom many of his major roles were written: the castrati, the surgically altered male sopranos whose vocal power, awesome breath control and dazzling technique stunned audiences from the Sistine Chapel to Covent Garden. Of his 24 oratorios in English, only the redoubtable Messiah is a concerthall staple, and his best-loved instrumental works are such occasional pieces as the Water Music. Oddly, for one who used to loom so large, Handel awaits popular rediscovery...
Just over a month later, on the night of Jan. 28, 45 pop stars got together in a Los Angeles studio to record a simple anthem of compassion. The song, We Are the World, written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, featured, besides the vocal talents of Belafonte and its composers, the arranging prowess of Quincy Jones and the raised voices of some of the brightest names in the music business. Ray Charles. Bruce Springsteen. Willie Nelson. Cyndi Lauper. Billy Joel. Tina Turner. Kenny Rogers. Kim Carnes. Paul Simon. Diana Ross. Huey Lewis. Dionne Warwick. Bob Dylan. And keep counting...
...jobs. Both Madonna and Lauper floundered for a time in parochial schools. Lauper eventually dropped out and stumbled around, while Madonna made a beeline for the big time. Lauper did not even know where it was. She walked racehorses; she sang in bar bands and about burned out her vocal cords before getting help from a voice coach. She felt, as she says, "so crumbled." She was vocalist for a band called Blue Angel. They made one album that, as she says, "went lead," and soon Lauper was back, solo, singing in a local Japanese piano...