Past inspirations for the Google Doodle include Sir Isaac Newton, the composer Stravinsky and the children's television series Sesame Street.
Read Emmeline Pankhurst's My Own Story (what resolve! and through her 50s...), put A Feather On The Breath Of God on the deck with Emma Kirkby's ringing soprano, and marvel at the composer Abbess Hildegard Von Bingen, whose main life's work started at 40, but whose achievements ensure that she is still in our minds almost 1,000 years later.
No composer since can avoid the shadow of this great icon of the 20th century, and score after score by modern masters would be unthinkable without its model.
His portrait of the composer was the most celebrated of his early career.
Credit also goes to composer Leonard Bernstein, who gave up a quarter-percentage of his royalties so Nixon could be compensated for what turned out to be the best-selling album of the 1960s, and the one with the longest run at No 1 on the Billboard album charts – 54 weeks.
In common with many friends and colleagues, I am a great fan of the late Anthony Burgess, that gobsmackingly prolific author, critic and composer.
Once you have found a like-minded composer and developed a treatment together, try to identify a company you might approach with the idea.
The evening, which includes the world premiere of LamenTate, a composition by Estonian composer Arvo Part, also inspired by Marsyas, was originally planned last summer as Kapoor completed his huge sculpture, but has been shaped against the gathering clouds of war.
The rest of the bill saw the Academy play on its own, opening with Benjamin Britten's ten-part tribute to his tutor Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, the piece which brought the composer worldwide acclaim.
Cook studied architecture for a few years, before becoming a composer for children's television and TV adverts, as well as playing in brooding post-Britpop band Aereogramme.
History – fortunately – does not necessarily move in straight lines, and, specifically, the Rite's atavistic primitivism was rarely emulated by major creative figures as the 20th century evolved – or, indeed, by its composer himself.
