We are shown Diaghilev, like the leader of a superior coalition, gathering a team of all the talents – composers, choreographers, dancers, singers, writers, painters – and giving them a new aesthetic agenda.
Benny Carter, whose combination of highly developed talents as composer, arranger, bandleader and soloist on a variety of instruments was unmatched in the jazz world, died Saturday at a hospital in Los Angeles.
The separate but sympathetic quests of these famous figures have been stitched together to create a musical collage of dream chasing by three notable theater talents: the composer David Shire, the lyricist Richard Maltby Jr. and the book writer John Weidman, who collectively have logged plenty of hours navigating the choppy skies of musical making.
Meanwhile, the National produced one of its biggest, most buoyant and popular comedies in Richard Bean's One Man, Two Guvnors and one of its most incisive and disturbing dramas in London Road, which brought together the terrific talents of composer Adam Cork and documentarist Alecky Blythe.
Zicree has also enlisted the talents of composer David Raiklen, and Iain McCaig, the lead character/creature designer of John Carter, Harry Potter, the Hulk in The Avengers, and the last three Star Wars features including Darth Maul and Queen Amidala.
He's worked with a who's who of other pop and classical talent, including composer John Adams, singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens, bluegrass/Bach-playing mandolinist Chris Thile, jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, and Rufus Wainwright.
The style survives in Aaron Copland's music by virtue of Copland's superior talent, while composers like Mr. Harris and his compatriot Howard Hanson have ceded their stature to diverse energies like Elliott Carter, Steve Reich and an immensely powerful popular culture.
Gould observes: "The more traditional sound of strings allowed for a fresh appreciation of their talent as composers by listeners who were otherwise allergic to the din of drums and electric guitars".
Billed as an "epic, town hall musical," the work also draws on the talents of the composer Katherine Young and the vocalist Samita Sinha.
Rather, it is about Salieri's fury with God when he is forced to acknowledge to himself that his own talents as a composer come to nothing when compared to those of Mozart.
