01.27.06 (MusicPortal.com) THE GREAT KAT has announced the first Shred/Classical music ever heard in a Hollywood movie soundtrack, with the female crossover Metal guitar virtuoso (voted one of "Top 10 Fastest Shredders Of All Time" by Guitar One Magazine) performing Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody #2" in Jason Bunch's new comedy film "Coming Attractions," which will be out in movie theaters in the Spring. The track, taken from THE GREAT KAT's recently released "Wagner's War" album, is heard during the movie's "Halftime Show" sequence with wrestling star "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan, "Seinfeld" actor James Hong, during a cartoon with the voice of Jackie "The Jokeman" Martling from "The Howard Stern Show," and also during the movie's trailer. Produced, written and directed by comedy writer Jason Bunch, "Coming Attractions" stars outrageous basketball legend Dennis Rodman, "The Karate Kid"'s Pat Morita (in his last movie appearance), "Police Academy"'s Michael Winslow, and model Angie Everhart. Filmed as a fast-moving sketch comedy in the style of "Kentucky Fried Movie" and "Saturday Night Live," the film features college humor, gross-out skits, and movie and commercial parodies, and is punctuated by energetic music. THE GREAT KAT was born Katherine Thomas in Swindon, England, who moved to the U.S. at the age of three. After listening to Beethoven since birth, Thomas realized that her mission was to become a composer and musical revolutionary. THE GREAT KAT began Classical piano studies at the age of seven, and Classical violin studies at the age of nine in New York. At 15 years old, she was accepted to the prestigious Juilliard School Of Music in New York City as a scholarship student on violin. THE GREAT KAT has performed as a Classical violin soloist at Carnegie Recital Hall as winner of the Artists International Competition. She has also toured as a violin soloist in Mexico, the U.S. and Europe. However, after realizing that Classical music was releatively "dead," THE GREAT KAT discovered Metal music, and began weaving Classical music with Speed Metal. For instance, she began transcribing intricate violin solos to the guitar, thereby creating the unique crossover genre of "Shred/Classical" ("She can zoom up and down a fretboard faster than a hungry cheetah on steroids. Her fretboard speed is awesome," states Guitar Player editor Michael Molenda). THE GREAT KAT is currently the only musician taking authentic Classical music scores (Vivaldi, Beethoven, Bach, Wagner, Liszt, Rossini) and reorchestrating them with shred guitar virtuosity. Her music is known for its phenomenal speeds, complicated Classical motives, counterpoint layering, guitar riffs, maniacal screams, heavy rhythms and thrashing sounds. Quite simply, THE GREAT KAT is on a mission to bring Shred/Classical music to the entire world through the use of MIDI and live instruments, computer technology, and the Internet via her website at www.greatkat.com.
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01.19.06 (AP) Mezzo-soprano MARILYN HORNE has localized pancreatic cancer and is undergoing treatment that offers an excellent chance for full recovery, her manager said Thursday. Horne, 72, was diagnosed in mid-December, said Denise Pineau, her manager at Columbia Artists Management. "There is no reason to anticipate any changes in her schedule," Pineau said in a statement. That schedule includes teaching a master class at Carnegie Hall next Tuesday as part of "The Song Continues," a weeklong series of recitals and coaching sessions presented by Carnegie in partnership with the Marilyn Horne Foundation. The fact that her cancer is localized allows for "recent significant breakthroughs in treatment," Pineau said. Nationally, about 20 percent of pancreatic cancers are diagnosed while the tumor is confined entirely within the pancreas, giving doctors a chance to remove it before it spreads. Her manager also attributed Horne's favorable prognosis to her positive attitude. "Horne is known throughout the world for not only her magnificent voice, but also for her tremendous energy and human spirit, which will, along with the love of her family and friends, see her through this challenge," Pineau said. MARILYN HORNE officially retired from the stage in 1999 with a Chicago recital and has devoted much of her time to working with young singers. She directs the vocal program at the Music Academy Of The West, a summer school and festival in Santa Barbara, California, and supports promising artists through her foundation, established in 1994 to develop both the talent and audiences for vocal recitals. Their role model is a singer whose blazing vocal virtuosity, combined with artistry that embraces the full range of human emotions, marked her signature roles in Handel's "Rinaldo" and Rossini's "L'Italiana in Algeri." The power and passion of Horne's voice has shone in Verdi's "Aida" and Bizet's "Carmen." A native of Bradford, Pennsylvania, MARILYN HORNE studied at the University Of Southern California and made her debut in Smetana's "The Bartered Bride" in a 1954 Los Angeles Guild Opera production. Horne first sang at London's Covent Garden in 1964, and at Milan's La Scala in 1969. A year later, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Adalgisa in Bellini's "Norma" alongside soprano Joan Sutherland. From 1957 to 1960, MARILYN HORNE sang with Germany's Gelsenkirchen Opera Company, returning to the United States in 1960. That year, she married conductor Henry Lewis, with whom she performed and recorded. They divorced in 1974, but remained friends. He died in 1996.

01.12.06 (AP) BIRGIT NILSSON, the farmer's daughter who became renowned in the world's great Opera houses for her dazzling voice and among colleagues for her playful sense of humor, has died in Stockholm, Sweden at age 87. She apparently died on Christmas Day, the Stockholm daily Svenska Dagbladet reported. As word spread of her death two decades after she retired, the Swedish singer was remembered as one of the world's top Wagnerian sopranos. "With Birgit Nilsson's passing, Sweden has lost one of its greatest artists," King Carl XVI Gustaf said in a rare statement. "She was one of the greatest singers of the 20th century," said Menno Feenstra, artistic director at Stockholm's Royal Opera, who developed a close friendship with BIRGIT NILSSON after her retirement. Feenstra called her vocal skills "so solid and so 100 percent that you can hardly find a singer nowadays that has a technique like that." A funeral was held Wednesday at a church in her native town of Vastra Karup in southern Sweden, with only her closest relatives attending, said Fredrik Westerlund, the church's vicar. He did not know when she died or the cause of death, but Nilsson was said to have had heart trouble in recent years. Born on a farm, BIRGIT NILSSON reigned supreme at the world's Opera houses during her career, which began in 1946 at the Stockholm Royal Opera as Agathe in Weber's "Der Freischutz" and continued until 1984. She sang a wide variety of dramatic roles, but her reputation was based especially on her mastery of the most punishing in the repertory. Chief among these was Isolde in Wagner's "Tristan Und Isolde," which she sang for her sensational debut at New York's Metropolitan Opera on December 18th, 1959. BIRGIT NILSSON was immediately hailed as a worthy successor to her fellow Scandinavian, Kirsten Flagstad, the Norwegian who owned the Wagner repertory at the Met during the years before World War II. Other parts Nilsson made her own included Bruennhilde, the warrior maiden of Wagner's "Ring" cycle, the title role of Elektra in Richard Strauss' opera, and the heroine of Puccini's "Turandot." "Birgit was unique!" Met music director James Levine said in a statement. "Her voice, her artistry, her sense of humor and her friendship were in a class of their own. I was so fortunate to hear her sing many times over the years, and eventually to work with her on several memorable occasions doing Wagner and Strauss." "The thing that was remarkably wonderful about her was that she had no conceit. She was completely modest," Jon Vickers, her frequent Tristan, said in a telephone interview from his home in Bermuda. At her peak, BIRGIT NILSSON astounded audiences in live performance with the unforced power of her voice, which easily cut through the thickest orchestrations, and with her remarkable breath control, which allowed her to hold onto the highest note for seemingly endless amounts of time. Her interpretive powers grew as her career developed, and she became a moving artist as well as a vocal phenomenon. Her reputation in operatic lore was enhanced on December 28th, 1959, when she sang a performance of "Tristan" opposite three different tenors. Her scheduled co-star, Karl Liebel was ill, and so were his two "covers," Ramon Vinay and Albert DaCosta. Met general manager Rudolf Bing persuaded each of them to go on for a single act so the performance wouldn't have to be canceled. BIRGIT NILSSON also was renowned for her playful... [full story]

01.02.06 (AP) This international New Year's feast involved 3,000 red roses, a few hundred feet of aircraft cable and a sublime human voice. On Saturday, the New York Philharmonic staged an evening starring Romanian-born soprano ANGELA GHEORGHIU, performing some of the world's most beloved Italian music under 10 mammoth balls of silk roses that came from China and New York, safely suspended from the stage ceiling by cables. The evening, televised live on PBS, showed off Gheorghiu's warm, luminous voice in a half-dozen arias by Verdi, Puccini, Catalani and Cilea. In between, the audience heard a handful of instrumental pieces from operas, under the baton of a master craftsman of the orchestra, conductor Lorin Maazel. They were both at their best. Maazel, whose avocation is mathematics, inspired a precision from his players that blossomed into lustrous, creamy tones filling the long, arching melodies of orchestral pieces by Rossini, Mascagni, Ponchielli and Verdi, which he propelled with a mesmerizing rhythmic pulse. For the listener, it was an effortless evening of pure musical pleasure. It was the Philharmonic debut for ANGELA GHEORGHIU, who in the past dozen years has conquered every major Opera house and other top stages. Clearly at ease both in her voice and her body, she spun out the music that speaks of searing human emotions: love, joy, longing and loss. And in one aria, she sang about her art. The words "Io son l'umile ancella," meaning "I am the humble servant of the creative spirit," from Cilea's "Adriana Lecouvreur," are the credo of an artist who says she has converted many Opera "virgins" - first-time listeners - into fans. In an interview with The Associated Press, Gheorghiu explained how: "I'm absolutely sure, 100 percent, that age, culture, religion, class don't matter. If someone is in front of you, hearing and seeing, it's impossible not to be impressed by the human voice. It's from me, from my body, you know? It's the most direct emotion - in a second." The soprano, who calls herself a "movie fanatic" and dreams of singing on Broadway, says she hopes the new general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, Peter Gelb, will try to bring some of the productions in which she sings to a wider popular audience, for free. She gave as an example London's Covent Garden, which beams its live performances all over Great Britain on giant open-air screens that draw tens of thousands of spectators. ANGELA GHEORGHIU follows in the tradition of Maria Callas, a tempestuous singing actress who poured her technically imperfect voice into musical drama that echoed her personal torment. Gheorghiu delivers a more extroverted kind of richness, her voice a powerful natural instrument that on Saturday lifted the audience into frenzied applause, eliciting encores that included a modern Romanian ode to music. In her third outfit of the evening -- a bright red dress with a huge bow on the shoulder -- the world-class diva from the small Romanian town of Adjud plunged into the full-blooded song that brought out the earthy side of her native land. Then she joined the audience in singing 'Auld Lang Syne,' embracing a bouquet of real red flowers and glancing up to catch the words scrolling across the supertitle screen high over the stage.

[Classical News: December 2005]