Obituary News

Jorn Utzon Danish Architect of Sydney Opera House Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
December 1, 2008

Jorn Utzon, in 1957 at age 38, received word at his home in Denmark that he won an international competition to build the opera house, beating out 232 other competitors. The project whose overrun budget and delays sparked controversy was a mixed blessing, giving the architect fame but also heartache.

Utzon, the Danish architect whose eye-catching, nautically inspired design for the Sydney Opera House overcame a series of controversies surrounding its budget and acoustics to become one of the most ...

Continue Reading...

Mitchell Lurie World-Renowned Clarinetist Taught at USC

Source: Michael Ricci
November 30, 2008

Mitchell Lurie, a world-renowned clarinetist and clarinet teacher who taught for many years at USC and the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, has died. He was 86.

Lurie, who had been in ill health in recent years, died of pneumonia Monday at his home in West Los Angeles, said his son, Dr. Alan Lurie.

Brooklyn native who grew up in Los Angeles, Lurie was the principal clarinetist for the Pittsburgh Symphony and then the Chicago Symphony in ...

Continue Reading...

Roberta Zito Backup Singer with Nat King Cole

Source: Michael Ricci
November 23, 2008

Roberta Zito, mother of pitcher for Giants a former backup singer with Nat King Cole's Merry Young Souls and the wife of Cole's orchestra conductor and arranger Joe Zito, died Nov. 13 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, she was 65.

The cause of death was pneumonia and cardiopulmonary arrest. She had received a liver transplant nine years ago. Born Roberta Rosser in Dayton, Ohio, on Oct. 8, 1943, she was a freshman at UCLA when she landed a ...

Continue Reading...

Guy Peellaert Belgian Pop Artist Worked with Rock Stars Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
November 23, 2008

Belgian painter, graphic designer, photographer and pop artist Guy Peellaert, whose surreal pictures for the 1972 cult book Rock Dreams brought him worldwide attention and led him to design album covers for the Rolling Stones and David Bowie, died at 74 Monday in Paris after a long illness.

Rock Dreams was a fantasy tribute to rock 'n' roll that placed various major rock stars in dreamlike situations intended to reflect their music and public images. With 116 flashy pictures by ...

Continue Reading...

Charlie O's Charles Ottaviano Famed Nightclub Owner Passes

Source: Michael Ricci
November 22, 2008

Charles Ottaviano, 66, whose intimate Van Nuys nightclub Charlie Os developed a loyal following of jazz enthusiasts, died of a heart attack Monday at Northridge Hospital Medical Center, said his wife of 26 years, Jo-Ann. He lived in Granada Hills.

I always wanted to have a jazz room, ever since I moved out here from Buffalo [N.Y.] in 1960. My father was a musician, and I started to play when I was very young. Charles Ottaviano He said ...

Continue Reading...

Remembering Artist Henri Matisse

Source: Michael Ricci
November 21, 2008

November 4, 1954 Art World Mourns Henri Matisse, Dead at Home in Nice at Age of 84

PARIS, Nov. 4--The world of art today mourned Henri Matisse, one of France's greatest painters, who died in his apartment in Nice yesterday afternoon of a heart attack. He was 84 years old. Death came swiftly to the aged artist, who had been a semi-invalid since undergoing a serious operation in 1940. At his bedside were his daughter, Mme. Marguerite Duthite; ...

Continue Reading...

Michele Rosewoman's Tribute to Orlando 'Puntilla' Rios

Source: All About Jazz
November 20, 2008

Legendary Cuban percussionist and vocalist Orlando 'Puntilla' Rios passed away August 12, 2008. Along with several tribute concerts to him taking place in the coming months, Puntilla's former student and colleague, pianist Michele Rosewoman, paid tribute to him with the below article.

Born in Havana, Cuba, percussionist/vocalist Orlando 'Puntilla' Rios is revered in Cuba and the Americas as a master of the many Cuban musical folkloric forms. When 'Puntilla' arrived in New York in 1980, he ...

Continue Reading...

Irving Gertz Composer for Sci-Fi Films

Source: Michael Ricci
November 20, 2008

Irving Gertz, a film and television composer who contributed music to 1950s science-fiction films such as It Came From Outer Space and The Incredible Shrinking Man and to 1960s TV series such as Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, has died. He was 93.

Gertz died Friday at his home in West Los Angeles, said David Schecter, a record producer and film-music historian who was a close friend. No specific cause of death was given.

From the late 1940s ...

Continue Reading...