Itzhak Perlman reminisces about his first encounter as a teenager with the world-famous violinist Jascha Heifetz. Perlman was a student at Juilliard and Heifetz stopped in at his class to hear him play. After performing, Perlman and his teacher Ivan Galamian thought Heifetz had heard ...
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From the Jascha Heifetz Biography at www.JaschaHeifetz.com, © 2010 John and John Anthony Maltese More than a century after his public debut, the name Jascha Heifetz (1901 - 1987) continues to evoke awe and excitement among fellow musicians. In a performing career that spanned 65 ...
Jascha Heifetz, a child prodigy violin player, was taught to present himself passively to better focus attention on the music. This does not mean the music played by one of the world's greatest violinists didn't resonate with passion, as experts and fellow musicians attest to ...
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The artistry of singer and actress Judy Garland (1922 - 1969) is a living legacy upheld by the great singers of our time. American Masters asked performing artists who hold Garland's work close to their hearts and in their own personal repertory what inspires them ...
In this behind-the-scenes look from August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand, director Sam Pollard interviews James Earl Jones, a Tony Award winner in 1987 for his role in Wilson's "Fences," for which Wilson won the first of two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama. Jones ...
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Music was vital to playwright August Wilson (1945 --2005), who as a teenager honed his writing at the same time he discovered blues musicians like Bessie Smith. Wilson said that when he first heard Smith, "The universe stuttered, and everything fell into place." Learn how ...
August Wilson and two of his sisters recall his early school days, when he showed an early love of language and learning, and suffered daily insults for being black at a primarily white school. Wilson describes an instance when he timed his response to a ...
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August Wilson's seminal cycle of 10 plays covers African-American history in the 20th century, with all but one set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, where Wilson grew up. This "Century Cycle" of plays has recurring characters, though the plays were not written in chronological order. "My ...
By author Ricky Jay and by courtesy of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., copyright 2011; used with permission. Conjuring, also called magic, prestidigitation, or sleight of hand, the theatrical representation of the defiance of natural law. Legerdemain, meaning “light, or nimble, of hand,” and juggling, meaning “the ...
"If I had never seen him do magic he'd be the most remarkable person I ever met," say Ricky Jay of his friend and mentor, the magician Dai Vernon (1894 -1992), also known as "Professor." A remarkable observer is one way Ricky Jay describes the ...
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