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HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Vinny Appice, Anita Baker, Jello Biafra, Andrea Bocelli, Simon LeBon, Kate Bush, Belinda Carlisle, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Shaun Cassidy, Darby Crash, Randy DeBarge, Bruce Dickinson, Thomas Dolby, Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, Siobhan Fahey, Neil Finn, Bela Fleck, Martin Fry, Lisa Germano, Grandmaster Flash, Jools Holland, Ice-T, Alan Jackson, Michael Jackson, Tony James, Joan Jett, Al Jourgensen, Nik Kershaw, Sammy Kershaw, Limahl, Madonna, Bird McIntyre, Mike Mills, Thurston Moore, Alannah Miles, Gary Numan, Michael Penn, Vicki Peterson, Prince, Stacey Q, Will Sergeant, Nikki Sixx, David Sylvian, Toyah, Tanya Tucker, Paul Weller, Jane Wiedlin, Jah Wobble.

Herman Stein, a composer whose music for "It Came From Outer Space," "Creature from the Black Lagoon," and "The Incredible Shrinking Man" helped define the dramatic soundtrack of 1950s science fiction and horror movies, has died. He was 91. Stein died of congestive heart failure at his Los Angeles home on March 15, his record producer, David Schecter, said Friday. As a staff composer at Universal Studios, Stein collaborated with Henry Mancini and others to create music for nearly 200 movies and shorts, though he didn't get credit for all of his work because of the studio's tendency to give...

MOSCOW, September 22, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Russian audiences next week will get the chance to rediscover Dmitry Shostakovich and his music with a series of new recordings, concerts, and films to mark the centenary of his birth. Born in St. Petersburg in 1906 to a family of Polish origin, Shostakovich remains one of the 20th century's most popular composers -- and also one of the most prolific. He composed 15 symphonies, two operas, six concertos, 15 string quartets, three ballets, as well as film music. Oksana Dvornichenko met Shostakovich in 1974, one year before his death, while shooting a documentary...

LOS ANGELES - Lyle "Spud" Murphy, a prolific Hollywood composer and arranger best known for developing a composing system widely used by professional musicians, has died. He was 96. Murphy died Aug. 5 at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital of complications from recent surgery, colleagues said. Murphy, who contributed music to more than 50 films, arranged two of bandleader Benny Goodman's biggest hits, "Get Happy" and "Jingle Bells," and also transformed the children's song "Three Blind Mice" into the theme for the Three Stooges show. In his later years, Murphy kept active by spreading his method of composing, arranging and orchestration, which...

Joe Harnell, a Hollywood arranger for many singing stars, who earned a Grammy for his 1962 dance arrangement "Fly Me to the Moon Bossa Nova," died here on Thursday. He was 80. The cause was heart failure, which he suffered a week after slipping into a coma after a fall, his younger brother, Stewart Harnell, said. In the late 1950's and early 60's, Mr. Harnell, a pianist, conductor and composer worked with Peggy Lee in concerts and on several albums. Mr. Harnell conducted the orchestra on Ms. Lee's albums "Anything Goes: Cole Porter" and "Peggy Lee and the George Shearing...

The Old Master By James Bartel With his first wife Maria Barbara, his soulmate as history tells us, Sebastian Bach fathered seven children. The first child was a daughter, Catharina. A pair of twins died within days. The final son died within a year. Months later, Maria Barbara succumbed to disease. Bach was then 35 and engaged in the full awakening of his genius. His workload was Herculean and mounting, and now there were five children at home without a mother, the oldest being 12. Staggered by grief, Bach shouldered on. Hear the Old Master speak: "I was obliged to...

Composing can be a lonely job. Hour after hour, the composer sits at a piano, trying to bring out the music in his head. But for Aaron Copland, composition was about the people. Working with people, learning from them, befriending them, organizing and mentoring them. His enthusiasm for combining music with humanity assured his place in music history almost as much as his compositions. "As organizer, teacher, propagandist, critic, lecturer and expositor, he has been by far the most voluble, articulate and respected American musician of his time," wrote Harold Schonberg in The New York Times in 1970. His ballets...

<p>Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis has followed up with a written statement on his "root of evil" remarks.</p> <p>My opinion of the Israeli people, as on all things, has always been known and I am frankly at a loss as to why such a great commotion was made this time, as if it was heard for the first time. Maybe some people judged this to be the right time to launch an attack on me.</p>

Greek government spokesman Christos Protopapas commented on the statements made by US ambassador to Athens Thomas Miller against Mikis Theodorakis. Those who exercise a specific mission in Greece should be more careful and it is not part of their duties to exercise criticism on statements made by Greek citizens especially, when they refer to issues that do not concern the country they represent, stated Mr. Protopapas.

Greek composer and cultural icon Mikis Theodorakis added his contribution to the anti-Semitic miasma rising in parts of the world by characterizing the Jews as the root of the world's evils. Theodorakis, a towering figure in Greek music best known outside his native land for scoring the music for the film Zorba the Greek, took his shot at the Jews at a press conference to launch a new book. "We, the Greeks, did not turn aggressive like them because we have more history," Theodorakis was quoted by Y-net as saying. "Today it is possible to say that this small nation...