Composer David Del Tredici died the other day at the age of 86. He won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1980 for "In Memory of a Summer Day," part one of Child Alice. He wrote many pieces inspired by Alice in Wonderland. Here's the first movement of Final Alice:
Hot off the presses, Henry Kissinger died yesterday at the age of 100. He's best known as Richard Kissinger's Secretary of State and National Security Advisor. I believe he was the only person to hold those two positions at the same time.
Richard and I were lucky to see him speak at the Beverly Sills memorial event at the Met in 2007. He told a cute story about him and Sills being on a number of boards together. They would always arrive together and sit together. They had an agreement that when one of them didn't understand something either she'd raise her hand and say, "There's something Henry and I don't understand" or he'd raise his hand and say, "There's something Beverly and I don't understand."
Two other observations about him, from that evening. First, we were sitting very close to the stage so we got a good sense of how tall people were in relation to the podium at which they were standing. Kissinger was the same height was another speaker that day, Barbara Walters. I imagine they were both shy of 5' 3". And maybe this is just because I'm into little Jewish guys, but he oozed charisma and duende. I'm just sayin'.
Here's a feature on him from CBS Sunday Morning:
And actress Frances Sternhagen died the other day at the age of 93. She's best known for playing Charlotte's first husband's mother on Sex and the City. I saw her once onstage, in a monologue from Alan Bennett's Talking Heads. She was luminous.
Here's a tribute to her from the 2007 Helen Hayes Awards:
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