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| “Space Life” by seven-year-old Matteo Lopez of South San Francisco, Calif. |
2011 U.S. Doodle 4 Google winner
Nellie Melba's 150th Birthday
Dame Nellie Melba GBE (19 May 1861 – 23 February 1931), born Helen Porter Mitchell, was an Australian opera soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian Era and the early 20th century due to the purity of her lyrical voice and the brilliance of her technique. Melba was the first Australian to achieve international recognition as a classical musician. She and May Whitty were the first stage performers to be granted damehoods of the Order of the British Empire. [Read more on Wikipedia]
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| Portrait of Dame Nellie Melba GBE by Henry Walter Barnett |
120th birthday of Mikhail Bulgakov
Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (Russian: Михаи́л Афана́сьевич Булга́ков, May 15 [O.S. May 3] 1891, Kiev – March 10, 1940, Moscow) was a Soviet Russian writer and playwright active in the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for his novel The Master and Margarita, which The Times of London has called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century. [Read more on Wikipedia]
Martha Graham 117's Birthday
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| Animation by Ryan Woodward |
Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991) was an American dancer choreographer regarded as one of the foremost pioneers of modern dance, whose influence on dance can be compared to the influence Stravinsky had on music, Picasso had on the visual arts, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture. Graham was a galvanizing performer, a choreographer of astounding moves. She invented a new language of movement, and used it to reveal the passion, the rage and the ecstasy common to human experience. She danced and choreographed for over seventy years, and during that time was the first dancer ever to perform at The White House, the first dancer ever to travel abroad as a cultural ambassador, and the first dancer ever to receive the highest civilian award of the USA: the Medal of Freedom. In her lifetime she received honors ranging from the key to the City of Paris to Japan's Imperial Order of the Precious Crown. She said, "I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It's permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless it is inevitable." [Read more on Wikipedia]
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| Martha Graham, shown here with Bertram Ross |
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