Stravinsky's Stage

About

Born in Oranienbaum, Russia. Father Fyodor was a leading bass singer at the Mariinsky Theatre. Mother Anna was a pianist. I studied law (my parents insisted) while secretly studying composition with Rimsky-Korsakov. The Rite of Spring premiered in Paris in 1913. The audience rioted. Literally rioted -- fistfights in the theatre, police called, Nijinsky screaming counts to the dancers from the wings because they couldn't hear the orchestra over the shouting. That was the day modern music was born. I went from Russian primitivism to neoclassicism to serialism. I reinvented myself three times and each time the critics said I was finished. I outlived them all. I became an American citizen. I conducted my own works into my eighties. Music is about time, and I had plenty of it.

Skills

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