Both from the AP.
Wed Jan 29, 6:19 PM ET
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SISTER BAY, Wis. - John Browning, a Grammy-winning pianist who
performed professionally for six generations, died Sunday. He
was 69.
His style was reserved, elegant and penetrating, more intellectual
than overtly emotional yet eminently approachable.
Browning was born to musical parents in Denver in 1933. Having
studied piano from the age of 5, he appeared as a soloist with
the Denver Symphony at 10. His family moved to Los Angeles in
1945. He spent two years at Occidental College, then began his
studies at the Juilliard School beginning in 1950. He stole the
spotlight in 1956 with a silver medal in the Queen Elisabeth
International Music Competition in Brussels. He made his
professional orchestral debut with the New York Philharmonic
the same year.
Browning gave the premiere of Samuel Barber's Pulitzer Prize-winning
Piano Concerto in 1962, which was written for him, in connection
with the opening of Lincoln Center.
His second recording of the work, with Leonard Slatkin and the
St. Louis Symphony in 1991, won a Grammy for best instrumental
soloist with orchestra. Mr. Browning won a second Grammy in
1993.
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LONDON (AP) - Diana Menuhin, who gave up a promising ballet
career to devote her life to her husband, violin maestro Yehudi
Menuhin, died Jan. 25. She was 90.
Devoted, supportive - and sometimes acerbic - Lady Menuhin was
the ideal foil for the dreamy, otherworldly genius of her husband
and became the guardian of his formidable talent.
Observers believe that without her, Yehudi Menuhin, who died in
1999, never would have become a global musical force or a champion
of artistic and humanitarian causes.
Born Diana Gould in London, she joined Marie Rambert's new ballet
school in Notting Hill at the age of 9. She danced for Ramberts,
the Vic-Wells Ballet troupe, George Ballanchine's Ballets and
the Markova-Dolin Ballet. When the Arts Theatre Ballet was
formed in 1940, she became its leading dancer, and worked on the
London stage throughout World War II. She married Yehudi Menuhin
in London in 1947.
- seb
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