Category: Stamps

Stamp of the Month: August 2025

Oscar Peterson


Austria 19.11.2003
The Canadian jazz pianist and composer Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was born on August 15, 1925, in Montreal. He died on December 23, 2007, in Mississauga. Oscar Peterson would have turned 100 in August 2025.
 
Oscar Peterson began piano lessons at the age of six with his sister Daisy. At 14, he won an amateur competition that made him so popular that he earned his own local radio show. As a member of the Johnny Holmes Orchestra, he began learning composing and arranging in 1944 and formed his
first trio in 1947. In 1949, the American jazz impresario and producer Norman Granz discovered the young pianist’s talent and featured him as a surprise guest at New York’s Carnegie Hall as part of his Jazz at the Philharmonic tour. The trios founded by Oscar Peterson in 1952 and 1958 with Ray Brown, Barney Kessel (sometimes Herb Ellis) and J. C. Heard (later Ed Thigpen) are still among the most successful in jazz history.
From the mid-1950s onwards, Oscar Peterson gave numerous concerts with well-known jazz greats such as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Quincy Jones, Dizzy Gillespie and the Modern Jazz Quartet. In the late 1960s, he increasingly appeared as a soloist. Oscar Peterson is considered one of the most successful jazz pianists of all time. In his 65-year career, he played at thousands of concerts and produced well over 100 albums. His fame is also reflected in the seven Grammys he received between 1975 and 1991. In 1978, he was one of the first two artists to be inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, and in 1993 he was awarded the Glenn Gould Lifetime Achievement Award.


Canada 15.8.2005


The video features Oscar Peterson with John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra performing
“Body and Soul” composed by John W. Green. The recording was made during a television show
on July 13, 1980.

In Memoriam: Ozzy Osbourne

On July 22, 2025, British rock musician “Ozzy” Osbourne died in Jordans, Great Britain, at the age of 76.
 
Ozzy (John Michael) Osbourne was born on December 3, 1948, in Birmingham. After dropping out of school and working several unskilled jobs, he formed a band with Terry Butler, Tony Iommi, and Bill Ward in 1968, which was renamed “Black Sabbath” in 1969. Similar to the bands “Led Zeppelin” and “Deep Purple”, “Black Sabbath” pushed the hard rock of the time into increasingly heavier forms and, since the release of their debut album, has been considered the founders of “heavy metal.” In the 1970s, the band’s heyday, Ozzy Osbourne’s vocals shaped the band’s sound. Due to his drug problems, “Black Sabbath” parted ways with Osbourne in 1979. Osbourne achieved some success as a solo artist in the 1980s
and 1990s and regained popularity in the early 2000s through the MTV reality series “The Osbournes”.
In 1997, “Black Sabbath” reunited and toured several times with different lineups until 2017. The last concert with the original lineup, a benefit concert for a children’s hospice entitled “Back to the Beginning,” took place in Birmingham on July 5, 2025. Seventeen days after the concert, Ozzy Osbourne died at the age of 76.
 

The video features Ozzy Osbourne performing the song “Dreamer,” which he wrote in 2000. Osbourne described the song, which was released as a single from the 2002 studio album “Down to Earth,” as his favorite song.

In Memoriam: Connie Francis

On July 16, 2025, the American pop and hit singer Connie Francis passed away in Broward Health North, Florida, at the age of 87.
 
Connie Francis (Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero) was born on December 12, 1937, in Newark, New Jersey. As a child, she performed at local festivals and talent shows as a singer and accordion player and was a cast member of the NBC entertainment program “Startime Kids” from 1951 to 1955. After several unsuccessful recording sessions, she achieved a hit in 1958, almost by chance, with the song “Who’s Sorry Now?”, which sold more than a million copies within a few weeks. Through foreign-language cover versions of her own hits, Connie Francis became an international pop music star in the 1960s. In addition to her recordings, she was a sought-after live artist in the showplaces of Las Vegas and New York
City and performed in important international concert halls such as the London Palladium and the Olympia in Paris. While Connie Francis’s singles focused almost exclusively on commercialism and followed current trends of the time such as rock ‘n’ roll, twist, and the girl group sound, her albums presented her work in a wide variety of styles, including rhythm and blues, vocal jazz, country music, musical melodies, children’s songs, sacred music, traditional songs from various ethnic groups, as well as film soundtracks and portraits of well-known composers such as Burt Bacharach. With a few brief interruptions, Connie Francis was active on stage until the 2010s. She ended her stage career in 2017 with the publication of her autobiography.
 

The video shows Connie Francis performing one of her biggest hits, “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool,” during an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on June 12, 1960.

Stamp of the Month: July 2025

Erik Satie


Bosnia-Herzegovina
Serbian Republic 9.12.2016
The French composer and pianist Erik Satie was born on May 17, 1866, in Honfleur. He died on July 1, 1925, in Paris. July 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of his death.
 
Satie received his first music lessons at the age of eight from the organist and choirmaster of the church in Honfleur. His father’s second wife, a concert pianist, composer, and music teacher, recognized his talent and enrolled him in 1879 at the Paris Conservatoire, but Satie dropped out after two and a half years. He began composing in 1884. His first pieces were published by his father’s publishing house. In 1887, he moved to the Parisian artists’ district of Montmartre, where he found a job as a pianist at the cabaret Le Chat Noir. In 1905, he resumed his music studies with Vincent d’Indy and Albert Roussel at the Schola Cantorum. Satie first gained notoriety thanks to his fellow musicians Claude Debussy and
Maurice Ravel, who performed his pieces in 1911. He gained the attention of the Parisian music world in 1917 with the premiere of his ballet “Parade,” created in collaboration with Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, and the Diaghilev troupe. He later received further recognition from the young composers of the Groupe des Six, which included Arthur Honegger and Darius Milhaud.
With his work, Satie influenced new music, jazz, and popular music alike. Key characteristics of his music are the simplicity, clarity, brevity, and straightforwardness, which make Satie a pioneer of minimal music. True to his conviction that the composer has no right to unnecessarily take up his listeners’ time, Satie developed his idea of ​​background music even before the introduction of radio.
Today, Satie’s “Gymnopédies” for solo piano are particularly well known; they are very popular with piano students because of their simplicity.

France 11.4.1992

In Memoriam: Eugen Doga

On June 3, 2025, the Moldovan-Russian, composer Eugen Doga died in Chișinău at the age of 88.
Eugen Doga was born on March 1, 1937, in Mocra (Moldavian Soviet Republic). After seven years of schooling, Eugen Doga went to Chișinău to enroll at the conservatory, which he had heard about on his homemade radio. Despite having no prior training, he was accepted to the “Ștefan Neaga” Conservatory and studied cello from 1951 to 1955. Since paralysis of his left hand prevented him from
pursuing a career as a solo cellist, he continued his studies at the Gavriil Musicescu Art Institute for five years, specializing in composition. After graduating from the conservatory, he was a member of the orchestra of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1957 to 1962, taught at the Stefan Neaga Music Academy in Chisinau from 1962 to 1967, and worked in the Ministry of Culture of the Republic

of Moldova from 1967 to 1972. From 1972 onward, he gave concerts throughout the Soviet Union and, after the collapse of the USSR, also delighted large international audiences.
Eugen Doga composed an opera, ballets, a symphony, string quartets, cantatas, choruses, songs, and romances, as well as numerous waltzes. He also composed music for more than 200 films.


The video shows Eugen Doga playing the piano during a performance of his waltz “Gramophon” with the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Ilarion Ionescu on June 21, 2014, at the Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest.

Stamp of the Month: June 2025

Georges Bizet


France 13.6.1960
The French composer Georges (Alexandre César Léopold) Bizet was born in Paris on October 25, 1838. He died of a heart attack on June 3, 1875, in Bougival, near Paris, at the age of just 36. June 2025 marks the 150th anniversary of his death.
 
Bizet’s father was an amateur singer and composer; his mother was the sister of the famous singing teacher François Delsarte. In 1848, before his 10th birthday, Georges Bizet became a student at the Paris Conservatoire and wrote his first symphony at the age of 17.
In 1857, he won a prize sponsored by Jacques Offenbach for the one-act operetta “Le docteur Miracle.” He also won the Rome Prize, securing a three-year scholarship in Rome. There, his talent flourished in works such as the opera buffa “Don Procopio” and his only liturgical work, the “Te Deum.” Back in Paris, he composed the operas “Les pêcheurs de perles” (1863), “La jolie fille de Perth” (1867), the symphony “Roma” (1868), and “Jeux d’enfants,” a piano four-hand work (1871). The popular “L’Arlésienne” (1872) was originally an occasional composition for a play by Alphonse Daudet, which Bizet adapted into a suite.
His one-act opéra comique “Djamileh” (1872) is often seen as a precursor to his most famous work, the opera “Carmen” (1875). Although “Carmen” was initially not well received by audiences, it is now one of the most popular works in all of operatic literature. Bizet, who had been made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor shortly before his death, did not live to see the success of his opera. He died three months after the premiere.

France 31.3.2025

 


The video shows the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Nathalie Stutzmann performing L’Arlésienne Suite No. 1 & Suite No. 2 by Georges Bizet at the Konserthuset, the Stockholm Concert Hall, in October 2014.

Stamp of the Month: May 2025

Leroy Anderson

The American composer Leroy Anderson was born on June 29, 1908, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He died on May 18, 1975, in Woodbury, Connecticut. May 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of his death.
 
Leroy Anderson received his first musical lessons from his mother, an organist. He studied piano, counterpoint, canon, fugue, orchestration, and composition (with George Enescu, among others) at the New England Conservatory of Music and Harvard University.

Belgium 13.10.2007
Leroy Anderson became known primarily for his short, original concert pieces, which he composed for the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1936 onwards at the suggestion of Arthur Fiedler. The recordings of his works were huge commercial successes. His “Blue Tango” was the first instrumental recording to sell one million copies. The single reached number 1 in the US charts in 1951 and remained in the charts for 38 weeks. Anderson created primarily light classical music with a particular penchant for innovative orchestral effects and unconventional instruments. The best known example is “The Typewriter”, composed for typewriter and orchestra in 1950. It is likely that the designer had this piece in mind when he designed the Belgian postage stamp.
 

The video shows a scene from the film “Who’s Minding The Store” with Jerry Lewis
and music by Leroy Anderson.

Stamp of the Month: April 2025

Joséphine Baker

The American dancer, singer, and actress Josephine Baker (Freda Josephine McDonald) was born on June 3, 1906, in St. Louis, Missouri; she died on April 12, 1975, in Paris. April 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of her death.
 
Josephine Baker grew up in poverty. Her career began at the age of 16 at the Standard Theatre in Philadelphia. In New York, she was engaged in a vaudeville troupe, with which she toured the USA. From 1922 to 1924, she was a chorus girl in New York before being hired for “La Revue Nègre,” which premiered in Paris on October 2, 1925, at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. With her dancing, she captured the Parisian audience by storm, who were seeing the Charleston for the first time. The “Revue Nègre” also performed in Brussels and Berlin. In 1926 and 1927, Josephine Baker was the star of the Folies Bergère and also played several leading roles

USA 16.7.2008

Frankreich 17.9.1994
in films until the 1930s. Because of her costumes and nude dances, she was banned from performing in Vienna, Prague, Budapest, and Munich, which made her all the more interesting to audiences. While she suffered racism in the USA and failed with a Ziegfeld Follies show in 1936, she became the most successful American artist in France.
During World War II, Josephine Baker worked for the French Red Cross, the French Resistance, and the secret service, and in 1944 became a propaganda officer in the Free French Air Force. For her services, she received the Croix de Guerre in 1957 and was simultaneously inducted into the Legion of Honor. As early as the 1950s, Baker supported the US civil rights movement and, on August 28, 1963, was the only female speaker at the March on Washington organized by Martin Luther King Jr.
Although she had announced her retirement from the stage in 1956, she continued to appear in concerts and on television, and on April 8, 1975, a few days before her death, she celebrated her 50th stage anniversary with the premiere of her show “Joséphine” at the Bobino Theater in Paris.
 

The video shows a live TV appearance of the singer at the German Schlager Festival in 1966.

Stamp of the Month: March 2025

Maurice Ravel

The French composer Maurice Ravel was born on March 7, 1875 in Ciboure in the Pyrénées-Atlantique department. He died in Paris in 1937. March 2025 marks the 150th anniversary of his birth.
 
Ravel began studying at the Paris Conservatory in 1889, which lasted a total of 16 years. After his studies, he worked as a pianist, conductor and accompanist for his own works. Unfortunately, this career was ended by paralysis in 1933, and from then on Ravel devoted himself solely to composition.

Monaco 21.3.2025
Ravel’s early works were influenced primarily by Liszt, Chabrier, Fauré and Rimsky-Korsakov. However, his encounter with Claude Debussy, whose “Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune” impressed him, was decisive for his own style. Ravel’s mother came from the Basque Country. The influence of Spanish folklore is therefore just as noticeable in Ravel’s compositions as the influence of jazz. Maurice Ravel also tried five times to win the so-called “Prix de Rome”, which is coveted among young French composers, but each time his compositions were rejected as being too avant-garde. Ravel’s best-known work is certainly his “Boléro”, which was actually written in 1928 as ballet music. He was inspired to write the ballet by Sergei Diaghilev, and the choreography was created by Bronislava Nijinska in 1929.
 

The video shows Ravel’s “Bolero” played by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Gustavo Dudamel at the closing concert of the Lucerne Festival, which was broadcast live in more than 50 cinemas across Europe on September 18, 2010.
 
Read an article about Ravel’s opera “L’enfant et les sortilèges”
from the current issue of “Musikus” here.