The composer John Tavener died at the age of 69. Here is all you want to know, and more!
Biography - A Short Wiki
Famous for such religious instrumental and vocal works as, respectively, The Protecting Veil (for strings and cello) and The Lamb (for choir), this important 20th-century composer first rose to fame in the late 1960s after writing a much lauded cantata titled The Whale.
His first marriage, to a Greek dancer named Victoria Maragopoulou, ended after less than a year. His second marriage, to Maryanna Schaefer, resulted in children named Sofia, Theodora, and Orlando.
Quotes
"Every time I have a hit, I buy a Rolls.
"My consultant keeps telling me sudden death could come at any moment.
"We seem to have lost our contact with the primordial: the idea of – call it divine revelation as opposed to something that’s learned by the human intellect – something that, if you lay yourself completely open, and you just open your heart completely, something will actually come into it.
"I don’t hate pop music. I liked the Beatles, but then, I knew them.
"Every woman I have known has actually deepened my spiritual awareness. Even if I have been a selfish man and treated them badly… There were two women, I won’t name them, who had a powerful religious effect on me. The ancient idea of a muse is there.