While owned by the Bitar family, the home hosted First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, pianist Van Cliburn and many state governors and U.S. senators.
He is famous for his lyric poems many of which became lyrics of the popular songs: "School Walz", "In the Damp Earth-Huts", "The Sacred Stone", "The Windows of Moscow", "Don't Forget" and "Moscow Nights" which was sung at the Moscow Youth Festival in 1957 and was played also by American pianist Van Cliburn in the White House in 1979, on the occasion of a visit by the former president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev.
An accomplished musician, he was the principal trumpet of the International Youth Orchestra, touring Europe, playing with Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic, and famed pianist Van Cliburn.
Ludwig van Beethoven | Vincent van Gogh | Van Morrison | Van Halen | Gus Van Sant | Anthony van Dyck | Ellen van Dijk | Van Diemen's Land | Van | Martin Van Buren | Eddie Van Halen | Melvin Van Peebles | Jean-Claude Van Damme | Jan van Eyck | Armin van Buuren | Van Cliburn | Townes Van Zandt | Van, Turkey | Dave Van Ronk | Van Dyke Parks | Van der Graaf Generator | The Dick Van Dyke Show | Lee Van Cleef | Van Gogh | Han van Meegeren | Armin Van Buuren | Van Johnson | Dick Van Dyke | Van Heflin | van Gogh |
From the time it first opened the Centre of the Arts accommodated world-renowned travelling performers — as diverse as Monty Python's Flying Circus and Van Cliburn among many others in its first years — who might have been thought unlikely to visit a small city far from metropolises.
He won the Maria Callas Competition in Athens, and was prized at the Queen Elisabeth (1987, 4th prize plus Audience prize), Tchaikovsky (1990, 3rd prize - ex-aequo with Kevin Kenner and Anton Mordasov) and Van Cliburn (1993, 4th prize) competitions.
During a career at Juilliard that spanned five decades, Bloch's students included Emanuel Ax, Van Cliburn, Misha Dichter, Garrick Ohlsson, Jeffrey Siegel and Jeffrey Swann.
The label owns rights to famous recordings dating from the 20th century and late 19th century, by artists such as Enrico Caruso, Arturo Toscanini, Mario Lanza, Fritz Reiner, Artur Rubinstein, Jascha Heifetz, Vladimir Horowitz, Eugene Ormandy and Van Cliburn as well as from more recent performers such as Yo-Yo Ma, and Joshua Bell.