quiet to work, so he built a composer's hut by the lake. Grieg died in 1907 of chronic exhaustion, but his legacy lives on at Troldhaugen—a living museum consisting of the Edvard Grieg Museum, the Villa, the Composer’s Hut, Concert Hall and Edvard Grieg´s tomb.

The highpoint of a visit to Troldhaugen is a recital at the concert hall, discreetly built into the ground, complete with sod roof. The floor-to-ceiling windows behind the stage overlook the composer's hut, where Grieg worked, superstitiously sitting on a stack of sheet music by Beethoven so he could reach the piano. At the end of each day, he would leave a note: “If anyone should break in here, please leave the musical scores, since they have no value to anyone except Edvard Grieg.” This November marks the 100th year anniversary of his death. Troldhaugen.com

Jimi Hendrix: Experience Music Project, Seattle, WA
Forget Starbucks, Nordstrom’s and Microsoft. For this Seattle native, the Emerald City’s most famous export to date is James Marshall Hendrix, later known as Jimi. Born in 1941, Jimi’s young life in Seattle was unremarkable. (A second cousin of mine discovered from an attendance record, six years after the fact, that Jimi had been his student at Garfield High School.) The future rock star eventually dropped out of school and joined the army, never looking back.

A self-taught musician, the left-handed Hendrix played a restrung right-handed guitar upside down, creating a completely original sound. Discovered in New York by former Animals’ bassist, Chas Chandler, Jimi relocated to London, where his career blossomed.

Once asked if he was from Seattle, Jimi replied, ‘A thousand years ago.’ Nonetheless, he was one of us. I was a wide-eyed adolescent