gaunt

Eighty-eight-year-old Marjorie Gaunt, who this week traveled to Carnegie Hall to hear music based on a love letter she wrote to her husband about the time he was killed on a World War II mission, had the most “fantastic experience in my life.”

Gaunt, of North Kingstown, was guest of the Oratorio Society of New York, which Tuesday night performed Pulitzer Prize-winner Paul Moravec’s Songs of Love and War, a 1997 choral composition based in part on her heartfelt words to her husband, Rowland, an Army Air Force navigator based in England.

Gaunt met members of the 180-member choral group, who burst into applause when she appeared and asked for her autograph. She was presented with a copy of the score signed by the singers, the composer and conductor Kent Tritle. Before the start of the concert, she was asked to stand as the audience applauded, she said.

After the program she went out to dinner with the chorus and Moravec, who walked her back to her hotel.

Now back at home overlooking Fishing Cove near Quonset Point, Gaunt, an avid writer of poetry and a kayaker, said her phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from old friends who saw a story about her that went out on the wires.

“Imagine,” she said, “little me who’s not important at all.”

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Itzhak Perlman has canceled a concert because of a shoulder injury.

The 62-year-old Israeli-American violinist, who in 2003 was treated for a rotator cuff tear on his right shoulder, was to perform tomorrow at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

On Thursday, his agent called to say he needed to cancel because of shoulder inflammation, said Kimberly Mouser, assistant director of the Concert Series.

“We are looking for another date with the hope of rescheduling as soon as possible,” said Elizabeth Sobol, Perlman’s manager.

Perlman’s recordings have won 15 Grammy awards. Last month, he won a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.

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A leukemia patient in dire need of a bone marrow transplant reportedly has found a donor after Grammy-winning singer Rihanna publicized her case.

“The English language does not have words that are adequate to thank someone for working to save your life,” Lisa Gershowitz Flynn of New York wrote in an e-mail to supporters Thursday, People.com reported. Flynn, a 41-year-old lawyer and mother of two small children, was diagnosed in November 2007 with acute myelogenous leukemia, a fast-growing cancer of the blood and bone marrow. People.com said last month that doctors had told Flynn she needed to find a marrow donor within four to six weeks.