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Aage Stentoft

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Aage Stentoft (1 May 1914 – 8 July 1990) was a Danish composer, film score composer and theatre director. He composed over 700 melodies during his lifetime. Biography Stentoft was born in Holbæk, where he graduated from the Stenhus Kostskole (now ). Initially, he planned to study law, but due to lack of money, he started to compose music for commercials. In 1934, he began working as an accompanist and composer for the revue troupe Co-Optimisterne. A lot of his tunes quickly achieved widespread popularity, and he earned good money by composing and, later on, by producing revues. During his career, Stentoft also managed various theatres: Frederiksberg Teater (now ) in Frederiksberg and three theatres in Copenhagen, , Det Ny Scala and . In 1961, he emigrated to Spain. In 1973, he returned to Denmark as leader of the Tivoli Gardens theatre, a job he kept until his retirement in 1981, when he returned to Spain. He died at his home near Málaga in 1990. Popular tunes * (1935) * (1936) * (1936) * (1936) * (1937) * (1937) * (1938) * (1939) * (1939) * (1940) * (1942) * (1944) * Jacobsen (1948) * (1954) * (1977) Sources * Kraks Blå Bog online *

Aaron Avshalomov

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Aaron Avshalomov (; 11 November 1894 – 16 April 1965) was a Russian-born Jewish composer. His work included several ballets, two operas, a violin concerto, four symphonies and a flute concerto. Early life Born into a Mountain Jewish family in Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, Russia, Avshalomov was sent for medical studies to Zürich. After the October Revolution in 1917, which made further studies in Europe impossible, his family sent him to the United States. Career Less than a year later, he chose to move to China, Between 1918 and 1947, he worked to create a synthesis of Chinese musical elements and Western techniques of orchestral composition. Among the first works of this type that he created was the opera Kuan Yin, which premiered in Peking in 1925. In the spring of 1935, at the invitation of He Luting, he orchestrated the newly composed March of the Volunteers by Nie Er for the film Children of Troubled Times (1935), making him the first to orchestrate what would become the national anthem of the People’s Republic of China. Avshalomov made his main livelihood at bookstores and libraries. He was the head librarian of the Public Library, Shanghai Municipal Council for 15 years from 1928 un

Aaron Copland

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Early years#

Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 14, 1900. He was the youngest of five children in a Conservative Jewish immigrant family of Lithuanian origin. While emigrating from Russia to the United States, Copland’s father, Harris Morris Copland, lived and worked in Scotland for two to three years to pay for his boat fare to the United States. It was there that Copland’s father may have Anglicized his surname “Kaplan” to “Copland”, though Copland himself believed for many years that the change had been caused by an Ellis Island immigration official when his father entered the country. Copland was unaware until late in his life that the family name had been Kaplan, his parents having never told him. on the corner of Dean Street and Washington Avenue, and most of the children helped out in the store. His father was a staunch Democrat. The family members were active in Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes, where Aaron celebrated his bar mitzvah, for which he studied under Israel Goldfarb. Not especially athletic, the sensitive young man became an avid reader and often read Horatio Alger stories on his front steps. Copland’s father had no musical interest. His mother, Sarah Mittenthal Copland, sang, played the piano, and arranged music lessons for her children. Copland had four older siblings: two brothers, Ralph and Leon, and two sisters, Laurine and Josephine. Of his siblings, his oldest brother Ralph was the most advanced musically; he was proficient on the violin. Laurine had the strongest connection with Aaron; she gave him his first piano lessons, promoted his musical education, and supported him in his musical career. A student at the Metropolitan Opera School and frequent opera-goer, Laurine also brought home libretti for Aaron to study. Copland attended Boys High School and in the summer went to various camps. Most of his early exposure to music was at Jewish weddings and ceremonies, and occasional family musicales. Copland began writing songs at the age of eight and a half. His earliest notated music, about seven bars he wrote when age 11, was for an opera scenario he created and called Zenatello. From 1913 to 1917 he took piano lessons with Leopold Wolfsohn, who taught him the standard classical fare. Copland’s first public music performance was at a Wanamaker’s recital. By age 15, after attending a concert by Polish composer-pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Copland decided to become a composer. At 16, he heard his first symphony, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. After attempts to further his music study from a correspondence course, Copland took formal lessons in harmony, theory, and composition from Rubin Goldmark, a noted teacher and composer of American music (who had given George Gershwin three lessons). Goldmark, with whom Copland studied between 1917 and 1921, gave the young Copland a solid foundation, especially in the Germanic tradition. As Copland later said: “This was a stroke of luck for me. I was spared the floundering that so many musicians have suffered through incompetent teaching.” But Copland also said that Goldmark had “little sympathy for the advanced musical idioms of the day” and his “approved” composers ended with Richard Strauss. Copland’s graduation piece from his studies with Goldmark was a three-movement piano sonata in a Romantic style. But he had also composed more original and daring pieces that he did not share with his teacher. In addition to regularly attending the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Symphony, where he heard the standard classical repertory, Copland continued his musical development through an expanding circle of musical friends. After graduating from high school, he played in dance bands. Continuing his musical education, he received further piano lessons from Victor Wittgenstein, who found him “quiet, shy, well-mannered, and gracious in accepting criticism”. Copland’s fascination with the Russian Revolution and its promise for freeing the lower classes drew a rebuke from his father and uncles. In spite of that, in his early adult life, Copland developed friendships with people who had socialist and communist leanings.

Aaron Jay Kernis

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Aaron Jay Kernis (born January 15, 1960) is a Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy Award-winning American composer serving as a member of the Yale School of Music faculty. Kernis spent 15 years as the music advisor to the Minnesota Orchestra and as director of the Minnesota Orchestra’s Composers’ Institute, and was the workshop director of the Nashville Symphony Composer Lab. He has received numerous awards and honors throughout his thirty-five-year career. Background, early life, and education Aaron Jay Kernis was born in Philadelphia, and grew up in neighboring Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania. He is Jewish and has said that Jewish history and music have influenced his own compositions. He began his musical career by playing the violin and piano. His composition career began at age 13, and he was awarded three BMI Foundation Student Composers Awards throughout his time as a student. He studied composition with John Adams at the San Francisco Conservatory; Charles Wuorinen at the Manhattan School of Music; and Morton Subotnick, Bernard Rands, and Jacob Druckman at Yale University. His wide range of teachers and time spent on both the east and west coasts helps to define his eclectic musical

Aaron Robinson (composer)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Aaron Robinson is an American composer, conductor, and musicologist. In 2013, he was nominated for an Emmy Award for composing Maine Public Broadcasting Network’s Maine Arts series theme music. Personal background Robinson attended Medomak Valley High School in Waldoboro, Maine. At 16 years of age—a self-taught musician who never took piano lessons By his late teens, he was creating, performing and producing concerts and theatrical productions, including the musical Moody Blue for which he wrote both the music and lyrics. According to a 2013 interview, Robinson studied composition and piano performance at the Boston Conservatory of Music with composers John Adams and Larry Thomas Bell, as well as film scoring with John Williams at the Berklee School of Music; but chose not to graduate with a degree. Instead, he “went out and lived the life of music,” as he said in a 2017 interview. In 2001, he became organist and choirmaster for “Music at Immanuel” at the Immanuel Baptist Church in Portland, Maine. Robinson lives on the coast of Maine. In 1997, Robinson conducted Treemonisha: The Concert Version by ragtime composer Scott Joplin at the Rockport Opera House in Rockport, Maine, with a

Aaron Seeman

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Aaron Seeman is an American composer, pianist, and accordion player, who has distinguished himself by adapting punk rock, popular music, show tunes, and cartoon theme songs for the accordion, as Duckmandu. Duckmandu’s repertoire also includes adaptations of Klezmer, Classical Country, and Polka pieces, as well as conventional accordion repertoire - polkas and tangos - at bar mitzvahs, weddings and Oktoberfest celebrations. Duckmandu performance sets include such diverse material as the Dead Kennedys, Beethoven, the Power Puff Girls theme song, and a musical rendition of the Periodic Table of the Elements. Maximum Rock ’n Roll, the premier punk magazine, pronounced him “warble for warble spot-on Jello” for his note-for-note renditions of the entire first Dead Kennedys album, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables. He currently resides in Oakland, California. Bands Seeman was a founding member of the eclectic Romanian Music-inspired folk group Fishtank Ensemble. Seeman is a founding member, arranger, and vocalist with San Francisco’s Punk Rock Orchestra, which performs full scale orchestral versions of classic punk songs. He also plays accordion in the bands Shamalamacord, Polkacide, and

Aaron Williams (composer)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Aaron Williams (1731–1776) was a Welsh teacher, composer, and compiler of West Gallery music, active in Britain during the 18th century. Life Williams was probably born in Caldicot, Monmouthshire, the son of William Morgan. He served as clerk of the Presbyterian Scots Church, London Wall. Publications Williams’s publications include: * The Universal Psalmodist, 1763 (2nd ed., 1764; 3rd ed., 1765; 4th ed., 1770) * Daniel Bayley , The Royal Melody Complete, 3d ed., Boston, 1767 (an unauthorized compilation of music from William Tans’ur’s Royal Melody Complete and Williams’s Universal Psalmodist; subsequent editions, entitled The American Harmony, or Universal Psalmodist, were issued by Bayley in Newburyport, Massachusetts in 1769, 1771, 1773 and 1774). * Royal Harmony; or, The Beauties of Church Music, ca. 1765 * Psalmody in Miniature, 1769 (2nd ed., in 3 books, 1778; supplements added in 1778 and 1780; 3rd ed., in 5 books, 1783) * The New Universal Psalmodist, 1770 (6th ed., 1775) * An Ode or Anthem for the New Year, 1770 * Two New Anthems for Christmas-Day, 1770 * Comfort ye, my people: A new Christmas anthem, 1775 * British Psalmody, London, ca. 1785 These publications included se

Aaron Zigman

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Aaron Zigman (born January 6, 1963) is a classically trained American composer, producer, arranger, songwriter, conductor, and musician who has scored music for films including The Notebook, The Company Men, Bridge to Terabithia, John Q., The Proposal, Flicka, For Colored Girls, Flash of Genius, Sex & the City, Alpha Dog, and Escape from Planet Earth. He has also written, arranged and produced over 50 hit albums, and co-written songs with legendary and contemporary artists including Quincy Jones, Christina Aguilera, Phil Collins, Was (Not Was), John Legend, Dionne Warwick, Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, and Seal. Early life and career Zigman was born in San Diego, California. His mother, a pianist and harpist, was his first music teacher, and he developed an early interest in jazz and concert music, studying with Rocky Slight, Gene Hartwell (a San Diego jazz player), and Florence Stephenson. A graduate of Point Loma High School, he studied at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1983, he began studying with his cousin George Bassman (who orchestrated The Wizard of Oz and wrote the music for the films Marty and The Postman Always Rings Twice). In t

Aarre Merikanto

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Aarre Merikanto (29 June 1893 – 28 September 1958) was a Finnish composer. Life and career He was born in Helsinki, Grand Duchy of Finland. His childhood he spent in Vilppula, Finland. He married Meri Grönmark in 1919. They had two daughters. He later married Evi Sylvia Mähönen. They had two sons, Ukri Uolevi Merikanto, a sculptor and Pan Ylermi Merikanto. He is considered a key figure in early Finnish modernism (together with Väinö Raitio and Ernest Pingoud) and several of his works, most notably the opera Juha, have obtained posthumous attention. As professor of composition in the Sibelius Academy (1951–1958) Merikanto taught several Finnish composers of the next generation, including Einojuhani Rautavaara, Usko Meriläinen, Aulis Sallinen and Paavo Heininen. Merikanto was diagnosed with lung cancer in the summer 1957, and he died on 28 September the following year, in Helsinki, aged 65. Main works * Juha, opera (1922; premiered in 1963) * Symphony No. 1 in B minor (1916) * Symphony No. 2 in A major (1918) * Symphonic Study (1928) * Symphony No. 3 (1953) * Violin Concerto No. 1 (1915) * Violin Concerto No. 2 (1925) * Violin Concerto No. 3 (1931; destroyed) * Violin Concerto No. 4