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J. Ord Hume

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

Lieutenant James Ord Hume (14 September 1864 – 25 November 1932) was an English musician, remembered as a composer and arranger for brass bands, but in his time noted as a conductor and judge in brass band competitions. History Hume was born in Edinburgh and joined the Royal Scots Guards in 1877. He played solo cornet with the Scots Greys in 1881, and left the army in 1887. While in the services he composed at least a hundred marches for military band, He returned to Australia in 1924, when he was accompanied by his wife. He has been credited as the greatest single influence on the standard of Australian brass band performance. He had a home in North London, where he died. His remains were carried to Edmonton cemetery, accompanied by a massed band playing the “Dead March” from Saul and “Abide with Me”, and interred to the strains of the hymns “Deep Harmony” and “The Angels’ Song”, Hume’s last composition. Instrumentalist, composer, arranger, adjudicator, he will for ever be remembered as the greatest figure ever known in the brass band world. References

Jo Blankenburg

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

Jo Blankenburg is a German composer based in Los Angeles. He writes music for film and motion picture advertising. His primary musical instrument is the piano. He was trained to play organ. Personal life Blankenburg resides in Los Angeles, but has also resided in New York City and Auckland, New Zealand. Albums Floatovations Jo Blankenburg’s debut album, Floatovations, published by Zero Latency, was released on January 9, 2007. The album comprised five meditative compositions with an ocean/sea theme. Vendetta An album composed by Jo Blankenburg for Position Music, released on March 21, 2011. Its songs were used for major motion advertising campaigns for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, X-Men: First Class and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn among many others. Elysium Elysium was released on July 31, 2012 by Position Music, following the success of Vendetta. Trailer music * 2009 – The Wolfman * 2009 – How To Train Your Dragon * 2009 – FlashForward * 2011 – “Dystopic” for featurette X-Men: First Class * 2011 – “Satorius” for TV Spot Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows * 2011 – “Conquest of Antaria” for Featurette Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows * 2011 – “Juggernaut” and “Sa

Jō Kondō

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Jō Kondō (近藤譲; surname Kondō; born 28 October 1947 in Tokyo) is a Japanese composer of contemporary classical music. Kondo studied composition from 1968 to 1972 with Yoshio Hasegawa and Hiroaki Minami at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. He won the third prize and made his debut in Japan-Germany Contemporary Music Festival in 1969. He serves as Professor of Music at Ochanomizu University in Tokyo and also teaches at Tokyo University of Arts and Elisabeth University of Music in Hiroshima. His interests include hocket, the music of Ancient Greece, and strong differences in instrumental timbre, all of which are reflected in his compositions. The chamber version of his 1975 composition Sight Rhythmics reflects the latter in its unusual instrumentation of violin, banjo, steel drum, electric piano, and tuba, for example. His opera Hagoromo, based on a Noh play and premiered in Florence in 1994, is the unique case in which his music blends western techniques with oriental traditions. In 1978, he spent a year in New York City with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. While there, he became personally acquainted with a number of avant-garde American composers, includ

Jo Yeong-wook

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Jo Yeong-wook (, occasionally romanized as Cho Young-wuk; born January 1, 1962) is a South Korean film score composer and music director. He is most widely known for his collaborations with director Park Chan-wook. Filmography Film Television *The Little Drummer Girl (2018) *Narco-Saints (2022) *The Sympathizer (2024) *Nine Puzzles (2025) * Queen Mantis (2025) * Made in Korea (2025) Awards and nominations Notes References External links * Jo Yeong-wook on Last.fm * * *

Joachim Andersen (composer)

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Carl Joachim Andersen (29 April 1847 – 7 May 1909) was a Danish flutist, conductor and composer born in Copenhagen, son of the flutist Christian Joachim Andersen. Both as a virtuoso and as composer of flute music, he is considered one of the best of his time. He was a demanding leader and teacher, achieving high standards with orchestras. Biography As well as his little brother, Viggo was taught by his father and already as a child he performed with success at a Danish theater called Casino accompanied by the little harpist Frantz Pønitz. From when he was 13 years old to the year of 1868 he was first flutist in a musical orchestra in Copenhagen conducted by Niels Gade. In 1869 he became employed by the Royal Danish Orchestra as a flutist but resigned after a year of leave in 1878. He was longing for larger challenges and went abroad. First stop was Saint Petersburg (1878–1880) where he was engaged by St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra. Afterwards in 1881 he went to Berlin where he was engaged in Bilse’s Band as a solo flutist as well as he was in the Royal German Opera. In 1882 he was a co-founder of the Berlin Philharmonic, which he and 53 other musicians formed out of the form

Joachim Burmeister

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Joachim Burmeister (1564 in Lüneburg – 5 May 1629 in Rostock) was a German composer, cantor, and music theorist active in northern Germany during the late Renaissance. He is noted for his writings on music as rhetorical-poetic composition (). Life Burmeister was the eldest of five children born to a beadworker and townsman of Lüneburg. His brother Anton (d. 1634) became the cantor of St. Michaelis, Lüneburg, succeeding Christian Praetorius. He attended the University of Rostock, where he earned a master’s degree, and became cantor at the and St. Mary’s Church, Rostock. He then taught grammar, Latin, rhetoric, and poetry at the Rostock Gymnasium (Scholae Rostochiensis Collega Classicus), where he was acquainted with humanists including , , , and . Writings In his writings, Burmeister argued for the dignity of music as an art of eloquence. In his treatments of , including Musica autoschédiastikè (“Extemporaneous music”) and Musica poetica (“Poetic composition in music”), he describes musical solecisms, ornaments, and figures, as well as formal and stylistic categories. He also addresses musical phrasing and rhetorical propriety. His works draw on Greek and Latin sources and cite auth

Joachim Montagne

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

Joachim Louis-Paul Havard de la Montagne (30 November 1927 – 1 October 2003) was a French composer, organist and choral director. Life Joachim Havard de la Montagne was the son of French parents; Charles (born 1891) and Marie-Thérèse Eugénie (born 1899, née de Payret), who settled in his birthplace of Geneva, where his father worked for an international organisation. After World War II, he moved to Paris and studied music at the École César Franck. From 1947 to his retirement in 1996, he served religious music, notably in Paris at the churches of , Sainte-Odile and the liberal synagogue Copernic. Havard de la Montagne held the position of Kapellmeister at the église de la Madeleine in Paris, assisted by his wife Elisabeth, also and organist and harpsichordist. From 1971 to 1974, he founded and worked for the Choirs and the “Ensemble Instrumental de la Madeleine”, with which he gave more than 300 concerts. Montagne died in Geneva on 1 October 2003 aged 75, following a long illness. References External links * Biographie détaillée * Mes longs chemins de musicien on musimem.com * Joachim Havard de la Montagne on Discogs

Joachim Neander

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Joachim Neander (165031 May 1680) was a German Calvinist teacher, theologian and hymnwriter whose most famous hymn is Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation (). The hymn has been described by John Julian in his A Dictionary of Hymnology as “a magnificent hymn of praise to God, perhaps the finest creation of its author, and of the first rank in its class.” Due to its popularity it has been translated several times into English – Catherine Winkworth being one of the translators in the 19th century – and the hymn has appeared in most major hymnals. He regarded as the first hymnwriter in German of the Reformed Church as well as the most notable. The family had changed the family name from the original German Neumann (‘New man’ in English) to the Graeco-Roman form Neander, following the fashion of the time. After the death of his father, he could not afford to study at a famous university. He therefore studied theology in his hometown from 1666 to 1670. At first, his heart was not in it. It was only when he heard a sermon of Theodor Undereyk (shortly before the end of his course) that his beliefs became serious. In 1671 he became a private tutor in Heidelberg, and in 167

Joachim Neergaard

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Joachim Bruun Neergaard (27 April 1877 – 31 October 1920) was a Danish composer and pianist. As a composer he wrote works for violin, piano, and orchestral pieces. Neergaard produced fewer than 30 works in his short lifetime. Early life and education Joachim Bruun Neergaard was born on 27 April 1877 in Stubberup to Sophie Louise Bardenfleth (1855–1947) and Vilhelm Peter Christian Bruun Neergaard (1846–1912). His family was part of the aristocracy and his father, Vilhelm Peter, was a hofjægermester and chamberlain. His maternal grandfather, Carl Emil Bardenfleth, had been a politician and Governor of Iceland. As a child, Neergaard received piano lessons from Tekla Gähler. Following in his family’s political and aristocratic legacy, he began formal schooling in 1895 and was awarded a law degree in 1901. However, Neergaard continued to pursue his passion between 1895 and 1908 by studying the piano with Ove Christiansen, music theory with Orla Rosenhoff, and instrumentation with Johan Svendsen. Career Neergaard made his debut as a composer in 1906 with orchestral arrangements (op. 4) which were performed at Tivoli’s concert hall. That year, he also gave a performance on the piano which

Joachim Nicolas Eggert

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

Joachim Nicolas Eggert (22 February 1779 – 14 April 1813) was a Swedish composer and musical director. Eggert was born in Gingst on Rügen, at that time part of Swedish Pommern. At a very young age he started studying to play the violin. In Stralsund he continued his musical education in the subjects of violin and composition. These studies were followed, in the first years of the 19th century, by studies in musical theory in Braunschweig and Göttingen, with Johann Nikolaus Forkel as a teacher. In 1802 he got his first appointment as a Kapellmeister at the court theater of Schwerin. A year later he became violinist at the Royal Court Orchestra of Sweden. He soon received his first commissions for compositions. In 1807 he was appointed a member of the Royal Swedish Musical Academy; in the same year he made his debut as a musical director. Between 1808 and 1812 he worked as a Hofkapellmeister at the Royal Court Orchestra. He died at Thomestorp, Östergötland, Sweden, of tuberculosis, at the age of 34 years. The main part of his compositional creations are instrumental works like operas, cantatas, musical dramas and symphonies. He also composed numerous works commissioned by the Swedish

Joachim Raabe

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Joachim Raabe (born 1974) is a German church musician and a composer of sacred music, especially of the genre Neues Geistliches Lied. Career Born in Haiger, Raabe studied church music from 1997 to 2002 at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold. He was then the church musician of the parish St. Peter und Paul in Villmar, and the leader of Tonspuren, a band of young people in Villmar. From 2005 to 2012, he was church musician of the Westerwälder Dom in Wirges. He was also until 2013 Geschäftsführer of the commission Arbeitskreis Kirchenmusik und Jugendseelsorge im Bistum Limburg of the Diocese of Limburg. Raabe joined in 2013 the ecumenical association inTAKT for the support of Neues Geistliches Lied, art, culture and education, for which he has composed new songs and conducted events of continued education. External links * Neues Geistliche Lied inTakt

Joachim Raff

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Joseph Joachim Raff (27 May 182224 or 25 June 1882) was a Swiss composer, pedagogue and pianist. Biography Raff was born in Lachen in Switzerland. His father, a teacher, had fled there from Württemberg in 1810 to escape forced recruitment into the military of that southwestern German state that had to fight for Napoleon in Russia. Joachim was largely self-taught in music, studying the subject while working as a schoolmaster in Schmerikon, Schwyz and Rapperswil. In 1845, Raff walked to Basel to hear Franz Liszt play the piano. After a period in Stuttgart where he became friends with the conductor Hans von Bülow, he worked as Liszt’s assistant at Weimar from 1850 to 1853. During this time he helped Liszt in the orchestration of several of his works, claiming to have had a major part in orchestrating the symphonic poem Tasso. In 1851, Raff’s opera König Alfred was staged in Weimar, and five years later he moved to Wiesbaden where he largely devoted himself to composition. The Lenore symphony (No. 5), famous in its time, was inspired by a ballad of the same name by Gottfried August Bürger that also inspired works by several other composers, including Maria Theresia von Paradis (1789),

Joachim Thibault de Courville

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Joachim Thibault de Courville (died 1581) was a French composer, singer, lutenist, and player of the lyre, of the late Renaissance. He was a close associate of poet Jean Antoine de Baïf, and with Baïf was the co-founder of the Académie de Poésie et de Musique, which attempted to re-create the storied ethical and moral effect of ancient Greek music through a type of vocal musical composition known as musique mesurée. Very little is known of Courville’s life prior to his association with Baïf. Sometime in the mid-1560s Courville made the acquaintance of the famous poet, who was so impressed with his playing and singing that he called him “the master of the art of singing well.” During this period Courville was employed as official lyre-player to King Charles IX. In 1567 Courville began to collaborate with Baïf on the composition of vers mesurés, verses written mostly by Baïf in which the French words were given long-short syllabic treatment in imitation of the supposed method used in Ancient Greek dramatic poetry; Courville set them to music. In 1570 the two, with the backing of the king, founded the Académie de Poésie et de Musique, inviting a few other professional musicians and ar

Joachim Ulric Voyer

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Joachim Ulric Voyer (5 July 1892 – 8 January 1935) was a Canadian opera composer. His L’Intendant Bigot, created in Montreal in 1929, was one of the first Canadian operas. Early life J.-Ulric Voyer was not a professional musician. He worked for 21 years as an advertising agent for J.-B. Renaud. He was artistic director of radio station CHRC. He studied at Wallace. He studied musical composition with M. Lefrançois, organist of St-Roch, and studied the piano with M. Hudson. In Montreal, he studied the organ and harmony with Léon Dessane and Auguste Descarries. L’Intendant Bigot L’Intendant Bigot was created under the patronage of the Honorable Athanase David, provincial secretary, by the Société canadienne d’opérette established by Honoré Vaillancourt, his managing director and M. Albert Roberval, art director, who managed this opera. The opera premiered February 5, 1929 at the Monument National de Montréal “in front of a record attendance”. Three additional sold-out performances were mounted at the Auditorium de Québec in the presence of celebrities including Sir Lomer Gouin, and Madam Louis- Alexandre Taschereau, wife of the Prime Minister. The opera was under the direction of Edmo

Joachim van den Hove

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Joachim van den Hove (1567? – 1620) was a Flemish/Dutch composer and a lutenist. He composed works for lute solo and for lute and voice. Moreover, he wrote many arrangements for lute of Italian, French, and English vocal and instrumental music, and of Flemish/Dutch folk music. Van den Hove disputes with Adriaensen and Vallet the distinction of being the most important representative of 17th century Dutch lute music. Van den Hove was born in Antwerp, where his father, Peeter van den Hove, was a respected musician. After the Fall of Antwerp in 1584–5 the family fled north. From at least 1593 to 1616 Joachim lived in Leiden, where in 1594 he married Anna Rodius (originally “de Roy”) from Utrecht. There he was a lutenist and also lute teacher. His most famous pupils were the young Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange and Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange. Van den Hove’s financial fortunes declined and in 1616 his properties were confiscated. Before his Leiden home was sold by public auction in 1618, he had fled to The Hague, where he died in poverty in 1620. Published collections of his works are: *Florida, sive cantiones (Utrecht, 1601) *Delitiae Musicae (Utrecht, 1612) *Praeludia test

Joan Ambrosio Dalza

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Joan Ambrosio Dalza (fl. 1508) was a Milanese lutenist and composer. His surviving works comprise the fourth volume of Ottaviano Petrucci’s influential series of lute music publications, Intabolatura de lauto libro quarto (Venice, 1508). Dalza is referred to as “milanese” in the preface, so it must be assumed he was either born in Milan, or worked there, or both. Together with the oeuvres of Francesco Spinacino and Vincenzo Capirola, Dalza’s work constitutes an important part of early Renaissance lute music. The surviving pieces comprise 42 dances, nine ricercares, five tastar de corde, four intabulations and a piece called Caldibi castigliano. The dances are arranged in miniature suites. Each of the five pavanes (five alla venetiana, four alla ferrarese) is followed by a saltarello and a piva that are thematically and harmonically related to it. Other groupings include pairs of tastar de corde with a recercar dietro. Some pieces, such as Caldibi castigliano and those titled Calate ala spagnola, show Spanish influence, possibly because of vihuela cultivation in 16th century Italy. (described as padoane diverse on the title page), which are also the earliest known variations: all pa

Joan Brudieu

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Joan Brudieu (; 1520–1591) was a French-Catalan composer. Brudieu was born around 1520 in the diocese of Limoges and died in la Seu d’Urgell in 1591, after spending most of his life in the Aragonese region of Catalonia. From 1539 he was cantor at the Cathedral of Santa Maria d’Urgell, where he was ordained in 1546. In 1548 he was appointed choir master for life. In 1550 he traveled to his home country to acquire instruments for the chapel. In 1577 he retired to Balaguer, but after a year moved to become maestro di cappella at Santa Maria del Mar, Barcelona, which he left shortly afterwards, apparently due to health problems. Then in 1579 he returned to la Seu d’Urgell, where he remained until his death, having previously been replaced by Rafael Coma. Works Requiem - in edition by Felipe Pedrell. In his madrigals Brudieu was influenced by ensaladas of Mateo Flecha (1481–1553). Madrigals - in edition by Tomeu Quetgles. Madrigal V - in edition by Maricarmen Gómez, Las ensaladas (Praga, 1581) con un suplemento de obras del género. Valencia, Generalitat, 2008. Vol. 1 Joan Brudieu’s five madrigals in Catalan: # Los goigs de Nostra Dona (The seven joys of our Lady) # Madrigal XIII (1st pa

Joan Franks Williams

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Joan Franks Williams (April 1, 1930 – January 30, 2003) was an American composer. Life Joan Franks Williams was born in Brooklyn, on April 1, 1930 to her father, Harold Franks, and her mother. Both of her parents enjoyed classical music, leading Williams to absorb the world of classical music through piano and viola lessons and frequent attendance to live concerts and performances. She attended the High School of Music and the Arts in Manhattan and continued with music into her college studies. Williams earned a bachelor’s in Music Education from the Eastman School of Music in 1952, and a Bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Manhattan School of Music 1961. While still in New York, she met her future husband Irving Williams on a blind date in Manhattan; suitingly, they enjoyed a live symphonic performance followed by dinner. Joann married Irving in 1954, and moved to Seattle with her family in 1962. In Seattle, she founded New Dimensions in Music (NDM), a non-profit organization that was one of the early and most influential promoters of new music in the Pacific Northwest. As a part of NDM she also established the first electronic music studio in Seattle. In 1971, the Williams f

Joan La Barbara

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Joan Linda Lotz La Barbara (born June 8, 1947) is an American vocalist and composer known for her explorations of non-conventional or “extended” vocal techniques. Considered to be a vocal virtuoso in the field of contemporary music, she is credited with advancing a new vocabulary of vocal sounds including trills, whispers, cries, sighs, inhaled tones, and multiphonics (singing two or more pitches simultaneously). Biography An influential figure in experimental music, La Barbara was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is a classically trained singer who studied with soprano Helen Boatwright at Syracuse University, Phyllis Curtin at Tanglewood/Berkshire Music School and contralto Marion Szekeley Freschl at the Juilliard School in New York. Joan La Barbara’s early creative work (early to mid 1970s) focuses on experimentation and investigation of vocal sound as raw sonic material, including works that explore varied timbres on a single pitch,“circular singing” inhaled and exhaled singing inspired by horn players’ circular breathing techniques, and multiphonic or chordal singing i.e. double-stops for the voice . In the mid 1970s, she began creating more structured compositional work

Joan Magrané Figuera

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Joan Magrané Figuera (born in 1988, Reus) is a Spanish composer. Biography Joan Magrané Figuera started to study composition with Ramon Humet. Subsequently, he studied at Esmuc in Barcelona with Agustín Charles, at the Graz Kunts Universität with Beat Furrer and then moved to Paris, where he attended lessons by Stefano Gervasoni at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse . His music has been performed around Europe by orchestras, groups and soloists such as Ensemble Intercontemporain , BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Quatuor Diotima, Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, RTVE Symphony Orchestra, Neue Vocalsolisten , Quartet Gerhard , and many others. The year 2016 he was lauréat of the Villa Medici in Rome. He has been awarded several composition prizes among them the XXXI Queen Sofia Composition Prize in 2014. Since 2017 he has been president of the Federació Joventuts Musicals de Catalunya. Works (selection) *Diàlegs de Tirant e Carmesina (2018/2019), chamber opera *Tombeau, violoncello (2018) *Fantasiestück, piano (2018) *Oració, 8 voices (2018) *Era, 3rd string quartet (2018) *Faula, ensemble (2017) *Estris de llum, sax quartet (2017) * Marines i boscatges, ensembl

Joan Mary Last

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Joan Mary Last (12 January 1908 – 9 October 2002) was an English music educator, author and composer born in Littlehampton, Sussex. She studied piano with Mathilde Verne and York Bowen, making her debut as a pianist at the Aeolian Hall in London in 1926. From 1959 she taught music at the Royal Academy of Music. From 1960 she was also an examiner for the Associated Board and an adjudicator for the British Federation of Music Festivals. She toured extensively, conducting piano teaching workshops in the United States, Canada, Africa, Scandinavia, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. Last never married, and died in Worthing Hospital, aged 94. Her address in Littlehampton was Surya, 11, St Mary’s Close. References External links * ‘Who Said Mice’, from the collection Cats (1964) * Downland (suite, 1949), performed by Tim Manger

Joan Pau Pujol

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Joan Pau Pujol (; baptized 18 June 1570 – 17 May 1626) was a Catalan and Spanish composer and organist of the late Renaissance and early Baroque. While best known for his sacred music, he also wrote popular secular music. Life Pujol was born in Mataró. In 1593 he became the assistant maestro de capilla at the cathedral in Barcelona, but he only held this post for a few months, taking the post of maestro de capilla (master of the chapel) at the cathedral in Tarragona, and then in 1595 at Nuestra Señora del Pilar in Zaragoza, a post which he kept for 17 years. While in Zaragoza, in 1600, he became a priest. In 1612 he returned to Barcelona, becoming maestro de capilla at the cathedral, a distinguished post which he held until his death. Most of his music dates from the time he was in Barcelona. Evidently a condition of his employment was to produce a fixed quantity of new liturgical music each year. Unusually for many composers of the time, most of it has survived. Also while in Barcelona he served as an organ consultant, and helped in various organ building projects in Catalonia. He died in Barcelona. Music Pujol wrote much of his music for the patron saint of Catalonia, St. George,

Joan Szymko

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Joan Szymko (born 1957) is an American choral conductor, music educator and composer. She was born in Chicago and studied choral conducting and music education at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, graduating in 1978. She settled in Seattle, Washington, and worked as a music teacher, composer and choral conductor. In 1993 Szymko took a position directing the Aurora Chorus in Portland, Oregon. She founded the women’s choir Viriditas Vocal Ensemble in 1994. Szymko composed the music for the Broadway musical Do Jump! at the New Victory Theater and Jan Maher’s play Most Dangerous Women. Works Szymko composes mainly for theater and choral ensembles. Selected works include: *All Works of Love for the Brock Commission 2010 *Nothing But Mud (text: “The Church, Zillebeke, October 1918” by William Orpen from his An Onlooker in France, 1917–1919 (1921)) *The Call *Carpe Diem *Ein grosser Gesang (text: poems by Rainer Maria Rilke) *Entro en la vida (text: by Teresa of Ávila) *The Freshness (text: Rumi) *Hear Me! We Are One *Herbst (text: Rainer Maria Rilke) *How Did the Rose (text: Hafez) *I Lift My Eyes *I Dream a World (text: poem by Langston Hughes) *Illumina la tenebre (text: St

Joan Tower

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Joan Tower (born September 6, 1938) is a Grammy-winning contemporary American composer, concert pianist, and conductor. Her work has been performed worldwide. Since gaining recognition for her first orchestral composition, Sequoia (1981), a tone poem that structurally depicts a giant tree from trunk to needles, she has written a variety of instrumental works, including Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman—something of a response to Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man—the Island Prelude, five string quartets, and an assortment of other tone poems. Tower was the pianist and a founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players, which commissioned and premiered many of her early works, including her widely performed Petroushskates. The New Yorker has called her “one of the most successful woman composers of all time”. Life and career Born in New Rochelle, New York, in 1938, Tower moved to Bolivia when she was nine years old, an experience she credits for making rhythm an integral part of her work. She discovered this love for rhythm in the local saint’s day celebrations. There, she learned how to play percussion and then started her musical journey. For the next dec

Joan Trimble

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Joan Trimble (18 June 1915 – 6 August 2000) was an Irish composer and pianist from Ulster. She studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music in London, and she and her sister performed for many years as a piano duo. In later years she inherited her father’s newspaper, becoming its proprietor and editor. Early life Joan Trimble was born in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh (now Northern Ireland) to William Egbert Trimble, the proprietor of The Impartial Reporter, one of Ulster’s regional newspapers, and Marie Dowse from Dublin. Joan grew up in a musical household; her mother was a solo violinist from a Dublin family of musicians, from which all eleven children had attended the Royal Irish Academy of Music, and her father was a bass-baritone and a noted collector of folksong. She attended Enniskillen Royal School for Girls and was the school’s first Head Girl. Joan studied composition with John F. Larchet and won a scholarship to the University of Dublin, from where she graduated with a BA degree in 1936. and studied piano with Annie Lord and music at Trinity College Dublin (BA 1936, BMus 1937). In 1936, the tenor John McCormack chose her to play piano solos

Joanna Brouk

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Joanna Brouk (February 20, 1949 – April 28, 2017) was an American electronic composer, author, and playwright who was active in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Early life Brouk grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. The name “Brouk” is an alternative spelling of the Dutch name “Broek”, a cognate with the English word “brook”. She received a B.A. in Creative Writing and Electronic Music from the University of California, Berkeley. Inspired by the cadences of poetry and the human voice, as well as the rhythms and soundings of nature, she began creating music. She went on to receive an M.A. in Electronic Music from Mills College. Career After graduating, she went into radio production, and composed music for documentaries and other programs. In 2016, a collection of archival recordings and selections from cassette releases, Hearing Music, was released by The Numero Group. Personal life In 1985, Brouk stopped composing and recording music after moving to San Diego, California, where she married and gave birth to a son, and took up the practice of transcendental meditation. Discography * Healing Music (1980) * The Space Between (1980) * Sounds Of The Sea (1981) * Golden Swan (1983) * The Heali

Joanna Marsh

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Joanna Marsh (born 1970) is a British composer of choral and orchestral works, who has lived in Dubai since 2007. Life and career Marsh studied composition with Richard Blackford and Judith Bingham. She was a student at the Royal Academy of Music between 1998 and 1999; Organ Scholar at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, between 1989 and 1992; and the School Organist at Christ’s Hospital between 1997 and 2000. Marsh was later appointed Composer in Residence at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 2015 for five years. During this time she wrote five works for the college choir and the college organ all of which feature on her album Sanctifica Nos: Choral and Instrumental Music by Joanna Marsh performed by the choir of Sidney Sussex College, Fretwork and Martin Baker, organ. Her earlier solo album, Flare released on Friday 18 September 2020, features music performed by the BBC Singers, BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Choir of Royal Holloway, University of London and the London Mozart Players. Marsh’s life in the Middle East offered many musical opportunities including writing an orchestral work to celebrate the building of the Burj Khalifa, a commission for the BBC Symphony Orchestra for t

Joanne Metcalf

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Joanne Metcalf (born 1958) is an American composer of contemporary classical music. Best known for her choral music, she has worked closely with the Hilliard Ensemble and Singer Pur, among other vocal ensembles. Life and career Joanne Metcalf was born in 1958 and studied music composition (BA, 1982) at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She was awarded first prize for the 1993 Search for New Music award from the International Alliance for Women in Music. While studying at Duke University with Stephen Jaffe and Scott Lindroth (MM, 1993), she met Dutch composer Louis Andriessen, then a guest at Duke. Inspired by “whatever it was that made Andriessen’s music so fresh and energizing”, Metcalf later studied with him for at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague through a Fulbright scholarship. Recordings References Citations :Primary :Secondary Sources * * * External links * *

Joannes Baptista Dolar

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Joannes Baptista Dolar ( or Janez Kersnik Dolar, , also Tollar or Thollary; 1620, Kamnik – February 13, 1673, Vienna) was a composer and contemporary of Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Andreas Hofer and Pavel Josef Vejvanovský. Education Dolar attended a Jesuit college in Ljubljana until 1639, when he began studying philosophy and later theology at the University of Vienna. He may have studied music at the time, as well, with local musicians like Antonio Bertali. He also began the process of joining the Jesuit order in 1639, and was ordained a priest in 1652. Career Janez Krstnik Dolar was employed to oversee musical performance at the Jesuit college in Ljubljana from 1656 to 1658. Around 1661 or 162, he returned to Vienna, where he spent the rest of his life. He became the head of St. Ignatius and St. Pancratius Jesuit college, and also served as the musical director for a convent church. Dolar’s compositions are characteristic of European music from the middle of the Baroque period, including use of stile concertato. Works Dolar composed a number of large-scale instrumental and vocal works, many of them as part of his official duties. Only 14 of his wor

João de Sousa Carvalho

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

João de Sousa Carvalho (22 February 1745c. 1798) was the foremost Portuguese composer of his generation. Born in Estremoz, he studied music from 1753 at the Colégio dos Santos Reis in Vila Viçosa, then from 1761 at the Conservatório di Sant’ Onofrio a Porta Capuana in Naples. In 1766 his setting of Metastasio’s operatic libretto La Nitteti was performed in Rome. The following year, he joined the Irmandade de Santa Cecília at Lisbon and was appointed professor of counterpoint in the Seminário da Patriarcal, where he later served as mestre (1769–1773) and mestre de capela (1773–1798). In 1778, he became music teacher to the royal family. He died in 1798 in Alentejo at the age of 53. His numerous church works are written in a style similar to that of Niccolò Jommelli and, sometimes, Haydn. Several of his opere serie and serenatas were performed at the royal palaces of Ajuda and Queluz. Some of his keyboard music survives and is occasionally played today. His Opera Buffa L’amore industrioso was discovered by conductor and scholar David Chernaik in the Biblioteca da Ajuda in manuscript, and performed in London and Oporto in 2000-2002. Some compositions *L’amore industrioso, 1769 (revive

João Domingos Bomtempo

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João Domingos Bomtempo (; also Buontempo; Lisbon, 28 December 1775 – Lisbon, 18 August 1842) was a Portuguese classical pianist, composer and pedagogue. Biography Bomtempo was the son of an Italian musician in the Portuguese court orchestra, and studied at the Music Seminary of the Patriarchal See in Lisbon. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he was not interested in opera and, in 1801, instead of going to Italy, he traveled to Paris, where he started a career as a virtuoso pianist. He moved to London in 1810 and became acquainted with liberal circles in that city. During 1822 he returned to Lisbon, and founded there a Philharmonic Society to promote public concerts of contemporary music. After the Portuguese civil war between liberals and absolutists had resulted in a liberal victory, Bomtempo became a music teacher to the young Queen Maria II of Portugal and first Director of the National Conservatory, created in 1835 to replace the old Patriarchal Seminary, which had been abolished by the new liberal regime. Bomtempo composed a vast number of concertos, sonatas, variations and fantasies for the piano. His two known symphonies are the first to be produced by a Portuguese composer

João Guilherme Ripper

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João Guilherme Ripper (born 1959 in Rio de Janeiro) is a Brazilian composer and conductor. João Guilherme Ripper is a composer, conductor, cultural manager and professor at the School of Music of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He studied with Henrique Morelenbaum and Ronaldo Miranda. In 1997, Ripper obtained his D.M.A. in Composition at The Catholic University of America, in Washington D.C., under the guidance of German composer Helmut Braunlich and Argentine musicologist Emma Garmendia. He pursued further studies in Orchestral Conducting with Maestro Guillermo Scarabino in Argentina, and attended the class of “Économie et Financement de la Culture” at the Université Paris-Dauphine, in France. Ripper served as Director of the School of Music of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro between 1999 and 2003. In 2004, he accepted the invitation of the Government of the State of Rio de Janeiro to direct Sala Cecília Meireles, a leading chamber music hall, where he remained for 11 years and undertook a comprehensive renovation. In 2015, he was appointed President of the Municipal Theater Foundation of Rio de Janeiro, the city’s opera house, a position he held until 2017. Rip

João Lourenço Rebelo

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

João Lourenço Rebelo, or João Soares Rebelo (1610 – 16 November 1661) was the only Portuguese composer to adopt the Venetian polychoral style. Despite his closeness to King John IV of Portugal (1603–1656), and despite what is traditionally said, Rebelo never held any office in the royal household. Life Rebelo was born in Caminha in 1610, the son of João Soares Pereira and Maria Lourenço Rebelo. In 1624, he became a choir boy at the Ducal Palace of Vila Viçosa, the ancestral seat of the Dukes of Braganza, while his older brother, Father Marcos Soares Pereira (?-1655) was admitted as chaplain-singer. In keeping with the aristocratic patterns of behavior of the 17th century, and as a sign of pre-eminence, Teodósio II, the 7th Duke of Braganza (1568-1630) had created an academy for court musicians, the Colégio dos Santos Reis Magos (College of the Three Wise Kings), where Rebelo studied under Robert Turner (c.1578-1629), an Irish musician who himself had been a student of the Flemish composer Géry de Ghersem, and mestre de capela of the ducal chapel from 1616, and possibly also under Friar Manuel Cardoso, In 1646 Rebelo was made a nobleman, Fidalgo de juro e herdade, of the Royal House

João MacDowell

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

João MacDowell (born 1965) is a Brazilian composer known for fusing contemporary and popular styles with classical music. His work includes opera, symphonic, chamber music, and early albums of Brazilian pop. On the occasion of the concert premiere of his fifth opera The Seventh Seal, Swedish journalist Johanna Paulsson of noted the composer as “a new thinker in the genre” . The band Tonton Macoute left a mark on a generation of artists in the capital of Brazil and further. They had a track record of independent radio hits. The songs “Electric Light” and "" became instant radio hits, starting at Fluminense FM, and then at Rádio Cidade and Transamerica FM. This radio exposure led to a consistent following on their performances. They also made hits on radio stations across the country, many of these stations, such as Rádio Cidade and Transamérica, would normally refuse to play independent bands, which made their achievement quite a unique feat for the time. João Mac Dowell went on to work as a record producer and composer, working with such as Claudia Otero, Fabio Lobo, Little Quail and The Md Birds, Funk Fuckers and Rubao Sabino. He wrote soundtracks for films by Mauro Giuntinni, Kat

Joaquín Gaztambide

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

Joaquín Romualdo Gaztambide y Garbayo (7 February 1822 in Tudela, Navarre – 18 March 1870 in Madrid) was one of the most prominent Spanish composers of zarzuela in the mid-nineteenth century. His contribution to the revival of the genre was highly significant; and although during the last century his work virtually disappeared from the Spanish musical scene, the early 21st century has reversed this trend. Of Italianate quality in the manner of Gaetano Donizetti, his music nonetheless makes use of Spanish rhythms and dance forms. Among other renowned works (many in opéra comique form), his La Mensajera (1849), El valle de Andorra (1851), El sueño de una noche de verano, Catalina (1854), Los magiares (1857), El juramento (1858), and the one-act classic Una vieja (1860) stand out. Biography Sent to Pamplona by his uncle to study piano and composition with Joseph Guelbenzu and Mariano Garcia, Gaztambide taught piano and played bass in the orchestra of a theater to make his living. He then moved to Madrid in 1842, where he studied at the Real Conservatório de Musica Maria Cristina, Two years later he traveled to Paris as conductor of a company of actors and dancers organized by the Span

Joaquín Pardavé

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

Joaquín Pardavé Arce (30 September 1900 – 20 July 1955) was a Mexican film actor, director, songwriter and screenwriter of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema. He was best known for starring and directing various comedy films during the 1940s. In some of them, Pardavé paired with one of Mexico’s most famous actresses, Sara García. The films in which they starred are El baisano Jalil, El barchante Neguib, El ropavejero, and La familia Pérez. These actors had on-screen chemistry together, and are both noted for playing a wide variety of comic characters from Lebanese foreigners to middle-class Mexicans. Early life Pardavé was born to Spanish immigrants Joaquín Pardavé Bernal and Delfina Arce Contreras, theater actors, in Pénjamo, Guanajuato. Later he joined the company of Jose Campillo, where he met and teamed for 12 years, Roberto “Panzón” Soto. Later in the 1940 decade, Pardavé worked in ¡Ay, qué tiempos señor don Simón! (1941) and Yo bailé con don Porfirio (1942). In 1942 he debuts as a film director with El baisano Jalil starring himself and Sara García as “Jalil and Suad Farad”, Lebanese entrepreneurs settled in Mexico. Film and theater actress Sara García would soon become Pardavé

Joaquín Rodrigo

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

Joaquín Rodrigo Vidre, 1st Marquess of the Gardens of Aranjuez (; 22 November 1901 – 6 July 1999), was a Spanish composer and a virtuoso pianist. He is best known for composing the Concierto de Aranjuez, a cornerstone of the classical guitar repertoire. Life Rodrigo was born in Sagunto, Province of Valencia. At the age of three, he lost his sight completely after contracting diphtheria. At the age of eight he began to study solfège, piano, and violin and from the age of 16 he studied harmony and composition. He wrote his compositions in Braille and they were transcribed for publication. Although distinguished by having raised the Spanish guitar to dignity as a universal concert instrument and being best known for his guitar music, he never mastered playing the instrument. Rodrigo studied music under Francisco Antich in Valencia and under Paul Dukas at the École Normale de Musique in Paris. After briefly returning to Spain, he returned to Paris to study musicology, first under Maurice Emmanuel, and then under André Pirro. His first published compositions date from 1923. From 1947, Rodrigo was a professor of music history, holding the Manuel de Falla Chair of Music in the Faculty of

Joaquín Turina

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

Joaquín Turina Pérez (9 December 188214 January 1949) was a Spanish composer of classical music. Biography Turina was born in Seville. He studied in Seville as well as in Madrid. He lived in Paris from 1905 to 1914 where he took composition lessons from Vincent d’Indy at the Schola Cantorum de Paris and studied the piano under Moritz Moszkowski. Like his countryman and friend, Manuel de Falla, while in Paris he familiarized himself with the impressionist composers Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy, whose music had a profound influence on his compositional practice. On 10 December 1908 he married Obdulia Garzón In the early months of 1929, he visited Havana, Cuba, where he gave a series of seven lectures at the Hispanic-Cuban Institute of Culture. Works :See: List of compositions by Joaquín Turina His works include the operas Margot (1914) and Jardín de Oriente (1923), the Danzas fantásticas (1919, versions for piano and orchestra), La oración del torero (written first for a lute quartet, then string quartet, then string orchestra), chamber music, piano works, guitar pieces and songs. Much of his work shows the influence of traditional Andalusian music. He also wrote a short one-move

Joby Talbot

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

Joby Talbot (born 25 August 1971) is a British composer. He has written for a wide variety of purposes, with a broad range of styles, including instrumental and vocal concert music, film and television scores, pop arrangements and works for dance. He is known, to sometimes disparate audiences, for quite different works. Prominent compositions include the a cappella choral works The Wishing Tree (2002) and Path of Miracles (2005); orchestral works Sneaker Wave (2004), Tide Harmonic (2009), Worlds, Stars, Systems, Infinity (2012) and Meniscus (2012); the theme and score for the popular BBC Two comedy series The League of Gentlemen (1999–2002); silent film scores The Lodger (1999) and The Dying Swan (2002) for the British Film Institute; film scores The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005), Son of Rambow (2007) and Penelope (2008). Works for dance include shorter works Chroma (2006), Genus (2007), Fool’s Paradise (2007), and Chamber Symphony (2012); and four full-length narrative ballet scores, commissioned by The Royal Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada and The Australian Ballet, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (2011, revived 2012 and 2013), The Winter’s Tale (2014), Like Wate

Jocelyn Morlock

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Jocelyn Morlock (14 December 1969 – 27 March 2023) was a Canadian composer and music educator based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her piece My Name is Amanda Todd won the 2018 Juno Award for Classical Composition of the Year. Early life and education Morlock was born in Saint Boniface, Manitoba on 14 December 1969. She studied piano with Robert Richardson, Sr. and completed a Bachelor of Music in piano performance at Brandon University (B.Mus. 1994), where her teachers included Gerhard Ginader (electroacoustic music) and T. Patrick Carrabré (composition). She received both a master’s degree and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of British Columbia (M.Mus. 1996, DMA 2002) where her composition teachers included Stephen Chatman, Keith Hamel, and the late Russian-Canadian composer Nikolai Korndorf. Career Morlock was composer-in-residence with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (2014-2019), after completing her term (2012-2014) as inaugural composer-in-residence for Vancouver’s Music on Main, and co-host of ISCM World New Music Days 2017. Her international career was launched at the 1999 International Society for Contemporary Music’s World Music Days with Romanian perfor

Jocelyne Binet

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Jocelyne Binet (27 September 1923 – 13 January 1968) was a Canadian composer, pianist, and music educator. She studied in Montreal and Paris, France, and returned to compose and teach music in Canada. Biography Binet was born in East Angus, near Sherbrooke, Quebec, and obtained two music degrees in Montreal before traveling to Paris, France, for studies in piano. She studied under Claude Champagne, Jean Dansereau and Jean-Marie Beaudet at the École Supérieure de Musique d’Outremont (École de musique Vincent-d’Indy). She continued her studies at the Paris Conservatory in 1948 and 1949 on a grant from the French government and again in 1949 and 1951 on another grant from the Quebec government, where her teachers were Tony Aubin, Noël Gallon and Olivier Messiaen. Binet died in Quebec City in 1968. Music career In 1946 Binet was awarded a CAPAC (Association des compositeurs, auteurs et éditeurs du Canada Ltée) prize for composition. After returning from Paris to Canada, she taught from 1951 to 1957 at the École Vincent-d’Indy, from 1952 to 1961 at the Centre d’arts Orford, and from 1957 to 1959 at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec. From 1952 to 1961, she taught at the Jeunesses mu

Jocy de Oliveira

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Jocy de Oliveira (formerly de Carvalho; born 11 April 1936) is a Brazilian pianist, multimedia artist and composer. Biography Jocy de Oliveira was born in Curitiba and grew up in São Paulo, Brazil. She studied in São Paulo with Joseph Kliass, in Paris with Marguerite Long, and in St. Louis with Robert Wykes. She received a Master of Arts from Washington University in St. Louis. De Oliveira became a concert pianist as a child, playing internationally with artists including Stravinsky and John Cage. She married conductor Eleazar de Carvalho but later divorced, and lived in St. Louis, New York City and Rio de Janeiro. She is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Music, and is the author of four books. Honors and awards *Rockefeller Foundation *New York Council on the Arts *Meet the Composer *Foundation of Art and Culture Vitae (Brazil) Works De Oliveira composes mainly electronic and multimedia works for video projects, stage and musical theater. Selected works include: *Polinterações I and II (1970) *Música no espaço, planetarium event (1982/83) *Fata Morgana (1987) *Liturgia Thurs Espaço (1988) *Inori à prostituta Sagrada (1993) *Illud Tempus (1994) *Canto e Raga (1995) *Cenas de una

Jody Diamond

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Jody Diamond (born Pasadena, California, April 23, 1953) is an American composer, performer, writer, publisher, editor, and educator. She specializes in traditional and new music for Indonesian gamelan and is active internationally as a scholar, performer, and publisher. Biography She received a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1977, and an M.A. from San Francisco State University in 1979, pursuing interdisciplinary studies in music, anthropology, and education. Diamond founded (in 1981) and directs the American Gamelan Institute and edits its journal, Balungan. She is also a co-founder and co-director, with Larry Polansky, of Frog Peak Music (a composers’ collective). She received a Fulbright Senior Scholar Regional Research Fellowship to survey contemporary music in Indonesia (1988–89), as well as two National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships for work on Indonesian composers (1991), and for work on the gamelan music of Lou Harrison (2007). She has created numerous works for gamelan, some based on songs from various traditions. Her works have been performed internationally. She is often a guest composer/performer with Gamelan Son of Lion, notably for the

Joe Cutler

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Joe Cutler (born London, 17 December 1968) is a British composer who grew up in Neasden and studied music at the Universities of Huddersfield and Durham, before receiving a Polish Government Scholarship to study at the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, Poland. He has taught composition at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire since 2000, and since 2005 he has been the Head of Composition there. In 2015 he was made Professor of Composition. He is also the co-founder of the instrumental ensemble Noszferatu. Influence During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Cutler, like many of his generation, including Americans composers Michael Gordon and David Lang, and British composer Steve Martland, was influenced by the minimalist music of Louis Andriessen. Like Andriessen, Cutler rejected the atonal inheritance of Arnold Schoenberg in favour of the more rhythmically driving music of Igor Stravinsky. In these early works, Cutler showed influences ranging from Minimalism and Andriessen to 1980s avant-garde modernism and even the rhythmic aspects of the New Complexity movement. This is seen in such works as Epitaph for Nebula (1989) and Blast! (1992), where atonality and complicated driving rhythms

Joe Hisaishi

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

, known professionally as , is a Japanese composer, musical director, conductor and pianist, known for over 100 film scores and solo albums dating back to 1981. Hisaishi’s music has been known to explore and incorporate different genres, including minimalist, experimental electronic, Western classical, and Japanese classical. He has also worked as a music engraver and arranger. He has been associated with director and animator Hayao Miyazaki since 1984, having written scores for all but one of Miyazaki’s films. He is also recognized for his music for filmmaker ‘Beat’ Takeshi Kitano, including A Scene at the Sea (1991), Sonatine (1993), Kids Return (1996), Hana-bi (1997), Kikujiro (1999), Brother (2000), and Dolls (2002), and for the video game series Ni no Kuni. He composed the score for the Oscar-winning film Departures (2008). He was a student of anime composer Takeo Watanabe. Life and career Early life Hisaishi was born in Nakano, Nagano, Japan, as . He started learning the violin at the age of four using the Suzuki method, and began watching hundreds of movies each year with his father. He attended the Kunitachi College of Music in 1969, where he majored in music composition, a

Joe Kraemer (composer)

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

Joe Kraemer (born June 21, 1971) is an American composer and conductor of film and television scores. He has worked with director Christopher McQuarrie several times – The Way of the Gun (2000), Jack Reacher (2012), and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015). Biography Kraemer was born in Buffalo, New York and raised in Albany, New York. His father and uncle were both musicians, and Kraemer began taking piano lessons at an early age. In high school he befriended an older boy named Scott Storm, who became a professional filmmaker. Kraemer’s first film score was for a Super-8 film written and directed by Storm, called Chiming Hour. Kraemer, who also acted in the film, was 15 at the time. Storm later introduced Kraemer to filmmakers Bryan Singer and Christopher McQuarrie. His credits also include the 2014 film Dawn Patrol, starring Scott Eastwood. Kraemer worked with McQuarrie and Cruise again when he scored the fifth film in the Mission: Impossible franchise, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015). Since 2015, Kraemer has been providing music and sound design to a number of audio plays released by Big Finish Productions. These include spin-offs for Doctor Who characters such a

Joe Maneri

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

Joseph Gabriel Esther Maneri (February 9, 1927 – August 24, 2009) was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer. Violinist Mat Maneri is his son. He has performed with his son, Mat, Paul Bley (at the Montreal Jazz Festival), and Ted Harris, studied with Josef Schmid, and taught saxophonist Matana Roberts and pianists John Medeski, Jack Reilly and Matthew Shipp. Boston Microtonal Society In 1988, Maneri founded the Boston Microtonal Society, dedicated to microtonal music and tuning. It is currently led by James Bergin and Julia Werntz. Discography * Kalavinka (Cochlea, 1989) * Get Ready to Receive Yourself (Leo, 1995) * Three Men Walking with Mat Maneri and Joe Morris (ECM, 1996) * Dahabenzapple (hatART, 1996) * Let the Horse Go (Leo, 1996) * In Full Cry (ECM, 1997) * Coming Down the Mountain (hatOLOGY, 1997) * Paniots Nine (Avant, 1998) * Blessed with Mat Maneri (ECM, 1998) * Tales of Rohnlief with Mat Maneri and Barre Phillips (ECM, 1999) * Tenderly (hatOLOGY, 1999) * Out Right Now with Mat Maneri and Joe Morris (hatOLOGY, 2001) * Voices Lowered (Leo, 2001) * The Trio Concerts (Leo, 2001) * Going to Church (AUM Fidelity, 2002) * Angles of Repose (ECM, 2004) * Peace C

Joe Sample

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

Joseph Leslie Sample (February 1, 1939 – September 12, 2014) in emulation of one of the leading progressive jazz bands of the day, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Sample never took a degree from the university; instead, in 1960, he and the Jazz Crusaders made the move from Houston to Los Angeles. He was a member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity. The group quickly found opportunities on the West Coast, making its first recording, Freedom Sound, in 1961 and releasing up to four albums a year over much of the 1960s. The Jazz Crusaders played at first in the dominant hard bop style of the day, standing out by virtue of their unusual front-line combination of saxophone (played by Wilton Felder) and Henderson’s trombone. Another distinctive quality was the funky, rhythmically appealing acoustic piano playing of Sample, who helped steer the group’s sound into a fusion between jazz and soul in the late 1960s. The Jazz Crusaders became a strong concert draw during those years. While Sample and his bandmates continued to work together, he and the other band members pursued individual work as well. In 1969, Sample made his first recording under his own name; Fancy Dance featured the pianist as part

Joe Slater (composer)

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

John Joseph Slater (1872- 16 May 1926) was an Australian composer of popular and light classical works. He operated a music publishing company in Leichardt and blended his product with sheet music from other sources in Haymarket, Sydney. He wrote under several alias names and is commonly known as Felix Le Roy. Slater was active in variety theatre, particularly the company of Harry Rickards His mature works include a series of favourably mentioned impressions for cornet, violin and piano trio - Bells of Peace, Spring Morning and Day Dreams. Slater’s song A Faded Leaf of Shamrock sold six editions. Slater’s more popular variety theatre pieces enjoyed larger reprints, especially One of these Days ran to a hundred and seventy five editions. Works Seventy published titles are preserved in Australian libraries. * 1916 Melody of Peace * Spring Morning * Day Dreams * 1917 One of these days * 1914 Somebody’s calling the cooee call * 1916 I’d Like to Call You Sweetheart * 1913 Your eyes are the light of my world Recordings * 2001 We’d fly the green above us, A bird with a broken wing (Heritage Singers) * 2013 Why can’t each nation be at peace?, Lonely (Wirripang) References

Joe Vannelli

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

Joe Vannelli (born 28 December 1950) is a Canadian musician, composer and record producer. He is credited on most records of his brother, Gino Vannelli, and in collaboration with youngest brother Ross Vannelli, the three have won many awards. Vannelli studied music theory in Montreal, and learned to play piano. He was influenced by artists like Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Dave Brubeck and Erroll Garner. During the seventies he developed an interest in electronic instruments; he was one of the early synthesizer players. He contributed to most of Gino’s albums as a composer, producer, arranger, programmer and engineer. Apart from his work with Gino and Ross, he has been credited by many artists like Chaka Khan, Eartha Kitt, Gary Morris, David Meece, Kudasai, Marilyn Scott, Jimmy Haslip, REO Speedwagon, Brenda Russell, Pat Thomi, Don Sebesky, Kit Chan, Bill Meyers, Gianni Bella, Glenn Jones and Tower of Power. Musical career Gino and Joe moved to Los Angeles in 1972. Desperate and broke, they waited for hours in the parking lot outside A&M Studios, hoping to get a record deal. When Herb Alpert, the co-owner of A&M Records, finally emerged, Vannelli ran towards him and gave him a demo

Joel Corelitz

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

Joel Corelitz is an American composer and sound designer. He is best known for his work on The Unfinished Swan which garnered him a BAFTA nomination for Best Music. His other works include Gorogoa, Death Stranding and Halo Infinite. Life and career Having grown up in the late 1980s, Corelitz developed an interest for sounds and electronic music at the age of five. He later attended Oberlin Conservatory of Music pursuing a Major in Technology in Music and Related Arts. Before his foray into video games, Corelitz had worked on various commercials with composition studio, Steve Ford Music. He later set up his own studio, Waveplant Studios, dedicated to creating soundscapes and music for visual mediums and installations. External links * *

Joel Engel (composer)

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Joel Engel (also Yoel or Yury; ; 28 April 1868 – 11 February 1927) was a Russian music critic, composer and one of the leading figures in the Jewish art music movement. Born in the Russian Empire, and later moving to Berlin and then to Mandatory Palestine, Engel has been called “the true founding father of the modern renaissance of Jewish music.” As a composer, teacher, and organizer, Engel inspired a generation of Jewish classical musicians to rediscover their ethnic roots and create a new style of nationalist Jewish music, modelled after the national music movements of Russia, Slovakia, Hungary and elsewhere in Europe. This style—developed by composers Alexander Krein, Lazare Saminsky, Mikhail Gnesin, Solomon Rosowsky, and others—was an important influence on the music of many twentieth-century composers, as well as on the folk music of Israel. His work in preserving the musical tradition of the shtetl—the 19th-century Jewish village of eastern Europe—made possible the revival of klezmer music today. Early life and work Engel was born Yuliy Dmitrievich Engel in Berdyansk (present-day Ukraine). Unlike most Jewish families of the period, he grew up outside of the Pale of Settlement

Joel Fausto

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Joel Ferreira Figueiredo (born 9 May 1988), better known by Joel Fausto, is a Portuguese musician, songwriter, composer and record producer. He is known as the frontman of Joel Fausto & Illusion Orchestra, formed in 2008. Also he is associated with his side acts Cajado, Gesso, Manos, Omitir and Forgotten Winter. Fausto’s music is generally characterised by a frightening emotions through obsessions, fear, death, love, paranoia and surrealistic scenarios. Fausto has also worked as a composer for some short films, Déjà Vécu(2015) directed by André Leite e Péu Barbosa from Brazil and Berlin Hustle (2016) directed by Laurent Daniels from Germany. In 2015, one associated website of the famous TV Series Twin Peaks with the name “Welcome To Twin Peaks” compiled an Audrey Horne (Twin Peaks character) inspired playlist called “Isn’t It Too Dreamy?” including Joel Fausto & Illusion Orchestra with names like Aphex Twin, Fleetwood Mac, Leonard Cohen, and others. Joel Fausto and Illusion Orchestra (2008–present) Fausto formed his ghost band calling them “Illusion Orchestra” in 2008. Before that, the band had the name of “Vácuo do Outono”. Their sound tends to change considerably from one album t

Joel Hoffman (composer)

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

Joel Hoffman (born 1953 in Vancouver) is a Canadian/American composer of contemporary classical music and pianist living in New York, New York. Hoffman’s music draws much of its richness and variety from such diverse sources as Eastern European folk musics, Chinese traditional music and American bebop, yet these sources seem to be seamlessly woven into a unique musical language that is pervaded by a sense of lyricism and rhythmic vitality. Biography Hoffman is a son of conductor Irwin Hoffman and violinist Esther Glazer. Hoffman earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Wales and a masters and doctorate from the Juilliard School. His teachers included Elliott Carter, Milton Babbitt, Vincent Persichetti, Alun Hoddinott, Arnold Whittall and Easley Blackwood. For 36 years, he was a professor of composition at the University of Cincinnati – College-Conservatory of Music and the founder/director of the Music X festival of new music (1996–2011) which was held for the first thirteen years in Cincinnati and for the last three years at the Hindemith Music Centre in Blonay, Switzerland. He was president of Chamber Music Cincinnati (2008–2011), and has directed an annual summer cour

Joel Mandelbaum

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Mayer Joel Mandelbaum (born October 12, 1932) is an American music composer and teacher, best known for his use of microtonal tuning (notably just intonation and 19 equal temperament and the 31 equal temperament). He wrote the first Ph.D. dissertation on microtonality in 1961. He is married to stained glass artist Ellen Mandelbaum, and is the nephew of Abraham Edel. Career Born in New York City, Mandelbaum received his Ph.D. from Indiana University School of Music in music theory in 1961. He also studied at the Harvard and Brandeis universities, as well as the Berkshire Music Center and the Berlin Hochschule für Musik. His composition teachers included Boris Blacher, Luigi Dallapiccola, Irving Fine, Walter Piston, and Harold Shapero. He was a teacher and chairman of the music department at Queens College, City University of New York, from 1961 to 1999. Mandelbaum became interested in microtonality after listening to a lecture by Paul Hindemith in which Hindemith inadequately debunked various alternative forms of tuning. He began a correspondence with Adriaan Fokker which led to a six-week stay in Haarlem, Netherlands, in 1963, during which he composed music using Euler’s genera und

Joel Puckett

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Joel Puckett (born in 1977 in Atlanta, Georgia) is an American composer. Joel completed his academic work at the University of Michigan, earning both a Masters of Music and a Doctorate of Musical Arts. His teachers include Michael Daugherty, William Bolcom, Bright Sheng, Will Averitt, and Thomas Albert. The September 11th tribute This Mourning—one of his most notable works—was commissioned by the Washington Chorus and is scored for 250 singers, full orchestra and a consort of 40 crystal glasses. This premiere took place at the main stage of the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. in late November 2006. Among his other notable pieces is his concerto for flute, flute choir, and wind ensemble The Shadow of Sirius, which was written to commemorate the loss of his child through miscarriage. Puckett is a Professor of Music Theory and Composition and serves as Chair of Music Theory, Ear Training and Piano Skills at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. Previously he taught at Shenandoah University and Towson University. Puckett also served a term as the composer-in-residence for the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras. His first opera, The Fix, was premiered by Minnesota Opera

Joel Thome

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Joel Thome (born in Detroit, Michigan) is the conductor and artistic director of Orchestra of Our Time. A Grammy Award recipient, Thome has been acclaimed internationally as an accomplished conductor and composer of classical and contemporary orchestral music, as well as a strikingly effective conductor of opera and other music/theater works. His conducting credits include many prominent and international orchestras. He has worked with such noted artists as pianists Vladimir Feltsman and Lorin Hollander, violinist Jaime Laredo, Metropolitan Opera singers Florence Quivar and Roberta Alexander. His modern opera performances include the Weill/Brecht Threepenny Opera with the Opera Company of Boston and the Thomson/Stein Four Saints in Three Acts at Carnegie Hall. For thirteen years, Thome led the National Symphonic Orchestra of Mexico in concerts of classical and contemporary works. He has also conducted the Israel Chamber Orchestra, Group L’Itineraire in Paris, Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Orquestra Municipal of Caracas and the Milwaukee Symphony, and has been a regular guest conductor of the Monday Evening Concert Series in Los Angeles. A composer and conductor of many disciplines, Th

Joël-François Durand

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Joël-François Durand (born 17 September 1954) is a French composer. Biography Born in Orléans, Durand studied mathematics, music education and piano in Paris, then composition with Brian Ferneyhough in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany (1981–84), and at Stony Brook University, New York, with Arel and Semegen (1984–86) . Between 1979 and 1984 he attended masterclasses by György Ligeti and Luciano Berio at the Centre Acanthes in Aix-en-Provence, and with Luigi Nono at the Freiburg Musikhochschule. In 1981–82 he was awarded a scholarship from the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) . In 1982 he received a Darmstadt Institute Scholarship for his String Trio, and in 1983 his piano piece …d’asiles déchirés… was awarded a prize at the Third International K.H. Stockhausen Composition Competition in Brescia, Italy. He left Europe in 1984 to pursue a PhD in Composition (awarded in 1988) at Stony Brook University (USA), where he studied composition with Bülent Arel and electronic music with Daria Semegen. Durand was awarded scholarships from the Fulbright Foundation (1984) and from the French Ministry of Culture (1985). He received the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis from the Darmstadt Internat

Joelle Khoury

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Joelle Khoury is a Lebanese-American pianist and composer of jazz and contemporary classical music. Background Born in Beirut, Joelle Khoury left Lebanon for the United States after the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War. She obtained a degree in Economics and Musicology at George Mason University in Virginia. Returning to Lebanon several years later, she received a master’s degree in philosophy from Saint Joseph University and a piano diploma from the Lebanese Higher Conservatory of Music. She has been invited on Extra-muros residencies in France (2002 and 2004), the Czech Republic (2006), Switzerland (2011, through Pro Helvetia) and the United States (2013) as a MacDowell Colony fellow, where she worked on her multimedia performance Palais de femmes. For almost two decades, she has composed contemporary classical music pieces and concertos for chamber and philharmonic orchestras, as well as pieces for her own jazz quintet. Her idea of composition, not restricted to specific standard styles, eras, geographical spaces or music categories stricto sensu, led her toward contemporary music within complex jazz forms and non-traditional classical music structures. Rather than “orientali

Joëlle Léandre

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Joëlle Léandre (born 12 September 1951) is a French double bassist, vocalist, and composer active in new music and free improvisation. In the field of contemporary music, she has performed with Pierre Boulez’s Ensemble InterContemporain, and worked with Merce Cunningham and György Szabados and John Cage. Both Cage and Giacinto Scelsi have composed works specifically for her. She gave a solo concert at Jazz em Agosto in 2007 (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal). At this same jazz festival, Léandre also performed in the Quartet Noir, a quartet which rarely performed live, with Marilyn Crispell, Urs Leimgruber and Fritz Hauser. She has also collaborated with musicians in the fields of jazz and improvised music, including Derek Bailey, Barre Phillips, Anthony Braxton, George E. Lewis, India Cooke, Evan Parker, Irène Schweizer, Steve Lacy, Maggie Nicols, Fred Frith, Vinny Golia, Carlos Zingaro, John Zorn, Susie Ibarra, J. D. Parran, Kevin Norton, Eric Watson, Ernst Reijseger, Akosh S. and Sylvie Courvoisier. In 1983 she became a member of the European Women Improvising Group (EWIG), Discography * 1981 Contrabassiste (QCA Redmark-Liben) * 1981–1982 Instant Replay with Lol C

Joep Beving

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Joep Beving (born 9 January 1976 in Doetinchem) is a Dutch composer and pianist. Life and work Music has been a passion of Beving’s since childhood. The son of a schoolteacher, he formed his first band at the age of 14. He later won a place at a conservatoire, but repetitive strain injury to his wrist forced him to abandon his piano studies after a year. Instead, he studied public policy and administration. He then went to work in the advertising business, where he was mainly responsible for the music of numerous commercials. He also composed soundtracks for the short films Hortum (2010) and Het cadeau (2015). In 2015 Beving released his first album - Solipsism, with modern classical atmospheric piano pieces. He himself describes his compositions as “accessible music for complex emotions”. In 2017 his second album, Prehension, appeared in a similar style to his debut album. * Prehension (2017) * Conatus (2018) * Henosis (2019) *Trilogy (2021) * Hermetism (2022) * vision of contentment (2024) * Liminal (2026) List of released singles: * For Mark (2022) * Nocturnal (2022) * Sinfonia (After Bach, BVW 248) (2021) * Antoinette (From “Mijn vader is een vliegtuig”) (2021) * Sinfonia (2021

Joey Roukens

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Joey Roukens (born 28 March 1982) is a Dutch composer of contemporary classical music. Roukens was born in Schiedam, and studied composition with Klaas de Vries at Codarts University for the Arts and psychology at Leiden University. Roukens also studied piano privately with Ton Hartsuiker. His works have been performed by, among others, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, Asko/Schönberg, the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam, Colin Currie and Lucas and Arthur Jussen. His output includes orchestral works, ensemble works, chamber music, solo instrumental works and opera and ballet music. Notable works include the double piano concerto In Unison (2017), the Fourth String Quartet What Remains (2019), the ballet Dorian (2020, rev. 2022), the Symphony No.1 ‘Kaleidoscopic (2021) and a Requiem for mixed choir, percussion and strings (2022). In his music Roukens strives to move away from modernist dogmas in search for a more direct and eclectic idiom in which present and past, tonality and atonality, classical and non-classical influences can coexist in a natural way. In doing so, he tries to be op

Johan Christian Gebauer

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Johann Christian Gebauer (6 August 1808 – 24 January 1884) was a Danish composer, organist and music theorist. Gebauer showed promise as a musician early on. He received his first formal training in music from German-born composer Friedrich Kuhlau. Later Royal Court composer Christoph Ernst Friedrich Weyse and still later composer Peter Casper Krossing taught Gebauer music, although Kuhlau remained the most influential. Music career Gebauer took on teaching music after completing his formal training. In 1842, he became editor of “Sangfuglen”, a compilation of the compositions of budding Danish composers. He was employed at the Royal Danish Academy of Music as a teacher in harmony from 1866-1883. In 1870, his collected songs were published and he received the title of professor in 1876. In 1846, he was given the job of the organist at St. Peter’s Church, Copenhagen. From 1859, he held the position of organist at Church of the Holy Ghost, Copenhagen, a job he held until his death. See also *List of Danish composers References *This article was initially translated from the Danish Wikipedia.

Johan de Meij

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Johannes Abraham “Johan” de Meij (; born November 23, 1953 in Voorburg) is a Dutch conductor, trombonist, and composer, best known for his Symphony No. 1 for wind ensemble, nicknamed The Lord of the Rings symphony. Biography Johan de Meij received his musical training at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, where he studied trombone and conducting. His Symphony No. 1 “The Lord of the Rings”, first performed in 1988, received the Sudler Composition Award in 1989, and has been recorded by ensembles including The London Symphony Orchestra, The North Netherlands Orchestra, The Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, and The Amsterdam Wind Orchestra. Before turning exclusively to composing and conducting, Johan de Meij played trombone and euphonium; he performed with major ensembles in The Netherlands. He is the principal guest conductor of the New York Wind Symphony and the Kyushu Wind Orchestra in Fukuoka, Japan; he is a regular guest conductor of the Simón Bolívar Youth Wind Orchestra in Caracas, Venezuela, part of the Venezuelan educational system El Sistema. He is founder and CEO of the publishing company Amstel Music, which he established in 1989. When not traveling, de Meij divides his ti

Johan Halvorsen

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Johan Halvorsen (15 March 1864 – 4 December 1935) was a Norwegian composer, conductor, and violinist. Life Born in Drammen, he was an accomplished violinist from a very early age and became a prominent figure in Norwegian musical life. He received his musical education in (now Oslo) and Stockholm, and was a concertmaster in Bergen before joining the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. He was a concertmaster in Aberdeen, then a professor of music in Helsinki, and finally became a student once again in Saint Petersburg, Leipzig (with Adolph Brodsky), Berlin, (with Adolf Becker), and Liège (with César Thomson). Returning to Norway in 1893, he worked as conductor of the theatre orchestra at Den Nationale Scene in Bergen and of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. He became concertmaster of the Bergen Philharmonic in 1885, and principal conductor in 1893. In 1899 he was appointed conductor of the orchestra at the newly opened National Theatre in Kristiania, a position he held for 30 years until his retirement in 1929. In early 2016, librarians at the University of Toronto announced that they had located the manuscript score of his violin concerto, performed only three times in 1909 and consider

Johan Helmich Roman

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Johan Helmich Roman (26 October 1694 – 20 November 1758) was a Swedish Baroque composer. He has been called “the father of Swedish music” or “the Swedish Handel.” He was the leader of the Swedish Royal Orchestra during the first decades of Sweden’s Age of Liberty. Life Roman was born in Stockholm into the family of Johan Roman, a member of the Swedish royal chapel. The boy probably received his first music lessons from his father. He joined the royal chapel in 1711 as violinist and oboist. Around 1715 King Charles XII of Sweden granted Roman permission to study abroad, and the young composer spent some six years in London. He almost certainly studied under Johann Christoph Pepusch, met Francesco Geminiani, Giovanni Bononcini, and, most importantly, George Frideric Handel, whose music made a lasting impression on Roman. Roman returned to Sweden in 1721. He was soon appointed deputy master of the royal chapel, and six years later he became Chief Master of the Swedish Royal Orchestra. Roman’s life during the 1720s was full of organisational activity which led to much improved standards at the chapel, and, in 1731, the first public concerts in Sweden. Roman’s only work published during

Johan Kvandal

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David Johan Kvandal (né Johansen; 8 September 1919 – 16 February 1999) was a Norwegian composer. Career He was born in Kristiania to David Monrad Johansen and Amunda Holmsen, with the family later moving to Bærum where Kvandal died. He took his studies in conducting and organ at Oslo Conservatory, and studied composition from Marx at the Hochschule für Musik, Vienna, and Boulanger in Paris. He served as a music critic for the Oslo newspapers Morgenposten and Aftenposten, and as organist of the Vålenengen Church in Oslo. Many of his works utilize folk elements. Among his compositions are from 1951, for a television drama series from 1968, from 1974, and from 1984. His opera , with libretto based on Hamsun’s novel, was staged at Den Norske Opera in 1994. He was married twice, first to Maria Teresia Unterrainer (from 1951), and from 1976 to Lilleba Lund. References

Johan Lindström (musician)

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Johan Lindström is a musician, composer, arranger and record-producer based in Stockholm, Sweden. He has worked professionally, since 1991, as a musician, playing guitar, piano and pedal steel. He has performed and collaborated with artists including Tonbruket, Rebecka Thörnqvist, Ane Brun, Elvis Costello, Patti Smith, Nils Petter Molvaer, Sly & Robbie, Loney Dear, Graveyard, Susanne Sundføer, Anna Ternheim, Freddie Wadling, Ebbot Lundberg, Edda Magnason, Christian Kjellvander, and Goran Kajfes. History Lindstrom is also a string/orchestral arranger. As a composer, he writes instrumental music for the progressive jazz group Tonbruket and Johan Lindström Septett and other recording artists, including Rebecka Törnqvist (Home Secretary album) and Ane Brun (outro of the song “Last Breath”). He also started producing albums in the late 1990s. In 1998, he joined Per “Texas” Johansson’s band as a pedal steel player, where he met bass player Dan Berglund. They formed the band Tonbruket in 2009 along with piano player Martin Hederos and drummer Andreas Weerlin. Tonbruket have released six albums . Four of these albums received a Swedish Grammy Award in the Jazz category. In 2017 he formed J

Johan Peter Emilius Hartmann

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Johan Peter Emilius Hartmann (14 May 1805 – 10 March 1900) was, together with his son-in-law Niels W. Gade, the leading Danish composer of the 19th century, a period known as the Danish Golden Age. According to Alfred Einstein, he was “the real founder of the Romantic movement in Denmark and even in all Scandinavia”. J.P.E. Hartmann was the third generation of composers in the Danish musical Hartmann family. Biography Johan Peter Emilius Hartmann was born and died in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was the son of composer August Wilhelm Hartmann (1775–1850) and Christiane Petrea Frederica Wittendorff (1778–1848), and the grandson of composer Johann Hartmann (1726-1793), who had originally emigrated to Denmark from Silesia. J.P.E. Hartmann himself was largely self taught. Complying with his father’s wishes (who wanted to protect him from the uncertainties of a musician’s life), he studied the law and worked as a civil servant from 1829 to 1870, whilst pursuing an extensive musical career. By 1824, he became organist at the Garnisons Kirke in Copenhagen, and in 1832, made a first major impression on audiences with the opera Ravnen. The opera received a long and positive review from Robert Sc

Johan Söderqvist

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Johan Söderqvist (born 11 February 1966) is a Swedish film score composer. He has twice been nominated for the European Film Award for Best Composer for his film scores. Personal life Johan Söderqvist was born in Täby, outside Stockholm in Sweden, he attended the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, studying composition and arranging. Career Söderqvist was a keyboard player in many different jazz bands and folk music groups and has toured extensively around the world before concentrating his activities on composition for film, television, radio and theatre. He wrote his first film score for Agnes Cecilia in 1991 and since then he has written numerous scores for film and television, including nine scores for films directed by the acclaimed Danish director Susanne Bier. Among those titles are the award-winning score for Brothers (2004), After the Wedding (2006) and Things We Lost in the Fire (2007), where he collaborated with Academy Award-winning composer Gustavo Santaolalla, and most recently the Best Foreign Language Oscar-winning In a Better World (2010). He composed an award-winning score for Tomas Alfredson’s film Let the Right One In (2008) and the music to the Oscar-nominated

Johan Svendsen

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Johan Severin Svendsen (30 September 184014 June 1911) was a Norwegian composer, conductor and violinist. Born in Christiania (now Oslo), Norway, he lived most of his life in Copenhagen, Denmark. Svendsen’s output includes two symphonies, a violin concerto, a cello concerto, and the Romance for violin, as well as a number of Norwegian Rhapsodies for orchestra. At one time Svendsen was an intimate friend of the German composer Richard Wagner and Icelandic composer Sveinbjörn Sveinbjörnsson. Life Svendsen’s father was a music teacher and military bandmaster, who taught him both the violin and clarinet. He began playing in orchestras at age nine when he learned violin, and began composing by age eleven. At fifteen he enlisted in the military band at Akershus Fortress, playing clarinet, flute, trombone, and percussion among other instruments. By the time he finished school, he was working as an orchestral musician, and occasionally made short concert tours as a violinist. In Lübeck, on one of his tours, he came to the attention of a wealthy merchant who made it possible for him to study from 1863 to 1867 at the Leipzig Conservatory. He began his studies with Ferdinand David, but proble

Johan Testad

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Johan Testad (born 1973) is a Swedish composer. He won Guldbagge Award for Best Original Score for his work on (2018). Life and career He studied music in Gävle, before being introduced to film score composition through , then a filmmaking student at the Dramatiska Institutet. He wrote the music for the 2007 film adaptation of Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s novel . In 2012, Testad formed the band Tibble Transsibiriska. The group’s work is inspired by Romani folk music; they released their first album in 2015. Testad has collaborated numerous times with filmmaker Peter Grönlund, including on (2018), for which Testad won Guldbagge Award for Best Original Score. For the original score of Beartown (2020), Testad nominated for a 2022 HARPA Nordic Film Composer Award. He composed the music for (2022) and the Spotify audio drama De fria. He also composed the score for the Netflix series Land of Sin, a 2026 crime drama series created by Grönlund. References Citations Sources * * * * * * * * * External links * *

Johan Wagenaar

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Johan Wagenaar (1 November 1862 – 17 June 1941) was a Dutch composer and organist. Life Born in Utrecht, out of wedlock, he was the son of Cypriaan Gerard Berger van Hengst and Johanna Wagenaar. Wagenaar’s parents were of different social strata: his father was an aristocrat, while his mother was of more humble origins. For this reason, Wagenaar’s parents were not married, and thus Wagenaar received his mother’s name as his family name. While Wagenaar resented that his parents never got married, he was by no means neglected by his father. Wagenaar evidenced a talent for music as a child. However, he did not begin to receive a formal education in music until age 13, with subsequent instruction in piano, organ, violin, theory, and composition. He was under the tutelage of the composer Richard Hol and the organist Samuel de Lange, Jr. In 1892, he studied with Brahms’ friend Heinrich von Herzogenberg in Berlin, specifically taking lessons in counterpoint. In 1888, he succeeded Richard Hol as organist of Utrecht Cathedral, and earned fame for his skills at organ performances. In Utrecht, Wagenaar became a teacher at the music school in 1896, and the school’s director in 1904. He also re

Johan Wikmanson

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Johan Wikmanson (28 December 1753 – 10 January 1800) was a Swedish organist and composer. Biography Wikmanson was born in Stockholm and, except for 18 months spent in Copenhagen studying mathematics and instrument making, lived his entire life in the Swedish capital. He was reputed to be a superb organist and for many years held the post of organist at the Storkyrkan, Stockholm’s principal church. He was also an accomplished cellist. His teachers included Abbé Georg Joseph Vogler and Joseph Martin Kraus. Nonetheless, like most Swedish musicians of this era, he was unable to earn his living solely as a practicing musician and was forced to find employment as a government accountant, working for the Royal Swedish National Lottery. He did, however, obtain some recognition during his lifetime. In 1788, he was made a member of the Swedish Royal Academy and later was put in charge of its music program. As a composer, Wikmanson is remembered for his five string quartets, all published after his early death from tuberculosis in 1800. His close friend, Gustav Silverstolpe, published what he felt were the three best at his own expense, titling them Opus 1. Later, Silverstolpe gave the rights

Johana Harris

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Johana Harris (31 December 1912 – 5 June 1995) was a Canadian pianist, composer, and music educator. She had highly successful career as a concert pianist, making numerous recordings and appearing as a soloist with almost every major American symphony orchestra. She made over 100 solo recordings, working with such labels as Columbia, RCA, Capitol, MGM and Contemporary Records. She also performed on the soundtracks of several Hollywood films and television productions. She was married to composers Roy Harris (died 1979) and Jake Heggie (married 1982). She performed widely with both men in duo piano concerts and was considered to have had a particularly profound effect on Roy Harris’s work as a composer. Life Born Beula Duffey in Ottawa, she was a child prodigy and began her career as a concert pianist at the age of 8. At that time she had already been composing for some years and performed her own works along with works from the standard piano repertoire. She soon after began studying with Bertha Laverde Worden and Harry Puddicombe at the Canadian Conservatory of Music. Harris entered the Juilliard School in 1925 where she was concurrently a student and faculty member. She was appoi

Johann Abraham Peter Schulz

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Johann Abraham Peter Schulz (31 March 1747 – 10 June 1800) was a German musician. He is best known as the composer of the melody for Matthias Claudius’s poems “Der Mond ist aufgegangen” and “Wir pflügen und wir streuen”, and the Christmas carol “Ihr Kinderlein kommet”. Life Schulz was born in Lüneburg, where he attended St. Michaelis school from 1757 to 1759 and then the Johanneum from 1759 to 1764. In 1765, he was the student in Berlin of composer Johann Kirnberger, and then taught in Berlin himself. In 1768 Kirnberger recommended Schulz for the position of music teacher and accompanist to the Polish Princess Sapieha Woiwodin von Smolensk. Schulz traveled with her for 3 years throughout Europe, where he came into contact with many new musical ideas. He served as the conductor of the French Theatre in Berlin from 1776 to 1780 and from 1780 to 1787 he was the Kapellmeister of Prince Henry in Rheinsberg. Schulz then went on to serve as Court Kapellmeister in Copenhagen from 1787 to 1795 before returning to Berlin. He died in Schwedt. Schulz wrote operas, stage music, oratorios, and cantatas, as well as piano pieces and folk songs; he also wrote articles on music theory for Johann Geo

Johann Adam (composer)

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Johann Adam (c. 1705 – 13 November 1779) was a German violist and composer of the Baroque era. Life Little is known about Johann Adam’s early years and his birth year is an estimate. In 1733, he was listed as a Jagdpfeiffer at the Royal court in Dresden. External links *

Johann Adam Hiller

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Johann Adam Hiller (25 December 1728 – 16 June 1804) was a German composer, conductor and writer on music, regarded as the creator of the Singspiel, an early form of German opera. In many of these operas he collaborated with the poet Christian Felix Weiße. Hiller was a teacher who encouraged musical education for women, his pupils including Elisabeth Mara and Corona Schröter. He was Kapellmeister of Abel Seyler’s theatrical company, and became the first Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Biography By the death of his father in 1734, Hiller was left dependent to a large extent on the charity of friends. He came from a musical family, and also learned the basics of music from a school master in his home town, Wendisch-Ossig. From 1740 to 1745, he was a student at the Gymnasium in Görlitz, where his fine soprano voice earned him free tuition. He died at the age of 75 in Leipzig in 1804. He was the father of the composer Friedrich Adam Hiller (c. 1767–1812), but he was not related to the musician Ferdinand Hiller. Operas A theme from Hiller’s opera Der Aerndtekranz (1771) was the basis for Max Reger’s orchestral Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Hiller (1907). Literary

Johann Adam Reincken

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Johann Adam Reincken (also Jan Adams, Jean Adam, Reinken, Reinkinck, Reincke, Reinicke, Reinike; baptized 10 December 1643 – 24 November 1722) was a Dutch/German organist and composer. He was one of the most important composers of the 17th century, a friend of Dieterich Buxtehude and a major influence on Johann Sebastian Bach; however, very few of his works survive to this day. Life The widespread claims about Reincken’s exceptional longevity stem from Johann Mattheson, who, writing in 1722, gave his date of birth as 27 April 1623. However, Reincken himself stated (on the title page of Hortus musicus) that his birthplace was Deventer, and no records were found there to support Mattheson’s claim. A “Jan Reinse” was baptized in Deventer on 10 December 1643; this is the date currently accepted by most scholars, although it is in many ways as problematic as that given by Mattheson. Reincken received primary music education in Deventer in 1650–1654, from Lucas van Lennick, organist of the Grote kerk (Lebuinuskerk). In 1654 he departed for Hamburg to study under Heinrich Scheidemann, a pupil of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, organist of St. Katharine’s Church (Katharinenkirche). In 1657 he r

Johann Adolf Scheibe

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Johann Adolph Scheibe (5 May 1708 – 22 April 1776) was a German-Danish composer and significant critic and theorist of music. Though much of his theoretical work survives, most of his compositions are lost, though the extant ones demonstrate a style between the Baroque and Classical periods. Life Johann Adolf Scheibe was born in Leipzig as the son of Johann Scheibe (c. 1675 – 1748), an organ builder, and started keyboard lessons at the age of six. In 1725, he began studying law and philosophy at Leipzig University, and in the course of his studies he encountered the professor of rhetoric and poetry Johann Christoph Gottsched, whose aesthetic theories deeply influenced Scheibe. Gottsched’s writings, which were primarily targeted toward the reform of German poetry and drama, greatly informed Scheibe’s formulation of his philosophy of music. Due to financial difficulties, Scheibe was unable to finish his university studies, and devoted himself instead to a largely self-taught career in music. In 1729 he applied unsuccessfully for the post of organist at St. Thomas Church, Leipzig, where Johann Sebastian Bach was the cantor. Scheibe was active in the musical scene of Leipzig until 1735

Johann Adolph Hasse

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Johann Adolph Hasse (baptised 25 March 1699 – 16 December 1783) was an 18th-century German composer, singer and teacher of music. Immensely popular in his time, Hasse was best known for his prolific operatic output, though he also composed a considerable quantity of sacred music. Married to soprano Faustina Bordoni and a friend of librettist Pietro Metastasio, whose libretti he frequently set, Hasse was a pivotal figure in the development of opera seria and 18th-century music. Early career Hasse was baptised in Bergedorf near Hamburg where his family had been church organists for three generations. His career began in singing when he joined the Hamburg Oper am Gänsemarkt in 1718 as a tenor. In 1719 he obtained a singing post at the court of Brunswick, where in 1721 his first opera, Antioco, was performed; Hasse himself sang in the production. He is thought to have left Germany during 1722. During the 1720s he lived mostly in Naples, dwelling there for six or seven years. In 1725 his serenata Antonio e Cleopatra, was performed at Naples; the principal roles were sung by Carlo Broschi, better known as Farinelli, and Vittoria Tesi. The success of this work not only earned Hasse many c

Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen

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Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen (2 December 1670, Bad Gandersheim — 12 February 1739, Halle an der Saale) was a German Lutheran theologian associated with the Pietist Halle School and a scholar and follower of August Hermann Francke. He was the second director of the Franckeschen Stiftungen, a collection of schools for orphans. Biography Freylinghausen was born on 2 December 1670. He studied theology in Jena and in 1695 was his assistant in ministry at St. Ulrich’s Church in Halle. At his death in 1739, he was priest of St. Ulrich and director of the orphanages and boarding schools. Freylinghausen’s significance lies with his administrative accomplishment for all of the districts of hymnology. He himself wrote 44 hymns and published hymnals. His Geistreiches Gesangsbuch (Spiritual Songbook), a hymnal with 1500 old and new songs was known as “Freylinghausen’s Songbook” abroad. His hymns include Durch Adams Fall und Missetat and Mein Herz, gib dich zufrieden, und bleibe ganz geschieden. Family He married Johanna Sophia Anastasia Francke, daughter of theologian August Hermann Francke. Legacy A melody from his main hymnal was combined with a modern text, when it appeared in the common

Johann André

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Johann André (28 March 1741 – 18 June 1799) was a German musician, composer and music publisher of the Classical period. He was born and died in Offenbach am Main. In 1774, as the patriarch of a Huguenot family, André founded one of the first music publishing houses to be independent of a bookshop, in Offenbach am Main. Among his closest friends in Offenbach were Goethe, at the time of his engagement to Anna Elisabeth Schönemann, and he is pictured in the seventeenth book of Goethe’s autobiography Dichtung und Wahrheit with an Offenbach am Main background in 1775. In 1777, André was appointed musical director at the German theatre in Berlin, the Deutsches Theater, without having to abandon Offenbach am Main, however. He composed some 30 operas, ballads and songs. His son, Johann Anton André (1775–1842), followed his footsteps into composing and music theory. After taking over the music publishing business from his father in 1799, Johann Anton André acquired Mozart’s musical legacy from Mozart’s widow Constanze in Vienna. She entrusted him with writing concluding measures to the overture to Don Giovanni, so that it could be performed in concert. He developed the music publishing bus

Johann Andreas Herbst

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Johann Andreas Herbst (baptized June 9, 1588 – January 24, 1666) was a German composer and music theorist of the early Baroque era. He was a contemporary of Michael Praetorius and Heinrich Schütz, and like them, assisted in importing the grand Venetian style and the other features of the early Baroque into Protestant Germany. Life He was born at Nuremberg, and most likely had his early education there. Possibly he studied with Hans Leo Hassler, one of the most prominent German composers at the turn of the century, since Hassler was teaching in Nuremberg while Herbst was a student, and there is a close stylistic relationship between the music of the two composers. Herbst became Kapellmeister at Butzbach in 1614, at Darmstadt in 1618, and at Frankfurt am Main in 1623. In 1636 he accepted a position in Nuremberg, and returned to the city of his birth; it was evidently a frustrating appointment for him, for he wrote of his time there bitterly, and in 1644 he went back to Frankfurt, where he remained for the rest of his life. His most productive time was the period in Nuremberg and the second Frankfurt employment, during which he wrote his theoretical treatises and composed the bulk of

Johann Andreas Streicher

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Johann Andreas Streicher (13 December 1761 – 25 May 1833) was a German pianist, composer and piano maker. In 1793, he married Nannette Streicher (1769–1833), another piano maker and daughter of Augsburg piano maker Johann Andreas Stein. In 1794, they moved to Vienna. From that time, Streicher worked as a piano teacher and became increasingly known for his compositions. The Streicher piano-making business provided at least one fortepiano to Beethoven in his early years, of which the composer was fond, writing that it was “too good for me … because it robs me of the freedom to produce my own tone”. Works * (S. Johann Andreas Streicher ): Schiller’s Flucht von Stuttgart und Aufenthalt in Mannheim von 1782 bis 1785. Stuttgart und Augsburg, Verlag der J ohann . G eorg . Cotta’schen Buchhandlung Inhaber: Georg von Cotta , 1836. Incomplete text of the biography without the final chapters. * (Johann)Andreas Streichers Schiller-Biographie. Hrsg. von Herbert Kraft. (Mannheim, Wien, Zürich 1974) (Forschungen zur Geschichte Mannheims und der Pfalz, hrsg. von der Gesellschaft der Freunde Mannheims und der ehemaligen Kurpfalz. Mannheimer Altertumsverein von 1859, Neue Folge, 5). First complete

Johann Anton André

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Johann Anton André (6 October 1775 – 6 April 1842) was a German composer and music publisher of the Classical period, best known for his central place in Mozart research. Life Born in Offenbach am Main, André wrote operas, symphonies, masses, and lieder, as well as an unfinished (Textbook of the Art of Composition) in two volumes. His teachers were Ferdinand Frenzel (violin) and Johann Georg Vollweiler (theory and composition). In 1799, André purchased a large volume of Mozart’s musical papers (the ) from the composer’s widow Constanze, and brought them to Offenbach. This collection contained over 270 autographs and included the operas The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute, a series of string quartets and string quintets, several piano concertos, and Eine kleine Nachtmusik. Based on these autographs, the André publishing house (founded in 1774 by André’s father Johann André (1741–99) and still owned by the family today) prepared and issued some highly respected editions of Mozart’s works, bringing many compositions into print for the first time. For this, André earned the title “father of Mozart research”. He supplied the title Zaide to Mozart’s hitherto unnamed and incomplete

Johann August Just

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__NOTOC__Johann August Just (c. 1750 in Gröningen, Holy Roman Empire – December 1791? in The Hague) was a German keyboard player, violinist and composer. He wrote a number of works for keyboard and chamber ensembles, many of a pedagogical nature, and at least two one-act operas. He was a pupil of Johann Kirnberger, and later became music master to the Princess of Orange. There is much uncertainty about his date of birth (variously given as 1750, 1758, or 1760) and date and place of death. It appears that he was born in Gröningen in Germany, but a number of reference articles have confused this with Groningen in the east of the Netherlands. Some of his works have been recorded by the German ensemble Trio 1790. Works (incomplete list) Keyboard and chamber ensemble *Opus 1: Six divertissements pour clavecin et violon *Opus 2: Six sonates pour le clavecin ou le piano-forte, avec accompagnement de violon ou flûte et violoncelle ad libitum - also referred to as Piano trios *Opus 3: Six favourite sonatinas for the harpsichord composed for the use of beginners *Opus 4: Six concertos with instrumental parts for a violon principal with accompaniments *Opus 5: Six sonatinas for the harpsichor

Johann Balthasar Christian Freißlich

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Johann Balthasar Christian Freislich (also Freißlich, Fraißlich, baptised 30 March 1687 - 17 April 1764) was a German composer and organist. Life Johann Balthasar Christian Freißlich was born in Immelborn near Bad Salzungen, the son of a clergy man. He probably received his earliest musical education at the Court of Saxe-Meiningen, where the Hofkapelle at the time was under the direction of Georg Caspar Schürmann. From 1709, Freißlich studied in Jena. In 1714, he received an appointment as court organist to the Prince of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen in Sondershausen, where he also had to teach. In 1716, he was promoted to the position of court Kapellmeister.

Johann Balthasar König

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Johann Balthasar König (baptised 28 January 1691 – buried 2 April 1758) was a German Baroque composer, especially of hymn melodies, having published a hymnal with 1,913 melodies. He was the church musician at Frankfurt’s main Protestant church, the Katharinenkirche, and the town’s Kapellmeister. He was also closely associated with Georg Philipp Telemann. Early life and career Born in Waltershausen, König was a son of Johann Jakob König. He was in Frankfurt a chorister of the municipal gymnasium. Sources * * Further reading * Peter Cahn: Kirchenmusik an St. Katharinen. In: Joachim Proescholdt (ed.): St. Katharinen zu Frankfurt am Main. Verlag Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main, 1981. External links * * “Johann Balthasar König (Composer)”, Bach Cantatas website 2006 * Johann “Balthasar König”, hymnary.org * “Harmonischer Lieder-Schatz”, reader.digitale-sammlungen.de * “Johann Balthasar König / Komponist, Musikdirektor”, Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek *

Johann Baptist Cramer

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Johann (sometimes John) Baptist Cramer (24 February 1771 – 16 April 1858) was an English pianist, composer and music publisher of German origin, born in the Holy Roman Empire. He was the son of Wilhelm Cramer, a famous London violinist and conductor, one of a numerous family who were identified with the progress of music during the 18th and 19th centuries. Biography Cramer was born in Mannheim and was brought to London as a child, where he worked for most of his musical career, Legacy Cramer was one of the most renowned piano performers of his day. He met Beethoven in Vienna, initiating a mutually rewarding relationship, while renewing his friendship with Haydn. After 1800, he was based almost exclusively in England. Following the successful example of his former teacher Clementi, he also became a successful music publisher in London. His many compositions take second place to his pianistic prowess; Beethoven considered him the finest pianist of the day from the standpoint of pure technical perfection. In 1818 Cramer was a founding member of the Regent’s Harmonic Institution, a music publishing firm established with the intent of raising funds for the Royal Philharmonic Society and

Johann Baptist Henneberg

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Johann Baptist Henneberg (5 December 1768 – 27 November 1822) was an Austrian composer, pianist, organist and Kapellmeister. Career Born in Vienna, Henneberg was Kapellmeister from 1790 to 1801 at the Theater auf der Wieden, then until 1803 at the Theater an der Wien. Later he was employed as an organist by the prince Nikolaus II, Prince Esterházy in Eisenstadt, where he also conducted opera performances. From 1814, Henneberg was choir master at the Augustinian Church, Vienna, and from 1818 to 1822 organist in the Imperial court orchestra, the Wiener Hofmusikkapelle. Henneberg played a decisive role in the rehearsal of Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute. After Mozart himself conducted the premiere on 30 September and 1 October 1791, Henneberg conducted the following performances. Henneberg also created several operas himself, which enjoyed great popularity at the time. In 1797 he composed together with Ludwig van Beethoven menuets and allemandes for a mask ball of the Pension Society for Performing Artists, which was performed on 26 November 1797 in the Großer Redoutensaal of the Vienna Hofburg. Henneberg died in 1822 in Vienna, aged 53. Work (operas) * Der Stein der Weisen, with Bened

Johann Baptist Krall

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Johann Baptist Krall (1803–4 May 1883) was an Austrian composer, conductor, music editor/arranger, and member of the board of directors of the Wiener Singverein of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. Early life He was a pupil of the organist and composer :de:Joseph Preindl (1756-1823), who succeeded Johann Albrechtsberger as Domkapellmeister at St Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna in 1809; Krall was also a pupil of Preindl’s successor Ignaz von Seyfried. An Offertory of Krall’s was sung in Vienna in 1825. Krall was a torchbearer (Fackelträger) aged c.23 in Beethoven’s funeral procession on 29 March 1826, in which his teacher von Seyfried held one of the cords attached to the pall covering Beethoven’s coffin. Concerts at the Piarist church In early 1845, Krall was the chorus director of the Music Society of the Piarist Church, Vienna (‘Piaristenkirche Musikverein’). The church (finished 1758) dedicated to Maria Treu (Faithful Maria) has a long-standing musical tradition because of its excellent acoustics: the Piarists, the oldest Catholic educational order, had commissioned Haydn’s Missa in tempore belli, first performed there in 1796. A church musical society (‘Musikverein’) was first est

Johann Baptist Neruda

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Johann Baptist Georg Neruda (, c. 1708 – c. 1780) was a Czech classical composer, violinist and cellist. Life Neruda’s dates of birth and death are only approximations (1708 according to the Grove Dictionary, other sources list 1707 or 1710 ). He was born in Rosice in Bohemia (today the Czech Republic), but it is unclear in which Rosice (either in Rosice near Chrudim or in today’s part of Pardubice) to a well-respected musical family. After spending his earlier years gaining a good reputation as a violinist and conductor in Prague and German lands, Neruda became Konzertmeister of the Dresden court orchestra. He died in Dresden around 1780. His sons Antonín and Ludvík were also members of Staatskapelle Dresden. Organist Josef Neruda was his great-grandson. Cellist Franz Xaver Neruda was his great-great-grandson. Violinists Wilma Neruda and Maria Neruda were his great-great-granddaughters. Works His compositional output includes eighteen symphonies, fourteen instrumental concertos (including a trumpet and a bassoon concerto), sonatas, sacred works and an opera Les Troqueurs. One of the composer’s most significant works is the Concerto in E-flat for Trumpet and Strings written for Joh

Johann Baptist Novak

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Johann Baptist Novak (, 1756 – January 29, 1833) was a Slovene composer. Life Novak was born in Ljubljana, at that time part of the Holy Roman Empire, 1756. He died in Ljubljana on January 29, 1833. Due to the quality of his music, the theatrical play approached opera in character. Along with some cantatas, this is one of Novak’s more prominent musical works, most of which have been lost. In 2007, Novak’s “Birthday Cantata” ( ‘Cantata for a Mother’s Birthday or Namesday’) was performed for the first time in Ljubljana. It is not known when it was written. It is preserved in the archives of the in Trieste. This cantata—written for soprano, alto, tenor, and bass accompanied by a small orchestra (flute, string quartet, and double bass) to a German text by an unknown author that celebrates maternal love—was written by Novak for the celebration of the birthday of a lady in some noble or wealthy bourgeois house. Notes References

Johann Baptist Wanhal

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Johann Baptist Wanhal (12 May 1739 – 20 August 1813) was a Czech composer of the Classical period. He was born in Nechanice, Bohemia, and died in Vienna. His music was well respected by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert. He was an accomplished instrumentalist as well; a proficient organist, he also played the violin and cello. Name Wanhal and at least one of his publishers used the spelling Waṅhal, the dot being an archaic form of the modern háček. Other attested variants include Wanhall, Vanhal and Van Hall. The modern Czech form Jan Křtitel Vaňhal was introduced in the 20th century. Biography Birth and youth in Bohemia: 1739–1760/61 Wanhal was born in Nechanice, Bohemia, into serfdom in a Czech peasant family. He received his first musical training from his family and local musicians, the organist Anton Erban being one of his most prized mentors, and excelled at violin and organ at an early age. From these humble beginnings, he was able to earn a living as a village organist and choirmaster. He was also taught German from an early age, as this was required for someone wishing to make a career in music within the Habsburg empire. Journe

Johann Bernhard Bach

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Johann Bernhard Bach (23 May 1676 – 11 June 1749) was a German composer, and second cousin of J. S. Bach. Life Johann Bernhard Bach was born in Erfurt, Electorate of Mainz, in 1676, in the house named “Zu den drei Rosen” (The Three Roses) on Junkersand Street, and was baptized on 25 November 1676 in Erfurt’s Kaufmannskirche (Merchant’s Church). He (like his younger brother Johann Christoph, born in 1685) received his early musical tuition from his father, Johann Aegidius Bach. After attending the Schola Mercatorum at Erfurt, he entered Erfurt’s major secondary school at that time, the Ratsgymnasium. As early as 1695, at the age of 18, he became the organist at the Kaufmannskirche. In 1699, he moved to Magdeburg where he was appointed organist for St Catharine’s Church. In 1703, John William III, Duke of Saxe-Eisenach called him to Eisenach to serve as harpsichordist at the ducal court. In Eisenach, he also became the organist at St George’s Church, succeeding his uncle Johann Christoph Bach. From 1708 to 1712, Johann Bernhard Bach worked together with Georg Philipp Telemann who held, first, the position of the leader of the violin section, and, from August 1709, that of a conductor

Johann Bernhard Logier

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Johann Bernhard Logier (9 February 1777 – 27 July 1846) was a German composer, teacher, inventor, and publisher resident in Ireland for much of his life. He invented the chiroplast, a device to help students learn the piano, and developed one of the first systems for attempting to teach music in groups, which faced heavy opposition at the time. Except for a three-year stay in Berlin (1822–26), he spent the remainder of his life in Dublin, where he died in 1846. Logier invented the chiroplast, a sliding frame meant as a pedagogical device to guide the hands and fingers while playing the piano, the intention being to improve and control the position of the hand and wrist. Green’s music shop in London had sold 1,600 chiroplasts by 1824. He also developed his own teaching method, later called the Logierian System of Musical Education, which he published in a series of pamphlets and instruction books beginning with The First Companion to the Royal Patent Chiroplast, or Hand-Director (1815). In this method, several pupils are taught at a time, with technical instruction done together with instruction in principles of harmony. This method of teaching multiple students simultaneously was n

Johann Carl Friedrich Rellstab

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Johann Carl Friedrich Rellstab (27 February 1759 – 19 August 1813) was a German composer, writer, music publisher, and critic who was born and died in Berlin. Rellstab was a very influential figure in Berlin’s musical life. Career He performed in student concerts 1768 to 1775 at the Joachimsthal Gymnasium in Berlin. He studied with Johann Friedrich Agricola from 1773 to 1776, and composition with Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch. Around the turn of the century Rellstab began to write criticism for the Vossische Zeitung, the oldest daily in Berlin. Rellstab’s compositions include a Te Deum, a mass, numerous cantatas, lieder, and an unperformed singspiel, Die Apotheke, among other works. His son Ludwig Rellstab was also a music critic and a poet. Rellstab’s eldest daughter, Caroline Rellstab (1793–1813), was a singer noted for her extraordinary range extending to F 6 . She sang at Breslau from 1811, and was particularly well known for her role as the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. Published works Source: * Versuch über die Vereinigung der musikalischen und oratorischen Declamation, hauptsächlich für Musiker und Componisten mit erläuternden Beyspielen (1786) * Über die

Johann Caspar Aiblinger

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Johann Caspar Aiblinger (23 February 1779 – 6 May 1867) was a German composer associated with the Cecilian Movement. Biography Aiblinger was born in Wasserburg am Inn, Bavaria. In his eleventh year, he commenced his studies at Tegernsee Abbey, where he was instructed in piano and organ-playing. Four years later, he entered the gymnasium at Munich, where he studied under Professor Schlett, his countryman. In 1800 he began his studies at the University of Landshut. Inwardly drawn to the Catholic Church, he completed his study of philosophy and began that of theology, but the secularization of many religious orders in Bavaria prevented his entrance into a cloister. He now devoted himself solely to music. Led by the then prevailing idea that without a visit to Italy no musical education is complete, he turned his footsteps southward. After a stay of eight years at Vicenza, where he fell under the influence of his countryman Johann Simon Mayr, Aiblinger (1811) went to Venice and there met Meyerbeer, who procured for him an appointment at the Conservatory. His failure to establish a school for classical music led him to Milan to assume the direction of the local ballet. On his return to

Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer

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Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer (some authorities use the spelling Johann Kaspar Ferdinand Fischer) (1656 27 August 1746) was a German Baroque composer. Johann Nikolaus Forkel ranked Fischer as one of the best composers for keyboard of his day; however, partly due to the rarity of surviving copies of his music, his music is rarely heard today. Life Fischer seems to have been of Bohemian origin, possibly born at Schönfeld, but details about his life are sketchy. Fischer was baptized and spent his youth in Schlackenwerth, north-west Bohemia. The first record of his existence is found in the mid-1690s: by 1695 he was Kapellmeister to Ludwig Wilhelm of Baden, and he may have remained with the court until his death in Rastatt. Works Much of Fischer’s music shows the influence of the French Baroque style, exemplified by Jean Baptiste Lully, and he was responsible for bringing the French influence to German music. Fischer’s harpsichord suites updated the standard Froberger model (Allemande - Courante - Sarabande - Gigue); he was also one of the first composers to apply the principles of the orchestral suite to the harpsichord, replacing the standard French ouverture with an unmeasured pre

Johann Caspar Kerll

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Johann Caspar Kerll (9 April 1627 – 13 February 1693) was a German Baroque composer and organist. He is also known as Kerl, Gherl, Giovanni Gasparo Cherll and Gaspard Kerle. Born in Adorf in the Electorate of Saxony as the son of an organist, Kerll showed outstanding musical abilities at an early age, and was taught by Giovanni Valentini, court Kapellmeister at Vienna. Kerll became one of the most acclaimed composers of his time, known both as a gifted composer and an outstanding teacher. He worked at Vienna, Munich and Brussels, and also travelled widely. His pupils included Agostino Steffani, Franz Xaver Murschhauser, and possibly Johann Pachelbel, and his influence is seen in works by Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach: Handel frequently borrowed themes and fragments of music from Kerll’s works, and Bach arranged the Sanctus movement from Kerll’s Missa superba as BWV 241, Sanctus in D major. Although Kerll was a well-known and influential composer, many of his works are currently lost. The losses are particularly striking in vocal music, with all 11 known operas and 24 offertories missing. The surviving oeuvre shows Kerll’s mastery of the Italian concerted style, employed in almos

Johann Caspar Vogler

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Johann Caspar Vogler (23 May 1696 – 3 June 1763) was a German organist and composer taught by Johann Sebastian Bach. Biography He was born in Hausen, near Arnstadt; from 1706 he studied with Johann Sebastian Bach, who was organist there between 1703 and 1707. He also taught, in Rudolstadt, by P. H. Erlebach and Nicolaus Vetter. He moved to Weimar to study further with Bach from 1710 to 1715, during which time he copied Jacques Boyvin’s two livres d’orgue. He was appointed organist at Stadtilm in 1715, leaving in May 1721 to take up Bach’s former post of organist to the Weimar court. He failed in two applications in 1729 for organ posts at the Nikolaikirche, Leipzig, and Sts Peter und Paul, Görlitz, which were filled by Bach pupils Johann Schneider and David Nicolai. The Leipzig judges remarked that he ‘played too fast and confused the congregation’; this did not deter him from boasting of his ‘swiftness of hand and feet’ in the second application. He was selected for the post of organist of the Marktkirche in Hanover in 1735, but forbidden from leaving Weimar by Duke Ernst August, the same prohibition that Duke Wilhelm Ernst had imposed years before on Bach. Nevertheless, he became

Johann Christian Bach

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Johann Christian Bach (5 September 1735 – 1 January 1782) was a German composer of the Classical era and the youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach received his early musical training from his father, and later from his half-brother, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in Berlin. After his time in Berlin he made his way to Italy to study with the famous Padre Martini in Bologna. While in Italy, J.C. Bach was appointed as an organist at the Milan Cathedral. In 1762 he became a composer to the King’s Theatre in London where he wrote a number of successful Italian operas and became known as “The English Bach”. Bach is responsible for the development of the sinfonia concertante form. He became one of the most influential figures of the classical period, influencing compositional styles of prolific composers like Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. There are two others named Johann Christian Bach in the Bach family tree, but neither was a composer. Life Johann Christian Bach was born to Johann Sebastian and Anna Magdalena Bach in 1735 in Leipzig, Germany. His father, Johann Sebastian Bach, instructed him in his early musical training. After his father’s death, he moved to Berlin to pur

Johann Christian Friedrich Hæffner

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Johann Christian Friedrich Hæffner (2 March 1759 in Oberschönau – 28 May 1833 in Uppsala) was a German-born Swedish composer. Hæffner received his first musical education with the Schmalkalden organist Johann Gottfried Vierling. He studied in Leipzig from 1776, and then worked as a music conductor in theatres in Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg from 1778 to 1780. He moved to Stockholm, Sweden in 1781 at the invitation of the German congregation there (Tyska kyrkan) to assume the position of organist, which he held until 1793. The same year (1781) he was employed at the Royal Theatre in Stockholm as well as conductor of the orchestra for the Stenborg theatres. In 1786 Hæffner was appointed assistant conductor of the Royal Orchestra (hovkapellet) and from 1795 to 1807 he held the post of hovkapellmästare (Chief conductor of the Royal Orchestra). He was also an instructor at the Royal Dramatic Training Academy. He was married twice, first to the Swedish actress and singer Elisabeth Forsselius. Since King Gustaf IV Adolf closed the Royal Opera (and its orchestra) in 1807, Hæffner moved to Uppsala, where in 1808 he was appointed Director musices of the university and simultaneously was emp

Johann Christian Jacobi (oboist)

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Johann Christian Jacobi (1719 – 1784) was a German oboist and composer of the Baroque period. Life Jacobi was born in Tilsit, Prussian Lithuania (now Sovetsk, Russia). He had his first lessons on the oboe from his father, a skilled player of the violin and oboe. After the premature death of his father, he spent a period of self-tuition before moving to Berlin where he immediately sought lessons with the royal Kammermusicus and famous oboe virtuoso Peter Glösch. In 1746, he was accepted into the Hofkapelle of Frederick the Great and, at this time, began studying composition with his colleague, the flautist Friedrich Wilhelm Riedt. By 1754, Jacobi was employed as the principal oboist in the Hofkapelle of Frederick the Great’s cousin, Charles Frederick Albert, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt in Berlin. On the recommendation of Johann Joachim Quantz, in 1768 King Frederick appointed Jacobi as the director of the Hautboistenschule in Potsdam, responsible for training the nearly 2,000 oboists in the Prussian army. Jacobi was a member of the “Freitagsakademien” (Friday academies), a musical society which met each Friday at the house of Johann Gottlieb Janitsch. For Jacobi, Janitsch was sa

Johann Christian Kittel

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Johann Christian Kittel (18 February 1732 – 17 April 1809) was a German organist, composer, and teacher. He was one of the last students of Johann Sebastian Bach. His students included , , Johann Wilhelm Hässler and Christian Heinrich Rinck. Biography Kittel was born and died in Erfurt. He first studied with Jakob Adlung. He moved to Leipzig in 1748 and was a favourite – and the last – pupil of Johann Sebastian Bach until Bach’s death two years later. He was appointed organist and teacher in Langensalza in 1751, following which he returned to Erfurt as organist of the Barfüßerkirche, in 1756, moving to the Predigerkirche in 1762. He refused many generous and more munificent offers, including one in 1790 from Duchess Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel to travel to Italy, remaining in Erfurt for the rest of his life. He played many evening recitals there and was famous as a virtuoso organist. Goethe, Herder, and Wieland all went to hear him play, and he made a concert tour to Hamburg in 1800, remaining there for a year while preparing a book of chorales for Schleswig-Holstein. Compositions He considered himself to be “grounded in the principles of Bach” and aimed “to awaken, maint

Johann Christian Schickhardt

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Johann Christian Schickhardt (or Schikardt; c. 1682c. 25 March 1762) was a German composer and woodwind player. Biography Schickhardt was born in Braunschweig, Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and received his musical education at the Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel court under the patronage of Augustus William, third son and heir of Anthony Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. In the first decade of the 18th century, he was employed in the Netherlands and associated with Friedrich of Hesse-Cassel, Henriëtte Amalia van Anhalt-Dessau (daughter of John George II, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau and widow of Henry Casimir II, Prince of Nassau-Dietz) and her son John William Friso, Prince of Orange. List of works Source: Lasocki Published works * Opus 1: Seven sonatas for alto recorder and basso continuo * Opus 2: Seven sonatas for oboe or violin and basso continuo * Opus 3: Seven sonatas for alto recorder and basso continuo * Opus 4: Six? sonatas for 2 alto recorders and basso continuo * Opus 5: Six sonatas for alto recorder, 2 oboes or violins, viola da gamba and basso continuo * Opus 6: Six sonatas for 2 alto recorders and basso continuo * Opus 7: Twelve sonatas for 2 oboes or violins an

Johann Christoph Altnickol

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Johann Christoph Altnickol, or Altnikol, (baptised 1 January 1720, buried 25 July 1759) was a German organist, bass singer, and composer. He was a student, copyist and son-in-law of Johann Sebastian Bach. Biography Altnikol was born in Berna bei Seidenberg, Oberlausitz, and first educated at the Lauban Lyceum in 1733. He was employed as a singer and assistant organist at St Maria Magdalena, Breslau, between 1740 and 1744. He began studying theology at the University of Leipzig from March 1744, after being granted four thalers as a viaticum in January of that year. From Michaelmas 1745 he sang as a bass in Johann Sebastian Bach’s choirs (asserted by Bach in May 1747 when Altnickol claimed a grant of 12 thalers in April/May 1747 for the work), something he should not have been allowed to do as a university student. He also served as a scribe for Bach, copying for example The Well-Tempered Clavier. He was recommended by W. F. Bach as the successor to his post at Dresden in April 1746, with the assertion that he had studied keyboard and composition with his father, but was not awarded the appointment. He was appointed as organist and schoolmaster at Niederwiesa, near Greiffenberg, Sile

Johann Christoph Bach

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

Johann Christoph Bach (baptised 18 December 1642 – 31 March 1703) was a German composer and organist of the Baroque period. Johann Christoph was an older cousin of Johann Sebastian Bach who would later describe him in his Genealogy (, 1735) as “the profound composer”, suggesting a solid reputation not only within the family but also in wider musical society. He is not to be confused with Johann Sebastian Bach’s son, Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach. Biography Early life and family connections Johann Christoph was born at Arnstadt, the son of Heinrich Bach and a first cousin of J.S. Bach’s father Johann Ambrosius Bach. This made Johann Christoph J.S. Bach’s first cousin once removed. Furthermore, Johann Christoph was the uncle of Maria Barbara Bach, J. S. Bach’s second cousin and first wife. Johann Nicolaus (10 October 1669 – 4 November 1753), Johann Christoph Jr. (29 August 1676 – ca.1730), Johann Friedrich (1682–1730), and Johann Michael (1685–unknown). Only Johann Christoph Jr. had sons who immigrated to America (in 1740), which has been documented in several books including, The Bach (Back) Family from Southeastern Kentucky by Dr. Mary Back Simpson. Career Johann Christoph Bach w

Johann Christoph Bach (organist at Ohrdruf)

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Johann Christoph Bach (16 June 1671 – 22 February 1721) was a musician of the Bach family. He was the eldest of the brothers of Johann Sebastian Bach who survived childhood. Life Christoph was born in Erfurt, on 16 June 1671, a few months before the family moved to Eisenach, where Johann Sebastian was born fourteen years later as the last child. In 1686, Johann Christoph was sent to Erfurt to study under Johann Pachelbel for the next three years. By the end of his apprenticeship he was organist in the St. Thomas church in that town for a short time, followed by some months at Arnstadt where several Bach relatives lived. His mother Maria Elisabeth Lämmerhirt had died earlier that year, and his father Johann Ambrosius Bach died in March the next year. Two younger brothers, Johann Jacob and Johann Sebastian, who up till then had been living with their father in Eisenach, came to live with Johann Christoph’s family in Ohrdruf. At the time, Johann Jacob was thirteen, and Johann Sebastian not even ten. Johann Christoph’s five sons were born between 1695 and 1713. Johann Christoph became his youngest brother’s keyboard teacher, or, at least, Johann Sebastian “laid the foundations of his o

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach

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

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (21 June 1732 – 26 January 1795) was a German composer and harpsichordist, the fifth son of Johann Sebastian Bach, sometimes referred to as the “Bückeburg Bach”. Born in Leipzig and the Count stood as godfather to his son Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach. J.C.F. educated his son in music as his own father had, and Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst went on to become music director to Frederick William II of Prussia. In April 1778 he and Wilhelm travelled to England to visit Johann Christian Bach. J. C. F. Bach died in 1795 in Bückeburg, aged 62. Assessment The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica says of him: “He was an industrious composer, … whose work reflects no discredit on the family name.” He was an outstanding virtuoso of the keyboard, with a reasonably wide repertory of surviving works, including twenty symphonies, the later ones influenced by Haydn and Mozart; hardly a genre of vocal music was neglected by him. A significant portion of J. C. F. Bach’s output was lost in the World War II destruction of the Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung in Berlin, where the scores had been on deposit since 1917. Musicologists Hansdieter Wohlfahrth, who catalogued his wo

Johann Christoph Kellner

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

Johann Christoph Kellner (15 August 1736 – 1803) was a German organist and composer. He was the son of Johann Peter Kellner. Life He was born in Gräfenroda, Thuringia, Germany, where he studied music with his father, moving to Gotha to study with Georg Benda in 1754, returning home in 1755. He went on to live in Amsterdam and The Hague between 1762 and 1763, eventually settling in Kassel, Hesse, Germany, in 1764, where he was appointed court organist and cantor in the Lutheran church in 1772. He died there in 1803. He wrote a treatise on music theory entitled (Principles of basso continuo), Op. 16, pt. 1 (Kassel, 1783, 1796), which was very successful. Most of his compositions are keyboard works in a similar galant style to his father’s, with homophonic textures and clear song-like melodies. His concertos for harpsichord or piano anticipate the Viennese classical concerto, and share common features with his contemporary C. P. E. Bach. Many of his works were popular in their own time, as demonstrated by their inclusion in several 18th-century collections. Compositions Concertos for piano or harpsichord Published in Frankfurt: *Op. 4: 1 concerto *Op. 5: 3 concertos *Op. 7: 3 concerto

Johann Christoph Pepusch

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Johann Christoph Pepusch (; 1667 1752), also known as John Christopher Pepusch () and Dr Pepusch, was a German-born Baroque composer who spent most of his working life in England. Early life Pepusch was born in Berlin, son of a Protestant minister. He studied music theory under Martin Klingenberg, cantor of the Marienkirche in Berlin. At the age of 14, he was appointed to the Prussian court where he gave music lessons to the future Frederick William I of Prussia. He resigned this position in 1698 after witnessing the execution of an officer without trial. He then first went to Amsterdam. In 1704, he settled in England, but continued to publish in Amsterdam until 1718. Career At first, Pepusch earned a living playing the viola, then as a theatre director, music theoretician, teacher and organist. In 1726, Pepusch founded The Academy of Vocal Music with others; in around 1730–1, it was renamed The Academy of Ancient Music. In Joseph Doane’s Musical directory for the year 1794, the founding of the academy is discussed. On page 76, Doane states: He also founded the Madrigal Society. Both were devoted to researching the history of music but specifically music of the Elizabethan period.

Johann Christoph Pez

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Johann Christoph Pez, also Petz, (9 September 1664 – 25 September 1716) was a German Baroque musician, Kapellmeister, and composer who worked in the courts of the Electorate of Bavaria and Duchy of Württemberg. Life Pez was born in Munich. From 1676, he was the tower watchman and later the choir director at the Church of Saint Peter in Munich. In 1688, he became a musician at the court of prince Maximilian Emmanuel, Elector of Bavaria who offered him the opportunity to study music under the leading Italian composer Arcangelo Corelli in Rome. In 1694, Pez joined the court of Joseph Clemens, Archbishop-Elector of Cologne at his residence in Bonn, working to improve the prince’s chapel orchestra. In 1695, he became Kapellmeister and advisor to the prince. Returning to Munich in 1701, he remained for five years at the court’s chapel for five years, before Max Emmanuel sent him to study composition and violin in Rome in the 1690s. He also taught the Wittelsbach children music. While in Munich, Pez was notice by the Duke of Württemberg, Eberhard Louis in the winter of 1705–06. This meant that when Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor dismissed the entire Bavarian Hofkapelle by Imperial fiat in

Johann Crüger

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Johann Crüger (9 April 1598 – 23 February 1662) was a German composer of well-known hymns. He was also the editor of the most widely used Lutheran hymnal of the 17th century, Praxis pietatis melica. Early life and education Crüger was born in Groß Breesen (now part of Guben) as the son of an innkeeper, Georg Crüger. He was an ethnic Sorb, baptized as Jan Krygar. He studied at the nearby Lateinschule (then located in Guben) until 1613, and that school’s teaching program included music and singing. He fell ill with plague, and almost died of that disease, losing five children and his wife in 1636. In 1637, having recovered from the disease, he got married a second time, to the 17-year-old daughter of an innkeeper, with whom he had fourteen children, most of whom died at a young age. One of his daughters married the court painter Michael Conrad Hirt, who made a portrait of Crüger in 1663. Crüger died in Berlin. References External links * * *Free scores at the Mutopia Project

Johann Daniel Mylius

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Johann Daniel Mylius (c. 15831642) was a composer for the lute, and writer on alchemy. Born at Wetter in present-day Hesse, Germany, he went on to study theology and medicine at the University of Marburg. He was the brother-in-law and pupil of Johann Hartmann (1568–1613). In 1616, while still a medical student, Mylius published Duncan Burnet’s Iatrochymicus. The , Mylius’ own alchemical work, was published two years later. He is known for the collection (1622) of pieces for the lute. In the same year his was published. Mylius was the personal physician of Moritz of Hessen and his patrons included Maurice and Frederick Henry of Nassau. Works *Opus medico-chymicum. 1618. *Antidotarium. 1620. *Philosophia reformata. 1622. *Anatomia auri. 1628. *Danielis Milii Pharmacopoeae spagyricae, sive Practicae universalis Galeno-chymicae libri duo. - Francofurti : Schönwetter, 1628. digital edition References External links *Recolored emblems from Philosophia reformata

Johann David Heinichen

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Johann David Heinichen (17 April 1683 – 16 July 1729) was a German Baroque composer and music theorist who brought the musical genius of Venice to the court of Augustus II the Strong in Dresden. After he died, Heinichen’s music attracted little attention for many years. As a music theorist, he is credited as one of the inventors of the circle of fifths. Biography Johann David Heinichen was born in 1683 in the small village of Krössuln (currently part of the town of Teuchern, in Saxony-Anhalt) near Weissenfels. His father, Michael Heinichen, had studied music at the celebrated Thomasschule Leipzig associated with the Thomaskirche, served as cantor in Pegau and was pastor of the village church in Krössuln. Johann David also attended the Thomasschule Leipzig. There he studied music with Johann Schelle and later received organ and harpsichord lessons with Johann Kuhnau. The future composer Christoph Graupner was also a student of Kuhnau at the time. Heinichen enrolled in 1702 to study law at the University of Leipzig and in 1705–1706 qualified as a lawyer (in the early 18th century law was a favored field of study for composers; Kuhnau, Graupner and Georg Philipp Telemann were also law

Johann Erasmus Kindermann

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Johann Erasmus Kindermann (29 March 1616 – 14 April 1655) was a German Baroque organist and composer. He was the most important composer of the Nuremberg school in the first half of the 17th century. Life Kindermann was born in Nuremberg and studied music from an early age; at 15 he already had a job performing at Sunday afternoon concerts at the Frauenkirche (he sang bass and played violin). His main teacher was Johann Staden. In 1634/35 the city officials granted Kindermann permission and money to travel to Italy to study new music. Nothing is known about his stay in Italy; he may have visited Venice like several other Nuremberg composers (Hans Leo Hassler, Johann Philipp Krieger). In January 1636 the city council ordered Kindermann back to take the position of second organist of the Frauenkirche. In 1640 he was employed as organist at Schwäbisch-Hall, but quit the same year to become organist of the Egidienkirche, the third most important position of its kind in Nuremberg after St. Sebald and St. Lorenz. Kindermann stayed in Nuremberg for the rest of his life, and became one of the most famous musicians of the city and its most acclaimed teacher. His pupils included Augustin Pfl

Johann Ernst Altenburg

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Johann Ernst Altenburg (15 June 1734 – 14 May 1801) was a German composer, organist and trumpeter. He is not to be confused with a similarly named composer in the 1620s who contributed to the collection Angst der Hellen und Friede der Seelen. Life Altenburg was born in Weißenfels. His father, Johann Kaspar Altenburg (1688–1761), worked from 1709 as a field trumpeter under Johann Adolf II, Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels, and from 1711 as head trumpeter for the duke’s brother, Duke Christian von Sachsen-Weissenfels at his residence, Castle Neu-Augustusburg in Weissenfels. Here, Johann Ernst Altenburg was born on 15 June 1734. By age 18 the young Altenburg had received a formal acquittal as trumpeter. He studied organ for at most two years with Johann Theodor Roemhildt and Johann Christoph Altnikol. From Merseburg and Landsberg near Halle, where he worked for a brief time as an organist, he went to Bitterfeld in 1767 and received his lifetime post as an organist. He stayed at this post until his death on 14 May 1801, although the post was hardly sufficient. Work Altenburg as a composer is most known for his six harpsichord sonatas. He achieved musicological importance through his publicatio

Johann Ernst Bach II

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Johann Ernst Bach (28 January 1722 – 1 September 1777) was a German composer of the Classical Period. He was the son of Johann Bernhard Bach. Life Johann Ernst Bach, the son of Johann Bernhard Bach, was born in Eisenach and baptized on 30 January 1722. In his early life, Bach studied at the Lateinschule in Eisenach from 1732 to 1735. On 16 January 1737 he entered the Thomasschule in Leipzig, where he then became a pupil of his uncle Johann Sebastian Bach. Being a student of J.S Bach, he assisted his uncle in copying his music. During the years of 1740 to 1741, he studied law at the Universität Eisenach. He returned to Eisenach in 1741 or 1742 and filled in for his ailing father as a choirmaster and organist. In 1748, he became his father’s official assistant, and in 1749 he was his successor. He continued to practice law as well. In 1756, he was appointed Hofkapellmeister “in view of his well known skill and musical knowledge”. Due to the fusion of the courts, he frequently travelled between Weimar, Gotha, and Eisenach; during this time, he worked with Georg Benda on the reorganization of the Hofkapelle. When it was dissolved in 1758, after the death of Duke Ernst August, he retain

Johann Ernst Eberlin

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Johann Ernst Eberlin (27 March 1702 – 19 June 1762) was a German composer and organist whose works bridge the baroque and classical eras. He was a composer of church organ and choral music. Marpurg claims he wrote as much and as rapidly as Alessandro Scarlatti and Georg Philipp Telemann, a claim also repeated by Leopold Mozart - though Eberlin did not live nearly as long as either of those two composers. Biography Eberlin’s first musical training began in 1712 at the Jesuit Gymnasium of St. Salvator in Augsburg. His teachers there were Georg Egger and Balthasar Siberer, who taught him how to play the organ. He began his university education in 1721 at the Benedictine University in Salzburg where he studied law, but from 1723 turned to music. His first breakthrough was in 1727 when he became the organist for Count Leopold von Firmian (then Archbishop of Salzburg). He reached the peak of his career when he was the organist for Archbishop Andreas Jakob von Dietrichstein. By 1749 he held the posts of Hof- und Domkapellmeister (Court and Cathedral chapel master) simultaneously, an achievement which his successors Michael Haydn, Leopold Mozart, and Mozart himself were not to match. Despi

Johann Ernst Galliard

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Johann Ernst Galliard (?1666/?1687–1747 ) was a composer from the Holy Roman Empire. Galliard was born in Celle, Holy Roman Empire to a French wig-maker. His first composition instruction began at age 15. Galliard studied composition under Jean-Baptiste Farinel, the director of music at the Court of Hanover, and Abbate Steffani. In addition to his compositional ability, he was also a capable oboe and recorder player. Galliard made a step forward in his musical career when he performed one of his original compositions. This Sonata for oboe and two bassoons debuted at one of Farinel’s concerts. Galliard earned an esteemed seat in the chamber music of George, Prince of Denmark. Later, he moved to England where he became chapel-master of Somerset House. Galliard became a familiar face in high society due to his proximity to and frequenting of the royal residence. In response to war victories, Galliard composed a Te Deum, Jubilate, and three additional anthems. Bigger and better things seemed promising following his participation in the founding of the Academy of Ancient Music. However, in the kingdom-wide competition for directorial status, Galliard could not match Handel and Bononcini

Johann Fischer (composer)

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Johann Fischer (1646–1716) was a German violinist, keyboardist and composer of the baroque era. His name is not to be confused with another composer named Johann Fischer, born in Lübeck and listed by Johannes Moller in Cimbria literata (v. I, p. 176). He is mentioned as a good clavier and violin player, who is said to have especially loved the return of the strings and, in this way, he mainly composed for the violin and also the viola, which he sought to write for in his overtures. In any case, his works are of historical interest since they are likely to betray the influence of the then French instrumental music. Biography Johann Fischer was born in Augsburg, in Swabia, as the son of town piper Jonas Fischer and Maria, née Mayr. He had music lessons with his father as well as with cantor Tobias Kriegsdorfer (1608–1686). After Capricornus’ death in 1665, Fischer worked for five years in Paris where he was a scribe for Jean-Baptiste Lully, the Kapellmeister of Louis XIV. *Vier Suiten für Blockflöte (Violin, Flute, Oboe, Viola) with Bass (Cembalo with Gamba, Cello, Lute, also Cembalo bzw. Cembalo only or Gamba, Cello and Lute) *Balletto a 4 in C minor (1690): **Sonatina **Allemanda *

Johann Franz Xaver Sterkel

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Johann Franz Xaver Sterkel (3 December 1750 in Würzburg – 12 October 1817 in Würzburg) was a German composer and pianist in the 18th and early 19th centuries. He was educated at the University of Würzburg and in 1778 he became chaplain and musician at the court in Mainz. He lived in Regensburg (from 1802 to 1810), then in Aschaffenburg, and finally retired to Würzburg in 1815. At first Sterkel was an organist in Neumünster. In 1774 he was ordained a priest. He moved to Mainz and became court chaplain, but toured Italy as a pianist from 1779 to 1782. After a visit to Italy in 1782, where he met Padre Martini, he returned to Mainz, becoming music director to the Electoral orchestra in 1793. From 1793 to 1797 he was court Kapellmeister at Mainz. When the capella was disbanded, he went to Würzburg, Regensburg and later Aschaffenburg, where he served the Grand Duke of Frankfurt. From 1810 to 1814, as a prolific and successful composer he wrote mostly instrumental music, including symphonies and concertos, chamber works with keyboard solo, piano sonatas and piano duets. Many of the sonatas have a lyricism and loose-knit structure pointing towards Franz Schubert. Among his vocal works are

Johann Friedrich Agricola

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Johann Friedrich Agricola (4 January 1720 – 2 December 1774) was a German composer, organist, singer, pedagogue, and writer on music. He sometimes wrote under the pseudonym Flavio Anicio Olibrio. Biography Agricola was born in Dobitschen, Thuringia. Leipzig While a student of law at Leipzig (1738–41) he studied music under Johann Sebastian Bach. Berlin In 1741 Agricola went to Berlin, where he studied musical composition under Johann Joachim Quantz. He was soon generally recognized as one of the most skillful organists of his time. The success of his comic opera, Il filosofo convinto in amore, performed at Potsdam in 1750, led to an appointment as court composer to Frederick the Great. In 1759, on the death of Carl Heinrich Graun, he was appointed conductor of the royal orchestra. He married the noted court operatic soprano Benedetta Emilia Molteni, despite the king’s prohibition of court employees marrying each other. Because of this trespass, the king reduced Molteni’s and Agricola’s combined salaries to a single annual salary of 1,000 Thalers (Agricola’s annual salary alone had been 1,500 Thalers). Agricola died in Berlin at age 54. Legacy Agricola wrote a number of Italian oper

Johann Friedrich Ernst Benda

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Johann Friedrich Ernst Benda (also Ernst Friedrich Johann Benda or Ernst Benda; baptized 10 October 1749 – 24 February 1785) was a German musician and composer of Czech origin. Life Johann Friedrich Ernst Benda was the eldest son of the court musician and Kapellmeister Joseph Benda. He was baptized on 10 October 1749 in Berlin. From an early age, he received instruction on piano and violin from hs father, and in 1766 at the age of 19, was employed in the royal Hofkapelle of Frederick the Great in Berlin as Kammermusikus. In 1770, together with the violist Carl Ludwig Bachmann, he founded the so-called Liebhaberkonzerte, which he directed until his death. These performances, which continued until 1797, took place in the Corsicaischen Saale opposite Monbijou Palace (today Oranienburger Straße) and were mostly subscription events with his own orchestra and choir. One notable guest soloist was Johann Friedrich Reichardt, who later married Juliane Benda (d. 1785) and then Minna Brandes (daughter of actor and poet Johann Christian Brandes). Wilhelm Otto Gottlieb Benda (1775–1832), one of three sons of Johann Friedrich Ernst Benda became Kriminalrat and mayor of Landsut, Silesia (today Ka

Johann Friedrich Fasch

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Johann Friedrich Fasch (15 April 1688 – 5 December 1758) was a German violinist and composer. Much of his music is in the Baroque-Classical transitional style known as galant. Life Fasch was born in the town of Buttelstedt, 11 km north of Weimar, the eldest child of schoolmaster Friedrich Georg Fasch and his wife Sophie Wegerig, from Leißling near Weißenfels. After his father’s death in 1700, Fasch lived with his maternal uncle, the clergyman Gottfried Wegerig in Göthewitz, and it was presumably in this way that he made the acquaintance of the Opera composer Reinhard Keiser. Fasch was a choirboy in Weissenfels and studied under Johann Kuhnau at the St. Thomas School in Leipzig. It was in Leipzig in 1708 that he founded a Collegium Musicum. In 1711 he wrote an opera to be performed at the Peter-Paul Festival in Naumburg, and a second one for the festival in 1712. In 1714, unable to procure aristocratic patronage for a journey to Italy, Fasch instead travelled to Darmstadt to study composition for three months under his former Leipzig prefect Christoph Graupner and Gottfried Grünewald. He then traveled extensively in the Holy Roman Empire, becoming a violinist in the orchestra in Bay

Johann Friedrich Naue

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Johann Friedrich Naue (November 17, 1787, in Halle (Saale) – May 19, 1858, in Halle) was a German composer, organist, and choir director and music theorist. He was a student of Ludwig van Beethoven and Daniel Gottlob Turk and Carl Friedrich Zelter. He composed both secular and spiritual music, and is known for reforming Protestant liturgical music in romantic-era Germany. Naue studied music in Berlin. Along with Felix Mendelssohn, Naue took lessons from Carl Friedrich Zelter. Zelter exposed him to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frederic Handel. In 1808, he returned to Halle to study with Daniel Gottlob Türk. In 1815 Naue became a member of the Halle Masonic Lodge “of the three swords” along with Türk and Carl Loewe. Naue went to Vienna to study briefly with Ludwig van Beethoven. On November 23, 1823 Beethoven dedicated his three-part canon “Kurz ist der Schmerz”, WoO 163, to Naue. The text “Kurz ist der Schmerz und ewig ist die Freude” (“Brief is the pain and forever is the joy”), is from The Maid of Orleans by Friedrich von Schiller, the same poet who wrote the text for Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” In 1829, Naue sold all of his books and spent all of his inheritance in

Johann Friedrich Peter

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Johann Friedrich Peter (sometimes John Frederick Peter) (May 19, 1746 – July 13, 1813) was an American composer of German origin and the one who first brought the music of Joseph Haydn to the United States. Bio Johann Friedrich Peter was born on May 19, 1746, in Heerendijk, Holland, to German parents Susannah Peter and Moravian pastor John Frederick Peter. Peter was educated in Holland and Germany before coming to America with his brother Simon in 1770. He began to compose music for the church shortly after his arrival in America, and for a time, served as an organist and violinist in the Moravian congregations of Nazareth, Bethlehem and Lititz in Pennsylvania. In 1780, he moved to Salem, North Carolina, and received his ordination as a Moravian deacon on September 16 of that year. He married Catharina Leinbach in 1786 in Salem, North Carolina and lived there until their departure in 1790. All of Peter’s known compositions are sacred concerted vocal works or anthems composed for worship services with the exception of the string quintets. His six string quintets for two violins, two violas, and a violoncello are among the earliest examples of chamber music known by a North American

Johann Friedrich Reichardt

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Johann Friedrich Reichardt (25 November 1752 – 27 June 1814) was a German composer, writer and music critic. Early life Reichardt was born in Königsberg, East Prussia, to lutenist and Stadtmusiker Johann Reichardt (1720–1780). Johann Friedrich began his musical training, in violin, keyboard, and lute, as a child. Reichard’s father was a student of Timofey Belogradsky, who in turn was a student of Sylvius Leopold Weiss. When Reichardt was ten years old, his father took the choir in which he sang, the “Wunderknaben”, on a concert tour in East Prussia. After being encouraged by Immanuel Kant, Reichardt later studied Jurisprudence and Philosophy in his hometown and in Leipzig from 1769 to 1771. In 1771, he escaped civil service by embarking on a Sturm-und-Drang tour as a virtuoso. He returned to Königsberg in 1774 and became the Kammersekretär (Chamber Secretary) in Ragnit. After Reichardt sent his opera Le feste galanti as a sample piece to Friedrich II, he was appointed to the position of the Royal Prussian Court Kapellmeister, a position previously held by Carl Heinrich Graun. Two years later, he already withdrew from the job and married the singer, pianist and Lieder composer Julia

Johann Friedrich Schubert

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Johann Friedrich Schubert (17 December 176913 October 1811) was a German composer and violinist. Schubert was born in Rudolstadt, in either 1770 or 1769, and was an apprentice to Christian Hieronimus Krause in Sondershausen. After the premiere of his opera , Schubert was appointed music director. He was the music director of various theatrical companies in Stettin, Glogau, Ballenstedt, etc. He also directed the concerts of the Cologne Merchant Society in Mülheim. Among his published compositions are a violin concerto, a concertante for oboe and bassoon, violin duets, and pianoforte pieces; Schubert also composed an opera in Stettin and published the book in 1804. He went to Mülheim as a music director and teacher, staying there until his death. References External links *Free scores by Johann Friedrich Schubert at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) *Johann Friedrich Schubert. In: Deutsche Biographie (Index-Eintrag); accessed 16 February 2024. *Johann Friedrich Schubert. Information in the Bach digital portal of the Bach-Archivs Leipzig. accessed 16 February 2024. *Johann Friedrich Schubert at weber-gesamtausgabe.de *Johann Friedrich Schubert in the Bayerischen Mu

Johann Georg Albinus

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Johann Georg Albinus (6 March 1624 – 25 May 1679) was a German Protestant pastor and hymnwriter. He studied at the University of Leipzig and served as a rector at the Naumburg Cathedral School and the pastor of St. Othmar’s Church, both in Naumburg. His hymns have been set by various composers, for instance by Johann Rosenmüller who set his hymn “Welt, ade! Ich bin dein müde” for SSATB voices (published 1652), a setting which was adopted by Johann Sebastian Bach as last movement of his cantata Wer weiß, wie nahe mir mein Ende? BWV 27 (1726). Also Bach’s cantata Der Friede sei mit dir, BWV 158 contains a stanza of this hymn, set to Rosenmüller’s hymn tune (Zahn No. 6531). References

Johann Georg Albrechtsberger

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Johann Georg Albrechtsberger (3 February 1736 – 7 March 1809) was an Austrian composer, organist, and music theorist, widely regarded as one of the leading figures in counterpoint and composition theory during the Classical period. He was a prolific composer of church music, orchestral works, and keyboard pieces, though he is best remembered for his influence as a teacher. Albrechtsberger was a mentor to several important composers, most notably Ludwig van Beethoven, whom he instructed in counterpoint and fugue. His theoretical writings and pedagogical methods had a lasting impact on 19th-century composition, and his treatises on harmony and counterpoint remain highly regarded. He was also a friend of Haydn and Mozart. In addition to his teaching contributions, Albrechtsberger held several prestigious positions, including Kapellmeister of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna. He was a composer though his works are little performed today. Biography Albrechtsberger was born at Klosterneuburg, near Vienna. He originally studied music at Melk Abbey and philosophy at a Benedictine seminary in Vienna, and became one of the most learned and skillful contrapuntists of his age. Albrechtsberger

Johann Georg Benda

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Johann Georg Benda (; 30 August 1714 – 4 December 1752) was a Czech violinist and composer. He was active in the Electorate of Saxony. Life Johann Georg Benda was born on 30 August 1714 in Benátky nad Jizerou, External links *

Johann Georg Heinrich Backofen

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Johann Georg Heinrich Backofen (6 July 1768 in Durlach – 10 July 1830? in Darmstadt) was a German clarinetist, composer, and painter. In his time, Backofen enjoyed great fame; he was not only known as a composer and virtuoso of the clarinet but also played the harp, flute, and basset horn. His year of death is not known with certainty; the year 1839 is found in some documents. Selected works * Deux valses et deux allemandes à deux et quatre mains pour le piano (2 Waltzes and 2 Allemandes for Piano 2- and 4-Hands), Op. 1 (published 1834) * Concerto in B major for clarinet and orchestra, Op. 3 (Bonn, 1809?) * 13 Variazioni sull’ aria “Ey mein lieber Augustin” for harp, Op. 4 (Hamburg, 1801) * Concertante for harp, basset horn and cello ad libitum, Op. 7 (Leipzig, 1800?) * Concertante for harp, viola and cello ad libitum, Op. 8 * Quintet in F major for basset horn and string quartet, Op. 9 * Sinfonia concertante in A major for 2 clarinets and orchestra, Op. 10 (Leipzig, 1810?) * 3 Duos concertants for 2 clarinets, Op. 13 (Leipzig, 1803) * Quintet for clarinet and string quartet, Op. 15 (Leipzig, 1805?) * Concerto in E major for clarinet and orchestra, Op. 16 (Leipzig, 1809?) * Concert

Johann Georg Hermann Voigt

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Johann Georg Hermann Voigt (14 May 1769 – 24 February 1811) was a German organist, cellist, violist and composer. Life Born in Osterwieck, Voigt was the son of Stadtmusikus’ C. C. Voigt from the town of Osterwieck in the northern Harz foreland. At the age of seven years, he went in 1776 to his maternal grandfather, the town musician J. G. Rose in Quedlinburg, who gave him private piano and violin lessons until 1780. The death of his father and grandfather forced Voigt to look for other possibilities of musical education, whereby his stepfather also supported him. In 1785 Voigt found a position as violinist at the Great Concert, the later Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, in the fair city of Leipzig. In 1788 he enrolled at the University of Leipzig. From 1789 he was also active in church music. In 1790 he accepted an offer as an organist at the Moritzburg castle in Zeitz, where as an artist in the end of the small town he did not find the hoped-for artistic satisfaction and suffered from a lack of recognition. Already after a relatively short time he quit the service at Zeitz castle organist and returned to Leipzig. Friedrich Fleischer, Leipzig 1864, . In 1801 he was accepted into the o

Johann Georg Lickl

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Johann Georg Lickl, also Ligkl, Hans-Georg Lickl, (11 April 1769 – 12 May 1843) was an Austrian composer, organist, Kapellmeister in the main church of Pécs, and piano teacher. Biography Lickl was born in Korneuburg, Lower Austria, and orphaned as a child. He studied under Witzig, who was the organist at the church of Korneuburg. He relocated to Vienna in 1785 and studied under Albrechtsberger and Joseph Haydn. He also formed a close friendship with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart whom he also took lessons from. Later in the 1780s, he became organist at the Carmelite church in Leopoldstadt. He collaborated with Emanuel Schikaneder on a number of Singspiele in the 1790s, working in the Theater auf der Wieden. He died, aged 74, in Fünfkirchen (), southern Royal Hungary, Imperial Austria. He wrote operas, one wind quintet, three string quartets, and served as a Kapellmeister at several churches. From 1807 until his death he was choirmaster at what is now Pécs. A large portion of his output is sacred music, including masses and requiems. In 1843, some of his piano- and chamber music works were published by Tobias Haslinger (Vienna), Johann Anton André (Offenbach) and (Augsburg). His sons, Karl

Johann Georg Pisendel

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Johann Georg Pisendel ( – 25 November 1755) was a German Baroque violinist and composer who, for many years, led the Court Orchestra in Dresden as concertmaster, then the finest instrumental ensemble in Europe. He was the leading violinist of his time, and composers such as Tomaso Albinoni, Georg Philipp Telemann and Antonio Vivaldi all dedicated violin compositions to him. Life Pisendel was born in Cadolzburg, a small town near Nuremberg, where his father Simon Pisendel was the cantor and organist. At the age of nine, Johann Georg became a choirboy at the court chapel of Ansbach, where the singer Francesco Antonio Pistocchi was music director, and violinist and composer Giuseppe Torelli was concert master. It is thought that Pisendel studied voice with Pistocchi and the violin with Torelli. After his voice broke, Pisendel went on to play the violin in the Court Orchestra in 1704. In 1709, he left Dresden for Leipzig to further his musical studies. On the way to Leipzig, he met Johann Sebastian Bach at Weimar. Pisendel was a member of the Collegium Musicum founded by Georg Philipp Telemann, and conducted it in 1710/11, while Melchior Hoffmann went on a concert tour. In 1711, after

Johann Georg Reutter

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Johann Adam Joseph Karl Georg Reutter, during his life known as Georg Reutter the Younger (6 April 1708 – 11 March 1772) was an Austrian composer. According to David Wyn Jones, in his prime he was “the single most influential musician in Vienna”. Early life Reutter was born and died in Vienna. His father Georg Reutter (the Elder) was also a notable composer. He was the 11th of 14 children and received his early musical training from his father, assisting him as court organist. A period of more formal instruction from Antonio Caldara ensued, leading to the composition of an oratorio in 1726 and, in 1727, his first opera for the imperial court, Archidamia. On three separate occasions during this period, Reutter applied for a position as court organist and was each time rejected by Johann Joseph Fux. At his own expense he travelled to Italy in 1730 (possibly in 1729); in February 1730 he was in Venice and in April 1730 in Rome. He returned to Vienna in autumn 1730, and early in the following year he successfully applied for a post as court composer, the formal beginning of a lifetime of service at the Habsburg court. After his father’s death he became Kapellmeister of St. Stephen’s Ca

Johann Georg Röllig

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Johann Georg Röllig (or Johann George Roellig as his autograph signature indicates)(1710–1790), brother of composer Johann Christian Roellig (b.1716), was a German composer, organist and Kapellmeister at the Court of Anhalt-Zerbst. From the age of 17, Roellig was a student at the Dresden Kreuzschule. According to his autobiography, J.G. Roellig studied composition, with court composer Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745), lessons paid for by Count von Brühl, the Saxon Prime Minister, indicating that the young composer had come to attention of one of the most important figures at the Dresden court. In 1736, he matriculated at the University of Leipzig to study theology. In 1737, Prince Johann August of Anhalt-Zerbst heard Roellig perform and appointed him Court Organist and Court Musician. On the death of court Kapellmeister, Johann Friedrich Fasch, in 1758, Roellig (along with the court Konzertmeister, Carl Hoeckh) assumed some of his duties, particularly in continuing to supply the court with cantatas. Following Hoeckh’s death in 1773, Roellig was finally appointed Kapellmeister in 1774. Works As is common with many composers of the period, little of what was once a large corpus of sacr

Johann Gottfried Arnold

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Johann Gottfried Arnold (15 February 1773 – 16 July 1806) was a German cellist and composer. Life He was the son of the schoolmaster of Niedernhall near Oehringen in Württemberg. From his earliest childhood he showed such a passion and aptitude for music that his father apprenticed him in his twelfth year to the musical director (Stadtmusikus) of the neighbouring town of Künzelsau. During this time he devoted himself chiefly to the practice of the cello, at which, under the influence of a most exacting master, he worked with such diligence as, it is said, permanently to injure his health. In 1789, his term of apprenticeship came to an end, and the following year he took his first regular engagement at Wertheim, where his uncle, Friedrich Adam Arnold, was established as musical director. He continued to study with unabated energy. After making concert tours in Switzerland and Germany, he spent some time at Regensburg in order to take advantage of the instruction of the able cellist Maximilian Willmann. Making constant improvement, he visited Berlin and Hamburg, at which latter town he had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of Bernhard Romberg, whose style and method he studie

Johann Gottfried Bernhard Bach

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Johann Gottfried Bernhard Bach (11 May 1715 – 27 May 1739) was a German musician. It is not known whether he composed, and his career as an organist is not in itself notable, but his life throws light on his famous father, Johann Sebastian Bach. Johann Gottfried was the fourth child of Johann Sebastian and Maria Barbara Bach to reach adulthood. Early life He was born in Weimar, where his father was employed until 1717, when the family moved to Köthen. His mother died in Köthen in 1720 and his father remarried the next year. Education In 1723, J.S. Bach was appointed Thomaskantor in Leipzig. He is believed to have moved to Leipzig partly because of the educational opportunities there for his sons. J.G.B. Bach attended the Thomasschule, where his father was responsible for the musical education that was an important part of the curriculum. He also studied privately with his father. Musical career In contrast to his elder brothers Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Gottfried did not get the opportunity to study at Leipzig University after finishing school. Like his father before him, he auditioned for posts as a musician. He first served as organist at the Marienkirch

Johann Gottfried Müthel

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Johann Gottfried Müthel (January 17, 1728 – July 14, 1788) was a German composer and noted keyboard virtuoso. Along with C.P.E. Bach, he represented the Sturm und Drang style of composition. As far as is known, he was the first to use the term fortepiano in a published work, in the title of his Duetto für 2 Clavier, 2 Flügel, oder 2 Fortepiano (1771), which reflects the rising popularity of the instrument at that time. Biography He was born in Mölln in the Duchy of Lauenburg, the fifth of nine children. His father was Christian Caspar, an organist and friend of Georg Philipp Telemann. He studied music with his father, and later Johann Paul Kunzen in Lübeck. When only 19 years of age, he became a court organist and harpsichordist for Duke Christian Ludwig II of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, in Schwerin. In 1750 he was given leave to become the student of Bach in Leipzig. He became Bach’s last pupil, beginning study only three months before the master’s death. In that time, he notated a number of the blind composer’s final works, including parts of the Orgelbüchlein. According to Bach’s biographer Philipp Spitta, he was present at Bach’s deathbed, and took over his duties for nine weeks. Sub

Johann Gottfried Piefke

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Johann Gottfried Piefke (9 September 1817 – 25 January 1884) was a German band leader, (Kapellmeister) and composer of military music. Life Piefke was born in Schwerin an der Warthe, Prussia (now Skwierzyna, Poland). In the 1850s, he was band leader for the 8th Infantry Regiment in Berlin. His famous marches include Preußens Gloria, Düppeler Schanzen-Marsch and the Königgrätzer Marsch – the latter composed after the Battle of Königgrätz in 1866, the decisive battle of the Austro-Prussian War). He arranged Franz Liszt’s symphonic poem – Tasso for military band and may also have similarly arranged some of Liszt’s marches. He died in Frankfurt an der Oder. Piefke also wrote: * Pochhammer Marsch * Siegesmarsch * Gitana Marsch * Margarethen Marsch * Kaiser-Wilhelm-Siegesmarsch * Der Alsenströmer, a march commemorating the Battle of Als during the Second Schleswig War. * Der Lymfjordströmer, another march commemorating the Danish War. Honors Piefke received the following medals: *Düppeler-Sturmkreuz, 1864 *Golden Medal of the Emperor of Austria-Hungary, 1865 *Royal Order of the House of Hohenzollern, 1869 *Iron Cross Second Class, 1870 *Prussian Crown Order, 1880 In popular culture * “Pi

Johann Gottfried Pratsch

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Johann Gottfried Pratsch (; ; , also called Prach; c. 1750), was a Prussian-born composer of music. He spent most of his life in Russia, and sometimes supported himself by teaching music to students at the Smolnïy Institute and at the St. Petersburg Theatre School. Life Pratsch was born in Silesia in 1750, and was Czech by ethnicity. He worked as a piano teacher in Saint Petersburg in the 1770s. He taught music at the Smolnїy Institute from 1780 to 1785. In 1784, the St. Petersburg Theatre School appointed him harpsichord teacher. He collaborated with Nikolay Lvov on a collection of Russian folk songs, which was published in 1790. The collection, called “Sobraniye Narodnїkh Russikikh Pesen s Ikh Golosami” (“Collection of Russian Folk Songs with Their Tunes”), influenced composers in Russia and throughout the world, including composers such as Alexander Glazunov, Alexander Gretchaninov, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Igor Stravinsky, Gioachino Rossini, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Carl Maria von Weber, Fernando Sor, and Ludwig van Beethoven. Works *Rondo in F major *Sonata for piano in C major, Opus no. 1 *Fandango for piano, Opus no. 2 (1795) *Cello sonata in A minor, Opus 6 Publications * 1790: A

Johann Gottfried Vierling

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Johann Gottfried Vierling (January 25, 1750 – November 22, 1813) was a German organist and composer. Life and career Vierling was born in Metzels. From 1763 he studied at the Lyzeum in Schmalkalden. In 1768 he succeeded his teacher Johann Nikolaus Tischer (1707–74) as organist in Schmalkalden. He later continued his musical studies with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Johann Philipp Kirnberger. Vierling died in Schmalkalden. Vierling composed several collections of easy organ pieces, a four-voice organ chorale book (1790) and cembalo music such as two trios, one quartet and six sonatas. Two handwritten annual volumes of Kirchenkantaten are preserved. He also published a handbook on the art of basso continuo, “Allgemein faßlicher Unterricht im Generalbaß”. Among Vierling’s students was Johann Christian Friedrich Hæffner, who became a famous musician in Sweden. Through Vierling, Hæffner was a third-generation pedagogical descendant of Johann Sebastian Bach. Works *Achtundvierzig kurze und leichte Orgelstücke *48 leichte Choralvorspiele, Leipzig *Sonata in C-major for cembalo / organ *Prelude in c-minor for organ *About 160 cantatas *Choralbuch auf vier Stimmen zum Gebrauch bey dem öffe

Johann Gottfried Walther

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Johann Gottfried Walther (18 September 1684 – 23 March 1748) was a German music theorist, organist, composer, and lexicographer of the Baroque era. Life and work Walther was born at Erfurt, Electorate of Mainz and cousin of Johann Sebastian Bach. Walther was most well known as the compiler of the Musicalisches Lexicon (Leipzig, 1732), an enormous dictionary of music and musicians. Not only was it the first dictionary of musical terms written in the German language, it was the first to contain both terms and biographical information about composers and performers up to the early 18th century. In all, the Musicalisches Lexicon defines more than 3,000 musical terms; Walther evidently drew on more than 250 separate sources in compiling it, including theoretical treatises of the early Baroque and Renaissance. The single most important source for the work was the writings of Johann Mattheson, who is referenced more than 200 times. Some further information on Walther can be found in the book Musica Poetica by Dietrich Bartel. On page 22, Bartel quotes Walther’s definition of musica poetica, or musical rhetoric, as: :“Musica Poetica or musical composition is a mathematical science through

Johann Gotthilf Ziegler

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Johann Gotthilf Ziegler (25 March 1688 in Leubnitz, Electorate of Saxony – 15 September 1747 in Halle an der Saale) was a German baroque composer and organist. He is a descendant of a musical family, not unlike that of J.S. Bach, though on a somewhat smaller scale, and belongs, together with Gottfried Kirchhoff and Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow to the group of composers of the so-called Hallischen Spätbarock. His father was the schoolhead and organist Daniel Ziegler (born 1630), son of the Saxon schoolteacher Johann Ziegler. Life Ziegler had already caused a stir as a child prodigy at the Dresdener court of August the Strong, as his contemporary Johann Gottfried Walther, a distant cousin of Bach, wrote in his Musicalischem Lexicon that he could sing at the age four, play the keyboard a couple of years later, and as a 10-year-old play the organ at religious services. Gotthilf became a pupil of Christian Petzold, organist of the Sophienkirche. He also studied three years in the Collegium musicum des Paedagogium regium of August Francke, in Halle, where he also studied law and theology for 3 years. In 1710 he became a pupil of Friedrich Zachow (who was also the teacher of Johann Philipp Kr

Johann Gottlieb Goldberg

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Johann Gottlieb Goldberg (; baptized 14 March 1727 – 13 April 1756) was a German virtuoso harpsichordist, organist, and composer of the late Baroque and early Classical period. He is best known for lending his name, as the probable original performer, to the renowned Goldberg Variations of J. S. Bach. Life Goldberg was born in Danzig (Gdańsk), (Crown of Poland), and was baptized there on 14 March 1727 at St. Mary’s Church, Gdańsk. Little is known for certain about his childhood, other than that he was an exceptionally talented performer, attracting the attention of Hermann Karl von Keyserling, the Russian ambassador to Saxony, around 1737. Goldberg was reported to have studied with both J. S. Bach and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Bach’s eldest son, though the periods of study are not known; Goldberg may have studied with J. S. Bach as early as 1737, shortly after Keyserling recognized his talent in Danzig, and Goldberg may have studied with W. F. Bach at any time before 1745, since W. F. Bach was in Dresden throughout Keyserling’s tenure there as ambassador. The most famous part of Goldberg’s life is the portion, probably in 1741, recounted by J. S. Bach’s biographer Johann Nikolaus Fo

Johann Gottlieb Graun

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Johann Gottlieb Graun (1702/1703 – 27 October 1771) was a German Baroque/Classical era composer and violinist, born in Wahrenbrück. His brother Carl Heinrich was a singer and also a composer, and is the better known of the two. Johann Gottlieb studied with J.G. Pisendel in Dresden and Giuseppe Tartini in Padua. Appointed Konzertmeister in Merseburg in 1726, he taught the violin to J.S. Bach’s son Wilhelm Friedemann. He joined the court of the Prussian crown prince (the future Frederick the Great) in 1732. Graun was later made Konzertmeister of the Berlin Opera in 1740. He composed over 50 songs and compositions. Graun’s compositions were highly respected, and continued to be performed after his death: “The concert-master, John Gottlib Graun, brother to the opera-composer, his admirers say, ‘was one of the greatest performers on the violin of his time, and most assuredly, a composer of the first rank’,” wrote Charles Burney. He was primarily known for his instrumental works, though he also wrote vocal music and operas. He wrote a large number of violin concertos, trio sonatas, and solo sonatas for violin with cembalo, as well as two string quartets — among the earliest attempts in t

Johann Gottlieb Janitsch

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Johann Gottlieb Janitsch (19 June 1708 – c. 1763) There are also many other manuscripts in libraries across Europe. Works Vocal * Cantata “Che debbo rimirar” for soprano, strings and basso continuo * Beati Omnes performed at the coronation of Adolf Frederick, King of Sweden, 1751 * Several Lieder for voice and keyboard * Serenata, performed in Frankfurt an der Oder by the students of the University, 14. November 1729 when his Royal Majesty, Frederick William I of Prussia visited Mass. (Lost) External links *

Johann Gottlieb Naumann

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Johann Gottlieb Naumann (17 April 1741 – 23 October 1801) was a German composer, conductor, and Kapellmeister. Life Johann Gottlieb Naumann was born in Blasewitz, Dresden and received his musical training from the teachers at his town school, where he was instructed in piano and organ. Later, he studied at the Kreuzschule in Dresden and was a member of the Dresdner Kreuzchor. In Dresden he was taught by the organist and cantor of the Kreuzschule, Gottfried August Homilius, a student of Bach. In May 1757, he traveled to Italy with the Swedish violinist Anders Wesström. The composer Giuseppe Tartini encountered Naumann in 1762 and took an interest in his work. Later that year, he made his debut as an opera composer in Venice with Il tesoro insidiato. Following his successful 1764 production of Li creduti spiriti, he was engaged as the second church composer at the Dresden court, on the composer Johann Adolf Hasse’s recommendation. The chord sequence which became known as the Dresden amen was composed by Naumann for use in the Court Church in Dresden. Such was its popularity that it spread to other churches in Saxony, both Catholic and Lutheran. It was also used by later composers, in

Johann Hartmann

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Johann Ernst Hartmann (24 December 1726 – 21 October 1793) was a Danish classical composer and violinist. He is remembered in particular for his two operas on texts by Johannes Ewald in which he helped creating a national musical style. The first of these, Balders død, builds on the old Nordic mythology and uses dark colours when depicting the old Gods and Valkyries. The second, Fiskerne, describes contemporary fishermen’s lives, and uses melodies inspired by the Scandinavian folk style. Most of the works of Hartmann were destroyed in the fire of Christiansborg Castle shortly after his death. Hartmann was the ancestor of a long line of musicians and composers and other cultural personalities in Denmark. Life Johann Hartmann was born in Groß-Glogau in Silesia on Christmas Eve 1726. In 1754 he started as violinist in the orchestra of the Archbishop of Breslau, Count Schaffgotsch; later he became concertmaster in the small town of Rudolstadt, and then in Plön under Duke Frederick Charles. When the Duke died in 1761, his Duchy became Danish, the Plön Chapel was dissolved and Hartmann together with some of the other orchestra musicians went to Copenhagen. In Copenhagen he was immediatel

Johann Heinrich Buttstett

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Johann Heinrich Buttstett (also Buttstedt, Buttstädt) (25 April 1666 – December 1, 1727) was a German Baroque organist and composer. Although he was Johann Pachelbel’s most important pupil and one of the last major exponents of the south German organ tradition, Buttstett is best remembered for a dispute with Johann Mattheson. Life Buttstett was born in Bindersleben (now part of Erfurt) into the family of Johann Henricus Buttstett, a well-educated local pastor who had studied at the University of Erfurt. He began studying music at an early age, becoming a pupil of Johann Pachelbel, then organist of Erfurt’s Predigerkirche, in 1678. His professional career began in 1684 at the Reglerkirche and continued at the Kaufmannskirche, where he was working in 1687. In both cases, he was not only the church organist but also teaching in church schools. In 1691, Buttstett succeeded Nicolaus Vetter at the Predigerkirche (Pachelbel quit in 1690 and Vetter, who succeeded him, moved to Rudolstadt in 1691); he remained there until his death 36 years later. Buttstett married Martha Lämmerhirt (a distant cousin of Johann Sebastian Bach’s mother) in 1687 and had ten children with her. In 1716, Buttstet

Johann Heinrich Schmelzer

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Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (c. 1620–1623between 29 February and 20 March 1680) was an Austrian composer and violinist of the middle Baroque era. Almost nothing is known about his early years, but he seems to have arrived in Vienna during the 1630s, and remained composer and musician at the Habsburg court for the rest of his life. He enjoyed a close relationship with Emperor Leopold I, was ennobled by him, and rose to the rank of Kapellmeister in 1679. He died during a plague epidemic only months after getting the position. Schmelzer was one of the most important violinists of the period, and an important influence on later German and Austrian composers for violin. He made substantial contributions to the development of violin technique and promoted the use and development of sonata and suite forms in Austria and South Germany. He was the leading Austrian composer of his generation, and an influence on Heinrich Ignaz Biber. Biography Schmelzer was born in Scheibbs, Lower Austria. Nothing is known about his early years, and most of the surviving information about his background was recounted by the composer himself in his petition for ennoblement of 1673. He described his father as a

Johann Heinrich Walch

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Johann Heinrich Walch (1776–1855), was a German conductor, chamber musician and choral master at the court of the Dukes of Saxe-Coburg. Life Walch acted in various capacities for Augustus, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, and after his death for Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the father of Queen Victoria’s husband Albert, Prince Consort. Works Walch composed many well-known marches, some of which have long been wrongly attributed to Beethoven and the Prince Consort, Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Many marches supposedly written by Prince Albert for cavalry regiments are actually by Walch, including the regimental quick march of the Somerset Light Infantry. References Sources * Werner Probst, “Johann Heinrich Walch komponierte den bekannten Trauermarsch von Beethoven” in Mitteilungsblatt des Arbeitskreises Militärmusik (German Society for Military Studies, 21st Year, No. 2, June 1998), pp. 98–105 External links * Beethoven Funeral March No 1 played during * Beethoven Funeral March No 1 played during * Beethoven Funeral March No 1 played during

Johann Hermann Schein

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Johann Hermann Schein (20 January 1586 – 19 November 1630) was a German composer of the early Baroque era. He was Thomaskantor in Leipzig from 1615 to 1630. He was one of the first to import the early Italian stylistic innovations into German music, and was one of the most polished composers of the period. Biography Schein was born in Grünhain. On the death of his father, Schein moved to Dresden where he joined the choir of the Elector of Saxony as a boy soprano. In addition to singing in the choir, he received a thorough musical training with Rogier Michael, the Kapellmeister, who recognized his extraordinary talent. From 1603 to 1607 he studied at Pforta, and from 1608 to 1612 attended the University of Leipzig, where he studied law in addition to liberal arts. Upon graduating, he was employed briefly by Gottfried von Wolffersdorff as the house music director and tutor to his children; later he became Kapellmeister at Weimar, and shortly thereafter became Thomaskantor, music director in Leipzig, especially cantor at the Thomasschule zu Leipzig and conducting the Thomanerchor, a post which he held for the rest of his life. Unlike his friend Heinrich Schütz, he was afflicted with p

Johann Hugo von Wilderer

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Johann Hugo von Wilderer (1670 or 1671 – buried 7 June 1724) was a German Baroque composer. He was born in Bavaria and died in Mannheim, where in his later years he served as the Kapellmeister of the court orchestra. His compositions include eleven operas, two oratorios, cantatas, and sacred works. Life and work Wilderer was born in Bavaria. He studied with Giovanni Legrenzi in Venice. Probably in 1687 he was employed at the Palatine court in Düsseldorf as an organist. A document dated 1 October 1692 indicates that he was organist at the church St. Andreas, the court church at the time. He held the office until 1697. On the occasion of his first opera Giocasta, first performed for the opening of the opera house at the Mühlenstraße in 1696, Georg Andreas Kraft (1660-1726), a friend of Wilderer, wrote the ballet music for several of his operas, including his 1696 Giocasta. A high point in Wilderer’s career was the coronation of emperor Charles VI at Frankfurt am Main in 1711, where he conducted the entire orchestra of 53 members. At a time when European music was dominated by French and Italian artists, Wilderer gained a reputation as a German musician. His works include eleven opera

Johann Jakob Froberger

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Johann Jakob Froberger (baptized 19 May 1616 – 7 May 1667) was a German Baroque composer, keyboard virtuoso, and organist. Among the most famous composers of the era, he was influential in developing the musical form of the suite of dances in his keyboard works. His harpsichord pieces are highly idiomatic and programmatic. Only two of Froberger’s many compositions were published during his lifetime. Froberger forbade publication of his manuscripts, restricting access to his noble patrons and friends, particularly the Württembergs and Habsburgs who had the power to enforce these restrictions. After his death the manuscripts went to his patroness Sibylla, Duchess of Württemberg (1620–1707) and the music library of the Württemberg family estate. Life 1616–1634: Early years in Stuttgart Johann Jakob Froberger was baptized on 19 May 1616 in Stuttgart. The exact date of his birth is unknown. His family came from Halle, where his grandfather Simon lived and his father Basilius (1575–1637) was born. In 1599 Basilius moved to Stuttgart and became a tenor in the Württemberg court chapel. At some point before 1605 he married Anna Schmid (1577–1637), who came from a Schwabian family living in

Johann Jeremias du Grain

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Johann Jeremias du Grain, also Dugrain, Legrain or Dügren (c. 1700 – 14 January 1756) was a German composer of the Baroque period. Life Johann Jeremias du Grain was born in Gdańsk sometime around 1700, probably a descendant of French Huguenots. He studied music in Hamburg with Georg Philipp Telemann, and was named as a vocal soloist in Telemann’s large cantata performance on the occasion of the 200-year anniversary celebration of the Augsburg Confession. After graduation, he moved to Elbląg where he married a citizen of that city in 1731, and also worked from 1732. It has been suggested that du Grain met George Frideric Handel, who in 1737 contributed several choruses and arias to a cantata celebrating Elbląg’s 500th anniversary, although there is no evidence that Handel actually visited the city. External links *Deutsche Biographie *

Johann Joachim Quantz

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Johann Joachim Quantz (; 30 January 1697 – 12 July 1773) was a German composer, flautist and flute maker of the late Baroque period. Much of his professional career was spent in the court of Frederick the Great, where he served as the king’s flute teacher. Quantz composed hundreds of flute sonatas and concertos, and wrote On Playing the Flute, an influential treatise on flute performance. His works were known and appreciated by Bach, Haydn and Mozart. Biography 1697–1723: Early life Quantz was born as Hanß Jochim Quantz in Oberscheden, near Göttingen, Lower Saxony, in the Electorate of Hanover. His father, Andreas Quantz, was a blacksmith who died when Hans was not yet 11; on his deathbed, he declared that his son should follow in his footsteps. Quantz states in his autobiography that he had been trained as a blacksmith from the age of nine. As a result of his father’s death he was given the opportunity to choose his own career path and from 1708 to 1713 he began his musical studies with his uncle Justus Quantz, a town musician in Merseburg; he also studied for a time with a cousin’s husband, the organist Johann Friedrich Kiesewetter. From 1714, Quantz studied composition extensive

Jóhann Jóhannsson

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Jóhann Gunnar Jóhannsson (; 19 September 1969 – 9 February 2018) was an Icelandic composer who wrote music for a wide array of media including theatre, dance, television, and film. His work is stylised by its blending of traditional orchestration with contemporary electronic elements. Jóhann released solo albums from 2002 onward. In 2016, he signed with Deutsche Grammophon, through which he released his last solo album, Orphée. Some of his works in film include the original scores for Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, Sicario, and Arrival, and James Marsh’s The Theory of Everything. Jóhannsson was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score for both The Theory of Everything and Sicario, and won a Golden Globe for Best Original Score for the former. He earned a second Golden Globe nomination for Arrival. He was a music and sound consultant on Mother!, directed by Darren Aronofsky in 2017. His scores for Mary Magdalene and Mandy were released posthumously. His only directorial work, Last and First Men, premiered at the Manchester International Festival in 2017, where he also performed the score live with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Early life and career Jóhann was born on

Johann Joseph Abert

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Johann Joseph Abert (20 September 1832 – 1 April 1915 in Stuttgart) was a German composer. An ethnic German from the Sudetenland, he is also known in Czech as Jan Josef Abert. Life and career Abert was born in Kochowitz near Gastorf, Bohemia, now Kochovice, Hoštka, Czech Republic. He studied double bass at the Prague Conservatory with Josef Hrabě and also received lessons in theory from Johann Friedrich Kittl and August Wilhelm Ambros. In 1853, Peter Josef von Lindpaintner selected him as a double bassist for the Court Orchestra at Stuttgart, the royal capital of Württemberg. He became the Court Kapellmeister in 1867 and remained in this office, previously occupied by Lindpainter, Friedrich Wilhelm Kücken, and Karl Anton Eckerts, until 1888. Abert composed chamber music and lieder, as well as several successful operas. Of his seven symphonies, the Frühlingssinfonie (Spring Symphony, No. 7) in C, the program symphony Columbus (No. 4), and the Symphony in C minor (No. 2) are generally considered to be the best. The Württembergische Landesbibliothek in Stuttgart and the Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach currently share responsibility for the preservation of his manuscripts and other p

Johann Joseph Fux

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Johann Joseph Fux (; c. 1660 – 13 February 1741) was an Austrian composer, music theorist and pedagogue of the late Baroque era. His most enduring work is not a musical composition but his treatise on counterpoint, Gradus ad Parnassum, which has become the single most influential book on the Palestrinian style of Renaissance polyphony. Life Fux’s exact date of birth is unknown. He was born to a peasant family in Hirtenfeld, Styria, Austria. Relatively little is known about his early life, but likely he went to nearby Graz for music lessons. In 1680 he was accepted at the Jesuit Ferdinandeum University there, where his musical talent became apparent. Fux traveled again to Italy, studying in Rome in 1700; it may have been here that he acquired the veneration for Palestrina which was so consequential for music pedagogy. Fux became the Hofkapellmeister (head musician of the Wiener Hofmusikkapelle) in 1715, along with Antonio Caldara as his vice-Kapellmeister, and F.B. Conti as the court composer. Fux served Leopold I until the latter’s death, and two more Habsburg emperors after that: Joseph I, and Charles VI, both of whom continued to employ him in high positions in the court. Fux was

Johann Justus Kahle

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Johann Justus Kahle (11 February 1668 in Helmstedt – c. 1731 in Clausthal-Zellerfeld) was a German organist and composer. Life He was born, son of the baker Bathold Kahle, on 11 February 1668, and christened on 12 April 1668 in the church . Nothing is known of his childhood; and his name cannot be found in the records of the Academia Julia. He was first organist at St. Stephani, then he moved to be organist at Zellerfeld. He is known today only through the discovery in the library in Ostrau of Hans-Hasso von Veltheim of his church consecration cantatas which he composed on behalf of Otto Ludwig von Veltheim (1672 - 1714) around 1704. Works Four Psalm Cantatas for soprano and instruments for dedication of in Ostrau: * Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen, Herr Zebaoth (Psalm 84), cantata for soprano, 2 oboes, 2 violins and basso continuo * Wie der Hirsch schreyet nach frischem Wasser (Psalm 42), cantata for soprano, 2 violins and basso continuo * Ich hebe meine Augen auf zu den Bergen (Psalm 121), cantata for soprano, solo violin and basso continuo * Jauchzet dem Herrn, alle Welt (Psalm 100), cantata for soprano, 2 oboes, 2 violins and basso continuo Recordings * Psalm 84 “Wie lieblich

Johann Karl Ordonez

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Johann Karl Rochus Ordonez (19 April 1734 – 6 September 1786), also known as Carlo d’Ordonez, was one of a number of composers working in Vienna during the second half of the eighteenth century. Ordonez was not a full-time professional musician. Most of his working life was spent in the employment of the Lower Austrian Regional Court and his musical activities were pursued in his spare time. Nothing has come to light concerning his general education. Of his musical training we also know nothing although from his contemporary reputation as a violinist it can be inferred that he received lessons from an early age. Ordonez’s professional activities included membership of two prestigious performing bodies: the k.k. Hof- und Kammermusik (where he was employed as a Kammermusikus) and the Tonkünstler-Societät in which he was active both as a violinist and as a composer. Ordonez was an early member of the Tonkuenstler-Societaet, an organization devoted to raising money through public concerts for the widows and orphans of musicians, and maintained a close association from 1771, the year of its foundation, until 1784. Ordonez also performed regularly in the houses of the nobility. Dr Charle

Johann Kaspar Mertz

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Joseph Kaspar Mertz (17 August 1806 – 14 October 1856) was an Austrian guitarist and composer. Biography Caspar Joseph Mertz (baptised Casparus Josephus Mertz) was born in Pressburg (now Bratislava, Slovakia), then the capital of the Kingdom of Hungary and part of the Austrian Empire. He never used his full name when performing or on his publications, preferring only the initials “J. K.”. The name “Johann Kaspar” first appeared in the German guitar journal “Der Guitarrefreund” in 1901 and since that time has been incorrectly repeated. In 1900 J. M. Miller used the name “Joseph K. Mertz” for his publication of three previously unpublished manuscripts of Mertz in Three Compositions For Guitar. He was active in Vienna (c. 1840 – 1856), which had been home to various prominent figures of the guitar, including Anton Diabelli, Mauro Giuliani, Wenceslaus Matiegka and Simon Molitor. As virtuoso, he established a solid reputation as a performer. He toured Moravia, Poland, and Russia, and gave performances in Berlin and Dresden. In 1846 Mertz nearly died of an overdose of strychnine that had been prescribed to him as a treatment for neuralgia. Over the following year he was nursed back to he

Johann Kirnberger

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Johann Philipp Kirnberger (also Kernberg; 24 April 1721, Saalfeld – 27 July 1783, Berlin) was a musician, composer (primarily of fugues) and music theorist. He studied the organ with Johann Peter Kellner and Heinrich Nicolaus Gerber, and starting in 1738 he studied with the violinist Meil in Sondershausen, but most significant is the time he spent from 1739 until 1741 (with breaks) studying performance and composition with Johann Sebastian Bach. Between 1741 and 1751 Kirnberger lived and worked in Poland for powerful magnates including Lubomirski, Poninski, and Rzewuski before ending up at the Benedictine Cloister in Lviv (then part of Poland). He spent much time collecting Polish national dances and compiled them in his treatise . Kirnberger played a significant role in the intellectual and cultural exchange between Germany and Poland in the mid-18th century. Kirnberger became a violinist at the court of Frederick the Great in 1751. He was the music director to the Prussian Princess Anna Amalia from 1758 until his death. Kirnberger greatly admired Johann Sebastian Bach, deeming him “the greatest of all composers”. Kirnberger sought to secure the publication of all of Bach’s choral

Johann Krieger

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Johann Krieger (28 December 1651 – 18 July 1735) was a German composer and organist, younger brother of Johann Philipp Krieger. Born in Nuremberg, he worked at Bayreuth, Zeitz, and Greiz before settling in Zittau. He was one of the most important keyboard composers of his day, highly esteemed by, among others, George Frideric Handel. A prolific composer of church and secular music, he published several dozen of his works, and others survive in manuscript. However, hundreds more were lost when Zittau was destroyed by fire in 1757, during the Seven Years’ War. Krieger’s keyboard music places him among the most important German composers of his time. The two published collections, Sechs musicalische Partien (1697) and Anmuthige Clavier-Übung (1698), contain harpsichord suites, organ toccatas, fugues, ricercars, and other works. Krieger’s contemporaries praised his contrapuntal skill, evident in the extant fugues and ricercars. Johann Mattheson was particularly impressed with Krieger’s double fugues, remarking that he knew nobody who surpassed Krieger in this form, except Handel. Handel himself admired and studied Krieger’s work, even taking a copy of Anmuthige Clavier-Übung with him t

Johann Kuhnau

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Johann Kuhnau (; 6 April 16605 June 1722) was a German polymath, known primarily as a composer today. He was also active as a novelist, translator, lawyer, and music theorist, and was able to combine these activities with his duties in his official post as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, which he occupied for 21 years. Much of his music, including operas, masses, and other large-scale vocal works, is lost. His reputation today rests on his Biblical Sonatas, a set of programmatic keyboard sonatas published in 1700, in which each sonata depicted in detail a particular story from the Bible. After his death, Kuhnau was succeeded as Thomaskantor by Johann Sebastian Bach. Biography Much of the biographical information on Kuhnau is known from an autobiography published by Johann Mattheson in 1740 in his Grundlage einer Ehrenpforte. Kuhnau’s Protestant family were originally from Bohemia, and their name was Kuhn. Kuhnau was born in Geising, present-day Saxony. His musical talents were apparent early, and in around 1670, he was sent to Dresden to study with court musicians there. During the next decade, he studied keyboard playing and music composition, as well as French and Italian. In 1680, an o

Johann Ludwig Bach

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Johann Ludwig Bach (14 February 1677 – 1 May 1731) was a German composer and violinist. He was born in Thal (Ruhla) near Eisenach on 4 February 1677. At the age of 22 he moved to Meiningen eventually being appointed cantor there, and later Kapellmeister. He wrote a large amount of music and regularly oversaw performances, both at Meiningen and neighbouring courts. He was a third cousin of Johann Sebastian Bach, who made copies of several of his cantatas and performed them at Leipzig. The cantata Denn du wirst meine Seele nicht in der Hölle lassen, BWV 15, once thought to be by Johann Sebastian, and listed as BWV 15 in Wolfgang Schmieder’s catalogue of his works, is now thought to be by Johann Ludwig. Bach died on 1 May 1731 in Meiningen. and Alfred Dörffel listed 17 cantatas and the Mass in E minor, with their incipits, in Vol. 41 of the Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe (1894). The Johann-Ludwig-Bach-Verzeichnis (catalogue of compositions by Johann Ludwig Bach, abbreviated JLB) contains 39 compositions, starting, in the same sequence, with the 17 cantatas listed by Dörffel: #Gott ist unser Zuversicht, sacred cantata for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany. Scored for soprano, alto, tenor and

Johann Ludwig Böhner

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Johann Ludwig Böhner (7 January 1787 - 28 March 1860) was a German composer, pianist, and organist. He was known as the “Thuringian Mozart” by his contemporaries. Life Böhner was born in Töttelstädt, Thuringia, near Erfurt. After his musical exposure and training by his father, Johann Matthias Böhner (a cantor and organist), Johann Christian Kittel, and , he worked as a piano teacher in Gotha, where he met Ludwig Spohr, until attaining the position of music director in Nuremberg in 1811. During his years at Nuremberg (1811-1814), many of his more well-known works were composed, including his Fantasies for Bassoon and Orchestra and Clarinet and Orchestra, and his romantic opera Die Mädchen in einsamen Mühlenthale. As a pianist, Böhner scored his first success in Leipzig’s Gewandhaus on 16 May 1814. From 1815 onwards, he toured through Germany, Austria, Denmark, and Switzerland. However, Böhner’s successful piano career was soon to be compromised by increasing eccentricity, fraud, and ill health. Because of his character flaws, he had a mental breakdown in Hamburg in 1819 and stayed mostly in Gotha for the rest of his life. At a performance in Leipzig in September 1834, composer Robe

Johann Ludwig Krebs

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Johann Ludwig Krebs (baptized 12 October 1713 – 1 January 1780) was a German Baroque musician and composer for the pipe organ, harpsichord, other instruments and orchestras. His output also included chamber music, choral works and concertos. Life Krebs was born in 1713 in Buttelstedt to Johann Tobias Krebs, an organist. At least three of his brothers were musically talented. Krebs was sent to Leipzig to study organ, lute, and the violin. Krebs studied with Johann Sebastian Bach on the organ. Bach (who had also instructed Krebs’s father) held Krebs in high standing. From a technical standpoint, Krebs was unrivaled next to Bach in his organ proficiency. However, Krebs found it difficult to obtain a patron or a cathedral post. His Baroque style was being supplanted by the newer galant music style and the classical music era. Krebs took a small post in Zwickau, Krebs’s Fantasia in F minor for oboe and organ is one of his best-known works, as is the Eight Short Preludes and Fugues that are sometimes attributed to him as well as to his father and J. S. Bach. He is also remembered for two large-scale concertos for lute and orchestra. Krebs’s three sons became well-known performers in thei

Johann Mattheson

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Johann Mattheson (28 September 1681 – 17 April 1764) was a German composer, critic, lexicographer and music theorist. His writings on the late Baroque and early Classical period were highly influential, specifically, “his biographical and theoretical works were widely disseminated and served as the source for all subsequent lexicographers and historians”. Early life and career Johann Mattheson was born on 28 September 1681 in Hamburg. The son of a prosperous tax collector, Mattheson received a broad liberal education and, aside from general musical training, took lessons in keyboard instruments, violin, composition and singing. Death After his death in 1764, Johann Mattheson was buried in the vault of Hamburg’s St. Michaelis Church where his grave can be visited. Literary and musical legacy Mattheson is mainly famous as a music theorist. He was the most prolific writer on performance practice, theatrical style, and harmony of the German Baroque. He is particularly important for his work on the relationship between the disciplines of rhetoric and music, for example in Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre, Hamburg 1713, and , Hamburg 1739. However, his books draw attention also because Matthe

Johann Michael Bach

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Johann Michael Bach (baptised 19 August 1648, Arnstadt, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen – 27 May 1694, Gehren) was a German composer of the Baroque period. He was the brother of Johann Christoph Bach, as well as first cousin, once removed and father-in-law of Johann Sebastian Bach (he was the father of J.S. Bach’s first wife Maria Barbara Bach). He is sometimes referred to as the “Gehrener Bach” to distinguish him from the “Wuppertaler Bach”, Johann Michael Bach (musician at Wuppertal). Life Johann Michael was born at Arnstadt, the son of Heinrich Bach, who was the great-uncle of Johann Sebastian Bach. In 1673, Johann Michael became the organist and town clerk of Gehren, where he lived until his death. Works His most-performed work is the small chorale prelude for organ, In Dulci Jubilo, which for many years was attributed to J. S. Bach (it was ascribed the catalog number BWV 751). His other most important works include cantatas Ach, bleib bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ (for choir, strings and continuo), Liebster Jesu, hör mein Flehen (for soprano, alto, two tenors, bass, strings and continuo), and Ach, wie sehnlich wart’ ich der Zeit (also for soprano, strings, and continuo). *Das Blut Chris

Johann Michael Vogl

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Johann Michael Vogl (August 10, 1768 – November 19, 1840), was an Austrian baritone singer and composer. Though famous in his day, he is remembered mainly for his close professional relationship and friendship with composer Franz Schubert. Vogl was born in Steyr. As a young man he enrolled at the Gymnasium at Kremsmünster, where he studied languages, philosophy, and sang in several musical productions by his friend Franz Süßmayr (the same man who completed Mozart’s Requiem). In 1786 Vogl went to Vienna to study, and later to practice law. In 1795 he debuted at the Vienna Hofoper, and quickly attracted a following for both his acting capability and the beauty of his voice. In 1813, Franz Schubert attended a performance of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride in which Vogl sang the role of Orestes; Schubert never forgot the experience and determined to write for Vogl. The following year, when Vogl sang the role of Pizarro at the premiere of the final version of Beethoven’s Fidelio, it is said that the 17-year-old Schubert actually sold his schoolbooks in order to afford a ticket. When composer and singer finally met, in 1817, Vogl was as impressed with the quality of Schubert’s music as Schu

Johann Nepomuk David

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Johann Nepomuk David (30 November 1895 – 22 December 1977) was an Austrian composer. Life and career David was born in Eferding. He was a choirboy in the monastery of Sankt Florian and studied at an episcopal teacher training college in Linz, 1912–1915, after which he became a school teacher. He studied briefly (1921–22) at both the Musikhochschule (where was a composition student of Joseph Marx) and the university of Vienna (where he studied with Guido Adler). He returned to Linz in 1922, where he acted as musical director of the Linz “Kunststelle” until 1924. From January 1925 until the autumn of 1934 he was a teacher at a local catholic school, founded and directed a Bach choir, and was organist at a Protestant church at Wels. He then became professor of composition and theory at the Musikhochschule in Leipzig (November 1934 – January 1945). From 1945 to 1947 he was professor of music at the Mozarteum, Salzburg, and finally, from 1948 to 1963, professor of theory and counterpoint (practically: composition) at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart. At Stuttgart, he also directed the Bruckner choir (1949–52), the academy’s chamber orchestra (1950–53). David wrote a number of orchestral

Johann Nepomuk Fuchs (composer)

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Johann Nepomuk Fuchs (5 May 1842 – 5 October 1899) Johann studied musical theory in Vienna with the prominent theorist and composer Simon Sechter, with whom Schubert had planned to study. In 1864, he was appointed Kapellmeister of the Bratislava Opera. He also conducted opera outside Bratislava, in Brno, Kassel, Cologne, Hamburg, and Leipzig, before moving to the Vienna Court Opera in 1880. In 1888, Fuchs joined the faculty of the Vienna Conservatory, Other notable students included composers Edmund Eysler, Leo Fall and Rubin Goldmark, and the theorist and composer Heinrich Schenker. In 1893, Fuchs succeeded Joseph Hellmesberger Sr. as director of the conservatory. Further recognition followed in 1894, when he was appointed Vice Hofkapellmeister for his services at the Vienna Court Opera. He helped prepare the first edition of the entire Schubert canon, the Schubert-Gesamtausgabe published by Breitkopf & Härtel, editing the works for the theatre, as well as some of the orchestral scores. He died at Bad Vöslau in Lower Austria on 5 October 1899. References External links * (including some of his editions of works by Schubert and Gluck)

Johann Nepomuk Hummel

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Johann Nepomuk Hummel (14 November 177817 October 1837) was an Austrian composer and pianist. His music reflects the transition from the Classical to the Romantic musical era. He was among Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri’s best students. He also studied under Joseph Haydn. Hummel significantly influenced later piano music of the nineteenth century, particularly in the works of Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, and Felix Mendelssohn. Life Early life Hummel was born in Pressburg, Kingdom of Hungary (now Bratislava, Slovakia). Unusually for that period, he was an only child. He was named after the Czech patron saint John of Nepomuk. His father, Johannes Hummel, was a violinist and music teacher who served in the household orchestra of Count Grassalkovich and later as orchestra director at the Pressburg Theatre before becoming music director at the military academy in Wartberg (now Senec, Slovakia) around 1780. Following the dissolution of this institution under Joseph II’s reforms, the family relocated to Vienna in late 1786 or early 1787, where Johannes became music director at the Theater auf der Wieden and later at the Apollo-Tanzsaal. His mother, Margarethe Sommer Hummel,

Johann Nepomuk Schelble

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

Johann Nepomuk Schelble (16 May 1789 – 6 August 1837), was a German conductor, composer, singer (tenor) and music teacher. Best known as the founding conductor of Cäcilienverein (the Choir of Saint Cecilia, known today as the Cäcilienchor Frankfurt), he also helped revive interest in the work of Johann Sebastian Bach. Biography Johann Nepomuk Schelble was born in Hüfingen, a small town in the Black Forest in what is now the Schwarzwald-Baar District in the south of what would soon be the Grand Duchy of Baden but was still at that point part of the soon to end Holy Roman Empire. He was the second of 14 children and the only son of barrel painter Franz (or Franciscus) Joseph (Donat) Schelble (17 February 1762 – 13 February 1835) and Katharina Schelble née Götz (1 November 1760 – 4 April 1847), The Schelble family had a history of musical interest. Katharina Götz, the daughter of a wealthy farmer, was both musically inclined and possessed a beautiful singing voice. Franz Josef Scheble had received instruction in Donaueschingen in both organ and piano playing, although he gave up his aspirations as a musician due to his poor singing voice; he continued to make pianos as a hobby. Both F

Johann Nikolaus Forkel

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Johann Nikolaus Forkel (22 February 1749 – 20 March 1818) was a German musicologist and music theorist, generally regarded as among the founders of modern musicology. His publications include the two-volume Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik (General History of Music), among the first attempts at a history of Western music and the “ground-breaking music bibliography” Allgemeine Litteratur der Musik. one which is of particular value today, as he was still able to correspond directly with Bach’s sons Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, and thereby obtained much valuable information that would otherwise have been lost. His library, which was accumulated with care and discrimination at a time when rare books were cheap, forms a valuable portion of the Berlin State Library and also of the library of the Königliche Institut für Kirchenmusik . He died at Göttingen. Selected works Forkel’s writings include: *Über die Theorie der Musik (Göttingen, 1777) *Musikalisch kritische Bibliothek (Gotha, 1778) *Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik (Leipzig, 1788, 1801) *Allgemeine Litteratur der Musik: oder, Anleitung zur Kenntniss musikalischer Bücher, welche von den ältesten bis auf die

Johann Nikolaus Tischer

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Johann Nikolaus Tischer (1707–1774) was a German organist, composer, and teacher of the Baroque and early Classical eras. He is best known for his long tenure as the town organist in Schmalkalden and for his pedagogical influence on Johann Gottfried Vierling. Life and education Born in Böhlen, Tischer studied with several notable masters, including the violinist Johann Graf. In 1728, he was appointed as the town organist at the municipal church in Schmalkalden, a position he held for nearly fifty years. He also served as a Kammermusikus (chamber musician) to the court of Hesse-Kassel. Tischer was an “extraordinarily versatile musician”. He studied the organ with Johann Balthasar Rauche in Böhlen (1719) and violin, viola d’amore, and composition with Kapellmeister Schweitzelberg in Arnstadt. He was also a proficient oboist. In 1726, Tischer travelled to Leipzig, where he is recorded as having studied with Johann Sebastian Bach. Works Tischer was a prolific composer whose works were noted for their educational utility and “charming” character. His compositions primarily include keyboard music and suites, often written in an accessible style suited for students and amateurs. His major

Johann Pachelbel

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Johann Pachelbel (also Bachelbel; baptised 11 September 1653 – buried 9 March 1706) was a German composer, organist, and teacher who brought the south German organ schools to their peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secular music, and his contributions to the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have earned him a place among the most important composers of the middle Baroque era. Pachelbel’s music enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime; he had many pupils and his music became a model for the composers of south and central Germany. Pachelbel is most famous for the Canon in D; other well known works include the Chaconne in F minor, the Toccata in E minor for organ, and the Hexachordum Apollinis, a set of keyboard variations. He was influenced by southern German composers, such as Johann Jakob Froberger and Johann Caspar Kerll, Italians such as Girolamo Frescobaldi and Alessandro Poglietti, French composers, and the composers of the Nuremberg tradition. He preferred a lucid, uncomplicated contrapuntal style that emphasized melodic and harmonic clarity. His music is less virtuosic and less adventurous harmonically than that of Dieterich Buxtehude, although, l

Johann Paul von Westhoff

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Johann Paul von Westhoff (1656 – buried 17 April 1705) was a German Baroque composer and violinist. One of the most important exponents of the Dresden violin school, he was among the highest ranked violinists of his day, and composed some of the earliest known music for solo violin. He worked as musician and composer as a member of Dresden’s Hofkapelle (1674–1697) and at the Weimar court (1699–1705), and was also active as a teacher of contemporary languages. Westhoff’s surviving music comprises seven works for violin and basso continuo and seven for solo violin, all published during his lifetime. More works, particularly a 1682 collection of solo violin music, are currently considered lost. His work, together with that of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber and Johann Jakob Walther, greatly influenced the subsequent generation of German violinists, and the six partitas for solo violin inspired Johann Sebastian Bach’s famous violin sonatas and partitas. Life The composer was born in the Dresden, then capital of Saxony. He received a solid musical education as a pupil of Heinrich Schütz (d. 1672), and in 1674 joined the Dresden Hofkapelle, where his father, a former Swedish cavalry officer,

Johann Peter Cavallo

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Johann Peter Cavallo (23 December 1819 – 19 April 1892) was a German organist, pianist and composer of Italian origin and active in France. Life Born in Munich, Cavallo settled in Paris around 1842, where he was organist in the churches of St. Vincent de Paul, a monthly sheet music magazine of short piano pieces of his own compositions in association with choirmaster Frédéric Viret. Selected works *Valse rustique, Op. 24 *Le Crépuscule, Op. 33 *Un Dernier jour d’hiver, Op. 46 *Mazurka, Op. 47 *La Tristesse, Op. 48 *Fandango, Op. 49 *Le Vertige, Op. 50 *Pensée fugitive, Op. 56 *Galop des Sylphes, Op. 57 *Près la fontaine du loup, Op. 61 References ;Attribution *This article is based on the translation of the corresponding article of the French Wikipedia. A list of contributors can be found there at the History section. External links *

Johann Peter Kellner

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Johann Peter Kellner (variants: Keller, Kelner; 28 September 1705 – 19 April 1772) was a German organist and composer. He was the father of Johann Christoph Kellner. Biography He was born in Gräfenroda, Thuringia, and was intended by his parents to follow his father into a career as a lamp-black merchant. He was devoted to music from childhood, and first learnt singing from the cantor Johann Peter Nagel and keyboard from his son Johann Heinrich Nagel. He studied for a year from 1720 with the organist Johann Schmidt in Zella, followed by a year with the organist Hieronymus Florentinus Quehl (or Kehl) in Suhl, during which time he also studied composition. He knew Johann Sebastian Bach well, although it is not known whether he was taught by him. He was also acquainted with George Frideric Handel. In 1722, he returned to work as a tutor at Gräfenroda for three years. He was appointed cantor of Frankenhain in October 1725, returning to Gräfenroda in December 1727 as assistant cantor. He became cantor after Nagel’s death in 1732, and remained in the post for the rest of his life; his pupils included Johann Philipp Kirnberger, Johannes Ringk, and J.E. Rembt. Kellner was admired as an org

Johann Peter Pixis

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Johann Peter Pixis (10 February 178822 December 1874) was a German pianist and composer, born in Mannheim. He lived in Vienna from 1808 to 1824, then in Paris to 1840, during which time he was among the city’s most prominent pianists and composers, although he is almost entirely forgotten nowadays. Biography He was the son of Friedrich Wilhelm Pixis (1755–1805), who in 1790 followed his own father to become Preceptor and Organist at the Evangelical Reformed Church. Johann Peter’s older brother, also Friedrich Wilhelm Pixis (1785–1842), was a violinist who later became prominent in the musical life of Prague. The two brothers received early musical training from their father, who took the talented boys on concert tours beginning in 1797; they traveled through Germany and to Denmark, Russia (St. Petersburg), and Poland (Warsaw). During the tour, the older brother also played piano duets with Johann Peter, who in turn accompanied his brother on the cello and violin. While in Hamburg in 1798, Viotti was so impressed by Friedrich Wilhelm junior that he gave daily lessons, which Johann Peter also attended, for two months, and he organized a concert for the two boys. Friedrich Wilhelm sen

Johann Peter Salomon

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Johann Peter Salomon (20 February 1745 baptized – 25 November 1815) was a German violinist, composer, conductor and musical impresario. Although an accomplished violinist, he is best known for bringing Joseph Haydn to London and for conducting the symphonies that Haydn wrote during his stay in England. He also knew and worked with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven. Life Johann Peter Salomon was born in January 1745 into a Jewish family in Bonn (but was baptized as an infant) and was the second son of Philipp Salomon, an oboist at the court in Bonn. His birth home was at Bonngasse 515, coincidentally the later birth home of Beethoven. In 1758, at the age of thirteen, he became a violinist in the orchestra of the Elector Clemens August at Bonn. Seven years later, Salomon went on tour and traveled to Berlin and Frankfort. Following this he arrived in Rheinsberg where he soon became the concert master and composer for the orchestra of Prince Heinrich of Prussia. several art songs, a number of concertos, and chamber music pieces. He is perhaps best known today, however, as a concert organizer and conductor. Haydn wrote his symphonies numbers 93 to 104 for these trips, som

Johann Philipp Förtsch

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Johann Philipp Förtsch (14 May 1652 – 14 December 1732) was a German baroque composer, statesman and medical doctor. Life Förtsch was born in Wertheim and possibly received his musical education from Johann Philipp Krieger. Moving to Hamburg in 1674 to write librettos, he then became in the 1680s one of the main composers in the heyday of the Oper am Gänsemarkt. In later life he returned to medicine. Works Operas (all lost) * Das unmöglichste Ding (Lukas von Bostel, after Lope de Vega, 1684) * Der hochmüthige, gestürzte und wieder erhabene Crösus (Lukas von Bostel, after Nicolò Minato, 1684) * Der Grosse Alexander in Sidon (Christian Heinrich Postel, after Aurelio Aureli, Hamburg 1688) * Die Heilige Eugenia, or the Conversion of Alexandria to Christianity (Christian Heinrich Postel, probably after Girolamo Bartolommei, Hamburg 1688) * Der im Christenthum biß in den Todt beständige Märtyrer Polyeuctes (Heinrich Elmenhorst, after Pierre Corneille, Hamburg 1688) * Der mächtige Monarch der Perser, Xerxes, in Abidus (Christian Heinrich Postel after Nicolò Minato, UA Hamburg 1689) * Cain und Abel, oder der verzweifelnde Bruder-Mörder (Christian Heinrich Postel, after Michael Johansen, 16

Johann Philipp Krieger

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Johann Philipp Krieger (also Kriger, Krüger, Krugl, and Giovanni Filippo Kriegher; baptised 27 February 1649; died 7 February 1725) was a German Baroque composer and organist. He was the elder brother of Johann Krieger. Life Early years The Krieger brothers came from a Nuremberg family of rugmakers. According to Johann Mattheson’s Grundlage einer Ehren-Pforte, Johann Philipp started studying keyboard playing at age 8, with Johann Drechsel (a pupil of the celebrated Johann Jakob Froberger) and other instruments at around the same time, with Gabriel Schütz. He was apparently a gifted student, displaying absolute pitch and a feeling for keyboard music: according to Mattheson, already after a year of studies he was able to impress large audiences and was composing attractive arias. Johann Philipp soon left Nuremberg for Copenhagen, where he spent some four or five years, studying organ playing with Johann Schröder, the royal organist, and composition with Kaspar Förster. The precise dates of his stay in Copenhagen are unknown: Mattheson reports 1665 to 1670, but Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr, author of a 1730 biographical volume on famous residents of Nuremberg, claimed Johann Philipp stay

Johann Rosenmüller

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Johann Rosenmüller (1619 – 10 September 1684) was a German Baroque composer, who played a part in transmitting Italian musical styles to the north. Career Rosenmüller was born in Oelsnitz, near Plauen in Saxony. He studied at the University of Leipzig, graduating in 1640. He served as organist of the Nikolaikirche Leipzig from 1651, and had been assured of advancement to cantor. He died in Wolfenbüttel on 10 September 1684, and is buried there. Works Kern-Sprüche mehrentheils aus heiliger Schrifft Altes und Neues Testaments (Core sentences, mostly from holy scriptures Old and New Testament), Leipzig (1648) *Aeterne Deus, clementissime Pater, 1v, 2 str, bc *Christum lieb haben, 3vv, 2 str, bc *Coeli enarrant gloriam Dei, 3vv, 2 str, bc *Danket dem Herren und prediget, 2vv, 2 str, bc *Danksaget dem Vater, 5vv, 2 str, bc *Daran ist erschienen die Liebe Gottes, 5vv, 2 str, bc *Das ist das ewige Leben, 3vv, bc *Das ist ein köstlich Ding, 2vv, 5 str, bc *Die Augen des Herren, 4vv, 2 str, bc *Ein Tag in deinen Vorhöfen, 3vv, 2 str, bc *Habe deine Lust an dem Herren, 1v, 5 str, bc *Hebet eure Augen auf gen Himmel, 2vv, 2 str, bc *In te Domine speravi, 4vv, 2 str, bc *Lieber Herr Gott, 1v,

Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg

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Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg (10 January 1760 – 27 January 1802) was a German composer and conductor from the Classical period. Zumsteeg championed the operas of Mozart in Stuttgart, staging the first performances there of Die Zauberflöte, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte. He also was a prolific composer of Lieder and ballads. His ballads had a great influence on the young Franz Schubert, who imitated a number of Zumsteeg’s as studies (some even in exactly the same keys) while he was a teenager. Life and early career Zumsteeg was born in Sachsenflur, Lauda-Königshofen, in a military camp to his father Rudolph Zum Steeg. He received an education at the Karlsschule Stuttgart after the death of both parents. Zumsteeg was initially admitted as a stucco worker, however his musical aptitude soon allowed him transfer to the music department. There Zumsteeg became intimate friends with Friedrich Schiller. A setting for Schiller’s drama, Die Räuber (1782) is an example of the type of close collaboration that Zumsteeg undertook with prominent poets. Zumsteeg showed promise as a virtuoso cellist, and in 1778 claimed the highest award in the performance division of the Karlsschule for the sixth time

Johann Rudolph Ahle

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Johann Rudolph (or Rudolf) Ahle (24 December 1625 – 9 July 1673) was a German composer, organist, theorist, and Protestant church musician. Biography Ahle was born in Mühlhausen, Thuringia. While not much is known of his early musical training, he attended the grammar school in Göttingen and then studied theology at the University of Erfurt from 1645 to 1649. In 1654 Ahle assumed the post of organist at the Divi Blasii in Mühlhausen. The next year he married Anna Maria Wölfer; their son, Johann Georg Ahle (1651–1706), was also a well-known composer and organist. Ahle was elected a town councillor in Mühlhausen in the 1650s, and was elected mayor shortly before his death in 1673. References Further reading * Uwe Wolf – Programme notes to BIS-CD-821, 1996 * Markus Rathey, Johann Rudolph Ahle. 1625–1673. Lebensweg und Schaffen, Eisenach: Wagner, 1999 * “Johann Rudolf Ahle (Composer)”, Bach Cantatas website External links * *

Johann Rufinatscha

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Johann Rufinatscha (1 October 1812 – 25 May 1893 ) was an Austrian composer, theorist and music teacher. Life Rufinatscha was born in 1812 in Mals (Austria, now in the Italian province of South Tyrol). At the age of 14 he came to Innsbruck, where he studied the piano, violin, and musical study at the conservatory. After that he settled in Vienna, where he would remain for the rest of his life. During his lifetime he was most prominent as a teacher of piano and harmony in Vienna. Rufinatscha seems to have spent most of his life teaching rather than composing actively, which would explain why he composed relatively few pieces. He knew Johannes Brahms and composed a number of works (including several symphonies) during the period in which Brahms refused to publish any symphonic works. While predicted by contemporaries to become a major composer of his day, this did not turn out to be the case, and as such he is still relatively obscure. However, as a music teacher he was influential; among his pupils were composers such as Ignaz Brüll and Julius Epstein. He died in 1893 in Vienna. Rufinatscha is recognised as one of Tyrol’s most important composers of the 19th century. His works can b

Johann Schelle

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Johann Schelle (6 September 1648 – 10 March 1701) was a German Baroque composer. Biography Schnelle was born on 6 September 1648 in Geising, Saxony. From 1655 to 1657 he was a choirboy in Dresden and pupil of Heinrich Schütz. From 1657 to 1664 on Schütz’s recommendation he was a singer in Wolfenbüttel. He was the cantor of the Thomanerchor, Leipzig, from 1677 to 1701. In 1689/90 he collaborated on a cycle of chorale cantatas with Leipzig theologian Benedict Carpzov. Leipzig When his former teacher Sebastian Knüpfer died, Schelle succeeded him as Kantor of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, a post later held by J.S. Bach. He obtained the post on 31 January 1677, and held it until his death. His appointment was made against the wishes of the city mayor, who remained antagonistic to him and the changes he introduced in the musical content of services. The matter came to a head when Schelle replaced the Latin compositions written by Italian masters with music to German texts, especially cantatas. When the city council finally took Schelle’s side on the problem Schelle started the practice of introducing into the Protestant liturgy in Leipzig not only the Gospel cantata to German texts but la

Johann Schobert

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Johann Schobert (c. 1720, 1735 or 1740 – 28 August 1767) was a composer and harpsichordist. His date of birth is given variously as about 1720, about 1735, or about 1740, his place of birth as Silesia, Alsace, or Nuremberg. He died after eating poisonous mushrooms that he insisted were edible. Career In 1760 or 1761, Schobert moved to Paris, France, where he served in the household of Louis François I de Bourbon, prince de Conti. He composed many books of sonatas for his instrument, most of them with an accompanying part for one or more other instruments. Schobert also wrote harpsichord concertos, symphonies and the opéra comique Le Garde-Chasse et le Braconnier. In Paris, Schobert came into contact with Leopold Mozart during the family’s grand tour. Reportedly, Schobert was offended by Mozart’s comments that his children played Schobert’s works with ease. Nevertheless, Schobert was a significant influence on the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who arranged a number of movements from Schobert’s sonatas for use in his own piano concertos. Mozart biographer Dyneley Hussey writes that it was Schobert’s music that opened up Mozart to the possibility of adopting a poetic stance in his mu

Johann Sebastian Bach

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Early life#

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, the capital of the duchy of Saxe-Eisenach, in present-day Germany, on 21 March 1685 O.S. He was the eighth and youngest child of Johann Ambrosius Bach, director of the town musicians, and Maria Elisabeth , daughter of a town councillor. The Bach family, traditionally traced to the patriarch Vitus “Veit” Bach (), produced three to four generations of musicians in the Thuringia region, whose insular cultural climate fostered conservative musicianship, with external influences arriving mainly via the courts. Nothing is definitively known about Bach’s early years before 1693; his musical education in particular is highly conjectural. His family, particularly the uncles, were all professional musicians who worked as church organists, court chamber musicians, and composers. Bach’s father presumably taught him the violin, Ambrosius’ own primary instrument, along with basic music theory principles. One uncle, Johann Christoph Bach (1645–1693), may have introduced him to the organ, though this is debated since the uncle may not have been close to Bach’s immediate family. Bach’s mother died in 1694, and his father eight months later in February 1695. The 10-year-old Bach moved in with his eldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach (1671–1721), the organist at St. Michael’s Church in Ohrdruf, Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. There he studied, performed, and copied music, including his brother’s, despite being forbidden to do so because scores were so valuable and private and ledger paper was costly. He also received instruction on the clavichord from his brother. Johann Christoph exposed him to the works of composers of the day, including South Germans such as Johann Caspar Kerll, Johann Jakob Froberger, and Johann Pachelbel (under whom Johann Christoph had studied); North Germans such as Georg Böhm, Johann Reincken and Friedrich Nicolaus Bruhns from Hamburg, and Dieterich Buxtehude; Frenchmen such as Jean-Baptiste Lully, Louis Marchand, and Marin Marais; and the Italian Girolamo Frescobaldi. He learned theology, Latin, and Greek at the local Gymnasium (Germany) . By 3 April 1700 Bach had begun studies at St Michael’s School in Lüneburg, two weeks’ travel north of Ohrdruf. His journey was probably undertaken mostly on foot. He also came into contact with sons of aristocrats from northern Germany who had been sent to the nearby Ritter-Academie to prepare for careers in other disciplines.

Johann Sigismund Kusser

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Johann Sigismund Kusser or Cousser (baptized 13 February 1660 – before 17 November 1727) was a composer born in the Kingdom of Hungary who was active in Germany, France, and Ireland. Life The son of Johann Kusser, a Protestant cantor in Pressburg (then in the Kingdom of Hungary), Johann Sigismund and his parents moved to Stuttgart in 1674 because of religious persecution. Two years later he went to spend six years in Paris and the Palace of Versailles. There he met the French court composer Jean-Baptiste Lully and learned from him how to compose in the French style. Kusser was then employed at the princely courts in Baden-Baden and Ansbach, before taking a trip to Germany in October 1683. In 1690 he became the first Kapellmeister of the in Braunschweig. In the following years, he married Hedwig Melusine von Damm, daughter of a local Ratsherr. Their daughter Auguste Elisabeth married the Braunschweig historian . During his time there, Kusser wrote eight operas, enriching the Italian-influenced repertoire. Disagreements in 1694 with the librettist and court poet Friedrich Christian Bressand led Kusser to move to the Oper am Gänsemarkt in Hamburg. He then left Hamburg at the end of 16

Johann Sigismund Weiss

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Johann Sigismund Weiss (after 1690 – 12 April 1737) was a German lutenist and composer. He was probably born in Breslau, Silesia (now Wrocław, Poland) to lutenist Johann Jacob Weiss, who taught the lute to Johann Sigismund and his elder siblings Silvius Leopold and Juliana Margaretha. From , Weiss and his father were employed by Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine. An important performance during this time included at the 1711 imperial election, before Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, and many German princes. After the elector died in 1716, Weiss faced some uncertainty. He spent some time travelling and giving concerts, particularly in London, where he gave at least 19 concerts in 1718. Under the new Elector Charles III Philip, Weiss became vice-concertmaster and later concertmaster of his court orchestra in Mannheim. Not many compositions are known with certainty to be his, and they have not been the subject of much attention. In his time, he was praised by Ernst Gottlieb Baron as comparable to his brother Silvius. In Hans Neemann’s opinion, Weiss was an important predecessor of Johann Stamitz at Mannheim. Family background and early life Weiss was probably born in Breslau (now Wrocła

Johann Sonnleitner

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Johann Sonnleitner (born 1941) is an Austrian music educator and expert as interpreter of early music on historical keyboard instruments. He is an organist, a harpsichordist and music historian. Life and career Born in Trofaiach, Sonnleitner studied organ at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna with Alois Forer, harpsichord with Eta Harich-Schneider and school music as well as history and pedagogy at the University of Vienna. He completed his education by attending master classes with Gustav Leonhardt, Anton Heiller, Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini, Marie-Claire Alain, Cor Kee among others. He also is an international concert musician as soloist, chamber music partner and song accompanist. He began teaching improvisation and score playing at the Vienna Musikhochschule and continued with a six-year assistant to Nikolaus Harnoncourt at the Mozarteum Salzburg. In 1979, he came to the Zurich University of the Arts as a teacher for historical keyboard instruments. From 1983 to 2003, he taught regularly at the teaching and research institute Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. For more than two decades, Sonnleitner led the master classes for keyboard instruments within the Innsbrucker

Johann Speth

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Johann (Johannes) Speth (9 November 1664 – 12. Oktober 1728 Augsburg) was a German organist and composer. He was born in Speinshart, some 150 km from Nuremberg, but spent most of his life in Augsburg, where he worked as cathedral organist for two years. His only surviving music is a 1693 collection, Ars Magna Consoni et Dissoni, which includes toccatas, Magnificat versets and variations in the south German style. Life Speth was born in Speinshart, Bavaria, to teacher Heinrich Speth and his wife Margareta (née Vichtl). Past scholars established that Speth must have received music lessons from the abbot of the Premonstratensian monastery at Speinshart, one Dominikus Lieblein; however, this has recently been disproven. Nothing is known about his life before 1692, when he applied for the position of organist of Augsburg Cathedral. The application, which contained Speth’s compositions, was accepted, and he was appointed organist on 4 November 1692. The music he supplied with the application was published the next year in Augsburg as Ars magna Consoni et Dissoni. In the files of the cathedral administration there is a note from 1705 showing that Speth had also to work in the office of th

Johann Staden

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Johann Staden (baptized 2 July 1581 – 15 November 1634) was a German composer and organist of the early Baroque period. He is best known for establishing the so-called Nuremberg School. He was father to the composer Sigmund Theophil Staden. Life He was the son of Hans Staden and Elisabeth Löbelle. The exact date of his birth is unknown; it is believed that he was born in Nuremberg in 1581 (the date on the only surviving portrait) and records show that a certain Johannes Starnn was baptised in July 1581. At 18 Staden was already quite famous and serving as organist of one of the city churches; by 1604 he was employed as court organist in Bayreuth; he got married the same year. In 1605 the court moved to Kulmbach, where Staden remained until 1610, publishing two collections of secular songs, Neue teutsche Lieder (1606) and Neue teutsche geistliche Gesäng (1609). He may have visited Bayreuth again in 1610 and returned to Nuremberg by 1611, the year his daughter was baptised there. In June 1612 he left Nuremberg again to succeed Hans Leo Hassler as court organist in Dresden. He stayed until around 1614/15, becoming organist at Nuremberg’s Spitalkirche on 20 June 1616. Later that year h

Johann Stamitz

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Johann Wenzel Anton Stamitz (; 18 June 1717 – 27 March 1757) was a Czech composer and violinist. Stamitz is considered the founding father of the Mannheim school, a composition style that his two surviving sons, Carl and Anton Stamitz, continued. His music is stylistically transitional between the Baroque and Classical periods and he is recognised for many innovations. Life Stamitz was born in Deutschbrod, Bohemia (now Havlíčkův Brod, Czech Republic), into a family that came from Marburg (now Maribor, Slovenia). Stamitz spent the academic year 1734–1735 at the University of Prague. After only one year, at the likely age of seventeen he left the university to pursue a career as a violin virtuoso. His activities during the six-year period between his departure from the university in 1735 and his appointment in the German city of Mannheim around 1741, are not known in detail and historical accounts of his life contain many presumptions or approximations. He was appointed by the Mannheim court in 1741 or 1742, likely at the age of twenty-four. His engagement there most likely resulted from contacts made during the Bohemian campaign and coronation of Charles VII of Bavaria, a close ally

Johann Stobäus

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Johann Stobäus (6 July 158011 September 1646) was a composer and lutenist. Life Stobäus was born at Graudenz (now Grudziądz, Poland) in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. From 1599 to 1608 he was a pupil of Johannes Eccard, the Kapellmeister of Königsberg (in the Duchy of Prussia, a vassal duchy of Poland). In 1601 he joined the princely Kapelle as a bass singer, and in 1602 he became Kantor at Königsberg Cathedral. In 1626 he succeeded Eccard as Kapellmeister, remaining in the post until his death. He died at Königsberg. Stobäus, known as Stobaeus Grudentinus Borussus for his birthplace, wrote music for liturgical use, as well as songs and compositions for lute. Much of his manuscript music was lost in World War II; what remains is largely held at the Berlin State Library. Stobäus’s Commonplace Book, containing songs, instrumental music and drawings of instruments, is preserved at the British Library (Sloane MS 1021). Works * Cantiones Sacrae 5–10. v. item Magnificat, Frankfurt/Oder 1624 * Geistliche Lieder auf gewöhnliche Preußische Kirchenmelodien, Danzig 1634 * Erster und Ander Theil der Preußischen Fest-Lieder, 5-8 voices (incomplete), Elbing 1642 and Königsberg 1644, includi

Johann Strauss I

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Johann Baptist Strauss I (; ; 14 March 1804 – 25 September 1849), also known as Johann Strauss Sr., the Elder or the Father (), was an Austrian composer of the Romantic Period. He was famous for his light music, namely waltzes, polkas, and galops, which he popularized alongside Joseph Lanner, thereby setting the foundations for his sons—Johann, Josef and Eduard—to carry on his musical dynasty. He is best known for his composition of the Radetzky March (named after Joseph Radetzky von Radetz). Life and work Johann Strauss was born in Leopoldstadt (now in Vienna). Strauss’s parents, Franz Borgias Strauss (10 October 1764 – 5 April 1816) and Barbara Dollmann (3 December 1770 – 28 August 1811), were innkeepers (). He was born a Roman Catholic. Strauss had a Jewish grandfather, Johann Michael Strauss (1720–1800), who converted to Catholicism. Strauss’ mother died of ‘creeping fever’ when he was seven and five years later his father drowned, possibly as a result of suicide, in the Danube river. Strauss’ guardian, the tailor Anton Müller, placed him as an apprentice to the bookbinder, Johann Lichtscheidl; Strauss took lessons in the violin and viola in addition to fulfilling his apprentic

Johann Strauss II

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Johann Baptist Strauss II (; ; 25 October 1825 – 3 June 1899), also known as Johann Strauss Jr., the Younger or the Son (), was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas, as well as a violinist. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, marches and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas and a ballet. In his lifetime, he was known as “The Waltz King”, as he played a major role in popularizing the waltz in the 19th century. Some of Johann Strauss’s most famous works include “The Blue Danube”, “Kaiser-Walzer” (Emperor Waltz), “Tales from the Vienna Woods”, “Frühlingsstimmen” (Voices of Spring), and the “Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka”. Among his operettas, Die Fledermaus and Der Zigeunerbaron are the best known. Strauss was the son of Johann Strauss I and his first wife Maria Anna Streim. The two younger brothers, Josef and Eduard Strauss, also became composers of light music, although they were never as well known as their brother. Early life Strauss was born into a Catholic family in St Ulrich near Vienna (now a part of Neubau), Austria, on 25 October 1825, to the composer Johann Strauss I and his first wife, Maria Anna Streim. His

Johann Strauss III

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Johann Maria Eduard Strauss III (; ; 16 February 18669 January 1939) was an Austrian composer whose father was Eduard Strauss, whose uncles were Johann Strauss II and Josef Strauss, and whose grandfather was Johann Strauss I. Born in Vienna, he was unofficially entrusted with the task of upholding his family’s tradition after the dissolution of the Strauss Orchestra by his father in 1901. His talents were not fully realized during his lifetime as musical tastes had changed in the Silver Age with more popular composers such as Franz Lehár and Oscar Straus dominating the Viennese musical scene with their operettas, although his uncle, Johann Strauss II, supervised his development as a musician, a fact disputed by Eduard Strauss. Despite Strauss’ keen interest in composing, he was better remembered as a conductor. His only stage work, the three-act operetta Katze und Maus, composed in 1898, premiered in Vienna on 23 December 1898, at the Theater an der Wien. Its public reaction bordered on utter dislike, and music critics called for the distraught composer to reassess himself and to appear under a pseudonym, in order not to tarnish the name of his famous relatives. He salvaged the mus

Johann Theile

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Johann Theile (29 July 1646 – 24 June 1724) was a German composer of the Baroque era, famous for the opera Adam und Eva, Der erschaffene, gefallene und aufgerichtete Mensch, first performed in Hamburg on 2 January 1678. Life After studying law in Leipzig and Halle, Theile took instruction in composition in Weißenfels. His teacher there was Heinrich Schütz, the most prominent German composer of the 17th century. Theile is believed to have been one of his last pupils, and is considered one of the most gifted among them. Between 1673 and 1675 he held the position of Court Kapellmeister for Duke Christian Albrecht of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp. Some years later he held the position of Kapellmeister in Wolfenbüttel, where he commenced a musical apprenticeship to Johann Rosenmüller, who by this time had permanently returned to Northern Germany after having spent most of his career in Italy. He also worked in Naumburg, where he likewise held the position of Kapellmeister; Berlin, where he was active as a music teacher to the royal court; as well as Lübeck and Stettin, where he also served a music instructor. In 1673 he wrote his Matthäuspassion (St. Matthew Passion) in Lübeck. In 1694, Th

Johann Tobias Krebs

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Johann Tobias Krebs (7 July 1690 – 11 February 1762) was a German organist and composer, today best remembered as the father of Johann Ludwig Krebs, one of Bach’s most accomplished pupils. Krebs was born in Heichelheim and went to school in the nearby Weimar. Nothing is known about his early musical training, but at age 20 Krebs was proficient enough at the keyboard to be invited to become organist at Buttelstedt, another town in the same area. Krebs accepted, but continued his music studies in Weimar, travelling there twice a week to study with Johann Gottfried Walther, and later with Johann Sebastian Bach. In 1721 he was accepted a position at Buttstädt, where he played the organ of Michaeliskirche and taught at the school. Krebs remained in Buttstädt for the rest of his life. He had three sons, and the eldest, Johann Ludwig Krebs, became a well-known composer. Krebs’ surviving works are scarce. A few chorale preludes preserved in manuscripts show a marked fondness for counterpoint. Two of the lesser known pieces from the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis catalogue may have been composed by Krebs: * Chorale prelude Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 660b, an arrangement of one of Bach’s Leip

Johann Ulich

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Johann Ulich, the younger (Wittenberg, 1677-Zerbst, 1742) was a German organist and composer in Zerbst, and music teacher to the princely family. Ulich was born in 1677 in Wittenberg, Germany. His father, also called Johann Ulich (1634-1712), was organist and Kantor, director of music for Wittenberg’s churches, and teacher at the city school. Ulich studied with his father and then from 1695 at the University of Wittenberg. He was employed at the court in Zerbst from 1708 (although his official contract is dated 6 March 1709, the accounts of the St. Bartholomäikirche show that he was paid at least one quarterly salary installment and some of the bonuses that all permanent staff there enjoyed annually in 1708). Almost immediately he started composing music for the court; on 24 June 1708, his cantata “Glückselige Stunden! gesegnetes Licht” for the birthday of Princess Sophia (wife of Prince Carl Wilhelm) was performed and, at least for some years, Ulich seems to have been considered the court composer. This changed in 1716 when Johann Baptist Kuch was appointed Capell Director. When Kuch suddenly vanished from Zerbst in 1722, Ulich temporarily seems to have taken charge of music again

Johann Ulrich Steigleder

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Johann Ulrich Steigleder (22 March 1593 – 10 October 1635) was a German Baroque composer and organist. He was the most celebrated member of the Steigleder family, which also included Adam Steigleder (1561–1633), his father, and Utz Steigleder (died 1581), his grandfather. Steigleder was born in Schwäbisch Hall on 22 March 1593. He was instructed in music by his father Adam, whose teacher was the then-famous Simon Lohet. In 1613 he became organist of Stephanskirche in Lindau, on Lake Constance; then in 1617 he left Lindau for Stuttgart, where he became organist of the Stiftskirche the same year. In 1627 Steigleder was appointed ducal organist at the Württemberg court. While in Stuttgart, he may have taught, among others, Johann Jakob Froberger. He died of plague in 1635 in the midst of the Thirty Years’ War. Steigleder’s most important works are his two published collections of organ pieces. The first, Ricercar tabulatura of 1624 (published at Stuttgart), introduced a number of important innovations. It was the first German music collection to be published using engraved copper plates (the title page indicates that the composer did the engraving himself). It was also, together with

Johann Valentin Meder

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Johann Valentin Meder (baptised May 3, 1649 – July 1719) was a German composer, organist, and singer. (He is not to be confused with the German composer Johann Gabriel Meder, born in 1729 near Erfurt, and active in Amsterdam until 1800; nor is there evidence that the two men were related.) Meder was born in Wasungen, Thuringia to a musical family with his father and four brothers all being organists or Kantors. It is rumored that he moved to Leipzig in 1666, and began his University studies in theology there in 1669. In 1670, Meder left Leipzig to pursue continued studies at the University of Jena. Unable to secure a position there at the university, he resorted to taking a post as a professional singer in the Hofkapelle of Duke Ernst der Fromme (d. 1675). He was employed as court singer at Gotha in 1671, Bremen in 1672–1673, Hamburg in 1673 and Copenhagen and Lübeck, where in 1674 he met Buxtehude, whose work influenced Meder’s own sacred compositions. From 1674 to 1680 he was Kantor at the Gymnasium at Reval (now Tallinn, Estonia). After a sojourn in Riga (now in Latvia), in 1685-1686 he succeeded Balthasar Erben as Kapellmeister at the Marienkirche in Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland)

Johann Vesque von Püttlingen

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Johann Vesque von Püttlingen (pseudonym Johann Hoven) (23 July 1803 – 29 October 1883), born J. Vesque de Puttelange, was an Austrian lawyer, diplomat, author, composer and singer. His full name and title in German was Johann Vesque, Freiherr von Püttlingen. Early life He was born in the Lubomirski Palace (pl:Pałac Lubomirskich) in Opole Lubelskie (at the time located in West Galicia, a province of the Holy Roman Empire in eastern Poland, now in Lublin Voivodship). ;Background His father, Jean Vesque de Puttelange, born in Brussels, was a state official (civil servant) in Brussels, at the time in the Duchy of Brabant, a region of the Austrian Netherlands, themselves part of the Holy Roman Empire. Jean Vesque had to leave in a hurry after the French invasion of the Low Countries in 1793, but found himself banned (with the other Belgian officials of the late Brussels administration) from Vienna, where there were enough civil servants already; having rejected a French offer of citizenship of the new greater France - now including southern Belgium and Luxembourg - his estates were confiscated and he found himself stateless. After many years of wandering in Europe, often on foot, Jean V

Johann Vierdanck

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

Johann Vierdanck (also Virdanck, Vyrdanck, Feyertagk, Feyerdank, Fierdanck; ca. 1605–1646) was a German violinist, cornettist, and composer of the Baroque period. Life Vierdanck was born near Dresden. In 1615 he joined the court chapel of Dresden, where he became a student of Heinrich Schütz and of William Brade. His instrumental works were influenced by the Italian violinist Carlo Farina, also active in the Dresden court. After visits to Copenhagen and Lübeck, Vierdanck occupied the post of organist in Stralsund from 1635 until his death. He was buried in Stralsund on 1 April 1646. The group Parnassi Musici has recorded several of his instrumental works, from his 1641 publication, for the CD label Classic Produktion Osnabrück. Compositions *Instrumental **Erster Theil Newer Pavanen, Gagliarden, Balletten vnd Correnten m. 2 V. u. einem Violon nebenst dem basso continuo (1637, Greifswald) *Vocal Music **Erster Theil Geistlichen Concerten für 2 - 4 St. und B.c. (Greifswald, 1641/43) **Ander Theil Geistlicher Concerten mit 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. vnd 9. St. nebenst einem gedoppelten B.c. (Rostok, 1643) **Cantate: Der Herr hat seinen Engeln befohlen **Cantate: Ich freue mich im Herrn (Greifs

Johann Vogel (composer)

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Johann Christoph Vogel (also given as Fogel) (18 March 1756, in Nuremberg – 28 June 1788, in Paris) was a German composer. Life He spent most of his life working in France. He moved to Paris in 1776, and entered the service of the Duke of Montmorency and then of the Count of Valentinois as a horn player. He composed a great number of orchestral and chamber works but is best remembered for his oratorio Jephté, performed at the Concert Spirituel in September 1781, and for his two operas. Although his music was received favourably, his works never became extremely popular because they were deemed as ’too complicated and baroque’. Vogel was an enthusiast for the operas of Gluck, and his first opera, La toison d’or, is dedicated to the composer as ’législateur de la musique’. In places it appears to be a faithful stylistic imitation of Gluck’s two Iphigenia operas, Iphigénie en Tauride and Iphigenie auf Tauris , but with a fuller orchestration and a greater lyricism in the arias. The opera was written in 1781 but was not performed until 5 September 1786 at the Opéra National de Paris. It played for only 12 performances and was met with limited success since it seemed old-fashioned and c

Johann von Herbeck

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Johann Ritter von Herbeck (25 December 1831 – 28 October 1877) was an Austrian conductor and composer, best known for leading the premiere of Franz Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony. Life and career He was practically a self-educated musician, but by hard work rose rapidly from the position of chorister to that of professor in the Vienna Conservatory. From 1859 to 1870 and again from 1873 to 1877 he conducted the concerts of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, which under his energetic leadership became events of prime importance. In 1866 he was made chief court Kapellmeister and from 1871 to 1875 he was director of the Imperial Opera, resigning over intrigues and annoyances he could not tolerate. He was a great supporter of the music of Franz Schubert, and conducted the premiere of his “Unfinished” Symphony in 1865. In 1867 he conducted the first three movements of Brahms’s A German Requiem. He also conducted the Viennese premiere of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. He wrote many excellent part-songs and some instrumental music. His orchestral music included Tanzmomente (which Franz Liszt arranged for solo piano, S. 492), Künstlerfahrt, Symphonic Variations and several symph

Johann Walter

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Johann Walter, also known as Johann Walther or Johannes Walter (original name: Johann Blankenmüller; 1496 – 25 March 1570), was a Lutheran composer and poet during the Reformation period. Life Walter was born in Kahla, in present-day Thuringia, in 1496. According to a document filed with his will, he was born with the surname of Blanckenmüller, but adopted out of poverty by a citizen of Kahla, and given an education at Kahla and Rochlitz under his new name: Johann Walter. He began his career as a composer and bass cantor in the chapel of Frederick the Wise at the age of 21. It was a position he would hold until Frederick’s death in 1525. By this time, he was the director of the chapel and had become an outspoken musical spokesman for Lutherans. Walter edited the first Protestant hymnal for choir, , in Wittenberg in 1524, with a foreword by Martin Luther himself; and for the German-language Deutsche Messe produced in 1527. Following the conclusion of his appointment to Frederick’s chapel, Walter became cantor for the Torgau town choir in 1525, a post he would hold until 1548, when he was named court composer for Moritz, Duke of Saxony in Dresden, on whose orders he founded the orche

Johann Wanning

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Johann Wanning (also known as Johannes Wanningus, Wannigk, Wannicke or Wangnick) (1537 – 23 October 1603) was a Dutch composer, kapellmeister and singer who worked for most of his career in the Polish city of Danzig (Gdańsk). He wrote a number of cycles of motets to be performed through the church year, as well as being the composer of the first known musical epithalamium. Life Little is known about his early years or education. He was born in Kampen in the then Habsburg Netherlands and went to the university at Königsberg in the Duchy of Prussia in 1560. He sang as an alto in the ducal choir and gained a reputation as a composer. A few years later he moved to the port city of Danzig, where he was appointed to the role of kapellmeister at St. Mary’s Church. He held the position until his death in 1603, though his health had progressively deteriorated since 1593; in 1599 the composer Nikolaus Zangius took over Wanning’s duties, while Wanning himself was given what amounted to a pension of 50 marks paid quarterly. Musical works Wanning is today most noted for being “the first Protestant composer to write cycles of de tempore motets for the whole church year,” and his work inspired a

Johann Wilhelm Cornelius von Königslöw

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Johann Wilhelm Cornelius von Königslöw (16 March 1745 – 14 May 1833) was a German composer and musician active at the St. Mary’s Church, Lübeck. Life Born in Hamburg, he studied piano and singing with his father. At 13 years old, the boy became a soprano in the Lübeck Marienkirche under Adolph Kunzen, who taught him composition, organ, and violin. He also learned the cello. Königslöw became his assistant in 1772, taking over the direction of the Abendmusiken in 1773, and succeeding Kunzen in 1781. In 1776, he married Margarete Catharina Friedlein. Königslöw was a leading figure in Lübeck’s musical activities. He conducted Good Friday concerts, annual evening concerts, promoted amateur concerts, and founded a choral society. In 1810, he discontinued the evening concerts due to financial problems, and later in 1823 also stopped conducting the amateur concerts. Königslöw continued conducting the Good Friday until 1832. He died in 1833 in Lübeck. His music show the influence of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Most of Königslöw’s compositions were composed for the Abendmusiken. They are mostly within the Classical style, except for various stylistic

Johann Wilhelm Hertel

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Johann Wilhelm Hertel (9 October 1727 – 14 June 1789) was a German composer, harpsichord and violin player. He was born in Eisenach, into a family of musicians. His father, Johann Christian Hertel (1697–1754) was Konzertmeister (from 1733) and director of music at the Eisenach court, while his grandfather, Jakob Christian Hertel (c. 1667-c. 1726), had been Kapellmeister in Oettingen and later Merseburg. At an early age Johann Wilhelm accompanied his father, an accomplished viola da gamba player, on tour at the harpsichord. He also learned the violin, which he studied with Franz Benda. In 1742 he came with his father to Mecklenburg-Strelitz where he was active playing both instruments. Among his pupils there was Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch (1736–1800). After further music studies in Zerbst and Berlin, Hertel moved to the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, where he made a successful career, initially as principal and later becoming court composer, and likewise undertaking teaching. During the reign of Duke Christian Ludwig II, Hertel wrote primarily representative instrumental music, while during the reign of his successor, Frederick II (called ’the pious’) he focused on sacred music.

Johann Wilhelm Wilms

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Johann Wilhelm Wilms (March 30, 1772 (baptized) – July 19, 1847) was a Dutch-German composer, best known for setting the poem Wien Neêrlands Bloed to music, which served as the Dutch national anthem from 1817 to 1932. Biography Wilms was born in Witzhelden, a small town near Solingen. After receiving lessons from his father and oldest brother in piano and composition, Wilms studied flute on his own. He moved to Amsterdam in 1791 where he played the flute in two orchestras and was soloist in Mozart and Beethoven piano concertos, giving them their Dutch premieres. Here, he also received further instruction in musical theory from the Saxony-born composer Georg Casper Hodermann (1740-1802). Around 1793, his first composition was published, a sonata for keyboard (harpsichord or possibly fortepiano), which is lost. Three years later, Wilms was one of the six founders of the society Eruditio Musica, which organised concerts at which he was active as pianist and composer. He taught piano at the Koninklijk Nederlandsch Instituut voor Wetenschappen (the precursor of the present Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) after it was founded by the first King of Holland, Louis Napoleon.

Johann Wolfgang Franck

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Johann Wolfgang Franck (17 June 1644 in Unterschwaningen, Mittelfranken – c. 1710 in London) was a German baroque composer. Life He worked from 1673 to 1679 as Kapellmeister in Ansbach and then lived from 1679 to 1690 in Hamburg. Here he initially composed several geistliche Sing-Spiele for the Oper am Gänsemarkt. From 1682 to 1685 he held the position of cantor in St. Mary’s Cathedral. From 1690 he lived in London. Together with Robert King, he went there first as a concert promoter (1690 to 1693) and was thereafter only active as composer. Besides operas, he produced some songs (especially for the Concerts in London), cantatas and numerous hymn tunes. Works Operas *Die errettete Unschuld, oder Andromeda und Perseus, Ansbach, 1675 *Der verliebte Föbus, Ansbach, 1678 *Die drey Töchter (des) Cecrops, Ansbach, 1679 *Don Pedro, oder Die abgestraffte Eyffersucht, Hamburg, 1679 *Die macchabaeische Mutter mit ihren sieben Söhnen, Hamburg, 1679 *Pastorelle, Lustschloss, Triesdorff, Ansbach, 1679 *Die wohl- und beständig-liebende Michal, oder Der siegende und fliehende David, Hamburg, 1679 *Aeneae, des trojanischen Fürsten Ankunft in Italien, Hamburg, 1680 *Alceste, Hamburg, 1680 *Sein sel

Johanna Beyer

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Johanna Magdalena Beyer (July 11, 1888 – January 9, 1944) was a German-American composer and pianist. Among her best known compositions is IV for Percussion Ensemble (1935), the only work published during her lifetime. Biography Johanna Beyer was born in Leipzig, Germany, but very little is known about her life prior to her move to the United States in 1923. She sang for three years at the Leipziger Singakademie and graduated from the Deutscher Konservatorien and Musikseminare, having studied piano, harmony, theory, counterpoint, singing, and dancing. Colleagues in New York recalled that her pianism and musicianship were excellent and that her musical training seemed traditional and solid. She spent 1911–1914 in America, though nothing is known of her activities during those years. Returning to the U.S. in 1923 (according to the biographical notes she provided in a Composers’ Forum concert program), she studied at the Mannes College of Music, receiving two degrees by 1928. She taught piano to support herself, and may have taught at Greenwich House Music School, but struggled to make ends meet, resorting at times to WPA work and Ladies Home Aid. In the late 1920s or early thirties s

Johanna Doderer

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Johanna Doderer (born 18 September 1969 in Bregenz) is an Austrian composer. Biography Doderer was born in 1969 in Bregenz, Austria. She is the great-niece of the Austrian novelist Heimito von Doderer and a great-granddaughter of the architect Carl Wilhelm von Doderer. Doderer learned her trade in Graz with Beat Furrer (composition), then later in Vienna with Klaus Peter Sattler (film and media composition) and Erich Urbanner (composition). Her current work ranges broadly from chamber music to orchestral work and to opera. In the immediate future she intends to concentrate her work in the field of opera. An important aspect of her artistic career is her frequent collaborations with musicians such as Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Sylvia Khittl-Muhr, Marlis Petersen and Edua Zadory, and with the conductor Ulf Schirmer. Her work was performed at the Embassy of Austria, Washington, D.C. by violinist Édua Zádory and the Momenta Quartet. In December 2012 the University of Arts Graz (Austria) devoted an entire day to performances of Johanna Doderer’s works. Prizes and residencies *Composer in Residence 2004/2005, Wiener Concertverein *SKE Publicity Preis 2004 *Österreichisches Staatsstipendium

Johanna Kinkel

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Johanna Kinkel (8 July 1810 – 15 November 1858), born Maria Johanna Mockel, was a German composer, writer, pedagogue, and revolutionary. Biography Kinkel was born in Bonn to Catholic parents Marianna and Peter Joseph Mockel, a school teacher at the Bonner Lycée. She composed her first musical work, “The Bird Cantata” (“Die Vogelkantate”), op. 1, in 1829 for her musical society in Bonn and the work was published in 1838 by Trautwein. She spent a few years living and composing in Berlin, where she attended salons and formed friendships with women such as Bettina von Arnim and Fanny Hensel. She maintained a career as a published composer and writer as well as a music pedagogue throughout her life. In 1832, Johanna Mockel married the 29 year old music and bookseller Johann Paul Matthieux. The marriage quickly turned restrictive and abusive as Matthieux forbade his young wife from any activity beyond her domestic duties and tyrannized her to her psychological limits. In 1840, she was divorced from the Cologne bookseller Matthieux. Her second marriage, in 1843, was to the German poet Gottfried Kinkel, with whom she had four children. Following the 1848 Revolutions she was forced to aband

Johanna Müller-Hermann

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Johanna Müller-Hermann (15 January 1868 – 19 April 1941) was an Austrian composer and pedagogue. Life Johanna Hermann began to receive music lessons at an early age, together with her two siblings. This was in keeping with the middle-class ideal of education; her father was a section head in the Austrian Ministry of Culture and Education in Vienna, and thus belonged to the upper echelons of the civil service. In accordance with the circumstances of the time, however, she was unable to pursue her musical ambitions; instead she graduated from a teacher training college and taught for several years at a public education school in Vienna. When she married Otto Müller-Martini, a transport expert, in 1893, she was no longer required to work and continued her musical studies. This was followed by piano and violin lessons, and instruction in music theory. She studied under Guido Adler, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Josef Bohuslav Foerster According to Dr. Carola Darwin, “The contribution of women to Vienna’s creative life at this period has been largely forgotten as the result of Nazi ideology, as well as the general destruction of the Second World War… Johanna Müller-Hermann’s works deserve

Johanna Senfter

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Johanna Senfter ( 27 November 1879 – 11 August 1961) was a German composer. Family background Johanna Senfter was born in 1879 as the youngest of the six children of Elise and Georg Senfter. Her maternal grandfather was the Oppenheim pharmacist and quinine manufacturer (1786-1865), who succeeded in extracting an antipyretic and anti-infective agent from cinchona bark to combat malaria, which was rampant in Oppenheim at the time. To produce this quinine, he set up his own pharmaceutical factory. The successful production of the drug enabled the Koch family’s social and financial upswing. The son of company founder, , eventually became mayor and, thanks to his achievements in this office, an honorary citizen of the town. Johanna’s father, Georg Senfter, owner of a brickworks, coal and timber business, was also considered wealthy. He married Elise, Carl Koch’s sister, and acquired the imposing , an old aristocratic residence, including the vineyard, which had previously belonged to the von Cronberg family. In 1864, he joined Carl Koch’s quinine company as managing director, co-entrepreneur and financier. Both families belonged to the upper social class, led a prosperous life and owned

Johannes Alanus

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Johannes Alanus () was an English composer. He wrote the motet Sub arturo plebs/Fons citharizancium/In omnem terram. Also attributed to him are the songs “Min frow, min frow” and “Min herze wil all zit frowen pflegen”, both lieds, and “S’en vos por moy pitié ne truis”, a virelai. O amicus/Precursoris, attributed simply to “Johannes”, may be the work of the same composer. Identity As with many medieval composers, there is some confusion as to Alanus’s identity. For the composer represented in the Old Hall Manuscript, who has sometimes been conflated with Johannes Alanus, see Aleyn. The composer of Sub Arturo plebs, is identified as Jo.Alani and referring to J.Alani Minimus. He has been identified with Dominus Johannes Aleyn (or John Aleyn), who was a chaplain for the chapel of Edward III of England and later Canon of St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle from 1362 until his death in 1373. He received many other favors which indicate royal patronage, probably from Queen Philippa of Hainault. Sub Arturo plebs Sub Arturo plebs/Fons citharizancium/In omnem terram is an ars nova mensuration motet with a different text in each voice. The “triplum”, or third voice, is on a text which names

Johannes Bernardus van Bree

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Johannes Bernardus van Bree (29 January 1801 – 14 February 1857) was a Dutch composer, violinist and conductor. Van Bree was born and died in Amsterdam. He was a pupil of Jan George Bertelman. From 1829 to the year of his death he directed the Felix Meritis Society. He was also the director of the Music School of the Society of the Promotion of Music, Amsterdam. As a conductor he gave the Dutch premieres of Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique (in 1855) and Richard Wagner’s Faust Overture (1856). Incomplete list of works *Operas **Sappho ) *Choral and Vocal Works **Mass for Soloists, Mixed Chorus and Orchestra in A flat (ca. 1830) **Mass for Two-Part Chorus and Organ in F **Three Masses “tribus vocibus humanis, comitante organo” for Three-Part Male Chorus and Organ (1837) **Fantasy in form of a symphony (1845) **Allegro for Four String Quartets in D minor (about 1845) References External links *

Johannes Brahms

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Upbringing#

Brahms’s father, Johann Jakob Brahms, was from the town of Heide in Holstein. Against his family’s will, Johann Jakob pursued a career in music, arriving in Hamburg at age 19. He found work playing double bass; he also played in a sextet in the Alster-pavilion in Hamburg’s Jungfernstieg. In 1830, Johann Jakob was appointed as a horn player in the Hamburg militia. He married Johanna Henrika Christiane Nissen the same year. A middle-class seamstress 17 years his senior, she enjoyed writing letters and reading despite an apparently limited education. Johannes Brahms was born in 1833. His sister Elisabeth (Elise) had been born in 1831 and a younger brother Fritz Friedrich was born in 1835. The family then lived in poor apartments in and struggled economically. (Johann Jakob even considered emigrating to the United States when an impresario, recognizing Johannes’s talent, promised them fortune there.) Eventually Johann Jakob became a musician in the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg playing double bass, horn, and flute. For enjoyment, he played first violin in string quartets. The family moved over the years to ever better accommodation in Hamburg.

Johannes Brassart

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Johannes Brassart (also known as Jehan Brassart or Jean Brassart) (c. 1400 – before 22 October 1455) was a Flemish composer of the early-Renaissance Burgundian school. Of his output, only sacred vocal music has survived, and it typifies early-15th-century practice. Life He was most likely born in the village of Lauw near Tongeren in the prince-bishopric of Liège (now in the province of Limburg, Belgium), though the date is only known approximately. From 1422 to 1431 he worked at the collegiate church of St John the Evangelist in Liège, where he was a succentor. In the mid-1420s he visited Rome, moving there in 1431, where he was employed in the papal chapel as a singer and probably as a composer as well; he was in the choir at the same time as composers Arnold de Lantins and Guillaume Dufay. During this period Brassart most likely composed the motet O flos fragrans, which was popular enough to appear in several manuscripts of the time, as well as Te dignitas presularis. In 1432 Brassart went to Basel, where he was a singer at the council chapel, and two years later Emperor Sigismund employed him as rector of the chapel, a post which he retained until 1443. In 1445 he moved to Liège

Johannes Cesaris

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Johannes Cesaris (fl. 1406 – 1417) was a French composer of the late Medieval era and early Renaissance. He was one of the composers of the transitional style between the two epochs, and was active at the Burgundian court in the early 15th century. Life and career Little is known about his life, excepting the years he was active in Bourges. He was a cleric for the Duke of Berry in Bourges in 1406, and maître des enfants (choirmaster to the boys) at the cathedral there from 1407 to 1409. In 1417 he was probably the organist at Angers cathedral. A Pierre Cesaris, possibly a relative, was active in Bourges until 1443. There is a reference in a contemporary poem, Le champion des dames by Martin le Franc to Johannes Cesaris being a popular composer in Paris in the early part of the century (this is the same manuscript that contains the famous portraits of Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois). Music Of his works, one motet, two ballades, and five rondeaux survive, as well as a sixth rondeau which has a contested attribution (it may be by Passet). Stylistically, they span both the manneristic complexities of the ars subtilior, which was the predominant style in Avignon in the 1390s, and t

Johannes Ciconia

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Johannes Ciconia (c. 1370 – between 10 June and 13 July 1412) was an important Franco-Flemish composer and music theorist of trecento music during the late Medieval era. He was born in Liège, but worked most of his adult life in Italy, first in the papal entourage in Rome and later and most importantly at Padua Cathedral. Life He was the son of a priest (also named Johannes Ciconia) and a woman of high social standing. Since at least three other men around Liège had that name as well, this has created biographical confusion, first solved by David Fallows in 1975. A Johannes Ciconia, probably the composer’s father, worked in Avignon in 1350 as a clerk for the wife of Pope Clement VI’s nephew. Another Johannes Ciconia is recorded in Liège in 1385 as a , generally identifying a person of young age; scholars agree that this is the composer himself. Papal records suggest that Ciconia was in the service of Philppe d’Alençon, a powerful French cardinal of the schismatic Pope Boniface IX. He is believed to have worked as a clericus capelle, an important job usually held by younger musicians. His whereabouts between the early 1390s and 1401 are generally undocumented, however, due to his se

Johannes de Quadris

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

Johannes de Quadris (Quatris) (before 1410 – 1457?) was an Italian composer of the early Renaissance. He was one of the first composers of polyphony associated with the basilica of St. Mark’s in Venice, and the earliest known composer to write a polyphonic setting of the Magnificat for four voices. Life He was a priest, and originally from the diocese of Valva-Sulmona, in the vicinity of L’Aquila, in the Abruzzo region of central Italy. Sometime before 1436 he began to work as a singer at San Marco in Venice, which was then at the very beginning of its rise to fame; the first mention of a choir there is found in a document of 1403 (by the end of the 16th century, it was one of the most renowned musical institutions in Europe). Quadris worked at San Marco from at least 1436, the date given on his Magnificat, to the time that a Vatican document listed him as “deceased”, in 1457. He made repeated requests (1450, 1452, 1454) to Pope Nicholas V to obtain a prebend in Aquileia. Quadris’s music remained popular for more than half a century, as shown by the many copies made of his hymn Iste confessor, as well as the printing of his music for the Passion by Ottaviano Petrucci in 1506 (the o

Johannes Driessler

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Johannes Driessler (26 January 1921 – 3 May 1998) was a German composer, organist, and lecturer. He composed operas, chamber music, and especially sacred music both vocal and for organ. Life and work Driessler was born in Friedrichsthal on 26 January 1921. He also composed for harpsichord, including Akrostichon (Op. 56; 1967), which repeats the motives in an “‘acrostic-like’ technique”. His work is described by Hanspeter Krellmann in his Grove Music Online entry as traditional, tonal and contrapuntal. A contemporary reviewer for Music & Letters describes his music as containing “slightly acid dissonance”, akin to Hindemith. His work was published by Bärenreiter and Breitkopf & Härtel. He was in 1959 the first recipient of the , and was awarded the in 1962. Driessler died in Detmold on 3 May 1998, at age 77. Works Sources: * Sinfonia Sacra * Dein Reich komme, oratorio, Op. 11 (1950) * Claudia amata, lyric opera, Op. 17 (premiered 1952 Münster) * Prinzessin Hochmut, fairy-tale opera, Op. 21 (premiered 1952 Kassel) * Der Umfried, opera (premiered 1957) * Doktor Luzifer Trux, opera (premiered 1958) * Three Small Pieces for cello and piano, Op. 8 * Vier kleine Stücke für Flöte und Klavi

Johannes Eccard

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Johannes Eccard (1553–1611) was a German composer and kapellmeister. He was an early principal conductor at the Berlin court chapel. Biography Eccard was born at Mühlhausen, in present-day Thuringia, Germany. At the age of eighteen he went to Munich, where he became the pupil of Orlando Lasso. In his company, Eccard is said to have visited Paris, but in 1574, he was again at Mühlhausen, where he resided for four years. There he, together with Joachim a Burck, edited some works of his first master, a collection of sacred songs, called Crepundia sacra Helmboldi (1577). Soon afterwards he obtained an appointment as musician in the house of Jacob Fugger, the Augsburg banker. In 1583 he became assistant conductor, and in 1599 conductor at Königsberg to Georg Friedrich, Margrave of Brandenburg-Anspach, the administrator of the Duchy of Prussia. In 1608 he was called by Joachim Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg as principal conductor in Berlin, but this post he held only for three years, owing to his death at Königsberg in 1611. Eccard’s works consist exclusively of vocal compositions, such as songs, sacred cantatas and chorales for four or five, and sometimes for seven, eight, or even ni

Johannes Fedé

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

Johannes Fedé (also Jean Sohier) (c. 1415 – 1477?) was a French composer of the early Renaissance. While he was mentioned by Eloy d’Amerval as one of the greatest composers of the age, and resident in Paradise, relatively few of his works have survived. He was a contemporary of Johannes Ockeghem, and spent his life in the Burgundian Netherlands, France and Italy. Life Fedé was probably from the region of Artois, most likely from Douai, based on the presence of several possible relatives of his at Cambrai Cathedral, several of whom had “of Douai” appended to their names. From 1439 to 1440 he was vicar at St. Amé in Douai. By 1443 he had gone to Italy, a region which was to become a common destination for composers from northern Europe for the next one hundred fifty years: Fedé sang in the papal chapel in Rome. From July 1445 to March 1446 he worked in Ferrara, at the court chapel of Leonello d’Este. Fedé thus was one of the earliest composers from northern Europe to work in Ferrara, a rich center of artistic patronage, which was to become a center of musical innovation for the remainder of the Renaissance. Later in 1446 he was back in Cambrai, working as “petit vicar” at the cathedr

Johannes Frederik Fröhlich

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Johannes Frederik Fröhlich (21 August 1806 – 21 May 1860) (or Frølich), a Danish violinist, conductor and composer, was a precursor of Niels Gade and J.P.E. Hartmann, and a central figure in Danish musical circles during the Romantic era. Biography He was a pupil of violinists Claus Schall and Friedrich Kuhlau. From 1827 he worked at the Royal Theatre, Copenhagen, where he was chief conductor from 1836. Fröhlich was a co-founder of the Music Society of Copenhagen and its first chairman. Works He wrote a symphony (in E-flat, Op. 33), and choral works and chamber music, as well as violin and piano compositions and a violin concerto. He wrote ballet music for the ballet-master and choreographer August Bournonville, founder of the Danish ballet tradition. The main cache of his musical manuscripts is conserved in the Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen. Notable works *op. 1 Strygekvartet nr. 1 i d-mol (1825) *op. 2 Strygekvartet nr. 2 i A-dur *op. 3 violinkoncerter (1825) *Ouverture til Kong Salomon og Jørgen Hattemager (1825) *op. 4 Koncertino for Violin (1826) *op. 6 Introduktion og Polonaise for Violin med Orkester *op. 7 violinkoncert *op. 14 violinkoncert *op. 15 Strygekvartet (1827) *

Johannes Fritsch

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Johannes Georg Fritsch (27 July 1941 – 29 April 2010) was a German composer. At the age of seven, Fritsch found a violin in the attic of his uncle’s house in Bensheim-Auerbach, Germany, and began lessons with a village music teacher named Knapp. When he was ten, his family moved to Cologne, and he began studying with the principal violist in the Gürzenich Orchestra. He studied music, sociology, and philosophy from 1961 to 1965 at the University and the Staatliche Musikhochschule in Cologne with, amongst others, Bernd Alois Zimmermann and Gottfried Michael Koenig. In the following years he applied himself to the most varied musical activities. Amongst other things he played viola in the Stockhausen-Ensemble from 1964 to 1970, and took part in the German exhibition at Expo ‘70, the World’s Fair in Osaka in 1970. Although he had begun to compose at the age of 17, Fritsch regards as his first real composition the Duett für Bratsche (Duet for Viola), for viola and tape, which had a succès de scandale when he performed it at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse in 1962—one newspaper review called him a kühner Kratzer (audacious scraper). In 1966 Fritsch received the Förderpreis (Monetary Award) o

Johannes Gelbke

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Johannes Woldemar Gelbke (19 July 1846 – 1 March 1903) was a German composer, choir lieder, conductor and singer He became known especially in Germany for his song Horch! Die alten Eichen rauschen… (“Heimkehr”). He also worked as a composer, conductor, choirmaster and singer in the US, where he lived and worked from 1882. Life Gelbke was born in Radeberg. Father Ernst Ludwig Gelbke (1812 Radeberg - unknown) was “veterinarian and company blacksmith in the local Königl. Sächs. Brigade Reiter Artillerie” in the Radeberg garrison. quickly recognised the boy’s musical abilities, introduced him to the ecclesiastical Tonkunst and gave him lessons in music theory. Already here, the young Gelbke composed songs and church choir. No specific information is available about his numerous compositions from 1882 onwards in Buffalo. The home of Gelbke’s choral society “Orpheus”, the “New Music Hall Buffalo”, burned down in March 1885, whereupon Gelbke handed over the direction of the choir to Carl Adam in November 1885. Gelbke was the conductor of the Buffalo Sängerbund for several years and also conducted the Central Sängerbund, which was made up of 12 regional choral societies, the Mendelssohn

Johannes Ghiselin

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

Johannes Ghiselin (Verbonnet) (fl. 1455–1511) was a Flemish composer of the Renaissance, active in France, Italy and in the Low Countries. He was a contemporary of Josquin des Prez, and a significant composer of masses, motets, and secular music. His reputation was considerable, as shown by music printer Ottaviano Petrucci’s decision to print a complete book of his masses immediately after his similar publication of masses by Josquin – only the second such publication in music history. Life Little is known about his early life, but it can be inferred that he was from the south Netherlands, from archival mentions of him as being “da Piccardia” and “fiamengo”. He may have been associated with the Burgundian chapel in the 1470s during the time of Charles the Bold, since he composed Je lay empris for him; however, no documentary record of his having been there has yet been found. The first direct record of Ghiselin is in 1491, when he was in Ferrara. Isabella d’Este sent him to France to get some singers for the Este chapel that same year. In 1492 and 1493 he was a singer in Florence, and it is possible that he went to France and/or the Low Countries immediately after that. Since he is

Johannes Haarklou

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

Johannes Haarklou (May 13, 1847 – November 26, 1925) was a Norwegian composer, organist, conductor, and music critic. Biography Haarklou was born in the village of Haukedalen in Førde Municipality in Nordre Bergenhus, Norway. He was the son of Ole Nilsson Dvergsdalen (1815-1872) and Orlaug Andersdatter Haarklou (1808-1870). He went to Balestrand lærerskole, then attended the Stord lærerskole where he graduated in 1868. He studied organ and harmony in Drammen, then in 1872 studied with Ludvig Mathias Lindeman in Christiania (now Oslo). Composer Fredrikke Waaler studied with Lindeman and also with Haarklou. From 1873 to 1875 he studied with Carl Reinecke at the Leipzig Conservatory and then at the Berlin Music Academy. In 1876 Haarklou was an organist at Tangen Church at Drammen. In 1877, he conducted his first orchestral work in Bergen followed later by a concert at the Gamle Logen in Christiania. In 1880, he became an organist and conductor in Christiania, first at Sagene Church and between 1883 and 1920 in the Old Aker Church. In 1889, he conducted at Copenhagen, Berlin, and Leipzig. Between 1889 and 1896, he was also a lecturer in harmonics and composition at the Christiania Musi

Johannes Helstone

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Johannes Helstone, born Nicodemus Johannes Helstone (11 January 1853 – 24 April 1927), was a Surinamese composer, pianist and writer. He is best known for his 1906 opera Het Pand der Goden. Biography Helstone was born on the Moravian mission Berg en Dal on 11 January 1853 to Proserpina Ulm and Doris Nicolaas Helstone. He was born enslaved and was granted freedom at age ten, when the Dutch abolished slavery. Professionally, Helstone was a teacher, and a church organist. Other musical works include psalms, a mazurka brillante (1889), a toccata, Prinses Juliana Mars (1903) in honour of the birth of Princess Juliana, Emancipatie Mars (1913) and many songs in Dutch and German. The book is slightly controversial, because Helstone encouraged the Creole population to learn Dutch. In 1924 and 1925, Helstone wrote a five parts series about proverbs in Sranan Tongo. because Helstone had been the organist of the church for many years. In 1959, Trefossa wrote God zij met ons Suriname, a new national anthem for Suriname. Originally Trefossa used a melody by Helstone. The lyrics were accepted, however the national anthem uses the 1867 melody. In 2006, the art exhibition hall of the was named afte

Johannes Jeep

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Johannes Jeep (pronounced “Yape”; also Johann or Jepp; 1581/1582 – 19 November 1644) was a German organist, choirmaster and composer. Biography Jeep, who was born in Dransfeld, Germany, is remembered for his choral writing. He collected his student songs in Studentengartlein, the first volume published in 1607, the second volume in 1609, and both published as a single volume in 1614. He also published more than one hundred hymns in the Hohenlohe Hymnbook in 1629. He was one of the first German musicians to travel to Italy. In 1613, he was appointed director of music for the court of the Count of Hohenlohe, serving until 1625. Around 1635, he served as organist at Frankfurt Cathedral. In 1642, he was appointed conductor for the court of the Count of Hanau. He died in Hanau, Germany. His best-known song is the 4-part madrigal “Musica, die ganz lieblich Kunst” (“Music, the most lovely art”). Influence The novelist James Joyce was an accomplished tenor. In Ulysses (Episode 16, “Eumaeus”, 663:14-22), Joyce’s autobiographical character, Stephen Dedalus, performs Jeep’s spirited song “Von der Sirenen Listigkeit” (“Of the Siren’s Cunning”) for Leopold Bloom, and the two men bond over its m

Johannes Kalitzke

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

Johannes Kalitzke (born 12 February 1959) is a German composer and conductor. After studying in Cologne and at the IRCAM in Paris, he was chief conductor at the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen for several years, then led the ensemble musikFabrik and composed operas on commissions in Germany and Austria. He has been Professor of Conducting (Contemporary Music) at the Salzburg Mozarteum from 2015. Early life Born in Cologne, Kalitzke trained on the piano from 1967 to 1977 with Jeanette Chéro and studied church music in Cologne from 1974 to 1976. He studied further at the Musikhochschule Köln from 1978 to 1981, studying piano with Aloys Kontarsky, conducting with Wolfgang von der Nahmer, and composition with York Höller, and later electronic music with Ulrich Humpert. He focused on electronic music at the IRCAM in Paris with Vinko Globokar in 1982–83, on a scholarship of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes. Career From 1984 to 1990, Kalitze was first Kapellmeister and then chief conductor at the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen. From 1986, he was also the leader of the Forum für Neue Musik there, succeeding Carla Henius. From 1991, he was artistic director of the e

Johannes Kreidler

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Johannes Kreidler (born 1980) is a German composer, performer, conceptual and media artist. Kreidler came to prominence with a series of politically charged pieces of musical performance art, beginning with 2008’s product placements: a 33-second recording containing 70,200 samples of other recordings, which the composer then attempted to register individually with the German copyright authorities. Later in 2009, Kreidler realised the controversial work Fremdarbeit (Outsourcing), in which he ‘outsourced’ his commission from Klangwerkstatt Berlin to a Chinese composer and an Indian computer programmer to write the piece on his behalf, imitating his style, for a fraction of the commission fee. These three compositions came to encapsulate the composer’s approach to ‘conceptual music’, as theorised by Kreidler himself and by the philosopher Harry Lehmann in subsequent lectures, essays and publications. Since 2010, the composer’s catalogue has included many more ‘conceptual pieces’ — often video works for gallery or online display — in addition to large-scale music theatre works like the seven-hour Audioguide (2014), the opera My State as Friend and Beloved (2018), and Selbstauslöser (Se

Johannes Lippius

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Johannes Lippius (24 June 1585 – 24 September 1612) was an Alsatian theologian and music theorist. He coined the term “harmonic triad” in his Synopsis musicae novae (Synopsis of New Music; 1612). Life Lippius was born in Strasbourg, the son of the pastor of St. Peter, Johann Lippius (1554–1622), and his wife Susanna Klehmann. In early childhood, he had already received education in languages and the seven liberal arts, which allowed him to be appointed at the University of Strasbourg to the Master of Philosophy at a young age. By his twenty-first birthday he had given private and university lectures, after which he entered the University of Leipzig, 1606, the University of Wittenberg, the University of Frankfurt (Oder), the University of Jena, where he became adjunct of the faculty of philosophy, and the University of Erfurt. He died in Speyer, aged 27. References Further reading * * * *

Johannes Lupi

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Jean Leleu, most commonly known by the latinized version of his name, Johannes Lupi (c. 1506 – December 20, 1539), was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. A representative of the generation after Josquin, he was a minor but skilled composer of polyphony who was mainly active in Cambrai. Life His birthplace is unknown, but he served in Cambrai as a choirboy. He lived in Cambrai most of his life, only leaving to attend the university in Leuven, where he was present from 1522 until 1526. In 1527 he became master of the choirboys at the Cambrai Cathedral, a position which typically included housing and boarding them in addition to teaching them music. Several times he was fired from his job, but always re-hired again, usually for failing to discipline his charges but also for poor bookkeeping. Lupi had an unnamed chronic illness which plagued him increasingly in the 1530s—he had to leave his position because of it in 1535—and which caused his early death. Style and influence All of his surviving music is a cappella vocal. Only two masses survive, but he wrote numerous motets and chansons; the motets were collected and printed in 1542 by Pierre Attaingnant. One noteworthy work

Johannes Magirus the elder

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Johannes Magirus (26 March 1537 – 4 July 1614) was a German Lutheran Theologian. Name change His name at birth, like that of his father, was Johannes Koch. The English language equivalent would be “John Cook”. At some point he renamed himself “Johannes Magirus”, reflecting an enthusiasm for classical culture that was common among many intellectuals of his time and place. Magirus (“Μάγειρας”) is the Greek word for “cook.” Life Johannes Koch was born in Backnang in Württemberg. and underwent an impoverished upbringing, supporting his mother Magdalena (born Magdalena Kurtz). As a boy he excelled at scholarship, especially in his study of Latin, raising concern on the part of a step father that he might be taken to Spain by Spanish soldiers of the Imperial army who were in Backnang in connection with the Schmalkaldic War between December 1546 and December 1549. He was removed from school and apprenticed in a craft trade for more than a year in order to divert attention from his academic prowess, but by 1553, at the unusually youthful age of just 16, he was studying Theology with a scholarship to the University of Tübingen. Continuing in his scholarly precocity, he became a Bachelor of

Johannes Malfatti

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Johannes Malfatti (born 1976) is a German composer, sound designer and multi-instrumentalist from Berlin. He releases music under his own name and various monikers and writes music for film, theatre, art installations and advertisement. He studied sound design at the Konrad Wolf Film University of Babelsberg and graduated with a degree in sound design for audio-visual media. Career In 2003 he joined Olivier Alary and his project Ensemble, first as orchestral arranger and sound mixer for Ensemble’s second studio album. His arrangements were recorded with the Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg. Malfatti also wrote the orchestral arrangements for Ensemble’s remix of Björk’s “Mouth’s Cradle”. He co-wrote and produced Ensemble’s third studio album Excerpts that was released in 2011 on FatCat Records. Malfatti released his first solo album, Surge, on the Italian ambient label Glacial Movements in 2017. His follow up album 달빛백조의노래 Moonlight Swan Songs was released under the moniker 요유시 yoyush on Japanese vaporwave label Seikomart. and was available as limited cassette edition. With u, i Malfatti and Alary released the first joined album under their own names in 2020. The album was produce

Johannes Maria Staud

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Johannes Maria Staud (born 17 August 1974) is an Austrian composer. His works have been performed internationally by major orchestras, ensembles, and soloists, and he has received several composition prizes. Biography Staud was born on 17 August 1974 in Innsbruck. He studied musicology and philosophy in Vienna before continuing his composition studies with Brian Ferneyhough and Michael Jarrell at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, and later with Hanspeter Kyburz at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin. He is also a co-founder of the Vienna-based composers’ group Gegenklang. Career Early major works Staud achieved early international recognition with Apeiron (2005), commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic and premiered under Sir Simon Rattle and Segue (2006), for violoncello and orchestra, written for Heinrich Schiff and the Vienna Philharmonic under Daniel Barenboim at the Salzburg Festival. Later career In 2010–2011, Staud served as Capell-Compositeur of the Staatskapelle Dresden. Other significant works of the 2010s include Auf die Stimme der weißen Kreide (Specter I–III) (2015), premiered at Festival Musica in Strasbourg, and the diptych Par ici ! – Par

Johannes Martini

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Johannes Martini (c. 1440 – late 1497 or early 1498) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. Life He was born in Brabant around 1440, but information about his early life is scanty. He probably received his early training in Flanders, as did most of the composers of his generation. Sometime before 1473, he became associated with the ducal chapel in Ferrara, Italy, where Ercole I d’Este was attempting to build a musical establishment on the part of some of the other aristocratic centres in Italy. He was a member of the famous Milan chapel of the Sforza family in July 1474, along with Loyset Compère, Gaspar van Weerbeke, and some of the other composers from northern Europe who were part of the first wave of Franco-Flemish influence in Italy. In November, he returned to Ferrara. What prompted him to leave and return is not known, but since the Milanese chapel was then the most renowned in Europe, it is possible he went to investigate the competition for his employer as much as to improve his own singing and compositional skill. However, he must have returned to Milan, since he is listed along with Jean Japart, Colinet de Lannoy, and Compère, to be given a safe pass for exit

Johannes Matthias Sperger

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Johannes Matthias Sperger, also often Johann, (Czech: Jan Matyáš Sperger; 23 March 1750 – 13 May 1812) was an Austrian double bassist and composer. Sperger was born in Feldsberg, and trained from 1767 in Vienna as a contrabassist and composer. He worked from 1777 in the Hofkapelle of the Archbishop of Pressburg. From 1778 he was also a member in the Wiener Tonkünstlersozietät, participating in its concerts several times playing his own works and as soloist. From 1783 to 1786, Sperger was a member of the Hofkapelle of count Ludwig von Erdödy in Kohfidisch. From 1789 he was employed as first contrabassist of the Mecklenburg Schwerin Hofkapelle in Ludwigslust. He was a prolific composer, writing at least forty-four symphonies, numerous instrumental concertos, including eighteen for contrabass. He also wrote sonatas, rondos and dances, cantatas, choral works, and airs. He died in Ludwigslust in 1812 aged 62. Notes External links * *

Johannes Möller (guitarist)

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Johannes Möller (born November 29, 1981) is a Swedish classical guitarist and composer. Early life Johannes Möller was born on 29 November 1981 to Swedish parents. His father Mats Möller is a professional flautist and his grandfather was a viola player. As a young child, Möller would play on the piano in his home creating melodies and would use Blu Tack to put numbers on the keys to indicate the order they should be played. At age 10, he began taking guitar lessons as part of the public music education programme that offered music lessons to all school children in Sweden. When he was 12, Möller began studying counterpoint, harmony and the art of composition in earnest through textbooks. This resulted in a large quantity of mainly chamber music works for various instruments. A selection of these works was recorded on a CD with some of the top instrumentalists in his Sweden when he was 14 years old. A critic from the Swedish newspaper Göteborgs-Posten wrote about these compositions, “What is to become of Johannes Möller? A Swedish Mozart – in our time?” Education & Competitions Johannes Möller has earned a Bachelor of Music with Honors from the Royal College of Music in London and he

Johannes Nucius

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Johannes Nucius (also Nux, Nucis) (c. 1556 – March 25, 1620) was a German composer and music theorist of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Although isolated from most of the major centers of musical activity, he was a polished composer in the style of Lassus and penned an extremely influential treatise on the rhetorical application of compositional devices. Life Nucius was born in Görlitz, in Lower Silesia. He studied at the Gymnasium in Görlitz with Johannes Winckler, who was so influential in his development that he referred to him reverentially in his later writings. In 1586 he became a monk in the monastery in Rauden, in Upper Silesia; there he received a humanistic education to supplement the considerable musical training he had received under Winckler. He rose in the hierarchy at the monastery, becoming a deacon, and later an abbot at Himmelwitz; however in 1598 he turned over most of his duties to his assistants in order to compose and write his musical treatise. He died at Himmelwitz (now Jemielnica, Poland), near the town of Strehlitz, in Upper Silesia (now Strzelce Opolskie, Poland). Works and influence Nucius’s music shows the influence of Lassus above all. He

Johannes Ockeghem

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Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1410 – 6 February 1497) was a Franco-Flemish composer and singer of early Renaissance music. Ockeghem was a significant European composer in the period between Guillaume Du Fay and Josquin des Prez, and he was—with his colleague Antoine Busnois—a prominent European composer in the second half of the 15th century. He was an important proponent of the early Franco-Flemish School. Ockeghem was well associated with other prominent composers of the time, and spent most of his career serving the French royal court under Charles VII, Louis XI and Charles VIII. Numerous poets and musicians lamented his death, including Erasmus, Guillaume Crétin, Jean Molinet and Josquin, who composed the well-known Nymphes des bois for him. It is thought that Ockeghem’s extant works represent only a small part of his entire oeuvre, including around 14 masses, 20 chansons and fewer than 10 motets—though the exact numbers vary due to attribution uncertainties. His better-known works include the canon-based Missa prolationum; the Missa cuiusvis toni, which can be sung in any mode; the chanson Fors seulement; and the earliest surviving polyphonic Requiem. Life Background and early life Th

Johannes Pache

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Johannes Johann Fürchtegott Pache (9 December 1857, Bischofswerda – 24 December 1897, Limbach) was a German composer and organist. Life Pache was born in Bischofswerda, Upper Lusatia, as son of a teacher. It was his father wish that Johannes should become a theologian as his two elder brothers did. Pache attended the school in Zittau, where his love to music awoke. He played piano, sang in a chorus and accomplished the first compositions. However, he neglected his school duties and stayed down. The father tried to convince him to become a teacher, all in vain. Pache resumed school in Bautzen, where he gave some music lectures and composed his first known pieces. Finally he convinced the father to let him study music in Dresden. In 1879 Pache got in Herisau his first appointment as organist and music director. Two years later he returned to Dresden, where he earned his money with casual engagements. In 1884 he moved to Leipzig, where he became known as concert pianist and composer. In Naumburg he was appointed music director and founded a widely known chorus. In these years Pache achieved material prosperity, especially after music publishers in Leipzig engaged him as advisor. Pache

Johannes Palaschko

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Johannes Palaschko (13 July 1877 in Berlin – 21 October 1932 in Berlin) was a German composer, violinist and violist who wrote numerous works for both violin and viola. He became a violin student of Joseph Joachim in 1891, concurrently studying music theory with Ernst Eduard Taubert and composition with Heinrich von Herzogenberg. In 1899 he graduated from the Berlin Hochschule für Musik. In 1913 he became Director of the Böttscher Conservatory in Berlin; that same year he married Martha Jürgens. Many of his viola etudes are still in print; he published 480 violin etudes and 217 viola etudes. He also published 178 works for violin and piano. Works A listing by opus number is found in the German version of this article. Keyboard *Op. 29: Postludium. C moll Postludium. C Minor . Organ. Leipzig: C. F. Kahnt, ca. 1901. *Op. 60: Ballet Music. Piano. Philadelphia: T. Presser, 1923. *Op. 67: Rondoletto. Piano. London: Alfred Lengnick & Co., 1924. Viola Etudes *Op. 36: 20 Etüden für Viola zur Förderung der Technik und des Vortrags 20 Etudes for Viola for Developing Technic and Artistry . Viola. Leipzig: Kistner, 1905. *Op. 44: 10 Künstler Etüden 10 Artist Studies . Viola. Leipzig: Zimmerman

Johannes Petzold

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

Johannes Petzold (24 October 1912 – 19 May 1985) was a German church musician, composer of several hymnal songs and docent at the Thuringian Church Music School. Life Born in Plauen, Vogtland, Petzold, son of a pattern draughtsman in the lace and curtain industry of his home town, studied education in Leipzig 1932–1935, majoring in music. One month after his matriculation he became a member of the “New Saxon Teachers’ Association” (30 May 1932). As a result of the Gleichschaltung of the teachers’ associations, he belonged to the Nationalsozialistischer Lehrerbund from the On 7 July 1933, he joined the Sturmabteilung. After graduating, he worked as an primary school teacher in small villages in the Vogtland and Ore Mountains regions. As a “young teacher” he became a member of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party with effect from 1 May 1937. (membership number 5,816,055, dated 15 June 1938). Already at the beginning of his studies, he came into contact with the and took part in singing weeks with Alfred Stier and Hugo Distler. His lifelong friendship and collaboration with began in autumn 1932 with a joint choir tour through Saxony. Petzold’s early compositions and texts were

Johannes Prioris

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

Johannes Prioris (c. 1460 – c. 1514) was a Netherlandish composer of the Renaissance. He was one of the first composers to write a polyphonic setting of the Requiem Mass. On the basis of documents surrounding Saint-Sauveur in Blois, Theodor Dumitrescu has argued that Prioris is to be identified with the composer “Denis Prieur,” making his Latin name “Dionysius Prioris.” The name “Johannes” is attested in a single source. He may have been born in Brabant. Very little is known about his life, except what can be inferred by the distribution of his manuscripts, and from his musical style. There is some evidence that he spent time in Rome as a singer at St. Peter’s, since a similar name to his appears in the account ledgers, and his music appears in seven separate manuscript sources in the Vatican archives. Some time after 1500 he probably moved to France, since he is twice called the maître de chapelle to King Louis XII; once in a letter from Ferrara, and once by Jean d’Auton. He probably died before King Louis XII (1515) since there was a new maître de chapelle for the king’s funeral ceremonies. Prioris wrote six masses, of which five are still extant, including a famous Requiem, whic

Johannes Pullois

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

Johannes Pullois (numerous variant spellings of his name include Pillays, Pilloys, Pylois, Pyloys, Pyllois, Puilloys, Puylloys, Puyllois) (died 23 August 1478) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance, active in both the Low Countries and Italy. He was one of the early generation of composers to carry the Franco-Flemish polyphonic style from its home region in the Netherlands to Italy. He was probably born in Pulle, near Antwerp, but nothing is known about his life until he became zangmeester (singing master) at the church of Our Lady in Antwerp in 1443. He unsuccessfully auditioned with Philip the Good for the Burgundian court chapel, but was not accepted for a position. He then went to Rome in 1447 where he sang in the papal chapel until 1468. He returned to Antwerp, becoming residential canon at the same church at which he had worked in the 1440s, and he died there in 1478. During his career he was a colleague of both Johannes Philibert and Johannes Ockeghem. Music and influence One complete cyclic mass has survived, a Missa sine nomine, for three voices; most likely dating from the 1450s, it is one of the earliest cyclic masses to be written on the continent. It shows s

Johannes Regis

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

Johannes Regis (French: Jehan Leroy; c. 1425 – c. 1496) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. He was a well-known composer at the close of the 15th century, was a principal contributor to the Chigi Codex, and was secretary to Guillaume Dufay. Life Nothing is known about his life until 1451, when he became choirmaster at the church of St Vincent, Soignies, near Mons in Hainaut. This was an important musical establishment at the time, and several famous composers either worked there or trained there, including Gilles Binchois, who was probably an associate of Regis. The earliest datable music by Regis is preserved in the choirbooks of Cambrai Cathedral, between 1462 and 1465, indicating that he may have begun working there then. Between 1464 and 1474 he served as secretary to Guillaume Dufay, and possibly lived in Cambrai for much of this time. Also in the early 1470s he was mentioned as one of the major composers of the time by the theorist Johannes Tinctoris, indicating the spread of his reputation. He probably died in early summer 1496, since his post was declared vacant then, and eliminated. Music Although Regis was associated professionally with Guillaume Du Fay, his

Johannes Schenck

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Johannes Schenck (or Johan Schenk, 3 June 1660–after 1712) was a Dutch musician and composer. Schenck was born in Amsterdam and baptized in a Catholic hidden church. He became a renowned virtuoso viola da gamba player. His compositions included music for a Dutch Singspiel, Bacchus, Ceres en Venus, which can claim to be the first opera in Dutch, and from which songs were published in 1687, as well as works for the viola da gamba. Around 1696 he accepted an appointment to the court of Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine in Düsseldorf. After Johann Wilhelm’s death in 1716, the electoral court moved to Mannheim. There is some uncertainty about the date of Schenck’s death as there is no mention found in the Düsseldorf Protestant church records or parish and cemetery records in Amsterdam. His last known published work appeared in 1712. He is no longer mentioned in the list of court musicians compiled in 1717. Works * op. 1 Eenige gezangen, uit de opera von Bacchus, Ceres en Venus, Amsterdam, heirs of Paul Matthys, Author, 1687. (27 arias for voice and b.c.) * op. 2 Tyd en Konst-Oeffeningen, Amsterdam, Pierre Pickaert, 1688. (15 sonatas for viola da gamba and b.c.) * op. 3 Il Giardino Armoni

Johannes Spech

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Johannes (or János) Spech (10 December 1767 – 24 November 1836) was a Hungarian classical era composer. He was born in Bratislava. Musicologist Dezsö Legány theorized that Spech must have been inspired to study music by the rich musical life of the city, where the opera theater regularly programmed works by Haydn, Mozart, and other acknowledged masters of the time. Spech received primary music education, but also studied law, and in 1792 he became a law clerk in Buda. A few years later he left for Vienna to study with Haydn. Researcher Tia DeNora notes that a discrepancy exists in biographical materials related to the next decades of Spech’s life. Sources chosen for the New Grove dictionary suggest that Spech subsequently left for Hungary and worked as a civil servant intermittently for a number of years, while also being a theater conductor and pursuing a composer’s career. However, Spech’s great-grandson, when interviewed by the legendary scholar H. C. Robbins Landon, claimed that Spech followed his studies with Haydn by an extensive four-year course in the Paris Conservatory, after which he returned to Hungary and concentrated entirely on his musical career. He died in Oberlimba

Johannes Symonis Hasprois

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

Johannes Symonis (Jehan Simon) Hasprois (died 1428) was a French composer originally from Arras. Four of his works of music survive in four different manuscripts, and he may also have written a treatise on astrology. Career Hasprois led an itinerant life. His career began in royal courts. In 1378, in our earliest record of him, he was serving at the court of Ferdinand I of Portugal, but by 1380 he was at the court of Charles V of France. His career afterwards was in the church. In 1384 he was the petit vicaire (lesser vicar) of Cambrai Cathedral, and in the same diocese he obtained the rectorate of the parish church of Liessies, probably in 1388. He also held benefices at Arras, Rozoy in the Aisne département and Cambrai Cathedral. He left his parish between August 1390 and 1393 and went to serve as a private chaplain to Pope Clement VII at the Papal chapel at Avignon. As his name always precedes that of Johannes de Bosco, who became a chaplain in 1391, in the registers, it is likely that he was appointed chaplain earlier than 1391. Hasprois continued to serve under Benedict XIII down to 1403. He was possibly the same person as the magister Johannes Symonis who attended the Council

Johannes Tapissier

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

Johannes Tapissier (also Jean Tapissier, Jean de Noyers) ( 1370 – 1408 to 1410) was a French composer and teacher of the late Middle Ages, in the period transitional to the Renaissance style. He was one of the first members of the Burgundian School, the group of composers associated with the Dukes of Burgundy, and from which the Franco-Flemish style developed. Life The first record of his life is from 1391, when he was hired as a “valet de chambre” and composer for the court of Philip the Bold. He went with the duke on his travels, going to Avignon at least twice (1391, and again in 1395), where he doubtless encountered the composers and music of the Avignon repertory; Avignon then was the center of composition on the manneristic ars subtilior style. He was perhaps one of the contributors to the repertory, but if he left any secular music, or any music in the complex, mannered style, it has either been lost or remains anonymous. The anonymous Règles de la seconde rhétorique, written around 1400, lists Tapissier as being among the most famous French poets, singers, and composers of the time. Around the time this account was written, and into the first decade of the 15th century, Tap

Johannes Tinctoris

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Jehan le Taintenier or Jean Teinturier (Latinised as Johannes Tinctoris; also Jean de Vaerwere; c. 1435 – 1511) was a Renaissance music theorist and composer from the Low Countries. Up to his time, he is perhaps the most significant European writer on music since Guido of Arezzo. Life and career He is known to have studied in Orléans, and to have been master of the choir there; he also may have been director of choirboys at Chartres. Because he was paid through the office of petites vicars at Cambrai Cathedral for four months in 1460, it has been speculated that he studied with Du Fay, who spent the last part of his life there; certainly Tinctoris must at least have known the elder Burgundian there. Tinctoris went to Naples about 1472 and spent most of the rest of his life in Italy. Tinctoris was also known as a cleric, a poet, a mathematician, and a lawyer; there is even one reference to him as an accomplished painter. Works Tinctoris published many volumes of writings on music. While they are not particularly original, borrowing heavily from ancient writers (including Boethius, Isidore of Seville, and others) they give an impressively detailed record of the technical practices an

Johannes Verhulst

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Johannes Josephus Hermanus Verhulst (March 19, 1816, in The Hague – January 17, 1891, in The Hague) was a Dutch composer and conductor. As a composer mainly of songs and as administrator of Dutch musical life, his influence during his lifetime was considerable. Life As a boy, Verhulst sang in a Catholic choir; here he distinguished himself by his gift for music. In his teens, he succeeded in becoming a first violinist in the court chapel of King William I. In 1836, Felix Mendelssohn, who was on holiday in Scheveningen, was shown an overture written by Verhulst, and took him as a pupil; he began studying with Mendelssohn in 1838. In Leipzig, Verhulst was appointed as conductor of the Euterpe orchestra, for which he wrote his Symphony in E minor. King William II urged him to return to The Hague in 1842, where he dedicated himself to the writing of Dutch songs for some time. Six years later, he became the chief conductor of the Rotterdam Music Society (Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Toonkunst). For the celebration of its fifty-year anniversary in 1854, he succeeded in engaging many prominent musicians, such as Franz Liszt. The following years would bring a number of other appointmen

Johannes Vodnianus Campanus

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Johannes Vodnianus Campanus (also Ionnes Campanus Vodnianus; , Jan z Vodňan or Jan Kampánus Vodňanský; 27 December 1572 – 13 December 1622) was a Czech humanist, composer, pedagogue, poet and dramatist. Life He was born in Vodňany (hence his surname), in southern Bohemia (now the Czech Republic). He studied at the University of Prague and in 1596 and was made Master of Liberal Arts there. He became a teacher in Prague and Kutná Hora. From 1603 he taught Greek and Latin at the University of Prague. He also taught history and Latin poetry. He was repeatedly appointed as dean, prorector, and rector of this university. Campanus was a Hussite before renouncing this faith and becoming a Catholic in 1622. He died in Prague. A historical novel was published about him in 1909 by Zikmund Winter, called Mistr Kampanus: historický obraz. Works Campanus usually wrote his works in Latin, but also wrote occasionally in Czech, Greek, and German. Some of his works, like the play Břetislav und Jitka (Bretislaus) (1614), were forbidden, because they were critical of the dukes of Bohemia. His works were recognised in Europe for their metrical perfection. Campanus’ first collection of musical works, Sa

Johannes von Soest

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Johannes Steinwert von Soest (Johannes de Susato) (1448 – 2 May 1506) was a German composer, theorist and poet. Most biographical details about his life survive in Johannes’ verse autobiography, which was printed in 1811 (although the manuscript no longer survives) and has been partially translated into modern English. He was born in Unna and brought up in the nearby town of Soest. As a boy, he sang at the church of St. Patrokli. At one point a juggler almost succeeded in kidnapping him for his beautiful voice, but the plan did not succeed. The boy eventually left Soest when John I, Duke of Cleves hired him as a singer. At Cleves, Johannes von Soest studied composition with an unknown teacher, quickly distinguishing himself as the best student and becoming, in his own words, a better composer than his master. Johannes’ attitude towards music changed completely when he heard two English singers who were travelling through Cleves; he persuaded them to teach him their distinctive English style. They agreed to do so on the condition that he go to Bruges with them; accordingly, Johannes managed to get a permission to leave the Duke. He subsequently worked at Overijssel, Maastricht, and

Johannes Winkler (composer)

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Johannes Winkler is a film music composer, multi-instrumentalist, and music producer based in Vienna, Austria. Since 2016, he has frequently collaborated with Canadian musician Edo Van Breemen. Early life and education Johannes Winkler started his musical education at the age of eight, when he started studying flute, piano, percussion, violin, and later electronic music and analog synthesisers. For their work on the film Handle With Care: The Legend of the Notic Streetball Crew, Van Breemen and Winkler received a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Original Music in a Documentary at the 11th Canadian Screen Awards in 2023. He worked with Slovak-Austrian filmmaker Alexandra Makárová, along with Rusanda Panfili, to compose the music for Makárová’s 2025 film Perla. They started working on the music two years before filming began. Personal life Winkler lives in Vienna, Austria. References External links * *

John A. Ross (composer)

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John Andrew Ross (December 15, 1940 – June 12, 2006) was an African American jazz musician, composer, musical director, and choral conductor. Ross was born and raised in Roxbury, Massachusetts and remained in the Boston, Massachusetts area for his whole life. While growing up in Roxbury, Ross’s home was frequently visited by his father’s college roommate, Langston Hughes. The relationship shared between Hughes and Ross would later manifest as Ross becoming the musical director of Langston Hughes’s gospel play “Black Nativity”. Biography Early life John Ross was born to Olga Evelyn White and Melvin Everand Ross on December 15, 1940. He grew up in Roxbury, Massachusetts, with his parents and sister Paula Ann Ross. His childhood was heavily influenced by music and the presence of Langston Hughes. Hughes would come and stay with Ross’s family when he lectured in Boston, Massachusetts because of his long-standing relationship with Ross’s father, Melvin. As a child, Ross was somewhat unaware of Hughes’s celebrity status and was able to maintain an organic relationship with the Harlem Renaissance writer. Education Ross began attending Boston University to pursue a concentrated degree in C

John Abell

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

John Abell (1653 – after 1724) was a Scottish countertenor, composer and lutenist. Life and career John Abell was born in 1653 in Aberdeenshire and by 1 May 1679 he had become a member of the Chapel Royal. He was listed as a singer, lutenist and violinist for King Charles II. He was sent to Venice by the king as an example of a high quality English voice, returning by 1682. Between 1679 and 1688, he received large amounts of money from the king to study. During this time he graduated from Cambridge with a MusB and married Lady Frances Knollys on 29 December 1685. During the Glorious Revolution of 1688 he fled to continental Europe, where he won fame and wealth by his singing. There are several anecdotes relating to his travels from this time, several from the writings of Hawkins. however, he declined. In Kassel he was made Intendant of Music (1698–1699), before returning to England around 1700, where in 1701 he performed the title role in Daniel Purcell’s The Judgment of Paris: in the following year his coronation song for Queen Anne, Aloud proclaim the cheerful sound, was performed. He also gave public and private concerts, and taught music. Furthermore, he wrote and compiled song

John Abram

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

John Abram (born 1959) is an Anglo-Canadian composer best known for his work with electroacoustic music. Born in England, Abram became interested in music when he was six; he began composing in his teenage years. He took composition lessons with Roger Marsh and Peter Dickinson at Keele University, also studying the recorder with Alan Davis; since that time he has also studied composition with Vic Hoyland, Bernard Rands, and Boguslav Schäffer. Abram graduated in 1980 with a Bachelor of Science degree, earning his master’s in composition in 1982. Upon leaving school, he moved to London, where he helped found the new music ensemble George W. Welch. In 1984 Abram was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship. This allowed him to travel to the University of Victoria in Canada, where he studied composition with Rudolf Komorous and electroacoustic music with Doug Collinge. For his PhD, he composed an anti-opera based on The Aeneid. In addition, he directed the music school’s Collegium Musicum for two years and taught composition for one. He was granted awards from the college in 1985 and 1987. From 1986 to 1988 he served as the associate director and conductor of the Open Space Gallery’s Open Sp

John Adam Hugo

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

John Adam Hugo (1873–1945) was an American composer and pianist. A native of Bridgeport, Connecticut, Hugo studied from 1888 until 1897 at the Stuttgart Conservatory; his instructors there included , Immanuel Faisst, Árpád Doppler, and Hermann Zumpe. He embarked on a career as a concert pianist, appearing in Germany, England, and Italy before returning to his native country in 1899. That year he became an instructor of piano at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, where he remained for only one year before becoming the director of the European Conservatory and director of the music department of its Woman’s College, in which positions he worked from 1901 until 1906. Beginning in the latter year he became a private teacher of piano in Baltimore. Hugo later returned to the city of his birth, where he died. References

John Adams

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

Youth and early career#

John Coolidge Adams was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on February 15, 1947. As an adolescent, he lived in Woodstock, Vermont, for five years before moving to East Concord, New Hampshire, and his family spent summers on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, where his grandfather ran a dance hall. Adams’s family did not own a television, and did not have a record player until he was ten. But both his parents were musicians, his mother a singer with big bands, and his father a clarinetist. He grew up with jazz, Americana, and Broadway musicals, once meeting Duke Ellington at his grandfather’s dance hall. Adams also played baseball as a boy. In the third grade, Adams took up the clarinet, initially taking lessons from his father, Carl Adams, and later with Boston Symphony Orchestra bass clarinetist Felix Viscuglia. He also played in various local orchestras, concert bands, and marching bands while a student. Adams began composing at age ten and first heard his music performed as a teenager. He graduated from Concord High School in 1965. Adams next enrolled in Harvard University, where he earned a bachelor of arts, magna cum laude, in 1969 and a master of arts in 1971, studying composition with Leon Kirchner, Roger Sessions, Earl Kim, Harold Shapero, and David Del Tredici. Adams also became engrossed by the strict modernism of the 20th century (such as that of Boulez) while at Harvard, and believed that music had to continue progressing, to the extent that he once wrote a letter to Leonard Bernstein criticizing the supposed stylistic reactionism of Chichester Psalms. But by night, Adams enjoyed listening to The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Dylan, and has said he once stood in line at eight in the morning to purchase a copy of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. For his thesis, he wrote The Electric Wake for “electric” (i.e., amplified) soprano accompanied by an ensemble of “electric” strings, keyboards, harp, and percussion. A performance could not be put together at the time, and Adams has never heard the piece performed. He also wrote American Standard, comprising three movements, a march, a hymn, and a jazz ballad, which was recorded and released on Obscure Records in 1975.

John Albert Delany

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John Albert Delany (6 July 185211 May 1907), He has been called “Australia’s greatest musician” and “The Australian Gounod”. then studied with the Benedictine monks at Lyndhurst College, Sydney, and had music lessons from William Cordner, organist of St Mary’s pro-Cathedral. After Cordner’s death, in 1870, he was taken on as a student by Charles S. Packer. His first musical appointment was as violinist in the orchestra of the Victoria Theatre. was appointed choirmaster at St Mary’s Cathedral, and followed John Hill as choirmaster and organist in 1873. There could have been no pipe organ in the brick building that served as the cathedral since the fire of 1868, but a harmonium would have been adequate for the purpose. He joined the Lyster Opera Company as conductor and chorus master in 1877, and was musical director for Nellie Melba’s Sydney debut. He later filled similar functions with Martin Simonsen’s company. Delany composed the march that was performed at the opening and closing ceremonies. Thomas P. Banks was the organist. Notable performances *He was one of three conductors, with Alfred Hill and Hugo Alpen, of the mass choirs at the Federation celebration on New Year’s Day 19

John Alcock (organist, born 1740)

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John Alcock ( 28 January 1740 – 30 March 1791) was an English organist, who composed several songs between 1770 and 1780. Biography John Alcock was born around 1740, to Margaret Alcock, née Beaumont (1711–1792), and John Alcock (1715–1806), himself a famous composer and organist. He was born in Plymouth, Devon and baptised there on 28 January 1740. He learned to play the organ through his father’s position as organist and master of the choristers at Lichfield Cathedral, working under him as a chorister. By the age of twelve he was deputising for his father on occasion. and “Expressly Composed for the use of Country Choirs”, stating his position as “Batchelor in Music and Organist of Walsall” on the title page. Those of Alcock’s published works, noted by the Dictionary of Composers for the Church in Great Britain and Ireland, are ‘Arise, O Lord, and Lift Up’ and ‘The Lord is King’. References External links *

John Alden Carpenter

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John Alden Carpenter (February 28, 1876 – April 26, 1951) was an American composer. Carpenter’s compositional style was considered to be mainly “mildly modernistic and impressionistic”; many of his works strive to encompass the spirit of America, including the patriotic The Home Road and several other jazz-inspired works. He was among the first classical composers to incorporate elements of jazz and ragtime in their pieces. Biography Carpenter was born in Park Ridge, Illinois on February 28, 1876 as a son of an American industrialist, and raised in a musical household. He was educated at Harvard University, later returning to the United States to study under Bernhard Ziehn in Chicago through 1912. possibly his best-known is Skyscrapers (1926), set in New York (it premiered at the Metropolitan Opera), but equally inspired by his native Chicago. One of his most famous works was 1914’s impressionistic orchestral suite Adventures in a Perambulator. It was recorded in stereo in 1956 by Howard Hanson and the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra for Mercury Records, which initially released it on LP; Philips later reissued the recording on CD. In 1932, Carpenter completed Song of Faith for the Geo

John Amner

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

John Amner (1579–1641) was an English composer. A composer of sacred works, Amner was born in Ely and had a close association with Ely Cathedral, even before his employment there as Informator choristarum (1610–1641), through his relatives Michael and Ralph Amner, who were both lay clerks there. He received his Bachelor of Music from Oxford with the support of the Earl of Bath in 1613, and also from Cambridge in 1640. He was employed as both an organist and clergyman at the Cathedral after he obtained his first degree. He was subsequently ordained to the diaconate, later becoming vicarius (minor canon). In 1615, he published a collection entitled Sacred Hymnes of 3, 4, 5 and 6 parts for the Voyces and Vyols, which represents most of his known works. His other works include Preces (both for five voices), four settings of the daily canticles, several simple four-part anthems, slightly more complex five-part anthems, and verse anthems. Roughly a dozen of these works were recorded in the 1990s, and many were performed by the choir of Ely Cathedral, including Blessed be the Lord God; Hear, O Lord; Have mercy; I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live; My Lord is hence removed and laid

John Antes

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John Antes (24 March 1740 – 17 December 1811) was the first American Moravian Missionary to travel and work in Egypt, one of the earliest American-born chamber music composers, and the maker of perhaps the earliest surviving bowed string instrument made in America. Although Antes is often recognized for his choral works, such as Go Congregation Go! and Surely he has Bourne our Griefs, his three string trios have also attracted attention and the lost “six Quartettos” remain a tantalizing mystery. Biography John Antes was born on March 24, 1740, in Frederick, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. In 1745, Antes entered the Moravian Boys Boarding School, where he received music education from Johann Christoph Pyrlaeus. Although Pyrlaeus might now be first-known as a teacher of Antes, he was the founder of the Bethlehem collegium musicum, a capable singer, instrumentalist, and organist, and was also a missionary to Native Americans. In 1752, John entered the boys school in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and in 1760, was admitted into the Single Brethren’s choir, also in Bethlehem. Antes was ordained as a Moravian Minister in January 1769, and he left for Egypt that same month to serve as a missio

John Anthony Lennon

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John Anthony Lennon (born 1950 in Greensboro, North Carolina) is an American composer of contemporary classical music based in Georgia. Biography Early life and education John Anthony Lennon was born in Greensboro, North Carolina and raised in Mill Valley, California. He earned a B.A. degree in liberal arts from the University of San Francisco, first majoring in English and minoring in philosophy, later adding music courses. He received M.M. and D.M.A. degrees in music composition from the University of Michigan, where he studied composition with Leslie Bassett and William Bolcom. Academic career Lennon is Professor Emeritus of Music at Emory University in Atlanta. He formerly taught at the University of Tennessee (starting in 1977), and taught as a guest composer at Northwestern University in the spring of 1998. Composer Lennon is known particularly for his works for classical guitar (many of which were written for the American guitarist David Starobin), including Another’s Fandango (1981), Gigolo (1996), and the guitar concerto Zingari (1991), and for several contributions to the classical saxophone repertoire, including “Distances Within Me” (1980) for James Forger, “Symphonic R

John Arpin

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

John Francis Oscar Arpin (3 December 1936 – 8 November 2007) was a Canadian composer, recording artist and entertainer, best known for his work as a virtuoso ragtime pianist. Born in Port McNicoll, Ontario Arpin studied piano at The Royal Conservatory of Music, earning his ARCT diploma in 1953. He also studied at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto. Arpin performed frequently and toured widely during his musical career, which spanned more than four decades. He continued to perform until shortly before his death . He died of cancer on 8 November 2007 in Toronto, Ontario. Recording career Arpin recorded more than sixty albums, mostly of ragtime, but also played Broadway music, pop music, and classical music. In 2002, he recorded seven CDs of piano solo music on the April Avenue record label. These albums consisted of favorite Broadway themes and familiar pop tunes. While just two compilations are still available in CD format, most of the other tracks can still be found on iTunes. Here is a complete list: *A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square *All The Way *An Affair To Remember *Any Dream Will Do *As Time Goes By *Bewitched *Blue Moon *Brian’s Song *Cabaret *Call Me Irrespons

John Banister (composer)

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John Banister (1630 – 3 October 1679) was an English musical composer and violinist. Early life Banister was the son of one of the waits (municipal musicians) of the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and that profession he at first followed. His father was his first instructor, and he arrived at such proficiency on the violin that Charles II became interested in him and sent him for further education to France. On his return, Charles appointed him to the post of leader of his own band, vacated by the death of Thomas Baltzar in 1663. Court life About 1666–1667 he is said to have been dismissed by the king for an impertinent remark concerning the appointment of French musicians to the royal band. This seems to be referred to in Pepys’s Diary, dated 20 February 1666 – 1667, although Banister’s name occurs in a list of the King’s Chapel in 1668. Concerts On 30 December 1672, he inaugurated a series of concerts at his own house, which are remarkable as being the first lucrative concerts given in London. One peculiarity of the arrangements was that the audience, on payment of one shilling, were entitled to demand what music they wished to be performed. These entertainments continued to

John Barnes Chance

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John Barnes Chance (November 20, 1932 – August 16, 1972) was an American composer. Chance studied composition with Clifton Williams at the University of Texas, Austin, and is best known for his concert band works, which include Variations on a Korean Folk Song, Incantation and Dance, and Blue Lake Overture. Biography Chance is believed to be a descendant of Robert Chance, a Mississippi gambler who settled in southeast Texas in the late 1800s. His parents, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Floyd Chance, were natives of southeast Texas. Chance’s first musical experience started when he was 9 years old and began to take private piano lessons. In high school, Chance continued to perform in ensembles and met Arnold Whedbee, a band director, who would premiere the first movement of Chance’s Symphony 1 at his graduation. In Greensboro, Chance was able to understand the limitations of high school students and was then able to compose for them. His first major wind ensemble composition, Incantation and Dance, was composed and performed during his residency with Greensboro Senior High School. Because of Chance’s obligations of working with the entire district, he had to write music for many different grad

John Barnett (composer)

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John Barnett (15 July 1802 – 16 April 1890) was an English composer and writer on music. Life Barnett was the eldest son of a Prussian Jew named Bernhard Beer, who changed his surname on settling in England as a jeweller. According to some he was a cousin of the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer. Barnett was born at Bedford, and at the age of eleven sang at the Lyceum Theatre stage in London. His good voice led to his being given a musical education, and he soon began writing songs and lighter pieces for the stage. In 1834 he published a collection of Lyrical Illustrations of the Modern Poets. His opera The Mountain Sylph – with which his name is nowadays most associated – received a warm welcome when produced at the Lyceum on 25 August 1834, as the first modern English opera, and was given over 100 performances, which was an unusual success. It was followed by Fair Rosamond in 1837, and Farinelli in 1839, to librettos by his younger brother Charles Zachary Barnett, but Barnett never again achieved the success that he had enjoyed with The Mountain Sylph. Disappointed with his reception as a composer, Barnett retired to the country. He had a large connection as a singing-master at Cheltenh

John Barry (composer)

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John Barry Prendergast (3 November 1933 – 30 January 2011) was an English composer and conductor of film music. Born in York, Barry spent his early years working in cinemas owned by his father. During his national service with the British Army in Cyprus, Barry began performing as a musician after learning to play the trumpet. Upon completing his national service, he formed a band in 1957, the John Barry Seven. He later developed an interest in composing and arranging music, making his début for television in 1958. He came to the notice of the filmmakers of the first James Bond film Dr. No, who were dissatisfied with a theme for James Bond given to them by Monty Norman. Noel Rogers, the head of music at United Artists, approached Barry. This started a successful association between Barry and the Bond series that lasted for 25 years. Barry composed the scores for eleven of the James Bond films between 1963 and 1987, as well as arranging and performing the “James Bond Theme” for the first film in the series, 1962’s Dr. No. He wrote the Grammy- and Academy Award-winning scores to the films Dances with Wolves (1990) and Out of Africa (1985), as well as the scores of The Scarlet Letter (

John Batt (solicitor and composer)

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NOTOC Malcolm John Batt (1 May 1929 - 26 August 2017) was a British solicitor, who under the pen name John Malcolm was also a writer and composer of library music. He composed Non Stop, a short orchestral piece that was used as the ITV News theme tune from its inception in 1955 for over thirty years. Born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, he was a chorister at Salisbury Cathedral and won a scholarship to King’s College, Taunton. Legal career John Batt was articled with the Salisbury firm Whitehead, Vizard, Venn and Lush (now Whitehead Vizard). After national service, in which he acted as a court martial prosecutor for 18 months, he set up a firm of solicitors in Wimbledon - Batt Holden - staying there for 50 years. In 1964 he was also instrumental in establishing the solicitors Batt, Broadbent and Beecroft in his home town of Salisbury, to which he returned as a consultant in 2007. Using the name John Malcolm, Batt wrote his first book Let’s Make it Legal in 1966, one of a careers series about life as a solicitor. In 2000 he represented Sally Clark, another solicitor who was wrongly convicted of murdering her two sons. Batt was part of the appeal team during a re-trial which ended in he

John Bayley (musician)

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John Bayley (circa 1847 – 1910) was an English bandmaster, clarinetist, violinist, and organist who was active in his native country and North America. Cornetist Herbert L. Clarke described him in his autobiography as “a finished musician of high order; he was a remarkable organist… and one of the best clarinetists I have ever heard in my life.” Life and career Born in Windsor, Berkshire, Bayley was named after his father, John Bayley (d 1871), a cornet soloist and conductor who was trained in Chelsea (London) at the Royal Military Asylum for boys. In 1850 the family immigrated to the United States, settling in Philadelphia. The family moved to San Francisco in 1857 and then a year later left there for Victoria, British Columbia in the enthusiasm of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. In Victoria, Bayley Sr served as the city’s inspector of police and was the first conductor of the Victoria Philharmonic Society (VPS). For the VPS’s first concert on 6 May 1859 the younger Bayley performed as both a violinist and clarinet soloist. A 10 May 1859 Victoria Gazette review stated that his clarinet solo was “enthusiastically encored”. In 1861 the family returned to England, partly to provide Ba

John Beal (composer)

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John Everett Beal (born January 20, 1947) is an American composer and conductor known for his work in the American film industry. He has conducted for major recording artists ranging from Olivia Newton-John to Deadmau5, movies in concert such as Star Wars, Top Gun: Maverick, Toy Story, Home Alone, Rocketman and the Harry Potter series, is the principal conductor of the Hollywood Symphony Orchestra, is considered by the New York Times as the pioneer of original scores for film trailer music, and has composed the music for numerous television series and films. Early life John Beal was born in Santa Monica, California, raised in La Cañada Flintridge, California, and graduated from John Muir High School (Pasadena, California), where he was honored for having written many of the drum cadences for the school’s internationally renowned Drum Corps, many of which are still used more than 50 years after his graduation. He was named to their Hall of Fame in 2008. He attended San Diego State University and, after being decorated for heroism and bravery in combat with the United States Marine Corps, he attended UCLA. He studied percussion with William Kraft and Bernie Mattinson, and drums with

John Beckwith (composer)

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John Beckwith (March 9, 1927 – December 5, 2022) was a Canadian composer, writer, pianist, teacher, and administrator. Born in Victoria, British Columbia, he studied piano with Alberto Guerrero at the Toronto Conservatory of Music in 1945. Beckwith received a Bachelor of Music (Mus.B.) in 1947 and a Master of Music (Mus.M.) in 1961 from the University of Toronto. Education In 1945, after several years of studying piano at the Royal Conservatory of Music, Beckwith received a Conservatory scholarship that allowed him to study piano with Alberto Guerrero at the University of Toronto where he obtained his Mus.B. he wrote for the Toronto Star from 1959 to 1965 as an arts critic and columnist, and was a writer and associate producer of documentaries and music series for CBC Radio. Beginning in 1981, he worked as a director for the Canadian Musical Heritage Society, which he had co-founded that same year. He prepared two of the society’s 25-volume series of pre-1950 Canadian-composed music. The Beckwith portrait in the Canadian Composers Portraits series was released in 2003. A collection of 25 of his music articles and talks was published by Golden Dog Press in 1997 under the title Music

John Bennet (composer)

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John Bennet (c. 1575 – after 1614) was a composer of the English Madrigal School. Little is known for certain of Bennet’s life, but his first collection of madrigals was published in 1599. Life Bennet’s madrigals include “All creatures now” as well as “Weep, o mine eyes”. The latter is an homage to John Dowland, using part of Dowland’s most famous piece, “Flow, my tears”, also known in its pavane form as . Bennet’s life is mostly undocumented. Bennet did however leave behind evidence that his impact is great. Bennet dedicated his madrigal volume, These First Fruits of My Simple Skill the Endeavors of a Young Wit to Ralph Assheton in 1599. Assheton held civic office in both Lancashire and Cheshire, he was dedicated as a token for favours received. It seems probable, therefore, that Bennet came from the north-west of England, and was born about 1575 to 1580. ** I wander up and down ** Weep silly soul disdained AKA: Mourn silly soul disdained ** So gracious is thy sweet self AKA: So lovely is thy dear self ** Let go, why do you stay me AKA: My dear, why do you stay ** Come, shepherds, follow me ** I languish to complain me ** Sing out, ye nymphs AKA: Sing loud, ye nymphs; Shout loud,

John Bennett (composer)

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John Bennett (or Bennet; c. 10 March 1735, Liverpool – September 1784, in London) was an English organist and composer. Biography Details of Bennett’s life are limited, but it is known that he married one Sarah Everett in 1756 in Holborn and died in September 1784. He was buried on 24th of that month, after serving as organist at St Dionis Backchurch, Fenchurch Street in London, for over thirty years. He had outlived his wife who was buried on 15 April 1778. Both were buried at the church. Charles Burney notes that he had been a pupil of Johann Christoph Pepusch and that he ‘knew the rules of counterpoint very well’. Pearce, writing admittedly later in 1907, claims that Bennett was “an organist of sufficient talent to attract G. F. Handel to his performances”. As was fairly typical in the eighteenth century, he was a diverse musician; he played the organ and the viola, taught the harpsichord, and performed at The Drury Lane Theatre as a singer in the chorus and as a dancer. Burney notes that he had ‘played the tenor = viola and occasionally was a Chorus singer and figurante in processions’. According to Thomas Mortimer’s The Universal Director (1763) and the title page of Bennett’s

John Bevan Baker

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John Stewart Bevan Baker (3 May 1926 – 24 June 1994) was a British composer, born in England, but a longtime resident of Scotland. Biography He was born in Staines, Middlesex, to an English father, Bevan Braithwaite Baker FRSE (1890-1963), a professor of mathematics at Royal Holloway, University of London, and a Scottish mother, Margaret Stewart Barbour, of Edinburgh. John was the youngest of five children. He went to preparatory school at the Downs School in Herefordshire, and in 1939 he went up to Blundell’s School in Devon on an art scholarship. He fulfilled his war service from 1944 to 1946 as a Bevin Boy at a coal mine at Newbiggin in Northumberland. In 1946 he entered the Royal College of Music to study organ and composition. His tutors included Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gordon Jacob. In 1949 he became an assistant to the organist of Westminster Abbey. He stayed in this position for two years, and then devoted himself to giving lectures for the WEA and freelance organ playing in London. In 1958 he moved north to Aberdeen to take the position of city carillonneur at the Kirk of St Nicholas in the city centre. In Aberdeen he met June Findlay, whom he married in 1960. They woul

John Blackwood McEwen

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Sir John Blackwood McEwen (13 April 1868 – 14 June 1948) was a Scottish classical composer and educator. He was professor of harmony and composition at the Royal Academy of Music, London, from 1898 to 1924, and principal from 1924 to 1936. He was a prolific composer, but made few efforts to bring his music to the notice of the general public. Life and career Early years John Blackwood McEwen was born in Hawick in 1868, the son of James McEwen and his first wife, Jane, née Blackwood. James McEwen was a Presbyterian minister; he moved to a church in Glasgow, where his son grew up. McEwen gained an MA degree from Glasgow University in 1888, between then and 1891 he studied music while working as a choirmaster, first in Glasgow and later at Lanark parish church. In 1891 he moved to London to gain wider musical experience, and by 1893 he had composed two string quartets, three symphonies, a Mass and other works. In that year he entered the Royal Academy of Music (RAM), where he studied with Ebenezer Prout, Frederick Corder and Tobias Matthay. While a student at the RAM McEwen won the Charles Lucas medal, and had his First String Quartet played at one of the academy’s concerts. Two years

John Blow

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John Blow (baptised 23 February 1649 – 1 October 1708) was an English composer and organist of the Baroque period. Appointed organist of Westminster Abbey in late 1668, his pupils included William Croft, Jeremiah Clarke and Henry Purcell. In 1685 he was named a private musician to James II. His only stage composition, Venus and Adonis (ca. 1680–1687), is thought to have influenced Henry Purcell’s later opera Dido and Aeneas. In 1687, he became choirmaster at St Paul’s Cathedral, where many of his pieces were performed. In 1699 he was appointed to the newly created post of Composer to the Chapel Royal. Early life and education Blow was probably born in the village of Collingham, Nottinghamshire. The parish registers at Newark record the baptisms of Blow and of his brother and sister, the marriage of his parents, and the burial of his father. The register of degrees at Lambeth notes that in 1677, on taking his doctorate, Blow said that his birthplace was ’the faithful borough of Newark’. As he was baptised on 23 February 1649, he was likely born only a short while before. As a boy, he was selected as a chorister of the Chapel Royal, and distinguished himself by his proficiency in mus

John Browne (composer)

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John Browne (1453–c. 1500) was an English composer of the Tudor period, who has been called “the greatest English composer of the period between Dunstaple and Taverner”. Despite the high level of skill displayed in Browne’s compositions, few of his works survive; Browne’s extant music is found in the Eton Choirbook, in which he is the best-represented contributor, and the Fayrfax Manuscript. His choral music is distinguished by innovative scoring, false relations, and unusually long melodic lines, and has been called by early music scholar Peter Phillips “subtle, almost mystical” and “extreme in ways which apparently have no parallel, either in England or abroad.” His O Maria salvatoris - unusual at the time of composition in that it is set in eight-part polyphony - was highly regarded during his lifetime, and was placed at the front of the Eton Choirbook. Though comparatively few in number compared with his continental contemporaries, Browne’s works are expressively intense and often lengthy, several lasting a quarter of an hour or so to perform. Many of the composers in the Eton Choirbook are represented only in this manuscript, due to the dissolution of the monasteries and wides

John Buckley (composer)

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John Buckley (born 19 December 1951) is an Irish composer and pedagogue, a co-founder of the Ennis Summer School and a member of Aosdána. Biography John Buckley was born in Templeglantine, County Limerick. He grew up in a rural environment and was introduced to traditional music, learning the button accordion from local player Liam Moloney, when he was 9 years of age. In 1969, he moved to Dublin to study for the Teacher’s Diploma at St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra. Here he had his first opportunity to hear live classical and modern music including contemporary and avantgarde works by Irish composers including Aloys Fleischmann, Brian Boydell, John Kinsella, and Seóirse Bodley, as well as works by international composers such as Krzysztof Penderecki. He became a student at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin (1969–74), studying the flute with Doris Keogh and composition with A.J. Potter and James Wilson. He continued his musical studies with Alun Hoddinott in Cardiff, Wales (1978–82), Aloys Fleischmann in Cork (M.A. in composition, 1980), and briefly with John Cage during a summer school for composers and choreographers at Guildford, Surrey, in 1981. Initially working as a sec

John Bull (composer)

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John Bull (1562/63 – 12/13 March 1628) was an English composer, organist, virginalist and organ builder. He was a renowned keyboard performer of the virginalist school and most of his compositions were written for this medium. Life and career Bull’s place of birth is uncertain. In an article published in 1952, Thurston Dart presumed that Bull’s family originated in Somerset, where it is possible the composer was born. It was the 17th-century antiquarian Anthony Wood who first proposed that he was related to the Bull family of Peglich, Somerset, but in 1959 Dart wrote that Bull was probably the son of a London goldsmith…. Then, in the second edition of his Calendar of the Life of John Bull, Dart proposed Hereford as a third possibility. More recent research by Susi Jeans suggests that Bull was born in the Radnorshire parish of Old Radnor within the Diocese of Hereford, although no birth records have yet been discovered. Bull’s appointment as organist of Hereford Cathedral in 1582 lends credence to this diocese being his place of birth: it was customary at this time for organists to return to their home cathedrals after training in London (cf: Thomas Morley). In 1573 he joined the ch

John Buller (composer)

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John Buller (7 February 1927 – 12 September 2004) was a British composer. Career John Buller was born in London on 7 February 1927. His musical career began as a chorister at St Matthew’s, Westminster. Although the BBC accepted a work of his in 1946, he opted to earn his living as an architectural surveyor. Buller returned to music in his thirties, taking an external London University BMus in 1964 after private study with Anthony Milner. He gave up his surveying work in 1974 and from then was a full-time composer. Perhaps his best known work is Proença (1977) for electric guitar, mezzo-soprano and orchestra, which was selected by the 1978 International Rostrum of Composers in Paris. Other works include The Mime of Mick, Nick and the Maggies (1978), The Theatre of Memory (1981), the opera Bakxai (1992), Bacchae Metres (1993) and Illusions (1997). In his obituary for John Buller in the Guardian, Martin Wainwright wrote, ‘…John’s discovery of Joyce fuelled him for most of his creative life, and I think what became fundamental to everything he composed was the Joycean notion that imagination is nothing but extended memory, that the commonplace of our musical or aural consciousness is

John Burge

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John David Bryson Burge (born 2 January 1961) is a Canadian composer, music educator, and pianist. He has won a number of awards for his compositions, including the Alberta Culture Award (1982), the William Erving Fairclough Scholarship (1983), second prize in the Ithaca College Choral Composition Contest and Festival (1984), and five PROCAN Young Composers’ Competition prizes between 1985 and 1988 among others. In 2009 he won the Juno Award for Classical Composition of the Year for his Flanders Fields Reflections. Some music critics have likened his compositional style to that of Benjamin Britten and Maxwell Davies. Born in Dryden, Ontario, Burge earned an associate degree from The Royal Conservatory of Music in 1979. He remained at the school, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1983 and a master’s degree in 1984. He earned a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of British Columbia in 1989. Among his teachers in music composition were John Beckwith, Stephen Chatman, Walter Buczynski, John Hawkins, and Derek Holman. In 1987 Burge joined the music faculty at Queen’s University where he taught music theory, analysis and composition. He formerly served as the director of the Queen’s

John Burke (composer)

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John Joseph Burke (10 May 1951 – 18 January 2020) was a Canadian composer and music educator. As a composer he wrote mainly works for chamber ensembles, and his music displays an acute sensitivity to instrumental balance and timbre. In his early career he won the CBC National Radio Competition for Young Composers several times, including in 1978 for both Six Regions for piano (composed 1975) and Spectre for tenor instruments (composed 1976), and in 1980 for Firewind for two pianos (composed 1978) and Diffusa est gratia for a cappella choir (composed 1979). In 1995 he won the Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music for his String Quartet. Many of his compositions have been recorded, including Firewind by pianists Bruce Mather and Pierrette LePage, …ascends at full moon by guitarist Michael Laucke, and À la source d’Hypocrène by the ensemble of the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec among others. Burke was born in Toronto, and earned a Bachelor of Music in 1974 from McGill University, where he was a pupil of Bruce Mather and Alcides Lanza. Immediately following he entered the graduate music composition program at the University of Michigan (UM) where he obtained a Master of

John C. Williams (baritone saxophonist)

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John C. Williams (8 February, 1941 – 13 May, 2025) was best known as a baritone saxophonist, though he played many other instruments, including bass saxophone and recorder. He was also a jazz composer, arranger, music educator and co-founder/ organiser of the Music at Leasowes Bank festival. Early life Born in North Kensington, London, on 8 February 1941, Williams was the oldest of three siblings. He attended the local Oxford Gardens Primary School where he first learnt the recorder, and at age 10 performed his first radio broadcast as part of the Oxford Gardens Recorder Consort on the BBC’s Children’s Hour. By the age of 14, he would be performing live at weddings. He gained a scholarship to Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith, London. Music career Aged 21, he founded the sixteen-strong John Williams Big Band, which in 1962 became the resident group at London’s Marquee Club, replacing John Dankworth’s group. Playing what was described as ‘boisterous big band jazz’, it was voted by Jazz News as one the top ten UK jazz bands of that year. The Band played the Richmond Jazz Festival in August 1963. In the mid-1960s, he worked in Cardiff, as musical director for Harlech Television. He

John Cage

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John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer, artist, and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage’s romantic partner for most of their lives. Cage’s teachers included Henry Cowell (1933) and Arnold Schoenberg (1933–35), both known for their radical innovations in music, but Cage’s major influences lay in various East and South Asian cultures. Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of aleatoric or chance-controlled music, which he started composing in 1951. The I Ching, an ancient Chinese classic text and decision-making tool, became Cage’s standard composition tool for the rest of his life. In a 1957 lecture, “Experimental Music”, he described music as “a purposeless play” which is “an affirmation of life – not a

John Caldwell (musicologist)

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John Anthony Caldwell (born 6 July 1938) is an English musicologist and composer. Life Caldwell was born in Bebington, Cheshire and studied the organ at the Matthay School of Music in Liverpool, becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists in 1957. He studied at Keble College, Oxford, obtaining his B.A. in 1960, B.Mus. in 1961 and D.Phil. in 1965. For his doctorate, he transcribed and edited a manuscript of English liturgical organ music from between 1548 and 1650. He was an assistant lecturer at Bristol University from 1963 to 1966, before returning to Oxford University as a lecturer in 1966, holding this position until 1996 when he was appointed a Reader. He was a Fellow of Keble College from 1967 to 1992. He became a senior research fellow of Jesus College, Oxford in 1999 and given the title of Professor by the University Distinctions Committee. He became an Emeritus Fellow on his retirement in 2005. His main areas of interest are medieval and Renaissance music, music theory and keyboard music. In one of his late articles dedicated to early witnesses of Western modal music and music theory he suggested to consider modality not to be bound up with 8 “standard” church tones

John Carmichael (composer)

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John Carmichael (born 5 October 1930) is an Australian pianist, composer and music therapist who has long been resident in the United Kingdom. One of his best known works is the Concierto folklorico for piano and string orchestra. His works for piano form much of his musical output, although he composes for many other instruments. His work is described as expressive and lyrical. Biography John Carmichael was born in Melbourne in 1930. He studied piano with Margaret Schofield and in 1947 won a scholarship to the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, where his teacher was Raymond Lambert. He also studied composition with Dorian Le Gallienne. Moving to Europe, he studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Marcel Ciampi and in London with Arthur Benjamin and Anthony Milner, a pupil of Mátyás Seiber. He wrote the music for Britain’s Festival of Women during this period. He also wrote reviews and critiques for music magazines. Carmichael was a pioneer in the field of music therapy; he developed music teaching and music appreciation projects at Stoke Mandeville Hospital and Netherden Mental Hospital in Surrey, and worked for the Council for Music Therapy in London. Between 1958 and 1963, he was

John Carpenter

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John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American filmmaker, composer, and actor. Most commonly associated with horror, action, and science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s, he is generally recognized as a master of the horror genre. At the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, the French Directors’ Guild gave him the Golden Coach Award and lauded him as “a creative genius of raw, fantastic, and spectacular emotions”. On April 3, 2025, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. founded by his wife, Sandy King, in 2013. Early life John Howard Carpenter was born in Carthage, New York, on January 16, 1948, the son of Milton Jean (née Carter) and music professor Howard Ralph Carpenter. In 1953, after his father accepted a job at Western Kentucky University, the family relocated to Bowling Green, Kentucky. For much of his childhood, he and his family lived in a log cabin on the university’s campus. He was interested in films from an early age, particularly the westerns of Howard Hawks and John Ford, as well as 1950s low-budget horror films such as The Thing from Another World (which he would remake as The Thing in 1982) and high-budget sci-fi like Godzilla and Forbidden Plane

John Casken

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John Arthur Casken (born 15 July 1949) is an English composer. Casken was born in Barnsley, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. While at Barnsley Grammar School in the 1960s his music teacher played a recording of Berg’s Violin Concerto, which had a lasting influence. He studied composition at the University of Birmingham with John Joubert and Peter Dickinson. He attended the Warsaw Academy of Music between 1971 and 1972, where he studied with Andrzej Dobrowolski but also met and became friends with Witold Lutosławski. He has lectured at the universities of Birmingham (from 1973) and Durham (from 1981), and between 1992 and 2008 he was Professor of Music at the University of Manchester. Casken’s students include Michael Alcorn, David Jennings and James MacMillan. Casken lives in Northumberland. He has acknowledged the landscape as a significant influence on his work. Works such as the orchestral Orion Over Farne (1984), the unaccompanied choral work To Fields We Do Not Know (1985), (described as “a Northumbrian elegy”), the orchestral song-cycle Still Mine (1992), the ensemble piece Winter Reels (2010) and the choral Uncertain Sea (2014) have all drawn inspiration from Northumberlan

John Chowning

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John M. Chowning (; born August 22, 1934, in Salem, New Jersey) is an American composer, musician, discoverer, and professor best known for his work at Stanford University, the founding of CCRMA – Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics in 1975 and his development of the digital implementation of FM synthesis and the digital sound spatialization while there. Contribution Chowning is known for having developed the FM synthesis algorithm in 1967. In FM (frequency modulation) synthesis, both the carrier frequency and the modulation frequency are within the audio band. In essence, the amplitude and frequency of one waveform modulates the frequency of another waveform producing a resultant waveform that can be periodic or non-periodic depending upon the ratio of the two frequencies. Chowning’s breakthrough allowed for simple—in terms of process—yet rich sounding timbres, which synthesized ‘metal striking’ or ‘bell like’ sounds, and which seemed incredibly similar to real percussion (Chowning was also a skilled percussionist). He spent six years turning his breakthrough into a system of musical importance and eventually was able to simulate a large number of musical sounds, i

John Christian Bechler

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John Christian Bechler (7 January 1784 in Oesel, Governorate of Livonia (present-day Estonia) – 18 April 1857 in Herrnhut, Saxony (present-day Germany)) was a Moravian bishop, composer, and organist. Biography Bechler was educated at the Moravian school in Niesky, Germany and continued studies at the Theological Seminary in Barby, Germany. He was called to the United States in 1806 to teach at the boys school of Nazareth Hall, in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, as a tutor. In the following year the Moravian Theological Seminary was founded in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and he was appointed one of its first professors. In 1817 he accepted the principalship of Nazareth Hall, and subsequently had charge of various churches in Pennsylvania and on Staten Island. In 1829 Bechler was transferred to Salem in North Carolina, and presided over the Moravian work in the South (Wachovia Tract) around what is now Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He was consecrated to the episcopacy at Lititz, Pennsylvania, 17 May 1835. In the following year he went to Europe as a member of the general synod, and did not return, but was transferred to Russia, where he stood at the head of the Moravian establishment at Sarept

John Christmas Beckwith

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John Christmas Beckwith (25 December 1759 – 3 June 1809) was an English organist and composer. Life Beckwith was born in Norwich on 25 December 1759, son of Edward Beckwith (1734–1793). His father and uncle were lay clerks at Norwich Cathedral. He was for many years pupil and assistant successively of the organist and composer William Hayes, and his son Philip Hayes, at Magdalen College, Oxford. As an organist he took very high rank in his day. He had many pupils, including the organist Zechariah Buck, the composer Stephen Codman, the singer Thomas Vaughan and the writer on music Edward Taylor, who said of him: “I have never heard Dr. Beckwith’s equal upon the organ either in this county or in Germany. … Neither is this my opinion only, but that of every competent judge who has heard him”. In Norwich, Beckwith was much involved in “musical meetings”, usually held in St Peter Mancroft; they supported charities, some of which he was associated with as a founder. In 1794 he was appointed organist of St Peter Mancroft. He took both the Mus. Bac. and Mus. Doc. degrees at Oxford in 1803, and in 1808 succeeded Thomas Garland as organist of Norwich Cathedral. Beckwith died of a stroke on 3

John Christopher Smith

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John Christopher Smith (born Johann Christoph Schmidt; 17123 October 1795) was an English composer who, following in his father’s footsteps, became George Frideric Handel’s secretary, student and amanuensis. Life John Christopher Smith was the son of Johann Christoph Schmidt (John Christopher Smith Sr.) (died 1763), Handel’s first copyist in London. His father, known to Handel from Halle, was summoned from Germany in 1716. He brought his family to London around 1720. John Christopher Smith Jr. had a few lessons from Handel and Johann Christoph Pepusch but studied mostly with Thomas Roseingrave. He later became Handel’s secretary, musical assistant and amanuensis, when blindness prevented Handel from writing or conducting in his later years. The last year when Handel conducted performances of his oratorios was 1752. Handel fell out with Smith Sr. in the 1750s, but remained on good terms with the son. From 1753 to the composer’s death in 1759, Smith conducted Handel’s oratorios that were to be performed in those years. Handel bequeathed to Smith the keyboard instruments in his house at 25 Brook Street and his manuscripts. There was interest in reproducing Handel’s music mechanically,

John Collett (composer)

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John Collett (c1735-1775) was an English violinist and composer. He is credited with composing the first British four movement symphony. He later moved to Aberdeen, Scotland and then Edinburgh, where he remained for the rest of his life. There he was associated with the Edinburgh Musical Society and became a member of the Cape Club. He set fellow Cape Club member Robert Fergusson’s words to a cantata, Ode on the Rivers of Scotland (1772, now lost). Another substantial cantata, The Birthday Cantata for Andrew Crosbie, was composed in Edinburgh the following year, and has survived. His Six Solos for the Violin (with harpsichord thoroughbass) were published around 1758. He wrote pantomime theatre music for David Garrick’s The Hermit (at Drury Lane in 1766), and songs for the Vauxhall pleasure gardens. His Six Symphonies or Overtures, op. 2, dedicated to Thomas Earl of Kelly, were published in 1766, and like Kelly’s symphonies they reflect the Mannheim Style popular at the time. Number 3, originally the overture to the burletta Midas, presented at Covent Garden in February 1764, became well known. References

John Coprario

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John Coprario (c. 1570–80 – c. June 1626), also known as Giovanni Coprario or Coperario, was an English composer, viol player and teacher. Life and career According to later commentators, such as John Playford and Roger North, he changed his name from either Cowper or Cooper to Coperario in the early 17th century (at least as early as February 1601), although he himself spelled his name “John Coprario”. Anthony Wood said he changed his name after an extended visit to Italy, and though he is documented as having visited the Low Countries in 1603, evidence confirming his presence in Italy has not been found. Among Coprario’s works are fantasias, suites, and other works for viols and violins, and two collections of songs, Funeral Teares (1606) and Songs of Mourning: Bewailing the Untimely Death of Prince Henry (1613). Coprario wrote songs for The Somerset Masque performed on 26 December 1613. He also penned a treatise on composition, Rules how to Compose (c. 1610–1616). Ninety-six fantasias for three up to six voices, most of them in two Oxford and Royal College of Music collections, were known to exist by Coprario (as of 1946). Meyer also notes that most of Coprario’s five- and six-p

John Corigliano

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John Paul Corigliano (born February 16, 1938) is an American composer of contemporary classical music. With over 100 compositions, he has won accolades including a Pulitzer Prize, five Grammy Awards, the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, and an Academy Award. He is a former distinguished professor of music at Lehman College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and part of the composition faculty at the Juilliard School. Corigliano is best known for his Symphony No. 1, a response to the AIDS epidemic, and his film score for François Girard’s The Red Violin (1997), which he adapted as his 2003 Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (“The Red Violin”) for Joshua Bell. Biography Before 1964 Corigliano was born in New York City to a musical family. His Italian-American father, John Paul Corigliano Sr., was concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic for 23 years. Corigliano’s mother, Rose Buzen, an educator and pianist, He attended P.S. 241 and Midwood High School in Brooklyn. He studied composition at Columbia University (BA 1959) and at the Manhattan School of Music. He studied with Otto Luening, Vittorio Giannini, and Paul Creston. Before achieving success as a

John Courter

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

John Edward Courter (June 25, 1941 – June 21, 2010) was an American composer, organist, and carillonneur who served as a professor of music at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, from 1971 until his death on June 21, 2010. A native of Lansing, Michigan, Courter earned a bachelor’s degree in choral music education from Michigan State University in 1962 and a Master’s of Music degree in organ in 1966 from the University of Michigan. He also studied at the North German Organ Academy and held diplomas from the Netherlands Carillon School. Courter was active both as a performer and composer and was considered one of the leading contemporary composers for the carillon, having won several international prizes with his original carillon compositions. Courter also served on the Keyboard Committee, an international keyboard committee, which drafted a recommendation for the technical norms for a world standard carillon keyboard that was accepted by the World Carillon Federation in 2006. Courter’s carillon works have been published in Germany, the Netherlands and the United States as well as performed on carillons throughout the world, and he has composed more than 20 pieces for the carillon, in

John Cozens (musician)

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

John Cozens (27 April 1906 – 5 April 1999) was a Canadian arts administrator, arranger, choir conductor, and tenor of English birth. He became a naturalized Canadian citizen in 1950. Early life and education Born in Tottenham, London, Cozens moved with his family to Canada in 1913 at the age of 7. At the age of 12 he began singing on the radio and performing as a church soloist; pursuits he was actively involved in from 1918 to 1950 in Toronto. At the age of 18 he entered the Toronto Conservatory of Music where he was a voice and conducting student of Francis Combe from 1924 to 1929. After graduating he pursued further studies privately with Nina de Gedeonoff from 1930 to 1935. Career During the Great Depression, Cozens and his wife, singer Winnifred Pitman, founded and directed the Toronto’s Council Choir. He served as the conductor of several other Toronto-based choirs, including the Tallis Choir, which specialized in polyphonic music, from 1935 to 1965. In 1951 he and S. Drummond Wolff co-founded the Orpheus Choir of Toronto which performed for four seasons. In 1972 he began conducting the Ontario Civil Service Choir with whom he was still active in the 1990s. Cozens was secreta

John Craton

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John Douglas Craton (born August 6, 1953) is an American classical composer. His works have been performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan. While his compositions cover a diverse range, he is best known for his operas, ballets, and works for classical mandolin. Biography Craton was born August 6, 1953, in Anniston, Alabama. Though neither of his parents was musical, his extended family included many musicians, both amateurs and professionals, among them his cousin, concert pianist and composer Barbara Gallagher. He began his formal musical training at age 10 studying violin under retired violinist and conductor, Robert Louis Barron. After graduating from Saks High School, he studied violin and piano at Jacksonville State University before transferring to Lipscomb University, where he earned his B.A. Craton studied theory and composition under John Maltese, Gerald Moore, and Henry Fusner. His graduate degree from Indiana University Bloomington was in audiology, and Craton practiced as a clinical audiologist for several years in Indiana before returning to his musical roots and devoting his full-time to teaching and composing. Craton’s music is highly tonal and in gen

John Croisier

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John Henri Croisier (? – 1915) was a French composer and playwright. Works He created pieces for piano and operettas for which he sometimes wrote both the music as well as the lyrics. *1880: L’Année féminine, calendrier inamovible *1894: Échos de La Varenne, valse, piano, with violon ad libitum accompagnement *1894: Joyeux départ, polka-marche, piano. Op. 8 *1895: A l’ivresse, chanson bachique *1896: Avec toi !, polka-mazurka, piano *1896: Sérénade à Phoebé, suite de valses, piano *1896: Colombine-Colombinette, fantaisies, quadrille for piano *1897: Sans Fard, en vers… et pour tous, poems *1899: Nos petits lignards, polka-marche, piano *1899: Elle !, drame réaliste in 1 act, with Trébla *1900: L’Aigledindon, parodie bouffe in 1 act and 1 prologue, with Eugène Joullot *1902: L’Autruche tricolore, ou la Possédée de la rue du Caire, folie-vaudeville in 1 act, with Albert Pajol *1902: L’Enlèvement de Césarine, folie-vaudeville in 1 act, with Pajol *1902: Les Forfaits de Savarin, folie-vaudeville in 1 act, with Pajol *1902: Le Tueur de femmes, comédie-bouffe in 1 act, with Pajol *1902: Les Surprises de l’amour, folie-vaudeville in 1 act, with Pajol *1902: Le Choix d’une belle-mère, co

John David Davis

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John David Davis (22 October 1867 – 20 November 1942), often known as J D Davis, was an English composer, born in Edgbaston, near Birmingham. Career Although born into a musical family, Davis was sent to Frankfurt to train for an intended commercial career, but instead began studying music under Hans von Bulow. Davis completed his education in Germany a decade ahead of the more famous Frankfurt Group of English-speaking composers, who studied with Iwan Knorr at the Hoch Conservatory in the late 1890s. He later continued his music studies in Brussels under Léopold Wallner, Arthur De Greef and Maurice Kufferath. He returned to Birmingham in 1889 to teach, and from 1893 to 1904 taught music at the Birmingham and Midland Institute (most of that in the pre Granville Bantock era). From 1905 he was a professor of harmony and composition at the Guildhall School of Music and was also Professor of Solfège at the International Conservatoire in London. Personal life Davis married Helen Winifred Juta (born 1886), daughter of the South African judge Henry Juta, in 1919. They lived at 26 Trebovir Road, Earls Court until 1936, when they sailed for Lisbon. He died in Estoril, Portugal six years lat

John Davison (composer)

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John H. Davison (31 May 1930 – 5 March 1999) was an American composer and pianist. Life and career Born in Istanbul, Turkey, he grew up in Upstate New York and in New York City, and studied music at the Juilliard School’s lower school, Haverford College, then received his master’s degree from Harvard University, where he focused on Renaissance music, particularly the works of Orlando Gibbons. He earned his doctorate in creative composition from the Eastman School of Music. His teachers included Alfred Swan, Randall Thompson, Walter Piston, Bernard Rogers, Howard Hanson, Alan Hovhaness, and Robert Palmer. During 1964-1965, Davison was placed in the Kansas City (Missouri) Schools as part of the Music Educators National Conference’s Contemporary Music Project, where he composed numerous works for band, chorus, and orchestra. He was a friend of Aaron Copland and maintained a correspondence with him. He was also a conscientious objector. Davison’s music is generally tonal, strongly melodic, and influenced by such diverse musics as Western classical and Romantic music (particularly the music of Johannes Brahms, Renaissance and Baroque music, Irish music, English country dancing, Anglican

John Diercks

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John Diercks (1927 – April 2020) was an American composer born in Montclair, New Jersey, in 1927. He held degrees from Oberlin College, the Eastman School, and the University of Rochester (PhD). His composition teachers included Howard Hanson and Alan Hovhaness. For Asian music and dance he studied with Dorothy Kahananui and Halla Huhm. Dr. Diercks taught piano at the College of Wooster (1950–54), then began a long tenure at Hollins University, teaching theory and composition. He served as department chair from 1962 until 1990. Among many grants and awards he has received are those from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon and Danforth foundations (five times), the Southern Foundation for the Humanities, and ASCAP (fifteen times). As a composer he has enjoyed residence at the MacDowell Colony, Wolf Trap Farm, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Much of Diercks’ music is influenced by exoticism, including microtonality and “unconventional” musical sounds. An early work, Cave Music for vocalise and three players on prepared piano, accompanied a dance performed in Virginia’s Dixie Caverns and broadcast on NBC-TV’s Today

John Donald Robb

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John Donald Robb (June 12, 1892 – January 6, 1989) was an American composer, ethnomusicologist, arts administrator, and attorney. Biography Early life A symphony concert in his hometown of Minneapolis when he was a pre-teen inspired Robb to pursue a career as a composer. He began studying cello, and then pipe organ. While pursuing an undergraduate degree in English literature at Yale University, Robb continued his music education, including a course taught by Horatio Parker. Despite his passion for music, Robb turned to a career in the law. He attended both the University of Minnesota Law School and Harvard Law School. Robb worked as an international bond lawyer in New York City, but also learned music. During a 1935–36 leave of absence from his law firm, he studied composition with Nadia Boulanger at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France. It was her encouragement that gave him the confidence to pursue his dream of being a composer. Throughout his life, he made time to study composition; his teachers included Horatio Parker, Darius Milhaud, Roy Harris, Paul Hindemith, and Nadia Boulanger. Professional shift In 1941, after 18 years as a lawyer, Robb left his New York la

John Dowland

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

John Dowland (c. 1563 – buried 20 February 1626) was an English Renaissance composer, lutenist, and singer. He is best known today for his melancholy songs such as “Come, heavy sleep”, “Come again”, “Flow my tears”, “I saw my Lady weepe”, “Now o now I needs must part”, and “In darkness let me dwell”. His instrumental music has undergone a major revival, and with the 20th century’s early music revival, has been a continuing source of repertoire for lutenists and classical guitarists. Life and career Very little is known of Dowland’s early life, but it is generally thought he was born in London. Sources put his birth year as 1563, based on his own written statements about his age. Irish historian W. H. Grattan Flood claimed that he was born in Dalkey, near Dublin, but no corroborating evidence has been found either for that or for Thomas Fuller’s claim that he was born in Westminster. One piece of evidence points to Dublin as his place of origin: he dedicated the song “From Silent Night” to ‘my loving countryman Mr. John Forster the younger, merchant of Dublin in Ireland’. The Forsters were a prominent Dublin family at the time, providing several Lord Mayors to the city. In 1580 Dowl

John Dragonetti

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John Dragonetti is an American composer, songwriter, and music producer based in Los Angeles, California. He is also a founding member (along with Blake Hazard) of the band The Submarines. Early life Dragonetti was born in Jackson, MI. His family moved to Egypt, where his father was principal of the American School in Cairo, at age 5. He spent most of his childhood in Dubai, U.A.E before attending boarding school in Nicosia, Cyprus. After high school at TASIS in Cyprus, John moved to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music. Pop career Dragonetti played in several bands in Boston, including The British Norberts (later, just The Norberts) and Wadi Trip. The British Norberts released a single in 1987 on the band’s Moon Cheese label called “The Russians Are Playing With the Weather.” The B-side was “Calling Sherlock Holmes.” In 1996, Dragonetti began recording on 4-track cassette under the moniker Jack Drag. These home recordings were released by the Chapel Hill-based label, Hep-Cat. He later signed to A&M Records and released the band’s only major label LP, Dope Box, which was produced by Chris Shaw. Dragonetti released two more self-produced Jack Drag albums, Aviating and The Sun I

John Duffy (composer)

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John Duffy (June 23, 1926 – December 22, 2015) was an American composer who created more than 300 works from symphonic music and operas to music for the concert hall, theatre, and film and television. In 1974 he founded the organization Meet The Composer under the auspices of the New York State Council on the Arts and the American Music Center. The organization helped to create platforms for contemporary composers to discuss new works with audiences; notably coordinating summer festivals of contemporary music for the New York Philharmonic and helping to fund composer-in-residence programs with 32 symphony orchestras throughout the United States among many other successful projects. Biography Born in Manhattan, Duffy was one of fourteen children born to his Irish immigrant parents, Thomas Duffy and Anna Quirk. Raised in Woodlawn, Bronx, he enlisted in the United States Navy during World War II and fought in the Battle of Okinawa. After the war he studied music composition at The New School with Henry Cowell and Solomon Rosowsky, and with Aaron Copland at the Tanglewood Music Center. Soon after completing his studies, he became music director of the Antioch Shakespeare Festival which

John Dunstaple

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John Dunstaple (or Dunstable; c. 1390 – 24 December 1453) was an English composer whose music helped inaugurate the transition from the medieval to the Renaissance periods. The central proponent of the Contenance angloise style (), Dunstaple was the leading English composer of his time, and is often coupled with William Byrd and Henry Purcell as England’s most important early music composers. His style would have an immense influence on the subsequent music of continental Europe, inspiring composers such as Du Fay, Binchois, Ockeghem and Busnois. Information on Dunstaple’s life is largely non-existent or speculative, with the only certain date of his activity being his death on Christmas Eve of 1453. Probably born in Dunstable in Bedfordshire during the late 14th-century, Dunstaple was associated with Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester and Joan of Navarre, and, through them, St Albans Abbey. Another important patron was John, Duke of Bedford, with whom Dunstaple may have travelled to France. Dunstaple’s surviving music is exclusively vocal, and frequently uses isorhythms, while pioneering the prominent use of harmonies with thirds and sixths. Life and career Nothing is known for certain

John Eacott

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John Eacott (born 19 December 1960) is a British jazz trumpeter and composer. Life Beginnings, early influences John Eacott was born in Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom. His father Kenneth Eacott was a pianist, arranger and composer. His mother Joy Pocock was a dancer and drummer in the family band, in which John started playing trumpet aged seven. In the mid 1970s the family moved to Hayling Island where a lifelong love for the sea, sailing and navigation took hold. It was here where he was introduced to free jazz, leading him to meet Mark Lockheart. In the 1980s John Eacott got a ‘Psion Organiser’ and started to experiment with computer programming. Working Life (1982 – present) On graduating from Sussex University, England, in 1982 BA Music, Eacott’s career as a musician started with anarchic jazzers Loose Tubes (trumpet, composer), post-industrial metal bashers Test Dept (trumpet, arranger, composer), Roman Holliday, acid jazz group Vibraphonic, and as a trumpeter with a diverse array of artists including Damon Albarn, Goldie, Stereo MCs, The The, Georgie Fame, Terry Edwards and the Scapegoats. He performed with Loose Tube (30 Years Anniversary concerts), and regularly plays

John Eaton (composer)

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

John Charles Eaton (March 30, 1935 – December 2, 2015) was an American composer. Born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, Eaton attended Princeton University, where he graduated in 1957. He later lived in Rome (1957–68), returning to Princeton to earn a PhD in 1970. He subsequently held faculty appointments at Indiana University School of Music (1970–92) and the University of Chicago (1989–99). Eaton was a prominent composer of microtonal music, and worked with Paul Ketoff and Robert Moog during the 1960s in developing several types of synthesizer. Notably, he was involved in the development, use, and ultimately unsuccessful commercialization of the SynKet. He devised a compositional genre called pocket opera, operas scored for a small cast of vocalists and a chamber group, and composed such pocket opera works as Peer Gynt, Let’s Get This Show on the Road, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. His operas include The Cry of Clytaemnestra (1980), a re-telling of some of the events surrounding the Trojan War from the perspective of Agamemnon’s wife Clytaemnestra, which has been hailed as the first feminist opera. It was premièred at the Indiana University Bloomington Opera Theater, on Marc

John Eccles (composer)

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John Eccles (1668 – 12 January 1735) was an English composer. Born in London, eldest son of professional musician Solomon Eccles and brother of fellow composer Henry Eccles, John Eccles was appointed to the King’s Private Music in 1694, and in 1700 became Master of the King’s Musick. In the latter year he finished second in a competition to write music for William Congreve’s masque The Judgement of Paris (the winner was John Weldon). Eccles was very active as a composer for the theatre, and from the 1690s wrote a large amount of incidental music including music for Congreve’s Love for Love, John Dryden’s The Spanish Friar and William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Jointly with Henry Purcell he wrote incidental music for Thomas d’Urfey’s Don Quixote. He became a composer to Drury Lane theatre in 1693 and when some of the actors broke off to form their own company at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1695, he composed music for them as well including for John Dennis’s Rinaldo and Armida. Eccles also wrote music for the coronation of Queen Anne and a number of songs. Many of his most famous songs, such as “I burn, I burn” were composed for the actress-singer Anne Bracegirdle to perform. Recognizing Ecc

John Elwood Price

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John Elwood Price (June 21, 1935 – May 9, 1995) was an American composer, pianist, ethnomusicologist, and music teacher. He composed approximately 600 musical works in a wide variety of genres. His works are widely performed in the United States by professional groups. Biography Elwood began to study piano when he was five years old. He was a musical prodigy. In sixth grade he wrote a piece for piano that he performed at the graduation ceremony. In high school, he learned (and composed for) orchestral instruments. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree in piano and composition from Lincoln University in 1957. There he studied composition with David Baker. In 1963, he earned a Master of Music at the University of Tulsa, where he studied with Oscar Anderson Fuller and Bela Rozsa. He later studied music at Washington University in St. Louis, working with Robert Wykes and Harold Blumenfeld. From 1957 to 1959, Elwood was the staff pianist at the Karamu House, a historic Black theater in the Fairfax neighborhood on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio. He composed incidental music for theater and worked as a vocal coach. He taught at Florida Memorial College, where he was Chairman of Music and

John Eriksson (musician)

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

John Eriksson (born 8 January 1974, Hortlax (Piteå), Sweden) is a Swedish musician and composer best known as a founding member of Peter Bjorn and John. Career He was born in 1974 and raised in Hortlax (Piteå), Sweden. In 1994, he founded the percussion quartet Peaux, for which he was also a musician and composer. From 1995 to 1999, he was a musician in the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, performing in concerts and recordings with Esa-Pekka Salonen, Myung-Whun Chung, Herbert Blomstedt and Evgeny Svetlanov. He was also in a percussion/trumpet duo with Tora Thorslund, and in 1998 he was a marimba soloist during the Stockholm International Percussion Event. From 1999 to 2008, he was a musician, arranger and composer in the Kroumata Percussion Ensemble. From 1999, he was one of the founding members, musician, composer, arranger and producer of the band Peter Bjorn and John. More recently, he has recorded as dance music act Hortlax Cobra, who produced 3 vinyl EPs. Another side project is “disco-kraut” act Holiday For Strings. He was also composer for projects with Teenage Engineering. In 2012 he was one of the founding members of the artist collective INGRID, and Hortlax Cobra contrib

John Estacio

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John Estacio (born April 8, 1966) is a contemporary Canadian composer of opera, orchestral and choral music. TOC Life and career Estacio was born in Newmarket, Ontario. Raised in the farming community of the Holland Marsh, Ontario, Estacio took piano and accordion lessons, and played church organ every Sunday. As a teenager, he created soundtracks for short student films, played trumpet, and performed in high school productions of Broadway musicals. He majored in composition at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario studying with Glenn Buhr and Peter Hatch. He earned his post-graduate degree at the University of British Columbia where he studied composition with Stephen Chatman. In 1992, his first major orchestral work, Visoes da Noite, won second-prize in the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s Canadian Composers Competition. Saudades for orchestra was premiered at the WSO’s New Music Festival in 1993. From 1992 to 2000, Estacio was Composer in Residence of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. During his residency, Estacio created several orchestral works, participated in novel audience outreach programs, and created the Young Composers Project. A Farmer’s Symphony (1994), Bore

John Farmer (composer)

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John Farmer (c. 1570c. 1601) was an important composer of the English Madrigal School. He was born in England during the Elizabethan period, and was also known by his skillful settings for four voices of the old church psalm tunes. His exact date of birth is not known – a 1926 article by Grattan Flood posits a date around 1564 to 1565 based on matriculation records. Farmer was under the patronage of the Earl of Oxford and dedicated his collection of canons and his late madrigal volume to his patron. In 1595, Farmer was appointed organist and master of children at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, and also, at the same time, organist of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. In 1599, he moved to London and published his only collection of four-part madrigals, which he dedicated to Edward de Vere. His Lord’s Prayer is performed widely throughout many churches and cathedrals, mostly in Britain. It is included in Volume 2 of Oxford Choral Classics, published by Oxford University Press. Giles Farnaby dedicated a pavan to him, included in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book as Farmer’s Paven (no. CCLXXXVII). Farmer’s Divers & Sundry Waies was the source of the fugues in Michael Maier’s book, Atalanta

John Fernström

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John Fernström (6 December 1897 – 19 October 1961) was a Swedish composer. He was the founder of the Nordic Youth Orchestra. Early life and education Fernström was born in Yichang, China, where he also spent most part of the first ten years of his life at the mission his father directed, except for a couple of years in Sweden. He resided permanently in the Swedish province of Skåne from 1907 and started to study the violin at the conservatory in Malmö. and Isissystrarnas bröllop), and a large number of songs and choral pieces. References External links * Home page for John Fernström

John Ferritto

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John E. Ferritto (January 20, 1937 – January 7, 2010) was an American composer, conductor, and music professor. He graduated with honors in piano and violin performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and also holds a M.M. in composition from Yale University, where he studied piano with Ward Davenny, conducting with Gustav Meier, and composition with Mel Powell. He also studied at the American Academy in Rome and at Tanglewood, with Gunther Schuller, and Erich Leinsdorf. He made his conducting debut with the U.S. Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra on tour in Germany, France, and Italy. He was associate conductor of the New Haven Symphony, Conductor of the Chamber Orchestra of the North Shore in Chicago, and director/conductor of the American Federation of Musicians Congress of Strings in Cincinnati. As a guest conductor, he has appeared with the Radio Television Orchestra of Bucharest, the State Orchestra of Greece, the Toledo Symphony, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra (Ohio), the Charleston S.C. Symphony, the Michigan Chamber Orchestra, Eastern Music Festival, the New Haven Opera, the New Haven Ballet, and the American Ballet Theatre. He has conducted the Orchestras of both the

John Field (composer)

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

John Field (26 July 1782 – 23 January 1837) was an Irish pianist, composer and teacher widely credited as the inventor of the nocturne. While many of his contemporaries wrote in a similar style, Field was the first to use the term to apply to a character piece featuring a cantabile melody over an arpeggiated accompaniment. Born into a musical family in Dublin, he received his early education in the city, particularly with Tommaso Giordani. The family moved to London in 1793 where, under the tutelage of Muzio Clementi, Field soon became a famous and sought-after concert pianist. Together, they visited Paris, Vienna, and Saint Petersburg. Ambiguity surrounds Field’s decision to remain in the latter, but it is likely that Field acted as a sales representative for Clementi & Co.. Field was very highly regarded by his contemporaries and his playing and compositions influenced many major composers, including Felix Mendelssohn, Frédéric Chopin, Johannes Brahms, Robert Schumann, and Franz Liszt. Although little is known of Field’s time in Russia, he undoubtedly contributed substantially to concerts and teaching, and to the development of the Russian piano school. Amongst his students were

John Fodi

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John Fodi (22 March 1944 – 2 November 2009) was a composer and music librarian. Born in Hungary, he became a naturalized Canadian citizen in 1961. An associate of the Canadian Music Centre, he was a founding member of ARRAYMUSIC, an organization which premiered several of his compositions. Life Born in Nagytevel, John Fodi moved to Canada with his family in 1951 at the age of 7. His father played both the accordion and concertina and John began performing music at an early age; but it was at the public library in Hamilton, Ontario, that he discovered the resources to develop his understanding of music. Finding the accordion increasingly unsatisfactory as a means of exploring classical music he decided to learn to play the piano. This was the instrument which he would use for both the study and composition of music throughout his life. During this period he composed over 40 pieces which reflected the progress of his studies, in particular his fascination with the music of the baroque period. In 1964, while working as a laboratory technician for Firestone, he began studying music privately with Lorne Betts in the city of Hamilton, Ontario. It was Betts who encouraged and mentored Joh

John Foster (composer)

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John Foster (1752–1822) of High Green in the parish of Ecclesfield, West Riding of Yorkshire was a coroner and amateur musician. He composed two books of sacred music in a 19th-century classical style published between 1817 and 1822, Sacred Music and A 2d Collection of Sacred Music. Both books were published in York by Samuel Knapton (the father of the organist and composer Philip Knapton). They comprise 17 settings of metrical psalm and hymn texts (8 in the first book and 9 in the second), with orchestral and keyboard accompaniments, and are dedicated to Richard Lumley-Saunderson, 6th Earl of Scarbrough. There are copies of both books in the Sheffield Local Studies Library. Foster is now best known as the composer of a tune known as Old Foster, to which the words While shepherds watched their flocks by night are sung in the South Yorkshire pub carolling tradition (for example, at the Fountain Inn at Ingbirchworth). A version of the tune is also sung at Castleton, Derbyshire, where it is known as Prince of Orange and used with the words Hark, the glad sound! the Saviour comes, by Philip Doddridge. The tune was originally published in A 2d Collection of Sacred Music as a setting of

John Foulds

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John Herbert Foulds (; 2 November 1880 – 25 April 1939) was an English cellist and composer of classical music. He was largely self-taught as a composer, and belongs among the figures of the English Musical Renaissance. A successful composer of light music and theatre scores, he directed his principal creative energies into more ambitious and exploratory works that were particularly influenced by Indian music. Suffering a setback after the decline in popularity of his World Requiem (1919–1921), he left London for Paris in 1927, and eventually travelled to India in 1935 where, among other things, he collected folk music, composed pieces for traditional Indian instrument ensembles, and worked in radio and became Director of All India Radio in Delhi in 1937. Foulds was an adventurous figure of great innate musicality and superb technical skill. Among his best-known works are Three Mantras for orchestra and wordless chorus (1919–1930), Essays in the Modes for piano (1920–1927), the piano concerto Dynamic Triptych (1927–1929), and his ninth string quartet Quartetto Intimo (1931–1932). Biography John Foulds was born in Hulme, Manchester, England, on 2 November 1880, the son of a bassooni

John Francis Barnett

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John Francis Barnett (16 October 183724 November 1916) was an English composer, pianist and teacher. Life John Francis Barnett was born on 16 October 1837 at St John’s Wood, London. His father was Joseph Alfred Barnett (1810-1898), a professor of music, and his uncle was the composer John Barnett. John Francis carried on the traditions of the family as a composer and teacher. He obtained a Queen’s Scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, London, in 1849 studying under William Sterndale Bennett and developing into an accomplished pianist. In 1857 he travelled to Leipzig to study composition and piano, playing Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in D minor at a Gewandhaus concert on 22 March 1860. His teachers at the Conservatoire in Leipzig were the great pianist Ignaz Moscheles (who had been a pupil of Beethoven), Moritz Hauptmann, Julius Rietz and Louis Plaidy. Whilst at Leipzig, Barnett formed a close friendship with his fellow-student Arthur Sullivan. Returning to London in 1860, Barnett enjoyed a successful career as a pianist for some years but concentrated increasingly on composition and teaching. He played Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto at a New Philharmonic Society concert i

John Francis Larchet

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John Francis Larchet (13 July 1884 – 10 August 1967) was an Irish composer and teacher. He studied at Trinity College Dublin (MusB 1915, MusD 1917), also at the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM) with Michele Esposito. Larchet was music director at the Abbey Theatre from 1908 to 1935 and was therefore responsible for the stage music accompanying many of the pivotal plays of the Irish Literary Renaissance, in particular those of William Butler Yeats, and also had his ballet Bluebeard performed there (in 1932), including the dancer Ninette de Valois. Although a prolific composer and arranger, his main contribution to Irish music was as a teacher: He taught harmony and counterpoint at the Royal Irish Academy of Music between 1920 and 1955 and was Professor of Music at University College Dublin between 1921 and 1958. Among his pupils were Frank Ll. Harrison (1905–1987), Elizabeth Maconchy (1907-1994), Michael Bowles (1909–1998), Frederick May (1911–1985), Walter Beckett (1914–1996), Joan Trimble (1915–2000), Brian Boydell (1917–2000), T.C. Kelly (1917–1985), Havelock Nelson (1917–1996), Gerard Victory (1921–1995), and Seóirse Bodley (1933–2023). Larchet was primarily a composer of min

John Frandsen (composer)

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John Frandsen (born 13 March 1956) is a Danish composer, organist and choral conductor, whose work includes operas, chamber music, and religious music. His 1999 Now Flashes the White Light of the Spirit commissioned to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the establishment of the Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church was performed simultaneously in over 100 Danish churches on the day of the anniversary. Biography Frandsen was born in Aalborg and studied at Aarhus University and the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus with Hans Abrahamsen and Karl Aage Rasmussen. From 1993 to 1995 he was chairman of the music committee of the Danish National Arts Foundation, and since 1999 he has been chairman of the Danish Composers’ Association. His opera trilogy, Tugt og Utugt I Mellemtiden (Virtue and Vice in the Meantime), based on the novel of the same name by Svend Aage Madsen premiered in 1998 at the Aarhus Summer Opera. His other operas include Amalie (premiered 1995 at the Musikteateret Undergrunden in Aarhus), Dronning Boudicca (Queen Boudica) (premiered in 1997 at Anden Opera in Copenhagen) and I-K-O-N (premiered in 2002 at the Royal Danish Theatre. Religious music John Frandsen’s commissions fo

John Frederick Lampe

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John Frederick Lampe (born Johann Friedrich Lampe; probably 1703 – 25 July 1751) was a musician and composer. Life Lampe was born in the Electorate of Saxony, Holy Roman Empire. He came to England in 1724 and played the bassoon in opera houses. In 1730, he was hired by John Rich to be the composer for Covent Garden Theatre. During his time as a bassoonist in London opera houses, in 1727, he played at the coronation of King George II. Like the composer Thomas Arne, Lampe wrote operatic works in English in defiance of the vogue for Italian opera popularized by George Frideric Handel and Nicola Porpora. Lampe, along with Henry Carey and J. S. Smith, founded the short-lived English Opera Project. He became a friend of Charles Wesley, and wrote several tunes to accompany Wesley’s hymns. His works for the stage include the mock operas Pyramus and Thisbe (1745) and The Dragon of Wantley (1734), which ran for 69 nights, a record for the time, surpassing The Beggar’s Opera. From November 1750 until his death, Lampe was based in Dublin and later in Edinburgh. He is buried in Canongate Kirkyard on the Royal Mile. The grave lies to the northeast of the church behind the Fettes vault. Works *Th

John Gardner (composer)

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John Linton Gardner, CBE (2 March 1917 – 12 December 2011) was an English composer of classical music. Early life John Gardner was born in Manchester, England and grew up in Ilfracombe, North Devon. His father Alfred Linton Gardner (born 1882, Ilfracombe died 10 April 1918, France) was a local physician and amateur composer who was killed in action in the First World War. His grandfather was John Twiname Gardner, also a general practitioner and composer. His mother, Emily Muriel Pullein-Thompson, was the sister of Captain Harold J “Cappy” Pullein-Thompson, who was the father of Josephine, Diana and Christine Pullein-Thompson and their brother, the playwright Denis Cannan. Gardner was educated at Eagle House School, Sandhurst, Wellington College and Exeter College, Oxford, where he was the Hubert Parry organ scholar. An important figure in his early life was Hubert J. Foss of Oxford University Press, who published the Intermezzo for Organ in 1936 and introduced him to the composer Arthur Benjamin, to whom Gardner dedicated his Rhapsody for Oboe and String Quartet (1935). This work had its first performance at the Wigmore Hall in February 1936. The String Quartet No. 1 (1938) was bro

John Godfrey (composer)

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John Godfrey is a composer and performer, co-founder and musical director of Icebreaker (1989-1997), founder member of Crash Ensemble (1997–present), founder of the Quiet Music Ensemble, and lecturer in music at National University of Ireland, Cork. John Godfrey studied with Oliver Knussen at the Royal College of Music, Peter Maxwell Davies at the Dartington Summer School and with Richard Orton at the University of York, where he graduated with a BA Hons in music (1983) and an MPhil in composition (1989). In 1989 he and another York graduate, James Poke, formed the new-music group Icebreaker, which went on to become one of the most successful ensembles in its field, appearing extensively in Europe and America. The group made several CDs for Decca Argo, New Tone and Donemus, which include John’s works Euthanasia and Garden Instruments, S U S Y W I M P S and “Gallows Hill”, as well as his arrangements of Diderik Wagenaar’s Metrum and Steve Martland’s Shoulder to Shoulder. John appears as a performer on all Icebreaker’s CDs up to and including Rogue’s Gallery. In 1997, John was invited to join the Crash Ensemble. It quickly became Ireland’s foremost and most adventurous new-music ense

John Goss (composer)

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Sir John Goss (27 December 1800 – 10 May 1880) was an English organist, composer and teacher. Born to a musical family, Goss was a boy chorister of the Chapel Royal, London, and later a pupil of Thomas Attwood, organist of St Paul’s Cathedral. After a brief period as a chorus member in an opera company he was appointed organist of a chapel in south London, later moving to more prestigious organ posts at St Luke’s Church, Chelsea and finally St Paul’s Cathedral, where he struggled to improve musical standards. As a composer, Goss wrote little for the orchestra, but was known for his vocal music, both religious and secular. Among his best-known compositions are his hymn tunes “Praise, my soul, the King of heaven” and “See, Amid the Winter’s Snow”. The music critic of The Times described him as the last of the line of English composers who confined themselves almost entirely to ecclesiastical music. From 1827 to 1874, Goss was a professor at the Royal Academy of Music, teaching harmony. He also taught at St Paul’s. Among his pupils at the academy were Arthur Sullivan, Frederic Cowen and Frederick Bridge. His best-known pupil at St Paul’s was John Stainer, who succeeded him as organist

John Greaves (musician)

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John Greaves (born 23 February 1950) is a Welsh bass guitarist, pianist and composer who was a member of Henry Cow and has collaborated with Peter Blegvad. He was also a member of progressive rock band National Health and jazz-rock supergroup Soft Heap, and has recorded several solo albums, including Accident (1982), Parrot Fashions (1984), The Caretaker (2001) and Greaves Verlaine (2008). Biography Greaves was born in Prestatyn and grew up in Wrexham in northeast Wales. At the age of 12, he was given a bass guitar by his father, a Welsh dancehall bandleader, and within six months, he was playing in his father’s orchestra. He continued playing in the orchestra for four years, during which time its varied musical styles gave Greaves valuable musician and arranger skills. He was educated at Grove Park Grammar School in Wrexham from 1961 to 1968. In 1968 Greaves entered Pembroke College, Cambridge to study English. While at Cambridge, he met members of the burgeoning English avant-rock group Henry Cow in 1969. The band had been established the previous year by fellow Cambridge students Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson and had undergone numerous personnel changes up to that point. They we

John Hanboys

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John Hanboys, also John Hamboys and possibly J. de Alto Bosco (fl. 1370), was a medieval musical theorist from England. Biography Very little is known of the life of Hanboys. He may have come from one of the villages of Little or Great Hautboys in Norfolk. In the attribution of one version of the treatise Summa super musicam he is called ‘doctoris musice reverendi’. It has been assumed that because he was called ‘reverend’, may have been a monk or friar, but this uncertain. Traditionally authors followed the earliest biographical source John Bale’s Illustrium maioris britanniae scriptorum (Summary of the Writers of Britain) (1548), which uses the spelling ‘Hamboys’ and indicates he received a liberal education from an early age, but was chiefly devoted to the study of music. That he was eloquent and accomplished, and after studying for many years in ’the school of his land’ he was given the degree of doctor of music. He adds that he was ’the most noted man of his day in England’ and that he came to prominence in 1470 in the reign of Edward IV (r.1461-83). More recently Brian Trowell has argued that he can be identified with J. de Alto Bosco, the Latin title of a musician mentioned

John Harbison

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John Harris Harbison (born December 20, 1938) is an American composer and academic. Life John Harris Harbison was born on December 20, 1938, in Orange, New Jersey, to the historian Elmore Harris Harbison and Janet German Harbison. The Harbisons were a musical family; Elmore had studied composition in his youth and Janet wrote songs. Harbison’s sisters Helen and Margaret were musicians as well. He won the prestigious BMI Foundation’s Student Composer Awards for composition at the age of 16 in 1954. He studied music at Harvard University (BA 1960), where he sang with the Harvard Glee Club, and later at the Berlin Musikhochschule and at Princeton (MFA 1963). He is an Institute Professor of music at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a former student of Walter Piston and Roger Sessions. His works include several symphonies, string quartets, and concerti for violin, viola, and double bass. Harbison won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1987 for The Flight into Egypt, and in 1989 he received a $305,000 MacArthur Fellowship. In 1998, he received the 4th annual Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities. He was awarded the Harvard Arts Medal in 2000. In 2006, a recording of his Mot

John Hardy (composer)

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John Hardy (born 1957) is an English-born composer who has been commissioned by the Arts Council/National Lottery, the BBC, Welsh National Opera and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, among others. His work includes opera, choral and orchestral pieces, site-specific theatre events and film. Hardy studied at Hereford Cathedral School, Oxford University and Guildhall School of Music & Drama before directing music at Cardiff Laboratory Theatre, Edington Festival then Welsh performance group Brith Gof, whose 1988 production Gododdin was performed with percussion group Test Dept and described by The Independent as “elemental, wild and exhilarating… an exceptional achievement.” In 1994 Hardy won the first of his five BAFTA Cymru awards for the soundtrack to Hedd Wyn, an Oscar-nominated film about the Welsh poet. At this time he began collaborating with playwright Ed Thomas, composing music for Song From A Forgotten City (1995), House of America (1996), Gas Station Angel (1998) and Stone City Blue (2004). Music Theatre Wales commissioned and in 1994 premiered Flowers, a chamber opera described as “rich and evocative” by Opera, “communicating… the whole gamut of human emotions” by The

John Hartmann

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John Hartmann (October 24, 1830 – 1897) was a Prussian brass composer. He is notable for having served Prince George, Duke of Cambridge as bandmaster in the British 4th Regiment, 12th Lancers. Hartmann was born in Auleben. When he went to fulfil his mandatory service obligation to the Prussian military, he chose to be a musician. Doing that gave him the option of choosing the regiment he would serve with. He chose to serve with the Cuirassiers in Cologne. While with the Cuirassiers, he played solo cornet and violin. In 1854, his bandmaster, Herr Schallehn, left service and traveled to England, joining the Crystal Palace Company. Hartmann joined him when his service was over in October 1855. John’s brother Ernest also joined Schallehn (prior to John). Hartmann continued to play cornet in the Crystal Palace Band until he was offered the position of bandmaster of the Tyrone Militia at Sheffield. He served with them, with the 1st (King’s) Dragoon Guards, and with the Royal Sherwood Foresters (Nottingham Militia), who were “one of the best brass bands in the country.” He organized the band of the 2nd Battalion of the (King’s Own) 4th Foot at Chichester. He served with the 4th Foot Guard

John Hawkins (Canadian composer)

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John Hawkins (26 July 1944 in Montreal – 14 January 2007 in Toronto) was a Canadian composer, conductor, music educator, and pianist. He notably won the 2nd-century Week Composition Competition in 1967 for his Eight Movements for Flute and Clarinet and received the Jules Léger Prize in 1983 for Breaking Through which was commissioned by ARRAYMUSIC. In 1971, he helped found the New Music Concerts in Toronto and was frequent performer there during his lifetime. He also frequently performed in concerts presented by the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, notably appearing as a soloist on the organization’s recording of Jacques Hétu’s Cycle. Hawkins began his professional education at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Québec where he was a pupil of Lubka Kolessa. He transferred to McGill University in 1965 where he went on to earn a Bachelor of Music (1967), a Concert Diploma (1968), and a Master of Music (1970). At McGill he studied music composition with István Anhalt through a grant from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. He also studying conducting with Pierre Boulez in Basel in 1969. In 1970, Hawkins became a member of the faculty of the University o

John Hebden

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John Hebden (1712–1765) was a composer and musician in 18th century Great Britain. Little is known of Hebden’s life. He was baptized on 21 July 1712 at Spofforth, near Harrogate in Yorkshire, the son of ‘John Hebdin’ of Plompton. He was orphaned when young but was fortunate enough to receive an excellent education, including musical tuition. He lived most of his life in York. In 1732, he married Mary Prestland. Their first son, John, born in 1733, survived only a short time. A second son was baptized in 1736, but Mary died shortly afterwards, in 1737. Hebden was left with the responsibility of bringing up his small son and working long hours earning enough to live. When Hebden was dying, he arranged for money to be left in trust for his son, to be released in only small amounts. Around 1742, Hebden moved to London, and when composer Thomas Arne enlarged the orchestra at Vauxhall Gardens in 1745, he became the principal cellist and bassoonist. It is also known that he played in a performance of Messiah directed by George Frideric Handel himself, to raise money for the Foundling Hospital. Hebden was principally an orchestral player and as such his social status and his income would h

John Henry Hopkins Jr.

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John Henry Hopkins Jr. (October 28, 1820 – August 14, 1891) was an American clergyman and hymnodist, most famous for composing the song “We Three Kings of Orient Are” in 1857 (even though it does not appear in print until his Carols, Hymns, and Songs in 1863). Life Hopkins was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of John Henry Hopkins, an Episcopal bishop. Hopkins graduated from the University of Vermont with an A.B. in 1839, and then a Master’s Degree in 1845. After a stint as a journalist, he graduated from the General Theological Seminary in 1850, and became a deacon, author, illustrator, and designer. He was the seminary’s first music teacher from 1855 to 1857, composed several hymns, and edited the Church Journal. He wrote words and music to his most famous hymn, “We Three Kings”, as part of a Christmas pageant for his nieces and nephews. It is suggested to have been written in 1857 but did not appear in print until his Carols, Hymns, and Songs in 1863. Hopkins served as rector of Trinity Church in Plattsburgh, New York from 1872 to 1876 and of Christ Episcopal Church in Williamsport, Pennsylvania from 1876 to 1887. He delivered the eulogy at the funeral of President Ulys

John Henry Mee

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John Henry Mee (16 August 1852 – 15 January 1918) was an Oxford academic, clergyman, composer and author on musical subjects. Life and career Mee was born at Riddings Vicarage in Derbyshire, the son of vicar John Mee, and studied at Queen’s College, Oxford from 1871, where he gained his B.A in 1875. He became a Fellow, Merton College in 1875, completing his M.A in 1878 and a B.Mus. in 1882, and was appointed succentor (1876-81) and lecturer (1877-82). He was ordained by John Mackarness, Bishop of Oxford, in 1877. He married Alice Ann Marten at Holy Trinity Church, Ventnor on 26 April 1878. At Worcester College he was appointed lecturer of ancient history in 1882. From 1884 until 1898 he was the tenant of Kettell Hall on Broad Street - the stone house then attached to the western side of Blackwell’s Local Bookshop, now part of Trinity College. Under John Stainer he was Coryphaeus Precentor of Music, University of Oxford from 1890 until 1899. His wife died 20 years before him. There was one daughter. Musical activities Mee devoted much of his time to music. According to his obituarist: “having ample means, he was able to indulge in his tastes”. He completed his B.Mus degree in 1882 a

John Henry Thomas

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John Henry Thomas (born 24 November 1854, in Truro, Cornwall, died 22 February 1928, in Moonta) was an Australian composer, editor, and conductor. He is known for composing several Cornish Christmas Carols and the 1897 publication of his book The Christmas Welcome, was engraved in Germany by C.G. Röder, Leipzig. John Henry Thomas’ father, John Thomas, was a miner in Cornwall and arrived in South Australia in 1885 with his wife, Catherine Jacka after the mining boom had occurred due to the discovery of copper in 1861 in Moonta. The mine became prosperous and many Cornish miners followed after an advertisement by the South Australian Government. In 1875 Moonta was the second largest town after the capital, Adelaide, with a population of 12,000 people. Thus the miners made an important contribution to the Australian economy and were crucial to the prospering of Moonta and the surrounding district. They brought their culture and traditions with them including their music which was pivotal in keeping their Cornish culture alive. This area became a virtual Cornish enclave and was named “Little Cornwall”. John Henry Thomas helped to maintain the Cornish culture through his compositions an

John Hilton the younger

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John Hilton (ca. 15991657) was an English early Baroque composer. He is best known for his books Ayres or Fa-Las for Three Voices and Catch That Catch Can. Life Hilton was born about 1599 in Cambridge. His father was probably the church musician and composer John Hilton the elder, who died in Cambridge in 1609. Ayres or Fa-Las for Three Voices This book of music is largely overlooked by scholars. Many think the pieces are of low quality, while others are surprised that they do not get more attention. It is not known who composed the texts to the Ayres or Fa-Las. Most of the songs are about love. Published in 1627, it represented one of the last publications of English song until John Playford’s Musical Banquet of 1651 (the one exception being Walter Porter’s Madrigales and Ayres of 1632). Notes References *HOASM: John Hilton (2) *Journal of Seventeenth Century Music *Catch That Catch Can (Pepys’ Diary)

John Hopkins (composer)

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John Hopkins (born in 1949, at Polegate in East Sussex) is a British composer. Education Hopkins studied at University College Cardiff. There his teachers included Alun Hoddinott and Arnold Whittall. He also took composition lessons with Peter Maxwell Davies. He graduated in 2000 from University of Sussex with a D.Phil. Career Hopkins was elected as a regional composer-in-residence by the Eastern Arts Association (now Arts Council England East) in 1979. After several teaching positions, including being co-ordinator of Practice-Based Studies at the Faculty of Music (University of Cambridge), and Director of Studies for Music at Homerton College, Cambridge, he is now Composer in Residence at Homerton College, Cambridge. Works His For the Far Journey (1981) was commissioned and premièred by the Geminii Ensemble and has been described as illustrating characteristics of Hopkin’s music, namely ‘attractive textures and effective pacing’. White Winter, Black Spring is a composition for two voices and large instrumental ensemble; Hopkins used poems by Robert Lowell for this work commissioned by the BBC. Some major pieces * For the Far Journey (1981) * The Magic Mountain (1983) * White Winte

John Howard Payne

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John Howard Payne (June 9, 1791 – April 10, 1852) was an American actor, poet, playwright, and writer who had nearly two decades of a theatrical career and success in London. He is today most remembered as the creator of “Home! Sweet Home!”, a song he wrote in 1822 that became widely popular in the United States and the English-speaking world. Its popularity was revived during the American Civil War, as troops on both sides embraced it. After his return to the United States in 1832, Payne spent time with the Cherokee in the Southeast and interviewed many elders. Intending to write about them, he amassed material about their culture, language and society, which have been useful to scholars. But his published theory that suggested their origin as one of the Ten Lost Tribes of ancient Israel has been thoroughly disproved. At that time, European Americans were still strongly influenced by a Biblical basis of history in trying to understand origins of the peoples in the Americas. Early life and education John Howard Payne was born in New York City on June 9, 1791, one of seven sons among nine children. Early in his childhood, the family moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where his father h

John Ireland (composer)

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John Nicholson Ireland (13 August 187912 June 1962) Ireland entered the Royal College of Music in 1893, studying piano with Frederic Cliffe, From 1897 he studied composition under Charles Villiers Stanford. In 1896 Ireland was appointed sub-organist at Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, London SW1, and later, from 1904 until 1926, was organist and choirmaster at St Luke’s Church, Chelsea. Ireland began to make his name in the early 1900s as a composer of songs and chamber music. His Violin Sonata No. 1 of 1909 won first prize in the Cobbett Competition. Even more successful was his Violin Sonata No. 2: completed in January 1917, he submitted this to a competition organised to assist musicians in wartime. The jury included the violinist Albert Sammons and the pianist William Murdoch, who together gave the work its first performance at Aeolian Hall in New Bond Street on 6 March that year. As Ireland recalled, “It was probably the first and only occasion when a British composer was lifted from relative obscurity in a single night by a work cast in a chamber-music medium.” The work was enthusiastically reviewed, and the publisher Winthrop Rogers offered immediate publication (the first editi

John IV of Portugal

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Dom John IV (; 19 March 1604 – 6 November 1656), also known by the Portuguese as John the Restorer (), was the King of Portugal from 1640 until his death in 1656. He restored the independence of Portugal from Habsburg Spanish rule a claimant to the crown during the Portuguese succession crisis of 1580. On the eve of his death in 1656, the Portuguese Empire was at its territorial zenith, spanning the globe. Early life John IV was born at Vila Viçosa and succeeded his father Teodósio II as Duke of Braganza when the latter died insane in 1630. He married Luisa de Guzmán (1613–66), the eldest daughter of Juan Manuel Pérez de Guzmán, 8th Duke of Medina Sidonia, in 1633. John was described as having blonde hair and an average height. Reign Accession When Philip II of Portugal (III of Spain) died, he was succeeded by his son Philip III (IV of Spain), who had a different approach to Portuguese issues. Taxes on the Portuguese merchants were raised, the Portuguese nobility began to lose its influence, and government posts in Portugal were increasingly occupied by Spaniards. Ultimately, Philip III tried to make Portugal a Spanish province, meaning Portuguese nobles stood to lose all of their

John Ivimey

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John William Ivimey (12 September 1868 – 16 April 1961) was an English organist and composer who specialized in comic operas. He also worked as director of music in schools and churches. Ivimey was awarded the degree of Doctor of Music by the University of Oxford in 1916. His grandfather, another John Ivimey (1790–1874), was a younger brother of Joseph Ivimey (1773–1834) a Particular Baptist minister and historian, both being sons of Charles Ivimey, tailor, of Ringwood, Hampshire. He was a cousin of the New Zealand rugby footballer Fred Ivimey (1880–1961). Career Ivimey was only twenty when he was appointed as assistant to Alan Gray at Wellington College in 1888. While composing about twenty comic operas, as well as a symphony, a grand opera, cantatas and other songs, and much organ music, Ivimey was successively organist at St Peter’s, Norbiton, and St Paul’s, Onslow Square. He also wrote articles for magazines and journals and edited hymn books and books of songs. After Wellington, Ivimey worked at Harrow School, the Chelsea Polytechnic, Dulwich College, and Cheltenham College, before being appointed as Director of Music at Marlborough College in 1915, continuing in post for twen

John J. Becker

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John Joseph Becker (January 22, 1886 – January 21, 1961) was an American composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, a conductor, a writer on music, and a music administrator. In the early 1930s he was especially active as a conductor, giving midwestern premieres of works by his close friend Charles Ives, as well as music by fellow American composers Carl Ruggles and Wallingford Riegger. Life Becker was born in Henderson, Kentucky, and began his formal musical education at the Cincinnati Conservatory, receiving his diploma in 1905. He then pursued graduate studies at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music in Milwaukee, where he earned a doctorate in composition in 1923. His composition teachers included Alexander von Fielitz, Carl Busch, and Wilhelm Middelschulte. After a period of comparative obscurity, his career as an educator and administrator began in 1917 at the University of Notre Dame, where he taught for ten years. A devout Catholic, he relocated to another Catholic institution, the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he taught from 1929 until 1933. From 1935 to 1941 he administered the Federal Music Project in Minnesota, and for a time was associate

John Jacob Niles

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John Jacob Niles (April 28, 1892 – March 1, 1980) was an American composer, singer and collector of traditional ballads. Called the “Dean of American Balladeers,” Niles was an important influence on the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, with Odetta, Joan Baez, Burl Ives, Peter, Paul and Mary and Bob Dylan, among others, recording his songs. Biography Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Niles learned music theory from his mother, and began writing down folk music as a teenager. He became a serious student of Appalachian folk music by transcribing traditional songs from oral sources while an itinerant employee of the Burroughs Corporation in eastern Kentucky, from 1910 to 1917. After serving in the U.S. Army Air Service during World War I, in which he was injured, he studied music in France, first in Lyon, then in Paris at the Schola Cantorum, also meeting Gertrude Stein. Returning to the United States in 1920, he continued his studies at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music working there with Ralph Lyford. He sang opera in Chicago and folk songs on early radio. In 1925, he moved to New York City and held various jobs in the entertainment industry. In the 1930s, he toured

John Jansson (composer)

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John Jansson (born 15 January 1958) is a British conductor, composer, arranger and pianist. Biography John Denis Ingvar Jansson was born in Torquay, Devon, the son of a Swedish musician and an English singer. He was educated at University College School in Hampstead, and then trained at the Royal Academy of Music and Trinity College of Music, where his tutors included Alexander Kelly, Alfred Kitchin, Bernard Keefe and Paul Patterson. Career John Jansson has conducted several productions at the Royal National Theatre, among them Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George (Olivier Award) and Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (with Antony Sher). At the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Studio Theatre he conducted the London premiere of John Adams’s I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky (also at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival), and he was the conductor for Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti and Barber’s A Hand of Bridge (Southwark Playhouse), Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock (Battersea Arts Centre) and Mel Smith’s The Gambler (Jermyn Street Theatre). As composer, he composed the scores for the York Mystery Plays, productions at the Donmar Warehouse and Kin

John Jenkins (composer)

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John Jenkins (c. 1592–c. 1678), was an English composer of the early Baroque period. He was born in Maidstone, Kent and died in Kimberley, Norfolk. Biography Little is known of his early life. The son of Henry Jenkins, a carpenter who occasionally made musical instruments, he may have been the “Jack Jenkins” employed in the household of Anne Russell, Countess of Warwick in 1603. The first positive historical record of Jenkins is amongst the musicians who performed the masque The Triumph of Peace in 1634 at the court of King Charles I. Jenkins was considered a virtuoso on the lyra viol. Charles commented that Jenkins did “wonders on an inconsiderable instrument.” When the English Civil War broke out in 1642 it forced Jenkins, like many others, to migrate to the rural countryside. During the 1640s he was employed as music-master to two Royalist families, the Derham family at West Dereham and Hamon le Strange of Hunstanton. He was also a friend of the composer William Lawes (1602–1645), who was shot and died in battle at the siege of Chester. Around 1640 Jenkins revived the In Nomine, an archaic form for a consort of viols, based upon a traditional plainsong theme. He wrote a notable

John Juvenal Ancina

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Giovanni Giovenale Ancina (19 October 1545 – 30 August 1604) was an Italian Roman Catholic prelate who served as the Bishop of Saluzzo and was a professed member from the Oratorians. The bishop was also a scholar and music composer and was also known for being a noted orator. He served in the Oratorians as a simple priest for around two decades prior to his episcopal appointment which he attempted to elude for five months before submitting to Pope Clement VIII and accepting the papal appointment. He entered his diocese several months later where he became noted for his charitable work with the poor and his efforts to better implement the reforms of the Council of Trent. His cause for sainthood commenced soon after his death though complications arose due to a lack of concrete evidence suggesting that he was killed in hatred of the faith due to his being poisoned so that framework for the cause was abandoned well into the cause’s advanced stages. His beatification was celebrated under Pope Leo XIII in 1890 in Saint Peter’s Basilica. Life Giovanni Giovenale Ancina was born at dawn on 19 October 1545 in Fossano as the first of four children to the successful businessman Durando Ancina

John Kavanaugh

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John William Kavanaugh is an American composer, lyricist and musical director who is currently serving as one of several songwriters on Sofia the First: Royal Magic for Disney Television Animation. He is the recipient of 9 Emmy nominations and was awarded the 2014 Daytime Emmy Award for Sofia The First Main Title theme song with co-lyricist Craig Gerber. While working on Sofia The First, Kavanaugh was tapped to write songs for Disney’s first Latina princess, the award-winning Elena of Avalor. Kavanaugh penned the songs and served as music director on the series Alice’s Wonderland Bakery which premiered in February of 2022. In 2023, he earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Original Song for “The Hat Makes The Hatter,” co-written with lyricists Chelsea Beyl and Marisa Evans-Sanden, and the trio repeated their success in December 2024 with another nomination for “Let Your Wish Carry You Away” from season two. His songs can also be heard in several hit movies, including Disney’s Descendants 3 (My Once Upon a Time), Winnie The Pooh film Springtime with Roo and Nickelodeon’s Globehunters. He co-wrote the scores to Curious George Live for NBC Universal, Dreams are Universal for Univer

John Kenny (trombonist)

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

John Kenny (born 1957) is a British trombonist, carnyxplayer and composer. Career Kenny is a professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. He received the Gaudeamus International Interpreters Award in 1983 and the International Trombone Association Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017. Kenny was part of the team which created the modern reconstruction of the Carnyx horn and has subsequently performed and recorded on the instrument. References External links *Carnyx & Co. *Warwick Music - John’s Publisher *Thank you, John Kenny …for an open-ended life-long collaboration. *

John Kinsella (composer)

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John Kinsella (8 April 1932 – 9 November 2021) was an Irish composer and the country’s most prolific symphonist during the twentieth century. Life Kinsella was born in Dublin, Ireland, the younger brother of the poet and editor Thomas Kinsella. He studied viola at the College of Music (now the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama) in Dublin and took private composition lessons with Éamonn Ó Gallchobhair for a brief period. He developed an early interest in serialism and began to explore many of the techniques evolved by the contemporary European avant-garde. Supported by Gerard Victory and the conductor Hans Waldemar Rosen he had a number of works accepted for performance by RTÉ ensembles, including his first two string quartets (1960, 1968), a chamber concerto (1964), Montage (1965) for soprano and chamber ensemble, Two Pieces for String Orchestra (1965), and Montage II (1970) for orchestra. This group of works culminated in A Selected Life (1973), a large-scale composition based on verses written in memory of the recently deceased Seán Ó Riada by his brother Thomas. In 1968, he was appointed senior assistant in the music department of RTÉ. As he found himself growing increasingly

John Knowles Paine

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John Knowles Paine (January 9, 1839 – April 25, 1906) was the first American-born composer to achieve fame for large-scale orchestral music. The senior member of a group of composers collectively known as the Boston Six, Paine was one of those responsible for the first significant body of concert music by composers from the United States. The Boston Six’s other five members were Amy Beach, Arthur Foote, Edward MacDowell, George Chadwick, and Horatio Parker. Life Paine grew up in a musical family in Maine. His grandfather, an instrument maker, built the first pipe organ in the state of Maine and his father and uncles were all music teachers. His father carried on the family musical instrument business. One uncle was an organist. Another was a composer. In the 1850s Paine took lessons in organ and composition from Hermann Kotzschmar, completing his first composition, a string quartet, in 1855 at the age of 16. After his first organ recital in 1857, he was appointed organist of Portland’s Haydn Society, and gave a series of recitals with the object of funding a trip to Europe where he hoped to further his music education. On arrival in Europe, Paine studied organ with Carl August Haup

John Korsrud

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John Korsrud (born 1963) is a Canadian composer and jazz trumpeter. Life John Korsrud was born in 1963. He graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1990. Korsrud studied composition with Louis Andriessen at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Amsterdam from 1995 to 1997. Korsrud has received commissions from the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, The CBC Radio Orchestra, and Dutch ensembles such as Ensemble LOOS, the Tetzepi Bigtet, the Zapp String Quartet, De Ereprijs, among others. in 2010, Korsrud performed on his own trumpet concerto, Come to the Dark Side at Carnegie Hall in with The American Composers Orchestra. Since 1990, he has led the 18-piece new music/jazz ensemble Hard Rubber Orchestra, with which has appeared in Europe and across Canada, recorded five albums, and in 2005 won the Alcan Arts Award. The Hard Rubber Orchestra has commissioned over 50 works from composers such as Kenny Wheeler, Darcy James Argue, John Hollenbeck, Brad Turner, Christine Jensen, Scott Good, Linda Bouchard, Rene Lussier, Anna Webber (musician), and many others. Korsrud has also created large multimedia projects like The Elvis Cantatas (1994, 1996), The

John Koukouzeles

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John Koukouzeles Papadopoulos () was a Byzantine composer, singer and reformer of Byzantine chant. He was recognized as a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church after his death. Among the most illustrious musicians of the Palaiologos dynasty, his music remains held in high esteem by Albanians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Macedonians, Romanians and Serbs. Name and etymology The name “Koukouzeles” was not the composer’s surname. His real surname was Papadopoulos. “Koukouzeles” is allegedly derived from the Greek word for broad beans (κουκιά, koukia) and a Slavic/Bulgarian word for cabbage (зеле, zele). (probably Greek) He was orphaned in childhood. Nevertheless, the accuracy of Life is disputed, since it was written many years after the death of Koukouzeles and also makes several fantastical claims. this opinion is based on the existence of chromatic intervals in Byzantine music. where he received his education and established himself as one of the leading authorities in his field during the time. A favourite of the Byzantine emperor and a principal choir chanter, he moved to Mount Athos and led a monastic way of life in the Great Lavra. Because of his singing abilities, he was called “Angel-v

John La Montaine

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John Maynard La Montaine, also later LaMontaine, (March 17, 1920 – April 29, 2013) was an American pianist and composer, born in Oak Park, Illinois, who won the 1959 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his Piano Concerto No. 1 “In Time of War” (1958), which was premiered by Jorge Bolet. His teachers included Howard Hanson, Bernard Rogers, and Nadia Boulanger. His works have been performed by Leontyne Price, Jessye Norman, Adele Addison, Donald Gramm, Robert Silverman, Eleanor Steber and Jorge Bolet. In honor of the American Bicentennial celebration in 1976, he was commissioned to create a choral work for the Penn State Institute for Arts and Humanistic Studies. The opera, entitled Be Glad Then America, was performed by the University Choirs, under the direction of Sarah Caldwell. The folk singer Odetta appeared as the Muse for America. La Montaine lived in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. His publishing company, Fredonia Press, is named for the street on which he lived. His business partner was the composer and pianist Paul J. Sifler (1911–2001). Selected works ;Opera * Novellis, Novellis, a Pageant Opera for narrator, soloists, chorus and orchestra, Op. 31 (1961); libretto adapted by

John Landry

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

John Landry (born December 22, 1969) is a Canadian country music artist. Landry’s debut album, Forever Took Too Long, was released in 1999 by Spin Records. Its first two singles, “There You Were” and “Bit by Bit,” both reached the Top 10 of the Canadian Country Singles chart. Landry was nominated for a 2000 Juno Award for Best Country Male Artist. Landry entertained on the country stage at the 2003 Palmer Rapids Twin Festival in Ontario. Discography Studio albums Singles Guest singles Music videos References External links *Official Site

John Laskaris (composer)

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John Laskaris ( early 15th century) was a Byzantine music theorist and composer. Life Laskaris was a native of Constantinople. Although he is often called “John Laskaris of Crete” in the sources, this probably refers to his important period of activity on the island. Besides the common surname Laskaris, he is also known by the surnames Pigonites and Syrpaganos, which is probably a variant of the former with a Latinate prefix meaning “sir”. He is also sometimes called John Laskars Kalomisides. All of these surnames point to a Constantinopolitan origin. Laskaris left his family and property in Constantinople to come to Venetian Crete in 1411. He was already at that time a successful cantor and was probably sent to Crete with the support of the Emperor Manuel II and Patriarch Joseph II to fortify the Church of Crete under Latin rule. The timing of his decision to leave may have been related to the Ottoman siege of 1411. Although he was initially permitted by the Venetian authorities to chant wherever he was asked to, in October 1418 he was sued for infringing on the rights of the local clergy, insulting and threatening them. On 26 October, he was sent into exile. Laskaris was still al

John Laurence Seymour

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John Laurence Seymour (January 18, 1893, in Los Angeles – February 1, 1986, in San Francisco) was an American composer and playwright. As a composer Seymour is best known for his operas, which have “complex orchestral textures and italianate lyricism”. in Los Angeles, California. His parents were John L. Symour and Rose Anna La Pointe. He grew up in Sacramento, California. He attended Polytechnic High. Selected works ;Stage * The Bachelor Belles, Operetta in 3 acts, Op. 13 (1935); libretto by Rose A. Seymour * In the Pasha’s Garden, Opera in 1 act, Op. 17 (1934); libretto by Henry Chester Tracy based on the book by Harrison Griswold Dwight; recipient of the Bispham Memorial Medal Award * The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Comic Operetta in 2 acts, Op. 35 (1937); libretto by Henry Chester Tracy after the play by William Shakespeare * Golden Days, Comic Operetta in 2 acts, Op. 40 (1936); libretto by Ralph Birchard * Hollywood Madness, Comic Opera in 3 acts, Op. 41 (1936); libretto by Ralph Birchard * Ming Toy, Musical Comedy in prologue and 2 acts (1949); book by Leslie H. Carter; lyrics and music by John Laurence Seymour * Ramona, Opera in 5 acts and epilogue; libretto by Henry Chester Tr

John Lee (composer of church music)

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

John Lee (29 April 1908, Southport – 8 April 1990, Los Angeles) was a British-born Catholic musician who spent most of his career in north America. He is best remembered for his pioneering English-language musical settings of the Catholic Church’s liturgies that came into use following the Second Vatican Council (1962–65). Life John was the third child of John Lee (a house painter by trade) and his wife Mary Anne (nee Hartnett) living at 17 Clifton Road Southport, Lancashire. Nothing has come to light of John Lee’s early life and musical education, except that he studied at Oxford University and was the organist of St Joseph’s Church, Birkdale, UK. John Lee married Mary Lyons (born 29/09/1916) on 20 August 1942 in Crosby. On 23 May 1943 a son Peter John was born. Works For choir Arrangements * 1966. Eight Offertory Motets by G.P. da Palestrina, G. Carissimi, C. Tye et al. * 1967. Two Motets in Honor of the Blessed Virgin by Francesco Soriano and Antonio Lotti. * 1970. Dying you destroyed our death.. * John Lee ‘Ecce panis angelorum’ from Ten Organ Preludes for Liturgical Services. No 9. (1939), performed by Andrew Pink.

John Lely

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John Lely (born Norwich, England, in 1976) is a British experimental composer, improvising musician and curator based in London, UK. His music has been commissioned and performed by musicians including Apartment House, Quatour Bozzini, the violinist Mira Benjamin, the harpist Rhodri Davies and the pianist John Tilbury, and has been broadcast on BBC Four, BBC Radio 3 and Resonance FM. He is co-curator, with the composer Tim Parkinson, of the concert series Music We’d Like to Hear, which has run since 2005 and co-author with fellow composer James Saunders of the book Word Events: Perspectives on Verbal Notation, a study of text scores, which was published by Continuum/Bloomsbury in 2012. Education Lely studied at Goldsmiths, University of London, with Roger Redgate, Dave Smith and John Tilbury, and privately with Michael Parsons. In 2007, he was a resident student at Ostrava Days and from 2008 to 2010 he was a researcher at Bath Spa University. From 2003 to 2008, he taught composition and creative strategies at Goldsmiths, and experimental sound at Chelsea College of Arts. Style Lely’s music is influenced by an older generation of British experimental composers, such as John White an

John Leslie McFarland

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John Leslie McFarland (May 12, 1926 – January 14, 1971) was an American popular music composer and arranger. Career Early in his career, McFarland wrote several songs for Bill Haley and His Comets: “Rockin’ Rollin’ Rover”, “You Hit The Wrong Note Billy Goat”, co-writing “Teenager’s Mother” with Curtis R. Lewis. One of McFarland’s earliest songs, co-written with Billy Moore Jr., was “You Dyed Your Hair Chartreuse”. It was recorded by Louis Jordan in 1950. In 1959, he co-wrote “Wang Dang Taffy Apple Tango” with Aaron Schroeder, and the song was recorded by Pat Boone. In 1960, McFarland also co-wrote the hit “Dreamin’” for Johnny Burnette with Aaron Schroeder. McFarland co-wrote the song “Stuck On You” with Aaron Schroeder for Elvis Presley. The song was Presley’s first hit single after two years in the US Army, recorded March 1960. The single rose to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in late-April of that year, and became Presley’s thirteenth hit overall. “Stuck On You” was one of six Elvis Presley songs featured in the 2002 Disney movie Lilo & Stitch. McFarland arranged the songs on Aretha Franklin’s debut album for Columbia Records Aretha: With The Ray Bryant Combo and wrot

John Lessard

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John Lessard (July 3, 1920 – January 11, 2003) was an American composer and music educator noted among peers for his eloquent and dramatic neo-classical works for piano and voice, chamber ensembles, and orchestra, as well as for his playful pieces for mixed percussion ensembles. He was also an accomplished pianist and conductor. Early life Born John Ayres Lessard in San Francisco on July 3, 1920, he was raised in Palo Alto by parents with Quebec roots, quickly becoming fluent in both French and English. He began piano lessons at the age of five, then trumpet lessons at nine, and two years later joined the San Francisco Civic Symphony Orchestra. He studied piano and theory with Elise Belenky and also worked briefly with the composer Henry Cowell. At sixteen, he was offered a scholarship to study with Arnold Schoenberg, but felt so repelled by his music and the Vienna School outlook that he refused the scholarship and went to study in France. He then spent the duration of the war back in Europe with a unit assigned to liaison between American troops and allied French fighters and personnel. Death John Lessard died in East Setauket on January 11, 2003, aged 82. Awards and grants Lessa

John Link (composer)

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John Link is a New York composer and is one of the founders of Friends and Enemies of New Music. Link received a Ph.D. in music from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, a master’s degree from The Ohio State University, and B.M. and B.A. degrees from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He studied composition with David Olan, Thomas Wells, and Randall Snyder. In 1989 he and a group of composers – Tom Cipullo, Nancy Gunn, Cynthia Miller, Gregory W. Pinney, and Ben Yarmolinsky — formed Friends & Enemies of New Music, a composers group that put on a series of contemporary music concerts in New York City and sponsored an annual competition. In 2007 his composition For Irving Lippel, performed by Jeffrey Irving and Daniel Lippel appeared on the album Sustenance (New Focus Recordings) and in 2008 an excerpt of his work Life Studies was included on the compilation album Crosstalk: American Speech Music (Bridge Records) produced by Mendi + Keith Obadike. In 2009 his composition Around the Bend appeared on the album FM by Flexible Music (New Focus Recordings). He is currently a Professor of Music at William Paterson University directing the Center for Electroacoustic Music

John Lodge Ellerton

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John Lodge Ellerton (11 January 1801 – 3 January 1873) was an English composer of classical music. Life Ellerton was born in Cheshire with the name of John Lodge. He attended Rugby School and graduated with an MA from Brasenose College, Oxford University in 1828. Between 1829 and 1831 he studied under in Rome, where he wrote 7 operas in Italian. In 1837 he adopted the name of Ellerton and on 24 August that year married Henrietta Barbara Lumley, the sister of the 8th Earl of Scarbrough. His English opera “Domenica” was produced at Drury Lane in 1838, but this was unsuccessful; his oratorio Paradise Lost (op. 125; for soloists (SSAATTTBB), chorus (SATB) and orchestra.), published in 1857, had more critical success although apparently few performances. His Mass in D appeared in 1843: a reviewer wrote, “This is the composition of an amateur, and evidently one who has studied in the right school… it is by no means a discreditable work, nor undeserving of attention. The Kyrie is well conceived, but contains many passages that remind us of Haydn…. The fugue, Cum Sancto Spiritu is well written, but smacks rather much of Mozart’s spirited effusions to the same words. The same may be sai

John Loeffler

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John Loeffler (born June 3, 1951) is an American music industry executive and executive vice president, head of New York repertoire and marketing for BMG. In 2019, Loeffler’s output included new releases from John Fogerty, The Allman Betts Band feat. Devon Allman and Duane Betts, Marc Cohn and Blind Boys of Alabama, Perry Farrell, Sophie Auster, Jesse Colin Young and Stephen Bishop. Prior to being named EVP in January 2019 he served as executive director of global development for BMG and developed joint ventures with music and media companies beyond traditional music platforms. He also represented the label’s interests to forge new relationships with iconic artists including Roger Waters, Kenny Loggins, Bad Company, John Fogerty, and Earth, Wind & Fire. In 2011, Loeffler launched FieldHouse Music in association with BMG Music Rights and Universal Distribution. The venture established to discover and market new talent through licensing in film, TV and commercials. FieldHouse Music continues as a talent incubator for new artists and songwriters looking to be developed and promoted by a team of experienced professionals. As a songwriter, record producer and entrepreneur, Loeffler’s cr

John Loretz

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John M. Loretz Jr. (1840–1908) was a French-born American composer. His compositions include a wide range of patriotic anthems, waltzes, and sacred pieces. He was the son of John B. Loretz, a prominent organist and composer. Life and career John M. Loretz Jr. was born in 1840 in Mulhouse, in the Alsace region of France. He was the son of John B. Loretz, an organist at St. Stephen’s Church in New York City and later at the Clinton Avenue Congregational Church in Brooklyn, who emigrated from France to the United States in 1849. By age 18 John M. was an organist at the Lorraine Cathedral. He moved to the US and joined the Navy. He would later serve again during the Spanish-American War. In 1857 he returned to France to study at the Paris Conservatoire under Antoine Marmontel, Napoléon Henri Reber, Adolphe-François Laurent and others. His early works, such as the “Grecian Bend Waltz” (1858), already showcased his talent for composition. Loretz made his debut as a pianist in 1860 with the Brooklyn Philharmonic Society. He served as an organist for several churches in Brooklyn and worked as a conductor at the Park Theatre in New York and as a bandmaster in the United States Navy. He play

John Lugge

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

John Lugge (c.1580 – 1647–55) was an English organist and composer, who spent most of his musical career at Exeter Cathedral.

John Lunn

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John Lunn (born 13 May 1956) is a Scottish composer, known for the music from the series Downton Abbey and for many other television and movie soundtracks. Early life and education Lunn was born in May 1956. His father was a saxophonist in a jazz band. Lunn graduated from Glasgow University, where he studied 12-tone techniques. He has cited among his musical influences John Cage, Milton Babbitt, and György Ligeti, as well as Miles Davis. Lunn was also a member of “systems music” band Man Jumping, an early 1980s “jazz-pop-worldbeat fusion ensemble”, where he played bass and keyboard.". He took a short course in computer music at MIT, and assembled his own computerised compositional system, using Cubase software. Career Television He began composing for BBC Scotland in the late 1980s, with Beatrix: The Early Life of Beatrix Potter (1990) and The Gift (1991). His work also includes music for the television series Hamish Macbeth (1995–1997), Lorna Doone (2000), North Square (2000), Madame Bovary (2000), Cambridge Spies (2003), Bleak House (2005), Hotel Babylon (2006), Little Dorrit (2008), Downton Abbey (2010–2015), Waking the Dead (2011), The White Queen (2013), Shetland (2013), Grant

John Luther Adams

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

John Luther Adams (born January 23, 1953) is an American composer. His history of environmental activism informs his music. His orchestral work Become Ocean was awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Music. Early life Born in Meridian, Mississippi, Adams began playing music as a teenager as a drummer in rock bands. He attended the California Institute of the Arts as an undergraduate in the early 1970s, studying with James Tenney and Leonard Stein, and graduated in 1973. After graduating, Adams began work in environmental protection, and through this work Adams first travelled to Alaska in 1975. Adams moved to Alaska in 1978 and lived there until 2014. He subsequently divided his time between New York and the Sonoran desert in Mexico, though his time in Alaska continues to be a prominent influence in his music. From 1982 to 1989, he performed as timpanist and principal percussionist with the Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra and the Arctic Chamber Orchestra. Since January 2024, Adams and his wife now reside in Australia. Career Adams’s composition work spans many genres and media. He has composed for television, film, children’s theater, voice, acoustic instruments, orchestra, and electroni

John M. Mason (musician)

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John M. Mason, MBE (21 January 1940 – 22 January 2011) was a Scottish solicitor, musician, composer and conductor. He was the co-founder, musical director, and conductor of the Scottish Fiddle Orchestra from its creation in 1980 until his death in 2011. Early life and education John M. Mason, MBE was born in Kirkwall, Scotland in 1940 to James and Tomima (Toza) Mason. He attended Kirkwall Grammar School, before moving to Wigtown with his family after the war. He then attended Douglas Ewert High School in Newton Stewart, and graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a law degree. Both of Mason’s parents were musicians, his father played the fiddle and his mother the piano, and he took up both instruments in childhood. Upon his father’s insistence, he left his fiddle at home while attending university so he could focus entirely on his studies, but he picked it up again during the summer holidays. He joined the Mona Stewart Dance Band, and with them played at weddings and bookings all over southwest Scotland. He was soon invited to join the Kilmarnock Caledonian Strathspey and Reel Society, and in 1972, he helped in the formation of the Ayr and Prestwick Strathspey and Reel Soci

John Mackey (composer)

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

John Mackey (born October 1, 1973) is an American composer of contemporary classical music, with an emphasis on music for wind band, as well as orchestra. For several years, he focused on music for modern dance and ballet. Biography John Mackey was born in New Philadelphia, Ohio and grew up in Westerville, Ohio, where he attended Westerville South High School. Though musicians themselves, Mackey’s parents did not provide him with music lessons, and he never formally studied an instrument. His grandfather, however, taught him to read music and introduced him to digital music notation. Through experimentation with programs intended for entertainment rather than education, Mackey began to compose his own music. He wrote his first piece, Lacrimosa, at age 11, after being inspired by the film Amadeus. As a young composer, he took some lessons from one of his mother’s friends, who had a Ph.D. in music. Mackey received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1995 from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with Donald Erb. He then studied with John Corigliano at Juilliard, receiving a Master of Music degree in 1997. Mackey has stated his support for these institutions’ policies of n

John Mahon (composer)

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John Mahon (also Mahone, Mahoon; 1749–1834) was an Irish composer, clarinetist, violinist, and viola player. Life Mahon was born in Oxford into an Irish family of musicians. His father William Mahon * Duets (4) for 2 Clarinets: No. 4 in B Flat Major * Duets (4) for 2 Clarinets: No. 1 in F Major References Further reading * A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800. pp. 56–57 External links * * Mahon family * John Mahon * Mahon Clarinet CDH55261 [SH]: Classical CD Reviews - December 2006 MusicWeb-International * Oxford Music

John Marsh (composer)

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John Marsh (31 May 1752 – 31 October 1828) was an English gentleman, composer, diarist and writer born in Netherseal, Derbyshire, England. A lawyer by training, he is known to have written more than 350 compositions, including at least 39 symphonies. While today known primarily for his music, he also had strong interest in other fields, including astronomy and philosophy, and wrote books about astronomy, music, religion, and geometry. Life and career Marsh lived in Dorking, Gosport, Romsey, Salisbury and Canterbury before settling in Chichester in 1787 until his death in 1828. As a concert organizer, he was responsible for the music making in the towns and cities where he worked, especially in Chichester, where he led the subscription concerts for some 35 years. Marsh was perhaps the most prolific English composer of his time. His own catalogue of compositions lists over 350 works, of which he lists 39 symphonies. Of these, only the nine that Marsh had printed are extant, together with three one-movement finales. His style owes much to Handel and Corelli and it is close to other composers of the time, such as William Boyce. Many of his works are also reminiscent of early Haydn symp

John Maxwell Geddes

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John Maxwell Geddes (26 May 1941 – 7 September 2017) He taught at schools in Glasgow, and from 1986 he worked at the Academy. He lectured at many American universities and European academies, and was composer-in-residence in Hamburg, Berlin and Bremen. He was associated with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra for more than 50 years. Geddes was a strong supporter of musical education. His work Postlude for Strings was a protest against Argyll and Bute Council’s closure in 2009 of Castle Toward, where he was composer-in-residence; the building was used by youth orchestras including Glasgow Schools Symphony Orchestra, which Geddes conducted. In Postlude for Strings, the players in the orchestra leave the stage one by one (as in Haydn’s Farewell Symphony). Awards included the PRS Composer in Education Award in 1991, Fellow of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music in 2002, and in 2007 the Creative Scotland Award. On 25 June 2018 Geddes received a posthumous honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow. Compositions Works include three symphonies and other orchestral music, chambers works, arrangements of folk songs, transcriptions of Renaissance music, and film music. References Ext

John McCabe (composer)

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John McCabe (21 April 1939 – 13 February 2015) was a British composer and pianist. He created works in many different forms, including symphonies, ballets, and solo works for the piano. He served as director of the London College of Music from 1983 to 1990. Guy Rickards praised him as “one of Britain’s finest composers in the past half-century” and “a pianist of formidable gifts and wide-ranging sympathies”. Early life and education McCabe was born in Huyton, Liverpool on 21 April 1939. His father was an Irish physicist and his German/Finnish mother, Elisabeth Herlitzius, was an amateur violinist. McCabe was badly burned in an accident when he was a child and was home schooled for eight years. During this time, McCabe said that there was “a lot of music in the house”, which inspired his future career. He explained “My mother was a very good amateur violinist and there were records and printed music everywhere. I thought that if all these guys – Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert – can do it, then so can I!”. By the age of 11 McCabe had composed 13 symphonies, but he later suppressed them, believing they were not good enough. He subsequently attended the Liverpool Institute. Personal life

John McCarthy (composer)

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John McCarthy (born June 27, 1961) is a Canadian composer for film and television. His music has been described as a hybrid of acoustical and electronic elements. McCarthy’s background includes extensive experience in classical, jazz, rock, and world music. Life and career McCarthy studied at The Royal Conservatory of Music and Humber College. He has recorded and toured with many bands including Ian Hunter (Mott The Hoople) and Frozen Ghost. McCarthy’s first film, Love and Human Remains, was directed by Academy Award winner Denys Arcand. The film is a dark comedy about a group of GenX twenty-somethings (one of whom is a serial killer) who are looking for love and meaning in a big city during the 1990s. McCarthy scored a pair of episodes of the 2015 David Shore/Vince Gilligan show Battle Creek (CBS). His other work in television includes scoring the CBS series Due South (created by Academy Award winner Paul Haggis) and the NBC series My Own Worst Enemy, starring Christian Slater. In 2010, McCarthy scored the short film Local Change, Global Impact. The film was produced by the International Peace Institute, a division of the United Nations, and narrated by Patrick Stewart. McCarthy i

John McGuire (composer)

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John McGuire (born June 27, 1942 in Artesia, California) is an American composer, pianist, organist, and music editor. Biography John McGuire initially studied composition with Robert Arthur Gross at Occidental College, where he earned a BA in 1964. He received a succession of three Alfred E. Hertz Traveling Scholarships from the University of California at Berkeley (1965–66, 1966–67, 1967–68), and a Fulbright Traveling Scholarship (1966–67), which together enabled him to study with Krzysztof Penderecki at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen from 1966 to 1968, and at the Fourth Cologne Courses for New Music, under Karlheinz Stockhausen, in 1967. Two scholarships from the State of North Rhine–Westphalia for studies in Germany made it possible for him to participate in the composition studios given by Stockhausen at Darmstadt in 1967 and again in 1968. Returning to the United States, he continued his studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where his composition teachers included Ingolf Dahl and Seymour Shifrin. After completing his MA there in 1970, he once again moved to Europe, at first studying computer composition with Gottfried Michael Koenig at the Institute of Sonology

John McLachlan (composer)

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John McLachlan (born 5 March 1964) is an Irish composer. Life McLachlan was born in Dublin, son of the writer Leland Bardwell, and studied at the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama (1982–6), the Royal Irish Academy of Music (1989–97), and Trinity College Dublin (BA 1988), where he received a Ph.D. in musicology in 1999 for a study of the relationship between analysis and compositional technique in the post-war avant-garde. He has also studied privately with Robert Hanson (1989–90) and Kevin Volans (1994–5). He now lives in Inishowen, County Donegal. He has written numerous articles for The Journal of Music in Ireland (2000–10; now the online Journal of Music). He was executive director of the Association of Irish Composers (AIC; 1998–2012), and in 2007 he was elected to Aosdána. McLachlan was the featured composer in the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra’s “Horizons” series in 2003 and 2008. He has also represented Ireland at international festivals, including the ISCM World Music Days in Slovenia in 2003 Croatia in 2005 and New Zealand in 2022. In 2006, his work Grand Action was commissioned as a test piece for the AXA Dublin International Piano Competition. Music McLachlan’s music

John Merbecke

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John Marbeck, Merbeck or Merbecke (c. 1510) was an English choral composer and theological writer whose musical setting of the early Anglican liturgy standardised the sung Anglican service until the late 20th century. He is also known today for his setting of the Mass, Missa Per arma justitiae. Life Probably a native of Beverley in Yorkshire, Merbecke appears to have been a boy chorister at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, and was employed as an organist there from about 1541. Two years later he was convicted with four others of heresy and sentenced to be burnt at the stake, but received a pardon owing to the intervention of Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, who said he was “but a musitian”. An English Concordance of the Bible which Merbecke had been preparing at the suggestion of Richard Turner, was however confiscated and destroyed. A later version of this work, the first of its kind in English, was published in 1550 with a dedication to Edward VI. In the same year, Merbecke published his Booke of Common Praier Noted, intended to provide for musical uniformity in the use of the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. This set the liturgy to semi-rhythmical melodies partly adapted from

John Metcalf (composer)

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John Metcalf MBE (born 1946) is a Welsh-Canadian composer. He has worked in many forms, including large-scale operas, choral and orchestral works, and chamber music, both instrumental and vocal. His music is tonal, and is often rhythmically complex, with much use of polyrhythms. Biography John Metcalf was born in Swansea in 1946, and spent his childhood on the Gower Peninsula, at Reynoldston and Penmaen. When he was six, the family moved to Cardiff, where his father had taken a new job. He was educated at Dean Close School, Cheltenham. He intended to read classics at university, but he sent a composition to the composer, Alun Hoddinott, who encouraged him to instead study music at Cardiff University. Following graduation, he went on to study composition with the Australian Don Banks, and electronic music with Hugh Davies in London. In 1971 he became director of music at Atlantic College, near Llantwit Major in Glamorgan, also directing the associated St Donat’s Arts Centre as well as the Vale of Glamorgan Festival, which he founded in 1969, developing a lively policy of encouraging performances of contemporary music. In 1977-8 he spent a year in the United States on a UK-USA Bicent

John Metcalfe (composer)

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John Metcalfe (born 6 August 1964 ) is a British-based composer, arranger and violist, member of the Duke Quartet and a former member of the band The Durutti Column. Biography Metcalfe was born in New Zealand and moved to the United Kingdom as a child. Metcalfe’s unique style is a result of his extensive experience in classical, pop and electronica. As violist with the Duke Quartet he released many CDs and toured worldwide. Metcalfe’s string arrangements played by the Dukes feature on many albums by pop artists including Morrissey, Simple Minds, The Pretenders, Coldplay and Blur. Metcalfe was instrumental in the formation of the record label Factory Classical, an offshoot of Tony Wilson’s Factory Records. He released an album of his own, The Inner Line, to positive reviews. In 2004, another album, Scorching Bay, was released, followed by A Darker Sunset in 2008. The Appearance of Colour was released in April 2013 as part of Bowers and Wilkins Society of Sound subscription series. Commissions include a set of pieces for the guitarist Tom Kerstens and an album of electronic/acoustic music for ‘cellist Matthew Barley. His music has also been used by various contemporary dance companie

John Milton (composer)

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John Milton (1562–1647) was an English composer and father of poet John Milton. His compositions were mostly religious in theme. A financial worker by trade, he also wrote poetry. He lived in London for most of his life. Biography Early in his life he converted to Protestantism and his own Roman Catholic father, Richard Milton, subsequently disowned him. He moved to London around 1583 to work as an apprentice scrivener. His work largely pertained to business matters; often working as a moneylender or a financial broker. He registered with the Company of Scriveners on 27 February 1599. Soon after this he started a family, marrying Sara Jeffrey (c. 1572–1637) and living in Bread Street, London, with her parents. Records show the couple had six children, three of whom reached adulthood. The three surviving children were Anne, John Milton (the poet) and Christopher Milton (a judge who was later awarded a knighthood). Milton’s work made the family so prosperous that they could afford to employ private tutors of classical languages for their sons and later send them to school and university. This affluence also meant that his eldest son, John Milton, never had to work and thus spent his

John Moran (composer)

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John Moran (born 1965) is an American composer, choreographer, and theater artist. and his works are variously described as “unconventional”, His works bring together a variety of mediums, including recorded music, spoken word, choreography and dance, mime, lip syncing, and video. Early life and education John Moran was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1965. He lacks a formal education in composition and in fact never graduated from high school. He unsuccessfully attempted to study informally at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where his father was the assistant dean of arts and sciences. He moved to New York City in 1988 at age 23, Career Early career: 1988–2000 Moran’s first opera, Jack Benny!, was created in 1988, and composed entirely of snippets of sound from The Jack Benny Program television series. The piece was staged at New York’s La Mama Experimental Theater Club, where it was presented by performance troupe Ridge Theater, and received strong praise in publications such as The New York Times. Although the work was considered a benchmark for modern composition at the time, the work itself was reportedly stolen in a Lower East Side apartment robbery, and has not been presen

John Mundy (composer)

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John Mundy (or Munday) (before 1555 – 29 June 1630) was an English composer, virginalist and organist of the Renaissance period. Life and works The son and pupil of the eminent composer William Mundy, he was organist at Eton, and succeeded John Marbeck after his death in 1585 as organist at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. He received a bachelor of music degree from the University of Oxford in 1586, and his doctorate in 1624. In 1585 he was appointed joint organist of Westminster Abbey with Nathaniel Giles, a post he maintained until his death in 1630. Mundy was one of the earliest English madrigalists. He published a volume of Songs and Psalms in 1594, and contributed a madrigal, Lightly she whipped o’er the dales, to The Triumphs of Oriana (1601), a compilation of madrigals by Thomas Morley in honour of Queen Elizabeth I. He composed sacred music in English and Latin, including music for the Book of Common Prayer, and is represented in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book by five pieces, including a magnificent set of variations on the popular song Goe from my window and a whimsical but fine miniature, Munday’s Joy. He also wrote a setting of the recusant Chidiock Tichborne’s poem My prime

John Musto

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John Musto (born 1954) is an American composer and pianist. As a composer, he is active in opera, orchestral and chamber music, song, vocal ensemble, and solo piano works. As a pianist, he performs frequently as a soloist, alone and with orchestra, as a chamber musician, and with singers. Career Born in 1954 in Brooklyn, New York, Musto studied at the Manhattan School of Music. After graduation from the conservatory with a reputation as a pianist, his compositions began to draw increasing attention and frequent performances. His long association with such institutions as the New York Festival of Song, the Wolf Trap Opera Company, the Caramoor Festival, Copland House, the Miller Theatre at Columbia University, and the Moab Festival have given him stable bases of operation and numerous commissions. He served as composer-in-residence at Caramoor for the 2005-2006 season. In 1986, he began to build a catalogue of published compositions at Peermusic Classical, which continues to grow steadily. Personal In 1984 John Musto married the soprano Amy Burton, a member of the New York City and Metropolitan Opera companies. He often appears with her as pianist in recital, cabaret and on recordin

John N. Klohr

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John Nicholas Klohr (July 27, 1869 – February 17, 1956) was a composer of band music. Klohr was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. A graduate of the Cincinnati public schools, Klohr set upon a career in music, especially vaudeville. He was a vaudeville trombonist by trade, but also performed as a member of Cincinnati’s musical life. He played in the Syrian Temple Shrine Band, led by fellow composer Henry Fillmore. From 1921 to 1926, Klohr was a trombonist in Henry Fillmore’s concert band. He was a member of the Syrian Temple for over 50 years, as well as a member of the Knights of Pythias and the Fraternal Order of Eagles. Klohr was also an early member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers and worked as editor of the band and orchestra department of the John Church Company, a music publisher in Cincinnati. Klohr died of a heart attack in 1956, and was buried at St. Joseph Cemetery in Cincinnati. Compositions Names in parentheses are publishers and copyright dates * Arch of Steel March (Fillmore 1935) * The Billboard March (Church 1901) (His most famous march) * Blanchester March (Fillmore 1938) * Blazing the Trail March ( Fillmore 1938 ) * Breezing Along March (Fill

John of Damascus

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John of Damascus or John Damascene, born Yūḥana ibn Manṣūr ibn Sarjūn, was a Christian monk, priest, hymnographer, and apologist. He was born and raised in Damascus c. AD 675 or AD 676; the precise date and place of his death is not known, though tradition places it at his monastery, Mar Saba, near Jerusalem, on 4 December AD 749. A polymath whose fields of interest and contribution included law, theology, philosophy, and music, he was given the by-name of Chrysorroas (Χρυσορρόας, literally “streaming with gold”, i.e. “the golden speaker”). He wrote works expounding the Christian faith, and composed hymns which are still used both liturgically in Eastern Christian practice throughout the world as well as in western Lutheranism at Easter. He is one of the Fathers of the Eastern Orthodox Church and is best known for his strong defence of icons. The Catholic Church regards him as a Doctor of the Church, often referred to as the Doctor of the Assumption due to his writings on the Assumption of Mary. He was also a prominent exponent of perichoresis, and employed the concept as a technical term to describe both the interpenetration of the divine and human natures of Christ and the relati

John Oliver (composer)

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John Oliver (born 21 September 1959) is a Canadian composer, guitarist, and conductor. An associate of the Canadian Music Centre and a member of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community, his music has been performed throughout North America, Europe, and China. In a 1989 article in The Music Scene, Oliver stated that he intended his music “to make sense without falling back on traditional models”. Early life and education Born Edward John Clavering Oliver in Vancouver, Oliver is the son of Vancouver artist Edward Oliver and playwright Thelma Oliver ( Melissa Cameron). He studied the guitar privately with Robert C. Jordan from 1972 to 1977. He attended the San Francisco Conservatory of Music from 1977 to 1979 where he studied guitar with George Sakellariou and composition with John Adams. He transferred to the University of British Columbia in 1979 where he earned a Bachelor of Music in 1982 and was a pupil of Stephen Chatman. He went on to pursue graduate studies in music composition at McGill University where he earned a Master of Music in 1984 and a Doctor of Musical Arts in 1992. His teachers at McGill included Bruce Mather and John Rea. From 1988 to 1989 he studied in Brussels wit

John Oswald (composer)

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John Oswald (born May 30, 1953 in Kitchener, Ontario) is a Canadian composer, saxophonist, media artist and dancer. He is best known for coining the term “plunderphonics”, the practice of making new music out of previously existing recordings. Early life Oswald was introduced to sampling from a young age having been gifted a reel-to-reel player from his parents at age 9. He then attended Simon Fraser University in the 1970s, becoming part of World Soundscape Project while on campus. It was there that Oswald became familiar with recorded sounds from different environments and applying them to new work created. Philosophy Oswald coined the term “plunderphonics” to describe his craft in a paper called “Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative” which he presented at the Wired Society Electro-Acoustic Conference in Toronto in 1985. Inspired by William S. Burroughs’ cut-up technique, Oswald had been devising plunderphonic-style compositions since the late 1960s. In an interview with Norman Igma following the release of the Plunderphonics EP in 1988, he described the concept as follows: A plunderphone is a recognizable sonic quote, using the actual sound of something

John Paesano

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John Paesano (born July 2, 1977) is an American composer working primarily in film, television, and video games. He is known for collaborating with director Wes Ball on the Maze Runner film trilogy and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, as well as composing for the Marvel Television series Daredevil and The Defenders. As a video game composer, he has contributed music to the acclaimed titles Detroit: Become Human and the three installments in the Marvel’s Spider-Man series. Paesano won the BAFTA Games Award for Music (Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales), as well as the D.I.C.E. Award for Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition (Marvel’s Spider-Man 2). Biography Paesano was born in Birmingham, Michigan. He first studied classical music at Conservatoire de Paris located in Parc de la Villette, France before continuing his studies at Berklee College of Music pursuing a major in musical composition and film scoring. John knew from the age of nine years old, he wanted to become a music composer. He then worked under composers Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams providing additional music for the former, and orchestrating for the latter. Paesano cites Steven Spielberg’s 1987

John Palmer (composer)

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John Palmer (born 1959) is a British composer, pianist, musicologist and university professor. His compositions are published by Composers Edition. Life John Palmer began his music career as a pianist in the mid-seventies. In the 1980s he continued his piano studies with Grazia Wendling and Eva Serman at the Lucerne School of Music (Musikhochschule Luzern), where he also studied composition with Edison Denisov and Vinko Globokar. He continued his composition studies in London at Trinity College of Music, Royal Holloway, University of London and at City University London where he obtained a PhD titled “Formal Strategies in Composition” in 1994. Further studies include composition with Vinko Globokar at the Dartington Summer School and privately with Jonathan Harvey, Analysis with Jonathan Cross at the University of Bristol, and Conducting with Alan Hazeldine at the Guildhall School of Music And Drama in London. Since 1987 Palmer has written more than 130 compositions for opera, music theatre, orchestral, instrumental, vocal, chamber music, and electroacoustic music. Several of Palmer’s early compositions have been archived in the British Music Collection, a national database of Brit

John Philip Sousa

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John Philip Sousa (November 6, 1854 – March 6, 1932) was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era known primarily for US military marches. He is known as “The March King” (or the “American March King” to distinguish him from his British counterpart Kenneth J. Alford). Among Sousa’s best-known marches are “The Stars and Stripes Forever” (national march of the US), “Semper Fidelis” (official march of the United States Marine Corps), “The Liberty Bell”, “The Thunderer”, and “The Washington Post”. Sousa began his career playing violin and studying music theory and composition under John Esputa and George Felix Benkert. In 1868, Sousa’s father enlisted him in the United States Marine Band as an apprentice. Sousa left the band in 1875, and over the next five years, he performed as a violinist and learned to conduct. In 1880, Sousa rejoined the Marine Band and served there for 12 years as director. In 1892, he left the Marine Band and organized the civilian Sousa Band. From 1880 until his death, Sousa focused exclusively on conducting and writing music. He aided in the development of the sousaphone, a large brass instrument similar to the helicon and tuba. Upon the US j

John Pickard (composer)

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John Pickard (born 11 September 1963) is a British classical composer. Biography Pickard was born in Burnley, Lancashire, England. He studied music and composition at the University of Wales, with Welsh composer William Mathias, and later in the Netherlands with Louis Andriessen and in 1989 was awarded a PhD in composition from the University of Wales. Since 1993 he has taught at the University of Bristol, where he is Professor of Composition and Applied Musicology, and was Head of Music between 2009 and 2013, and again between 2017 and 2018. Pickard is also conductor of the University of Bristol Symphony Orchestra and Choral Society. Pickard has composed a number of critically well-received orchestral and instrumental works, among them six symphonies and a number of symphonic works, including perhaps his best-known piece, The Flight of Icarus, which the San Francisco Chronicle called “a translucent and achingly lovely memorial to the fallen Icarus … a serious contender for the most exciting musical premiere of 2006”. His orchestral writing has been highly praised: in March 2008 The Times commented that “his orchestral mastery is total”, while, in April 2008 The Guardian describe

John Pitts (composer)

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John Pitts (sometimes credited as John Michael Pitts) is a British composer, born in Surrey in 1976. Pitts studied music at Bristol and Manchester Universities, and specialises in music for piano solo or multiple hands. He was winner of the Philharmonia Orchestra Martin Musical Scholarship Fund Composition Prize 2003, and twice SPNM-shortlisted. Composer of the album of piano music “Intensely Pleasant Music: 7 Airs & Fantasias and other piano music”. His setting of O Little Town of Bethlehem features on The Naxos Book of Carols sung by Tonus Peregrinus, and his hymn Thy Way, Not Mine is included in Hymns and Songs of the Church, another Naxos recording of Tonus Peregrinus. Composer of “Are You Going?” for piano six hands, Pitts curated two Severnside Composers Alliance concerts of music for piano triet by living composers. He is the younger brother of the British composer Antony Pitts. Notes

John Powell (film composer)

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John Powell (born 18 September 1963) is an English music composer and music conductor. Based in Los Angeles, California since 1997, Powell has composed music for over 70 feature films, including Face/Off, the Bourne franchise, Happy Feet and its sequel Happy Feet Two, United 93, X-Men: The Last Stand, Wicked and its sequel Wicked: For Good, Evolution, Drumline, Hancock, The Call of the Wild, Bolt, That Christmas, Thelma the Unicorn, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, ten DreamWorks Animation films, eight Blue Sky Studios films and three Illumination films. Powell’s work on Happy Feet, Ferdinand, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Wicked, and the live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon have earned him six Grammy Award nominations. Additionally, he earned two Academy Award for Best Original Score nominations for the original How to Train Your Dragon and Wicked. Powell was a member of Hans Zimmer’s music studio, Remote Control Productions, and has collaborated frequently with other composers from the studio, including Harry Gregson-Williams on Antz, Chicken Run, and Shrek, and Zimmer himself on Chill Factor, The Road to El Dorado, and the first two Kung Fu Panda films. He has also collaborat

John Prindle Scott

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John Prindle Scott (August 16, 1877 – December 2, 1932) was an American author, lecturer, educator and composer of art songs. Biography He was born in Norwich, New York, and was educated with private tutors in New York City Later he was a voice teacher in Saginaw, Michigan. He was also known as a singer (baritone) and concert soloist. For his 1916 setting of “Hymn to Nebraska,” the state of Nebraska awarded him a prize in composition. He also won a composition prize from Ohio University. He became a member of ASCAP in 1928. A couple of his songs and poems refer to the town, including “The Old Road” and “The Hills O’ McDonough”. He spent time with relatives in Syracuse, New York, where he died in December 1932. Scott’s song for high soprano, “The Wind’s in the South”, is considered a “good teaching piece for young coloratura sopranos “. His songs are typical of their time: dramatic, harmonically rich, and with full accompaniments. They often feature contrasting sections and a return to earlier musical material. Musical compositions Sacred songs for voice and piano *Arise, Shine, Sacred Song (Biblical Book of Isaiah), R. L. Huntzinger, 1923 *Christ Is Risen, Easter Song (unknown auth

John Psathas

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John Psathas, (born Ioannis Psathas, ; 1966) is a New Zealand Greek composer. He has works in the repertoire of such high-profile musicians as Evelyn Glennie, Michael Houstoun, Michael Brecker, Joshua Redman and the New Juilliard Ensemble, and is one of New Zealand’s most frequently performed composers. He has established an international profile and receives regular commissions from organisations in New Zealand and overseas. Early life and education The son of Greek immigrant parents, Psathas grew up in Taumarunui and then Napier. He attended Napier Boys’ High School and left early to study composition and piano at Victoria University of Wellington. This work and Drum Dances have become part of the standard repertoire for percussionists around the world. Psathas’ collaboration with Evelyn Glennie has been long-standing and produced many commissioned works, including the 2001 double concerto for piano and percussion View From Olympus. Glennie has also released recordings of many of his works. A retrospective concert of Psathas’ chamber music was given in the 2000 New Zealand International Festival of the Arts, culminating with the premiere of the specially commissioned Piano Quinte

John Purkis

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John Purkis (1781 – 10 April 1849), was an English organist and teacher. He was blind at birth. A child prodigy, Purkis studied with Thomas Grenville (circa 1744–1827), also blind, and the organist at the Foundling Hospital in London. He became organist at St Margaret’s Chapel at the age of nine, and then, aged 12, at St Olave Southwark, after a public competition and three day poll. His salary there was £30. He was consultant to the organ building firm Flight and Robinson during the construction of the Apollonicon a self-playing barrel organ, presented to the public for the first time in 1817. Over the next 21 years he performed popular Saturday afternoon recitals on the instrument at the firm’s showroom, 101, St Martin’s Lane. At the recitals Purkis often played fantasias on opera themes that were later published as piano pieces by William Hodsoll, and these became very popular with home pianists in the 1820s. A tutorial book by Purkis was published. But rival William Bainbridge, inventor of the six finger-hole “improved English flageolet” in 1803, produced a more popular double flageolet, for which he was granted a patent in 1810. In 1811 Purkis went through a series of operatio

John Purser (musician)

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John Purser (born 1942) is a Scottish composer, musicologist, music historian and playwright. Purser was born in Glasgow. He initiated the reconstruction that commenced in 1991 of the Iron Age Deskford Carnyx, producing a replica that was first played in 1993 by trombonist John Kenny. Purser’s book Scotland’s Music, published in March 1992 (new edition October 2007), was a major reference work on musical history from the Bronze Age to the present. It was followed by a thirty-programme radio series of the same title, written and presented by him, which was broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland and totalled 45 hours, with recordings commissioned for the series including reconstructions of early music and works by many little-known composers. A double CD was subsequently produced with a small selection of the music. and John Thomson. ‘Consider the Story’, a privately released disc of Purser’s music, was released in 2021. It includes the song cycle Six Sea Songs (1966, setting words by the composer’s father J W R Purser), the Kalavrita string quartet (1981), and the Sonata for Trombone and Piano (2001). Purser’s plays include the radio play Carver about Robert Carver, the 16th-century Scotti

John Pyke Hullah

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John Pyke Hullah (27 June 1812 – 21 February 1884) was an English composer and teacher of music, whose promotion of vocal training is associated with the singing-class movement. He worked with Charles Dickens and knew Felix Mendelssohn. Life and career Hullah was born at Worcester. He was a pupil of William Horsley from 1829, and entered the Royal Academy of Music in 1833. He wrote an opera to words by Dickens, The Village Coquettes, produced in 1836; The Barbers of Bassora in 1837; and The Outpost in 1838, the last two at Covent Garden. From 1839, when he went to Paris to investigate various systems of teaching music to large masses of people, he identified himself with Wilhem’s system of the fixed “do,” in contrast to the moveable “do” of the Tonic sol-fa. His adaptation of Wilhem’s system was taught with enormous success from 1840 to 1860. His first-ever lesson was given at the Battersea College for training teachers (now University St Mark and St John Plymouth), in 1840, at the instigation of educationalist and college Principal James Kay Shuttleworth. His pupils included William Carter and Edmund Hart Turpin. In 1847 a large building in Long Acre, called St Martin’s Hall, was

John Rae (musician)

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John Rae (born 8 June 1966) is a Scottish jazz drummer, composer, and band leader. Early life and career John Rae was born in Edinburgh on 8 June 1966 to Scottish parents Margaret and Ronnie Rae. Rae was brought up in the Sighthill area of the city before moving to Livingston as a teenager. He attended St. Kentigern’s Academy, Blackburn in West Lothian. John and his other five siblings were encouraged by their father and mother, both jazz musicians and educators, to pursue a career in music from an early age. When he was fourteen he attended a weekly jazz workshop under the drumming tutelage of Bill Kyle and Mike Travis. There he met saxophonist Tommy Smith. Under Smith, they won the Edinburgh International Jazz Festival Best Group award in 1981 and a year later Rae won Best Group under his own name. Rae was soon performing around Edinburgh and Scotland in a quartet with Tommy Smith. In 1982 he recorded for the first time on Smith’s debut recording Giant Strides in a trio format featuring Rae, Smith and bassist Alan Taylor. Rae then went on to tour and perform around Europe with a group under the musical direction of Johnny Keating and spent the next three years living and playing

John Ravenscroft (composer)

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

John Ravenscroft (c. 1665 – 12 October 1697), also known as Giovanni Ravenscroft and Giovanni Rederi, was an English violinist and composer of the Baroque era, who moved to Rome. He was possibly a pupil of Arcangelo Corelli, by whom he was strongly influenced, and around the middle of the 18th century some of Ravenscroft’s trio sonatas were misattributed to Corelli. He is not to be confused with the English wait John Ravenscroft (fl. c. 1730). Biography Ravenscroft was born c. 1665, in London. He moved to Rome, where in 1695 he published his Opus 1 under the name “Giovanni Ravenscroft, alias Rederi, Inglese”. He died in Rome on 12 October 1697, leaving a collection of 5 violins and 44 paintings. the Amsterdam printer Michel-Charles Le Cène published nine of the sonatas from Ravenscroft’s Opus 1 with a spurious Corelli opus number of 7. See also *Robert Valentine (composer), Ravenscroft’s English contemporary who also moved to Rome. Notes References * * * * * * External links *

John Rea (composer)

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John Rea (born 1944) is a Montreal-based composer who won the Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music in both 1981 and 1992. He obtained his bachelor’s degree at Wayne State University (1967), his Master of Music degree at the University of Toronto (1969), and his PhD at Princeton University. His children’s opera The Prisoners Play from 1972 uses serial techniques. His works have been played by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Arditti Quartet, the Esprit Orchestra and others. He is the previous dean and head of the composition department at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University, from which he has finally taken his retirement. Among his notable students are composers Robin Minard and John Oliver. Music Stage: The Days/Les Jours, ballet. 1969. Ms The Prisoners Play, opera (Paul Woodruff). 1973. Ms Com-possession ‘Daemonic afterimages in the theatre of transitory states.’ 1980. 2 chamber ensemble (tape). Ms. McGill University Records 83019 (Laucke) Une Fleur du mal. 1992. Sop, clarinet, violoncello and percussion Canto di Beatrice. 1992. For two sop and two violoncelli, melodrama Alma & Oskar (melodrama from b

John Reading (copyist)

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

John Reading (c. 1685/86 – 2 September 1764) was an English composer, organist and copyist (his name, like the town, is pronounced “Redding"a spelling variant of his name which occurs in several documents). His greatest importance lies in his work as a transcriber, arranger, and copyist of a wide variety of music. Life Little is known of John Reading’s early life. He was probably the son of the composer and organist John Reading (c. 1645–1692) who from 1681 until his death was organist and Master of the Choristers at Winchester College. The younger Reading received the best possible musical training, being a chorister of the Chapel Royal, where he was taught by John Blow. He would almost certainly have sung at the funerals of Henry Purcell and Queen Mary. It was tradition, when the choristers’ voices broke, for the Chapel Royal to find them their first appointment. Reading was placed as organist at Dulwich College, a position he held for two years (1700–1702), after which he moved to Lincoln Cathedral, becoming Master of the Choristers there in 1703, a post that his father had previously held. By 1708 he was organist of St John’s, Hackney in London, a position he held for some 20 y

John Redford

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John Redford (c. 1500 - died October or November 1547) was a major English composer, organist, and dramatist of the Tudor period. From about 1525 he was organist at St Paul’s Cathedral (succeeding Thomas Hickman). He was choirmaster there from 1531 until his death in 1547. Many of his works are represented in the Mulliner Book. Redford is notable as one of the earliest composers, rather than improvisers, of organ music, having notated a significant quantity of keyboard music, all of it liturgical in function, based on plainchant melodies; a few vocal works by him also survive. As he held the post of Almoner and Master of the Choristers, Redford was responsible for the arrangement of the choristers performances, including writing and directing plays and interludes. The most celebrated of these entertainments is the morality play, The Play of Wyt and Science (written ca 1530-1550), which exists in one manuscript in the British Library (MS 15233). However, the first five pages of the manuscript are missing; there is no way to know how much is lost. Redford also wrote a number of poems, including the 23 verse Nolo mortem peccatoris, which was set to music by Thomas Morley, who was a la

John Rimmer (composer)

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John Rimmer (born 5 February 1939) is a New Zealand composer. Biography John Francis Rimmer was born in Auckland. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1961 from the University of New Zealand in 1961, a Master of Arts in 1963 from the University of Auckland with Ronald Tremain, where he also completed post-graduate studies in musicology. He continued his studies, earning a Doctor of Music degree in 1972 from the University of Toronto in electronic music with Gustav Ciamaga and in composition with John Weinzweig. After completing his education, Rimmer worked as a lecturer at North Shores Teachers College in Auckland from 1970 to 1974 and taught at the University of Auckland from 1974 to 1999, where he was awarded a chair in music in 1995. He was awarded the Mozart Fellowship and served as composer-in-residence at the University of Otago in 1972, and composer-in-residence to the Auckland Philharmonia in 2002–03. Rimmer founded the electronic music studio at the University of Auckland in 1976 and the Karlheinz Company in 1978. His works have been performed internationally in Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and North America. Rimmer and his wife Helen reside in Tapu Bay, Kaiterit

John Rippiner Heath

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John Rippiner Heath (4 January 1887 - 23 December 1950 ) was a British composer, violinist and physician who lived and worked for most of his life in Wales. Life Heath was born in Birmingham the son of Professor Robert Heath, principal of Birmingham University’s Mason College. He was educated at Clifton College before studying medicine at Trinity College, Cambridge. As a musician he was largely self taught, though he led many string quartets for the University Musical Club. In 1913 he became a medical practitioner in Barmouth, Wales. Returning to his Barmouth practice after the war, Heath became associated with musicians including Alfred Perceval Graves, Joseph Holbrooke and Granville Bantock. In April 1919, A P Graves’ son, the poet Robert Graves, asked Heath to set his poems for children (The Penny Fiddle) to music, but the music never materialised. In 1922 he established and became the conductor of the Barmouth Choral Union, a choir which entered choral competitions around the country. He wrote for the Meirion Welsh Ballet Company and helped organize the Harlech Festival, whose driving force was Walford Davies. Heath continued to practice as a doctor until a few days before his

John Robertson (composer)

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Ernest John Robertson (born 21 October 1943) is a New Zealand-born Canadian composer of concert music. He received his preliminary musical educational as part of his schooling in New Zealand. Upon emigrating to Canada in 1967 he took a position in the general insurance business, but in the mid 1970s he embarked on a course of private study in composition and counterpoint at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto with Dr Sam Dolin. In 1987, the entry in the Composer’s Competition won him a performance of his Variations for small orchestra Op 14. After his retirement, he has concentrated on getting his work heard more broadly and, since this moment, his music has been heard in Canada, Australia, Mexico, the UK, Sweden and Bulgaria. In 2014 after some orchestral pieces of his were played in Ruse, Bulgaria, the director of Ruse State Opera Nayden Todorov asked him to write an opera and the one hour long Orpheus was staged there in June 2015 and was revived in February and May 2016 and in June 2017.A companion piece for Orpheus, the dance piece with actors Lady Jane, appeared in 2017 and was seen in a new production in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria, in August 2022 and repeated a month late

John Roby (composer)

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John Roby is a Canadian film and theatre composer and pianist. A native of Windsor, Nova Scotia, he began writing music for theatre projects in Halifax in the 1970s, and served as the pianist on Noel Harrison’s television variety show Take Time with Noel Harrison, before moving to Toronto, Ontario, in 1976. He composed music for several of George F. Walker’s plays, including Zastrozzi, The Master of Discipline, Filthy Rich, Rumors of Our Death, Theatre of the Film Noir, Science and Madness, In 1984 he composed music for Jim Betts’s The Mystery of the Oak Island Treasure. Girls in the Gang, and The Dreamland. In 1990 he collaborated with Tim Wynne-Jones on Mischief City, a musical for kids based on Wynne-Jones’s 1986 book. In 1993 he premiered The Old Man’s Band, his first show written entirely on his own rather than with a collaborator. He has also had credits as a composer of film scores, most notably on Thom Fitzgerald’s films The Hanging Garden and Beefcake. He married actress Patricia Vanstone in 1981. Awards References External links *

John Rogers Thomas

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John Rogers Thomas (March 26, 1829 – April 5, 1896) was an American composer, pianist, and singer of Welsh descent. Biography Thomas was born in Newport, South Wales, on 26 March 1829. A baritone and composer, he first came to America with the Sequin English Opera Company and became interested in the music of America that was developing. He sang and toured with Bryant’s Minstrels and settled in New York City. He wrote more than one hundred popular American songs during the nineteenth century of which his most popular were The Cottage by the Sea (1856), Old Friends and Old Times (1856), Bonny Eloise—The Belle of Mohawk Vale (1858), Tis But a Little Faded Flower (1860), When the War Is Over, Mary (1864), Beautiful Isle of the Sea (1865), Croquet (1867), Eilleen Allanna (1873), and Rose of Killarney (1876). Thomas occasionally published material under the pseudonyms Charles Osborne, Arthur Percy and Harry Diamond. In addition to song writing, Thomas composed three larger works; The Picnic (1869), a children’s operetta with a libretto by George Cooper ; The Lady in the Mask (1870), an operetta with a libretto by George Cooper; and Diamond Cut Diamond (1876), a parlor opera in one act.

John Rox

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John Jefferson Rox (born John Arthur Barber; July 21, 1902 – August 5, 1957) was an American composer and lyricist. He wrote music for Broadway shows and the recording industry. His song “It’s a Big Wide Wonderful World” (1939) was used in the soundtrack of multiple films. His holiday tune “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” (1953) was a popular family-entertainment song, originally sung by ten-year-old Gayla Peevey. Many other artists also covered it. Early life John Arthur Barber was born on July 21, 1902, in Des Moines, Iowa, the only child of Arthur Grant Barber (1881–1948) and Ina Maureen (Dollie) Brown (1876–1942). His parents were married on September 7, 1901, but eventually divorced. His mother then remarried on April 3, 1907, to Earl Granville Herring, and bore two more sons, Donald Granville Herring and Robert Eugene Herring. Upon her remarriage, her eldest son John Arthur Barber was renamed John Jefferson Herring. After graduating from Winterset High School, he had attended Drake University in Des Moines and became a member of the Tau Psi fraternity in the early 1920s. The following year, he wrote and copyrighted “It’s a Big Wide Wonderful World” (1939). It has been us

John Rutter

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Sir John Milford Rutter (born 24 September 1945) is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music. He founded the Cambridge Singers who premiered and recorded many of his works for his own label Collegium Records. His compositions, extended pieces for choir and orchestra, such as Requiem and Magnificat, and many choral works including For the beauty of the earth, Christmas Carol and A Clare Benediction, are popular, especially in the UK and the United States. He is known for Christmas carols, in both arrangements of traditional melodies and new compositions, and Carols for Choirs anthology series compiled with David Willcocks. Biography Born in London on 24 September 1945 , the son of an industrial chemist and his wife, Rutter grew up living over the Globe pub on London’s Marylebone Road. He was educated at Highgate School, where fellow pupils included John Tavener, Howard Shelley, Brian Chapple and Nicholas Snowman. As a chorister there, Rutter took part in the first (1963) recording of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem under the composer’s baton. He then read music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the choir. Rutter

John S. Hilliard

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John Stanley Hilliard (October 29, 1947 – November 15, 2019) was an American composer. Early life Born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, United states, into a family of musical amateurs, John Hilliard began his musical training by studying piano at the age of 6 from his cousin, Barbara Dodson, a local piano teacher and composer. His father, Sherlon Hilliard (of Irish and English descent), possessed a fine tenor voice and was a popular gospel-style singer with their county Protestant Church of the Nazarene congregations. While his mother, Laurine H. Hilliard (of Scottish descent), was an amateur accordionist and pianist. Hilliard’s grandfather, John Milton Hilliard, had also been well known as a congregational song leader (shaped-note tradition) for the rural areas of central Arkansas in the 1930s and 1940s. By age 11 Hilliard showed an interest in composing. At the age of 8, he had begun playing trumpet in the elementary band and was taught by the same elementary music teacher as President Bill Clinton, who was a childhood friend. They later both shared another influential music teacher, Virgil Spurlin, during their years together in the Hot Springs High School Band. In 1964 Hilliard playe

John Sale (singer)

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John Sale (1758 – 11 November 1827) was an English bass singer of church music, and a singer and composer of glees. Life He was born in London in 1758, the son of John Sale (1734–1802). From 1767 to 1775 Sale was a chorister of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle and of Eton College, and of both was lay vicar from 1777 to 1796. In 1788 he was appointed gentleman of the Chapel Royal, in 1795 vicar choral of St Paul’s Cathedral, and in 1796 lay vicar of Westminster Abbey. In 1800 he succeeded Richard Bellamy as Almoner of St Paul’s and Master of the Choristers, which posts he held until 1812. In 1818, becoming senior gentleman or father of the Chapel Royal, he was excused further duty and attendance. His obituary in The Harmonicon noted: “His aid was generally required in those charming glee parties which were formerly so much the fashion, where his smooth, agreeable voice, and subdued manner of using it, rendered him a valuable assistant.” Family Two sons had musical careers: John Bernard Sale (1779–1856) was a bass singer, and organist at St Margaret’s, Westminster; George Charles Sale (1796–1869) was organist at St Mary’s, Newington and later at St George’s, Hanover Square. Composi

John Sanders (musician)

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John Derek Sanders OBE, FRCO (23 November 1933 – 23 December 2003) was an English organist, conductor, choir trainer and composer. He was organist of Gloucester Cathedral from 1967 to 1994, and director of the Three Choirs Festival from 1968 to 1994. Education Born in Wanstead, Essex, he attended Felsted School on a music scholarship, where he had his first organ lessons. In 1950 he began two years study at the Royal College of Music leading to his ARCM diploma. This was followed by a Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Cambridge where Sanders was an organ scholar at Gonville and Caius College and was influenced by Patrick Hadley. Early career National Service in the Royal Artillery followed his graduation, but even here Sanders found opportunities for orchestral conducting. Following his retirement, Gloucester Cathedral granted him the title of Organist Emeritus. Retirement gave Sanders more time to pursue composition (although he continued his work at Cheltenham until 1997). He also moved away from Gloucester – to Upton Bishop, near Ross-on-Wye – where he continued to play the organ in the parish church. Late in 2003 the Guild of Church Musicians marked his contribution

John Serry Sr.

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John Serry (born John Louis Serrapica; January 29, 1915 – September 14, 2003) was an American concert accordionist, arranger, composer, organist, and educator. He performed on the CBS Radio and Television networks and contributed to Voice of America’s cultural diplomacy initiatives during the Golden Age of Radio. He also concertized on the accordion as a member of several orchestras and jazz ensembles for nearly forty years between the 1930s and 1960s. Biography Serry’s career spanned over seven decades. As a proponent of Latin American music and the free-bass accordion, he performed as the piano accordionist on the radio music program Viva América, which was broadcast live to South America under the United States Department of State’s Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs’ cultural diplomacy initiative for Voice of America during World War II. Broadcasts of this show have been cited as helping to introduce Latin American music and the Mexican bolero to large audiences in the United States in the 1940s. Serry performed with big bands, symphony orchestras, radio and television orchestras, and Broadway orchestras at the Radio City Music Hall, the Rainbow Room at Rockefe

John Sheppard (composer)

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John Sheppard (also Shepherd, c. 1515 – December 1558) was an English composer of the Renaissance. Biography Sheppard was probably born around 1515, judging from his statement in 1554 that he had been composing music for twenty years. Nothing certain is known about his early life. The first sighting of him occurs at Thaxted in Essex, in June 1541 when he married the recently widowed Jane Ewen or Evan. He was then probably in his mid-twenties. It is not known whether he held a musical position in the church of St John the Baptist, Thaxted. He then served as informator choristarum at Magdalen College, Oxford continuously from Michaelmas 1543 to sometime between March and Michaelmas 1548. Sheppard next appears in a list of the Gentleman of the Chapel Royal who sang at the funeral of King Edward VI in August 1553; he may have joined the chapel directly after his departure from Oxford, but, because of a gap in Chapel Royal records from 1547, this cannot be proved. He appears to have remained active at the chapel up to the year of his death since he was awarded liveries for both the funeral of Queen Mary and the coronation of Elizabeth I. In 1554 he supplicated, apparently unsuccessfully

John Stafford Smith

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John Stafford Smith (bapt. 30 March 175021 September 1836) was an English composer, church organist, and early musicologist. He was one of the first serious collectors of manuscripts of works by Johann Sebastian Bach and a friend of his son Johann Christian Bach. Smith is best known for writing the music for “The Anacreontic Song”, which became the tune for the American patriotic song “The Star-Spangled Banner” following the War of 1812, and in 1931 was adopted as the national anthem of the United States. Early life and education John Stafford Smith was born in Pitt Street, Gloucester on March 13, 1750 and was baptised in Gloucester Cathedral, England, on 30 March 1750, the son of Martin Smith, organist of Gloucester Cathedral from 1743 to 1782. He attended the Gloucester cathedral school, where he became a boy-singer. He furthered his career as a choir boy at the Chapel Royal, London, and also studied under Dr William Boyce. He married Elizabeth Boyce, the daughter of Dr William Boyce, at St Philip & St Jacob Church, Bristol, on 25 November 1775. Career By the 1770s he had gained a reputation as a composer and an organist. He was elected as a member of the select Anacreontic Socie

John Stainer

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Sir John Stainer (6 June 1840 – 31 March 1901) was an English composer and organist whose music, though seldom performed today (with the exception of The Crucifixion, still heard at Passiontide in some Anglican churches), was very popular during his lifetime. His work as choir trainer and organist set standards for Anglican church music that are still influential. He was also active as an academic, becoming Heather Professor of Music at Oxford. Stainer was born in Southwark, London, in 1840, the son of a schoolmaster. He became a chorister at St Paul’s Cathedral when aged ten and was appointed to the position of organist at St Michael’s College, Tenbury, at the age of sixteen. He later became organist at Magdalen College, Oxford, and subsequently organist at St Paul’s Cathedral. When he retired owing to his poor eyesight and deteriorating health, he returned to Oxford to become Professor of Music at the university. He died unexpectedly while on holiday in Italy in 1901. Early years John Stainer was the eighth of nine children born to William Stainer and his wife Ann (née Collier) on 6 June 1840. At least three of the children died in infancy, and John was much younger than his brot

John Stanley (composer)

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Charles John Stanley (17 January 1712 Old Style – 19 May 1786) was an English composer and organist. Biography John Stanley was born in London on 17 January 1712. At about the age of two, he fell on a marble hearth with a china basin in his hand, an accident which left him almost blind. He began studying music at the age of seven. Under the guidance of Maurice Greene, composer and organist at St. Paul’s Cathedral, he studied “with great diligence, and a success that was astonishing” (Burney). At the age of nine he played the organ, probably as an occasional deputy, at All Hallows, Bread Street. When he was eleven years old, Stanley was appointed organist to the church at a salary of £20 per annum. When he was fourteen “in preference to a great number of candidates” (Burney) he was chosen as organist at St Andrew Holborn, and at the age of seventeen became the youngest person ever to obtain the Bachelor of Music degree (B.Mus.) from the University of Oxford. In 1734 he was appointed organist to the Society of the Inner Temple, a position which he held until his death in 1786. It was at the ancient Temple Church that his brilliant playing upon the organ and harpsichord attracted the

John Stepan Zamecnik

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John Stepan Zamecnik (May 14, 1872 in Cleveland, Ohio – June 13, 1953 in Los Angeles, California) was an American composer and conductor. He is best known for the “photoplay music” he composed for use during silent films by pianists, organists, and orchestras. Zamecnik used many pseudonyms, including Dorothy Lee, Lionel Baxter, R.L. (Robert) Creighton, Arturo de Castro, “Josh and Ted”, J. (Jane) Hathaway, Kathryn Hawthorne, Roberta Hudson, Ioane Kawelo, J. Edgar Lowell, Jules Reynard, F. (Frederick) Van Norman, Hal Vinton and Grant Wellesley. Early life John Zamecnik was born in Cleveland to Czech immigrants Josef Zámečník (1832-1915) and Kateřina Hrubecká (1838-1908). Josef was born in Budičovice and Kateřina was born in the nearby Skály. The couple married in Heřmaň in 1862. Josef’s brother Jan later married Kateřina’s sister Konstancie in the same place in 1869. Both couples immigrated to Ohio bringing Josef’s daughters and perhaps other relatives. Jan’s grandson was the geneticist Paul Zamecnik. Career Zamecnik studied at the Prague Conservatory of Music under Antonín Dvořák in the mid-1890s, completing his classes there in 1897. In 1899 Zamecnik finally returned to the United

John Stringer (composer)

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John Stringer is a British composer, oboist, conductor and academic. Early life and education John Stringer was born in Newcastle and studied at the University of Huddersfield. Following an undergraduate degree in music, Stringer went on to complete postgraduate study and a PhD at the University of York where he is now a senior lecturer and teaches modules in Mahler, Birtwistle, Composition and Conducting. His music is published by the University of York Music Press. Career As composer and conductor, Stringer has worked with the Orchestra of Opera North, Philharmonia and BBC Symphony Orchestra, Basel Soloists, Corrente Ensemble, Black Hair, New Music Players, de ereprijs, Apollo Saxophone Quartet and the 4Mality Percussion Quartet. He is also Assistant Conductor with the City of Leeds Youth Orchestra. As a conductor and oboist, he has also worked with Jonathan Harvey, James Wood, Hanna Kulenty, Richard Ayres, Hans Abrahamsen, Stephen Montague, Robert Saxton, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. His works have been performed across the UK, Europe, Japan, and the United States. Key works * Hinterland (1999, piano quintet) * The Shifting Point (2001, viola and piano) * Lied: Red Elegy (2007, ce

John Tavener

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Sir John Kenneth Tavener (28 January 1944 – 12 November 2013) was an English composer of choral religious works. Among his works are The Lamb (1982), The Protecting Veil (1988), and Song for Athene (1993). Tavener first came to prominence with his cantata The Whale, premiered in 1968. Then aged 24, he was described by The Guardian as “the musical discovery of the year”, while The Times said he was “among the very best creative talents of his generation”. During his career he became one of the best known and popular composers of his generation, most particularly for The Protecting Veil, which as recorded by cellist Steven Isserlis became a best-selling album, and Song for Athene which was sung at the funeral of Princess Diana. Tavener wrote the composition A New Beginning to commemorate the Millennium celebrations on New Year’s Eve, 1999, during the opening of the Millennium Dome in London. Tavener was knighted in 2000 for his services to music and won an Ivor Novello Award, and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by Sarum College in 2001. Early life and education Tavener was born on 28 January 1944 in Wembley, London. His parents ran a family building firm At the age of 12, Tavener

John Taverner

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John Taverner (c. 1490 – 18 October 1545) was an English composer and organist, regarded as one of the most important English composers of his era. He is best-known for Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas and The Western Wynde Mass, and Missa Corona Spinea is also often viewed as a masterwork. Career Nothing is known of Taverner’s activities before 1524. He appears to have come from the East Midlands, possibly being born in Tattershall, Lincolnshire, but there is no indication of his parentage. According to one of his own letters, he was related to the Yerburghs, a well-to-do Lincolnshire family. The earliest information is that in 1524, Taverner travelled from Tattershall to the Church of St Botolph in nearby Boston, as a guest singer. Two years later, in 1526, Taverner became the first Organist and Master of the Choristers at Christ Church, Oxford, appointed by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. The college had been founded in 1525, by Cardinal Wolsey, and was then known as Cardinal College. Immediately before this, Taverner had been a clerk fellow at the Collegiate Church of Tattershall. In 1528, he was reprimanded for his (probably minor) involvement with Lutherans, but escaped punishment for bein

John Taylor (Unitarian hymn writer)

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John Taylor (30 July 1750 – 23 June 1826) was an entrepreneur, poet and composer of both secular (political) songs and hymns from Norwich, England. Early life John Taylor was born to Richard (1719–1762) and Margaret Taylor (née Meadows, 1718–1781), and was baptised in the parish of St. George’s Colegate, Norwich. Richard Taylor was a local manufacturer and son of Dr. John Taylor. At age eight, Taylor was sent to study with a businessman in the village of Hindolveston. Politics He developed an interest in local politics, joining the Whig party as a radical reformer, emerging as their leader in Norwich. He made social contact with HRH Duke of Sussex, the Duke of Albemarle, and Mr Coke, Squire of Holkham Hall (later Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester), who was nationally known as an agriculturalist. Taylor first sung his song The Trumpet of Liberty at the famous Whig banquet at Holkham Hall on 5 November, 1788 to celebrate the centenary of the English Revolution. The Duke of Sussex “called on Taylor” to sing his song again on January 20, 1820 at “a great public dinner at St Andrews Hall, Norwich”. On this occasion, “old John Taylor of Norwich” was reluctant to perform: “No please your

John Tesh

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John Frank Tesh Jr. (born July 9, 1952) is an American musician and radio and television presenter. He wrote the NBA on NBC basketball theme “Roundball Rock” and hosts the Intelligence for Your Life radio show. In addition, since 2014, he has hosted Intelligence for Your Life TV with his wife, Connie Sellecca. Tesh has won six Emmys and has four gold albums, two Grammy nominations, and an Associated Press award for investigative journalism. Tesh has sold over eight million records. His live concerts have raised more than $7 million for PBS. He has co-hosted the television program Entertainment Tonight. He has previously worked as a sports commentator and host for the Olympic Games, Wimbledon, the US Open, the Tour de France, Ironman Triathlon, and as a news anchor and reporter. In 2018, Tesh was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame. Early life Tesh was born in Garden City, New York, on Long Island, the son of Mildred (Bunny), a nurse, and John Frank Tesh Sr., a textile chemist, both from North Carolina. He graduated from Garden City High School in 1970. Playing piano and trumpet from the age of six, he was named to the New York State Symphonic Orchestra in high schoo

John Thomas (harpist)

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John Thomas (1 March 1826 – 19 March 1913) was a Welsh composer and harpist. The bardic name Pencerdd Gwalia (Chief of the Welsh minstrels) was conferred on him at the 1861 Aberdare Eisteddfod. Life He was born in Bridgend on Saint David’s Day, son of a tailor, also named John Thomas, a clarinetist in the amateur town band. He was the eldest of seven children, four of whom also played the harp, most notably his brother Thomas Thomas. John Thomas started off by playing the triple harp, which had three rows of strings. At the age of 14, through the influence of Ada Lovelace, (Lord Byron’s daughter), he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Music in London. His teachers there included Cipriani Potter for composition and John Balsir Chatterton for harp. He eventually married twice, both times to former students. His first wife, Alice Ann Keate, died in 1880, two years after their marriage; he married Joan Francis Denny in 1885. In 1872, he was appointed harpist to Queen Victoria. Publications *1862 Welsh Melodies, with Welsh and English Poetry, vols. 1 & 2, by John Jones (Talhaiarn) & Thomas Oliphant. Author: John Thomas. *1870 Welsh Melodies, with Welsh and English Poetry, vol. 3, by J

John Thomas Douglass

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John Thomas Douglass (1847–1886) was an American composer, virtuoso violinist, conductor and teacher. He is best known for composing Virginia’s Ball (1868), which is generally regarded as the first opera written by an African-American composer. The work is now lost, and his only extant composition is The Pilgrim: Grand Overture (1878) for piano. His biography from James Monroe Trotter’s Music and Some Highly Musical People (1878)—in which The Pilgrim survives—reports that he wrote many now lost pieces for piano, orchestra and particularly guitar, which he was known to play. A highly regarded violinist, Douglass’s violin playing received high praise during his lifetime. In addition to his solo career, he traveled with various groups throughout the 1870s, including the Hyers Sisters. He settled in New York by the 1880s and conducted both a music studio and string ensemble. Later in life he led a teaching studio, and among his students was David Mannes who became the concertmaster of the New York Symphony Orchestra. Nearly 30 years after Douglass’s death at age 38–39, Mannes founded the Colored Music Settlement School in the memory of his teacher. Life and career John Thomas Douglass

John Thomson (composer)

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John Thomson (28 October 1805 – 18 May 1841) was a Scottish classical composer. He was born in Sprouston, Roxburghshire, the son of Andrew Mitchell Thomson, the minister of Sprouston Church. Life and career Thomson studied in Germany with a letter of introduction to the Mendelssohn family, and his Drei Lieder were published in Leipzig in 1838. John Purser contends that we have to look to Schumann to find anything comparable to these songs published two years before Schumann composed any songs in his mature style. The first song, Keiner von den Schönheit Töchtern, is based on the poem There be none of beauty’s daughters by Byron, set in German by Thomson to match the other songs. Thomson became the first Reid Professor of Music at the University of Edinburgh in 1838. As a musicologist he edited the Vocal Melodies of Scotland, and he was one of the first conductors to provide his audience with a programme of his concerts giving a critical analysis of the works to be performed. His other compositions included a fine bagatelle for solo piano, a six-part Glee With Whispering Winds, three operas, a flute concerto and a flute quartet, and concert arias. However his career was cut short by

John Thow

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John Holland Thow (October 6, 1949 – March 4, 2007) was an American music composer. Thow produced an extensive and diverse body of work comprising solo, chamber, vocal, choral, operatic and orchestral repertoire. Born in Los Angeles in 1949, Thow grew up in Ventura, California. As a child he studied flute and piano, and later studied composition with Adolph Weiss, a pupil of Schoenberg’s, and conductor Frank Salazar. At University of Southern California he pursued his Bachelor of Music, studying composition with Ingolf Dahl. He continued his studies at Harvard with Earl Kim and Leon Kirchner, where he received his Ph.D. in composition in 1977. Thow received a Fulbright Fellowship, which allowed him to travel to Rome for the first time in 1973 to study composition with Luciano Berio, who would become an important mentor and influence. Thow later returned to Italy as a recipient of the prestigious Rome Prize. During that time he also studied with Luigi Dallapiccola and Franco Donatoni. After teaching at Boston University, Thow joined the University of California, Berkeley faculty in 1981, specializing in composition, orchestration, counterpoint, theory, in addition to teaching course

John Tomkins (composer)

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John Tomkins (1586 – 27 September 1638) was a Welsh-born organist and composer, a half-brother of the composer Thomas Tomkins. He was organist at St Paul’s Cathedral in London from 1619. Life Tomkins was born in St David’s in Pembrokeshire in 1586. His father Thomas Tomkins, a vicar choral at St David’s Cathedral, became a minor canon at Gloucester Cathedral by 1594, and it is thought that John was a chorister there. In 1606 John Tomkins succeeded Orlando Gibbons as organist of King’s College, Cambridge. After studying music there for ten years, he received the degree of Mus. Bac. in June 1608, on condition of composing a piece for performance at the graduation ceremony. Phineas Fletcher, a friend of Tomkins at King’s College, made him an interlocutor (named Thomalin) in three of his eclogues. Tomkins left Cambridge and in 1619 became organist of St Paul’s Cathedral. Fletcher, then in Norfolk, addressed a poem to him on the occasion. In 1625 Tomkins became gentleman-extraordinary of the Chapel Royal, and gentlemen-in-ordinary in 1627. References External links * * John Tomkins at Hymnary.org

John Valentine (composer)

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John Valentine (7 June 1730 – 10 September 1791) was an English violinist, violist and composer. Biography John Valentine was born in Leicester, England, the son of John Valentine and his wife Sarah. By 1759 John Valentine owned and operated a music shop on New Bond Street in Leicester, which he later moved to other locations. He sold instruments and music and taught lessons in various instruments including keyboard and horn. Valentine performed at concerts in the area mostly as a violinist or violist, and played in the Handel Commemoration concerts in memorial for George Frederic Handel in London in 1784. John Valentine was a member of a musical family in Leicester. He was the great-nephew of composer Robert Valentine. John’s son Thomas Valentine (1759 – c. 1800) was also a violinist, who performed in the Handel Commemoration and in the London area for at least a decade. John’s uncle, Henry Valentine, played oboe and also operated a music shop in Leicester. John Valentine married Tabitha Simpson (b. 1728) in 1755 and they had six children, including Sarah, John, Charles and Ann. Ann Valentine was a composer with work available in modern editions. Sarah (1771–1843) served as an org

John Vallier

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

John Vallier (1 October 1920 – 11 June 1991) was an English classical pianist and composer who was known for his thunderous technique and beautiful singing tone, and was especially admired for his interpretations and performances of Chopin and Schumann. He could trace his musical ancestry in an eminently distinguished line back to the Romantic Era of the 19th century. He was born in 1920 and was only four years old when he appeared in public for the first time, at London’s Wigmore Hall. His last solo recital at London’s Royal Festival Hall was attended by HM The Queen Mother. Musical education Vallier’s mother was the pianist Adela Verne, the finest woman pianist of her time and herself a contemporary and even rival of Paderewski, whose teacher Leschetizky was a pupil of Czerny who taught Liszt. Vallier’s aunt and principal teacher was Mathilde Verne, through whose famous piano school in London passed the young Vallier as well as the pianists Solomon and Moura Lympany, and even socialite Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (later Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother). Mathilde Verne was herself the finest pupil of Clara Schumann, from whom she inherited a direct insight into her husband Robert S

John Van Tongeren

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John Van Tongeren is an American keyboardist and composer for films and television. Biography Van Tongeren’s career in the entertainment business began as a keyboardist, with one of his earliest projects being the band Q, featuring Jon St. James and Stacey Swain (a.k.a. Stacey Q). Q then became SSQ, which released one album, Playback, on EMI records with John contributing four songs, most notably Anonymous. After leaving SSQ in the early ’80s, Van Tongeren became an in-demand session musician and began composing music for movies. As a musician, he has worked with Chicago, Roger Daltrey, Robbie Nevil, John Parr, The Chantoozies, Starship, Jeff Beck, Quincy Jones, Al Jarreau, The Pointer Sisters, Living in a Box, Stryper, and others. He currently works out of The Blue Room, a recording studio in Los Angeles. Van Tongeren began his film scoring career as one of the original members of Media Ventures (now Remote Control Productions). During his time at Media Ventures Van Tongeren worked on films such as Thelma & Louise, True Romance and Drop Zone with Hans Zimmer. He also collaborated with Mark Mancina on Speed, Moll Flanders, Fair Game, Assassins and Twister. Van Tongeren then began t

John Veale

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John Douglas Louis Veale (15 June 1922 – 16 November 2006) was an English classical composer. Early career He was born in Shortlands, Bromley, Kent; his father, the civil servant Douglas Veale, later served as Registrar of the University of Oxford (1930–1958) and received a knighthood. Discovering Sibelius and Shostakovich, and receiving encouragement from William Walton, Sir Hugh Allen and Humphrey Searle, he decided to become a composer, taking some lessons from Egon Wellesz. Veale sketched out his first symphony during the war while serving in the Army’s Education Corps. After demobilisation he returned to Corpus Christi for more composition lessons with Wellesz and counterpoint and harmony with Thomas Armstrong. While there he began composing incidental music for Oxford University Dramatic Society productions, in which Kenneth Tynan and Lindsay Anderson were involved. Between 1949 and 1951 he won a scholarship to study in California with Roger Sessions and Roy Harris (the latter’s only English pupil). The Symphony No. 1 was premiered by Sir John Barbirolli at the Cheltenham Music Festival in 1952. The Clarinet Concerto had its premiere at the Royal Festival Hall in 1954, conduc

John Vincent (composer)

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John Nathaniel Vincent Jr. (May 17, 1902 – January 21, 1977) was an American composer, conductor, and music educator. Vincent was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and studied at the New England Conservatory of Music under Frederick Converse and George Chadwick graduating with a diploma in 1927. He continued his studies at George Peabody College where he earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree followed by doctoral studies at Harvard University from 1933 to 1935. While at Harvard studying under Walter Piston he won the John Knowles Paine Traveling Fellowship for two years of study with Nadia Boulanger. He was able to study original manuscripts of all classical composers at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (French National Library). After transferring to Cornell University he earned his PhD in 1942. Made field recordings for Library of Congress with Alan Lomax, using Fairchild machine to preserve notables of the old South. Vincent was head of the music department at Western Kentucky University from 1937 to 1945 and Schoenberg’s successor as professor of composition at UCLA, a position he held from 1946 to 1969. He surveyed music schools to create UCLA’s state-of-art music building a

John W. Duarte

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John William Duarte (2 October 1919 – 23 December 2004) was a British composer, guitarist and writer. Career Duarte was born in Sheffield, England, but lived in Manchester from the age of six months. It was only in 1969 that he finally abandoned chemistry in favour of full-time dedication to music, after having been persuaded by Len Williams, father of John Williams. His only formal musical education consisted of jazz guitar lessons with Terence “Terry” Usher Duarte taught at the London-based Spanish Guitar Centre, which Williams senior had founded and where the young John Williams studied with him for a period of three years before entering the Royal College of Music. Williams acknowledged the early influence of Duarte by including his transcriptions of Bach cello suites in his first recordings, along with Variations on a Catalan Folk Song, Op. 25, one of the most enduring and most recorded of Duarte’s compositions. He sustained several lasting friendships with great musicians, including a 39-year-long relationship with Andrés Segovia and another with Ida Presti, who died prematurely at the age of 42. Duarte edited “Tríptico” by Venezuelan guitar composer Antonio Lauro, who, in 19

John W. Schaum

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John W. Schaum (January 27, 1905 – July 18, 1988) was an American pianist, composer, and educator who was born and died in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Education Schaum received a Bachelor of Music degree from Marquette University in 1931, a Bachelor of Music Education degree from University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and a Master of Music degree from Northwestern University in 1934. Career Schaum began his career as a piano teacher in the late 1920s. In 1933 he founded the Schaum Piano School in Milwaukee. About the same time he began to compose piano music for teaching purposes. He also founded the first company to produce award stickers specifically for music students. Always on the lookout for better materials for his students, Schaum eventually decided to create his own books, beginning in 1941 with Piano Fun for Boys and Girls, which he later revised as the first in a series of nine piano method books that became the Schaum Piano Course, completed in 1945. These books are still widely used today. Over the course of his career, Schaum wrote many more books and hundreds of pieces of sheet music. His arrangement of the Marines’ Hymn, issued during World War II, sold more than a million co

John Ward (composer)

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John Ward (1590–1638) was an English composer. He trained as a singer in Canterbury, where he was a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral. He then moved to London where he produced religious and secular works, and he also appears to have maintained a residence in Essex. Ward’s compositions, some of which were published in his lifetime, consist of madrigals, works for viol consort and Anglican church music (services, and anthems). His madrigals are remarkable for their fine texts, broad melodic lines and originality. Biography Ward was born in Canterbury and baptised 15 February 1590 at St Mary Bredman. He was a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral and likely King’s scholar at Canterbury Grammar School 1604–7. He appears to have stayed in Canterbury until at least 1607 and then went to London where he served Sir Henry Fanshawe (1569–1616) as a musician. It is not known how the two men came into contact, although it has been noted that Lady Fanshawe was from Kent. Sir Henry was an amateur musician, and Ward’s compositions suggest that he enjoyed hearing religious and secular music at home. Between 1610 and 1612 the music also reflects the connection of Sir Henry to Henry Frederick, Prince o

John Webb (composer)

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John Webb (born 1969) is an English composer. Biography He was educated in Essex where he started playing the piano and viola. He began to compose at 14, and two years later attended Colchester Institute. Here he studied piano with Frank Wibaut and composition with John Joubert at the Birmingham Conservatoire. As a founding member of the Thallein Ensemble, he performed works by Berio, Messiaen, Finnissy, Ives and Schnittke. In his final year he completed a dissertation on Schnittke’s polystylism and was the soloist in his piano concerto. After graduating from Birmingham Conservatoire with a first class degree, he studied for three years at the Royal Academy of Music with Christopher Brown. In his last year he was Leverhulme Composition Fellow and won the major composition prizes; he graduated with MMus and DipRAM. He went on to develop contacts with period instrument performers and has written works for ‘old’ instruments which have recently been revived, including viols, harpsichord (commissions by Gary Cooper and Trevor Pinnock), and baroque orchestra. He lectures at Birmingham Conservatoire and runs education projects for English National Opera, The Stables, Milton Keynes and the

John Weinzweig

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John Jacob Weinzweig (March 11, 1913 – August 24, 2006) was a composer, teacher, and advocate of contemporary Canadian concert music. Born in Toronto, Weinzweig went to Harbord Collegiate Institute, then studied music at the University of Toronto. In 1937, he left for the United States to study under Bernard Rogers. During the Second World War, he began composing film music, and in 1952 he became a professor at the University of Toronto. In the previous year he had co-founded the Canadian League of Composers, and he was actively involved in several other organizations representing musicians and composers. In 1948 he won a silver medal in the art competitions of the Olympic Games for his Divertimento no 1 for solo flute and strings. In 1974, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 1988, he was awarded the Order of Ontario. In 2004, Weinzweig was the recipient of the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual SOCAN Awards in Toronto. Early life John Jacob Weinzweig was the eldest child of Joseph and Rose (Burstyn) Weinzweig, Polish Jewish immigrants. His younger siblings were named Morris and Grace Weinzweig. In Russian-occupied Poland, his father was temporarily im

John Weldon (musician)

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John Weldon (19 January 1676 – 7 May 1736) was an English composer. Life Born at Chichester in the south of England, he was educated at Eton College, where he was a chorister, and later received musical instruction from Henry Purcell. By 1694 Weldon had been appointed organist of New College in Oxford and became well known in the musical life of that city, writing music for masques as well as performing his organist duties. Some believe he set Shakespeare’s play The Tempest to music in 1695, although others attribute that to Henry Purcell. Weldon moved to London and in 1701 took part in a competition to set Congreve’s libretto The Judgement of Paris to music. Perhaps surprisingly, Weldon’s setting was chosen over contributions by his older, more experienced and better-known competitors, Daniel Purcell (younger brother of Henry), John Eccles and Godfrey Finger. Even more curiously, Purcell’s and Eccles’s scores were later published by John Walsh. Weldon’s however was not and remains in manuscript, though the lack of recognition of his relatively new name may also have played a part. There is some evidence to suggest that the judges of the competition were not entirely impartial, tho

John Welsman

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John Joseph Welsman (born 1955) is a Canadian composer known for his work in film and television. He has written film and television scores for production companies in both Canada and the United States. Some of the films he has worked on are The Peace Tree, A Winter Tale, and Nurse.Fighter.Boy and Lantern Hill. He has been nominated for the Gemini Award ten times, winning four times for his work on the television series Road to Avonlea, and once for the short film ‘The Bellringer’. Early life and education Welsman was born in Toronto. He is the grandson of conductor Frank Welsman and the brother of jazz singer Carol Welsman. He studied piano and theory at the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto, and attended the University of Western Ontario in 1974 and 1975. He studied music composition with Samuel Dolin and Milan Kymlicka. Career In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Welsman was a member of the folk and roots band Available Space with Cherie Camp and Jeff Kahnert. Welsman conducted and created arrangements for the string orchestra which recorded on Loreena McKennitt’s 1994 album The Mask and Mirror. Also in the 1990s Welsman composed and arranged extensively for the television seri

John Wesley Work III

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John Wesley Work III (July 15, 1901 – May 17, 1967) was an American composer, educator, choral director, musicologist and scholar of African-American folklore and music. Biography He was born on July 15, 1901, in Tullahoma, Tennessee, to a family of professional musicians. His grandfather, John Wesley Work, was a church choir director in Nashville, where he wrote and arranged music for his choirs. Some of his choristers were members of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers. His father, John Wesley Work, Jr., was a singer, folksong collector and professor of music, Latin, and history at Fisk, and his mother, Agnes Haynes Work, was a singer who helped train the Fisk group. His uncle, Frederick Jerome Work, also collected and arranged folksongs, and his brother, Julian, became a professional musician and composer. Work began his musical training at the Fisk University Laboratory School, moving on to the Fisk High School and then the university, where he received a B.A. degree in 1923. After graduation, he attended the Institute of Musical Art in New York City (now the Juilliard School of Music), where he studied with Gardner Lamson. He returned to Fisk and began teaching in 1927, spending

John White (composer)

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John White (5 April 1936 – 4 January 2024) was an English experimental composer and musical performer. He invented the early British form of minimalism known as systems music, with his early Machines. Life and career John White was born in Berlin to an English father and German mother. The family moved to London at the outbreak of war. Originally a sculptor, White decided on a composition career when he heard Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie. He studied composition at the Royal College of Music from 1955 to 1958 with Bernard Stevens and piano with Arthur Alexander and Eric Harrison. He also took analysis classes privately with Elisabeth Lutyens. Upon graduation, White became the musical director of the Western Theatre Ballet, and then professor of composition at the Royal College of Music from 1961 to 1967. He was a skilled pianist and tuba player and has written extensively for both instruments. In the 1960s and 1970s he was closely associated with English experimental composers such as Cornelius Cardew and Gavin Bryars, and a participant in the Scratch Orchestra. His Royal College of Music pupils have included Roger Smalley, Brian Dennis and William York. White’s association with

John Whitney (animator)

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John Hales Whitney Sr. (April 8, 1917 – September 22, 1995) was an American animator, composer and inventor, widely considered to be one of the pioneers of computer animation. Life Whitney was born in Pasadena, California, and attended Pomona College. He is a descendant of the Whitney family through his father’s direct line. His first works in film were 8 mm movies of a lunar eclipse which he made using a home-made telescope. In 1937-38 he spent a year in Paris, studying twelve-tone composition under René Leibowitz. In 1939 he returned to America and began to collaborate with his brother James on a series of abstract films. Their work, Five Film Exercises (1940–45) was awarded a prize for sound at the First International Experimental Film Competition in Belgium in 1949. In 1948 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. (dream sequences), and the graphic designer Saul Bass (titles). In 1960, he founded Motion Graphics Incorporated, which used the mechanical analog computer of his own invention to create motion picture and television title sequences and commercials. The following year, he assembled a record of the visual effects he had perfected using his device, titled simply Catalog. In

John Wilbye

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John Wilbye (baptized 7 March 1574 – September 1638) was an English madrigal composer. Early life and education The son of a tanner, he was born at Brome, Suffolk, England. (Brome is near Diss, Norfolk.) Career Wilbye received the patronage of the Cornwallis family of Brome Hall. Wilbye was employed for decades at Hengrave Hall, near Bury St Edmunds, where he seems to have been recruited in the 1590s by Elizabeth Kitson who was married to the property’s owner, Sir Thomas Kitson (or Kytson). The Kitsons also had a long association with the composer Edward Johnson, who was more than twenty years older than Wilbye, and began working at Hengrave in the 1570s. As well as working in Suffolk, Wilbye was involved with the music scene in London, where the Kitsons kept a town house (first in Austin Friars and from about 1601 in Clerkenwell). His first book of madrigals was published in London in 1598. The 30 madrigals are described as “newly composed”. The publication was dedicated to Sir Charles Cavendish, whose first wife had been a Kitson. Wilbye remained in contact with his printer Thomas East. In 1600 Wilbye and Edward Johnson took on a proofreading job for East, the first edition of Dowla

John William Glover

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John William Glover (19 June 1815 – 19 December 1899) was an Irish composer, conductor, organist, violinist, and teacher. Life and music Glover was born in Dublin, where he initially became an orchestral violinist as early as 1830. In 1848, he succeeded Haydn Corri as organist of St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, Dublin, and also became professor of music at the Central Model Schools of the Board of National Education. An experienced choral conductor, he established the short-lived Choral Institute of Dublin in 1851. He presented a series of “National Concerts” in 1853 to commemorate Thomas Moore one year after the poet’s death, and also co-organised and conducted large musical performances on the occasion of the centenaries of Daniel O’Connell (1875) and Thomas Moore (1879). As a composer, Glover was one of a handful of native composers who cultivated (classical) musical life in Dublin in the mid-19th century – and among these the only one of Roman Catholic denomination. A personal friend of the émigrés Michael William Balfe and William Vincent Wallace, he, too, was inclined towards opera, despite the incomparably more difficult circumstances in Ireland in this period. His most ambitious

John Williams

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John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932) is an American composer and conductor. Over his seven-decade career, he has composed many of the best known scores in film history. His compositional style blends romanticism, impressionism, and atonal music with complex orchestration. Best known for his collaborations with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, he has received numerous accolades, including 27 Grammy Awards, five Academy Awards, seven BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. With a total of 54 Academy Award nominations, he is the second-most nominated person in the award’s history, after Walt Disney. He is also the oldest Academy Award nominee in any category, receiving a nomination at 91 years old. Williams’s early work as a film composer includes None but the Brave (1965), Valley of the Dolls (1967), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), Images, The Cowboys (both 1972), The Long Goodbye (1973) and The Towering Inferno (1974). He has collaborated with Spielberg since The Sugarland Express (1974), composing music for all but five of his feature films. He received five Academy Awards for Best Score/Best Score Adaptation for Fiddler on the Roof (1971; score adaptati

John Woods Duke

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John Woods Duke (July 30, 1899 – October 26, 1984) was an American composer and pianist. He is best known for his large output of art songs. Biography John Woods Duke was born in Cumberland, Maryland on July 30, 1899, the oldest child in a large musical family. After teaching him to read music at an early age and starting him on piano lessons at age 11, Duke’s mother (a talented singer herself) enrolled him in the Cumberland, MD Allegany Academy. By age 16 he had won a three-year scholarship to the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. became very popular. His pieces were later selected for inclusion in such classic anthologies as Music for the Voice by Sergius Kagen and The Singer’s Repertoire by Berton Coffin. Donald Gramm notably sang John Duke’s settings of Edwin Arlington Robinson narrative poems, Three Poems by Edwin Arlington Robinson. Although Duke’s work covered a wide range of styles, it showed the particular influence of 19th-century German Lieder. Like those who influenced him, Duke had a passion for setting poems in his native language to music. Though he himself trained in piano, John Duke wrote almost all of his compositions for voice. When asked why, the composer repli

John Woolrich

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John Woolrich ( ; born 1954 in Cirencester) is an English composer. Biography Woolrich has founded a group (the Composers Ensemble), a festival (Hoxton New Music Days), and has been composer in association with the Orchestra of St John’s and the Britten Sinfonia. His collaborations with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group led to his appointment in 2002 as Artist-in-Association. He was guest Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival in 2004 and Associate Artistic Director of the festival from 2005 to 2010. From 2010 to 2013 Woolrich was both Artistic Director of Dartington International Summer School and Professor of Music at Brunel University. From 2013 to 2016 he was Artistic Director of Mirepoix Musique in France. He is currently an Associate Artist of the Gulbenkian Arts Centre, iCCi, University of Kent. A number of preoccupations thread through his music: the art of creative transcription —Ulysses Awakes, for instance, is a re-composition of a Monteverdi aria, and The Theatre Represents a Garden: Night is based on fragments of Mozart—and a fascination with machinery and mechanical processes, heard in many pieces including The Ghost in the Machine and The Barber’s Timepiece. T

John Worley

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John C. Worley (1919-1999) was a saxophonist, conductor, professor, and a composer of classical, as well as more contemporary music for saxophone. He was born in Waltham, Massachusetts in 1919 and died on February 16, 1999. He served as conductor and director for many performing ensembles during his long teaching career, as well as a featured performer of saxophone and clarinet. Conducting & performing career highlights His early performances included a position as first clarinetist in the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, as well as first clarinetist in the Connecticut Symphony. While teaching at State University College at Oneonta, NY (aka “Oneonta State”, now SUNY Oneonta) Worley took charge of the community-based Oneonta Symphony (now the Catskill Symphony Orchestra) in 1947. The ensemble had been dormant since World War II decimated its ranks, and by 1953 Worley had succeeded in rejuvenating it to the point where a full concert was possible. By 1954, under his direction it had swelled to 57 musicians and began presenting local concerts for 400 people. While at Oneonta State, Worley also conducted the campus vocal group, the Choraleers, and served as music director for stage product

John Wyre

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John Harvey Wyre (17 May 1941 – 31 October 2006) was a U.S.-born Canadian percussionist, composer, and music educator. He worked as percussionist with a number of important orchestras in North America, notably serving for many years as the principal timpanist of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He was a founding member of the percussion ensemble Nexus, with which he performed for over 30 years. He was also artistic director of World Drums with whom he organized and directed performances at several major international events. His music compositions have been performed by ensembles throughout the world, including the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the CBC Radio Orchestra, and the Japan Philharmonic among others. Biography Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Wyre began studying the percussion at age 15 with Fred Hinger, a percussionist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He remained Hinger’s student until 1959 when he entered the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester. He studied under William Street at Eastman, earning a Bachelor of Music there in 1964. Wyre began his performance career as a percussionist with the Oklahoma City Symphony Orchestra in 1964-

Johnny "Guitar" Watson

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John Watson Jr. (February 3, 1935 – May 17, 1996), often known professionally as Johnny “Guitar” Watson, was an American musician. A flamboyant showman and electric guitarist in the style of T-Bone Walker, his recording career spanned 40 years, and encompassed rhythm and blues, funk and soul music. Watson recorded throughout the 1950s and 1960s with some success. His 1954 instrumental single “Space Guitar” was the first of his recordings to showcase his electric guitar playing. His creative self-reinvention in the 1970s, with funk overtones, saw Watson have hits with “Ain’t That a Bitch” and “Superman Lover”. His highest-charting single was 1977’s “A Real Mother for Ya”. Early life Watson was born in Houston, Texas. His father John Sr. was a pianist, and taught his son the instrument. Early career In his new city, Watson won several local talent shows. This led to his employment, while still a teenager, with jump blues-style bands such as Chuck Higgins’s Mellotones and Amos Milburn. Watson affected a swaggering, yet humorous personality, indulging a taste for flashy clothes and wild showmanship on stage. According to music historian Larry Birnbaum, for “Space Guitar” he “came into

Johnny Bristol

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John William Bristol (February 3, 1939 – March 21, 2004) was an American musician, most famous as a songwriter and record producer for the Motown label in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was a native of Morganton, North Carolina, about which he wrote an eponymous song. His composition “Love Me for a Reason” saw global success when covered by the Osmonds including a number one on the UK charts in 1974. The pair recorded two singles in 1959 for Anna Records, a label owned by Gwen Gordy (Berry Gordy’s sister) and Billy Davis and four 45s for Gwen Gordy and Harvey Fuqua’s Tri-Phi label, none of which was a success beyond the Midwestern United States. In the mid-1960s, Motown had absorbed Tri-Phi and Bristol began working with Fuqua as a songwriter and producer. Bristol is the male voice on the Supremes’ version of “Someday We’ll Be Together”, singing response to Diana Ross’ lead vocal. number 2 US R&B chart and number 3 UK), A deal for Ariola/Hansa saw him score with club hits “Love No Longer Has a Hold on Me” and “Take Me Down”. An accompanying album failed to consolidate his status, and it would be eight years before new product by Bristol appeared, with a 12" single “I’m Just a M

Johnny Douglas (conductor)

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John Henry Douglas (19 June 1920 – 20 April 2003) was an English composer, pianist, musical director, conductor, and string arranger primarily working with film scores and orchestras. He recorded more 500 tracks for Decca Records, over 80 albums for RCA Records, and provided music for 36 films during his career. He was nominated for a BAFTA for his soundtrack for the 1970 film The Railway Children and led RCA’S Living Strings for many years. Dungeons & Dragons, The Incredible Hulk, In Douglas’ early years, the family moved to Bermondsey, another district of London, where his mother May was a housewife and his father John was later an alderman for the West Bermondsey Council. He showed an innate talent for music at a very young age; by two and a half, he could play a song he had heard on one of his father’s records on the piano. * The Traitors (1962) * Crack in the World (1965) Bert Ambrose, June Bronhill, Max Bygraves, Susan Hampshire, Frankie Howerd, Barbara Leigh, Mantovani, Frankie Vaughan, Eric Winstone, and Jimmy Young References External links * * Dulcima Records, his record label

Johnny Mandel

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John Alfred Mandel (November 23, 1925 – June 29, 2020) was an American composer, multi-instrumentalist, and arranger of popular songs, film music and jazz. The musicians he worked with include Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Anita O’Day, Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Diane Schuur and Shirley Horn. He won five Grammy Awards, from 17 total nominations; his first nomination was for his debut film score for the multi-nominated 1958 film I Want to Live!. In 2011, he was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts. Among his other film accolades, Mandel also won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for “The Shadow of Your Smile” from The Sandpiper (1965), and was nominated three times each for a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award. He received the Grammy Trustees Award for his contributions to the music industry, in 2018. His father, Alfred, was a garment manufacturer who ran Mandel & Cash; his mother, Hannah (Hart-Rubin), had aimed to be an opera singer His family was Jewish. They moved to Los Angeles in 1934, after his father’s business collapsed during the Great Depression. He subsequently resided in Los Angeles, where he played the bass trumpet for Z

Johnny Pacheco

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Juan Pablo Knipping Pacheco (25 March 1935 – 15 February 2021), known as Johnny Pacheco, was a Dominican musician, arranger, composer, bandleader, and record producer. Born in the Dominican Republic, Pacheco became a leading figure in the New York salsa scene in the 1960s and 1970s as the founder and musical director of Fania Records. Pacheco was one of the leading exponents of pachanga, a blend of Cuban rhythms and Dominican merengue in the late 1950s. He popularized the use of the term “salsa” and established the Fania All-Stars to showcase the leading artists of the genre, which propelled him to worldwide fame and had an important role in the evolution of Latin music. Pacheco was a nine-time Grammy nominee and was awarded the Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award by the Latin Recording Academy in 2005. Early life and family Juan Pablo Pacheco Knipping was born on 25 March 1935 in Santiago de los Caballeros, a city in the Dominican Republic. He inherited his passion for music from his father, Rafael Azarías Pacheco, who was the leader and clarinetist of the Orquesta Santa Cecilia. One of the leading Dominican big bands of the 1930s, the Orquesta was the first to record Luis Alb

Johnny Yim

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Johnny Yim Lai-hang (born 12 August 1977) is a Hong Kong pianist, composer, arranger, and producer. Life and career Yim was born in Hong Kong, coming from a family with a musical background, with one parent a musician and the other a dance choreographer. He has a sister named Alice. Yim’s journey in music began at the age of six when he started learning the piano. While growing up in Canada, he pursued a major in Mathematics at York University and didn’t consider a formal music degree due to concerns about making a living. However, his passion for music remained strong, leading him to embark on a self-study path. Upon returning to Hong Kong, Yim achieved his first milestone by winning the 16th C.A.S.H. Songwriting Quest in 2004, which served as a catalyst for his music career. Since then, Yim has worked with numerous artists, including Alan Tam, Hins Cheung, Gigi Leung, Hacken Lee, AGA, Joyce Cheng, Alfred Hui. In 2017, Yim founded the Gsus Music Ministry, an initiative dedicated to promoting Cantonese Christian music. In 2021, Yim took on the role of music director for TVB’s singing competition Stars Academy (2021–2022). Throughout his career, he has crafted over hundreds of arran

Joji Yuasa

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was a Japanese composer of contemporary classical music. Early life and education Joji Yuasa was born in Kōriyama, Fukushima on 12 August 1929, and was a self-taught composer. He first became interested in music while a pre medical student at Keio University, and in 1952 he joined a young artists’ group Jikken Kōbō (Experimental Workshop, 1951–1957) in Tokyo, an organization for the exploration of new directions in the arts, including multimedia. Career From 1981 to 1994 he was a music researcher and professor at the University of California, San Diego, where was later professor emeritus. He also served as a guest professor at the Tokyo College of Music from 1981, a professor at Nihon University from 1993, and an honorary member of the International Society for Contemporary Music. Yuasa is the recipient of a 1996 Suntory Music Award. Yuasa wrote a wide range of compositions, including orchestral, choral and chamber music, music for theatre, and intermedia, electronic and computer music. His style has been described as “consistent explorations of a distinctive, maverick yet elegant voice” that has elements of twelve tone, impressionism, romantic, and traditional classical compositio

Joly Braga Santos

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José Manuel Joly Braga Santos, ComSE (; May 14, 1924 – July 18, 1988) was a Portuguese composer and conductor, who was born and died in Lisbon. He wrote six symphonies. Biography José Manuel Joly Braga Santos was born in Lisbon in 1924 and died in this city in 1988, at the peak of his musical creativity. Having studied violin and composition at the National Conservatoire of Lisbon, he became a disciple of Luís de Freitas Branco (1890–1955), the leading Portuguese composer of the preceding generation. After the Second World War, he was able to go abroad, having studied conducting with Hermann Scherchen and Antonino Votto, and composition with Virgilio Mortari. In 1945 he visited England where he met Ralph Vaughan Williams, who encouraged him to use his native folksong in his symphonic music and also suggested that he should take lessons in counterpoint. He was undoubtedly the leading Portuguese symphonist of the 20th century, and perhaps of all time. Apart from an innate sense of orchestration, his musical language is based on a strong musical architecture as well as drama, with long melodic phrases and a natural instinct for structural development. In his own words, he wanted “to cont

Jolyon Brettingham Smith

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Jolyon Brettingham Smith (9 September 1949 – 17 May 2008) was a British composer, conductor, performer, author, and radio presenter, and a university teacher at the Berlin University of the Arts. Life and work Brettingham Smith was born in Southampton. His first employment, after he left school in 1966, was as a teacher at a London boarding school for children with learning difficulties. He then went on to study philosophy at the University of Cambridge as well as musicology and composition at Heidelberg and Berlin, where he was a pupil of the Korean-born composer Isang Yun. Between 1970 and 1980 he played viola in the Gruppe Neue Musik Berlin and the NO SET Improvisation Ensemble. From 1973 until 1978 Brettingham Smith was artistic assistant professor at the Free University of Berlin. The Bielefeld Opera House engaged him as guest conductor for their 1975 season. In 1976 he began teaching as a full professor at the Berlin University of the Arts. From 1978 Brettingham Smith began working as a writer and presenter for a number of public broadcasting organizations in Germany: he became well known for his presentation over many years of such radio programmes as Klassikforum on WDR, Kl

Jolyon Jackson

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Jolyon Jackson (3 September 1948 – 18 December 1985) was an Irish musician and composer. Life Jackson was born in Malaya where his father, Patrick Jackson, was Deputy Commissioner of the police and would receive the CBE. His father was from County Limerick, of a Cork family; his mother was the singer Charmian Jenkinson. They lived at Poul-na-murrish, Annamoe, County Wicklow. He was educated in Salisbury Cathedral School and Bradfield College, Reading. He studied at Trinity College Dublin in the late 1960s, where he graduated in Arts and Music. He integrated himself into the musical life of Dublin, first with the group ‘Jazz Therapy’, and later with ‘Supply, Demand and Curve.’ He played cello, recorder and keyboards–including organ, piano and synthesizer. He married Teresa Le Jeune from Delgany, County Wicklow and they had a son, Linus. Jackson died in London of Hodgkin’s lymphoma on 18 December 1985, aged 37. Music The band ‘Supply, Demand & Curve’ was formed in 1970 and initially consisted of Jackson, Brian Masterson—who had played with Jackson in ‘Jazz Therapy’ during 1968–69—and Paddy Finney. They had a weekly gig at the Project Arts Centre and later played mainly in folk clubs

Jon Appleton

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Jon Howard Appleton (January 4, 1939 – January 30, 2022) was an American composer, an educator and a pioneer in electro-acoustic music. His earliest compositions in the medium, e.g. “Chef d’Oeuvre” and “Newark Airport Rock” (1967) attracted attention because they established a new tradition some have called programmatic electronic music. In 1970, he won Guggenheim, Fulbright and American-Scandinavian Foundation fellowships. When he was twenty-eight years old, he joined the faculty of Dartmouth College where he established one of the first electronic music studios in the United States. He remained there intermittently for forty-two years. In the mid-1970s, he left Dartmouth to briefly become the head of Elektronmusikstudion (EMS) (sv) in Stockholm, Sweden. In the late 1970s, together with Sydney Alonso and Cameron Jones, he helped develop the first commercial digital synthesizer called the Synclavier. For a decade he toured around the United States and Europe performing the compositions he composed for this instrument. In the early 1990s, he helped found the Theremin Center for Electronic Music at the Moscow Conservatory of Music. He also taught at Keio University (Mita) in Tokyo, J

Jon Everist

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Jon Everist is an American video game composer. He is responsible for the score to BattleTech, which he received an American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers “Composer’s Choice Award” for “Best Video Game Score of 2018” and won honors at the 2019 Jerry Goldsmith Awards for Best Video Game Score. His score for Shadowrun: Hong Kong received favorable reviews. He is mostly known for his work with Seattle developer Harebrained Schemes and for hybrid scores that utilize live orchestra and a variety of synthesizers. Biography Everist began his musical pursuits in his middle school band, played the drums. After being exposed to groups like Radiohead, Aphex Twin, MF Doom, and Aesop Rock, Soon after Everist’s interests steered toward playing and experimenting with analog synths and samplers – producing music on an Ensoniq ASR-10 sampler, recording everything into Sony Acid. After High School, being told there was no money or stability in music, Everist pursued studies in economics at the University of Washington and sold copiers during the day and made music at night and some small tours, keeping his music and professional work life separate. After hearing Amon Tobin’s score for

Jon Gibson (minimalist musician)

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Jon Gibson (March 11, 1940 – October 11, 2020) was an American flutist, saxophonist, composer and visual artist, known as one of the founding members of the Philip Glass Ensemble. He was a key player on several seminal minimalist music compositions. He was born in Los Angeles to Charles and Muriel (née Taylor) Gibson, both educators, and grew up in El Monte, a suburb. Education Gibson studied at Sacramento State University and later at San Francisco State University with Henry Onderdonk and Wayne Peterson, where he earned a BA in 1964. His earliest work as an improviser and composer also dates from around this time, when he performed in the New Music Ensemble with composers Larry Austin, Richard Swift, and Stanley Lunetta. Career Gibson used various instruments from around the world in his performances of jazz and classical music. He was a founding member of the Philip Glass Ensemble, and his mastery of circular breathing techniques made him crucial to the development of Glass’ sound. Glass stated, “To put it bluntly, the music wouldn’t have happened without that.” Gibson performed in the premieres of In C by Terry Riley and Drumming by Steve Reich, as well as Reich’s 1967 composition

Jón Leifs

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Jón Leifs (; born Jón Þorleifsson; 1 May 1899 – 30 July 1968) was an Icelandic composer, pianist, and conductor. Life Jón Leifs was born Jón Þorleifsson, at the farm Sólheimar, then in the Húnavatnssýsla, northwestern Iceland. He left for Germany in 1916 to study at the Leipzig Conservatory. He graduated in 1921 having studied piano with Robert Teichmüller, but decided not to embark on a career as a pianist, devoting his time instead to conducting and composing. During this period he also encountered the legendary pianist-composer Ferruccio Busoni, who urged him to “follow his own path in composition”. In the 1920s Jón Leifs conducted a number of symphony orchestras in Germany, Czechoslovakia, Norway and Denmark, thus becoming the only internationally successful Icelandic conductor to date, including Requiem Op. 33b for mixed choir, perhaps his most celebrated piece. The other works are Torrek Op. 33a, for solo voice and piano, Erfiljóð (In memoriam) Op. 35 for male choir, and the string quartet Vita et mors Op. 36. Jón Leifs composed his last work, Consolation, Intermezzo for string orchestra, as he had only weeks to live. He died of lung cancer in Reykjavík in 1968. Jón Leifs and

Jon Mostad

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Jon Mostad (born 21 April 1942) is a composer from Fredrikstad, Norway. He received the Norwegian state three-year scholarship for artists from 1982 until 1984. Musical style In his early compositions Mostad moves from a linear-expressionist style to a more timbre-oriented line of thinking where both modernist music and romantic music inspire his work. From around 1975 the timbre/harmonic aspect of his music is more related to the harmonic series. During the 1980s and 1990s he combined this with other types of modal and free compositional techniques, sometimes using modal techniques as well as more overtone-oriented harmonic spectra within the same composition. At the same time he was experimenting with untraditional structuring of his material, both in works of one movement and in cyclical works. Many of Mostad’s instrumental works as well as vocal music, are inspired by Judæo-Christian texts which often influence the structuring of the music. For instance, in “And the light shines in darkness”, a massive dark-sounding layer with much rhythmical unrest is gradually introduced to a lighter-sounding chord with notes from the harmonic series. Mostad has written chamber music, solo pi

Jón Nordal

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Jón Nordal (6 March 1926 – 5 December 2024) was an Icelandic composer and pianist. He was considered one of the leading Icelandic composers of his generation, and his orchestral and choral works have been widely performed. Career Nordal was born in Reykjavík, the son of the prominent Icelandic philologist and author Sigurður Nordal and his wife Ólöf Jónsdóttir. He began music studies at a young age, and eventually began studying composition at the Reykjavík College of Music with Victor Urbancic and later with Jón Þórarinsson. He completed his studies there in 1949, with a Concerto for Orchestra that was premiered by the newly-established Iceland Symphony Orchestra in 1950. He continued his studies in Zurich (1949–1951), where he studied with Willy Burkhard (composition) and Walter Frey (piano). He lived for a while in Copenhagen, where his father was the Icelandic ambassador at the time, but returned to Iceland in 1957. In 1959, he became the Dean of the Reykjavík College of Music, a position he held until 1992. In his earlier years, Nordal appeared frequently as piano soloist, giving solo recitals and performing with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Among his early key works is a S

Jon Opstad

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Jon Opstad (born 1983) is a British composer. His work spans music for film and television, contemporary dance, concert music and album projects. He has collaborated with other artists, such as Max Richter. Opstad is classically trained, having studied music at Cambridge University, before graduating with an MA in film composition from the National Film and Television School. In television, Opstad is best known for his scores for dark dramas such as Netflix’s Bodies and Black Mirror. His score with Max Richter for Elisabeth Moss thriller The Veil was acclaimed by IndieWire as one of “The Best TV Scores of 2024”. Opstad’s 2014 contemporary dance score Ignis was nominated for a British Composer Award (since rebranded as Ivors Classical Awards) for “Best Stage Work”. Tracks from Ignis have been used extensively in other productions, with the composition “Ignis IV” featuring in the trailer for Hollywood feature film Ad Astra, a trailer for Amazon Prime series The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, and the drama series The Veil. The track “Ignis I” was featured in the opening episode of Paramount drama series The Man Who Fell To Earth. In 2021, Opstad was featured as an answer to a ques

Jón Þórarinsson

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Jón Þórarinsson (13 September 1917 – 12 February 2012) was an Icelandic composer, teacher, and administrator. He was a leading personality in Icelandic culture in the 20th century, particularly in his positions for the Icelandic National Radio and Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Career Jón Þórarinsson was born in Gilsárteigur, Suður-Múlasýsla in eastern Iceland. He studied at Akureyri Junior College, graduating in 1937. His earliest surviving songs were written during this time, when he studied with the local choir conductor and composer Björgvin Guðmundsson. He moved to Reykjavík in 1937, studying composition and music theory with Franz Mixa and Victor Urbancic at the Reykjavík College of Music. At the same time, he began working at the music division of the National Radio. Jón Þórarinsson received many honors and awards for his compositional and administrative work. He was made a Commander of the Order of the Falcon in 1978, and a Grand Commander (stórriddarakross) in 1989 by the President of Iceland, for his contribution to Icelandic musical culture. He was the author of several books, including a biography of Sveinbjörn Sveinbjörnsson (1969) and a history of Icelandic music (Íslens

Jonas Kullhammar

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Jonas Kullhammar (2 September 1978 in Nacka, Sweden) is a Swedish jazz composer, saxophonist and is one of Sweden’s most established jazz musicians. Career Since 1998 his main group has been Jonas Kullhammar Quartet, and he has participated on over 150 records as a sideman. In year 2000 he released his debut recording, the self-produced “Salut”. It won him Sweden Radio’s Jazz Cat award as the newcomer of the year. He also received the Django D’or award and received the price Sweden Radio’s Jazz Cat as Jazz Musician of The Year in Sweden two years in a row. The group also received the award for jazz group of the year. Since then the band has toured around the world and released more CDs. Jonas is also a founding member of the groups Kullrusk and Nacka Forum. Since 2000 he runs the record label Moserobie, that releases mainly Swedish and Norwegian jazz groups. *2017: Jan Johansson-award Swedish jazz critics “Jazzkatten” awards *2000: Newcomer of the year *2002: Jazz Artist of The Year *2002: Jazz Group Of The Year (Jonas Kullhammar Quartet) *2003: Jazz Artist of The Year Nominations for the Swedish grammy *2002: with Nacka Forum *2003: with JKQ for Plays Loud for The People *2004: wi

Jonatan Sersam

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Jonatan Sersam (born 2 June 1986) is a Swedish composer and pianist. His music has been performed by Malmö Symfoniorkester, Helsingborgs Symfoniorkester, ensemble ICTUS, Schallfeld Ensemble, Ensemble Zeitfluss, Ensemble FontanaMix, Norrköpings Symfoniorkester, Swedish Wind Ensemble, Marco Fusi, Ruído Vermelho, Musica Vitae and the Kreutzer Quartet among others. Sersam was awarded Saltöstftelsens Tonsättarstipendium (The Järnåker Prize) 2023 for his piece Presencia de Sombra for bass viol, cello and soprano Biography Jonatan Sersam was born 1986 in Lövestad, Skåne län. Jonatan Sersam studied composition with Luca Francesconi at the Malmö Academy of Music. Works * Rain Heart Hammer for clarinet quartet, 2024 * l’architettura dell’alveare for harpsichord, 2024 * Kollit - en opera om ett abjekt, opera, 2024. Libretto by Niklas Hansson * …jamais assez tôt… for string quartet and mezzo-soprano, 2023. Text by Molière. * Blue Notes, for alto flute, clarinet and violin, 2023 * Five piano miniatures, for piano, 2023 * Konstruktionen, chamber opera, 2023. Libretto by Niklas Hansson * Beyond Lust, for string trio, narrator, electronics and video, 2022. Video by Anna-Karin Rasmusson * Prese

Jonathan Bar Giora

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Jonathan Bar Giora (; born 8 July 1962) is an Israeli composer and pianist. Since 2000, Bar Giora has composed scores and soundtracks for over 150 Israeli films such as Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi, Time of Favor, A Quiet Heart and Aviva, My Love. He also worked as a composer and music arranger and producer with Israeli artists such as Yossi Banai, Shalom Hanoch, Riki Gal, Miri Mesika and many others. From 2011 until 2015, Bar Giora served as the head of the film music and sound design department at the School of Audio & Visual Arts at Sapir Academic College, where he is now the head of the BFA program. He also teaches at Beit Berl College. His composition style presents diverse influences, from Mizrahi music, Jazz, Classical music, Rock music to Electronic music. He has collaborated with various Israeli musicians, such as Meir Banai, Riki Gal, Haïm Ulliel, Miri Mesika, Yehonatan Geffen, Ninet Tayeb and Ester Rada. Biography Jonathan Bar Giora was born in Jerusalem, Israel, in 1962. When he was 16, he left high school and started playing in local piano bars. All through the 1980s he played jazz and wrote music-related articles for the local press. In 1990 he staged a one-man show I’d be

Jonathan Battishill

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Jonathan Battishill (May 1738 – 10 December 1801) was an English composer, keyboard player, and concert tenor. He began his career as a composer writing theatre music but later devoted himself to working as an organist and composer for the Church of England. He is considered one of the outstanding 18th century English composers of church music and is best remembered today for his seven-part anthem Call to Remembrance, which has long survived in the repertoires of cathedral choirs. Biography Battishill was born in London. Beginning at the age of nine, he sang as a chorister at St. Paul’s Cathedral initially under the direction of composer Charles King. After his voice broke he studied organ, music composition, and singing under William Savage, almoner and master of the choristers. He became a highly skilled organist and was particularly talented at extempore playing; a skill that soon attracted attention and led to his appointment as William Boyce’s deputy at the Chapel Royal. During the mid-1750s he began appearing as a tenor soloist in London concerts. One of his earliest engagements was on 16 March 1756 in a concert of Handel’s Alexander’s Feast at the Great Room, Dean Street, wh

Jonathan Beard

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Jonathan Beard is an American orchestrator and composer for media and the concert stage. His credits include Us, The Handmaid’s Tale, Despicable Me 3, Star Wars: Battlefront II, and Wicked. Beard also works as an educator, and currently teaches at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. Background Beard finished Summerfield Waldorf School in Santa Rosa in 1999. He majored in musical composition at Stanford University, and received a master’s degree from UCLA. Other recent projects include his electroacoustic suite Ritual, his opera Cesare, Child of Night (OPERA UCLA premiere Fall 2021), the film scores to What Still Remains, Heavenquest, and Frank vs. God; and De tu puño y letra, an electronic video-sound collaboration with artist Suzanne Lacy. He has served on the composing teams for video games such as Star Wars: Battlefront I and II, and guest-composed for ABC’s Once Upon a Time. For the stage, Beard co-composed the oratorio The Passion of Anne Frank for the Los Angeles Master Chorale as part of their Voices Within residency, and his original theatre-score for Driving Miss Daisy received an NAACP Theatre Award nomination. As an orchestrator, Beard has collaborated with other compo

Jonathan Bepler

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Jonathan Bepler is an American composer of experimental music perhaps best known for his collaborative work with artists and choreographers, including many years of work with visual artist Matthew Barney. He is also multi-instrumentalist, singer, installation artist, and teacher. Early life and education Bepler was born in Media, Pennsylvania. He was self-taught on many instruments by the time he finished high school. His early interests included folk dance music, ancient and world music, jazz, and improvisation. In 1993 he received and M.F.A from Bennington College in Vermont, where he studied composition with Louis Calabro, Joel Chadabe and Vivian Fine, singing with Frank Baker and Theodor Uppman as well as musical performance with Milford Graves, Bill Dixon und Min Tanaka. In the later period of his studies he directed and sang in productions of Baroque opera such as Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice. He currently resides in Berlin. Career From 1985 to 1996, Bepler was guitarist with the Glenn Branca Ensemble, touring with them through Europe, the United States and Asia. Starting in 1987, his first operas were composed. From 1993, Bepler also dedicated himself to sound installations, as

Jonathan Blewitt

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Jonathan Blewitt (19 July 1782 – 4 September 1853) His father, Jonas Blewitt (died 1805), was a distinguished organist in the late 18th century, author of A Complete Treatise on the Organ, and Ten Voluntaries and Twelve Preludes for the organ. He was educated by his father and his godfather Jonathan Battishill, and he is said to have received some instruction from Joseph Haydn. At the age of eleven he acted as deputy to his father, and subsequently he held several appointments as organist in London. He was also organist at Haverhill, Suffolk, and at Brecon, where he remained for three years. In about 1808 he returned to London for the production of an opera he had written for Drury Lane, but the theatre was burnt down before the work was produced. In 1810 he was appointed organist at Sheffield Cathedral. Ireland In 1811 Blewitt moved to Ireland, where he was a private organist of Lord Cahir. He was appointed organist of St. Andrew’s, Dublin; in 1813 he became composer and director of music at the Theatre Royal. He was appointed by the Duke of Leinster as organist to the Freemasons of Ireland. When J. B. Logier came to Ireland to introduce his system of music teaching, Blewitt joine

Jonathan Dove

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Jonathan Dove (born 18 July 1959) is an English composer of opera, choral works, plays, films, and orchestral and chamber music. He has arranged a number of operas for English Touring Opera and the City of Birmingham Touring Opera (now Birmingham Opera Company), including in 1990 an 18-player two-evening adaptation of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen for CBTO. He was Artistic Director of the Spitalfields Festival from 2001 to 2006. Dove was born in London; both his parents were architects. He studied music at the University of Cambridge, under Robin Holloway, and afterwards worked as a freelance arranger and accompanist until 1987, when he was employed by Glyndebourne Opera. In 1998 Dove was joint winner of the Christopher Whelen Award for his work in the fields of theatre music and opera. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2019 Birthday Honours for services to music. In 2024 Dove’s opera Itch received an Ivor Novello Award nomination for Best Stage Work Composition at The Ivors Classical Awards. In November 2025 Dove won an Ivor Novello Award for Best Community and Participation Composition for his opera Uprising. Productions Productions of

Jonathan Geer

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Jonathan Geer is an American video game music composer and musician. He has composed for a number of video games, including for Core Keeper, The Franz Kafka Videogame and Owlboy. Life and career Jonathan Geer was born in Austin, Texas and grew up there. In 2001 he obtained a BA in Film Scoring from Berklee College of Music in Boston. After graduating, Geer spent several years teaching lots of private piano lessons and working as a church musician. He later began writing music for music libraries. His music is used on TV shows, films and documentaries. Works * The Oil Blue (2010) * Grim Joggers (2011) * Azkend 2: The World Beneath (2012) * Cook, Serve, Delicious! (2012) * King Oddball (2012) * Neon Chrome (2016) * Owlboy (2016) * Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2 (2017) * The Franz Kafka Videogame (2017) * Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3 (2020) * Core Keeper (2022) * Cook Serve Forever (2025) Awards References External links * *

Jonathan Goldsmith (musician)

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Jonathan (Jon) Goldsmith is a Canadian musician, arranger, producer, and composer. Best known as a composer of film and television scores, he has also been associated with various projects as a musician, including Nick Buzz and the Art of Time Ensemble, and production of albums by artists including Bruce Cockburn, Jane Siberry, Martin Tielli, Hugh Marsh, Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, and Sarah Slean. Career In 1992, Goldsmith, along with Hugh Marsh, Martin Tielli and Rob Piltch, provided backup for a track on the album Back to the Garden; these four later formed the band Nick Buzz and produced two albums and an EP. Goldsmith played piano in the group. For his work as a composer Goldsmith won four Gemini Awards, for his work on Pit Pony, Dead Silence, Trudeau II: Maverick in the Making and The Nativity, a Canadian Screen Award for Titanic, and a BAFTA Award for Sex Traffic. He has also received nine other Gemini Award nominations, and four Genie Award nominations for Best Original Score. His other film and television credits include Global Heresy, Such a Long Journey, Scorn, Away from Her, October 1970, Take This Waltz, Rare Birds, Visiting Hours, Casino Jack, Compulsion, Lost Souls, Ab

Jonathan Goldstein (composer)

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Jonathan Goldstein (27 September 1968 – 25 August 2019) was an English music composer for film, television, advertising, theatre, and live events. His work encompassed a range of contemporary classical styles with orchestral, jazz, electro-acoustic, and world influences. Early life and education Goldstein’s father was an orchestra conductor and composer in London’s West End. Following in his father’s footsteps, Goldstein began composing in school and studied music at the University of Birmingham. In 2013, his Magical Moments reached No.1 in the Official UK Classical Charts, where it stayed for three weeks over Christmas, ahead of J. S. Bach. Film music In his early career, Goldstein assisted the film music orchestrator Christopher Palmer, on the soundtrack orchestrations for Cape Fear, directed by Martin Scorsese and re-recordings of classic film scores including Bernard Herrmann’s music for Scorsese’s Taxi Driver performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Elmer Bernstein. He subsequently scored several short films including the BAFTA-nominated Candy Bar Kid which was screened at more than 100 festivals worldwide, and the BAFTA-nominated Sunny Spells, winner of an

Jonathan Harvey (composer)

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Jonathan Dean Harvey (3 May 1939 – 4 December 2012) was a British composer. He held teaching positions at universities and music conservatories in Europe and the United States. Life Harvey was born in Sutton Coldfield, and studied at St John’s College, Cambridge, eventually obtaining a PhD. He also took private lessons with Erwin Stein and Hans Keller on the advice of Benjamin Britten. In 1969, he took up a Harkness Fellowship at Princeton University. In the 1980s, Harvey produced music at IRCAM after receiving an invitation from Pierre Boulez to work there. IRCAM is known for speech analysis and in this piece, special technology was developed to allow the analysis of speech to be realized in an orchestral context, using complex algorithms which can process multiple combinations possible in an orchestra setting. The program Orchidée computed such analyses and provided orchestrations for the composer. From 2005 to 2008, Harvey held the post of Composer in Association with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. In 2009, he was Composer in Residence at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. He died, aged 73, in Lewes, from motor neuron disease. Speakings received six votes in a 2

Jonathan Kramer

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Jonathan Donald Kramer (December 7, 1942, Hartford, Connecticut – June 3, 2004, New York City) was an American composer and music theorist. Biography Kramer received his B.A. magna cum laude from Harvard University (1965) and his MA and PhD in music from the University of California, Berkeley (1967 and 1969). His composition teachers included Karlheinz Stockhausen, Roger Sessions, Leon Kirchner, Seymour Shifrin, Andrew Imbrie, Richard Felciano, Jean-Claude Éloy, Billy Jim Layton, Edwin Dugger, and Arnold Franchetti. He studied theory with David Lewin, criticism with Joseph Kerman, and computer music with John Chowning. Kramer was professor of composition and theory at Columbia University from 1988 until his death in 2004. He also taught at the Oberlin Conservatory, Yale University, and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He held visiting appointments at Wesleyan University, King’s College London, the Canberra School of Music, the School of Music at the University of Western Australia, the Rockefeller Study Center in Bellagio (Italy), the Center for New Music and Technology (Berkeley), May in Miami, the ISCM Summer Workshop for Composers (Poland), and the Eur

Jonathan Leshnoff

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Jonathan Leshnoff (born September 8, 1973) is an American classical music composer. Early life and education Jonathan Leshnoff was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey to Susan and Steven Leshnoff; his mother was an artist, and his father an engineer. For his undergraduate studies, Leshnoff attended Johns Hopkins University and Peabody Conservatory concurrently, earning bachelor’s degrees in Anthropology and Music Composition, respectively. He went on to receive a Master’s of Music from Peabody, then received his Doctorate of Music from the University of Maryland. Leshnoff was raised observing Conservative Judaism. During his student years at Johns Hopkins, he delved deeper into his beliefs and began to practice Orthodox Judaism. Career Leshnoff lives in Baltimore, Maryland, where he composes and is a professor of music at Towson University. He has composed scores of works, including four string quartets, four oratorios, twelve concerti, and four symphonies. His compositions have been performed by more than eighty orchestras worldwide including the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony, Nashville Symphony Orchestra, P

Jonathan Little (composer)

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Jonathan David Little FCLM, FISM, FRSA (born 1965 in Melbourne, Australia) is an Australian contemporary classical composer, arts educator and author on cultural history based in the UK and Australia. In 2008, his first CD was voted one of the top recordings of the year by US Fanfare magazine (“The Want List 2008”). He was subsequently featured in a news article in Musical Opinion in early 2009. As a composer, he first came to prominence in America in 2006 when The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) ran an article on him having five of his works accepted for recording (2004–07) by the US-headquartered French contemporary music label ERM (Editions de la Rue Margot), aimed at showcasing international contemporary composers. He was awarded the Collard Fellowship of the Worshipful Company of Musicians in 2011, and in 2012 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He was appointed inaugural Professor of Composition and Music History at the University of Chichester in 2017, and Emeritus Professor from 2019. Music and background He studied composition, Performance and Musicology with Peter Dennison at the University of Melbourne, where he won the Lady T

Jonathan Lloyd (composer)

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

Jonathan Lloyd (30 September 1948 – 31 July 2025) was a British composer. Life and career Lloyd’s early teachers included Emile Spira. He continued his studies at the Royal College of Music where he was a recipient of the Mendelssohn Scholarship. His orchestral work Cantique, which he wrote whilst at the RCM, was featured in the 30-year retrospective of the Society for the Promotion of New Music (SPNM) in 1973. He continued to study composition with John Lambert and Edwin Roxburgh as well as Henri Pousseur in Durham. In 1973, Lloyd attended the Tanglewood Music Center in the US, where he studied with György Ligeti and where he won the Koussevitsky Prize for his work Scattered Ruins. In 1978-1979, he was composer-in-residence at the Dartington College of Arts in its theatre department. In 1986 he collaborated with the music critic Michael White on a large-scale community opera, The Adjudicator, for the village of Blewbury, Oxon. Lloyd died on 31 July 2025 at the age of 76. Selected compositions Chamber ensembles * Airs and Graces * Almeida Dances * Ballad for the Evening of a Man * Ben’s Boogie * Brass Quintet * Dancing in the Ruins * Don’t mention the War * The Five Senses * ‘Go Bl

Jonathan Manalo

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Jonathan Suarez Manalo (born November 26, 1978) is a Filipino songwriter and record producer. He is currently the creative director of ABS-CBN Music, having composed numerous compositions for ABS-CBN programs. His compositions for various artists have earned him 75 multi-platinum and 100 gold certifications At age 13, he finished his first full composition entitled Aming Panginoon (Our Lord). This song was chosen as one of the ten finalists in a songfest and was included in the compilation album Ikapitong Salmo (The Seventh Psalm). He was also mentored by Jungee Marcelo, a gospel songwriter who competed in songwriting festivals. Mainstream breakthrough Manalo made his first significant break in the Philippine music industry with ABS-CBN’s Himig Handog sa Makabagong Kabataan contest, which was open to amateurs and professionals alike. He won the grand prize with the winning composition, “Tara Tena”, a song that centered around inspiring the youth to do more for their country, and was interpreted by Kyla, Kaya, and V3. Dubbed then as the “anthem of the youth” by the Filipino politician Loren Legarda, it was used as a theme song for an eponymous TV series that catered to a younger aud

Jonathan Mills (composer)

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

Sir Jonathan Mills (born 21 March 1963) is an Australian composer and festival director. He was born and raised in Sydney and has dual Australian and UK citizenship. His work includes operas, an oratorio, a ballet, song cycles, concertos, and chamber music. He has directed a number of arts festivals in Australia, and from 2006 to 2014 he was director of the Edinburgh International Festival. Biography Jonathan Edward Harland Mills was born in Sydney on 21 March 1963. He has Scottish roots, his maternal grandfather having been a Scot from Partick. His father Frank Harland Mills was a heart surgeon. He studied under Peter Sculthorpe. Mills was a research fellow and composer-in-residence at RMIT University, Melbourne, between 1992 and 1997. He graduated as Master of Architecture at RMIT in 1999, focusing on acoustic design and the role of sound in the built environment. In 2001 he wrote Sandakan Threnody, an oratorio for tenor, choir, and orchestra. It is based on the real-life story of the 2,345 Australian and British prisoners of war who in 1945 were sent on a series of death marches from the Japanese camp in Sandakan, Borneo – only six would survive. It was revised and premiered as

Jonathan Pitkin

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

Jonathan Pitkin (born 1978) is a contemporary classical composer and lecturer. Pitkin was born in Dublin but grew up in Edinburgh. He studied at Christ Church, Oxford and at the Royal Academy of Music under Christopher Brown, where he was the recipient of several prizes and awards. His music has been commissioned and performed internationally. In 1998 he attended Karlheinz Stockhausen’s inaugural composition course in Kürten, Germany, and in 2000 spent three months at the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied with Guy Reibel as well as following courses in orchestration and electro-acoustic composition. In 2001 he was awarded the Temple Church Composition Prize for his anthem Hark! a herald voice is calling and was shortlisted by the Society for the Promotion of New Music. Three of his works were broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2004, including the orchestral piece Borrowed Time. Pitkin was awarded a DMus in composition by the Royal College of Music in 2009, having received support from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. He has written for the proceedings of NIME and the ICICI Bank, and contributed to The Encyclopedia of Music in the Social and Behavioral Sciences (2014) and The

Jonathan Price

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

Jonathan Price was an American composer who is best known for his film scores to Ouija House and Necrosis, and for the opera ÆSOPERA. He died in January 2022 from glioblastoma multiforme, which is an inoperable brain tumor. Film *Sammyville, Creative Light Entertainment (1999) *Vampire Night, Cinematrix (2000) *Rustin, Showtime (2001) *Cyber Wars, New Line (2004) *Necrosis, American World Pictures (2009) *Girl Meets Boy, Screen Media Films (2013) *Inoperable, ITN (2017) *Ouija House, ITN (2018) *Clown Motel, ITN (2019) Television *American Dragon: Jake Long, Disney Channel, song “Hubba Hubba Hula” (lyrics by Jeff Goode) (2005) Opera *The Lion & the Wood Nymph (libretto by the composer), American Fork, VocalWorks (2007) *The Queen & the Dragon (libretto by Jan Michael Alejandro and the composer), North Hollywood, Secret Rose Theatre (2009) *The Gift of the Magi (libretto by Jan Michael Alejandro and the composer after the eponymous short story by O. Henry), North Hollywood, Secret Rose Theatre (2009) *ÆSOPERA (libretti by Jeff Goode, Jan Michael Alejandro, and the composer), Hollywood, SCLT (2013) Musicals *Escape From Eldorado (book & co-lyrics by Jeff Goode), Bar Harbor, The Unusu

Jonathan Russell (composer)

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Jonathan Russell (born 1979) is an American composer of classical music, clarinetist, and bass clarinetist. Russell was the founder of the Switchboard Music Festival, which will hold its 10th anniversary in the summer of 2018. His primary teachers have included Paul Lansky, Barbara White, Steve Mackey, Elinor Armer, and Eric Ewazen. Career Composer Russell has been commissioned by, worked with, and written for ensembles including the San Francisco Symphony, Prism Quartet, Symphony Number One, Empyrian Ensemble, Wild Rumpus, Woodstock Chamber Orchestra, and the JACK Quartet. The Imani Winds has a long-term relationship with Mr. Russell through the wind quintets Legacy Commissioning Project, which has led to three large scale arrangements of orchestral works for woodwind quintet. Clarinet and bass clarinet Soloist Russell frequently solos as a bass clarinetist, performing his own and other works. Among his own works, he premiered his Sonata for Bass Clarinet and Piano with pianist Kate Campbell which Campbell herself commissioned. Russell’s performance of Debussy’s Premiere Rhapsody was noted for giving, “increasing energy, leading to a smashingly tangy conclusion from a lurking open

JonFX

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

John Alexander Crawford (born May 31, 1983), professionally known as JonFX, is a music producer from St. Andrews, Jamaica. He has worked with dancehall and reggae artists Shabba Ranks, I Wayne, Vybz Kartel, Gyptian and Akon, as well as late rapper XXXTentacion. In June 2018, he was appointed as a governor on the board of the Florida Grammy Chapter. In November 2018, Arms Around You, a song produced by JonFX, entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 28; Streaming Songs Chart at number 18; R&B Streaming Songs Chart at number one; and Digital Sales Chart at number 18. He produced Sizzla Kalonji’s I’m Yours, which made to the Billboard Reggae chart and Billboard Heatseeker’s chart at No. 3 and No. 4. Career JonFX produced Gyptian’s Hold Yuh and an album of the same name in 2010. In 2017, he produced Sizzla’s I’m Yours, which entered both the Billboard Reggae chart and Billboard Heatseeker’s chart at No. 3 and No. 4. He currently serves as a governor on the board of the Florida Grammy Chapter. * Genre: Reggae 186 34 6 2 - 2014 Germination – Sade Serena * Released: May 3, 2014 * Label: Uprize Music * Genre: R&B / Pop / Dance – – 2 – - 1997–present See also * List of Jamaican record produc

Jonny Heykens

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Jonny Heykens, Johannes Jacobus Heijkens (24 September 1884 – 28 June 1945) was a Dutch composer of light classical music, best known for his jaunty Ständchen (Serenade) No.1 Opus 21. Heykens was born at Groningen, Netherlands. He was taught violin by Eugène Ysaÿe at the Brussels Conservatory. He played in various orchestras before founding his own orchestra in Groningen in 1914. After the First World War, he toured Europe and achieved immense popularity, especially in Germany. Heykens composed pieces for his orchestra, in addition to songs and musical comedies. His records sold widely. In the Second World War, he continued touring throughout Europe. He joined the NSB, the fascist National Socialist Party of the Netherlands. He expressed racist opinions about Jews and black people and he performed at the parties of important Nazi officials. Resistance groups broadcast his famous tune with words: Sells his people and homeland for six loose cents. After the war, Heykens was arrested as a suspected collaborator. He died in prison in Hilversum several weeks later. In Japan the Serenade became a popular song, and so it was selected in 1943 by NHK, The Broadcasting Corporation of Japan a

Joonas Kokkonen

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Joonas Kokkonen (; 13 November 1921 – 2 October 1996) was a Finnish composer. He was one of the most internationally famous Finnish composers of the 20th century after Sibelius; his opera The Last Temptations has received over 500 performances worldwide, and is considered by many to be Finland’s most distinguished national opera. Life Kokkonen was born in Iisalmi, Finland, but spent the latter part of his life in Järvenpää at his home, which was known as Villa Kokkonen, designed by architect Alvar Aalto and completed in 1969. He served in the Finnish army during World War II with great distinction. He received his education at the University of Helsinki, and later at the Sibelius Academy, where he afterwards taught composition; his students there included Aulis Sallinen. In addition to his activities as a composer, he made a significant and powerful impact on Finnish cultural life, serving as a chairman and organizer, heading organizations such as Society of Finnish Composers, the Board of the Concert Centre, and others. His purpose was always to improve music education, as well as the status and appreciation of classical music as well as Finnish music. In the 1960s and early 1970s

Jordan Woods-Robinson

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Jordan Woods-Robinson is an American actor, musician and composer, He is best known for his portrayal of Eric Raleigh in The Walking Dead series. He has also appeared in Magic City and Drop Dead Diva. Early life and education Woods-Robinson was born and raised in the city of Bybee, Tennessee on an animal rescue farm. He moved to New York City and graduated from the NYU’s Tisch School of Arts. Career A few weeks after graduation, Jordan auditioned for and was cast in Blue Man Group as a Blue Man. He spent 13 years performing as a Blue Man in New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, Orlando, Boston, and on the Norwegian Epic cruise ship traveling between the Eastern and Western Caribbean ports and even a Mediterranean cruise. While in Orlando, Jordan began his Film and TV career and has appeared in popular productions such as The Walking Dead, Homeland, Nashville, The Hunger Games, Army Wives, and many other on-screen roles opposite some of Hollywood’s A-Listers including Sir Anthony Hopkins and Colin Farell. Jordan now lives just outside Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife and 2 children. Filmography Film Television Discography *2015 - Red Haired Boy *2016 - Anthem References External links *

Jordi Savall

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Jordi Savall i Bernadet (; born 1 August 1941) is a Spanish conductor, composer and viol player. He has been one of the major figures in the field of Western early music since the 1970s, largely responsible for popularizing the viol family of instruments (notably the viola da gamba) in contemporary performance and recording. As a historian of early music his repertoire features everything from medieval, Renaissance and Baroque through to the Classical and Romantic periods. He has incorporated non-western musical traditions in his work including African vernacular music for a documentary on slavery. Musical education His musical training started at age six in the school choir of his native Igualada (1947–55). After graduating from the Barcelona’s Conservatory of Music (where he studied from 1959 to 1965) he specialized in early music, collaborating with Ars Musicae de Barcelona under Enric Gispert, studying with August Wenzinger at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland (1968–70) and eventually succeeding Wenzinger in 1974 as professor of viola da gamba at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. Ensembles In 1974 he formed the ensemble Hespèrion XX (known since 2000 as Hespè

Jörg Demus

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Jörg Wolfgang Demus (2 December 1928 – 16 April 2019) was an Austrian classical pianist who appeared internationally and made many recordings. He was also a composer and a lecturer at music academies. In composition and playing, he focused on chamber music and lieder. He played with singers such as Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, as a piano duo with Paul Badura-Skoda, and with string players such as Josef Suk and Antonio Janigro. Demus was instrumental in bringing the historic fortepiano to concert podiums. He was a member of the Legion of Honour, among many awards. He is regarded as one of the leading Austrian pianists of the immediate post-World War II era. Early life and education Demus was born in St. Pölten; his father was the art historian Otto Demus, and his mother was a concert violinist. His playing of Bach’s works showed their structure as well as melodic lines. He favoured Schumann’s music, revealing a high degree of playful levity besides romantic expressiveness. His playing of Debussy’s music stands out in Klangsinn, a sense for a colourful impressionist sound world. He recorded several of his own compositions with cellist Maria Kliegel, including P

Jörg Duda

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

Jörg Duda (born 17 December 1968) is a German composer of classical music. Life and career Born in Munich, Duda was influenced by the church music of Scheyern Abbey. He took lessons in organ and improvisation with Harald Feller, in theory and composition with Dieter Acker. From 1988 to 1992 he studied church music at the Musikhochschule München. He studied choral conducting with Roderich Kreile and was a member in his choir Junge Kantorei München. He played organ concerts and worked as a Korrepetitor for the choir of the Bayerischer Rundfunk and the Philharmonischer Chor München. From 1992 Duda studied composition with Peter Kiesewetter at the Musikhochschule Hannover and continued with Dieter Acker in Munich, completing the “Meisterklasse” in 1997. From 1998 to 2022 Duda was Kantor of St Emmeram in Geisenfeld. He taught at times music theory at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg. Duda co-founded the and the piano quintet . In 2007 he was awarded the (culture award) of Geisenfeld. His motet Friede über Israel was commissioned and recorded in 2000 by Roderich Kreile and the Dresdner Kreuzchor. Duda composed four Finnish Quartets, each for a woodwind instrument and a string trio. T

Jörg Ewald Dähler

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Jörg Ewald Dähler (16 March 1933 – 3 November 2018), was a Swiss conductor, harpsichordist, fortepiano player and composer. Life Born in Bern, Dähler, son of the reformed pastor Karl Walter Dähler (1903–1986), grew up in Langnau im Emmental. He then attended the teacher training college in Hofwil. At the Hochschule für Musik in Bern, he graduated as a teacher of piano and then studied harpsichord at the Musikhochschule in Freiburg im Breisgau. He taught basso continuo, chamber music, and choral conducting at the Berne Conservatory of Music and at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. His pupils included Olive Emil Wetter and Hans Eugen Frischknecht. From 1965 to 1998, he conducted concerts in Bern, at the Bätterkinden Gasthof Krone and the Hindelbank castle, and from 1974 onwards, the Bern Chamber Choir. He also practised drawing. He illustrated two collections of short stories by his father, written in the Bern dialect of German: “Momou das git’s” (Langnau im Emmental, 1983 ) and Ou das het’s ggä (idem, 1986). Works * Das Passionsgeschehen nach dem Evangelisten Lukas (The Passion event according to Luke the Evangelist). For 8-voice mixed choir, narrator, trombone quartet, and organ. 19

Jörg Herchet

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Jörg Herchet (born 20 September 1943) is a German composer. Life Born in Dresden, Herchet grew up as the son of a driver and a worker in modest circumstances. As a pupil he received recorder and cello lessons, later piano and singing lessons. Already at that time he composed his first smaller compositions. From 1962 to 1965 he studied musical composition at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden with Johannes Paul Thilman and Manfred Weiss, cello with Clemens Dillner and piano with Ilse Brähmer. The use of a Franz Kafka text in his composition Interfragmentarium zum werke von franz k. für klavier und alt led to distortions with the Hochschule, whereupon Herchet continued his composition studies at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” in East-Berlin with Rudolf Wagner-Régeny from 1967 to 1969. His diploma thesis on The importance of music-theoretical writings by Schönberg and Hindemith for the development of a compositional theory was rejected on the grounds that a compositional theory “must lead to Hanns Eisler and not to Pierre Boulez”. He also studied musicology (among others with Georg Knepler) at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. After Herchet first worke

Jörg Widmann

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Jörg Widmann (; born 19 June 1973) is a German composer, conductor and clarinetist. In 2023, Widmann was the third most performed living contemporary composer in the world. Formerly a clarinet and composition professor at the University of Music Freiburg, he holds a composition professorship at the Barenboim–Said Akademie Berlin. His most important compositions are the concert overture Con brio, the opera Babylon, an oratorio Arche, Viola Concerto, Friedenskantate and the trumpet concerto Towards Paradise. Widmann has written musical tributes to Classical and Romantic composers. He was awarded the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art in 2018 and the Bach Prize of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg in 2023. He was Gewandhaus composer of the Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig and composer in residence for the Berlin Philharmonic. Early life and education Widmann was born on 19 June 1973 in Munich, the son of a physicist and a teacher. His sister is the German classical violinist Carolin Widmann. He first took clarinet lessons in 1980. Four years later he became a composition student of Kay Westermann. Widmann attended the secondary school in Munich. He later studied compositio

Jorge Antunes (composer)

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Jorge de Freitas Antunes (born 23 April 1942) is a Brazilian avant-garde composer of electroacoustic and acousmatic music. He is known as the man who pioneered electronic music in Brazil. Born in Rio de Janeiro, Antunes entered the Escola de Música da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro in 1959 where he studied violin. He went on to earn Master of Music degrees in both violin and composition from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and a Doctor of Music in electroacoustic music from the University of Paris (1977). Biography In 1973, Antunes became a professor at the University of Brasília. He directs the Laboratory of Electroacoustic Music and teaches Composition and Musical Acoustics. Selected works Opera * Contato (1968) * Vivaldia MCMLXXV, chamber opera buffa (1975) * Qorpo Santo, opera in three acts (1983) * O rei de uma nota só (The Single-tone King), mini-opera in four scenes (1991) * A borboleta azul (The Blue Butterfly), mini-opera in two acts (1995) * Olga (composed 1987–97, premiered 2006) Chamber music * Mascaruncho for two violas (1977) * Microformóbiles I for viola and piano (1970) * Modinha para Mindinha (Tune for Mindinha) for seven violas (1985) Discography

Jorge Arriagada

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Jorge Arriagada (20 August 1943 – 8 October 2024) was a French-Chilean composer residing in France. Specializing in film music, he is best known for his longstanding collaboration with director Raúl Ruiz. Life and career Arriagada studied composition and orchestral conducting at the National Conservatory of Music in Santiago. Later, he received a four-year scholarship from the French government, allowing him to study in Paris with Max Deutsch, a student and friend of the Austrian composer and theorist Arnold Schönberg. He also studied with Pierre Schaeffer, Olivier Messiaen, and Pierre Boulez. In 1972, the Guggenheim Foundation in New York awarded Arriagada a scholarship for his contributions to the field of electronic music at Stanford University in California, USA. During the same period, he served as a professor of music composition for French government scholarship recipients. From 1977, he worked primarily in the film industry, composing music for over 160 films for about thirty directors, including Olivier Assayas, Patricio Guzmán, Benoît Jacquot, Orson Welles, and Barbet Schroeder, as well as 46 films directed by Ruiz. His film scores often encompass symphonic music, as well

Jorge Calandrelli

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Jorge Calandrelli (December 31, 1939 – May 4, 2026) was an Argentine composer, arranger, and conductor known for his work with Barbra Streisand, Celine Dion, Arturo Sandoval, Yo-Yo Ma, Tony Bennett, Elton John, Lady Gaga, and John Legend. He won 6 Grammy Awards and received 28 nominations. Calandrelli was nominated twice for an Academy Award for his work on The Color Purple and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Life and career Calandrelli’s mother was a skilled pianist. Both his father and grandfather were medical doctors and expected him to follow their path. At age 4, Calandrelli started playing the piano by ear and took lessons at age 8. In his late teens, with both of his parents’ support, Calandrelli traveled to Europe to pursue a career in music. He arrived in Los Angeles in 1968 and collaborated with composer and arranger Clare Fischer. Inspired by him, Calandrelli decided to go back to Argentina and continue honing his skills. He later returned to the United States with recommendation letters from the record labels he had worked with in Argentina. He recorded Russian-American conductor Andre Kostelanetz and a 65-piece orchestra at CBS’ studio in New York. Calandrelli started

Jorge Liderman

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Jorge Mario Liderman (November 16, 1957 – February 3, 2008) was an Argentine and American composer. He was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003 to partially fund a new work for Duo46 titled Aires de Sefarad: 46 Spanish Songs for Violin and Guitar. Jorge went on to compose a second set of 46 songs for Duo46 titled Aires de Sefarad II shortly before his death in 2008. He taught composition at the University of California, Berkeley. Life Jorge Liderman was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1957. He studied at the Rubin School of Music in Jerusalem and earned a doctorate in composition from the University of Chicago in 1988. He joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, in 1989. He died February 3, 2008, in an apparent suicide, struck by an incoming train at the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station in El Cerrito. Selected works Orchestral *Shir Eres (1984) *Song of Songs (2001), cantata for soprano, tenor, female chorus & chamber orchestra *Open Strings for guitar orchestra & electric bass Operatic *Antigona Furiosa (1991), libretto by the composer after the drama by Griselda Gambaro, performed at the third Munich Biennale Chamber *Aires de Sefarad (2004) - 4

Jorge Martín (composer)

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Jorge Martín (born 1959) is an American composer. Early life and studies Jorge Martín was born in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba, and established his residence in the United States at an early age. He studied at Yale University and at Columbia University, where he earned a Master of Music and a Doctor of Music in composition. The Fort Worth Opera released a recording of the opera on Albany Records. Albany also released another recording of Martin’s compositions entitled Cello Music in 2012. Other compositions include “Beast and Superbeast”, a set of four one-act operas based on short stories by Saki; a Saxophone Quartet and Four Dances for Bassoon and String Quartet, which had its world premiere in Finland in July 1997. Awards In 2005, Martín received a fellowship award from the Bogliasco Foundation in Genoa. He is also the recipient of an American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Academy Award in Music, an ASCAP Standard Music Award, an artist’s residency at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs in 1993, Cintas for music in 1999 and a CINTAS Foundation “Brandon Fradd Fellowship in music composition” in 2011. His one-act opera Tobermory won first prize in 1993 in the National Opera Association’s Fifth Bie

Jorge Peixinho

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Jorge Manuel Marques Peixinho Rosado (born 20 January 1940 — 30 June 1995) was a Portuguese composer, pianist and conductor. Life and career Born in Montijo, Portugal, Peixinho studied composition and piano at the Conservatory of Lisbon from 1951 through 1958. At that institution he was a pupil of Artur Santos and Jorge Croner de Vasconcelos. He then pursued graduate studies in music composition at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome where he was mentored in composition by Boris Porena and Goffredo Petrassi; graduating in 1961. In 1960 he worked with Luigi Nono in Venice, and with Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen at the City of Basel Music Academy. From 1960 through 1970 he was a participant in the Darmstädter Ferienkurse, as both student and lecturer. He began teaching courses in contemporary music in 1962 at the Lisbon Conservatory, and at other institutions in Portugal and South America. In 1970, he created the Lisbon Contemporary Music Group with Clotilde Rosa, and worked at the IPEM studio in Ghent from 1972 to 1973. He died in Lisbon, Portugal on June 30, 1995. Works (selective list) *Tríptico, for voices / soli, choirs, and various instrumental ensembles

Jorge Peña Hen

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Jorge Washington Peña Hen (January 16, 1928 – October 16, 1973) was a Chilean composer and musician, founder of the first children’s symphony orchestra in Latin America. Due to his militancy in the Socialist Party, he was shot by the Chilean Army during the passage of the Caravan of Death in the Coquimbo Region. Works His children’s opera La Cenicienta was composed in 1966. It was restaged in 2004 by Fondazione Teatro La Fenice, and in 2005 by University of Chile’s Theatre in Santiago Chile. Early life He was the son of Tomás Peña Fernández, doctor, mayor, councilor, socialist social actor and politician, and Vitalia Hen Muñoz. On his paternal side, he was a descendant of Tomás Peña, a hero of the La Serena Artisan Society and of revolutionary regionalism, and of José Antonio Peña, commander of the Huasquina Legion who fought in the army of Pedro León Gallo and died in the Battle of The Parrots during 1859 revolution. He was the eldest of three brothers made up of Silvia and Rubén. From an early age he demonstrated leadership qualities, as a student leader, as well as his talent as a born composer and creator, writing his first piece of music at the age of fourteen. At the age of 1

Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann

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Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann (1973) is a Peruvian composer, naturalized Brazilian, who currently resides in the United States. Biography Born in Lima, he began musical studies at the age of six, continuing to study the violin with Luis Fiestas and Veronique Daverio. In 1989, he and his family fled Peru for Brazil during the rise of the Maoist Shining Path. In Brazil, he continued musical studies at Faculdade Santa Marcelina with Alberto Jaffe (a student of Max Rostal) and Ayrton Pinto (a former member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra). In 1998, he moved to the USA where he obtained a master’s degree at Florida International University as a student of Fredrick Kaufman and, in 2004 he graduated with a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Boston University as a student of John Harbison and Lukas Foss His music has been performed world-wide by ensembles such as the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, Peruvian National Symphony, New England Philharmonic, Aspen Sinfonia, Orquesta Uninorte (Paraguay), Kyiv Camerata, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Klangforum Wien, Boston Musica Viva, Da Capo Chamber Players, Seattle Chamber Players, Pierrot Lunaire Ensemble Wien, Ta

Jörgen Dafgård

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Jörgen Dafgård (born 27 November 1964 in Gothenburg) is a Swedish composer. He gained international repute in connection with the 2003 Masterprize competition, in which his orchestral work Veils reached the top ten. His compositions have been broadcast on NPR and Classic FM (UK) as well as Scandinavian radio stations such as NRK and Sveriges Radio P2. Dafgård studied composition with Anders Nilsson and Johan Hammerth and later at the Malmö Music Academy with Hans Gefors, Javier Alvarez, Hans Abrahamsen and Kent Olofsson. * Veils for orchestra (1995/2005) * For the Sleeping – Dream Sonata (1997–1998), for viola and tape. * String Quartet I (1993–1998) * Mosaïque Vibrante for orchestra (1999–2000) * Den gömda musiken for choir, organ and percussion (1999–2000, text: Östen Sjöstrand) * Wind Quintet (2001–2002) * Sinfonia No. 1 for orchestra (2003–2004) * Mosaïque Vibrante (2010) * Eclipse (Concerto, Violin) (2018) References External links * Jörgen Dafgård’s homepage * Jörgen Dafgård on Soundcloud

Joris Vanvinckenroye

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Joris Vanvinckenroye (born 1977), also known by his solo moniker BASta!, is a Flemish avant-rock and experimental double bass musician and composer. He is best known for Aranis, a neo-classical chamber rock group he founded and leads, and for his double bass solo project, BASta!. Vanvinckenroye has performed in Europe and the United States, and recorded seven albums with Aranis. As BASta!, he released a solo album, Cycles, which a review at AllMusic described as “a fabulous showcase for the talents of Joris Vanvinckenroye”. Biography Joris Vanvinckenroye began studying contrabass when he was 16 at the Music Academy of Lier in Belgium. He won Belgium’s Axion Classics award in 2000, and continued his studies at the Royal Flemish Conservatoire in Antwerp, where he obtained a master’s degree in double bass in 2005. Vanvinckenroye also obtained a secondary school teacher diploma in 2000 in physics, geography and mathematics. In 1994, while still studying, Vanvinckenroye co-founded Troissoeur, an electronic group, who toured Europe into the early 2000s, and released two CDs. In 2002 Vanvinckenroye founded and led Aranis, an acoustic avant-rock, experimental and neo-classical chamber musi

Jörn Arnecke

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Jörn Arnecke (born 1973, in Hameln) is a German composer. Arnecke is the professor of music theory, aural training, and historical music theory at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt, Weimar. Life Arnecke studied composition and musical theory in Hamburg, Germany, at the Academy for Music and Theatre (Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg) under Volkhardt Preuß and Peter Michael Hamel. In 1997/98, during his study, he was a student of Gérard Grisey at the Conservatoire National Superieur in Paris. Arnecke graduated in 2000 and since 2001 he has been part-time professor at the music academy in Hamburg. 2004 he was given a scholarship by the Bundeskünstlerförderung (federal artist support) for the Deutsches Studienzentrum in Venice and in 2007 one for Casa Baldi near Rome. During his studies and later on he has won many prizes, for example the Preis des Landesverbandes Sachen des Deutschen Tonträgerverbandes in 1999. Major works Opera * Ariadne (1999) : opera scene, recited poems: Paul Heyse, Adelbert von Chamisso & Joseph von Eichendorff, written for the Munich Biennale, dedicated to Peter Michael Hamel * Le Nozze di Figaro (1999) : Opera by W. A. Mozart, arrangement for 12 inst

Jórunn Viðar

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Jórunn Viðar (7 December 1918 – 27 February 2017) was an Icelandic pianist and composer. She was the first classically trained female composer in Iceland and her music is frequently inspired by Icelandic folk songs and folklore. Biography Jórunn Viðar was born and grew up in Reykjavík, Iceland. In 1937 she graduated from Reykjavík Grammar School, and the same year travelled to Germany to study piano for two years at the Music Academy in Berlin. She returned to Iceland and married Lárus Fjeldsted (1918–1985), and began to study composition with Victor Urbancic, an Austrian musician who was living in exile in Reykjavík. In 1943, Jórunn’s husband was diagnosed with acute lymphoma and was treated with radiation at a hospital in Baltimore. Once he had recovered, Jórunn joined him in New York City where they lived until December 1945. There, she studied composition with Vittorio Giannini at the Juilliard School of Music and took private piano lessons with the Polish pianist and pedagogue Helena Morsztyn. In 1943–1945 Jórunn worked on an opera in collaboration with her younger sister, the writer and artist Drífa Viðar. Titled Snær konungur (King Snow), it drew on old Icelandic mythology a

José Abraham

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José Abraham (born 18 March 1974 in Seville) is a Spanish writer, composer and music producer. His songs have been published in more than 40 countries. He has collaborated with multiple producers, musicians and orchestras around the world. His works have been performed at Madison Square Garden in New York, the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles and the Royal Albert Hall in London. Biography José Abraham has a degree in law from the University of Seville, is an expert lawyer in Intellectual Law from the Inesem Business School, founder of the School of Artists of Andalusia, and CEO of the record label “Kalma Music” and his own music publishing house “José Abraham Publishing”. In 2014, he was recognized by the International Songwriting Competition (United States) as the Best Latin Songwriter, also receiving an honorable mention from the organization. In 2021, he placed among the Top 3 finalists at the New Wave Musical Festival held in Russia, one of the leading music festivals in Eastern Europe. Throughout his career, he has written, produced, or collaborated on studio albums with artists such as Roberto Carlos, Cristian Castro, Jennifer Lopez, Alejandro Sanz, David Bisbal, Marc Antho

José Antonio Bottiroli

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José Antonio Bottiroli (January 1, 1920 – March 15, 1990) was an Argentine classical music composer and poet. Biography José Antonio Bottiroli was born in Rosario, Argentina on 1 January 1920 and died in Rosario on 15 March 1990. From the time he was a young child and until the end of his life, he lived alternately in Rosario and in Los Cocos, a hill town retreat located in Córdoba Province, Argentina. He studied with Nicolás Alfredo Alessio (1919–1985). In 1948 he graduated from the School of Professors No. 2 Juan María Gutiérrez of the National University of the Littoral with a professorship degree in music and received the Rotary Club Award for the best music student. He was the director of the Vocal Women’s Sextet Juan María Gutiérrez, later Vocal Sextet Loreley, with which he conducted performances in the City of Rosario, Radio LR1 El Mundo and at the Cervantes Theatre (Buenos Aires). He composed Belgrano March – Song with lyrics by Ernesto Aturo Sánchez Queirolo. In 1960 Belgrano March – Song was approved by decree of the National Board of Education and the General Board of Education of the Santa Fe Province to be incorporated in the music repertoire of the schools of Argenti

José Antonio Labordeta

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José Antonio Labordeta Subías (10 March 1935 – 19 September 2010) was a Spanish Aragonese singer, songwriter, poet, writer and political activist. He was described by The Gran Enciclopedia Aragonesa (Great Aragonese Encyclopedia) as “The most important Aragonese singer-songwriter”. He began singing in an attempt to give more relevance to his poetry; his songs are well-known and beloved anthems in Aragón. Poetic songs such as “Aragón”, “Canto a la libertad” (Song for Freedom) or “Me dicen que no quieres” (They tell me you don’t want to) also gained national popularity. He was also the founder of the Andalán newspaper, which was very influential during the 1970s. From 2000 until retiring in 2008, he represented Zaragoza in the Spanish Congress for Chunta Aragonesista (Aragonese Union), an Aragonese political party. Biography José Antonio Labordeta was born in Zaragoza, Aragón, in 1935. In 1953, his father died. José Antonio went to live with his older brother Miguel, who was married and fourteen years his senior. In 1963, Labordeta married Juana de Grandes, and the newly wed couple moved to Teruel. Two of their daughters, Ana and Ángela, were born while the couple was living there. H

José Antonio Santesteban

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José Antonio Santesteban (18 October 1835 in San Sebastián – 21 September 1906 in San Sebastián) was a Basque composer, the most famous of the musical family of that name (his father was José Juan Santesteban and his son was pianist Jesús de Santesteban), who wrote the first opera in Basque, Pudente, to a libretto by Serafin Baroja. In 1879 he succeeded his father’s post as organist in Santa Maria, Donostia. In 1863 he inaugurated the installment of a Cavaillé-Coll organ in Santa Maria, Donostia and in 1879 he succeeded his father’s post as organist of the parish. Works * Pudente, the first Basque opera (2 acts, 15 music numbers, including Gernikako Arbola) * 12 masses for grand orchestra * 2 Misereres (1 for 4 voices) * Psalms * Motets * 24 Préludes pour piano, op. 84 (with dedication “to my friend Tomás Bretón”) * Cantos y Bailes Tradicionales Vascongados References External links * * José Antonio Santesteban in Enciclopedia Auñamendi

José Augusto Ferreira Veiga

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José Augusto Ferreira Veiga, Viscount of Arneiro (22 November 1838 in Portuguese Macau – 7 June 1903 in San Remo, Italy Veiga performed at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos on 31 March 1876; his opera-ballet L’elisir di giovinezza (Jean-Jacques Magne) was not popular with the public, which led Veiga to present it the following year in Milan, Italy, at the Teatro Dal Verme. This presentation in 1877 also failed to win public favour. He then adapted the music to a new libretto by Rudolfo Paravicini that was based on an English novel by Ann Radcliffe. The new version, now a melodrama tragico named Dina la derelitta, was finally accepted by audiences upon being performed at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos on 14 March 1885. Veiga wrote the opera Don Bibas, based on Alexandre Herculano’s previously unknown novel (The Jester) but it has never been performed. José Augusto Ferreira Veiga died on 7 June 1903 in San Remo, Italy, aged 64. Works * A questão do oriente (operetta, Coimbra, Teatro Académico, 1859) * Pela bocca morre o peixe (J. Guilerme dos Santos Lima/José Inácio de Araújo), (lyrical farce, 1860) * Ginn (ballet, Lisbon, 1866) * Te Deum (Lisbon, 1871) * L’elisir di giovinezza (4

José Bernardo Alzedo

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José Bernardo Alzedo (August 20, 1788 – December 28, 1878) was a Peruvian composer. Alzedo was born in Lima, Peru. He studied music at the Convento de San Agustín, and composed Misa en Re Mayor (Mass Hymn in D Major) when he was 18 years old. In 1806, he became a Dominican friar; his behaviour was considered lax by the fellow members of that religious order. Alzedo was the winner of an 1821 contest sponsored by General José de San Martín to choose a national anthem for Peru, being his winning opus called Somos libres, seámoslo siempre (“We are free; so shall we ever be”), with lyrics by José de la Torre Ugarte. In 1822, Alzedo went to Chile as a soldier in a military band. In Santiago, he left the military and dedicated himself to music. He joined the choir of the Cathedral of Santiago in 1833. In 1846, he became kapellmeister. He resided in Chile for 42 years, returning to Peru in 1864. He became director of the Peruvian military band, and president of the Philharmonic. He spent the last years of his life in Peru, and wrote the book Filosofía Elemental de la Música (Elementary Philosophy of Music) in 1869, in which he discourses upon Quechuan music. He composed folk songs, numerous r

José Carlos Amaral Vieira

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José Carlos Amaral Vieira (born 1952 in São Paulo) is a Brazilian composer, pianist, and musicologist. He has performed solo since he was eight years old and studied in Europe from 1965 to 1976. He returned to Brazil in 1977 and has since composed for several genres there. Biography José Carlos Amaral Vieira was born in 1952 in São Paulo . He studied piano with Souza Lima and composition with Artur Hartmann in Brazil. Vieira later studied in France at the Paris Conservatory with Lucette Descaves and Olivier Messiaen; in Germany at the Freiburger Musikhochschule with Carl Seeman and Konrad Lechner; and in the United Kingdom with Louis Kentner. In 1977 he returned to Brazil to embark on the career of a virtuoso performer, while introducing his own compositions in concert programmes. He has achieved international acclaim both as a concert and recording artist, composer, and musicologist, and has appeared throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Among his honors, Vieira has been the recipient of the Arthur Honegger International Composition Award, a Grand Prix International (Fondation de France), Hungary’s Liszt Award, and Japan’s Min-On Award. List of compositions *Te Deum in stilo

José de la Cruz Mena

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José de la Cruz Mena (3 May 187422 September 1907) was a Nicaraguan composer. When he was twenty-one years old he contracted leprosy, but continued to compose until his death twelve years later. Mena is considered to have been one of the most prominent Nicaraguan composers of his time and one of the most important composers from that country. Biography Mena was born in León, Nicaragua, on 3 May 1874, to a family which included a number of musicians. He attended the Escuela Nacional de Música in Managua as a child, and played trumpet in bands in the city, composing several famous waltzes. He fell ill with leprosy when he was twenty-one years old, but was not sent to the nation’s leper colony after writing three items of music that he dedicated to José Santos Zelaya, the President of Nicaragua. He was completely blind after five years, by 1896, and rarely appeared in public due to his disease. Regardless, his entry in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians described Mena as “the pre-eminent Nicaraguan composer of his time”. He died twelve years after contracting leprosy, near the Chiquito River in León, on 22 September 1907. He is sometimes known as “the divine leper” and a

José de Nebra

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José Melchor Baltasar Gaspar Nebra Blasco (January 6, 1702 – July 11, 1768) was a Spanish composer and organist from the Baroque period. His work combines Spanish traditions with the Italian style of his day. Biography Family José de Nebra was born in Calatayud and was taught by his father, José Antonio Nebra Mezquita (1672–1748), organist and master of choirboys at the Cathedral of Cuenca from 1711 until 1729 before becoming chapel master. His two brothers were also musicians: Francisco Javier Nebra Blasco (1705–1741), organist of La Seo in Zaragoza until he moved to Cuenca in 1729, then succeeded by his brother Joaquín Ignacio Nebra Blasco (1709–1782) till his death. Career José de Nebra relocated to Madrid early in his career, where he served as the organist at the Descalzas Reales convent in 1719. In 1722, he joined the chapel of the Osuna noble household. There, he started composing music for commercial theatres in Madrid alongside Antonio Literes and Antonio Duni. Nebra then became an organist at the Descalzas Reales convent and at the royal chapel on May 22, 1724. That August, Nebra was appointed supernumerary organist with the promise of a promotion to first organist if an

José de Torres

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José de Torres y Martínez Bravo (16701738) was a Spanish composer, organist, music theorist and music publisher. Biography Torres was born in Madrid, where he served as organist of the capilla real from 1697. With the arrival of the Bourbons, Torres was expelled from the capilla, but avoided exile and was rehabilitated. From 1702 he established a music printing press, Imprenta de Música, the first in Iberia. With the continuing exile of Sebastián Durón, Torres served the former Duke of Anjou, now Philip V of Spain, as maestro de capilla and rector of the boys choir (Colegio de Niños Cantorcicos), replacing the interim maestros Matías Cabrera and Nicolás Humanes, in 1707. He held this post until his death. He died in Madrid. He was the author of various musical works. These include “Reglas generales para acompañar órgano, clavicordio o arpa” (Madrid, 1702) a work covering accompaniment techniques for organ, clavichord and harp and a book of masses dedicated to Philip V of Spain. His work “Arte de canto llano” was published in 1705 and subsequently augmented was a “corrected and augmented” edition of the work by the same name of Francisco de Montanos. It contains a number of composit

José Eulalio Samayoa

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José Eulalio Samayoa (c. 1781 – c. 1866) was a Guatemalan classical composer. Biography José Eulalio Samayoa was educated within the system of guilds, progressing from apprentice to journeyman before becoming a master. He founded the Philharmonic Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, with a series of musical and liturgical celebrations held on July 2, 1813. The same day he was admitted to the Guatemala Cathedral choir, as third tenor, which he regarded as a heavenly grace for having established the Philharmonic Society. In 1842 he wrote the history of this Society, with an extended historical appendix on the development of Music in Guatemala since the earliest days of the Spanish missions, thus becoming the first music historian in Central America and perhaps all of Latin America. Samayoa is one of the first composers in the Americas to attempt the composition of larger instrumental forms that culminates in the symphony. Having been trained in the tradition of Spanish church music, he was taught how to write well for voices with instrumental accompaniment. The resulting forms, mainly those of the villancico and cantata, were defined by the poetic form of the text. When the Cathedra

José Evangelista

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José Evangelista (5 August 1943 – 10 January 2023) was a Spanish composer and music educator who was based in Montreal, Canada. He was professor of composition at the Université de Montréal from 1979 to 2009. A member of the Canadian League of Composers, the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores, and an associate of the Canadian Music Centre, Evangelista was known for his commitment to contemporary classical music and non-Western music. Life and career Born in Valencia on 5 August 1943, At the same time he pursued music courses at the Valencia Conservatory and earned a premier prix in music composition there in 1967. In 1969 Evangelista moved to Canada and settled in the city of Montreal. From 1970 to 1973 he was a pupil of André Prévost at the Université de Montréal where he earned a Master of Music in composition. From 1979 he taught on the music faculty of the Université de Montréal; among his students were composers Simon Bertrand, Analia Llugdar, Samy Moussa and Ana Sokolovic. Awards In 1974 Evangelista was awarded first prize in the Confederación Espanola de Cajas de Ahorros Contest in Madrid for his En guise de fête. * Sonatine for flute and piano, 1971 * Un mur à peine for

José Ferrer (guitarist)

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José Ferrer Esteve de Fujadas (in 19th-century France known as “Joseph Ferrer”) (13 March 1835 – 7 March 1916) was a Spanish guitarist and composer. Life Ferrer was born in Torroella de Montgrí, Girona, and studied guitar with his father, a guitarist and collector of sheet music, before continuing his studies with José Brocá. In 1882, he left Spain for Paris in order to teach at the Institut Rudy and at the Académie Internationale de Musique, also becoming the official guitarist of the Comédie Française, and remained in Paris for 16 years. Ferrer gave regular performances as a soloist. He taught at the Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu in Barcelona from 1898 to 1901. Following a period of moving between Barcelona and Paris, he settled permanently in Barcelona in 1905, where he died. Music Most of Ferrer’s compositions were written for guitar but, being a deeply religious man, he also wrote some sacred music. His works for guitar solo and duo resemble the fashionable salon music of his time, bearing titles such as Le Charme de la nuit (“Charm of the Night”) and La Danse des Naïades (“Dance of the Naiads”). One of his most popular pieces was his opus 1, Recuerdos de Montgri.

José Herrando

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José Herrando (Valencia, c. 1720/1721-Madrid, 1763) was a Spanish violinist and composer. Career Herrando was a friend of the writer and mathematician Diego de Torres Villarroel and a fixed musician for some theater companies in Madrid, for which he composed several pieces, such as for the comedy Manos blancas no ofenden (White hands do not offend) by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. He spent some time in the service of the Duke of Arcos theater, to which he dedicated his Arte y puntual explicación del modo de tocar el violín con perfección y facilidad (Art and timely explanation of how to play the violin with perfection and ease) published in Paris in 1756. This was the first published attempt by a Spaniard at teaching this instrument. Its front featured an engraving by Carmona with his portrait. Herrando was first violinist for the Royal Chapel of the Incarnation when, in 1754 he wrote Seis sonatinas para violín de cinco cuerdas y bajo armónico, no cifrado (Six sonatinas for five-string violin and bass) dedicated to the castrati singer Carlo Broschi, Farinelli, a musician who was with the Spanish court during the reign of Felipe V, whose soprano voice was the only one capable of takin

José Inzenga

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José Inzenga y Castellanos (Madrid, 3 June 1828 – 28 June 1891) was a Spanish composer of zarzuelas and professor at the Conservatory of Madrid and academic of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando and one of the pioneers of folkloric studies and the modern zarzuela in the second half of the 19th century. Biography Inzenga was the son of Italian singing master Ángel Inzenga and Felicia Castellanos. He studied music at the Madrid Royal Conservatory. He then traveled to Paris, where he pursued extended training in music, winning two silver medals in harmony and piano playing. He joined the circle of the Liceo Artístico y Literario de Madrid, founded in 1837, serving on its board of directors and thereby contributing the production of works and organizing jam sessions. The Revolutions of 1848 forced him to return to Spain, and the Sociedad Artístico Musical de Socorros Mutuos, Teatro del Circo, and the creation of Teatro de la Zarzuela. References External links *

José Julián Jiménez

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José Julián Jiménez (January 9, 1823–March 3, 1898), was a Cuban violinist and composer. Early life José Julián Jiménez was born in Trinidad, Cuba. Jiménez was part of a vibrant group of free black and mulato musicians who marked Cuba’s musical life in the nineteenth century. Career As an adolescent, he received his earliest training on the violin from his father, orchestra conductor, Nicasio Jimenez (Sr.), beginning at the age of fourteen. In 1849, he moved to Havana, where he studied with Italian violinist and composer Luigi Arditi. In the same year Jiménez founded a dance band in Havana and composed many danzas and guarachas for the ensemble. Later on, he traveled to Leipzig, Germany, where he studied piano, violin, and harmony. While residing there, he entered the Leipzig Conservatorium, where he studied violin with Ferdinand David, piano with Ignaz Moscheles, and harmony with Alexander Ritter. In Leipzig he performed as a member of the Gewandhaus Orchestra and is credited with being the first Black musician in the Gewandhaus Orchestra. Upon his graduation from the conservatory, Jiménez returned to Cuba, where his two sons were born. In 1869, he returned to Leipzig with his son

José Loyola

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José Eulalio Loyola Fernández (born 1941) is a Cuban composer, professor and flutist. Academic background José Loyola was born in 1941 in Cienfuegos, Cuba. He began to study flute with his father, Efrain Loyola, and continued at a later time, in 1963, at the National Art Schools with professors Juan Pablo Ondina and Emigdio Mayo. In 1967, Loyola concluded his médium level music studies and received instruction from renowned North American professor Federico Smith. In 1967, Loyola received a scholarship to study musical composition at the Warsaw Superior School of Music, with professors Grażyna Bacewicz, Andrzej Dobrowolski and Witold Rudzinski. In 1973, he concluded his studies. From 1981 to 1985, he continued at the Frédéric Chopin Academy at Warsaw, where he received a Doctorate in Music. a musical ensemble which structure is based in the classical format of the “Charanga francesa”, which emerged during the first years of the 20th century derived from the “Orquesta típica”, or wind ensemble. Awards and recognitions * Annual Award for the totality of his work (1992) * “Juan Marinello” Order (1996) * “Alejo Carpentier” Medal,(2002) * National Prize for Artistic Education (2023) See

José Luis Torregrosa

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José Luis Torregrosa (December 4, 1944 in Talavera de la Reina, Toledo – November 5, 2007 in Málaga) was a Spanish singer, musician, composer, and record producer. He worked with numerous artists including Julio Iglesias, Salvatore Adamo, Nino Bravo, and Massiel. His career was terminated in 1996 after suffering from cancer of the larynx; he later died from lung cancer. Biography Early years Torregrosa was born in Talavera de la Reina, Toledo. He got married very young and came to live in Torremolinos, Malaga. There he began to work in music, combining it with other jobs that came to him and left him more money at that time. Some venues hired him some nights as a singer, he stood out a lot for his powerful voice, which was compared in many cases with a multitude of artists. Torregrosa began to shine at night in Torremolinos and people admired him, and listened with pleasure to Torregrosa’s talent. The singer began to become an emblematic sign of Torremolinos in the 60s. He dominated many styles, people danced with him from a ballad to a salsa. Musical career In 1968, Torregrosa signed a contract with the “Mi Bohío” nightclub, Torregrosa sang there where they offered him a good sala

José Luis Turina

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José Luis Turina (born 1952, in Madrid) is a Spanish composer, grandson of Joaquín Turina. He studied composition under Antón García Abril, Román Alís, Rodolfo Halffter and Carmelo Bernaola at the conservatories of Barcelona and Madrid, and then, with a grant from the Spanish Ministry for Foreign Affairs for studying at the Spanish Fine Arts Academy in Rome, he attended the classes in composition given by Franco Donatoni at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia. In 1981, his work Meeting Point won the First Prize in the International Composition Contest organised by the Orchestra of the Valencia Conservatory to mark their first centenary. In 1986 he won the First Prize of the Musical Composition Contest “Queen Sofía”, from the Ferrer Salat Foundation, with his piece Ocnos (orchestral music on poems by Luis Cernuda). He was awarded Spain’s Premio Nacional de Música for composition in 1996. Teacher of Harmony in the Conservatories of Cuenca and Madrid since 1981, in 1993 he was designated technical advisor of the Ministry for Education and Science, for the reformation of musical teaching in the realm of the new education law of 1990. In February 2001 he was appointed artistic director of th

José María Cano

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José María Cano Andrés (born 21 February 1959) is a Spanish visual artist, musician, composer, and record producer. From 1982 to 1998, he was a member and principal composer of the Spanish pop-rock band Mecano. Since 1998, he works primarily in the visual arts. Musician José María Cano was born in Madrid, and gave his first concerts as a university student there. There he met Ana Torroja, who would become the lead singer in their pop band Mecano. Their first album, also called Mecano (1981) and produced with the financial backing of his father, included the hit “Hoy No Me Puedo Levantar”. Both José and his brother Nacho composed songs for all their albums. In 1984, José began to play piano and changed his method of composition. He began to compose for other singers, such as La Mafia, Chayanne, Ana Belén, Amaya Uranga, Sara Montiel, Julio Iglesias, Miguel Bosé, Alaska, Françoise Hardy, Sarah Brightman, Simone, Mario Frangoulis etc. He composed songs that would become well known in the Spanish-speaking world, such as Hijo de la Luna, Lia, Mujer contra mujer, Me cuesta tanto olvidarte, Aire, Tiempo de vals, Cruz de navajas, Naturaleza muerta, Una rosa es una rosa and several others, w

José Mariano Elízaga

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Elízaga Prado, José Damián (27 September 1786 – 2 October 1842) was a Mexican composer, music theorist, pianist, organist and teacher. He was the Kapellmeister of emperor Agustín I of Mexico and was the first great Mexican composer of the beginning of the 19th century. Life Elízaga was born in Valladolid (Morelia), and was a child prodigy. He played before the viceroy Juan Vicente de Güemes, 2nd Count of Revillagigedo when he was 6. The viceroy became his main protector and sent him to the Colegio de Infantes de la Catedral. Elízaga later returned to Valladolid and in 1799 to Morelia where he worked as an organist. He acquired the best pianoforte of Mexico City to teach the local aristocracy. One of his pupils was Ana María de Huarte y Muñiz who later became the wife of Agustín de Iturbide, the emperor of the First Mexican Empire. In 1822, Elízaga was appointed ¨maestro de capilla¨ (Kapellmeister) of the Capilla Imperial. In 1823 he published his Elementos de música in Mexico City, a copy can be found in the Biblioteca Nacional in Mexico. The end of the First Mexican Empire damaged Elizaga’s reputation but the Mexican government continued to support him. Elizaga settled the bases f

José Marín Varona

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José Marín Varona (Camagüey, March 10, 1859Havana, September 17, 1912) was a Cuban composer, conductor, pianist and professor. Biographical note José Marín Varona was born on March 10, 1859, in the city of Camagüey, where he began his musical studies with professor Mariano Agüero. At a later time, Varona established his residence in Havana. In 1896, the composer included in his zarzuela “El Brujo” the first Cuban guajira which has been historically documented. Shortly after the premiere of “El Brujo”, Marín Varona travelled to the United States because of threats received from the Spanish government because of his support of the Cuban independence movement. During his exile, he continued his musical activity and offered presentations with the purpose of collaborating with the national independence cause. In Key West, he contributed to the local media with news articles and musical critique. Upon returning to Cuba, Marín Varona was married to the Spanish singer Amalia Rodríguez and travelled through the Americas with zarzuela and operetta companies. In 1913, Cuban composer José Mauri offered a lecture about his work at the National Academy of Arts and Literature; and in 1916, the In

José Maurício (Portuguese composer)

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José Maurício (Coimbra, 19 March 1752 - Figueira da Foz, 12 September 1815 ) was a Portuguese composer mainly known for his prolific production of sacred music. A native of Coimbra, Mauricio began as singer and organist and rose to become both chapel master at Coimbra Cathedral, and music professor at the Universidade de Coimbra during the reforms of João VI. Works *Requiem *Miserere Like many other church composers of his time he also composed secular songs, modinhas. References External links * Marcello Piras - “Musica nera e teatro” (youtube parte 1-5), italian

José Maurício Nunes Garcia

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José Maurício Nunes Garcia (September 20, 1767 – April 18, 1830) was a Brazilian composer and priest, who is known as one of the greatest exponents of Classicism in the Americas. Born in Rio de Janeiro to bi-racial parents, Nunes Garcia lost his father at an early age. His mother perceived that her son had an inclination for becoming a musician and, for this reason, improved her work to allow him to continue his musical studies. Nunes Garcia became a Catholic priest and, when King John VI of Portugal came to Rio de Janeiro with 15,000 people in tow, Nunes Garcia was appointed Master of the Royal Chapel. He sang and played the harpsichord, performing his compositions as well as those of other composers such as Domenico Cimarosa and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He was a very prestigious musician in the royal court of John VI. His musical style was strongly influenced by Viennese composers of the period, such as Mozart and Haydn. Today, some 240 musical pieces written by Nunes Garcia survive, and at least 170 others are known to have been lost. Most of his compositions are sacred works, but he wrote also some secular pieces, including the opera Le due gemelle and the Tempest Symphony. Inf

José Melchor Gomis

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José Melchor Gomis y Colomer (6 January 1791 – 4 August 1836) was a Spanish Romantic composer. Career He was born in Ontinyent, Vall d’Albaida, Valencia Province. He served as the music director for an artillery regiment during the Napoleonic Wars. An early melodrame voiced by Gomis was performed in Valencia in 1817. He composed the music for the Himno de Riego, named after the rebellious General Riego (1784-1823), which has since been used as the national anthem by various republican governments of Spain. Gomis’s political views led him to live in exile after the accession of Ferdinand VII in 1823, first in Paris and then in London. In both cities, he was a friend of fellow exile and composer Santiago Masarnau, whom he may have introduced to London musical life. In Paris, Gomis wrote a successful singing method, published in 1826 with dedications to Gioacchino Rossini and François-Adrien Boieldieu. In London, his choral work L’inverno was performed in 1827. In 1830, his opera Aben-Humeya was performed in Paris. Gomis’s Paris operas Diable à Seville (1831) (staged with the support of Rossini) and Le revenant (1836) gained respectful reviews from Hector Berlioz. Le portefaix, the mo

José Muñoz Molleda

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José Muñoz Molleda (1903–1988) was a Spanish composer, journalist, jurist and politician. He was one of the “músicos del ‘27.” He was born in La Línea de la Concepción in 1903, where he first studied music under Luis Criado. He later studied in Madrid in the Real Conservatorio, where he received prizes in piano, harmony and composition. He also visited Rome where he received lessons from Respighi. While preparing for a career in music, Muñoz Molleda also studied in the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes between 1922 and 1926. Eventually, however, he elected to devote himself to music and abandoned the idea of being a painter. In 1932, his tone poem “En la tierra alta” was awarded first prize in a national competition, and the following year he was awarded the “Gran Premio di Roma”, where he went to study in 1934. It was in Rome that his first string quartet was awarded a prize by the Regia Academia di Santa Cecilia. This success was followed in 1936 by his success of his oratorio La Resurrección de Lázaro. In 1951 he was again awarded a national prize, this one for his trio for flute, cello and piano, and eight years later this was followed by a Ciudad de Barcelona prize for his symp

José Nieto (composer)

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José Nieto (born March 1, 1942) is a Spanish composer, orchestrator, songwriter, conductor and drum player. He is best known for writing films scores, such as Mad Love (2001), El bosque animado (1987), The Fencing Master (1992), Carmen (2003), The Turkish Passion (1994) or I Know Who You Are (2000). For television he has composed music for the BBC in series like Crusades(1995) or From the Heart of the World (1990), and other international and Spanish series such as Captain James Cook (1988), Armada (1988), Teresa de Jesús (1984) or Los jinetes del alba. He has collaborated in theater with Miguel Narros in “El burlador de Sevilla” and “Salomé”, with María Ruiz in the “Serrana de la Vera” and “The portrait of Dorian Gray”, with José Luis Gómez in “Bodas que fueron famosas del Pingajo y la Fandanga” and in “Life is a Dream”, with Adolfo Marsillach in “Los locos de Valencia” and with Josefina Molina in “No se ser …”, among others. He also has worked in the field of ballet. Her works in this field include “Tres Danzas Españolas”, “Ritmos”, “Romance de Luna”, “Don Juan Tenorio”, “Dualia” and “El Corazón de Piedra Verde”, all composed for the National Ballet of Spain. For the Andalusian

José Pablo Moncayo

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José Pablo Moncayo García (June 29, 1912 – June 16, 1958) was a Mexican pianist, percussionist, music teacher, composer and conductor. “As composer, José Pablo Moncayo represents one of the most important legacies of the Mexican nationalism in art music, after Silvestre Revueltas and Carlos Chávez.” He produced some of the masterworks that best symbolize the essence of the national aspirations and contradictions of Mexico in the 20th century. Biography Born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, José Pablo Moncayo was introduced to music by his elder brother Francisco. Eduardo Hernández Moncada is reported as the first teacher of José Pablo Moncayo in 1926, when the teenager was fourteen years old. According to , Hernández Moncada suggested his pupil Moncayo study at the National Conservatory. Tello reports that Moncayo was admitted to the conservatory in 1929; meanwhile, in order to finance his studies, he worked as a jazz pianist. Chávez was highly concerned with the general education and culture of the conservatory students and established literature courses taught by the contemporary poets Salvador Novo and Carlos Pellicer, world history by Jesús C. Romero, and history of Mexican culture by

José Vianna da Motta

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José Vianna da Motta (modern spelling as Viana da Mota; 22 April 1868 – 1 June 1948) was a Portuguese pianist, teacher, and composer. He was one of the last pupils of Franz Liszt. The José Vianna da Motta Music Competition was founded in 1957 in his honor. Life José Vianna da Motta was born on São Tomé Island, a Portuguese territory at the time where his father, also a great amateur musician, had opened a pharmacy. Moving with his family to Continental Portugal, he settled in Colares, near Sintra, where he soon showed his unusual skills in music, and in playing and composing works for the piano. In Berlin he had lessons from Xaver Scharwenka and Philipp Scharwenka before studying with Franz Liszt at Weimar in 1885 and with Hans von Bülow two years later. In the following years he undertook many concert tours all round the world. His professional career began in 1886 and continued uninterruptedly until 1945. He made his first European tour in 1888, accompanying violinist Pablo de Sarasate in Copenhagen and Helsinki and violinist Tivadar Nachéz in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Motta made his first American tour in 1892, the year he visited New York and where he met Ferruccio Busoni, and

Josée Vigneron-Ramackers

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Christiane-Josée Vigneron-Ramackers (25 January 1914 – 30 August 2002), also known as Jo Delande, was a Belgian music educator, conductor and composer. She is known for founding the Academie voor Muziek, Theater & Dans in Maasmechelen in 1945 and for several prize-winning compositions. Biography Josée Vigneron-Ramackers was born on 25 January 1914, in Leopoldsburg, Limbourg in Belgium. Her father was director of the boys’ school of the Coal Mines in Eisden, where she lived from 1921. Her mother was the daughter of lyricist Jean-G. Close, and a soprano singing in charity concerts. She studied at the Zusters Kindsheid Jesu’s (Sisters of the Childhood of Jesus) normal school in Hasselt, and at the Limburgse Orgel- en Zangschool under the tuition of Herman and Arthur Meulemans, Vigneron-Ramackers was then appointed to the Koninklÿk Atheneum of Eisden and the Atheneum of Maaseik, where she taught singing and drawing from 1934 to 1969. In the meantime, she pursued her studies by correspondence, learning about fugue with Herman Meulemans, and orchestration with Arthur Meulemans and Paul Gilson. On 14 March 1981, she was made Officer of the Order of Leopold II by the Governor Vandermeulen.

Josef Anton Riedl

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Josef Anton Riedl (11 June 1929 – 25 March 2016) was a German composer. Biography Riedl was born in Munich in 1929 (1927 is also given as his year of birth). Following a period of studies at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München and in courses given by Hermann Scherchen in Gravesano, Riedl, influenced by Carl Orff and Edgar Varèse, devoted himself as a composer particularly to percussion and Lautgedichte (sound poetry). In 1950 he was co-founder of the German Section of the Jeunesses Musicales, together with Herbert Barth, Reiner Bredemeyer and Eckhart Rolfs. Starting in 1952 he did pioneering work in the use of concrete and electronic sounds, joining Pierre Schaefer’s Groupe de Recherche Musicale in 1953. In 1955 he worked in the electronic studio of NWDR in Cologne, and spent some time in 1959 in Scherchen’s experimental studio in Gravesano. From 1959 until its closure in 1966 Riedl was director of the Siemens Studio for electronic music. The concert series Neue Musik München / Klang-Aktionen initiated by Riedl in 1960 continues to this day. In 1967 he established the Musik/Film/Dia/Licht-Galerie group, and in 1974 in Bonn founded the Kultur Forum, which he directed until

Josef Antonín Sehling

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Josef Antonín Sehling (also Seeling, Seling, Sölling; 7 January 1710 – 19 September 1756) was a Bohemian composer and violinist of the baroque period. Life Sehling was born in Toužim (German: Teusing), Western Bohemia. From an early age, he received music lessons from the local cantor, and later completed his education in Prague and Vienna. From 1737, he was second violinist in the Orchestra of St. Vitus Cathedral, and around the same time, he worked as a court musician and composer for Count Morzin at his palace in Prague. In 1740, he became choir director at the Church of Our Lady beneath the Chain in the Malá Strana district of Prague, and at the same time filled in as the choir director at St. Vitus and the Barnabite St. Benedictus. Sehling was a very prolific composer of sacred music, namely arias, masses, requiems, motets and offertoria. Manuscript copies of his works are scattered throughout libraries, among others, in Nymburk, Roudnice nad Labem, Broumov, St. Vitus Cathedral, and in the monastery of the elizabethans. He was possibly associated with Christoph Willibald Gluck. Among his pupils were the sopranist Johann Christian Preissler from Polevsko and the Premonstratensi

Josef Berg

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Josef Berg (8 March 1927 – 26 February 1971) was a Czech composer, musicologist and librettist. His work represents a remarkable value in the context of Czech music after World War II. Life From 1946 to 1950 he studied at the Brno Conservatory, in the class of Vilém Petrželka. Simultaneously he attended the music lectures at the Faculty of Philosophy on Brno university given by Jan Racek and Bohumír Štědroň. He worked as a music editor in the Czechoslovak Radio in Brno (1950–53), and also wrote reviews for the journals and newspapers. Later he concentrated exclusively on composing. Berg founded an association of young composers called Group A. The members of the group strived in their program to connect convincing artistic activity with the new musical language, and also to promote new musical trends in Czechoslovakia. Style Even though the Berg’s style was at first influenced by Moravian folk music, his mature compositions are very individual and take advantage of new composition techniques and principles. Selected works *Months. Piano cycle (1956) *Seven Preludies for Piano (1959) *Sextet for Harp, Piano and String Quartet (1959) *Nonet for Two Harps, Piano, Cembalo, Glockenspiel

Josef Bohuslav Foerster

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Josef Bohuslav Foerster (30 December 1859 – 29 May 1951) was a Czech composer and musicologist. He is often referred to as J. B. Foerster, and his surname is sometimes spelled Förster. Life Foerster was born in Prague. His ancestors were of Bohemian German ethnicity, but had assimilated into the Czech community. The family normally lived in Prague and was musical. His father, a composer also named Josef Foerster, taught at the Conservatory. (His father’s students included Franz Lehár. ) His brother was artist Viktor Foerster. Josef was educated accordingly, and duly studied there. He also showed an early interest in the theatre, and thought of becoming an actor. He taught music; one of his early students was composer and Stuttgart court pianist Anna Sick. From 1884 Foerster worked as a critic, and he would prove to be a writer of distinction. In 1893 he married the leading Czech soprano Berta Lautererová (Bertha Lauterer) in Hamburg, during ten years making his living there as a critic, and she was engaged at the Hamburg Staatsoper. In 1901 he became a teacher at the Hamburg Conservatory. In 1903 Berta went to sing at the Vienna Hofoper, and so Josef moved there with her, continuin

Josef Fiala

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Josef Fiala (; 3 February 1748 – 31 July 1816) was a Czech composer, oboist, viola da gamba virtuoso, cellist and pedagogue of the Classical period. Life He was born in Lochovice in Bohemia and began his musical career there as an oboist in the service of Countess Valpruga Netolická. The countess supported his studies of oboe with Jan Šťastný in Prague. He also studied violoncello and viola da gamba with František Josef Werner. In 1774, he left to Bavaria to play the oboe in the orchestra of Count Ernst Kraft von Oettingen-Wallerstein. In 1777 he moved to Munich to serve in the court orchestra of Elector Maximilian Joseph. Here he married Josefina Procházková, a daughter of his colleague from the orchestra, horn player Matyáš Procházka. That year in Munich, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart befriended Fiala and was greatly impressed by his compositions. After the death of the Elector in 1778 Mozart helped him secure a position in Salzburg. From 1778 to 1785, Fiala lived in Mozart’s birth house at Getreidegasse No. 9 in Salzburg. He was an oboist for archbishop Hieronymus von Colloredo’s orchestra and played violin and violoncello in Salzburger Landestheater. In 1785 Fiala moved to Vienna, wh

Josef Forster (composer)

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Josef Forster (20 January 1838 in Trofaiach – 23 March 1917 in Vienna) was an Austrian composer; known primarily for his operas and operettas. Biography He was one of ten children born to Jakob Forster, an organist, and his wife Klara, the daughter of a choirmaster. After beginning his musical training at home, he became a choir boy at Admont Abbey, where he received further instruction from their organist, Franz Traunbauer (1775-1864). In 1854, he enrolled in the teacher training institute in Graz; followed by technical studies at the Joanneum (now the Graz University of Technology). It was during this time that he made his first attempts at composition; now lost. In 1865, he went to Vienna to study architecture, but soon gave up. To support himself, he worked as a private teacher. Forster also devised inventions which were not successful. He was, however, awarded several patents for optical devices, guns and engines. With the support of Eduard Hanslick and Felix Otto Dessoff, he made his debut as a composer with two string quartets and a Symphony in C minor, performed in 1871 by the Vienna Philharmonic with Dessoff conducting. During the 1870s and 1880s, he premiered numerous ope

Josef Karl Richter

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Josef Karl Richter (16 March 1880 in Podersam22 September 1933 in Vienna) was a Bohemian composer and military bandmaster. Richter was the son of a court official. He studied music and graduated in 1898. In the same year he joined the military band of the Infantry Regiment No. 74 and stayed there until 1901. During World War I he served as a medical orderly in the Austro-Hungarian Army and was promoted to sergeant major in 1916. From 1918 to 1920 he was conductor of the “Volkswehr battalion no. 6” in Vienna. From 1920 to 1924 he was conductor of the “Brigade-Musik” in Vienna. In 1924 was appointed bandmaster of the Infantry Regiment No. 4. He remained in this position until 1932. He was a close friend of Franz Lehár and adapted many of his works for concert band. Works Richter composed mostly marches, dance and light music for concert band. * Heimkehr, march * Heldentotenlied, in five movements for baritone and concert band * Jung Deutschmeister, march * Requiem, for male choir and concert band * Romanze nr. 2, for concert band * Romanze nr. 3, for concert band * Sangesbrüder, march * Semendria, march * Treue Kameraden, march * Zum Ausmarsch bereit, march References * Wolfgang Supp

Josef Labor

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Josef Paul Labor (29 June 184226 April 1924) was an Austrian pianist, organist, and composer of the late Romantic era. Labor was an influential music teacher. As a friend of some key figures in Vienna, his importance was enhanced. Biography Labor was born in the town of Hořovice in Bohemia to Josef Labor, an administrator of ironworks, and his wife Josefa Wallner, who came from a family of doctors. Both his parents came from Viennese families. His father belonged to the circle of Schubert-Friends and had been in his younger years a composer himself. At the age of three, he was left blind due to contracting smallpox. He attended the Institute for the Blind in Vienna and the Konservatorium der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Conservatory of the Society of Friends of Music) where he studied composition with Simon Sechter (teacher of Bruckner), and piano with (student of and Czerny). He toured Europe as a pianist and, in the process, formed lasting friendships with King George V of Hanover, who was also blind, and with Joseph Joachim, whom he met at Hanover. George named him Royal Chamber Pianist in 1865. In 1866, Labor followed the king’s exile and settled in Vienna, where he became a

Josef Leopold Zvonař

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Josef Leopold Zvonař (22 January 1824 – 23 November 1865) was a Czech composer, pedagogue, and music critic. Life and career Zvonař was born in Kublov, studied at the organ school in Prague with Pitsch, and worked as an assistant teacher and organist there; he was briefly the school’s director. In 1860 he became director of Žofín Academy, a woman’s music school. Works Theory and pedagogy: *Varhanictví, umění učitelské (Organology, the Art of Teaching) (1858) *Navedení k snadnému potřebných kadencí skládání (Instructions to the Easy Composing of Needed Cadenzas) (1859) *Návod zpěvu, ohledem na národní školy (Instruction of Singing with Respect to the National Schools) (1860) *Základy harmonie a zpěvu s příslušným navedením pro učitele hudby vůbec a národních kol zvláště (1861) *Listy ředitelům zpěváckých sborů (1862-1863) *Slovo o příčině nedostatku hudebně vzdělaných mladých učitelů (1863) *Hudební vychovávání (Musical Education) (1863-1864) *Příspěvky k vědomostem varhanickým (1864) *Slovo hudebním učňům… (1865) *Příruční knížka při vyučování zpěvu pro I. tř. městské dívčí školy (1866, 1870) Folk songs: *České národní písně (Czech National Folk Songs) (1859) *Slovo o českých nár

Josef Maria Horváth

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Josef Maria Horváth (born József Mária Horváth; 20 December 1931 – 21 October 2019) was an Austrian composer of Hungarian descent, who wrote contemporary classical music. A Professor at the Mozarteum University Salzburg, he left his concert pianist and conductor career in 1964 to focus on composition. Horváth was among the most important 20th-century composers active in Salzburg. Life Josef Maria Horváth was born on 20 December 1931 as József Mária Horváth in Pécs, Hungary. At the Jesuit School of his hometown he learned to play the organ. After high school he studied piano (receiving his diploma in 1956), music composition, and conducting at the Liszt Academy in Budapest. Horváth emigrated to Austria in 1956 to study at the Mozarteum University Salzburg in Salzburg. His studies lasted until 1959 with a focus on piano, composition and electronic music under Cesar Bresgen and Kurt Leimer. After his 1959 graduation, Horváth led a career within Austria and abroad as a pianist, conductor and sometimes organist, described by his later publisher as a “successful concert career” . He often performed his own compositions. Based in Salzburg, in 1964 Horváth left a career as a pianist to con

Josef Matthias Hauer

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Josef Matthias Hauer (March 19, 1883 – September 22, 1959) was an Austrian composer and music theorist. He is best known for developing, independent of and a year or two before Arnold Schoenberg, a method for composing with all 12 notes of the chromatic scale. Hauer was also an important early theorist of twelve-tone music and composition. Hauer believed that “the influence of the material world” interfered with “rais ing music to its highest, most spiritual level”, and disapproved of expression of “ideas, programmes or feelings” in art, instead favoring “spiritual, supersensual music composed according to impersonal rules”. Many of his compositions reflect this in their direct, often athematic, ‘cerebral’ approach. Hauer’s music is diverse, however, and not all of it embraces this aesthetic position. Life Hauer was born in Wiener Neustadt and died in Vienna. He had an early musical training in cello, choral conducting, and organ, and claimed to have been self-taught in theory and composition. This interpretation seems largely drawn from Hauer’s theoretical writing of the early to mid-1920s in which he outlines these techniques. But a closer look at Hauer’s compositional output rev

Josef Mysliveček

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Josef Mysliveček (9 March 1737 – 4 February 1781) was a Czech composer. He contributed to the formation of late eighteenth-century classicism in music. Mysliveček provided his younger friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with significant compositional models in the genres of symphony, Italian serious opera, and violin concerto; both Wolfgang and his father Leopold Mozart considered him an intimate friend from the time of their first meetings in Bologna in 1770 until he betrayed their trust over the promise of an operatic commission for Wolfgang to be arranged with the management of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. His closeness to the Mozart family resulted in frequent references to him in the Mozart correspondence. Biography Mysliveček was born in Prague, one of twin sons of a prosperous mill owner, and studied philosophy at Charles-Ferdinand University before following in the footsteps of his father. No documentation exists to support claims that he was actually born in Horní Šárka, a rural district to the north and west of Prague in the early eighteenth century. He achieved the rank of master miller in 1761 but gave up the family profession in order to pursue musical studies. In Prague

Josef Pischna

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

Josef Pischna (; 15 June 1826 – 19 October 1896) was a Czech pianist and composer. Josef Pischna was born in near Příbram and studied oboe at the Prague Conservatory from 1840 to 1846. He worked for thirty-five years as a pianist and piano teacher in Moscow. References

Josef Reicha

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Josef Reicha (12 February 1752 – 5 March 1795), also spelt Rejcha, was a Czech cellist, composer and conductor. He was the uncle of composer and music theorist Anton Reicha. Josef Reicha was born in Chudenice. In 1761 he moved to Prague, where he was taught cello by Franz Joseph Werner. In 1771, Reicha became first cellist in the orchestra of Prince () Kraft Ernst von Oettingen-Wallerstein. Together with the famous violinist Anton Janitsch, who also played in the orchestra, Reicha toured several European cities during the late 1770s and visited Leopold Mozart in Salzburg in 1778. In his letters to Wolfgang Amadeus, Leopold praised Reicha’s cello playing and compared the style of one of his cello concerts to those by Wolfgang Amadeus. Reicha adopted his nephew Anton in 1780 (Josef married in 1779, but the marriage produced no children) and subsequently taught him the violin and the piano. In 1785 Josef was made director of the orchestra in Bonn by Maximilian Francis of Austria, Elector of Cologne; the whole family moved to Bonn. Anton became a member of the court orchestra through his uncle. Other members included the young Beethoven, who played the viola and the organ, and Nikolaus

Josef Rheinberger

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Josef Gabriel Rheinberger (17 March 1839 – 25 November 1901) was a composer and organist from Liechtenstein, residing in Bavaria for most of his life. As court conductor in Munich, he was responsible for the music in the royal chapel. He is known for sacred music, works for organ and vocal works, such as masses, a Christmas cantata and the motet Abendlied; he also composed two operas and three singspiele, incidental music, secular choral music, two symphonies and other instrumental works, chamber music, and works for organ. Life and career Rheinberger was born on 17 March 1839 in Vaduz as the son of Johann Peter Rheinberger and his mother Elisabeth Carigiet as one of eleven children, including his brother Peter Rheinberger. When only seven years old, he was already serving as organist at the Vaduz parish church, and his first composition was performed the following year. In 1849, he studied with composer in Feldkirch, Vorarlberg. In 1851, his father, who had initially opposed his son’s desire to embark on the life of a professional musician, relented and allowed him to enter the Munich Conservatorium. Not long after graduating, he became professor of piano and of composition at the

Josef Richard Rozkošný

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Josef Richard Rozkošný (21 September 1833 – 3 June 1913) was a Czech composer and pianist. Life Rozkošný was born on 21 September 1833 in Prague. He studied at a gymnasium, but he also took piano lessons and later studied composition privately with Jan Bedřich Kittl. Although his main occupation was as a bank clerk, he also devoted his entire life to music. From 1869 to 1875, he was the choirmaster of the Lumír singing association in Prague. In 1871–1873 and 1883–1889, he was the chairman of the music department of Umělecká beseda. He also edited the music magazine Hudební listy. In 1897, he was elected a member of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts. Towards the end of his life, he served on the committee of the Prague Conservatory. He died on 3 June 1913 in Prague. He is buried at the Olšany Cemetery in Prague. Works Operas * Ave Maria, libretto by V. Trappl; unperformed, lost (1855 or 1856) * (‘Saint Nicholas’) 1870 * St John’s Rapids (Czech: Svatojanské proudy) (about the St John’s Rapids on the Vltava), also called Vltavská víla (The Spirit of the Vltava) 1871 * (about Záviš of Falkenstein, 1250–1290) 1877 * Mladí pytláci (The Young Poachers) 1877, libretto by , unperformed

Josef Schnabel

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Joseph Ignaz Schnabel (24 May 1767 – 16 June 1831) was a German composer and church musician. Life He was born in Naumburg am Queis in Silesia, now in Poland. He came from a family of musicians and was taught early on by his father. As a child he was a chorister of Vincent Church in Breslau (today Wrocław, Poland). From the age of 12 he attended the Matthias Gymnasium because he wanted to become a priest. However chronic ear-ache developed after he fell into some water and he was considered to be no longer suitable for a priest’s life. After he left the Gymnasium he began teacher-training. In 1790 he became a school-master. He was noticed because of the good music performances of his pupils. From 1797 he worked as a violinist at the Vincenzkirche in Breslau and later as an organist at St. Klara. In 1798 he became a violinist and concertmaster in Breslau’s theatre orchestra. On April 1, 1805 he was its Director of Music. In 1812 he became the Director of Music at the university, also teaching at the Catholic seminary and was also director of the Royal Institute of Sacred Music. In 1819 he founded the Association of Sacred Music at the university with Friedrich Wilhelm Berner and Joh

Josef Seger

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Josef Seger (born Josef Ferdinand Norbert Segert, last name also Seeger or Seegr) (21 March 1716 – 22 April 1782) was an organist, composer, and educator from Bohemia. After graduating in philosophy from the Charles University in Prague and studying music under Bohuslav Matěj Černohorský, Jan Zach, and others, Seger became organist of two churches in Prague and remained there until his death. An extremely prolific composer, Seger became one of the most important representatives of the Czech organ school of the 18th century. He was also an influential teacher: his pupils included Jan Antonín Koželuh and Josef Mysliveček, and his figured bass exercises served many generations of teachers. Life Seger was born in Řepín, near Mělník, in Bohemia. He studied at the Jesuit Gymnasium in Prague and later graduated in philosophy at the Charles University. He also studied organ playing with Bohuslav Matěj Černohorský, counterpoint with Jan Zach and František Tůma, and, according to Dlabacž, figured bass with Felix Benda. Around 1741 Seger became organist to the Church of Our Lady in front of Týn and in 1745 he acquired a similar post at the Crusaders’ church in Prague. He held both positions u

Josef Slavík

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Josef Slavík (26 March 1806 – 30 May 1833) was a Czech violin virtuoso and composer. He was expected by Viennese musical critics to become Paganini’s successor after composing a supposedly unplayable Concerto in F-sharp minor and teaching himself to play Paganini’s “La Campanella” after a single hearing. Career The first son of Barbora (born Krásová) and Antonín Slavík, teacher and musician, who started to teach Josef violin in the age of four. Later on, he was a student of violin by Friedrich Wilhelm Pixis and music theory and composition by Friedrich Dionys Weber at the Prague Conservatory. Before leaving Prague, Slavík played his final concert. He went to Vienna in 1825 and became enjoyed critical success. He was then a young man of nineteen, but already technically superior to other violinists that had been heard in the Austrian capital. The celebrated Mayseder called him a “second Lipinski”. Frédéric Chopin who heard Slavík on several occasions described his skills as: “With the exception of Paganini, I have never heard a player like him. Ninety-six staccatos in one bow! It is almost incredible! He plays like a second Paganini, but a rejuvenated one, who will perhaps in time s

Josef Strauss

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Josef Luckhardt Strauss (20 August 1827 – 22 July 1870) was an Austrian composer. Early life He was born in Mariahilf (now Vienna), the son of Johann Strauss I and Maria Anna Streim, and brother of Johann Strauss II and Eduard Strauss. His father wanted him to choose a career in the Austrian Habsburg military. He studied music with Franz Dolleschal and learned to play the violin with Franz Anton Ries. He received training as an engineer, and worked for the city of Vienna as an engineer and designer. He designed a horse-drawn revolving brush street-sweeping vehicle and published two textbooks on mathematical subjects. Family orchestra He joined the family orchestra, along with his brothers, Johann Strauss II and Eduard Strauss in the 1850s. His first published work was called “Die Ersten und Letzten” (The First and the Last). When Johann became seriously ill in 1853 Josef led the orchestra for a while. The waltz-loving Viennese were appreciative of his early compositions so he decided to continue in the family tradition of composing dance music. He was known as ‘Pepi’ by his family and close friends, and Johann once said of him: “Pepi is the more gifted of us two; I am merely the mo

Josef Suk (composer)

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

Josef Suk (4 January 1874 – 29 May 1935) was a Czech composer, violinist, and Olympic silver medalist. He studied under Antonín Dvořák, whose daughter he married. Biography From a young age, Josef Suk (born in Křečovice, Bohemia) was deeply involved and well trained in music. He learned organ, violin, and piano from his father, Josef Suk Sr., and was trained further in violin by the Czech violinist Antonín Bennewitz. His theory studies were conducted with several other composers including Josef Bohuslav Foerster, , and . He later focused his writing on chamber works under the teachings of Hanuš Wihan. Despite extensive musical training, his musical skill was often said to be largely inherited. Though he continued his lessons with Wihan another year after the completion of his schooling, Suk’s greatest inspiration came from another of his teachers, Czech composer Antonín Dvořák. Known as one of Dvořák’s favorite pupils, Suk also became personally close to his mentor. Underlying this was Dvořák’s respect for Suk, reflected in Suk’s 1898 marriage to Dvořák’s daughter, Otilie, marking some of the happiest times in the composer’s life and music. However, the last portion of Suk’s life w

Josef Szulc

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Josef Zygmunt Szulc (4 April 1875, Warsaw, Warsaw Governorate, Russian Empire – 10 April 1956, Paris, France) was a composer and conductor. He also used the pseudonym Jan Sulima. Life Szulc was born in Poland to a musical family. His first cousins were the conductor and composer Ignatz Waghalter and the renowned cellist Henryk Waghalter. Szulc began his formal training as a pianist at the Warszawa Conservatory under Moszkowski. He also lived in Berlin briefly (using the name Joseph Schultz) and later moved to Paris to complete his studies in conducting and composition in 1899, converting the spelling of his first name to Joseph. At the conservatoire he trained under Jules Massenet. In 1903 he moved to Brussels, where he was made chief conductor at the Théâtre de la Monnaie and saw instant success with his ballet Ispahan and several tunes. His wife, Suzy Delsart, was an operetta star (operette divette) and sang the title role of The Merry Widow by Franz Lehár and also influenced her husband into writing lighter and more popular tunes. In 1907 he completed the music for Marcel Gerbidon’s operetta, Flossie or Je m’appelle Flossie. In 1908 he adapted Pierre Veber’s comedy Loute, then i

Josef Tal

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

Josef Tal (; September 18, 1910 – August 25, 2008) was an Israeli composer. He wrote three Hebrew operas; four German operas, dramatic scenes; six symphonies; 13 concerti; chamber music, including three string quartets; instrumental works; and electronic compositions. He is considered one of the founding fathers of Israeli art music. Biography Josef Grünthal (later Josef Tal) was born in the town of Pinne (now Pniewy), near Poznań, German Empire (present-day Poland).Soon after his birth, his family (parents Ottilie and Rabbi Julius Grünthal, and his elder sister Grete), moved to Berlin, where the family managed a private orphanage. Rabbi Julius Grünthal was a docent in the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies (Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums), specializing in the philology of ancient languages. Tal’s first encounter with music was at the synagogue, where there was a choir and his grandfather served as a non-professional cantor. After attending his first concert, he began to take piano lessons. Tal was admitted to the Staatliche Akademische Hochschule für Musik in Berlin and studied with Max Trapp (piano and composition), Heinz Tiessen (theory), Max Saal (harp), Curt Sa

Josef Triebensee

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Josef Triebensee (Trübensee) (November 21, 1772 Třeboň - April 22, 1846 Prague) was a Bohemian composer and oboist. He studied composition with Albrechtsberger and oboe with his father, Georg Triebensee (January 28, 1746-June 14, 1813) who served in the private orchestra of Prince Schwarzenberg, and then from 1782 to 1806 as first oboist of the Austrian Emperor’s Harmonie (wind band). Concurrently, he also served as principal oboist at the Nationaltheater of Vienna with Johann Went playing 2nd oboe. Josef II had basically poached the principal oboe, principal cor anglais and principal bassoonist from the Schwarzenberg Harmonie (founded 1771) to head up his own Harmonie. Josef was the second oboist, with Olivier Hue, at the Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna in 1791 when he played in the premiere of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte—explaining the peculiar difficulty of the second oboe parts in that work. Josef then became second oboist at the Kärntnertortheater in 1793 moving up to 1st oboe in 1794. He was also 1st Oboe in Prince Liechtenstein’s Harmonie at Feldsberg, and in 1796 became its Kapellmeister. In 1796 he played 2nd oboe to his father who was on 1st oboe playing in the National The

Josef Venantius von Wöss

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

Josef Venantius von Wöss (13 June 1863 – 22 October 1943) was a Viennese church musician, composer, teacher of harmony and music publishing lector. He is known for piano transcriptions of large-scale works by Gustav Mahler for Universal Edition. Life and career Wöss was born in Cattaro, Kingdom of Dalmatia (now Montenegro), External links *

Josef Vorel

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Josef Vorel (also Worel) (13 November 1801 – 19 December 1874) was a Czech priest and composer. He is known mainly as a composer of songs and choirs in the folk style. Vorel was born in Opočno, the son of a teacher. He began his musical training at an early age. He learned the piano, viola and organ at age five. From 1813 he studied at gymnasium in Rychnov nad Kněžnou, where he founded and led a student brass orchestra. During his theological studies in Prague he met and befriended the writer and translator Karel Alois Vinařický, an important exponent of the Czech cultural scene during the period of the Czech National Revival. In 1835 he moved to Zdice, where he served as a priest for the rest of his life. During his active career he maintained contacts with several Czech artists and poets such as Josef Jungmann, Šebestián Hněvkovský and brothers Jan and Vojtěch Nejedlý. He died in Zdice. Vorel’s musical output is influenced by the patriotic atmosphere of the Czech National Revival. Some of his songs became popular due to their nationalistic view and openly declared affection to the native country. Selected compositions Songs *Návrat rytíře (published in Věnec, 1836) *Píseň letní (

Josef Wagner (composer)

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

Josef Franz Wagner (20 March 1856 – 5 June 1908) was an Austrian military bandmaster and composer. He is sometimes referred to as “The Austrian March King”. Hailing from Vienna, which remained a key location in his life, Wagner joined a military band early on following his education. Between 1874 and 1899, Wagner would remain a member of the military band of different infantry regiments of the Austro-Hungarian army, becoming a successful bandmaster from 1878 to his death. Among his most famous work is Unter dem Doppeladler (Under the Double Eagle). Wagner died in 1908 following an accumulation of debt. Early life and education Josef Franz Wagner was born on 20 March 1856 in Vienna, Austrian Empire, to Josef Wagner, a doctor, and Maria Anna Wagner (née Oberthanner). Wagner (the doctor) had migrated to Vienna from Bohemia, while Anna had migrated from Moravia. Their son completed his primary education in Henriette Kumenecker’s singing school in Vienna, and his secondary education at the Stiftsgymnasium in Seitenstetten between 1869 and 1873. As a boy, Wagner excelled as a soprano in a church choir. After completing his secondary education, he was privately taught at the Austro-Hungar

Josef Weiss

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Josef Weiss (also Weiß, 5 November 1864 – 1945) was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He began his career as a concert pianist in 1877 at the age of 13. He performed in concert halls internationally through 1924, and was particularly admired for his performances of the works of Johannes Brahms, Frédéric Chopin, and Franz Liszt; the latter of whom was his teacher. He made several recordings for Berlin-based and Berlin music publisher Carl Simon published a number of his compositions. He was notably the first composer to write a film score for a German language film, writing music that accompanied the premiere of The Student of Prague in 1913. His piano score for that film was later orchestrated for presentations of that film at music festivals internationally in 2013. A victim of the Holocaust, he died while interned in the Budapest Ghetto in 1945. Weiss was a gifted concert pianist who played best when in lower pressure situations. High stress environments had a negative impact on both his playing, and temperament. His other teachers there included Ferenc Erkel and Robert Volkmann. He then studied music composition at the Vienna Conservatory where one of his classmates and friends

Josefa Somellera

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Josefa Somellera Guiterrez Zavalla Rebollo (1810-1885) was an Argentine composer and singer who performed and published under the name Josefa Somellera. Somellera was born in Buenos Aires to Josefa Gutierrez Dominguez de Somellera y del Cerro and Andres Somellera del Cerro. She had 17 siblings. Her aunt was Candeleria Somellera de Espinosa, a composer, pianist, and socialite whose portrait was painted by Jacobo Lorenzo Fiorini. Josefa Somellera married Juan Angel Zavalla Rebollo and they had three children. with Jose Antonio Picazarri and his nephew Juan Pedro Esnaola. Her singing was praised by operatic soprano Adelina Patti. She apparently composed some works based on Argentine folklore, but is best known for her song “The Death of Corina,” dedicated to D. Corina Blanco and based on text by Juan Cruz Varela. She died in Montevideo in 1885. References

Josefina Benedetti

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Josefina Benedetti Punceles (born September 17, 1953) is a Venezuelan-American composer, musicologist and choral director. Biography Josefina Benedetti was born in New Haven, Connecticut to Venezuelan-born father. She studied piano in Caracas and London, finished her studies at the National Conservatory of Music, Juan José Landaeta, and studied choral conducting at the University Institute of Musical Studies, Magister Scientiarum, in Latin American. She received a musicology degree from the Universidad Central de Venezuela. She received the National Prize for Composition in 1989, 1993 and 1998, the Municipal Music Prize of the City of Caracas in 1990 and the José Antonio and Carmen Calcaño Foundation Composition Prize in 1993. She served as president of Jeunesses Musicales de Venezuela, (1991–96), the National Philharmonic Orchestra Foundation (1995–2000) and the music label Música y Tiempo (Music and Time). She has been Secretary General of the Venezuelan Music Council (UNESCO) and a member of the boards of the Venezuelan Society of Contemporary Music, the Teatro Teresa Carreño Foundation and Director of Culture of the Central University of Venezuela (2000–05). Works Benedetti is

Josefine Opsahl

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Josefine Opsahl (born 18 January 1992) is a Danish composer and cellist based in Copenhagen and Berlin. She writes classical music as a composer and also performs as solo artist with cello and live electronics and live sound design. Biography Born in Denmark on 18 January 1992. She studied both classical and contemporary music at the Royal Danish Conservatory and Northwestern University (IL, US) where she completed a Master’s degree in cello and later she received a degree as a composer in Contemporary Creative Art at South Danish Conservatory. As a cellist and performer she has played and released classical music with the groups Kottos and We Like We and as a solo artist the album, Atrium, in 2022. As a composer she has written operas, The 2021 Léonie Sonning Music Prize and the Wilhelm Hansen Foundation’s Prize of Honor 2020. In 2024, her opera “Hjem” was nominated for “Opera of the year 2023” by the Reumert Award. Selected works * A Mass of Stars Block the View commissioned by Berlin Academy of American Music, world premiere in Elbphilharmonie, June 2024, * Passengers of Passing Moments (Koreorama) ballet commissioned by The Royal Danish Ballet, The Royal Danish Theatre, March-A

Josefine Winter

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Josefine Winter (since 1914 Winter Edle von Wigmar; born 21 December 1873 in Vienna; died 20 January 1943 in the Theresienstadt ghetto) was an Austrian painter, composer and writer. Life Josefine, or Josephine, was born in Vienna, the daughter of Rudolf Auspitz (1837-1906) and Helene Lieben (1838-1896). In 1879, her mother fell ill with depression and was put in the Préfargier psychiatric hospital near Neuchâtel. The children were placed in the care of a governess, Marie Heidenhain from Dresden, who became the father’s new wife after the mother’s death in 1896 Josefine was educated by private tutors, but as a girl was not allowed to study. Like her mother, she began to paint. Her teachers were Emanuel Stöckler and Ludwig Michalek. Although both parents were patrons of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, they did not notice her musical talent. She received only the piano lessons customary at the time for children from “good homes.” Through visits to performances of the Vienna Court Opera, Josefine became enthusiastic about Georges Bizet’s Carmen and began to play the melodies she heard on the piano. The pianist Lili Michalek became her first teacher before she became a stud

Josep Anselm Clavé

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Josep Anselm Clavé i Camps (21 April 1824 – 24 February 1874) also known as José Anselmo Clavé, was a Catalan politician, composer and writer, founder of the choral movement in Catalonia and a promoter of the associative movement. He was the initiator of choral singing in Catalonia. His first experiences in the musical field were marked by the plight of his family. Clavé was forced to earn a living by singing for coffee in taverns accompanied by a guitar, when he was 17 years old. The contact with the workers, gathering in those places, led him to take them out from the taverns and meet them in choral societies. He acquired notions of violin, flute and music theory, which allowed him to compose lyrics and music for songs. In 1845 he organized Aurora, a choral society that would later become La Fraternitat (The Fraternity), a society of mutual help and the first Iberian chorale. In 1857, Clavé renamed it Euterpe. The Euterpenses societies, spread throughout Catalonia and the Valencian Country were the origin of the Cors de Clavé. As a politician, he was an early supporter of Abdó Terrades and Narcís Monturiol. In 1843 he took part in a revolt against General Espartero and in 1845 wa

Josep Maria Ventura i Casas

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Josep Maria Ventura i Casas (Alcalá la Real (Jaén), 1817 – Figueres (Catalonia), 1875), popularly known as Pep Ventura, was a Spanish musician and composer from Catalonia who consolidated the long sardana and reformed the cobla, adding instruments to give it its current formation. He is considered the father of the modern Sardana by the profound transformation that he printed to these compositions, based on giving it greater musical extension, in the inclusion of new instruments, especially the tenora (instrument creation of Andreu Turon) from 1849 and its arrangement in the cobla, which will imitate another musical formations of this type. His performance before the Queen Isabella II of Spain in the Monastery of Montserrat together with other artists of the Renaixença consecrated him as a figure in the Catalan cultural world. Life Ventura’s family came from the Catalan region of Empordà. He was born in Andalusia, where his father, a low-ranking military officer, was assigned to participate in the operations of repression of banditry that followed the War of Spanish Independence. At the age of two years, the family moved again to Catalonia, to the Gironan town of Roses in 1819, whe

Joseph Achron

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Joseph Yulyevich Achron, also seen as Akhron (Russian: Иосиф Юльевич Ахрон, Hebrew: יוסף אחרון) (May 1, 1886 – April 29, 1943) was a Russian composer and violinist, who settled in the United States. His preoccupation with Jewish elements and his desire to develop a “Jewish” harmonic and contrapuntal idiom, underscored and informed much of his work. His friend, the composer Arnold Schoenberg, described Achron in his obituary as “one of the most underrated modern composers”. Biography Achron was born in Lozdzieje, Russian Empire (now Lazdijai, Lithuania) to Julian and Bertha and began the study of the violin under his father, an amateur violinist, at the age of five. His first public performance followed three years later at age seven in Warsaw. This was followed by a prodigious childhood career including performances throughout Russia. Between 1899 and 1904 he studied violin under Leopold Auer and composition under Anatoly Lyadov, at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. He joined the Society for Jewish Folk Music in 1911 and from that point occupied himself in theory and practice with the Jewish music tradition. His first “Jewish” work, Hebrew Melody, became immediately recognized throug

Joseph Ahrens

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Joseph Johannes Clemens Ahrens (April 17, 1904 in Sommersell – December 21, 1997 in Berlin) was a German composer and organist. Ahrens received early training in organ and choral music with Wilhelm Schnippering in Büren and Fritz Volbach in Munich. He read choral studies at Gerleve Abbey and Beuron Abbey. From 1925-1928 he studied at the State Academy for Church and School Music (now called the Royal Music Institute of Berlin) under Alfred Sittard, Max Seiffert, and Wilhelm Middelschulte. In 1928 he began teaching organ playing and improvisation at the same academy. Between 1931 and 1940 Ahrens was the organist for the Berliner Philharmoniker, simultaneously serving as the organist for the Cathedral of St. Hedwig after 1934. From 1945 to 1957 he was organist at the Salvator-Kirche in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. He accepted a professorship in church music at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik in 1945 and remained there until 1969, serving as deputy director and professor of keyboard instruments from 1954 to 1958. From 1955 onward he was in charge of the church music department, and chairman of the state examination office for church music. Ahrens was awarded the Berliner Kunstpreis in 1955, be

Joseph Alfidi

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Joseph Alfidi (May 28, 1949 – February 2, 2015) was an American pianist, composer, and conductor and initially a child prodigy. He was born in Yonkers, New York, as the son of American-born parents of Italian descent. His father, Frank Alfidi, was an accordion player who ran a music school in Yonkers. Known as “Joey” in his childhood, he was three when he started to play several instruments in his father’s studio. By the age of four, he frequently improvised little compositions at the piano, and soon became fascinated by symphonic music as well. Biography At the age of six, he had professional engagements to conduct the Miami Symphony Orchestra in Florida and members of the New York Philharmonic on Long Island. On November 18, 1956, the seven-year-old appeared in Carnegie Hall, conducting the Symphony of the Air. The ambitious program included two overtures, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and Rossini’s William Tell, as well as Haydn’s “Surprise” Symphony and Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. He appeared on two CBS Television Network Goodson-Todman produced game-shows. On November 14, 1956, he was a guest on I’ve Got a Secret starring Garry Moore where he performed on four different instru

Joseph Allard (fiddler)

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Joseph Allard (February 1, 1873 – November 14, 1947) was a Canadian fiddler and composer. He occasionally recorded under the pseudonym Maxime Toupin. Allard made many popular recordings, including Reel de l’Aveugle, Reel de Chateauguay, Reel de Jacques Cartier, and Reel du voyageur. During most of his life he was rarely in the public eye, and worked much of his life as a fisherman. Childhood Allard’s birthplace is reported both as 1 February 1873 in Woodland now Lery, Quebec and as 1 July 1873 in Châteauguay, Quebec. His family was living in Quebec when he was quite young. Allard’s father was a fiddler, and when Allard reached the age of nine he was instructed in fiddling. Allard remained in Quebec until the age of sixteen, when he moved back to the United States, where he began to enter fiddling competitions. Fiddling Allard entered fiddling competitions throughout the New England, winning competitions in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut. While in the United States, he met and married Alexina Couillard. Scottish and Irish musicians he met there taught him a number of Reels and Gigues. He continued to travel and play in the United States until 1917, when h

Joseph Aloys Schmittbaur

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Joseph Aloys Schmittbaur (also Schmittbauer; 8 November 1718 - 24 October 1809) was a German composer, Kapellmeister, instrument maker and music teacher. Life Joseph Aloys Schmittbaur was born in Bamberg and received his musical education from the organ builder of the Würzburg court Johann Philipp Seuffert. He was also a pupil of Niccolò Jommelli, probably in Bologna. Around 1750 he was employed in the court of Rastatt, where he became concertmaster in 1759 and Kapellmeister in 1766. During this time he set German and Italian works for the stage. After the dissolution of Rastatt chapel in 1771, he became concertmaster of the Badische Staatskapelle in Karlsruhe. In January 1775, Schmittbaur was given the position of Kapellmeister of Cologne Cathedral, where he was deeply influenced by the conservative musical activities of the musical academies. Two years later, upon the death of Giacinto Sciatti in 1777, he returned to Karlsruhe to become Kapellmeister. He retired from his duties as Kapellmeister in 1804, leaving his place at the court to his son, Ludwig Joseph Abbe (1755-1829), a composer of Lieder. Three other children of his were musicians: August (b. 1763) was a clarinetist and

Joseph Ascher

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Joseph Simon Ascher (3 June 1829 – 20 June 1869) was a Dutch-Jewish composer and pianist. He lived in Paris and London for most of his life. Life Ascher was born in Groningen, the son of the chazzan of the city, who went on to become a cantor in London. He started his musical studies in London and continued them at the Leipzig Conservatory with Ignaz Moscheles as his teacher, but did not graduate. He died at age 40. His pianistic gifts were recognized by the Empress Eugénie of France, who asked him to become her court pianist in 1849. In 1865, Ascher moved back to London, while in Paris he was succeeded as court pianist by Émile Waldteufel. He died in London from the result of what some 19th-century sources call “a dissolute life”. Brown (1886) regarded him as a “composer who, had he been more careful in his worldly relations, might have proved one of the greatest among recent musicians.” Music Ascher composed about 170 works for piano, piano four- and eight-hands, as well as ballads and display pieces for solo singers with piano accompaniment. Brown (1886) wrote: “his music is more than commonplace, and many of his single pieces evince genius of a decidedly original turn. The nume

Joseph Baber

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Joseph Wilson Baber Jr. (September 11, 1937 – March 19, 2022) was an American composer, violist, and composition teacher living in Lexington, Kentucky. Life Baber was born in 1937 in Richmond, Virginia, and died in Lexington, Kentucky. He was a Professor of Theory and Composition at the University of Kentucky from 1971 to 2021, and the longtime principal violist of Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra. Selected works Information from and. * Op. 1: Duos for Violin and Viola * Op. 2a: Longfellow Songs ** “It Is Not Always May” ** “The Aftermath” ** “Serenade” ** “The Rainy Day” ** “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls” ** “Snow-flakes” * Op. 2b: Emersonian Hymns ** “The Informing Spirit” ** “Compensation” ** “Thine Eyes Still Shined” ** “Thought” ** “Terminus” ** “To Ellen” ** “Nature” * Op. 3: Miscellaneous Instrumental (1960) * Op. 4: Wise Men And Shepherds, Christmas cantata (1951) * Op. 5: Instrumental Works for Winds ** Sonnet for Solo Oboe, Flute and String Orchestra ** Meditation for Solo Bassoon ** Sketches for Flute and Piano * Op. 6: Cavalier Lyrics (1960) ** “Song (Sedley)” ** “Why So Pale and Wan” (Sir John Suckling) ** “Take, O Take Those Lips Away” (Shakespeare) ** “The Constant

Joseph Barnby

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Sir Joseph Barnby (12 August 183828 January 1896) was an English composer and conductor. Life Barnby was born at York, as a son of Thomas Barnby, who was an organist. Joseph was a chorister at York Minster from the age of seven. His voice broke at the age of fifteen and he studied for two to three years at the Royal Academy of Music under Cipriani Potter and Charles Lucas. He was narrowly beaten by Arthur Sullivan in competition for the Mendelssohn Scholarship. In 1862 he was appointed organist of St Andrew’s, Wells Street, London, where he raised the services to a high degree of excellence. It was at St Andrew’s that in 1864, Barnby and the choir performed two anthems by Alice Mary Smith; this is believed to be the first time that liturgical music composed by a woman was performed in the Church of England. He was conductor of “Barnby’s Choir” from 1864, at first giving concerts at St James’s Hall and afterwards at Exeter Hall. In 1871 he was appointed, in succession to Charles Gounod, conductor of the Royal Albert Hall Choral Society, a post he held till his death. Meanwhile, he had left St Andrew’s for a similar position at St Anne’s, Soho. In 1875, he was precentor and director

Joseph Beaulieu

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Joseph Beaulieu (21 May 1895 – 1 October 1965) was a Canadian composer, folklorist, and music educator. He traveled extensively throughout Canada collecting folk songs, which he compiled in several published books. As a composer, his works reflect his strong interest in folk music in there structure and melody. He wrote over 200 works, most of them folk-inspired songs or sacred songs. Also of note is his operetta Le Trésor du pauvre and his mass for four mixed voices, the Vatican II Mass, which was written for ceremonies held during the Second Vatican Council. A number of his pieces have been published by La Bonne Chanson and Thompson. Life Born in Mattawa, Ontario, Beaulieu began his musical training at the relatively late age of 20, studying piano with Oscar O’Brien and Amédée Tremblay in Ottawa. He soon after began performing in evening entertainments with his teachers and baritone Charles Marchand. With Marchand he traveled throughout the provinces of Ontario and Quebec giving concerts of folk music. During these travels, he began collecting Canadian folksongs which became a lifelong passion of his. In the early 1920s, Beaulieu pursued further training at the Canadian Conservat

Joseph Beer

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Joseph Beer (; 7 May 1908 – 23 November 1987) was a composer who worked mainly in the genres of operettas, singspiele, and operas. Beer started composing music as a young man in Vienna in the 1930s. His operettas and premiered at the Zürich Opera House in 1934 and 1937, respectively. Beer, ethnically Jewish, fled Austria in 1938 for France. His family stayed in Poland and subsequently perished in the Nazi extermination camps. Beer continued composing new works until the end of his life, and left a large number of composition for the stage. Early life Beer was born in 1908 in Chodorow, Galicia, today Khodoriv near Lviv, the second child of Uri Isidore Beer, a wealthy banker, and Amelie Esther Malka Beer nee Silver; he had an older brother and a younger sister. Beer started composing in his early teens and attended the Lviv Conservatory at the time called Lwów Conservatory, during his high school years. To please his father, he first completed a year of law studies at Lviv University, succeeding in the final exam on the question of Lex Salica, and was then applied with his father’s backing at the Staatsakademie und Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna. He was admitte

Joseph Benda

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Joseph Benda (; c. 7 May 1724 – 22 February 1804) was a Czech violinist and composer active in the Kingdom of Prussia. Life Joseph Benda was baptised on 7 May 1724. He was born in Benátky nad Jizerou, the son of a weaver Jan Jiří Benda and his wife Dorota Brixi, daughter of the village cantor from Skalsko and member of the large Czech musical family. Five of Joseph’s siblings achieved success as musicians; older brothers František, Jan Jiří and Jiří Antonín as violinist composers, and younger sister Anna Franziska as an operatic soprano. External links *

Joseph Bertolozzi

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Joseph Bertolozzi (born 1959) is an American composer and musician with works ranging from full symphony orchestra and solo songs to immense sound-art installations. With increasingly numerous performances across Europe and the United States to his credit, his music is performed by groups ranging from the Grammy-winning Chestnut Brass Company to the Eastman School of Music, and he himself has played at such diverse venues as the Vatican and The US Tennis Open. Works and performances His most well known project is Tower Music: a musical composition using only sounds sampled from the surfaces of the Eiffel Tower itself, with no added digital manipulation or alteration of the sounds. The resulting 2016 album “Tower Music” (on the innova label #933), reached #11 on the iTunes Classical charts and #16 on the Billboard Classical Crossover Music chart. Tower Music is a sister project to Bridge Music. Like Tower Music, Bridge Music allows listeners to hear the sounds of New York’s Mid-Hudson Bridge played like a musical instrument. The work was created for New York’s 400th anniversary observance of Henry Hudson’s voyage up the Hudson River. Originally intended to be a live performance piec

Joseph Bodin de Boismortier

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Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (23 December 1689 – 28 October 1755) was a French baroque composer of chamber music, cantatas, opéra-ballets, and vocal music. Boismortier was one of the first composers to have no patrons: having obtained a royal licence for engraving music in 1724, he made enormous sums of money by publishing his music for sale to the public. Biography The Boismortier family moved from the composer’s birthplace in Thionville (in Lorraine) to the town of Metz (in the Three Bishoprics) where he received his musical education from Joseph Valette de Montigny fr , a well-known composer of motets. The Boismortier family then followed Montigny and moved to Perpignan, Rousillon, in 1713 where Boismortier found employment in the Royal Tobacco Control. Boismortier married Marie Valette, the daughter of a rich goldsmith and a relative of his teacher Montigny. In 1724 Boismortier and his wife moved to Paris where he began a prodigious composition career, writing for many instruments and voices. He was prolific: his first works appeared in Paris in 1724, and by 1747 he had published more than 100 works in various vocal and instrumental combinations. His music, particularly for the

Joseph Bonnet

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Joseph Élie Georges-Marie Bonnet (17 March 1884 – 2 August 1944) was a French composer and organist. Biography One of the major French pipe organists, Joseph Bonnet was born in Bordeaux. He first studied with his father, an organist at St. Eulalie. At the age of 14, he became official organist, first at St. Nicholas and almost immediately at St. Michael. Bonnet also attended classes with Alexandre Guilmant at the Conservatoire de Paris. A few years later he finished with a first prize and, in 1906 was selected to become the organist at St. Eustache, Paris. In 1911 he had the privilege of succeeding Guilmant as concert organist at the conservatoire. He was actively teaching at this time and one of his notable students from his earlier years was Canadian organist Henri Gagnon. On 28 January 1917 he moved to the United States, where he gave more than 100 concerts around the country until 1919. He was elected an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity in June 1917. Bonnet founded the organ department of the Eastman School of Music in 1921. He composed a large number of organ pieces and compiled the six-volume Historical Organ Recitals. A few years later, Bonnet return

Joseph Boulnois

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Joseph Boulnois (28 January 1884 – 20 October 1918) was a French organist and composer. Biography Boulnois attended the Conservatoire de Paris, where he studied counterpoint with Georges Caussade and organ with Louis Vierne. In 1906, he married the pianist Jane Chevalier, and they had a son the following year, Michel Boulnois, who also became a composer and organist. In 1908, he was appointed to the organ of the , in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris. He stayed there a short time and was appointed to the organ of the in the 9th arrondissement. In 1909, he was singing conductor at the Opéra-Comique. He remained very active as a soloist, notably as co-founder with Marc de Ranse, of the Concerts spirituels de Saint-Louis d’Antin. He also played in the Opéra-Comique and performed in the church in the 14th arrondissement. After the beginning of the First World War, Boulnois was mobilised at the Février Hospital of Châlons-sur-Marne, where he was a nurse from 1 January 1915. Appointed a corporal on 26 March 1915, he became a sergeant on 19 October 1916. * 1905: First Prize of organ (class of Alexandre Guilmant) * 1908: Second Prize in fugue (class of Charles Lenepveu) * 1910: First Prize o

Joseph Brody

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Joseph Brody ( ) (1876/1877 – 1937) was an American Jewish composer who wrote for the Yiddish theatre as well as liturgical Jewish works. He taught George Gershwin and was a friend of Yossele Rosenblatt. His daughter, Estelle Brody, was an actress. Early life Brody was born on March 12, 1877, according to his gravestone, in Lyakhavichy, Minsk Governorate, in the Russian Empire, although the Lexicon of Yiddish Theatre gives the date as February 12, and in own his naturalization application he stated his birthday was January 22, 1876. His father, Harris Brody, was a tailor and sent Joseph to a Cheder for his early education. His father emigrated to the United States in 1887, at which point Joseph entered a Yeshiva in Slonim, where he stayed for six years. During that time he developed an aptitude for music, and was greatly impressed by the military orchestras which regularly played in the park in Slonim during the summers. It was when he was hired by David Kessler from the Thalia Theatre in New York City that his career as a Jewish American composer began in earnest. His partnership with Kessler would last for several decades. Kessler, Bertha Kalich, and Sigmund Mogulesko starred in

Joseph Byrd

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Joseph Hunter Byrd Jr. (December 19, 1937 – November 2, 2025) was an American composer, musician and academic. After first becoming known as an experimental composer in New York City and Los Angeles, he became the leader of the psychedelic rock band The United States of America, an innovative but short-lived band which integrated psychedelic rock, electronic sound, and radical political ideas into rock music. In 1968 he recorded the album The American Metaphysical Circus, credited to Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies. After working as a record producer, arranger, and soundtrack composer, he became a university teacher in music history and theory. Early life and career Byrd was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and was raised in Tucson, Arizona, after his father purchased a mine near the Mexican border. His sister, Elizabeth would become a notable writer. As a teenager, Byrd played accordion and vibraphone in a series of pop and country bands, started writing his own arrangements, and performed on some local TV shows. He formed his first jazz quartet while a student at the University of Arizona, where he studied composition with Barney Childs (B.M., 1959). He began his graduate studies in

Joseph Callaerts

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Joseph Callaerts (11 August 1830 – 3 March 1901) was a Belgian organist, carillonneur, composer and music teacher. He was an important member of the Belgian school of organ playing. Biography Joseph Callaerts (sometimes referred to as Jozef ) was born in 1830 in Antwerp, and spent nearly all of his life in that city. He started learning music when he was a boy, singing in Antwerp’s choir of the Cathedral of Our Lady. As a young man, he studied the organ with Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens at the Brussels Royal Conservatoire, and he won the first prize in organ at that institution in 1856. Starting in 1850, Callaerts served as the organist at the Jesuit College in Antwerp. In 1855 he became the organist at Antwerp Cathedral and in 1863 he became carillonneur of the city of Antwerp. From 1867 on, he taught organ and harmony at the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp, which had its name changed to the Royal Flemish Conservatoire in 1898. He also gave expert advice in the building of several organs. Callaerts’s compositions include an opera called Le Retour imprévu, a symphony, a piano concerto, an organ concerto, a violin and orchestra concertpiece, chamber music, choral music, songs and many wor

Joseph Canteloube

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Marie-Joseph Canteloube de Malaret (; 21 October 18794 November 1957) was a French composer, musicologist, and author best known for his collections of orchestrated folksongs from the Auvergne region, Chants d’Auvergne. Biography Canteloube was born in Annonay, Ardèche, into a family with deep roots in the Auvergne region of France. He studied piano from the age of six with Amélie Doetzer, a friend of Frédéric Chopin. After earning his baccalauréat, he worked at a bank in Bordeaux. Upon his father’s death in 1896, he returned to his family home in Malaret (Annonay), remaining there until his mother’s death in 1899, and then beyond as sole owner of the estate. In 1901, after a period of silence and mourning, Canteloube married Charlotte Marthe Calaret, who gave birth to twins Pierre and Guy in 1903. He began studying with Vincent d’Indy via correspondence in 1901, reluctant to leave Malaret. With d’Indy’s constant urging, he finally entered the Schola Cantorum in 1907 in Paris, where he remained until the beginning of World War I in 1914. At the Schola, Canteloube became close friends with fellow composer and student Déodat de Séverac. In 1907, he wrote a suite in four movements for

Joseph Carl Breil

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Joseph Carl Breil (29 June 1870 – 23 January 1926) was an American lyric tenor, stage director, composer and conductor. He was one of the earliest American composers to compose specific music for motion pictures. His first film was Les amours de la reine Élisabeth (1912) starring Sarah Bernhardt. He later composed and arranged scores for several other early motion pictures, including such epics as D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916), as well as scoring the preview version of The Phantom of the Opera (1925), a score that is now lost. His love theme for “Birth of a Nation”, titled “The Perfect Song”, was published by Chappell & Co. in an arrangement for voice and keyboard. It was later used as the theme for the radio show Amos ’n’ Andy. Life Joseph was the first of four children born to Joseph and Margaret Breil of Pittsburgh. (Joseph Sr., a lawyer, was an immigrant from Prussia and his wife was born in Pennsylvania.) Breil graduated from Duquesne University (then the Pittsburgh Catholic College of the Holy Ghost) in 1888. He later composed the alma mater for the university, which was first performed in October 1920. He also pursued studies at St Fide

Joseph Christoph Kessler

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Joseph Christoph Kessler (26 August 180014 January 1872), also seen as Kötzler, was a German pianist and composer who was active mostly in the Austrian Empire. His études, nocturnes, variations, preludes and bagatelles He studied under the organist Bilek at Feldsberg and at a seminary at Nicolsburg. who used some of Kessler’s works in their own pedagogical material. He also taught at Landshut. Frédéric Chopin became exposed to Kessler’s music while he was in his teens, in Warsaw. Kessler arrived in Warsaw in 1829, and quickly became part of the musical life there. He was one of a number of people who gave regular musical soirees attended by Chopin. It was at such Kessler soirees that Chopin heard for the first time works such as Beethoven’s “Archduke” Trio. Kessler and Chopin became firm friends. Kessler’s Études were arranged in a circle of fifths, unlike Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, which is arranged in ascending chromatic order. It has been said that Chopin may have even borrowed the title “étude” from Kessler, and copied from Kessler the idea of using metronome marks in his scores. A decade later, Chopin repaid the dedication in his own 24 Preludes, Op. 28

Joseph Curiale

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Joseph Curiale (born July 1, 1955) is an American composer, producer, songwriter, arranger and conductor. Education Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Curiale attended the University of Bridgeport and earned a Degree in Music Education in 1976, studying jazz arranging with Neil Slater. In 2009, Curiale completed his Master of Music Composition at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He completed a PhD in Music Composition from the University of Minnesota in 2015. Career Television From 1982 to 1992, Curiale worked as an arranger and composer for the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and his song “Sick of the Blues” was used as one of closing the themes. Curiale composed the opening and closing theme for Nick News with Linda Ellerbee. Film In 1983, Curiale was hired as the first staff songwriter at Columbia Pictures. Classical Curiale wrote two symphonic compositions: Awakening and The Music of Life. Awakening was recorded in 1997 by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and The Music of Life, in 2001 by the London Symphony Orchestra. The Music of Life premiered in the United States in April, 2002 and was performed by the Akron Symphony Orchestra. Curiale has also composed separate pieces

Joseph Czerny

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Joseph Czerny (17 June 1785, Hořovice – 7 January 1842, Vienna) was a pianist, composer, music publisher, and piano teacher from the Austrian Empire. He was not related to Carl Czerny. Among his compositions is Variation No. 5 from Part II of Diabelli’s Vaterländischer Künstlerverein and about 60 other works consisting of fantasias, rondos, other variations, etc., which he published. Fétis was also critical of him: “Joseph’s talent on the piano was less than mediocre; his compositions are not of a much higher order.” Apparently, Joseph only started composing after Carl gave fame to the name “Czerny”, and he understood that he could capitalize on this coincidence. It was doubted that Joseph had ever composed anything, and that he instead had his works done by young artists whom he paid to obtain permission to put his name on their productions. But this suspicion eventually proved untrue, for the piano pieces bearing Joseph Czerny’s name were already forgotten by about 1867. In the last years of his life, he had adopted the profession of bookseller-publisher. References

Joseph Dall'Abaco

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Joseph Abaco (full name Joseph (Giuseppe) Marie Clément Ferdinand dall’Abaco) (27 March 171031 August 1805) was an Italian violoncellist and composer. He was born and baptised in Brussels, the capital of the Spanish Netherlands, on 27 March 1710, and was musically trained by his father, Evaristo Felice dall’Abaco. At age nineteen Abaco entered into the service of the Prince-elector of Cologne at Bonn and played in the court chamber orchestra. He was appointed its music director in 1738. He traveled to England in 1740. In 1753 he moved to Verona, in the Republic of Venice, where he worked as a member of the Philharmonic Academy. In 1766 he was given the title of baron by Prince Maximilian of Bavaria. Abaco wrote nearly 40 cello sonatas, the 11 Capricci for Violoncello Solo, and other works. Many of his compositions were written in an old-fashioned, Baroque style, despite himself living a very long life well into the Classical era. Abaco died at his estate, Arbizzano di Valpolicella, Napoleonic Italy, near Verona, at the age of 95, on 31 August 1805. * Capricci for solo cello, edited by Christian Bellisario, Daniele Bianchi and Andrea Friggi (The White Prince Edition, 2006). Referenc

Joseph Daussoigne-Méhul

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Joseph Daussoigne-Méhul (10 June 1790 – 10 March 1875) was a French composer and music educator. He served as the first director of the Royal Conservatory of Liège from 1826–1862; having been appointed to that post by William I of the Netherlands. In addition to his duties as director, he also taught courses in harmony and composition at the school. Among his notable pupils were Adolphe and Caroline Samuel, César Franck, and Jean-Théodore Radoux, the latter of whom succeeded him as conservatory director. In 1859, he was made a Commander of the Order of Leopold. Life and career Born Louis-Joseph Daussoigne in Givet, Ardennes, he legally changed his name to Joseph Daussoigne-Méhul on 12 August 1845 when he was 55 years old. He and his younger brother had been adopted by their uncle, the composer Étienne Méhul, in 1797 when he was seven years old. His brother served as a lieutenant in the French Army during the War of 1812 and was killed in action. In 1799, Daussoigne-Méhul entered the Conservatoire de Paris when he was just nine years old. He studied there for the next 10 years, during which time he received several academic honours and competition prizes from the Conservatoire, incl

Joseph Dillon Ford

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Joseph Dillon Ford (February 6, 1952 – March 8, 2017) was an American composer and author. Life and career Ford was born in Americus, Georgia. He held undergraduate degrees in music and graduate degrees in both musicology and landscape architecture. Although he focused on keyboard performance during his college years, Ford completed his training at Harvard as a Variell Scholar specializing in historical musicology. He studied twentieth-century composers and compositional techniques with Ivan Tcherepnin, the works of Bach and Handel with Christoph Wolff, Dowland and the English lutenists with John Ward, and the music of medieval Aquitaine with David Hughes. His major works include three symphonies, a piano concerto, several harpsichord concertos and sonatas, choral music, and a large quantity of chamber and solo works for the piano and other instruments. Although most of his oeuvre is tonal—often very traditionally so, he also produced non-tonal work using both acoustic and electronic media, and developed synthetic chromatic dialects amenable to both idioms. Keenly interested in emergent music and telecommunications technologies and the rich potential they offer for international cr

Joseph Engleman

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Joseph Engleman (1881–1949), born Josef, was an English light music composer and viola player, active in Birmingham, England. His son Harry was also a professional musician, initially in his father’s orchestra. Career He was born in Birmingham, the son of the trombonist at the old Grand Theatre, Birmingham, and was largely self-taught. Engleman played viola in the City of Birmingham Orchestra, and played in cinemas as an accompanist for silent films. As a composer he produced many light orchestral suites, and a ballet conducted by Adrian Boult in 1928. He also wrote library music, sometimes using the name John Harbury, and helped to found Bosworth’s mood music library in 1937. His film scores include Olympia St. Moritz (1948) and Kuckelikaka (1949). His entry in Who’s Who in Music also lists a Symphony in E. Engleman married Gertrude Owen, and there were two children, a son and a daughter. They lived at 43 Harbury Road, Cannon Hill, Birmingham. Harry Engleman composed mostly songs and syncopated piano solos such as Cannon off the Cushion (1936), Chase the Ace (1936), Finger Prints (1936, a piece popularised by Billy Mayerl and the American Zez Confrey), Golden Chain, Snakes and Lad

Joseph Erskine Agnew

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Joseph Erskine Agnew (1868/69 – December 1, 1949 ) was a musician, arranger, music store proprietor, and music publisher in Des Moines, Iowa and later Newton, Iowa briefly. He played the mandolin. He became a nationally prominent band music publisher. Sheet music published by his Agnew Music Publishing Company is in the collections of the Library of Congress, the University of Missouri–Kansas City, and the University of Rochester. He was born in Ohio. He copyrighted a valse by Myron A. Bickford. He also copyrighted an arrangement of a work by J. Offenbach. He copyrighted an arrangement of concert waltzes by Guy Sterling (musician) for the mandolin. He wrote “The 20th Century Method for Guitar” (1901, 1907). He published “Musical Novelties for Mandolin Orchestra: The Cleveland Two Step”. In 1917 he advertised various compositions of New Band Music in the Musical Messenger. He moved his business to Newton, Iowa where he was a band leader. He sold his store to the Volkwein Brothers of Pittsburgh in 1939. References

Joseph Eschborn

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Peter Joseph Eschborn (March 4, 1800, in Mainz – November 17, 1881, in Coburg)

Joseph Fennimore

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Joseph Fennimore (born 16 April 1940) is an American composer, pianist and teacher best known for his works for piano and chamber ensembles, ranked by Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Philip Kennicott as “one of this country’s finest composers.” His music has been performed and broadcast worldwide and included in the Metropolitan Opera Studio and New York City Ballet repertories. Early life and education Joseph Fennimore was born in Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital. He began formal music studies in upstate New York at the Schenectady Conservatory of Music, his principal teacher being its founder and director, Joseph G. Derrick, graduate of the New England Conservatory in the piano class of Ethel Newcomb, Theodor Leschetizky’s first American assistant. In his twelfth year Fennimore was chosen to perform a piano concerto with the Schenectady Symphony Orchestra at that city’s historic Proctor’s Theater. Fennimore was one of eight high school juniors to participate in the Eastman School of Music’s experimental accelerated program in Rochester, New York, during which the first year of his baccalaureate was completed over the summer months before and after his senior year in high school. The f

Joseph Friedrich Hummel

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Joseph Friedrich Hummel (14 August 1841 – 29 August 1919) was an Austrian choral conductor, composer and music teacher. Father of musicologist Walter Hummel, he was a musician and promoter of the works of Wagner, Bruckner and Richard Strauss. The Josef-Friedrich-Hummel-Straße, a street in Salzburg located in close proximity to the main building of the Mozarteum, was named after him. Biography Born in Innsbruck, Hummel studied music at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München under Franz Lachner and worked as theater kapellmeister in Innsbruck, Aachen, Troppau and Vienna, as well as conductor of the Brünn City Theatre from 1876 to 1879. He became director of the Mozarteum Orchestra and head of the newly established music school International Mozarteum Foundation from 1880 to 1908. There, he played with the orchestra that he founded, the women’s choir and led the Salzburger Liedertafel (amateur male choir) from 1882 until 1912, organizing several major choral festivals in Salzburg, and thus gaining the reputation as a fine Mozart conductor. Hummel died in Salzburg in 1919 at the age of 78. Works Hummel wrote the opera Der Vampyr (1862), two concertos for clarinet and orchestra, c

Joseph Gelineau

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Joseph Gelineau, SJ (31 October 1920 – 8 August 2008) was a French Jesuit priest and composer, mainly of modern Christian liturgical music. He was a member of the translation committee for La Bible de Jérusalem (1959). Gelineau was born in Champ-sur-Layon, Maine-et-Loire. Having entered the Society of Jesus in 1941, he studied Catholic theology in Lyon and music in Paris. He was one of the founders of the international study group on music and liturgy Universa Laus. Heavily influenced by Gregorian chant, he developed his Gelineau psalmody which is used worldwide. His psalm tones were designed to express the asymmetrical, three to four line design of the psalm texts. He collaborated with the Dominican Raymond-Jacques Tournay and Raymond Schwab to rework the Jerusalem Bible Psalter. Their joint effort produced the Psautier de la Bible de Jerusalem and recording Psaumes, which won the Gran Prix de L’ Academie Charles Cros in 1953. Later he composed numerous chants for the ecumenical French Taizé Community. He was associated with the Institut Catholique de Paris. He also collaborated with Didier Rimaud. He died in Sallanches, aged 87. Selected recordings * Hymnes de Joseph Gelineau 4CD

Joseph Gibbs (composer)

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Joseph Gibbs (23 December 169812 December 1788), was an English composer. He was not prolific, but he was not entirely unknown. Biography Gibbs was born in Dedham, Essex to John Gibbs and Judith Gibbs. He had an older brother, Edward, born four years before. Little is known of his life, until 1748, when he was appointed organist at the Church of St. Mary-le-Tower, Ipswich, and his first published work, Eight solos for violin with a thorough bass, appeared. Only one other work (six quartettos) is known to have been published in the remaining forty years of his active musical life. The purchase of a Gainsborough in 1928 by the National Portrait Gallery created a renewed interest in Joseph Gibbs. This painting of Gibbs was hitherto unknown and handed down through generations of Gibbs’s family who were the only ones aware of its existence. Ipswich had a lively Music Club in which Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) was a keen and passionate member. It is during this period that Gainsborough painted a portrait of his friend Joseph Gibbs. In the background of this portrait are two volumes. One is titled Corelli and the other Gem (presumably Francesco Geminiani). Acknowledgement of these name

Joseph Gungl

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Joseph Gungl, correct: Josef Gung’l (1 December 1809 – 1 February 1889), was a Hungarian composer, bandmaster, and conductor. He was soprano Virginia Naumann-Gungl’s father. Biography Gungl was born in Schambeck, Austrian-Hungarian monarchy (now Zsámbék, Hungary). After working as a school-teacher in Buda, and learning the elements of music from the school-choirmaster, he became first oboist at Graz, and, at twenty-five, bandmaster of the 4th Regiment of Austrian Artillery. His first composition, a Hungarian march, written in 1836, attracted some notice, and in 1843 he was able to establish an orchestra in Berlin. With this band he travelled far, even to the United States in 1848–1849. Mendelssohn’s complete A Midsummer Night’s Dream music is said to have been first played by Gungl’s orchestra. In 1853 he became bandmaster to the 23rd Infantry Regiment at Brno, but in 1864 he moved to Munich, and in 1876 at Frankfurt, after having conducted with great success a series of promenade concerts at the Covent Garden in London in 1873. From Frankfurt, Gungl went to Weimar to live with his daughter, a well-known German opera singer, and died there. Compositions Gungl was a very prolific co

Joseph Hallman

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Joseph Hallman (born Nov. 20, 1979) is an American composer. A functional orphan, Hallman was born and raised in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended Girard College from first to twelfth grades. Based in Philadelphia, Hallman’s works have been performed internationally. His music has been described as eclectic, merging classical, Renaissance, and contemporary popular styles. Hallman also teaches composition at Drexel University. Early life Hallman began composing at the age of 12. He graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with Margaret Brouwer. He continued his studies with masterclasses by George Crumb. Christopher Rouse, John Corigliano, Steven Mackey, John Harbison and others. Career Hallman is composer-in-residence at the Rosenbach Museum & Library of Philadelphia and the Pikes Falls Chamber Music Festival. He has collaborated with leading performers and ensembles. Cellist Alisa Weilerstein performed his concerto for cello and chamber ensemble with the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic in Russia. A series of concerti grossi, inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, was performed by members of the P

Joseph Hellmesberger Jr.

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Joseph Heinrich Georg Hellmesberger Jr. (9 April 1855 – 26 April 1907), also known as Pepi Hellmesberger, was an Austrian composer, violinist and conductor. Biography Hellmesberger was born in Vienna and was the son of violinist and conductor Joseph Hellmesberger Sr. (1828–1893), who was his first teacher. Among his family of notable musicians were: grandfather, Georg Hellmesberger Sr. (1800–1873); uncle, Georg Hellmesberger Jr. (1830–1852); and brother, Ferdinand Hellmesberger (1863–1940). In 1875 Hellmesberger became a member of his father’s Hellmesberger Quartet, while in 1891 he became leader. In 1878 Hellmesberger became solo violinist of the Vienna Court Chapel and professor at the Vienna Conservatory. In 1890 he was the first hofkapellmeister at the Vienna Court Opera, and from 1901 to 1903 he was principal conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic. In 1904 and 1905 he was Kapellmeister at the Stuttgarter Hoftheater His compositions include 22 operettas, 6 ballets, dance music and lieder. Hellmesberger died of kidney failure, in Vienna at age 52. References * *Josef Hellmesberger Jr. biography at the Tribal Smile Music Encyclopedia *Josef Hellmesberger Jr. biography at aeiou Ency

Joseph Hinton

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Joseph Harold Hinton (1 January 1862 – 4 January 1941) was a British composer and organist. Hinton was born in Claydon, Buckinghamshire. His teachers included Frederick Bridge of Westminster Abbey. In 1882 Hinton was appointed resident music-master at Blairlodge School in Polmont, Scotland, moving then in 1885 to be organist at Hyndland Church, Hillhead, Glasgow. His published compositions include a setting of De Profundis, a song titled Eldorado, and some anthems. In 1908 he published L’allegro, his op. 5, for string orchestra, with timpani ad lib. He was honorary secretary of the Glasgow Society of Musicians in 1909. At least briefly from 1909 he lived at 7 Striven Gardens in Glasgow. In May 1910 he went to Canada, and worked in Ontario before heading west, to British Columbia. He died in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1941. References

Joseph Hofmeister

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Joseph C. Hofmeister (March 29, 1867 – October 1, 1933) was a Czech American bandleader, composer and music educator. An immigrant from Bohemia, he was based in southern Minnesota. He was best known as the longtime director of the Second Regiment Band of the Minnesota National Guard and as the patriarch of the Hofmeister musical family, who were later inducted into the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame in 1994. Early life and immigration Joseph C. Hofmeister was born on March 29, 1867, near the town of Cheb, Bohemia (modern-day Czech Republic), to Ignatz Hofmeister and Maria Keim. Career Hofmeister became one of the most prominent musicians in southern Minnesota during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He directed several ensembles, including the Second Regiment Band of the Minnesota National Guard, which earned distinction from the regiment’s headquarters during the Mexican Border Expedition of 1916–1917. He also led the Hofmeister Band in New Ulm and later directed the Springfield Orpheus Band beginning in 1923. Hofmeister was recognized as a skilled composer and arranger, writing numerous works for concert orchestra, military band, and vocal performance. His most famous composi

Joseph Horovitz

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Joseph Horovitz (26 May 1926 – 9 February 2022) was an Austrian-born British composer and conductor best known for his 1970 pop cantata Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo, which achieved widespread popularity in schools. Horovitz also composed music for television, including the theme music for the Thames Television series Rumpole of the Bailey, and was a prolific composer of ballet, orchestral (including nine concertos), brass band, wind band and chamber music. He considered his fifth string quartet (1969) to be his best work. Biography Horovitz was born in Vienna, Austria, into a Jewish family who emigrated to England via Belgium in 1938 to escape the Nazis. His father was the publisher Béla Horovitz, the co-founder in 1923, with Ludwig Goldscheider, of Phaidon Press. His sister was the classical music promoter Hannah Horovitz (1936–2010). When he was about 6 or 7, he attended the Vienna Conservatorium. After completing his schooling at The City of Oxford High School Horovitz studied music and modern languages at New College, Oxford, where his teachers included R. O. Morris, Percy Scholes, Bernard Rose and Egon Wellesz. He later attended the Royal College of Music in London, study

Joseph Joachim

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Joseph Joachim (28 June 1831 – 15 August 1907) was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher who made an international career, based in Hanover and Berlin. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most distinguished violinists of the 19th century. Joachim studied violin early, beginning in Buda at age five, then in Vienna and Leipzig. He made his debut in London in 1844, playing Ludwig van Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, with Felix Mendelssohn conducting. He returned to London many times throughout life. After years of teaching at the Leipzig Conservatory and playing as principal violinist of the Gewandhausorchester, he moved to Weimar in 1848, where Franz Liszt established cultural life. From 1852, Joachim served at the court of Hanover, playing principal violin in the opera and conducting concerts, with months of free time in summer for concert tours. In 1853, he was invited by Robert Schumann to the Lower Rhine Music Festival, where he met Clara Schumann and Brahms, with whom he performed for years to come. In 1879, he premiered Brahms’ Violin Concerto with Brahms as conductor. He married Amalie, an opera singer, in 1863, who gave up

Joseph Jongen

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Joseph Marie Alphonse Nicolas Jongen (14 December 1873 – 12 July 1953) was a Belgian organist, composer, and music educator. Biography Jongen was born in Liège, where his parents had moved from Flanders. He was the elder brother of Léon Jongen. Because of his precocity for music, he was admitted to the Liège Conservatoire at age of seven and spent the next sixteen years there. Jongen studied composition with Jean-Théodore Radoux. In 1892 he was awarded the gold medal in the piano competition, and later that same year he joined the organ class of Charles-Marie Danneels. He won a First Prize for Fugue in 1895, an honors diploma in piano the next year, and another for organ in 1896. In 1902 he returned to Belgium, and in 1903 he was named a professor of harmony and counterpoint at his old Liège college. With the outbreak of World War I, he and his family moved to England, where he founded a piano quartet with violinist Désiré Defauw, violist Lionel Tertis, and cellist Émile Doehaerd. His String Quartet No 2, op. 50, was composed there in 1916. After the end of the war, he returned to Belgium and was named professor of fugue at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. From 1925 until 1939,

Joseph Karl Ambrosch

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Joseph Karl Ambrosch (; 6 May 1759 – 8 September 1822) was a Czech tenor opera singer and composer. Early life Born in Český Krumlov, Ambrosch lived in Berlin as a tenor opera singer since 1791. Since 1792 he has been part of the ensemble of the Berlin Royal National Theater, which August Wilhelm Iffland had led since 1796. Ambrosch appeared in plays as well as in operas and musical plays. One of his most successful roles was that of the landowner Weller in the German version of Ferdinando Paer’s Poche ma buone, ossia Le donne cambiate (1800), (first performance on 25 May 1807). In Mozart’s The Magic Flute he sang Papageno over 21 times between 1806 and 1812. He mostly played smaller supporting roles in plays. In Julius von Voss’s comedy (premiered on 29 January 1810) he played the role of a Jew. Together with the singer and actor , he published the three-part collection , which contained works by numerous contemporary composers, including a large number of songs composed by himself. Both were members of the Berlin Masonic lodge . Ambrosch died in Berlin in 1822, aged 63. References Further reading * Arrey von Dommer: “Ambrosch, Joseph Karl”, in: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB

Joseph Kemp (organist)

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Joseph Kemp (1778–1824) was an English musical composer, organist and teacher. He is noted as an early proponent of teaching music in classes and the playing of exercises by students. In 1810, at the Russell Institution Kemp began a series of lectures on musical education in which he advocated the teaching of music in classes and the playing of exercises by pupils in concert. On account of failing health he returned with his wife and family to his native city, and resided there until 1824, with the interruption of a visit to France in 1818–21. He had founded a musical college at Exeter in 1814. A journey to London in April 1824 proved too fatiguing for Kemp, then in a weak state of health, and he died in his lodgings on 22 May. He had married in 1805, and left at his death his widow, two sons, and one daughter. Works Kemp published two pedagogical works: # Upwards of 100 cards, containing more than 500 points in music, connected with the new system of musical education (1810–19) # The new system of musical education, being a self instructor and serviceable companion to music masters (c. 1821) His compositions include: # Op. I., twelve songs, London, 1799, which show some originalit

Joseph Kosma

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Joseph Kosma (22 October 19057 August 1969) was a Hungarian composer who immigrated to France. His most famous composition is the standard Autumn Leaves. Biography Kosma was born József Kozma in Budapest, where his parents taught stenography and typing. He had a brother, Ákos. A maternal relative was the photographer László Moholy-Nagy, and another was the conductor Georg Solti. He started to play the piano at age five, and later took piano lessons. At the age of 11, he wrote his first opera, Christmas in the Trenches. After completing his education at the Secondary Grammar School Franz-Josef, he attended the Academy of Music in Budapest, where he studied with Leo Weiner. He also studied with Béla Bartók at the Liszt Academy, receiving diplomas in composition and conducting. He won a grant to study in Berlin in 1928, where he met Lilli Apel, another musician, whom he later married. Kosma also met and studied with Hanns Eisler in Berlin. He became acquainted with Bertolt Brecht and Helene Weigel. Kosma and his wife immigrated to Paris in 1933. Eventually, he met Jacques Prévert, who introduced him to Jean Renoir. During the 1930s Kosma teamed up with Prévert to set a number of Préve

Joseph Kreutzer

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Joseph Kreutzer (11 November 1790 – 16 June 1840) was a German composer, conductor, guitarist, and violinist. Kreutzer was born in Aachen, the son of a local music teacher. He lived in Düsseldorf from about 1805, where he established himself among the leading musicians of the city. He is known to have been a violin teacher to Norbert Burgmüller and probably concert master at the local theatre for a time. He died in Düsseldorf. His compositions consisted mostly of chamber music and instructive pieces for bowed strings and guitar. It is for his charming though conservative guitar works that he is still being performed and recorded today. He also penned a lost symphony. Works Guitar * 6 Variations on a Theme from Weber’s “Der Freischütz” op. 6 (for 2 guitars) * 6 Variations on a theme by Mozart op. 7 * Six Variations brillants über das Lied “A Schüsserl und a Reindl” op. 10 * Six Variations in C major op. 11 * Six Variations on “God Save the King” op. 12 * Variationen über das Lied “Kind willst du ruhig schlafen” aus Peter von Winters Oper “Das Opferfest” op. 13 * 8 Variations in A major on a favourite Tyrolean song op. 14 * 12 Pièces amusantes op. 17 * Trois Rondeaux op. 23 * 6 Varia

Joseph Küffner

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Joseph Küffner (Kueffner) (31 March 1776 in Würzburg – 9 September 1856 in Würzburg) was a German musician and composer who, among other achievements, contributed significantly to the guitar repertory, including chamber music. Life He was a violinist with the Würzburg court orchestra, and was later, when Würzburg became part of Bavaria (1802), assigned to take charge of military music. At this point he became bandmaster with a Bavarian Army regiment. Music A quintet of Küffner’s for clarinet and strings was once attributed to Carl Maria von Weber, He composed seven symphonies and a large number of works for various chamber music combinations. His output also contains a substantial quantity of music for classical guitar (some of it being available in modern editions). Compositions *Symphonies **First Symphony op. 75 (pub. Schott, 1818) **Second Symphony op. 76 (Schott) **Third Symphony op. 83 (pub. André, ca 1820) **Fourth Symphony op. 141 (Schott) **Fifth Symphony op. 142 (pub. by 1824) (Schott) **Sixth Symphony op. 150 (Schott) **Seventh Symphony op. 164 (pub. 1826) (Schott) *Concertante **Polonaise for trumpet and orchestra, op. 126 **Potpourri, Concerto No. 1 in D for viola and

Joseph Lanner

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Joseph Lanner (12 April 1801 – 14 April 1843) was an Austrian dance music composer and dance orchestra conductor. He is best remembered as one of the earliest Viennese composers to reform the waltz from a simple peasant dance to something that even the highest society could enjoy, either as an accompaniment to the dance, or for the music’s own sake. He was just as famous as his friend and musical rival Johann Strauss I, who was better known outside of Austria in their day because of his concert tours abroad, in particular to France and England. Lanner had a lesser-known son, August Lanner, who was just as musically gifted and prodigious as his father, but whose budding career was cut short by his early death at age 20. His daughter Katharina became a well-known international ballet dancer, settling in London where she became an influential choreographer and teacher. Biography Lanner was born in St. Ulrich in Vienna (today the district of Neubau). Largely self-taught on the violin, he joined a small string orchestra of Michael Pamer at about the same time as Johann Strauss I did, although he decided to venture into the music business himself and partnered with Karl and Johann Drahan

Joseph Leopold Eybler

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Joseph Leopold Eybler (8 February 1765 – 24 July 1846) was an Austrian composer and contemporary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Life Eybler was born into a musical family in Schwechat near Vienna. His father was a teacher, choir director and friend of the Haydn family. Joseph Eybler studied music with his father before attending Stephansdom (the cathedral school of St. Stephen’s Boys College) in Vienna. He studied composition under Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, who declared him to be the greatest musical genius in Vienna apart from Mozart. He also received praise from Haydn who was his friend, distant cousin and patron. In 1792 he became choir director at the Karmeliterkirche (Carmelite Church) in Vienna. Two years later he moved to the Schottenkloster, where he remained for the next thirty years (1794–1824). Eybler also held court posts, including that of court Kapellmeister (chapel master) (1824–33). The Empress Marie Therese commissioned many works from him, including the Requiem in C minor (1803). Friendship with Mozart Through Joseph Haydn, Eybler met Mozart, who gave him some lessons and entrusted him with the rehearsal of his opera Così fan tutte. Eybler also conducted some per

Joseph Marcus Ritchie

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Joseph Marcus Ritchie (born 1946 in Elizabethton; †21 August 1989 in Washington, D.C. ) was an American organist, choirmaster and composer. He often shortened his name to “J. Marcus Ritchie.” Biography After graduating from Elizabethton High School in 1960, His principal organ teachers were Ruth Fuque Stout during high school, Harold G. Andrews at Greensboro College and Grigg T. Fountain at Northwestern University. He also underwent a five-week training in Boychoir techniques, repertory and choral conducting with Simon Preston at Christ Church College Oxford in 1972 St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Metairie, where he established a concert series entitled “Abendmusiken.” He was dean of the American Guild of Organist’ New Orleans Chapter through 1979, he was organist and choirmaster at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Philip in Atlanta, Georgia. He initiated the Sunday Afternoon Organ Recital Series which preceded Evensong. In October 1976 he organized a Jehan Alain festival, featuring Marie-Claire Alain and John Obetz, among others He also managed the concert series for the Roman Catholic Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Atlanta Joseph Marcus Ritchie died of AIDS. His body was c

Joseph Maria Wolfram

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Joseph Maria Wolfram (21 July 1789 – 30 September 1839) was a German-Czech politician and amateur composer who wrote operas which were performed with success. Biography Wolfram was born on 21 July 1789 in Dobřany in Bohemia. He first studied philosophy at the Karls-Universität in Prague, but also harmony with Leopold Koželuch. References

Joseph Martin Kraus

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Joseph Martin Kraus (20 June 1756 – 15 December 1792), was a German-Swedish composer in the Classical era who was born in Miltenberg am Main, Holy Roman Empire. He moved to Sweden at age 21, and died at the age of 36 in Stockholm. He has been referred to as “the Swedish Mozart”, although his music is rarely performed today. He is best known for having been a sacred music composer, while his symphonic output was much higher than is extant today. He composed in a wide array of forms, and took his greatest aesthetic influence from Haydn and Mozart. His competency and artistic skills were praised almost universally during his time. Life Childhood Kraus was born in the South German town of Miltenberg in Lower Franconia, the son of Joseph Bernhard Kraus, a county clerk in the Archbishopric of Mainz, and Anna Dorothea née Schmidt. His father’s family, originally from Augsburg, had a small restaurant in Weilbach near Amorbach, while his mother was a daughter of the master-builder at Miltenberg Johann Martin Schmidt. They had 14 children, of whom seven died in childhood; Marianne Kraus was a sister of Joseph’s. After a short stay in Osterburken, the Kraus family moved in 1761 to Buchen (in

Joseph Marx

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Joseph Rupert Rudolf Marx (11 May 1882 – 3 September 1964) was an Austrian composer, teacher and critic. He is best known for his 150 lieder, most accompanied by piano, with some scored for orchestra. Life and career Marx was born in Graz and pursued studies in philosophy, art history, German studies, and music at Graz University, earning several degrees including a doctorate in 1909. His thesis was an expansion of a 1907 scholarly study of tonality, in which he coined the term “atonality”. He began composing seriously in 1908 and over the next four years he produced around 120 songs. In 1914 he joined the faculty of the Vienna Music Academy, later becoming the institution’s director in 1922. When the school was reorganized as the Hochschule für Musik in 1924 he was appointed to the position of rector, holding that post for three years. Some of his notable students include Johann Nepomuk David, Richard Flury, Ivana Lang, Alois Melichar, Hisatada Otaka, Florica Racovitză-Flondor, Lucijan Marija Škerjanc, Paul Ulanowsky, Ludovit Rajter, Georg Tintner, Jenő Takács, Kurt Schwertsik, and Clara Wildschut. From 1931 to 1938 he was music critic for the Neues Wiener Journal and following Wo

Joseph Mayseder

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Joseph Mayseder (27 October 1789 – 21 November 1863) was an Austrian violin virtuoso and composer. Biography Mayseder showed musical promise from an early age, and was a student of Joseph Suche (1797), Paul Wranitzky (1798) and Ignaz Schuppanzigh. By the age of eleven, he was performing in public concerts at the Augarten in Vienna. He received lessons in composition from Emanuel Aloys Förster. In 1810, he was appointed concertmaster of the Vienna Court Opera. In 1816, he was the violin soloist of the Hofburg Palace chapel orchestra, which he conducted from 1836. He was a major quartet player, as well as a teacher and composer for his instrument. Among his students were the highly esteemed Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst. Mayseder was the recipient of multiple awards and honorary memberships. He was appointed to the in Rome, along with Franz Liszt and others. He was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Franz Joseph in 1862, and was an honorary member of the . He was one of 51 composers who contributed to the . He was made an honorary citizen of Vienna in 1817. He was buried in a grave of honour in the Central Cemetery in Vienna. The in the Viennese was named after him in 1876. Selected

Joseph Meyer (songwriter)

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Joseph Meyer (March 12, 1894 – June 22, 1987) was an American songwriter, who wrote some of the most notable songs of the first half of the twentieth century. Many of his songs were originally written for Broadway musicals. Early life and career Joseph Meyer was born in Modesto, California. He studied violin in Paris for a year in 1907–1908. He graduated from Lowell High School in San Francisco, where he later played his violin in a café. He wrote the melody to “A Cup of Coffee, a Sandwich, and You”, Meyer died in New York in June 1987, at the age of 93, following a long illness. Broadway musicals *Battling Buttler (1923) *Big Boy (1925) *Gay Paree (1925) *Charlot Revue (1925) *Sweetheart Time (1926) *Just Fancy (1927) *Here’s Howe (1928) *Lady Fingers (1929) *Jonica (1930) *Luana (1930) *Sweet and Low (1930) *Shoot the Works (1931) *Ziegfeld Follies of 1934 (1934) *New Faces of 1936 (1936) *Shuffle Along (1952, revival) *Perfectly Frank (1980) *Five Guys Named Moe (1993) References External links * *Joseph Meyer at IBDB * Joseph Meyer recordings at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.

Joseph Michel (composer)

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Joseph Michel (1679–1736) was an 18th-century French baroque chorister, composer and music teacher of the Sainte Chapelle of Dijon, demolished in 1802. A contemporary of Jean-Philippe Rameau, his reputation extended far beyond the boundaries of the city of Versailles and the Province of Burgundy. Born at Bay-sur-Aube, and educated at the Jesuit college of Godrans, Michel was a pupil of Pierre Menault and also for a few years, of Jean-Philippe Rameau, choirmaster to the Sainte-Chapelle du Roi in Dijon, where he became a Canon in 1717. In his later works, one can clearly see the emerging galant style in his music. From a letter in the archives of Versailles, it is clear that Michel intended to become kapellmeister for the royal court, but his premature death prevented this. Works, editions and recordings * Domine in virtute tua * Miserere * Leçons de Jérémie (1935) * Dominus regnavit exultet terra * Quid retribuam tibi * Leçons de ténèbres - recorded by (1) Hervé Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel for Naxos in 1997, (2) Hervé Lamy, Mundo Corde 2012. See also *Les Vingt-quatre Violons du Roi *Jean-Baptiste Lully Additional informations Sources * References ;Attribution *This article is b

Joseph O'Kelly

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Joseph O’Kelly (29 January 1828 – 9 January 1885), composer, pianist and choral conductor, was the most prominent member of a family of Irish musicians in 19th- and early 20th-century France. He wrote nine operas, four cantatas, numerous piano pieces and songs as well as a limited amount of chamber music. Life O’Kelly, the first child of the Dublin-born piano teacher Joseph Kelly (1804–1856) and his wife Marie Duval (1803–1889), was born as Joseph Toussaint Kelly on 29 January 1828 in Boulogne-sur-Mer. Of his four brothers, two also became notable musicians: the music publisher Auguste O’Kelly (1829–1900) and the composer and pianist George O’Kelly (1831–1914). Around 1835 the family moved to Paris, where they lived at various addresses in the Faubourg Poissonnière area of the 9th arrondissement. Joseph received his early musical training from his father. As a foreign national he was not allowed to attend the Paris Conservatoire, instead he continued his education on the piano with George Alexander Osborne (1806–1893) (before 1844) and Frédéric Kalkbrenner (1785–1849) (mid-1840s) and in composition with Victor Dourlen (1780–1864) and Fromental Halévy (1799–1862). His earliest publi

Joseph P. Skelly

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Joseph Paul Skelly, also abbreviated J. P. Skelly, (29 July 1850 – 23 June 1895) was a composer of music. He arranged the music for songs published as sheet music. For other songs he composed the words and music. The Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection at Johns Hopkins University has sheet music for many of the songs he composed. Skelly was born in Ireland and died in New York City. He wrote more than 1,000 songs. His song “Little Darling, Dream of Me” was recorded by the Climax Quartet on Climax Records (an early Columbia Records label). He wrote the song “A Boy’s Best Friend Is His Mother”. It was sung by William Raymond of Thatcher, Primrose and West’s Minstrels. Vernon Dalhart recorded the song at Columbia Records in 1925. He wrote the 1876 comical Irish musical sketch The Hash Brigade. Recorded works *“Aint You Awful! (1874) *“He Isn’t a Marrying Man” (1875) *“Dat Gay Old Nigger Ball”(1875) https://www.loc.gov/item/2023823638/ *“Fifth Avenue George” (1876) *“My Pretty Red Rose” (1877) *“I Should Say So!” (1877) *“My Love’s a Big Drum Major” (1877) *“Why Did They Dig Ma’s Grave So Deep?” (1880) *“Goldilocks, Grandpa’s Darling. Ballad.” (1880) *“Keep the Horseshoe Over the Doo

Joseph Phibbs

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Joseph Phibbs (born 25 April 1974) is an English composer of orchestral, choral and chamber music. He has also composed for theatre, both in the UK and Japan. Since 1998 he has written regularly to commissions for Festivals (including for Cheltenham, Aldeburgh, Presteigne, and Three Choirs), for private sponsors, and for the BBC, which has broadcast premieres of his orchestral and chamber works from the Proms and elsewhere. His works have been given premieres in Europe, the United States and the Far East, and he has received awards, including a British Composer Award (for Rivers to the Sea), and a Library of Congress Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation Award. Musicians performing his work include Evelyn Glennie, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Leonard Slatkin, Sakari Oramo, Vasily Petrenko, Gianandrea Noseda, and the Belcea Quartet. Musical training Joseph Phibbs was born in London, the son of actors Giles Phibbs and Mary Gillingham. A pianist and cellist, he started composing at the age of ten, and from 1988 to 1992 attended the Purcell School for Young Musicians with the assistance of a scholarship from Suffolk County Council. During this time he received tuition in composition from Param Vir

Joseph R. Wood

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Joseph Wood (May 12, 1915 – June 3, 2000) was an American composer and music educator. He was a faculty member at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music where he taught music theory and composition from 1950 until his retirement in 1985. He performed and conducted widely, and his compositions for piano, chamber groups, and orchestra were performed around the world. Life and career Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Wood attended Bucknell University from 1932–1934. Afterwards, he began his formal music training at the Juilliard Institute of Musical Arts where he received a diploma in piano performance in 1936. Impressed with his work, the Juilliard School offered him a full four-year Juilliard fellowship from 1936–40. He continued his piano studies with Bernard Wagenear, completing his bachelor’s degree in 1949. In 1942 he won first prize for his opera The Mother in the Juilliard Opera Competition. On the basis of winning the opera prize he was given a Ditson Award from Columbia University, on which he lived and wrote music for a year. He went on to study composition with Otto Luening at Columbia University. He graduated with a M.A. in music composition in 1950. During his time at Juillia

Joseph Redding

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Joseph Deighn Redding (September 13, 1859 – November 21, 1932) was an American composer, librettist, lyricist, lawyer, and civil servant. He is best known for arguing the United States Supreme Court legal case United States v. Kagama and for his contributions to American opera which include writing the libretto to Victor Herbert’s Natoma (1911) and composing the score to Fay Yen Fah (1925). The latter work was the first grand opera composed by an American to have its premiere in Europe, an achievement for which Redding was awarded the Legion of Honour by the government of France. He served terms as president of the San Francisco Arts Administration and San Francisco’s Bohemian Club, and also served a term as commissioner of the California Department of Fish and Game. A talented chess polymath, he was an amateur chess player who won several games against recognized chess masters, including Johannes Zukertort and George H. D. Gossip. and the Central Pacific Railroad. He also was a regent for California State University and served a term as president of the board of the California Academy of Sciences. At the time of Benjamin Redding’s death in 1882 he was serving a term as commissione

Joseph Riepel

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Joseph Riepel (Rainbach im Mühlkreis, 22 January 1709 - Regensburg, 23 October 1782) was an Austrian-born German music theorist, composer and violinist. Riepel is known for his theoretical work, especially for his innovations in theory of melody and form. Riepel’s writings form one of the foundations for the theory of composition of the later 18th century. He was violin teacher to František Xaver Pokorný. Riepel was the son of a farmer and innkeeper. He attended the Jesuit College in Steyr and began philosophical studies in Linz and Graz, but distinguished himself early on as a violinist. In 1735–1736 he toured the Balkan Peninsula as valet of General Alexander Graf d’Ollone in the 7th Austrian war against the Turks. From 1739 to 1745 he lived in Dresden, where he claims to have regularly frequented Jan Dismas Zelenka and the concertmaster Johann Georg Pisendel had by his own admission and received his first real musical training here. After living in Poland and Vienna, in 1749 he was band master at the court of the Princes of Thurn and Taxis in Regensburg, where he spent the rest of his life and created his theoretical writings and the majority of his compositions. Riepel’s major

Joseph Robinson (composer)

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Joseph Robinson (16 August 1815 – 23 August 1898) was an Irish composer, baritone, conductor, and teacher. Biography Joseph Robinson was the youngest son of Francis Robinson senior, a “writing master” at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, and a founding member of the Philharmonic Society, Dublin. Joseph was a chorister at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, between 1823 and 1831. When his voice broke, he succeeded his brother John (1810–1844) as organist of Sandford Church, Dublin. He was a vicar choral (singer) at Christ Church (1836–43) and St Patrick’s (1843–8 and again 1854–6). Together with his three brothers Francis junior (c.1799–1872), William (1805–1881), and John (1810–1844) they were known as “the four wonderful brothers”, frequently performing glees and partsongs as a vocal quartet. In 1834, Robinson founded the Antient Concerts Society, a private choral society that grew to become Dublin’s leading orchestral and choral society and the “hub of Dublin’s musical life” in the mid-19th century and conducted it until 1862. Later he also conducted the University of Dublin Choral Society (1876–88) and the Philharmonic Society. At a performance of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s orator

Joseph Rumshinsky

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Joseph Rumshinsky (1881–1956) was a Jewish composer born near Vilna, Lithuania (then part of Russian Poland). Along with Sholom Secunda, Alexander Olshanetsky and Abraham Ellstein, he is considered one of the “big four” composers and conductors of American Yiddish theater. Biography Joseph Rumshinsky’s mother taught singing to local singers and badkhonim (wedding entertainers). As a child, he studied with a cantor. At the age of eight he was called “Yoshke der notn-freser” at the music school where he studied piano. He traveled until 1894 with various Hazzanim. In Grodno he first saw Yiddish theater (Abraham Goldfaden’s operetta Shulamis); In 1897 he became choir director for Borisov’s Russian opera/operetta; in 1888 he conducted a full production of Goldfaden’s Bar Kokhba. In 1899, in Łódź, he was hired as conductor of the new Hazomir Choral Society, studying and arranging folksongs as well as Haydn, Handel, and Mendelsohn oratorios. He studied with the Polish musician Henryk Meltzer and at the Warsaw Conservatory. In 1903 he left for London to avoid conscription in the czar’s army. At the time, many American Yiddish productions were deemed shund (trash) “that encompassed a world

Joseph Ryelandt

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Joseph Ryelandt (7 April 1870 – 29 June 1965) was a Belgian classical composer. He is known for sacred vocal music, including several oratorios and masses. His oeuvre catalog, which lists 133 opus numbers, includes symphonies, masses, an opera, numerous works for piano solo, chamber works and songs, and also five oratorios, which Ryelandt himself considered his most important works. Life Joseph Victor Marie Ryelandt was born in Bruges, into a wealthy bourgeois family, for whom culture, tradition, and the Roman Catholic religion mattered. So did music, which, like many such families, the Ryelandts practiced a lot. From his childhood on he enjoyed private lessons in piano and violin. He studied assiduously, up to 2½ hours per day, but he gave up the violin after a mere two years. Even as an adolescent he realized that his real destiny was music. But at the insistence of his mother, he first went to college, to study philosophy and later law—his father, who had died when Joseph was only seven, had been a lawyer. While at university, however, he continued his musical activities, including composition, although he had had only a few lessons in harmony. Eventually he persuaded his mother

Joseph Schillinger

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Joseph Moiseyevich Schillinger (; 1 September 1895 (other sources: 31 August 1895 ) – 23 March 1943) was a composer, music theorist, and composition teacher who originated the Schillinger System of Musical Composition. He was born in Kharkov, in the Kharkov Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Kharkiv, Ukraine) and died in New York City. He sometimes used the pseudonym “Frank Lynn”. Life and career The unprecedented migration of European knowledge and culture that swept from East to West during the first decades of the 20th century included figures such as Sergei Prokofiev and Sergei Rachmaninoff, composers who were the product of the Russian system of music education. Schillinger came from this background, dedicated to creating professional musicians, having been a student at the St Petersburg Imperial Conservatory of Music. He communicated his musical knowledge in the form of a written theory, using mathematical expressions to describe art, architecture, design and music. In New York, Schillinger flourished, becoming famous as an advisor to many leading American musicians and concert music composers, including George Gershwin, Earle Brown, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, O

Joseph Schubert (composer)

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

Joseph Schubert (20 December 1754 – 28 July 1837) was a German composer, violinist, and violist. Schubert was born in Varnsdorf, Bohemia (now Czech Republic) to a musical family. He received his early musical education from his father, who was a cantor, and then in Prague. In 1778, he moved to Berlin to study the violin with Paul Kohn, director of the royal orchestra there. In 1779, Schubert obtained a position as violinist in the court of Heinrich Friedrich, the Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt. In 1788, he accepted a post as violist in the court orchestra of Dresden, where he remained until his death in 1837. Schubert gained recognition as a versatile composer, cited in the 1812 edition of Ernst Ludwig Gerber’s lexicon of composers. His œuvre includes 15 masses, 4 operas, 17 sonatas, and 49 concertos for solo instruments. The Saxon State Library in Dresden holds the manuscripts of three viola concertos attributed to him. Published works *Concerto for Viola and Orchestra in C major (Schott Music, ed. Karlheinz Schultz-Hauser) External links * biography (in German) * References

Joseph Schuster (composer)

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Joseph Schuster (11 August 174824 July 1812) was a German composer. Life and career Schuster was born in Dresden, where he received his first musical training from his father, a court musician, and from Johann Georg Schürer. Thanks to a scholarship from the Saxon Prince-electors, he was able to study with Giovanni Battista Martini and counterpoint in Venice with G. Pera from 1765 to 1768. In 1776, he completed his first opera seria Didone abbandonata, after a libretto by Metastasio. It was given at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples and by all accounts was a great success. In the same year, the opera seria Demofoonte premiered in Forlì. In the following years, Schuster’s position was solidified with operatic successes in Naples and Venice. He was also recognized in Germany as an accomplished composer, and his singspiel, Der Alchymist, oder Der Liebesteufel is considered one of the finest examples of the art form. Most of his works are assigned to the opera buffa, but he also composed religious works, chamber music and orchestral music. Schuster’s work is also found in the string quartets appendix of the Köchel catalogue (No. 210 et seq,), and for a long time the “Milan Quartets” (1772–

Joseph Schwantner

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Joseph Clyde Schwantner (born March 22, 1943) is an American composer, educator and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 2002. He was awarded the 1970 Charles Ives Prize. Schwantner is prolific, with many works to his credit. His style is coloristic and eclectic, drawing on such diverse elements as French impressionism, African drumming, and minimalism. His orchestral work Aftertones of Infinity received the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Music. Biographical information Schwantner began his musical study at an early age in classical guitar; this study also incorporated the genres of jazz and folk. He also played the tuba in his high school orchestra. His first compositional aspirations were noticed by his guitar teacher who consistently experienced Schwantner elaborating on pieces he would be studying. From this, Schwantner’s teacher suggested he collect these ideas and create his own musical composition. One of his earliest compositions was in the jazz idiom. The piece Offbeats won the National Band Camp Award in 1959. Remaining in Chicago, he continued his musical study in composition at the city’s American Conservatory, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree

Joseph Thalken

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Joseph Thalken is an American composer and pianist. Biography Joseph Thalken was raised in Southern California and was mentored early on by Lynn Murray, Margaret and Karl Kohn. He was supported by the Young Musicians Foundation and went on to study piano with Robert Weirich at Northwestern University. He has composed music for theater, including Was, Harold & Maude, Fall of ‘94, Borrowed Dust and Inventions for Piano. He has also composed music for ballet, choir, chamber ensemble, orchestra and wind ensemble. He has served as a music director or arranger for notable Broadway performers, including Julie Andrews, Liza Minnelli, Patti LuPone, Bernadette Peters, Renée Fleming, Rebecca Luker, Marin Mazzie, Liz Callaway, Sierra Boggess, Catherine Malfitano, Elizabeth Futral, Kristin Chenoweth, Polly Bergen, Michael Crawford, Howard McGillin, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Nathan Gunn and Rodney Gilfry, among others. In 2017, Thalken was commissioned by Bruce Wood Dance to write Chasing Home, which was premiered at Moody Performance Hall, recorded by the Dallas Chamber Symphony, and released on Albany Records. Recordings * Broadway, Renée Fleming, BBC Concert Orchestra, Rob Fisher, conductor. Dec

Joseph Touchemoulin

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

Joseph Touchemoulin (23 October 1727 – 25 October 1801) was a French violinist and composer of the classical period who mainly worked in Bonn and Regensburg. Biography Born in Chalon-sur-Saône, Joseph Touchemoulin, the son of the town’s oboist Louis Touchemoulin and his wife Jeanne Roulot, had been employed as a violinist at the court of the elector of Cologne of Bavaria in Bonn from a very early age. This enabled him to study in Italy, where he was taught by Giuseppe Tartini who was also the one who inspired Touchemoulin to develop his compositional skills. He returned to Bonn in 1753, where his salary was augmented by 1,000 fl. in March 1753. One of his symphonies was performed successfully at the Paris Concert Spirituel on 15 August of the following year. On 4 February 1761, he was appointed, contrary to customary practice, as Kapellmeister in Bonn instead of the more senior singer Ludwig van Beethoven the Elder, the grandfather of the composer of the same name. But only two days later the Elector died. The halving of the musician’s salaries by his successor Maximilian Friedrich von Königsegg-Rothenfels prompted Touchemoulin to resign and to take up a position at the court of th

Joseph Trapanese

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

Joseph Trapanese (born August 7, 1984) is an American composer, conductor, arranger, and music producer. He works in the production of music for films, television, records, theater, concerts, and interactive media. Early life and education Raised in Jersey City, New Jersey, Trapanese attended Dr. Ronald E. McNair Academic High School before moving on to the Manhattan School of Music. Film and television music Early career Trapanese began his composing career by collaborating with Daft Punk (Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo) on the soundtrack for the Walt Disney Pictures film Tron: Legacy. His arrangements for the soundtrack have been described as “resolutely grand” and “stirring… ominous, hypnotic”. The BBC described the work as “a sophisticated integration of acoustic and electronic instrumentation… majestic… rich, solemn tones… saturnine orchestration and a muscular rhythm”. 2011–present Trapanese has composed for numerous projects, including Disney XD’s animated series Tron: Uprising, Sony Pictures Classics’ The Raid: Redemption (cocomposed with Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park), Sony Pictures Television’s original web series The Bannen Way, the independent featur

Joseph von Blumenthal

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

Joseph von Blumenthal, also known as Joseph de Blumenthal (1 November 1782 – 9 May 1850 ), was an Austrian violinist and violist, influential pedagogue and composer. Biography Joseph von Blumenthal was born in Brussels, the son of Baron Joseph von Blumenthal and Baroness Maria Therese, née Malabreck. His father, who had a job with the Austrian government, took the family to Prague during the Brabant Revolution (1789–1790). The young Blumenthal and his two brothers, Casimir and Léopold, learned to play the violin and studied composition with Abbé Vogler. When Vogler went to Vienna in 1803 to produce his opera Samori, he recommended his students to the director of the Theater an der Wien, and on his testimony, they were accepted into the theatre orchestra, Joseph on viola, his siblings on violin. During the first two decades of the nineteenth century, Joseph von Blumenthal wrote a great deal of dramatic music, of which a part was attributed to his brothers. His brother Casimir von Blumenthal (1787–1849) went on to become music director in Zurich, and Léopold von Blumenthal (born 1790) was a musician employed by a nobleman in Hungary. Both published compositions for violin and various

Joseph Wackenthaler

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

Joseph Wackenthaler (20 November 1795 – 3 March 1869) was a French Kapellmeister from 1819, an organist from 1833 to 1869 at the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg, and a composer. Wackenthaler’s reputation is due to his genius for improvisation and his ability to adapt the organ to liturgical requirements. He published many small organ compositions for teaching purposes as well as edited organ pieces by German composers. Life Born in Sélestat (Bas-Rhin) (Alsace), Wackenthaler’s father, François-Joseph Wackenthaler (1767–1828), organist of the main church of Sélestat, was the founder of a family of musicians. Two of his brothers, François-Charles and François-Louis, and his nephew Nicolas-Joseph Wackenthaler were organists at the St. George’s Church of Sélestat. His second son, François Xavier Joseph (1823–1856), was organist at Haguenau and later in Paris, where he was the first organ teacher at the École Niedermeyer of Paris. His father taught him music, without neglecting literary studies. Joseph Wackenthaler shared first prizes of the college in his hometown with the most distinguished students. At the time he finished his studies, he first planned to entering a religious orde

Joseph Waters

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

Joseph Martin Waters (born 1952) is an American classical composer. He also mounts experimental electronic music festivals attempting to bridge the gap between contemporary popular genres and the avant-garde Western classical tradition. Creative projects May 31, 2025 Waters’ rock opera “El Sidd and the Healers” was premiered in concert form at The Cutting Room in NYC. The work is a reimagining of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha set in California and Mexico in 1969. His first musical theater work, “El Colibrí Magico - The Magic Hummingbird” was premiered by Opera Tijuana in Mexico June 4th & 5th 2023. October 19, 2024 His work “Garden Mother” for traditional Korean instrument, Piri, along with vibraphone, was commissioned and performed by Jeongmin Son at the Gugak Center in Seoul, Korea. May 26, 2020 NWEAMO Festival (during pandemic) included a remote performance of “Things” from EUM Studio, Seoul Korea by Jaeonghyeon Joo (Haegeum) and Seunghee Han (harp). December 28, 2018 Ensemble Phase performed “Air, Earth, Ocean” in Ilshin Hall, Seoul, Korea. In 2011 Orchestra Nova conductor Jung-Ho Pak commissioned Waters to create a double concerto for violin (featuring Lindsay Deutsch) and alto s

Joseph Weigl

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Joseph Weigl (28 March 1766 – 3 February 1846) was an Austrian composer and conductor. Life Wiegl was born in Eisenstadt, Austrian Empire. The son of Joseph Franz Weigl (1740–1820), the principal cellist in the orchestra of the Esterházy family, he studied music under Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. He became Kapellmeister at the court theatre in Vienna in 1792, and from 1827 to 1838, was vice-Kapellmeister of the court. Weigl composed a number of operas, both Italian and German and in various genres, although most of his late works are pieces of sacred music. His best known work was the opera Die Schweizerfamilie (1809). He also set Emanuel Schikaneder’s libretto Vestas Feuer (1805), after his close friend Ludwig van Beethoven had composed a single scene and then abandoned it. Weigl died in Vienna in 1846. His younger brother Thaddäus Weigl was a composer and music publisher. Operas (first performed in Vienna, unless otherwise noted) * Die unnütze Vorsicht oder Die betrogene Arglist, puppet opera in one act, (1783) * Il pazzo per forza, opera in two acts (1788) * La caffettiera bizzarra, komische Oper in three acts (1790) * Der Strazzensa

Joseph Willcox Jenkins

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Joseph Willcox Jenkins (15 February 1928 – 31 January 2014) was an American composer, professor of music, and musician. During his military service in the Korean War, he became the first arranger for the United States Army Chorus. He ended his teaching career as Professor Emeritus at the Mary Pappert School of Music, Duquesne University, where he had been a professor since 1961, soon afterward, he started composing small pieces in elementary school. In high school, he wrote numerous arrangements as well as some original works for orchestra. In 1946, Jenkins began his tertiary studies at Saint Joseph’s University (then St. Joseph’s College) in Philadelphia, where he focused on pre-law with the ambition of becoming a lawyer. At the same time, he studied composition and counterpoint with Vincent Persichetti at the Philadelphia Conservatory (which became part of the University of the Arts in 1962). Jenkins completed his degree at St. Joseph’s in three years and enrolled in the Eastman School of Music in 1949. While there, he studied under important composers including Thomas Canning, Howard Barlow, Bernard Rogers, and Howard Hanson. Jenkins graduated from Eastman with a Masters of Musi

Joseph Woelfl

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Joseph Johann Baptist Woelfl (surname sometimes written in the German form Wölfl; 24 December 1773 – 21 May 1812) was an Austrian pianist and composer of the late Classical period. Life Woelfl was born in Salzburg, where he studied music under Leopold Mozart and Michael Haydn. He first appeared in public as a soloist on the violin at the age of seven. Moving to Vienna in 1790 he visited Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and may have taken lessons from him. His first opera, Der Höllenberg, appeared there in 1795. Woelfl was over 6 feet tall, with an enormous finger span (his hand could span a thirteenth, according to his contemporary Václav Tomášek); to his wide grasp of the keyboard he owed a facility of execution which he turned to good account, especially in his improvised performances. Like the virtuoso violinist Paganini, he probably had Marfan syndrome, which is associated with these physical characteristics. Although he dedicated his 1798 sonatas Op. 6 to Beethoven, the two were rivals. Beethoven bested Woelfl in a piano ‘duel’ at the house of Baron Raimund Wetzlar in 1799, after which Woelfl’s local popularity waned. However, Beethoven deeply admired his music following the duel. Afte

Joseph-A. Fowler

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Joseph-A. Fowler (14 November 1845 – 4 January 1917) was a Canadian composer, organist, choirmaster, pianist, and music educator. His compositional output mainly consists of sacred music, although he did compose some secular songs for voice and piano and a number of works for solo piano. He wrote two masses for choir and orchestra: Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary (published by I. Suckling & Sons, 1893) and Mass of the Sacred Heart (published by Whaley Royce, 1898). Life and career Born in Montreal, Fowler was the son of an Irish father and a French-Canadian mother. He studied the piano with Paul Letondal and was notably one of his first students. He visited Europe three times during his life, experiences which enriched his musical life. At the age of 16 he began teaching at the Collège Sainte-Marie de Montréal where he worked for seven years. From 1868 to 1890 he taught at the Sacré-Coeur Convent at Sault-au-Récollet just outside Montreal. Among his notable pupils were Alexis Contant and Arthur Pépin. He also occasionally organized concerts and promoted artists in Montreal, notably bringing Irish baritone William Ludwig to the city among other performers. An active recitalist and a

Joseph-Ermend Bonnal

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Joseph-Ermend Bonnal (1 July 1880 – 14 August 1944); also Ermend-Bonnal, alias Guy Marylis) was a French composer and organist. Ermend-Bonnal received initial musical instruction from his father, a violinist. He then studied piano at the Conservatoire de Paris under Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot, harmony under Antoine Taudou, composition under Gabriel Fauré and organ under Alexandre Guilmant and Louis Vierne. He also assisted Charles-Marie Widor at Saint-Sulpice, Albert Périlhou at Saint-Séverin and Charles Tournemire at the Basilica of St. Clotilde. In 1901, Ermend-Bonnal was appointed Organist at Saint-Médard, and subsequently at Notre Dame in Boulogne-sur-Seine. In 1920, he was offered a professorship in organ at the University of Strasbourg. However, he decided instead to accept a position as director of the Bayonne Conservatory, which he held until 1941. His most famous student was the composer Maurice Ohana. In 1942, he succeeded his teacher Tournemire at the Cavaillé-Coll Organ at Basilica of St. Clotilde. The focus of Ermend-Bonnal’s musical output is organ music (Paysages Euskariens, 1930; Media Vita, organ symphony, 1932). However, he also wrote in all other musical genres, r

Joseph-François Garnier

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Joseph-François Garnier (18 June 1755 – 31 March 1825) was a French oboist and composer. Life Joseph-François Garnier was born in 1755 in Lauris, Vaucluse, to a family of modest means. His father was a shoe-maker in the Place Jean d’Autan. His uncle was a bassoonist, who brought him to Paris to learn the oboe. In 1769 Garnier joined the orchestra of the Royal Academy of Music (which was to become the National Opera of Paris after the Revolution), playing oboe and flute. Over the course of his long career with this orchestra, from 1775 to 1808, Garnier earned a grand reputation also for performing at the Concert Spirituel public concert series from 1787 to 1791 as solo oboist, occasionally in performances of his own compositions. From 1792, he taught oboe at the National Guard where he became friends with the violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer, who dedicated his oboe concerto to Garnier and with whom Garnier gave the concerto’s first performance. Garnier joined the National Conservatory of Music (founded by the Convention) in 1795, where he was one of five professors of oboe (along with Bernard Delcambre, Gebauer, François Félix-Miolan and François Sallantin. Garnier was dominant at the Co

Joseph-François Kremer

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Joseph-François Kremer (born 22 June 1954) is a French composer, conductor, cellist and musicologist. Biography Joseph-François Kremer was born in Lyon (France) in 1954. Currently director of the Conservatoire Darius Milhaud of the City of Antony (Île-de-France). He is associated with an original movement in Postmodernism, cited in the ‘‘Larousse de la musique’’. He is interested in the sound qualities of contemporary music as well as the human role in the context of musical interpretation. As a cellist, he studied with Robert Cordier, Maurice Gendron and Claude Burgos. He studied orchestral conducting with J.C. Hartmann. As a composer, he was principally the disciple of Claude Ballif. He has written several books which deal with musical phenomenology, especially on the symbolic forms of music (1984), on the great musical topics (1994), on musical aesthetics (2000), as well as on musical theory, among them the first French reissue of Rameau’s Traité d’harmonie of 1722, a project supported by the Fondation Singer-Polignac in 1986, and in 1996 Rameau’s Nouveau système de musique théorique of 1726. He has also written several works of comparative aesthetics. From 1987 to 1994, he dire

Joseph-Hector Fiocco

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Joseph-Hector Fiocco (20 January 1703 – 21 June 1741), born in Brussels, was a composer and harpsichordist of the late Baroque period. His father, the Italian composer Pietro Antonio Fiocco, and one of his older step-brothers Jean-Joseph Fiocco gave him much of his musical education. He also learned Greek and Latin well enough to be able to become a school teacher in both those subjects. Joseph Hector Fiocco worked under his stepbrother’s direction at the Ducal Chapel of the Notre-Dame du Sablon most sources cite some time before 1730. In 1730, Joseph Hector became sous-maitre (submaster) of the Notre-Dame du Sablon; he did not keep this position for long, because he resigned in 1731 to become sangmeester (choirmaster) at Antwerp Cathedral. At Antwerp (1731–37) he was in charge of the music. In 1737 he returned to his birthplace and worked in the Collegiate Church of St. Michael and St. Gudula (future cathedral of Brussels). He died in Brussels at the age of 38. In connection with his cathedral employment, Fiocco wrote many choral works, including motets and Mass settings. Some of his most significant compositions are Lamentations du Jeudi Saint, a Missa solemnis and Pièces de Clav

Joseph-Henri Altès

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Joseph-Henri Altès (18 January 1826 – 24 July 1895) was a 19th-century French flautist, composer and pedagogue. Biography Born in Rouen, Joseph-Henri Altès was the son of a soldier. Violinist and conductor Ernest Eugène Altès was his younger brother. He began studying the flute at the age of ten and enrolled in the Conservatoire de Paris in December 1840, where he studied in 1840-1842. Like his teacher, Jean-Louis Tulou, he played a flute with four keys and only later changed to a Theobald Boehm model. As early as 1841, in the competition of the Conservatory, he received a second prize and the following year a First Prize. From 1848 to 1872, he was first flautist at the Orchestre de l’Opéra national de Paris and in 1868 he was the successor of Louis Dorus as a flute teacher at the Conservatoire, where he remained until 1893. Among his pupils were Georges Barrère and Adolphe Hennebains. Altès is the author of a method of flute, Célèbre méthode complète de flûte (1880) and left about 40 compositions, including six solos for the entrance competition at the Paris Conservatory and transcriptions or fantasies on opera themes. Altès was a friend of the painter Edgar Degas, who depicted hi

Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer

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Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer (12 May 1703 – 11 January 1755) was a French Baroque composer, harpsichordist, organist, and administrator. Biography Born in Turin, Royer went to Paris in 1725, and in 1734 became maître de musique des enfants de France, responsible for the musical education of the children of the king, Louis XV. Together with the violinist Jean-Joseph de Mondonville, Royer directed the Concerts Spirituels starting in 1748. Royer was at the Paris Opéra during the 1730s and the 1750s, writing six operas himself, of which the best known is the ballet héroïque Zaïde, reine de Grenade. In 1753, he acquired the prestigious position of music director of the chambre du roi (the king’s chamber), and in the same year was named director of the Royal Opera orchestra. He died in Paris in 1755, at the age of 51. Works Royer is particularly known for his often extravagant and virtuosic harpsichord music, especially “La Marche des Scythes”, which ends his first book of harpsichord pieces. Operas Other works *1746: Premier livre de pièces de clavecin (1746) # La Majestueuse, courante # La Zaïde, rondeau (Tendrement) # Les Matelots (Modérément) # Premier et deuxième tambourins, suite

Josepha Barbara Auernhammer

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Josepha Barbara Auernhammer (25 September 1758 – 30 January 1820) was an Austrian pianist and composer. Biography Auernhammer was born in Vienna, the eleventh of fifteen children born to Johann Michael Auernhammer and Elisabeth (nee Timmer). Of the fifteen children, only three lived past the age of thirty. Auernhammer studied with, among others, Leopold Anton Kozeluch, and Mozart, who dedicated a number of works to her and with whom she performed a number of works that required four hands. On 27 June 1781, Mozart wrote of her: “Almost every day after dinner I am at H: v: Auernhammer’s - The Miss is a monster! - plays delightfully though, however, she lacks the genuine fine and lilting quality of cantabile; she plucks too much.” That year, Mozart dedicated his Violin Sonatas K. 296 and K. 376–80 to her. Auernhammer became a much-admired concert pianist and teacher throughout Vienna. She corrected the printing of several sonatas by Mozart, and her piano playing together with Mozart was described enthusiastically by Abbé Stadler. During a house concert in Vienna Passauerhof on 23 November 1781, she played Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos, K. 448 and the Double Concerto, K. 365. Further

Joséphine Boulay

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Joséphine Pauline Boulay (22 May 1869 – 5 August 1925) was a French organist, composer and professor. Career Born in Paris, she became blind at age three. She began her studies with the Blind Sisters of St. Paul and then with the National Institution for the Blind. She was admitted to the Conservatoire de Paris in 1887 and studied with César Franck and Jules Massenet. In 1888, she became the first blind woman to win a first prize in organ at the Conservatoire. Appointed a professor at the National Institution for the Blind, she took charge of the organ and composition classes there while continuing her musical apprenticeship at the Conservatoire. There, she went on to win a second prize for harmony in the class of Charles Lenepveu in 1890, a second prize for counterpoint and fugue in 1895 in the class of Jules Massenet, and finally a first prize in 1897 in the composition class of Gabriel Fauré. For thirty-seven years she taught piano, organ, composition and harmony for young blind students at the institute. She was decorated with the Palmes académiques in 1899 for her work. She died in Paris at 56 years of age. Works Selected works include: * Petit Carillon * Andante in E * 1896 *

Josephine Lang

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Josephine Caroline Lang (14 March 1815 – 2 December 1880) was a German composer. Josephine Lang was the daughter of Theobald Lang, a violinist, and , opera singer. Her mother taught young Josephine how to play piano, and from age five it became apparent that Josephine was possessed with great potential as a composer. As early as age eleven Josephine started giving piano lessons herself. Through her godfather, Joseph Stieler, Josephine was exposed to some of the greatest artists of her time. Both Felix Mendelssohn and Ferdinand Hiller went to great lengths to ensure that Lang learned the proper theory for song-writing, and used their connections to publish Lang’s music. Even Robert Schumann published a song of Josephine’s in Neue Zeitschrift für Musik in 1838. Biography Born in Munich, Lang had from a very young age been described as having a “weak constitution”. Thus she was always struggling to keep up her education and performance while simultaneously maintaining her health. Once during a performance for the king and queen of Bavaria, Queen Caroline Augusta of Bavaria took notice of Josephine’s poor state of health and arranged for her to go to Wildbad Kreuth in the German Alps t

Josephine Stephenson

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Josephine Stephenson (born 1990) is a French-British composer, arranger, singer and instrumentalist who works across a variety of musical genres. Early life and education Stephenson learned cello and piano as a child, and as a teenager attended the Maîtrise de Radio France (the choir school of Radio France). After briefly studying philosophy at the Sorbonne University in Paris, she moved to the UK where she attended Clare College, University of Cambridge as a choral scholar and received a Bachelor of Music degree. She later obtained a master’s degree in composition from the Royal College of Music, having studied under Kenneth Hesketh. In 2017-2019 she was a ‘Writing The Future’ composer with the London Sinfonietta. Career During her master’s studies, Stephenson’s orchestration was likened to Claude Vivier, and her first short opera On False Perspective was staged in the Britten Theatre, co-produced by Tête à Tête and the Royal College of Music. In 2015 she collaborated with FellSwoop Theatre on a devised piece of musical theatre, Ghost Opera, first performed at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and developed with The Lowry. In the same year she won ‘Best Composer’ at Underwire Film Fest

Josephine Trott

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Josephine Augusta Trott (December 24, 1874 - March 2, 1950) was an American author, composer, and music educator who sometimes wrote under the pseudonym Colin Shepherd. Her violin pedagogy books are still in use today. Trott was born in Wilmington, Illinois, to Dr. Stenson E. and Augusta J. Trott. Although she never married, she adopted a daughter, Riccarda McQuie, who went on to play violin in the Denver Symphony for 29 years. Trott’s book, On Demande une Maman, published under her pseudonym Colin Shepherd, was actually a fictionalized version of McQuie’s story. During this time, Trott helped established the Civic Symphony, which then became the Denver Symphony and today is the Colorado Symphony. The Denver Symphony gave its first performance on May 4, 1922. In 1932, Trott published an English translation of a French book on William the Conqueror by Lucie Delarue-Mardrus. She left the royalties from her publications to the Josephine Trott Memorial Scholarship Fund of the National Federation of Music Clubs. Her music was published by G. Schirmer Inc., Clayton F. Summy Co., and Weekes & Co. *Studies in Shifting *Two Tuneful Sketches (violin and piano) References External links * Dow

Josephine Troup

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Emily Josephine Troup (7 July 1853, Woodberry Down, London – 11 April 1913, Saltwood, Kent) was an English composer of songs and works for piano and violin. She founded a scholarship for female students studying orchestral composition at the Royal Academy of Music, in London, in 1905. Family and early life Josephine was the youngest daughter of Susanna and John Troup, a jeweller and watchmaker, of Essex Lodge, Clapton, England. According to her obituary, Her early years were spent among Unitarian surroundings where it is thought she probably acquired the habit of industry that led her to develop so fully her exceptional musical and literary gifts, and the keen sense of duty that made her ever anxious to use them as a means of social service. Career Troup was an active member of the South Place Ethical Society, contributing to its newsletters and participating in fundraising activities, and among the earliest members of the West London Ethical Society. Selected works Orchestral * ‘March of the Workers’ for soprano, bass solo, chorus and orchestra. Chamber * Romanza in C for string quartet Six sketches for violin and piano pub. by Ascherberg, Hopwood & Crew Ltd *Kleines Wiegenlied (1

Josephus Andreas Fodor

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Josephus Andreas Fodor (21 January 1751 – 3 October 1828) was a Dutch violinist and composer of the Classical era. Life Josephus Andreas Fodor was born in Venlo, the son of a squire who had been stationed in Hanover, and his wife Maria Elisabeth Messemaecker, who came from a musical family.

Joshua (American singer)

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Joshua Hong (born December 30, 1995), known mononymously as Joshua (), is an American singer based in South Korea. Managed by Pledis Entertainment, he is a member of the South Korean boy band Seventeen and its vocal team. Early life Joshua Hong was born in Los Angeles on December 30, 1995. He attended Downtown Magnets High School and graduated in 2013. Growing up, he attended church in Los Angeles’ Koreatown. Career 2013–2014: Pre-debut Joshua was scouted by an agent from Pledis during a visit to Koreatown, Los Angeles in 2013. He then moved to Seoul, South Korea, where he began training in singing and dancing. As a trainee, he joined from the second season onwards of Seventeen TV, an online reality show that introduced Pledis’ trainees and showed potential members of the boy group Seventeen before their official debut. The show was broadcast periodically on Ustream, where the trainees showed themselves training, singing, creating choreographies and playing games. The online show also included participation in concerts, titled Like Seventeen. 2015–present: Seventeen and solo activities In 2015, Joshua debuted as a member of the South Korean boy group Seventeen with the extended pla

Joshua Banks Mailman

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Joshua Banks Mailman is an American music theorist, as well an analyst, composer, improvisor, philosopher, critic, and technologist of music. Early life and education Joshua Banks Mailman was born in New York City and attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of the Arts. He gained a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in Music Theory from the Eastman School of Music of University of Rochester. Among his teachers were Charles Rosen, Ted Cohen (philosopher), Richard Cohn, Allen Forte, and Robert Morris. Career Mailman has taught predominantly at Columbia University, as well as at New York University, University of Alabama, and University of California, Santa Barbara. He has lectured at the Japan Society (NYC), the Society for Music Analysis (UK), IRCAM (Paris), the Symposium (SIMPOM) of Brazilian Studies in Music (Rio de Janeiro)., and the Symposium on Computer-assisted Composition, Istituto per la Musica, Cini Foundation (Venice, Italy). Research and writing His writings, published in numerous scholarly journals and books, contribute to several areas of music theory, analysis, and technology, spanning such topics as narrativity, phenomenology

Joshua Fineberg

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Joshua Fineberg (born July 26, 1969) is an American composer of contemporary classical music. Biography Joshua Fineberg was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He began his musical studies at the age of five. He completed his undergraduate studies at the Peabody Conservatory with Morris Cotel where he won first prize in the bi-annual Virginia Carty de Lillo Composition Competition. Music career He has worked with many leading composers in the United States and France, including: George Crumb, Jacob Druckman, Robert Hall Lewis, Philippe Manoury, and André Boucourechliev. In 1991, he moved to Paris and studied with Tristan Murail. The following year he was selected by the Ensemble InterContemporain reading panel for the course in composition and musical technologies. In the fall of 1997, he returned to the US to pursue a doctorate in musical composition at Columbia University, which he completed in May 1999. After teaching at Columbia for a year, he went to Harvard University where he served as the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities until 2007. In 2007 he joined the faculty of the Boston University School of Music and became the director of their electronic music studio. I

Joshua Rosenblum

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Joshua Rosenblum (born May 10, 1963) is an American composer, conductor, pianist, arranger, music journalist, and author. He has composed extensively for the concert hall as well as for musical theater, and currently teaches musical theater composition at Yale University, his alma mater, as well as both conducting and orchestration at New York University. As a pianist, he has performed frequently in the New York City area as soloist and accompanist, as well as in Broadway pit orchestras, and with the New York City Center Encores! Orchestra. He has conducted numerous Broadway and Off-Broadway shows, including How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Wonderful Town, Falsettos, Miss Saigon, and Anything Goes. He served as pianist and associate conductor for the hit 2022 Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods, and can be heard playing on the Grammy-winning original cast recording. Education Rosenblum attended Marietta High School in his hometown of Marietta, Ohio, and spent summers at the Interlochen Arts Camp in Interlochen, Michigan. He graduated summa cum laude from Yale College in 1983 at the age of 20, and proceeded directly to graduate school at the Yale S

Joshua Uzoigwe

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Joshua Uzoigwe (1 July 1946 – 15 October 2005) was a Nigerian composer and ethnomusicologist. A member of the Igbo ethnic group, many of his works draw on the traditional music of that people. Early life and education Uzoigwe was born in Umuahia, the capital city of Abia State (formerly Imo State), located in the southeastern region of Nigeria. He began his education at the village primary school in Umuagu. Most of his early life was spent with his older brother, Sunday Uzoigwe, who was then employed at the University of Ibadan. For his secondary education, Joshua attended King’s College, Lagos before going on to International School Ibadan to study for his Advanced Level Certificate. From 1970 to 1973, he was at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he began his studies in music. He completed his undergraduate degree (1973–77) at the Guildhall College of Music, London, and from 1977 to 1981 he attended Queen’s University Belfast, attaining both an M.A. and a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology. Career Uzoigwe lectured in Music at three universities in Nigeria, starting from the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife in Osun State, southwestern Nigeria, then University of Nigeria Nsukka

Josiah Andrew Hudleston

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Josiah Andrew Hudleston (22 February 1799 – 19 August 1865) was an Anglo-Irish civil servant, guitarist and composer. The Hudleston Collection at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin, Ireland, is one of the largest collections of early 19th-century music for the guitar. Life Hudleston was born in Bray, Berkshire (England). His father, John Hudleston (1749–1835), was an employee of the East India Company and a short-term (1805−6) Member of Parliament, while his mother came from County Donegal, Ireland. He was educated at Haileybury College, Hertfordshire, from 1815, and took up the guitar in the following year, possibly as a result of a visit to London by the Spanish guitarist Fernando Sor in April of this year. Hudleston spent almost all of his life (1817–55) in India in various positions within the East India Company. In 1820, he was appointed Second Assistant to the Collector and Magistrate of Tinnevelly, in 1824 Head Assistant to the Registrar of the Sudder and Foujdarry Adawlut, Deputy Collector of Madras (1828–1831 and 1836–1843), and from 1831 to 1835 he was Superintendent of Stationery there. His most influential time came when he was Chief Collector at Madras from 184

Josiah Pittman

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Josiah Pittman (3 September 1816 – 23 April 1886) was a British organist, composer of church music, music editor, and accompanist at opera rehearsals. Life Pittman was born on 2 September 1816, the son of a musician. He studied the organ under Goodman and S. S. Wesley. He later took lessons in the piano from Ignaz Moscheles, and in 1836 and 1837 at Frankfurt am Main he studied composition with Franz Xaver Schnyder von Wartensee. He was organist successively at the parish church of Sydenham from 1831, at Tooting from 1833, and at Spitalfields from 1835 to 1847. From 1852 to 1864 he was organist at Lincoln’s Inn. In 1865, he became accompanist at Her Majesty’s Opera, and from 1868 until his death, he filled the same office at Covent Garden. The value of his musical work at the opera was best understood by those behind the scenes, while his literary abilities fitted him to assist in the translation of libretti. For several years, he delivered the annual course of lectures on music at the London Institution. Pittman died suddenly, in his seventieth year, on 23 April 1886. Publications A close study of the requirements of the established church with regard to congregational singing or c

Josiah Ransome-Kuti

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Josiah Jesse “J.J.” Ransome-Kuti (1 June 1855 – 4 September 1930) was a Nigerian clergyman and music composer. He was known for setting Christian hymns to indigenous music, and for writing Christian hymns in Yoruba. Early life and career Josiah Jesse Olikoye Ransome-Kuti was born on June 1, 1855, in Igbein, Abeokuta, Ogun State. His family were of Egba origin and his parents, Kuti (c. 1820 – 1863) and Anne Ekidan Efupeyin (c. 1830 – July 1877), were both born in Abeokuta as well. Josiah’s paternal grandparents, Jamo and Orukoluku, were originally from the town of Orile Igbein in the Egba forest, but had nevertheless been two of the earliest inhabitants of Abeokuta when it was founded in 1830. Josiah Ransome-Kuti was baptized in 1859. He had one sister, Eruwe Lousia Kuti. While his mother, Anne, was an early convert to Christianity, his father, Kuti, was a follower of the traditional Yoruba religion, and rejected Christianity and European influence in Abeokuta. He was dismayed by his wife’s conversion and frequently opposed her in her attempts to influence their son. However, in 1863, Kuti died of guineaworm disease, leaving Anne to raise him as a pious Christian. Shortly after comp

Josif Marinković

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Josif Marinković (Serbian Cyrillic: Јосиф Маринковић; Vranjevo, near Novi Bečej, 15 September 1851 – Belgrade, 13 May 1931) was a Serbian composer and choral director. Like his younger contemporary Stevan St. Mokranjac, he was devoted to mainly vocal genres—lied and choral. Marinković was a romanticist with a pronounced affinity for melodic expression. He invested exceptional attention to the text declamation, which represented a rather novel quality in Serbian music at the time. Biography Marinković graduated at the Prague Organ School (1873–81) and attended specialized studies in Vienna (1886–87). He acted as choral director of the Belgrade Singing Society (1881–87), Academic Singing Society Obilić (1889–1900), as well as other choral ensembles (The Laborers’ Singing Society and Serbian-Jewish Singing Society, among others). He also taught music at the Serbian Orthodox Seminary, Teachers’ Preparatory School, and The Second Men’s Gymnasium. Marinković was inducted into the Serbian Royal Academy (today Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts) in 1907. As a composer of a distinct romanticist expression, Marinković often utilized folk melodies. He composed patriotic songs for men’s choi

Josima Feldschuh

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Josima Feldschuh (also spelled Feldszuh or Feldschu; 26 June 1929 – 21 April 1943) was a Polish pianist and composer of Jewish origin. Feldshuh was considered a child prodigy. Life Josima Feldschuh was born in Warsaw in 1929 to Ruben Feldschuh and Perła (Pnina) née Richter. Her father was an intellectual and a Zionist, while her mother, who started teaching Josima to play the piano when the girl was 5 years old, was a pianist and a musicologist. Her father’s cousin Rokhl Auerbakh later described Josima as having perfect pitch and great musical memory which helped her play the works of Chopin, Mendelssohn or Bach from memory and offer her own interpretations. and Austrian Cultural Forum in London, in Plzeň, Leeds, York and at Longy School of Music of Bard College in Cambridge, MA, among others. Josima’s music has been also showcased at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, most notably during a concert of the winner of Paszport Polityki award, pianist Emilia Sitarz. The part of Josima was played by Lauren Zhang, who was accompanied by the Sinfonia Varsovia orchestra. In 2021, the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in collaboration with the New York Philharmonic pla

Josip Hatze

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Joseph Hatze (1879–1959) was one of the first and most prominent Croatian composers at the beginning of the 20th century. Hatze was born in Split (then Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Croatia) to a family of craftsmen from Split. Whilst still at school he attended musical events, especially of sacred music and folk songs. Upon discovering his musicality, and with family support, he attended all the performances in the newly opened Municipal Theater in Split. His strong response to orchestral and choir performances in the Split theater encouraged the 16-year-old Hatze to sing at Chapel Mass. During that time he wrote “Misa a Kapela” (in Croatian text), which was performed with great success. Later other Dalmatian school choirs started performing his musical work. He completed his studies in composition in 1902 at the Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro in Italy with the operatic composer Pietro Mascagni. Returning home to Split, he worked as a choir teacher at the Central Technical School in Split and was the choirmaster at the choral society Zvonimir. During World War I, he was at the front, away from home, and was not aware that his wife Gilda had died of the Spanish flu. Gilda was from t

Josip Runjanin

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Josip Runjanin (8 December 1821 – 20 January 1878), born Josif Runjanin (), was an Austrian career military officer, politician and composer of Serb origin best known for composing the melody of the Croatian national anthem, Lijepa naša domovino (“Our Beautiful Homeland”), in 1846. Runjanin received his education in Vinkovci and later in Sremski Karlovci. As a young man, he served in the Imperial Austrian Army as a cadet in the town of Glina, along the Military Frontier with the Ottoman Empire. While serving in Glina, Runjanin attained the rank of captain and became proficient in playing the piano. He is known to have composed only a handful of works, most famously the musical accompaniment to Antun Mihanović’s patriotic poem Horvatska domovina (“Croatian Homeland”). The piece, under the title Lijepa naša domovino, was selected by popular acclaim as the anthem of the Croatian people at an economic exhibition in Zagreb in 1891. One of its stanzas was eventually integrated into the national anthem of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and the piece later served as the national anthem of several Croatian polities, including that of modern-day Croatia. A veteran of the Second a

Josipina Eleonora Hudovernik

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Josipina Hudovernik, sister Marija Eleonora, (March 25, 1863 – March 1, 1945) was a Slovenian music teacher, headmistress and composer. She wrote and composed the popular Slovenian Christmas carol “Dete rajsko, Dete sveto” (Heavenly Child, Holy Child). Early life Josipina Eleonora was born on March 25, 1863 in Radovljica into a religious Slovene family. Her mother was an innkeeper, Lucija Oman, Career She studied music privately, piano with conservatory teacher Valentine Karinger and organ with Anton Foerster. She later studied singing with Berta de Pop-Stockert. She passed the special examination in singing, piano and organ with distinction in 1893. Due to her talent, she soon became a recognized organist and composer. She first worked as a music teacher at a school for girls, and later was its headmistress between 1903 and 1923, when she retired. She is credited with over 120 choral compositions, mostly written for the monastery choir and for the girls’ school. She died on March 1, 1945, in Ljubljana. Awards In 1937 she received an award for her artistic work: the Order of the Yugoslav Crown, Fifth Class. Legacy Her Christmas carol “Dete rajsko, Dete sveto” (Heavenly Child, Holy

Joško Ćaleta

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Joško Ćaleta (2 October 1964) is a Croatian ethnomusicologist, music pedagogue, conductor, composer, record producer and klapa singer. He is a member of the Croatian Composers’ Society He received the Master of Arts title in 1994 with the thesis Social and musical structure of the klapa singing style, Dalmatia and Vancouver at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, under the mentorship of prof. Alan Thrasher. Career He started singing in 1979 in Klapa Trogir. Ćaleta described his beginnings with klapa in article from 1997: After he received further music education at the Music academy in Split, he became conductor of the klapa (1985–1989). Ćaleta also directed klapas “Radovan” and “Kairos”, as well as “Zvonimir” (1989–1997), composed of Croatian Canadians in Vancouver. Under his guidance, “Zvonimir” was winner of the best ethnic choir award in Canada in 1994 and 1996. Following his return to Croatia, he conducted klapas “Omiš”, “Nostalgija”, “Jelsa”, “Sagena” and “Dišpet”. He is record producer of around twenty music albums dedicated to klapa and other types of traditional singing in Croatia, six of which earned Croatian discographic award Porin (recorded by klapas “Nosta

Josquin Des Pres (American musician)

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Josquin Des Pres (born Josquin Turenne Des Pres) is a French-born American record producer, songwriter, and TV composer who is also known for his composing collaboration with English lyricist Bernie Taupin. He also writes music scores and trailers for more than 40 major TV networks and television shows. Des Pres has contributed to instructional music media books for Hal Leonard and Mel Bay; he has written a vast library of compositions and music techniques on bass, music studies, and various collections, which are used by music teachers, private studies, and in schools, both nationally and internationally, as a standard tool in the music industry. Career Des Pres started out in the mid-1970s playing bass professionally in the South of France. He joined progressive rock group Edition Speciale with whom he recorded two albums, including Allée Des Tilleuls (United Artists Records) and Aliquante (RCA Records) in 1975–1977. In the late ’70s, Des Pres toured with French jazz violinist Didier Lockwood and then migrated to Los Angeles, California, to play with former Mahavishnu Orchestra violinist Jerry Goodman. In the early 1980s, he formed the melodic hard rock group Stress with guitaris

Josquin Des Prez

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Josquin’s full name, Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez, became known in the late 20th century. A pair of 1483 documents found in Condé-sur-l’Escaut identify the composer as the nephew of Gille Lebloitte dit des Prez and the son of Gossard Lebloitte dit des Prez. His first name Josquin is a diminutive form of Josse, the French form of the name of Judoc, a Breton saint of the 7th century. Josquin was a common name in Flanders and Northern France in the 15th and 16th centuries. Other documents indicate that the surname des Prez had been used by the family for at least two generations, perhaps to distinguish them from other branches of the Lebloitte family. At the time, the name Lebloitte was rare and the reason that Josquin’s family took up the more common surname des Prez as their dit name remains uncertain. His name has many spellings in contemporary records: his first name is spelled as Gosse, Gossequin, Jodocus, Joskin, Josquinus, Josse, Jossequin, Judocus and Juschino; and his surname is given as a Prato, de Prato, Pratensis, de Prés, Desprez, des Prés and des Près. In his motet Illibata Dei virgo nutrix, he includes an acrostic of his name, where it is spelled IOSQVIN Des PREZ. Documents from Condé, where he lived for the last years of his life, refer to him as “Maistre Josse Desprez”. These include a letter written by the chapter of Notre-Dame of Condé to Margaret of Austria where he is named as “Josquin Desprez”. Scholarly opinion differs on whether his surname should be written as one word (Desprez) or two (des Prez), with publications from continental Europe preferring the former and English-language publications the latter. Modern scholarship typically refers to him as Josquin.

Josse Boutmy

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Josse Boutmy (1 February 1697 – 27 November 1779) was a composer, organist and harpsichordist of the Austrian Netherlands who established himself in Brussels. Background Boutmy was born in Ghent. He was born into a musical family; his grandfather, father, brother and sons were all musicians, also called the Boutmy Dynasty. He worked with Anselm Franz, 2nd Prince of Thurn and Taxis (1736) and at the chapel royal of Brussels (1744-1777). Boutmy married a woman named Katrina from Westphalia. Although Boutmy was a court organist and famous in his day, he was reduced at the age of eighty to appeals for charity and petitioned the court for retirement. He died in Brussels, without receiving a pension, leaving his wife and twelve children, who also petitioned the court for charity. Works Boutmy composed three collections of pieces for the harpsichord: * First book (1738) * Second book (1738) * Third book, dedicated to governor Charles of Lorraine (ca. 1749) His style incorporates multiple European influences: French (Rameau, Duphly), Italian (Domenico Scarlatti), German (Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach) and his harpsichord books mix dance pieces belonging to the suite form, character pieces and

Jouni Kaipainen

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Jouni Ilari Kaipainen (24 November 1956 – 23 November 2015) was a Finnish composer. Kaipainen was born in Helsinki to the physician and politician Osmo Kaipainen, and his wife, the author Anu Kaipainen. He studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki under Aulis Sallinen and Paavo Heininen. He died on 23 November 2015, the eve of his 59th birthday. Compositions Stage *Konstanzin ihme (The Miracle at Constance), opera in two acts, Op. 30 *Hämäränmaassa, music play for children, Op. 69 (2004) *Taikakivet, musical fantasy for actors, dancers and orchestra (2013) Orchestral *Symphonies **Symphony No. 1 Op. 20 (1985) **Symphony No. 2 Op. 44 (1994) **Symphony No. 3 Op. 72 (2004) **Symphony No. 4 Commedia, Op. 93 (2012), with TTBB choir, baritone and soprano soloists *Apotheosis Op. 7 (1975), for chamber orchestra *Sisyphus Dreams Op. 47 (1994) *Accende lumen sensibus, concerto for small orchestra, Op. 52 (1996) *Millennium Fanfare, Op. 60 (1999) *North by North-East, Op. 63 (2001) *Erik (…jag hör det ständigt…) Op. 78 (2006) *Notkea Keaton - The Ghost of Buster Op. 86 (2008–09) *Aubade beninoise (2009) Concertante *Concerto for two pianos Ladders to Fire, Op. 14 (1979) *Clarinet Conce

Jovan Adamov

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Jovan Adamov (born 5 May 1942, Čoka) is a Serbian composer and conductor, best remembered as the conductor of the famous children’s show “Muzički tobogan”. Biography Although he graduated as a mechanical engineer, Jovan “Joca” Adamov dedicated his life to music, working at Radio Television of Vojvodina (formerly RT Novi Sad). He received his musical education in Novi Sad and has been involved in music since 1962. A double bassist and occasional conductor of the Dance Orchestra of Radio Novi Sad, where he was a music producer for many years. As a composer of entertaining melodies, he has participated in many Yugoslav festivals since 1964. In addition to schlagers, old town songs, and romances, he wrote film and stage music. He is a recipient of numerous awards. Main works * Old town songs and romances ** “Room in Varadin” ** “We Met” ** “Things That Have Passed” ** “Why I Met You” * Schlagers ** “Hey Why Am I” ** “Hey Soldiers Aviators” ** “Little Words Are Needed When You Love” ** “Unfinished Thoughts” ** “Let It Not Be in Spring” (sung by Ljiljana Petrović) ** “We Will Never Allow Our Love to End” ** “A Summer Story” ** “You Passed by Love” ** “Colorful Displays” ** “What Good Is

Jovan Paču

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Jovan Paču (Aleksandrovo near Subotica, Austrian Empire, 17 March 1847 – Kikinda, Austria-Hungary, 30 October 1902) was a Serbian composer and pianist. Biography During his education in Subotica, he distinguished himself as a gifted pianist, and as early as 1863 he played at a public concert. In parallel with his study of medicine in Prague (which he also studied in Pest) he studied privately with Bedřich Smetana. He has played in Vienna, Budapest, Kiev (the first Serbian pianist in Imperial Russia), Belgrade, Osijek, Kikinda, Pančevo, Vršac and many places in Serbia and Vojvodina. With the inevitable salon virtuosity he stood out with his brilliant technique, and at concerts, he often performed works by Serbian composers, his contemporaries, as well as his own compositions and arrangements of folk tunes. Although using a very simple compositional technique, these works - on folk themes or in the folk spirit - were so popular that the people accepted them as their own (eg, “Branko’s Wheel”, created on the occasion of the transfer of Branko Radičević’s bones from Vienna to Stražilovo in 1883). Paču’s concerts had a great patriotic significance, especially in Hungary, where Serbs fou

Jovdat Hajiyev

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Ahmad Jovdat Ismayil oglu Hajiyev ( / Әһмәд-Ҹөвдәт Исмајыл оғлу Һаҹыјев, , June 18, 1917 - January 18, 2002) was one of the major Azerbaijani composers of the Soviet period. He is remembered for his monumental orchestral works, having been the first Azerbaijani to compose a symphony (1936). He studied under Azerbaijan’s Founder of Composed Music, Uzeyir Hajibeyov and under Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. Early life Hajiyev was born in Shaki (then Nukha), a town in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains in northwestern Azerbaijan. From an early age, he was deeply influenced by the traditional music of folk songs, ashug music (folk minstrel) and mugham (modal music). In 1924, his family moved to Baku. In 1935, he enrolled in the theoretical composition faculty at Baku Conservatory, studying under Uzeyir Hajibeyov and the Latvian-born Leopold Rudolf, a student of Sergei Taneyev. The following year, Hajiyev composed his single movement “Symphony No. 1”, the first symphonic piece ever written by an Azerbaijani composer. This work enabled him to enter Moscow Conservatory in 1938. In Moscow, World War II interrupted his studies and he had to return to Baku. Career After the war, Ha

Jovino Santos Neto

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Jovino Santos Neto (born September 18, 1954) is a Seattle-based Brazilian-American jazz pianist, flutist, composer, arranger, educator and record producer. Career Jovino Santos Neto started playing piano at age 13 and by 16 was playing keyboards in a band called the Vacancy Group in Bangu, Rio de Janeiro. He earned a degree in Biology from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and later attended Macdonald College of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In 1977, he joined the group led by Brazilian composer Hermeto Pascoal, working as a pianist, flutist, composer, arranger and producer. Since leaving Hermeto’s group in 1992 and relocating to the United States, Santos Neto has released several albums. He has toured internationally as the leader of his own ensemble and with musicians such as Airto Moreira, Flora Purim, and Mike Marshall. Santos Neto taught at Seattle’s Cornish College of the Arts for 26 years, ending in May 2020, whereupon he took to teaching via Zoom. He is a frequent teacher at Jazz Camp West. Discography * 1998: Caboclo * 2000: Ao Vivo em Olympia (Live in Olympia, Washington) * 2001: Balaio (Basket) (Malandro) * 2003: Canto do Rio * 2003: Serenata wit

Joxe Mendizabal

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Jose Javier Mendizabal Aldalur (born 1970), known as Joxe Mendizabal, is a Spanish musician, composer, music producer and record producer. He has worked and created music for various music groups, TV shows and movies, such as Betizu Taldea, Egin kantu! (ETB 1), ¡Menuda decisión! (Cuatro), Vaya Semanita (ETB 2), Oh Happy Day (ETB 1), Goenkale, Bago!az or Hoy quiero confesar. Early life Joxe Mendizabal was born in 1970, in Amasa-Villabona, Gipuzkoa, Basque Country (Spain). Career In 1986, together with others, he created the Gipuzkoan folk music group Xaximiku with which he released two albums, one in 1986 and a second in 1989. Later he joined the rock group Egan, together with Xabier Saldias, with whom he gave several concerts and recorded three discs. Medizabal plays the accordion and he defines himself as an accordionist (soinujole, in Basque). In 2012 he released his first solo album called Soinujolea naiz (I am an accordionist, in Basque), in which he claimed himself above all as an accordionist. In the year 2000 he began working for EITB Media as a musician, composer, arranger and music producer. In 2001 he was the music producer for Betizu and later for the music group Betizu

Joy Guidry

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Joy Guidry is an American bassoonist and composer. Early life Guidry was born in Houston and first became interested in music through her exposure to gospel music at church. Career Guidry graduated from the Peabody Institute in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in bassoon performance, after which she participated in a fellowship at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. She earned a diploma from Mannes School of Music the following year. In 2021, Guidry was awarded the Berlin Prize for Young Artists for her Radical Self-Love program. Her debut album, Radical Acceptance, was released in February 2022. That year, she served on a panel of curators to select projects from new artists to be recorded on the American Composers Forum innova Recordings label. Guidry is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in music at University of California, San Diego. After touring with her dissertation project, AMEN, a recording of the work will be released in May 2024. Compositions Y’all don’t wanna listen In 2020, the National Sawdust Ensemble commissioned and premiered Y’all don’t wanna listen, a work by Guidry for cello, alto flute, and violin. A Prayer for Protection A Prayer for Protection, a work f

Joy Ngiaw

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

Joy Ngiaw (born November 23, 1994) is an Emmy Award-winning composer film and television composer. She won the Children’s and Family Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Direction and Composition for an Animated Program for her work on WondLa , becoming the first Malaysian to win an Emmy Award. She collaborated closely with John Lasseter on the series, and the score was featured in IndieWire’s ‘Best TV Scores of the Year, According to Our Composers Survey ‘, alongside The White Lotus and Severance. Her score for Apple TV+ and Skydance’s debut animation Blush has won Best Music Award from Hollywood Music in Media and was nominated for an Annie. She also scored Skydance Animation’s inaugural studio logo, and Angel Studios theatrical romantic comedy Solo Mio, starring Kevin James. Among her other projects include Monkeypaw Productions’ The Pigs Underneath, Netflix and CBS’s TV show Glamorous starring Kim Cattrall, Mattel and Netflix’s Barbie Mysteries, Walt Disney Animation Studio’s Short Circuit: Jing Hua, and Netflix’s Rescued by Ruby. Joy was named a BAFTA Breakthrough USA honoree in 2024. She was also featured on Apple ‘Here’s to the Dreamers’ campaign, spotlighting ambitious creative

Joyce Barthelson

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

Helen Joyce Holloway Barthelson Steigman (May 18, 1900 – December 1986) was an American composer who created five operas and numerous shorter pieces. She co-founded the Hoff-Barthelson Music School in Scarsdale, New York. Life and career Joyce Barthelson was born Helen Joyce Holloway in Yakima, Washington. She graduated from Oakland Technical High School in 1918. She studied music at the University of California, Berkeley under Julius Gold, Otto Cesana, Roy Harris, and Nicolas Flagello. In the late 1930s and early 1940s she was assistant conductor of the New York Women’s Symphony Orchestra and composer in residence at Western Maryland College. Operas * Chanticleer (1967), based on “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale” by Geoffrey Chaucer, won first prize in a nationwide opera contest held by the National Federation of Music Clubs. * Feathertop (1968), a two-act opera with a libretto by Barthelson based on the 1846 short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. * Greenwich Village, 1910 (1969), a one-act opera based on the 1905 short story “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry, premiered at Scarsdale Junior High School. * The Devil’s Disciple (1977), a two-act opera with a libretto by Barthelson based on the

Joyce Howard Barrell

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

Joyce Howard Barrell (née Gedye; 26 November 19176 December 1989) was an English composer. She studied with Benjamin Burrows and Harold Craxton for piano and Grace Burrows for violin, and then worked as composer, as a guitar teacher and as a piano accompanist. She married composer Bernard Clements Barrell in 1945. She composed about ninety works, specialising in works for children and chamber music. Life Barrell was born Joyce Howard Gedye, on Bouverie Avenue in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England in 1917. Her father was a bank manager for Lloyds Bank, and the family moved around to Bridgwater, Somerset in 1920, then Exeter in 1926 and lastly settled in Leicester. After completing her studies, Barrell worked as composer and as a guitar teacher and piano accompanist until 1985. She married composer Bernard Clements Barrell in 1945, and they lived in Suffolk. Barrell also worked to promote music, singing and music teaching throughout East Anglia with her husband. Her music was published by Anglian, MSM, Occumuse, and Schauer and May, among others. Her archives are held at Britten Pears Arts Archive. Selected works Barrell composed mainly chamber music and music for children, but also inclu

Joyce Mekeel

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

Joyce Haviland Mekeel (July 6, 1931 in New Haven, CT – December 29, 1997, in Watertown, MA) was a composer, harpsichordist, teacher, anthropologist, and sculptor. Education Joyce Mekeel studied at the Longy School of Music (1952–55), Paris Conservatory (1955–57) and Yale University (BM 1959, MM 1960). In Paris her teachers included Nadia Boulanger; in the 1960s she studied with Earl Kim. At Yale she studied harpsichord with Gustav Leonhardt and theory with David Kraehenbuehl. Mekeel received a fellowship to MacDowell Colony and grants in composition from Ingram-Merrill in 1964 and Radcliffe Institute from 1969-1970. She was a member of Sigma Alpha Iota. Mekeel took up studying anthropology which brought her to West Africa twice, where she created many sculptures. Mekeel also attended Princeton University. She held two doctoral degrees, one in anthropology. Career Teaching Mekeel taught at the New England Conservatory (1964–70) and Boston University (from 1970). At Boston University, she directed the electronic music studio and taught private composition lessons, as well as classes in Advanced Counterpoint, Cannon and Fugue, (for graduate students), Pedagogy of Theory, Ear Training

Jože Humer

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

Jože Humer (24 June 1936 – 13 June 2012) was a Slovenian composer, choirmaster, lyricist, translator, and cultural organiser. He was also a judge, a secretary of the Supreme Court of Slovenia, In March 2012, he was decorated by Slovenian President Danilo Türk with the Order for Merits of Slovenia, with a rationale that described him as an “above-average deserving personality of the Slovenian cultural life.” References

Józef Elsner

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

Józef Antoni Franciszek Elsner (sometimes Józef Ksawery Elsner; baptismal name, Joseph Anton Franz Elsner; 1 June 176918 April 1854) was a Polish composer, music teacher, and music theoretician, active mainly in Warsaw. He was one of the first composers in Poland to weave elements of folk music into his works. Elsner composed many symphonic, chamber, solo, and vocal-instrumental works, and works for the stage, including over 100 religious works (masses, offertories, oratorios, cantatas), eight symphonies, three concertos, three ballets, and thirty-eight operas. in Austrian-ruled Lemberg (Lviv/Lwów). There, in 1796, he married Klara Abt, who died a year later. In 1799, with Wojciech Bogusławski, he went to New East Prussia (Prussian-ruled Poland) and became the principal conductor, first at the German Theatre, then at the Polish National Theatre in Warsaw. Masses * Missa brevis in F major, Op. 85 on 3-voice male choir and organ (1844) * Festiva Missa in C major, Op. 52 for 4-voice choir, orchestra and organ (c. 1832) * Missa in B, Op. 18 on 3-voice male choir (1823) * Mass in A minor, Op. 24 for 4-voice choir (c. 1823) * Mass in A minor, Op. 81 for 4-voice choir and orchestra (1843)

Józef Koffler

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

Józef Koffler (28 November 18961944) was a Polish composer, music teacher, musicologist and musical columnist. He was the first Polish composer living before the Second World War to apply the twelve-tone composition technique (dodecaphony). Biography Koffler was born on 28 November 1896 in Stryj, Austria-Hungary. He studied from 1914 to 1916 in Lwów and from 1918 to 1924 he studied music at the Academy of Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna. His teachers were Paul Graener and Felix Weingartner. From 1928 till 1941 Koffler was professionally active as music teacher in Lwów, teaching at the Lwów Conservatory. Polish exile composer Roman Haubenstock-Ramati studied in 1920–1923 composition together with Koffler in Lwów. Koffler was a composer of 20th-century avant-garde Polish music and the first Polish twelve-tone technique composer. He must have come into contact with Edward Clark, the British conductor, BBC music producer and former student of Arnold Schoenberg, as his “Variations on a Waltz by Johann Strauss”, Op. 23 (1935) were dedicated “À mon ami Edward Clark”. When German troops entered the town Koffler was captured with his wife and son and forcibly relocated to the ghetto

Józef Kozłowski

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

Józef Kozłowski (, also or ; 1757/1759 – 11 March 1831) was a Russian composer of Polish origin. Biography For the most part of his life Józef Kozłowski was attached to the Russian Imperial Court, for which he wrote most of his music. In Russia he became popular especially for his patriotic polonaises. Sources vary as to Kozłowski’s time and place of birth. The Polish academia traditionally considers him as a native of Warsaw, born on 10 September 1759. According to the Encyclopedia of Literature and Art of Belarus (1985), he was born in 1757 in Kozlovichi manor near Propoysk (modern Slawharad, Belarus). Author of encyclopedia entry V. D. Bobrovsky based his claim on the data from a metric book he found in Sokolovo, Slawharad District. An obituary in Northern Bee, presumably written by Thaddeus Bulgarin, described Kozłowski as a “descendant of Belarusian nobility.” Kozłowski’s uncle, Vasily Fyodorovich Trutovsky (a famous hussler in his time), noticing his nephew’s musical abilities, took him to study in St. John’s Church in Warsaw, where the young musician received a musical education and underwent practice as a chanter, violinist and organist. For many years Kozlowski was associa

Józef Świder

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

Józef Świder (born 19 August 1930 in Czechowice-Dziedzice, died 22 May 2014 in Katowice ) was a Polish composer and music teacher. He graduated from the Academy of Music in Katowice (formerly PWSM – today Akademia Muzyczna), then continued his studies with Goffredo Petrassi at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. Since 1954, he taught composition and music theory at the Akademia Muzyczna in Katowice. Among his pupils were the Polish composers Aleksander Lasoń, Julian Gembalski, Andrzej Dziadek and Wiesław Cieńciała. Professor at the University of Silesia (Uniwersytet Śląski) where, from 1985 until 1999, he managed the Institute for Music Education. Since 1984 professor of the postgraduate course for choir directors at the Akademia Muzyczna in Bydgoszcz. Member of the jury of numerous Polish and international choir competitions. Józef Świder was the recipient of many awards, among them the Prize of Poland’s Prime Minister for his works for children. He was a member of the Union of Polish Composers (ZKP). Compositions * more than 200 choral songs * 3 operas: Magnus (1970), Wit Stwosz (Veit Stoss – 1974), Bal Baśni (The Fairy Tales Bal – 1977) * Wokaliza (Vocalise) for so

Józef Wieniawski

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

Józef Wieniawski (23 May 1837 – 11 November 1912) was a Polish pianist, composer, conductor and teacher. He was born in Lublin, the younger brother of the famous violinist Henryk Wieniawski. After Franz Liszt, he was the first pianist to publicly perform all the études by Chopin. He appeared with Liszt in recitals in Paris, London, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Brussels, Leipzig and Amsterdam. Near the end of his life, a journalist asked him how long he intended to serve music. He replied: “As long as I remain young!” Life Józef Wieniawski studied at the Conservatoire de Paris with Pierre Zimmermann and Antoine François Marmontel in 1847, leaving in 1850. In 1855 he received a scholarship from the Tsar of Russia to study with Franz Liszt in Weimar and from 1856 until 1858 in Berlin with Adolf Bernhard Marx, with whom he studied music theory. He left 11 mechanical recordings of his piano pieces which to date have not come to light. Compositions *Allegro de Sonate for Violin and Piano, Op. 2 *Valse de Concert No. 1 in D-flat major, Op. 3 “À mon maître et ami Mr A. Marmontel, Professseur au Conservatoire de Paris” *Tarantella, Op. 4 “À Monsieur F. Liszt” *Grand Duo Polonais for Violin and Pi

József Soproni (composer)

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

József Soproni (4 October 1930 – 24 April 2021) was a Hungarian composer. Biography After graduating from the , Soproni entered the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in 1949. He graduated in 1956. He taught music theory and composition at Béla Bartók Music High School from 1957 to 1972. In 1992, he was a founding member of the Széchenyi Academy of Literature and Arts. József Soproni died in Sopron on 24 April 2021 at the age of 90. Selected works ;Stage * Antigoné, Opera in 3 acts (1987) * Aranylövés (Golden Shot), Opera in 1 act (2004) ;Orchestral * Divertimento for string orchestra (1951–1952) * Concerto for string orchestra (1953) * Symphony (Szimfónia) for string orchestra, brass and percussion (1961) * Eklypsis for symphony orchestra (1969) * Symphony No. 1 for orchestra (1975, revised 1980) * Symphony No. 2 Seasons (Évszakok) for orchestra (1977) * Symphony No. 3 Sinfonia de Requiem for soloists, mixed choir and orchestra (1979–1980) * Comments on a Theme by Händel (Kommentárok egy Händel-témához) for orchestra (1985) * 3 Pieces (Három darab) for orchestra (1988) * Symphony No. 4 Találkozások Philipp Emanuel B.-vel (Encounters with Philipp Emanuel B.) for orchestra (1994) * Sympho