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Orazio Benevoli

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

Orazio Benevoli or Benevolo (19 April 1605 – 17 June 1672) was a Franco-Italian composer of large scaled polychoral sacred choral works (e.g., one work featured forty-eight vocal and instrumental lines) of the middle Baroque era. Biography He was born in Rome to a French baker and confectioner, Robert Venouot or Vénevot, whose name was Italianized to Benevolo. Benevoli was a choirboy at San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome (1617–23). He later assumed posts as maestro di cappella at Santa Maria in Trastevere (from 1624), Santo Spirito in Sassia (from 1630), and his old church San Luigi dei Francesi from 1638. Benevoli served as Kapellmeister in the court of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria from 1644 to 1646. Benevoli returned to Rome in 1646, where he remained for the rest of his life as choirmaster at both Santa Maria Maggiore and the Cappella Giulia of St. Peter’s Basilica. He was made Guardiano of the Vatican’s Congregazione di Santa Cecilia in the following three years of 1654, 1665 and 1667. His pupils included Ercole Bernabei, Antimo Liberati and Paolo Lorenzani. () Benevoli composed Masses, motets, Magnificats, and other sacred vocal works. Much of his fame as a composer has res

Orazio Vecchi

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

Orazio Vecchi (6 December 1550 (baptized) in Modena – 19 February 1605) was an Italian composer of the late Renaissance. He is most famous for his madrigal comedies, particularly L’Amfiparnaso. Life He was born in Modena, and studied with Salvatore Essenga, a Servite friar there. In addition he prepared for holy orders with early education at the Benedictine monastery, and took holy orders sometime before 1577. By the end of the 1570s he was well-connected with the composers of the Venetian school (for example Claudio Merulo and Giovanni Gabrieli) since he collaborated with them in writing a sestina for a ducal marriage. During this period he accompanied Count Baldassare Rangoni on his travels, going to Bergamo and Brescia. He was maestro di cappella (director of music) at the Salò cathedral between 1581 and 1584. Following this, he was the choirmaster at the cathedral of Reggio Emilia, until 1586. In that year he moved to Correggio where he was appointed canon of the cathedral there; he composed copiously during his time there, though he felt isolated from the major musical centers of Italy such as Rome, Venice, Florence and Ferrara. Eventually he attempted to correct this by movi

Oreste Ravanello

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

Oreste Ravanello (25 August 1871 in Venice – 2 July 1938 in Padua) was an Italian composer and organist. Ravanello studied organ and composition at the Liceo Musicale in Venice before he was appointed organist of the San Marco Cathedral at the age of seventeen. He also taught at the (now Benedetto Marcello) Conservatory of Music in Venice, and then became director of Istituto Musicale in Padua (now the “Cesare Pollini” Conservatory of Music). Activity He became a well-known recitalist well known for his improvisations. He was above all remembered for his compositions which are especially intended for the church: ca. 30 Masses, Te Deums etc. but also numerous works for organ and piano. His language is late romantic and melodious. Works *CORALE FANTASIA, OP. 7 *QUATTRO PEZZI FACILI, OP. 12 ** 1. Preludio ** 2. Pastorale ** 3. Fughetta dorica ** 4. Elevazione *SETTE TRII, OP. 25 ** 1. O crux, ave ** 2. Qui odit animam suam ** 3. Lucis creator optime ** 4. Corale ** 5. Corale ** 6. Corale ** 7. Larghetto pastorale * SEI PEZZI, OP. 27 ** 1. Praeludium super Agnus Dei ** 2. Praeludium super Te Lucis ** 3. Meditazione super Ave Regina Cœlorum ** 4. Elevazione o Comunione super Alma Redemp

Oreste Sindici

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

Oreste Sindici (May 31, 1828 – January 12, 1904) was an Italian-born Colombian musician and composer. He composed the music for the Colombian national anthem in 1887. He was born in Ceccano (Province of Frosinone) and studied in the Ospizio Apostolico di San Michele at Rome. A lifelong admirer and supporter of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Sindici joined his army of redshirts to defend the short-lived Roman Republic in 1849 , after which he began a career as a professional opera tenor. Between 1856 and 1860, Sindici performed as first tenor in theatres in Lanciano, Rome, L’Aquila, Chieti, Cosenza and Avellino, before embarking on a trip to the Americas in 1861 that included stops in Cuba, Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago and Curaçao . In 1862, he arrived to Colombia, where he lived for the rest of his life. In 1887 he was asked to compose the music to a poem written by Rafael Núñez. The song was released on November 11, 1887, in commemoration of the Independence of Cartagena de Indias. In 1920 this song officially became the Colombian national anthem. Oreste Sindici died in Bogotá on January 12, 1904, after suffering from political persecution by the conservative governments of Miguel Antonio Car

Orfeo Vecchi

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

Orfeo Vecchi (ca. 15511603) was an Italian composer and choirmaster. His most important appointment as choirmaster was at Santa Maria alla Scala, Milan. His earliest extant compositions date from 1588. Biography Vecchi was born sometime around the year 1551 and educated in the Vercelli Cathedral. In 1580 Vecchi was nominated by Charles Borromeo for the post of the newly created position of “maestro di cappella” at Santa Maria alla Scala, in good part because of the combination of his youth and training. This effort was successful. in the post-Tridentine style, His tenure at Santa Maria alla Scala returned the institution to its leading place among musical establishments in Milan. His reputation was such that a collection of his work was published (though at no benefit to himself) in its entirety outside Milan. Compositions He is best known for his two collections of “sacred madrigals”, La Donna vestita di sole (1590) and Scielta de Mardrigali (1604). The second of these, published by his brother a year after his death, contains works borrowed from the secular madrigals of other composers, and modified into motets with Latin sacred texts substituting for the original lyrics. His out

Orion R. Farrar

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

Orion R Farrar was a marching band director and composer. Farrar was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1866, son of an English shoemaker and an Indiana woman. Soon after his birth, his family moved to Warren, Ohio. At the age of 19, Farrar enrolled in the famous Dana Musical Institute in Warren, studying theory, composition, and cornet playing. Following graduation, he taught brass instruments and conducted the Institute band for 7 years. He resigned from Dana in 1896 to organize the Indiana State Band, which he led for two years. He then returned to Ohio to form the Ohio State Band (unrelated to Ohio State University). He moved to Youngstown, Ohio in 1901, where he led the Youngstown Military Band. In 1915, he conducted the Lima, Ohio Municipal Band. He became a member of Old Erie Masonic Lodge No 3 in 1894 and was active until 1904, when he was expelled for non-payment of dues. The final years of Farrar’s life remain a mystery. He was purported to have died in California in 1929, but this is undocumented. As a march composer, Farrar is most remembered for “Bombasto”, “Indiana State Band”, and “Hi Henry’s Triumphal”. “Bombasto” found an enduring place in the circus band repertoire,

Orit Wolf

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

Orit Wolf (; born 8 October 1974 in Tel Aviv) is an Israeli pianist, composer, poet and lecturer. She is an Associate Professor of Creative Arts at the Department of Humanities & Arts at the Technion- Israel Institute of Technology. Education Starting at the age of six, Orit Wolf studied piano with Hanna Shalgi. At the age of 16, she graduated from Thelma Yelin High School for the Arts and studied with Alexander Volkov. She then began her academic studies at the Tel Aviv University under the direction of Arie Vardi. She also studied music composition and improvisation with Andre Hajdu while attending masterclasses given by Leon Fleisher, Claude Frank, Menachem Pressle r, György Sebők, Gilbert Kalish and Peter Serkin. In 1991, Wolf attended the Boston University Tanglewood Institute and then received a full Dean’s scholarship to Boston University. She graduated from Boston University summa cum laude in piano performance under Benjamin Pasternack and Composer Lukas Foss. Wolf received a post-graduate degree and her master’s from the Royal Academy of Music in 1998 under the direction of Christopher Elton. She was also studying with Maria Curcio. In 2007, Wolf earned a PhD under the Pr

Orlande de Lassus

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

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Lasso’s name appears in many forms, often changed depending on the place in which his music was being performed or published. In addition to Orlando di Lasso, variations include Orlande de Lassus, Roland de Lassus, Orlandus Lassus, Orlande de Lattre and Roland de Lattre. Since these various spellings or translations of the same name have been known and accepted for centuries, and since there is no evidence that he stated a preference, none of them can be considered incorrect.

Orlando Gibbons

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

Orlando Gibbons (bapt. 25 December 1583 – 5 June 1625) was an English composer and keyboard player who was one of the last masters of the English Virginalist School and English Madrigal School. The best known member of a musical family dynasty, by the 1610s he was the leading composer and organist in England, with a career cut short by his untimely death in 1625. As a result, Gibbons’s oeuvre was not as large as that of his contemporaries, like the elder William Byrd, but he made considerable contributions to many genres of his time. Musicologists characterize his music as exemplifying the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque periods. Gibbons was born into a musical family where his father was a wait, his brothers—Edward, Ellis and Ferdinand—were musicians and Orlando was expected to follow the tradition. It is not known under whom he studied, although it may have been with Edward or Byrd, but he almost certainly studied the keyboard in his youth. Irrespective of his education, he was musically proficient enough to be appointed an unsalaried member of the Chapel Royal in May 1603 and a full-fledged gentleman of the Chapel Royal as junior organist by 1605. By 1606, he had

Orlando Jacinto Garcia

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

Orlando Jacinto Garcia (born 1954; surname sometimes spelled García) is a Cuban-American composer of contemporary classical music. Life and career Garcia received a DMA degree in composition from the University of Miami in 1985. He also studied composition with Morton Feldman. He is a guest composer and lecturer at national and international festivals. His music has been performed numerous artists such as Joan La Barbara, Bertram Turetzky, Luis Gómez-Imbert, Jan Williams, Joseph Celli, Odaline de la Martinez the Gregg Smith Singers, and many orchestras in the Americas and Europe. Garcia is the founder and director of several international festivals that include the New Music Miami Festival and the Music of the Americas Festival. He is the founder and artistic director of the NODUS Ensemble and the Florida International University (FIU) New Music Ensemble. Awards and recognitions Garcia is the recipient of numerous honors and awards from organizations and cultural institutions, including the Nuevas Resonancias, ACF Sonic Circuits, Bloch International Competition, and fellowships, residencies, and other awards from the Rockefeller, Fulbright, Dutka, and Cintas Foundation (1994/95 and

Orly Chap

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

Orly Chap (born Aurélie Chapin) is a French singer, songwriter and composer known for having a raspy and expressive voice. Her lyrical approach has been likened to disjointed poetry, while her musical style has been described as a sophisticated mixture of “New Chanson”, blues, and acoustic rock. Biography Now living in Paris, Chap was born in rural Brittany, where she performed in street theater as a youth. She has attributed her abrupt style of writing to her family members, farmers who spoke very little at home. Music and writing therefore became a way for Chap to express herself while growing up. Her career as a musician was launched in 2001, with a performance at the Printemps de Bourges music festival in France. At that concert, Paris news magazine L’Express, described Chap as being a small shy woman who exploded on stage. In 2002, she won the award for best singer-songwriter at the “Festival international de la chanson de Granby” in Quebec, Canada, beating out local contenders. According to TV5 Monde, Chap’s emotional style of blues grabs at the listener’s throat. Comparing her deep voice to Edith Piaf, Le Devoir describes her poetic lyrics as rich and biting. Chap wrote the

Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson

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

Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson (or Thorkell Sigurbjörnsson) (16 July 1938 – 30 January 2013) was an Icelandic composer, conductor and pianist. The most prolific Icelandic composer, he is author of more than 350 works, from songs for children to orchestral works. Early life and study Born in Reykjavík, the son of bishop Sigurbjörn Einarsson and his wife, Magnea Þorkelsdóttir, he graduated from Reykjavík High School in 1957. He then moved to the United States to study at Hamline University in Minnesota, ultimately graduating in 1961 from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Among his teachers there were Lejaren Hiller and Kenneth Gaburo. He returned to Iceland in 1962, and hosted a regular radio show on RÚV for many years. Career Þorkell taught piano, musicology, and music history at the Reykjavík College of Music for many years. He was also chair of the Icelandic Composers’ Society from 1983 to 1987, sat for a time on the board of the Association of Icelandic Musicians and was president of the Association of Icelandic Artists from 1982 to 1986. He died in Kópavogur. He is best known for composing music (in 1973) for the 13th-century Icelandic hymn, Heyr, himna smiður. While Þorke