OS on Music Theory Print

Osamu Shimizu

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

Osamu Shimizu (Japanese: 清水脩, Shimizu Osamu) (4 November 1911, Tennōji-ku, Osaka – 29 October 1986, Tokyo) was a Japanese composer. Biography Shimizu was a Japanese classical music composer in both the Japanese and Western Style. He was the son of a Gagaku-musician. He studied composition (music) at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in Tokyo from 1936 to 1939 under Kunihiko Hashimoto and music theory under Hosokawa Midori. In 1939, his “Hana ni yose taru butoh suite” was selected as the first prize winner in the composition section of the 8th Music Competition. In Japan, Shimizu is most known for composing operas, choral works and songs. He also composed for solo instruments including shakuhachi and koto. Among Pure Land Buddhists, both in Japan and in other countries, especially in Hawaii and California in the United States, he is known for his Gathas (Buddhist music) introduced in the late 1950s sponsored by the Hongwanji Temple in Hawaii. A recording of Ondokusan II was released by Buddhist Churches of America, performed by the opera vocalist Mika Shigematsu with piano accompaniment by Rae Imamura for the BCA Shin Buddhist Service Book in 1994. Shimizu’s opera Sh

Osbert Parsley

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

Osbert Parsley (1510/15111585) was an English Renaissance composer and chorister. Few details of his life are known, but he evidently married in 1558, and lived for a period in the parish of St Saviour’s Church, Norwich. A boy chorister at Norwich Cathedral, Parsley worked there throughout his musical career. He was first mentioned as a lay clerk, was appointed a “singing man” in c. 1534, and was probably the cathedral’s unofficial organist for half a century. His career spanned the reigns of Henry VIII and all three of his children. After the Reformation of 1534, the lives of English church musicians changed according to the official policy of each monarch. Parsley wrote mainly church music for both the Latin and English rites, as well as instrumental music. His Latin settings are considered to be more fluent and attractive-sounding than those he wrote to be sung in English. His longest composition, Conserva me, domine, has a graceful polyphonic style. Parsley’s other liturgical works include Daily Offices (two morning services and an evening service), and the five-part Lamentations (notable for the difficulty in singing the top notes of the highest part). His instrumental music,

Oscar Ahnfelt

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

Oscar Ahnfelt (1813–1882) was a Swedish singer, composer and music publisher. Biography Ahnfelt composed the music for many of Lina Sandell’s hymns. He was a pietist, who traveled all over Scandinavia, playing his 10-string guitar and singing her lyrics. The state church authorities did not like pietistic hymns and, anticipating a royal injunction against the singing of Sandell’s songs, ordered Ahnfelt to sing them before King Karl XV. But after hearing them, the King announced to Ahnfelt, “You may sing as much as you desire in both of my kingdoms.” Sandell–Ahnfelt hymns have spread throughout the world. Two of the best-known ones in English are Children of the Heavenly Father (Tryggare kan ingen vara) Jenny Lind, known worldwide as the “Swedish Nightingale”, was also a pietist and popularized Sandell’s hymns in the United States and wherever she sang. She additionally helped finance Ahnfelt’s Andeliga Sånger (Sacred Songs), first published in 1850. *Blott en dag: lyrics by Lina Sandell *Guds barn jag är: lyrics by Carl Olof Rosenius *Herrens nåd är var morgon ny: lyrics by Lina Sandell *I en djup, oändlig skog: lyrics by Carl Olof Rosenius *Jag är främling: lyrics by Betty Ehrenbo

Oscar Beringer

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

Oscar Beringer (14 July 1844 – 21 February 1922) was an English pianist and teacher of German descent. Beringer was born in Furtwangen in the Black Forest, but by 1849 he had moved to London when his father became a political refugee. Due to impoverished circumstances he was largely self taught (on a borrowed piano with lessons from his sister) until he was 19, but made several appearances as a piano soloist at the Crystal Palace Saturday Concerts in 1859-60. At the age of 19 Beringer began a course of systematic training as a pupil of Ignaz Moscheles in Leipzig, and Carl Tausig in Berlin. In 1869 he was appointed professor at Tausig’s Schule des höheren Clavierspiels in Berlin, but he returned to London in 1871. By 1873 he had established the Oscar Beringer Academy for the Higher Development of Pianoforte Playing, initially from a small house in Great Marlborough Street, then at 12 Hinde Street off Manchester Square, and later at 40 Wigmore Street in London. It was organized on the model of Tausig’s school. From 1885 he was also a professor at the Royal Academy of Music. On 14 October 1882 Beringer was the soloist in Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto for its first performance in Engl

Oscar Borg

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

Oscar Borg (11 June 1851 – 29 December 1930) was a Norwegian composer and conductor. He is best known for his compositions of marches for wind bands. Alfred Oscar Johannessen Borg was born in Halden, Norway. His father, Ole Peter Johannesen (1816–1890), was from the Borg farm in Solør, from which the family name originated. His father was music sergeant in the 1st Brigades Band of Fredriksten Fortress in Halden. Oscar Borg attended the Royal College of Music (Musikaliska Akademien) in Stockholm, under the sponsorship of the Crown Prince of Sweden, later King Oscar II of Sweden. He entered the academy in 1869 and took the music director exam with top marks in the spring of 1872. He had a contractual obligation to return to his old band. He gave his first concert in his hometown as flautist and violinist during October 1872. When in 1881, conductor Friedrich August Reissiger resigned as director of the 1st Brigades Band, Oscar Borg was his replacement. Borg remained the director of the 1st Brigades Band in Halden until he resigned 11 June 1918. Borg’s compositions are characterized by good melodies, euphonious harmonies and skillful instrumentation. Oscar Borg composed 60 marches for

Oscar Comettant

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

Oscar Comettant (18 April 1819 – 24 January 1898) was a 19th-century French composer, musicologist and traveller. Biography Commettant studied the piano and musical composition at the Conservatoire de Paris (1839–1843) and made a long tour in the United-States from 1852 to 1855 as a soloist. He left Le Havre on 1 September 1852 and arrived in New York City on the 13th. He then visited the Niagara Falls, Mammoth Cave, saw the Mississippi, Lake Superior, Cedar Creek, among other places. His circuit began on a steamer on the Hudson River. The train then led him from Albany to Buffalo, with a stop at Niagara Falls. He went to Toronto, Kingston, Mille-Isles, and Montréal, then south to Saratoga and returned to New York where he rested for two weeks. Comettant later visited Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Richmond (Virginia), and Charleston, then spent a month in Mobile in a cotton plantation. On his way to New Orleans, he sailed on the Mississippi and went through Vicksburg, Memphis and Louisville, where he took the opportunity to admire Mammoth Cave and ended his journey by Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. Unlike many travelers, Comettant focused on American society and institutions; the gre

Óscar Esplá

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

Óscar Esplá y Triay (5 August 1886 – 6 January 1976) was a Spanish composer. The Conservatorio Superior de Música (conservatory) of the city of Alicante is dedicated to him. The Premio internacional de composición Óscar Esplá (Óscar Esplá international prize for composition) was created in 1955 and is awarded by the city of Alicante. Life Óscar Esplá was born on 5 August 1886 in Alicante, in the Kingdom of Spain. His early musical studies were with his father, Trino Esplá, and with Fernando Lloret and . In 1903 he went to Barcelona to study industrial engineering, but later changed to study philosophy. He studied composition with Francisco Sánchez Gavagnac. In 1911, after winning an international prize, he went to Austria and Germany; he met Ferdinand Löwe in Vienna, and Max Reger in Meiningen. In 1912–13 he was in Paris; he met Saint-Saëns, but there is no evidence that he studied with him. In 1936 Esplá was appointed director of the Conservatorio Nacional de Música y Declamación in Madrid, but did not take up the position. Instead, because of the Spanish Civil War, he left Spain and went with his family to Belgium, where he worked for Le Soir, which at that time was under Nazi co

Oscar Feltsman

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

Oscar Borisovich Feltsman (Ukrainian & ; 18 February 1921 – 3 February 2013) was a Ukrainian-born composer. Biography Feltsman was born in Odesa, the son of Boris Osipovich Feltsman, a Jewish orthopedic surgeon who also played the piano professionally. He had musical training from the age of five; learning the violin as a pupil of Pyotr Stolyarsky and the piano with Bertha Reynbald, who also taught Emil Gilels and Tatiana Goldfarb. He produced his first musical composition for the piano “Autumn” when he was six years old. Feltsman graduated from the Pyotr Stolyarsky Music School in Odesa in 1939, where he studied composition with the composer Nikolai Vilinsky. Then Feltsman was admitted to the Moscow Conservatory, studying under Vissarion Shebalin who wrote a letter of thanks on behalf of the Moscow Conservatory to Vilinsky for teaching Feltsman composition. During the Second World War, Feltsman was evacuated to Novosibirsk, becoming at 20 the executive secretary of the Siberian Union of Composers, where he wrote music for the philharmonic, Leningrad Alexandrinsky Theater and the Jewish theater of Belarus. In the same period Feltsman wrote an operetta based on Valentin Kataev’s pla

Oscar Fetrás

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

Oscar Fetrás (16 February 1854 – 10 January 1931) was a German composer of popular dance music, military marches, piano pieces and arrangements. Fetrás had over 200 compositions to his name. His best known work is his waltz “Mondnacht auf der Alster” Op. 60 which is still immensely popular to the present day. Biography Fetrás was born as Otto Kaufmann Faster in 1854 in Hamburg. His father Matthias Faster was an Hamburgian editor of a stock-exchange magazine. The Faster family originally came from Bützfleth, a locality of today’s Stade near Hamburg. Fetrás’s grandfather, a sea captain, died in the sinking of his ship Ceres. His mother Amalie Margarethe, born Decker, had ancestral origins from the island of Sylt. Early in his career Fetrás worked for , founder of the Flying P-Liner. Once he became widely regarded as being on the same level as the revered Viennese waltz kings, he departed to conduct his own orchestra. At the age of 26 Fetrás’s compositions attracted the attention of a Hamburg publisher. He changed his name to Fetrás, an anagram of his surname Faster. Fetrás soon rose to the position of conductor of the Uhlenhorster Fährhaus, a famous restaurant with ballrooms in Hambu

Oscar López Ruiz

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

Oscar López Ruiz (21 March 1938 – 24 December 2021) was an Argentine guitarist, composer, arranger and record producer. Life and career Born in La Plata, López Ruiz studied guitar with Antonio Sinópoli and León Vicente Gascónade, making his official professional debut in 1954, playing electric guitar in the Tony-Armand Orchestra. After having been part of the ensemble Los Cinco Latinos, in 1961 he joined the Astor Piazzolla ensemble Quinteto Nuevo Tango (in which he replaced Horacio Malvicino), and later was part of other Piazzolla’s ensembles such as Conjunto 9 and the Octeto Astor Piazzolla. He was partnered for 54 years of the singer Donna Caroll, with whom he often collaborated on stage and in recordings. His collaborations also include Gato Barbieri, Oscar Alemán, Dino Saluzzi, Eladia Blázquez, Lalo Schifrin, Leopoldo Federico, Sergio Mihanovich. López Ruiz composed several soundtracks for films, plays and revues, and between 1967 and 1969 was director of the jazz label Trova, with whom he produced albums of Piazzolla, Mono Villegas and Horacio Ferrer, among others. He died at the age of 83 of sepsis. His brother Jorge López Ruiz was a double bass player, a composer and an arr

Oscar Lorenzo Fernández

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

Oscar Lorenzo Fernández (4 November 1897 – 27 August 1948) was a Brazilian composer of Spanish descent. He was born and died in Rio de Janeiro. Life Fernández studied at the Instituto Nacional de Música with Francisco Braga, Frederico Nascimento, and Henrique Oswald. In 1923, Nascimento was taken seriously ill, and Fernández was designated his temporary substitute in the chair of upper-level harmony, an appointment which became permanent two years later. In 1936 he founded the Conservatório Brasileiro de Música in Rio de Janeiro, which he directed until his death. From 1939 onward, he also served as Professor of Choral Singing at the Conservatório Nacional de Canto Orfeônico. In 1930 Fernández composed the three-movement suite Reisado do Pastoreio, the last movement of which, “Batuque” (an Afro-Brazilian folk dance), became very popular. He composed a three-act opera, Malazarte (1931–33), to a libretto by José Pereira Graça Aranha, who adapted it from his own play of the same title. For the premiere at the Teatro Municipal (Rio de Janeiro, 1941), the libretto was translated into Italian. Malazarte is a nationalist work in both its subject matter and its musical content, and is cons

Oscar O'Brien

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

Oscar O’Brien (7 September 1892 – 20 September 1958) was a Canadian folklorist, composer, pianist, organist, music educator, and Roman Catholic priest. A large portion of his compositions were based in folklore and he also arranged and harmonized roughly 400 French and Canadian folksongs; many of which were written for his collaborations with Charles Marchand and the Alouette Vocal Quartet. He worked as an arranger or accompanist on numerous 78 rpm recordings for such labels as Bluebird, Brunswick, Columbia, Starr, and Victor. He contributed numerous articles on folklore to publications like Le Canada français and was a frequent lecturer on folklore subjects. In 1978 CBC Radio recognized O’Brien in a series of six broadcasts featuring his harmonizations. Life and career Born in Ottawa, O’Brien was a pupil of Amédée Tremblay with whom he began studying both the piano and the organ as a young teenager. At the age of 16 he was appointed Tremblay’s deputy organist at the Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica, Ottawa. He continued to study with Tremblay while taking courses as De La Salle Academy and the University of Ottawa. In 1917 he moved to Montreal where he lived and worked for the rest o

Oscar Prudente

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

Oscar Prudente (born 9 January 1944) is an Italian pop-rock singer-songwriter, arranger, musician and composer. Career Born in Rossiglione, Genoa, at young age Prudente studied drums, piano and guitar. At fifteen, while attending the high school, he was chosen by Colin Hicks as the drummer for his European tour. The turning point of his career was the encounter with Ivano Fossati, with whom he composed several hits of the progressive rock group Delirium and with whom, after that Fossati left the group, he released the album Poco prima dell’aurora. References External links * * *

Oscar Rasbach

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

Oscar Rasbach (August 2, 1888 – March 23, 1975) was an American pianist, composer and arranger of art songs and works for piano. Biography Oscar was born in Kentucky, but studied “academic subjects in Los Angeles”. He also studied music with Ludwig Thomas, Julius Albert Jahn, José Anderson, and A. J. Stamm. He became a businessman, but went to Vienna to study piano with Theodor Leschetizky and music theory with Hans Thorton. He returned to the United States in 1911 and settled in San Marino, California. There he worked as a pianist, accompanist, teacher, and choral director. His obituary in the local news and the Musical Times claimed that he was a founding member of ASCAP, but the 1966 ASCAP Dictionary says that he joined in 1932. Music Rasbach composed two operettas, around 20 published songs, solos for student pianists, and a few arrangements and instrumental pieces. His most important musical composition was his 1922 setting of Trees, the popular poem by Joyce Kilmer, published by G. Schirmer. It was performed and recorded by many important singers of the 20th century, such as Ernestine Schumann-Heink, John Charles Thomas, Nelson Eddy, Robert Merrill, Paul Robeson, Richard Taub

Oscar Strasnoy

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

Oscar Strasnoy (born November 12, 1970) is a French-Argentine composer, conductor and pianist. Although primarily known for his stage works, the first of which Midea (2) premiered in Spoleto in 2000, his principal compositions also include two secular cantatas and several song cycles. Career Oscar Strasnoy was born in Buenos Aires and studied piano, conducting and composition there at the Conservatorio Nacional Superior de Música (with Aldo Antognazzi and Guillermo Scarabino), at the Conservatoire de Paris (with Guy Reibel, Michaël Levinas and Gérard Grisey), where he won in 1996 a Premier Prix à l’Unanimité (first prize) and the Hochschule für Musik, Frankfurt (with Hans Zender). He was the music director of the Orchestre du Crous de Paris (1996–1998). He was one of the founding recipients of the Grüneisen Foundation (Mozarteum Argentino) conducting scholarship, and of the French Government Scholarship. In 1999 he was invited by Peter Eötvös to Herrenhaus-Edenkoben in Germany. He was also artist in residence at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, in 2003 at the Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto (Institut français), and in 2006 at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Umbria, Italy. In

Oscar Straus (composer)

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

Oscar Nathan Straus (6 March 1870 – 11 January 1954) was a Viennese composer of operettas, film scores, and songs. He also wrote about 500 cabaret songs, chamber music, and orchestral and choral works. His original name was actually Strauss, but for professional purposes he deliberately omitted the final ’s’. He wished not to be associated with the musical Strauss family of Vienna. However, he did follow the advice of Johann Strauss II in 1898 about abandoning the prospective lure of writing waltzes for the more lucrative business of writing for the theatre. The son of a Jewish family, he studied music in Berlin under Max Bruch, and became an orchestral conductor, working at the Überbrettl cabaret. He went back to Vienna and began writing operettas, becoming a serious rival to Franz Lehár. When Lehár’s popular The Merry Widow premiered in 1905, Straus was said to have remarked “Das kann ich auch!” (I can also do that!). In 1939, after the Anschluss, he fled to Paris, where he received the honour of a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur. In 1940 he fled via Portugal to the United States, where he settled in Hollywood. After the war he returned to Europe, and settled at Bad Ischl, wher

Oscar van Dillen

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

Oscar Ignatius Joannes van Dillen (born 25 June 1958 in ’s-Hertogenbosch) is a Dutch composer, conductor, and instrumentalist. Education Van Dillen studied North-Indian classical music (sitar, tabla, vocal) with Jamaluddin Bhartiya at the Tritantri School in Amsterdam and bansuri with Gurbachan Singh Sachdev at the Bansuri School of Music in Berkeley, California from 1977 to 1980, as well as classical and jazz flute at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam between 1982 and 1984. Here, he also received composition lessons from Misha Mengelberg. After studies of medieval and Renaissance music with Paul Van Nevel in Leuven (Belgium), he studied classical composition with, among others, Dick Raaymakers and Gilius van Bergeijk at the Koninklijk Conservatory in The Hague in 1990/1991 and with Klaas de Vries, Peter-Jan Wagemans and René Uijlenhoet at the Rotterdam Conservatory from 1996 to 2002. He also studied composition with Manfred Trojahn at the Robert Schumann College in Düsseldorf in 2001, where he also received lessons in conducting from Lutz Herbig. Employment and affiliation Van Dillen teaches World music composition as well as music theory in the jazz, pop and world music dep

Oscar van Hemel

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

Oscar van Hemel (3 August 1892 – 9 July 1981) was a Dutch-Belgian violinist, music teacher and composer of contemporary classical music. His work includes two operas and symphonies. Life and education Van Hemel was born in 1892 in Antwerp, Belgium, where he studied with August de Boeck and Lodewijk Mortelmans at the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp. During World War I he was wounded at the Battle of Halen. With the help of the Red Cross, he fled in May 1915 to Roosendaal in the Netherlands during the bombardment of Antwerp. He subsequently played violin in the orchestra of the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam. In 1918 he moved to Bergen op Zoom, where he became a teacher of violin, piano, and music theory at the municipal music school. and De prostituée (The Prostitute). Van Hemel’s music was at times praised as “lovely” and spontaneous, albeit at times “constructed”. His Pianokwartet was praised as “powerful, quirky interbellum music”. Others were more critical and lamented a lack of originality. Nevertheless, in the 1950s, van Hemel’s music was very popular in the Netherlands. In 1962, van Hemel received the for his Quartetto di strumenti ad arco no. 6. In the same year, he was kn

Oskar Böhme

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

Oskar Böhme (February 24, 1870 – October 3, 1938 ) was a German composer and trumpeter. Life Oskar Böhme, a son of Wilhelm Böhme, also a trumpeter, was born in Potschappel, a small town near Dresden, Germany, which is now part of Freital. For much of his early career, after studying trumpet and composition in the Leipzig Conservatory of Music until graduating in 1888, it is unknown what Böhme’s musical activities were, though it is probable he concertized, playing in smaller orchestras around Germany. From 1894-1896 he played in the Budapest Opera Orchestra and then moved to St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1897. Böhme played cornet for 24 years in the Mariinsky Theatre, turned to teaching at a music school on Vasilievsky Island in St. Petersburg for nine further years, and at the Central Music College on Mokhovaya Street, from 1921-1930, and then returned to opera with the Leningrad Drama Theatre until 1934. All his life in St. Petersburg, he lived on Vasilievsky Island, 3rd line, 26 In 1934, however, the Great Terror began under Joseph Stalin and in 1936 a committee was established to oversee the arts in Soviet Russia. According to Russia’s anti-foreign policies, Böhme was exiled to Or

Oskar Fried

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

Oskar Fried (1 August 1871 – 5 July 1941) was a German conductor and composer. He was known as a great admirer of Gustav Mahler, whose works he performed many times throughout his life. Fried was also the first conductor to record a Mahler symphony. He held the distinction of being the first foreign conductor to perform in Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution (1922). He eventually left his homeland in 1933 to work in the Soviet Union after the political rise of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party, and became a Soviet citizen in 1940. In 1899, Fried married the amateur poet Augusta (Gusti) Rathgeber (1872–1926) and had two daughters with her, Monika and Emerentia (dates are unknown). From 1892, Gusti Rathgeber had been married to German poet Otto Julius Bierbaum but left him when she and Fried met, and fell in love with each other. Biography Born in Berlin, the son of a Jewish shopkeeper, he worked as a clown, a stable boy and a dog trainer before studying composition with Iwan Knorr (1891–92, Hoch’sche Conservatory) and Engelbert Humperdinck (as private student) in Frankfurt. He later moved to Düsseldorf to study painting and art history. The meeting resulted in the second complete performa

Oskar Lindberg (composer)

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

Oskar Fredrik Lindberg (23 February 1887 – 10 April 1955) was a Swedish composer, church musician, teacher and professor. In 1939 he edited the Church of Sweden’s hymnbook. His 1912 Requiem was of particular importance to the history of Swedish liturgical works. Biography Lindberg was born in Gagnef, Dalarna, Sweden in 1887. At the age of fourteen, he was already playing the organ at mass in his home town. From 1903 to 1911, he studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, where he graduated as an organist in 1906. At the same time, he studied composition with Ernst Ellberg and Andreas Hallén, supplementing this with studies in conducting at the academy in Sondershausen, with further specialization in Germany and Austria. From 1906 to 1914 he worked as organist at Trefaldighetskyrkan in Stockholm and from 1914 to 1955 at Engelbrektskyrkan. He taught harmony at the Royal Academy of Music from 1919 to 1952 and was appointed professor there in 1936. He was a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of music from 1926 until his death. Lindberg participated in the production of the 1939 hymn book. He also wrote many non-religious works, including a symphony and symphonic poems. At a meeting

Oskar Merikanto

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

Oskar Merikanto (; born Frans Oskar Ala-Kanto; 5 August 186817 February 1924) was a Finnish composer, music critic, pianist, and organist. As a composer, Merikanto was primarily a miniaturist, and includes songs and piano pieces (he wrote over 100 of each). Of the latter, he is best remembered for: Summer Evening Waltz (, Op. 1), Romance (, Op. 12), Summer Evening Idyll (, Op. 16/2), (Op. 33), and Idyll (, Op. 73/1). He studied for some time at the Leipzig Conservatory in Germany, where his teachers were Carl Reinecke, Theodor Coccius, Robert Papperitz, Willy Rechenberg and Gustav Schreck. He was notable for his variety of talents – he gave concerts all around Finland, performing on the piano and organ, conducting orchestras, and composing original music. Some of his most beloved compositions are Där björkarna susa, the waltz Kesäilta (Summer Evening Waltz) and the Valse lente, Op. 33. Merikanto’s style is reminiscent of Finnish folk songs, but has its basis in Italian bel canto. He died in Hausjärvi-Oitti. Personal life He married Elise “Liisa” Häyrynen in 1892. They had one son, Aarre Merikanto, a noted Finnish composer. Works Source Piano * Concert-Walzer OM 018 * Erinnerung OM

Oskar Morawetz

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

Oskar Morawetz, (January 17, 1917 – June 13, 2007) was a Canadian composer, teacher and pianist. Biography Morawetz was born in Světlá nad Sázavou, Bohemia (now in the Czech Republic), into a Jewish family. He studied piano and theory in Prague and, following the Nazi takeover of his country in 1938, studied in Vienna and Paris. At age 19 he was recommended by George Szell for the assistant conductor’s post with the Prague Opera. In 1940 he left Europe for Canada where he began teaching at the Royal Conservatory of Music in 1946, and in 1952 was appointed to the University of Toronto where he was professor of composition until his retirement in 1982. His work was also part of the music event in the art competition at the 1948 Summer Olympics. Morawetz’s 1971 piece From the Diary of Anne Frank won a Juno Award for Best Classical Composition in 2001. His Concerto for Harp and Orchestra also won a Juno in 1989. On three occasions, Morawetz was awarded a Canada Council Senior Arts Fellowship (1960, 1967, 1974) for his contribution to Canadian music. In 1987, Morawetz received the Order of Ontario and in 1989 he received the Order of Canada. The Society of Composers, Authors and Music P

Oskar Nedbal

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

Oskar Nedbal (26 March 1874 – 24 December 1930) was a Czech violist, composer and conductor of classical music. Early life Nedbal was born in Tábor in Bohemia, Austria-Hungary. He studied the violin at the Prague Conservatory under Antonín Bennewitz, theory under and , and composition with Antonín Dvořák. Career In 1891 he founded the Bohemian String Quartet, later known as the Czech Quartet, which disbanded in 1933. The original members, alongside Nedbal on viola, were Karel Hoffmann, Josef Suk and . He was principal conductor with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra from 1896 to 1906. From 1907 until 1917 he lived in Vienna and conducted the Wiener Tonkünstler-Orchester. In recent years, Nedbal’s haunting Valse Triste featured in his ballet Der Faule Hans (The Tale of Simple Johnny) has been a favorite stand-alone encore piece of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. The waltz is also played on the piano at a key moment by one of the characters in Heimito von Doderer’s novel of the inter-war years in Vienna, The Demons (Die Dämonen) (1956). Since 2019, the Oskar Nedbal International Viola Competition has commemorated Nedbal’s name. Selected works ;Opera * Sedlák Jakub (Jakub the Peasant

Oskar Rieding

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

Oskar Rieding (29 June 1846 – 7 July 1916) was a German violinist, teacher of music, and composer. Oskar Rieding was born in Banie, Pomerania, now Poland. attended first the recently founded in Berlin, and later the Leipzig Conservatory. At the end of the 1860s he moved to Vienna, but in 1871 the conductor Hans Richter, at that time Musical Director of the National Theatre in Budapest, appointed Rieding to the orchestra’s first violin section. He remained there for thirty-two years, from 1884 onwards in the National Opera House. He composed some violin concertos and many pieces for violin and piano. Many of these pieces are appropriate for intermediate-level violin students, and they are still studied and performed by violin students today. After his retirement in 1903, he lived in Celje, Austria-Hungary, now Slovenia, continuing his activities as teacher, composer, and performer, until his death there in 1916. Main works His better-known works include: *Concerto in B minor for Violin and Piano Op. 35 (1909) *Concerto in D major for Violin and Piano Op. 36 *Concertino in G for Violin and Piano Op. 24 *Gypsies’ March Op. 23 No. 2, for Violin and Piano *Concertino in A Minor for Viol

Oskar Sala

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

Oskar Sala (18 July 1910 – 26 February 2002) was a German composer and a pioneer of electronic music. He played an instrument called the Trautonium, an early form of electronic synthesizer. Early life Sala was born in Greiz, Thuringia, Germany. Sala studied physics at the University of Berlin between 1932 and 1935. He helped to develop the “Volkstrautonium”, a Trautonium that Telefunken hoped to popularize. In 1935 he built a “Radio-Trautonium”, and in 1938 a portable model, the “Konzerttrautonium”. Oskar Sala was a soldier during the Nazi era. He was on the Eastern Front during World War II, where he was injured. Mixtur-Trautonium In 1948, Sala further developed the Trautonium into the Mixtur-Trautonium. Sala’s invention opened the field of subharmonics, the symmetric counterpart to overtones, so that a thoroughly distinct tuning evolved. Pioneering music therapist Maria Schüppel studied and worked with Sala during the 1950s. Sala presented his new instrument to the public in 1952 and would soon receive international licenses for its circuits. That same year, Harald Genzmer delivered the score to the first Concert For Mixtur-Trautonium And Grand Orchestra. In the 1950s Sala also b

Oskar Sikow

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

Oskar Sikow (Oskar Engström) is a RIAA Gold-awarded record producer and songwriter from Stockholm, Sweden. Sikow has collaborated with artists such as Kacy Hill, LANY, Skott, Erik Hassle, among others. He was a founding member of the alternative pop band Kate Boy but left the band in 2013, and of late has started the new artist project Snow Culture together with Swedish artist and songwriter Ana Diaz. Production and writing credits References

Ossip Gabrilowitsch

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

Ossip Salomonovich Gabrilowitsch (also Gabrilowitsch; ; 7 February 187814 September 1936) was a Russian-American pianist, conductor and composer. Biography Ossip Gabrilowitsch was born into a Jewish family in Saint Petersburg. His parents were Salomon Gabrilowitsch and Rose Segall. Nina, the last known lineal descendant of Mark Twain, died on 16 January 1966 in a Los Angeles hotel. She had been a heavy drinker, and bottles of pills and alcohol were found in her room. Her death was ruled a suicide. From 1910 to 1914, he was conductor of the Munich Konzertverein (later known as the Munich Philharmonic). At the outbreak of World War I, he was arrested as an enemy national. Through the intervention of the nuncio to Bavaria, Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII), Gabrilowitsch was freed from jail, and then he headed to the United States via Zürich in August 1914. He settled in the US, and was offered the post of conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In declining, he recommended that the Boston board appoint the recently arrived Sergei Rachmaninoff. In 1918 he was appointed the founding director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, while still maintaining his life as a con

Osvald Chlubna

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

Osvald Chlubna (22 July 1893 – 30 October 1971) was a Czech composer. Life and career Chlubna was born on 22 July 1893 in Brno. Intending originally to study engineering, Chlubna switched his major and from 1914 to 1924, he studied composition with Leoš Janáček. Until 1953, he worked as a clerk. Later, he taught at the Organ School in Brno for many years. He worked in many art organisations in Brno. Chlubna’s works can be defined by three distinct periods: Romanticism, Impressionism, all the way to the Modern Constructivism. He delved into Symbolism as well. He used the texts of symbolic Czech poets, such as Otakar Březina, Jaroslav Vrchlický, Jaroslav Durych and others. He wrote several cycles of compositions for piano and organ, as well as instrumental concerts, symphonies, ouvertures and cantatas. He wrote many operas, often using his own librettos, such as The Revenge of Catullus based on the work of Vrchlický (1917), Alladina and Palomid (based on the work of Maeterlinck, 1925), Ňura (1932), How the Death came in the World (1936), Jiří from Kunštát and Poděbrady (based on the work of Alois Jirásek, 1941), Cradle (composed on the work of Jirásek, 1951), Eupyros (1960). He also

Osvaldas Balakauskas

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

Osvaldas Jonas Balakauskas (19 December 1937 – 15 April 2026) was a Lithuanian composer of classical music, academic teacher and diplomat. He taught at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, where he served as head of the composition department from 1988 to 1992 and again from 1995. From 1992 to 1994, he served as Lithuania’s ambassador to France, Spain and Portugal. Balakauskas composed five symphonies, concertos, chamber music, and a Requiem in memory of Stasys Lozoraitis. Life and career Balakauskas was born in and was buried in the city’s Antakalnis Cemetery. Symphony No. 2 (1979), Opera Strumentale (1987) and Symphonies No. 4 (1998) and No. 5 (2001). * Passio Strumentale for string quartet and orchestra (1980) * Concerto for oboe, harpsichord and string orchestra (1981) * Sinfonia Concertante for violin, piano and orchestra (1982) * Concerto RK for violin and chamber orchestra (1997) * Concerto Brio for violin and orchestra (1999) * Capriccio for piano and orchestra (2004) * Concerto for clarinet and string orchestra (2008) * Seasons for two pianos and string orchestra (2009) ; Chamber music * Sonatas for violin and piano (1969; No. 2, 2005; February Sonata, 2012) * Kaip

Osvaldo Coluccino

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

Osvaldo Coluccino (born Domodossola, 22 April 1963) is an Italian composer and poet. Biography His music has been performed in some of the major festivals of classical and contemporary classical music, by prestigious soloistes, conductors, orchestras and ensembles such as Ensemble Recherche, Nieuw Ensemble, Stadler Quartett and Exaudi Vocal Ensemble, and has been broadcast by national radio stations such as SWR, Radio France France Musique, ORF, Rai Radio 3, BR-Klassik, Kulturradio RBB (Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg), Concertzender, RTBF Musiq 3, Klara, Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroep VRT, RTP Rádio e Televisão de Portugal Antena 2. He has received commissions by Gran Teatro La Fenice di Venezia, Biennale di Venezia, Milano Musica – Teatro alla Scala, RAI National Symphony Orchestra, Transit Festival Leuven, Muziekcentrum De Bijloke Gent, Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles and others. Some of the major labels for contemporary classical music (Kairos, Neos, Col legno, Stradivarius, Another Timbre…) have released some monographic discs, while some scores are published by RAI Trade editions. It was the music historian Luigi Pestalozza who discovered him as a composer, and the musicolo

Osvaldo Fresedo

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

Osvaldo Fresedo (May 5, 1897 - November 18, 1984), nicknamed El pibe de La Paternal (“the kid from La Paternal”) was an Argentine songwriter and director of a tango orchestra. He had one of the longest recording careers in tango history, from 1920 to 1980. Career Fresedo was born into a middle-class family in La Paternal, Buenos Aires, Argentina. His mother gave him the first music lessons. While he was still small, his family moved to a working-class neighborhood, and it was there he began his interest in tango. He learned to play the bandoneón and as a teenager joined several of the most famous orchestras of the era of the Guardia Vieja (“Old Guard”). In 1920 traveled to United States. In Camden, New Jersey he recorded a few albums with a quartet that also included violinist Tito Rocatagliatta and pianist Enrique Pedro Delfino. Back in Buenos Aires, he formed his first orchestra which, from the outset, displayed his trademark style. Although his style evolved somewhat in the following decades, its essence remained the same: his performing group always displayed true elegance. Fresedo was one of the innovators of tango in the early 1920s, along with such other young musicians of t

Osvaldo Golijov

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

Osvaldo Noé Golijov (; born December 5, 1960) is an Argentine composer of classical music and music professor known for his vocal and orchestral work. Biography Osvaldo Golijov was born and raised in La Plata, Argentina, to a Jewish family that immigrated to Argentina from Romania and USSR. His mother was a piano teacher, and his father was a physician. He studied piano in La Plata and studied composition with Gerardo Gandini. In 1983, Golijov emigrated to Israel, where he studied with Mark Kopytman at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. Three years later, he studied with George Crumb at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree. In 1991, Golijov joined the faculty of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he was named Loyola Professor of Music in 2007. During the 2012-2013 concert season, he occupied the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall. As of 2016, Golijov lives in Brookline, Massachusetts. Golijov is married to author Leah Hager Cohen. He was previously married to architect and designer Neri Oxman, and he has three children with his first wife, Silvia, who is a Special Education teache

Osvaldo Lacerda

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

Osvaldo Costa de Lacerda (March 23, 1927 – July 18, 2011) was a Brazilian composer and professor of music. Lacerda is known for a Brazilian nationalist musical style that combines elements of Brazilian folk and popular music as well as twentieth-century art music, as exemplified in the works of his teacher M. Camargo Guarnieri (1907–1997). His compositional output includes works for orchestra, choir, smaller vocal and instrumental ensembles, voice and piano, solo instrument and piano, solo piano, and other solo instruments. He received several musical awards during his lifetime, including the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, and contributed significantly to the training of younger musicians in Brazil as a professor of composition and theory, member of various musical organizations and societies, and author of textbooks for theory, ear training, and notation. Biography Early life and musical training Lacerda was born in the city of São Paulo in 1927 and remained there throughout his early years. He began his musical training with piano lessons from teacher Ana Veloso de Resende when he was nine years old, later studying piano with José Kliass, and he also starte

Osvaldo Requena

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

Osvaldo Francisco Requena (29 June 1931 – 25 March 2010) was an Argentine tango pianist, arranger, and composer. Professional career Requena was an arranger and pianist of contemporary tango, as well as an orchestra conductor, including accompaniments for various singers. He recorded more than 400 records, and as a pianist, around 800 works. An admirer of Eduardo Arolas, Agustín Bardi, Alfredo Gobbi, and Francisco Canaro, he made his first arrangement for Raúl Kaplún’s orchestra in 1951. Over the years, he worked with musicians such as Leopoldo Federico, Florindo Sassone, Astor Piazzolla, and Zubin Mehta. In 1968, he was appointed director of the “Microfón” label, where he worked for fourteen years. There, he conducted the orchestra that accompanied folk artists such as Alfredo Zitarrosa and Los Quilla Huasi, among others. During the 1970s, he was the director of the resident orchestra of Channel 11 in Buenos Aires, where he accompanied artists from all genres. He left about one hundred unpublished composed works and had accumulated a large archive of tango arrangements from all eras, with more than eight thousand scores. He was invited by film director Leopoldo Torre Nilsson to co

Oswald d'Andréa

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

Oswald Antoine Marie d’Andréa (9 August 1934 – 4 September 2024) was a French pianist and composer of music for film, television and radio. Life and career D’Andréa was born in Tunis on 9 August 1934. His recorded output varied from pop in the early ’60s to jazz and movie soundtracks, one of which—La Vie et Rien d’Autre—won the 1990 César for Best Music. D’Andréa died on 4 September 2024, at the age of 90. Discography *1962: Un Premier Amour EP (with Le 4 de Coeur) (Polydor) *1964: Tokyo 64 (Olympic Disc) (Polydor) *1967: Starting-Music Auto (Polydor) *1968: Les Indicatifs de RTL Non Stop EP (Moshé-Naïm) *1969: Concerto pour Commencer un Concert (Moshé-Naïm) (reissued on CD as Pièces Concertantes pour Piano) *1969: Galaxie EP (Moshé-Naïm) *1970: 12 Divertissements pour Piano (Moshé-Naïm) *1970: Major Barbara EP (Disques Jacques Canetti) *1971: Le Temps: 0-12-24 (Moshé-Naïm) *1973: Le Temps: Les 12 Signes du Zodiaque (Moshé-Naïm) *1977: Musiques Originales des Films Imaginaires (Moshé-Naïm) *1977: Piano-Formes (Moshé-Naïm) *198?: Brecht Konzert (with Nicole d’Andréa) (Moshé-Naïm) *1989: La Vie et Rien d’Autre soundtrack (Polydor) *1995: Deux Pianos sur Scène (with Nicole d’Andréa) (

Oswald von Wolkenstein

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

Oswald von Wolkenstein (1376 or 1377 in Pfalzen – August 2, 1445, in Meran) was a poet, composer and diplomat. In his diplomatic capacity, he traveled through much of Europe to as far as Georgia (as recounted in “Durch Barbarei, Arabia”). He was dubbed a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre and was also inducted into the Order of the Jar and the Order of the Dragon. He lived for a time in Seis am Schlern. Life Oswald’s father was Friedrich von Wolkenstein and his mother was Katharina von Villanders. When he was ten years old, Oswald left his family and became a squire of a knight errant. Oswald described the journeys undertaken by him in the following 14 years in his autobiographical song “Es fügt sich…”. He mentioned his travels to Crete, Prussia, Lithuania, Crimea, Turkey, the Holy Land, France, Lombardy (i.e. what is known today as Northern Italy) and Spain, as well as being shipwrecked in the Black Sea. After the death of his father in 1399, Oswald returned to the County of Tyrol and began a quarrel with his older brother Michael about their inheritance. From 1401 to 1402, Oswald participated in the failed Italian expedition of King Rupert of Germany. In 1407 he and his brother agree