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Wacław of Szamotuły

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Wacław z Szamotuł (c. 1520 in Szamotuły, near Poznań – c. 1560 in Pińczów), also known as Wacław Szamotulski (), was a Polish composer. Life Wacław z Szamotuł was a student at the Lubrański Academy in Poznań later studying at Kraków University in 1538. In 1547 or 1548 he was appointed composer to the court of Sigismund II Augustus. In 1555 Wacław left Kraków, having received the title of “royal composer.” Nevertheless, during Szamotuly’s lifetime his music was known outside of Poland. He died early, and only a few of his works survive. In the words of Szymon Starowolski, who wrote the first concise biography of Wacław, “If the gods had let him live longer, the Poles would have no need to envy the Italians their Palestrina, Lappi or Vedana.” His motets In te Domine speravi and Ego sum pastor bonus were the first Polish musical compositions to be published abroad. According to Gustave Reese, Wacław’s style may be seen in both of these motets; “the constant overlapping of phrases and full-fledged imitative style reveal Franco-Netherlandish influence.” Works Motets (Motety) * In te, Domine, speravi (published in Nuremberg, 1554) * Ego sum pastor bonus (published in Nuremberg, 1564) * N

Wade Hemsworth

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Albert Wade Hemsworth (October 23, 1916 – January 19, 2002) was a Canadian folk singer and songwriter. Although he was not a prolific composer, having written only about 20 songs during his entire career, several of his songs – most notably “The Wild Goose”, “The Black Fly Song” and “The Log Driver’s Waltz” – are among the most enduring classics in the history of Canadian folk music. Life and career Hemsworth was born and raised in Brantford, Ontario, Canada and learned to play guitar and banjo in his youth. After the war, he worked as a surveyor in the wilderness areas of Northern Ontario, Quebec and Labrador, the job which provided Hemsworth with the subject matter for many of his songs. He subsequently moved to Montreal in 1952, where he worked as a draftsman for the Canadian National Railway, and performed in the city’s folk music clubs at night. He released his first album, Folk Songs of the Canadian North Woods, in 1956. That album included both original compositions by Hemsworth and traditional songs he had learned in his various jobs. In 1957 Hemsworth recited and sang the narration of Log Drive, a National Film Board of Canada documentary about the annual spring log drive

Wadia Sabra

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Wadia (Wadih) Sabra ( ; 23 February 1876 – 11 April 1952) was a Lebanese composer and founder of the Conservatoire Libanais. Life Wadia (Wadih) Sabra was born in 1876 in the village of Ain el Jdideh and died in Beirut in 1952. He married Adèle Misk in 1921 and had no children. He was buried in the Evangelical Cemetery in Sodeco Beirut. As a composer, his music is characterized as a blend of Western and Eastern musical languages, incorporating the strengths and charms of both traditions. He is best known today as the composer of the Lebanese National Anthem, popularly known as Kulluna lil Watan (words by Rashid Nakhle), which was officially adopted by the Lebanese Government through a presidential decree on 12 July 1927. He is considered the founding father of classical music in Lebanon. After studying at the American University of Beirut, he left for Paris in 1892, with a scholarship from the French Embassy to study at the Conservatoire de Paris. He stayed for 7 years where he studied with the musicologist Albert Lavignac. He took a job as the principal organist of the Evangelical Church of the Holy Spirit. He then returned to Beirut, where he founded, in 1910, the first School of

Walburga Willmann

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Walburga Willmann (full name Maximiliana Valentina Walburga Willmann; 18 May 1769 – 27 June 1835) Ignaz became in 1767 a member of the chamber orchestra of the Elector of Cologne in Bonn. The family moved to Vienna in the 1770s, and Ignaz joined the Tonkünstler-Sozietät. In 1784 he arranged a concert in which Walburga and her siblings Maximilian and Magdalena gave their Viennese concert debut. She is said to have studied the piano with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and that she was one of his best pupils. In the following years, the family went on concert tours of cities in Germany. In 1788 she was a teacher of the piano in Frankfurt am Main. Later she performed with the court orchestra in Bonn. In 1793 the family performed at the Elector’s court in Münster. She married in Vienna in 1797 the writer ; the best man was Franz Xaver Süssmayr. From 1800 to 1804 she undertook further tours, to Leipzig, Dresden and Bonn. During her tours, she included her own compositions, and she composed in 1801 a piano concerto, now lost. In 1804 Walburga went with her husband, who was a Napoleon sympathiser, into exile in Mainz. She died there in 1835. References

Waldemar von Baußnern

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Waldemar Edler von Baußnern (also Baussnern or Bausznern; 29 November 1866 – 20 August 1931) was a German composer and music teacher. Life Born in Berlin, and descended from Transylvanian Saxons, Baußnern was the son of a financial official. He grew up in both Transylvania and Budapest in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (in present-day Romania and Hungary respectively). Between 1882–1886 he was a student of Friedrich Kiel and Woldemar Bargiel at the Berlin Musical Academy (Berliner Musikhochschule). He then conducted various choirs; after 1909 he became director of the Großherzoglichen Musikschule in Weimar. From 1916 to 1923 he served as director of the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main. In 1923, he became undersecretary of the Academy of Arts, Berlin. He died in Potsdam. Music Baußnern’s extensive catalogue of compositions includes almost all musical genres, yet it displays an emphasis on both choral symphonic and orchestral composition. As a composer, Baußnern found stimulation from poetry, for not only his vocal music, but also his instrumental music; the poetry of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe emerged as an especial source of inspiration. This compositional impetus is reflected

Walford Davies

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Major Sir Henry Walford Davies (6 September 1869 – 11 March 1941) was a renowned English composer, organist, and educator who was Master of the King’s Music from 1934 until 1941. He was also a music adviser to the British Broadcasting Corporation, for which he gave commended talks on music between 1924 and 1941. His most widely known works are the Royal Air Force March Past, God Be In My Head, and Solemn Melody. Life and career Early years Henry Walford Davies was born in Oswestry, Shropshire. He was the seventh of nine children of John Whitridge Davies and Susan, née Gregory, and the youngest of four surviving sons. His father, although an accountant by profession, was an amateur musician who founded and conducted a choral society at Oswestry and was choirmaster of Christ Church Congregational church: at which Walford was a chorister, and at which Walford’s siblings, Charlie and Harold, later held the post of organist. Harold Davies was professor of music at the University of Adelaide from 1919 to 1947. In 1882 Walford was accepted as a chorister at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, by the organist, Sir George Elvey. When his voice broke in 1885 Davies left the choir and was app

Wallace Arthur Sabin

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Wallace Arthur Sabin (December 15, 1869 – December 8, 1937) was a composer and organist, born in Culworth, Northamptonshire, England. He played organ from the age of 13 at various schools and churches in Oxford. He trained in music at Banbury and Oxford, and graduated from the Royal College of Organists in 1888. In 1890, he became a fellow of that college. In 1904, he played organ recitals at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri. From 1905 until his death, he played the organ for the First Church of Christ, Scientist in San Francisco, and at Temple Emanu-El. He was president of the San Francisco Chapter of AGO from 1911 to 1913, then again from 1923 to 1926. He was the chapter’s first dean. Sabin was married on April 1, 1913 to Kathryn Wells Bader, daughter of the pastor of Calvary Presbyterian Church. They had one daughter, Patricia. In 1915, Sabin was the official organist of the Panama–Pacific International Exposition. In one concert, he directed the 400-voice Exposition Chorus while playing organ accompaniment, as Camille Saint-Saëns conducted the 80-member orchestra. Sabin joined the Bohemian Club, served twice on the board of directors, and wrote music for

Wallace Southam

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Thomas Wallace Southam (11 October 190014 May 1990) was an executive in the oil industry and an amateur composer. He composed art songs, including some jazz settings of classic and contemporary poetry, and began publishing and recording them during the 1960s. Southam worked with Lawrence Durrell and the London publisher and bookseller Bernard Stone, among others. Southam made his living as a businessman, and from the 1920s was working in China for the Asiatic Petroleum Company a joint venture between the Shell and Royal Dutch oil companies. He married Anna Christabel Gair in Fuzhou (then known as Foochow) in 1931.They were in Athens from the late 1930s, where Southam became associated with the British Council. Wartime and film work While in Athens Southam became friendly with Lawrence Durrell, and after Durrell’s daughter Penelope was born on 4 June 1940, the Southams opened up their house to Lawrence and his wife Nancy Myers for a few weeks while Nancy was recuperating. Southam and Durrell met up again in London in the late 1960s, working together on a musical (with both words and music by Durrell) called Ulysses Come Back. Wartime exploits between the Shetland Islands and Norway

Wallingford Riegger

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Wallingford Constantine Riegger ( ; April 29, 1885 – April 2, 1961) was an American modernist composer and pianist, best known for his orchestral and modern dance music. He was born in Albany, Georgia, but spent most of his career in New York City, helping elevate the status of other American composers such as Charles Ives and Henry Cowell. Riegger is noted for being one of the first American composers to use a form of serialism and the twelve-tone technique. Life Riegger was born in 1885 to Constantine Riegger and Ida Riegger (née Wallingford). After his father’s lumber mill burned down in 1888, his family moved to Indianapolis, and later to Louisville, finally settling in New York in 1900. A gifted cellist, he was a member of the first graduating class of the Institute of Musical Art, later known as the Juilliard School, in 1907, after studying under Percy Goetschius. He continued his studies at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin for three years. After returning in 1910, he married Rose Schramm in 1911, with whom he later had three daughters. He returned to Germany and served in various conducting positions until the United States entered World War I in 1917, after which he moved

Walt Wagner

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Walt Wagner (born 1943) is an American pianist, composer, and arranger. He is based in Seattle, Washington. He is most recently known as the longtime pianist for Seattle restaurant Canlis. Wagner began on piano at age six, and took formal lessons in classical music while playing rock and roll on the side. Before he was born, his father had been a dance band leader. He played in a Seattle group called The Rebels, which later became The Exotics. The group was picked up by local radio station KJR, which resulted in bookings in dance halls throughout Washington state. In 1994, Boeing commissioned Wagner to compose a piece for the debut of its 777 jetliner. Wagner expanded the work into a full piano concerto, which he named “The Miracle”. Wagner became one of two house pianists at Seattle fine dining restaurant Canlis in 1996, where he played arrangements of popular songs. During this time he self-released several albums, including one of his own compositions recorded with the Seattle Symphony in 1998. He announced his retirement from Canlis in 2016, and record label Sub Pop recorded his final performance there on October 9. The resultant live album featured his renditions of songs by D

Walter Abendroth

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Walter Fedor Georg Abendroth (29 May 1896 in Hanover – 30 September 1973 in Fischbachau) was a German composer, editor, and writer on music. Life Walter Abendroth was born in the Lower Saxon city of Hanover. The middle child of a land surveyor, he grew up with a younger brother and an older sister in Hanover and, from 1907, in Berlin. He encountered the teachings of Rudolf Steiner as a schoolchild. From that moment on, Anthroposophy, a movement for which he would remain active in many contexts, became a constant companion in his life. From 1914 he studied Painting and Music in Munich; 1916 he was drafted into the military. After 1918, his “Wanderjahre” took him to Göttingen, where he married in 1920, Jena, Hamburg, Cologne and finally back to Berlin in 1930. Following primarily private musical studies, he became a freelance composer and music critic. Between 1930 and 1934 he took over editing the Allgemeine Musikzeitung, combining this activity with contributions to the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger. Following the National Socialists arrival in power, he became a staff music writer at the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger until 1944. In 1934, he expressed agreement with nationalist socialist cultu

Walter Arlen

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Walter Arlen (; July 31, 1920 – September 2, 2023) was an Austrian and American composer, focused on songs for voice and piano. Just after completing school, he fled the Nazi regime in Vienna for the United States, where he worked as a music critic for the Los Angeles Times, and a professor of music at the Loyola Marymount University. He was recognised as a composer late in life. Life and career Walter Aptowitzer was born in Vienna on July 31, 1920, to a middle-class Jewish family. His parents ran Warenhaus Dichter, a department store founded by his grandfather in 1890. At age five, his grandfather took him to musicologist Otto Erich Deutsch, who discovered that he had perfect pitch, and recommended that he take piano lessons. His father was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp Arlen worked as a journalist and music critic for the Los Angeles Times, first as an assistant to Albert Goldberg who was music critic from 1952 to 1980. It gave him first-hand experience of the musical life of the city. He founded the music department at Loyola University Chicago in 1969, and was emerited in 1990. Arlen established friendships with numerous other German and Austrian émigrées, including Str

Walter Beckett (composer)

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Walter Keohler Beckett (27 July 1914 – 3 April 1996) was an Irish composer, teacher and music critic. He was a cousin of the writer Samuel Beckett. Life Beckett was born in Dublin. His parents were Elizabeth Ethel Beckett (née Keller) and James Beckett, a politician and builder. He studied organ with George Hewson and harmony with John F. Larchet at the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM), in addition to music at Trinity College Dublin where he was conferred with a Mus.D. (Doctor of Music) in 1942. He lived from 1946 to 1963 in Venice, where he taught English and piano; he also wrote reviews from abroad for the Irish Times and made a series of orchestral arrangements of Irish traditional music for Radio Éireann. In 1963 he moved to England, where he taught music at various schools before returning to Ireland in 1970 to succeed A.J. Potter at the RIAM as a professor of harmony and counterpoint; however, after having suffered a stroke in 1985, he had to retire. In 1986 he was elected a member of Aosdána, and an Honorary Fellow of the RIAM in 1990. He died in Dublin in 1996. Music Beckett’s more ambitious works from the 1940s and 1950s are a Suite for Orchestra (1945), Four Higgins So

Walter Boudreau

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Walter Boudreau, (born 1947 in Sorel) is a Canadian composer, saxophonist and conductor. In 1969, he founded the group L’Infonie with Raoul Duguay, which dissolved in 1973. Since 1988, he has been the artistic director of the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec in Montreal. He was a principal collaborator in the Symphonie du Millénaire which took place in Montréal in 2000. In May 2015 Boudreau received a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, Canada’s highest honour in the performing arts. Teachers * Serge Garant * Mauricio Kagel * György Ligeti * Bruce Mather * Karlheinz Stockhausen * Gilles Tremblay * Iannis Xenakis Films * La Nuit de la poésie 27 mars 1970, 1971 * Ultimatum, 1973 * Unfinished Infonie (L’Infonie inachevée…), 1973 * Fanfares, 1988 Awards * 1982 - Prix Jules-Léger * 1998 - Prix Opus : compositeur de l’année * 2003 - Molson Prize * 2004 - Prix Denise-Pelletier * 2013 - Knight of the National Order of Quebec * 2013 - Member of the Order of Canada * 2015 - Governor General’s Performing Arts Award * Grants from the Canadian Arts Council * National Young Composers Competition (Radio-Canada) See also * Music of Canada * List of Canadian composers References

Walter Braunfels

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Walter Braunfels (; 19 December 1882 – 19 March 1954) was a German composer, pianist, and music educator. Life Walter Braunfels was born in Frankfurt. His first music teacher was his mother, the great-niece of the composer Louis Spohr. He continued his piano studies in Frankfurt at the Hoch Conservatory with James Kwast. Braunfels studied law and economics at the university in Munich until after a performance of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde he decided on music. He went to Vienna in 1902 to study with the pianist and teacher Theodor Leschetizky. He then returned to Munich to study composition with Felix Mottl and Ludwig Thuille. In February 1918 he was wounded at the front and in June 1918 on his return to Frankfurt converted from Protestantism to Catholicism, composing his Te Deum of 1920–21 “not as music for musicians but as a personal expression of faith”. He achieved early success with the melodious opera Die Vögel (The Birds, 1920), such that Adolf Hitler, not realising that Braunfels had a Jewish parent, in 1923 invited Braunfels to write an anthem for the Nazi Party, which Braunfels “indignantly turned down”. Braunfels performed as a professional pianist for many years

Walter Bricht

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Walter Bricht (September 21, 1904 – March 20, 1970) was an Austrian-American pianist, composer and teacher. Early life Born in Vienna, Bricht was exposed to multiple musical influences from his youth. His father, , was a music critic for the , a newspaper in Vienna. His mother, was a concert singer and pianist, and became his first teacher. His talent was recognized early on. Bricht received his first piano lesson at age four and began composing piano pieces and songs by age twelve. He was educated at the Vienna Academy for Music, graduating in 1928 with degrees in composition, conducting and piano. Bricht was a student of famed composer Franz Schmidt. Career and personal life Upon the completion of his education at the Vienna Academy, Bricht taught at the Vienna Volkskonservatorium from 1931 to 1938. From 1934 to 1938, he also taught voice, piano, and composition at the Horak-Schulen in Vienna. As a composer, he was prolific during this period, writing the majority of his works, and hearing many of them publicly performed. In 1938, Bricht was forced to leave Austria, because the Nazi regime had discovered that he had Jewish-born grandparents. He was offered “honorary Aryan status”

Walter Buczynski

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Walter Joseph Buczynski (born 17 December 1933) is a Canadian composer, teacher, and pianist. Born in Toronto, Buczynski earned an Associate diploma from the Royal Conservatory of Music in 1951 and a Licentiate in 1953. While there he studied music composition with Godfrey Ridout and piano with Earle Moss. He studied under Darius Milhaud and Charles Jones at the Aspen Music Festival and School in 1955. He pursued further studies in piano with Rosina Lhévinne in New York in 1958–1959. He received grants from the Polish government that enabled him to study with Zbigniew Drzewiecki in Warsaw in 1959 and 1961. Likewise, grants from the Canada Council made it possible for him to study under Nadia Boulanger in Paris in 1960 and 1962. In 1951 and 1952 Buczynski was awarded second prizes at the Composers, Authors and Publishers Association of Canada composition competition, going on to win first prize there in 1954 with his Piano Trio. In 1955 he won the Fromm Foundation Award with his Suite for Woodwind Quintet. That same year he made his debut as a concert pianist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra playing Chopin’s F minor Concerto. Among his notable pupils were John Burge, Mychael Dann

Walter Courvoisier

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Walter Courvoisier (7 February 1875 – 27 December 1931) was a Swiss composer. Life Born in Riehen, Courvoisier was a son of the surgeon Ludwig Georg Courvoisier. He initially studied medicine and worked as a doctor after obtaining his doctorate. In 1902 he went to Munich to study music. He was a student of Selmar Bagge and Ludwig Thuille - whose son-in-law he became - and then taught at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, first music theory, and later music composition. Courvoisier died in Locarno at the age of 66. Compositions Operas * Lanzelot und Elaine, musical drama in four acts; libretto: Berta Thiersch, pseudonym “Walter Bergh” (1910–12, first performance Munich 1917) * Die Krähen (The Crows), comedy in one act; libretto: Alois Wohlmuth (1919/20, first performance Munich 1920) * Der Sünde Zauberei (The Sin of Magic), opera in one prelude and two scenes; libretto: Joseph von Eichendorff after Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1929, unperformed) online Vocal works * The Muse, for baritone and orchestra op. 4; after Heinrich Leuthold (1903) * Gruppe aus dem Tartarus, ballad for mixed choir and orchestra Op. 5; after Friedrich Schiller (1904) * Der Dinurstrom, ballad for mix

Walter Damrosch

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Walter Johannes Damrosch (January 30, 1862 – December 22, 1950) was a Prussian and American conductor and composer. He was the director of the New York Symphony Orchestra and conducted the world premiere performances of various works, including Aaron Copland’s Symphony for Organ and Orchestra, George Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F and An American in Paris, and Jean Sibelius’ Tapiola. Damrosch was also instrumental in the founding of Carnegie Hall. He also conducted the first performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the composer himself as soloist. Life and career Damrosch was born in Breslau, Silesia, to Helene von Heimburg, a former opera singer, and the conductor Leopold Damrosch. His brother Frank Damrosch became a music conductor and sister Clara Mannes a music teacher. His parents were Lutheran, although his paternal grandfather was Jewish. He exhibited an interest in music at an early age and was instructed by his father in harmony, and also studied under Wilhelm Albert Rischbieter and Felix Draeseke at the Dresden Conservatory. He emigrated with his parents in 1871 to the United States. On May 17, 1890, he married Margaret Blaine (1867–1949), the daughter of Amer

Walter Draeger

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Walter Draeger (14 December 1888 – 24 January 1976) was a German composer and music educator. Er war Professor an der and the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt, Weimar. In 1955, war er Mitinitiator der ersten Hallische Musiktage. Life Draeger was born in 1888 as the son of a teacher and organist in Batzlow near Freienwalde in the Province of Brandenburg. From 1898, he lived in Berlin, where he lived until the Reifeprüfung from the . Von 1908 bis 1913 studierte er Geschichte, Romance studies and musicology During his studies, he spent two years in Grenoble and Paris (Sorbonne). Until 1944, he was active as a Studienrat at the in Berlin. From 1925, his chamber music and song cycle were broadcast on the . The majority of his early works, however, were destroyed in his Berlin flat during the war in 1944. In 1951, he was elected to the central committee of the Verband der Komponisten und Musikwissenschaftler der DDR (VDK). Außerdem war er Gründungs- und Vorstandsmitglied des Arbeitskreises Halle im VDK und als solcher neben Fritz Reuter, Walther Siegmund-Schultze, Gerhard Wohlgemuth und anderen einer der Initiatoren der 1955 veranstalteten 1. Hallische Musiktage. From 1956 to 1959, he se

Walter English

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Walter Paul “Woody” English (March 20, 1867 – June 4, 1916) was an American composer, conductor, and tubist. Life and career Walter Paul English was born in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory in 1867. He grew up in Dallas, Texas (Smith) playing tuba in various bands. In 1891 he joined the circus band on the Great New York Circus in Oakland, California (Smith). In 1892 he joined the band on the McMahon Circus (Smith). During the next three years he travelled with circus bands on Howe & Cushing, Sands & Astley and Harris Nickel Plate Shows (Smith). He played tuba in Carl Clair’s band for the European tour of Barnum & Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth at the turn of the century (1897–1903). He took up the conducting baton from an ailing Carl Clair in 1907. In 1909 he played for Norris & Rowe (Smith). English spent three years with the Sells-Floto Circus. In 1913, he played tuba for The Girl of Eagle Ranch production, thereafter rejoining Sells Floto (under the baton of his friend Karl L. King). King and English subsequently co-authored a march, “Howdy Pap.” In contrast to the tall, thin King, Walter English was rather stout, and he wore a walrus mustache. King later recalled that the first

Walter Frye

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Walter Frye (died 1474?) was an English composer of the early Renaissance. Life Nothing certain is known about his life. He may have been a “Walter Cantor” at Ely Cathedral between 1443 and 1466, and he may have been the Walter Frye who joined the London Parish Clerks in 1456; he also may have been the Walter Frye who left a will at Canterbury in 1474. Music Most of Frye’s music survives in manuscripts from the continent, which has suggested to scholars that he spent much of his time there; however stylistically his music is closer to that of other English composers (such as John Dunstaple and John Hothby) than to that of the Burgundian School, the most notable contemporary movement on the continent. A reason sometimes given for the survival of his music in continental sources is that the few remaining English 15th-century manuscripts rarely mention the names of composers; therefore there may be a good deal of his music which is simply anonymous. Survival of music from the period in England is sparse because most of it was destroyed during the dissolution of the Monasteries carried out between 1536 and 1540 by Henry VIII. Frye wrote masses, motets and songs, including ballades and

Walter Goehr

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Walter Goehr (; 28 May 19034 December 1960) was a German composer and conductor who from 1937, lived and worked in the UK. He was the father of composer Alexander Goehr. Biography Goehr was born in Berlin, where he studied with Arnold Schoenberg and embarked on a conducting career, before being forced as a Jew to seek employment outside Germany after working for Berlin Radio in 1932. He was invited to become music director for the His Master’s Voice, so he moved to London. In 1937, he conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra in the premiere recording of Bizet’s Symphony in C. During his years as a staff conductor for EMI, he conducted the orchestra for many recordings, including accompaniments for arias sung by Beniamino Gigli, Richard Tauber and Joseph Schmidt. In more popular items, his name appears on the record labels as ‘G. Walter’ or ‘George Walter’. In addition, he conducted for many concerto recordings, including some by Benno Moiseiwitsch, Myra Hess and others. After the war he conducted for several smaller recording companies based in Europe, including for the concerto recordings of the short-lived Australian pianist Noel Mewton-Wood. He also conducted the UK premiere

Walter Hekster

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Walter Hekster (29 March 1937 – 31 December 2012) was a Dutch composer, clarinetist and conductor of classical music, specialising in contemporary classical music. Biography Hekster graduated from the Amsterdam Academy of Music in 1961 studying composition with Ton de Leeuw and clarinet with Bram de Wilde. Upon his graduation he studied clarinet with Keith Wilson and composition with Mel Powell at Yale University, where he received a Master of Music in 1963. In 1966 he studied with Roger Sessions in Tanglewood. In the meantime he performed as a clarinetist in the Netherlands Wind Ensemble and the Connecticut Symphony Orchestra. In 1965 he accepted an appointment for professor of clarinet and composition at Brandon University in Manitoba, which he held until 1971. There he started conducting the Brandon Chamber Orchestra. In 1971 he studied sonology at the University of Utrecht. He then taught at the music conservatories of Enschede, Arnhem, and Groningen until 1990. With the Rosetti Woodwind Quintet, Quartetto di Fiati, Ensemble ‘80, and the Circle Ensemble, he performed throughout Europe and the United States. Walter Hekster was an extremely productive composer, creating music for

Walter Hus

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Walter Hus (born July 2, 1959) is a Belgian composer and musician. He studied at the music conservatories in Ghent and Brussels. In 1984, he graduated with excellence (Diplôme supérieur) for piano with Prof. Dr. Robert Steyaert and soon became involved with new music in many different expressions. He performed improvised piano recitals (1984: LP Eight Etudes on Improvisation); occasionally flirted with free jazz (Belgisch Pianokwartet) and rock (Simpletones); collaborated with painters (Michel Thuns) and video artists (Walter Verdin, Marie André). He wrote film scores for Suite Sixteen (Dominique Deruddere) and The Pillow Book (Peter Greenaway); toured the world with his ensemble Maximalist! and wrote and performed for theatre and ballet (amongst others Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Wim Vandekeybus, Roxanne Huilmand, Needcompany, Bud Blumenthal, Discordia, Beukelaars, Kortekaas, Ritsema). From the nineties on, he appeared less on stage and concentrated on composition as his main interest. He was commissioned by a number of music institutions and festivals, such as the Kaaitheater, deSingel, the , , Festival van Vlaanderen, Antwerpen ‘93, Happy New Ears, Vooruit, Felix Meritis, Hebbel

Walter Jurmann

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Walter Jurmann (October 12, 1903 – June 17, 1971) was an Austrian-born composer of popular music renowned for his versatility who, after immigrating to the United States, specialized in film scores and soundtracks. Biography Born in Vienna, Jurmann received a classical education, taking his Matura exams in 1921. For some time he studied medicine but in 1924, after working as a lounge pianist in a posh hotel in the Semmering area of Lower Austria, abandoned his studies altogether in order to pursue a career in music. He moved to Berlin and soon became successful with tunes such as “Du bist nicht die Erste”. Probably his most famous 1920s song is “Veronika, der Lenz ist da”, popularized by the all-male a cappella ensemble, the Comedian Harmonists. With the arrival of sound movies Jurmann also began writing film music, starting with Ihre Majestät, die Liebe (Her Majesty, Love) (1930). Jurman’s melodies were so charming and easy to remember that a contemporary paper reported that cinemagoers were humming the new tunes already on the morning following the release of a new film. In 1933, after the Nazis had come to power, Jurmann left Berlin for Paris, France, where he continued writing

Walter Kaufmann (composer)

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Walter Kaufmann (1 April 1907 – 9 September 1984) was a Bohemian-born American composer, conductor, ethnomusicologist, librettist and educator. Born in Karlsbad, Bohemia (then part of Austria-Hungary), he trained in Prague and Berlin before fleeing the Nazi persecution of Jews to work in Bombay until Indian independence. He then moved to London and Canada before settling in the U.S. as a professor of musicology at Indiana University Bloomington in 1957. In 1964, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen. Biography Kaufmann was born in Karlovy Vary to Julius and Josefine Antonia. He studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin training under Franz Schreker and Curt Sachs between 1927 and 1930. He then studied in Prague under Gustav Becking and Paul Nettl (father of the musicologist Bruno Nettl). While a student he met and became friends with Albert Einstein. He graduated in 1934 with a dissertation on Gustav Mahler but refused a degree in protest of his ordinarius (=professor) Gustav Becking who was a Nazi supporter. For a time he worked as an assistant to the conductor Bruno Walter at the Charlottenburg Opera in Berlin and for Radio Prague and saw some of his earliest compositions play

Walter Kent

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Walter Kent (born Walter Maurice Kaufman, November 29, 1911 – March 2, 1994) was an American composer and conductor. Some notable compositions are: “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”, “I’m Gonna Live Till I Die” and “(There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover”. Early life Walter Kent was born to a Jewish family on November 29, 1911, in New York City. He graduated from Townsend Harris Hall High School. Kent studied violin with advanced, private instruction from Leopold Auer and Samuel Gardner. He also enrolled at City College of New York, studying drafting, with the idea of becoming an architect, but never completed a university education. He did some work as a draftsman, but gave it up to pursue song writing. Kent conducted his own orchestra in New York, performing in theaters and on the radio. Career In 1932, Kent co-wrote his first major song with Milton Drake and Abner Silver entitled, “Pu-Leeze, Mister Hemingway”. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Kent worked bi-coastally, writing songs in New York City and writing for the motion picture industry composing songs for films, including several westerns. As World War II started in Europe, Kent’s work turned towards the conflict

Walter Kollo

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Walter Kollo (28 January 1878 – 30 September 1940) was a German composer of operettas, Possen mit Gesang, and Singspiele as well as popular songs. He was also a conductor and a music publisher. Life and career Kollo was born in Neidenburg, East Prussia on 28 January 1878. Walter Kollo died in Berlin on 30 September 1940. List of operettas *1911 – Sein Herzensjunge (1 April 1911, Thalia-Theater, Wuppertal-Elberfeld) *1911 – Große Rosinen (31 December 1911, Berliner Theater, Berlin) *1912 – Filmzauber (19 October 1912, Berliner Theater, Berlin) *1912 – So wird’s gemacht (December 1912, Neues Theater, Hamburg) *1913 – (first version, 4 October 1913, Berliner Theater, Berlin) *1913 – Der Juxbaron (14 November 1913, Carl Schultze-Theater, Hamburg) *1914 – Immer feste druff (1 October 1914, Theater am Nollendorfplatz, Berlin) *1915 – Wenn zwei Hochzeit machen (23 October 1915, Berliner Theater, Berlin) *1916 – Der selige Balduin (31 March 1916, Montis Operetten-Theater, Berlin) *1916 – Auf Flügeln des Gesanges (9 September 1916, Berliner Theater, Berlin) *1917 – Drei alte Schachteln (6 October 1917, Theater am Nollendorfplatz, Berlin) *1917 – Die tolle Komteß (21 February 1917, Berliner

Walter Leigh

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Walter Leigh (22 June 190512 June 1942) was an English composer. Leigh is best known for his Concertino for harpsichord and string orchestra, written in 1934. Other famous works include the overture Agincourt and The Frogs of Aristophanes for chorus and orchestra. He wrote music for documentary films and there is an unfinished sketch for a symphony. Career Walter Leigh was born in Wimbledon. His first teacher was Harold Darke, with whom he worked from the age of eight until he was seventeen. He went to Christ’s College, Cambridge, studying composition with Cyril Rootham and graduating in 1926. For two years thereafter, he studied composition under Paul Hindemith at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik. In 1930, Leigh declined a teaching job and set about earning a living by accepting small commissions and becoming increasingly involved with the theatre. With V.C. Clinton-Baddeley he wrote a pantomime for the Festival Theatre at Cambridge, and two comic operas, the second of which, Jolly Roger, ran for six months at the Savoy Theatre in London, with a cast headed by George Robey. He composed an elaborate score for Basil Wright’s documentary film The Song of Ceylon and the concert overtur

Walter MacNutt

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Walter Louis MacNutt (2 June 1910 – 10 August 1996) was a Canadian organist, choir director, and composer. His compositional output includes numerous choral works, songs, pieces for solo organ, and works for orchestra, many of which have been published by companies like Broadcast Music Incorporated, Frederick Harris Music, the Waterloo Music Company, and the Western Music Company. In 1938 his Suite for Piano was awarded the first Vogt Society prize for Canadian composition. One of his more popular works, the secular song Take Me to a Green Isle, is taken from a poem by H.E. Foster. He also composed many songs to the poems of William Blake. In his later years, he composed music mainly for the Anglican church, include two Missae breves and the Mass of St James (1974). Life and career Born in Charlottetown, MacNutt began his music studies with W.E. Fletcher and Roberta Spencer Full on Prince Edward Island. In 1929 he entered the Toronto Conservatory of Music (TCM) where he studied through 1932 with Reginald Godden (piano) and Healey Willan (organ and composition). He notably won the TCM’s Vogt Memorial and Marion Ferguson scholarships and won a national competition in 1931. In 1931 Ma

Walter Mair

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Walter Christian Mair (born 17 December 1978) is an Austrian-born composer. Biography Mair has created scores for feature films, television drama, commercials, and narrative-driven interactive entertainment such as computer games. Mair studied in Austria, earning a degree in music composition for orchestra from the University of Vienna and a major in music composition for motion pictures from Salzburg University. He composed music for the Universal Pictures documentary feature Ronaldo, directed by Anthony Wonke. In 2016, Mair scored the music for Toby Tobias’ thriller Blood Orange starring Ben Lamb and Iggy Pop. In television, he has written music for BBC 1’s Cuffs and E4’s teen drama mini-series Glue. He has also written music for Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto video games, Sony’s sci-fi franchise Killzone, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction and The Creative Assembly’s Total War series. Mair writes in a wide range of styles, from large orchestral symphonic scores with choir down to smaller ensembles and also intersperses electronics and hybrid or bespoke sounds with live solo instruments. Mair has written the music and created sound design for numerous commercials for television

Walter Niemann (composer)

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Walter Rudolph Niemann (10 October 1876 – 17 June 1953) was a German composer, arranger, and music critic. Life Born in Hamburg, Niemann was the son of composer and virtuoso pianist Rudolph Niemann (1838–1898). His uncle, Gustav Adolph Niemann (1843–1881) was a violinist and important musical figure in Helsinki. Walter Niemann studied with Engelbert Humperdinck as a youth in Leipzig. He then entered the Leipzig Conservatory where he was a pupil of Carl Reinecke. He pursued doctoral studies in musicology at the University of Leipzig under Hugo Riemann and Hermann Kretzschmar, earning a doctorate in 1901. His dissertation was on early ligatures and mensural music. Niemann first worked as a teacher in Hamburg then served as the editor of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik in Leipzig from 1904 to 1906. From 1907 through 1917 he was a writer and critic for the Neueste Nachrichten in Leipzig. He also taught during those years on the faculty of the Hamburg Conservatory. In 1927, H. Abert in the Illustriertes Musiklexikon styled Niemann “The most important composer for piano today, who understands how to make music both fine and colored, although he often strays into the salon.” He died in Lei

Walter Piston

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Walter Hamor Piston, Jr. (January 20, 1894 – November 12, 1976), was an American composer of classical music, music theorist, and professor of music at Harvard University. Life Piston was born in Rockland, Maine, at 15 Ocean Street to Walter Hamor Piston, a bookkeeper, and Leona Stover. He was the second of four children. His paternal grandfather was a sailor named Antonio Pistone, who changed his name to Anthony Piston when he came to Maine from Genoa, Italy. In 1905 the composer’s father, Walter Piston Sr, moved with his family to Boston, Massachusetts. During the 1910s, Piston made a living playing piano and violin in dance bands and later playing violin in orchestras led by Georges Longy. During World War I, he joined the U.S. Navy as a band musician after rapidly teaching himself to play saxophone; he later stated that, when “it became obvious that everybody had to go into the service, I wanted to go in as a musician”. While playing in a service band, he taught himself to play most wind instruments. “They were just lying around,” he later observed, “and no one minded if you picked them up and found out what they could do”. Piston was admitted to Harvard College in 1920, where

Walter Rabl

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Walter Rabl (30 November 1873 in Vienna – 11 July 1940 in Klopein, Klopeiner See/Carinthia) was a Viennese composer, conductor, and teacher of vocal music. Largely forgotten today, Rabl left only a small number of works, all of them early ones, from the twilight of the Romantic era. At the age of 30 he stopped composing entirely and devoted himself to conducting and vocal coaching the rest of his life. Life Walter Rabl was born in Vienna and as a child became an excellent pianist. He attended the Institut Le Rosey, a boarding school in Rolle, Switzerland. He went to Salzburg and there studied music theory and composition with J. F. Hummel, director of the Mozarteum. He graduated with honours from the Kaiserlich und Königlich Staatsgymnasium (Royal and Imperial State School) in Salzburg in 1892. Rabl returned to Vienna to study with Karel Navrátil (1867 - 1936) and then enrolled in the doctoral program at the German University in Prague as a student of the musicologist Guido Adler. At 25, he completed his doctorate and soon after accepted a position at the Royal Opera of Dresden as coach and chorus master. Beginning in 1903 Rabl conducted throughout Germany and championed works by p

Walter S. Hartley

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Walter Sinclair Hartley (February 21, 1927 – June 30, 2016) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. Life and career He was born in Washington, D.C., began composing at age five and became seriously dedicated to it at sixteen. All his college degrees are from the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester. He received his Ph.D. in composition there in 1953. Some of his teachers were Burrill Phillips, Thomas Canning, Herbert Elwell, Bernard Rogers, Howard Hanson and Dante Fiorillo. He and the former Sandra Mount married June 17, 1960; the couple is survived by two daughters and five grandchildren. Hartley was Professor Emeritus of Music at the State University of New York at Fredonia in Fredonia, New York. He also taught piano, theory and composition at the National Music Camp (now Interlochen Arts Camp) in Interlochen, Michigan from 1956 to 1964. He then became composer-in-residence at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte located in Charlotte, North Carolina until his death. List of compositions His list of compositions and arrangements is over 300, dating from 1949 on, and most of these are published. He was a member of the American Society of

Walter Schumann

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Walter Schumann (October 8, 1913 – August 21, 1958) was an American composer for film, television, and the theater. His notable works include the score for The Night of the Hunter and the Dragnet Theme; the latter of which earned Schumann the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition in 1955. His Broadway musical, 3 for Tonight, won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical in 1955. Career Schumann was born in New York City in 1913. By the early 1930s, he was attending law school at USC when he abruptly quit his studies to perform in a college dance band. Eventually, the members of the band went their separate ways but Schumann continued on within the music industry, working with Eddie Cantor on Cantor’s radio show, and recording with Andre Kostelanetz. Following the outbreak of World War II, Schumann enlisted, eventually becoming the musical director of the Armed Forces Radio Service. He worked with most of the major acts of the war on all the radio shows AFRS produced during this time. After the war, he returned to Los Angeles and worked in the movie and television industry as a composer and arranger, mostly on several Abbott & Costello films. In 1949, Schumann

Walter Steffens (composer)

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Walter Steffens (born 31 October 1934) is a German composer. He is noted for the diversity of his creative works, but has specialised in opera, such as Eli, as well as music inspired by paintings. Life The son of a bridge construction engineer, Steffens was born in Aachen-Burtscheid and grew up in Dortmund. His road to music was a bumpy one, especially since his father could not imagine a career in the fine arts as being a respectable way to earn a living. During the Second World War the Ruhrgebiet was being increasingly bombed, and at the age of eight, young Walter was sent, within the Kinderlandverschickung programme — the evacuation of children from war zones to the countryside — to the village of Wollenberg in Baden-Württemberg, and was thus separated from his parents and sister. By the end of the war, the 10-year-old had found a home with his grandparents in Bad Pyrmont. When the family was re-united again and the family’s piano, which had been stored safely in the Sauerland during the war, was returned to their home, the young boy was allowed to accompany his father while singing. Walter was given his first music lessons by a woman from the neighborhood. He received his basic

Walter Thomas Heyn

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Walter Thomas Heyn (born 14 November 1953) is a German guitarist, composer and music producer. Life Born in Görlitz, Heyn was initially musically self-taught. From the age of fourteen he played guitar and performed in singing clubs. From 1974 to 1980 he studied guitar with and , arrangement with Gerd Schlotter and music composition with Carlernst Ortwein at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig. His composition teacher recommended him for the class of Siegfried Thiele. Heyn was then for composition with Siegfried Matthus at the Academy of Arts, Berlin in (East) Berlin from 1985 to 1987. He was also a research assistant for composition at the Leipzig Academy of Music until 1984. He took part in events of the Deutscher Verlag für Musik and the Leipzig district association of the composers’ association. From 1988 on he worked without a fixed contract and published the handbook Guitar-Harmonics at in Leipzig in 1989. He appeared as and chamber musician and played on cabaret stages. Heyn received in this time among others composition commissions from private stage music. His works Concerto grosso Nr. 1 op. 18 for 5 soloists and orchestra (1984) and Concerto grosso Nr. 2 op. 20 for

Walter Thompson (composer)

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Walter Thompson (born May 31, 1952, in West Palm Beach, Florida) is a composer, pianist, saxophonist, percussionist, and educator, also known for creating the multidisciplinary live composing sign language, Soundpainting. Early life The son of a visual artist, Walter Thompson began learning the piano in his early years. At the age of 18, he entered the Berklee School of Music first in the performance program and then in the private study department. Among other things, he studied the Graphic notation of Robert Moran. After receiving a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts, he moved to Woodstock where he studied composition and woodwind with Anthony Braxton for 8 years. He also studied percussion with Bob Moses and modern dance and acting with Ruth Ingalls at the Woodstock Playhouse. Thompson also occasionally collaborated with the Creative Music Studio founded by Karl Berger. Soundpainting Soundpainting is a multi-disciplinary live-composing sign language for varied kinds of artists (musicians, actors, dancers, visual artists…). In the summer of 1974, he invited 25 musicians from the Creative Music Studio and 7 dancers from the Woodstock Playhouse to gather and form a multi

Walther von der Vogelweide

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Walther von der Vogelweide (; c. 1170) was a Minnesänger who composed and performed love-songs and political songs (Sprüche) in Middle High German. Walther has been described as the greatest German lyrical poet before Goethe; his hundred or so love-songs are widely regarded as the pinnacle of Minnesang, the medieval German courtly love song tradition, and his innovations breathed new life into this genre. He was also the first political poet to write in German, with a considerable body of encomium, satire, invective, and moralising. Little is known about Walther’s life. He was a travelling singer who performed for patrons at various princely courts in the states of the Holy Roman Empire. He is particularly associated with the Babenberg court in Vienna. Later in life he was given a small fief by the future Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II. His work was widely celebrated in his time and in succeeding generations—for the Meistersingers he was a songwriter to emulate—and this is reflected in the exceptional preservation of his work in 32 manuscripts from all parts of the High German area. The largest single collection is found in the Codex Manesse, which includes around 90% of his know

Wanda Warska

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Wanda Małolepsza (28 April 1930 – 6 July 2019), known professionally as Wanda Warska, was a Polish jazz singer and composer who worked with her husband Andrzej Kurylewicz and was nicknamed the “First Lady of Polish Jazz”. Biography Early life and career Wanda Warska was born Wanda Małolepsza on 28 April 1930 in Poznań, Poznań Voivodeship, Poland. After singing at the at the age of five, Warska studied piano as a young child and was educated at a music and ballet school and in the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Warsaw. She and her husband Andrzej Kurylewicz started working together in the 1950s, performing for the latter’s bands for her first recording, the 1956 Sopot Jazz Festival, and the Jazz Jamboree, and serving as his repertoire’s primary performer. She was the vocalist of Kurylewicz’s Organ Sextet, and her 1971 album Muzyka teatralna i telewizyjna was a collaboration with him and Czesław Niemen. She also received the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2011, Warska was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis for “her contribution to Polish culture”. Polskie Radio described her 2016 album Domowe piosenki,

Wang Hesheng (composer)

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Wang Hesheng (; born Luoyang, 27 December 1955 ) is a composer of the Military Band of the People’s Liberation Army of China, also a member of Chinese Musicians Association. In 1985, he studied composition from Professor Mu Hong in the central Conservatory of Music. He became a professional composer of the Military Band of the People’s Liberation Army of China after graduation in 1988. Over the last ten years, Wang has created more than 600 instrumental music and vocal music, with wide range of materials and different styles. The latter include solo, ensemble, symphony for symphonic band, and symphonic chorus. He has attached great importance to national characteristic, popularity and sense of the times in his creation. Twenty pieces of his works have been awarded the prize in the country and the army. And a lot of compositions have been published and recorded on the discs and the tapes. Wang’s major works are: Yuanmingyuan – a symphonic tone poem for symphonic band, Beautiful Evening of Prairie, Dance under the moonlight (a trumpet solo), Yihai – a symphonic tone-poem for symphonic band, and Plum Blossom () a symphonic chorus etc. He co-created the admission music (金声玉振 jīn shēng

Wang Jianzhong

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Wang Jianzhong (; 1933–2016) was a Chinese composer, pianist, and educator. His works, many of them composed during the Cultural Revolution, bridge Chinese folk music and Western classical piano tradition and have made him a household name in his own country. His A Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix is considered one of the six representative twentieth-century Chinese piano masterpieces. Biography Wang was born in Shanghai in 1933. His parents were from Jiangyin and Zhejiang Province. He began his piano study at the age of 10. In 1950, he was accepted into the Shanghai Conservatory of Music where he majored in composition and piano. In 1958, after his graduation, he became a professor at the conservatory. During the 1970s he served as the composer-in-residence for the Central Philharmonic Orchestra. He returned to the Shanghai Conservatory in the 1980s where he served as an associate professor, professor, associate chair, and associate dean. Among his students there were the pianists Haochen Zhang, Peng-Peng Gong and Jenny Q. Chai and the composer Bright Sheng. Wang died in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2016. The popularity of Wang’s compositions continued after the bans on cont

Wang Lu (composer)

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Wang Lu (born 1982) is a Chinese composer. She is a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow and has released two solo albums. She is an assistant professor of music at Brown University. Biography Wang Lu was born in 1982 in Xi’an. Her family was experienced in music, before obtaining her DMA from Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 2012. She studied composition with Lerdahl, Chou Wen-chung, George E. Lewis, and Tristan Murail. In 2015, she started working at Brown University as an assistant professor of music, teaching courses in music theory and composition. She released two solo albums through New Focus Recordings: Urban Inventory (2018) and An Atlas of Time (2020). In October 2019, her piece Code Switch premiered during the opening night of the 22nd season of Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNOW. In January 2021, Michael Andor Brodeur named her in his 21 for ‘21 series for The Washington Post, calling her second album “one of my favorite albums of the weird, weird year”. In 2022, she was awarded a MacDowell Fellowship. In January 2023, the New York Philharmonic premiered her piece “Surge”; Joshua Barone of the New York Times said it “has the elements of an enormous score skillfully

Wang Qiang (composer)

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Wang Qiang (, born 1935 in Shandong) is a Chinese composer. Biography Wang Qiang began her study of composition at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in 1955. As a third-year student she won first prize in the 1959 World Youth Music Composition Competition with the choral piece River of Fortune. After graduating in 1960, she took a position teaching composition at the same school. She continued to work at the Conservatory until 1991, when she moved to live and work in Hong Kong. Works Wang Qiang composes for orchestra, chamber ensemble, operetta, choral ensemble and film and television scores. Selected works include: Orchestral Works: *Ga Da Mei Ling () for Cello and Orchestra, 1960 *La Ba and Gu () for Orchestra, 1980 *Overture - Aspiration (序曲﹣希望) for Orchestra, 1992 *Fantay Overture () “ Love ” () for Orchestra, 1993 *Violin Concerto No. 0 () for violin and Orchestra, 1998 *Passacaglia () for Orchestra, 2002 Chamber Music: *Trio () for Flute, Viola and Arpa, 1979 *Cello Octet () Twelve pieces for Eight cellists, 1989 *Cello and Contrabass () Five pieces, 1989 *Quartet () For four Zhengs, Twelve pieces, 1990 *Trio () Two pieces, for Flute, Zheng and Erhu, 1991 *Untitled () for Fl

Wang Xilin

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Wang Xilin (; born December 13, 1936) is a Chinese composer. Life Wang was born in Kaifeng, Henan province and spent his childhood in Pingliang in the Gansu Province. When he was 12 he taught himself music theory, the huqin, accordion, brass instruments, as well as instrumentation and arranging. His first exposure to Western music was in 1955 when he began studying conducting at a music school run by the People’s Liberation Army Central Committee. He studied theory and piano at a teachers college in Shanghai and graduated from the Shanghai Conservatory in 1962 where he studied composition with Liu Zhuang, Ding Shande, and Qu Wei. While still a student, Wang composed his String Quartet No. 1 (1961) and the first movement of his Symphony No. 1 (op. 2, 1962, this was his graduation work) which led to his appointment in 1963 as composer-in-residence of the Central Radio Symphony Orchestra. Later in 1963 there were political changes in China under Chairman Mao Zedong which led to a crackdown on Western music, especially that of the 20th century. Wang gave a two-hour public speech in 1964 criticising such policies, which led to him being stripped of his position with the Central Radio Sy

Wang Ying (composer)

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Wang Ying (; born September 10, 1976) is a Chinese-born composer based in Berlin. Life Wang Ying was born in Shanghai, China. She began her musical education at the age of four, receiving piano lessons from her father, the composer Wang Xilin. At the Shanghai Conservatory of Music she studied composition with Prof. Gang Chen, Prof. Daqun Jia and instrumentation with Yang Liqing, completing a bachelor’s degree with honors in 2002. In 2003 she moved to Cologne, Germany for graduate studies with York Höller at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. From 2008 she studied electronic composition with Michael Beil and composition with Johannes Schöllhorn and Rebecca Saunders. In 2010 she completed a master’s degree in contemporary music at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts while working with Helmut Lachenmann. At the Cologne Conservatory she studied for the Diplom and concert exam in composition as well as one in electronic composition – both were completed in 2011. In 2011 she was chosen to study at the “Cursus de composition et d’informatique musicale” at IRCAM in Paris, where she completed courses with Mauro Lanza, Philippe Leroux and Ivan Fedele, graduating in 201

Warren Benson

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Warren Frank Benson (January 26, 1924 – October 6, 2005) was an American composer. His compositions consist mostly of music for wind instruments and percussion. His most notable piece is titled The Leaves Are Falling (1964). Biography Benson was born in Detroit in 1924, and was a graduate of Cass Technical High School. He was a professional performer by the age of 14, when he played timpani in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Ormandy, Reiner, Goossens, Bernstein, and others while an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. From 1950 to 1952, Benson was awarded two successive Fulbright grants to teach at Anatolia College in Salonika, Greece. There he established a five-year bilingual music curriculum and organized the Anatolia College Chorale, the first scholastic co-educational choral group in that country. After 14 years at Ithaca College (where, in 1953, he organized the first touring percussion ensemble in the eastern United States – and the second worldwide), Benson became professor of composition at the Eastman School of Music. During his tenure there (1967–1993), he was honored with an Alumni Citation for Excellence, the Kilbourn professorship for distinguished teachi

Warren Burt

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Warren Burt (born 10 October 1949) is an Australia-based composer of American birth. He is known for composing in a wide variety of new music styles, ranging from acoustic music, electroacoustic music, sound art installations to text-based music. Burt often employs elements of improvisation, microtonality, humour, live interaction, and lo-fi electronic techniques in his music. Biography Warren Burt was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and attended the State University of New York, Albany (BA, 1971) and the University of California, San Diego (MA, 1975) before moving to Australia in 1975. In 1976, Burt, along with composer/performer Ron Nagorcka, established the Clifton Hill Community Music Centre, in an old Organ factory building in Gold Street, Clifton Hill, Melbourne. In 1976–77, Burt toured his video/spoken/electronic opera Nighthawk in the USA. There were fourteen performances including at the University of Illinois, the Experimental Intermedia Foundation in New York, California Institute of the Arts, and Oberlin College. From 1977 to 1978 he and John Campbell produced the New and Experimental Music Show on radio 3CR. During this period, Burt and Australian composer Les Gilbert pub

Warren Cohen (composer)

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Warren Cohen is a Canadian composer, conductor and pianist is the musical director of the MusicaNova Orchestra, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, which is identified by its mission statement (‘musica nova’ means ’new music’), rather than a geographical location. The organisation specialises in works that are newly composed or unjustly neglected, as well as new interpretations of standard repertoire. Cohen, who has so far had a two-decade career as a musical director, and who has significantly developed every organisation with which he has been involved, studied conducting with Gustave Meier and Paul Vermel. Biography Born in Montreal, Cohen studied piano with his father, Philip Cohen, and composition privately. Cohen performed frequently as a solo pianist from 1980 to 1990 by performing over 200 works including 20 world premiere performances. At the time, he was living in Hawaii, and held the position of music director of the Kumu Kahua Theatre Group, which specialised in locally-themed productions. He composed music for numerous theatre productions, including ones based on the life of Princess Ka’iulani and the Aristophanes farce Ecclesiazusae (translated as either “Women in Parliamen

Warren Schatz

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Warren Schatz, born in New York City, Brooklyn (November 3, 1945) is a prominent producer, arranger and orchestra conductor during the 1970s. Warren Schatz is famous for composing, producing, arranging, and conducting the orchestra for such mid- to late-1970s disco recording artists as Frankie Valli, Vicki Sue Robinson, The Brothers, Revelation, Evelyn King, and Gordon Grody. He started as a delivery boy at Associated Recording in 1957 and by the time he was 14 he started his career as an engineer, recording song demos with Paul Simon, Neil Diamond, Burt Bacharach, Hal David, Dionne Warwick, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Carole King and Gerry Goffin. During this time he started recording himself under the name Ritchie Dean, The Whispers, The Warmest Spring, The American Youth Choir, The Petrified Forrest, and Warren Schatz. Recording for Swirl, Imperial, Cameo/Parkway, Laurie, Tower (Capitol), Mercury, Polydor, Warner Bros. In 1968 he and his partner, Stephen Schlaks, produced Wilkinson Tricycle for Columbia’s Date Records, Banshee for Atlantic, and Yesterday’s Children for Map City. In 1970 he signed with managers Rachel Elkind and Walter Carlos, who

Wasif Jawhariyyeh

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Wasif Jawhariyyeh (; 14 January 1897 – 1972) was a Palestinian composer, oud player, poet and chronicler. He is known for his memoirs, The Diaries of Wasif Jawhariyyeh, that spans over six decades from 1904 to 1968, covering Jerusalem’s turbulent modern history, including four regimes and five wars. British Member of Parliament Layla Moran is his great-granddaughter. Biography Early life Wasif Jawhariyyeh was born to Jiryis and Hilana Barakat on 14 January 1897 in Jerusalem. The Jawhariyyeh’s practised Eastern Orthodox Christianity. His father was an active member of their community, as a member of Jerusalem’s municipal council and served for a time as tax assessor. He would later pursue a career as a silk farmer, cafe proprietor, skilled icon maker. He also was an amateur musician. His father, Jiryis (Girgis), was the mukhtar of the Eastern Orthodox community in the Old City (1884) and a member of Jerusalem’s municipal council, serving under the Mayors Salim al-Husseini and Faidy al-Alami. Trained as a lawyer he was well versed in Muslim Shari’ law and commanded several languages, including Greek, Turkish and Arabic. He worked briefly as a government tax assessor, but later turned

Wassily Gerassimez

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Wassily Gerassimez (born 21 June 1991 in Essen) is a German cellist and composer. His parents were born in Germany and worked, just like his brothers Nicolai and Alexej, as professional musicians. Life Gerassimez began studying cello with Gotthard Popp at the age of eleven. Later he continued his studies with Michael Sanderling in Frankfurt and Peter Bruns in Leipzig. After earning his bachelor’s degree in at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig, he began studying jazz-cello at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover with . He plays a violoncello by Georges Chanot, made in Paris around 1840. The instrument is a loan by the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben. Gerassimez has performed as a soloist with the State Philharmonic Rheinland-Pfalz, the Philharmonic Munich and the Concert Orchestra Berlin. He was also a guest at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Münchner Symphoniker, Kozerthausorchester Berlin, Heidelberger Frühling, Gezeitenkonzerte in Ostfriesland, Bergische Symphoniker, Neubrandenburger Philharmonie and Musicfestival The Next Generation III. Regularly, he gives concerts with his brothers Nicolai (piano) and Alexej

Wayan Yudane

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

I Wayan Gde Yudane (born 1963 or 1964) is a gangsa player and an exponent of Balinese music in New Zealand. Yudane learnt to play gamelan from his father, an architect and gamelan instrument maker. He attended the Performing Arts School (STSI) in Denpasar. In 2002, he became the 2002 Artist-in-Residence at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. His collaboration with Paul Grabowsky, The Theft of Sita, was performed at the 2001 Next Wave Festival in New York City and toured Europe and the US. He also collaborated with New Zealand composer Jack Body on Paradise Regained for piano and pemade (Balinese metallophone). References Further reading * “Wayan Gde Yudane: a man for all cultures” by Duncan Graham, The Jakarta Post, 27 October 2010 External links *Crossroads of Denpasar, ABC Classic FM The Listening Room, 19 April 2003 *Personal website *Wayan Gde Yudane at SOUNZ

Wayne Barlow

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

Wayne Brewster Barlow (September 6, 1912, in Elyria, Ohio – December 17, 1996, in Rochester, NY) was an American composer of classical music. He was also a professor of music, organist, and choir director. Life and career Barlow received bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from the Eastman School of Music, majoring in composition and theory and becoming in 1937 the first American to receive a doctorate in music composition. He also studied with Arnold Schoenberg in California, as well as with Myron Schaeffer, the director of the Electronic Music Laboratory at the University of Toronto. He served as a professor at the Eastman School of Music from 1937 to 1978, where he directed the Electronic Music Studio from 1968 to 1978, and also served as Dean of Graduate Studies from 1973 to 1978. From 1978 to 1996 he held the position of Emeritus Professor of Composition at the Eastman School of Music. His notable students include James Cohn, Lucrecia Kasilag, Samuel Jones, Martin Mailman, Norma Wendelburg, and Don Freund. Among his best-known compositions is The Winter’s Past, for oboe and string orchestra. He died at the age of 84. His manuscripts are held by the Sibley Music Library

Wayne Oquin

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

Wayne Oquin (born December 9, 1977) is an American composer of orchestral, choral, chamber, and wind band music. In 2020, the Nashville Symphony announced the premiere recording of Oquin’s Resilience on the Naxos Label. In the same year, the Pacific Symphony announced the world symphonic premiere of his Tower Ascending. In addition to his orchestral works, Oquin is also internationally recognized for his choral, chamber, and wind band music. He is a two-time winner of the National Band Association’s William D. Revelli Award. In 2008, Oquin joined the faculty of The Juilliard School where he teaches ear training (of which department he is the chair), music theory, and graduate studies. References

Władysław Daniłowski

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

Władysław Daniłowski (also known by his pseudonyms Władysław Dan and Walter Dana, April 26, 1902 – March 4, 2000) was a Polish and American pianist, composer and singer. A pioneer of jazz and tango in Poland, in the United States he is best known as a promoter of polka music. He wrote the score for the first Polish sound film. Life and career Born April 26, 1902, in Warsaw, then in the Russian-held Congress Poland, to a renowned Polish writer and revolutionary . In 1919 he joined the Polish Army and served with distinction during the Polish-Bolshevist War. Following demobilisation he started studies at the Warsaw Conservatory. He studied piano under tutelage of Henryk Melcer-Szczawiński and theory of music in the class of Piotr Rytel. In 1926 he also graduated from the law faculty of the University of Warsaw. In late 1920s Daniłowski spent two years working for the Polish embassy in Paris, where he fell in love with jazz and tango, two styles of music gaining increasing popularity in Europe at that time. Upon his return to Poland he started composing for the cabaret. Numerous songs written for the star of the cabaret, Hanka Ordonówna, gained him much fame in Warsaw and then in the

Władysław Szpilman

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

Władysław Szpilman (; 5 December 1911 – 6 July 2000) was a Polish Jewish pianist, classical composer and Holocaust survivor. Szpilman is widely known as the central figure in the Roman Polanski film The Pianist, which was based on his autobiographical account of how he survived the German occupation of Warsaw and the Warsaw Uprising. Szpilman studied piano at music academies in Berlin and Warsaw. He became a popular performer on Polish Radio and in concert. Confined within the Warsaw Ghetto after the German invasion of Poland, Szpilman spent two years in hiding. Following the Warsaw Uprising and the subsequent destruction of the city, he was helped by Wilm Hosenfeld, a German officer who detested Nazi policies. After World War II, Szpilman resumed his career on Polish Radio. Szpilman was also a prolific composer; his output included hundreds of songs and many orchestral pieces. Szpilman was also recognized as the most famous of the “Robinson Crusoes”, a term referring to Poles who survived in the ruins of Warsaw after the Warsaw Uprising. Career as a pianist Szpilman began his study of the piano at the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, Poland, where he studied piano with Aleksande

Władysław Żeleński (composer)

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

Władysław Marcjan Mikołaj Żeleński (6 July 1837 – 23 January 1921) was a Polish composer, pianist and organist. Life Żeleński was born in Grodkowice into a landowner family. When he was eight, his father was killed and his mother critically injured in the rabacja, the Galician peasants’ uprising of 1846. He was a representative of neoromanticism in Polish music. From early on, Żeleński showed interest in chamber music. While in secondary school, he wrote two quartets and a trio that, however, have not survived to our times. Later chamber pieces include: Sextet in C major, Op. 9 and Wariacje na temat własny (Variations on an Original Theme) for string quartet, Op. 21. Żeleński composed while studying first in Prague and later in Paris. He died in Kraków. Władysław was the father of physician and writer Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński. His students included Polish composer and pianist Jadwiga Sarnecka. Notable works Operas * Konrad Wallenrod (1885) * Goplana (1896) * Janek (1900) * Stara baśń (opera) (1907) libretto by Aleksander Bandrowski based on Stara baśń Symphonic compositions * W Tatrach (In the Tatra Mountains), overture, Op. 27 (1870) * Echa leśne (Forest Echos), overture * Suita tańcó