20th Century on Music Theory Print

A. J. Potter

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Archibald James Potter (22 September 1918 – 5 July 1980) was an Irish composer and teacher, who wrote hundreds of works including operas, a mass, and four ballets, as well as orchestral and chamber music. Early years Potter was born in Belfast to a Presbyterian family who, oddly, lived on the Falls Road, a republican (Catholic) stronghold. His father was a church organist and piano tuner who was blind since childhood. His mother was, in Potter’s own words, “a raging alcoholic”. The young Potter escaped a rather grim childhood when he went to live with an aunt in Kent, England. Possessed of a good voice and natural musical ability, Potter was accepted as a treble by the world-famous choir of All Saints, Margaret Street. In 1933, after four years as a chorister, he was sent to Clifton College, Bristol. From there he went to the Royal College of Music on a scholarship and studied composition under Vaughan Williams. World War II interrupted Potter’s music education, and he left college to serve with the London Irish Rifles in Europe and the Far East. After the war Potter settled in Dublin, where he continued his studies at Trinity College Dublin, gaining a Doctorate in Music in 1953. A

Aage Stentoft

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

Aaron Avshalomov

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

Aaron Copland

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

Early years#

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

Aarre Merikanto

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

Abdylas Maldybaev

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Abdylas Maldybaevich Maldybaev (; July 7, 1906 – June 1, 1978) was a Soviet and Kyrgyz composer, actor, and operatic tenor singer. Maldybaev was one of the composers of the state anthem of the Kirghiz SSR and is still renowned for his operatic composition. He helped popularize Kyrgyz music by skillfully using Western European techniques. The Kyrgyz one som banknote pictures him. Maldybayev provided folk melodies and composed music which was organized and prepared by Russian composers Vladimir Vlasov and Vladimir Fere into six Soviet state operas and other works. Their first full opera was Ai-churek. The collective is usually hyphenated as Vlasov-Fere-Maldybayev, which also composed the Kirghiz national anthem. Works * Ai-Churek, opera in four acts after an episode of the “Manas Epos” (1938–1939) Libretto: D. Tursubekov, D. Bokonbaev and K. Malikov. First performance in 1939 in Frunze. * The History of Happiness, cantata after V. Vinnikov (1949) * On the Banks of Issyk-Kula, opera after K. Bayalinov and V. Vinnikov (1950) * Toktogul, opera (1958) His work has been recorded and issued on media including: * Ai-Churek, LP Melodiya D 07269-74: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of the Kirgh

Abraham Binder

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Abraham Wolf Binder (January 1895 – October 1966) was an American composer, conductor, educator, and a leading figure in the development of American Jewish liturgical music. Early life and education Binder was born on the Lower East Side of New York City into a family of cantorial background. His father was a baal tefillah who had learned synagogue music from his own father, a cantor in Galicia (Eastern Europe). At age four Binder began singing in his father’s synagogue choir, and from age seven to fourteen he sang as an alto soloist in the professional choir of Cantor Abraham Frachtenberg. Frachtenberg’s emphasis on choral discipline and composition strongly influenced Binder’s later approach to synagogue music. At fourteen Binder became choir director of the Kamenitzer Schul in Manhattan under Cantor Abraham Singer. Honors and death In 1960 Binder received the Frank L. Weil Award from the National Jewish Welfare Board for distinguished contribution to American Jewish culture. * Two Hassidic Moods (string quartet) * Orchestral suites (various) * Symphonic workshop compositions for the 92nd Street Y Folk song arrangements and collections Binder was an early American arranger of Pal

Abraham Ellstein

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Abraham “Abe” Ellstein (, , July 7, 1907 – March 22, 1963) was an American composer, bandleader and recording artist in the Yiddish theatre and Yiddish popular music milieu. Along with Sholom Secunda, Joseph Rumshinsky, and Alexander Olshanetsky, Ellstein was one of the “big four” composers of his era in New York City’s Yiddish Theater District scene. His musical Yidl Mitn Fidl became one of the greatest hits of Yiddish-language cinema. Life and career He was born on the Lower East Side, Manhattan, at that time an Eastern European Jewish immigrant area. His musical education began at the Third Street Music School Settlement. From the age of nine to thirteen, he studied piano with Frederick Jacobi. He was the conductor of the boy’s choir of the Broadway production Richard III, at only thirteen years old. He went on to study at the Graduate School of Juilliard, training as a conductor, with a major in composition. Ellstein’s only opera, The Golem, had its world premiere at the New York City Opera under the baton of music director Julius Rudel on March 23, 1962. The libretto was created by the composer and his wife, Sylvia Regan, based on the mythical Golem tale of the Central Europea

Achille Longo

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Achille Longo (28 March 1900 – 28 May 1954) was an Italian composer and music teacher. Biography Achille (junior), son of Alessandro and Luisa Todisco, was born in Naples on 28 March 1900. He was a pupil first of his father, and then of A. Savasta at the Naples Conservatory, where he graduated in piano in 1918 and in organ and composition in 1920. He taught harmony and counterpoint at the same conservatory from 1926 to 1930; from 1930 to 1934, he taught harmony and counterpoint at the Parma Conservatory, where, among others, F. Margola was his pupil. In 1934, he returned to the conservatory in Naples, first as a teacher of counterpoint and fugue, and then, from 1941 until his death, of composition. The famous pianist Aldo Ciccolini studied composition with him in Naples. Achille Longo, along with Beniamino Cesi, Sigismund Thalberg, Alessandro Longo and Vincenzo Vitale, is considered one of the most important Italian piano teachers of the 20th century, and contributed to creating what is considered today the ‘Neapolitan piano school’. Compositions The following were used in films, orchestras, and also symphonic music. Vocal music * Canzonette de Poliziano (1930) * Chansons Enfantine

Ada Kent

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Ada Twohy Kent (8 February 188823 July 1969) was a Canadian musician, composer, and music educator. She was described as “probably Canada’s most successful woman composer” in a 1943 profile. Early life and education Ada Jane Fairlane Twohy was born in Denver, Colorado, the daughter of William Humphrey Twohy and Ada Lutz Twohy. Her parents were both Canadian. Her piano teachers included J. E. P. Aldous and A. S. Vogt. She earned a bachelor’s degree in music at the University of Toronto in 1906, at age 18, and an LRAM from the Royal Academy of Music in London. Career Kent was a pianist and composer from her teens, and a music educator. In Hamilton, Ontario, she was a church organist beginning in her teens, In 1938, she gave a recital of her own works at London’s Wigmore Hall. She gave a similar program in 1939, at the Prince Edward Hotel in Windsor. Kent composed works for piano, violin, and voice, and wrote several books of songs for children. She often used texts by Canadian writers as the lyrics of her songs. “Ada Twohy Kent has the precious gift of melodic sense,” wrote a reviewer in 1937, about her first book of songs. “There’s a simple vigor and often a lyric enchantment in the

Adolf Busch

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Adolf Georg Wilhelm Busch (8 August 1891 – 9 June 1952) was a German-Swiss violinist, conductor, and composer. Life and career Busch was born in Siegen in Westphalia. He studied at the Cologne Conservatory with Willy Hess and Bram Eldering. His composition teacher was Fritz Steinbach but he also learned much from his future father-in-law Hugo Grüters in Bonn. In 1912, Busch founded the Vienna Konzertverein Quartet, consisting of the principals from the Konzertverein orchestra, which made its debut at the 1913 Salzburg Festival. After World War I, he founded the Busch Quartet, which from the 1920–21 season included Gösta Andreasson, violin, Karl Doktor, viola, and Paul Grümmer, cello. The quartet was in existence with varying personnel until 1951. The additional member of the circle was Rudolf Serkin, who became Busch’s duo partner at 18 and eventually married Busch’s daughter, Irene, 1935 in Basel. The Busch Quartet and Serkin became the nucleus of the Busch Chamber Players, founded in Basel, a forerunner of modern chamber orchestras. In 1927, with the rise of Adolf Hitler, Busch decided he could not in good conscience stay in Germany, so he emigrated to Basel, Switzerland. Busch w

Adolf Strauss (composer)

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Adolf Strauss (16 August 1902 – 28 September 1944) was a Czech pianist, violinist, accordion and harmonica player, composer and kapellmeister. Biography Strauss was born to Jewish parents, Josef and Rosa Strauss, in Žatec, a historic town in Louny District, Ústí nad Labem Region, in the Czech Republic (at the time still part of the Austrian Empire). He was killed on 28 September 1944 in Auschwitz concentration camp, Poland, under the Nazi regime. He studied music at the Prague Conservatory, earning his living by playing music in Prague’s cafes. Due to an antisemitic incident in Prague, he eventually continued his studies at the conservatory in Leipzig, Germany. There, he became the conductor at the Leipzig Kristallpalast. In Leipzig, he also published his first composition, “Karawanen Fox Trott” (Caravan Fox Trot), which was published by the Fritz Brandt Musikverlag Leipzig in 1923, and which was often played in the radio at the time. When the Nazis gained in power in Germany and the musicians refused to play under a Jewish conductor, Adolf and his wife Maria, herself a musician from Bohemia (singer, violinist and pianist) decided to go back to Czechoslovakia. They opened a shoe sh

Adolfo Mejía Navarro

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Adolfo Mejía Navarro (1905–1973) was a Colombian musician and composer. He lived and worked in Cartagena and Bogotá and spent time in New York and several European countries. His 1938 suite “Pequeña Suite para Orquesta” is notable for its inclusion of cumbia in the final movement. Biography Early life and education Mejía was born on 5 February 1905 in Sincé, in the Colombian department of Sucre, to Adolfo Mejía and Francisca Navarro. His father was a guitarist and notable singer. In 1916 Mejía moved to Cartagena, where he studied at the and sang in the choir of the San Pedro Claver church. Around this time he wrote his first composition, a piano piece called “Primicias”. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and letters from the University of Cartagena. Music career In 1923 Mejía enrolled at the , where he studied under Juan de Sanctis and Eusebio Celio Fernández. Concurrently he was a member of the Estudiantina Revollo, the Orquesta Eureka, and the Jazz Band Lorduy, and was composing in several traditional Colombian styles including fandango, , bambuco, and pasillo. Mejía moved to New York in 1930, where he formed the Trío Albéniz with Terig Tucci on mandolin and Antonio F

Adolfo Salazar

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Adolfo Salazar Ruiz de Palacios (6 March 1890 – 27 September 1958) was a Spanish music historian, music critic, composer, and diplomat of the first half of the twentieth century. He was the preeminent Spanish musicologist of the Silver Age. Fluent in Spanish, French, and English, he was an intellectual and expert of the artistic and cultural currents of his time, and a brilliant polemicist. He maintained a close connection with other prominent Spanish intellectuals and musicians including José Ortega y Gasset, Jesús Bal y Gay, and Ernesto Halffter. In his writings, he was a defender of the French musical aesthetic of Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy. He composed over twenty works for orchestra, string quartet, solo piano, voice and piano, chorus, and guitar. While his compositions are significant in the context of the 1920s Spanish musical avant-garde, today his critical writings are deemed of greater importance. He is most known for his insightful commentary and analysis in his eighteen years as music critic (1918-1936) for the Madrid daily El Sol. Biography Salazar was born in Madrid. He attended Madrid University, first studying history but then switching to music. He was co-dir

Adriaan Bonsel

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Adriaan Bonsel (4 August 1918 - 9 July 2011) was a Dutch composer. He was born in Hilversum, Netherlands, and died at the age of 92 in Amersfoort, Netherlands. Education Bonsel studied the flute at the Amsterdam Conservatory and studied composition with Jan Koetsier. Professional Activities Bonsel was principal flautist of the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra at its inception in 1945. He was a co-founder of the Radio Philharmonic Sextet. He was also a professor of flute at Utrecht Conservatory and the conductor of the Faso Flute Ensemble. Bonsel composed works that were commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Arts and Sciences, the AVRO, the Dutch Radio Union, the Dutch Pipers Guild, and the Johan Wagenaar Foundation, among others. His students include Mirjam Nastasi, Professor of Flute at University of Freiburg. Compositions * Suite for flute and string orchestra (1947) * Folkloristische Suite for winds and percussion (1958), part of the repertoire of the Eastman Wind Ensemble. * Jozef in Dothan (1958) * Suite voor blokfluit en clavecimbel of hobo en piano (1958) * Symphony No. 2 for orchestra (1959) * Souvenir for flute solo (1959) * Elegie for viola solo (1961) * Mijn moede

Agustín Barrios

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Agustín Pío Barrios (also known as Agustín Barrios Mangoré and Nitsuga—Agustín spelled backwards—Mangoré; May 5, 1885 – August 7, 1944) was a Paraguayan virtuoso classical guitarist and composer, regarded by some as one of the greatest performers and arguably the most prolific composer for the classical guitar. Biography Birthplace It has been generally accepted that Barrios was born in San Juan Bautista, Paraguay, although the baptismal document in the book of registries in the cathedral of that city does not give his place of birth and several biographers and authorities present evidence that he was actually born in nearby Villa Florida, Misiones, on the Tebicuary River, 30 km to the north; Barrios’ diplomatic papers, found in 2019, give “Missiones” sic as the place of birth. Early life As a child, Barrios developed a love of music and literature, two arts that were very important to his family. Barrios would eventually speak two languages (Spanish and Guarani), and read three others (English, French, and German). Barrios began to show an interest in musical instruments, particularly the guitar, before he reached his teens. He went to Asunción in 1900, at the age of fifteen, to a

Ahmed Ghulam Ali Chagla

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Ahmed Ghulam Ali Chagla (; 31 May 1902 – 5 February 1953) was a Pakistani musical composer who famously composed the music for the national anthem of Pakistan in 1949. Early life Chagla was born into a prominent Khoja Ismaili family in Karachi. His father, Ghulam Ali Chagla, was the third elected president of the municipality of Karachi, serving from 1921 to 1922. Ahmed Chagla attended the Sindh Madrassat-ul-Islam in Karachi and took lessons in classical Indian music in 1910 and western musical composition in 1914. Chagla became interested in the study of the theory of music (both eastern and western). In 1922, he began studying eastern and western systems of music under the famous art critic James Cousins. He was particularly interested in points of contact between the two systems. Chagla undertook several journeys to gain an insight of various eastern systems of music. In 1923, he travelled overland from Karachi to Iraq, via Balochistan and northern Iran (including the Caspian Sea, Teheran, Tabriz and Kermanshah). After touring Iraq, he returned to Karachi by way of Basra. In 1928 he qualified from Trinity College of Music in London. In 1929, Chagla undertook an overland journey

Ahn Eak-tai

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Ahn Eak-tai (; ; 5 December 1906 – 16 September 1965) was a Korean classical composer and conductor. He conducted numerous major orchestras across Europe, including the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Rome Philharmonic Orchestra. Nongae, now the capital of North Korea, on 5 December 1906, four years before Korea fell under Japanese rule in 1910. His family was a branch of the Ahn clan rooted in the region of Sunheung, part of Yeongju, North Gyeongsang Province. The clan is renowned for having produced influential Korean figures such as An Jung-geun and An Chang-ho in the period. Ahn Eak-tai was the third son of his father, Ahn Deok-hun () and mother, Kim Jeong-ok () Ahn Eak-tai had six siblings. His father, Ahn Deok-hun, ran a hotel business Ahn Eak-sam was well aware of his younger brother’s interest in music, and so bought him a Suzuki violin, a phonograph and records from Japan. Ahn Eak-tai started playing the violin and began to develop his musical talent early on. In 1918, he was admitted to the Pyongyang Soongsil Middle School, where he played in the school orchestra. introduced a music teacher at YMCA, Mr. Greg to him for a private c

Aimée Van de Wiele

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Aimée Van de Wiele (8 March 1907 – 2 November 1991) She began her music studies at the Brussels Conservatory, where she studied with E. Bosquet and won the Laure van Cutsem prize for piano, as well as prizes for harmony, counterpoint, composition, and music theory. Wiele then moved to France to study harpsichord at the Paris Conservatory with Wanda Landowska and musicology with Andre Pirro. After Landowska’s death in 1959, Wiele began teaching at the Paris Conservatory, where she had several notable students, including Elisabeth Chojnacka and Marketta Valve. Wiele’s compositions include “Poem,” a piece for orchestra, as well as inventions for harpsichord, piano pieces, and transcriptions of various cantatas and sonatas for keyboard. However, she is best remembered today as a performer. Wiele gave solo recitals on harpsichord and performed with orchestras in Belgium, England, France, Italy, and the United States on harpsichord, piano, and organ. She was well known for her interpretations of Bach (particularly the Goldberg Variations) and Couperin, and especially praised for her performance of Poulenc’s Concerto Champetre. Poulenc had originally composed the piece for Landowska, who

Åke Uddén

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Åke Olof Sebastian Uddén (18 August 1903 – 28 April 1987) was a Swedish violist, composer, conductor and music educator. Uddén was born in Lossa (now Låssa), Upplands-Bro Municipality, Stockholm County. He studied in Stockholm with Henrik Melcher Melchers and Julius Ruthström, and subsequently from 1926 to 1928 with Georges Caussade and Charles Tournemire at the Conservatoire de Paris. Uddén played viola in the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1943 until 1956. He was a teacher of counterpoint at the Royal College of Music from 1934 to 1970, and was also conductor of the Stockholm Academic Orchestra (1955–1985). One of his pupils was composer Hans Eklund. His limited output, influenced by French music, includes a number of orchestral, vocal and chamber music works, among them a string trio written during his studies in Paris, and two string quartets. He died in Stockholm. Selected works ;Orchestral * Nocturne * Vår (Spring) for chamber orchestra * Menuett (1932) * Saraband * Gavotte (1935) * Lustspels-Uvertyr (Comic Overture) (1935, revised 1950) * Introitus academicus (1971) ;Chamber music * String Trio (1928) * Sonata in D major for flute and viola, Op.2 (1931) * Duo “Småprat

Akira Ifukube

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was a Japanese composer. He is best known for composing several entries in the Godzilla franchise as well as developing the titular monster’s roar. Biography Early years in Hokkaido Akira Ifukube was born on 31 May 1914, in Kushiro, Japan as the third son of a police officer Toshimitsu Ifukube. The origins of this family can be traced back to at least the 7th century with the birth of Ifukibe-no-Tokotarihime. He was strongly influenced by the Ainu music as he spent his childhood (from age of 9 to 12) in Otofuke near Obihiro, where was with a mixed population of Ainu and Japanese. His first encounter with classical music occurred when attending secondary school in Sapporo city. Ifukube decided to become a composer at the age of 14 after hearing a radio performance of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, and also cited the music of Manuel de Falla as a major influence. Ifukube studied forestry at Hokkaido Imperial University in Sapporo and composed in his spare time, which prefigured a line of self-taught Japanese composers. His first piece was the piano solo, Piano Suite (later the title was changed to Japan Suite, arranged for orchestra), dedicated to George Copeland who was livin

Aksel Agerby

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Aksel Agerby (29 May 1889 – 20 March 1942) was a Danish composer, organist, and music administrator. He also operated his own music publishing company, which published both his work and those of others. The majority of Agerby’s work as a composer was written for keyboard instruments. His most enduring work, the melody for Jeg er havren, was one of many Danish folk songs that he created music for. Personal life Aksel Andersen was born in Viborg on 29 May 1889 to Christian Andersen (1848–1913) and Mette Marie Jensen (1858–1896). His father, Christian, was a cobbler at the time, though he later became an archivist. Aksel and his father changed their surname in 1905 from Andersen to Agerby. Work Agerby was blind and was trained as an organist and pianist at the Institute for the Blind and Partially Sighted. He also studied under Nicolaj Hansen, , and Victor Bendix. From 1921, he was an organist at the Copenhagen Funeral service. From 1930 until his death, he played the organ at Brønshøj Church. A few other songs of his were recorded, some with Aksel Schiøtz. His musical output also included some songs and a few instrumental compositions, sometimes backed up by an orchestra. Most of his

Al Lerner (composer)

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Al Lerner (1919 – January 19, 2014) was an American pianist, composer, arranger, and conductor from the big band era. He was a member of the Harry James band for many years, playing piano. He wrote music for several artists, including Allan Sherman and Liza Minnelli. He also wrote the music for “So Until I See You”, the closing theme for The Tonight Show with Jack Paar in the early 1960s, and was the pianist for A Tribute to Eddie Duchin, which was a soundtrack for the 1956 biographical film pic The Eddy Duchin Story. Biography Lerner was born on April 7, 1919, in Cleveland, the youngest of three children. Their father Abraham had died on November 11, 1918, before Al’s birth, a victim of the 1918 flu pandemic. Lerner’s mother Jennie Takiff then married a sheet metal worker named Abe Lerner, who became Al’s adopted father. During the American Prohibition banning the sale of alcohol, Abe Lerner used his metalworking abilities on the side to make stills for Cleveland gangsters and bootleggers, and used his seven-year-old son Al as a courier for payments. It was a rough neighborhood with regular mob wars between rival gangsters, multiple killings on Lerner’s street, and payoffs to the

Alan Bush

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Alan Dudley Bush (22 December 1900 – 31 October 1995) was a British composer, pianist, conductor, teacher and political activist. A committed communist, his uncompromising political beliefs were often reflected in his music. He composed prolifically across a range of genres but struggled through his lifetime for recognition from the British musical establishment, which largely ignored his works. From a prosperous middle-class background, Bush enjoyed considerable success as a student at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in the early 1920s and spent much of the decade furthering his compositional and piano-playing skills under distinguished tutors. A two-year period in Berlin from 1929 to 1931, early in the Nazi Party’s rise to power, cemented Bush’s political convictions and moved him from the mainstream Labour Party to the Communist Party of Great Britain, which he joined in 1935. He wrote several large-scale works in the 1930s and was heavily involved with workers’ choirs, for whom he composed pageants, choruses and songs. His pro-Soviet stance led to the BBC temporarily banning his music in the early years of the Second World War, and his refusal to modify his position in the pos

Alan Hovhaness

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Alan Hovhaness (; born Alan Vaness Chakmakjian; March 8, 1911 – June 21, 2000) was an American composer. He was one of the most prolific 20th-century composers, with his official catalog comprising 67 numbered symphonies (surviving manuscripts indicate over 70) and 434 opus numbers. The true tally is well over 500 surviving works, since many opus numbers comprise two or more distinct works. The Boston Globe music critic Richard Buell wrote: “Although he has been stereotyped as a self-consciously Armenian composer (rather as Ernest Bloch is seen as a Jewish composer), his output assimilates the music of many cultures. What may be most American about all of it is the way it turns its materials into a kind of exoticism. The atmosphere is hushed, reverential, mystical, nostalgic.” Early life and education He was born Alan Vaness Chakmakjian () in Somerville, Massachusetts, to Haroutioun Hovanes Chakmakjian (an Armenian chemistry professor at Tufts College who had been born in Adana, present-day Turkey) and Madeleine Scott (an American of Scottish descent who had graduated from Wellesley College). When he was five, his family moved from Somerville to Arlington, Massachusetts. A Hovhanes

Alan Rawsthorne

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Alan Rawsthorne (2 May 1905 – 24 July 1971) was a British composer. He was born in Haslingden, Lancashire, and is buried in Thaxted churchyard in Essex. Early years Alan Rawsthorne was born in Deardengate House, Haslingden, Lancashire, to Hubert Rawsthorne (1868–1943), a well-off medical doctor, and his wife, Janet Bridge (1877/8–1927). Despite what appears to have been a happy and affectionate family life with his parents and elder sister, Barbara (the only sibling), in beautiful Lancashire countryside, as a boy Rawsthorne suffered from fragile health. Although he did at various times attend schools in Southport, much of Rawsthorne’s early education came through private tutoring at home. Despite his childhood aptitude for music and literature, Rawsthorne’s parents tried to steer him away from his dreams of becoming a professional musician. As a result, he unsuccessfully tried to take on degree courses at Liverpool University, first in dentistry and then architecture. Concerning dentistry, Rawsthorne is on record as having said “I gave that up, thank God, before getting near anyone’s mouth”, while his friend Constant Lambert quipped “Mr Rawsthorne assures me that he has given up th

Alan Richardson (composer)

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Alan Richardson (29 February 1904 – 29 November 1978) was a Scottish pianist and composer. Biography Richardson was born in Edinburgh, where he worked for some time as a pianist for the BBC before going to London to study piano and composition, from 1929 to 1930, with Harold Craxton at the Royal Academy of Music. In 1931 he undertook a concert tour of Australia and New Zealand. He was accompanist for violinist Carl Flesch from 1936 to 1939. Richardson married renowned oboist Janet Craxton, the daughter of his teacher Harold Craxton, in 1961. He was appointed Professor of Piano at the Royal Academy of Music in 1960, a position he held until his death in 1978. Richardson composed many pieces for piano, as well as some chamber music, including several works for the oboe which he wrote for his wife. He made a recording of his Sussex Lullaby with the viola player Watson Forbes and also dedicated his brief Intrada for viola and piano to Forbes. Richardson died, aged 74, in London. Selected works : Richardson’s compositions are largely published by Augener Edition, Comus Edition, Oxford University Press, the Scottish Music Centre and Tobias Broeker. ;Vocal music * Animal Nursery Rhymes, f

Alan Shulman

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Alan Shulman (4 June 1915 – 10 July 2002) was an American composer and cellist. He wrote a considerable amount of symphonic music, chamber music, and jazz music. Trumpeter Eddie Bailey said, “Alan had the greatest ear of any musician I ever came across. He had better than perfect pitch. I’ve simply never met anyone like him.” Some of his more well known works include his 1940 Neo-Classical Theme and Variations for Viola and Piano and his A Laurentian Overture, which was premiered by the New York Philharmonic in 1952 under the baton of Guido Cantelli. Also of note is his 1948 Concerto for Cello and Orchestra which was also premiered by the New York Philharmonic with cellist Leonard Rose and conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos. Many of Shulman’s works have been recorded, and the violinist Jascha Heifetz and jazz clarinetist Artie Shaw have been particular exponents of his work both in performance and on recordings. Biography Early life and education Shulman was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of a Russian immigrant father and Jewish mother. His father, who died when Shulman was one and a half, worked as a pharmacist and was a skilled amateur flautist. He had two siblings, Sylvan Shulm

Alba Rosa Viëtor

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Alba Rosa Viëtor (July 18, 1889 – April 15, 1979) was an Italian-born violinist and composer who settled in the United States in 1919. One of his notable students was Jan Kubelík, who would become her mentor and to whose memory she dedicated her Elegie. In 1919 she settled permanently in the United States, and married Jan Fresemann Viëtor, a Dutch businessman who was a skilled amateur violinist. in 1916 she played alongside Camille Saint-Saëns on piano during a tour in Argentina, she decided to end this and dedicated herself completely to composing. After her divorce (the marriage was dissolved in 1940; Jan died in 1953 in Panama) she became a member of the National Association for American Composers and Conductors. She composed prolifically for orchestra, voice and various solo instruments. Her compositions were performed in the same program as Charles Ives, Aaron Copland and John Philip Sousa by the National Gallery Orchestra in 1950. The most important element that dominates all of Alba Rosa Vietor’s work is not the form but rather the mood she wishes to convey. Lawrence A. Johnson calls one of her best known works, Primavera Lombarda (Springtime in Lombardy), “an intriguing moo

Alban Berg

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Early life#

Berg was born in Vienna, the third of four children of Johanna and Konrad Berg. His father ran a successful export business, and the family owned several estates in Vienna and the countryside. The family’s financial situation turned to the worse after the death of Konrad Berg in 1900, and it particularly affected young Berg, who had to repeat both his sixth and seventh grade to pass the exams. One of his closest lifelong friends and earliest biographer (under the pseudonym Hermann Herrenried), architect Hermann Watznauer, became a father figure (partly at Konrad’s request), being ten years Berg’s senior. Berg wrote him letters as long as thirty pages, often in florid, dramatic prose with idiosyncratic punctuation. Berg was more interested in literature than music as a child and would consider a career as a writer several times, turning to music slowly and at times unconfidently until the success of Wozzeck. He did not begin to compose until he was fifteen, when he started to teach himself music, although he did take piano lessons from his sister’s governess. With Marie Scheuchl, a maid in the family estate of Berghof in Carinthia and fifteen years his senior, he fathered a daughter, Albine, born 4 December 1902. In 1906 Berg met the singer (1885–1976), daughter of a wealthy family (rumoured to be in fact the illegitimate daughter of Emperor Franz Joseph I from his liaison with Anna Nahowski). Despite the outward hostility of her family, the couple married on 3 May 1911, although “her father insisted on a Protestant ceremony to facilitate the divorce he foresaw as inevitable.”

Albert Chamberland

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Albert Chamberland (12 October 1886 – 4 April 1975) was a Canadian violinist, composer, conductor, music producer, and music educator. As a violinist he performed as a chamber musician with a number of ensembles, including the Beethoven Trio with whom he made some early recordings for His Master’s Voice during the first decade of the 20th century. He also made some solo recordings for His Master’s Voice and was a concert soloist. He performed with a variety of orchestras, serving as the Montreal Symphony Orchestra’s first concertmaster. Chamberland also created several compositions for band and orchestra. Early life and education Born in Montreal, Chamberland began his musical training in his native city with Jean A. Duquette, before entering the conservatory at McGill University, where he was a pupil of Alfred De Sève. His sister Luce was a concert pianist and was married to bassist Ulysse Paquin. Career Chamberland began his career as a violin soloist in 1904 at the age of 18. He soon began playing in J.-J. Goulet’s Montreal Symphony Orchestra (no relation to the current orchestra of that name). From 1907 to 1910 he was a member of the Beethoven Trio and from 1910 to 1920 he play

Albert Hay Malotte

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Albert Hay Malotte (May 19, 1895 – November 16, 1964) was an American pianist, organist, composer and educator, best known for his musical setting of “The Lord’s Prayer”. Biography and career Malotte was the son of Charles and Katherine (Donavon) Malotte. He was in Boy Scouts of America Troop 1, the first Boy Scout troop in Philadelphia. Malotte graduated from Tioga High School and sang at Saint James Episcopal Church in Philadelphia as a choir boy. He studied with Victor Herbert, W. S. Stansfield, and later in Paris with organist Georges Jacob. His career as an organist began in Chicago where he played for silent pictures, and he later concertized throughout the US and Europe. During World War II he held the rank of captain in the Special Services for two years while he toured with the USO and entertained troops in New Guinea, Australia and Europe. At one point he sponsored his own troupe of entertainers that included Judith Anderson, Anne Triola and Helen McClure Preister. Malotte was an amateur pilot, avid golfer and even boxed with Jack Dempsey in Memphis, Tennessee. He spent most of his career as a composer in Hollywood. Malotte married Marguerite Stevens Hester on August 23,

Albert Huybrechts

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Albert Huybrechts (12 February 1899 in Dinant – 21 February 1938 in Brussels) was a Belgian composer. Life Albert Huybrechts was born into a musical family. His father, Joseph-Jacques, was a double bassist in the orchestra of the Royal Theatre of La Monnaie, and his great grand-uncle was the cellist Adrien-François Servais. Huybrechts enrolled at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels at age 11, where he studied under Joseph Jongen, P. Marchand, and Léon Du Bois. In 1915, Huybtechts won an award for oboe playing at the Conservatory. In 1920, Huybrechts’ father died; he left the composer a small inheritance. He won a prize for fugue with Jongen in 1922, and in 1926 his String Quartet No. 1 won first prize at the Frost-Coolidge Music Festival in Ojai, California. A few days later, his Violin Sonata won the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge award. The Wall Street crash of 1929 depleted Huybrechts’ inheritance; a thwarted love affair in the 1930s added further stress. In January 1938, at Jean Absil’s recommendation, Huybrechts was appointed as a junior lecturer in harmony at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. On 21 February, he died unexpectedly of kidney failure. Works ;Stage * Agamemnon, Incid

Albert J. Pitman

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Albert John Pitman is regarded by change ringing campanologists as a remarkable and versatile composer of peals in bell ringing methods. Described as ‘perhaps the greatest of all time’ in the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers biography of him, An Unassuming Genius, he was an extraordinary talent in the field of peal composition. Life Born in Bridgend, Glamorgan in 1887, two years later he moved with his family some twenty miles west, to Baglan, Neath Port Talbot. He had very little education, leaving school at the age of twelve, but his teacher told him ‘there’s nothing more I can teach you.’ This was perhaps an early sign of an unusual talent. In 1903 at the age of sixteen he joined the Great Western Railway Company and worked for them until his compulsory retirement at sixty-five. He learned to ring bells the year he left school, probably from his father, who was a member of the bell-ringing band at St Catharine’s Church, Baglan. Only eleven years later, in 1910, he rang and conducted his own peal, of 5040 Grandsire Triples at St Mary’s Church, Aberavon, ‘a highly unusual step for a ‘first-timer.’ Later, his daughter Dolly, who, with her siblings, inherited his mathematical

Albert Moeschinger

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Albert Moeschinger (10 January 1897 – 25 September 1985) was a Swiss composer. Life Born in Basel, Moeschinger, son of a merchant, completed his musical studies in Bern, Leipzig (composition with Paul Graener, piano with Robert Teichmüller) and Munich (composition with Walter Courvoisier). After several seasons as an ensemble pianist in café houses, Moeschinger settled in Bern, where he taught privately as a piano and theory teacher, and from 1937 also at the University of the Arts Bern, and resumed his compositional activities. In 1943, health problems led him to settle in the Valais mountain village of Saas Fee. From this time on, he devoted himself exclusively to composition. Reading Thomas Mann’s musical novel Dr. Faustus and the subsequent correspondence with the writer in 1948 encouraged him to integrate the twelve-tone technique into his work. After 1956, Moeschinger lived mainly in Ascona. He spent the rest of his life in Thun, where he died on 25 September 1985 at the age of 88. Moeschinger’s oeuvre, which includes all genres except opera, comprises over 400 titles. He received the following awards: in 1952 the , in 1957 the composition prize of the “Schweizerischer Tonkün

Albert Pratz

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Albert Pratz (13 May 1914 – 28 March 1995) was a Canadian violinist, conductor, composer, and music educator. He was awarded the Canadian Centennial Medal in 1967. His compositional output was modest and consists of only instrumental works. Some of his compositions, such as Melanie Waltz (1956) and A Tango (1957), were recorded by the CBC Symphony Orchestra; of which he was concertmaster from 1953 to 1961. He worked in the same capacity for the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra from 1966 to 1969, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra from 1970 to 1979. He was also active as a teacher, both privately and at a number of universities, and made recordings as both a violinist and conductor. Education and early career Born in Toronto, Pratz studied in his native city with Broadus Farmer and Luigi von Kunits. During the early summer of 1930 he was a pupil of Mischa Mischakoff in the United States. In 1933 he studied with Michel Piastro in the US, and in 1936-1937 he studied under William Primrose in Europe. Pratz started his career playing in a radio orchestra for the CFRB with conductor Alexander Chuhaldin in 1929. Throughout the 1930s he played in various orchestras including the Canadian Rad

Albert Richard Sendrey

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Albert Richard Sendrey, also Albert Richard Szendrei, (26 December 1911 – 18 May 2003) was an American composer, conductor and arranger of Austro-Hungarian origin. Sendrey is the son of the Hungarian-born composer, conductor and musicologist Alfred Szendrei. His mother, Eugenie (birth name: Eugenie Weisz), worked as a soprano at the Vienna State Opera under Gustav Mahler. Life and career Sendrey was born into a family of musicians in Chicago in 1911 during his father’s time as a theatre conductor. He studied with his father and attended the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig and the Conservatoire de Paris, as well as the Trinity College of Music in London. He was a student of Albert Coats, John Barbirolli and Henry Geehl. From 1935 to 1937, he worked as an arranger for film companies in Paris and from 1937 to 1944 in London. As a Jew, Sendrey fled from the National Socialists around 1933, first to Paris with his family. The Battle of France in May and June 1940 forced the family to flee further to the United States where they changed their Hungarian surname “Szendrei” to the Americanized spelling “Sendrey”. Albert Sendrey settled in Hollywood. Among other works, Sendrey wrote

Albert Stoessel

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Albert Frederic Stoessel (October 11, 1894 – May 12, 1943) was an American composer, violinist and conductor. Biography He was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1894. He studied music at the Berlin Hochschule as a pupil of Emanuel Wirth and Willy Hess. At 19 he began his professional playing career with the Hess String Quartet, and toured as a violin soloist in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Germany. He returned to the United States in 1915 for a concert tour, appeared with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and lived in Boston until 1917 while pursuing his career as a violinist and composer. Stoessel enlisted in the United States Army in 1917, becoming a lieutenant in the 301st Infantry American Expeditionary Forces and leader of the regimental band at Camp Devens. Stoessel went to France in 1918 with the 76th Division as bandmaster of the 301st. He became director of the AEF Bandmaster’s School of Chaumont, France, organized by Walter Damrosch, after studying there with André Caplet. After his discharge in 1919, Stoessel performed as a soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and toured with Enrico Caruso’s last tour. In 1921 he became the ass

Albert Viau

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Albert Viau (6 November 1910 – 27 June 2001) was a Canadian baritone, folksinger, composer, and music educator. After beginning his career as a musician in the classical repertoire, he specialized in folk music and traditional songs. He released about 50 78 rpm records during his career, mostly for La Bonne Chanson. He also recorded a few songs under the pseudonym Jacques Dupont, including Partons, la mer est belle, Le Soir sur l’eau, and Le Lac des amours, and recorded the song Le Rêve passe with the Canadian Grenadier Guards Band for RCA. Many of his recordings include his own compositions. During his lifetime he wrote more than 200 songs, many of them comic patter songs, as well as hymns and two requiem masses. Early life and education Born in Montreal, Viau studied the piano in his youth with Arthur Caron. At the age of 17 he began studying singing seriously. He received his early training privately and only later in life pursued university studies. In 1966 he earned a Bachelor of Music from the Université de Montréal and that same year was awarded a teaching certificate from the Quebec Ministry of Education. His teachers included Victor Brault, Arthur Laurendeau (voice), Conra

Albertine Caron-Legris

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Albertine Caron-Legris (1906–1972) was a Canadian pianist, composer and music educator. Many of her manuscripts and personal papers are held in the collection at the Library and Archives Canada. Early life Born Albertine Caron in Louiseville, Quebec, Caron-Legris began her piano studies with Romain-Octave Pelletier I in Montreal in her youth. She later studied the piano with Michel Hirvy, voice with Rodolphe Plamondon, and music composition with Eugène Lapierre at the Conservatoire national de musique. Several years into her professional career she entered the Université de Montréal where she earned a Bachelor of Music degree in 1942. Career Caron-Legris married Mr. Legris in 1918, after which she taught music in Montreal and toured throughout Quebec as a recitalist. In the 1920s, she began to gain recognition as a composer of vocal songs and piano works in Quebec. Many of her pieces used folksong harmonizations. Her most well-known composition is the 1947 song “La Berceuse de Donalda” which was featured on both the radio and television version of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program Un Homme et son péché. In 1962, her collection of song melodies for piano, Mes Plus Belles

Albertine Morin-Labrecque

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Albertine Morin-Labrecque (sometimes Labrecque-Morin) (8 June 1886 – 22 or 25 September 1957) was a Canadian pianist, soprano, composer, and music educator. Her compositional output includes 4 ballets, 2 comic operas, the Chinese opera Pas-chu, 2 concertos for two pianos, the symphonic poem Le Matin, numerous symphonic works, and compositions for band. Her works have been published by a variety of companies. A square and a street in Montreal were named after her in 1984. Early education and career Born Albertine Rosalie Odile Labrecque in Montreal, Morin-Labrecque was a child prodigy and began her musical training at the Académie de musique du Québec (AMQ) at the age of five. She gave her first public piano recitals when she was seven and earned her senior class diploma with honours from the AMQ at age 8. She notably was awarded first prize in music theory in her academy class. She pursued further studies in piano privately with Romain-Octave Pelletier I for a number of years. With him she mastered the standard piano repertoire. Studies in Paris and later career Following the end of World War I, Morin-Labrecque went to Paris to study with J. Macaire (composition) and Arthur Plamond

Alberto Domínguez (composer)

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Alberto Domínguez Borrás (San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, 21 April 1913 – Mexico City, 2 September 1975) was a Mexican marimbist and composer. He began his career in a marimba ensemble, Los Hermanos Domínguez. His most famous songs, both from 1939, are “Frenesi” and “Perfidia”. Songs * “Frenesi” (1939) * “Perfidia” (1939) *“A Rendezvous In Rio” (Xavier Cugat, 1941) *“Un Momento” (Enric Madriguera, 1941) *“Ranchero Soy” / “Al Son De La Marimba” (Rafael Medina, 1942) *“Vamos A La Guerra” (Martin Y Malena, 1942) *“Mala Noche” (Carlos Ramírez, 1943) *“Juntos” (Eduardo Alexander, 1945) *“Maybe Love Is Nothing But An Illusion” (Benny de Weille, 1949) *“Bad Thoughts” (Lolita Garrido, 1949) *“I’ve Been Waiting A Lifetime” (The Four Aces, 1953) *“Amor Que Muere” (Lupita Palomera, 1957) *“Humanidad” (Fernando Rosas and the Orchestra of Pablo Beltrán Ruiz, 1958) Discography *Perfidia (‘Orquesta, canciones y arreglos de Alberto Dominguez’ RCA Victor MKL 1068, ca. 1955) References External links * Steve Huey, “Alberto Dominguez”, AllMusic.

Alberto Ginastera

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Biography#

Ginastera was born in Buenos Aires to a Spanish father and an Italian mother. During his later years, he preferred to use the Catalan and Italian pronunciation of his surname – , with an initial soft ‘G’ like that of English ‘George’ – rather than with a Spanish ‘J’ sound (). Ginastera studied at the Williams Conservatory in Buenos Aires, graduating in 1938. As a young professor, he taught at the Liceo Militar General San Martín. After a visit to the United States in 1945–47, where he studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood, he returned to Buenos Aires. He held a number of teaching posts. Among his notable students were Ástor Piazzolla (who studied with him in 1941), Alcides Lanza, Jorge Antunes, Waldo de los Ríos, Jacqueline Nova, Blas Atehortua, Rafael Aponte-Ledée. () In 1968 Ginastera moved back to the United States, and in 1970 to Europe. He died in Geneva, Switzerland, at the age of 67 and was buried in the Cimetière des Rois in the Plainpalais district.

Alberto Hemsi

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Alberto Hemsi (27 June 1898 – 8 October 1975) was a composer of the 20th century classical era. His work in the field of ethnomusicology and integration of Sephardic melodies has been noted as parallel to Béla Bartók’s collection of traditional Hungarian music and consequent integration to his music. Life Family and early years Hemsi was born in 1898 in Turgutlu in the Ottoman Empire to a family of Sephardic Jews. From an early age, Alberto’s parents detected a keen sensitivity and interest in music, especially during prayers sung in synagogue, and decided to send him to stay with his uncle in Smyrne (now Izmir). Hemsi studied at the school of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (A.I.U.) from 1908 to 1913. At the A.I.U., he studied flute, trombone, cornet, and the clarinet, but his true passions were for the piano and for composition. 1913-1919: Conservatorio di Musica Giuseppe Verdi In 1913, at the insistence of the director of the A.I.U., Hemsi moved to Italy after receiving a scholarship to study at the Conservatorio Royal di Milano. At the conservatorio, Hemsi was taught by internationally acclaimed professors such as Bossi Pirinello (composition, harmony, and counterpoint), Gal

Alberto Soriano

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Alberto Soriano (5 February 1915 – 1981) was an Argentine composer and ethnomusicologist. He was born in Santiago del Estero. Background Soriano was born on February 5, 1915, in Santiago del Estero, (Argentina), where his family had settled in temporarily. But it was in Bahia (Brazil) where he spent his childhood and early youth. He began his musical studies at an early age at the El Salvador Music Conservatory, becoming a distinguished pupil of Maestro Dante de Souza in violin and of Maestro Silvio Deolindo Froes in harmony, composition and counterpoint. This academic formation, added to a permanent contact with the musical expressions of afro origins cultivated by the people of Bahia, left a mark on him for the rest of his life as a composer, also dedicated to ethno musicological investigation, music criticism, and teaching. He has written poetry in his early youth and published “Las cinco llegadas de la Madre d Agua” (Mother of Waters five arrivals), book than was prefaced by Jorge Amado and illustrated by Augusto Torres García. The practice of music dictation and the participation in popular rites and festivities, allowed Soriano to write down more than one hundred “Magical Cha

Aldo Finzi (composer)

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Aldo Finzi (Milan, 4 February 1897 – 7 February 1945) was an Italian classical music composer. Biography Aldo Finzi was born to an ancient Jewish family in Milan on February 4, 1897. After completing his classical studies at the Parini high school in Milan, he graduated in law from the University of Pavia. Simultaneously, he graduated in composition as a private student at the Accademia S. Cecilia in Rome. He soon achieved success and fame among young Italian musicians: operas, chamber music, symphonic music, a comic opera “La serenata al vento”, a dramatic work inspired by anti-Semitic persecution, “Shylock”, which remained unfinished and was performed in this form (Milan and Marseille), are among his compositions. At 24, he had become one of the authors whose works were published by Ricordi, while previously his publishers were Fantuzzi and Sonzogno. In the 1931 Ricordi catalogue, his compositions include “Il chiostro” for female voices and orchestra, the symphonic poems “Cirano di Bergerac”, nominated in a competition whose judging panel included Arturo Toscanini and Ildebrando Pizzetti, and “Inni alla notte”, a “Sonata for violin and piano” (now published by Suvini & Zerboni),

Alec Wilder

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Alexander Lafayette Chew Wilder (February 16, 1907 – December 24, 1980) was an American composer, author, and radio host. Considered one of the most inventive and lyrical American composers, he wrote thousands of pieces of music across various genres, including American popular song and classical music. Though his musical compositions were not always widely known during his lifetime, he became a notable figure in musical history for his 1972 book, American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950, which is widely regarded as a definitive work on the subject. He also hosted a Peabody Award-winning radio series, American Popular Song with Alec Wilder and Friends, on National Public Radio (NPR) in the mid-1970s. Biography Wilder was born in Rochester, New York, United States, While there, he edited a humor magazine and scored music for short films directed by James Sibley Watson. Wilder was eventually awarded an honorary degree in 1973. He was good friends with Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett and others who helped develop the American popular music canon. Among the popular songs he wrote or co-wrote were “I’ll Be Around” (a hit for the Mills Brothers), “While We’re Young”

Alejandro García Caturla

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Alejandro García Caturla (7 March 1906 – 12 November 1940) was a Cuban composer of art music and creolized Cuban themes. Biography Caturla was born in the town of Remedios, Villa Clara, Cuba. At only sixteen years old, in 1922, he won a position as a member of the 2nd violins of the newly formed “Orquesta Sinfónica de La Habana”, where Amadeo Roldán was the concertmaster. He started to write music since he was a teenager, while studying both music and law. He felt attracted to Afro-Cuban rhythms since he was really young, and this became a common denominator in his compositions in a time when the division between art music and popular music did not influence Cuban composers. From 1925 to 1927 he continued his musical studies in Paris as a student of Nadia Boulanger. Together with composer Amadeo Roldán, Caturla became the leader of Afro-cubanismo, a nationalist musical trend, which mixed elements of white and black culture, incorporating Afro-Cuban songs, rhythms, and dances. Later on he used advanced techniques and French Impressionist styles combined with primitive tunes; as a result, some of his works show surprising juxtapositions of chords and moods. He composed Concierto de c

Aleksandr Kasyanov (composer)

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Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Kasyanov (13 February 1982) was a Soviet and Russian composer, conductor, pianist and professor. He studied privately in his youth with Mily Balakirev and Alexander Glazunov before pursuing studies at the Petrograd Conservatory from which he graduated. At that conservatory he studied under Nikolay Sokolov (music composition) and Sergei Lyapunov (piano). Works * Iola «Иола» (1923), * Stepan Razin, «Степан Разин» (1939) on the Cossack Stepan Razin revised 1953, 3rd revision 1977 given at the Bolshoi * Partizantka «Партизанка» (1941) * Foma Gordeyev «Фома Гордеев» (1946) revised 1966 Kromlyovsky Theatre * In the Far North «На дальнем Севере» (1947), * Yermak «Ермак» (1957) on the Cossack Yermak Timofeyevich Notes References

Aleksandr Varlamov (composer, born 1904)

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Alexander Vladimirovich Varlamov (; 19 June 1904 – 20 August 1990) was a Russian Soviet jazz composer and arranger. He was also the conductor of the jazz orchestra with the All-Union Radio Committee, along with being a singer and the leader of the leading Jazz orchestras in the Soviet Union, called the State Jazz Orchestra of the USSR. Additionally, he is accredited with founding the first ever, Soviet group of musician-improvisers called “The Seven” Семерка . He played an instrumental role in popularizing jazz music in Russia during the 1930s and amassed a huge corpus of works during his lifetime, up to 400 compositions include pieces for variety orchestra, songs, and music for films and cartoons. He was the great-grandson of Alexander Egorovich Varlamov. He was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR in 1979. See also * The Russian Jazz Quartet * Russian jazz * Music of the Soviet Union References Future reading * “Варламов Александр Владимирович — Джаз. XX век — Яндекс.Словари”. web.archive.org. 2013-01-27. Retrieved 2021-07-21. * “Исполнитель: Александр Варламов.. любители музыки психо-прог-арт-этно-блюз-рок VK”. vk.com. Retrieved 2021-07-21.

Aleksandr Yurasovsky

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Alexander Ivanovich Yurasovsky (June 15, 1890 – January 31, 1922) was a conductor and composer active in the Russian Empire and later in the Soviet Union. Biography Yurasovsky was born in the town of Mishkovo located within the Oryol district. He studied piano with E.P. Savina and musical composition with Peter Nikolaevich Renchitsky, Reinhold Glière and Alexander Gretchaninov, graduating from Moscow University in 1913 with a degree in law. He made his conducting debut in 1912. After time in the Russian Army from 1914 to 1917, he resumed his musical activity, conducting concerts in Kharkiv, Odessa, and Rostov-on-Don. He held administrative and conducting positions, and orchestrated Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Suite No. 2 as well as Suite of Preludes (containing preludes Op. 23, No 3, 4, 10, and Op. 32, No 12, 13). List of works Opera *Trilby (libretto by composer from the novel by George du Maurier) Orchestra works *In the Moonlight, op. 6 (1911) *Pastel (2 Pictures, 1911) *Ghosts, symphonic poem, op. 8 (1912) *Spring Symphony (1918) *Poem-concerto for piano and orchestra (1918) *Suite (1922) Chamber music *Dramatic sonata cello and piano. (1911) *Piano Trio (1911) Piano music *4 Preludes (

Alessandro Cicognini

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Alessandro Cicognini (15 January 1906 – 9 November 1995) was an Italian composer who is chiefly remembered for his film scores. Biography Born in Pescara, Cicognini graduated with a degree in music composition from the Milan Conservatory in 1927 where he was a pupil of Giulio Cesare Paribeni and Renzo Bossi. In 1933 his opera, Donna Lombarda, inspired by a popular folk ballad, premiered at the Teatro Regio in Turin. Film scores * The Two Sergeants (1936, uncredited) * The Black Corsair (1937) * I due misantropi (1937, uncredited) * Ettore Fieramosca (1938) * Naples of Olden Times (1938) * Departure (1938) * The Two Mothers (1938) * An Adventure of Salvator Rosa (1939) * Backstage (1939) * The Document (1939) * Cavalleria rusticana (1939) * A Wife in Danger (1939) * Department Store (1939) * Castles in the Air (1939) * Naples Will Never Die (1939) * Senza cielo (1940) * Don Pasquale (1940) * A Romantic Adventure (1940) * The Sinner (1940) * Beyond Love (1940) * Eternal Melodies (1940) * The Birth of Salome (1940) * One Hundred Thousand Dollars (1940) * First Love (1941) * The Iron Crown (1941) * Ridi pagliaccio! (1941) * Giuliano de’ Medici (1941) * Four Steps in the Clouds (1942) *

Alexander Abramsky

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Alexander Abramsky (; 22 January 1898 in Lutsk – 29 August 1985 in Moscow) was a Soviet composer. He was known for his adaptation of folk music within his compositions. Abramsky was born on January 10 (22), 1898 in the city of Lutsk. His father, Savvaty Vasilyevich (Shevel Volfovich) Abramsky (1859 -?), was a Jewish hospital doctor, and was married to Anna Fedorovna Burdo who had two sons, Mikhail and Alexander. By all accounts, Abramsky’s relationship with his father was warm and congenial. Compositions Orchestral * Three symphonies Cantata * “Breath of the Earth” (poems by V. Khlebnikov) * “The stacks are burning” (poems by E. Verhaeren, translated by V. Bryusov) * “Juno’s Lover” (poems by V. Khlebnikov) Oratorio * “Man Walks” (text by V. Kuznetsov and V. .Semernin) * “Round Dances” (text by V. Kuznetsov and V. Semernin) Instrumental * “Five Compressed Messages” for strings and piano Piano * “Sonata laconique” (“Brief Sketch”) * “Pasionaria” (“Pasionary”) * “Spanish Rhapsody” Writings * 1936: “Opera On The Collective Farm.” Mass Musical Movement (5), no. 34. References

Alexander Albrecht

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Alexander Albrecht (12 August 1885, Arad, Hungarian Kingdom - 30 August 1958, Bratislava) was a composer, an important exponent of the Slovak music in the first half of the 20th century. Biography His father Ján (Johann) Albrecht was a professor at the gymnasium, and his mother Mária von Vaszary came from an old Hungarian family. From 1895 to 1903 he attended the Royal Catholic Gymnasium in Bratislava, where he met and befriended Béla Bartók. Following his return to Bratislava in 1908, he accepted the post of organist at the St. Martin’s Cathedral. Simultaneously he perfected his organ playing technique with Rudolph Dittrich in Vienna. He also worked as a teacher at the Mestská hudobná škola (“City Music School”) in Bratislava. In 1918 he married the linguist Margaréta Fischerová. In 1921, after the death of Eugen Kossow, the director of the “City Music School” and bandmaster of the Kirchenmusikverein zu St. Martin, Albrecht took over his place. He gradually developed his original music language already in his juvenile works, such as Andante con moto for organ, Piano Suite or the String Quartet in D major. His compositions were also slightly influenced by Art Nouveau. In the period

Alexander Brott

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Alexander Brott, , born Joël Brod (March 14, 1915 – April 1, 2005), was a Canadian conductor, composer, violinist and music teacher. Early life and education Brott was born in Montreal, Quebec. He earned degrees from the Schulich School of Music at McGill University and the Juilliard School. Among his teachers were Albert Chamberland and Alfred Whitehead. Career Brott began his career as a concert violinist in the 1930s. He joined the faculty at McGill University in 1939, where he taught orchestration and music history. He founded and directed the McGill Chamber Orchestra. His work was also part of the music event in the art competition at the 1948 Summer Olympics. Brott was leader of the Montreal Orchestra, Les Concerts symphoniques de Montréal and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra from 1945 to 1958. In 1939, he joined the Faculty of Music at McGill University, where he remained until 1980. He was also the founder and musical director of the McGill Chamber Orchestra. He also conducted the Kingston Symphony from 1965 to 1981. In 1967, he conducted the McGill Chamber Orchestra at the official opening of the Centennial Theatre at Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Quebec, Canada. In 1979

Alexander Chuhaldin

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Alexander Gregorovitch Chuhaldin () (27 August 1892 – 20 January 1951) was a Russian violinist, conductor, composer, and music educator who later emigrated to Canada. He spent his early career working in his native country but after 1927 he was active in Canada. His compositional output includes over 30 works for string orchestra; many of which were published by Carl Fischer Music. He also composed five pieces for solo violin which were published by Paling & Co in Australia and more recently by Thompson Publishing Group in Canada. Life and career Born in Vladikavkaz, Chuhaldin was the son of a Tsarist and White Army officer, Gregory Ivanovitch Chuhaldin, stationed there in a Cossack regiment, and of Maria Ivanovna Chuhaldina (née Rasskazova). He was a child prodigy and began studying the violin with Julius Conus at the Moscow Conservatory at just eight years of age. Chuhaldin gave his first public recital at the age of nine and quickly became active on the concert stage. In 1913 he joined the orchestra of the Imperial Grand Opera at the Bolshoi Theatre. He eventually served as the ensemble’s concertmaster from 1922 to 1924. He joined the faculty of the Moscow Conservatory in 1923 w

Alexander Courage

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Alexander Mair Courage Jr. (December 10, 1919 – May 15, 2008) familiarly known as “Sandy” Courage, was an American orchestrator, arranger, and composer of music, primarily for television and film. He is best known as the composer of the theme music for the original Star Trek series. Early life The son of a Scottish father and a French-American mother, Alexander “Sandy” Mair Courage was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father Alexander Sr. immigrated to the United States in 1913 and obtained work in a munitions factory supplying France during World War I, where he met his future wife. They married in 1917. While Sandy was still a young child, his father joined the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company as a salesman and moved the family to New Jersey. The family relocated regularly as his father earned promotions, requiring Sandy to switch schools. His gift for music was noticed and encouraged at an early age. Courage’s father arranged for young Sandy to learn the bugle as his own father had been in a band and he himself was an enthusiastic parlor singer. When Courage wanted to learn the cornet, his father got him one. Courage developed an uncanny ear for accompaniment. His tendenc

Alexander Fridlender

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Alexander Grigoryevitch Fridlender (; 2/15 July 1906 – 13 September 1980) was a Soviet composer, pianist and conductor, as well as professor at the Urals Mussorgsky State Conservatoire. Life Fridlender was born in Saint Petersburg. He studied at the Leningrad Central Music College (1925–1929) and graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory in 1933. and the State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet (1943–1947). He taught at the Urals Mussorgsky State Conservatoire. He composed several operas, instrumental music such as suites, music for plays, songs. Selected compositions * 1941: The Mountain Fairy Tale (), a ballet based on “The Mistress of the Copper Mountain”. * 1944: The Stone Flower, a ballet based on the story of the same name. * 1958: Without a Dowry (), a ballet based on the play of the same name. * 1962: Snow (), a ballet * 1966: Zoya (), a choreographic poem * 1967: Petersburgers (), an opera based on the poem by Olga Bergholz. * 1970: The Cake in the Sky (), a comedy opera based on the story by Gianni Rodari La torta in cielo. * 1977: Lieutenant Lermontov (), a choreographic poem References External links * List of compositions

Alexander Mosolov

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Alexander Vasilyevich Mosolov (; 11 August 1900 – 11 July 1973) was a Soviet-era Russian composer known for his early futurist orchestral music, piano sonatas, and vocal music. A Moscow Conservatory graduate, his piece now called Iron Foundry (1926) gained international fame. Under Stalinism, Mosolov adhered to Soviet realism, composing with Kyrgyz and Turkmen folk music. Conflicts with authorities led to his expulsion from the Union of Soviet Composers (1936), a Gulag term (1937) reduced by professors’ intervention, and lifelong loss of stature. His output includes five piano sonatas (four extant), two piano concertos (the second incomplete), two cello concertos, a harp concerto, four string quartets, twelve orchestral suites, eight symphonies, and many choral and voice pieces. Early life Mosolov was born to an upper-middle-class family in Kiev, in the Russian Empire. His mother, Nina Alexandrovna, was a professional singer at the Bolshoi Theater and a graduate of the Kiev school of music, and she gave Mosolov his first musical lessons. The family moved to Moscow in 1904. Mosolov’s father, Vasiliy Alexandrovich, died a year later when Mosolov was five years old. After his father’s

Alexander Moyzes

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Alexander Moyzes (4 September 1906 – 20 November 1984) was a Slovak neoromantic composer. Biography Moyzes was born into a musical family in 1906 at Kláštor pod Znievom, Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father was the composer and educator Mikuláš Moyzes. After earlier technical studies, in 1925 he entered the Prague Conservatory, where he studied organ, conducting and composition. He graduated in 1929 and went on to study in the master class of Vítězslav Novák, from which he graduated in the following year with his Overture for Orchestra, Opus 10. It was Novák who directed his attention to Slovak music, the source of his inspiration. In 1929, Moyzes was appointed to the teaching staff of the Music and Drama Academy for Slovakia in Bratislava. He became professor of composition at the Bratislava Conservatory in 1941 and spent a number of years as principal music advisor to Radio Bratislava, until compelled to resign in 1948. On its foundation he was appointed professor of composition at the Bratislava Music Academy, where he taught no less than three generations of Slovak composers. He headed the Academy as Rector from 1965 until 1971, and over the years undertook many important functi

Alexander Olshanetsky

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Alexander Olshanetsky (October 23, 1892 – June 3, 1946) was a Russian-American composer, conductor, and violinist. He was a major figure within the Yiddish theatre scene in New York City from the mid-1920s until his death in 1946. Biography Early life and education Olshanetsky was born in Odessa of Lithuanian Jewish descent into a non-musical family. After showing early talent on the violin, Olshanetsky studied from age 6 to 15 at the Odessa Royal Music School, studying multiple instruments. In 1911 he joined the orchestra of the Odessa Opera and Ballet Theater; notably touring with the ensemble throughout Imperial Russia. He quit to become chorusmaster for a touring operetta troupe in Russia. Immigration to the United States In 1922 Olshanetsky emigrated to the United States, where he was introduced to the Yiddish theater scene by his uncle Hyman Mayzel, an actor and playwright. Within two years he had two shows produced: Hayntige Meydlekh (Today’s Girls) written by Jacob Jacobs staged at Lenox Theater, and Zise Libe (Sweet Love) co-composed by Louis Gilrod and staged at Rolland’s Liberty Theater. Later years By the 1930s, Yiddish music had become so popular that Olshanetsky and o

Alexander Peloquin

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C. Alexander Peloquin (June 16, 1918 – February 27, 1997) was an American composer of liturgical music, pianist, teacher, cathedral organist and director of music ministries. Inspired by the Second Vatican Council reforms, he is known for composing the first Roman Catholic Mass sung in English. Biography Peloquin was born in Northbridge, Massachusetts, the son of Noe G. and Marie Louise (Bernard) Peloquin. Peloquin began his musical training at the age of eight, studying piano and organ. At the age of eleven, he performed classical piano on his own radio program for WTAG in Worcester, Massachusetts. Peloquin went on to study at the New England Conservatory where he earned a Boston Symphony Orchestra Scholarship to the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood. At Tanglewood, Peloquin served as piano soloist for Leonard Bernstein and his orchestra. Also at that time, Peloquin had the privilege of knowing Aaron Copland. Peloquin was awarded honorary degrees by institutions including Brown University. During World War II, Peloquin served in the Army where he achieved the rank of Lieutenant. He served as bandmaster for the 314th Army Band and performed the music of George Gershwin for servicem

Alexander Shenshin

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Alexander Alexeyevich Shenshin (; 1890–1944) was a Russian composer. Shenshin studied music with Boleslav Yavorsky, Alexander Gretchaninov, Reinhold Glière, and Semyon Kruglikov from 1907 to 1915. He received a teacher’s appointment to the Moscow Conservatory in 1922, and by 1940 he was a member of the Academy of Arts and the composer of the Moscow Children’s Theater. Shenshin was a member of the first Presidium of the Moscow Institute of Artistic Culture and a close friend of its president, Wassily Kandinsky, a noted painter who shared an interest in using scientific methods to further a synthesis of the arts. Kandinsky praised Shenshin’s theoretical work, in particular an analysis of two parts of Liszt’s composition Années de Pèlerinage: the “Sposalizio”, inspired by Raphael’s painting The Marriage of the Virgin, and the “Penseroso”, inspired by Michelangelo’s statue atop the tomb of Lorenzo II de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino. Shenshin counted the notes and bars in the music and translated them into graphic form, and he measured the corresponding painting and sculpture, linking them to the same mathematical formula. Works ;Piano *14 Preludes (1910) *17 Preludes (1910) ;Ballet *Ancient

Alexander Tcherepnin

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Alexander Nikolayevich Tcherepnin (; 21 January 1899 – 29 September 1977) was a Russian-born composer and pianist. His father, Nikolai Tcherepnin (pupil of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov), and his sons, Serge Tcherepnin and Ivan Tcherepnin, as well as two of his grandsons (sons of Ivan), Sergei and Stefan, were composers. His son Serge was involved in the earliest development of electronic music and instruments. His mother was a member of the artistic Benois family, a niece of Alexandre Benois. Biography He was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and played the piano and composed prolifically from a very early age. He was stimulated in this activity by the atmosphere at home, which—thanks to his family’s Benois-Diaghilev connection—was a meeting place for many well-known musicians and artists of the day. By the time he began formal theory and composition studies in his late teens, he had already composed hundreds of pieces, including more than a dozen piano sonatas. Among his teachers in Russia were composer Victor Belyayev (pupil of Anatoly Lyadov and Alexander Glazunov), who prepared Tcherepnin for Saint Petersburg Conservatory; Leokadiya Kashperova (renowned pianist, protégée of Anton Ru

Alexander Uriah Boskovich

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Alexander (Sándor) Uriah Boskovich (Boskovits, Boskowitz, etc.) (; August 16, 1907 – November 5, 1964) was an Israeli composer born to a Hungarian-Jewish family. Life and career Boskovich was born in Kolozsvár, Transylvania, Austria-Hungary (now Cluj-Napoca, Romania). The origin of his family and of his name was the town Boskovich in Moravia. In Cluj, Boskovich studied in a Jewish high school called “Culture” which accommodated both Neolog and Orthodox Jews. In 1937, Boskovich sent a piano version of his work “The Golden Chain” to the conductor Issay Dobrowen. This work, based on Jewish songs from the Carpathian Mountains, was originally written for piano and later on, in 1936, transcribed for orchestra. In 1938, Dobrowen suggested to the newly founded Jewish “Palestinian Orchestra”, which later on evolved into the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, to embed this work in a concert under his baton. Boskovich was invited from abroad to the premiere of his composition “Jewish Folk Songs”, which was performed by the Palestinian Orchestra. One consequence of that event was that Boskovich decided to stay in the country and settle in Tel Aviv. In the coming years, Boskovich often said that Do

Alexander Veprik

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Alexander Moiseyevich Veprik, also Weprik, (, ; 23 June 1899 – 13 October 1958) was a Russian-(Ukrainian) Soviet composer and music educator. Veprik is considered one of the greatest composers of the “Jewish school” in Soviet music. Life Veprik was born in Balta, Podolia Governorate, Russian Empire (now Ukraine). He grew up in Warsaw and studied piano with Karl Wendling at the Leipzig Conservatory. At the onset of World War I, the family returned to Russia. Veprik studied composition with Alexander Zhitomirsky (1881–1937) in the Saint Petersburg Conservatory (1918–1921) and Nikolai Myaskovsky at the Moscow Conservatory (1921–1923). Veprik was active in the musical life of 1920–1930s. In 1923 he was active in the creation of the Society for Jewish Music, a focal point for Jewish composers in Moscow, and Jewish music flourished as a result of the activities of the Society. He taught at the Moscow Conservatory (1923–1941; professor from 1930; dean from 1938). In 1927 during a business trip in Austria, Germany and France, he met Arnold Schoenberg, Paul Hindemith, Maurice Ravel and Arthur Honegger. His music became well known in Europe and the United States during this time: nearly his

Alexandre Tansman

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Alexander Tansman (, French: Alexandre Tansman; 12 June 1897 – 15 November 1986) was a Polish composer, pianist and conductor who became a naturalized French citizen in 1938. One of the earliest representatives of neoclassicism, associated with École de Paris, Tansman was a globally recognized and celebrated composer. The first artists he was fortunate to meet shortly after his arrival were Moritz Moszkowski and Sarah Bernhardt. In Paris, his musical ideas were appreciated, influenced and favoured by composers Maurice Ravel, Albert Roussel, Jacques Ibert, Igor Stravinsky, musicologists and critics Émile Vuillermoz, Boris de Schloezer, Alexis Roland-Manuel, Arthur Hoérée, conductors André Caplet, Gaston Poulet, Vladimir Golschmann. Though Arthur Honegger and Darius Milhaud tried to persuade him to join Les Six, he declined, stating a need for creative independence. Nevertheless, he was one of the earliest and leading representatives of neoclassicism, along with Stravinsky, Les Six, Sergei Prokofiev, Paul Hindemith, Alfredo Casella. He was also one of the most respected members of the international music group École de Paris, along with Bohuslav Martinů, Tibor Harsányi, Alexander Tch

Alexandru Mandy

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Alexandru Mandy (; August 9, 1914 – October 10, 2005) was a Romanian Jewish composer. Career Mandy began his first major compositional debut with his Song of the Wind. He often wrote lyrics to preexisting instrumental music, but a majority of his songs consisted of completely original compositions. His soundtrack was sung by and . He was heavily inspired by Romanian artist Constantin Brâncuși. When he was 20, he first discovered Brâncuși’s work at a meeting of poet Elena Farago. Many of his pieces, such as the (), (), (), and found their way to be memorialized in Mandy’s songs. A lot of his work was also influenced by his pride in his homeland of Romania. In 1966, he composed Your Voice, a tribute to Maria Tănase. Additionally, he performed other pieces influenced by traditional Romanian culture such as Cânt pentru bradul meu (I sing for my tree) and Un grai, o vatră, un isvor (A voice, a hearth, a spring). His piece, Ierusalim, is a tribute to the victims of the Munich Olympic massacre victims. Mihai’s renditions of The endless column and Under a patch of sky won Mandy the prize of the . Personal life Mandy studied at the Faculty of Pharmacy in Bucharest for his tertiary education

Alfonso Gibilaro

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Alfonso Vinzenzo Giuseppe Gibilaro (28 September 1888, Porto Empedocle, Sicily – 5 January 1957, Wandsworth, London) was a pianist, Two of his compositions—an Ave Maria and a Sicilian dialect song entitled “Carrettieri” —were popularized by the interpretation and sound recordings made by the Italian tenor Beniamino Gigli for His Master’s Voice. Works * * * Fantasia on British Airs for oboe and strings, Oxford University Press * Burlesque Serenade * Menuet de la Poupie * Rondo des Marionettes References Sources *

Alfred Desenclos

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Alfred Desenclos (7 February 1912 – 3 March 1971) was a French composer of (modern) classical music. Desenclos was a self-described “romantic” whose music is highly expressive and atmospheric and rooted in rigorous compositional technique. To support his large family (he was one of ten children), Desenclos had to renounce continuing his general studies and work as an industrial designer in the textile industry until the age of 20, but in 1929, he entered the Conservatory in Roubaix, France, to study piano. Until that time, he had played only as an amateur. He was admitted to the Conservatoire de Paris in 1932, where he won prizes in fugue, harmony, composition and accompaniment, supporting himself by fulfilling the role of ‘maître de chapelle’ (Kapellmeister) at the church of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. His sacred music belongs to the tradition begun by Saint-Saëns and continued by Fauré. He won the Prix de Rome in 1942, the year in which he co-wrote (with André Theurer) the music to the film The Blue Veil. Desenclos was the director of his alma mater, the Conservatoire de Roubaix, from 1943 to 1950 (where one of his pupils was film-maker Claude Chabr

Alfred Karindi

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Alfred Karindi (born Alfred-Nikolai Karafin; 30 May 1901 – 13 April 1969) was an Estonian organist and composer. Life and work Alfred Karindi was born on 30 May 1901 in the village of Kõnnu, Illuka Parish. In 1920 he entered the Tartu Higher School of Music where he studied organ under Johannes Kärt and composition under Heino Eller. He graduated in 1927, and then studied under August Topman and Artur Kapp as an external student of organ and composition at Tallinn Conservatory, graduating in 1931. He belonged to the “Tartu school” of musicians who studied under Heino Eller, others being Eduard Tubin, Eduard Oja, Olav Roots and Karl Leichter. Karindi taught music at the Tartu 2nd primary school (1921–1927), Tartu Higher Music School (1925–1928) and University of Tartu (1928–1932). Karindi was organist for Tartu Maarja Church (1925–1929), University of Tartu Church (1929–1933) and Tallinn Kaarli Church (1933–1940). He was known as a skilled improviser on the organ. He also conducted a number of choirs in Tartu and Tallinn from 1925 onward. As conductor of the “Cantate Domino” mixed choir of the University of Tartu Church from 1929 to 1933 he gave concerts throughout Estonia, often pe

Alfred Mignault

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Alfred Joseph Édouard Mignault (8 December 1895 – 10 July 1961) was a Canadian organist, composer, and music educator. A largely self-taught composer, his compositional output includes both vocal and instrumental works such as songs, works for solo piano, choral works, and works for orchestra. Some his compositions were published by Adélard Joseph Boucher and Archambault Musique. His most well known work is his 1944 Messe brève de requiem. Life and career Born in Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, Mignault received his earliest musical training from his mother who was an organist trained by Romain-Octave Pelletier I. In 1916 he began studying the piano with Alfred La Liberté. He briefly pursued studies at the Université de Montréal but dropped out to pursue private music studies with pianist Léo-Pol Morin and organists Eugène Lapierre and Émile Lambert. In the early 1920s, Mignault held organist posts briefly at St-Alphonse d’Youville, St-Étienne, Ste-Cunégonde, Ste-Catherine, and St-Georges in Montreal. In 1924 he was appointed organist at St-Enfant-Jésus Church, a position he held through 1957. He also served as that church’s choirmaster from 1944 to 1957. In 1937 he began working as a

Alfred Newman

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Alfred Newman (March 17, 1900 – February 17, 1970) was an American composer, arranger, and conductor of film music. From his start as a music prodigy, he came to be regarded as a respected figure in the history of film music. He won nine Academy Awards and was nominated 45 times, contributing to the extended Newman family being the most Academy Award-nominated family with a collective 92 nominations in various music categories. In a career spanning more than four decades, Newman composed the scores for over 200 motion pictures. Some of his most famous scores include Wuthering Heights, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Mark of Zorro, How Green Was My Valley, The Song of Bernadette, Captain from Castile, All About Eve, Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, Anastasia, The Diary of Anne Frank, How the West Was Won, The Greatest Story Ever Told, and his final score, Airport, all of which were nominated for or won Academy Awards. He is perhaps best known for composing the fanfare which accompanies the studio logo at the beginning of 20th Century Fox’s productions. Prior to commencing his employment with 20th Century Fox, Newman composed the fanfares which are most often associated with Samuel

Alfred Uhl

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Alfred Uhl (5 June 1909 – 8 June 1992) was an Austrian composer, violist, music teacher and conductor. Biography Uhl was born in Vienna and studied with Franz Schmidt at the Vienna Music Academy, receiving a diploma in composition with honours in 1932. He subsequently worked as Kapellmeister of the Swiss Festspielmusik in Zürich. While there he composed scores for a variety of cultural and industrial films. He returned to Vienna in 1938 and in 1940 was drafted into the Austrian Army. From 1940 to 1942 he commanded a French prison camp in Neumarkt. He joined the faculty of the Vienna Music Academy in 1945, where he taught theory, orchestration and composition until his retirement in 1980. One of his notable students was Alfred Prinz. He was the recipient of the Vienna Schubert Prize (1943), the Austrian State Prize (1960), the Vienna Music Prize (1961), the Viennese Gold Medal of Honour (1969) and the Austrian Badge of Honour for Service and Arts (1980). He also served as the president of the Austrian Gesellschaft der Autoren, Komponisten und Musikverleger (1970) and the Künstler-Union (1976). As a composer, Uhl synthesized elements from neo-classicism, atonality, serialism and trad

Alfred Whitehead

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Alfred Ernest Whitehead (10 July 1887 – 1 April 1974) was an English-born Canadian composer, organist, choirmaster, music educator, painter, whose works are held in a number of important private collections, and an internationally recognized authority in the field of philately. His The Squared-Circle Cancellations of Canada received its third edition shortly after his death. Whitehead’s music is tonal and sometimes modal; his output of motets and anthems was extensive and he took particular pride in the anthems Alleluia, Sing to Jesus (with organ accompaniment),Ye Choirs of New Jerusalem, Now God Be with Us, and O Light Beyond Our Utmost Light, the short motets Bread of the World, Grant Us Grace, and Almighty God, Whose Glory. Leo Sowerby, a leading American cathedral organist-composer, described Whitehead’s Benedicite, based on the Gregorian Tonus peregrinus, as the “best Benedicite” he knew. Whitehead’s eight-part motets Watch Thou, Dear Lord (words by St Augustine) and Love Unknown, the Brahmsian organ Prelude on Irby, and his many short carols for Christmas, are also noteworthy. Early life and education Whitehead was born in Peterborough, England, where he received his early mu

Alfredo Antonini

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Alfredo Antonini (May 31, 1901 – November 3, 1983) was a leading Italian-American symphony conductor and composer who was active on the international concert stage as well as on the CBS radio and television networks from the 1930s through the early 1970s. In 1972 he received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Religious Programming on television for his conducting of the premiere of Ezra Laderman’s opera And David Wept for CBS television during 1971. In addition, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 1980. Biography Antonini was born in Alessandria and pursued his musical studies at the Royal Conservatory in Milan. He was a student of the Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini, whom he first met at the age of thirteen while performing on the celesta in the Italian premier of Igor Stravinsky’s Petrouchka. He distinguished himself as both an organist and pianist with La Scala Orchestra in Milan prior to emigrating to the United States in 1929. His musical talents were shared by his father who served as a member of the Buenos Aires Opera company at the Teatro Colón after leaving Italy for Argentina. In addition, his wife Sandra was a both a piano accompanis

Alfredo Diez Nieto

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Alfredo Diez Nieto (25 October 1918 – 23 October 2021) was a Cuban composer, conductor, and professor. He taught composition at Instituto Musical Kohly, the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory, the National Art School, and the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana. He founded and conducted the Orquesta Popular de Conciertos. Diez Nieto composed orchestral works including three symphonies and chamber music for various instruments, using and transforming elements from Cuban folk music. Life and career Alfredo Diez Nieto was born in Havana (La Habana), Cuba, on 25 October 1918. He enrolled at the Conservatorio Iranzo in Havana and studied composition, counterpoint, fugue, music history, music theory, orchestration, piano, and pedagogy with professors Rosario Iranzo, Jaime Prats, Juana Prendes, Amadeo Roldán, and Pedro Sanjuán. He completed his education at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, where he studied composition with Bernard Wagenaar, orchestral conducting with Fritz Mahler and piano with Eduard Steuermann. he taught composition, counterpoint and fugue, harmony, music history, orchestration, and piano at the Instituto Musical Kohly, the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory, the National Ar

Alice Nāmakelua

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

“Auntie” Alice Kuʻuleialohapoinaʻole Kanakaoluna Nāmakelua (1892–1987) was a Hawaiian composer and performer. Nāmakelua was also a kumu hula dancer and lei-maker. She was an expert performer of the slack-key guitar and a master of the Hawaiian language. Nāmakelua was a mentor of other musicians and wrote around 180 songs of her own. As a teenager, she sang for the deposed queen, Liliuokalani. Nāmakelua spent most of her life on O’ahu. Nāmakelua would work on the Maui float for the parade, starting in 1944. While working for the city, she also taught hula, Hawaiian language and music classes. She was also the playground director. In 1978, she was one of the special award winners of the Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Hawai’i Academy of Recording Arts. In 1980, she received a Na Makua Mahalo ia award, which was originally developed to recognize the musical accomplishments of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Selected works Songs * Haleakalā Hula (originally, Kuahiwi Nani 1941) * I‘iwi a‘o Hilo (1950) * Aia i Hilo ka Ua Kani Lehua (1956) * Hanohano nō ‘o Hawai‘i (1958) * Aloha K’olau (1959) * Lei Hala O Kaua’i (1959) * Polynesian Welcome (1967) * Ka’ahum

Alice Samter

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Alice Samter (11 June 1908 – 19 March 2004) was a German music educator and composer. Biography Alice Samter was born in Berlin to a middle-class family. She trained and worked as an accountant while studying piano, improvisation, choral work and school music at Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory and the Academy of Music in Berlin. In 1945 she received a degree in music and became a teacher in the Spandau schools where she began to compose school opera. After she retired from teaching in 1970, she became a composer full-time. She was a member of several organizations of composers, including GEDOK Berlin, the International Working Group on Women and Music and the International League of Woman Composers (USA). Her work has been performed internationally, and in 1988 she was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit. In 1999 she established the Alice Samter Foundation at the Berlin University of the Arts to support music students at the university. She also donated funds to the Berlin State Library for the purchase of Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn manuscripts. Samter’s family home was destroyed by a bomb during the war and she moved with her mother and adopted sister to an apartment i

Allan Gray (composer)

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Józef Żmigrod (February 23, 1902 – September 10, 1973), better known by his stage name Allan Gray, was a Polish composer active in the UK film industry from the late 1930s until the mid 1950s. Early life and education Gray was born Józef Żmigrod in Tarnów, Austria-Hungary, (present-day Poland) into a musical family: his father was a concert violinist. He studied philosophy in Heidelberg and later Berlin, where he composed a children’s opera, Wavelength ABC. There (during the 1920s) he became a student of Arnold Schoenberg, funding himself by composing jazz-influenced music for the cabaret. He later wrote music for Max Reinhardt’s theatre productions. As Schoenberg disapproved of such music, Żmigrod took up the stage name Allan Gray, naming himself after Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray. Career Gray began writing film scores in the Weimar Republic. His films there included Emil and the Detectives (1931) and The Countess of Monte Cristo (1932). and the following year they settled in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, where they lived in Bois Lane. Like many of his fellow émigré composers he was arrested (on June 26 1940) as an “enemy alien” and taken to Liverpool, and from there interned on the Isle o

Allan McIver

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

Joseph Allan McIver (17 January 1904 – 15 June 1969) was a Canadian composer, arranger, pianist, and conductor. As a pianist he performed with orchestras in the Quebec region in his early career and was the longtime accompanist and arranger for Trio lyrique. He had a long and fruitful relationship with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, serving as a music director, composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist for nearly four decades. Early life, education, and career Born in Thetford Mines, McIver grew up in Sherbrooke. In his youth he studied the violin and the flute and was a piano student of Alfred Whitehead. He later studied harmony with Oscar O’Brien. He started his performance career playing for silent films in Montreal in 1926. He began performing on Canadian radio programs as a pianist and singer (baritone) around 1930. In the early 1930s, he started appearing as a concert pianist with orchestras like the Ottawa Philharmonic Orchestra. The TL continued to perform actively in public concerts and on CBC Radio programs like The Play of the Week, Light Up and Listen. and Serenade for Strings up until the mid-1960s when it disbanded. The group re-united briefly in the autumn o

Allan Pettersson

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

Gustaf Allan Pettersson (19 September 1911 – 20 June 1980) was a Swedish composer and violist. He is considered one of the 20th century’s most important Swedish composers and was described as one of the last great symphonists, often compared to Gustav Mahler. Pettersson’s music has a very distinctive sound and can hardly be confused with that of any other 20th-century composer. In the final decade of his life, his symphonies (typically one-movement works) developed an international following, particularly in Germany and Sweden. Of these, his best known work is Symphony No. 7. His music later found success in the United States. Gustaf Allan Pettersson was the youngest of four children. His father, Karl Viktor Pettersson (1875–1952), was a violent, alcoholic blacksmith, in Stockholm’s Södermalm district, where he lived throughout his life. He once said: With his parents and siblings, Pettersson lived in a damp, one-room basement apartment with bars on the window. Through strict self-discipline and with the help of music, Pettersson freed himself from his social misery and difficult family circumstances. He later made two unsuccessful attempts to enter the conservatory of the Royal Sw

Allard de Ridder

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

Allard de Ridder (3 May 1887 – 13 May 1966) was a Dutch–Canadian conductor, violist, and composer. He was notably the first conductor of both the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, the latter of which he founded in 1944. As a composer he produced several orchestral works, including a violin concerto, four symphonic poems, a Sketch for flute, violin, and orchestra, Overture in D, and Intermezzo. He also wrote a string quartet, the scherzo Beware of Love for a cappella choir, and a number of songs. Early life and career in Europe and the United States De Ridder was born in Dordrecht, Netherlands, as the son of Eudia Lina Pierson and Willem de Ridder, banker, cellist and president of the Dordrecht Music Society. From 1899 he studied violin in The Hague with Carl Bayer, and between 1903 and 1909 he studied violin and conducting at the Cologne University of Music under Fritz Steinbach and Hermann Abendroth. His conducting career started in Arnhem. Here Willem Mengelberg saw him and was so impressed that he invited him to be guest conductor with his Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. He later conducted the Residentie Orchestra in The Hague, where he took c

Alliene Brandon Webb

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Alliene Gibbons Brandon Webb (January 2, 1910 – November 16, 1965) was an American composer, singer, and teacher who was born in Palestine, Texas, to Blanche and George Thomas Brandon. She married Robert Barron Webb in 1934. Webb completed a B.A. degree at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where she lived for the rest of her life. She studied voice with Peter Tchach, and was a soloist and choir director at Park Cities Baptist Church for 12 years. She continued composing and also gave piano lessons until her death in 1965. Webb’s compositions were published by Carl Fischer Music, Chas. H. Hansen Music Corporation, Edward B. Marks Music (now Carlin America), Leeds Music Corporation (see Lou Levy), and Theodore Presser Company. Her compositions include: Orchestra *Sleepy Head (also arranged for medium voice) Piano *“Hop Scotch” (1955) *“Skates on the Zuider Zee” (1955) *Three Piano Solos in Early Grades (1953) Vocal *Are He Gone, Have He Went *Endless Song (mixed chorus) *Father, Teach Me to Pray (mixed chorus) *He’s Walking with Me (mixed chorus) *Hosanna to His Name (Christmas anthem; mixed chorus) *“Last Night I Walked in the Garden” (medium voice) *“Mule’s Tail” (medium voi

Alma Bazel Androzzo

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

Alma Bazel Androzzo (17 October 1912 - 11 October 2001) was an American composer, pianist and songwriter. Biography Alma Androzzo was born Alma Irene Bazel in Harriman, Tennessee, USA. She had no formal musical education but was introduced to the piano at the age of five by her father Carl Frederick Bazel, who was a truck driver. She is buried in Mount Hope Cemetery, Chicago. Published songs * If I can help somebody published by Boosey & Hawkes Ltd., London 1945 * Bless His name published by Martin and Morris Music Inc., Chicago Illinois 1950 * Keep marching on published by Martin and Morris Music Inc., Chicago Illinois 1950 * Deliver me from evil published by Martin and Morris Music Inc., Chicago Illinois 1950 * I’ll make it somehow published by Martin and Morris Music Inc., Chicago Illinois 1950 * I will walk with Jesus published by Martin and Morris Music Studio, Chicago Illinois 1952 * He’s such a great Saviour published by Martin and Morris Music Studio, Chicago Illinois c.1952 * Little me published by Hill and Range Songs Inc., New York City 1956 * Live in the sunlight published by Boosey & Hawkes, London 1964 * I have something to give copyright Alma Bazel Androzzo 17 Januar

Alma Goatley

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Alma Goatley Temple-Smith (1887 – 27 August 1969) was an English musician and composer. From 1935 to 1936, she was president of the Society of Women Musicians. Early life Alma Goatley was born in Savoie, and raised in London, the daughter of British parents Grafton Goatley and Louisa Goatley. She won the Chappell Pianoforte Prize in 1911 at the Royal Academy of Music. Career Goatley composed music for recital songs and as settings for poems. She also taught harmony at Redhill, and performed as a diseuse at the piano. A 1919 reviewer found her “charming, both in her singing and in her fascinating humour.” In 1922, she was one of the composers featured at a concert of works by women composers in London, sharing the bill with composers including Ethel Smyth and Katharine Emily Eggar. She was president of the Society of Women Musicians from 1935 to 1936, during its “jubilee” year. Compositions * Four Nursery Rhymes (1912) * “As I hear your dainty Footstep” (1915) * “Now that April’s there” (1917, lyrics by Robert Browning) * “A Garden is a lovesome thing” (1917, with Thomas Edward Brown) * “A Dream Ship” (1918, lyrics by Crosbie Garstin) * “Hush-a-bye-low” (1918) * “Nesting-time” (1919

Alois Hába

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

Alois Hába (21 June 1893 – 18 November 1973) was a Czech composer, music theorist and teacher. He belongs to the important discoverers in modern classical music, and to the major composers of microtonal music, especially using the quarter-tone scale, though he used others such as sixth-tones (e.g., in the 5th, 10th and 11th String Quartets), fifth-tones (Sixteenth String Quartet), and twelfth-tones. From the other microtonal conceptions, he discussed a “three-quarter tone” system (see three-quarter tone flat and the neutral second) in his theoretical works but he used scales in this tuning in sections of some of his compositions. In his prolific career, Hába composed three operas, an enormous collection of chamber music including 16 string quartets, piano, organ and choral pieces, some orchestral works and songs. He also had special keyboard and woodwind instruments constructed that were capable of playing quarter-tone scales. Life Alois Hába was born in the small town of Vizovice in Moravian Wallachia, into a family of 10 children. When he was five years old it was discovered that he had absolute pitch. He and his family often played and sang their native Wallachian folk songs, ac

Alois Melichar

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Alois Melichar (18 April 1896, in Vienna – 9 April 1976, in Munich) was an Austrian composer, conductor, arranger, and music critic. He was a student of Joseph Marx at the Vienna Academy of Music, then of Franz Schreker at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, but later became increasingly culturally conservative. From 1923 to 1926 Melichar was in the Caucasus, where he collected materials on Caucasian folk songs. He then lived in Berlin and Vienna. As a composer, he followed the safe footpath of Max Reger, Hans Pfitzner, and Paul Graener; he wrote a symphonic poem, Der Dom (1934); Rhapsodie über ein schwedisches Volkslied (1939); Lustspiel-Ouvertüre (1942); lieder; and film music. Under contract to UFA he composed music for many films during the National Socialist period. After World War II Melichar became increasingly polemic in his attacks on modernist music. His pamphlets include Die unteilbare Musik (“Indivisible music” 1952), Musik in der Zwangsjacke (“Music in the Straitjacket” 1958), and Schönberg und die Folgen (“Schoenberg and his Consequences” 1960). Selected filmography * Court Waltzes (1933) * Night in May (1934) * Song of Farewell (1934) * Farewell Waltz (1934) * The Yo

Aloísio de Oliveira

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Aloísio or Aloysio de Oliveira (December 30, 1914 – February 4, 1995), also known as Louis Oliveira, was a Brazilian record producer, singer, actor and composer. A key figure in the internationalization of Brazilian popular music, he contributed to Carmen Miranda’s career abroad with his own musical ensemble: Bando da Lua, which he founded in 1929 with Hélio Jordão Pereira, Afonso Osório, Stênio Osório, Armando Osório, Osvaldo Éboli, Ivo Astolfi, Diego Astolfi and some other cousins of the latter for a total of 12 people. With the death of Miranda in August 1955 the group disbanded. Back in Brazil, Aloísio directed the command of Odeon Records, then created his own record label: the Elenco, producing dozens of discs and launching important names of bossa nova as Tom Jobim. Biography Aloísio graduated in dentistry, but never practiced this profession. From an early age, he had a strong relationship with music. In 1929, Aloísio joined Bando da Lua band and already in 1931 the group recorded their first album 78 rpm, in which he sang one of the two tracks, samba Tá de Mona. Later, in 1939, he traveled to the United States with his group to accompany Carmen Miranda (with whom he had a

Aloys Fleischmann

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Aloys Fleischmann (13 April 1910 – 21 July 1992) was an Irish composer, musicologist, professor and conductor. Early life and education Fleischmann was born in Munich to Ireland-based German parents. Both were musicians, both graduates of the Royal Academy of Music in Munich. His father, Aloys Fleischmann senior of Dachau, organist and choirmaster at the Cathedral of St. Mary and St Anne, Cork and his mother, Tilly Fleischmann née Swertz (1882–1967), born in Cork to German parents, pianist and piano teacher. Fleischmann was educated in Scoil Íte, the school founded by Terence MacSwiney’s sisters in 1916, in Christian Brothers College, Cork, and in St Finbarr’s College, Farranferris. He graduated from University College Cork with a BA in 1930, was awarded the BMus in 1931, an MA in 1932, and a doctorate in music (DMus) from the National University of Ireland in 1963. In 1932, he went on to study composition, conducting and musicology at the Academy of Music and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München under Joseph Haas. Career Fleischmann returned to University College Cork in 1934; he held the position of professor of music there until 1980. When Fleischmann took up his post in 1

Alvin Etler

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Alvin Derald Etler (February 19, 1913 – June 13, 1973) was an American composer and oboist. Career A student of Paul Hindemith, Etler is noted for his highly rhythmic, harmonically and texturally complex compositional style, taking inspiration from the works of Bartók and Copland as well as the dissonant and accented styles of jazz. Though he played with the Indianapolis Symphony in 1938, he abandoned his orchestral life shortly thereafter to focus on his increasingly successful compositional career (which earned him two Guggenheim Fellowships during this period). In 1942 he joined the faculty at Yale University as conductor of the university band and instructor of wind instruments, where he began his studies with Hindemith. He also taught at Cornell University and University of Illinois before accepting a position at Smith College, which he held until his death. Notable works include his two woodwind quintets (from 1955 and 1957), a bassoon sonata, the 1963 “Quintet for Brass Instruments”, and “Fragments” for woodwind quartet. Etler is also the author of Making Music: An Introduction to Theory, an introductory-level theory text published posthumously in 1974. Works list Orchestral

Amadeo Roldán

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Amadeo Roldán y Gardes (Paris, 12 June 1900 – Havana, 7 March 1939) was a Cuban composer and violinist. Roldán was born in Paris to a Cuban mulatta and a Spanish father. It was his mother, the pianist Albertina Gardes, who initiated her children to music (his sister María Teresa was a mezzo-soprano and his brother Alberto a cellist). Roldán came to Cuba in 1919 after studying music theory and violin at the Madrid Conservatory, graduating in 1916. He became the concertmaster (leader of the first-violin section) of the new Orquesta Sinfónica de la Habana in 1922. In the mid-1920s he was appointed concertmaster of the Orquesta Filarmónica of Havana (he would assume the position of conductor in 1932) and founded the Havana String Quartet. During this period, Roldán, one of the leaders of the Afrocubanismo movement, wrote the first symphonic pieces to incorporate Afro-Cuban percussion instruments. Roldán’s best-known composition is the 1928 ballet La Rebambaramba, described by a critic of the era as “a multicolored musicorama … depicting an Afro-Cuban fiesta in a gorgeous display of Caribbean melorhythms, with the participation of a multifarious fauna of native percussion effects, inc

Amy Patterson

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Amelia Cabeza de Pelayo Patterson (16 July 1912 – 28 December 2019) was an Argentine composer, singer, poet, and teacher responsible for writing the anthem of the Province of Salta. She was very popular in Argentina, and much of her music received state approval from the Ministry of Education of Argentina. Biography Patterson was born in San Miguel de Tucumán, Tucumán Province, but at a young age her family moved to Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires. In 1946, Patterson found work as a music teacher at the Zorrilla, Alberdi and Peter Pan music schools, but resigned for personal reasons four years later. When she resigned from the Peter Pan school, she was given a gold medal for writing a version of The Adventures of Peter Pan, which had been presented twice consecutively at the Victoria Theater in Salta and at the Miter Theaters in San Salvador de Jujuy and San Miguel de Tucumán. Over the next decade, she would herself become a private tutor for the piano, violin, guitar, and singing. She was the Director of the Polyphonic Choir of Salta, which in 1962 gave 14 public and radio recitals. Patterson died on 28 December 2019 at the age of 107. References

Amy Upham Thomson McKean

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Amy Upham Thomson-McKean (b. 22 February 1893 d. 1972) was an American pianist, songwriter and composer. Amy Thomson’s father, Ralph E. emigrated from Glasgow in Scotland as a young man. Her mother was Anna J. Thomson and she had one brother Robert Stanley Thomson. She married Alexander Mathew McKean Sept. 17, 1917 at Lafayette Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, and had a daughter, Elaine (May 4, 1924) and son, Robert Alexander (September 25, 1918). Amy Thomson attended high school in Boston where she studied with Felix Fox at the Fox-Buonamici School of Pianoforte at 403 Marlborough Street. She began to write compositions, and studied with Bainbridge Christ and went on to publish songs and short works for violin and piano under both the names Amy Upham Thomson and Amy Thomson-McKean. Thomson-McKean appeared on concert and recital programs in Brooklyn in the 1910s - 1930s. She broadcast on Margaret Speaks on WOR NY in the 1920s. Her papers are archived by her great-niece, artist Jamieson Thomas of Wilmington, DE. Selected works *“The Throstle” (text by Tennyson) *“A Day in June” *“Liebislied” *“Tone Poem” *“Bolero” *“Chason du Soir” *“Little Boy Blue” *“Forever” *“Dream in Town” *“At S

Anatol Provazník

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Anatol Provazník (10 March 1887 in Rychnov nad Kněžnou – 24 September 1950 in Prague) was a Czech organist and composer. Anatol Provazník was son of Alois Provazník, a regional composer. He studied at the gymnasium in Rychnov nad Kněžnou and then at the music conservatory in Prague, finishing in 1907. During 1907–1911 he worked as an organist in the St Vitus Cathedral, later he moved to Berlin. Provazník became very interested in the emerging radio broadcasting. He studied “radiophony” in Berlin and after return to Prague he helped to set up the music department of the Czech Radio. Since 1930 he worked, for sixteen years, as the proxy director of this department. Provazník was a friend with Karel Hašler and other artists. Provazník is author of about 240 musical works including several operas and five operettas. He also adapted many classical piano and orchestra works to fit in radio broadcasting. These adaptations were performed for long time after his death. Selected works ;Stage * Akrobat, Comic Opera in 1 act (1928); libretto by Ladislav Novák after Gottfried August Bell * Ghitta, Opera in 3 acts (1937); libretto by the composer ;Orchestral * Valse des morts (1909) * Suita z ve

Anatoliy Kos-Anatolsky

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Anatoliy Yosypovych Kos-Anatolsky (; 1 December 1909 – 30 November 1983) was a Ukrainian composer, People’s Artist of the Ukrainian SSR (1969) and winner of Shevchenko National Prize (1980), and Deputy of Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union from 1970 to 1978. Biography He was born on 1 December 1909 in Kolomyia (now Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast) in the family of the famous Galician doctor Yosyf Kos. In 1934 – 1937 he taught at the Stryi branch of the Mykola Lysenko Higher Music Institute. From 1938 to 1939 he worked as a lawyer in the town of Zaliztsi. The first independent creative work was the music for performances of the Lviv Music and Drama Theater (1941). During the war he was in Western Ukraine. From 1939 he worked as an accompanist of the Lviv House of Pioneers, a teacher at a music school. After the Second World War he became a member and since 1951 chairman of the Lviv regional branch of the Union of Soviet Composers of Ukraine, worked as concertmaster of the Lviv Drama Theater, and from 1952 – a teacher at the Lviv Conservatory (since 1973 – professor). Legacy Anatoliy Kos-Anatolsky is the composer of an opera, three ballets, symphonic works, a number of concertos and popular c

Anatoly Alexandrov (composer)

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Anatoly Nikolayevich Alexandrov (, Moscow – April 16, 1982, Moscow) was a Soviet and Russian composer of works for piano and for other instruments, and pianist. His initial works had a mystical element, but he downplayed this to better fit socialist realism. He led a somewhat retiring life, but received several honors. Alexandrov was the son of a Professor of Tomsk State University. He attended the Moscow Conservatory (which he left in 1915), where he was a pupil of Nikolai Zhilyayev, Sergei Taneyev and Sergei Vasilenko (theory), Alexander Ilyinsky (composition) and Konstantin Igumnov (pianoforte). His early music revealed the influence of Nikolai Medtner and Alexander Scriabin. He was appointed Professor at the Moscow Conservatory in 1923. Viktor Belyaev, Alexandrov’s first biographer, wrote in 1926: “If Myaskovsky is a thinker, and Feinberg a psychologist, then Alexandrov is, before anything else, a poet.” Alexandrov was also a strong proponent of Stanchinsky and edited much of his compositions for publication. Works For orchestra *Symphony No. 1 in C, Op. 92 (1965) *Symphony No. 2 in B-flat, Op. 109 (1977/78) *Piano Concerto, Op. 102 (1974) *Overture on Russian folksongs, Op. 29

Anatoly Bogatyrev

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Anatoly Vasilyevich Bogatyrev (, ; 13 August 1913 – 19 September 2003) was a Soviet and Belarusian composer and music teacher, seen as one of the leaders of the national school of Belarusian music. Biography Bogatyrev was born in Vitebsk Russian Empire, the son of a language teacher. He studied at the Vitebsk Music School, the Minsk School of Music, and the Conservatory of Belarus where he was taught composition by Vasily Zolotarev, a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov. He came to prominence while still in his twenties, being appointed chairman of the board of the Belarusian Union of Composers in 1938, and receiving the Stalin Prize in 1941. In 1948 he began teaching composition at the National Conservatory, Minsk, where he later became a deputy director. He joined the CPSU in 1954, and was made a People’s Artist of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1968. Bogatyrev died on 19 September 2003 in Minsk. Music Bogatyrev’s music is tonal with marked nationalist tendencies. His study of Belarusian folklore strongly influenced his music, not just in his folksong arrangements, but also in his choice sometimes to adopt modes and the rhythms of Belarusian folk music. He has been described

André Amellér

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

André Amellér (2 January 1912 – 14 May 1990) was a French composer and conductor. He is considered part of the French school of 20th-century classical music. Amellér played double bass for the Opéra national de Paris from 1937 to 1953, except for a brief period spent as a prisoner of war in Germany. He was the director of the conservatoire national in Dijon from 1953 to 1981. Education Amellér was born in Arnaville, Meurthe et Moselle to a family of amateur musicians. He began studying violin at a young age in the family’s home in Chelles. He later began playing double bass. In January 1930, he joined the 24th Infantry Regiment of the French Army, After being liberated, he returned to his position in the Opéra national in 1942. In April 1953, Amellér became the director of the École Nationale de Musique in Dijon. In 1977, the school became the Conservatoire National de Région pour la Musique, l’Art Dramatique et la Danse. Amellér retired as director in 1981. Amellér was the vice-president of the International Society for Music Education (ISME) from 1972 to 1976. ;Operas * La lance de Fingal (1957) * Cyrnos (1951-1960) ;Orchestral works * Annapurna (1952) * Danse de Séléné (1955) *

André Casanova

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André Marcel Charles Casanova (12 October 1919 – 7 March 2009) was a French composer. He was an early disciple of René Leibowitz, a teacher and composer who maintained a strict adherence to the dodecaphonic musical theories of Arnold Schoenberg. Casanova later abandoned most of them in favour of a more classical style of composition. His published works, composed between 1944 and 1993, include orchestral, chamber and choral music, operas and songs. Life and career Casanova was born in Paris, and studied law there, while at the same time studying music with Georges Dandelot at the École Normale de Musique de Paris. with whom he studied theory and composition. Thereafter, according to the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Casanova’s concern was “to ally a romantic spirit with modernity of style”. In the late 1940s, there had been some hostility between adherents of Leibowitz and those of the teacher and composer Olivier Messiaen, but so far as Casanova was concerned, any breach had healed sufficiently during the 1950s for Messiaen’s partner Yvonne Loriod to play the solo part at the premiere of Casanova’s piano concertino in 1959. He developed an interest in German Romantic li

André Filho

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Antônio André de Sá Filho, known as André Filho (21 March 1906 – 2 July 1974) was a Brazilian actor, violinist, mandolinist, banjo player, guitarist, pianist, composer and singer. He worked with some of Brazil’s most notable performers of the 1930s including Carmen Miranda, Mário Reis and Noel Rosa. Recordings * 1930 - Mamãezinha está dormindo * 1930 - Eu quero casar com você * 1930 - O meu amor tem * 1930 - Quando a noite desce (with Roberto Borges) * 1932 - Mulato de qualidade * 1931 - Bamboleô * 1933 - Alô… Alô? * 1933 - Filosofia (with Noel Rosa) * 1934 - Cidade Maravilhosa * 1935 - S.O.S. * 1937 - Baiana do tabuleiro * 1937 - Primavera da vida (with Almanyr Grego) * 1941 - Cinzas no coração References Literature * ALBIN, Ricardo Cravo (Criação e Supervisão Geral). Dicionário Houaiss Ilustrado da Música Popular Brasileira. Rio de Janeiro: Paracatu, 2006. * MORAIS JUNIOR, Luis Carlos de. O Sol nasceu pra todos:a História Secreta do Samba. Rio de Janeiro: Litteris, 2011.

André Fleury (organist)

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André Edouard Antoine Marie Fleury (25 July 1903 – 6 August 1995) was a French composer, pianist, organist, and pedagogue. Life André Fleury was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. He received his musical training as a private student of Henri Letocart (a former student of César Franck), and later, of André Marchal and Louis Vierne. At the Paris Conservatory, he studied organ with Eugène Gigout and received a first prize in organ performance and improvisation under Gigout’s successor, Marcel Dupré, in 1926. Fleury also studied composition with Paul Vidal. In 1920, Fleury became Gigout’s assistant at St. Augustin in Paris, and, later, also assistant of Charles Tournemire at Ste. Clotilde. He became titular organist at St. Augustin in 1930. In 1941, he was appointed professor of organ at the École Normale de Musique in Paris. After World War II, Fleury and his wife left Paris for health reasons, and relocated to Dijon. In 1949, he succeeded Émile Poillot as titular organist at Dijon Cathedral and as professor of piano (a year later also of organ) at the Dijon Conservatory. In 1971, he accepted Jean Guillou’s invitation to become co-titular organist at Saint-Eustache in Paris. He also

André Hossein

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André Aminollah Hossein, born Aminulla Huseynov, also known as Aminollah Hossein (; ; 1905, Samarkand – 9 August 1983, Paris) was a French composer of Iranian Azerbaijani origin and a tar soloist. Hossein is regarded as one of the first 20th-century composers to integrate traditional Persian musical modes into Western symphonic structure. He belonged to the generation of émigré intellectuals who bridged Eastern and European artistic traditions in the interwar years. After his academic formation in Russia and Germany, he settled permanently in France, where he became a respected composer, conductor, and pianist. His works, such as Symphony of Persepolis and Rhapsodie Persane, demonstrate an interest in reviving ancient Persian mythological and spiritual themes through modern orchestral language. Critics often compared his music to that of Alexander Borodin and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov for its use of Oriental colors and narrative tone. A versatile artist, Hossein also wrote ballets, concertos, and film scores, some in collaboration with his son Robert Hossein, a leading French actor-director. Throughout his career, he defended the idea of a “universal Orientalism” — a dialogue between

André Jolivet

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André Jolivet (; 8 August 1905 – 20 December 1974) was a French composer. Known for his devotion to French culture and musical thought, Jolivet drew on his interest in acoustics and atonality, as well as both ancient and modern musical influences, particularly on instruments used in ancient times. He composed in a wide variety of forms for many different types of ensembles. Life André Jolivet was born on 8 August 1905, at rue Versigny in Montmartre, Paris, the son of Victor-Ernest Jolivet and Madeleine Perault; his father an artist, his mother a pianist. Jolivet developed an interest in the arts early in his life, taking up painting and cello lessons at the age of 14. However, he was encouraged by his parents to become a teacher, going to teachers’ college and teaching primary school in Paris (taking three years in between to serve in the military). One of his own teachers, however, believed Jolivet had a future in music, strongly encouraged him to pursue composition, and introduced him to Paul Le Flem, Jolivet’s first teacher in composition. Le Flem gave Jolivet a firm grounding in classical forms of harmony and counterpoint. After hearing his first concert of Arnold Schoenberg, J

André Souris

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André Souris (; 10 July 1899 – 12 February 1970) was a Belgian composer, conductor, musicologist, and writer associated with the surrealist movement. Biography Souris was born in Marchienne-au-Pont, Belgium, and studied at the Conservatory in Brussels from 1911 to 1918, winning first prizes in music history (1915), harmony (1916), counterpoint and fugue (1917), and the violin (1918). Following postgraduate studies in composition and orchestration with Gilson, he won the Rubens prize in 1927. This enabled him to move to Paris, where he sought out the leaders of the avant garde. He took conducting lessons with Scherchen in 1935, and was a conductor for the Belgian radio from 1937 to 1946 . Up until 1923 Souris composed a great deal of music under the strong influence of Claude Debussy, but after discovering other musical styles at the Pro Arte Concerts, he repudiated these early works and adopted Erik Satie and Igor Stravinsky as his models. Joining the Belgian surrealists of the group Correspondance around Paul Nougé, he wrote deliberately banal music, beginning with the Choral, marche et galop for four brass instruments (1925), which became his op. 1—a work clearly indebted to L’Hi

Andrée Bonhomme

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Andrée Marie Clémence Bonhomme (1 December 1905 – 1 March 1982) was a Dutch composer. Life Andrée Bonhomme was born in Maastricht on December 1, 1905. She studied from age seven piano with Maria Gielen. In 1920 Gielen with her pupils joined the Maastricht Music School. Since then, the fifteen year old girl also studied music theory and composition with Henri Hermans. She went to a Preparatory Teacher Training College and received teaching certificates in 1924 and 1927. In the meantime she studied piano on a professional level and got her certificates in 1929 (theory) and 1930 (practical). In 1927 she got a job as accompagneur at keyboards (piano, celesta) with the Maastricht Municipal Orchestra and made her debut as pianist and composer in 1928. From 1930 to 1937 she intermittently took lessons in composition with Darius Milhaud in Paris. After completing her studies, Bonhomme worked as a composer and as a pianist with the Maastricht Orchestra, and in 1932 took a position teaching music theory and piano at the Heerlen music school. Bonhomme wrote a number of works and songs on French texts, but her career declined during the World War II, as she refused to sign a “non-Jewish declar

Andree Rochat

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Andree Aeschlimann Rochat (12 January 1900 – 8 January 1990) was a Swiss composer, music critic, and pianist who used the pseudonym Jean Durand. She spent more than forty years in Milan, where she wrote music reviews in several magazines, which were later published as a collection. Rochat composed music for small ensembles, and was awarded the GEDOK prize. She destroyed many of her compositions. Life Rochat was born in Geneva, Switzerland, to Julie Helene Lavater and Ernest Auguste Rochat, a pastor. She married Erhard Aeschlimann, a publisher. In 1941, the reviews were published as a collection entitled Journal d’un Amateur de Musique. Rochat composed mostly atonal music for small ensembles. In 1961, her composition Musica per Archi, opus 26, received the GEDOK (Gemeinschaft deutscher und oesterreichischer Künstlerinnen und Kunstfreundinnen; Community of German and Austrian Women Artists and Art Friends) prize. Although she composed works through at least opus 34, *Improvisation, opus 34 (flute, piano and drums) *Tre Liriche, opus 19 (soprano and piano; text by Antonio Negri) References

Andria Balanchivadze

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Andria Melitonis dze Balanchivadze (28 April 1992) was a Georgian composer. He was the son of composer Meliton Balanchivadze and brother of ballet choreographer George Balanchine. Biography Born in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, he graduated from the Tbilisi State Conservatoire in 1927 and Leningrad Conservatory in 1931, where he studied with Pyotr Ryazanov. Upon his return to Georgia, he became the musical director of several theatres from 1931 to 1934. Having barely survived Joseph Stalin’s purges, he became a professor at the Tbilisi Conservatory in 1942 and served as an artistic director of the Georgian State Symphony from 1941 to 1948. He became a major influence in musical politics as chair (1953), and first secretary (1955–1961, 1968–1972) of the Union of Georgian Composers. Balanchivadze’s numerous symphonies, pianoforte concertos, and compositions for the stage heavily contributed to modern Georgian classical music. He also authored the first Georgian ballet, The Heart of the Mountains (1936). He was granted the titles of the People’s Artist of the Georgian SSR in 1957, People’s Artist of the USSR in 1968, and awarded several prizes, including the Stalin Prize in 1944 a

Andriy Shtoharenko

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Andriy Shtoharenko () (15 October 1902 – 15 November 1992) was a Soviet Ukrainian composer and teacher. Biography Andriy Shtoharenko was born in the Ukrainian village of Novi Kaidaky (now part of the city of Dnipro). He completed his music studies at the Kharkiv Conservatory in 1936 under S. Bohatyriov. From 1921-30 he worked a teacher of singing in Middle schools. In 1926 he became the director of an accordion ensemble. In 1944 he became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. From 1954 he lectured at the Kiev Conservatory. In 1960 he became a professor and in 1968 became the rector of the above-mentioned institution. From 1968 he was the head of the Union of Composers of Ukraine. As a composer, he was well known within the Soviet Union though his music is rarely performed elsewhere. He was awarded the Stalin Prize for his compositions in 1946 and 1952, and was awarded the prestigious title of People’s Artist of the USSR. During his long career, he served in many positions, including Professor of Composition and Director of the Kharkiv Conservatory and later Kiev Conservatory. Originally graduating as a button-accordion player and again as a composer. He composed in n

Andrzej Panufnik

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Sir Andrzej Panufnik ( pronounced : ; 24 September 1914 – 27 October 1991) was a Polish composer and conductor. He became established as one of the leading Polish composers, and as a conductor he was instrumental in the re-establishment of the Warsaw Philharmonic orchestra after World War II. He also served as Principal Conductor of the Kraków Philharmonic Orchestra. After his increasing frustration with the extra-musical demands made on him by the country’s regime, he defected to the United Kingdom in 1954, and took up British citizenship. In 1957, he was appointed chief conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, a post he relinquished after two years to devote all his time to composition. In 1984, he became an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music and in 1991 the composer received a British knighthood for his services to music. Biography Childhood and studies Panufnik was born in Warsaw, the second son of a violinist mother and an amateur (but renowned) violin-maker father. From an early age he was torn between an interest in music and a fascination with the mechanics of aeroplanes. His grandmother gave him piano lessons, but although he showed talent his stu

Angèle Ravizé

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Angèle Ravizé (1887 - 1980) was a French ethnomusicologist, composer and educator who preserved French folk music and specialized in music education for young children. Biography A native of southwest France, Ravizé attended the Paris Conservatory, where she studied with Andre Gedalge and won two prizes: a first prize for fugue and the Lepaulle prize for young teachers. Ravizé encouraged public schools to include instruction on recorders. In the late 1940s, she began producing children’s musical programs on the radio, often using preschool choruses accompanied by children’s orchestras. She collaborated with Marie-Rose Clouzot on several pedagogical publications. Ravizé arranged French folk music for choral groups using regional dialects from Anjou, Brittany, Landes, Sarlat, and also from Canada. Alexandre Arnoux, Claude Barangeon, Charles Boulen, Robert Browning, Charles Cros, Georges Gaudion, Philadelphe de Gerde (pseudonym for Madame Claude Duclos Requier), Alphonse-Marius Gossez, Carlos de Lazerme, Lucie Delarue-Mardrus, Clement Marot, Achille Millien, Jean Moréas (pseudonym for Ioannes Papadiamantopoulos), Jules Mousseron, Marie Vancalys (pseudonym for Marcelle Bertin), and Fra

Angelica Morales von Sauer

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Angelica Morales von Sauer (1911–1996) was a Mexican composer, pianist and professor of piano. Life von Sauer was born on January 11, 1911, in Gurabo, Puerto Rico, the daughter of Puerto Rican violinist Angel Celestino Morales and her Mexican mother Dolores Arellano who was a pianist. In 1955, she was invited to join the faculty of the University of Kansas. She retired in 1973, at 62 years of age. After the death of her husband, she returned to Mexico where her endurance in her performances was noted. In March 1962, she recorded numerous works by her late husband Emil von Sauer for the Saarländischer Rundfunk. Angélica Morales von Sauer’s comparatively small discography includes recorded the entire Well-Tempered Clavier of Bach Awards and honors In 1958 she was named an honorary member of the Sigma Alpha Iota Fraternity, of the University School of Music in Ann Arbor. Michigan. In 1972, she received the Cross of Honor for Arts and Sciences from the Austrian Government. In 1995, the National Institute of Fine Arts of Mexico initiated the “Angélica Morales” National Piano Competition (Concurso Nacional de Piano “Angélica Morales”), which is held every three years in recognition of he

Angelo Francesco Lavagnino

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Angelo Francesco Lavagnino (22 February 1909 – 21 August 1987) was an Italian composer, born in Genoa. He is best known for scoring many films, including Legend of the Lost, Conspiracy of Hearts, Gorgo, The Legion’s Last Patrol, The Naked Maja, Daisy Miller, and two directed by Orson Welles, Othello and Chimes at Midnight. He also scored several peplums and Spaghetti Westerns. Lavagnino won the Nastro d’Argento award for Best Score twice, for Continente perduto (1955) and Vertigine bianca (1956). Selected filmography *The Devil in the Convent (1950) *Mamma Mia, What an Impression! (1951) *Othello (1951) *The Tired Outlaw (1952) *Woman of the Red Sea (1953) *Marriage (1954) *An American in Rome (1954) *Toto and Carolina (1955) *Tom Toms of Mayumba (1955) *Sins of Casanova (1955) *Continente perduto (1955) *The Wanderers (1956) *Roland the Mighty (1956) *Count Max (1957) *Legend of the Lost (1957) *Engaged to Death (1957) *The Naked Maja (1958) *The Wind Cannot Read (1958) *Passionate Summer (1958) *The Last Days of Pompeii (1959) *Nel Segno di Roma (1959) *Gastone (1960) *The Warrior Empress (1960) *Conspiracy of Hearts (1960) *Messalina (1960) *Siege of Syracuse (1960) *Five Brande

Anna Maria Klechniowska

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Anna Maria Klechniowska (15 April 1888 – 28 Aug 1973) was a Polish music educator and composer. She was born in Borowka, Ukraine, and studied at the Warsaw and Lemberg (Lviv) Conservatories, and then in Leipzig and Paris. She graduated from the Vienna Academy in 1917, after studying with Lech Jaczynowski, Gustaw Roguski, Mieczyslaw Soltys, Josef Pembaur, , Stephan Krehl, Klara Czop-Umlauf, Franz Schmidt and Nadia Boulanger. After completing her studies, she worked as a teacher and arts administrator. She died in Warsaw. Works Klechniowska was known for piano works for young children and vocal compositions. Selected works include: *A Wedding Overture, for orchestra (1955) *The Seasons of the Year, symphonic suite (1953) *The Royal Castle in Cracow, symphonic poem *Phantasma, ballet-pantomime in 6 scenes, (1964) References

Anne-Marie Ørbeck

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Anne-Marie Ørbeck (1 April 1911 – 5 June 1996) was a Norwegian pianist and composer. She studied piano in Oslo and in Berlin with Sandra Drouker. She continued her studies in music and composition under teachers including Gustav Fredrik Lange, Mark Lothar, Paul Höffer and Darius Milhaud. She made her debut as a pianist in Oslo in 1933 with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1939 Ørbeck married engineer Helge Smitt (1906–1985). Her career as a musician and composer was interrupted by World War II, but her song cycle “Vonir i blømetid” (Hope at Blossom-Time) won a prize in 1942 from the Norwegian Society of Composers. In the 1950s, she studied composition again with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, and later with Hanns Jelinek in Vienna. Her Symphony in D Major was premiered in Bergen in 1954, making her the first female Norwegian symphonic composer. She died in Bergen in 1996. Works Ørbeck composed works for orchestra, chamber ensemble and solo instrument, but specialized in vocal works, including songs, choral works and psalm compositions. Selected works include: Orchestral works: *Concertino for Piano and Orchestra, 1938 *Melody, Miniature Suite, 1940 *Symphony in D major, 1944 *Rune Ma

Annelu Burns

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Annelu Burns (November 12, 1889 – July 11, 1942) was an American lyricist and violinist from Selma, Alabama. She wrote lyrics for songs, theater productions, and films. She frequently wrote songs together with Madelyn Sheppard, a musician and composer who was also from Selma. *Just Because (c. 1919), musical comedy with book by Anna Wynne O’Ryan and music by Madelyn Sheppard External links *

Annette Thoma

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Annette Schenk Thoma (23 January 1886 – 26 November 1974) was a German author, composer, and folklorist who is best remembered for her composition Deutsche Bauernmesse (English: German Farmers’ Mass), a mass in Bavarian adapting folk tunes. Life and career Thoma was born in Neu-Ulm. Her father was Lieutenant (later Major General) Albert Schenk. Thoma studied English and French abroad, then married the painter Emil Thoma and moved to Riedering. There she met and worked with the Bavarian folk musician Paul Kiem in 1930 to record local folk music. She wrote a book and many articles about folk music. Thoma composed the Deutsche Bauernmesse in 1933, and wrote the lyrics for the first Salzburg Advent Singing in 1946. Thoma received the Bavarian Order of Merit in 1964, and the Bayerischer Poetentaler award in 1974. Her composition Die Kleine Messe (The Little Mass) was recorded on: *TELEF 6 22 149 AG Books Thoma’s works were published by Rosenheimer Verlagshaus. Her publications included: *Chiemgauer Herbergspiel (Chiemgau Hostel Game) *Das Riederinger Weihnachtsspiel. (The Riedering Christmas Game) *Das Volkslied in Albayern und Seine Saenger (Folk Music in Bavaria and Its Singers) *Die

Anoushavan Ter-Ghevondyan

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Anoushavan Ter-Ghevondyan (Armenian: Անուշավան Գրիգորի Տեր-Ղևոնդյան; 8 March 1887 – 6 June 1961) was an Armenian composer, pedagogue, and sociocultural activist. His father was the photographer Grigor Ter-Ghevondyan; and his daughter, pianist Heghine Ter-Ghevondyan. Early life Anoushavan Ter-Ghevondyan received his general education and musical training in Tiflis (now Tbilisi). In 1915 he graduated from the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University, as well as the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied with Anatoly Lyadov (harmony), Alexander Glazunov (composition), Vasily Kalafati (counterpoint), Jāzeps Vītols (analysis of form) and Maximilian Steinberg (orchestration). In 1914, in partnership with Armenian composer and conductor Spiridon Melikyan, he undertook a scientific expedition to the Shirak Province, one of the musically most fertile regions. This trip resulted in the compilation of 252 folk melodies that were of great value and have been widely used by Armenian composers and musicologists ever since. Anoushavan Ter-Ghevondyan himself arranged some of them into a symphonic work named ″Շիրակի էտյուդները″ (Shirak Etudes) (1916). Music Among his works there are two o

Antal Doráti

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Antal Doráti (, , ; 9 April 1906 – 13 November 1988) was a Hungarian-born conductor and composer who became a naturalized American citizen in 1943. Biography Antal Doráti was born in Budapest to a Jewish family. His father Alexander Doráti was a violinist with the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra and his mother Margit Kunwald was a piano teacher. He studied at the Franz Liszt Academy with Zoltán Kodály and Leó Weiner for composition and Béla Bartók for piano. His links with Bartók continued for many years: he conducted the world premiere of Bartók’s Viola Concerto, as completed by Tibor Serly, with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in 1949, with William Primrose as the soloist. He made his conducting debut in 1924 with the Budapest Royal Opera. As well as composing original works, he compiled and arranged pieces by Johann Strauss II for the ballet Graduation Ball (1940), premiered by the Original Ballet Russe in Sydney, Australia, with himself on the conductor’s podium. For Ballet Theatre (later renamed American Ballet Theatre) he created scores for the ballets Bluebeard (1941) from music by Jacques Offenbach and The Fair at Sorochinsk (1943) from music by Modest Mussorgsky. After

Anthony Bernard

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Anthony Bernard (25 January 18916 April 1963) was an English conductor, organist, pianist and composer. Early life Anthony Bernard’s birth was registered as Alan Charles Butler in West Ham, then classified as Essex, in early 1891. His mother was Rosetta Ann Casselden, who had married Alfred Charles Butler, a coal-merchant (son of Henry Butler, also a coal-merchant) four years earlier on 21 September 1887. Bernard changed his name by deed poll in 1919 according to the National Archives. Further family research has uncovered that Bernard was the illegitimate child of Casselden and the Edwardian band leader Thomas Bidgood. Another of Bidgood’s sons was the dance band leader Harry Bidgood, also known as Primo Scala. In the 1901 census, Casselden was not living with her husband; she declared herself to be Rosetta Barnard and her 10-year-old son Alan Charles Butler to be “Allan Barnard” who was born in New York. Prior to cohabiting with Bidgood, she had three more sons (1893 - Thomas George who died in infancy; 1896 - Thomas Walter; and 1898 - Henry James), all were registered as “Barnard” (Harry Bidgood was Henry James Barnard). Thomas Walter was registered with Butler as the mother’s n

Anthony Burgess

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John Anthony Burgess Wilson (; 25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993) was an English writer and composer. Although Burgess was primarily a comic writer, his dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange remains his best-known novel. Burgess produced a number of other novels, including the Enderby quartet, and Earthly Powers. He wrote librettos and screenplays, including the 1977 television mini-series Jesus of Nazareth. He worked as a literary critic for several publications, including The Observer and The Guardian, and wrote studies of classic writers, notably James Joyce. A versatile linguist, Burgess lectured in phonetics, and translated Cyrano de Bergerac, Oedipus Rex, and the opera Carmen, among others. He was nominated and shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973. Burgess also composed over 250 musical works; he considered himself as much a composer as an author, although he achieved considerably more success in writing. Biography Early life Burgess was born on 25 February 1917 at 91 Carisbrook Street in Harpurhey, a suburb of Manchester, England, to Irish Catholic parents, Joseph and Elizabeth Wilson. He described his background as lower middle class; growing up during the

Anton Webern

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Anton Webern, of the , was born on 3 December 1883 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, the only surviving son of Carl von Webern, a decorated army veteran, high-ranking civil servant, and mining engineer who owned the Lamprechtsberg copper mine. He grew up mainly in Graz (1890–1894) and Klagenfurt (1894–1902), with one stay in Olomouc and more in Vienna for his father’s work. He excelled only in the humanities and likely sang in choir at school. He began piano and sang opera with his mother Amalie (née Geer), a trained pianist and accomplished singer, danced with his sisters Rosa and Maria, and received drums, then a trumpet, and later a violin as Christmas gifts. Local musician Edwin Komauer also taught him piano, cello, and likely counterpoint from Bach’s music and cello suites. The family played chamber music, including Mozart, Schubert, and Beethoven, and Webern played in local orchestras. The children spent Easter holidays () and summer vacations () at the Preglhof, the extended family’s country estate near Schwabegg in Carinthia. They played in forests under the Koralpe and on a high meadow by the parish church, where cattle grazed pasture under the care of herders. Webern drove horses to a fair in Bleiburg, fought a wildfire, and saved Rosa from drowning in the bathing pond. In winter, they ice-skated the to the Wörthersee. These experiences, and reading Peter Rosegger, an Austrian contributor to the broader () movement, shaped his distinct and lasting sense of ().

Antonio José Martínez Palacios

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Antonio José Martínez Palacios (12 December 190211 October 1936), professionally known as Antonio José, was a Spanish composer. Maurice Ravel apparently said of Antonio José: “He will become the Spanish composer of our century”, however, his music lay forgotten until the 1980s. Career Born in Burgos, Castile and León, Antonio José became a music teacher at a Jesuit school and conducted the city choir in Burgos. The sheer volume of his work (he died at 33) was prodigious. He penned his first composition when he was 14. He was hired as a director of a musical review in Burgos at the age of 18. He wrote extensively for voice in his quest to present the melodies of his native Burgos to the world. His compositions, especially the Sinfonía castellana and Suite Ingenua, put his orchestration on a par with anything at the time in the twentieth century. His most famous work is a sonata for guitar. His harmonic understanding put him in the forefront of post-impressionist composers, and though a disciple of Ravel, his particular voice and choice of medium set him distinctly apart. His chief biographer, Miguel Ángel Palacios Garoz, points out that Antonio José was not only a prolific composer

Antonio Pedrotti

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Antonio Pedrotti (August 14, 1901 – May 15, 1975 in Trento) was an Italian conductor and composer. He was born in Trento, at the time part of the County of Tyrol, part of the Austrian empire. He studied literature at the university and music at the conservatory in Rome. In 1924 he completed his composition studies under Ottorino Respighi and continued studying conducting with Bernardino Molinari. From 1938 to 1944 he was Molinari’s assistant and co-director of Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. He collaborated also with La Scala and l’Orchestra dell’Angelicum in Milan as well as with the Vienna State Opera and with soloists like Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli or David Oistrakh. According to the family tradition, he supported the musical life in his home town and became conductor of the philharmonic orchestra and director of the conservatory (“Liceo Musicale”) in Trento. As a composer he collaborated also with the SAT man’s chorus Trento. Since 1989, an international conducting competition takes place every year in that city in his honor (“Concorso internazionale per Direttori d’Orchestra Antonio Pedrotti”). Pedrotti had also a long association with orchestras in th

Aram Khachaturian

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Aram Ilyich Khachaturian (; 6 June 19031 May 1978) was a Soviet Armenian composer and conductor. He is considered one of the leading Soviet composers. Khachaturian himself said he was born in Kojori. His father, Yeghia (Ilya), was born in the village of Upper Aza near Ordubad in Nakhichevan (present-day Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, Azerbaijan) and moved to Tiflis at the age of 13; he owned a bookbinding shop by the age of 25. His mother, Kumash Sarkisovna, was from Lower Aza, also a village near Ordubad. Khachaturian’s parents were betrothed before knowing each other, when Kumash was 9 and Yeghia was 19. They had five children, one daughter and four sons, of whom Aram was the youngest. From 1906 to 1922, Khachaturian lived at 93 Uznadze Street in Tbilisi. Khachaturian received primary education at the commercial school of Tiflis, a school for merchants. He considered a career either in medicine or engineering. Education (1922–1936) In 1921, the eighteen-year-old Khachaturian moved to Moscow to join his oldest brother, Suren, who had settled in Moscow earlier and was a stage director at the Moscow Art Theatre by the time of his arrival. and the Cello Concerto (1946)—are “often co

Ariadna Mikeshina

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Ariadna Mikeshina (; October 17, 1900 – May 18, 1982), earlier known as Ariadna Roumanova, was a Russian-born pianist and composer. Early life Ariadna Roumanova was the daughter of an admiral in the Russian navy. She was trained as a musician at the imperial conservatory in St. Petersburg. Her brother-in-law Leonid Bolotine was a violinist and later a guitarist. Career Roumanova was called “a brilliant pianist and a most interesting composer” when she relocated to the United States in 1918. sometimes featuring her own compositions, and accompanied others in recital. She also appeared in the 1922 silent film adaptation of the Rubaiyat, and taught piano students in her studio. As Ariadna Mikeshina, she performed regularly in Los Angeles New York City into her seventies. In 1927 the Los Angeles Times described her as a composer, having “marked talent, but not excessive originality”. She was described in 1975 as “calmly ignor ing the last 75 years of musical thought” in a recital at Carnegie Hall. Personal life Mikeshina was married at least five times. Her first husband was journalist Michel Roumanoff, who served in the Russian Provisional Government. She moved to Tokyo with Roumanoff

Arie Van de Moortel

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Arie Van de Moortel (17 July 1918 in Laeken – 1 May 1976 in Brussels) was a Belgian viola virtuoso, composer and music teacher. Van de Moortel studied at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels receiving first prize in viola and chamber music in 1937. He continued his studies on viola with François Broos receiving a further degree in 1939. He then went on to study counterpoint at the Royal Conservatory of Ghent and composition with Prosper Van Eechaute. He performed in several ensembles including the Trio of the Court of Belgium (Trio van het Belgisch Hof), the London Piano Quartet, the M. Raskin String Trio, a viola-piano duo with his wife Lydie Lequeux, and was violist in the Orchestra of the National Institute for Radio Broadcasting (NIR; Nationaal Instituut voor de Radio-omroep). He taught chamber music at the Royal Conservatory of Ghent (1946–1976) and was director of the Music Academy in Anderlecht (1957–1976). Van de Moortel won awards for his compositions including the Staf Nees Prize in 1951 for Variations on the Flemish Folk Song “There Was a Little Snow Bird”, a composition for carillon, the Società del Quartetto G.B. Viotti composition prize in 1954 for his Trio for Reed Ins

Ariel Shearer

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Ariel Shearer (c. 1905 – ?) was an Australian composer and classical pianist. She learned piano under William Silver (born March 1878), who also trained Elder Scholars Merle Robertson, John Bishop, Miriam Hyde and Ruth Naylor. She left Adelaide in 1924 to study at the Royal College of Music. On her departure for London, Charles Cawthorne organised a benefit concert for her in the Adelaide Town Hall, which featured William Silver, George Pearce, Charles Schilsky, Harold S. Parsons, Harold Wylde FRCO, Vera Thrush AMUA, Hilda Gill AMUA, F. Stone, and basso Richard Watkins. She returned to Adelaide three years later, and was reported as having appreciated the experience, but was handicapped by a shortage of money and having to board with a family who were not musically inclined, or perhaps did not appreciate the artist’s need to practise for hours on end. In 1931, she and Charlotte Grivell (mezzo-soprano), a fellow student in London, were appointed choral liaison commissioners for Girl Guides in South Australia. The two held joint concerts during the ensuing decade then appear to have retired from the stage. They were also keen equestrians, and neither married. Her sister, Charlotte An

Arkady Filippenko

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

Arkady Dmitriyevich Filippenko () (8 January 1912 – 24 August 1983) was a Soviet Ukrainian composer. Biography He was born in the small village of Pushcha-Vodycia, now a suburb of Kyiv. As a pre-schooler, he spent a great deal of time outdoors with his grandfather, a shepherd who played and made pastoral pipes akin to those of the Swiss. The shepherd’s pipe was the first instrument he learned to play. In grammar school, he learned the guitar, mandolin and balalaika and played in the school orchestra. In 1926 at the age of 13, Filippenko began vocational school and completed a course in river transport. After graduation he began working at a shipbuilding factory. In his spare time, he played and directed amateur theatricals and came to the attention of the composer Ilya Vilensky who was director of a local music school. Vilensky invited Filippenko to attend the school, and it was there Filippenko learned to play the piano and studied music theory and composition, all while still working as a metal turner at the shipbuilding factory. As he progressed quickly, Vilensky sent him on to the Lysenko Music Institute, the most important music school in Ukraine and the forerunner of the Kyiv

Armando José Fernandes

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

Armando José Fernandes (Lisbon, 26 July 1906 - Lisbon, 3 May 1983) was a neoclassical Portuguese composer; with Jorge Croner de Vasconcelos, Fernando Lopes-Graça, and Pedro do Prado, one of the “group of four” who dominated mid-20th-century Portuguese music. After studying at the National Conservatory of Lisbon (Conservatório Nacional de Lisboa in Portuguese), he won a three-year scholarship to Paris and became a pupil of, among others, Nadia Boulanger. Originally trained as a concert pianist, Fernandes came to concentrate more on composition and teaching. He composed, among other works, a cello sonata, a violin concerto, and numerous piano pieces. His work, usually of an intimate character, occasionally contains virtuosic passages. It has been described as " pursuing a more conventional neoclassical path, albeit with great finesse". Most of his works were written for the national broadcasting station. From 1940 onwards he taught at the Academia de Amadores de Música in Lisbon, and from 1953 to 1976 at the Lisbon Conservatory. He also produced editions of early music from Portugal. Prizes *Moreira de Sá Prize for composition (1944) *Prize of the Círculo de Cultura Musical (1946) No

Armstrong Gibbs

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Cecil Armstrong Gibbs (10 August 1889 – 12 May 1960) was an English composer. Though best known for his choral music and, in particular, songs, Gibbs also devoted much of his career to the amateur choral and festival movements in Britain. Although his music is rarely played today he attained a high level of popularity in his lifetime. His slow waltz “Dusk” for orchestra and piano earned him more royalties than any of his other works combined. It was requested by Princess Elizabeth to be performed on her 18th birthday. Biography Early years and education Gibbs was born in Great Baddow, a village near Chelmsford in Essex, Whitehead, died on 12 August 1891 when Gibbs was only two, having given birth to a stillborn son. While Gibbs had many privileges in his childhood owing to his father’s wealth, he was deprived of any permanent mother figure, having been raised by a nurse and five maiden aunts in three month rotations. Gibbs’s childhood was further troubled by his father’s method of child-rearing; he sought to “toughen up” his son by making him sleep in the attic, forcing him to ride and jump a pony at the age of six, and throwing him into deep water in order to learn to swim. This m

Arnold Cooke

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

Arnold Atkinson Cooke (4 November 1906 – 13 August 2005) was a British composer, a pupil of Paul Hindemith. He wrote a considerable amount of chamber music, including five string quartets and many instrumental sonatas, much of which is only now becoming accessible through modern recordings. Cooke also composed two operas (still unperformed), six symphonies and several concertos. Education Cooke was born at Gomersal, West Yorkshire, into a family of carpet manufacturers. As a child, Cooke learned to play the piano, and later the cello, and began composing by the age of 7 or 8. He was educated at Streete Preparatory School, Repton School and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he read history, taking Part 1 of his Tripos in 1927, earning his B.A. He changed to read music with his composition teacher E. J. Dent. At Cambridge, Cooke continued to play the cello in the CUMS orchestra and in a string quartet. He was President of the Cambridge Musical Society from 1927 to 1928. In 1929, he gained his Music degree and went to Berlin where he studied composition and piano at the Berlin University of the Arts under Paul Hindemith. Hindemith’s composition class also included Harald

Arnold Franchetti

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

Arnold Franchetti (1911–1993) was a composer born in Lucca, Italy who later emigrated to the United States. Early life As a boy, Franchetti studied composition and piano with his father, Baron Alberto Franchetti (1860–1942). After a brief stint with the Italian army during World War II, Franchetti joined the anti-Mussolini underground resistance in the Italian Alps where he helped Allied airmen escape. where he became chair of the theory and composition department, remaining there until his retirement in 1979. Joel Pelletier, Robert Beaser, Martin Bresnick, Henry Gwiazda, Norman Dinerstein, Gwynneth Van Anden Walker, others. During his 45 years in the United States, Franchetti received composition honors and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, National Institute of Arts and Letters, and many other prestigious organizations. References

Arnold Schmitz

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Arnold Schmitz (11 July 1893 – 1 November 1980) was a German musicologist who was particularly concerned with Beethoven. Life Born in , Metz, Schmitz habilitated in 1921 and was subsequently professor at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn and the Breslau University. From 1946 he taught at the University of Mainz, whose rector he was in 1953/54 and 1960/61. He was a member of the . In 1973, the Beethoven House in Bonn appointed him an honorary member for his Beethoven research. Schmitz died in Mainz at age 87. Publications Books * Beethovens “zwei Prinzipe”, Berlin: Ferdinand Dümmler, 1923 * Unbekannte Skizzen und Entwürfe, Beethoven, Ludwig van, Bonn: Beethovenhaus, 1924 * Das romantische Beethoven-Bild. Darstellung und Kritik, Berlin: Ferdinand Dümmler, 1927 * Beethoven, Bonn a. Rh.: Buchgemeinde, 1927 * “Zur Frage nach Beethovens Weltanschauung und ihrem muskalischen Ausdruck” in Beethoven und die Gegenwart : Festschrift d. Beethovenhauses Bonn, Ludwig Schiedermair zum 60. Geburtstag (also editor), Berlin : Ferdinand Dümmler, 1937 * Die Bildlichkeit der wortgebundenen Musik Johann Sebastian Bachs, Mainz : Schott, 1950 * Ausgewählte Aufsätze zur geistlichen Musik,

Arnold Schoenberg

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1874–1894: Upbringing#

Arnold Schönberg was born on 13 September 1874 at Obere Donaustraße 5 in Vienna’s Leopoldstadt (historically a Jewish ghetto), into a lower-middle-class Jewish family. His father, Samuel, a shoe shopkeeper from Szécsény, Hungary, had moved to Vienna via Pozsony (Pressburg; now Bratislava). His mother Pauline Nachod was from a Prague family belonging to the Old New Synagogue. He began violin at eight and soon started writing music autodidactically by arranging and imitating what he played or heard, like military band repertoire, for informal performance. Juvenilia survive from as early as 1882, sometimes only as fragments or parts. They include a birthday march and arrangements of Gustav Pick’s Fiakerlied and Vincenzo Bellini’s “Ite su colle”. He composed violin duets after Ignaz Pleyel and Giovanni Battista Viotti, and advanced to string trios (for two violins and viola) without clear models.

Arnold Trowell

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Arnold Wilberforce Trowell (25 June 1887 – 16 December 1966), also known as Thomas Wilberforce Trowell, was a New Zealand composer, cellist and teacher who became professor of music at the Guildhall School of Music in London. Biography Arnold Trowell was born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1887. He was the son of Thomas Trowell and twin of Garnet Carrington Trowell. In 1903 both brothers went to Europe to study; Arnold the cello and Garnet the violin. Trowell became a member of The Chamber Music Players, a group formed by Lionel Tertis, in 1922 until 1923. He became professor of cello at the Guildhall School of Music in 1924 and joined the staff of the Royal School of Music from 1937. He wrote seven concertos, three sonatas, four symphonic poems and numerous pieces for cello and piano and songs. Like Fritz Kreisler, Trowell forged in 1924 a version of Louis Francœur’s cello/violin sonata in E (which is also often misattributed to Francœur’s brother, François Francœur). Trowell replaced Francœur’s second movement with his own Allegro Vivo movement and modified the final Gigue movement. There are several recordings of the forgery with this misattribution. Selected works * Six morceaux

Arnold van Wyk

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Arnoldus Christiaan Vlok van Wyk (26 April 1916 – 27 March 1983) was a South African art music composer, one of the first notable generation of such composers along with Hubert du Plessis and Stefans Grové. Despite the strict laws imposed by the Apartheid government during his lifetime, van Wyk’s homosexuality was ignored by the authorities throughout his career due to the nationalistic nature of his music. Early life Arnoldus Christiaan Vlok van Wyk was born on 26 April 1916 on the farm Klavervlei, not far from Calvinia, a small town in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. He was the sixth of eight children. His mother, Helena van Dyk, came from a wealthy family seemingly descended from the seventeenth century court painter Anthony van Dyck. The couple married when farming provided reasonable hopes of financial security, however Van Wyk’s father was never an efficient manager of the business. Little is known about his childhood other than that life was difficult. From as early as 1918, the family struggled financially, his father Arnoldus Christiaan Vlok van Wyk abused his wife and children. Several members of the family, including Van Wyk’s mother and eldest sisters, demon

Arnold Walter

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

Arnold Maria Walter, OC (August 30, 1902 – October 6, 1973) was a Canadian musicologist, educator, composer and writer. He founded the Canadian Opera Company, and was Director of Music at University of Toronto. Early life and education Arnold Maria Walter was born in Hanušovice, Moravia, Austria-Hungary (now in the Czech Republic). He studied law at the University of Prague, then musicology at the University of Berlin. In addition, he had private music lessons in piano and composition with Rudolf Breithaupt, Frederic Lamond, and Franz Schreker. Career In the early 1930s, Walter wrote the music column for Die Weltbühne, and was music critic for the Vorwärts magazine. In 1937, he emigrated to Canada and taught at Upper Canada College. From 1952 to 1968, Walter was music director of the music faculty of the University of Toronto. Among his notable pupils were pianist Howard Brown, Phil Nimmons. He received an Honorary Doctor of Music from Mount Allison University in 1966. In 1972, Walter was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada. Death and legacy He died in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. His records were donated to the National Library of Canada by his stepdaughter. Works * Sonatina for

Arseny Avraamov

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Arseny Mikhailovich Avraamov () (1886, Novocherkassk, Russian Empire - 1944, Moscow, USSR) was an avant-garde Russian composer and music theorist. He studied at the music school of the Moscow Philharmonic Society, with private composition lessons from Sergey Taneyev. An avowed Communist, he refused to fight in World War I, and fled the country to work, among other things, as a circus artist. Returning in 1917, he was appointed Culture Minister for the People’s Commissariat for Education. Symphony of Sirens was attempted just once more, a year later in Moscow, though at a much-reduced scale. His other notable achievements were the invention of graphic-sonic art, produced by drawing directly onto the optical sound track of film, and an “Ultrachromatic” 48-tone microtonal system, presented in his thesis, “The Universal System of Tones,” in Berlin, Frankfurt, and Stuttgart in 1927. His microtonal system predated the creation of the Petrograd Society for quarter-tone music in 1923, by , also contemporary to Julián Carrillo’s Sonido 13. Avraamov was also the sound designer for the first Soviet sound film, Abram Room’s The Plan for Great Works (1930). Avraamov was friends with Leon Therem

Arthur Benjamin

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

Arthur Leslie Benjamin (September 18, 1893 – April 10, 1960) was an Australian composer, pianist, conductor and teacher. He is best known as the composer of Jamaican Rumba (1938) and of the Storm Clouds Cantata, featured in both versions of the Alfred Hitchcock film The Man who Knew Too Much, in 1934 and 1956. Early life and war Arthur Benjamin was born in Sydney on 18 September 1893 into a Jewish family, although he was a non-practicing Jew. His parents moved to Brisbane when Arthur was three years old. At the age of six, he made his first public appearance as a pianist and his formal musical training began three years later with George Sampson, the Organist of St John’s Cathedral and Brisbane City Organist. In 1911, Benjamin won a scholarship from Brisbane Grammar School to the Royal College of Music (RCM), where he studied composition with Charles Villiers Stanford, harmony and counterpoint with Thomas Dunhill, and piano with Frederic Cliffe. In 1914, he joined the Officer Training Corps, receiving a temporary commission in April 1915. He served initially in the infantry, as 2nd Lieutenant with the 32nd Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers and, in November 1917, he transferred to th

Arthur Berger (composer)

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

Arthur Victor Berger (May 15, 1912 – October 7, 2003) was an American composer and music critic who has been described as a New Mannerist. Biography Born in New York City, of Jewish descent, Berger studied as an undergraduate at New York University, during which time he joined the Young Composer’s Group, as a graduate student under Walter Piston at Harvard, and with Nadia Boulanger and at the Sorbonne under a Paine Fellowship. He taught briefly at Mills College and Brooklyn College, then worked briefly at the New York Sun and then for a longer period of time at the New York Herald Tribune. In 1953 he left the paper to teach at Brandeis University where he was eventually named the Irving Fine Professor Emeritus. His notable students there included Gustav Ciamaga and Richard Wernick. He taught occasionally at the New England Conservatory during his retirement. He co-founded (with Benjamin Boretz), in 1962, Perspectives of New Music, which he edited until 1964. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1971. He wrote the first book on Aaron Copland (reprinted 1990, Da Capo Press), and coined the terms octatonic scale and pitch centricity in his “Problems

Arthur Bliss

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

Sir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss (2 August 189127 March 1975) was British composer and conductor. Bliss’s musical training was cut short by the First World War, in which he served with distinction in the army. In the post-war years he quickly became known as an unconventional and modernist composer, but within the decade he began to display a more traditional and romantic side in his music. In the 1920s and 1930s he composed extensively not only for the concert hall, but also for films and ballet. In the Second World War, Bliss returned to England from the US to work for the BBC and became its director of music. After the war he resumed his work as a composer, and was appointed Master of the Queen’s Music. In Bliss’s later years, his work was respected but was thought old-fashioned, and it was eclipsed by the music of younger colleagues such as William Walton and Benjamin Britten. Since his death, his compositions have been well represented in recordings, and many of his better-known works remain in the repertoire of British orchestras. Biography Early years Bliss was born in Barnes, a London suburb now, but then in Surrey, the eldest of three sons of Francis Edward Bliss (1847–193

Arthur Duff (composer)

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

Arthur Knox Duff (13 March 1899 – 23 September 1956) was an Irish composer and conductor, best known for his short orchestral pieces such as the Handel-inspired Echoes of Georgian Dublin. His career also encompassed senior positions in the Irish Army School of Music and in the music department of Radio Éireann. Early years and education Duff was born in Dublin to John William Duff, a native of King’s County (now County Offaly), and his wife Annie Kathleen Hickey. Duff was a chorister in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin and studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music under Charles Herbert Kitson. He completed his education at Trinity College Dublin where he obtained his primary degree in arts and music. In 1942, he was awarded a doctorate in music following an examination. Duff was initially drawn to the ministry of the Church of Ireland but abandoned his religious studies before the final examination. Career Duff had a varied career in music as a solo performer, conductor, arranger, producer, and composer. He later became an author and playwright, although he remained most famous for his music. He first came to public prominence in his early twenties for his organ recitals in St. Ma

Arthur Hoérée

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

Arthur Hoérée (16 April 1897 in Brussels – 2 June 1986 in Paris) was a Belgian musicologist, critic, conductor and composer. He studied at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels from 1908 to 1912, then at the Conservatoire de Paris. He was a lecturer and a professor at the École normale de musique, École de la radio à Montrouge and the Sorbonne University. He wrote music reviews in many French periodicals including the prestigious and famous La Revue Musicale of Henry Prunières. A specialist in French music, Hoérée has transcribed and produced several works by François Couperin, and he has published two monographs on Albert Roussel (Paris, 1938, 1969). His activities as a composer extend to film and stage music. He often collaborated with Arthur Honegger. He had the composer and organist André Jorrand as student in his course of instrumentation. Film music * 1934: Rapt, by Dimitri Kirsanoff * 1937: Passeurs d’hommes by René Jayet * 1938: Liberty by Jean Kemm * 1938: L’Ange que j’ai vendu by Michel Bernheim * 1939: L’Or dans la montagne by Max Haufler * 1939: Musicians of the Sky (Les Musiciens du ciel) by Georges Lacombe * 1942: À la belle frégate by Albert Valentin * 1942: Eight Men i

Arthur Honegger

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Oscar-Arthur Honegger (; 10 March 1892 – 27 November 1955) was a Swiss composer who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. Honegger was a member of Les Six. For Halbreich, Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher is “more even than Le Roi David or Pacific 231, his most universally popular work”. Biography Born Oscar-Arthur Honegger (the first name was never used) to Swiss parents in Le Havre, France, he initially studied harmony with Robert-Charles Martin (to whom he dedicated his first published work ) and violin in Le Havre. He then moved to Switzerland, where he spent two years (September 1909 – June 1911) at the Zurich Conservatory being taught by Lothar Kempter and Friedrich Hegar. In 1911, he enrolled in the Paris Conservatoire from 1911 to 1918 (except for a brief period during the winter of 1914–1915, when he was mobilised in Switzerland), studying with Charles-Marie Widor, Lucien Capet, André Gédalge and Vincent d’Indy. Gédalge encouraged him to compose and Honegger announced his decision to become a composer in a letter to his parents dated 28 April 1915. He then praised his teacher Gédalge and his Traité de la fugue (1904), “the most complete work ever written on

Arthur Johnston (composer)

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

Arthur James Johnston (January 10, 1898 – May 1, 1954) was an American composer, conductor, pianist and arranger. Life and career Born in New York City, he began playing piano in movie houses, and went to work for Fred Fisher’s music publishing company at the age of 16. He met, and was soon hired by, Irving Berlin, becoming Berlin’s personal arranger, and director of early Music Box Revues. His first hit song was “Mandy Make Up Your Mind”, co-written with George W. Meyer, Roy Turk and Grant Clarke for Florence Mills to sing in the show Dixie to Broadway. In 1929, he moved to Hollywood, where he orchestrated and arranged the music for films including Puttin’ On the Ritz and Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights. He worked with Sam Coslow on such songs as “Just One More Chance” (1932) and “Cocktails for Two” (1934). He became closely associated with Bing Crosby, writing songs for the films College Humor (1933), Too Much Harmony (1933), and Pennies From Heaven (1936), the first film on which he worked with lyricist Johnny Burke. He visited Britain in 1938, writing the music for the Jessie Matthews film Sailing Along, and served in the US Army in World War II. After returning to Hollywood, he

Arthur Lourié

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

Artur Sergeyevich Lurye (; born Naum Izrailevich Lurya; ; 14 May 1892 – 12 October 1966), better known as Arthur-Vincent Lourié, was a Russian composer, writer, administrator, and musical agent. Lourié played an important role in the earliest stages of the organization of Soviet music after the 1917 Revolution but later went into exile. His music reflects his close connections with contemporary writers and artists, and also his close relationship with Igor Stravinsky. Russian career Born into a prosperous Jewish family in Propoysk, he converted to Catholicism while still in Russia. An admirer of van Gogh, from whom he derived the name ‘Vincent’, Lourié was partly self-taught, but also studied piano with Maria Barinova and composition with Glazunov at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, graduating in 1913. He became friendly with the Futurist poets and particularly Anna Akhmatova, whose poetry he was among the first to set. He was also acquainted with Vladimir Mayakovsky, Nikolai Kulbin, Fyodor Sologub and Alexander Blok; and was deeply influenced by contemporary art. His early piano pieces, from 1908 onward, take on from the late works of Scriabin but evolve new kinds of discourse,

Artur Immisch

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

Artur Immisch (born 24 November 1902 – 9 January 1949) was a German pianist, and composer. His musical legacy has only been gradually reconstructed since 1990. Life Immisch was born in 1902 in Hermsdorf, then Saxe-Altenburg, as the son of a well-to-do family. In 1912, the Immischs moved to Bautzen. After graduating from high school, he moved to the University of Jena in 1921 to study Jurisprudence and National economics at his father’s request. There, he began his musical education at the same time. He continued his double studies from 1922 to 1923 at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and at the Akademie der Tonkunst with Ernst Riemann. He finished it at Leipzig University during the years 1923 to 1928 where he was taught by Carl Adolf Martienssen in artistic piano playing and piano methodology and by Hermann Grabner in music theory and musical composition. In 1926, Immisch received his doctorate in law from Leipzig University. However, he never exercised legal activity; since 1928, he devoted himself exclusively to music. His work as a concert pianist took him to several large cities in Germany, especially to Dresden, where Immisch settled in the early 1930s. He acquired

Artur Lemba

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

Artur Lemba (24 September 1885 – 21 November 1963) was an Estonian composer and piano teacher, and one of the most important figures in Estonian classical music. Artur and his older brother Theodor (1876–1962) were the first professional pianists in Estonia to give concerts abroad. Artur’s 1905 opera Sabina was the first opera composed by an Estonian. His Symphony No. 1 in 1908 was the first symphony composed by an Estonian. Lemba was a finalist in the prestigious Anton Rubinstein Competition and later a professor at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Early life and education Artur Lemba was born in Tallinn on 24 September 1885 as a son of piano tuner Gustav Lemba. Artur Lemba learned piano from his brother Theodor Lemba. In 1899, following in his brother’s footsteps, he enrolled at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. There he studied piano with Carl van Arck, Prof. V. Tolstov and I. Borovka. His composition teacher was Nicolai Soloviev and he studied music theory with Anatoly Lyadov, Alexander Glazunov and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Lemba’s Poéme d’amour (1916) for violin and piano is also popular in the violin repertoire. References External links *List of Compositions by Artur Lemba

Ary Barroso

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

Ary Evangelista de Resende Barroso (Portuguese pronunciation: ; 7 November 1903 – 9 February 1964) was a Brazilian composer, pianist, soccer commentator, and talent-show host on radio and TV. He was one of Brazil’s most successful songwriters in the first half of the 20th century. Barroso also composed many songs for Carmen Miranda during her career. Biography Born on 7 November 1903, Ary Barroso was the most influential pre-bossa nova composer in Brazil. Barroso’s songs were recorded by a lengthy list of artists including Carmen Miranda and João Gilberto. His 1939 composition Aquarela do Brasil, known in the English-speaking world as Brazil, was featured in the 1942 Disney film Saludos Amigos, and has gone on to become one of the 20 most recorded songs of all time. His song Na Baixa do Sapateiro, based on a Brazilian pop tune, was included in the Disney film The Three Caballeros and popularised as Baía. Barroso’s soundtrack for the movie Brazil was nominated for an Oscar in 1945. Although he failed to win, Barroso was presented a Merit Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his work. In 1955, Barroso received the National Order of Merit, the greatest honour

August Baeyens

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

August Louis Baeyens (5 June 1895 in Antwerp – 17 July 1966 in Antwerp) was a Belgian violist and composer. Baeyens studied viola, harmony and counterpoint with Napoleon Distelmans and August de Boeck at the Flemish Conservatory in Antwerp receiving a first prize in viola in 1916. Beginning in 1911, he was a viola player in Belgian orchestras including that of the French-language opera company in Antwerp, de Royal, and in the orchestra of the Nieuwe Concerten. In 1927, Baeyens founded the Antwerps Kamermuziekensemble (Antwerp Chamber Ensemble). The group performed a wide range of contemporary music before its demise in 1932. The ensemble is credited with many Belgian premieres including works by Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Béla Bartók, Paul Hindemith, Arthur Honegger, Igor Stravinsky, and several Flemish composers including Jef van Durme and Karel Albert. In 1932 Baeyens became secretary of the Royal Flemish Opera (Koninklijke Vlaamse Opera) translating opera libretti into Dutch among other duties. After a long period of illness, he died in Antwerp on 17 July 1966. Selected works ;Stage * De dode Dichter (The Dead Poet), Ballet (1920) * Liefde en

Augusto Berto

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

Augusto Pedro Berto (Bahía Blanca, 4 February 1889 – 29 April 1953) was an Argentine composer and bandoneón player who was the first composer to spread popular Argentine music in Europe. He is best known for his tango compositions. Works La payanca The immensely popular "" made Berto’s name. It is claimed to have been written in (1906) when Berto was only 17. ¿Dónde estás corazón? His other signal success was :es:¿Dónde estás corazón? (tango) (1928). The words and music of ¿Dónde estás corazón? were not in fact written by Berto but was adapted into a tango from a song (1924) by :es:Luis Martínez Serrano. Berto’s adaptation as a tango with lyrics by became a standard, being recorded first by Francisco Lomuto 1928, and Ignacio Corsini with guitars (1930). Berto’s lyrics begin: “I Yo la quería más que a mi vida. Más que a mi madre la amaba yo” Other artists to record the tango include: *Juan Arvizu, *Alfredo Sadel *Miguel Caló with singer Raúl Del Mar and recitation by :es:Héctor Gagliardi * Alberto Castillo, * , with Francisco Canaro *Julio De Caro singing in French *Pedro and :es:Juan Lauga, *Ada Falcón with the orchestra of Francisco Canaro, *Teófilo Ibáñez with the orchestra of Ro

Aurelio Giorni

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

Aurelio Carlo Pietro Teodoro Giorni (15 September 1895 – 23 September 1938) was an Italian-American pianist and composer. After emigrating to the United States in 1914, he toured the nation as a soloist and with the Elshuco Trio. He composed chamber music, orchestral music, études, as well as a sonata for piano and cello. Early life Aurelio was born on 15 September 1895, in Perugia, Italy, the first of two sons born to Carlo Giuseppe Giorni, a Roman landscape painter, and Linda Bergner Giorni, an American mezzo-soprano. Aurelio was the great-grandson of Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. Aurelio’s parents had him tutored privately at home until, at age 13, he attended Santa Cecilia Conservatory of Music and studied piano with Maestro Giovanni Sgambati and Ferruccio Busoni from 1909 to 1911. He performed joint recitals with his mother Linda as early as February 1908, when he was 12 years old. One such performance took place at the Hotel Excelsior in Rome on 23 March 1911. The press notice read as follows: The Giorni Concert at the Hotel Excelsior, attracted a very large number of ladies and gentlemen who are already aware of the unusual musical gifts possessed by Madame Linda Giorn

Avril Coleridge-Taylor

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

Gwendolen Avril Coleridge-Taylor (8 March 190321 December 1998) was an English pianist, conductor, and composer. She was the daughter of composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and his wife Jessie (née Walmisley). Personal life Gwendolen Avril Coleridge-Taylor was born in South Norwood, London, the daughter of composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and his wife Jessie Walmisley, who had met as students at the Royal College of Music. She had an older brother, Hiawatha. On 19 April 1924, Coleridge-Taylor married Harold Dashwood, in the Croydon parish church. She initially composed and conducted using her first name and maiden surname. After their divorce she dropped her first name, thereafter going as Avril Coleridge-Taylor professionally. In the 1930s she was living at The Studio, 4A Hill Road in St John’s Wood. Coleridge-Taylor was invited on a tour of South Africa in 1952, during the period of apartheid, arriving on the inaugural flight of de Havilland’s Comet passenger jet from Croydon to Johannesburg. Originally she was supportive of, or neutral to the South African apartheid system; she was taken as White and was mostly White-European in ancestry. When the South African government learned t

Aziz El-Shawan

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Aziz El-Shawan (born Cairo, May 6, 1916; died Cairo, May 14, 1993) was one of the most prominent Egyptian composers of the twentieth century. Biography He completed his primary and secondary education at the St. Joseph – La Salle College in Khoronfish, Cairo where he also received a Higher Diploma in Commercial Studies. He studied the violin privately with the German Joseph von Aubervon, a student of Jan Kubelick, and joined the school’s choir and band where he played the clarinet and French horn. His violin teacher obtained a scholarship for him to study at the Berlin Conservatory, however, his father objected to his interest in pursuing a musical career. An accident disabled one of the fingers of his left hand, obliging him to give up his dream of being a virtuoso violinist. He then studied piano, theory, harmony, composition and orchestration with the Italian Menato and the Russian Orlovitsky who were part of a community of European musicians and music teachers who lived and worked in cosmopolitan Cairo. El-Shawan held several administrative positions, most importantly at the Philips International Company where he founded a record production department. He was director of the So

Barbara Giuranna

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Elena Barbara Giuranna (18 November 1899 – 30 July 1998) was an Italian pianist and composer. She taught at the Rome Conservatory from 1937 until 1970, and also edited 18th-century music. She composed works for stage, orchestra, chamber ensemble and piano, and arranged the works of Paisiello, Vivaldi, and Cimarosa. She was an elected member of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Life Elena Francesca Paola Maria Giuseppa Barbera was born in Palermo, Italy and studied piano at the Palermo Conservatory with Guido Alberto Fano. She also studied composition at the Naples Conservatory with Camillo De Nardis and Antonio Savasta. She continued her education in composition at the Milan Conservatory with Giorgio Federico Ghedini. She made her piano debut in 1923, playing with the Naples Symphony Orchestra. In 1924 she married conductor Mario Giuranna. After completing her studies, Giuranna taught at the Rome Conservatory from 1937 to 1970 and worked as an editor of 18th-century music. She was a music consultant to RAI in Rome from 1948 to 1956, and she was elected a member of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in 1982. She won the international prize of the City of Trieste for a

Barbara Pentland

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Barbara Pentland C.M. (January 2, 1912 – February 5, 2000) was one of the pre-eminent members of the generation of Canadian composers who came to artistic maturity in the years after World War II. Pentland’s parents, especially her mother, intended for their daughter to adopt their values and pursue a life spent amongst the upper classes of Canadian high society, rather than a career as a professional composer. Despite her family’s objections, Pentland continued to compose privately as a young teenager. She finally was encouraged in this pursuit by one of her teachers, the organist and conductor Frederick H. Blair, who taught her piano and music theory while she attended boarding school at Miss Edgar’s and Miss Cramp’s School in Montreal from 1927 to 1929. In 1929, Pentland was surprised when her parents finally allowed her to study composition with Cécile Gauthiez, professor of harmony at the Schola Cantorum in Paris. Under Gauthiez’s tutelage, Pentland received a formal, conservatory style music education, including lessons in form, harmony, and analysis by composers such as Cesar Franck, Vincent d’Indy, and Ludwig van Beethoven. Compositional Style One of Pentland’s first known

Barnabás von Géczy

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Barnabás von Géczy (4 March 1897 – 2 July 1971) was a Hungarian violinist, composer and bandleader. Biography von Géczy was born in Budapest, and studied at the Budapest Academy of Music. After World War I, he left Hungary and found work as a violinist in Trondheim, Norway before settling in Berlin in 1924; von Géczy also received offers from the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm and the Philadelphia Opera (then led by Leopold Stokowski), but turned them down. From 1925 to 1937 von Géczy’s orchestra had a long term engagement at the Hotel Esplanade in Berlin. He soon arose as one of Europe’s most popular bandleaders, and also appeared in films such as This One or None and The Countess of Monte Cristo. As the classically trained von Géczy favored strings over reeds and brass, he became a favorite of Hitler and Goebbels and continued his career in the Third Reich. His orchestra performed at the Volksbühne in Berlin in 1933–1934, and von Géczy was invested with the title of “Professor” by Hitler in 1939. After the fall of the Third Reich, von Géczy was banned from performing for a few years. In 1952, he formed a new orchestra at the Café Luitpold in Munich, a city in which he would liv

Beatrice Witkin

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Beatrice Braverman Witkin (May 13, 1916 – February 7, 1990) was an American composer and pianist who was best known for her electronic music, especially the theme she composed for the TV show Wild, Wild World of Animals in 1973. Career Witkin studied piano with Eduard Steuermann and composition with Roger Sessions, Mark Brunswick and Stefan Wolpe. She received a B.A. from Hunter College and a master’s degree from New York University. She married Louis Witkin in 1938 and they had one daughter (Judy) and one son (Steve). Witkin received grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Hebrew Arts Music School. She released two LPs of chamber music, and received the Creative Arts Public Service Grant and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) Standard Award. In 1963, Witkin helped establish the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, a performing group that commissioned new works. She was a guest composer at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire as well as a longtime member of the Women’s Composers Forum and ASCAP. In 1968, she was invited to work at the Electronic Music Studio at the New York University Schoo

Béla Bartók

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Childhood and early years (1881–1898)#

Bartók was born in the Banatian town of Nagyszentmiklós in the Kingdom of Hungary, part of Austria-Hungary (present-day Sânnicolau Mare, Romania) on 25 March 1881. On his father’s side, the Bartók family was a Hungarian lower noble family, originating from Borsodszirák, Borsod. His paternal grandmother was a Catholic of Bunjevci origin, but considered herself Hungarian. Bartók’s father (1855–1888) was also named . Bartók’s mother, (1857–1939), spoke Hungarian fluently. A native of Turócszentmárton (present-day Martin, Slovakia), she had German, Hungarian and Slovak or Polish ancestry. Béla displayed notable musical talent very early in life. According to his mother, he could distinguish between different dance rhythms that she played on the piano before he learned to speak in complete sentences. By the age of four he was able to play 40 pieces on the piano, and his mother began formally teaching him the next year. In 1888, when he was seven, his father, the director of an agricultural school, died suddenly. His mother then took Béla and his sister, Erzsébet, to live in Nagyszőlős (present-day Vynohradiv, Ukraine) and then in Pressburg (present-day Bratislava, Slovakia). Béla gave his first public recital aged 11 in Nagyszőlős, to positive critical reception. Among the pieces he played was his own first composition, written two years previously: a short piece called “The Course of the Danube”. Shortly thereafter, accepted him as a pupil.

Ben Molar

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Ben Molar (3 October 1915 – 25 April 2015) was an Argentine author, composer, musical producer, and talent scout. He created the National Day of the Tango, held annually on 11 December, placed bronze plaques on all 40 corners of Calle Corrientes and produced an interdisciplinary artistic project that combined art, poetry, and music to promote Argentine tango. Biography Moisés Smolarchik Brenner was born on 3 October 1915 at Calles Montevideo and Corrientes in Buenos Aires, Argentina to Jewish immigrants León Smolarchik and Fanny Brenner. From childhood Molar sang with the neighborhood street musicians and at a very early age began writing songs. Molar was an ambitious talent scout, a shrewd businessman, who had a good ear for what the general public and young people were interested in hearing. He was one of the key figures who helped promote Argentine tango albums from the 1950s to the 1970s. As the owner of the label Fermata he both promoted local talent like Mercedes Sosa, El Club del Clan, Los Abuelos de la Nada and Los 5 Latinos Jorge Luis Borges, Carlos Cañás, Juan D’Arienzo, Florencio Escardó, Raquel Forner, Another of his ideas to promote the tango was to place bronze plaque

Benjamin Britten

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Early years#

Britten was born in the fishing port of Lowestoft in Suffolk, on the east coast of England on 22 November 1913, the feast day of Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music. He was the youngest of four children of Robert Victor Britten and his wife Edith Rhoda, née Hockey. Robert Britten’s youthful ambition to become a farmer had been thwarted by lack of capital, and he had instead trained as a dentist, a profession he practised successfully but without pleasure. While studying at Charing Cross Hospital in London he met Edith Hockey, the daughter of a civil service clerk in the British Government’s Home Office. They were married in September 1901 at St John’s, Smith Square, London. The consensus among biographers of Britten is that his father was a loving but somewhat stern and remote parent. Britten, according to his sister Beth, “got on well with him and shared his wry sense of humour, dedication to work and capacity for taking pains.” Edith Britten was a talented amateur musician and secretary of the Lowestoft Musical Society. In the English provinces of the early 20th century, distinctions of social class were taken very seriously. Britten described his family as “very ordinary middle class”, but there were aspects of the Brittens that were not ordinary: Edith’s father was illegitimate, and her mother was an alcoholic; Robert Britten was an agnostic and refused to attend church on Sundays. Music was the principal means by which Edith Britten strove to maintain the family’s social standing, inviting the pillars of the local community to musical soirées at the house. When Britten was three months old he contracted pneumonia and nearly died. The illness left him with a damaged heart, and doctors warned his parents that he would probably never be able to lead a normal life. He recovered more fully than expected, and as a boy was a keen tennis player and cricketer. To his mother’s great delight he was an outstandingly musical child, unlike his sisters, who inherited their father’s indifference to music, while his brother, Robert, though musically talented, was interested only in ragtime. Edith gave the young Britten his first lessons in piano and notation. He made his first attempts at composition when he was five. He started piano lessons when he was seven years old, and three years later began to play the viola. He was one of the last composers brought up on exclusively live music: his father refused to have a gramophone or, later, a radio in the house.

Benjamin Burrows

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Dr Benjamin Burrows (20 October 1891 – 28 January 1966) in Leicester, England) was an English organist, pianist, music teacher, inventor, composer of art songs and instrumental music. He was known as a modest man and one of the finest teachers of his times. Biography Burrows was born in Leicester, England. He was the son of Benjamin Harper Burrows (1864–1915), a scholar and teacher of some repute, who played violin, viola and later cello, and was closely involved with the Leicester Orchestral Union from 1884 until his death. His mother was Mary Elizabeth (born Gray 1867) who was an excellent pianist. His sister was violinist, teacher and orchestra conductor Grace Burrows. He was born at 12 College Street, Leicester and attended Alderman Newton’s Boys School. He tutored students in organ and composition up to PhD level for 27 years. He was known to be generous, sympathetic and encouraging. Music Burrows is best known for his art songs. Under the influence and friendship of Jane Vowles, a soprano to whom he taught theory, he composed 93 songs in 21 months. After her parents insisted on her abandoning studies with him, Burrows wrote only one more song (in 1953). His songs have been co

Benjamin Dale

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Benjamin James Dale (17 July 188530 July 1943) was an English composer and academic who had a long association with the Royal Academy of Music. Dale showed compositional talent from an early age and went on to write a small but notable corpus of works. His best-known composition is probably the large-scale Piano Sonata in D minor he started while still a student at the Royal Academy of Music, which communicates in a potent late romantic style. Christopher Foreman has proposed a comprehensive reassessment of Benjamin Dale’s music. Dale married one of his students, the pianist and composer Kathleen Richards in 1921. Early life and education Benjamin Dale was born in Upper Holloway, Islington, London, to Charles James Dale, a pottery manufacturer from Staffordshire, and his wife, Frances Anne Hallett, daughter of a furniture manufacturer from Clerkenwell. His father, who had migrated first to Derbyshire and then to London, was a director of the Denby Pottery Company and London manager of James Bourne & Son. He was also a self-taught but enthusiastic amateur musician, church organist and Methodist hymn tune writer who nurtured the Finsbury Choral Association (attracting composers such

Benjamin Frankel

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Benjamin Frankel (31 January 1906 – 12 February 1973) was a British composer. His best known pieces include a cycle of five string quartets, eight symphonies, and concertos for violin and viola. He was also notable for writing over 100 film scores and working as a big band arranger in the 1930s. During the last 15 years of his life, Frankel also developed his own style of 12-note composition which retained contact with tonality. Biography Frankel was born in London on 31 January 1906, the son of Polish Jewish parents. He began to learn the violin at an early age, showing remarkable talent; at age 14, his piano-playing gifts attracted the attention of the American pianist and teacher Victor Benham (1867–1936) who persuaded his parents to let him study music full-time. He spent six months in Germany in 1922, then returned to London, where he won a scholarship from the Worshipful Company of Musicians and attempted his first serious compositions while earning his income as a jazz violinist, pianist and arranger. Known then as Ben Frankel, his jazz work can be heard on recordings by Fred Elizalde’s band. He also played violin with Carroll Gibbons and the Savoy Hotel Orpheans. By the ear

Benna Moe

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Benna Olufine Charlotte Moe (December 15, 1897 - Dec. 27, 1983) was a Danish composer and musician. In addition to her compositional gifts, Benna Moe was an organ soloist, pianist and singer. She composed music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and organ music. Most known among her works is the ballet Hybris, which was premiered in Copenhagen in 1930. Her compositions, Hymn of Praise (4th movement of Alpine Suite), Shepherds’ Flutes (2nd movement of Alpine Suite) and Cantilena have been used at royal weddings. Early life Moe entered the Moltke Citizen School for girls, and it was here that her special musical abilities stimulated her musical participation. Moe often played at school party events and family gatherings, and began to compose at the age of 12. Eventually, she delved into larger compositions, such as an overture to the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Johanne Luise Heiberg’s birth in 1913. She maintained contact with the school long after she was grown. At Moltke’s funeral in 1928, she played his elegy on the Frederik church organ. She played at numerous charity events before, during and after World War II, and for many family celebrations. She wrote music for fe

Bernard B. Brown

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Bernard B. Brown (July 24, 1898 – February 20, 1981) was an American sound engineer and composer, who wrote the scores for many early animated cartoons produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions for distribution by Warner Bros. Pictures. He won an Academy Award in the category Sound Recording and was nominated for seven more in the same category. He was also nominated three times in the category Best Visual Effects. He worked on more than 520 films between 1930 and 1958. Composer In 1933, animation producer Leon Schlesinger set up his new animation studio: Leon Schlesinger Productions. The company would later be known as Warner Bros. Cartoons. Schlesinger had to hire new staff for his studio. According to animation historian Michael Barrier, Schlesinger “knew almost nothing about making cartoons” and took help wherever he could find it. Among his new employees was Bernard Brown, who was in charge of recording sound and scores for the studio’s films. According to a later interview with Brown, he worked on animated short films in addition to his regular work. This “regular work” was recording film scores for the feature films of Warner Bros. Pictures. Brown would reportedly spend many

Bernard Barrell

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Bernard Clements Barrell (15 August 1919 – 2 January 2005) was an English musician, music educator and composer. Biography Bernard Barrell was born in Sudbury, Suffolk, and studied at Trinity College of Music, London. He served in World War II and returned to England, where he took various teaching appointments in Hollesley Bay Borstal, Ipswich schools, the Suffolk Rural Music School and the Workers’ Educational Association. He served as conductor of the Woodbridge Orchestra and as an adjudicator for the British Federation of Musical Festivals. He married composer Joyce Howard Gedye. Selected works Orchestra * Hommage à Ravel, Suite for small orchestra, Op.1 (1938) * Diversions on an Original Theme for string orchestra, Op.2 (1938) * Sarabande for small orchestra, Op.4 (1939) * Four Studies for string orchestra, Op.8 (1951) * Fugue for string orchestra, Op.11 (1954) * East Anglian Holiday Overture, Op.14 (1956) * A Carol Prelude for string orchestra and 3 recorders, Op.17 (1958) * Festival Voluntary for string orchestra and 3 recorders, Op.18 (1959) * Meditation on an Old French Melody for small orchestra, Op.27 (1960) * Two Christmas Preludes for recorders and string orchestra, Op

Bernard Grun

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Bernard Grun (; 11 February 1901 28 December 1972) was a Central European composer, conductor, and author. He is primarily remembered as the compiler of The Timetables of History. Early life Grün was born on 11 February 1901 in Startsch, Moravia, Austria-Hungary (now Stařeč, Czech Republic). He completed a degree in philosophy and a doctorate in law at Vienna and Prague, From 1924 to 1929 he worked as a conductor in Prague at the Neues Deutsches Theater (New German Theatre). His first major work was the 1929 Bohemian Musicians, In 1946, he published his compilation The Timetables of History, adapted from Werner Stein’s Kulturfahrplan, presenting human history since 5000BC in tabular form. Each century, then decade, then year, is presented with its major events (if known) divided under the seven headings: * Influential leaders and political events * Literature & Theater * Religion, Philosophy, Learning * Visual Arts * Music * Scientific and technological inventions * Daily Life, innovations, trends. It has been in constant publication, with the most recent update in 2005. In the postwar period, Grun continued writing film music for titles such as White Cradle Inn (1947), The Blind G

Bernard Naylor

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Bernard Naylor (November 22, 1907 – May 19, 1986) was an English and Canadian composer, conductor and organist. Early life Bernard James Naylor was born in Cambridge, England, on November 22, 1907. His father, Edward Naylor, was an English composer. Career In 1930, he received a Bachelor of Music from the University of Oxford. In the 1920s, and studied with Gustav Holst, John Ireland and Vaughan Williams at The Royal Conservatory of Music. He became an organ scholar at Exeter College during the late 1920s and early 1930s. In the 1930s, He founded the Little Symphony of Montreal in 1942 and composed in Montreal for five years. After singing in the Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir for a year, in the 1950s he again returned to England. He taught at both at the University of Oxford and the University of Reading. He returned to Canada in 1959 and spent the rest of his life there with his wife, continuing to compose, first in Winnipeg and then in Victoria in 1968, despite retiring officially in 1964. In 1980, he received honorary doctorates of law from both the University of Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba. He and his wife, donated art to the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Death On May 19, 198

Bernard Rogers

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Bernard Rogers (4 February 1893 – 24 May 1968) was an American composer. His best known work is The Passion, an oratorio written in 1942. Life and career Rogers was born in New York City. He studied with Arthur Farwell, Ernest Bloch, Percy Goetschius, and Nadia Boulanger. He taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music, The Hartt School, and the Eastman School of Music. His pupils included Stephen Albert, Dominick Argento, Jacob Avshalomov, William Bergsma, David Borden, Will Gay Bottje, David Diamond, Walter Hartley, Ronald Lo Presti, Ulysses Kay, Louis Mennini, John La Montaine, W. Francis McBeth, Ron Nelson, Burrill Phillips, Alice McElroy Procter, Gardner Read, H. Owen Reed, Margaret Vardell Sandresky, Robert Ward, John Weinzweig, Norma Wendelburg, Richard Lane, Clifton Williams and Laurence Rosenthal among others. He joined the Eastman faculty in 1929. He composed five operas, five symphonies, other works for orchestra, chamber music, three cantatas, choral music and Lieder. His one-act opera “The Warrior,” for which Norman Corwin wrote the libretto, received its premiere at The Metropolitan Opera on January 11, 1947. Rogers retired from Eastman in 1967. He died in Rochester on

Bernard Rose (musician)

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Bernard William George Rose (9 May 1916 – 21 November 1996) was a British organist, soldier, composer, and academic. A graduate of Cambridge University, he is best known for his compositions of Anglican church music; his Preces and Responses, for use in the Anglican services of Mattins and Evensong, is widely performed. He served as a soldier in the Second World War, and went on to become a noted choir master and music tutor, counting among his pupils the composer Kenneth Leighton, musicians Professor Roger Bray, Professor David Wulstan and Harry Christophers, and actor Dudley Moore. Education Bernard Rose was at Salisbury Cathedral School and sang as a chorister at Salisbury Cathedral from 1925 to 1931. There, he also studied the organ under Walter Galpin Alcock and was appointed as an assistant organist at the cathedral aged just 15. From 1933 to 1935, Rose studied at the Royal College of Music where he continued his organ studies under Alcock. In 1935, he won the organ scholarship to St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, beating Edward Heath to the position. At Cambridge, Rose studied under Hubert Middleton and Edward Joseph Dent from 1935 to 1939. He saw action in the North Africa

Bernard Stevens

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Bernard (George) Stevens (2 March 1916 – 6 January 1983) was a British composer who first became known to the wider public when he won a newspaper composition prize for a ‘Victory Symphony’ post-war in 1946. The broader success was not sustained, but Stevens went on to become a respected composer and teacher at the Royal College of Music, using traditional forms for his compositions while extending his essentially tonal harmonic language towards serialism. Early career Born in Stamford Hill, London, Stevens grew up in Essex, and received his first musical education at Southend High School, where his teacher was Arthur Hutchings. Called up for war service in 1940, he was rejected for a combat role due to his poor eyesight, so he served in the Royal Army Pay Corps. While there, he composed his Piano Trio and his Violin Sonata, Op. 1, written for his wife Bertha, a violin teacher whom he married in 1941. The sonata attracted the attention of Max Rostal, who commissioned a Violin Concerto, which Stevens also wrote during his army service. In 1946 his First Symphony, entitled Symphony of Liberation, won first prize in a competition sponsored by the Daily Express newspaper for a ‘Victory

Bernard van Dieren

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Bernard Hélène Joseph van Dieren (27 December 188724 April 1936) was a Dutch composer, critic, author, and writer on music, much of whose working life was spent in England. Biography Van Dieren was the last of five children of a Dutch Rotterdam wine merchant, Bernard Joseph van Dieren, and his French second wife, Julie Françoise Adelle Labbé. Details of his education are unknown but it seems that his early training was as a scientist, as a research assistant in a laboratory. Gifted in science, extremely intelligent and with a phenomenal memory, he was also well-versed in literature as well as an able violinist and amateur artist. His career as composer began when he was twenty when some of his early works were published in the Netherlands. In 1909 he relocated to London as a correspondent for the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant with his wife-to-be, Frida Kindler (1879–1964), a very gifted concert pianist whom he married on 1 January 1910. By this time he had decided to study music seriously. A son, Hans Jean Jules Maximilian Navarre Benvenuto Bernard van Dieren (1910–74), was born the same year, during which he took British nationality. They settled at 35A St George’s Road, West Hamps

Bernd Alois Zimmermann

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Bernd Alois Zimmermann (20 March 1918 – 10 August 1970) was a German composer. He is perhaps best known for his opera Die Soldaten, which is regarded as one of the most important German operas of the 20th century, after those of Berg. His eclectic music, which employs a wide range of techniques including dodecaphony and musical quotation, encompasses the styles of the avant-garde, serial, and postmodern. Life Zimmermann was born in Bliesheim (now part of Erftstadt), near Cologne. He grew up in a rural Catholic community in western Germany. His father worked for the German Reichsbahn and was also a farmer. In 1929, Zimmermann began attending a private Catholic school, where he had his first real encounter with music. After the NSDAP closed all private schools, he switched to a public Catholic school in Cologne where, in 1937, he received his Abitur. That same year he fulfilled his duty for the Reichsarbeitsdienst and spent late 1937–early 1938 studying pedagogy at the Hochschule für Lehrerausbildung (lit. University for Teacher Training) in Bonn. He began studying music education, musicology, and composition in early 1938 at the University for Music in Cologne. In 1940, he was draft

Bernhard Eichhorn

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Bernhard Eichhorn (17 April 1904 – 6 February 1980 In 1927, he joined the Universität und Akademie für Tonkunst in Munich, under Arthur Kutscher. From 1945 to 1947, Eichhorn was Kapellmeister at the Städtische Bühnen München. Selected filmography * Anuschka (1942) * Doctor Crippen (1942) * Journey into the Past (1943) * Under the Bridges (1946) * In Those Days (1947) * The Time with You (1948) * The Orplid Mystery (1950) * Royal Children (1950) * The Violin Maker of Mittenwald (1950) * The Cloister of Martins (1951) * White Shadows (1951) * House of Life (1952) * The Monastery’s Hunter (1953) * Hubertus Castle (1954) * Rose-Girl Resli (1954) * The Silent Angel (1954) * The Dark Star (1955) * Sky Without Stars (1955) * Lost Child 312 (1955) * The Vulture Wally (1956) * The Girl from Flanders (1956) * The Captain from Köpenick (1956) * Love From Paris (1957) * Iron Gustav (1958) * Jons und Erdme (1959) * The Goose of Sedan (1959) * A Glass of Water (1960) * The Good Soldier Schweik (1960) * The Dream of Lieschen Mueller (1961) * Blind Justice (1961) Bibliography * References External links *

Bernhard Heiden

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Bernhard Heiden (b. Frankfurt am Main, August 24, 1910; d. Bloomington, Indiana, April 30, 2000) was a Jewish emigre from Nazi Germany and a German-American composer who taught as a professor at the Indiana University School of Music from 1946 until his retirement in 1981. The son of Martha (née Heiden-Heimer) and Ernst Levi, Heiden was originally named Bernhard Levi and later changed his name. Drawn to music as a youngster, he composed his first pieces at age six. When he began formal music lessons, he learned music theory in addition to three instruments: piano, clarinet, and violin. Following his secondary schooling at Frankfurt’s noted Goethe Gymnasium, where a classmate was the later émigré author Richard Plant, Heiden enrolled at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin in 1929 at the age of nineteen and studied music composition under Paul Hindemith, one of the foremost German composers of the twentieth century. In 1933, his last year at the Berlin conservatory, he was awarded the Mendelssohn Prize in composition. He was subsequently employed as an orchestral clarinetist. In 1934 Heiden married pianist Cola de Joncheere, who had been a classmate at the Hochschule für Musik. In 193

Bernhard Kaun

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Bernhard Kaun (5 April 1899 – 3 January 1980) was an American composer and orchestrator. He is known for the Frankenstein (1931) theme. Filmography *Platinum Blonde (1931) *Frankenstein (1931) *What Price Hollywood? (1932) *Doctor X (1932) *The Most Dangerous Game (1932) *Thirteen Women (1932) *A Bill of Divorcement (1932) *I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) *A Farewell to Arms (1932) *20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932) *Frisco Jenny (1932) *Employees’ Entrance (1933) *Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) *King Kong (1933) *I Loved a Woman (1933) *The Kennel Murder Case (1933) *Little Women (1933) *Lady Killer (1933) *Son of Kong (1933) *Flying Down to Rio (1933) *The Lost Patrol (1934) *The Gay Divorcee (1934) *The Little Minister (1934) *The Informer (1935) *Becky Sharp (1935) *She (1935) *The Three Musketeers (1935) *The Last Days of Pompeii (1935) *Peter Ibbetson (1935) *The Petrified Forest (1936) *Modern Times (1936) *The Walking Dead (1936) *The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936) *Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936) *Hearts Divided (1936) *China Clipper (1936) *The Garden of Allah (1936) *Black Legion (1937) *Marked Woman (1937) *Lost Horizon (1937) *A Star Is Born (1937) *Souls at Sea

Berta Alves de Sousa

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Berta Alves de Sousa (8 April 1906 – 1 August 1997) was a Portuguese pianist and composer. Biography Candida Berta Alves de Sousa was born in Liège, Belgium. She grew up in Porto, Portugal and studied at the Music Conservatory. She continued her studies in Paris with Wilhelm Backhaus and Theodor Szántó for piano and George Mingot for composition, and in Lisbon with Vianna da Motta. She also studied orchestral conducting with Clemens Krauss in Berlin and Pedro de Freitas Branco in Lisbon. After completing her studies, Alves de Sousa took a position at the Music Conservatory of Porto in 1946 teaching chamber music, (she later became chair) and performed as a concert pianist, accompanist and conductor. She also worked as a music critic for the newspaper O Primeiro de Janeiro in Porto. In 1941, she was awarded the Prix de Sa Moreira established by Orpheon Portuense. Alves de Sousa died in Porto at the age of 91, and her documents are archived by the Porto Conservatory of Music. Works Alves de Sousa composed chamber music, choral music and symphonic works. She also experimented with Symmetry Sonora, a method developed by composer Fernando Corrêa de Oliveira. Selected works include: *Abr

Bertha Des Verney

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

Bertha Des Verney (October 5, 1890 – January 1, 1975) was an American pianist, composer, music educator, singer, and playwright. She was choir and drama director at the Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Harlem for over forty years, director of the Washington Music School in Albany, New York, and organized the Ministers of Music and Drama League. She was active in the National Association of Negro Musicians. Early life Bertha Wheeler was born in Dallas, Texas, the daughter of Sam Wheeler and Sarah J. Spence Wheeler (later Sarah J. Whitaker). Her mother was a music teacher. As a child she won a gold medal for singing at the State Fair of Texas. She trained as a teacher at Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College, and studied music at the A. Smythe Music Conservatory in Oak Cliff, Texas. In New York after 1912, she took further classes, at the City College of New York, and the New York School of Social Work Administration. Career Bertha Des Verney (her married surname is sometimes written as Desverney or DesVerney) was choir director at Mother AME Zion Church in Harlem for over forty years, director of the Washington Music School in Albany, New York, and organi

Bertha Weber

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

Bertha Anna Weber (March 31, 1887 – April 17, 1961) was an American composer and organist. Life and career Weber was born in New Baden, Illinois, to John and Elizabeth Weber. The family moved to Pomona, California, in 1887. Weber studied music at Pomona College, the University of Southern California, and in Europe. She was an organist at Pomona First Presbyterian Church in 1907, and later at Trinity Methodist Church for a number of years. She moved to Berkeley and maintained a studio at the Hotel Claremont there from around 1924 until she moved to Oakland in 1947. She continued composing and giving music lessons and recitals until her death in 1961, when she committed suicide by stepping in front of a train. She was a member of the professional music fraternity Sigma Alpha Iota. Works Weber’s compositions were published by Willis Music Company. They include: Opera *The Mysterious Characters of Mr. Fu (1932) Vocal *“Abraham Lincoln” *“Angels and Shepherds Song” *“Lincoln So Brave and True” References

Berthe di Vito-Delvaux

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Berthe di Vito-Delvaux (17 May 1915 – 2 April 2005) was a Belgian composer. Biography Berthe di Vito-Delvaux was born in Angleur, Belgium. She studied theory with Désiré Duysens, harmony with Louis Lavoye and piano with Jeanne House at the Royal Academy of Music of Liège, and composition under Léon Jongen at the Brussels Royal Academy of Music. She married at eighteen, but completed her studies and then took a position teaching harmony at the Royal Academy of Music of Liège. In 1949, Berthe di Vito-Delvaux moved to Hasselt, and then in 1964 back to Angleur where she died in 2005. Awards and honors Di Vito-Delvaux received honors and awards including: *Maria Prize from the City of Liège 1938 *Prix de Rome in 1943 *Composition prize from the province of Limburg 1952 *Modeste Grétry Prize from Société d’Auteurs Belge – Belgische Auteurs Maatschappi (SABAM) in 1962 *Consecration Prize from the Province of Liège in 1978. Works Di Vito-Delvaux composed ballets, opera, and theatrical works, as well as works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, voice and instruments. Selected works include: *Sonata for horn and piano, Op. 109 *A Jacqueline op. 157, 1985 for violin and piano *Abandon op. 169, 1

Berthold Goldschmidt

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Berthold Goldschmidt (18 January 190317 October 1996) was a German Jewish composer who spent most of his life in England. The suppression of his work by Nazi Germany, as well as the disdain with which many modernist critics elsewhere dismissed his “anachronistic” lyricism, stranded the composer in the wilderness for many years before he was given a revival in his final decade. Life Goldschmidt was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1903. His musical career began in earnest during the heyday of the Weimar Republic. While studying philosophy at the University of Hamburg, he was encouraged by the Italian composer Ferruccio Busoni to write music. In 1922, Goldschmidt entered the Berlin Hochschule für Musik and joined Franz Schreker’s composition class, where his fellow pupils included Ernst Krenek, Alois Hába, Felix Petryek, and Jascha Horenstein. He also studied conducting, played freelance for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and in 1923, coached the choir for the Berlin premiere of Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder. In 1925, Goldschmidt achieved his first major success with his Passacaglia, Op. 4, which earned him the prestigious Mendelssohn Prize. Hailed as one of the brightest hopes of

Bill Russell (composer)

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

William Russell (February 26, 1905 – August 9, 1992) was an American music historian and modernist composer. Named Russell William Wagner at birth, when he decided to become a classical music composer, he dropped his last name—as it already “was taken” by Richard Wagner. He was commonly known as “Bill Russell”. Composer Born in the small Missouri city of Canton, Bill Russell was a leading figure in percussion music composition, influenced by his acquaintances John Cage and Henry Cowell. In turn, Russell also influenced Cage, in his emphasis of percussion. During the 1930s, predating Cage’s main work, Russell’s percussion works called for vernacular textures such as Jack Daniels bottles, suitcases, and Haitian drums, as well as “prepared pianos”, although it is not clear how specifically he wanted the piano to be prepared. One notable performance of his “Fugue for eight percussion instruments” took place in 1933, with the ubiquitous and influential critic-writer-performer Nicholas Slonimsky conducting. The fugue was performed at Carnegie Hall on a program that included Varèse’s iconic percussion composition “Ionisation.” These performances took place under the auspices of the Pan-Am

Billy Mayerl

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

William Joseph Mayerl (31 May 1902 – 25 March 1959) was an English pianist and composer who built a career in music hall and musical theatre. Best known for his syncopated novelty piano solos, he wrote over 300 piano pieces, many of which were named after flowers and trees, including his best-known composition, “Marigold” (1927). He also ran the successful School of Syncopation, for whose members he published hundreds of his own arrangements of popular songs. He also composed works for piano and orchestra, often in suites with evocative names such as the Aquarium Suite (1937), comprising “Willow Moss”, “Moorish Idol”, “Fantail”, and “Whirligig”. Early life and education Mayerl was born in 1902 on London’s Tottenham Court Road, near the West End theatre district. His father, a violin player, attempted to introduce him to the violin age of four, but failed. After noticing his affinity to the piano, he started him with piano lessons. By age seven he was studying at the Trinity College of Music, paid for with a series of scholarships. His first major concert was at age nine, playing Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto. In his teens, he supplemented these lessons by accompanying silent movies

Billy Strayhorn

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William Thomas Strayhorn (November 29, 1915 – May 31, 1967) was an American jazz composer, pianist, lyricist, and arranger who collaborated with bandleader and composer Duke Ellington for nearly three decades. His compositions include “Take the ‘A’ Train”, “Chelsea Bridge”, “A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing”, and “Lush Life”. Early life Strayhorn was born in Dayton, Ohio, United States. Return to Pittsburgh and meeting Ellington Strayhorn returned to Pittsburgh while still in grade school. He worked odd jobs to earn enough money to buy his first piano and took lessons from Charlotte Enty Catlin. He attended Westinghouse High School, later also attended by jazz pianists Erroll Garner and Ahmad Jamal. He played in the school band, and studied under Carl McVicker, who had also instructed Erroll Garner and Mary Lou Williams. He studied classical music for a time at the Pittsburgh Music Institute, writing a musical, forming a trio that played daily on a local radio station, and writing/composing the songs “Life Is Lonely” (later renamed “Lush Life”), “My Little Brown Book”, and “Something to Live For”. By age 19, he was writing for a professional musical, Fantastic Rhythm. Strayhorn’s origi

Bjarne Amdahl

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Bjarne Fredrik Berg Amdahl (17 August 190314 April 1968) was a Norwegian pianist, composer and orchestra conductor. Personal life Amdahl was born to Seddeltrykkeriet (banknote printers) chairman Hans Amdahl (1875–1945) and Gyda Sawert (1877–1957) in Trondheim. In 1931 he married the dancer Bengta Andrea Jønsson (11 May 1910 – 3 September 2003), daughter of furniture shop keeper Andreas Jønsson (1871–1940) and politician Gitta Jønsson (b. Hagerup, 1869–1950). He died in Bærum in 1968. He was one of Norway’s most popular composers of entertainment music in the 20th century, and among his most popular music were melodies to the songs "" and “Sønnavindsvalsen” with lyrics by Alf Prøysen, and the song “Skomværvalsen” with lyrics by Erik Bye. External links * References

Bjarne Brustad

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Bjarne Brustad (4 March 1895 – 20 May 1978) was a Norwegian composer, violinist and violist. He was born in Kristiania, now Oslo. He played with symphonic orchestras in Stavanger and Oslo. In the 1920s he travelled to European cities such as Paris, Munich and Berlin, where he received musical inspiration and contacts. From 1928 to 1943, Brustad was viola soloist with Philharmonic Society Orchestra in Oslo. He wrote symphonies, compositions for violin and orchestra, chamber music and opera. His opera Atlantis was finished in 1945. After World War II he was also active in organizing work. and Trond Øyen. He died in Oslo. Selected works ;Stage * Atlantis, Opera (1945) ;Orchestral * Suite No. 1 (1920) * Berceuse and Waltz for chamber orchestra * Perpetum Mobile for chamber orchestra (1924, revised 1958) * Norsk Suite (Norwegian Suite) (1926, 1961); original version for viola and piano * Concerto Grosso: En studie (1938) * Symphony No. 1 (1948) * Ouvertyre (Overture) (1950) * Symphony No. 2 (1951) * Suite No. 2 (1952) * Symphony No. 3 (1953) * Kinderspiele, Suite for chamber orchestra (1955) * Cabaret for chamber orchestra (1958) * Day-Dreams for chamber orchestra (1958) * French Suite

Bjørn Fongaard

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Bjørn Fongaard (2 March 1919 in Oslo – 26 October 1980 in Oslo) was a Norwegian composer, guitarist, and teacher. In addition to being concerned with microtonal and electronic music, he was perhaps the first to use the prepared guitar. “Fongaard’s output is considerable…Due to the partly experimental notation, these works have not become widely known.” He started off by constructing a quarter tone guitar with adaption of the fretboard, but very early left this in favor of a diverse set of prepared guitar techniques. His first pieces in this genre came in the mid 60’s. A sampler CD of his own recordings entitled Elektrofoni: Works For Micro Intervallic Guitar 1965-1978 was released in 2011. In 2015, a double disc of new recordings by Norwegian guitarist Anders Førisdal was released on Aurora Records. List of works *Galaxy op. 46 *Homo Sapiens op. 80 *Genesis *Sinfonia Microtonalis op. 79 *Orchestra Antiphonalis *Symphony of Space *Universum *Mare Tranquilitatis *23 Concertos for Piano and Orchestra 0p. 118 *12 Concertos for Solo Instrument and Orchestra op. 120 *21 String Quartets op. 123 *57 Sonatas for One Instrument op. 125 *41 Concertos for Solo Instrument and Tape op. 131 Ref

Blas Galindo

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Blas Galindo Dimas (February 3, 1910 – April 19, 1993) was a Mexican composer. Biography Born in San Gabriel, Jalisco, Galindo studied intermittently from 1931 to 1944 at the National Conservatory in Mexico City, studying with Carlos Chávez (composition), Candelario Huízar, José Rolón, and Manuel Rodríguez Vizcarra (piano). In 1934, he formed the Grupo de los cuatro with fellow composers Daniel Ayala, Salvador Contreras, and José Pablo Moncayo, seeking to use indigenous Mexican musical materials in art-music compositions . In 1941, he was an assistant at the Berkshire Music Festival at Tanglewood, and studied under Aaron Copland at the Berkshire Music Center in 1941 and again in 1942, when his orchestral suite Arroyos was performed there (Stevenson 2001). Returning to Mexico in 1942, he became a professor of composition at the National Conservatory and in 1947 was named Director of the conservatory (a position which he held until 1961) as well as director of the music department of the National Institute of Fine Arts . From 1960 to 1965, he was music director for the Symphony of the Mexican Institute of Social Security . In 1947, Galindo was named Chief of the Department for the Na

Blaž Arnič

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Blaž Arnič (31 January 1901 – 1 February 1970) was a Slovenian symphonic composer. Born in Luče, Lower Styria, Austria-Hungary, Arnič grew up on an isolated farmstead near Mount Raduha in the Kamnik Alps. He taught himself how to play the accordion, and at the age of nineteen moved to Ljubljana to study music. Life Arnič studied composing at the Ljubljana Conservatory, and later (1930-1932) at the New Vienna Conservatory, under the tutelage of Professor Rudolf Nilius, with advanced composition in Warsaw, Kraków In 1943 Arnič was arrested for his political views, and in 1944 he was sent to the Dachau concentration camp, where he became seriously ill (eventually causing him to go blind in one eye). His music has been compared to that of Bruckner and classified as “neo-romantic realism.” Arnič developed from a neo-romantic base, but avoided the dissonance of the Expressionists. The first film for which Arnič wrote music was Partizanske bolnice v Sloveniji in 1948, a documentary about a partisan infirmary. In 1955, Milan Kumar of Triglav Film made a 452-minute film entitled Ples čarovnic starring ballerina Stanislava Brezovar which featured Arnič’s symphonic poem by the same name. In 2

Bob Nolan

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Bob Nolan (born Clarence Robert Nobles; April 13, 1908 – June 16, 1980, name changed to Robert Clarence Nobles in 1929) was a Canadian-born American singer, songwriter, and actor. He was a founding member of the Sons of the Pioneers, and composer of numerous Country music and Western music songs, including the standards “Cool Water” and “Tumbling Tumbleweeds.” He is generally regarded as one of the finest Western songwriters of all time. As an actor and singer, he appeared in scores of Western films. Early years Nolan was born April 13, 1908, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada to Harry Nobles and Flora Elizabeth Hussey Nobles. The couple separated in 1915, and Flora raised her two little boys in Winnipeg. In the summer of 1916, Flora temporarily moved her children to her husband’s parents’ home in Hatfield Point, New Brunswick, but due to the machinations of his father, Nolan never saw his mother again. There he attended The Belmont School until 1921, when, at the age of thirteen, he moved to Tucson, Arizona, to live with his father Harry, a United States Army officer. Film career In 1934, Nolan began his career in film as the singing voice for Ken Maynard in the 1934 film In Old Santa

Bohuslav Martinů

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1890–1923: Polička and Prague#

The setting of Martinů’s birth was unusual. He was born in the tower of the St. Jakub Church in Polička, a town in Bohemia, close to the Moravian border. His father, Ferdinand, a shoemaker, also worked as the church sexton and town fire watchman. For this, he and his family were allowed to live in the tower apartment. As a small boy Bohuslav was sickly, and frequently had to be carried up the 193 steps to the tower on the back of his father or his older sister. In school he was known to be very shy, and did not participate in the plays or pageants with his classmates. But as violinist, he excelled and developed a strong reputation, giving his first public concert in his hometown in 1905. The townspeople raised enough money to fund his schooling, and in 1906 he left the countryside to begin studies at the Prague Conservatory. Whilst there he fared poorly as a student, showing little interest in the rigid pedagogy or the hours of violin practice required. He was far more interested in exploring Prague and learning on his own, attending concerts and reading books on many subjects. This was in contrast to his roommate, Stanislav Novák, an excellent student and brilliant violinist. They frequently attended concerts together at which Martinů became engrossed in analyzing new music, particularly French impressionist works. He could memorize much of it, to the extent that when back in their room, he could write out large parts of the score almost perfectly. Novák was astonished at how meticulously Martinů could do this. He became convinced that his roommate, while lacking in other subjects, possessed an incredible brain for analyzing and memorizing music. They became friends for life. Dropped from the violin program, Martinů was moved to the organ department that taught composition, but dismissed in 1910 for “incorrigible negligence”. Martinů spent the next several years living back home in Polička, attempting to gain some standing in the musical world. He had written several compositions by this time, including the Elegie for violin and piano, and the symphonic poems Angel of Death (Anděl smrti) and Death of Tintagiles (Smrt Tintagilova), and submitted samples of his work to Josef Suk, a leading Czech composer. Suk encouraged him to pursue formal composition training, but this would not be possible for years. In the meantime, he passed the state teaching examination and maintained a studio in Polička throughout World War I, while continuing to compose and study on his own. It was during this time that he studied the ancient choral hymns of the Bohemian Brethren, which influenced his style and musical scope. As World War I drew to a close and Czechoslovakia was declared an independent republic, Martinů composed the celebratory cantata Czech Rhapsody (Česká rapsodie), which premiered in 1919 to great acclaim. He toured Europe as a violinist with the National Theatre Orchestra, and in 1920 became a full member of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra that was led by the inspired young conductor Václav Talich, who was the first major conductor to promote Martinů. He also began formal composition study under Suk. During these last years in Prague he completed his first string quartet and two ballets: Who is the Most Powerful in the World? (Kdo je na světě nejmocnější?) and Istar.

Bolesław Szabelski

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Bolesław Szabelski (3 December 1896 in Radoryż – 27 August 1979 in Katowice) was a Polish composer of modern classical music. While his style shifted and varied over the course of his life, he is best known for his atonal work composed during the 1950s and 1960s. Szabelski studied at the Polish Musical Society School with Łysakowski in 1915. He attended the Warsaw Conservatory under Karol Szymanowski. Between 1929 and 1939, he taught organ and composition at the Conservatoire of Katowice. Szabelski began working in the neoclassical and romanticism modes typical of the early 20th century. He adopted the serialist technique in the 1950s and was one of a number of Polish New Wave composers to embrace atonality. His early work had been characterised by monumental forms and fanfare motifs and Szabelski adapted to the new aesthetic while retaining his old signatures. As a result, he developed a style described as “strikingly innovative”. He composed five symphonies (1926, 1934, 1951, 1956 and 1968), as well as concertos, chamber and choral works. Szabelski was highly influential on the “New Polish School” composers of the early 1950s and had a formative influence on his student Henryk Mi

Boleslaw Szczeniowski

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Boleslaw Szczeniowski (20 July 1898 – 1985) was a Canadian aeronautical engineer and composer of Polish descent. A graduate of the school of engineering at Lviv Polytechnic, Szczeniowski made a living as an engineer in Montréal. He published two books: Theory of the siphon jet (published by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 1955) and Theoretical analysis of combustion gases (Montreal, 1946). As a composer and musician, Szczeniowski was largely self-taught. He composed a significant amount of vocal music and works for solo piano and a small amount of chamber music. Compositions Symphonic *Rustic Dance Vocal music * 1954 The rainbow, - text: Marja Konopnicka * 1954 Will-o’the wisp, - text: Hanna Gross * 1955 Entends tu…/ Do you hear…, text: Mario Gross * 1955 Les tenebres/Dusk, - text: Mario Gross * 1955 Mon chant, - text: Mario Gress * 1955 Poranek/Morning, - text: Marja Konopnicka * 1956 Poeme, - text: Marc Gelinas * 1956 Little Jack Horner * 1958 La lune dans l’eau, - textt: Wilfrid Lemoine * 1958 Le petit lapin de la lune, - text: Cecile Duchene * 1958 Pierrot, - text: Wilfrid Lemoine * 1959 A poor young Sheppard - text: Paul Verlaine * 1959 Un grand sommeil noir,

Bonaventura Somma

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Bonaventura Somma ( Chianciano Terme 30 July 1893Rome 23 October 1960) was an Italian Romantic composer, conductor and organist. Life Bonaventura Somma was born in Chianciano Terme - small town located in the province of Siena, on July 30, 1893. As a young man he attended the conservatory in Rome, where he was trained in music, having been a student of various modern composers including Ottorino Respighi. After finishing his studies, he became a professor for many years at the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia in Rome and directed the Choirs of the “Augusteo” for several years. Always in Rome, he founded the Polyphonic Choir of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, in which he was permanent director until end of his life. He also worked with the most important conductors and composers of his time (Karajan, Toscanini, Perosi, etc.). For many years he was director of the Musical Chapel of San Luigi dei Francesi. Choirs * Requiem Mass * Pentecost * Hail Mary * Symphony and Variations Revisions and transcripts Somma carried out an intense activity of transcription and revision of XVI to XVII century scores for choir, including several Palestrina’s Masses and Madrigal works by Banchieri stand out

Boris Arapov

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Boris Aleksandrovich Arapov (; 12 September 1905 in Saint Petersburg – 27 January 1992 in Saint Petersburg) was a Soviet and Russian composer. People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1976). Life and career Arapov grew up in Poltava, Ukraine, and took his first musical instruction class there. He moved to Petrograd (formerly Saint Petersburg) in 1921, and took piano lessons with Maria Yudina. However, a hand disease later forced him to abandon piano playing. Arapov oriented himself first of all towards the officially desirable composition style and worked primarily with nationalist elements, mainly restricting his subject matter to Russian folklore. However, from around 1960, his compositional style started to become more experimental, introducing a more complicated harmonic, rhythmic and sound colour. As subject matter, he more often selected works of literature. Although this later work is generally tonal, the levels of internal discord are higher than previously. In his very last works, Arapov introduced a religious subject matter. Selected works Orchestral * Symphony No. 1 in C minor (1947) * Symphony No. 2 in D major (1959) * Symphony No. 3 (1963) * Symphony No. 4 for voices, choir and o

Boris Berlin

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

Boris Berlin (27 May 1907 – 24 March 2001) was a Canadian pianist, music educator, arranger, and composer of Russian birth. He is primarily remembered for his work within the field of piano pedagogy, having published an extensive amount of material in that area and teaching a large number of notable pianists. His more than 20 books on the subject of piano pedagogy sold more than 4 million copies. In 2000 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada with the citation “Known as the teacher of teachers, he profoundly influenced musical instruction in our country. Having taught some of Canada’s most illustrious musicians, he was known for his extensive contribution to pedagogical material and for his piano pieces for young performers.” In February 2026, The Toronto Star published a first-person account by a former student who alleged that Berlin sexually abused her during piano lessons when she was 15 years old while studying at the Royal Conservatory of Music. Life and career Born in Kharkov, Russian Empire, Berlin began his professional musical education at the Sevastopol Conservatory. From 1923 to 1925 he attended the Conservatoire de Genève and then pursued further studies at the

Boris Blacher

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Boris Blacher (19 January 190330 January 1975) was a German composer and librettist. Life Blacher was born when his parents (of German-Estonian and Russian backgrounds) were living within a Russian-speaking community in the Manchurian town of Niuzhuang () (hence the use of the Julian calendar on his birth record). He spent his first years in China and in the Asian parts of Russia, and in 1919, he eventually came to live in Harbin. In 1922 he went to Berlin where he began to study first architecture, mathematics, and then music at the Berlin Hochschule fuer Musik. He found work arranging popular and film music. Two years later, he turned to music and studied composition with Friedrich Koch. His career was interrupted by National Socialism. He was accused of writing degenerate music and lost his teaching post at the Dresden Conservatory. His career resumed after 1945, and he later became president of the Academy of Arts, Berlin, and is today regarded as one of the most influential music figures of his time. His students include Aribert Reimann, Isang Yun, Maki Ishii, Fritz Geißler, Giselher Klebe, Heimo Erbse, Richard Aaker Trythall, Klaus Huber, Francis Burt, Gottfried von Einem, Ka

Boris Kõrver

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Boris Kõrver (12 April 1917 – 17 August 1994) was an Estonian composer. Biography Kõrver was born in Revel 12 April 1917. In 1950, he graduated from Tallinn State Conservatory in composition specialty. During World War II, he belonged to State Artistic Ensembles of the Estonian SSR in Yaroslavl. Since 1944, he was a member of Estonian Composers’ Union. From 1953 to 1966, he was deputy chairman and from 1966 to 1974 chairman of Estonian Composers’ Union. His daughter is director and cinematographer Marianne Kõrver. He died 17 August 1994 in Tallinn. Awards * Two Estonian SSR State Prizes (1949, 1950) * Stalin Prize, 3rd class (1951) * Merited Art Worker of the Estonian SSR (1955) * Two Orders of the Red Banner of Labour (1956, 1971) * People’s Artist of the Estonian SSR (1965) * Order of the Badge of Honour (1967) * Order of Friendship of Peoples Works * Author manuscript “Our school life” (1955) https://www.emic.ee/?sisu=kasikirjad&mid=230&lang=eng&action=view&id=11468&tid=15879 * operette “Ainult unistus” (1955) * operette “Laanelill” (1959) * operette “Teie soov palun?” (1962) * musical “Mees pisuhännaga” (1968) * musical “Kapsad ja kuningad” (1971) References

Boris Sobinov

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

Boris Leonidovich Sobinov (; 1895 in Moscow – 1956 in Klin) was a Russian composer and a son of Leonid Sobinov, Russia’s leading lyric tenor during the first quarter of the 20th Century. Biography Boris was the first child born to Maria Karzhavina, a dramatic actress, and Leonid Sobinov, a famous opera singer, who had met as schoolmates at the Philharmonic Society. Though their union dissolved after only a few years, Leonid remained an active and loving presence in the lives of Boris and his younger brother Yuri (1897-1920). Boris received a military education while obtaining musical training. His younger brother Yuri (1897–1920) was a visual artist and painted the pictured oil portrait of Boris at the piano (1910). Both brothers served in the tsarist army, and then in the White Army during the Civil War. Yuri was killed near Melitopol. Boris, along with army baron Pyotr Wrangel, managed to escape to Germany. He later graduated from Berlin’s High Art School, where he later taught. Throughout his professorial years, he continued to compose his own works. Leonid and Boris reunited as Leonid toured Berlin. In 1931 Boris settled in Riga, where Leonid spent much of a one-year sabbatical

Borys Lyatoshynsky

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Borys Mykolaiovych Lyatoshynsky, also known as Boris Nikolayevich Lyatoshinsky, (3 January 1895 15 April 1968) was a Ukrainian composer, conductor, and teacher. A leading member of the new generation of 20th century Ukrainian composers, he was awarded a number of accolades, including the honorary title of People’s Artist of the Ukrainian SSR and two Stalin Prizes. He received his primary education at home, where Polish literature and history was held in high esteem. After completing school in 1913, he entered the Faculty of Law at Kyiv University, and as a graduate was employed to teach music at the Kyiv Conservatory. During the 1910s, Lyatoshynsky wrote 31 works of various musical genres. During the 1930s he travelled to Tajikistan to study folk music and compose a ballet about the life of local people. From 1935 to 1938, and from 1941 to 1944, he taught orchestration at the Moscow Conservatory. During the war, Lyatoshynsky was evacuated and taught at the Conservatory’s branch in Saratov, where he worked on arrangements of Ukrainian songs, and organised the transportation of Ukrainian musical manuscripts away to safety. Lyatoshynsky’s main works are his operas The Golden Ring (192

Božidar Širola

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Dr. Božidar Širola (1889 in Žakanje – 1956 in Zagreb) was a Croatian composer, organologist, musicologist, ethnomusicologist, and museum administrator. He is known as a composer of almost all musical forms in classical music. Compositions * V protuletju: pet stavaka za sopran i gudački kvartet op. E.5 * 24 dvoglasne invencije u svim dur i mol premetima za klavir (24 two part inventions in all major and minor keys for piano) * Suita iz “Šume Striborove” for piano * Düsseldorfer Foxtrott (Text: Peter Korfmacher) (22.VI.1955) * Koncertni andante, op. D 24 * Plavo more - tango * Žudnja : (sopran i klavir) (12.II.1947) Oratorios * Zrtva Abrahamova (Abraham’s Sacrifice)(1924) * Zivot, i spomen slavnih ucitelja sv. brace Cirila i Metoda, apostola slavenskih (The Lives and Memory of the Glorious Teachers and Brothers, Saints Cyril and Methodius, Apostles to the Slavs - oratorio)(1927) * Posljednja pricest sv. Jeronima (The Last Communion of St. Jerome)(1928) * Muka i smrt Kristuseva (The Passion and Death of Christ)(1928) * Seljak (The Peasant)(1931) Piano sonatas * IX. sonata za klavir f-mol (25-IX-1955) * VIII. sonata za klavir F-dur (Zagreb 1954) * VII. sonata za klavir d-mol (Zagreb 19

Brian Boydell

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Brian Patrick Boydell (17 March 1917 – 8 November 2000) was an Irish composer whose works include orchestral pieces, chamber music, and songs. He was Professor of Music at Trinity College Dublin for 20 years, founder of the Dowland Consort, conductor of the Dublin Orchestral Players, and a broadcaster and writer on musical matters. He was also a musicologist specialising in 18th-century Irish musical history. Early life and education Boydell was born in Howth, County Dublin, into an Anglo-Irish family. His father James ran the family maltings business while his mother, Eileen Collins, was one of the first women graduates of Trinity College. Following their son’s birth, the Boydells moved from Howth and lived in a succession of rented houses before settling in Shankill, County Dublin. The young Boydell began his formal education at Monkstown Park in Dublin and was subsequently sent to the Dragon School at Oxford. From there he went to Rugby, where he came under the influence of Kenneth Stubbs, the music master. Although Boydell later spoke of his resentment at the anti-Irish attitude he experienced at Rugby, he said “the education there was very good, in science and music.” Followin

Brian Easdale

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Brian Easdale (10 August 1909 – 30 October 1995) was a British composer of operatic, orchestral, choral and film music, best known for his ballet film score The Red Shoes of 1948. Life Easdale was born in Manchester, and was educated at Westminster Abbey School and the Royal College of Music, where he was a pupil of Armstrong Gibbs (composition) and Gordon Jacob (orchestration). By the 1930s Easdale was living in London, in a Hampstead bed-sit. His downstairs neighbour, the poet Louis MacNeice, suggested to him that he should work for John Grierson’s GPO Film Unit, where MacNeice’s fellow poet W. H. Auden was already working alongside the young composer Benjamin Britten. Easdale also worked with Britten at the Group Theatre just before the war. Called up early in the war, he was assigned to the Crown Film Unit and sent on special assignment to Information Films of India. While there he became interested in Indian music (in particular the music of Nepal) and its instruments, and also formed a friendship with Rumer Godden, author of Black Narcissus. On his return to the UK this connection helped win him the task of composing the score for the film of the novel in 1947. Percussion ins

Bruce Holder

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Bruce Edward Holder Sr. (January 8, 1905 – August 27, 1987) was a Canadian composer, conductor, and violinist. He helped to conduct, teach, and found many music groups, including Symphony New Brunswick, the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra, and the Third Field Artillery Band, which earned him his nickname, Mr. Music of Saint John. Early life and education Holder was born in Saint John, New Brunswick. Career Holder worked at the Ocean Steel and Construction Company. In 1948 Holder was a volunteer with the Saint John Salvage Corps. 1945 he opened a record store in Saint John. In 1957 he began teaching music at Saint John Vocational School, and in 1967 he was assistant conductor of the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra. References External links * Bruce Holder at The Canadian Encyclopedia

Bruno Bartolozzi

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Bruno Bartolozzi (8 June 1911 – 12 December 1980) Further reading *

Bruno Bettinelli

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Bruno Bettinelli (4 June 1913 – 8 November 2004) was an Italian composer and teacher. Biography Bruno Bettinelli was born in Milan, where he studied at the Conservatorio “G. Verdi” in Milan, under the tutelage of Giulio Cesare Paribeni and Renzo Bossi. He held the title of professor of composition at that same institute and he trained many notable contemporary Italian musicians, including Claudio Abbado, Emiliano Bucci, Elisabetta Brusa, Gilberto Serembe, Danilo Lorenzini, Roberto Cacciapaglia, Bruno Canino, Aldo Ceccato, Riccardo Chailly, Azio Corghi, Armando Gentilucci, Riccardo Muti, Maurizio Pollini, Uto Ughi, Angelo Paccagnini, Bruno Zanolini, Silvia Bianchera, Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli, Francesco Degrada, Massimo Di Gesu, Carlo Alessandro Landini, Massimo Anfossi, Caterina Calderoni, Barbara Rettagliati, Massimo Berzolla and many others. He also taught the Italian singer-songwriter Gianna Nannini. He received many international awards for composition, including a prize from Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome in the 1940s. He has also worked in musicology and music criticism. His compositions are currently performed all over the world. Bettinelli’s music is publ

Bruno Bjelinski

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Bruno Bjelinski (born Bruno Weiss; 1 November 1909 – 3 September 1992) was one of the most influential Croatian composers in the 20th century. He was extremely prolific as a composer. His unique musical style was built upon the music of Poulenc, Hindemith, Ravel and Milhaud. He developed his own and recognizable musical language with the elements of neoclassicism. Bjelinski composed six operas, three ballets, 15 symphonies, 2 cello concertos, a cantata, piano music, songs, chamber music, and concertos for piano, violin, viola, bassoon, flute, and piano duo. He also composed music for the Croatian football movie Plavi 9. Biography Bjelinski was born in Trieste into a Jewish family. His mother died very early in his life so his father brought him to Zagreb where he was nurtured by his grandmother. In his youth, he played violin and piano. Later he changed his surname from Weiss to Bjelinski (derivation of the word bijeli, meaning ‘white’ in Croatian). He doctored in law at the University of Zagreb and later studied music at the Zagreb Academy of Music under Blagoje Bersa and Franjo Dugan. Bjelinski started composing in the 1930s. By the beginning of World War II, he had finished his

Buck Warnick

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Henry Clay Warnick, Jr., also known as Buck Warnick, Clay Warnick, and H. Clay Warnick, (born, December 14, 1915, Tacoma, Washington — died February 8, 1995, West Orange, New Jersey) He had an active career on Broadway from 1942 through 1963, and was also a prolific composer of jingles for advertisements on radio and television with the Young and Rubicam (Y & R) agency. His undergraduate education was from Colgate University where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Delta Epsilon. He was musical director of Your Show of Shows from 1950 through 1954. He also served as musical director or arranger for numerous television programs including Caesar’s Hour, The United States Steel Hour, and Your Hit Parade. With Y & R, Warnick produced music for more than 10,000 spots on radio and television. Some of his more famous jingles include “The Dogs Kids Love to Bite” for Armour Hot Dogs. and “Should a gentleman offer a tiparillo to a lady?” for Tiparillo Cigars. The latter song won Warnick a Clio Award in 1974. His best known song is “Number One To The Sun” which he composed for Eastern Airlines. That song was performed and recorded by the New York Philharmonic. References External links *Bu

Burrill Phillips

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Leroy Burrill Phillips (November 9, 1907 – June 22, 1988) was an American composer, teacher, and pianist. Biography Phillips was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He studied at the College of Music at the University of Denver with Edwin Stringham and at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, with Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers. On September 17, 1928, he married Alberta Corinne Mayfield (1907–1979) who wrote many of his librettos. In 1931 the couple had a daughter who, under the stage name Ann Todd, became a child actress in films. She continued acting into her early twenties, but left the entertainment industry in 1954 and died in 2020. A second child, son Stephen, was born in 1937. He died in 1986, two years before his father. Phillips’s first important work was Selections from McGuffey’s Reader, for orchestra, based on poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Immediately successful, the work established his reputation as a composer with a “consciously American style”. By the 1940s he had turned to a more astringent and expressive idiom. In 1960, his String Quartet No. 2 was premiered at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. by the Paganini Qua

C. W. Orr

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Charles Wilfred Leslie Orr, generally known as C. W. Orr (31 July 1893 – 24 February 1976), was an English composer. He is particularly noted for his songs, though his output was small. He wrote only 35 songs in 82 years, 24 of them setting words by A. E. Housman. Biography Born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, shortly after the death from tuberculosis of his father (who was a captain in the Indian Army), he learnt the piano and studied music theory as a child. He was attracted to the singing of Elena Gerhardt, whom he heard sing in London and developed an interest in lieder, especially those of Johannes Brahms, Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann. After reading Ernest Newman’s book on the composer Hugo Wolf he determined to become a songwriter, which occupation he pursued through study at the Guildhall School of Music with Orlando Morgan. He was attracted to the music of Frederick Delius after approaching him at a London restaurant in 1915 and Delius became his mentor, helping him with his early compositions. He also came to know Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock), who helped him in publishing his early songs. He married in 1929 and moved to Painswick, Gloucestershire, to get away fro

Cacilda Borges Barbosa

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Cacilda Campos Borges Barbosa (18 May 1914 – 6 August 2010) was a Brazilian pianist, conductor and composer. She was one of the pioneers of electronic music in Brazil. After completing her education, Barbosa worked as a pianist playing waltzes and chorinhos to dance groups and compose pieces for them. In the 1950s she published the first volume of the series “Estudos Brasileiros para Canto” and became conductor of the Radio Mayrink Veiga orchestra. Barbosa worked with Heitor Villa-Lobos from 1930, and served as director of the Instituto Villa-Lobos. She became a professor for chamber ensemble of the National School of Music at the University of Brazil and professor of counterpoint and fugue at the Popular School of Music Education. She also directed a number of orchestras and choir ensembles. Works Barbosa composed a number of works, many with a strong Brazilian theme. She also composed a number of pieces of orchestral music and chamber music together with pieces for teaching piano students. Selected works include: *Procissão da Chuva - Poem: Wilson Rodrigues *Estudos Brasileiros *Trio for Reeds *Rio de Janeiro Suite for strings (1st mov) *Rio de Janeiro Suite for strings (2nd mov)

Calvin Jackson (pianist)

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John Calvin Jackson (May 26, 1919 – December 9, 1985) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader. Background He was born in Philadelphia in 1919 to Harry and Margaret Jackson. His mother was a concert singer in Philadelphia. Jackson played piano from childhood, having lessons with private teacher. He studied at Juilliard and New York University. Career At the beginning of his career Jackson worked with Frankie Fairfax. From 1943–47 he worked in Hollywood as an assistant director of music for MGM on productions including Meet Me in St. Louis and Anchors Aweigh. In 1947 he recorded with Phil Moore and also as a solo pianist for Discovery Records. He played Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 on piano for the 1947 Tom and Jerry cartoon The Cat Concerto. In Summer 1948, he played with a singer Mildred Bailey and a dancer Avon Long at Café Society in New York City. In 1950, he moved to Toronto, where he often played on television and radio. Over the course of the 1950s and early 1960s he released several LPs for labels such as Columbia Records. In 1957 he returned to Los Angeles, where he resumed work as a composer and orchestrator for television and hit musicals like Where the

Camargo Guarnieri

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Mozart Camargo Guarnieri (February 1, 1907 – January 13, 1993) was a Brazilian composer. Guarnieri was born in Tietê, São Paulo. He studied piano, composition, and conducting in São Paulo and Paris. His compositions received significant recognition in the United States during the 1940s, leading to conducting opportunities in major American cities. A key figure in the Brazilian national school, Guarnieri served as a conductor, a member of the Academia Brasileira de Música, and Director of the São Paulo Conservatório. His extensive oeuvre includes symphonies, concertos, operas, chamber music, piano pieces, and songs. Regarded by some as the most important Brazilian composer after Heitor Villa-Lobos, Guarnieri was awarded the Gabriela Mistral Prize shortly before his death. Name Guarnieri was born in Tietê, São Paulo, and registered at birth as Mozart Guarnieri, but when he began a musical career, he decided his first name was too pretentious. Thus he adopted his mother’s maiden name Camargo as a middle name, and thenceforth signed himself M. Camargo Guarnieri. In 1948, he legally changed his name to Mozart Camargo Guarnieri, but continued to sign only the initial of his first name. G

Carl Gustav Sparre Olsen

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Carl Gustav Sparre Olsen (April 25, 1903 – November 8, 1984) was a Norwegian violinist and composer. His composition style is lyrical with a strong grounding in Norwegian folk tunes. Life Carl Gustav Sparre Olsen was born in Stavanger, Norway. When he was a year old, the family moved to Copenhagen, but settled in Oslo during 1909. From 1922, he studied violin with Herman van der Vegt. In 1923, he became a violinist at the Oslo Philharmonic. He continued there for the next ten years. From 1926 until 1930, he received instruction in composition from Norwegian composer Fartein Valen. He also traveled to Berlin, Germany to study with composer Max Butting from 1930-31. He also traveled to London to study with Australian-born composer and pianist Percy Grainger in 1936. Starting in 1934, he accepted a teaching position at Griegakademiet, the music conservatory in Bergen, Norway. His teaching position continued until the early 1940s. During the same period he conducted for the Bergen Trade Unions Choir. Olsen was also a critic for the newspaper Bergens Tidende. In 1936, he became a nationally sponsored artist (komponistgasje) and had started receiving state income for artists. In 1937, he

Carl Michalski

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Carl Michalski (18 January 1911 – 11 December 1998) was a German composer and conductor, focused on operetta and dance music. Career Born in Bochum, Further reading * Wilhelm Kosch (editor): Deutsches Theater-Lexikon. Volume II: Hurka–Pallenberg. Berlin 2011 (Walter de Gruyter), , . External links * *

Carl Orff

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Carl Heinrich Maria Orff (; 10 July 1895 – 29 March 1982) was a German composer and music educator who is best known for composing the cantata Carmina Burana and formulating concepts of his Schulwerk (), which became influential for children’s music education. Born in Munich, Orff was raised in a military family that was fairly musical and later attended the Munich Academy of Music. After composing a number of Lieder and other orchestral works, he completed his Carmina Burana for voices and large orchestra in 1937, setting 24 poems from the medieval poetry collection of the same name. Its première was an immediate great success and Orff considered it the first time he had done exactly what he wanted. While the cantata’s popularity continued to rise throughout and after World War II, Orff never received nearly as much recognition or attention for his later works like the latter two parts of his triptych Trionfi, of which Carmina Burana is the first instalment. Orff was also an influential pedagogue who developed an approach (the “Orff Schulwerk”) to teaching children, which is a collection of fundamental principles to ensure every child learns music, much like a new language, in a c

Carl Tucker

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Carl James Tucker (1905–1949) was a composer and pianist. In Europe, some theater credits may have had his name as Karl Tucker. he was the author of a variety of musical scores for stage and screen. From the musical comedy stage production of Fritzi, his song A One man women (1935) is documented at the U.S. Library of Congress. Early life and education He was born in New York City in 1905. He studied at Badia College in Florence, Italy and graduated from the Vienna Academy of Music, which is now the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. References External links * Audio recording of My Lord, the Carriage Awaits! from the University of California, Santa Barbara Library (UCSB)

Carl Viggo Meincke

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Fritz Carl Viggo Meincke (8 March 1902 – 27 September 1959) was a Danish composer, revue author, theater manager and actor. Early years Carl Meincke was born on 8 March 1902 on Frederiksborggade 5, Copenhagen, in the parish Trinitatis. He was the biological son of oil trader Carl Christian Viktor Bang Rasmussen (born 28 October 1861 in Fredensborg) and his wife Olga Johanne (née Christensen, born 12 December 1873 in Copenhagen). His biological parents were married on 2 April 1892 in Frederiksberg Kirke. Meincke was adopted by wholesale trader Carl Vilhelm Harald Viggo Meincke (born 30 July 1860 in Copenhagen) and his wife Regina Augustine Christensine (née Olsen born 15 July 1876 in Helsingør) and baptized on 29 June 1902 in Vor Frue Kirke, Copenhagen by Rev. Hoffmeyer. For several years, the family lived on Studiestræde 34, Copenhagen. By 1916, the family had moved to Gentofte (Jernbanevej 3), where Carl was confirmed on 1 October 1916. He graduated in 1919 from Sankt Andreas Kollegiet in Ordrup (near Charlottenlund). Carl grew up as an only child. Personal life In the 1930s, Meincke married a woman called Dolly Helstrup, a Danish revue and theater actress. After World War II, Mei

Carl W. Stalling

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Carl William Stalling (November 10, 1891 – November 29, 1972) was an American composer, voice actor and arranger for music in animated films. He is most closely associated with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts produced by Warner Bros. Cartoons, where he averaged one complete score each week, for 22 years. Life and career Stalling was born to Ernest and Sophia C. Stalling. His parents were from Germany; his father arrived in the United States in 1883. The family settled in Lexington, Missouri where his father was a carpenter. He started playing piano at six. By the age of 12, he was the principal piano accompanist in his hometown’s silent movie house. For a short period, he was also the theatre organist at the St. Louis Theater. By his early 20s, he was conducting his own orchestra and improvising on the organ at the Isis Movie Theatre in Kansas City. His actual job at the time was to play organ accompaniment for silent films. During that time, he met and befriended a young Walt Disney, who was producing animated comedy shorts in Kansas City. According to music critic Neil Strauss, the chance meeting between Stalling and Disney in the early 1920s was of great importance t

Carlo Innocenzi

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Carlo Innocenzi (29 April 1899 – 24 March 1962) was an Italian composer. Life and career Born in Monteleone di Spoleto, Innocenzi is best known as a composer of musical scores for films; he composed over 150 film scores since 1933. From 1958 until his death, he focused on peplum film scores. Innocenzi also composed several pop songs, and some of them were not only commercial hits but also became instant classics, notably “Mille lire al mese” and “Valeria ragazza poco seria”. He was married to Sonia Pearlwing, who, under the name of Marcella Rivi, was the author of the lyrics for several songs composed by him. Selected filmography * A Thousand Lire a Month (1939) * The First Woman Who Passes (1940) * Light in the Darkness (1941) * Disturbance (1942) * Invisible Chains (1942) * Two Hearts (1943) * Un uomo ritorna (1946) * Anthony of Padua (1949) * Welcome, Reverend! (1950) * Song of Spring (1951) * Auguri e figli maschi! (1951) * The Passaguai Family (1951) * Una bruna indiavolata! (1951) * Three Girls from Rome (1952) * A Mother Returns (1952) * The Passaguai Family Gets Rich (1952) * Article 519, Penal Code (1952) * One Hundred Little Mothers (1952) * Prisoners of Darkness (1952) *

Carlo Jachino

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Carlo Jachino (1887–1971) was an Italian composer of the 20th century. Born in Sanremo on February 3, 1887, he studied in Leipzig under Hugo Riemann. Jachino’s 3-act opera, Giocondo and his King won a national competition in (1922) and was premiered at the Dal Verme theater in Milan in 1924. In 1928 his Second Quartet in E minor shared the second prize with Harry Waldo Warner while Béla Bartók and Alfredo Casella shared the first prize at an international chamber music competition in Philadelphia. He was a proponent of dodecaphonic or 12-tone music. He wrote extensively about music, including Instruments of the Orchestra. He taught composition at the Parma Conservatory, Naples Conservatory and Rome Conservatory between 1927 and 1950. He was the director of the Naples Conservatory from 1950 to 1953, and later director of the National Conservatory of Colombia in Bogotà. Jachino was also inspector of music curriculum for the Italian Ministry of Education. Although a proponent of twelve-tone technique Jachino wasn’t always a strict serialist. According to Reginald Smith Brindle, his Piano Concerto (1952), performed in Florence in 1955,“was a miracle in avoiding all that dodecaphony imp

Carlo Rustichelli

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Carlo Rustichelli (24 December 1916 – 13 November 2004) was an Italian film composer whose career spanned the 1940s to about 1990. His prolific output included about 250 film compositions, as well as arrangements for other films, and music for television. Life Born in Carpi, Emilia-Romagna to a family of music lovers, he gained a diploma in piano at the Conservatorio Giovanni Battista Martini in Bologna, going on to Rome where he studied composition at the Santa Cecilia Academy. He had a wife (Evi), a son (Paolo, also a composer), and a daughter (Alida). Career He met Federico Fellini in post-war Rome, and probably through him met Pietro Germi, for whom he composed his first major film score for Gioventù perduta (Lost Youth), and with whom he was most associated. He composed music for many Germi films in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. In 1972 he was commissioned by Billy Wilder to compose the music for Avanti!. Selected filmography * The Lion of Amalfi (Il Leone di Amalfi) (1950) * The Crossroads (1951) * Lorenzaccio (1951) * The Counterfeiters (1951) * The Enemy (1952) * The Blind Woman of Sorrento (La cieca di Sorrento) (1952) * The Bandit of Tacca Del Lupo (Il brigante di Tacca del Lup

Carlos Cachaça

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Carlos Cachaça (born Carlos Moreira de Castro; 3 August 1902 – 16 August 1999) was a Brazilian samba composer and performer. He was one of the founders of the Mangueira Samba School. Early life Cachaça was born and raised in Mangueira in Rio de Janeiro’s North Zone. His nickname derived from the sugarcane liquor cachaça, a drink he enjoyed as a young man. As a teenager, he played the tambourine with local street musicians performing early samba, an Afro-Brazilian style blending percussion and urban themes. Career In 1922, Cachaça met fellow composer Cartola. Together they later co-founded the street troupe Arengueiros, which evolved into the Mangueira Samba School in 1928. With Cartola, he composed more than 400 songs, including themes for Mangueira’s carnival parades such as “Pudesse Meu Ideal” and “Alvorada”. Although he received little financial reward and worked as a railway employee, his music helped establish the samba-enredo style, which remains central to Rio’s carnival. Later life and death Cachaça continued to be celebrated as one of Mangueira’s founding figures. Two years before his death, he appeared in a carnival parade seated on a float, honored for his contribution t

Carlos Chávez

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Carlos Antonio de Padua Chávez y Ramírez (13 June 1899 – 2 August 1978) was a Mexican composer, conductor, music theorist, educator, journalist, and founder and director of the Mexican Symphonic Orchestra. He was influenced by native Mexican cultures. Of his six symphonies, the second, or Sinfonía india, which uses native Yaqui percussion instruments, is probably the most popular. Biography The seventh child of a criollo family, Chávez was born on Tacuba Avenue in Mexico City, near the suburb of Popotla. His paternal grandfather, José María Chávez Alonso, a former governor of the state of Aguascalientes, had been executed by the French Army in April 1864 during its second invasion of Mexico. His father, Augustín Chávez, who died when Carlos was barely three years old, invented a plough that was produced and used in the United States. Carlos had his first piano lessons from his brother Manuel, and later on he was taught piano by Asunción Parra, Manuel Ponce, and Pedro Luis Ozagón, and harmony by Juan Fuentes. His family often holidayed in Tlaxcala, Michoacán, Guanajuato, Oaxaca, and other places where the cultural influence of the Mexican indigenous peoples was still very strong. In

Carlos Guastavino

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Carlos Guastavino (5 April 1912 – 29 October 2000) was an Argentine composer, considered one of the foremost composers of his country. His production amounted to over 500 works, most of them songs for piano and voice, many still unpublished. His style was quite conservative, always tonal and lushly romantic. His compositions were clearly influenced by Argentine folk music. His reputation was based almost entirely on his songs, and Guastavino has sometimes been called “the Schubert of the Pampas”. Some of his songs, for example Pueblito, mi pueblo, La rosa y el sauce (“The Rose and the Willow”) and Se equivocó la paloma (“The Dove Was Mistaken”), became national favorites. Unlike most other composers, at any time or place, Guastavino earned enough from his royalties and performing rights that he had little need for other income. Life Carlos Guastavino was born in Santa Fe Province, Argentina. He studied music in Santa Fe with Esperanza Lothringer and Dominga Iaffei, and in Buenos Aires with Athos Palma. A talented pianist, he performed his piano works in London in 1947, 1948, and 1949, invited by the BBC, and as a recipient of a scholarship from the British Council. During these yea

Carlos Jiménez Mabarak

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Carlos Jiménez Mabarak (January 31, 1916 in Tacuba, Mexico – June 21, 1994 in Mexico City) was one of the most prolific Mexican composers of the 20th century. His music belongs to the transition from the Mexican Nationalism to the Avant garde and uses all musical genres. He composed in a period of almost 60 years. Life He studied in Guatemala, Chile and Belgium. His mother was a writer from Veracruz of Lebanese descent. Mabarak practically spent his childhood outside Mexico. His father died when he was 4. During his youth, he lived in many countries because his mother worked in the diplomatic service. The family moved to Guatemala when Carlos was 6. They lived near Quetzaltenango and almost three years in the capital. He began his piano lessons in Quetzaltenango with Jesús Castillo. Later they lived for almost 5 years in Santiago de Chile where Carlos studied humanism and continued his music education. In 1932 the family moved to Belgium. While the rest of the family went to Cuba, Carlos stayed in Brussels for almost five years where he studied radio telephone engineering. In 1933, Carlos entered the Institute of high studies in music in Ixelles, a part of Brussels. There he studie

Carlos Surinach

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Carlos Suriñach (or Carles Suriñach) i Wrokona (; March 4, 1915 – November 12, 1997) was a Spanish-born composer and conductor. Early life Carlos Suriñach was born in Barcelona, Spain on March 6 of 1915. His Austrian-Polish mother was a house pianist, introducing him to music at a young age. He began playing the piano between ages 5–6 and started the formal study of music at around age 10. His father was involved in business as a stockbroker. He did not approve of Suriñach pursuing music and confided in their other son, who followed in his footsteps of business. He said that he was never serious about music but always loved it. Taught by his mother through age 14, he studied piano and music theory at the Caminals Academy of Music. He held conducting posts at the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona and the Gran Teatre del Liceu. He studied composition and orchestration under Enrique Morera, who was the director of Barcelona Conservatory. He then went to Madrid before moving to Germany, where he studied in Berlin with Max Trapp and Richard Strauss, taking five of Strauss’ seminars. In 1944, he returned to Barcelona as the new conductor of the Barcelona Philharmonic Orchestra, where his

Carlton Cooley

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Samuel Carlton Cooley (April 15, 1898 in Milford, New Jersey – November 1981 in Stockton, New Jersey) was an American violist and composer. Biography Cooley studied at the Philadelphia Musical Academy with Frederick Hahn and Camille Zeckwer, and later with Percy Goetschius and Louis Svečenski at the Institute of Musical Art (Juilliard School) in New York City. In 1919, Cooley joined the viola section of the Philadelphia Orchestra for one year before he was appointed Principal Violist of the Cleveland Orchestra in 1922, a position in which he remained until 1937. He was Principal Violist of the NBC Symphony Orchestra from 1937 to 1954 during the years of Arturo Toscanini’s tenure. In 1954, upon Toscanini’s retirement, Cooley joined the Philadelphia Orchestra viola section under Eugene Ormandy and was appointed Principal Violist in 1956, succeeding Harry Zaratzian. He remained with the Philadelphia Orchestra until his retirement in 1963. Cooley was also violist with the Cleveland String Quartet and NBC String Quartet. Recordings ;Viola * Richard Strauss: Don Quixote – Emanuel Feuermann (cello); Carlton Cooley (viola); Arturo Toscanini (conductor); NBC Symphony Orchestra (1938) * Wolf

Carmelo Pace

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Maestro Chev. Carmelo Pace (August 17, 1906 – May 20, 1993) was a Maltese composer, and a professor of music theory and harmony. Born in Valletta, Malta on August 17, 1906, Pace was the eldest of three children. His parents were Anthony Pace and Maria Carmela née Ciappara. Education In his childhood, Pace’s family lived in an apartment on Strada Mercanti, Valletta, which they shared with his maternal uncle, Vincenzo Ciappara. Ciappara was himself a musician of some repute, and he was Pace’s earliest tutor. Pace attended Saint Augustine College in Valletta, where he became very active in the student choir. During frequent visits to his father’s workplace at the Commerce movie theatre on Strada Reale in Valletta, Pace became enamoured of the impromptu style of live musical accompaniment played by the resident quartet during screenings of silent films. He soon became a regular player at the movie theatre. Following an introduction by his uncle, Pace took up the violin under the tutelage of Prof. Carlo Fiamingo, and studied harmony, counterpoint, orchestration and composition with Vincenzo Ciappara, Antonio Genova and Thomas Mayne. In 1931, he received a Diploma in Musical Instruction

Carmen Barradas

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Maria del Carmen Perez Jimenez Barradas (18 March 1888 – 12 May 1963) was a Uruguayan pianist, composer, and choral teacher. Life Maria del Carmen Pérez Jiménez was born in Montevideo, the daughter of Spanish residents Santos Rojas and still life painter Antonio Pérez Giménez Barradas. She first studied with Antonio Frank, but ended the study after her father died in 1898. With support from friends and family, she later continued with Aurora Pablo and M. Lopes Vicente at the Conservatorio del Uruguay, receiving her diploma in 1915. Following the example of her younger brother, the painter Rafael Barradas, she adopted the stage name Carmen Barradas. Her youngest brother was writer and poet Antonio De Ignacios. After World War I, Rafael Barradas found he was unable to return from Spain to Uruguay, so in 1916 Barradas’ family moved to Spain. The family struggled to get there, having to apply for entry as laborers. Once in Spain, Carmen and her mother supported themselves by making toys. However, Carmen also developed as a composer and actively participated in the artistic life of Barcelona. In 1917, she gave a concert of her own works. Barradas lived and composed in Spain until 1922,

Carmen Lombardo

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Carmen Lombardo (July 16, 1903 – April 17, 1971) was lead saxophonist and featured vocalist for his brother Guy Lombardo’s orchestra. He was also a successful composer. In 1927, Carmen Lombardo was the vocalist of the hit record Charmaine, performed by Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians. Early years Lombardo was born in London, Ontario, Canada. As a child, he took flute lessons, and later learned to play saxophone. He had three brothers who also became musicians: Guy, Lebert, and Victor. Career As a young man played in the Lombardo Brothers Concert Company with Guy on violin and another brother, Lebert, on trumpet or piano. As the band grew, Guy became conductor, and the band developed into The Royal Canadians in 1923, in which Carmen both sang and wrote music. He frequently collaborated with American composers and his music was recorded by Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, and others. Many of his compositions have also been used in Woody Allen films. When singing songs like “Alone at a Table for Two” he would allow his voice to tremble, and seem nearly to break into tears-he was caricatured in Warner Brothers cartoons as “Cryman” Lombardo. In the late 1960s, actor-raconteur Tony Ran

Carmine Coppola

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Carmine Valentino Coppola (; June 11, 1910 – April 26, 1991) was an American composer, flutist, pianist, and songwriter who contributed original music to the films The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, Apocalypse Now, The Outsiders, The Black Stallion, and The Godfather Part III. He is the father of film director Francis Ford Coppola. In the course of his career, he won both the Academy Award for Best Original Score and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, in addition to nominations for the BAFTA Award for Best Original Music and Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media. Personal life Coppola was born in New York City, the son of Maria (née Zasa) and Agostino Coppola, who came to the United States from Bernalda, Basilicata. His brother was opera conductor and composer Anton Coppola. He was the father of August Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola Both Coppola and his wife are buried at San Fernando Mission Cemetery. Career Coppola played the flute. He studied at Juilliard, later at the Manhattan School of Music and privately with Joseph Schillinger. During the 1940s, Coppola worked under Arturo Toscanini with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Then in 1951, Coppola left

Casimir von Pászthory

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Casimir von Pászthory (1 April 1886 – 18 February 1966) was an Austrian composer. His music, which is stylistically rooted in the Wagner-Strauss tradition, without renouncing elements of his own style, has largely fallen into oblivion today. It experienced at least a partial renaissance in 2004 with a revival of the opera Tilman Riemenschneider on the occasion of the 1300th anniversary of the city of Würzburg. Life Born in Budapest, Pászthory was the son of a senior government official of the Royal Curia, who came from an old Hungarian family. His mother was the pianist Gisela von Voigt, who came from a German noble family with origins in Hanover. As a former pupil of Franz Liszt, she was active until her old age and at the age of 84 she played one of the master’s piano concertos on his grand piano at a Liszt celebration in Budapest. After his mother’s second marriage to August Göllerich, Pászthory came to Nuremberg where he attended the Gymnasium. He then studied at the Law Faculty in Vienna, but concentrated mainly on his music studies, especially cello lessons with Paul Grümmer. After extensive travels, which took him all over Europe and as far as Asia Minor, he settled in Vienn

Catherine Murphy Urner

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Catherine Murphy Urner Shatto (March 23, 1891 – April 30, 1942) was an American composer. Early life and education Catherine Murphy Urner was born in Mitchell, Indiana, the third of seven children of Southern Illinois Normal College principal Edward Everett Urner (later a Methodist minister) and writer Jessie Robertson Urner. She studied piano, voice and composition at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland, Peabody Conservatory and Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1912. She continued her studies at the University of California at Berkeley where she was the first to win the George Ladd Prix de Paris for composition in 1918. Later in 1918, Koechlin was in San Francisco as part of Theodore Reinach’s French cultural mission, where William McCoy recommended Urner as a student. The Prize enabled her to move to Paris to study with Charles Koechlin from 1919 to 1921. She returned to Paris intermittently during the period from 1923–1926 to resume composition studies with Koechlin as well as vocal study with Mademoiselle Andree d’Otemar. Career Urner worked as a professor and director of vocal music at Mills College in Oakland, California from 1

Cayetano Puglisi

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Cayetano Puglisi (2 January 1902 – 2 November 1968) was an Argentine violinist, composer, and orchestra conductor of Italian origin. Life He was born in Messina, Sicily, Italy, into a family of musicians. At the age of 7, he moved with his family to Buenos Aires, where he began his violin studies with Maestro Pessina. His inclination toward classical music led him to perform a concert at the Teatro Nuevo, which earned him a scholarship from the newspaper La Prensa to further his studies in Europe. However, due to the outbreak of World War I in 1914, he was unable to make the trip. In addition to his collaboration with Firpo, he was a member of the orchestras of Francisco Canaro, Enrique Delfino, and Pedro Maffia. In 1928, he formed his own sextet, with which he recorded for the Victor label. References External links • Cayetano Puglisi at Discography of American Historical Recordings.

Cecil Coles

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Cecil Frederick Coles (7 October 1888 – 26 April 1918) was a Scottish composer who was killed on active service in World War I. Life and career Coles was born in Tongland, near Kirkcudbright, to Frederick Coles and Margaret Coles (née Blacklock), and was educated at George Watson’s School, Edinburgh. In 1907 he went to the London College of Music on a scholarship. He later studied at the University of Edinburgh and Stuttgart Conservatory. On completion of his studies, he became assistant conductor to the Stuttgart Royal Opera and was organist of St. Katherine’s, an English church in the city. In 1912, he married Phoebe Relton at St Saviour’s Church, Brockley Rise, London, and took his wife back to Germany; the couple returned to the UK the following year. When World War I broke out, he joined the Queen Victoria’s Rifles and became their bandmaster. While on active service, he sent manuscripts home to his friend Gustav Holst. He was killed by German sniper fire on the Western Front, while helping recover casualties. He was buried at Crouy. Holst dedicated his composition, Ode to Death Op. 38, to Coles. Coles’ work was “rediscovered” in a 2001 recording. His music was used as the ope

Cecil Effinger

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Cecil Effinger (July 22, 1914 – December 22, 1990) was an American composer, oboist, and inventor. Life Effinger was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado and resided in the state for most of his life. Reversing the usual cliché, he was the son of musicians and teachers, but initially studied mathematics at Colorado College, receiving a BA in 1935, before deciding to follow in his parents’ footsteps. In the meantime, he had studied harmony and counterpoint with Frederick Boothroyd in 1934–36, and went to Paris in 1939 to study composition with Nadia Boulanger. He was first oboe in the orchestras of Colorado Springs (1934–41) and Denver (1937–41) and taught at the Colorado College before the Second World War (1936–41). A lifelong friendship with Roy Harris began in 1941. During the Second World War he served as conductor of the 506th US Army Band in Fort Logan. After the war, he resumed his position at the Colorado College from 1946 to 1948, when he was appointed professor of composition at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He remained in that position, becoming the head of the composition department until 1981, and was composer-in-residence there until his retirement in 1984. In

Cecil Gray (composer)

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Cecil William Turpie Gray (19 May 1895 – 9 September 1951) was a Scottish music critic, author and composer. Biography Born in Edinburgh, he took an arts degree at the University of Edinburgh and studied composition privately with the Anglo-Canadian composer Healey Willan. From there he developed his career as editor, music critic, and author. Gray first met Philip Heseltine (another writer/critic who also composed music under the name Peter Warlock) at the Café Royal in the spring of 1916 and they were soon sharing a studio – 2 Anhalt Studios, close to Battersea Park. This led to Gray’s first musical venture, the co-sponsoring with Heseltine in 1917 of a concert of works by the then completely unknown composer Bernard van Dieren. Three years later Gray co-founded the early music periodical The Sackbut, also with Heseltine. Gray subsequently worked as music critic for publications including The Daily Telegraph, The Manchester Guardian, and The Morning Post, and occasionally for the Radio Times and The Listener. His first published book, A Survey of Contemporary Music, was published in 1924, and was notable for its contrary opinions. Frank Howes, The Times chief music critic, pointe

Cecile Paul Simon

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Cecile Paul Simon (April 12, 1881 – January 3, 1970) was a French composer who published under male pseudonyms and was the mother of composer Claude Arrieu. Simon was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a daughter of the philanthropist Clarisse Simon. She studied music with Théodore Dubois, Paul Vidal, and Charles Tournemire. She married Paul Simon and their daughter Louise Marie (composer Claude Arrieu) was born in 1903. Some of Simon’s compositions were published by Durdilly and Rouart. Chamber *Sonata (violin and piano) *Trio (violin, cello and piano) Vocal *“L’heure Exquise” (text by Paul Verlaine) *“Simple Tale” (medium voice and orchestra or piano; text by Jean Cocteau) External links *Download free public domain sheet music by Cecile Paul Simon *La Boite à Pépites References

Cedric Thorpe Davie

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Cedric Thorpe Davie OBE (30 May 1913 – 18 January 1983) was a musician and composer, most notably of film scores such as The Green Man in 1956. A high proportion of his film and documentary music and his concert pieces have a Scottish theme. Life He was born in Lewisham in south London, the son of Thorpe Davie, a music teacher and choir master. The family moved to Glasgow early in his life and he attended the High School of Glasgow. He studied at the Scottish National Academy of Music in Glasgow and the Royal Academy of Music in London. In London he studied piano with Egon Petri and Harold Craxton, and horn with Aubrey Brain. His composition teachers were Ralph Vaughan Williams, Eric Thiman and R. O. Morris. In 1935 he travelled to both Helsinki and Budapest for further training under Yrjo Kilpinen and Zoltán Kodály, returning to Glasgow in 1936 where he began lecturing in music. Early works include the Piano Trio in C minor (1932), the Phantasie Quartet (1935), the one act opera Gammer Gurton’s Needle (1936) and the Concerto for Piano and Strings (1944). He was involved in the newly created Edinburgh Festival in the 1950s, and oversaw production of important new Scottish musical w

Celius Dougherty

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Celius Hudson Dougherty (May 27, 1902 – December 22, 1986) was an American pianist and composer of art songs and other music. Biography Celius Hudson Dougherty was born to William Francis Dougherty and Louise Martha Dougherty in Glenwood, Minnesota. Celius was interested in music and poetry from childhood. He claimed that he wrote his first song when he was seven years old. He was part of a musical family, and his mother, a music teacher and church musician, organized her seven children into a band. Celius performed as accompanist for one of his mother’s song recitals at age ten. where he studied piano with Donald Ferguson and composition. As an undergraduate, he performed his own piano concerto with the school orchestra. He toured as an accompanist to several important singers, such as Maggie Teyte, Eva Gauthier, Povla Frijsh, Jennie Tourel, Marian Anderson, and Alexander Kipnis. These performers often included Dougherty’s songs on their programs. Beginning in 1939, he also toured with Vincenz Ruzicka in duo-piano recitals. During the next 16 years, they gave the first performances of duets by Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Paul Hindemith, Darius Milhaud, and othe

César Guerra-Peixe

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César Guerra-Peixe (March 18, 1914 – November 26, 1993) was a Brazilian violinist, composer, and conductor. Guerra-Peixe was born in Petrópolis, son of Portuguese immigrants with Romani origins. Throughout his lifetime, Guerra-Peixe held numerous positions playing in orchestras and working as a composer and arranger in the production of radio broadcasts, recording, films, and cultural documentaries. His music can be heard in many Brazilian films, such as Terra é Sempre Terra, O Canto do Mar, Quero Essa Mulher Tanto Assim, Riacho de Sangue, Meu Nome é Lampião, and Soledade. Although he strongly embraced serialist techniques through his compositional studies with Koellreutter, Guerra-Peixe took a strong interest in northeastern Brazilian traditional music and culture and integrated elements of Brazilian nationalism to varying degrees in his compositions. While living in Recife, Guerra-Peixe conducted field work on traditional Brazilian music and culture, and he published numerous articles based on his research in the Revista Brasileira de Folclore. He is particularly well known for his lifelong dedication and contributions to the research and promotion of Brazilian culture. The Conce

César Pérez Sentenat

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César Pérez Sentenat (1896-1973) was a Cuban pianist and composer. He has been recognized as an important professor of classical piano in Cuba. Professional background César Pérez Sentenat began to study piano in 1913 with Hubert de Blanck, Rafaela Serrano and Antonio Saavedra, and music theory with José Molina. In 1922 he travelled to Paris, where he studied with Joaquín Nin Castellanos. He also studied musical pedagogy and musicology at the Schola Cantorum. Upon his return to Havana he studied contemporary harmony with Pedro Sanjuán and Amadeo Roldán, between 1924 and 1926. At a later time he travelled to the US, where he continued studying Children Musical Pedagogy with John M. Williams from 1939 to 1940. In 1953 he travelled to Madrid to take courses on Musical Folklore at the Madrid Conservatory, with professor Manuel García. Professor In 1922, Pérez Sentenat was appointed as professor of piano and harmony at the National Conservatory, and in 1940 he served as associate professor at the Sherwood Music School in Chicago. Sentenat served as professor at the Conservatorio Municipal de Música, and in 1931 he was appointed as director of that educational institution. Also in 1931,

Charity Bailey

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Charity Alberta Bailey (September 7, 1904 – September 15, 1978) was an African American music educator in New York City and a children’s television pioneer who hosted the programs Sing-A-Song (1954–1956) and Here’s Charity (late 1960s). In both her classroom and educational programs, Bailey featured songs and instruments from around the world, with particular influence from Creole music and folk music. Bailey was a teacher at the Little Red School House in Manhattan and the Heathcote School in Scarsdale, New York, as well as other schools. She released children’s music recordings throughout her life. In the early 1950s she published the bestselling children’s song book Playtime with Music. Early life and education Charity Bailey was born in 1904 to a prominent African American family in Providence, Rhode Island. At age 16, she was described as a music prodigy with “sympathetic feeling as an accompanist” by The New York Age. Her sister Amy Bailey was noted as a soprano. In 1927, Bailey graduated with a degree in education from the Rhode Island College. Due to racial discrimination in Providence, she moved to Atlanta to teach at Spelman College Laboratory School, which was associated

Charles Houdret

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Charles Houdret (6 July 1905 – 1965) was a Canadian conductor, cellist, radio producer, and composer. He began his career in Belgium and was highly active as a conductor throughout Europe during the 1940s. In 1952 he immigrated to Canada where he ultimately became a naturalized citizen. He was active as a radio producer, cellist, and conductor in Canada up through 1964, after which nothing is known about his whereabouts or activities. Early life and career in Europe Born in Liège, Belgium, Charles Houdret was trained at the Royal Conservatory of Liège where he was a pupil of Sylvain Dupuis in music composition. He also studied in Paris with André Hekking (cello), in Vienna with Felix Weingartner (conducting), and in Brussels with Eugène Ysaÿe (chamber music). Through Ysaÿe he was introduced to Albert I of Belgium and Elisabeth of Bavaria. Impressed with Houdret, the two monarchs appointed him to the post of director of the royal chapel orchestra. With this ensemble, he notably conducted Franz Schubert Symphony No. 5 in B flat major in a 1942 recording on the His Master’s Voice music label. He spent the 1940s conducting this orchestra and others in concerts throughout Europe. During

Charles Ives

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Life and career#

Ives was born in Danbury, Connecticut, on October 20, 1874, the son of George (Edward) Ives, a US Army bandleader in the American Civil War, and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Ives. The Iveses, descended from founding colonists of Connecticut, were one of Danbury’s leading families, and they were prominent in business and civic improvement. They were similarly active in progressive social movements of the 19th century, including the abolition of slavery. George Ives directed bands, choirs, and orchestras, and taught music theory and a number of instruments. Charles got his influences by sitting in the Danbury town square and listening to his father’s marching band and other bands on other sides of the square simultaneously. His father taught him and his brother (Joseph) Moss Ives (February 5, 1876 – April 7, 1939 ) music, Ives moved to New Haven, Connecticut, in 1893, enrolling in the Hopkins School, where he captained the baseball team. In September 1894, Ives entered Yale University, studying under Horatio Parker. Here he composed in a choral style similar to his mentor, writing church music and even an 1896 campaign song for William McKinley. On November 4, 1894, his father died, a crushing blow to him, but to a large degree, he continued the musical experimentation he had begun with him. His brother Moss later became a lawyer. At Yale, Ives was a prominent figure; he was a member of HeBoule, Delta Kappa Epsilon (Phi chapter) and Wolf’s Head Society, and sat as chairman of the Ivy Committee. he started work in the actuarial department of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York. In 1899, Ives moved to employment with the insurance agency Charles H. Raymond & Co., where he stayed until 1906. In 1907, upon the failure of Raymond & Co., he and his friend Julian Myrick formed their own insurance agency Ives & Co., which later became Ives & Myrick, where he remained until he retired. During his career as an insurance executive and actuary, Ives devised creative ways to structure life-insurance packages for people of means, which laid the foundation of the modern practice of estate planning. His Life Insurance with Relation to Inheritance Tax, published in 1918, was well received. As a result of this he achieved considerable fame in the insurance industry of his time, with many of his business peers surprised to learn that he was also a composer. In his spare time, he composed music and, until his marriage, worked as an organist in Danbury and New Haven as well as Bloomfield, New Jersey, and New York City. Following his recovery from the 1907 attack, Ives entered into one of the most creative periods of his life as a composer. In 1908, he married Harmony Twichell, daughter of Congregational minister Joseph Twichell and his wife, Julia Harmony Cushman. There have been numerous theories advanced to explain the silence of his late years. It seems as mysterious as the last several decades of the life of Jean Sibelius, who stopped composing at almost the same time. While Ives had stopped composing, and was increasingly plagued by health problems, he continued to revise and refine his earlier work, as well as oversee premieres of his music. were privately printed in 1920). Ives died of a stroke in 1954 in New York City. His widow, who died in 1969 at age 92, bequeathed the royalties from his music to the American Academy of Arts and Letters for the Charles Ives Prize.

Charles Jones (composer)

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Charles Jones (June 21, 1910 – June 6, 1997) was a Canadian-born music educator and composer of contemporary classical music who lived and worked mainly in the United States. Early life and education Jones was born in Tamworth, Lennox and Addington County, Ontario, Canada. He moved to Toronto at the age of ten, eventually traveling to New York City in 1928. He studied at the Juilliard School, where his primary instructor was Bernard Wagenaar. Career By 1937 Jones had composed a number of classical works; that year a concert by Francis James and his string quartet, consisting entirely of Jones’ compositions, was held in Toronto at the Eaton Auditorium. Jones began teaching at Mills College in California from 1939 to 1944, and at the Music Academy of the West in 1949 and 1950. He taught at the Juilliard School between 1954 and 1960, and again in 1973. During the 1970s he taught composition at the Mannes College of Music, starting in 1972. His works have been performed by the New York Philharmonic and the National Symphony Orchestra. The music critic Tim Page and composer Walter Buczynski were among Jones’s notable students. Jones lived at 311 East 58th Street, a house in Manhattan de

Charles Naginski

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Charles Naginski (Cairo, Egypt, May 29, 1909 – Lenox, Massachusetts, August 4, 1940) was an American composer of art songs and other musical works. Biography Charles Naginski was the son of Russian Jewish parents. His father, who was his first piano teacher, recognized his talent for music and composition at a very early age. From 1928 to 1933 Naginski held a fellowship at the Juilliard Graduate School as a pupil of Rubin Goldmark. Other students there at the time included composers Paul Nordoff, Sergius Kagen, Celius Dougherty, and Vittorio Giannini. One of his other Juilliard colleagues, George Newton, reported that he “spoke five languages, including English, all equally badly.” As a result, the Juilliard dean asked Newton to help Naginski with his English, so the two traded lessons in English grammar for accompanying lessons. He also studied with Roger Sessions. Later he studied at the American Academy in Rome, winning the American Rome Prize in 1938. In the summer of 1940 he went to the Tanglewood institute to study with Paul Hindemith. He died by drowning in Lenox, Massachusetts, on August 4, 1940. Music As a student, Naginski composed several large instrumental works and cha

Charles Turner (English composer)

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Charles Turner (1907 – 1977) was an English composer and part-time spy, who took the last recorded British pre-World War II photographs of Adolf Hitler. Born in the early 1900s, Turner’s life changed when his father died and his godfather Henry Pelham, 7th Duke of Newcastle took care of the young boy. Turner attended Worksop College, the public school endowed by the Duke of Newcastle. He gained a place at Cambridge university to study music. In the late 1920s into the 1930s he became a broadcast composer and fluent German speaker. In 1934 Turner made the first of a series of annual visits to the Wagner festival in Bayreuth in Bavaria. In 1938 the British secret service MI5, convinced war was imminent, needed to urgently examine and assess the German threat. Approached by mutual friend Alan Angles, later of the War Office and Directorate of Ministry of Aircraft Production, Turner was recruited to infiltrate Hitler’s entourage at the 1939 Bayreuth Festival. Registered as a guest of the Führert, Turner was hosted by Dr Fritz streit Chairman of the Bavarian Chamber of Commerce, through whom he received an invitation to follow the Führer’s itinerary on Wednesday 26 July 1939. This unexp

Charles Williams (composer)

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Charles Williams (8 May 1893 – 7 September 1978) was a British composer and conductor, contributing music to over 50 films. While his career ran from 1934 through 1968, much of his work came to the big screen as stock music and was therefore uncredited. Biography Williams was born in London as Isaac Cozerbreit in 1893. He began his career as a freelance violinist in theatres, cinemas and symphony orchestras and later studied composition with Norman O’Neill at the Royal Academy of Music. In 1933, he went to Gaumont British Films as composer and stayed there until 1939. He composed for many British films and radio shows and after the end of World War II, he became the conductor of the new Queen’s Hall Light Orchestra. Later, he formed his own Concert Orchestra. He died in Findon Valley, Worthing, West Sussex, aged 85. Light music compositions He composed many orchestral pieces and marches for his ensembles, which were recorded in the “Mood Music” category of light music and during the 1950s became familiar as film and television signature themes, often in his own recordings: * “Blue Devils” is a popular march and Williams’ first success as a composer. It was originally published as "

Charley Straight

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Charles Theodore “Charley” Straight (January 16, 1891 – September 22, 1940) During the 1920s, Straight worked with Roy Bargy on the latter’s eight Piano Syncopations. In describing “Rufenreddy”, the fifth in the series, the ragtime historian “Perfessor” Bill Edwards stated: :The actual parentage of this piece will likely remain obscured to some degree, since Bargy’s collaborator, Charley Straight, more or less may have let Bargy take credit when the piano rolls of the Eight Piano Syncopations were transcribed into sheet music form. It is likely that Straight wrote the bulk of the composition in 1918, and Bargy added many of his individual touches to it in the performance, the end result being that there is some of each of them within. Straight died in Chicago on the evening of September 22, 1940, after being struck by a car. See also *List of ragtime composers References Sources * External links * * “Work-in-progress YouTube playlist of recordings and piano rolls made by Charley Straight” * Charley Straight recordings at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.

Charlie Chaplin

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Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, singer, film editor and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is considered one of the film industry’s most important figures. His career spanned more than 75 years, from his childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977. Chaplin’s childhood in London was one of poverty and hardship. His father was absent and his mother struggled financiallyhe was sent to a workhouse twice before the age of nine. When he was 14, his mother was committed to a mental asylum. Chaplin began performing at an early age, touring music halls and later working as a stage actor and comedian. At 19, he was signed to the Fred Karno company, which took him to the United States. In 1914, Chaplin gained widespread popularity through his appearances in Keystone Studios films. He soon introduced and adopted the Tramp as his screen persona. He directed his own films and continued to hone his craft as he moved to Essanay Studios, where the Tramp persona was developed emotionally in The Tramp (1915). He then at

Charlotte Blake

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Charlotte M. Blake (May 30, 1885 – August 21, 1979) was an American composer of waltzes, marches and ragtime. Blake was the oldest of six children born to Edward and Caroline Blake of Ohio. At age 18, she got a job as a writer and arranger for Jerome H. Remick. Her first published composition, “King Cupid” appeared in 1903. After retiring from the music business, she worked as a clerk at Douglas Aircraft Company for two decades. * “King Cupid” (1903) * “The Missouri Mule March” (1904) * “Dainty Dames - A Novelette” (1905) * “The Mascot” (march, 1905) * “My Lady Laughter” (waltzes, 1905) * “Love Is King” (waltzes, 1906) * “Could You Read My Heart” (with words by Arthur Gillespie, 1906) * “A Night, A Girl, A Moon” (1907) * “Curly: March And Two Step” (1907) * “Orchids, Novelette Three Step” (1907) * “Hip Hip Hoorah” (march, 1907) * “The Last Kiss” (waltzes, 1907) * “I Wonder If It’s You” (with words by Vincent P. Bryan, 1907) * “Bogie Man - A Creep-Mouse Tune” (1907) * “So Near and Yet So Far” (with Arthur Gillespie, 1907) * “Love Tree” (1908) * “The Gravel Rag” (1908) * “In Mem’ry of You, Sweetheart” (song, with words by Arthur Gillespie, 1908) * “It Makes A Lot Of Difference When Y

Charlotte Ruegger

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Charlotte Ruegger (17 November 187616 June 1959) was a Swiss composer, conductor, violinist, and music educator who taught at several colleges in the United States. She received Belgium’s Medal for Bravery for her service during World War I. Early life Ruegger was born in Lucerne to a musical family. Her father Julius was a government official. Her mother was a music teacher, her sister Elsa Ruegger was known as the “world’s best cello player”, and her sister Valeria taught piano. The family moved to Belgium during Ruegger’s childhood, and she graduated from the University of Brussels at age 16, although girls were not awarded diplomas at the time. She won first prize in violin at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels, then continued postgraduate work in Italy at the University of Florence and in Berlin at the Stern Conservatory. Her teachers included Jean-Baptiste Colyns, Cesar Thomson (she also worked as his assistant), and Florian Zajic. Career Ruegger presented violin recitals throughout Belgium, France, Germany, and Switzerland before going to America in 1913, where she taught violin at Oberlin Conservatory. In 1926, she was a faculty member of the summer assembly at Bay

Charlotte Schlesinger

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Charlotte Schlesinger (1909–1976) was a German pianist and composer. She was a student of Franz Schreker at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik from 1925 to 1930. In 1935 she left the Vienna Conservatory to teach at the Ukrainian S.S.S.R. Conservatory. Schlesinger migrated to America as a refugee in 1938. She taught piano at Black Mountain College from fall 1946 through spring 1949, when she resigned along with several other faculty, including Theodore Dreier, Josef Albers, Anni Albers, and Trude Guermonprez. She went on to teach for many years at the Wilson School of Music in Yakima, Washington. Recordings * EntArteOper Festival - Kammermusik & Lieder songs : Es ziehen die Reihe lang; Wie hell das Licht mir scheinet; Was hör ich - on recital Hermine Haselböck (soprano) References

Charlotte Sohy

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Charlotte Sohy (7 July 1887 - 19 December 1955) was a French composer. Life Charlotte Sohy was born as Charlotte Marie Louise Durey on 7 July 1887 in Paris, the daughter of an industrialist. A precocious child, she received a broad education including musical training from George Marty on piano and music theory. She was introduced to the musical world at a young age and was friends with both Nadia Boulanger and Mel Bonis. She continued her musical studies at the Schola Cantorum (Paris), where she studied organ with Alexandre Guilmant and later with Louis Vierne, as well as composition with Vincent d’Indy. She was the cousin of Louis Durey, a member of Les Six. Compositions The complete works of Charlotte Sohy, published as Présence Compositrices, comprises 35 opus numbers. Vocal works * Berceuse triste, op. 1, for soprano and piano, text by Sohy (1905) * Chants de la Lande, op. 4, for mezzo-soprano and piano, text by Sohy (1908) * Trois chants nostalgiques, op. 7, for mezzo-soprano and piano (or orchestra), text by Cyprien Halgan (1910) * Poème, op. 8, for Alto, Baritone, Choir and Orchester (1911), premiered by Claire Croiza and Morel under the direction of Marcel Labey on 24 May

Chen Ta-ju

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

Chen Ta-ju (; 10 February 1917 – 24 October 1992), also known by his style name Fa Sheng (), was a Taiwanese pop song lyricist born in , Taipei. He wrote about 300 lyrics in his lifetime, and his masterpieces include , , “Bitter Heart” (), “Youthful Sorrows and Joys” (), “Farewell by the Harbor” (), and . For his achievements, he was awarded the Special Prize of the 1st Golden Melody Awards in 1989. Biography Early life Chen Ta-ju was born near the Bangka Qingshui Temple in , Taipei during the Japanese rule in Taiwan. He received a Japanese education at a “public school” (kōgakkō), while his father also arranged for him to study Taiwanese Chinese at a private school. At that time, students in “public schools” would be severely reprimanded if caught speaking anything other than Japanese by their Japanese teachers. If they dared to talk back, they could even be slapped. As a teenager, Chen was deeply aggrieved by the way Taiwanese people was bullied. He resolved to diligently study Chinese every evening, a commitment he sustained for three years. Join Victor records In 1930s Taiwan, under the active promotion and guidance of the Columbia Records, Taihei (), In 1935, JVC hired Chang F

Chen Zi

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

Chen Zi (陈紫, Huiyang, 1919–1999) was a Chinese composer. He was one of the composers at the original revolutionary Lu Xun Academy in Yan’an and one of the collaborators assisting Ma Ke in composition of 1945’s The White-Haired Girl. Among his works are the 1954 opera Liu Hulan (opera), and the 1956 opera Spring Blossoms (迎春花开了; Yingchunhua Kaile) co-composed with Liang Kexiang to a libretto by Lu Cang () and Wang Lie (). In 1981, Xiang Sihua (guzheng player), Chen Ailian (dancer), Wang Bingyan (gaohu player), Li Yuanhua (singer), Zhang Xiaoping (dancer), Ye Jianping (dancer), Wang Shuren (erhu player), and An Qingduan (yangqin player) formed a group of Chinese performing artists from China Opera and Dance Drama Theater to visit Europe, with Chen Zi as the leader. References

Chiang Wen-yeh

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Kang Bûn-iā, Chiang Wen-yeh or Jiang Wenye (; June 11, 1910 – October 24, 1983) was a Taiwan-born composer, active mainly in Japan and later in China. He was born in Dadaocheng, Taipei, Taiwan and died in Beijing. While often known in the West by renditions of his Chinese name, the three Chinese characters that form his name are pronounced Kō Bunya () in Japanese, and thus he is also known as Koh Bunya in the West. In his compositions, which range from for piano to choral and orchestral works, he merged elements of traditional Chinese, Taiwanese, and Japanese music with modernist influences. Due to the political turmoil surrounding his life, he came to be largely forgotten during the latter part of his life. After his death, however, his work has started to gain new recognition in East Asia as well as in the West. Biography Chiang was born in 1910 to Chinese parents in Tamsui, Taiwan – a Japanese territory at the time, and so his nationality was Japanese from birth. He is of Yongding, Fujian Hakka ancestry. In 1923, he went to Ueda, a small town in the prefecture of Nagano, Japan, to attend secondary school. He later proceeded to the Tokyo Engineering and Commerce Advanced School (

Chris Alvares

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

Christiaan Hermanus Cornelis Alvares (1901–1994), more commonly known as Chris Alvares, was a Surinamese musician, composer, conductor, and educator known for his contributions to classical music in both Suriname and the Netherlands. His diverse talents encompassed playing the organ, piano, flute, and cello, as well as conducting, composition, and teaching. Early life and education Born in Paramaribo, Suriname, to a family of Creole and Sephardic Jewish descent, Alvares grew up in a deeply religious environment. Under the mentorship of Brother Anselmus (Carel Bonten), Alvares received formal music education, which began with training in organ and piano. His skills expanded to include the flute and cello. Alvares’ musical abilities caught the attention of Brother Anselmus, leading him to become the organist of the St. Alphonsus Church at a young age in 1916. Career Throughout his tenure in Suriname, Alvares held positions as an organist and conductor. Notably, in 1929, he assumed the role of organist at the St. Rosa Church, a position he held for decades, interrupted only by his service as a deputy organist at the Saint Peter and Paul Cathedral in Paramaribo. His contributions exten

Christian Darnton

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

Philip Christian Darnton (born Philip Christian von Schunck; 30 October 1905 – 14 April 1981), also known as Baron von Schunck, was a British composer and writer. Amongst his admirers was Vaughan Williams. Early life and family He was born in Leeds as Philip Christian von Schunck, the son of Mary Gertrude Illingworth (1871–1952) and John Edward, Baron von Schunck (1869–1940), a landowner who renounced his title before the First World War. Christian’s paternal grandfather, Edward, Baron von Schunck, had been born in Leipzig, part of an old German family that had, since 1715, held a Barony in the Holy Roman Empire (Freiherr). He settled in Britain and married Kate Lupton, who had been born into the progressive, land-owning and political Lupton family and educated at the school of her relative Rachel Martineau. Edward died in 1889. Kate survived him until 1913, the eve of the First World War, and insisted in her will that their only son – John Edward, Baron von Schunck – change his surname to that of her father, Darnton Lupton, the former Mayor of Leeds. Thus he and his children dropped the noble von Schunck name in favour of the family name Darnton-Lupton; the surname Darnton was acq

Christine Asdurian

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

Christine Asdurian (born Armenia; February 17, 1893 – April 29, 1963) was an American pianist who composed the music to the University of Miami Alma Mater in 1926, (lyrics by William Seth Lampe). She was enrolled as a music student at the University of Miami in 1926 and 1927 as one of its 646 first enrolled students. She studied piano with Earl Chester Smith. Bertha Foster, UM’s first music dean, also mentored Christine. Bowman F. Ashe, The University of Miami’s first president, was known to recruit her to perform in civic functions and donor appreciation events. At age 3, Asdurian traveled with her father, a clergyman, to the United States; he died soon after. She was adopted by two sisters, Sarah A. Thompson and Esther H. Thompson, of Litchfield, Connecticut, and her name was changed to Christine Oviatt Thompson. Asdurian attended Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and earned an M.A. in comparative literature from Columbia University, New York in 1917. In 1924 and 1925, Asdurian was a staff pianist for Gimbels, a department store chain, performing throughout the New York tri-state area for a recurring broadcast radio show on WEAF, W

Christopher Edmunds

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

Christopher Montague Edmunds (26 November 1899 – 2 January 1990) was an English composer, academic and organist who lived and worked in Birmingham. Edmunds was born in Small Heath, Birmingham. After serving as a young soldier in the war, he studied music with Granville Bantock at the Birmingham School of Music and went on to teach there from 1929 under Bantock. In 1945 he became Principal of the School (following Dr A.K. Blackall who had succeeded Bantock in 1934), a position he held until 1956. He was organist and choirmaster at Aston Parish Church from the 1930s until 1957. His most popular composition remains the Sonatina for recorder and piano which has always stayed in print. A song, The Bellman was performed twice at The Proms, in 1929 and 1931. But he also composed widely for the choral festival movement in the 1920s and 1930s, and produced two significant works foreshadowing the war: the B minor Piano Sonata and the Symphony No 2. The Sonata was premiered by Tom Bromley in Birmingham in May 1938. It was recorded for the first time in 2021 by Duncan Honeybourne. Lewis Foreman has called the Second Symphony “a notable example of music responding to the challenges of the war i

Christopher Le Fleming

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

Christopher Kaye Le Fleming (26 February 1908 – 19 June 1985) was an English composer of choral music, pianist, teacher and administrator. Nevertheless he sung in the Minster Choir (where Edmund Fellowes was a canon), began learning piano and studied at the Brighton School of Music. His eyesight prevented him from attending the Royal College of Music. But he performed the Schumann A minor Concerto under Dan Godfrey in Bournemouth and studied informally with Vaughan Williams, who remained a lifelong friend. He then continued his education at the Royal School of Church Music in London while studying piano with George Reeves (c1900-1960). He married Phyllis Mary Tanner in 1932 and there were three sons. They moved first to Southbourne and then to Fisherton de la Mere. During the war Le Fleming served in the Royal Army Medical Corps, and in the mid-1940s medical intervention improved his eyesight. From 1943 he became a primary school music teacher and two years later was appointed Assistant Director of the Rural Music Schools Association. From 1946 until 1976 he edited the Association’s journal, Making Music and continued as a teacher in various positions. After the death of his wife P

Clair Van Lynden

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

Clair Van Lynden (1885–1947) was an American 20th century composer of novelty and popular songs during the latter half of the Ragtime era. ‘Clair Van Lynden’ was the nom-de-plume of music publisher, Lynden St. Clair Buchanan, co-founder of the “Buck & Lowney Music Publishing Company” of St. Louis, Missouri. Early life Lynden St. Clair Buchanan was born on March 2, 1885 in Peoria, Illinois to William H.S. and Lydia A. Buchanan. Little is known about Buchanan’s upbringing, or early musical training. His Father, William, was an express messenger in the 19th century. Buchanan can be found living in the city of St. Louis by 1906, listed as a piano teacher. Buck & Lowney The founding of music publisher “Buck & Lowney” can be traced to the early 1910s, during which time Lynden Buchanan was residing at 1335 Aubert Avenue in St. Louis. Benjamin Lowney was general manager and co-founder with Lynden. By 1916, Buchanan had adopted the professional name, Lynden S. Buck. “Buck & Lowney” would become a Midwest competitor to music publishers from New York City and elsewhere by the mid-1910s. This firm would debut new songs by contracting with travelling theatrical singers and European vocalists, a

Clarisse Leite

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

Clarisse Leite Dias Baptista (January 11, 1917 – May 11, 2003) was a Brazilian composer, pianist and music educator and primarily composed for the piano. Leite developed her own style of teaching piano called Ginástica Anatômica (Anatomic Gym) and was a member of the International Academy of Music. Early life and education Clarisse Leite was born in São Paulo on January 11, 1917 into a musical family, her maternal grandfather Laurentino Mendes de Moraes composed songs for a band in Paraibuna and her aunt Benedita Borges de Moraes was a pianist. Her elder sister Zilda, also a pianist, taught Leite piano at a young age. The two sisters had an agreement that whenever Zilda went out, Clarisse would play the piano in her place so their mother would not notice Zilda had left. At the age of six, Leite earned a place at the prestigious São Paulo Drama and Music Conservatory. Between 1963 and 1977, Leite was the state supervisor of music in Bauru. While teaching, she developed her own technique to teach piano to students called Ginástica Anatômica (Anatomic Gym). She also founded the Clarisse Leite piano contests. Influenced by her role as a piano teacher, she wrote and dedicated pieces for

Claude Delvincourt

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

Claude Étienne Edmond Marie Pierre Delvincourt (12 January 1888 – 5 April 1954) was a French pianist and composer of classical music. Biography Delvincourt was born in Paris, the son of Pierre Delvincourt and Marguerite Fourès. He studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, first under Léon Boëllmann, then under the centenarian Henri Büsser. Also, he was taught counterpoint and fugue by Georges Caussade and composition by Charles-Marie Widor. A Prix de Rome winner in 1911 and again in 1913 (on the latter occasion he shared the award with Lili Boulanger), he was appointed Director of Conservatoire at Versailles in 1932 and Director of the Paris Conservatoire in 1940, following the resignation of Henri Rabaud. During the German occupation of France, Delvincourt was forced to apply the racial laws of the Vichy government to the Paris Conservatoire, excluding Jewish professors and students. But he managed, with the help of his former teacher’s niece Marie-Louise Boëllmann, to prevent numerous students from being compelled to join the STO (law of 16 February 1943). He gathered the young musicians in the Orchestre des Cadets du Conservatoire and convinced the German authorities that they were

Claude Demetrius

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

Claude Demetrius (August 3, 1916 – May 1, 1988) was an American songwriter. He was known for his rockabilly songs, some of which were made famous by singers such as Elvis Presley. Biography Demetrius was born in Bath, Maine, United States. By his early twenties he was in New York City writing music for and/or with Louis Armstrong. Demetrius wrote the 1945 musical comedy short film Open the Door, Richard. During the 1940s, he was closely associated with Louis Jordan. He wrote songs with Jordan that included material for the 1946 Black musical film Beware in which Jordan had the starring role. Some of Demetrius’ best-known compositions from that era were co-written with Jordan’s wife, Fleecie Moore, including the song “Ain’t That Just Like a Woman (They’ll Do It Every Time).” For two decades, Claude Demetrius made a reasonably good living but in 1956 his income would change dramatically after he began writing for Gladys Music, Inc. Newly formed by Jean and Julian Aberbach, the company owned the exclusive publishing rights to the music of Elvis Presley. Working for Gladys Music, Demetrius co-wrote a song called “I Was The One” that was the B-side to Presley’s first RCA single, “Heartb

Claude Porter White

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Claude Porter White (April 30, 1907 – March 16, 1975) was an American author and the composer of three operas, as well as other music. She was born in Cleburne, Texas, to Claude Scott Porter and Reverend David Knox Porter. After graduating from Southwestern University, she did graduate work in public school music at Northwestern University, and studied at the Aspen Music School and a composers’ symposium in Dallas, Texas. On June 3, 1934, she married Claude L. White. They settled in Corsicana, Texas, and had two daughters. White edited and published The Texas Opera News, which she began in 1973. She published a book of poetry and was listed in the International Who’s Who in Poetry in 1974. White organized the Tune ‘N Fork Club in Corsicana and was a life member of the Texas Federation of Music Clubs and the National Federation of Music Clubs. She chaired the Texas club’s manuscript society and its organization of adult composers. The Claude Porter White Fund for Young Composers was established following her death in 1975. White composed music for orchestra, harp, piano, voice, and at least one ballet. Her publications included: Books *Fruits of My Spirit (poetry) Operas *Genius *Gr

Cláudio Santoro

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Cláudio Franco de Sá Santoro (23 November 1919 – 27 March 1989) was an internationally renowned Brazilian composer, conductor and violinist. Biography Early life A native of Manaus, the capital of Amazonas, Santoro started to study violin and piano as a child. His efforts made the Government of Amazonas send him to study at the Conservatório Brasileiro de Música in Rio de Janeiro. Career At the age of 18, he was already teaching violin at the conservatory. He was a pupil of Hans-Joachim Koellreutter, a composer who influenced him. He also studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. He co-founded and played in the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra. His prolific output was mostly instrumental and includes fourteen symphonies, three piano concertos and seven string quartets. He was invited by the Government of the German Federal Republic for the Program “Resident Artist in West Berlin” (1966–67) and by the Brahms Foundation as Resident Artist of the Brahms House (Baden Baden). Claudio Santoro died in Brasília in March 1989 at the age of 69 while conducting the rehearsal of a concert scheduled to commemorate the 14 July bicentennial of the French Revolution. Awards He won a 1948 prize of The Lil

Cliff Hess

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

Clifford Hess, better known as Cliff Hess, (June 19, 1894 – June 8, 1959) was an American songwriter, composer, lyricist, and pianist. He began his career as pianist while a young teenager working on passenger riverboats on the Mississippi River. He met Irving Berlin while working in the Chicago branch of the music publisher Waterson, Berlin & Snyder, Inc. By 1911 he was working as Berlin’s secretary, and appeared on Broadway that year with Berlin as his accompanist in performances of his songs. He served as Berlin’s secretary until 1918 and was largely responsible for not only notating Berlin’s songs into sheet music, but also editing his works into playable keys and simplifying works to make them accessible for commercial sale. After leaving Berlin, he became a successful songwriter in his own right with many tunes being recorded for Victor Records and Columbia Records. He also wrote songs for films during the 1930s and some of his tunes were interpolated into musicals. Life and career Clifford “Cliff” Hess was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on June 19, 1894. While a young teenager, he began his career as a pianist on passenger riverboats traversing the Mississippi River. He got a job

Clotilde Arias

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Clotilde Arias Chávarri Anduaga de Ferrero (20 June 1901 – 6 May 1959) was a Peruvian-American composer and lyricist. She is best known for her composition of the song “Huiracocha”, popular in Peru and sung worldwide; and for her translation of “The Star-Spangled Banner”, the United States national anthem, into lyrical Spanish, commissioned by the U.S. Department of State in 1946. Arias was also an integral part of the Pan-American movement during the 1940s, as well as an advocate for Spanish-language education in the United States. Life Arias was born in 1901 in Iquitos, Peru, on the shores of the Amazon. She spent many of her early years in Barbados, where she attended elementary school. She began writing and composing songs during her teenage years. Arias’s artistic talents in music, painting, and composing including playing for silent movies emerged early in Iquitos. She achieved scholastic and artistic recognition, with numerous honors. Her perfect pitch and exceptional ability to sight read made her a highly sought accompanist. Throughout Peruvian history, the Charango was a common instrument of their culture. While Arias focused on composing, she also mastered this instrumen

Colin McPhee

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Colin Carhart McPhee (March 15, 1900 – January 7, 1964) was a Canadian-American composer and ethnomusicologist. He is best known for being the first Western composer to make a musicological study of Bali, and to develop American gamelan along with fellow composer Lou Harrison. He wrote original music influenced by that of Bali and Java, decades before compositions based on world music became widespread. Early life and career Childhood McPhee was born on March 15, 1900, in Montréal, Québec, Canada, to a family of mostly Scottish and German ancestry. His father, Alexander McPhee, was an advertising executive for Bell Telephone Company. His mother, Lavinia McPhee (née Carhart) was originally from New Jersey and settled in Montréal after marrying Alexander. First musical education In 1918 he enrolled in the Peabody Institute at the Johns Hopkins University, studying composition with Gustav Strube and piano with Harold Randolph; subsequently he studied with the avant-garde composer Edgard Varèse before marrying Jane Belo, a disciple of Margaret Mead, in 1931. Career McPhee joined the circle of experimental composers known as the “ultra-modernists” and was among those—along with the grou

Colin Ross (composer)

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Colin Archibald Campbell Ross (1911–1993) FRCO was an organist, pianist, conductor and composer. Biography Colin Ross was born in 1911 in Brecon, of Scottish ancestry, the younger son of Archibald Campbell Carne Ross, of Penzance and Brecon, a stockbroker; his elder brother was the linguist Alan S. C. Ross. His organ teacher was J.H.Carden, organist of Brecon Cathedral, whose articled pupil he became at the age of sixteen. In 1930 he moved to Hereford to be articled pupil to Sir Percy Hull at Hereford Cathedral, and in 1935 he was made assistant organist there. He was the first person to hold such a role. It was while at Hereford that Ross met and married his wife Leila Hodges in 1939, according to amateur research by ‘The Artful Dodger’. The couple later had one daughter, Alison. In 1940 he was called up and became a private in the British army. After discharge he went to the Royal Academy of Music in London to study conducting and composition. After a number of appointments, including at St Barnabas’, Tunbridge Wells, he was appointed organist and choir master of St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne, Australia, which he held from 1947 to 1951. This appointment was on the recommendati

Colin Wark

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Colin Wark (1896 – 1939) was a British composer of film scores, theatre music and light music, born in Ealing, West London and educated at Berkhamsted School. Many of the films he scored were “quota quickies”, mostly low-cost, low-quality, quickly-accomplished films commissioned by American distributors active in the UK or by British cinema owners purely to satisfy the quota requirements. Wark was also the composer of the score for Tulip Time, a comedy with music based on the play The Strange Adventures of Miss Brown by Robert Buchanan (1841-1901) and Charles Marlowe. Tulip Time opened at the Alhambra Theatre in London on August 14, 1935 and ran for 425 performances. In 1932 he was responsible for launching and managing Pasquale Troise and his Mandoliers, an orchestra of about 16 mandolin, accordion, guitar and tuned percussion players that made a series of BBC broadcasts between 1932 and 1933, and which went on to be the most frequently used band on the long-running BBC series Music While You Work (1940-1967). Wark’s light music compositions include the novelty intermezzo Animal Antics, Bouncing Ball (xylophone or piccolo solo), and Chrysanthemums for orchestra and piano. The Wedd

Conlon Nancarrow

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Samuel Conlon Nancarrow (; October 27, 1912 – August 10, 1997) was a US-born Mexican composer. Nancarrow is best remembered for his Studies for Player Piano, being one of the first composers to use auto-playing musical instruments, realizing their potential to play far beyond human performance ability. He lived most of his life in relative isolation and did not become widely known until the 1980s. Biography Early years Nancarrow was born in Texarkana, Arkansas, United States. He played trumpet in a jazz band in his youth before studying music, first in Cincinnati and later in Boston, with Roger Sessions, Walter Piston and Nicolas Slonimsky. He attended the National Music Camp and later met Arnold Schoenberg during that composer’s brief stay in Boston in 1933. At the age of 15, Nancarrow enrolled at Vanderbilt University School of Engineering at the insistence of his father. In Boston, Nancarrow joined the Communist Party USA. When the Spanish Civil War broke out, he traveled to Spain to join the XV International Brigade, which fought on the Republican side. He was interned at the Gurs internment camp in France in 1939. Upon his return to the United States in 1939, he learned that h

Conrad Baden

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

Conrad Baden (31 August 1908 – 11 June 1989 ) was a Norwegian organist, composer, music educator, and music critic. He had an extensive production of orchestral works, chamber music, vocal works and church music. He is considered one of the most important Norwegian composers of the 20th century. Biography Studies He received his first music lessons from his organist father who died when Conrad was 17 years old and about to complete business school. He devoted himself to music and studied piano and organ with the local organist Daniel Hanssen. The young talent soon played to services and oratories. 19 years old, Baden was given organist position in Strømsgodset church. He studied counterpoint with Palestrina expert Per Steenberg and instrumentation and composition with the composer Bjarne Brustad. A breakthrough as an orchestral composer came in 1955 with the performance of Symphony No. 1. A unique neoclassical work is the Fairytale Suite for Orchestra (1960), inspired by Norwegian traditional stories. Composer Baden composed works in a number of forms, bar opera and electronic music. As a composer, he was highly active. In addition to his vocation as a professional organist through

Conrad Beck

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

Conrad Arthur Beck (16 June 1901 – 31 October 1989) was a Swiss composer. Life and works Beck’s stay in Paris between 1924 and 1933 proved crucial to his artistic development, where he studied with Jacques Ibert and also made contact with Arthur Honegger, Nadia Boulanger, and Albert Roussel. Returning to Basel in 1933, he headed the music department of Radio Basel for the next thirty years. He helped mediate cultural exchange through his many contacts with Swiss and international musicians. At the suggestion of Swiss conductor Paul Sacher (1906–1999), who promoted his career more than any other composer, Beck settled in Basel in 1934. During a period of over 50 years, Sacher commissioned his works and conducted their premieres with the chamber orchestra Basler Kammerorchester and the Collegium Musicum Zürich. From 1939 to 1966 Beck worked as music director of Swiss Radio in Basel, a position that enabled him to do a great deal to promote contemporary music. On the occasion of Paul Sacher’s 70th birthday, Beck was asked, together with 11 composer friends (Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Benjamin Britten, Henri Dutilleux, Wolfgang Fortner, Alberto Ginastera, Cristóbal Halffter, Hans We

Conrad Bernier

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Conrad Bernier (9 May 1904 – 7 November 1988) was a French-Canadian organist, composer, conductor and teacher. For many years he was a professor at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Early life and education Born into a family of musicians in Quebec City, Bernier was the brother of pianist Gabrielle Bernier and cellist/journalist Maurice Bernier, and the uncle of musicians Françoys Bernier, Madeleine Bernier, and Pierre Bernier. His first teacher was his father Joseph-Arthur Bernier, who introduced him to solfège, organ, and piano. He continued his keyboard studies with Berthe Roy, and became proficient enough to inaugurate the organ of the church at Bienville when he was 13 years of age. The following year he performed on the organ of St-Sacrement Church in Quebec City. In this church he served from 1920 to 1923 as principal organist, while he was also assistant organist at St-Jean-Baptiste. In 1923 Bernier won the Prix d’Europe to study organ in Paris. There he studied 1923–1926, taking piano with Sylvia Hérard and Simone Plé-Caussade, Music Theory with Georges Caussade (theory), and organ with the well-known organist from Bordeaux, Joseph Bonnet, for whom he

Constance Walton

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Constance Williams Walton (30 June 1919 – 22 July 2017) was an American composer, pianist, and teacher. Walton was born in California to Milo B. and Helen W. Williams. She graduated from the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music and married Donald Rech Walton on June 14, 1941. They had one son, Robert, before divorcing in November 1965. Awards *National Opera Association Award (1972) *National Federation of Music Clubs Adult Composer Award (1977) *Greenwich Pen Women OWL Award (1992) Compositions Walton’s compositions included: Chamber *Bare Branches (flute, viola and cello) *Perspective (cello and piano) *Shadows (viola and cello) *Songs References

Constant Lambert

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Leonard Constant Lambert (23 August 190521 August 1951) was a British composer, conductor, and author. He was the founding music director of the Royal Ballet, and (alongside Dame Ninette de Valois and Sir Frederick Ashton) he was a major figure in the establishment of the English ballet as a significant artistic movement. His ballet commitments, including extensive conducting work throughout his life, restricted his compositional activities. However one work, The Rio Grande, for chorus, orchestra and piano soloist, achieved widespread popularity in the 1920s, and is still regularly performed today. His other work includes a jazz influenced Piano Concerto (1931), major ballet scores such as Horoscope (1937) and a full-scale choral masque Summer’s Last Will and Testament (1936) that some consider his masterpiece. Lambert had wide-ranging interests beyond music, as can be seen from his critical study Music Ho! (1934), which places music in the context of the other arts. His friends included John Maynard Keynes, Anthony Powell and the Sitwells. To Keynes, Lambert was perhaps the most brilliant man he had ever met; to de Valois he was the greatest ballet conductor and advisor his countr

Constantin Brăiloiu

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Constantin Brăiloiu (13 August 1893 – 20 December 1958) was a Romanian composer and internationally known ethnomusicologist. He was born in Bucharest, the scion of an old boyar family from Oltenia. His father, Nicolae Brăiloiu, and his grandfather, Constantin N. Brăiloiu, were both lawyers and politicians. Constantin Brăiloiu studied in Bucharest (1901–1907), Vienna (1907–1909), Vevey and Lausanne (1909–1912), as well as Paris (1912–1914). In 1920, he founded the Societatea Compozitorilor Români (SCR, Society of Romanian Composers) along with other composers, and he served as general secretary of the organization between 1926 and 1943. In 1928, he initiated the composer’s collective Arhiva de folklore (folklore archive), which soon became one of the largest folk music archives of its time. From 1928 he and sociology professor Dimitrie Gusti visited the various regions of Romania in order to make sound recordings. In 1931, he published the article “Schița unei metode de folclor muzical” (Sketch of a method for music folklore), which became one of the foundational texts for ethnomusicology. In 1943, he became cultural consultant for the Romanian embassy in Bern. Due to the political

Cor de Groot

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Cor de Groot (July 7, 1914 – May 26, 1993) was a Dutch pianist and composer. He was born in Amsterdam. He studied piano with Egbert Veen and Ulferts Schults, and composition and conducting under Sem Dresden. In 1932 he graduated with highest honours, playing a piano concerto written by himself. After becoming a soloist with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, he won the fifth prize at the 1936 international contest for pianists in Vienna. He played all over the world and recordings that exist demonstrate a strong sense of structure, a clean rhythmic attack and very precise dynamic shadings. He was a member of the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition’s jury in 1956. In 1959 a nervous disorder developed in his right hand but he continued playing repertoire for the left hand. He arranged more than 80 pieces for the left hand; his Apparitions, voor piano (linkerhand alleen) (1961) were described by one reviewer as “intense and expressive piano music that should make it a joy for a pianist to develop his left hand.” Slowly he regained power over his right hand. He became musical director of the Dutch Broadcasting Foundation and promoted Dutch contemporary music. He made many recordings but also cont

Cyrillus Kreek

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Cyrillus Kreek (born Karl Ustav Kreek; 3 December 1889 in Võnnu, Lääne county – 26 March 1962 in Haapsalu) was an Estonian composer. Kreek studied trombone and composition at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory from 1908 to 1916 in the years immediately prior to the Russian Revolution, then worked as music teacher first in his native Haapsalu (in western Estonia), at the Tartu Higher Music College and later at the Tallinn Conservatory. Kreek started collecting religious folksongs in 1911 in the Haapsalu region. He systematically collected the folk music of his native country, and many of his folk melody arrangements have since become part of the permanent repertoire of Estonian choral societies. He was the first Estonian collector to use the phonograph for this purpose and the harmonisations he made became a lifelong preoccupation. His beautiful psalm settings have an unmistakable folk tinge, and yet they are much more than simple folksong arrangements, with their carefully graded choral colouring and passing use of imitation. Kreek’s magnum opus was his Requiem, using an Estonian translation of the text of Mozart’s Requiem, but his essence is perfectly expressed in these choral mini

Czesław Lewicki

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Czesław Lewicki (26 April 1906 – 16 March 1979) was a Polish composer. He has been recognized as one of the Polish Righteous Among the Nations for his efforts to rescue the Polish-Jewish composer Władysław Szpilman during the Holocaust in Poland. Biography Before the war Lewicki was born in Mołczany on 26 April 1906. In 1935 he graduated from the Warsaw Conservatory, where he studied under . From 1935 to 1938 he worked in Wilno (today Vilnius, Lithuania) as an orchestra conductor and lecturer at Karłowicz’s Wilno Conservatory (Konserwatorium Wileńskie im. Karłowicza), as well as an conductor of the symphony orchestra of the Council of Artistic Associations (Rada Zrzeszeń Artystycznych) and the Vilnius Symphony Orchestra (Wileńskia Orkiestra Symfoniczna). Lewicki regularly visited the apartment, bringing food and other necessities for Szpilman. Lewicki was also active in the Polish resistance (Armia Krajowa) and became wanted by Gestapo. He carried a suicide pill in his teeth. In June he advised Szpilman to leave the apartment due to fear that Germans might come looking for him in that apartment (Szpilman chose to stay there until the situation forced him to leave it on 12 August).

Dag Wirén

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Dag Ivar Wirén (15 October 1905 – 19 April 1986) was a Swedish composer. Best known for his Serenade for Strings (1937), his career was mainly spent in Stockholm, aside from a stint in Paris during his early studies. Life and career Wirén was born at Striberg near Nora on 15 October 1905. His father had a roller blind factory, and there were various musical activities in the family home; he took piano lessons, and was a student at the Karolinska school in Örebro, and played the bass drum and celesta in the town orchestra. Wirén studied at the Stockholm conservatory from 1926 to 1931, which gave him much exposure to music from all periods; hearing Arthur Honegger’s oratorio King David in 1927 was an important experience. In 1934, Wirén moved to Stockholm with his bride, the Irish cellist, Noel Franks, whom he had met in Paris; their daughter, Annika, was born in 1947. He was music critic at the “Svenska Morgonbladet” from 1938 to 1946, and in 1947 became vice-chairman of the Society of Swedish Composers. From 1948, he spent summers on the island of Björkö, in Stockholm’s archipelago. He served as a member of the board of directors of the Royal Swedish Opera from 1962 to 1971. His TV

Dagmar Nordstrom

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Dagmar Nordstrom (December 12, 1903 – April 9, 1976) was an American composer, pianist and singer. She performed together with her sister Siggie as a cabaret singing duo known as The Nordstrom Sisters. Background Dagmar Nordstrom was born in Chicago, Illinois. She was the second daughter of Anna and Alexander Nordstrom. The family were of Swedish and Norwegian extraction. Dagmar was married briefly to a society playboy, but lived most of her life with her older sister after the death of Siggie’s husband, Samuel Ferebee Williams. Career Dagmar and Siggie had a flat in London for a year in 1939 when they were the resident performers at The Ritz. With the exception of their October trips to Bad Gastein for the baths, they regularly performed either in clubs in New York City or on board transatlantic ocean liners, most commonly on the Cunard Line and Norwegian America Line. The duo were on the maiden around the world voyage of the combined ocean liner/cruise ship MS Sagafjord. Dagmar wrote the music for “Remembering You”, a foxtrot which was published as sheet music and a full orchestration in 1940. During the 1940s she and her sister were often on the radio and through the 1960s when

Dajos Béla

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Leon Golzmann or as he was more commonly known, Dajos Béla (19 December 1897 – 5 December 1978), was a Ukrainian jazz violinist and bandleader. Career Golzmann was born in Kyiv, now part of Ukraine, to a Russian father and Hungarian mother. He served as a soldier during World War I, after which he studied music in Moscow. He then continued his studies in Berlin, where he started playing in local venues. He was contacted by Carl Lindström AG to make recordings and started his own salon orchestra, at which period he changed his name to the more Hungarian-sounding Dajos Béla, Hungarian or Romanian music then being popular in Germany. Along with those of Paul Godwin and Marek Weber, his orchestra became one of the most popular in Germany and gained a high reputation abroad. He played a range of music, but for jazz music often recorded under different names, such as The Odeon Five, Mac’s Jazz Orchestra and the Clive Williams Jazzband. As soon as the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933 Béla, who was Jewish, started touring abroad. In 1935 he travelled to Buenos Aires, where he remained for the rest of his life. He died in La Falda, Argentina, in 1978. Among the many musicians who play

Dan Folke

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Dan Folke (March 11, 1906 – September 16, 1954) was a Danish composer, lyricist, publisher, and theater director. Biography Folke was born in Frederiksberg. Together with Arvid and Børge Müller, Folke wrote the lyrics for “Glemmer du” References External links *Dan Folke at the Danish Film Database

Dane Rudhyar

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Dane Rudhyar (March 23, 1895 – September 13, 1985), born Daniel Chennevière, was an American author, modernist composer, painter and humanistic astrologer. He was a pioneer of modern transpersonal astrology. Biography Dane Rudhyar was born in Paris on March 23, 1895. At the age of 12, a severe illness and surgery disabled him, and he turned to music and intellectual development to compensate for his lack of physical agility. He studied at the Sorbonne, University of Paris (graduating at the age of 16), and at the Paris Conservatoire. His early ventures into philosophy and his association with the artistic community in Paris led to his conviction that all existence is cyclical in character. Influenced by Nietzsche as a youth, Rudhyar envisioned himself as a “seed man” of new age cultural evolution. In November 1916, Rudhyar’s music brought him to New York City, by the New York Metropolitan Opera. This was one of the first polytonal pieces of music performed in the United States. He also met Sasaki Roshi, one of the early Japanese Zen teachers in America, who led him in the study of Oriental philosophy and occultism. He stayed in California (often commuting to New York) through the 1

Daniel Ayala Pérez

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Daniel Ayala Pérez (21 July 1906 – 20 June 1975) was a Mexican violinist, conductor, and composer. Biography Ayala was born in Abalá, Yucatán, and studied violin with Revueltas and composition with Chávez, Manuel M. Ponce, Vicente T. Mendoza, Candelario Huízar and Julián Carrillo at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música, Mexico City from 1927 to 1932. For a time he earned his living playing in the night club Salón México, a locale later celebrated in a well-known composition by Aaron Copland. In 1934 he formed, together with fellow composers Salvador Contreras, Blas Galindo and José Pablo Moncayo, the “Group of Four” – “Grupo de los cuatro.” From 1931 he was a second violinist in the Orquesta Sinfónica de México under Chávez, and directed a choir in Morelia for two years, but in 1940 returned to his native Yucatán to accept an appointment as conductor of the Police Band in Mérida. In 1942 he founded the , which performs compositions by Yucatecan composers of the past and present. In 1944 he became conductor of the newly reorganized Mérida Symphony Orchestra and director of the Yucatán Conservatory. In 1955 he moved to Veracruz to take up the directorship of the school of music ther

Daniel Jones (composer)

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Daniel Jenkyn Jones (7 December 1912 – 23 April 1993) was a Welsh composer of classical music, who worked in Britain. He used both serial and tonal techniques. He is best known for his quartets and thirteen symphonies (some composed in his own system of ‘Complex Metres’) and for his song settings for Dylan Thomas’s play Under Milk Wood. Biography Jones was born in Pembroke in south Wales. His father, Jenkyn Jones, was a composer and his mother a singer, and by the time he was nine years old the young Daniel had himself written several piano sonatas. He attended the Bishop Gore School in Swansea (1924–1931), where his enthusiasm for literature led to a close friendship with the poet Dylan Thomas, and to his going on to study English literature at Swansea University. At this period Jones and Thomas were part of the informal group of aspiring artists who would meet at the Kardomah cafe in Castle Street, Swansea. Other members of the group were the poet Vernon Watkins and the painter Alfred Janes. In 1935 Jones left Swansea to study music at the Royal Academy of Music in London (1935–1938), where his teachers included Sir Henry Wood and Harry Farjeon. In the years leading up to the Sec

Daniel Lesur

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Daniel Jean-Yves Lesur (19 November 1908 – 2 July 2002) was a French organist and composer. He was the son of the composer Alice Lesur. Biography Born in Paris, he entered the Conservatoire de Paris at age 11, studying solfège with Emile Schwartz, harmony with Jean Gallon, and composition with Georges Caussade. He also took private lessons in piano with Armand Ferté and composition with Charles Tournemire. From 1935 to 1964, he was professor of counterpoint at the Schola Cantorum under director Nestor Lejeune, becoming director himself in 1957. In 1936, he co-founded the group La Jeune France along with composers Olivier Messiaen (with whom he would remain a lifelong friend), André Jolivet and Yves Baudrier, who were attempting to re-establish a more human and less abstract form of composition. La Jeune France developed from the avant-garde chamber music society La spirale, formed by Jolivet, Messiaen, and Daniel-Lesur the previous year. That same year he, together with Jean Langlais and Jean-Jacques Grunenwald, gave the first performance of Olivier Messiaen’s La Nativité du Seigneur. Between 1927 and 1937 he seconded Tournemire at the organ of Ste. Clotilde, Paris, and was organis

Daniel Ruyneman

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Daniël Ruyneman (8 August 1886 – 25 July 1963) was a Dutch composer and pianist, and inventor of the Electrophone. Career Ruyneman was born in Amsterdam and travelled to India in his early years. He took piano lessons as a child but, intended for a career in marine service, he did not take a serious interest in music until the age of 18. From 1913 to 1916 he studied composition at the Amsterdam Conservatory with Bernard Zweers. In 1918 Ruyneman helped found the Society of Modern Dutch Composers (Nederlansche Vereeniging voor Mod-erne Scheppende Toonkunst), which in 1922 became the Dutch branch of the International Society for Contemporary Music. He was also president of the Netherlands Society for Contemporary Music from 1930 until 1962. In the 1920s he worked in Groningen, where he became associated with the expressionistic De Ploeg group of artists. Ruyneman made a special study of Javanese instruments. Before the war he established and edited Maandblad voor Hedendaagsche Muziek (Contemporary Music Monthly Magazine), which was banned during the German occupation of the Netherlands. He published a book about the Dutch composer Jan Ingenhoven in 1938. Ruyneman became director of th

Daniel Sternberg

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Daniel Arie Sternberg (29 March 1913 – 26 August 2000) was a Polish conductor, pianist, composer, and educator. He lived and worked in Central and Eastern Europe until 1939, when he emigrated to the United States to escape World War II. Biography Sternberg was born on 29 March 1913 in Lemberg, Austria-Hungary. The son of music-loving parents, he began piano lessons at age five and added the cello. He graduated at the top of his class from the Vienna Conservatory, where he studied conducting. Upon graduation, he became assistant conductor (under Fritz Stiedry) of the Leningrad Opera and the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra. It was in Leningrad, in 1935, that Sternberg first met cellist Lev Aronson, whom he recommended for the post of principal cellist. It was also in Leningrad, in 1936, that he conducted the first performance outside Germany of Paul Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler symphony. After serving as music director of the Tbilisi State Symphony Orchestra, he lived in Vienna, Riga, and Stockholm. After the German invasion of Poland ignited World War II in the fall of 1939, Sternberg and his wife, the Romanian-born Felicitas Gobineau Sternberg, emigrated to the United States. Ster

Daniel Sternefeld

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Daniel Sternefeld (Antwerp, 27 November 1905 – Brussels, 2 June 1986) was a Belgian composer and conductor. Life and career Sternefeld took private lessons with Renaat Veremans and Paul Gilson at the Royal Conservatory of Flanders in Antwerp, after which he studied conducting under Frank van der Stucken at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He completed his studies with Bernard Paumgartner, Clemens Krauss and Herbert von Karajan. In 1929, he joined the orchestra of the Royal Flemish Opera, and in 1944, he was appointed as its principal conductor. Between 1930 and 1940 Sternefeld was also working for the Koninklijke Nederlandse Schouwburg of Antwerp, for whom he wrote incidental music. He also conducted the Cercle musical juif and several choral societies in Antwerp. During the occupation Sternefeld, an ethnic Jew, was forced into hiding in Antwerp. In 1942, he risked his life by attending the funeral of his teacher Paul Gilson in Brussels. He was arrested in late 1943 and incarcerated in the Dossin Barracks in Mechelen. He stayed several months in this Sammellager but was released. It was during this period that he wrote his first symphony. In 1948, he left the Royal Flemish Opera for the

Daniele Amfitheatrof

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Daniele Alexandrovich Amfitheatrof (, 29 October 1901 – 4 June 1983) was a Russian, American, and Italian composer and conductor. Biography Amfitheatrof was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia on 29 October 1901; his grandfather was Nikolay Sokolov. In his youth, Amfitheatrof studied first with Jāzeps Vītols at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, then Jaroslav Křička in Prague. Most of Amfitheatrof’s studies took place in Rome, where he completed his studies in composition at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia under Ottorino Respighi. Amfitheatrof also graduated in organ playing from the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music. His career began as a répétiteur at the Teatro Augusteo, where he eventually became assistant conductor to Bernardino Molinari. After obtaining a number of positions in Italy, including house conductor and manager at the EIAR station in Turin, Amfitheatrof left to become associate conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra under music director Dimitri Mitropoulos. In 1939, Amfitheatrof relocated to Hollywood, California, where he established himself as a film composer. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1944. Altogether, Amfitheatrof scored more than

Darius Milhaud

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

Life and career#

Milhaud was born in Marseille, the son of Sophie (Allatini) and Gad Gabriel Milhaud. He grew up in Aix-en-Provence, which he regarded as his true ancestral city. His was a long-established Jewish family of the Comtat Venaissin—a secluded region of Provence—with roots traceable there at least to the 15th century. On his father’s side, Milhaud’s Jewish lineage was thus neither Ashkenazi nor Sephardi, but specifically Provençal—dating to Jewish settlement in that part of France as early as the first centuries of the Common Era. Milhaud began as a violinist, later turning to composition. He studied at the Paris Conservatory, where he met fellow Les Six members Arthur Honegger and Germaine Tailleferre. He studied composition with Charles-Marie Widor and harmony and counterpoint with André Gedalge. He also studied privately with Vincent d’Indy. From 1917 to 1919, he served as secretary to Paul Claudel, the poet and dramatist who was then the French ambassador to Brazil, and with whom Milhaud collaborated for many years, writing music for many of his poems and plays. In Brazil, they collaborated on the ballet L’Homme et son désir. On his return to France, Milhaud composed works influenced by Brazilian popular music, including songs by pianist and composer Ernesto Nazareth. Le Bœuf sur le toit includes melodies by Nazareth and other popular Brazilian composers, and evokes the sounds of Carnaval. Among the melodies is a Carnaval tune by the name of “The Bull on the Roof” (in Portuguese, which he translated to French ‘Le boeuf sur le toit’, known in English as ‘The Ox on the Roof’). He also produced Saudades do Brasil, a suite of 12 dances evoking 12 Rio de Janeiro neighborhoods. Shortly after the original piano version appeared, he orchestrated the suite. Contemporary European influences were also important. Milhaud dedicated his Fifth String Quartet (1920) to Arnold Schoenberg, and the next year conducted both the French and British premieres of Pierrot lunaire after multiple rehearsals. On a trip to the United States in 1922, Milhaud heard “authentic” jazz for the first time, on the streets of Harlem, which greatly influenced his music. The next year, he completed La création du monde (The Creation of the World), using ideas and idioms from jazz, cast as a ballet in six continuous dance scenes. Nazi Germany’s invasion of France forced the Milhauds to leave France in 1940. They emigrated to the U.S. (Milhaud’s Jewish background made it impossible for him to return to France before it was liberated). He secured a teaching post at Mills College in Oakland, California, where he composed the opera Bolivar (1943) and collaborated with Henri Temianka and the Paganini Quartet. In an extraordinary concert there in 1949, the Budapest Quartet performed his 14th String Quartet, followed by the Paganini Quartet’s performance of his 15th; and then both ensembles played the two pieces together as an octet. In 1950, these pieces were performed at the Aspen Music Festival by the Paganini and Juilliard String Quartets. On June 13,1945, his Suite Francaise, – Normandie, Bretagne, Ile de France, Alsace-Lorraine, Provence, had its World Premiere performance at the Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, in the Naumburg Bandshell, Central Park, in the summer series. Jazz pianist Dave Brubeck became one of Milhaud’s most famous students when Brubeck studied at Mills College in the late 1940s. In a February 2010 interview with JazzWax, Brubeck said he attended Mills, a women’s college (men were allowed in graduate programs), specifically to study with Milhaud, saying, “Milhaud was an enormously gifted classical composer and teacher who loved jazz and incorporated it into his work. My older brother Howard was his assistant and had taken all of his classes.” Brubeck named his first son Darius. In 1947 Milhaud was among the founders of the Music Academy of the West summer conservatory, where songwriter Burt Bacharach was among his students. Milhaud told Bacharach, “Don’t be afraid of writing something people can remember and whistle. Don’t ever feel discomfited by a melody.” From 1947 to 1971, he taught alternate years at Mills and the Paris Conservatoire, until poor health, which caused him to use a wheelchair during his later years (beginning in the 1930s), compelled him to retire. He also taught on the faculty of the Aspen Music Festival and School. As well as Brubeck, his students include William Bolcom, Vera Nicolaevna Preobrajenska, Steve Reich, Michiko Toyama, Katharine Mulky Warne, and Regina Hansen Willman. He died in Geneva at the age of 81, and he was buried in the Saint-Pierre Cemetery in Aix-en-Provence.

Darrell Calker

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Darrell Wallace Calker (February 18, 1905 – February 20, 1964) was an American composer and arranger who worked on films and animated cartoons. Early life and education Calker was born in Washington, D.C. to Morris H. and Lugenia E. (Lily) Wallace of Philadelphia. He grew up with his younger sister Rena in the District of Columbia, where he attended Episcopal Cathedral School and sang with a church choir in his teens. He studied with Edgar Priest and David Pell, graduating from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Career Calker’s early work in Hollywood included orchestration for Victor Young. He was also active as the composer of scores for the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo and Sadlers Wells Royal Ballet. Among his compositions were the suites for orchestra, Golden Land and Penguin Island. After arriving in Los Angeles by the mid-1930s, Calker worked as a session musician, and composed songs including Strings Full of Swing and Dixieland Strut. He formed his own band, which appeared on radio in the early 1940s. It was at this time Walter Lantz hired Calker to be his musical director in December 1940, replacing former Warner Bros. composer Frank Marsales. Calker was an unc

David Broekman

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David Broekman (c. 1900 – April 1, 1958) was a Dutch-born American composer, violinist and film scorer. Biography Broekman was born c. 1900, in Leiden, Kingdom of the Netherlands. While living in the Netherlands, he orchestrated the Royal Opera House while living there. In 1924, he immigrated to the United States and joined the New York Philharmonic. He produced film soundtracks for studios such as Warner Bros., Columbia Pictures, and Universal Pictures, with him being musical director of the latter two in 1929 to 1931 and from 1932 to 1935, respectively. He later joined CBS. During World War II, Broekman served as musical director for the United States Department of the Treasury. As which, he appeared in and recorded music for war bond projects. Broekman was a television scorer, having produced the soundtracks to shows such as Wide Wide World. He was nominated in 8th Primetime Emmy Awards, in the category “Best Musical Contribution”. He also frequently appeared on the 1949 game show Think Fast, as a judge. Broekman wrote an autobiography titled The Shoestring Symphony in 1948, which received a positive review from a reviewer of The New York Times. He composed the operas Barbara Al

David Cox (composer)

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David Vassall Cox (Broadstairs, 4 February 1916 - Pratt’s Bottom, 31 January 1997) was a British composer and writer on music who for most of his professional life was music coordinator for the BBC World Service. Among his arrangements was Lillibullero, which introduced hourly World Service news broadcasts. Life and music Cox was born in Broadstairs, Kent, but his family soon moved to Australia. He returned to England in 1935, aged 19, to study at the Royal College of Music, where his teachers were Ralph Vaughan Williams, Herbert Howells and Arthur Benjamin. He was also an organ scholar at Worcester College, Oxford, until 1940. During the war he joined the RAF, playing the clarinet in the RAF Band, mostly at Cranwell in Lincolnshire. Cox joined the BBC in 1946, initially as a music producer for the Latin-American Service, then on the Third Programme, and finally as Music Organiser for the BBC External Services in 1956, a post he held until retirement in 1976. A year before his death, a concert marking his 80th birthday was held at All Saints’ Church, Tudeley, reviving several of his works, including the Five Songs after John Milton and extracts from the cantata Of Beasts. David Cox

David Diamond (composer)

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David Leo Diamond (July 9, 1915 – June 13, 2005) was an American composer of classical music. He is considered one of the preeminent American composers of his generation. Many of his works are tonal or modal. His early compositions are typically triadic, often with widely spaced harmonies, giving them a distinctly American tone, but some of his works are consciously French in style. His later style became more chromatic. Life and career He was born in Rochester, New York, and studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Eastman School of Music under Bernard Rogers, also receiving lessons from Roger Sessions in New York City and Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He won a number of awards including three Guggenheim Fellowships. Diamond’s most popular piece is Rounds (1944) for string orchestra. Among his other works are eleven symphonies (the last in 1993), concertos including three for violin, eleven string quartets, music for wind ensemble, other chamber music, piano pieces and vocal music. He composed the musical theme heard on the CBS Radio Network broadcast Hear It Now (1950–51) and its TV successor, See It Now (1951–58). Diamond was named honorary composer-in-residence of the Se

David Moule-Evans

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David Moule-Evans (21 November 1905 – 18 May 1988) was an English composer, conductor and academic. Life Moule-Evans was born in Ashford, Kent, and was educated at the Judd School in Tonbridge before studying at the Royal College of Music in London with Malcolm Sargent and Herbert Howells. While at the Royal College he became friendly with his contemporary Michael Tippett, beating him to gain the Mendelssohn Scholarship in 1928 and continuing studies at Queen’s College, Oxford. Tippett asked him to conduct the first full concert of his own music at the Barn Theatre in Oxted on 5 April 1930. From 1945 to 1974 Moule-Evans returned to the RCM to teach harmony, counterpoint and composition. He married Monica Warden Evans in March 1935 and the couple lived at Claremont, 10 Rose Hill, Dorking in Surrey. Music As a composer Moule-Evans has been largely forgotten today, but during his lifetime he achieved a measure of success. His Concerto for String Orchestra won the Carnegie British Music award in 1928. The Dance Suite, scored for full orchestra with piano, five percussion players and timpani, was completed in December 1930 and received its first performance at a Royal College of Music P

David Van Vactor

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David Van Vactor (May 8, 1906 – March 24, 1994) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. He was born in Plymouth, Indiana, and received Bachelor of Music (1928) and Master of Music (1935) degrees from Northwestern University. He studied with Arne Oldberg, Mark Wessel, Ernst Nolte (composer), Leo Sowerby, Paul Dukas, Franz Schmidt, and Arnold Schoenberg. He was the assistant conductor of the Chicago Civic Orchestra (1933–34) and was both the flute section leader and assistant conductor of the Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra from 1943 to 1947. He served as the conductor of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra from 1947 until 1972. He also appeared as guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, and the orchestras of Rio de Janeiro and Santiago, Chile. In 1938 his Symphony in D won the Second Annual Competition of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Society for a major symphonic work by a U. S. composer (his former teacher Mark Wessel received the sole Honorable Mention in the same competition). The Symphony was premiered on Jan

David Willcocks

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Sir David Valentine Willcocks, (30 December 1919 – 17 September 2015) was a British choral conductor, organist, composer and music administrator. He was particularly well known for his association with the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, which he directed from 1957 to 1974, making frequent broadcasts and recordings. Several of the descants and carol arrangements he wrote for the annual service of Nine Lessons and Carols were published in the series of books Carols for Choirs which he edited along with Reginald Jacques and John Rutter. He was also director of the Royal College of Music in London. During the Second World War (1939–1945) he served as an officer in the British Army, and was decorated with the Military Cross for his actions on Hill 112 during the Battle of Normandy in July 1944. His elder son, Jonathan Willcocks, is also a composer. Biography Born in Newquay in Cornwall, Willcocks began his musical training as a chorister at Westminster Abbey from 1929 to 1934, following a recommendation by the then Master of the King’s Music, Sir Henry Walford Davies, to Ernest Bullock. From 1934 to 1938, he was a music scholar at Clifton College, Bristol, where his teacher was Dou

David Wynne (composer)

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David Wynne (2 June 1900 – 23 March 1983) was a prolific Welsh composer, who taught for many years at Cardiff University and wrote much of his best-known music in retirement. The following year, the family moved to Llanfabon, near Cilfynydd, where he attended the local school until the age of 12. For the next two years he worked at a local grocer’s shop, He continued to work there until the age of 25, even after beginning lessons with a local music teacher and organist, Tom Llewellyn Jenkins, himself a minor composer. In 1925 he was awarded a Glamorgan Scholarship to University College, Cardiff, becoming a pupil of Professor David Evans and John Morgan Lloyd; he obtained a B.Mus. degree in 1928. In 1933, he married Eirwen Evans and they settled in Maesycwmmer. In 1938 the University of Wales awarded him a D.Mus. In 1944 he was awarded the Clements Memorial Prize for his First String Quartet, and this effectively launched his career as a leading composer; thereafter he received regular commissions. At the same time, he began using the name David Wynne for professional purposes. He retired from school teaching in 1960. From 1961 to 1971 he taught composition at Cardiff College of Mus

Dee Libbey

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Anastasia Delores Rohde Libbey (1 November 1919 – 4 July 1988) was an American composer who studied with Nadia Boulanger and wrote classical music as well as popular hit songs like “Mango”. She published her music under the name Dee Libbey and the pseudonym Q’Adrianne Rohde. Life and career Libbey was born in Deland, Florida, to Anastasia Delores Shumate and Clifford Kahrwald Rohde. She won awards for playing xylophone in high school, then studied music at Stetson University; the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France, and Chicago; and privately with several teachers. She sang tenor in at least one church choir. Her teachers included Nadia Boulanger, Dr. William Duckwitz, the xylophonist John Heney, and Leo Sowerby. She married Edwin B. Libbey and they had one son. As Q’Adrianne Rohde, Libbey copyrighted a drawing in 1973 called The Unity Eagle. Her works were recorded by Columbia Records and published by G. Schirmer Inc. and Lawson Gould Music Publishers. Operetta *Gretchen’s Dream (for children) Vocal *“Chinchilla” *Cry Out (chorus) *Tolling Bells (chorus) *Wee Little Boy (women’s chorus) *“Wild Horses Run Free” References External links *Hear Rosemary Clooney sing “Mango

Deems Taylor

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Joseph Deems Taylor (December 22, 1885 – July 3, 1966) was an American composer, radio commentator, music critic, and author. Nat Benchley, co-editor of The Lost Algonquin Roundtable, referred to him as “the dean of American music.” He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1934. Early life and family Deems Taylor was born in New York City to JoJo and Katherine Taylor. He attended Ethical Culture Elementary School, followed by New York University. Taylor married three times. His first wife was Jane Anderson. They were married in 1910, but divorced in 1918. In 1921, he married Mary Kennedy, who was an actress and a writer. They had a daughter, Joan Kennedy Taylor, in 1926, and divorced in 1934. He was involved romantically with soprano Colette D’Arville after his divorce. Taylor married a third and last time in 1945, to costume designer Lucille Watson-Little. They were divorced eight years later. Taylor died on July 3, 1966, of leukemia at the age of 80. He is interred at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. Career Composer Taylor initially planned to become an architect; however, despite minimal musical training he soon took to music composition. The resul

Denes Agay

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

Denes Agay (June 10, 1911 – January 24, 2007) was a Hungarian-born, Hungarian-American composer, music educator, arranger and author. Agay is known for compiling the million-selling music collection Best Loved Songs of the American People (1975). Early life and career Agay was born on June 10, 1911 in Kiskunfélegyháza, Austria-Hungary (present-day, Hungary) to Hungarian-Jewish family. Agay began playing piano at the age of three. In 1934 he completed his musical studies at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. He was simultaneously studying law at the University of Budapest, but dropped out a year before earning his degree to concentrate on music. Agay conducted the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance of a symphony which he composed. He worked as a film composer; one film assignment was writing the background music for Hedy Lamarr’s nude scene in the 1933 film Ecstasy. Move to the US Agay was Jewish, and after the rise of Nazism, he emigrated to New York in 1939. His parents were murdered in Auschwitz. In 1942 he became an American citizen and joined the military, entertaining patients in the hospital wards in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. After the war Agay returned to

Dénes von Buday

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

Buday Dénes (Denes von Buday) was a Hungarian composer, born in Budapest. He was a well known composer of both poems and music for films made between 1930 and 1950. Buday studied at the Academy of Music, which is today known as the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, where his teacher, Hans von Koessler, held his lectures in German. Work Opera Buday’s only opera, the comedy Loreley, premiered in 1919 in Vienna. Operettas Buday authored many operettas and musical comedies, which were shown on stage between 1916 and 1947. Movie composer References Book Reference * * External links * by Gyula Juhász; the composer is singing and playing the piano * ≈I love you Ágnes with János Sárdy * ≈Hearth could not pour forth with Janka Sólyom

Denis ApIvor

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Denis ApIvor (14 April 191627 May 2004) was a British composer, best known for his ballet score Blood Wedding. He had a parallel career as a consultant anaesthetist. Biography ApIvor (pronounced Ap Ivor) was born in Collinstown, County Westmeath, Ireland, to Welsh parents. He attended Hereford Cathedral School and was a chorister at Christ Church, Oxford, and Hereford Cathedral. Because his parents opposed a career in music, he studied medicine in London, but had also pursued the study of music from an early age. He began his medical studies at the University of Aberystwyth in 1933, moving the next year to University College London. Inspired by hearing the first performance in England of Wozzeck (at the Queen’s Hall, 14 March 1934 conducted by Adrian Boult) and encouraged by Cecil Gray, ApIvor also studied composition privately with Patrick Hadley and Alan Rawsthorne. At the outbreak of World War II he was for a time house physician at the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth, Hampstead. In 1942 he was called up, mostly serving as a war doctor in India. After the war ApIvor continued with his medical career, eventually retiring in 1979 from the Mid Kent Group. But he also returned

Dezso d'Antalffy

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

Dezso d’Antalffy (born Dezső Antalffy-Zsiross; 24July 188529 – April 1945) was a Hungarian organist and composer. He was one of the most significant performing artists of his time. He composed pieces for orchestra, chamber orchestra, choir, piano and organ which were published by Schirmer, Ricordi, Leduc, Salabert, Steingräber, Breitkopf and Universal. Early life Dezso d’Antalffy was born into a musical family in Nagybecskerek, Banat, Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary, (present-day Zrenjanin, Serbia). His mother, a pianist, recognized his musical talent when he was four. At the age of seven, d’Antalffy’s piano instruction was taken over by Ferenc Ripka. When he turned ten, Herr Ödön supervised his musical progress. As a secondary-school student he practiced eight hours a day, which gave him a firm basis for his technique. Academy of Music Study D’Antallfy moved to Budapest in 1902, where he attended the faculty of law at the Hungarian Royal University according to his father’s wishes, and studied the organ and composed music at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. For four years he was the student of Hans Koessler, who taught many Hungarian composers including Kodály, Bartók and Weiner

Dick Kattenburg

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

Dick Kattenburg (11 November 1919 in Amsterdam – 30 September 1944 in Auschwitz) was a Dutch Jewish composer who was murdered at Auschwitz at the age of 24. His works have been recovered and recorded. He was of Jewish descent, grew up in Naarden in the Netherlands and attended the HBS in Bussum. He graduated violin and theory at the College Musical Belge in Antwerp, where he worked with lessons from Hugo Godron. A good friend of that time was a painter and violinist Theo Kroeze. In 1941 he obtained a state diploma of theory and violin in The Hague. He was taught by Leo Smit. Kattenburg and his family were hiding in Utrecht. On 5 May 1944 he was arrested during a raid. He was then transported to camp Westerbork and sent to Auschwitz between 22 May and 30 September 1944. He wrote about thirty songs. This included solo pieces and chamber music and orchestral works. He wrote some Jewish and Palestine songs which he called Romanian folk music. It was thought that there had been preserved only one composition from him. However, in 2004 a family member found a box in the attic with more compositions. In January 2010 his work appeared for the first time on CD performed by the Leo Smit Ense

Dick Rogers

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

Richard Rogers (1912–1970) was a singer, comedian, songwriter, and pianist, who wrote the lyrics for “Harlem Nocturne”. Rogers was associated with Will Osborne, a “star crooner” who was on the radio in the 1930s. Osborne’s band was on the decline in 1940. The magazine called him capable, saying he could sing, compose, play and lead. * “Spaghetti Rag” (music by Lyons and Yosco) (1950) * “Magazines (Are Magic for Lonely People)” (sung by Theresa Brewer) (1958) * “I Guess I’ll Get the Papers and Go Home” (sung by the Mills Brothers, written with Hughie Prince, Hal Kanner) (1946) * “Would’st Could I But Kiss Thy Hand, Oh Babe” (written with Will Osborne) (sung by “Doghouse” Dale Jones) * “Between 18th And 19th On Chestnut Street” (written with Will Osborne) (sung by Dale Jones and Dick Rogers) (1939) * Dozens more. Footnotes External links * Billboard magazine, Rogers talked about. * Dick Rogers talked about in the book Serge Chaloff: A Musical Biography and Discography By Vladimir Simosko

Dietrich Erdmann

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

Dietrich Erdmann (20 July 1917 – 22 April 2009) was a German composer and university lecturer. Life Erdmann was born in Bonn. His father was the publicist and trade union official Lothar Erdmann, his mother Elisabeth Erdmann-Macke, the painter August Macke’s widow. Erdmann had lived in Berlin since he was eight years old. His childhood was characterised by a family environment with a strong cultural interest. He received his first piano lessons at the age of nine. Already during his school days at the Humanistisches Gymnasium In Berlin, he paid visits to the composers Paul Hindemith, Ernst-Lothar von Knorr and Harald Genzmer. In 1931, he began his cello lessons with Pál Hermann. From 1934 to 1938, Erdmann studied choir conducting and musical composition with Kurt Thomas and conducting with Walter Gmeindl at the Universität der Künste Berlin. He completed his studies with the in choral conducting and the private music teacher examination in musical composition. Erdmann was co-founder of the Arbeitskreis für Neue Musik at the Berlin University of the Arts. From 1947, Erdmann taught at the , where he became head of the music seminar two years later. He then was appointed associate pro

Dilys Elwyn-Edwards

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

Dilys Elwyn-Edwards (née Roberts; 19 August 1918 – 13 January 2012) was a Welsh-language composer, lecturer and accompanist. Biography Dilys Roberts was born on 19 August 1918 in Dolgellau, Wales. She attended Dr Williams’ School for Girls, a grammar school which educated girls ages 7–18 from 1878 to 1975. She was offered the Turle Music Scholarship at Girton College, Cambridge and the Dr. Joseph Parry Scholarship, from Cardiff University. She elected to study at Cardiff and received her BMus degree. She taught music at her old school, Dr Williams’, Dolgellau, for the next three years. She then received the Open Scholarship in Composition from the Royal College of Music in London and studied composition with Herbert Howells and piano with Kathleen McQuitty there. She moved to Oxford while her husband attended Mansfield College. She taught music from 1946 to 1972. In the 1960s they moved back to Wales, Music She was known for her soft, melodic art songs (Lied) for voice in both Welsh and English. Charlotte Church and Aled Jones have recorded Caneuon y Tri Aderyn (Three Welsh Bird Songs; 1962): Y Gylfinir (The Curlew), Tylluanod (Owls), and her most famous song, Mae Hiraeth yn y Môr

Dimitrie Cuclin

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

Dimitrie Cuclin (April 5 1885 – February 7, 1978) was a Romanian classical music composer, musicologist, philosopher, translator, and writer. Biography Early life Cuclin was born in the city of Galaţi, a port on the left shore of the Danube. His father was an immigrant from czarist Bessarabia, from the village of Cucleni, near the town of Izmail. He had studied music at the Theological Seminar of Izmail and at the Universities of Iaşi and Bucharest. At the time of Dimitrie’s birth he was a music teacher at the Vasile Alecsandri High School in Galați. His mother was of peasant origin, from the village of Pechea, located about 25 miles from Galați; she was a housewife. Cuclin completed his primary and secondary studies in his native city, where his father was his first music teacher. During high-school, he began to compose small musical pieces, which impressed the composer G.D. Kiriac, who thus suggested that Cuclin should go to Bucharest to study music. Studentship The young composer applied first at the Conservatory (1903), where he was rejected for being above the age limit, and then at the Royal Academy of Music (1904), where he was accepted at the section of Theory and Harmony.

Dimitrios Levidis

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

Dimitrios Levidis (; 8 April 1885 or 1886, Athens - 29 May 1951, Palaio Faliro) was a Greek composer, later naturalized French (1929). Background He descended from an aristocratic family with Byzantine roots in Constantinople. Levidis studied in Athens, Lausanne and Munich. His teachers included Friedrich Klose, Felix Mottl and Richard Strauss, the latter being his composition teacher from 1907 to 1908. Levidis won the Franz Liszt Prize for his Piano Sonata op.16. After a short period in Greece he settled in Paris (1910–1932), served in the French Army during World War I and took French nationality in 1929. Career He wrote abundantly, in many genres, with a refined technique combining Straussian harmony and Ravelian impressionism, also exploiting Greek modes, in an appealing style of greater homogeneity than that of many of his Greek contemporaries. Levidis was more impressed by Debussy’s harmonic brevity as shown in his last works. He was a notable experimenter with novel combinations and new instruments: His interest in new sounds led him to be among the first to write for the Ondes Martenot (his Poème symphonique, a modernistic Symphonic Poem for Electrical Instrument and Orches

Dimitris Dragatakis

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Dimitris Dragatakis (Greek: Δημήτρης Δραγατάκης; 22 January 1914 – 18 December 2001) was a Greek composer of classical music and Greek art music. He was born in Platanoussa, Epirus in 1914 and studied the violin from 1930 to 1939 at the Greek National Conservatory in Athens. Later on, he switched to the viola and from 1949 started composition lessons with Leonidas Zoras and Manolis Kalomiris, receiving his diploma in 1955. Chamber music for mixed ensembles Sources: ) *Dragatakis: Piano Works (complete) (Naxos 8.570789 ) *Dimitris Dragatakis: Chamber Music I (Irida Classical: IRIDA 001 ) *Ballades for saxophone and orchestra (along with works by Tomasi, Ravel, Piazzola and Iturralde) (Naxos 8.557454 ) External links *Dimitris Dragatakis Archive Official Website * Dragatakis biography at Naxos.com *“Dimitris Dragatakis” Music Grove Online article References

Ding Shande

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Ding Shande (; November 12, 1911 – December 8, 1995) was a Chinese composer, pianist, and music teacher. Biography Ding was born in Kunshan, Jiangsu. He studied music with teachers including Huang Tzu at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Ding taught at the Shanghai Conservatory in the late 1930s. From 1947 to 1949, he studied composition in the Paris Conservatoire with Noël Gallon, Tony Aubin, and Nadia Boulanger. He also attended the courses of Arthur Honegger. From 1949, he taught at the Shanghai Conservatory again and became a vice president of the conservatory later. He died in Shanghai in 1995. Works * Long March, symphony * New China, symphonic suite * Spring, symphonic Poem * Symphonic Overture * Piano Concerto in B flat major * String Quartet in E minor * Piano Trio in C major * Ode to the Huangpu River, cantata * Variations on Themes of Chinese Folk-songs, for piano * Happy Festival, children’s piano suite * Xinjiang Dances Nos. 1 and 2, for piano * Blue Mist, art song * My Husband Gives Me a Sunflower, art song * Ode to Orange, art song * Children’s Suite - Chen Jie, Naxos 8.570602, 2007. * Spring Suite and other piano works - Ding Jiannuo, Marco Polo 82083, 2000. * Xin

Dinorá de Carvalho

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Dinorá Gontijo de Carvalho (1 June 1895 – 28 February 1980) was a Brazilian pianist, conductor, music educator and composer. Life Carvalho was born in Uberaba, Minas Gerais, Brazil, and began her study of piano at the Conservatório Musical in São Paulo at age six with Maria Lacaz Machado and Carlino Crescenzo. She made her debut as a pianist at age seven playing Mozart and Mendelssohn, and later studied with Isidor Philipp in Paris on a Ministry of Culture scholarship. She continued her studies in Brazil with Lamberto Baldi, Martin Brawnvieser, Ernest Mehelich and Camargo Guarnieri. After completing her studies, Carvalho worked as a pianist, composer, conductor and music educator. She became the first woman member of the Brazilian Academy of Music and became the first woman Brazilian maestro, founding an all-woman orchestra, the Orquestra Feminina de São Paulo. In 1960, having composed about 400 works, Dinorá was invited by the Ministry of Culture of Brazil to go in a cultural mission around Europe, playing her compositions as well as other Brazilian composers. Her work Missa Profundis received first prize for Best Vocal Work of 1977 from the Associação Paulista de Críticos de Arte

Djane Lavoie-Herz

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

Djane Lavoie-Herz (20 October 1888– 2 March 1982) was a Canadian pianist and teacher. Life and career According to the Illinois, U.S., Federal Naturalization Records, 1856-1991, Djane Lavoie-Herz was born on 20 October 1888 in Ottawa, Ontario. She studied in Montreal with Alfred La Liberté and then went to Europe where she studied in London, Paris, Berlin (where she studied with Artur Schnabel), and Brussels (where she studied with Alexander Scriabin). Through Scriabin’s influence, Herz became interested in Theosophy, a religious movement. The ideas of theosophy were deeply intertwined with Scriabin’s compositions, in which dissonant harmony was seen as spiritual. In 1918, after having studied with Scriabin for two years, Herz moved to Chicago. In 1920, she founded a salon on Grand Boulevard, where she hosted soirees that featured Scriabin’s music and discussions of theosophy. These salons were attended by musicians including Henry Cowell, Dane Rudhyar, and Carl Ruggles. It was through Herz that Seeger met Dane Rudhyar and Henry Cowell, who also had an impact on her career. Composer Vivian Fine also studied piano with Djane Lavoie-Herz in the 1920s, and later studied harmony and co

Djumshud Ashurov

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

Djumshud Shevanyaevich Ashurov (born Shumshul Ashurov; ; ; 1913–1980) was the first Soviet composer of Mountain Jewish origin. In 1961, he was awarded the title of “Honored Artist of the Dagestan ASSR”. On 10 April 1970, on behalf of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, he was awarded the Jubilee Medal “In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin”. Djumshud Ashurov was the first Mountain Jewish composer. Biography Djumshud Ashurov was born on 9 May 1913, in Derbent, Dagestan Oblast, an administrative-territorial entity in the Russian Empire. In 1930, he entered the Derbent Pedagogical College, where he tried to write his own musical compositions, composed songs, and created an instrumental piece. A memorial plaque was installed on the wall of the house where Djumshud Ashurov lived. In 2013, Derbent celebrated the centenary of Djumshud Ashurov, the first composer of Mountain Jewish heritage. References Literature * * * External links * Djumshud Shevanyaeviya Ashurov - Soviet composer, Honored Artist of the DASSR

Dmitri Klebanov

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Dmytry Lvovych Klebanov (; ; 25 July 1907 – 6 June 1987) was a Soviet-era Ukrainian composer. He studied violin and composition at the Kharkiv Institute of Music and Drama. He was a professor at the Kharkiv Conservatory from 1960. Life and career Born in 1907 in Kharkiv, External links * * Dmitri Klebanov classical.net

Dmitri Shostakovich

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

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Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was born on 25 September 1906 on Podolskaya Street in Saint Petersburg, the Russian Empire’s capital. He was the second of three children born to Dmitri Boleslavovich Shostakovich and Sofiya Vasilievna Kokoulina. Shostakovich’s immediate forebears came from Siberia, but his paternal grandfather, , was of Polish and Lithuanian descent, tracing his family roots to the region of the town of Vileyka in today’s Belarus. A Polish revolutionary in the January Uprising of 1863–1864, Szostakowicz was exiled to Narym in 1866 in the crackdown that followed Dmitry Karakozov’s assassination attempt on Tsar Alexander II. When his term of exile ended, Szostakowicz decided to remain in Siberia. He eventually became a successful banker in Irkutsk and raised a large family. His son Dmitri Boleslavovich Shostakovich, the composer’s father, was born in Narym in 1875 and studied physics and mathematics at Saint Petersburg State University, graduating in 1899. He then went to work as an engineer under Dmitri Mendeleev at the Bureau of Weights and Measures in Saint Petersburg. In 1903, he married another Siberian immigrant to the capital, Sofiya Vasilievna Kokoulina, one of six children born to a Siberian Russian. Shostakovich displayed musical talent after beginning piano lessons with his mother at the age of 9. On several occasions, he displayed a remarkable ability to remember what his mother had played at the previous lesson, and would get “caught in the act” of pretending to read the score in front of him while actually reproducing it from memory. In 1918, he wrote a funeral march in memory of two leaders of the Kadet Party murdered by Bolshevik sailors. In 1919, at age 13, Shostakovich was admitted to the Petrograd Conservatory, then headed by Alexander Glazunov, who monitored his progress closely and promoted him. Shostakovich studied piano with Leonid Nikolayev and Elena Rozanova, composition with Maximilian Steinberg, and counterpoint and fugue with Nikolay Sokolov, who became his friend. He also attended Alexander Ossovsky’s music history classes. In 1925, he enrolled in the conducting classes of Nikolai Malko, where he conducted the conservatory orchestra in a private performance of Beethoven’s First Symphony. According to the recollections of the composer’s classmate, : Shostakovich stood at the podium, played with his hair and jacket cuffs, looked around at the hushed teenagers with instruments at the ready and raised the baton. … He neither stopped the orchestra, nor made any remarks; he focused his entire attention on aspects of tempi and dynamics, which were very clearly displayed in his gestures. The contrasts between the “Adagio molto” of the introduction and “Allegro con brio” first theme were quite striking, as were those between the percussive accents of the chords (woodwinds, French horns, pizzicato strings) and the momentarily extended piano in the introduction following them. In the character given to the pattern of the first theme, I recall, there was both vigorous striving and lightness; in the bass part there was an emphasized pliancy of tenderly threaded articulation…. Moments of these sorts… were discoveries of an improvised order, born from an intuitively refined understanding of the character of a piece and the elements of musical imagery embedded in it. And the players enjoyed it. On 20 March 1925, Shostakovich’s music was played in Moscow for the first time, in a program that also included works by his friend Vissarion Shebalin. To the composer’s disappointment, the critics and public there received his music coolly. During his visit to Moscow, Mikhail Kvadri introduced him to Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who helped the composer find accommodation and work there, and sent a driver to take him to a concert in “a very stylish automobile”. Shostakovich’s musical breakthrough was the First Symphony, written as his graduation piece at the age of 19. Initially Shostakovich aspired to perform it only privately with the conservatory orchestra, and prepared to conduct the scherzo himself. By late 1925, Malko had agreed to conduct its premiere with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra after Steinberg and Shostakovich’s friend Boleslav Yavorsky brought the symphony to his attention. On 12 May 1926, Malko led the premiere of the symphony; the audience received it enthusiastically, demanding an encore of the scherzo. Thereafter, Shostakovich regularly celebrated the date of his symphonic debut.

Dmitry Kabalevsky

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Dmitry Borisovich Kabalevsky ( ; 30 December 1904 – 14 February 1987) was a Soviet composer, conductor, pianist and pedagogue of Russian gentry descent. He helped set up the Union of Soviet Composers in Moscow and remained one of its leading figures during his lifetime. He was a prolific composer of piano music and chamber music; many of his piano works were performed by Vladimir Horowitz. He is best known in Western Europe for his Second Symphony; the “Comedians’ Galop” from The Comedians Suite, Op. 26; and his Third Piano Concerto. Life Kabalevsky was born in Saint Petersburg in 1904, but moved to Moscow at a young age. His father was a mathematician and encouraged him to study mathematics, but he showed a fascination for the arts. He studied at the Academic Music College in Moscow and graduated in 1922. He then continued his studies with Vasily Selivanov. In 1925, he then went on to study at the Moscow Conservatory where he learned composition with first Georgy Catoire, then Nikolai Myaskovsky and piano with Alexander Goldenweiser. By the age of 26 his list of compositions included the String Quartet, Op. 8, Piano Concerto, Op. 9, Eight Children’s Songs, Op. 17, and various work

Dol Dauber

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

Adolf Dauber (known also as Dol, Doli or Dolfi Dauber) (born 27 July 1894 – died 15 September 1950) was a jazz violinist, bandleader, composer and music arranger of Jewish origin, who was active in the first half of the 20th century in Central Europe, mainly in Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany. During his career, he collaborated with international jazz personalities, led numerous orchestras and ensembles, and created music for several films. Biography Dauber was born to a musical family in Vyzhnytsia (Wijnitz), Bukovina, Ukraine (then Austria-Hungary). He started his musical education at the age of 4, under the mentorship of his older sister, Clara. While still in his childhood, his sister arranged an audience with Carl Flesch, a violin virtuoso and teacher at the Bucharest Conservatory. His talent impressed Flesch and Dauber joined his class as the youngest pupil to be accepted. In 1911, Flesh recommended him to the renowned Czech violinist and teacher, Otakar Ševčík. The performances were noted particularly for inventive and modern arrangements of classical repertoire, operetta melodies and waltzes. For this label he recorded hundreds of songs over the course of the next 15 ye

Domenico Bartolucci

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

Domenico Bartolucci (7 May 1917 – 11 November 2013) was an Italian cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was the former director of the Sistine Chapel Choir and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and was recognised in the field of music both as a director and a prolific composer. Considered among the most authoritative interpreters of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Bartolucci led the Sistine Chapel Choir in performances worldwide, and also directed numerous concerts with the Choir of the Academy of Santa Cecilia, including a tour of the former Soviet Union. On 20 November 2010, Pope Benedict XVI elevated him to the College of Cardinals. Because Bartolucci was over the age of 80, he was never eligible to participate in any papal conclave. Biography Early career At a very young age, Bartolucci entered the seminary in Florence, where he was recruited as a singer. Upon the death of his master Bagnoli, Bartolucci succeeded him as director of the Chapel of the Duomo of Florence. In those years, he began to compose his first masses, motets, and organ music, as well as madrigals and chamber music. At the end of 1942, Bartolucci went to Rome in order to deepen his knowledge of sacre

Domingo Prat

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Domingo Prat (17 March 1886 – 22 November 1944) was an Argentine guitarist, composer, and music educator of Spanish origin, considered one of the most important guitarists in Buenos Aires in the early 20th century. Life Born in Barcelona, Spain, Prat was the son of amateur guitarist Tomás Prat Puig. He received his initial musical training at the Municipal School of Music in Barcelona. He studied guitar with Miguel Llobet and Francisco Tárrega from 1898 to 1904. In 1904, he moved to Argentina and established himself as a guitar teacher in Buenos Aires in 1907. There, he spread the Tárrega school. Domingo Prat married guitarist Carmen Farré Ors, daughter of León Farré Duro, who worked with him, in 1909. In 1934, he published the Diccionario de Guitarristas (Dictionary of Guitarists) in a limited-edition of 1605 copies, which is still used today as a reference work. Thanks to his work, he became one of the most important guitarists in Buenos Aires in the early 20th century, alongside Julio Salvador Sagreras. Prat founded a conservatory in Haedo and taught many renowned guitarists, such as María Luisa Anido (from 1914). Prat died in Haedo, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, aged 58. Wo

Don Wright (composer)

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

Don Wright, (September 6, 1908 - June 27, 2006) was a Canadian composer, musician, educator and philanthropist. He was a successful Canadian musician and popular music composer during his career from the 1930s to the 1960s and later became known for his large charitable donations and projects to fund music education in Canada. Early life Wright was born in Strathroy, Ontario, in 1908. His father, James Wright, was a known business man in the area who started the Wright Piano Co., which produced and sold upright and grand pianos. At an early age, Wright began studying the cello and trumpet and quickly started to show talent, winning a national gold medal for trumpet performance at age 14. Wright Brothers’ Orchestra With three of his brothers (Clark on Alto Sax, Ernest on Banjo, and William on Drums) Don organized the Wright Brothers’ Orchestra, which performed jazz and swing music from 1922 to 1935 in dance halls across Ontario. The band played three summers from 1922 to 1925 at Brights Grove Pavilion in Sarnia, Ontario, and during this time Don was beginning to display his talents as arranger and finding out how to produce big band sounds with smaller instrumentation. During the su

Dora Pejačević

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

Countess Maria Theodora Paulina “Dora” Pejačević (; 10 September 1885 – 5 March 1923) was a Croatian composer, pianist and violinist and one of the first composers to introduce the orchestral song to Croatian music. Her Symphony in F-sharp minor is considered by scholars to be the first modern symphony in Croatian music. Pejačević is noted for her vocal compositions, piano miniatures, and string quartets, In her early career, Pejačević’s primary themes were highly representative of the Romantic period, but this would change after her experience working as a paramedic in the First World War after which her works reflected the philosophic movement of nihilism and discussed motifs of death, isolation, and futility of war. In one of her diaries, she commented on 470 books she had read in the period from 1902 to 1921, which covered fields of literature, philosophy, music, religion, history, and natural sciences. The couple soon moved to Munich and had their first child, which proved to be fatal for Pejacevic. Her life is the subject of the fictionalized Croatian biographical film Countess Dora (1993), directed by Zvonimir Berković and starring Alma Prica and Rade Šerbedžija. List of wor

Dorian Le Gallienne

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

Dorian Leon Marlois Le Gallienne (19 April 1915 – 27 July 1963) was an Australian composer, teacher and music critic. Biography Dorian Le Gallienne was born in Melbourne in 1915. His father, an actor, was born in France, and his mother, a pianist who had studied with G. W. L. Marshall-Hall, was the daughter of the Assistant Astronomer at the Melbourne Observatory. His parents separated in 1924, and his father lived in England thereafter. He attended Melbourne Church of England Grammar School. He was diagnosed with diabetes at age 16. After leaving school, he studied with A. E. H. Nickson at the Melbourne Conservatorium and with Arthur Benjamin and Herbert Howells at the Royal College of Music in London in 1938. In 1939, he travelled in Europe with Richard Downing, a future Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), and with whom he later lived in Melbourne in a mud-brick house at Eltham. He returned to Australia, where he worked for the Commonwealth Department of Information in the overseas broadcasting service, later joining the ABC. He was employed as music critic for The Argus and The Age, both Melbourne newspapers, from 1950 until his death. In an article called

Dorothy Freed

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

Dorothy Whitson Freed (10 February 1919 – 1 April 2000) was a New Zealand author, composer, and music historian. She made significant contributions to the field of music librarians, and authored several books and articles regarding musical information and resources in New Zealand. Early life and family Freed was born in Dunedin, New Zealand. Her father was James Gerald Stokely Doorly, a mariner and Antarctic explorer, musician, and author, and her mother was Forrestina Muriel Whitson. She was the younger of two daughters. Early in her childhood, her family moved from New Zealand to Williamstown, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. She completed her public education in Melbourne, before returning to New Zealand in 1936, when she was 17. In New Zealand, she found work in a secretarial and media role. She married her husband William Ian Freed in 1940, and together they had three children. Neither wanted marriage, but wed out of necessity after a casual affair resulted in pregnancy and the two failed to find an abortionist. The marriage was unhappy and the two eventually separated. Education While Freed was raising her three children, she enrolled at Victoria University College to study

Dorothy Howell (composer)

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

Dorothy Gertrude Howell (25 February 1898 – 12 January 1982) was an English composer and pianist. She received the nickname of the “English Richard Strauss” in her lifetime. Early life and education Howell was born in Birmingham, and grew up in Handsworth and Wollescote House, Stourbridge; from a young age, her studies of piano and composition were encouraged by her parents. One of six children, she came from a musical family, and enjoyed playing instruments (mainly violin and piano) and singing together. Her talents were greatly acknowledged by all her teachers at RAM, and she won the Hine Prize for composition of an English Ballad in 1914. Lamia and early success Howell achieved fame with her symphonic poem Lamia (inspired by the Keats poem) which Sir Henry Wood premiered at The Proms on 10 September 1919; McEwen introduced Wood to the work. but after 1940 the piece was neglected until its revival at the 2010 Proms season. It received a centenary performance at the Proms in 2019. Howell dedicated Lamia on its 1921 publication to Wood. Her nickname of “English Strauss” was written in a press review of Lamia ’s first Proms performance. Premiere recordings of Koong Shee, The Rock an

Dorothy Parke

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

Dorothy Parke (29 July 1904 – 15 February 1990) was a composer and music teacher from Northern Ireland, noted for children’s works. Early life and education Parke was born in 1904, at Dunfield Terrace in Derry. She studied piano with Ambrose Coviello, and composition with Paul Corder at the Royal Academy of Music in London (LRAM, 1929). Among her pupils were Norma Burrowes, Derek Bell, She also composed a substantial amount of piano and chamber music, many of which remain largely unknown and overlooked. *Wee Hughie *Over The Hills and Far Away References See also

Dorothy Wanderman

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

Dorothy Cherurg Wanderman (October 20, 1897 – July 1988) was an American composer and pianist who was born in New York. She studied music with Isidor Philipp and David Saperton. She married Dr. Seymour Wanderman and they had two daughters, Helene and Carol. Wanderman socialized with composer Leopold Godowksy, who was the father-in-law of her teacher Saperton. Godowsky dedicated his composition Waltz Poem No. 2 to her. Wanderman was a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). Her music was published by the Boston Music Company, and includes the following works for piano: *In a Vietnamese Garden *Playful Mouse *Playtime March *Swiss Alpine Waltz References External links * Find a Grave

Dorsey Dixon

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Dorsey Murdock Dixon (October 14, 1897 – April 18, 1968) was an American old-time and country music songwriter and musician. He was also a millworker who spent much of his life working in textile mills in North and South Carolina. Dixon’s best known songs were “Wreck on the Highway”, which resulted in a copyright dispute with country musician Roy Acuff, and “Babies in the Mill”, which was about the Southern textile industry’s exploitation of child labor in the early 20th century. Biography Dixon was born on October 14, 1897, in Darlington, South Carolina. He was one of seven children, all of whom, together with their father, worked at the local textile mill, Darlington Cotton Manufacturing Company. References Cited works * Further reading * *Russell, Tony, and Bob Pinson. Country Music Records: A Discography, 1921–1942 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 321 External links *“The Wreck on the Highway” at Documenting the American South – contains the lyrics and an audio file of the song performed by Dorsey Dixon. *Illustrated Dixon Brothers discography

Douglas Guest

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

Douglas Albert Guest (9 May 1916 – 18 November 1996) was an English organist, conductor, teacher and composer best known for his 1971 anthem for remembrance, For the Fallen. where he studied with Sir Ernest Bullock, among others. He became Organ Scholar of King’s College, Cambridge from 1935 until 1939. Career During the Second World War he served as a Major in the Royal Artillery and was involved in the battle for the liberation of Caen, Normandy. He was ’twice severely wounded’ From there he became Organist of Salisbury Cathedral, a post which he held from 1950 until 1957, before moving to become Organist and Master of the Choristers at Worcester Cathedral. Compositions and awards His most well-known composition is a setting of Lawrence Binyon’s poem, “For the Fallen”, composed in 1971 for the Choir of Westminster Abbey. He also composed music for the organ, including a Voluntary for Easter, composed in 1956. The following year, he wrote Missa brevis. His other appointments have included being professor at the Royal College of Music (1963-1981), In 1975 he was appointed CVO. References External links *Biography (archived) *Obituary

Douglas Lilburn

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Douglas Gordon Lilburn (2 November 19156 June 2001) was a New Zealand composer. Early life Lilburn was born in Whanganui and spent his early years on the family sheep farm in the upper Turakina River valley at Drysdale. He attended Waitaki Boys’ High School from 1930 to 1933, before moving to Christchurch to study journalism and music over the next three years at Canterbury University College, then part of the University of New Zealand. In 1936 his career in music was set when his tone poem Forest won visiting composer Percy Grainger’s national composition competition. In 1937 he began studying at the Royal College of Music in London, tutored in composition by Ralph Vaughan Williams until 1939. The two men remained close: in later years Lilburn sent Vaughan Williams gifts of New Zealand honey, knowing that the older man was fond of it. Letters of thanks from Vaughan Williams in 1947 and 1948 confirm this. Lilburn’s early works display the influence of Jean Sibelius; the symphonic poem Forest (1936), in which Lilburn depicts the autumn scenery of Mount Peel in South Canterbury, finds its composer, according to Robert Hoskins, “tracking Sibelius through the shadowy woods, keeping his

Douglas Mews (composer)

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

Douglas Kelson Mews (22 September 1918 – 3 August 1993) was a Canadian-born composer, organist and church musician who worked in England and New Zealand. He taught composition at the University of Auckland from 1969 to 1983. Mews was a church organist and Director of Music at Auckland’s Catholic cathedral from 1970 to 1982. He composed a significant body of music for the liturgy as well as choral works, operas, piano and instrumental pieces and works for the accordion, much of it composed after he emigrated to New Zealand in 1969. Early life and education Mews was born on 22 September 1918 in St John’s, Newfoundland, Canada His father Arthur was an organist in the Methodist church and his mother Florence was a pianist and piano teacher. He was called up in 1939 to the British Army, serving in Europe and North Africa in World War II until 1946. He graduated with a DMus in 1961. He was particularly skillful at improvisation on the organ and piano. One of Mews’s sons had recited the poem at his school prize-giving prompting Mews to set it to music played by the sopranino and bass recorder and drum. It has continued to be part of the choral repertoire Other influences on his compositio

Douglas Moore

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

Douglas Stuart Moore (August 10, 1893 – July 25, 1969) was an American composer, songwriter, organist, pianist, conductor, educator, actor, and author. A composer who mainly wrote works with an American subject, his music is generally characterized by lyricism in a popular or conservative style which generally eschewed the more experimental progressive trends of musical modernism. Composer Virgil Thomson described Moore as a neoromantic composer who was influenced by American folk music. While several of his works enjoyed popularity during his lifetime, only his folk opera The Ballad of Baby Doe (1956) has remained well known into the 21st century. His father built another nearby home for his family on the Moore family’s farm, named Quawksnest, in which Moore and his family spent their summers. As an adult Moore lived on the family’s Cutchogue property until his death in 1969. Moore’s father made a living as a publisher of among other things the literary magazine Ladies’ World, a business which he sold to S. S. McClure upon his retirement in 1913. At the age of 13 he matriculated to the Fessenden School, a boys boarding school in West Newton, Massachusetts which he attended for the

Duke Ellington

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Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1924 through the rest of his life. Music critic Ralph J. Gleason called him “America’s most important composer”. With Strayhorn, he composed multiple extended compositions, or suites, as well as many short pieces. For a few years at the beginning of Strayhorn’s involvement, Ellington’s orchestra featured bassist Jimmy Blanton and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster, and reached what many claim to be a creative peak for the group. Some years later, following a low-profile period, an appearance by Ellington and his orchestra at the Newport Jazz Festival in July 1956 led to a major revival and regular world tours. Ellington recorded for most American record companies of his era, performed in and scored several films, and composed a handful of stage musicals. Although a pivotal figure in the history of jazz, in the opinion of Gunther Schuller and Barry Kernfeld, “the most significant composer of the genre”, Ellington himself embraced the phrase “beyond category”, considering it a liberating principle, and referring to his music as part of the mo

Dulcie Holland

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

Dulcie Sybil Holland AM (5 January 1913 – 21 May 2000) was an Australian composer and music educator. Best known for her contributions to music education through her involvement with the Australian Music Examinations Board, Holland has in recent decades gained greater recognition as a composer. She is now regarded by some critics as one of the more significant Australian composers of her generation. Education Holland was born in Sydney in 1913. She began taking piano lessons at the age of six, and attended Shirley School for Girls, known for its academic excellence. In 1929 she entered the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music (now the Sydney Conservatorium) to continue her studies. At the Conservatorium she studied piano with Grace Middenway and Frank Hutchens, cello with Gladstone Bell, and composition with Roy Agnew and Alfred Hill, eventually completing both the Diploma course (DSCM) and the Licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music (LRSM) in 1933. In 1937, Holland travelled to London to study composition at the Royal College of Music with John Ireland. At the end of her first year, she won the Blumenthal Scholarship for composition, which entitled her to another three years o

Éamonn Ó Gallchobhair

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

Éamonn Ó Gallchobhair (30 September 1900 – 27 December 1982) was an Irish composer, and a major representative of the conservative side in Irish art music. Life Ó Gallchobhair (anglicised “O’Gallagher”) was born in Dundalk, County Louth, and studied music in Dublin at the Leinster School of Music and the Royal Irish Academy of Music (1927–1935). During 1948–1949 Ó Gallchobhair briefly conducted the Radio Éireann Light Orchestra (today the RTÉ Concert Orchestra). In 1962, he succeeded Seán Ó Riada as conductor of the Abbey Theatre ensemble until it was dissolved after a few years. During this time, he is said to have lived on Pembroke Road. Ó Gallchobhair was a composition teacher for students including John Kinsella. In old age he lived with his wife for parts of the year in Spain and Italy. He died in Alicante (Spain). Music Ó Gallchobhair was a prolific composer and arranger of Irish traditional music for a wide range of instrumentations. He played in a number of orchestras and chamber ensembles for which he frequently wrote or arranged music. Many of these were very popular during his lifetime and were frequently performed or broadcast. Between 1935 and 1942 he wrote eleven “Dan

Earl Robinson

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

Earl Hawley Robinson (July 2, 1910 – July 20, 1991) was an American composer, arranger and folk music singer-songwriter from Seattle, Washington. Robinson is remembered for his music, including the cantata “Ballad for Americans” and songs such as “Joe Hill” and “Black and White”, which expressed his left-leaning political views. He wrote many popular songs and music for Hollywood films, including his collaboration with Lewis Allan on the 1940s hit “The House I Live In” from the Academy Award winning film of the same name. He was a member of the Communist Party from the 1930s to the 1950s. The jazz clarinetist Perry Robinson (19382018) was his son. Career in music Robinson studied violin, viola and piano as a child, and studied composition at the University of Washington, receiving a BM and teaching certificate in 1933. While at Washington, Robinson was a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, a men’s music fraternity. In 1934 he moved to New York City where he studied with Hanns Eisler and Aaron Copland. He was also involved with the depression-era WPA Federal Theatre Project, and was actively involved in the anti-fascist movement and was the musical director at the Communist-run Camp Un

Ebbe Grims-land

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Ebbe Grims-land Ebbe Grims-land (June 11, 1915 – January 27, 2015) was a Swedish composer and viola player. He was also one of Sweden’s foremost mandolin players. Grims-land was born in Malmö and died in Bagarmossen, Enskede, Stockholm. Grims-land made his debut as violinist in Malmö in 1932 and has studied in Copenhagen, Stockholm and Vienna. From 1943 until 1974, he was a violist with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and other Stockholm ensembles. Grims-land’s first compositions written in the 1930s, were for chamber orchestra. He was an early member of Föreningen Svenska Tonsättare (FST) (The Society of Swedish Composers). In 2005 he became an honorary member of the chamber music association Samtida Musik (Contemporary Music), founded 1960 and situated in Stockholm. Selected compositions His oeuvre includes more than 200 compositions. ;Orchestra * Sinfonie-Carl Linnéus ;Concert band * Scherzo-Polka (symphonic brass band) * Bad’ner-Kurpark-Tradition (spa orchestra / symphonic brass band) * Bläser-Blues (marimba, brass band) ;Concertante * Concertino for mandolin and 10 instruments * Montafoni (D-trumpet) * Klingender Baum (Marimba) * Concerto for flute and clarinet ;Instrumen

Eda Rapoport

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Eda Rothstein Rapoport (25 December 1890 – 9 May 1968 in New York City She emigrated to the United States, where she married noted anesthetist Boris Rapoport (1888–1948) and lived much of her life in New York City. Rapoport studied composition with Walter Piston, Aaron Copland and Arnold Schoenberg. She composed several hundred works including music for piano, violin, voice and symphony orchestra. In 1943 she presented a program of her own compositions in Carnegie Chamber Music Hall (now Weill Recital Hall), and was also accompanist for her songs. The Columbia University Department of Music sponsors the Boris and Eda Rapoport Prize in Composition. Selected works Several of Rapoport’s compositions have been published by Transcontinental Music, White-Smith Music Publishing, Maxwell Weaner, Axelrod Publications, Associated Music Publishers, and El. Cantor Music. ;Stage * The Fisherman and His Wife, Opera-Fantasy in 1 act; libretto after the Grimm’s fairy tale * GI Joe, Opera in 1 act, 3 scenes; libretto by Boris Rapoport * The Hobo and the Old Maid, Ballet ;Orchestral * Adagietto for strings and flute * Adagio for string orchestra * Israfel, Tone Picture after Edgar Allan Poe for flut

Eddie Kilfeather

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Edward Vincent (Eddie) Kilfeather (April 5, 1900, Portland, Oregon - January 13, 1950, Los Angeles, California) was a musical composer and arranger who worked at the Screen Gems animation studio. Kilfeather was born in 1900 to Edward and Hannah Kilfeather and grew up in Portland, Oregon. His father was a well-known Democrat found guilty of jury bribing in 1898. The young Kilfeather hooked up with another Portlander, George Olsen, who had formed a band and was its pianist, conductor and arranger. The band headed south and in San Francisco when it was hired by Flo Ziegfeld in 1923 to come to New Year to play music for the show Kid Boots. Kilfeather co-wrote the song Goin’ Home Blues for the show. Ziegfeld became enraged with the band after the opening of Whoopee! in 1928. While on the road in Pittsburgh, he fired Kilfeather and replaced him with a personal favorite. Olsen protested by having his musicians refuse to play for the replacement. Ziegfeld relented and gave Kilfeather his job back. The Olsen band quit when the week was over. Kilfeather wrote a number of songs that Olsen recorded on RCA Records, including She’s a Corn Fed Indiana Girl. (1926) He was so taken with the cornet

Edith Swepstone

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Edith Mary Swepstone (4 January 1862 – 5 February 1942) was an English composer and music teacher. She studied music at the Guildhall School and later worked as a lecturer at the City of London School. She died in Tonbridge, Kent. Career She studied music at the Guildhall School in London, England In 1895 she was giving music lectures at the City School of London. Though the music is not located, 14 of Swepstone’s orchestral works were presented in a total of 24 performances, between 1899 and 1933. There are only three recorded instances of her orchestral music having been performed elsewhere. The minuet and rondo of her Symphony in G minor were performed in Leyton on 10 March 1887 with the composer conducting the Aeolian Ladies’ Orchestra, and the opening movement at the Guildhall School of Music on 7 December 1889 as part of a concert of student works. Swepstone’s influence is apparent in that, of all the pieces played at the series and written by women, over half were her compositions. Orchestral * Symphony in G minor (1887, first complete performance Bournemouth, 3 February 1902) * Les Tenebres overture (fp. Queen’s Hall, 1897, Bournemouth 1903) * Daramona, symphonic poem (fp.

Edmund Jenkins

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Edmund Thornton Jenkins (1894–1926) was an American composer who spent much of his life in Europe. Biography Charleston Jenkins was born in Charleston, South Carolina where his Baptist-minister father, Reverend Daniel Joseph Jenkins, had set up and run the Jenkins Orphanage, which became internationally well-known for its wind band. Edmund Jenkins studied clarinet, piano and violin at the Atlanta Baptist College (now Morehouse College), and played in and directed the Jenkins Orphanage Band. London In 1914 the orphanage band travelled to England to perform at the Anglo-American Exposition in London. Edmund remained in London where, aged 20, he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) to study clarinet, piano, singing and composition. At the RAM he was awarded an orchestral scholarship (1915–17), prizes for singing, clarinet and piano playing, the Charles Lucas prize for composition (1918), Battison Haynes prize for composition (1918) and the Ross Scholarship (1919–21). On leaving the RAM he was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. While in London Edmund Jenkins worked as an orchestral musician in theatre orchestras and dance bands resulting in his participation in a

Edmund Meisel

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Edmund Meisel (14 August 1894 – 14 November 1930) was an Austrian-born composer. He wrote the score to Walter Ruttmann’s Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (1927), The Battleship Potemkin (1925), and other films of Sergei Eisenstein. Meisel was one of the more important and pioneering figures in film music. He began composing incidental music for the stage in the 1920s. Early credits included the scoring of plays by Bertolt Brecht. His acquaintance with Erwin Piscator led to him writing music for films soon after. Meisel quickly came to be considered a talented composer, capable of working in a different styles, encompassing expressionism and jazz, as well as traditional orchestral modes. Meisel’s niece was the writer and member of the German Resistance, Hilde Meisel. Selected filmography * Battleship Potemkin (1925) * The Holy Mountain (1926) * Superfluous People (1926) * Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (1927) * October: Ten Days That Shook the World (1928) * Deutscher Rundfunk (1928) * The Crimson Circle (1929) * The Blue Express (1929) External links * * References

Edmund Nick

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Edmund Nick (, Reichenberg – , Geretsried) was a German composer, conductor, and music writer. Biography The son of a merchant, Nick studied law from 1910 to 1915 in Vienna and Graz. At the same time, he studied music at the Vienna Music Academy and at the Conservatorium Dresden. He received his doctorate in law (Dr. jur.) from the University Graz in 1918. Nick moved to Breslau in 1919, working as concert accompanist, piano teacher and critic. He became Kapellmeister of the theatre in Breslau in 1921 and Head of the Music Department of Radio Silesia in 1924. It was here that he first met Erich Kästner; Nick wrote the music to a radio play by Kästner which became very successful. This was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. In 1933 he moved to Berlin, where he was Head of Music at the Theater des Volkes from 1936 to 1940. In 1945 he moved to Munich, starting as a critic at the Neue Zeitung. He then became Musical Director of the cabaret Die Schaubude where he continued his collaboration with Erich Kästner; eventually, he set more than 60 of Kästner’s works to music. In 1947 he became for two years chief conductor of the Bavarian State Operetta. He was made Professor in 1949 at t

Edmund Rubbra

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Edmund Rubbra (; 23 May 190114 February 1986) was a British composer. He composed both instrumental and vocal works for soloists, chamber groups and full choruses and orchestras. He was greatly esteemed by fellow musicians and was at the peak of his fame in the mid-20th century. The best known of his pieces are his eleven symphonies. Although he was active at a time when many people wrote twelve-tone music, he decided not to write in this idiom; instead, he devised his own distinctive style. His later works were not as popular with the concert-going public as his previous ones had been, although he never lost the respect of his colleagues. Therefore, his output as a whole is less celebrated today than would have been expected from its early popularity. He was the brother of the engineer Arthur Rubbra. Early life He was born Charles Edmund Rubbra at 21 Arnold Road, Semilong, Northampton. His parents encouraged him in his music, but they were not professional musicians, though his mother had a good voice and sang in the church choir, and his father played the piano a little, by ear. Rubbra’s artistic and sensitive nature was apparent from early on. He remembered waking one winter’s m

Edmund von Borck

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

Edmund Konstantin Wilhelm von Borck (22 February 1906 – 16 February 1944) was a German composer of (modern) classical music and a conductor. Life Edmund von Borck was born in Breslau, Germany to a landholding family that had joined the nobility in 1796. His father, Eduard von Borck (1864–1938) was a captain (Rittmeister) with the Silesian cuirassier regiment (:de:Leib-Kürassier-Regiment „Großer Kurfürst“ (Schlesisches) Nr. 1). His mother, Erika (née Lübbecke) (1880–1945), was related to Johann Friedrich Reichardt. Borck studied piano with Bronisław von Poźniak from 1920 to 1926 and had composition lessons from Ernst Kirsch. After graduating from school with his Abitur, he began studying musicology. He continued this study in Berlin in 1928, but soon afterwards switched his focus to conducting, and completed the conducting (Kapellmeister) class at the Berliner Musikhochschule under the direction of Julius Prüwer. His works were published by Universal Edition in Vienna starting in 1936. Borck was called up for military service in 1940 and died in Nettuno, Italy during Operation Shingle, the allied invasion of Italy. His grave is in the German military cemetery in Pomezia (Deutscher S

Édouard Devernay

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

Édouard Henri Devernay Jnr. (8 November 1889 – 5 July 1952) was a French musician, composer and organist who held the position of organiste titulaire of the great organ of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires in Trouville-sur-Mer, Calvados, Normandy. Biography Born in Roubaix, Devernay was the son of Édouard Joseph (8 April 1854 in Roubaix – 13 May 1906 ibid.) and Hortense-Coralie Devernay (née Lefebvre; 14 November 1857 in Roubaix). He began his musical studies at the Roubaix conservatoire where he obtained the First Prizes in solfège, piano, harmony and counterpoint in the class of Julien Koszul. He then joined the organ class of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. In 1912, the village of Trouville-sur-Mer opened auditions for the position of titular organist of the Notre-Dame-des-Victoires church; and he was appointed. He then came to settle in Normandy. Wounded at Verdun during World War I, he composed his first symphony for organ: Marche pour la Victoire during his convalescence. In 1931, he won the First Prize in musical composition of the SACEM for a lyrical drama, Au temps du bon Roy Henri. He died in Trouville on 5 July 1952. He was the uncle of Yves Devernay. Compositions * Organ pie

Édouard Woolley

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Édouard Joseph Woolley (31 March 1916 – 22 December 1991) was a Canadian tenor, actor, composer, and music educator of Haitian birth. He became a naturalized Canadian citizen in 1958. His compositional output includes masses for three voices and for four voices, a few songs, and some instrumental pieces. The section “Mazoumbel” from his suite for violin and piano Sous les palmiers (c. 1958) was performed in a concert of Haitian music in Montreal in 1979. Life and career Born in Port-au-Prince, Woolley began his studies in his native city with Carmen Brouard (piano and harmony), Élisabeth de Pesquidoux-Mahy (singing), Werner Jaegerhuber (German opera/lieder), Raoul Nargys (acting), and Henriette Perret-Duplessis (singing). After working for a few years as a choirmaster at a church in Port-au-Prince, he moved to Montreal in 1938 at the age of 22 where he studied singing with Salvator Issaurel from the time of his arrival through 1944. He then entered the Conservatoire national de musique where he earned a Doctor of Music in 1947 after writing his thesis “La phonétique appliquée à l’art du chant”. At the conservatoire he was an organ student of Eugène Lapierre and a piano pupil of Edm

Edric Cundell

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

Edric Cundell CBE, (29 January 1893 – 19 March 1961) was a British music teacher, composer and conductor. Early life and academic career Born in London, Edric Cundell came from a musical family: his grandmother worked in Paris as an opera singer and both his parents were talented amateur musicians. He was educated at Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School in Hertfordshire, and went on to study at the London Trinity College of Music, taking French horn with Adolf Borsdorf and piano with Henry Richard Bird (1842–1916). As a horn player, Cundell performed in the 1912 Covent Garden Opera season. He served as a lieutenant in the artillery in World War I, during which he wrote the symphonic poem Serbia, which was dedicated to King Alexander of Serbia. In Salonika his unit was attached to the Serbian Army and he was awarded the Serbian Order of the White Eagle for his distinguished conduct. He was appointed conductor of another London-based amateur ensemble, the Stock Exchange Orchestra, in 1924. He took guest conductorships in the United States, South Africa and New Zealand while touring as an examiner. and was noted for conducting many student opera performances there. In 1945, in honour of

Edu da Gaita

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Edu da Gaita (lit. Edu of the Harp), born Eduardo Nadruz (December 13, 1916 – August 23, 1982), was a Brazilian musician. At the end of the 1950s, Radamés Gnattali befriended Edu, composing a concert for harmonica and orchestra dedicated to him and, in 1960, taking him on tour in Europe and South America with his sextet in a government-funded program called III Caravana Oficial de Música Popular Brasileira. The tour was recorded and generated two albums: Radamés na Europa, com seu Sexteto e Edu – vol. 1 and Radamés na Europa, com seu Sexteto e Edu – vol. 2, all by Odeon Records. In 2022, in his behalf, the state of São Paulo passed a bill declaring August 23 as “Dia Nacional da Gaita e do Gaitista” (National Day of the Harp and the Harp Player) . Selected filmography * Berlin to the Samba Beat (1944) Discography Albums *Violino cigano / Canção da Índia (1939) Columbia 78 *Onde o céu azul é mais azul / Cantigas de roda (1941) Columbia 78 *Uma gaita em Sevilha / Velhas melodias (1941) Columbia 78 *Ritmo do Brasil / Fantasia espanhola (1944) Continental 78 *Dança ritual do fogo / Andaluzia (1949) Continental 78 *Poeta e camponês (I) / Poeta e camponês (II) (1949) Continental 78 *Torna

Eduard Erdmann

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Eduard Erdmann (5 March 1896 – 21 June 1958) was a Baltic German pianist and composer. Erdmann was born in Wenden (Cēsis) in the Governorate of Livonia. He was the great-nephew of the philosopher Johann Eduard Erdmann. His first musical studies were in Riga, where his teachers were Bror Möllersten and Jean du Chastain (piano) and Harald Creutzburg (harmony and counterpoint). From 1914 he studied piano in Berlin with Conrad Ansorge and composition with Heinz Tiessen. In the 1920s and early 1930s his name was frequently cited among Germany’s leading composers. Moreover, Erdmann had an international reputation as an outstanding concert pianist whose repertoire encompassed Beethoven and the advocacy of contemporary music. In 1925, he gave the premiere of Artur Schnabel’s Piano Sonata, at the Venice ISCM Festival. From 1925 he was professor of piano at the Cologne Academy of Music but was forced to resign from his post by the Nazis in 1935 and became an ‘inner exile’, composing almost nothing until after the end of World War II. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937; while not in sympathy with National Socialism, his decision was to avoid government harassment so that he could continue to wo

Eduard Flipse

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

Eduard Flipse (26 February 1896 in Wissenkerke – 12 September 1973 in Breda) was a Dutch conductor and composer, the son of Cornelis Flipse and Geertje Kruis. He was noted as a champion of the music of Dutch composers, such as Léon Orthel. He prepared the chorus for one of the earliest Dutch performances of William Walton’s cantata Belshazzar’s Feast. He was the first Dutch conductor of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto. Flipse became the “second conductor” (“tweede dirigent”) of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra in 1927, and in 1930, became the orchestra’s principal conductor, serving until 1962. His recordings with the orchestra include a live performance from the 1955 Holland Festival of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 6. In his later years, Flipse was the first conductor of the Antwerp Philharmonic (precursor to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Flanders and now called Antwerp Symphony Orchestra) from 1959 to 1970. Flipse was married twice. His first marriage to Louise Francina Victoria Snel, from 1923 to 1940, produced a son, and ended in divorce. His second marriage was to Margaretha Cornelia Broeders, from 1942. References External links

Eduard Künneke

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Eduard Künneke (also seen as Edward and spelled Künnecke) (27 January 1885 – 27 October 1953 in Berlin) was a German composer notable for his operettas, operas, theatre music and some orchestral works. Kuenneke was born in Emmerich, Lower Rhine. After obtaining his school diploma he moved in 1903 to Berlin where he studied musicology and the history of literature; he translated Beowulf into German. He was subsequently accepted into Max Bruch’s master-school for musical composition attached to the Royal Academy of Arts. By 1907 Kuenneke was already a repetiteur and chorus master at a Berlin operetta theatre, the Neues Operettentheater am Schiffbauerdamm, but relinquished his post as chorus master after his opera Robins Ende (1909) was premiered in Mannheim and Coeur-As (1913) in Dresden. Thereafter he received productions at 38 German opera houses. From 1908 to 1910 he also worked as a music director for Odeon Records and conducted (without label credit) two of the earliest complete symphony recordings, the Beethoven Fifth and Sixth Symphonies with the “Grosses Odeon Streich-Orchester”. In 1911 Künneke became a conductor of the German Theatre in Berlin, where he wrote incidental mus

Eduard Oja

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Eduard Oja (17 January 1905 in Palupõhja – 16 April 1950 in Tartu) was an Estonian composer, conductor, music teacher and critic. His father was a forest warden. Between 1919 and 1925 he studied at Tartu Teachers’ College at Tartu University, where he met Eduard Tubin, and he also worked for some time as a school teacher. He was however much appreciated during his lifetime, and received awards and acclaim for several of his works. He also worked as a conductor, leading the Tartu Women’s Singing Society’s Women’s Choir between 1930 and 1934, as well as a teacher of music theory at Tartu Higher School of Music. In addition, he was himself a practising violinist. References External links *Biography

Eduard Pütz

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Eduard Pütz (13 February 1911, in Illerich – 18 January 2000, in Bad Münstereifel) was a German composer and music teacher. Selected works :: Pütz’s scores are published by Schott Music, Edition Tonger, Tonos Musikverlag and Hans Gerig Verlag. ;Opera * Riders to the Sea, Opera in 1 act (1972); libretto by Heinrich Böll after John Millington Synge ;Orchestral * Invention für Barbara for string orchestra (1956) * Concerto grasso for string orchestra and jazz-combo (1981) * Blue Fantasy (1996) * Tagebuchblätter aus Frankreich ;Concertante * Concerto giocoso for piano and orchestra (1979) * Pyrenäen-Rhapsodie (Pyrenees Rhapsody), 3 Impressions for piano and orchestra (1984) * Concerto for cello and orchestra (1985) * Romanze for alto saxophone, cello, string orchestra and percussion (1989) ;Chamber music * Sonatina for cello and piano (1963) * Improvisation modale for flute and piano (1964) * Nugae, 7 Little Pieces for recorder, celesta and guitar (1969) * Ballade für T.S. for guitar (1973) * Tenso for shakuhachi and guitar (1975) * 5 Poèmes for violin and piano (1978) * Canto épico for string quartet (1981) * Die Marionetten der Ree Loo, Garden Music for violin and piano (1983) * Medi

Eduard Toldrà

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Eduard Toldrà Soler (; Vilanova i la Geltrú 7 April 1895 – Barcelona, 31 May 1962) was a Spanish Catalan composer and conductor. Toldrà played an important role in the Culture of Barcelona. In 1944 he founded the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra at the Palau de la Música Catalana, where his deputy in 1957 was his friend Ricardo Lamote de Grignon. Toldrà was a regular juror on the Maria Canals International Music Competition. His students included Antoni Ros-Marbà and Xavier Montsalvatge. The personal papers of Eduard Toldrà are preserved in the Biblioteca de Catalunya. Works :translation of ca.wikipedia listing Theatrical * 1924 four musical illustrations for the play de Lluís Masriera: Un idil·li prop del cel o, pel juny, carabasses. * 1928 El giravolt de maig – The May Sunflower, comic opera in one act with libretto by Josep Carner * 1951 Oh, Tossa!, hymn for the theatrical spectacle by Joan Oliver: Quasi un paradís – almost paradise. Chamber music * 1914 Quartet in C minor, for string quartet * 1920 Vistes al mar – sea views, for string quartet, later arranged for chamber orchestra * 1921 Six sonnets, for violin and piano. One of them, Ave Maria, also adapted for orchestra * 1931 Le

Eduard Tubin

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Eduard Tubin ( – 17 November 1982) was an Estonian composer, conductor, and choreographer. Life Tubin was born in Torila, Tartu County, Governorate of Livonia, then part of the Russian Empire. Both his parents were music lovers, and his father played trombone in the village band. His first taste of music came at school where he learned the flute. Later, his father swapped a cow for a piano, and the young Eduard soon became known in the village for his playing. Eduard also played flute in the village orchestra. Tubin entered the Tartu Teacher’s College in the newly independent Estonia in 1920. It was here he began to take an interest in composition. In 1924 he was admitted to the Tartu Higher Music School starting his studies under the guidance of the famous Estonian composer Heino Eller. He married a fellow student Linda Pirn in 1930. Their son Rein was born in 1932. Tubin took up work conducting in the Vanemuine theatre. During this time he also conducted one of the best-known male choirs and made several trips abroad. In 1938, he met Zoltán Kodály in Hungary, who encouraged his interest in folk songs. In 1941, he married the ballet dancer Elfriede Saarik (Erika). Their son Eino w

Eduard Zuckmayer

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Eduard Zuckmayer (3 August 1890 – 2 July 1972) was a German music educator, composer, conductor and pianist. He was the older brother of the famous German writer Carl Zuckmayer (1896–1977). Family and Youth He was the first son of wealthy factory owner Carl Zuckmayer (1864–1947) who produced tamper-evident lids for wine bottles in Nackenheim, a wine-growing village on the Rhine front. The parents of his mother, Amalie Zuckmayer (1869–1954, née Goldschmidt), were converted from Judaism to Protestantism whereas he was raised as a Catholic. From the age of six, he got piano lessons. His talent was recognised early. At the age of twelve, he started to compose. However, he started to study jurisprudence but soon quit. In 1909 he took private piano lessons from Robert Kahn (1865–1951) and James Kwast (1852–1927) in Berlin. He also attended the conductor’s school of Fritz Steinbach (1855–1916) and became a piano pupil of Lazzaro Uzielli (1861–1943) at Conservatory in Cologne. In 1914, he got concert level as pianist and conductor. Work Germany In 1915 he was a conductor at City theatre in Mainz. He and his younger brother volunteered as soldiers in World War I. He was severely wounded and

Eduardo Hernández Moncada

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Eduardo Hernández Moncada (September 24, 1899 – December 31, 1995) was a Mexican composer, pianist, and conductor. He is one of the essential musicians representative of the Nationalist Movement of the Post-Revolutionary years in Mexico. His music strives for a balance between modern influence and folk roots. His compositions include orchestral music, opera, ballet and film scores. Biography Born in Xalapa, Veracruz, son of a clarinetist. Hernández Moncada started piano lessons at an early age and at 19 moved to Mexico City to enter the National Conservatory. While still in school, he was hired to provide piano accompaniment to silent films playing at a local movie theater. In 1925 he married Teresa de Anda, an opera singer. While working in the movie theater, he met Carlos Chávez, and they began a long friendship. In 1929, Chávez invited Hernández to join the Mexican Symphony Orchestra as pianist, at the same time Silvestre Revueltas became assistant conductor. When Revueltas left the orchestra to form his own National Symphony Orchestra in 1936, Hernández succeeded him as assistant to Chávez. He served as a Director to the Conservatory Choir and Director and Founder of the Opera

Edvard Bræin

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Edvard Bræin (3 April 1887 - 20 September 1957) was a Norwegian organist, composer, and orchestra conductor, the father of the composer Edvard Fliflet Bræin (1924–76). Biography Bræin was born in Kristiansund, and was married to Magnhild Fliflet (1899–1967). He got his musical education at the Conservatory of Music in Oslo (1906–09), and debuted as organist in 1905. He earned his organist exam in 1907 and debuted as orchestra conductor in 1909. Bræin studied music under Bernhard Heinrich Irrgang and Jean Paul Ertel in Berlin (1910–11). He was organist in Ormøens Church, Østre Aker (1907–12), and organist in Kristiansund from 1912. In 1919 Bræin was conductor of the Kristiansund Symphony Orchestra. He was also conductor of several choirs in the Kristiansund area. He received state aid for collecting folk music, published in 10 pamphlets, Folk music from Nordmøre (1930–40). Composed music for Choir and Orchestra, including Serenade for Bratsj and orchestra (performed in 1943), and a number of songs. and Bræin’s Choir * Has guest conducted in Filharmonisk Selskab, Oslo, the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, and in Sweden * Given a host of organ concerts * Led the performance of several o

Edward Ballantine

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Edward Ballantine (August 6, 1886 – July 2, 1971), was an American composer and professor of music. Early life Edward Ballantine was born in Oberlin, Ohio, on August 6, 1886, the son of William Gay Ballantine, the fourth president of Oberlin College, and Emma Frances Atwood. One brother, Arthur Atwood, was the senior member of the New York law firm of Root, Clark, Buckner & Ballantine—later Dewey, Ballantine, Bushby, Palmer & Wood. Another brother, Henry Winthrop, was Professor of Law, at Boalt Hall School of Law. Education and career He studied with Walter Spalding and Frederick Converse at Harvard University, where he received a BA in 1907. He was awarded highest final honors in music at Harvard University and an orchestral composition of his was played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Boston, Massachusetts, on June 14, 1907. He then pursued his studies with Artur Schnabel, Rudolf Ganz, and Philippe Rüferthen in Berlin from 1907 to 1909. He returned to the United States where he joined the Harvard music faculty in 1912, where he remained until his retirement in 1947. His best-known compositions are two sets of piano variations on “Mary Had a Little Lamb” (1924, 1943), in which

Edward Boatner

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Edward Hammond Boatner (13 November 1898–16 June 1981) was an American composer who wrote many popular concert arrangements of Black American spirituals. Biography Boatner was educated at Western University in Quindaro, Kansas, Boston Conservatory and received a Bachelor of Music from the Chicago Music College (Now the College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University). He also studied music privately. He began as a Concert singer with the encouragement and assistance of Roland Hayes — who performed many of Boatner’s works on his concert programs—and choral director R. Nathaniel Dett. He also sang leading roles with the National Negro Opera Company. For the National Baptist Convention, he served as the director of music from 1925 to 1931. Boatner was a professor for Samuel Huston College (now Huston–Tillotson University) and Wiley College in Marshall, TX. He then settled in New York conducting a studio and directed community and church choirs. This allowed him to concentrate more on composing. Boatner was the natural father of the sax player Sonny Stitt, but the boy - named Edward Boatner, Jr. - was placed for adoption early on to the Stitt family, growing up in Saginaw, Michigan.

Edward Joseph Collins

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Edward Joseph Collins (November 10, 1886 – December 1, 1951) was an American pianist, conductor and composer of classical music in a neoromantic style. Life and career Collins was born in Joliet, Illinois, into an Irish family – his father was from County Meath and his mother from Belfast. From age 14, he studied with Rudolph Ganz in Chicago, and in 1906 went with Ganz to Berlin, where he studied performance and composition at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik under Max Bruch and Engelbert Humperdinck. Upon graduation, he had a successful concert piano debut in Berlin. He returned to the United States in 1912 and toured with the contralto Ernestine Schumann-Heink. He was an assistant conductor with the Century Opera Company in New York City and with the Bayreuth Festival in Germany. During World War I, Collins served in the U.S. Army (88th Division of the Intelligence Unit in France) as an interpreter and entertained the troops as pianist. From Private he rose up to the rank of Lieutenant during the war. After the war he returned to Chicago and joined 1919 the faculty of Chicago Musical College as one of the principal piano teachers. Collins married a voice student, Frieda Mayer, who

Edward Laska

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Edward Laska (January 3, 1894 – April 27, 1959) was an American songwriter who worked as both a composer and lyricist in Tin Pan Alley. He wrote the lyrics to the hit songs “How’d You Like to Spoon With Me?” (1905) and “The Alcholic Blue” (1919). Also a playwright, his play We’ve Got to Have Money was staged on Broadway in 1923. He was the longtime director of the Dramatists Guild of America. Life and career Edward Laska was born on January 3, 1894 in New York City. He was educated in New York City Public Schools and at the City College of New York. He was a Tin Pan Alley songwriter who sold his first song, “Tulips” in 1903. References Citations Bibliography * * * * External links * *

Edward Olearczyk

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Edward Olearczyk (born 4 March 1915, d. 1994) was a Polish composer. He was born in Rawa Ruska into a Jewish family, and studied with Zbigniew Drzewiecki at the conservatory in Warsaw. From 1939 to 1945 he worked in the USSR, and after returning to Poland, worked in Warsaw as a stage director in the Polish Army. Olearczyk was known primarily as a composer of popular songs. In 1948 he won the Ministry of Culture and Arts competition for popular songs. In 1952 he initiated the radio shows, “We sing songs: learning songs on the radio.” His songs enjoyed great popularity, some even outside the country, especially in the USSR. In 1952, he received the Gold Cross of Merit Award and in 1957 an award from the city of Warsaw. In 1957 he moved to Israel and died there in 1994. He married his wife Tamara prior to their immigration to Israel in 1957, along with their son Alon Oleartchik (then Alexi Olearczyk), who is currently a famous musician in Israel. His grandson is Israeli actor and past member of American indie rock band Big Thief, Max Oleartchik. Works Selected works include: *Melodie miłości (1952–53) - musical comedy, Miroslaw Łebkowski libretto *Chłopska kołysanka (sł. Wacław Stępie

Edward T. Cone

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Edward Toner Cone (May 4, 1917 – October 23, 2004) was an American composer, music theorist, pianist, and philanthropist. Life and career Cone was born in Greensboro, North Carolina. He studied composition under Roger Sessions at Princeton University, receiving his bachelor’s in 1939 (Latin salutatorian and the first Princeton student to submit a musical composition as his senior thesis). Cone and Milton Babbitt were the first to earn graduate degrees in musical composition from Princeton (MFA, 1942). He studied piano with Karl Ulrich Schnabel and Edward Steuermann. During the Second World War, Cone served first in the army (as a pianist) and later in the Office of Strategic Services. Beginning in 1946, he taught at Princeton. He was the co-editor of the journal Perspectives of New Music between 1965 and 1969. Cone, known for his contributions to music criticism and analysis, also composed a significant body of music. His scholarly work addressed musical form and aesthetics, particularly questions of rhythm and musical phrasing. He died in Princeton, New Jersey, aged 87. Cone was the companion of Princeton philosophy professor George Pitcher for nearly 48 years. Cone’s students inc

Edward Ward (composer)

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Edward Ward (April 2, 1896– September 26, 1971) was an American film composer and music director who was nominated for seven Academy Awards. Academy Award nominations *1939 Best Original Song for “Always and Always” from Mannequin *1942 Best Scoring of a Dramatic Picture (Cheers for Miss Bishop) *1942 Best Scoring of a Dramatic Picture (Tanks a Million) *1942 Best Scoring of a Musical Picture (All-American Co-Ed) *1943 Best Original Song for “Pennies for Peppino” from Flying with Music *1943 Best Scoring of a Musical Picture (Flying with Music) *1944 Best Scoring of a Musical Picture (Phantom of the Opera) Additional credits *Paris (1929) *No, No, Nanette (1930) *Kismet (1930) *Great Expectations (1934) *The Bishop Misbehaves (1935) *The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1935) *San Francisco (1936) *Camille (1936) *The Gorgeous Hussy (1936) *Night Must Fall (1937) *Maytime (1937) *Saratoga (1937) *A Yank at Oxford (1938) *The Shopworn Angel (1938) *Boys Town (1938) *The Women (1939) * Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves (1944) * Gypsy Wildcat (1944) * Ghost Catchers (1944) * It Happened on 5th Avenue (1947) *The Babe Ruth Story (1948) *Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) References External links * *

Edward White (composer)

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Edward George White (21 August 1910 – 1994) was a British composer of light music, whose compositions including “The Runaway Rocking-Horse” (1946), “Paris Interlude” (1952), “Puffin’ Billy” (1952) and the signature tune for The Telegoons (1963), became familiar as radio and television theme tunes. Career White was born in London, England, performing also on saxophone and clarinet. White began to compose original pieces - an early success was Desert Star in 1939, recorded by the Jack Harris Orchestra for HMV Records - and set up his own publishing company, Musicus Ltd. He established himself as a composer of light orchestral music after the war, finding regular work with the BBC and with library music publishers, particularly the Chappell Recording Music Library. He composed around 200 pieces including Barbados, Ballet in Blue, Cabana, Caprice for Strings, Clockwork Clown, Effervescence, Fairy on the Fiddles, Ghost Train, Idle Jack, Paris Interlude, Puffin’ Billy, The Roundabout, The Runaway Rocking-Horse, White Wedding and Yodelling Strings. “Puffin’ Billy” “Puffin’ Billy” (1952) is perhaps his most familiar composition, especially in the original recording by Hubert Clifford and t

Edwin Bélanger

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Edwin Bélanger (18 November 1910 – 14 January 2005) was a Canadian conductor, violinist, violist, arranger, and music educator. He had an association with the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec for more than 50 years, including serving as the orchestra’s principal conductor from 1942 to 1951. Education Born in Montmagny, Quebec, Bélanger was the father of musicians Marc Bélanger and Guy Bélanger. He received his general education and violin instruction at the Brothers of the Sacred Heart College in his native city. He then pursued further studies at the Séminaire de Québec where he was a pupil of J.-Alexandre Gilbert (violin) and Omer Létourneau (harmony). He notably married one of the daughters of the latter teacher. After winning the Prix d’Europe for violin in 1933, he pursued further studies with Carl Flesch in Paris (1933–1934, violin) and Ernest Read in London (1934–1935, conducting). Career Bélanger began his performance career in 1928 at the age of 17, as a violinist in the Société symphonique de Québec (Orchestre Symphonique de Québec), remaining with the ensemble through 1931. After completing his studies in Europe he began working as a violinist, violist, conductor, and arr

Edwina Florence Wills

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Edwina Florence Wheeler Wills (December 5, 1915 – December 1, 2002) was an American artist and composer who played cello and piano. A native of Des Moines, Iowa, she received a B.A. from Grinnell College. On Feb 3, 1939, she married Luther Max Wills and they had four children. Wills played cello in the Des Moines Symphony Orchestra, as well as in the Salem and Eugene Symphony Orchestras, both in Oregon. In 1971, she became the principal cellist in the Portland, Oregon, Chamber Orchestra. She taught chamber music at Lewis and Clark College and taught cello at Washington State University. Wills sculpted and painted in oil and watercolor, exhibiting at the Art Institute of Chicago. One of her works was a medieval-style chess set consisting of eight sculptures: a king, a queen, and six other chess pieces. Her musical compositions include: *Fugue in F Major (piano) *Radiance and Glory (violin, cello, voice and piano; based on text by Giovanni Giocondo) *String Quartet in g minor (first prize in Washington State Federation of Music Clubs Competition, 1941) *Theme and Variations (cello and piano) References

Egon Kenton

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Egon Francis Kenton (born Egon Ferenc Kornstein; May 22, 1891 – December 3, 1987) was a Hungarian and American musicologist, violist, music librarian, and educator born in the Transylvanian village of Nagyszalonta, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Salonta, Romania) on May 22, 1891 and died in Paris on December 3, 1987. Kenton began studying viola and violin at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music (known at the time as the National Royal Hungarian Academy of Music) in 1905 and graduated in 1911. Upon graduation he played in the , known simply at the time as the Hungarian Quartet, or as Kenton remarked, “the old one—the first Hungarian quartet.” Kenton’s tenure with this group led to encounters and friendships with some of the most significant composers of the twentieth century. The group performed Claude Debussy’s Quartet in Budapest with the composer in attendance, who was so impressed that he arranged for them to perform the work again in Paris. On his trip to Paris, Kenton became well-acquainted with Debussy and his family, having recounted instances of the French composer’s penchant for sarcasm. Of a performance by a well-known Hungarian pianist, Debussy commented, “‘I myself can’t go t

Egon Kornauth

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Egon Kornauth (14 May 1891 – 28 October 1959) was an Austrian composer and music teacher. Kornauth was among the most important 20th-century composers active in Salzburg. Life Kornauth was born in Olmütz, Moravia. A cellist and pianist from his youth, he went in 1909 to Vienna, where he studied with Robert Fuchs, Guido Adler, Franz Schreker (with whom he quarrelled) and Franz Schmidt. After teaching music theory at Vienna University from 1919, Kornauth embarked on an international career as pianist, accompanist and conductor that took him to Indonesia (1926-9) and to South America (1934-5). In 1940 he resumed a teaching career in war-time Vienna and Salzburg. He joined the Nazi-sponsored Reichsmusikkammer, but continued to support his teacher Adler, who was held under house arrest as a Jew, until the latter’s death in 1941. In post-war Austria, Kornauth became director of the Salzburg Mozarteum (1946-1947), and was elected to the Austrian Arts Senate in 1954. He died in Vienna in 1959. Kornauth himself recognised in his 1958 autobiography that “epigonism was inherent in my personality.” The musicologist Cliff Eisen described Kornauth as among the most important 20th-century compose

Egon Neumann

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Egon Neumann (21 July 1894 – 1948) was an Austrian composer and Kapellmeister. Life Born in Mödling, Austria-Hungary, Neumann, whose father was a lawyer, studied musicology at the University of Vienna with Guido Adler from 1913. (Dr. phil. 1919), then worked as a bandmaster at the Moravian Ostrava in 1920, at the Neues Operettenhaus Berlin in 1921, at the Central Theater Berlin in 1922, and was an entertainers’ composer. From 1920 to 1928, at the Bürgertheater as Kapellmeister, where he conducted the premiere of his operetta Donauweibchen. He later lived in Berlin, 1932–1934 again in Vienna, then in Paris. On New Year’s Eve 1939/1940 he took part in the revue Meslay lacht wieder organised by Karl Farkas. The diplomat Gilberto Bosques helped him. References Further reading * Monika Kornberger: Neumann, Egon. In Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon. Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ; Print edition: Vol. 3, Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften press, Vienna 2004, * Neumann, Egon, in , Bärbel Schrader, Dieter Wenk, Ingrid Maaß: Handbuch des deutschsprachigen Exiltheaters 1933–1945. Vol. 2. Biographisches Lexikon der Theaterkünstler. Munich: Saur, 1999, , pp. 699f. External links *

Egon Wellesz

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Egon Joseph Wellesz, CBE, FBA (21 October 1885 – 9 November 1974) was an Austrian, later British composer, teacher and musicologist, notable particularly in the field of Byzantine music. Early life and education in Vienna Egon Joseph Wellesz was born on 21 October 1885 in the district of Vienna to Samu Wellesz and Ilona Wellesz (née Lövényi). Although his parents met and married in Vienna, they both originated from Hungary and were Jewish. . As a boy he attended the on where he received a classical education in Greek and Latin. Work as a scholar, lecturer, and composer in Vienna The main focus of Wellesz’s early musicological research was Baroque opera; particularly those by composer Giuseppe Bonno who was the subject of his dissertation at the University of Vienna. He also edited Johann Joseph Fux’s 1723 opera for publication in Adler’s Denkmäler. Many years later Wellesz published a monograph on Fux in 1965. He graduated from the University of Vienna with a degree in musicology in 1908, and his dissertation on Bonno was published the following year. This interest initially arose from dialogues and debates with the Austrian art historian Josef Strzygowski who at this time was putt

Eiluned Davies

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Eiluned Davies (1913 – 1999) was a British concert pianist and composer. Early life Born in Walthamstow, London, the daughter of Welsh bard Owen Davies of Llanarth, and her first radio broadcast followed in April 1937. During the war Davies performed at the National Gallery concerts organized by Myra Hess, at which she gave the first performance in England of Shostakovich’s Piano Sonata, Op. 12 (on 31 May 1943). She also taught at the City Literary Institute (from 1945), the Mary Ward Centre (from 1956) and the Stanhope Institute, before retiring from teaching in 1979. Three European Folk Dances for piano, a Requiem (1972, performed in Winchester, revised 1991) and the song cycle Glimpses (1993) for female vocal quartet. All her pre-war compositions were withdrawn and destroyed. Davies’ repertoire included Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Busoni and Bernard Stevens. Davies recorded the complete solo piano works of Bernard van Dieren for the British Music Society in the 1980s. She also championed Welsh composers, naming ‘Y Pump Cymreig’ (The Welsh Five) as Denis ApIvor, Daniel Jones, Mervyn Roberts, Grace Williams and David Wynne. She premiered ApIvor’s Piano Concerto, op. 13 in 1948 and W

Einar Englund

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Sven Einar Englund (17 June 1916 – 27 June 1999) was a Finnish composer. Life Sven Einar Englund was born at Ljugarn in Gotland, Sweden, on 17 June 1916; he died on 27 June 1999 in Visby, Sweden. He married twice: in 1941 to Meri Mirjam Gyllenbögel, who died 1956 (they had one son and two daughters including the ballerina and choreographer Sorella Englund); and in 1958 he married Maynie Sirén, a singer, with whom he had one son. One of the most important Finnish symphonists since Jean Sibelius, Englund was a native Swedish speaker who often felt that his career was sidelined from the mainstream of Finnish music. He went to Svenska normallyceum i Helsingfors and was 17 when he began studies at the Helsinki Conservatory (now the Sibelius Academy) in 1933. Already a considerable pianist, he continued his studies with Martti Paavola and Ernst Linko while studying composition with Bengt Carlson and Selim Palmgren. Following his graduation in 1941, Englund was conscripted into military service. During his time in the Finnish Continuation War he was wounded in his hand, which almost brought to an end his hopes of pursuing a career as a concert pianist. He would often recall the bizarre, t

Eivind Groven

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Eivind Groven (8 October 1901 – 8 February 1977) was a Norwegian composer and music-theorist. He was from the traditional region of Vest-Telemark and had a background in the folk music of the area. Biography Groven was born in the village of Lårdal in Telemark, Norway. Groven’s rural background was filled with traditional music. He came from a family of talented musicians and artists, prominent in his home area. His father, Olav Åsmundsson Gjøitil (1865–1947) was the youngest of eight siblings. Two of his father’s brothers played the hardanger fiddle. His mother, Aslaug Rikardsdotter Berge (1863–1946), was the youngest daughter of Rikard Aslaksson Berge, known for preserving a great amount of old tunes, religious songs and dance-tunes and a friend of Myllarguten’s. Two of Groven’s maternal uncles also played the hardanger fiddle, and his mother’s sisters, as well as Aslaug herself, were talented folk singers. Groven was the youngest of five brothers. Two of his brothers began to play the fiddle, and soon Eivind joined them. His father Olav was also an apt player, and in their childhood, the brothers learned notes, and sometimes played together, when they got their hands on classica

Eldon Rathburn

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Eldon Davis Rathburn (21 April 1916 – 31 August 2008) was a Canadian film composer who scored over 250 films during his thirty-year tenure as a staff composer at the National Film Board of Canada. Known as “the dean of Canadian film composers”, Rathburn composed music for documentaries, short films, as well as such feature films as Drylanders (1963), Nobody Waved Good-bye (1964), Waiting for Caroline (1969), Cold Journey (1975), and Who Has Seen the Wind (1977). Rathburn was the subject of a 1995 NFB documentary by Louis Hone titled Eldon Rathburn: They Shoot… He Scores. Early life and education Rathburn was born in the community of Queenstown, in Queens County, New Brunswick, Canada. As a child he learned to play the piano. Rathburn attended Saint John High School, and received a Licentiate of Music from McGill University in 1937. The following year, he won the Canadian Performing Rights Society Scholarship Competition, and began performing on the piano for local dance bands and radio broadcasts, including with Don Messer. From 1938–39, he studied at the Toronto Conservatory of Music with Healey Willan (composition), Reginald Godden (piano), Charles Peaker (organ), and Leo Smith

Eleni Lambiri

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Eleni Lambiri (, 9 February 1882 – 30 March 1960) was a Greek conductor and composer. She is often regarded as the first female Greek composer. After completing her studies, she worked in Milan as a conductor. On 15 January 1915 she registered the author’s rights of the opereta «Isolma», at the Milan regional registry (number of registry 64794). «Isolma» was an operetta in three acts fully composed and written by Eleni Lambiri. This opereta has been recorded in 1958, by Totis Karalivanos as conductor and Spiros Kapsaskis as choir director. In about 1925 she returned to Patras, Greece, where she worked as director of the Patras Conservatory until 1953. At the same time she wrote the music criticism for the local newspaper of Patras «Neologos Patron». She died at the Municipal Hospital of Athens. Works Selected works include: * To apokriatiko oneiro (A Dream in Carnival) 1913, opereta * Isolma 1915, opereta * Serenata for flute violin and viola * Symphony for large orchestra in B minor * Iratzi N, opera, in libretto L.Orsini References

Elie Siegmeister

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Elie Siegmeister (also published under pseudonym L. E. Swift; January 15, 1909, in New York City – March 10, 1991, in Manhasset, New York) was an American composer, educator and author. Early life and education Elie Siegmeister was born January 15, 1909, in New York City. Both parents were of Russian-Jewish ancestry. His father was a surgeon. His parents, William and Bessie Siegmeister, were both born in Russia. His older brother Walter Siegmeister was an esoteric writer and promoter of Hollow Earth theory and UFOs. he had studied music theory with Seth Bingham. He studied conducting with Albert Stoessel at the Juilliard School and counterpoint with Wallingford Riegger. He was among the numerous American composers, including Aaron Copland and Virgil Thomson, who were students of the influential teacher Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Career His varied musical output showed his concern with the development of an authentic American musical vocabulary. Jazz, blues and folk melodies and rhythms are frequent themes in his many song cycles, his nine operas, his eight symphonies, and his many choral, chamber, and solo works. His 37 orchestral works have been performed by leading orchestras thro

Elisabeth Lutyens

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

Agnes Elisabeth Lutyens, CBE (9 July 1906 – 14 April 1983) was an English composer. Early life and education Elisabeth Lutyens was born in London on 9 July 1906. She was one of the five children of Lady Emily Bulwer-Lytton (1874–1964), a member of the aristocratic Bulwer-Lytton family, and the prominent English architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. Elisabeth was the elder sister of the writer Mary Lutyens and aunt of the 4th Viscount Ridley and the politician Nicholas Ridley. Lutyens was involved in the Theosophical Movement. From 1911 the young Jiddu Krishnamurti was living in the Lutyens’ London house as a friend of Elisabeth and her sisters. At the age of nine she began to aspire to be a composer. In 1922, Lutyens pursued her musical education in Paris at the École Normale de Musique, which had been established a few years previously, living with the young theosophical composer Marcelle de Manziarly, who had been trained by Nadia Boulanger. During her months in Paris Lutyens showed first signs of depression that later led to several mental breakdowns. She accompanied her mother to India in 1923. On her return to Europe she studied with John Foulds and subsequently continued her musical e

Elisse Boyd

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

Elisse Boyd (born Agnes Elisse Corbett) (1910–1979) was a composer. She married William R. Boyd III and changed her name to Elisse Boyd. Early life Agnes Elisse Corbett was born in 1910 in Peducah, Kentucky. Her father was Hal Corbett, who was a friend of fellow Kentuckians Alben W. Barkley (one of the vice presidents under President Truman) and humorist and columnist Irvin Cobb. Her father was claimed to have been one of the three men who were the inspiration for Irvin Cobb’s composite character of Judge Priest. Career Boyd began song writing with entering a Fort Worth, Texas contest for best theme song. She won in the competition sponsored by Casa Mañana Theater with the song “Dancing in the Moonlight”, which was used for a 1937 performance at the theater. With their collaboration, they had composed the song “Unbelievable” (1947). where the song was sung by June Carroll. Eartha Kitt, who was a cast member of New Face of 1952, would later sing Boyd’s song “Thursday Child” in 1957. With “Guess Who I Saw Today”, the song would go onto become a hit song with multiple artists singing the cover. There were musical performances of the cover by Eydie Gormé, Carmen McRae and Sarah Vaughan

Elizabeth Gyring

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

Elizabeth Gyring (1886–1970) was an American composer born in Vienna, Austria. Early life and education Gyring’s father was Leopold Rethy, a laryngologist. Gyring attended the Vienna Academy of Music, studying harmony with Joseph Marx and piano with Ludwig Gzaczkes, then in 1910 composition with Arnold Schoenburg. Career Gyring had several of her early works performed in concerts and broadcast on the radio by players from the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras. Following her emigration to the United States, she had a successful compositional career, with her works performed and recorded by American soloists and ensembles. In 1944 Gyring became an American citizen. *Piano Sonata No.2 (1957) *Hymn of Gratitude (1948) *Arabesque for bassoon (1963-1964) *String Quartets *Violin Concerto Several of her works were recorded on Phonograph. References

Elizabeth Maconchy

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Dame Elizabeth Violet Maconchy LeFanu (; 19 March 1907 – 11 November 1994) was an English-Irish composer. She is considered to be one of the finest composers Great Britain and Ireland have produced. Biography Elizabeth Violet Maconchy was born in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, of Irish parents and grew up in England and Ireland. Her family moved to Ireland in 1917, where they lived in Howth, on the east coast. The adolescent Maconchy began her musical studies in Dublin, studying piano with Edith Boxhill, and harmony and counterpoint with John Francis Larchet. Those formative years in Ireland were important for Maconchy who considered herself Irish. Throughout her career she was identified as an Irish composer, or as an English composer with Irish influences, by reviewers and commentators. In 1923, at the age of sixteen, she moved to London to enrol at the Royal College of Music. At the RCM Maconchy studied under Charles Wood and Ralph Vaughan Williams. As a student, Maconchy was awarded the Blumenthal Scholarship in 1927, and the Octavia Scholarship of 1930, which allowed her to continue her studies in Prague. Her first public recognition came on 19 March 1930 with a performance of her

Elizabeth Poston

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

Elizabeth Poston (24 October 1905 – 18 March 1987) was an English composer, pianist, organist, and writer. Early life and career Poston was born in Highfield House in Pin Green, which is now the site of Hampson Park in Stevenage. In 1914 she moved with her mother, Clementine Poston, to nearby Rooks Nest House where E. M. Forster had lived as a child. Poston and Forster subsequently became good friends. After attending Queen Margaret’s School, York and studying piano with Harold Samuel and organ with Sir Stanley Marchant, She won a prize from the RAM for her one movement Violin Sonata, which was subsequently broadcast by the BBC on 9 July 1928, with Antonio Brosa as soloist and Victor Hely-Hutchinson piano. When she graduated from the RAM in 1925 seven of her songs were published, and in 1928 she published five more. Poston went abroad between 1930 and 1939, where she studied architecture and collected folksongs in Central Europe. She was also a respected performer, premiering Walter Leigh’s Concertino for harpsichord and strings in 1934. Poston’s discussion with Julius Harrison, composer of Bredon Hill which is “witness to the eternal spirit of England”, was aired by the BBC in 194

Elliott Carter

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

Elliott Cook Carter Jr. (December 11, 1908 – November 5, 2012) was an American modernist composer who was one of the most respected composers of the second half of the 20th century. He combined elements of European modernism and American “ultra-modernism” into a distinctive style with a personal harmonic and rhythmic language, after an early neoclassical phase. His compositions are performed throughout the world, and include orchestral, chamber music, solo instrumental, and vocal works. Carter was the recipient of many awards – he was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his string quartets. He also wrote the large-scale orchestral triptych Symphonia: sum fluxae pretium spei. Carter was born in New York City. He developed an interest in modern music in the 1920s. He was later introduced to Charles Ives, and he soon came to appreciate the American ultra-modernists. After studying at Harvard University with Edward Burlingame Hill, Gustav Holst and Walter Piston, he studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, then returned to the United States. Carter was productive in his later years, publishing more than 40 works between the ages of 90 and 100, and over 20 more after he turn

Elmer Diktonius

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

Elmer Rafael Diktonius (20 January 1896 – 23 September 1961) was a Finnish poet and composer, who wrote in both Swedish and in Finnish. He was born in Helsinki and studied at the Helsinki Music Institute. He undertook several study trips abroad, including to France and England in 1921–22, Paris in 1925–27, and Prague in 1934 . In 1922, he established an avant-garde magazine, Ultra, which had Finnish and Swedish editions. He was also involved in the establishment of another avant-garde magazine Quosego. In addition to his editorial work, he was a literary and music critic for numerous publications, including Arbetarbladet, Elanto, Suomen Sosialidemokraatti, Nya Argus, and the Malmö-based Arbetet. He was a board member of the Society of Swedish Authors in Finland from 1927, and served as its vice-chairman between 1937 and 1944. Diktonius died in Kauniainen, and is buried in the Hietaniemi Cemetery in Helsinki. Private life Dikotnius was the son of August Viktor Diktonius and Adelaide Maria Rosalie Malmström. He was married twice; first to Meri Rigmor Marttinen from 1923 until their divorce in 1926, and second to Anna-Leena Jäykkä from 1929. Awards and honors Source: *Lybeck Prize (19

Els Aarne

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

Elze Janovna Paemurru (30 March 1917 – 14 June 1995), pseudonymously known as Els Aarne, was an Estonian composer, pianist and pedagogue, primarily during the Soviet Union. She taught at Tallinn Conservatory, her alma mater, from 1944 to 1974. Life and career Elze Janovna Paemurru was born as on 30 March 1917 in Makiivka, Russian Empire (now Ukraine); her pseudonym was Els Aarne. Her father was the scientist (1885–1978). She studied at the Tallinn Conservatory, Tallinn, graduating as a music teacher in 1939 after instruction from Gustav Ernesaks, in 1942 as pianist with Artur Lemba and in 1946 as composer under Heino Eller. Aarne lectured at the Tallinn Conservatory on music theory from 1944 to 1974. Aarne married the horn player (1908–1972); they had two sons, the cellist and politician (born 1948) and Mait Paemurru. She died on 14 June 1995 in Tallinn. Els was known, among other things, as a chamber music composer (preferring to compose for violoncello and double-bass); in addition, she wrote two symphonies. List of compositions References Citations Sources * * * * * Further reading * * External links * Work list with recordings from the Estonian Music Information Centre * * Lett

Elsa Barraine

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Elsa Jacqueline Barraine (; 13 February 1910 – 20 March 1999) was a composer of French music in the time after the neoclassicist movement of Les Six, Ravel, and Stravinsky. Despite being considered “one of the outstanding French composers of the mid-20th century,” Barraine’s music is seldom performed today. She won the Prix de Rome in 1929 for La vierge guerrière, a sacred trilogy named for Joan of Arc, Barraine’s Symphony No. 2 “Voïna”, composed in 1938, was a huge success when it received its world premiere performance by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Manuel Rosenthal at Covent Garden on July 7, 1946 during the opening concert of the 1946 ISCM Festival in London . The headline of Philip Whitacre’s review of the concert for London’s Evening Standard the next day—in which he described the work as “concise, original, and alive”—was “We shall hear more of Mlle. Barraine” and the symphony was hailed by Alan Frank in The Musical Times as “expert” and as “France’s best contribution” to the festival . Along with Barraine’s earlier Symphony No. 1 (1931), it has been commercially recorded twice recently (by the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne under the direction of Elena

Elsa Respighi

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Elsa Respighi (; 24 March 1894 – 19 March 1996) was an Italian mezzo-soprano singer and composer. She was the wife and former pupil of Ottorino Respighi. Respighi created a ballet and completed her husband’s opera, but also composed a significant number of her own works after his death, including operas and choral works. She published a biography of her husband, and established the Fondo Respighi in Venice to promote music education in Italy. Biography Respighi was born Elsa Olivieri-Sangiacomo on 24 March 1894 in Rome. She studied solfege and piano privately, and then from 1905 at the Istituto Nazionale di Musica in Rome. As a mezzo-soprano singer and composer herself, Elsa Respighi created ballets out of her husband’s Ancient Airs and Dances suites, and completed his final opera Lucrezia in 1937. Throughout her long life she championed her husband’s work unfailingly. In 1955 she produced a memoir of her encounters with some of the most influential cultural figures of the early twentieth century. She also published a biography of Respighi in 1962. Since then, several of her own works, chiefly for solo voice with accompaniment, have been given their premiere. Respighi is considered

Else Schmitz-Gohr

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

Else Schmitz-Gohr (12 August 1901 – 13 December 1987) was a German composer, pianist, and teacher who is best remembered for her Elegy for the Left Hand for piano, her successful students, and her recordings of Max Reger’s works for piano. Schmitz-Gohr was born in Cologne. She studied at the Cologne Conservatory and the Stern Conservatory in Berlin. Her teachers included Franz Bolsche, Wilhelm Klatte, Dr. Otto Klauwell, James Kwast, and Fritz Hans Rehbold. She socialized with sculptor Lili Graf. In 1918, she debuted as a pianist under conductor Hermann Abendroth, and in 1922 won the Gustav Hollaender medal. Bernhard Klee, Georg Kroll, Irene Vogel Osiander, Erika Rademacher, Eckart Sellheim, and Joachim Volkmann. Nareh Arghamanyan recorded works by Schmitz-Gohr on her album Femmes de Légende Hänssler HC25026 (2025). Compositions Schmitz-Gohr’s compositions were published by Schott Music. They included: Chamber * Allegro in G minor (violin and piano) * Allegro Moderato in E minor (piano trio) * Andante in G minor (piano trio) * Kleine Flöten-Duette (two flutes) Orchestra * Overture in G minor Piano * Elegy for the Left Hand * Fantasie in F major * Suite References Recordings * *

Emanuel Amiran-Pougatchov

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Emanuel Amiran-Pougatchov (Hebrew: עמנואל עמירן-פוגצ’וב; born Emanuel Pugaczow; 8 August 1909 – 18 December 1993) was a composer and teacher. Biographical information In Warsaw, Emanuel Pugaczow began his musical studies at the age of 10 years with Joseph Engel, Professor David Shore and Engel Weinberg. He later continued his musical studies for a period of three years within Berlin. From 1928 to 1930, he studied with Solomon Rosowsky within Jerusalem. His studies of music (combined with pedagogy ) continued from 1934 onward at the Trinity College of Music in Britain with Sir Granville Bantock and Alex Rowley. He returned to Israel again in 1936 again to be involved in teaching activities, at some time founding with Prof. Leo Kestenberg the Music Teachers’ Seminary in Tel Aviv, both continuing as primary authorities and charges of. In 1948 he was officer in charge of military music, establishing a joint initiative with artillery commander, Samuel Edmond. Together with Captain Jacob Pleasant he founded an Israeli Army Band. The military band they formed was one of the foundations for the establishment of the Israel Defense Forces Orchestra, together with an orchestra of Alexandria,

Emanuel Melik-Aslanian

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Emanuel Melik-Aslanian (, ; 1915 – 14 July 2003) was an Armenian-Iranian composer, classical music theorist and pianist. Biography Emanuel Melik-Aslanian was born in 1915 to an Armenian family in Rostov, Russia. Although he was born in Tabriz in most of the mentioned sources. In an interview, he says: “My birthplace is written in my birth certificate, Tabriz, but in fact I was born in 1915 in Rostov. My parents were from Tabriz, but they lived in Rostov at that time.” His father Stepan was interested in music and after returning from a trip, he brought a piano with him. When Emanuel was not more than 4 years old, he would sit at the piano with his feet off the ground, playing the piano with one hand. He started playing the piano at the age of 9 with Sophia Amadoni, who was educated in Switzerland, in Tabriz. When he was 12, he played the piano in the Leon Gregorian Orchestra. When his father saw Emanuel’s talent, he decided to study in Europe. For this reason, he traveled to Germany and made travel arrangements for his son and his wife. He then sent a message to them to join him. Emanuel and his mother left for Germany in 1928, when he was 13 years old. He went to Hamburg, Germany

Emanuel Schlechter

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Emanuel Schlechter (born 9 October 1904, Lwów – died November 11, 1943, also: Szlechter, Olgierd Lech) was a Polish-Jewish artist, lyricist, screenwriter, librettist, writer, satirist, translator, composer and director, and occasional actor. He was one of the most influential creators of interwar Polish popular music in the 1930s, whose songs became deeply embedded in Polish language and culture. He was also the author of the famed “Tango of Death”, according to Simon Weisenthal, the famed Janowska survivor, and who captured Adolf Eichmann Biography Emanuel Schlechter was born in Lwów, then part of Austria-Hungary and later interwar Poland, into a Polonized Jewish family. His father Jakub Szlechter worked as a house painter. His family lived in modest conditions in the Zamarstynów district of Lwów. His brother was Emil Henryk Schlechter, a famed lawyer in Paris and expert of Assyria He attended the prestigious State Gymnasium named after Hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski in Lwów, graduating in 1923 with a “sufficient” result in his matura examinations. During his school years, he developed early literary and performance interests, and according to later recollections, he was already acti

Emil Bohnke

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

Emil Bohnke (11 October 1888 – 11 May 1928) was a German violist, composer and conductor active in Berlin. Life Born in Zduńska Wola near Łódź, Poland, Emil Bohnke was the son of textile manufacturer Ferdinand Bohnke. From 1901 to 1908, he studied violin with Hans Sitt and composition with Stephan Krehl at the Leipzig Conservatory, continuing his studies in Berlin at the Prussian Academy of Arts from 1908 with Friedrich Gernsheim. Bohnke taught for two years at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin. In 1919, he married violinist Lilli von Mendelssohn (born 1897) of the Mendelssohn family and fathered three children, the youngest of which was pianist Robert-Alexander Bohnke (1927–2004). He was the violist of the Bandler Quartet and the Busch Quartet (1919–1921) led by Adolf Busch. Bohnke played a 1699 viola by luthier Giovanni Grancino given to him by his father-in-law. As conductor, he headed the Leipzig Symphony Orchestra (1923–1926) and succeeded Oscar Fried as principal conductor of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra in 1926. Bohnke and his wife are buried at Friedhof Dahlem in Berlin. Music Bohnke composed a body of sixteen opuses, comprising mainly chamber music and piano pieces, but al

Emil Hlobil

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

Emil Hlobil (11 October 1901 – 25 January 1987) was a Czech composer and music professor based in Prague. Biography Hlobil was born in Veselí nad Lužnicí, but lived most of his life in Prague. Between 1924 and 1930 he studied at the Prague Conservatory under Josef Suk and Jaroslav Křička, and taught music and composition at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts. He also taught at the Prague Conservatory (1941–1958) before moving to the Academy. He married Czech painter Marie-Hlobilová Mrkvičková, and after World War II they bought a cottage in the Krkonoše mountains as a summer home. Hlobil died in Prague in 1987. Music Hlobil composed in the Romantic tradition of the Nineteenth Century, almost untouched by modern trends, which was possibly a reflection of the politics of the time and place. A review by Gramaphone in 1961 described him as follows: Emil Hlobil, 60-year-old professor of composition at the Prague Conservatoire, has the most original creative imagination of our twelve composers, I would say. In his Quartet for harpsichord and string trio (1944) , he uses a fairly simple diatonic idiom, but shows a Janáček-like boldness in his apparently inconsequential changing of the

Emil Newman

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

Emil Newman (January 20, 1911 – August 30, 1984) was an American music director and conductor who worked on more than 200 films and TV series. He was nominated for an Oscar for his musical direction on the classic Sun Valley Serenade (1941), contributing to the Newmans being the most nominated Academy Award extended family, with a collective 95 nominations in various music categories. Biography A native of Connecticut, Newman entered films in 1940 as the musical director on 13 films. He was credited on 25 films in 1941 and 28 in 1942, one of which, Whispering Ghosts, contained his first (uncredited) contribution as a composer. He had 15 titles in 1943, including “Musical Direction” (screen credit) for the all-black musical Stormy Weather and the 20th Century Fox wartime film Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas, 19 in 1944, 17 in 1945 and 16 in 1946, including Hugo Friedhofer’s Academy Award score for The Best Years of Our Lives, which he also conducted. Between 1950 and 1965, Newman was the composer on 23 films, most of which were lower-budget B movies, although they also included prestigious pictures such as Hondo (1953). He also provided the music for numerous 1950s TV shows. Newma

Emil Reesen

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

Emil Reesen (30 May 1887 – 27 March 1964) was a Danish composer, conductor and pianist. Aside from composing for ballets and operas he was also a noted film score composer. He is remembered mainly for his operetta Farinelli (1942), which is still popular today. Life Emil Reesen studied with private tutors such as the composer Vilhelm Rosenberg and the pianist Siegfried Langgaard (a pupil of Franz Liszt). He made his debut as a concert pianist in 1911 and was employed as a conductor for the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1927. In 1931 he also began working as a ballet conductor at the Royal Danish Theatre. Later in his life he conducted the Vienna Symphony and recorded with the Berlin Philharmonic. Emil Reesen was the father of the composer Morten Reesen (1928–1961) and the great-uncle of the composer Frederik Magle (his sister’s grandson). Notable works * 1926 Rapsodien Himmerland * 1928 Variationer over et tema af Schubert * 1931 Gaucho, ballet * 1933 Gudindernes Strid, ballet * 1934 Zaporogerne, ballet * 1941 Trianon. Suite i gammel stil * 1941 Historien om en Moder, opera (Det kgl. Teater) * 1942 Farinelli, operetta (text: Mogens Dam) * 1948 Gadeprinsessen, operette * 1950 V

Émile Damais

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

Émile Damais (4 March 1906 in Paris – 8 April 2003 in Ivry-sur-Seine) was a French composer and musicologist. A prisoner in the Stalag II B, Hammerstein / Schlochau (Poland) during the Second World War, he composed there Ô nuit… for singing and orchestra. He was also a professor of music history. Compositions * Sonata for violon * Appassionato for doublebasse and piano * O Nuit… for singing and orchestra (after the Mystère des saints innocents by Charles Péguy composed in the stalag in February 1942 * String quartet (1944). * Symphonic sketch for saxophone and orchestra * Concert Esquisse Symphonique for saxophone in Eb and piano * 5 divertissements pourophone for alto saxophone in Eb solo * Litanies florales, mélody for voice and piano * Petites Phrases for violin and piano on Amazon * Motets published by the Schola Cantorum publishing department in Paris * Passion according to Saint Matthew, premiered in Limoges in 1948 * Oratorio on a text by Paul Claudel, Le Chemin de la Croix for mixed choirs, large orchestra, solo soprano, tenor solo, bass and reciting, written during the war and given to the Concerts Pasdeloup in 1946 * Organ pieces like this Interlude for Christmas (Musiq

Émile Goué

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

Émile Goué (13 June 1904 – 10 October 1946) was a French composer. Life Born in Châteauroux (Indre), with a father who was inspector of primary education, a mother who was head teacher of a teacher-training school for young girls in Guéret (Creuse) and four sisters, all of whom became teachers, the path of the young Goué was clear: he was naturally destined for the teaching profession. With a keen intelligence, he 1921, he obtained the two existing baccalaureats: that of elementary mathematics and that of philosophy. he graduated in science at the age of 20. He was appointed professor at Boulogne-sur-Mer three years later. Thereafter, he transferred to Agen in 1924 where he successfully completed the physics and chemistry degree. In 1927, he married Yvonne Burg and they had three children: Michel, Bernard and Françoise. He taught successively at the Lycée Montaigne in Bordeaux and Lycée Buffon in Paris. He taught in so-called “special mathematics” classes (preparation for the Grandes Écoles competitions) and ended his university career in one of the most renowned chairs in higher education, at lycée Louis-le-Grand. Like Borodin, his scientific and academic career was coupled with r

Emilia Gubitosi

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

Emilia Gubitosi (3 Feb 1887 – 17 Jan 1972) was an Italian pianist and composer. She was the first woman to graduate in composition from the Conservatorio San Pietro a Majella in Naples. She worked as a concert pianist in Europe until her marriage to composer Franco Michele Napolitano, and then as an administrator. She later taught at the Conservatory and assisted with the symphony orchestra and the choral school. She helped found the Associazione Musicale Alessandro Scarlatti in Naples. She was a composer of large-scale works for orchestra, as well as operas and chamber works. Life Emilia Gubitosi was born in Naples and studied music with Beniamino Cesi, Costantino Palumbo, Fromesco Simonetti, Camillo De Nardis and Nicola D’Arienzo at the Conservatorio San Pietro a Majella in Naples, graduating in 1906 with a diploma in piano and in 1906 as the first woman graduate in composition. Works Gubitosi composed mostly large-scale works for orchestra, but also chamber works and songs, and two operas, Fatum, a four-act work, and Nada Delvig, a one-act opera published in 1909. Selected works include: *Concerto for piano and orchestra (1917 ; publ. 1943) *Allegro appassionato for violin and o

Emiliana de Zubeldia

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

Emiliana de Zubeldía Inda (6 December 1888 – 26 May 1987) was a Spanish pianist and composer. She is known for her piano, choral, and solo voice compositions. Biography Emiliana de Zubeldia was born on 6 December 1888 in Salinas de Oro, Navarre, in northern Spain, and emigrated to Latin America prior to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. She began her musical studies at Pamplona and in 1904 continued at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, where she studied composition with Vincent d’Indy and piano with Blanche Selva. She returned to Pamplona at the death of his father in 1909. She returned to Paris in 1922 to continue her studies in composition. In 1928 she toured the America’s including Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Montevideo, Buenos Aires and, in 1930, moved to New York City. Zubeldia met Andrés Segovia and Nicanor Zabaleta in New York in 1933. Both began their careers as soloists and shared Zubeldia’s broadcasts on Radio City Music Hall, giving talks about Spanish music until the summer of 1934. Zubeldia toured the Caribbean and Mexico, and in 1935 she settled in Mexico. After the Spanish Civil War, she took Mexican citizenship in 1942 and, in 1947, moved to Hermosillo, Sonora. She

Émilien Allard

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

Émilien Allard (12 June 1915 – 18 November 1976) was a Canadian carillonneur and composer. He composed more than 50 works for carillon and made more than 700 transcriptions of carillon music; many of which are still performed in Europe and North America. In 1958, he won the International Carillonneurs’ Prize at the Brussels World’s Fair. For RCA Victor he released the LP album Carols at the Carillon of Saint Joseph’s Oratory for which he wrote the arrangements. His Marche du maréchal and his Marche H.I.C. were recorded by Howard Cable and his Notule No. 1 and Profil canadien no 2. were included on Gordon Slater’s LP Bells and Brass. Many of his original manuscripts and papers are a part of the collection at the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec. Life and career Born in Montreal, Quebec, Allard’s initial musical training was with Antonio Thompson and Father Joseph-Gers Turcotte at the Trois-Rivières seminary where he studied piano and music theory. He was a clarinetist in the city concert band of Grand-Mère, Quebec during his youth and later served as that ensemble’s conductor. He also worked as an organist at a few churches in that town. He earned a lauréat diploma from

Emilio Pujol

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Emilio Pujol Vilarrubí (or Emili; 7 April 1886 – 15 November 1980) was a Spanish composer, guitarist and a leading teacher of the classical guitar. Biography Emili Pujol was born in the little village of Granadella just outside Lleida, Spain. He began his studies with Francisco Tárrega in 1902, when he was sixteen years of age. At this time, Miguel Llobet was making his debut as a concert artist outside Barcelona. Pujol fondly remembered his first encounter with Tárrega and in his biography of his teacher, he described his mestre in very endearing, romantic terms. During the war years 1914–1918 he did not travel much and mainly remained in Catalonia. In 1918 he undertook his first tour of South America, starting in Buenos Aires. The only major interruptions in his concert travels were his marriage to Matilde Cuervas in Paris, an Andalusian flamenco guitarist, and the period of time he devoted to historical research in Paris into the instrumental predecessors of the guitar. During this period he partnered with the publisher Max Eschig in publishing his “Bibliothèque de musique ancienne et moderne pour guitare” (from 1927), resulting in numerous works for solo guitar by historical an

Emirto de Lima

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José María Emirto de Lima y Sintiago (25 January 1890 – 14 August 1972) was a Dutch composer, conductor, music critic and music teacher. Biography José María Emirto de Lima y Sintiago was born on 25 January 1890 in Willemstad, Curaçao, to Paul Quirino de Lima (1861 – 1926) and Josefina Sintiago. While living in Curaçao, de Lima was taught how to play the violin and piano by his father. Later while located in Barcelona and Paris, he was further educated by Felip Pedrell and Vincent d’Indy, respectively. De Lima later moved to Baranquilla to take up a music job offer originally meant for his father. De Lima was a teacher in a music academy in the city and was at one point the Honorary Consul in Barranquilla for the countries of Honduras and Liberia. He later released his first music compositions in 1911 and became a conductor for radio the following decade. Most of his works were in the Antillean waltz and Mazurka styles. In Colombia, de Lima became the first person to publish local traditional music, listing down songs and oral traditions around the country and released it under the title of “Folklore Colombiano” in 1942. He had also founded the Philharmonic Orchestra of Barranquill

Emma Martínez de la Torre Shelton

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Emma Martínez de la Torre Shelton (sometimes y Shelton) (15 January 1889 – 1980) was a Cuban-born pianist and composer long active in the Canary Islands. Martínez was born in Havana, and moved with her family to Cádiz at the age of three. After lessons at that city’s Santa Cecilia Academy and with Rafael Toniasi Requena in Madrid, she traveled to Rome for further work at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. She then settled in Tenerife, where she continued her studies with Santiago Sabina Corona. She worked as an accompanist to Néstor de la Torre between 1909 and 1917; she taught at the island’s conservatory, and was otherwise heavily active in the musical life of the community as performer and concert organizer. As a composer Martínez was self-taught; most of her output dates to late in her career, and includes orchestral works as well as chamber music and songs. References

Emmanuel Bondeville

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Emmanuel Bondeville was a French composer and music administrator, born 29 October 1898 in Rouen, and died 26 November 1987 in Paris. He was a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Biography As a young man he was organist at the church of Saint-Nicaise in Rouen and Notre-Dame in Caen. Bondeville lost both his parents when he was 16, and took on various jobs – organist, bank clerk, translator - to get by. He made his beginnings in music around 1923 writing works for piano, symphonic poems, opéras-comiques and opéras. During this time he also travelled around Europe and worked as an assistant in a music shop. He eventually had lessons in harmony and counterpoint from Jean Déré. From 1949 to 1951 Bondeville was director of the Opéra-Comique, followed by a similar position at the Opéra de Paris from 1952 to 1969. He was married three times, among which to the mezzo-soprano Viorica Cortez, to whom he dedicated his opera Antoine et Cléopâtre, and later to Dominique Plessis (with whom he broadcast programmes entitled ‘Une saison d’opéra’ on France-Inter). Works * Les Illustrations, symphonic triptych, comprising : ** Le Bal des pendus based on Les Illuminations by Rimbaud (first performe

Emmy Brady Rogers

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Emma “Emmy” Cumine Brady Rogers (October 6, 1897 – September 8, 1985) was an American pianist, music educator, composer, and music critic at the Rocky Mountain News. Early life and education Emma Brady was born in Hoosick Falls, New York, Her brother Joshua Wilson Brady was a cartoonist and a Catholic priest. Her other brother William Veirs Brady was a civil engineer. Brady graduated from Northwestern University, and earned a Master of Music degree from the Chicago Musical College. She also had a degree in Music Education from the Colorado State College of Education. She also studied with Alexander Raab, Joseph Lhevinne, Artur Schnabel, and Arne Oldberg. She also studied composition with Nadia Boulanger. Career Brady was a “Chicago pianist” and piano teacher as a young woman. She taught piano at Chadron State Normal College in Nebraska beginning in 1931, and later at the Lamont School of Music in Denver. She performed with the Denver Civic Orchestra Rogers became a music critic and composer. She played her own composition, “Platte Valley”, with the Colorado State College of Education symphony in 1953, and with the Fort Collins Civic Symphony in 1956. Works by Rogers were included i

Emmy Wegener

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Emmy Heil Frensel-Wegener (14 June 1901 in Amsterdam – 11 January 1973 in Laren (North Holland) was a Dutch violinist, pianist, poet and composer. Life and career Wegener was the daughter of composer Bertha Frensel Wegener-Koopman and American insurance agent John Frensel-Wegener. She studied at the music school in Bussum and then in England, then continued her studies at the Conservatory in Amsterdam where she received a degree in violin with Felice Togni. She also studied composition with Sem Dresden, clarinet with Willem Brohm and Gregorian chant. In 1926 Wegener married Jan Heil, but the couple divorced in 1932. In 1934 she served on the jury for the evaluation of vocal quartet a cappella compositions for the Dutch Association for Contemporary Music, along with Hendrik Andriessen, Henk Badings, Anthon van der Horst and Daniel Ruyneman, but the jury awarded no first prize, finding no “composition of exemplary meaning” among the 47 submissions. In 1935 Wegener experienced a serious illness that progressed to paralysis by 1950. She wrote at least one poem which appeared in De Nieuwe Gids. The city of Gorinchem named a street after her. Works Wegener composed works for orchestra, c

Endre Szervánszky

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Endre Szervánszky (27 December 191125 June 1977) was a Hungarian composer. Biography Szervánszky was born in Kistétény and studied the clarinet at the Budapest Academy of Music (1922–27). He played in various orchestras before returning to the academy to study composition with Albert Siklós (1931–36). He then worked as an orchestrator for the Hungarian Radio and taught musical theory. He was appointed professor of composition at the Budapest Academy in 1948. Szervánszky first came to public attention with his First String Quartet (1936–38) and his works of this period were influenced by his compatriots, Zoltán Kodály and Béla Bartók. Works for this time include the Clarinet Serenade (1950) and the Flute Concerto (1952–53). From the early 1950s Szervánszky embarked on a series of larger compositions, one of the longest being the Concerto for Orchestra in memory of Attila József. Each of the concerto’s five movements is based on a quotation from József. The fourth has folk music elements and the whole demonstrates the influence of Bartók. Both the String Quartet no.2 (1956–57) and the Wind Quintet no.2 (1957) also demonstrate the composer’s increasing interest in serialism. For his S

Ennio Porrino

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Ennio Porrino (20 January 1910 – 25 September 1959) was an Italian composer and teacher. Amongst his compositions were orchestral works, an oratorio and several operas and ballets. His best known work is the symphonic poem Sardegna, a tribute to his native Sardinia, which premiered in Florence in 1933. Life and career Porrino was born in Cagliari and studied at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. He later studied with Ottorino Respighi from 1932 to 1935. According to Alfredo Casella, he became one of Respighi’s disciples, championing an Italian national music movement and openly opposing composers such as Casella, Dallapiccola, and Malipiero for their Modernist music. After Respighi’s death in 1936, Porrino and Respighi’s widow Elsa completed his unfinished opera Lucrezia for its posthumous premiere at La Scala in 1937. Porrino died in Rome in 1959 at the age of 49. The Concorso Internazionale di Pianoforte Ennio Porrino was established in his memory in 1980. Selected filmography * The Howl (1948) * Altura (1949) References External links * *

Enrique Iturriaga

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Enrique Iturriaga Romero (April 3, 1918 – November 23, 2019) was a Peruvian composer and educator. Biography Enrique Iturriaga Romero was born in Lima, Peru, in 1918 and spent most of his childhood in Huacho, a small port city north of the Peruvian capital. As a child, Iturriaga did not receive any formal musical training, but music was always present in the Iturriaga family house. His grandmother and older cousins often played the piano during family gatherings, arousing Enrique’s interest in music from an early age, and was also encouraged by his father to play the piano. The young Iturriaga was naturally involved in music and enjoyed improvising on the piano; He also learned to play popular music like Peruvian waltz, marinera, tango, jazz, all by ear. Peruvian popular music not only played an important role in the development of Iturriaga’s childhood, but also later shaped his musical creativity. In the coastal regions of Peru where he grew up, the most common type of popular music during the first half of the twentieth century was música criolla. Although Iturriaga’s exposure to music in his early years was predominantly that of popular idioms, the family’s Victrola gramophone

Ephraim Amu

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Ephraim Kɔku Amu (13 September 1899 – 2 January 1995) was a Ghanaian composer, musicologist and teacher. He was a mentor to the musicologist J. H. Kwabena Nketia. Biography Early life and education He was born on 13 September 1899 at Peki-Avetile (also called Abenase) in the Peki Traditional Area of the Volta Region and as a male child born on a Wednesday was called Kɔku. His father was Stephen Amuyaa, a wood carver who was popularly called Papa Stefano. His mother was Sarah Akoram Ama. Ephraim Kɔku Amu was baptised by the Rev. Rudolf Mallet on 22 October 1899. Amu first went to school in May 1906 and at about age 12 he entered the Peki-Blengo E.P. Boarding Middle School, where he showed much interest and love for music and agriculture. According to him, he enjoyed the music played during church collections when the music teacher, Mr Karl Theodore Ntem, played soul-moving renditions on the organ. Amu and his music teacher struck a mutual agreement whereby Amu requested to be taught the skills of organ playing and in return Mr Ntem asked him to work on his farm on Saturdays. In 1915, Amu passed the standard 7 School Leaving Certificate examination and also passed the Abetifi Teacher

Erhard Mauersberger

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Erhard Mauersberger (29 December 1903 in Mauersberg, Saxony – 11 December 1982 in Leipzig) was a German choral conductor who conducted the Thomanerchor as the 14th Thomaskantor since Johann Sebastian Bach. He was also an academic teacher and composer. Biography Mauersberger, the son of a cantor in Mauersberg, Saxony, was the younger brother of Rudolf Mauersberger, who was cantor of the Dresdner Kreuzchor. He was a Thomaner (a member of the Thomanerchor) from 1914 to 1920 under Gustav Schreck. He studied the organ with Karl Straube at the Leipziger Konservatorium. In 1925 he became director of the Aachener Bachverein, and in 1928 became a teacher at the Mainz Conservatory and a cantor at the Christuskirche in Mainz. From 1930 he was cantor at the Georgenkirche in Eisenach. In 1932 he started teaching at the Hochschule für Musik “Franz Liszt”, Weimar, and was appointed professor for choral conducting in 1946. In autumn 1933 he joined the German Christians. From 1939 on, he worked in their Institute for the Study and Elimination of Jewish Influence on German Church Life and was the musical editor of their “de-Judaized” hymnal, Grosser Gott, wir loben Dich. Beginning in 1950, he direct

Eric Coates

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Eric Francis Harrison Coates (27 August 1886 – 21 December 1957) was an English composer of light music and, early in his career, a leading violist. Coates was born into a musical family, but, despite his wishes and obvious talent, his parents only reluctantly allowed him to pursue a musical career. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music under Frederick Corder (composition) and Lionel Tertis (viola), and played in string quartets and theatre pit bands, before joining symphony orchestras conducted by Thomas Beecham and Henry Wood. Coates’s experience as a player added to the rigorous training he had received at the academy and contributed to his skill as a composer. While still working as a violist, Coates composed songs and other light musical works. In 1919 he gave up the viola permanently and from then until his death he made his living as a composer and occasional conductor. His prolific output includes the London Suite (1932), of which the well-known “Knightsbridge March” is the concluding section; the waltz “By the Sleepy Lagoon” (1930); and “The Dam Busters March” (1954). His early compositions were influenced by the music of Arthur Sullivan and Edward German, but Coates’s

Eric Fenby

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Eric William Fenby OBE (22 April 190618 February 1997) was an English composer, conductor, pianist, organist and teacher, born in Scarborough, Yorkshire. He is best known for being Frederick Delius’s amanuensis from 1928 to 1934. He helped Delius realise a number of works that would not otherwise have been forthcoming as the composer was too ill to write them down, and between them they devised a way for Fenby to take dictation from Delius. After Delius died in 1934, Fenby worked with Sir Thomas Beecham on a production of the composer’s opera Koanga at Covent Garden and then became a music adviser to the London publishing house Boosey & Hawkes, where he introduced the young Benjamin Britten to the company. From 1964 to 1977 he was professor of harmony at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Fenby composed music of his own, including the film score for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1939 Jamaica Inn, but he was intensely self-critical and destroyed most of his compositions. He retired to his native Scarborough, where he died aged ninety. Life and career Early years Fenby was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, on 22 April 1906, the only son and eldest of three children of Herbert Henry Fenby – an

Eric Fogg

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Charles William Eric Fogg (21 February 190319 December 1939) was an English composer, conductor and BBC broadcaster. His early works were influenced by Igor Stravinsky, where he came under the influence of Sydney Nicholson and Ernest Bullock. His contemporaries there included Leslie Heward and Eric Warr. Fogg went on to study with Granville Bantock in Birmingham On 16 June 1921, his “Chinese suite” The Golden Valley (1919) was premiered by Adrian Boult with the Queen’s Hall Orchestra at the Royal College of Music, in the same concert as the first and only performance of Ivor Gurney’s War Elegy. He joined the BBC in Manchester in 1924 as an accompanist, rising to assistant music director under T H Morrison. In the 1930s he was well known as “Uncle Eric” of the radio programme Children’s Favourites. He succeeded Archie Camden as the conductor of the Manchester Schoolchildren’s Orchestra. In 1934 he moved to London and became musical director of the BBC’s Empire Service (now the BBC World Service), where he founded the Empire Orchestra of 22 players in December 1934. After this time his composition work tailed off due to pressure of other work, which included conducting the Empire Orc

Eric Wild (conductor)

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Eric Lees Wild (11 February 191029 April 1989) was a Canadian conductor, trumpeter, arranger, and composer. He was the youngest child of Isaac Ashton Wild (18711963) and Sarah Ann Wild () (18741971) who emigrated from Lancashire, England in 1901. Life and career Born in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Wild studied conducting and arranging at the University of Michigan where he earned a Bachelor of Music in 1932. From 193336 he worked as an arranger for the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission in Toronto where he frequently collaborated with conductor Geoffrey Waddington. He toured to London as a member of Billy Bissett’s Canadian Band in 193638. During that time, he also served as principal trumpeter and arranger for the BBC Symphony Orchestra 193639, and appeared with his own band on BBC Television. As a member of Billy Bissett’s band, Billy Bissett and His Canadians, Wild travelled to Monaco to perform at the International Sporting Club resort casino in Monte Carlo. The band was then booked at Savoy Hotel, London in 1936 and The May Fair Hotel, London in 1936 and 1937. In 1937 Wild was offered his own programme on the BBC, Eric Wild and the Tea-Timers, which was the first television

Erich Böhlke

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Erich Böhlke (9 September 1895 – 19 April 1979) was a German conductor and composer. Life Böhlke was born as the son of an art dealer in Szczecin. Already as a child and teenager he made his mark musically. So from 1909, he directed the Stettin male choral society Melodia. Böhlke first prepared himself for the profession of a teacher by attending the in Maszewo and then the teachers’ seminar in Pölitz. During the First World War he served on the Eastern Front. He passed the 2nd teacher’s exam, but then he devoted himself entirely to music. From 1919 he studied at the Berlin University of the Arts. In 1924 he became bandmaster at the . Further stations were from 1926 musical director at the Theater Koblenz and from 1929 chief conductor at the Staatstheater Wiesbaden. In 1934, he became general music director and artistic director of the Stadttheater Magdeburg. There he was replaced as artistic director by a party member in 1939, but remained general music director until the war-related closure in 1944. After the Second World War he was General Music Director of the Staatstheater Oldenburg from 1947 to 1950. From 1950 he worked as a freelance musician. During this time he was, among

Erich Katz

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Erich Katz (July 31, 1900 – July 30, 1973) was a German-born musicologist, composer, music critic, musician and professor. He fled the Nazis in 1939, arriving first in England, emigrating to the United States in 1943, where he became a citizen. He was a driving force behind the early music and recorder movements in the United States. Bernard Krainis, a co-founder of New York Pro Musica studied with Katz. Biographical details Katz was born into a prosperous Jewish family in Posen, then part of Prussia, now Poznań, Poland. His father was Albert Katz, a jeweler and watchmaker, the son of a baker. Katz initially began studying engineering, but switched to music after one semester. Katz was married to Adelheid Soltau, who was not Jewish, in 1926. Katz also directed the New York Musician’s Workshop, a group of singers and instrumentalists which performed early and contemporary music. Most of those in the group were students of his from the college. He reorganized ARS in 1947 and remained its music director until 1959. His classes were influential for many students. His music history class was described as including not just discussion and listening, but students also performed the music,

Erich Walter Sternberg

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Erich Walter Sternberg (; May 31, 1891, in Berlin – December 15, 1974, in Tel Aviv) was a German-born Israeli composer. He was one of the founders of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Biography After graduating with a law degree from Kiel University in 1918, Sternberg began studying composition with Hugo Leichtentritt and piano with H. Praetorius in Berlin. From 1925 Sternberg visited Palestine annually and moved there in 1932, along with other Jewish musicians who fled Germany prior to World War II. His life was devoted to composition and teaching of composition. In 1936 he helped Bronisław Huberman found the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and promoted the Palestine chapter of the International Society for Contemporary Music. Sternberg found it difficult to overcome the trauma of displacement from his German heritage and never felt entirely comfortable in Israel. He was never offered a permanent position at the Palestine Conservatory or the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, although he occasionally taught there as a guest lecturer. This advocacy for an individual style stood at odds with many of his colleagues’ quest for a distinctly national style. As a result, Sternberg’s works do

Erich Wolfgang Korngold

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Erich Wolfgang Korngold (; May 29, 1897 – November 29, 1957) was an Austrian composer and conductor, who left Europe in the mid-1930s and later adopted US nationality. A child prodigy, he became one of the most important and influential composers in Hollywood history. During the 1920s he re-orchestrated, re-arranged and nearly re-composed several operettas by Johann Strauss II. By 1931 he was a professor of music at the Vienna State Academy. At the request of motion picture director Max Reinhardt, and due to the rise of the Nazi regime, Korngold moved to Hollywood in 1934 to write music for films. His first was Reinhardt’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935). He subsequently wrote scores for such films as Captain Blood (1935), which helped boost the career of its starring newcomer, Errol Flynn. His score for Anthony Adverse (1936) won an Oscar; two years later he won another Oscar for The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). Korngold scored 16 Hollywood films in all, and received two more nominations for Oscars. Along with Max Steiner and Alfred Newman, he is one of the founders of American film music. Although his late-Romantic style of classical composition was no longer as popular when

Erik Bergman

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Erik Valdemar Bergman (24 November 1911 – 24 April 2006) was a composer of classical music from Finland. Bergman’s style ranged widely, from Romanticism in his early works (many of which he later prohibited from being performed) to modernism and primitivism, among other genres. He won the Nordic Council Music Prize in 1994 for his opera Det sjungande trädet. Biography Bergman was born in Nykarleby. He studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and afterwards with Heinz Tiessen in Berlin and with Wladimir Vogel in Ascona. Since 1963 he taught composition at the Sibelius Academy, besides working until 1978 as a choir conductor. Bergman is considered a pioneer of modern music in Finland. Because of his training he was considered as a representative of the avant-garde; he developed for example the twelve-tone techniques of Arnold Schoenberg learned from Wladimir Vogel. He composed song cycles, cantatas, pieces for piano and for organ, a guitar suite, a chamber concert for flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, violin, viola, cello, percussion and piano and further chamber works. His Requiem for a dead poet (1970) and Colori ed improvvisazioni for orchestra (1973) gave him international recog

Erik Chisholm

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Erik William Chisholm (4 January 1904 – 8 June 1965) was a Scottish composer, pianist, organist and conductor sometimes known as “Scotland’s forgotten composer”. According to his biographer, Chisholm “was the first composer to absorb Celtic idioms into his music in form as well as content, his achievement paralleling that of Bartók in its depth of understanding and its daring”, which led some to give him the nickname “MacBartók”. He left Queen’s Park School, Glasgow, at the early age of 13 due to ill health but showed a talent for music composition and some of his pieces were published during his childhood. By the time he was 12 he was giving organ recitals including an important one in Kingston upon Hull. The pianist Lev Pouishnoff then became his principal teacher and mentor. In 1927 he travelled to Nova Scotia, Canada, where he was appointed the organist and choirmaster at the Westminster Presbyterian Church, New Glasgow, and director of music at Pictou Academy. A year later he returned to Scotland and from 1928 to 1933 he was organist at St Matthew’s Church, Bath Street, Glasgow, later renamed Renfield St Stephen’s and now St Andrew’s West. In 1933 he was appointed organist at

Erik Nordgren

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Herman “Erik” Nordgren (13 February 1913 – 6 March 1992) was a Swedish composer, arranger and bandleader. Biography Erik Nordgren was born in Sireköpinge, Malmöhus County, and grew up in the Skåne countryside. In 1941 he graduated from College of Music in Stockholm. As a musician, he played viola . Between 1945 and 1973 he wrote music for more than 60 Swedish films, including 18 of the Ingmar Bergman’s most famous films, such as The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Smiles of a Summer Night, The Virgin Spring, and Jan Troell s Pause in the marshland , Here’s Your Life and The Emigrants ; the last film work in 1971. In addition, he collaborated with directors Alf Sjöberg, Hasse Ekman, Gustaf Molander, Alf Kjellin and Lars-Erik Stewart. He was music director at the Swedish Film Industry, 1953–1967, and then 1967–1977 he served as orchestra director at the SR. In addition he wrote three string quartets, chamber symphony (1944), Concerto for clarinet (1950), Concerto for Bassoon (1960) and Music for orchestra. From the 1960s, he composed electronic music, something that was not so well known to most people. For the music to Wild Strawberries he won a special award from the magazine Folk

Erland von Koch

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Sigurd Christian Jag Erland Vogt von Koch (26 April 1910 – 31 January 2009) was a Swedish composer. He wrote symphonies, ballets, an opera, and other compositions, including music for film. Life and career Born in Stockholm as the son of composer Sigurd von Koch (1879–1919), Erland von Koch studied at the Stockholm Conservatory from 1931 to 1935 and subsequently passed the advanced choirmaster and organist examinations. Between 1936 and 1938, he lived in Germany and France in order to pursue studies in composition with Paul Höffer, conducting with Clemens Krauss, and piano with Claudio Arrau. Later, he took private classes with Tor Mann in Sweden. Teaching at the Karl Wohlfarts Musikschule from 1939 to 1945, von Koch also spent the final two years of this period working as a sound expert and choirmaster for radio broadcasting. He composed much music for the Swedish film industry. From 1953 to 1975, he was lecturer in harmony at the Stockholm Conservatory, where he was appointed a professor in 1968. twelve Scandinavian Dances, one opera (Pelle Svanslös), and five ballets, as well as music for wind orchestra. Even in his nineties he composed/studied every day. His works can be descri

Erling Brene

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

Niels Erling Emmanuel Brene (14 November 1896 – 17 May 1980) was a Danish composer. He was born and died in Copenhagen. In 1948, he won a bronze medal in the art competitions of the Olympic Games for his orchestral composition Vigeur (Vigour). Erling Brene was an accomplished composer and music teacher from 1950–70 at The Ellebjerg School in Copenhagen. Selected works Opera * Mordet i værtshuset (Murder at the Inn), chamber opera/puppet comedy, Op.12 (1930) * Drengen med fløjten, school opera, Op.50 (1950) * Peter Pan, school opera, Op.54 (1953) * Under Piletræt, opera after Hans Christian Andersen, Op.55 (1954) * Besøgeren, opera, Op.66 (1964) Incidental music * Trommer i natten (1930) * Suite af Musik for marionetteater, Op.18b (1932) Orchestra * Symphony (1920) * Junkeren og Møllerpigen (1921) * Sommer, symphony (1924) * Sinfonietta (1925) * Tre Stykker (3 Pieces) for chamber orchestra (1926) * Suite for chamber orchestra, Op.5 (1928) * Soldatens Ballade (1930) * Suite from Mordet i værtshuset, Op.14b (1930) * Suite for string orchestra, Op.21 (1934) * Ouverture, Op.22 * 3 Epigrammer (3 Epigrams) for string orchestra (1936) * Capriccio, Op.27 (1936) * Rapsodi, Op.28 (1936) * Ove

Erna Tauro

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Erna Tauro ( Pergament; 16 August 1916 4 June 1993), was a Finland-Swedish pianist and composer, as well as a theatre musician and teacher. She is remembered for her collaboration with Tove Jansson. Biography Erna Pergament was born in 1916, in Viipuri. She was the daughter of Isak Pergament and Rifka (née Rosenthal), and niece of composers Moses Pergament and Simon Parmet. The family moved to Berlin in 1921 and later to Helsinki. Tauro studied piano and music theory in Berlin, and according to some sources, also studied music at the Sibelius Academy in Finland. During World War II, Tauro worked as a nurse and also an accompanist. She married Risto Ilmari Tauro in 1944, and they had one daughter born in 1945. They divorced in 1950. From 1955 to 1969 she was principal accompanist at the Little Theater in Helsinki and composed music for a number of plays and musicals. Alongside her employment at the Little Theater, Tauro also worked as a pianist at Stockmann’s lunch restaurant, among other places. Her composition “Höstvisa” (“Autumn Song”) with lyrics by Tove Jansson won third prize in the 1965 Finnish Broadcasting Song Contest. The same year, she won second place with the song “Den

Erna Woll

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

Erna Woll (23 March 1917 – 7 April 2005) was a German composer, church musician and author. Life Erna Woll was born in St. Ingbert in the Saar. She studied music from 1936 to 1938 at the Evangelisches Kirchenmusikalisches Institut Heidelberg with Wolfgang Fortner and studied composition from 1940 to 1944 with Joseph Haas and Gustav Geierhaas at the Munich Academy of Music. During this time she converted to Catholicism, and from 1946 to 1948 she studied Catholic church music at the Cologne Music Academy with Heinrich Lemacher, Theodor Bernhard Rehmann and Hermann Schroeder. From 1950 to 1962, Woll worked as an organist in Cologne Bayenthal and a music teacher and choral director at the Church Music Institute in Speyer. From 1962 to 1969 she was a lecturer, and from 1969 to 1972 she was Honorary Professor at the College of Education at Augsburg. In 1972 she retired from working due to a serious illness, but after recovering she continued to compose. Woll died 7 April 2005 in Augsburg. Erna Woll was a member of professional organizations including the Werkgemeinschaft Musik, the Ecumenical Lyricists and Composers working group, and the AG Musik in der Evangelischen Jugend. Honors *196

Ernani Braga

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Ernani Braga (born Hernani da Costa Braga; January 10, 1888 – September 17, 1948) He composed works for voice, choir, orchestra and piano. He also taught in Campinas, Araraquara and Jaboticabal. Among his pupils can be listed Adolpho Tabacow and Camargo Guarnieri. and Erik Satie’s parody on Frédéric Chopin’s funeral march (No.2 of Embryons desséchés). This collection is based on material from a region with sizeable population of African people. Their influence produces intricate rhythmic patterns and leads to the use of African dialects. The speech rhythm becomes an important compositional device in these pieces. of which the last (Velha gaita) was harmonized only for one voice and piano, while each of the other ten songs have two versions: for 2 female voices and piano (however in most of the songs the second voice is ad libitum) or for female chorus a cappella (usually 3- or 4-part, though the Chimarrita is 5-part). The lack of choral arrangement for the last song was explained by Braga merely through the lack of time, but there is an old LP recording of such arrangement, what makes one suggest that the composer worked it out at some moment later. References Further reading * Gis

Ernest Charles

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Ernest Charles (Minneapolis, Minnesota, November 21, 1895 – Beverly Hills, California, April 16, 1984) was an American composer of art songs. Life and musical career Charles was born in Minnesota with the surname Grosskopf. He attended The University of Southern California as a college student and studied singing with Charles Modini Wood. He eventually went to New York City, changed his surname to Charles, and began his professional life as a singer, performing in vaudeville and Broadway reviews, including Earl Carroll’s Vanities in 1928 and the George White Scandals in 1929. His songs became widely known after 1932, when John Charles Thomas performed his song Clouds in a New York recital. Following that success, he continued to compose songs regularly until about 1950. At that time he lived with his wife, a mezzo-soprano, in New York City, and produced the radio program Great Moments in Music. He returned to California in 1953, settling in Beverly Hills, where he spent the remaining years of his life. He was selected as a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity. He was a member of Phi Mu Alpha, an honorary member of the Apollo Club of Minne

Ernest Farrar

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Ernest Bristow Farrar (7 July 1885 – 18 September 1918) was an English composer, pianist and organist. Life Ernest Farrar was born in Lewisham, London, but moved in 1887 to Micklefield in Yorkshire, where his father was a clergyman. The rest of his life was very much centred in the north of England. He was educated at Leeds Grammar School, where he began organ studies. His studies at Durham University did not progress beyond his matriculation. In May 1905 he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music. There he studied with Sir Charles Villiers Stanford and Sir Walter Parratt and began friendships with Frank Bridge and Geoffrey Molyneux Palmer. He also took up several posts as organist in All Saints’ Dresden, St Hilda’s, South Shields and Christ Church, High Harrogate. At Harrogate, he worked closely with local conductor Julian Clifford and took on the 14-year-old Gerald Finzi as a composition pupil. His name is one of the 38 on the War Memorial at the Royal College of Music. Works and legacy Despite his short life, Farrar wrote a large body of music for orchestra, voices and organ. His works include The Blessed Damozel, a Celtic Suite and the song cycle Vagabond Songs. Two orc

Ernest John Moeran

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Ernest John Smeed Moeran (; 31 December 1894 – 1 December 1950) was an Anglo-Irish composer whose work was strongly influenced by English and Irish folk music of which he was an assiduous collector. His oeuvre includes orchestral pieces, concertos, chamber and keyboard works, and a number of choral and song cycles as well as individual songs. The son of a clergyman, Moeran studied at the Royal College of Music under Charles Villiers Stanford before service in the army during the First World War, in which he was wounded. After the war he was a pupil of John Ireland, and quickly established a reputation as a composer of promise with a number of well-received works. From 1925 to 1928 he shared a cottage with the composer Peter Warlock; the bohemian lifestyle and heavy drinking during this period interrupted his creativity for a while, and sowed the seeds of the alcoholism that would blight his later life. He resumed composing in the 1930s, and re-established his reputation with a series of major works, including a symphony and a violin concerto. From 1934 onwards he spent much of his time in Ireland, mainly in the coastal town of Kenmare. In 1945 Moeran married the cellist Peers Coetm

Ernest Kanitz

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Ernest Kanitz (born Ernst Kanitz; 9 April 1894 – 7 April 1978) was an Austrian-American composer and pedagogue. Biography Kanitz was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary on 9 April 1894. Born Ernst, he changed his name to Ernest in order to differentiate himself from a Viennese concert manager of the same name. He studied law at the University of Vienna concurrently pursuing piano lessons and studying theory and music composition. He graduated in 1918. Schreker conducted the first performance of his Lustige Ouvertüre (Cheerful Overture) in the autumn of 1918. Following the performance, the overture was described as “a witty, pretty composition” and referred to as his best-known work in Musikblätter des Anbruch (1921). In 1921, he received initial exposure through the première under Alexander von Zemlinsky of his oratorio Das Hohelied (The Song of Songs). This enabled him to take a professorship which commenced in 1922 at the Neues Konservatorium where he taught analysis, theory and composition for 16 years. On 4 February 1926, Austrian conductor Clemens Krauss gave the successful première of Kanitz’s Four Orchestral Songs. He founded the Vienna Women’s Chorus in 1930 which he conducted

Ernest MacMillan

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Sir Ernest Alexander Campbell MacMillan (18 August 1893 – 6 May 1973) was a Canadian conductor, composer and organist. He was Canada’s only “Musical Knight”, and is widely regarded as being Canada’s pre-eminent musician from the 1920s through the 1950s. His contributions to the development of music in Canada were sustained and varied, as conductor, performer, composer, administrator, lecturer, adjudicator, writer, humourist, and statesman. Biography Early life and education (1893–1914) Ernest Alexander Campbell MacMillan was born in Mimico (Etobicoke), Ontario, the first-born of Reverend Alexander MacMillan (1864-1961), and Wilhelmina “Minnie” Ross (1870-1932). His parents had moved to Mimico the previous December, when Rev. MacMillan, educated in Edinburgh, Scotland, was called to be the first resident minister of Mimico Presbyterian Church, that had been formed in 1889. His mother, was a third generation of ministers daughters from Scotland, and in her case from Pictou, Nova Scotia. His first musical influences were his parents. From a very young age, he became fascinated while watching his mother play piano and decided to learn music. His father, who became minister at Toronto’s

Ernest Manheim

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Ernest Manheim (27 January 1900 – 28 July 2002), known as Ernő until 1920, Ernst until 1934, and then Ernest in the United States, was an American sociologist, anthropologist, and composer born in Hungary, at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Life Manheim attended a secondary school in Budapest from 1909 and graduated in 1917. Then he enrolled in the Military Academy for the Royal Hungarian Home Defense in Budapest and at the same time started chemistry studies at the der Royal Technical Joseph-Academy in Budapest. In 1918 he became a soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army ranking as a corporal. After World War I he resumed his studies in chemistry and mathematics at the Budapest University, and additionally attended lectures in philosophy, music and literature. From March to July 1919 Manheim was a volunteer in the Hungarian Soviet Republic or Republic of Councils founded by Béla Kun and was taken prisoner. He fled from the Romanian prison camp but could not stay in Budapest for long, since he had to face arrest as a supporter of the Soviet Republic. So he escaped to Austria in 1920, where he resumed his studies at the University of Vienna, first chemistry and physics a

Ernest Pingoud

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Ernest Pingoud (; 14 October 1887 – 1 June 1942) was a Finnish composer and music critic born in Saint Petersburg. Life Pingoud was born to a father of French Huguenot ancestry and a German-Finnish mother. His father Guido Pingoud was the pastor of the German Lutheran parish of Saint Catherine in Saint Petersburg, and his mother belonged to the Finland-Swedish Sesemann family, related to the Melartin family. He also studied non-musical subjects, including geology, philosophy and literature, at Jena, Munich, Bonn and Berlin, with German literature as his main subject. He wrote a doctoral thesis on the young Goethe and Romanticism, but it was not approved because new sources that emerged at the same time undermined the material in the thesis. The programme included La dernière aventure de Pierrot, Piano Concerto No. 1 and Danse macabre, works influenced by Richard Strauss, Alexander Scriabin and Claude Debussy that were the most daring music yet performed in Finland. Style Pingoud’s preferred mode of musical expression was orchestral, especially in symphonic poems following the example of Scriabin Recordings A CD containing some of Pingoud’s symphonic poems has been recorded for Ondi

Ernest Seitz

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Ernest Joseph Seitz (29 February 189210 September 1978) was a Canadian composer, songwriter, pianist, and music educator. He published some of his work under the pseudonym “Raymond Roberts” because he did not wish to be associated with popular music. His most famous work is The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise, which he co-wrote with Gene Lockhart. Some of his other notable songs include Laddie Boy (1932), When Moonbeams Softly Fall (1935), and The Sky’s the Limit (1943). He retired from performance in 1945 and from teaching in 1946. For the rest of his life he served as president of his family’s business, an automobile dealership in Toronto. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in London in 1954, and on 18 July 1984, Toronto acquired a piece of parkland which was dedicated by Ms. Seitz, naming it Sunrise after Ernest’s most famous work. Life Born in Hamilton, Ontario, Seitz received his first musical training from A. S. Vogt in Toronto from 1903 to 1910. He went to Germany in 1910 where he was a pupil of Josef Lhévinne in Berlin for four years. He had initially intended to pursue a career as a concert pianist in Europe, but the outbreak of World War I made this imposs

Ernest van der Eyken

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Ernest Jozef Leo van der Eyken (23 July 1913 in Antwerp – 6 February 2010 in Brussels) was a Belgian composer, conductor and violist. Van der Eyken received his first musical training at the age of five at the Music Academy in Sint-Truiden. At the age of seven he joined the music theory class of Karel Candael at the Royal Music Conservatory in Antwerp. In 1930 he obtained his first degree under Jan Broeckx, and in 1931, a further degree in viola studying with Napoleon Distelmans. Further studies at the Antwerp Conservatory were chamber music with Albert van de Vijver, conducting with Lodewijk De Vocht, harmony with Emile-Constant Verres and Edward Verheyden. Van der Eyken also studied counterpoint and fugue with August de Boeck, instrumentation with Paul Gilson, and during World War II went to Salzburg, Austria to study conducting with Clemens Krauss and Joseph Marx at the International Conducting School. In 1930 Van der Eyken made his debut as a violist with the Groot Symfonie-Orkest van de Wereldtentoonstelling 1930 (Grand Symphony Orchestra of the 1930 World Exposition) in Antwerp. Thereafter, he played in orchestras and chamber music ensembles of Antwerp: Orkest van de Koninkli

Ernesto Halffter

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Ernesto Halffter Escriche (16 January 19055 July 1989) was a Spanish composer and conductor. He was the brother of Rodolfo Halffter and part of the Grupo de los Ocho (), which formed a sub-set of the Generation of ‘27. Early years Ernesto Halffter was the third son of Prussian jeweller Ernest Halffter Hein and his wife Rosario Escriche Erradón. He was the younger brother of composer Rodolfo Halffter and the uncle of composer Cristóbal Halffter. Halffter was born in Madrid and studied at the Colegio Alemán de Madrid. He wrote his earliest composition at the age of six, and in 1922 his piano teacher Fernando Ember performed three pieces from Crepúsculos at the Ritz Hotel in Madrid. After meeting Manuel de Falla in 1923, Halffter sent Falla the score of his “Homenajes” trio for violin, cello and piano, which began a long relationship that included composition lessons from Falla. Career Halffter’s Sinfonietta is one of his earliest and best works; it shows the influence of Domenico Scarlatti. Later, he became more nationalistic with Rapsodia portuguesa for piano and orchestra, composed in 1938, during the Spanish Civil War. He wrote music for a dozen films. Perhaps the most noteworthy

Ernst Bacon

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Ernst Lecher Bacon (May 26, 1898 – March 16, 1990) was an American composer, pianist, and conductor. A prolific composer, Bacon wrote over 250 songs over his career. He was awarded three Guggenheim Fellowships and a Pulitzer Scholarship in 1932 for his Second Symphony. Personal life Bacon was born in Chicago, Illinois, on May 26, 1898 to Marie von Rosthorn Bacon (sister of Alfons von Rosthorn and Arthur von Rosthorn) and Dr. Charles S. Bacon. At the age of 19, he enrolled at Northwestern University where he pursued a degree in mathematics. After three years of study, he moved to the University of Chicago. Bacon finished his education at the University of California at Berkeley, where he received a master’s degree for the composition of The Song of the Preacher in 1935. Bacon was married four times. He married his first wife, Mary Prentice Lillie, granddaughter of Richard Teller Crane, in 1927. They had two children, Margaret and Joseph. His second wife was cellist Analee Camp. They had two sons, Paul and Arthur. Paul died at the age of 18, which had a deep and lasting effect on Bacon. In 1952, he married his third wife, Peggy Camp (no relation to Anna Lee). He met his fourth wife E

Ernst Hermann Meyer

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Ernst Hermann Ludimar Meyer (8 December 1905 – 8 October 1988) was a German composer and musicologist, noted for his expertise on seventeenth-century English chamber music. Life Meyer was born in Berlin. He received his first piano lessons at the age of six and started composing at eleven. After finishing school, he worked as an apprentice at a bank, and in 1926 he started the advanced study of music at Heidelberg University, where in 1930 he completed his Ph.D. on the 17th-century chamber music of North German composers. He became a pupil of Hanns Eisler and under his influence, joined the Communist Party. Being a Jew and the composer of militant protest songs, he emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1933 to avoid detention by the Nazi Party. There he eventually became a close friend of leftist composer Alan Bush, who was also in contact with exiled composers Eisler and Kurt Weill. In the UK, Meyer researched English chamber music of the 17th century, lectured for the Workers Educational Association and conducted the Labour Choral Union. In 1939 he began lecturing at Bedford College, London; in 1945 he was given a guest professorship at King’s College, Cambridge. But unlike some of

Ernst Hess (composer)

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Ernst Hess (13 May 1912 – 2 November 1968) was a Swiss conductor, composer and musicologist. Career Born in Schaffhausen, Hess studied at the conservatory of Zurich from 1932 and 1934, and then at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, with Paul Dukas and Nadia Boulanger among others. From 1935 he worked in Switzerland as conductor of several choirs and orchestras. In 1938, he was appointed lecturer of music theory at the conservatory of Winterthur. From 1956, he taught musicology at the University of Zurich. As a composer, he wrote mostly sacred and secular choral music, namely the oratorio Jeremia. He was awarded the composition prize of the Conrad-Ferdinand-Meyer-Stiftung in 1947. In 1966 he received the Hans-Georg-Nägeli-Medaille of Zurich. Hess died in Egg and is buried at the Fluntern Cemetery in Zürich. Selected works * Suite for Guitar Solo (1935); Hug G.H. 11468 * Suite for Viola Solo, Op. 14 (1936) * Concerto for Viola, Cello and Chamber Orchestra, Op. 20 * Sinfonia academia (Kleine Sinfonia), Op. 22 * Concerto for Horn and Chamber Orchestra, Op. 24 * Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 27 * Kleine Musik, for basset horn, violin, viola and cello, Op. 29b (Amadeus Verla

Ernst Klusen

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Ernst Klusen (20 February 1909 in Düsseldorf – 31 July 1988 in Bad Segeberg) was a German musicologist, educator and Volkslied composer. Work Books and songbooks * Das Volkslied im niederrheinischen Dorf. Studien zum Volksliedschatz der Gemeinde Hinsbeck mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Melodien. Voggenreiter Verlag, Potsdam 1941. * Der Stammescharakter in den Weisen neuerer deutscher Volkslieder. Voggenreiter, Bad Godesberg 1953. * Die Windmühle. Niederrheinische Volkslieder. Voggenreiter, Bad Godesberg 1955. * Sankt Martin. Lieder und Lampen. Voggenreiter, Bad Godesberg 1955. * Das Bonner Gesangbuch von 1550. Edited by Ernst Klusen. Staufen-Verlag, Kamp-Lintfort 1965. * Volkslied. Fund und Erfindung. Gerig, Cologne 1969. * Das Volkslied im niederrheinischen Dorf. Studien zum Lebensbereich des Volksliedes der Gemeinde Hinsbeck im Wandel einer Generation. Voggenreiter, Bonn-Bad Godesberg 1970. * Bevorzugte Liedtypen Zehn- bis Vierzehnjähriger. Gerig, Cologne 1971. * Gefahr und Elend einer neuen Musikdidaktik. Gerig, Cologne 1973. * Zur Situation des Singens in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Part 1: Der Umgang mit dem Lied (Mitarbeit: V. Karbusický). Gerig, Cologne 1974. * Zur S

Ernst Krenek

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Ernst Heinrich Krenek (23 August 1900 – 22 December 1991) was an Austrian, later American, composer. He explored atonality and other modern styles and wrote a number of books, including Music Here and Now (1939), a study of Johannes Ockeghem (1953), and Horizons Circled: Reflections on my Music (1974). Krenek wrote two pieces using the pseudonym Thornton Winsloe. Life Born Ernst Heinrich Křenek in Vienna (then in Austria-Hungary), he was the son of a Czech soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army. He studied there and in Berlin with Franz Schreker before working in a number of German opera houses as conductor. During World War I, Krenek was drafted into the Austrian army, but he was stationed in Vienna, allowing him to go on with his musical studies. In 1922 he met Alma Mahler, widow of Gustav Mahler, and her daughter, Anna, to whom he dedicated his Symphony No. 2, and whom he married in January 1924. That marriage ended in divorce before its first anniversary. At the time of his marriage to Anna Mahler, Krenek was completing his Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 29. The Australian violinist Alma Moodie assisted Krenek, not with the scoring of the violin part, but with obtaining financial ass

Ernst Laaff

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Ernst Laaff (4 November 1903 – 12 September 1987) was a German musician, professor and rector. Life Laaff was born on 4 November 1903 in Wiesbaden. After his school days he first studied in Wiesbaden. Then he went to Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin, where he continued his studies. In Berlin he was taught by Arnold Schering among others. After completing his studies he wrote a dissertation on Franz Schubert’s symphonies. With musical notes. . Shortly afterwards, the Collegium musicum of the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz was founded, where he began to teach. In 1938 he became head of the department of the Schott Music publishing house in Mainz. Shortly afterwards he also became representative of the publishing house. In the post-war period, he founded the journal Das Musikleben at the Schott-Verlag. In 1949 he finally became a professor. * Music mit Fleiss gedrucket. Grundzüge der Entwicklung des Musiknotendrucks. Vortrag, etc..Music mit Fleiss gedrucket. Grundzüge der Entwicklung des Musiknotendrucks. Vortrag, etc. on WorldCat * Carl Schuricht, 1880-1967 : Ansprache während des Gedächtniskonzertes der Landeshauptstadt Wiesbaden am 28. Februar 1967 im Grossen Kurhaussaal. Literat

Ernst Levy

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Ernst Levy (18 November 1895 – 19 April 1981) was a Swiss musicologist, composer, pianist and conductor. Life Born in Basel, Switzerland, Levy studied with Hans Huber, Egon Petri and Raoul Pugno. David Dubal describes him as an “unusual and powerful pianist” who made “grandly conceived” recordings of the late Beethoven sonatas and captured “the very essence of the Faustian Liszt”. His students included the composers Anna Renfer Hazel Ghazarian Skaggs. In 1966, he retired from academia and returned to his native Switzerland where he spent the remainder of his life. He died in Morges. Levy’s book A Theory of Harmony was published in 1985 and, among other modern compositional concepts, describes the composer’s concept of harmonic “undertones”. Levy’s son was composer and cellist Frank Ezra Levy (1930–2017). Selected compositions ;Orchestral * Symphony No. 2 in D major (1922) * Symphony No. 3 (1922) * Symphony No. 7 (1937) * Symphony No. 8 (1937) * Symphony No. 10 “France” (1944) * Symphony No. 11 (1949) * Symphony No. 12 (1951) * Symphony No. 13 (1955) * Third Suite for orchestra (1957) * Fourth Suite for orchestra (1959) * Symphony No. 14 (1962) * Symphony No. 15 (1968) ;Concertante

Ernst Pepping

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Ernst Pepping (12 September 1901 – 1 February 1981) was a German composer of classical music and academic teacher. He is regarded as an important composer of Protestant sacred music in the 20th century. Pepping taught at the and the . His music includes works for instruments (three symphonies), the church (the motet , the ), and collections including the (Spandau choir book) and the three volume (Great Organ Book), which provides pieces for the entire liturgical year. Career Born Ernst Heinrich Franz Pepping in Duisburg, Pepping first studied to be a teacher. From 1922 to 1926 he studied composition at the Berliner Hochschule für Musik with , a pupil of Franz Schreker. Pepping composed mostly instrumental music until 1928. In 1926 his works (Little serenade for military band) and (Suite for trumpet, saxophone and trombone) were premiered at the Donaueschinger Musiktage. He received the composition award of the Mendelssohn Foundation. In 1929 his (Chorale suite) was first performed in Duisburg and well received. In 1934, Pepping accepted a position as teacher of harmony, sight-reading and counterpoint at the of the Protestant in Spandau, where he lived until his death. Among his man

Ernst Toch

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Ernst Toch (; 7 December 1887 – 1 October 1964) was an Austrian composer of European classical music and film scores, who from 1933 worked as an émigré in Paris, London and New York. He sought throughout his life to introduce new approaches to music. Biography Toch was born in Leopoldstadt, Vienna, into the family of a humble Jewish leather dealer when the city was at its 19th-century cultural zenith. He studied philosophy at the University of Vienna, medicine at Heidelberg and music at the Hoch Conservatory (1909–1913) in Frankfurt under Iwan Knorr. His main instrument was the piano, and he was a pianist of considerable stature, performing to acclaim throughout much of western Europe. Much of his writing was intended for the piano. Toch continued to grow as an artist and composer throughout his adult life, and in America came to influence whole new generations of composers. His first compositions date from c. 1900 and were pastiches in the style of Mozart (quartets, 1905 album verses for piano). His first quartet was performed in Leipzig in 1908, and his sixth (Opus 12, 1905) in the year 1909. In 1909, his Chamber Symphony in F major (written 1906) won the Frankfurt/Main Mozart pr

Ernst-Lothar von Knorr

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Ernst-Lothar von Knorr (2 January 1896 – 30 October 1973) was a German composer, music educator and civil servant. The years until 1933 Born in Eitorf, Knorr grew up in Bonn. His parents were the pharmacist Dr. chem. Karl Ferdinand von Knorr and Eugenie Sophie Merten. From 1902 he had his first violin lessons. In 1907 he was admitted to the Cologne Conservatory. After graduating from high school, conservatory examination and military service, he became a violin teacher at the Heidelberg Music Academy in 1919, and in 1920 he founded the Heidelberg Chamber Orchestra Association with P. Gies. On 6 October 1923 he married in Gummersbach Elise Siebel, a granddaughter of , the co-founder of the paper mill . In the same year he became Concert master with the orchestra of the Diaghilev Ballet in Munich, in 1924 followed the establishment and direction of the Volks- und Jugendmusikschule-Süd in Berlin. In 1925 and 1928 his son Friedrich-Carl and his daughter Ellen were born. A third child (Angelika, *1944) died shortly after birth. Professional career during the Third Reich In 1937 von Knorr became a teacher at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, where he received a professorship

Erwin Dressel

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Erwin Dressel (10 June 1909, in Berlin – 17 December 1972, in Berlin) was a German composer and pianist. Following the success of his incidental music for Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, Dressel wrote many operas for the Deutsche Staatsoper. He also arranged music for the radio, concertized as a pianist and wrote orchestral music, including four symphonies; as well as concertos for various instruments (including one for two saxophones). Selected works ;Opera * Armer Columbus, opera, Op.23 (1927); libretto by Arthur Zweiniger * Der Bär, burlesque opera in 1 act; libretto by Robert Wolfgang Schnell * Der Kuchentanz, tragic opera in 3 acts (1927–1928); libretto by Arthur Zweiniger * Die Laune des Verliebten, lyric opera in 1 act; libretto by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe * Der Rosenbusch der Maria, Legend in 4 scenes (1929); libretto by Arthur Zweiniger * Das Urteil von Zalamea, opera in 3 acts, 6 scenes, Op.50; after Lope de Vega and Arthur Zweiniger * Die Zwillingsesel, opera in 3 acts; libretto by Arthur Zweiniger ;Orchestral * Abendmusik for chamber orchestra, Op.33 * Balladesker Marsch * Capriccio ritmico * Caprice fantastique * Cassation * Deutsche Märchen-Suite for chamber o

Erwin Schulhoff

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Erwin Schulhoff (; 8 June 189418 August 1942) was an Austro-Czech composer and pianist. He was one of the figures in the generation of European musicians whose successful careers were prematurely terminated by the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany and whose works have been rarely noted or performed beyond Czechoslovakia until the 1980s. Life Schulhoff was born in Prague into a German family of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. His father Gustav Schulhoff was a wool merchant from Prague and his mother Louise Wolff from Frankfurt. The pianist and composer Julius Schulhoff was his great-uncle. Antonín Dvořák encouraged Schulhoff’s earliest musical studies, which began at the Prague Conservatory when he was ten years old. , and Cologne; where his teachers included Claude Debussy, Max Reger, Fritz Steinbach, and Willi Thern. He won the Mendelssohn Prize twice, for piano in 1913 and for composition in 1918. He served on the Russian front in the Austro-Hungarian army during World War I. He was wounded and was in an Italian prisoner-of-war camp when the war ended. He lived in Germany after the war before returning in 1923 to Prague, where he joined the faculty of the conservatory in 1929. Schulh

Esther Allan

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Esther Allan (née Boyarsky; April 28, 1914 – July 21, 1985) was an American composer, pianist and organist. Early years Esther Allan was born Esther Boyarsky in Suwałki, Poland. Her father was a cantor. She began playing the piano when she was only five, and took her first piano lessons with her mother. Her family moved to England when she was very young, and then to America. Career She began working in New York City, both as a “classical” pianist (for example she performed Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Gershwin’s Concerto in F during a recital at Carnegie Hall) and as a “jazz” pianist, in the vein of the “classical jazz” initiated by George Gershwin and Dana Suesse. On June 16, 1935, she married in Detroit American jeweler and department store owner Norman Allan (1912–1999) , to whom she later dedicated her Norman Concerto, a 6-minute piece for piano and orchestra in the vein of the Warsaw Concerto, which gained some success at the time and launched her as a composer. Once married, she used only her “American” name Allan, abandoning her maiden name. as well as an affiliate pianist of Aileen Shirley’s all-girl orchestra, “The Minoco Maids Of Melody”. As a composer, aside from "

Esther Ballou

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Esther Williamson Ballou (17 July 1915 – 12 March 1973) was an American composer, music educator, organist, pianist, and accompanist. She was born in Elmira, New York, and died in Chichester, England. Career Ballou began piano lessons at 4 years old, organ lessons at age 13, and began composing in her twenties. She graduated from Bennington College in 1937 with a Bachelor of Arts, Mills College in 1938 with a Master of Arts, and The Juilliard School of Music in 1943 for a graduate fellowship. During her time at Bennington College, Ballou fostered a musical interest in Modern Dance and Ballet, and began composing music. While a student there, she composed two ballets, Earth Sage for Louise Kloepper, and Lysistrata for José Limón. Until 1942, she toured the United States with multiple dance troupes as an accompanist and composer, including for Marion Van Tuyl’s dance group. She won fellowships to the MacDowell Colony in 1944, 1945, 1954, and 1955. She also participated in the Middlebury Composer’s Conference and the Bennington Composer’s Conference as a member of the composer’s staff. Ballou describes her music as ‘tending towards classicism in that it stresses clarity of design and

Esther Rofe

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Esther Rofe (14 March 1904 26 February 2000 ) was an Australian musician and composer. Biography Esther Rofe was born in 1904 in Melbourne, Australia. Rofe studied piano with Harold C. Smith and Ada Freeman During World War II Rofe worked at the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), and the Colgate-Palmolive Radio Unit in Sydney where she began arranging and composing music. Rofe began composing for ballet in 1943. The Esther Rofe Songbook was published in Melbourne in December 1999. Rofe and her sister Edith moved to Southport where Rofe lived and worked for twenty years by the sea. Rofe never married, but fostered a child, Carden James Rofe. Carden had two sons – Hamer Rofe and Malcolm Rofe. Rofe died on 26 February 2000 The Esther Rofe Award was established in her honor at the University of Melbourne in Australia. Honors and awards *1993 Composer-of-Honour in the School of Music Conservatorium at Monash University. *1998 Australia Day Citizen of the Year award from the City of Boroondara *1998 Became a represented composer at the Australian Music Centre (AMC). Compositions (incomplete list) Piano solo *Choral Prelude II (1927) *Echo de Vienne *Mathinna (1954) ballet choreogr

Eta Tyrmand

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Eta Moiseyevna Tyrmand (; ; February 23, 1917 – April 29, 2008 ) was a Belarusian composer. Life and career Eta Tyrmand was born in Warsaw. She graduated from the Warsaw Conservatory in choral performance in 1938, and from the Belarusian State Conservatory in classical piano and composition in 1952. She located in Minsk in 1939, and during World War II lived in Frunze. She taught for nearly 40 years at the Belarusian State Conservatory where she trained several generations of highly accomplished musicians. References

Ethel Edith Bilsland

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Ethel Edith Bilsland (20 January 1892 – 2 November 1982) was an English composer, soprano and pianist. Born in Plumstead, Kent, she was the younger daughter of James Bilsland and Mary Ann Moore. She was already performing and composing by 1911. Mackenzie conducted a performance of her Adagio and Scherzo for piano and orchestra at the Queen’s Hall in June 1912. In 1912 she won the Charles Lucas Medal, awarded for the finale of her Symphony. Three years later a Serenade for string quartet and piano was reviewed in The Music Student. And in 1915 her music was included in a Society of Women Composers concert of chamber music, alongside music by Katherine Eggar, Liza Lehmann and Marion Scott. In 1920 she married Walter Baley, proprietor of the Lord Derby public house opposite Woolwich Arsenal in Plumstead. They had two children, Margaret (1926 – 2006) and John (1928 – 2021). She continued to develop her own career after her marriage: for instance, she performed as a singer in the 1923 Proms season, and for the 1925/6 season was signed by agents Ibbs and Tillett. However, in 1932 her husband died and she had to support the upbringing of her children alone, leaving little time for composi

Ethel Leginska

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Ethel Liggins (13 April 188626 February 1970) was a British pianist, conductor and composer. A student of Theodor Leschetizky, she became widely known as the ‘Paderewski of woman pianists’ and (from 1923) established herself as one of the first female conductors. She studied composition with Rubin Goldmark and Ernest Bloch, and conducting with Eugene Goossens, Robert Heger and Gennaro Papi and conducted many of the world’s leading orchestras from the mid-1920s. She was a pioneer of women’s opportunity in music performance, composition and conducting. Education and marriage Ethel Liggins was born in Hull, Yorkshire, England, to Thomas and Annie Peck Liggins. She made her debut as a pianist in London in 1902 at the age of 16. and from 1906 performed in Europe under the stage name Ethel Leginska, at the suggestion of British socialite Lady Maud Warrender (the wife of Sir George Warrender). At that time the best top-class musicians were Polish, hence the Polish-sounding name “Leginska” considered advantageous to the development of the young pianist musical career. In 1907 Leginska married the composer Emerson Whithorne, whom she had met when they both studied in Vienna. They would some

Ethel Tench Rogers

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Ethel Tench Rogers (February 21, 1914 – January 25, 2008) was a prolific American composer who published over 200 sacred and pedagogical compositions for organ, piano, synthesizer and voice. Rogers was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Walter and Herrine Tench. She studied music with William Ichor, Arthur B. Kellsey, Tsuyi Matsuki, Lorrene McClintock, Edward J. McGinley, Howard Savage, and at the Austrian-American Institute in Vienna. She married Robert W. Rogers in 1934 and they had a son and a daughter. Rogers taught piano and organ in Plainfield, New Jersey, and at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. A Rogers Music Scholarship has been established at Baker University (Kansas). She often collaborated with Olive Nelson Russell: *MELODIES AND SCALES in the most used keys by Ethel Tench Rogers and Olive Nelson Russell For all organs Westbury 62 books of organ works; over 150 anthems; and works for two pianos. References

Ettore Campogalliani

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Ettore Campogalliani (30 September 1903 – 3 June 1992) was an Italian composer, musician and teacher. Campogalliani studied piano in 1921, graduating from the Conservatory of Bologna. He then studied composition at the Conservatory of Parma in 1933. Finally he studied singing at the Conservatory of Piacenza in 1940. and as a pianist, he dedicated himself to teaching. He taught piano at the Liceo Musicale of Piacenza and singing at the conservatories of Parma and Milan. He then went on to coach vocal technique and interpretation at the opera school of La Scala in Milan. Campogalliani was the voice teacher of Renata Tebaldi, Renata Scotto, Mirella Freni, Felix Rolke (when Mirella Freni was 19 years old; himself voice teacher of a niece of Mirella Freni), Ferruccio Furlanetto, Ruggero Raimondi, Luciano Pavarotti, Carlo Bergonzi, Gino Penno, Antonio Carangelo and Giuliano Bernardi. In 1946, to honour his father Francesco, Ettore Campogalliani founded the Accademia Teatrale Francesco Campogalliani, a theatre and drama academy. Selected compositions *Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano (1932) *Sarabanda and Minuetto for piano Op. l (1934) *Sonata in e Minor for Violin and Piano *‘L’arrivo’

Eugen Papst

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Eugen Papst (24 December 1886 – 2 January 1956) was a German composer and music teacher. Life Papst was born in Oberammergau, the son of an educator and head teacher of the same name, Eugen Papst (1855-1923), after whom the Eugen-Papst-Förderschule in Germering was later named. He then attended the teacher training seminar in Freising and studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich from 1907. In 1910 he worked at the theater in Olsztyn and from 1911 in Bern as musical director of the city theater. In 1922 he was called to Hamburg, where he conducted the Hamburg Philharmonic together with Karl Muck until it was disbanded by the Nazis in 1934. Papst first went to Münster as General Music Director in the fall of 1934, but by 1935 he had already become director of the Cologne Men’s Choral Society and shortly afterwards, with the support of his friend Richard Strauss, also became municipal General Music Director of the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne as successor to Hermann Abendroth. He also taught conducting at the Cologne Academy of Music. After the end of the war, there were disputes over his position as General Music Director because the City of Cologne appointed Günt

Eugen Suchoň

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Eugen Suchoň (September 25, 1908 – August 5, 1993) was one of the most important Slovak composers of the 20th century. Early life Eugen Suchoň was born on September 25, 1908, in the house opposite the Roman Catholic parish office on Farská Street (today’s space near the old Pezinok Cultural Center air conditioning) in Pezinok, (Slovakia). His father, Ladislav Suchoň, was an organist and teacher. His mother, Serafína Suchoňová, was a piano teacher, and it was from her that he received his first piano tuition. The house was always filled with music and, as a small child, he would listen from under the piano when his father rehearsed at home with other musicians. In 1920, at the age of twelve, he started taking piano lessons at the Bratislava School of Music with the distinguished musician Frico Kafenda. Later, from 1927 to 1931, he continued his studies with the same teacher at the newly established Academy of Music in Bratislava. His early works include several piano compositions and a choral work Veľky Pôst (The Great Fast). He graduated from his composition classes with the Sonata in A-flat for Violin and Piano and a String Quartet (op. 2, 1931, revised 1939). His two-year studies

Eugène Bigot

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Eugène Bigot (28 February 1888 – 17 July 1965) was a French composer and conductor. Life Bigot was born in Rennes, Brittany. Initially trained as a violinist and later as a violist, he entered the Conservatoire de Paris in 1905 to continue his musical studies, which he had begun at the conservatory in his hometown. He studied harmony with Xavier Leroux, counterpoint with André Gedalge, and fugue and composition with Paul Vidal. At the same time, he was actively working as a substitute instrumentalist in various Parisian theatres, including Opéra and the Opéra-Comique, even during his military service. His notable pupils included Émilien Allard, Louis de Froment, Henri-Claude Fantapié, António Fortunato de Figueiredo, Karel Husa, Paul Kuentz, Jean-Bernard Pommier, Pierre Rolland, and Mikis Theodorakis. He died in Paris. References External links *Biography (in French) Jean-Philippe Mousnier: “Albert Wolff - Eugène Bigot”, Editions l’Harmattan, 2001.

Eugene Bonner

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Eugene Bonner, sometimes given as Eugene MacDonald Bonner (June 24, 1889 – December 8, 1983) was an American composer and music critic. As a composer he was particularly known for his operas. In 1931 his opera The Venetian Glass Nephew was staged at the Vanderbilt Theatre on Broadway. He wrote as a music critic for a variety of publications in Europe and the United States, including The Outlook, the Daily Mirror, the Brooklyn Eagle, Cue, and the New York Herald Tribune. He also served as managing editor of the journal The Musical Record. In 1907 Bonner began music studies at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore; earning an organ scholarship at that institution the following year. Composing career While studying in England, Bonner published his first music composition with the London publishing house, Weeks & Co. Career as a music critic Later life In 1955 Bonner moved to Taormina, Sicily. He lived there until his death in Taormina on December 8, 1983. Partial list of works Operas *Barbara Frietchie (1921) *Celui qui Épousa une Femme Muette (1923) *The Venetian Glass Nephew (1927) *The Gods of the Mountain (1936) *Frankie and Johnnie (1945) Other stage works *The Young Ale

Eugène Bozza

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Eugène Joseph Bozza (4 April 1905 – 28 September 1991) was a French composer and violinist. He was one of the most prolific composers of chamber music for wind instruments. Bozza’s large ensemble works include five symphonies, operas, ballets, large choral work, wind band music, concertos, and many works for large brass or woodwind ensembles. Biography Childhood and early years (1905–1915) Bozza was born in Nice to an Italian musician and a French woman. His father, Umberto Bozza, was a violinist who made his living playing in French casinos along the Mediterranean coast. His mother’s name was Honoré Molina. With a professional musician for a father, Bozza was exposed to music early on. He began studying the violin with his father when he was only five years old. Under such expert tutelage, Bozza became an outstanding young violinist and would occasionally go with his father to performances and play with the orchestra. In 1915, at the age of ten, Bozza and his father moved to Italy to avoid the turmoil of World War I. Formative years (1915–1934) In Italy, Bozza studied violin, piano, and solfège in Rome at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. He graduated in 1919 with a diplom

Eugène Lapierre

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Eugène Lapierre (8 June 1899 – 21 October 1970) was a Canadian organist, composer, journalist, writer on music, arts administrator, and music educator. He was awarded the King George V Silver Jubilee Medal in 1935 and the King George VI Coronation Medal in 1937. In 1963 he was named Chevalier of the Order of Malta and in 1966 he received the Bene merenti de patria from the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society. He is the great-uncle of composer Yves Lapierre. Life and career Born in Montreal, Lapierre received his earliest musical education at Saint Brigid’s Church in his native city where he was a pupil of choirmaster Lucien Perreault. He then studied the organ with Étienne Guillet and worked as an accompanist at the Royal Military College Saint-Jean. He entered the École des Hautes Études Commerciales where he earned a degree in 1922. From 1924–1928 Lapierre studied in Paris through a grant from the Canadian government, first at the Institut Grégorien where he earned a diploma in 1926 and then at the Schola cantorum where he earned a diploma in 1928. Among his teachers in Paris were Georges Caussade (composition), Vincent d’Indy (composition), Marcel Dupré (organ and improvisation), Simone

Eugène Reuchsel

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Stéphane Marie-Eugène Reuchsel (21 July 1900 – 22 September 1988) was a French pianist, a specialist of Chopin and Liszt, organist and composer. Biography Born in Lyon, a descendant of an illustrious family of musicians of German origin, he was Amédée Reuchsel ’s (1875–1931) son. He studied piano, organ and music composition at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he won the First prize. He won the First Prize in piano at the age of 16. After completing his studies, he was engaged as a soloist in renowned orchestras of Paris: the Concerts Colonne, Orchestre Lamoureux, Pasdeloup Orchestra. Since then, he gave numerous recitals in Europe, America and North Africa, where marshal Lyautey gave him the best reception. The house, close to the sea, opens widely on this last one. One of the peculiarities of the villa is that it has an organ in the living room, with a wind tunnel in the basement. There are also two concert pianos, one of which was given at the Town Hall of Rayol-Canadel. Reuchsel also trained students, such as composer Jean-Patrick André born in 1954. Reuchsel died in 1988. He is buried in the Rayol-Canadel cemetery. On his tomb, a medallion recalls the motto of his life: “Musi

Eugene Zador

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Eugene Zador (born Jenő Zádor; 5 November 1894, Bátaszék, Hungary – 4 April 1977, Hollywood, California) was a Hungarian and American composer. Life Born into a Jewish family, his parents were Paula Biermann and József Zádor (originally Zucker) . He studied at the Vienna Music Academy and in Leipzig with Max Reger. He taught from 1921 at the new New Vienna Conservatory and later at the Budapest Academy of Music. Fearful for his safety due to his Jewish identity, he left Austria on the day of the Anschluss to return to Hungary. He actively sought employment in the United States out of fear of the rise of Nazi Germany, and was able to successfully earn a post on the faculty of the New York College of Music. The college was able to obtain an American visa for him, and he sailed to America in 1939. On that voyage he composed the music to his opera Christopher Columbus. Music Zádor wrote a number of operas in which the characterization and orchestration are worthy of note. He claimed to occupy a position “exactly between La Traviata and Lulu”. His orchestral pieces are written in a late romantic style that owed something to Max Reger and Richard Strauss. They include the popular Hungari

Eunice Katunda

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Eunice Katunda (also spelled Catunda) (née do Monte Lima) was a Brazilian pianist, composer, music educator, lecturer, and poet. Katunda was born in Rio de Janeiro on March 14, 1915, and died at 76 years old on August 3, 1990 in São José dos Campos. Education and Career Showing signs of being a child prodigy, Katunda began playing the piano at just two years old. She learned piano with Mima Oswald from age of 5 to 8, then with Branca Bilhar from age 9 to 12, and then with Oscar Guanabarino from age 13 to 21. In around 1934, she moved to São Paulo where she studied piano with Marieta Lion. In 1946 she returned to Rio de Janeiro and began her studies with Hans-Joachim Koellreutter. In her compositional studies, she was especially interested in avant-garde and modern composers and she expanded her knowledge of counterpoint, musical aesthetics, orchestration, and arrangement. Katunda continued to compose until 1983, with her most prolific period being the 1950s and 1960s. She could speak and write in three languages, English, French, and Italian. Personal life Katunda’s parents were Rubens do Monte Lima from Rio Grande do Sul and Maria Grauben Bomilcar, a native painter from Ceará. Her

Eunice Lea Kettering

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Eunice Lea Kettering (April 4, 1906 – March 9, 2000) was an American composer and professor. Kettering wrote many compositions and almost 20,000 copies of her work were published. She was the first woman in the United States to become a Fellow in the American Guild of Organists. Early life and death Kettering was born in Savannah, Ohio on April 4, 1906. She became an orphan at the age of three and was adopted by Adam and Cora Kettering in Ashland, Ohio. Adam Kettering was a car dealer and was the brother of inventor Charles F. Kettering. She started composing music at age six. Kettering died in Albuquerque, New Mexico on March 9, 2000, at the age of 93. Career Kettering was a professor at Madison University in Virginia for three years and then taught music for 23 years at Ashland University in Ohio. During her time at Ashland University, she composed and performed many of her works. After retiring early from teaching, she moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1959 and then later moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1962. While in Albuquerque, she composed the majority of her work and two of her compositions were recorded. Her compositions were performed in colleges, churches, universitie

Eva Jessye

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Eva Jessye (January 20, 1895 – February 21, 1992) was an American conductor and composer who was the first black woman to receive international distinction as a professional choral conductor. She is notable as a choral conductor during the Harlem Renaissance. She created her own choral group which featured widely in performance. Her professional influence extended for decades through her teaching as well. Her accomplishments in this field were historic for any woman. She collaborated in productions of groundbreaking works, directing her choir and working with Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein on Four Saints in Three Acts (1933), and serving as musical director with George Gershwin on his innovative opera Porgy and Bess (1935). Early life and education Eva Jessye was born January 20, 1895, in Coffeyville, Kansas. She was educated at Western University, a historically black university in Kansas, and Langston University in Oklahoma. She later studied privately with Will Marion Cook in New York City. In 1919, Jessye began work as the choir director at Morgan State College in Baltimore. She returned west for a time to teach at an African Methodist Episcopal Church school in Oklahoma. In

Evelyn Faltis

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Evelyn Faltis (20 February 1887 – 13 May 1937 ) was a Czech composer. Life Evelyn Faltis was born in Trutnov, Bohemia, in 1887, the second of three daughters of Carl Johann and Maria Anna Cecilia Magdalena Faltis (born Wiesenburg) who were Viennese bourgeoisie. She began her music studies at the Assomption convent in Paris and later studied at the Vienna Music Academy with Robert Fuchs and Eusebius Mandyczewski. She also studied at the Dresden Conservatory with Felix Draeseke and Eduard Reus, and in Munich with Sophie Menter. After completing her studies she moved to Berlin, but settled in Vienna in 1933. She became the first female coach at Bayreuth and worked as an accompanist at the Nuremberg Stadttheater am Ring and the Darmstadt Hoftheater, and after 1924 at the Städtische Oper in Berlin. She died in Vienna of pneumonia. Works Faltis composed for orchestra, chamber ensemble, instruments and chorus. *Sonata in B minor for piano (no Op., about 1909) *Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 1 *Fantastic symphony for orchestra, Op. 2a *Hamlet symphonic poem, Op. 2b *Piano Concerto, Op. 3 *Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 4 *Andante and Slavic Dance, Op 5. (Op. 5 was counted twice) *Adagio for Violin

Evelyn LaRue Pittman

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Evelyn LaRue Pittman (January 6, 1910 – December 1992) was an American composer, choral director and music educator. Life and career Early life Evelyn LaRue Pittman was born on January 6, 1910 in McAlester, Oklahoma. Her interest in music began at a young age, and she began composing songs in the first grade. Her musical interest continued into high school, where she participated in school musicals and sang in their “well-known choir”, of which she was the first Black member. Later life Pittman attended public school in Oklahoma City, and later attended Spelman College and Oklahoma University, where she received her master’s degree. While in school, Pittman studied violin, trombone, and harmony. She also received a life certificate from Langston University to teach music and social studies in the state of Oklahoma. In New York, Pittman received a permanent certificate from Columbia University to teach public school music on any level in the New York Education Department, and ended up teaching in the Greenburgh School District. Pittman then studied composition at the Juilliard School of Music and was likely the first black Oklahoman to study at the school. She then collaborated with

Evgeny Golubev

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Yevgeny Kirillovich Golubev ( ) (16 February 1910 25 December 1988) was a Soviet and Russian composer. Golubev was born and died in Moscow. He was taught by Nikolai Myaskovsky, and his students included Iosif Andriasov from 1958 till 1963, Alfred Schnittke, who studied with him from 1953 until 1958, Asya Sultanova, and Michael L. Geller. His own compositions included at least twenty-four string quartets, seven symphonies, three piano concertos - the last dedicated to and recorded by Tatiana Nikolayeva -, concertos for violin, cello and viola, ten piano sonatas (the sixth dedicated to Myaskovsky), sonatas for violin, cello and for trumpet (1956) (the latter dedicated to Sergei Nikolaevich Yeryomin), and quintets for strings with piano and with harp, among other works. This harp quintet is one of Golubev’s few works that are still occasionally performed. The Soviet state record label Melodiya released several LPs of his music, including the three piano concertos, two of the symphonies, and some chamber works and songs which are no longer easily available. During the last years, some of these old recordings were released on CD. Melodiya has in 2005 reissued Nikolayeva’s recordings of

Eyvin Andersen

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Eyvin (Ejvin) Andersen (24 February 1914 – 18 October 1968) was a Danish organist, violist, and composer. In the course of his career, Andersen was an organist at Vartov Church, a violist in the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, a teacher at the Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in Esbjerg, and the founder of the School for Old Music. Biography Eyvin (or Ejvin) was born 24 February 1914 in Colorado, USA. He later studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. Andersen performed as a violist in the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. Andersen specialized in baroque music and worked to make 18th-century music accessible in his time. He established the School for Old Music () which focused on music from before 1750. He taught vocal music, music theory, and the baroque violin at the school. Among the school’s other teachers was composer Tage Nielsen, who taught lute and guitar. He died in Copenhagen on 18 October 1969. At the time he had been the organist at , a position which his brother, Aksel, took over after Eyvin’s death. References

Farid al-Atrash

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Farid al-Atrash (; October 19, 1910 – December 26, 1974), also spelled Farid El-Atrache, was a Syrian-Egyptian singer, oudist, composer, and actor. Although born in Syria, he immigrated to Egypt at the age of nine with his mother and siblings, where he eventually became one of the most noted figures in 20th-century Arabic music. Al-Atrash embarked on a highly successful career spanning more than four decades, recording 500 songs and starring in 31 movies. He is also widely regarded for his virtuosity on the Arabic oud, and has sometimes been given the epithet “King of the Oud” (“Malek al-Oud”). in southern Syria to the Druze princely al-Atrash family who fought the French colonial army. His father was Syrian and his mother was Lebanese. As a young child, al-Atrash emigrated with his mother and siblings to Egypt, escaping the French occupation. Later, they were naturalized by the Egyptian government as citizens. Farid’s mother sang and played the Oud, which spurred his musical interest at an early age. As a child and young adult, al-Atrash sang within school events. He studied at Egypt’s music conservatory and became an apprentice of the famous Egyptian composer Riad Al Sunbati. In

Fartein Valen

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Olav Fartein Valen (25 August 1887 – 14 December 1952) was a Norwegian composer, notable for his work in atonal polyphonic music. He developed a polyphony similar to Bach’s counterpoint, but based on motivic working and dissonance rather than harmonic progression. Biography Early life Valen was born in Stavanger, Norway in 1887 into a deeply Christian religious family and maintained his religious beliefs all his life. His parents were missionaries, and he spent five years of his childhood in Madagascar. In addition to his aptitude for music, he was also a polyglot, mastering at least nine languages. He earned his examen artium with the highest grades in all subjects except mathematics. He loved cats, nature and literature, cultivated roses (even developed an award-winning hybrid), and after losing them in a devastating freeze took up growing cacti. Musical career In 1906, Valen moved to Kristiania (today’s Oslo) to study Norwegian literature and language but also took classes with Catharinus Elling (1858–1942) at the Oslo Conservatory of Music, graduating with a degree in organ playing. In 1909 he moved to Berlin to study piano, theory, and composition at the Music Academy with (am

Fay Foster

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Fay Foster (November 8, 1886 – April 17, 1960) was an American pianist, composer, and teacher. Biography Foster was born in Leavenworth, Kansas on November 8, 1886. She was a child prodigy, performing publicly by the age of 5, and professionally as organist and choir director by age 12. In Chicago she studied piano under William Hall Sherwood, voice under Mme Dove-Boitte, and theory with Frederick Grant Gleason. At the age of 17 she went on a national tour playing the piano for Sherwood’s Grand Opera Company. Following her Chicago studies, at the age of 19, she was appointed director of the Grand Prairie Seminary’s Conservatory of Music in Onarga, Illinois. In 1897 she opened a studio in Chicago’s Steinway Hall to teach piano and theory. In 1899 she travelled to Europe for twelve years, studying further under Heinrich Schwartz, Moritz Rosenthal, and Sofie Menter in Munich, and under Theodore Wiehmeyer, Alfred Reisenauer, and Salomon Jadassohn at the Leipzig Conservatory. She studied singing under Siga Garso, Hans Weinhoppel and Alexander Heinemann. She performed opera for two years in Italy. In 1910, Berlin’s Die Woche sponsored an international contest for a waltz modelled on the

Federico Mompou

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Frederic Mompou Dencausse (; 16 April 1893 – 30 June 1987), or Federico Mompou, was a Catalan composer and pianist. Life Early years Mompou was born in Barcelona to the lawyer Frederic Mompou and his wife, Josefina Dencausse, who was of French origin. His brother Josep Mompou (1888–1968) became a painter. His sketch of a simple farmhouse appeared on the covers of all of Frederic’s published music. Mompou studied piano under Pedro Serra at the Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu before going to Paris to study at the Conservatoire de Paris, which was headed by Gabriel Fauré. Mompou had heard Fauré perform in Barcelona when he was nine years old, and his personal financial situation was often dire enough to lead him away from music and into various business ventures, including an attempt to revive the traditional family bell foundry. In 1957, aged 64, Mompou married the pianist Carme Bravo, who was 30 years his junior. It was the first marriage for both of them, and they had no children. Later years In 1975 and 1976, Mompou was a jury member for the first Paloma O’Shea Santander International Piano Competition. In Barcelona, he became a member of the Royal Academy of Sant Jordi;

Federico Moreno Torroba

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Federico Moreno Torroba (3 March 189112 September 1982) was a Spanish composer, conductor, and theatrical impresario. He is especially remembered for his contributions to the classical guitar repertoire, becoming one of the leading twentieth-century composers for the instrument. In addition to his vocal works, he is well known for his compositions for the classical guitar, many of which were dedicated to either Maria Angélica Funes or Andrés Segovia. Although he did not play the guitar himself he had a deep understanding of the instrument, according to the virtuoso Pepe Romero. He also frequently conducted. Torroba is also the composer of Cuban Boy, the Frank Chacksfield recorded version of which is known as the theme tune for the BBC Scotland comedy show Still Game. Works Operas *La Virgen de Mayo, 1 act (1925) *El poeta, 4 acts (1980) Zarzuelas *La Mesonera de Tordesillas (1925) *La Marchenera (1928) *Azabache (1932) *Luisa Fernanda (1932) *Xuanón (1933) *La Chulapona (1934) *Sor Navarra (1938) *Maravilla (1941) *El Duende azul (1946, with Rodrigo) *Baile en Capitanía (1960) *Ella (1966) Ballets *Fantasía de Levante (1957) *Don Quixote (1970) *El Hijo pródigo (1976) *Cristo, luz

Fela Sowande

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Chief Olufela Obafunmilayo “Fela” Sowande MBE (29 May 1905 – 13 March 1987) was a Nigerian musician and composer. Considered the father of modern Nigerian art music, Sowande is perhaps the most internationally known African composer of works in the European “classical” idiom. Early life Sowande was born 29 May 1905 in Abeokuta, near Lagos, the son of Emmanuel Sowande, a priest and pioneer of Nigerian church music. As a child he sang in the Choir of the Cathedral Church of Christ. He studied at the C.M.S. Grammar School and at King’s College, Lagos. The influence of his father and Dr. T. K. Ekundayo Phillips (composer, organist and choirmaster) was an important factor in his early years. Through Phillips, Sowande was first exposed to European church music like Bach and Rheinberger. At that time, Sowande was a chorister and was introduced to new Yoruba works being introduced into the churches. Under Phillips’ tutelage, Sowande earned the Fellowship Diploma (FRCO) from the Royal College of Organists. At that time, he was also a bandleader, playing jazz and popular highlife music. From 1945 until 1952, he was organist and choirmaster at the West London Mission of the Methodist Church.

Felicitas Kukuck

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Felicitas Kukuck (2 November 19144 June 2001) was a German music educator and composer of opera and other works. Biography Felicitas Kukuck was born in Hamburg in 1914. Her parents encouraged their daughter’s artistic development from childhood and enabled her to attend good music schools. Her teachers included Eduard Zuckmayer (music), Edith Weiss-Mann (piano) and Robert Müller-Hartmann (harmony). Until 1933 she attended the Montessori oriented Lichtwark. The Nazi seizure of power marked a turning point in her life, as she learned that she had Jewish ancestors. She moved to Martin Luserke’s “Schule am Meer” on Juist Island, and completed her studies in 1935 at the Odenwald School. After graduating, Kukuck studied piano and flute at the Berlin Musikhochschule, and in 1937 she successfully passed the examination to become a private music teacher. She studied composition with Paul Hindemith until his emigration, and in 1939 Felicitas Kukuck closed her musical studies. Felicitas Kukuck was born a Cohnheim, but her father changed this Jewish name in 1916 to Kestner. Her parents emigrated to England, but Felicitas stayed in Germany. In 1939 she married Dietrich Kukuck and a sympathetic

Felipe Pinglo Alva

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Felipe Pinglo Alva (July 18, 1899 - May 13, 1936), known as the father of Peruvian Musica criolla and nicknamed the “Immortal Bard” or (“Bardo Inmortal” in Spanish), was an influential and prolific poet and songwriter best known for his often covered “El Plebeyo” (The Commoner). In Peru and Latin America, Pinglo’s name is most often associated with the Peruvian vals criollo, which is a uniquely Peruvian music, characterized by the 3/4 time, elaborate guitar work and lyrics about lost love or the Lima of yesteryear. Biography Felipe Pinglo Alva was born in one of the oldest sections of Lima (Barrios Altos), known as an historical district with a working class population, to a schoolteacher and his wife on July 18, 1899. Felipe’s mother died when he was still a child. The poverty in which young Felipe was raised as well as the instruction received by his father and aunts created a young mind that was both learned and socially conscious. During his lifetime, Pinglo was known as a Bohemian, sickly and frail, and walking with a slight limp. A naturally talented musician, Pinglo earned money as a youth by replaying songs he had heard the local military bands playing by ear in the central

Felix Arndt

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Felix Arndt (May 20, 1889 – October 16, 1918) was an American pianist and composer of popular music. His mother was the Countess Fevrier, who was related to Napoleon III. His father, Hugo Arndt, was Swiss-born. Educated in New York (his music teachers included Carl Lachmund), Arndt composed songs for the famous vaudeville team of Jack Norworth and Nora Bayes, and recorded over 3000 piano rolls for Duo-Art and QRS Records. He died in New York City from the “Spanish flu” influenza. Arndt is interred at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Tarrytown, NY. Arndt is best remembered for his 1915 composition “Nola,” written as an engagement gift to his fiancée (and later wife), Nola Locke. It is sometimes considered to be the first example of the novelty piano or “novelty ragtime” genre, published by Sam Fox Publishing Company. It was the signature theme of the Vincent Lopez orchestra, and a top ten hit for Les Paul in 1950. A vocal recording by Billy Williams, featuring lyrics by Sunny Skylar, became a minor hit in 1959. Piano solos * 71st Regiment – Waltz (1908) * A Symphonic Nightmare – Desecration Rag No. 1 (1914) * From Soup to Nuts – One Step Turkey Trot (1914) * Kakuda – One Step Turkey Trot (1914)

Felix Mills

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Gordon “Felix” Mills (born July 28, 1901) was a composer, arranger and conductor during the Golden Age of Radio in the 1930s and 1940s. Born in Fort Collins, Colorado , he was the musical director for The Mickey Mouse Theater of the Air, a Disney radio show of the 1930s. Mills created a “gadget band” with wild instruments for Donald Duck to direct on some episodes. He also created arrangements for the show. Mills conducted his own band , and appeared in the Hollywood Bowl. Mills was also the musical director for CBS Radio’s Silver Theater from 1937 to 1947. Mills chose to retire rather than fire some band members during the Red Inquisition; he built a home in Morro Bay, California, to pursue his favorite hobbies, sailing and slide photography. Mills died on April 5, 1987, in Morro Bay, California. References *

Ferde Grofé

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Ferdinand Rudolph von Grofé (March 27, 1892 April 3, 1972), known as Ferde Grofé () was an American composer, arranger, pianist, and instrumentalist. He is best known for his 1931 five-movement symphonic poem the Grand Canyon Suite, and for orchestrating George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue for its 1924 premiere. During the 1920s and 1930s, he went by the name Ferdie Grofé. Early life Grofé was born on 127 East Third Street, New York City, in 1892 to German immigrants. He came by his extensive musical interests naturally. His family included several musicians. His father, Emil von Grofé, was a baritone who mainly performed in light opera. His mother, Elsa Johanna Bierlich von Grofé, was a professional cellist and a versatile music teacher who taught Ferde to play both the violin and the piano. Elsa’s father, Bernard Bierlich, was a cellist in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York, and her brother, Julius Bierlich, was the first violinist and concertmaster of the Los Angeles Symphony. Musical education Ferde’s father died in 1899, after which his mother took him abroad to study piano, viola, and composition in Leipzig, Germany. Ferde became proficient on a wide range of instrum

Ferdinand Haberl

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Ferdinand Haberl (15 March 1906 – 3 July 1985) was a German Catholic theologian, composer, musicologist, organist and choir director. He was director of the , honorary professor of Catholic church music at the University of Regensburg and president of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome. Life Born in Lintach, Haberl studied theology and musicology in Munich and Regensburg from 1926. In 1931, he received his holy orders. He then worked as pastor and music prefect in Schönwald before continuing his studies in Munich from 1933 to 1934. From 1934 to 1938, he was organist at the German national church Pontifical Institute Santa Maria dell’ Anima in Rome. In 1939, he received his doctorate in theology in Munich. Afterwards, he took over the direction of the church music school in Regensburg. From 1964, he was an honorary professor at the University of Regensburg. In 1970, he was appointed President of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music and in 1971, he was appointed Pontifical Honorary Prelate. Haberl devoted himself to composition and musicological work, composed numerous church music works and produced several theoretical writings and monographs on musicians of the Up

Ferdinand Leitner

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Ferdinand Leitner (4 March 1912 in Berlin – 3 June 1996 in Zürich) was a German conductor. Leitner studied under Franz Schreker, Julius Prüwer, Artur Schnabel and Karl Muck. He also was a composition student with Robert Kahn. Starting as a pianist, through the help of Fritz Busch, he became a conductor in the 1930s. He was conductor of the Nollendorfplatz Theater in Berlin from 1943 to 1945; in Hanover from 1945 to 1946; in Munich from 1946 to 1947; and the General Music Director of the Württemberg State Opera house (German “Staatstheater Stuttgart”) in Stuttgart from 1947 until 1969. To honour him, the city of Stuttgart has named a pedestrian bridge, that connects the Upper part (where the Staatstheater is located) and the Central part of the “Schlossgarten” (castle) park, after him (Ferdinand-Leitner-Steg). He is famous as a conductor of opera, his favourite composers being Wagner, Richard Strauss, Mozart, and twentieth-century composers Carl Orff and Karl Amadeus Hartmann. He succeeded Erich Kleiber in 1956 as conductor for the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. From 1976 to 1980, he worked in The Hague as principal conductor of Het Residentie Orkest. Among his more than 300 recordin

Ferenc Farkas

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Ferenc Farkas (; 15 December 1905 – 10 October 2000) was a Hungarian composer. Biography Born into a musical family (his father, Aladár Farkas, was an Olympian and soldier who played the cimbalom and his mother played the piano) in Nagykanizsa; he began his musical studies in Budapest, at the Protestant Gymnasium (Grammar School) and later attended the Music Academy, where he studied composition with Leó Weiner and Albert Siklós. After his graduation in 1927, he worked as a repetiteur and conductor at the Municipal Theatre of Budapest and collaborated with the Diaghilev Ballet. From 1929 to 1931, he attended Ottorino Respighi’s masterclass at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. The years he spent in Rome had a decisive influence on him. He became acquainted with Italian and Mediterranean culture to which he felt a deep attraction. About this he said: “My principal aim has always been to attain for myself a latin clarity and proportion.”. Farkas returned to Budapest in the autumn of 1931. As he could not find any other assignments, he played the piano in various theatre orchestras. In 1932 he met the director Paul Fejos for whom he composed several film scores, first i

Fernande Decruck

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Fernande Decruck (née Breilh) (25 December 18966 August 1954) was a French composer who composed over 40 works for the saxophone. Most well-known is her Sonata in C sharp minor for alto saxophone or viola, dedicated to Marcel Mule. Life Fernande Breilh was born in the village of Gaillac in France to a local merchant. She began learning piano aged eight and studied at the Conservatoire de Toulouse. She was admitted to the Conservatoire de Paris in 1918 studying organ and composition. There she won prizes in harmony, fugue, counterpoint, and piano accompaniment. Her studies in improvisation on organ led her to travel to America where she gave her first organ recitals in New York. Her husband, Maurice Decruck, a clarinetist, saxophonist and double-bassist, played both bass and saxophone with the New York Philharmonic. Maurice Decruck later became a music publisher, opening the company Les Editions de Paris. They married in 1924 and had three children, Jeannine Decruck (born 1925), Michel Decruck (born 1926) and Alain Decruck (born 1937). She moved to the United States with her family in 1928. Fernande Decruck later rejoined her husband in Paris in 1933. When Fernande returned to Franc

Fernando Lopes-Graça

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Fernando Lopes-Graça (17 December 1906 – 27 November 1994) was a Portuguese composer, conductor and musicologist. Lopes-Graça was born in Tomar, and was influenced by Portuguese popular music, which he also studied, continuing the work of the composer and musicologist Francisco de Lacerda. He was a member of the Portuguese Communist Party and strenuously opposed the Estado Novo and its leader António de Oliveira Salazar. He completed the Dicionário de Música (Dictionary of Music), started by his teacher, Tomás Borba, himself a composer. He died in Parede, near Cascais. Chronology * 1906: 17 December: birth in Tomar (where he would start his piano studies). * 1924: becomes a student at the Conservatório Nacional de Lisboa. * 1927: becomes a student of Vianna da Motta’s Classe de Virtuosidade. * 1931: obtains the Composition Degree. In the same year he is arrested and expelled to Alpiarça. * 1934: wins a scholarship to study in France, which he is later denied for political reasons. * 1937: goes to Paris, where he studies with composition and orchestration with Charles Koechlin. * 1938: The “Maison de la Culture de Paris” commissions «La fiévre du temps» (ballet-revue). Harmonisation

Fernando Obradors

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Fernando (Ferran) Jaumandreu Obradors (1896–1945) was a Spanish composer. Obradors was taught piano by his mother, but taught himself composition, harmony and counterpoint. He became conductor of the Gran Canaria Philharmonic Orchestra, and later taught at Las Palmas Conservatory. Between 1921 and 1941 he wrote four volumes of arrangements of classic Spanish poetry, “Canciones clásicas españolas”. He is best known for the song cycle which is volume one. One of the poems, “La casada infiel”, was written by his friend Federico García Lorca. Although he wrote many works for the theatre, none have held their place in the repertoire. His orchestral work “El Poema de la Jungla” is inspired by The Jungle Book stories by Rudyard Kipling. Many of his contemporaries left Spain to find fame in France, but Obradors remained true to his Catalan roots. His first surname is sometimes split into two Catalan names – Jaume Andreu. References External links * * Mondavi Center > Events > Anton Belov, baritone at www.mondaviarts.org * Classical Net Review - Obradors/Rodó - El Poema de la Jungla/Symphony #2 at www.classical.net * https://web.archive.org/web/20060920174942/http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres

Fernando Remacha

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Fernando Remacha Villar (15 December 1898 – 21 February 1984) was a Spanish composer, part of the Group of Eight which formed a sub-set of the Generation of ‘27. Early years Remacha was born in Tudela, Navarre on 15 December 1898. At the age of nine he began to study the violin with the choirmaster of Tudela Cathedral, Joaquin Castellano. In 1911, Remacha travelled to Madrid for the purpose of studying to become a chartered accountant, but at the same time he continued his music studies. He took courses at the Madrid Conservatory where he passed at one time the first three courses of solfeggio, and had private violin classes with Jose del Hierro. Remacha lived in the home of his aunt, Isabel Soriano, who encouraged him to study harmony once he had completed the violin courses. That was how he began his instruction under Conrado del Campo, in whose classes he met Salvador Bacarisse and Julian Bautista, the people who formed the initial core of the Grupo de Madrid together with Remacha. During his period as a student in Madrid, Remacha also played in the Orquesta de Revista y Zarzuela, which performed at the Teatro Apolo and provided him with a wage of twelve pesetas a day. His first

Fidelio F. Finke

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Fidelio Friedrich “Fritz” Finke (22 October 1891 – 12 June 1968) was a Bohemian-German composer. Life Finke was born the son of a teacher in 1891 in the north-Bohemian village of Josefstal (modern-day Josefův Důl, Czech Republic). From 1906 to 1908, he attended a teacher’s seminar in Reichenberg (now Liberec). He received organ, piano and violin lessons, and from 1908 to 1911, studied at the Prague Conservatory, where he studied piano and composition. From 1911 onward, he worked as a private music teacher and from 1915 as a teacher of musical theory at the Prague Conservatory. In 1920, he moved to the German Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Prague, where he worked as a teacher of musical theory and composition. He became a professor in 1926, and worked as the rector from 1927 to 1945. His students included Friederike Schwarz. During the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, he composed works expressing sympathy for the Nazis, most notably the hymn O Herzland Böhmen (1942). His opportunistic application for membership within the Nazi party expired in 1942 because of his political unreliability. After imprisonment and expropriation as a result of the Beneš decrees as well as a

Filip Kutev

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Filip Kutev (), often anglicized Philip Koutev (13 June 1903 – 27 November 1982), was a Bulgarian composer, arranger and founder, with his wife Maria Kuteva, in 1951, of Bulgaria’s first professional, state supported ensemble, the State Ensemble for Folk Song and Dance, also known as the Filip Kutev Ensemble. With his ensemble he pioneered a style of arranging folk songs by fusing folk elements with western classical forms and harmonies, and established a new Bulgarian choral tradition. His choir was one of four who appeared on the album Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Volume Two, which won a Grammy Award in 1989. He was born in Aytos, Burgas Province. Honours Kutev Peak in Antarctica is named after Filip Kutev. References External links * (in Bulgarian)

Filip Lazăr (musician)

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Filip Lazăr (6 May 1894 – 3 November 1936) was an avant-garde Romanian composer and pianist. Life and career Lazăr was born in Craiova, Romania and died in Paris, France. At the Bucharest Conservatory (1907–1912) he studied piano with Emilia Saegiu, theory with Dumitru Georgescu Kiriac and with Alfonso Castaldi he studied harmony, counterpoint and composition. He studied for two years with Castaldi at the Leipzig Conservatory before touring as a pianist, playing much new music. From 1928 he was in France and Switzerland. He ventured from a Romanian nationalistic style into serialism and neo-classicism. From 1925, important publishers in Paris (Durand, Salabert, Max Eschig and Heugel) and Vienna (Universal Edition) began printing the works of Lazăr and other Romanian composers such as Mihail Jora, Marcel Mihalovici and George Enescu. In 1920 Lazăr was a founder-member of the Society of Romanian Composers. In 1932, along with Mihalovici, he was among the founders of the Triton society of contemporary music in Paris (1932–1939), and a member of its active committee. Theatre music *1918 – La bouteille de Panurge, ballet, libretto by André Cœuroy *1928 – Les Images de Béatrice, op. 18,

Finn Høffding

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Niels Finn Høffding (10 March 1899 – 29 March 1997) was a Danish composer. Høffding was born and died in Copenhagen. He studied composition under Knud Jeppesen and Thomas Laub, and then under Joseph Marx in Vienna from 1921-22. His works first became well known in Denmark in the 1920s, particularly the piece Karlsvognen (chorus and orchestra, 1924). He began to study folk music about 1930, and founded the Copenhagen School of Folk Music in 1931. From 1931 he also taught at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, where he served as director after 1954. In 1956 and 1958 he was awarded the Nielsen Prize. His pupils include Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, Vagn Holmboe, Bent Lorentzen, and Leif Thybo. In addition to composing, Høffding also wrote several theoretical treatises. Works Note:This list is incomplete Opera *Kejserens nye klæder (1928) *Kilderejsen op. 15 (1942) Choral * 4 DIAPSALMATA (Søren Kierkegaard words, four diapsalmata (aphorism) from Either/Or vol. I. 1977 *Karlsvognen (chorus and orchestra, 1924) *Christofer Columbus (1937) *Kantate til Det Kongelige Danske Musikkonservatoriums årsfest (1948) *Giordano Bruno (1968) Orchestral *Romance for Violin and String orchestra (1918) *C

Fiorenzo Carpi

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Fiorenzo Carpi De Resmini (19 October 1918 – 21 May 1997) was an Italian composer and pianist, probably best known for the “Pinocchio” theme. Biography Born in Milan, in 1945 Carpi graduated at the Milan Conservatory, pupil of Arrigo Pedrollo and Giorgio Federico Ghedini; He also collaborated with the Nobel laureate playwright Dario Fo on all his plays between 1953 and 1967, then more sporadically until Carpi’s death in 1997. Fo’s 1997 play Il diavolo con le zinne (The Devil with Boobs) featured an homage to Carpi following his death. Carpi was a prolific film score composer, well known for his long collaboration with the director Luigi Comencini. In 1981 he won the David di Donatello for Best Score for Comencini’s Eugenio. He also composed numerous pop songs, television scores, commercial jingles, symphonic and chamber opera works. Selected filmography * Fugitive in Trieste (1951) * Zazie dans le Métro (1960) * Leoni al sole (1961) * A Very Private Affair (1962) * Paris, My Love (1962) * I cuori infranti (1963) * I 4 tassisti (1963) * Misunderstood (1966) * Death on the Run (1967) * Italian Secret Service (1968) * Giacomo Casanova: Childhood and Adolescence (1969) * The Howl (1970

Flemming Weis

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(Carl) Flemming Weis (15 April 1898 – 30 September 1981) was a Danish composer. He was born in 1898 in Copenhagen, Denmark and died in Hellerup, Denmark in 1981. When studying, he specialized in the organ. Music Weis was heavily influenced by teacher Carl Nielsen. Starting in 1926 he was a board member of the Danish branch of the International Society for Contemporary Music. He also joined the board of the Danish Composers’ Society in 1956 and became its chairman in 1967. Weis was also Chairman of the board for the Society for the Publication of Danish Music. See also *List of Danish composers References *This article was initially translated from the Danish Wikipedia.

Florence Price

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Florence Beatrice Price (née Smith; April 9, 1887 – June 3, 1953) was an American classical composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Price was educated at the New England Conservatory of Music, and was active in Chicago from 1927 until her death in 1953. Price is noted as the first African-American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer, and the first to have a composition played by a major orchestra. Price composed over 300 works: four symphonies, four concertos, as well as choral works, art songs, chamber music, and music for solo instruments. In 2009, a substantial collection of her works and papers was found in her abandoned summer home. Biography Early life and education Florence Beatrice Smith was born to Florence (Gulliver) and James H. Smith on April 9, 1887, in Little Rock, Arkansas, one of three children in a mixed-race family. Despite racial issues of the era, her family was well respected and did well within their community. She took piano lessons from her mother at the age of three and gave her first piano performance at the age of four; her first composition is published at the age of 11. She attended school at a Catholic

Florizel von Reuter

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Florizel von Reuter (21 January 1890 – 10 May 1985) was an American-born violinist and composer, a child prodigy who went on to an adult career, mainly in Germany, as distinguished soloist and teacher of violin. He was also a psychic and medium and the author of several books on his alleged mediumistic communications with deceased musicians, and other works. Early life Born on 21 January 1890, Florizel Reuter at Davenport, Iowa, U.S., he was the son of Jacob and Grace Reuter. His father was a musician and minor composer. Florizel had his first violin lessons with his mother. He showed extraordinary talent at a very young age, and went to London to study in 1899. He was taught by Max Bendix, Emile Sauret (who had also taught his father Jacob), César Thomson and Henri Marteau. In 1901 he graduated from the Geneva Conservatory, where there was a debate as to whether he should be allowed to graduate (presumably owing to his age). Several teachers refused to graduate any other pupils unless he was approved, and so the matter was settled. His first professional concert was at La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland in 1900. After giving 30 concerts in that country he began to tour in America, w

Frances McCollin

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Frances McCollin (October 24, 1892 – February 25, 1960) was an American composer and musician, who was blind from early childhood. She was the first woman to win the Clemson Prize from the American Guild of Organists. In 1951, she was named a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania. Early life and education Frances McCollin was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1892, the daughter of and Alice Graham Lanigan McCollin. Her father, a lawyer, had studied musical composition in college, and he wrote and performed music as a side interest throughout his life. He was one of the founders of the Manuscript Music Society of Philadelphia. and the mother of Edward Arnett. When Frances McCollin was five years old, she became blind, probably from congenital glaucoma. Her parents and extended family took an energetic approach to her education at home, focused on music. When she started to compose in girlhood, her father was her first teacher and transcriber. As a child, she described sensations consistent with synaesthesia and perfect pitch. the organist at St. Stephen’s Church in Philadelphia, and with William Wallace Gilchrist and H. Alexander Matthews at the Pennsylvania Institute for Instr

Frances Ziffer

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Frances Ziffer (June 5, 1917 – November 7, 1996) was an American composer, conductor, and pianist. She attended the Peabody Institute and studied with Carl Friedberg and David Saperton. She was a music director for theater groups and wrote lyrics or composed music for at least six musicals, as well as for numerous songs. Ziffer married Joseph Burgio but published her works under the name “Ziffer,” sometimes collaborating with Hortense Belson. Her compositions include: Musicals * A Streetcar Named Desire (play by Tennessee Williams; music by Frances Ziffer) *Dakota (book by Tom Hill; music and lyrics by Hortense Belson, Hardy Wieder, Frances Ziffer) *Dames at Sea * Little Brown Jug (book by Tom Hill; lyrics by Hortense Belson; music by Frances Ziffer) * Surprise Package (book by Tom Hill; music and lyrics by Hortense Belson, Hardy Wieder and Frances Ziffer) Songs Source: * “Faith Alone” (with Martin Kalmanoff and Hardy Wieder) * “Reward, Reward” * “Running Through My Mind” * “Say When” (with Martin Kalmanoff and Hardy Wieder) * “The Pleasure’s All Mine” * “There’s Only One You” * “Which Way is the Way to Your Heart” References

Francesco Mander

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Francesco Mander (26 October 1915, Rome – 2 September 2004, Latisana) was an Italian conductor and composer. Biography Francesco Mander was the only son of Pietro Mander, a film producer and owner of Mander Film, and Lucia Mercadante. From his father he inherited his love for literature; from his mother he gained a passion for music. His mother was a descendant of noted Italian opera composer Saverio Mercadante (1795-1870). From an early age his parents took him to concerts in Rome’s famed concert hall, the Augusteo. After the family moved to Milan, Mander continued his piano study and also took up the cello. His teacher was Enzo Martinenghi, the solo cellist of the Teatro alla Scala orchestra, then under the baton of Arturo Toscanini. Back in Rome, he went to university (literature) and studied composition with Alfredo Casella and Cesare Dobici, obtaining his degree in composition at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome (1939) in only four years instead of the usual ten years required. He studied conducting with Antonio Guarnieri in Siena, a city where not many years later he would teach himself, having amongst his pupils musicians like Zubin Mehta. Career Mander conducted his f

Francine Benoît

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Francine Benoît (18941990) was a musician, teacher, composer, conductor, and music critic. She played an active role in Portuguese feminist organizations and was an opponent of the Estado Novo dictatorship, which ruled between 1933 and 1974. Born in France, she lived most of her life in Portugal and became a naturalised Portuguese citizen in 1929. Early life Francine Germaine Van Gool Benoît was born in Périgueux in the Dordogne department of France on 30 July 1894, to a Belgian mother and a French father. Her father was an engineer and had already taken his family to Algeria, Belgium, Switzerland and Spain because of his work, when the family arrived in Portugal in 1906. They settled in Setúbal where her father had a job assembling machines for a fish-canning factory. She was first taught the piano by her mother, and also had private lessons, before studying the piano at the Academia de Amadores de Música in Lisbon. She later graduated with distinction in piano and harmony from the National Conservatory of Lisbon, where she was a student of Alexandre Rey Colaço. Benoît then returned to France to study composition with Vincent d’Indy at the Schola Cantorum de Paris between 1917 and

Francis Bousquet

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Francis Bousquet (9 September 1890 – 21 December 1942) was a French composer. Educated at the Conservatoire de Paris, he won the Prix de Rome in 1923. His compositions included three operas, a ballet, and several symphonic and chamber music works. From 1926 until his death he was also the director of Conservatoire de Roubaix. Bousquet was born in Marseille and died in Roubaix at the age of 52. He had been awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1934. Life and career Bousquet was born in Marseille and began his musical studies there before enrolling in the Conservatoire de Paris in 1907 where he studied under Xavier Leroux, André Gedalge and Charles-Marie Widor. He won the conservatory’s First Prize in harmony in 1909 and First Prize in counterpoint in 1910. His studies were interrupted for four years by World War I when he served in an engineering regiment of the French Army. From 1915 to 1918, Nadia and Lili Boulanger, both graduates of the conservatory, published Gazette des Classes du Conservatoire with news of French musical life and letters from the conservatory’s students who had been dispersed by the war. In a letter published in the 27 November 1916 issue Bousquet wrote from the fr

Francis Chagrin

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Francis Chagrin (born Alexander Paucker, 15 November 1905 – 10 November 1972), was a composer of film scores and popular orchestral music, as well as a conductor. He was also the “organizer and chief moving spirit” who founded the Society for the Promotion of New Music. By playing in nightclubs and cafes and writing popular songs, he funded himself for two years, from 1933, at the Ecole Normale, where his teachers included Paul Dukas and Nadia Boulanger, and settled in England in 1936. Ralph Vaughan Williams agreed to be its president, with Arthur Bliss the committee’s vice-president. In his obituary of Chagrin, fellow composer Benjamin Frankel said that through the Society Chagrin “gave many composers (not only the young ones) their first opportunity of a hearing: he had travelled abroad as our representative, had battled with publishers and spoken passionately on the question of performing rights. He had, in fact, become the first person to whom we turned when composer’s problems arose”. In 1951 Chagrin formed his own chamber group, the Francis Chagrin Ensemble which performed and broadcast regularly over the next two decades, including many first performances. His sons are the a

Francis Judd Cooke

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Francis Judd Cooke (December 28, 1910 – May 18, 1995) was an American composer, organist, cellist, pianist, conductor, choir director, and professor. Life Cooke was born December 28, 1910, in Honolulu, Hawaii, to a family of New England missionaries turned cattle ranchers. He was the great grandson of Gerrit P. Judd, the first doctor to reside in Hawaii, and grandson of Albert Francis Judd, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Hawaii. His mother was Sophie Boyd Judd, and father was George Paul Cooke, grandson of Amos Starr Cooke and Juliette Montague Cooke, founders of the Royal School of Hawaii. Cooke began composing at an early age and his first serious pieces date from age 14. He received a B.A. in music from Yale University in 1933, where he was a member of Skull and Bones. He then studied for two years with Charles Martin Loeffler in Medfield, Massachusetts. In 1935 he went to Scotland to study with Donald Francis Tovey at the University of Edinburgh, receiving a Mus. Bac. (Bachelor of Music) degree with First Class Honours in 1938. While studying in Scotland he met and married violist May Ludwig. They settled in Lexington, Massachusetts, where they raised six children. In 19

Francis MacMillen

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Francis Rea MacMillen (October 14, 1885 – July 14, 1973) was an American violinist. Biography Francis MacMillen was born in Marietta, Ohio on October 14, 1885. At the age of seven, he began studying at Chicago Musical College, where his teacher was . From 1895 to 1899, he studied with (a student of Joseph Joachim) and with Karl Halir in Berlin and from 1900 to 1902 with César Thomson at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, where he received two prizes. In the fall of 1902, he made his debut in a Vauxhall in Brussels, followed by a concert tour through Belgium, Germany and England. In the fall of 1903, he played in London and undertook another concert tour through England. His American debut took place on December 7, 1906 at Carnegie Hall with the New York Symphony Society under the direction of Walter Damrosch. He is also the author of several compositions for the violin: Barcarole, Serenade Nègre, Causerie, Liebeslied, Nijinsky et al. MacMillen died in Lausanne on July 14, 1973. References Further reading * Oscar Thompson (edit.), Nicolas Slonimsky (edit.): MacMillen, Francis. In The International Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians, 4th edition, Dodd, Mead & Company, New York 1946,

Francis Poulenc

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Early years#

Poulenc was born in the 8th arrondissement of Paris on 7 January 1899, the younger child and only son of Émile Poulenc and his wife, Jenny-Zoé, née Royer. Émile Poulenc was a joint owner of Poulenc Frères, a successful manufacturer of pharmaceuticals (later Rhône-Poulenc). He was a member of a pious Roman Catholic family from Espalion in the département of Aveyron. Jenny Poulenc was from a Parisian family with wide artistic interests. In Poulenc’s view, the two sides of his nature grew out of this background: a deep religious faith from his father’s family and a worldly and artistic side from his mother’s. He took piano lessons from the age of five, initially from her; when he was eight he first heard the music of Claude Debussy and was fascinated by the originality of the sound. Other composers whose works influenced his development were Franz Schubert and Igor Stravinsky: the former’s Winterreise and the latter’s The Rite of Spring made a deep impression on him. At his father’s insistence, Poulenc followed a conventional school career, studying at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris rather than at a music conservatory. In 1916 a childhood friend, Raymonde Linossier (1897–1930), introduced Poulenc to Adrienne Monnier’s bookshop, the Maison des Amis des Livres. There he met the avant-garde poets Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Paul Éluard and Louis Aragon. He later set many of their poems to music. In the same year he became the pupil of pianist Ricardo Viñes. The biographer Henri Hell comments that Viñes’s influence on his pupil was profound, both as to pianistic technique and the style of Poulenc’s keyboard works. Poulenc later said of Viñes: He was a most delightful man, a bizarre hidalgo with enormous moustachios, a flat-brimmed sombrero in the purest Spanish style, and button boots which he used to rap my shins when I didn’t change the pedalling enough. … I admired him madly, because, at this time, in 1914, he was the only virtuoso who played Debussy and Ravel. That meeting with Viñes was paramount in my life: I owe him everything … In reality it is to Viñes that I owe my fledgling efforts in music and everything I know about the piano. When Poulenc was sixteen his mother died; his father died two years later. Viñes became more than a teacher: he was, in the words of Myriam Chimènes in the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the young man’s “spiritual mentor”. Auric, who was the same age as Poulenc, was an early developer musically; by the time the two met, Auric’s music had already been performed at important Parisian concert venues. The two young composers shared a similar musical outlook and enthusiasms, and for the rest of Poulenc’s life Auric was his most trusted friend and guide. Poulenc described Satie’s influence on him as “immediate and wide, on both the spiritual and musical planes”. Pianist Alfred Cortot commented that Poulenc’s Trois mouvements perpétuels were “reflections of the ironical outlook of Satie adapted to the sensitive standards of the current intellectual circles”.

Francisco Alonso

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Francisco Alonso López (9 May 1887 – 18 May 1948) was a Spanish composer of popular theatre music and zarzuelas. Alonso’s music is funny, cheerful, easy melody and with a popular accent. He excelled in pasodobles and chotis, which he impressed with grace and ease. Many of his works are still highly valued, as the pasacalle Los Nardos, the chotis El Pichi, both from Las Leandras, the chotis Tabaco and cerillas from the revue Las de Villadiego or the song Maitechu mía (both with lyrics by Emilio González del Castillo). He wrote also two pasodobles for fiestas in the city of Alicante, Les Fogueres de Sant Joan, titled La festa del poble, premiered in 1934, and La Nit de San Joan 1934, a pasodoble foguerer for band, chorus and bass soloist. He also was elected president of the General Society of Authors of Spain. Childhood and early youth Francisco Alonso was born in Granada, where he received his early education from the Piarists. As the son of a pianist, Alonso was interested in music from early childhood. His mother supported him when, unable to overcome the dissection classes , he abandoned a career in medicine for musical studies. He studied music initially with Antonio Segura, an

Francisco Cristancho Camargo

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Francisco Cristancho Camargo (1905–1977) was a Colombian musician, composer, and conductor. He studied at the Madrid Royal Conservatory and conducted several orchestras on his return to Colombia. Biography Early life and education Cristancho was born on 27 September 1905 in Iza, in the Colombian department of Boyacá. He went to school in Iza and then at the in Tunja. By the age of 5 he could play multiple instruments, and at 10 he composed his first song. Music career As a young man Cristancho moved to Bogotá, where he was selected to join a musical delegation (alongside Jerónimo Velasco, Emilio Murillo, , and Alberto Escobar) that travelled to Seville to perform at the 1929 Seville Fair. When the delegation returned to Colombia, Cristancho stayed in Spain and enrolled at the Madrid Royal Conservatory. He travelled in Europe and played with the Orquesta Andrés Moltó; he planned to stay permanently, but left in 1937 due to the Spanish Civil War. Cristancho returned to Bogotá where he conducted orchestras including the Orquesta Suramérica, the Orquesta Universal, and the Orquesta Ritmo, as well as forming his own band (Francisco Cristancho Camargo y su Orquesta). In 1946–1950 Cristan

Francisco Escudero (composer)

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Francisco Escudero García de Goizueta (13 August 1912 – 17 June 2002) was a Basque violinist, composer and conductor. Life and career He was born in Zarautz (Gipuzkoa), on 13 August 1912. He began his musical studies at the San Sebastián Municipal Music Academy with Beltrán Pagola, and continued in Madrid, where he was a Composition student of Conrado del Campo. He was awarded the Spanish National Fine Arts Award (Premio Nacional de Bellas Artes) for his Trío bucólico in 1937. During the Spanish Civil War, he moved to France. In 1945, he became director of the Coral de Bilbao. He was awarded the Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts. In 1957, he obtained the National Music Prize. In 196,0 he created the City of San Sebastián Band. He composed the opera Zigor, with a Basque theme, which premiered in Bilbao and then in Madrid and San Sebastián with great success, once again obtaining a National Music Award (second one). As part of his teaching work, he directed the San Sebastián Municipal Higher Conservatory of Music. It was during this period, in 1979, that the historic San Sebastián conservatory was granted the capacity to teach the Superior Degree of music studies. His disciples ar

Francisco Llácer Pla

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Francisco Llácer Pla (1918 in Valencia – 2002 in Valencia) was a Spanish composer and choral conductor. He was one of the first Valencian composers who assimilated the postwar avantgarde approaches, combining it with lyricism and echoes of the Valencian folklore. Tomás Marco wrote: Llácer Pla offers a new, suggestive vision of a form of musical nationalism from a new, progressive perspective. A professor at the Valencia Conservatory, several of his progressive works are based in his harmonic investigations, such as his concept of heptafonism and his theory of the “balanced chord”, based on the double sense of the sonorous bodies’ resonance. On October 7, 2005 he was named Valencia’s favorite son. Quotes Incomplete list of works References

Francisco Mignone

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Francisco Paulo Mignone (September 3, 1897, São Paulo – February 19, 1986, Rio de Janeiro) was a Brazilian composer, pianist and conductor. He was one of the most significant figures in Brazilian classical music, and one of the most significant Brazilian composers after Heitor Villa-Lobos. In 1968 he was chosen as Brazilian composer of the year. Life and career A graduate of the São Paulo Conservatory and then of the Milan Conservatory, Mignone returned to São Paulo in 1929 to teach harmony, and in 1933 took a post in Rio de Janeiro at the Escola Nacional de Música. Mignone was a versatile composer, dividing his output nearly evenly between solo songs, piano pieces, chamber instrumental works, orchestral works, and choral works. In addition, he wrote five operas and eight ballets. Son of the Italian immigrant flutist Alferio Mignone, Francisco was already making his mark upon the musical world of Brazil by the time he was 10 years old, gaining notoriety around his district playing in the choro style. A pianist and orchestra leader at 13, he had gained some fame composing and playing under the pseudonym of Chico Bororó, keeping these activities separate from his formal music trainin

Francisco Palaviccini

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Francisco Palaviccini Sandoval (February 28, 1912 – February 24, 1996), also known as “Paquito” Palaviccini, was a Salvadoran composer and singer. Among his best known compositions are “Adentro Cojutepeque”, “El Xuc”, “El Carnaval en San Miguel”, “Santa Ana Mía”, “El Café de Mi Tierra”, “Usulután”, and “Cocotero Sonsonateco”. In his childhood, he studied violin with his father, who was a musician of Italian descent. In 1923 he entered the National Conservatory of El Salvador, where he deepened his knowledge of music theory. In 1928 he traveled to Guatemala to continue in the Conservatorio Nacional Germán Alcántara, studying musical composition. In 1934, he traveled to Cuba where he lived for five years and studied at the “Ignacio Acevedo” Academy of Havana. In the 1940s, he traveled across the United States and South America as part of La Revista Musical of the Cuban Ernesto Lecuona. He returned to El Salvador in the 50s, to lead the Orquesta Internacional Polío from 1958. References

Franciszek Zachara

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Franciszek Zachara (b Tarnów, Austrian Poland (now Poland), 10 December 1898; d Tallahassee, Florida, United States, 2 February 1966) was a Polish pianist and composer who concertized extensively throughout Europe in the years leading up to 1928. He was a professor of piano at a Polish conservatory from 1922–1928, and two American colleges from around this time until his death in 1966. Zachara composed well over 150 works, including many works for piano solo, a piano concerto, a symphony, several works for band, and various chamber pieces. The archive of his manuscripts is held at the Warren D. Allen Music Library at Florida State University. Most of these manuscripts are originals (or copies) from the composer’s own hand. Biography Franciszek Zachara was born in Tarnów, Austrian Poland to parents Ludwig and Maria (Kapłańska) Zachara on December 10, 1898. He was educated in the State Gymnasium in Warsaw, and graduated from the Imperial Conservatory in Saratov (Russian: Сара́тов) in 1919. He then attended the Imperial Conservatory in St. Petersburg (Russian: Санкт-Петербу́рг, then known as Petrograd), studying piano with Alexander Dubassoff, and graduated in 1921. From 1922 to 1928

Franco Casavola

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Franco Casavola (13 July 1891, in Modugno, near Bari – 7 July 1955, in Bari) was a Futurist composer and theorist. He is noted as one of the authors of the Le Sintesi Visive della Musica, a manifesto that proposed the intrinsic visual counterparts of music. Futurist movement In a letter dated 1 October 1922, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti wrote to inform the composer, theorist and writer Franco Casavola that: “I’ve listened to Tankas, Quatrain, Gioielleria Notturna, Leila and Muoio di sete on the piano. They reveal to me a strong and original musical genius. We Futurists would be pleased if you would join our fight against obsolete ideas.” Casavola (who had studied music at the Rome Conservatory) accepted this invitation and formally joined the radical Italian art movement. He began to compose new pieces under the influence of earlier manifestoes written by Marinetti and, later, the specific manifestos on Futurist music produced by Francesco Balilla Pratella and Luigi Russolo, variously dated between 1909 and 1914. Early Futurist work by Casavola included: Ranocchi al Chiaro d Luna (Frogs in the Moonlight) by A.G. Bragaglia and La Danza della Scimmie (Dance of the Monkeys) for the Teatr

Franco Margola

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Franco Margola (Orzinuovi, Brescia, 30 October 1908 – Nave, Brescia, 9 March 1992), was a 20th-century Italian composer. Compositions Operas *Il mito di Caino *Il Titone (lost) Symphonic works *Sinfonia delle Isole, for string orchestra *Il campiello delle streghe (1930) * Trittico for Strings (1936-7) * Arioso for Strings (1939) * Notturno e Fuga for String Orchestra (1940) * Teorema armonico * Sei Madrigali for Strings * Antiche Musiche di Virginalisti Inglesi, for Strings *Sinfonia per orchestra (published by Bongiovanni in 1961) *Passacaglia per orchestra (published by Bongiovanni in 1962) Chamber music *One quintet published in 1934. *8 String quartets (1935-1950) *Quintet for Piano and Strings No. 1, dC 17 (1933) *Quintet for Piano and Strings No. 2, dC 83 (1946) *Quartet No. 7 for Flute and String Trio, dC 87 (1948) *Sonatina a sei for Winds and Piano (1961) *La Longobarda, for Flute, Oboe, and Piano, dC 208 (1976) *Sonata a tre for Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon *Quattro Bagatelle for Winds *Piccola Suonata for Violin and Piano (1929) *Cello Sonata in E major (between 1931–45) *Cello Sonata No. 3 in C major *Violin Sonata No. 1 in D major (1931) *Sonata Breve (No. 3) for Violin

Frank Hutchens

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Francis Hutchens OBE (15 January 1892 – 18 October 1965) was a pianist, music teacher and composer originally from New Zealand. He became a popular concert pianist in Australia and was a founding member of the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music, where he taught for fifty years. Early life and education Hutchens’ parents, Richard Lavers Hutchens and his wife Maria Giles, née Hosking, both Cornish, migrated to New Zealand in 1879. Richard tried his hand at farming and bootmaking before settling down at Hāwera as a piano teacher. Frank Hutchens was born in Leeston near Christchurch on 15 January 1892. He attended Hawera District High School. In 1904, at the age of twelve, Hutchens had the opportunity to demonstrate his talents after his piano teacher arranged for him to play for the virtuoso Ignaz Paderewski, who was then touring New Zealand. Impressed with the boy’s potential, Paderewski encouraged him to study in Europe. The following year, at the age of thirteen, Hutchens travelled alone to London to attend the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied piano and composition with Tobias Matthay and Frederick Corder. At the Academy, he won the Sterndale Bennett and Thalberg schol

Frank Marsales

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Frank Alfred Marsales (August 31, 1886 – August 14, 1975) was a Canadian composer best known for his work scoring cartoons by Harman-Ising Productions in the 1930s. He also worked with Walter Lantz Productions in the mid to late 1930s. Cartoon career Having immigrated to the United States for a career as a musician, Marsales was hired by animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising to score their Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series for Warner Bros. Pictures. His first credit was for Sinkin’ in the Bathtub, released in May 1930 and animated by Friz Freleng. He composed the music to the 1931 Merrie Melody Lady, Play Your Mandolin!. He left the studio after Harman and Ising terminated their contract with producer Leon Schlesinger. Marsales may also have had a hand injury at that time that precluded his composing any music at all. In the mid-1930s, Marsales began work at Walter Lantz Productions as musical director for the Andy Panda cartoons, among others. Marsales’s last credited musical score at Walter Lantz Studios was for Knock Knock, released on November 25, 1940 (although he may also have scored some parts of Syncopated Sioux, released December 30, 1940, which the musical director wa

Frank Martin (composer)

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Frank Théodore Martin (15 September 1890 – 21 November 1974) was a Swiss composer who spent much of his life in the Netherlands. Childhood and youth Born into a Huguenot family in the Eaux-Vives quarter of Geneva, the youngest of the ten children of a Calvinist pastor named Charles Martin, Frank Martin started to improvise on the piano prior to his formal schooling. At the age of nine he had already written a few songs, without external musical instruction. At age 12, he attended a performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion and was deeply affected by it. Respecting his parents’ wishes, he studied mathematics and physics for two years at Geneva University, but at the same time was also studying piano, composition and harmony with his first music teacher (1864–1953), a Geneva composer and by that time a leading figure of the city’s musical scene. In the 1920s, Martin worked closely with Émile Jaques-Dalcroze from whom he learned much about rhythm and musical theory. Between 1918 and 1926 Martin lived in Zürich, Rome and Paris. Compositions of this time show him searching for an authentic musical voice of his own. In 1926 he established the Chamber Music Society of Geneva, which for the

František Brož

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František Brož (10 April 1896 – 21 July 1962) was a Czech violist, composer, conductor and music educator. Biography Brož was born on 10 April 1896 in Prague. He studied violin at the Prague Conservatory with Jindřich Baštař. He later studied composition with Josef Bohuslav Foerster and Vítězslav Novák, and conducting under Otakar Ostrčil and Václav Talich. He played viola in the Czech Philharmonic as well as orchestras in Vienna and Istanbul, and was choirmaster of various choral societies in Prague. For several years Brož was active in Hranice in Moravia conducting the symphony orchestra and choir. He returned to Prague in 1940 where he taught music and conducted the Studio Opera Company. From 1945, Brož taught music theory at the Prague Conservatory, and was also a lecturer at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague from 1947 to 1950. Brož’s compositions include a ballet, music for orchestra, chamber music, as well as songs and choral works. In 1948 he published a book on basso continuo and figured bass musical notation. Brož died on 21 July 1962 in Prague. Selected works ;Stage * Pokušení sv. Antonína (The Temptation of St. Anthony), Ballet-Pantomime, Op. 7 (1934, première in

František Domažlický

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František Domažlický (13 May 1913 – 29 October 1997) was a Czech composer. He was born František Tausig in Prague. He was sent to Theresienstadt but survived. Selected works ;Orchestral * Serenade in D for string orchestra, Op. 16 (1954) * Habanera (1955) * Suite, Op. 26 (1959–1960) * Divertimento, Op. 29 (1962) * Symphony (1962) * Prskavky (Squibs), Suite for string orchestra, Op. 30 (1963) * Ouvertura piccola, Op. 42 (1970) * Suita danza for string orchestra, Op. 52 (1982); also for 4 saxophones and brass quintet, or 2 accordions (or 2 violins) and piano * Malá taneční suita (Little Dance Suite) for small chamber orchestra, Op. 57 (1965) * Serenata da camera for string orchestra, Op. 64 (1987) * Encore, Op. 74 (1991) * Petriana Overture, arrangement for string orchestra (1993) ;Concertante * Concerto for oboe and string orchestra, Op. 25 (1958) * Concerto No. 1 for violin and orchestra, Op. 28 (1961) * Concerto for trombone and orchestra, Op. 35 (1964) * Concerto for viola and orchestra, Op. 36 (1965–1966) * Jaro rytíře d’Artagnana (The Spring of the Knight d’Artagnan), Symphonic Picture for cello and orchestra, Op. 40 (1968) * Concerto for horn and orchestra, Op. 43 (1971) * Con

František Hertl

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František Hertl (18 April 1906, Zbůch – 23 February 1973, Prague) was a Czech double bassist, composer and conductor. Life Hertl was the oldest of five children born in to a Kapellmeister. As a child he was taught by his father; he played violin and several other instruments. In 1920 he took the entrance exam for violin study at the Prague Conservatory; on the recommendation of František Černý he switched to double bass, and studied with Černý at the Conservatory from then on. After concluding his studies in 1926, Hertl was engaged as principal bassist at the National Theatre in Ljubljana. At the same time, he took a teaching position at a music school in the city. After a short stint in the military, he became the principal bassist of the Czech Philharmonic, then directed by Václav Talich, with whom Hertl studied conducting. He also studied composition from 1933 to 1936 with Otakar Šín and Jaroslav Řídký at the Prague Conservatory. In 1935, he left the Czech Philharmonic and took a position with the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Prague (Symfonický orchestr Českého rozhlasu). He served as principal double bassist there until 1950. From 1936 to 1950 he was also the artistic director a

Franz Biebl

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Franz Xaver Biebl (1 September 1906 – 2 October 2001) was a German composer of classical music and an academic teacher. Most of his compositions were for choral ensembles. He became known internationally when Chanticleer made his Ave Maria part of the repertoire. Life and career Biebl was born in Pursruck, now part of Freudenberg, Bavaria, in 1906. He studied composition at the Musikhochschule in Munich. Biebl served as choir director at the Catholic church of St Maria in München-Thalkirchen from 1932 until 1939, and as an assistant professor of choral music at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, beginning in 1939, where he taught voice and music theory. Biebl was drafted into the military beginning in 1943 during World War II. He was a prisoner of war from 1944 to 1946, being detained at Fort Custer in Battle Creek, Michigan. After the war, he moved from Austria to Fürstenfeldbruck, where he served as director of the municipal chorus. He died in Munich on 2 October 2001, at the age of 95. Ave Maria Biebl’s best-known work is his Ave Maria, which sets portions of the Angelus as well as the Ave Maria. The piece was composed sometime before 1 May 1959. The original composition was in the key

Franz Grothe

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Franz Grothe (17 September 1908 – 12 September 1982) was a German composer, arranger, songwriter, conductor, and pianist active from the mid 1920s until his death in 1982 at the age of 73. He was a prolific composer for German cinema, and was a writer of popular songs. He was particularly known for his output of successful musical films. While principally a composer for the screen, he also wrote some musicals and operettas for the stage. but flouted the party’s ban on jazz music by continuing to compose in a swing style. However, Grothe officially joined the Nazi party and was appointed Werner Egk’s deputy while Egk was the leader of the Composer division ("") in the State-Approved Society for the Exploitation of Musical Performing Rights (German: ; STAGMA) which was then under the control of the Nazi Reichsmusikkammer (Reich Music Chamber). With Georg Haentzschel, Grothe co-founded the German Dance and Entertainment Orchestra in 1941. He had a major success with the satirical musical film The Spessart Inn (1958). He also composed music for German television in the 1960s and 1970s. He was the recipient of the (1966), the (1975), and the Max Reger Prize (1978). He served as chairman

Franz Mittler

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Franz Mittler (April 14, 1893 in Vienna – December 28, 1970 in Munich) was an Austrian (and later on an American) composer, musician, and humorist. Life and work Mittler was born in Vienna. His maternal grandmother financed his earliest musical education which started out under Mr. Deutsch and later Oscar Stock (violin). His first public performance took place in 1902 when he performed the Schubert Sonatina in D D. 384 with the then 7-year-old Clara Haskil. In 1904 he moved from the violin to the pursuit of piano where his teacher became Theodor Leschetizky. He studied theory with Joseph Labor (also teacher of Julius Bittner and Arnold Schoenberg), later composition with Richard Heuberger and Karl Prohaska. From these teachers, Mittler attained his neo-Brahmsian style. Further studies included Fritz Steinbach and Carl Friedberg at the Vienna University and the Conservatory in Cologne. He also studied with Heinrich Schenker. In 1913 Mittler volunteered for a one-year stint in the Imperial and Royal Austrian Army in the supply and logistics division. As sub-lieutenant his military duties included the supervision of a bread-baking unit during all of World War I. During that time he ca

Franz Philipp

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Franz Joseph Philipp (August 24, 1890 – June 2, 1972) was a German church musician and composer. He studied and later taught various instruments including organ, worked as a composer, directed a conservatory, and founded a school for organ, a chamber orchestra, an institute for church music, and a choir. In the 1930s he was highly valued by the Nazi regime as a composer, gaining a reputation he tried to undo after the war. Philipp was born and died in Freiburg im Breisgau, and worked in Basel and Karlsruhe as well. Biography Philipp was born in Freiburg im Breisgau. His musical education began in 1908 at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg, where he studied violin, composition, and musical theory. He took up a position as organist while he was still in school, at the in Freiburg, the same church where his first composition for mass was to be performed. From 1911 to 1912 he studied philosophy and literature at the University of Freiburg, and from 1912 to 1913 he studied organ, counterpoint, and improvisation with Adolf Hamm (a former student of Max Reger and Karl Straube) at the City of Basel Music Academy. In 1914 he recorded 23 piano rolls for the Welte Philharmonie Organ. During Wo

Franz R. Friedl

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Franz René Friedl (30 May 18925 December 1977), was an Austrian violist and composer. He was born in Oberkappel, then part of Austria-Hungary. From 1933 he was music composer for theatre and films, including The Eternal Jew, a film promoting Nazi ideology against Jews. He is listed on some recordings as the conductor of the “Berlin Symphony Orchestra”, a pseudonym of an unidentified ensemble, but it is doubtful whether he actually was the conductor. From 1940 to 1945 he was musical director of Die Deutsche Wochenschau. The grandchild of his only daughter is Björn Stenvers. He died in Essen, on 5 December 1977. *1933 Von Gemsen und Steinböcken *1933 Aus der Heimat des Elchs *1933 Tierbilder aus den finnischen Wäldern *1935 Frischer Wind aus Kanada *1935: Abessinien von heute – Blickpunkt der Welt (Dokumentarfilm) *1935 Stützen der Gesellschaft *1935: Im Lande Widukinds *1935 Die Heilige und ihr Narr *1935: Kater Lampe *1936 Flitterwochen *1936 Annemarie, the story of young love *1938 Es leuchten die Sterne *1938 Liebelei und Liebe *1938 Rätsel der Urwaldhölle *1938 Der Edelweißkönig *1939 Arinka (USSR, Lenfilm) *1939 Das Ekel *1940 Kampf um Norwegen *1940 Der ewige Jude *1949 (UA 19

Franz Reizenstein

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Franz Theodor Reizenstein (7 June 191115 October 1968) was a German-born British composer and concert pianist. He left Germany for sanctuary in Britain in 1934 and went on to have his teaching and performing career there. As a composer, he successfully blended the equally strong but very different influences of his primary teachers, Hindemith and Vaughan Williams. Life Franz Reizenstein’s parents were the well-known physician Dr. Albert Reizenstein (1871–1925) and his wife Lina Kohn (born 1880), both of Nuremberg, Germany. The family was Jewish and counted many professionals, scientists, bankers, and musically inclined people among its members. Reizenstein grew up in Nuremberg and was considered a child prodigy. He composed his first pieces when he was 5, and by the age of 17 he had written a string quartet. His well-to-do and artistic family encouraged him to play chamber music at home. Eventually he was sent to study composition under Paul Hindemith and piano under Leonid Kreutzer at the Berliner Hochschule für Musik. Hindemith’s composition class also included Harald Genzmer, Oskar Sala and Arnold Cooke. Reizenstein remained a lifelong friend of Cooke and kept his Piano Concerto

Franz Servatius Bruinier

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Franz Servatius Bruinier (13 May 1905 – 31 July 1928) was a pianist and composer. He was the first professional composer to collaborate with Bertolt Brecht. On account of his early death from tuberculosis, and because the results of his work went unpublished or were published only without attribution in respect of the musical score, his contribution went unrecognised by mainstream Brecht scholarship till the mid 1970s. Life Franz Servatius Bruinier was born at Biebrich, across the river from Mainz. He and his twin sister, Julie Anne Elisabeth “Anneliese” Bruinier, were the youngest of their parents’ six recorded children. Bruinier’s father, Jan Berend Hendrik Bruinier (1863-1935), had been born in Amsterdam and came to Germany, having held a senior position with a Biebrich company since 1904 and then, in 1907, accepting appointment as Chief Executive Officer (“Geschaeftsführer”) with a heavy engineering firm in Berlin-Steglitz. Despite being resident and “economically active” in Germany “from the age of nine”, he remained Dutch. He applied for German citizenship in 1914 but without success, and seems never to have repeated the application. Probably his children also retained their

Franz Syberg

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Franz Adolf Syberg (5 July 1904 - 11 December 1955) was a Danish composer. Life Syberg was born in Kerteminde, Funen, to the painters Anna and Fritz Syberg. He moved to Leipzig in 1922 where he studied musical composition and music theory at the Leipzig Conservatory with Sigfrid Karg-Elert and Werner Hübschmann. He left for Copenhagen in 1928, where he studied organ with Peter Thomsen. He was appointed organist at Kerteminde in 1932, where he remained for the rest of his life. His 1931 Quintet for flute, clarinet and string trio was chosen in 1938 to be performed at the International Society for Contemporary Music in London and the Nordic Music Days in Copenhagen. The years following this saw the composition of his most mature works, ending in 1942, when he stopped composing. His work was largely forgotten until 1990, when seven of his compositions were performed at the Musikhøst festival in Odense. Much of his work has now been published and performed. His music has much in common with German neo-classicism similar to Hindemith, with much counterpoint and dense linearity, resulting in some harsh and dissonant harmonies. His more mature works show the influence of Carl Nielsen. Com

Franz von Vecsey

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Franz von Vecsey (born Ferenc Vecsey; 23 March 18935 April 1935) was a Hungarian violinist and composer, who became a well-known virtuoso in Europe through the early 20th century. He made his public debut at the age of 10. He became one of the pre-eminent violinists in Europe in the 1910s and 1920s, at one point touring with Béla Bartók as his piano accompanist. Aged only 12, he became the re-dedicatee of Jean Sibelius’ Violin Concerto in D minor in 1905, when the original dedicatee, Willy Burmester, refused to play the work after he was unable to appear at the premiere of the revised version, which was premiered by Karel Halíř instead. Vecsey championed the Sibelius concerto, first performing it when he was only 13. He was the dedicatee of Hubay’s Violin Concerto No.3. He also spent time composing, and wrote a number of virtuosic salon pieces for the violin. Later life and career From 1926 until his death, he lived with his wife in Venice, at the “Palazzo Giustinian de’Vescovi” on Canal Grande. His career steadily faltered after the First World War, as he grew tired of constant touring and wanted to concentrate more on conducting. By the 1930s, he was about to embark on that dream

Fred Elizalde

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Federico “Fred” Díaz Elizalde (December 12, 1907 – January 16, 1979) was a Filipino classical and jazz pianist, composer, conductor, and bandleader, influential in the British dance band era. Early life and education Elizalde was born in Manila, Philippines, to Spanish Filipino parents José Joaquín Elizalde and Carmen Díaz y Moreau. His paternal grandfather, Joaquín Marcelino Elizalde e Yrisarry, emigrated to the Philippines from Elizondo, Navarre. He was a brother of diplomat Joaquín (“Mike”), Manuel (“Manolo”), Juan Miguel, Ángel and Carmenchu Elizalde. At age seven he moved to Spain and entered the Madrid Royal Conservatory, winning the first prize in piano at age 14. This lasted only a year; soon after reaching England, Elizalde formed a new band, the Quinquaginta Band, In the same period, Elizalde composed works which melded jazz and European concert music elements, including “The Heart of a Nigger” Conductor and composer Elizalde broke up his band in 1929, and Christian Ferras gave its London premiere under the direction of Gaston Poulet, in the presence of the composer, and made the world premiere recording on November 7, 1947, when he was aged only 14 * a string quartet, an

Fred Hartley

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

Fred Hartley (1905 – 8 April 1980) was a Scottish rhythm pianist, conductor, composer and arranger of light music best known for his waltz Rouge et Noir. He sometimes composed music under the pseudonym Iris Taylor. Early life Hartley was born in Dundee in 1905, the son of conductor William Hartley director of the Dundee School of Music. He attended the Harris Academy in Dundee, and later attained a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. Career Hartley made his first public broadcast as a solo pianist in 1925 and in 1931 went on to form his Novelty Quintet, which regularly made broadcasts on the BBC. In 1946, he was made Head of BBC Light Music. Hartley composed mainly in the light music genre and his compositions were often featured on the BBC Light Programme. In addition to Rouge et Noir, compositions for orchestra include the Scherzetto for Children, The Hampden Roar, Hartley published several of his piano works under the name Iris Taylor, including Dreamy Afternoon, Cuckoo in Love, Twentieth Century Nocturne and Starry Night. Recordings of his compositions and arrangements were issued by the RAF Salon Orchestra in 2023. Personal life Hartley was married to Gwenyth Marjorie.

Fred Lohse

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Fred Lohse (9 April 1908 – 19 January 1987 ) was a German composer and music educator. Life Born in Leipzig, Lohse studied from 1928 until 1931 musical composition and counterpoint bei Hermann Grabner in Leipzig. From 1928 to 1952, he worked mainly as a music educator. In 1952 he became a docent and in 1973 a professor for composition and musical theory in musicology at Leipzig University. Lohse died in Leipzig at the age of 79. Awards * 1978 Art Prize of the German Democratic Republic Works Orchestral music *Deutscher Reigen 6 pieces (1936) *Symphony No. 1 (1955) *Divertimento für Streichorchester (1957) *Symphony No. 2 1962 *Symphony No. 3 (chamber symphony) (1975) *Konzertmusik für 16 Bläser und Pauken (1976) *Rondo giocoso (Jugend-Sinfonie) (1979) Chamber music *Variationen über ein Thema von Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for violin, violoncello and piano (1931) *Klavierbuch (1937) *2 Sonatas for Viola and Piano (1955) *Sonata for Violin and Piano (1958) *String Quartet No. 1 (1959) *Quintet for Winds (1961) *String Quartet No. 2 (1977) *String Quartet No. 3 (1978) Vocal music *Deutschland, 4 Lieder with piano (1951) *Steigendes Jahr, 6 Lieder for soprano and piano (1952) *Vier Liede

Freda Swain

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Freda Swain (31 October 190229 January 1985) was a British composer, pianist and music educator. Biography Freda Swain was born in Portsmouth, England, the daughter of Thomas and Gertrude (née Allen) Swain. Her first piano lessons (from age 11) were at the Tobias Matthay Piano School in London, given by Matthay’s sister Dora. Three years later she went to study composition with Charles Villiers Stanford and piano with Arthur Alexander at the Royal College of Music, earning awards including the Sullivan Prize in 1921. Swain married Arthur Alexander in 1921, and before World War II the couple toured South Africa and Australia, lecturing, broadcasting and performing recitals. In 1924 she began teaching at the Royal College and in 1936 she founded the British Music Movement to help promote the efforts of young composers and artists. With her husband she was on the founding board of the Surrey College of Music from the mid-1940s. From 1942 they lived in a bungalow on Chinnor Hill in Oxfordshire. The solo Violin Sonata was premiered by May Harrison at Wigmore Hall on 8 December 1933. Her “Airmail” Piano Concerto, mailed in instalments to her husband Arthur Alexander while he was stuck in

Frederic Bayco

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

Frederic Bayco, sometimes spelt Fredric Bayco (1913 – 1970) was an English organist and composer of light music, best known for his Tudor pastiche Elizabethan Masque. Born in London (as Frederick James Baycock) he attended Brighton School of Music, took lessions from organist R H Timberley and composer Eric Thiman, and attained his ARCO. He was later made a fellow of the Royal College of Organists (FRCO). Before the war Bayco was a cinema organist (at the Gaumont, Union Street in Plymouth and on the Gaumont theatre circuit) and began to perform frequent theatre organ recitals, often broadcast by the BBC, at the Dominion Theatre in Tottenham Court Road, London and elsewhere. After war service in the Royal Air Force he became organist and director of music at Holy Trinity Church, Paddington, and also taught organ and musical appreciation at St Gabriel’s College, London from 1948. He was Chairman of the Light Music Society in the 1960s. Elizabethan Masque, a piece looking back on the ceremony and etiquette of the first Elizabethan era in the early years of the second, was composed in 1957. A Scherzo for organ was published by Edwin Ashdown in 1951. Like many composers of the light mus

Frederic Curzon

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Frederic Curzon (4 September 18996 December 1973) was an English composer, conductor and organist, associated with the theatre, early cinema and light music. He sometimes wrote under the pen names Graham Collett and Harold Ramsay. He moved to the New Victoria Cinema in 1935, and in 1938 gave up salaried employment to concentrate full time on composition. That year he composed the music for the high profile 1939-1949 radio comedy series ITMA (It’s That Man Again), starring Tommy Handley. From 1939 and throughout the war he conducted at Llandudno Pier. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s he continued to perform organ music for frequent broadcasts at the BBC Theatre Organ. He was encouraged as an orchestral concert composer by the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra conductor Dan Godfrey and by the music publisher Ralph Hawkes, and was appointed head of Boosey & Hawkes’s Light Music department, where he was an early contributor of mood music or library music, pre-written, royalty-free cues for newsreels, documentaries, radio and eventually television. Curzon married Gladys Marian Fowler in 1937. - where he died in 1973. Music While there are some songs in the ballad style and some solo piano p

Frederick Jacobi

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Frederick Jacobi (May 4, 1891 – October 24, 1952) was a Jewish-American composer and teacher. His works include symphonies, concerti, chamber music, works for solo piano and for solo organ, lieder, and one opera. He taught at Juilliard School of Music from 1936 to 1950, where his pupils included Mark Bucci, Alexei Haieff, Vera Nicolaevna Preobrajenska, Julia Frances Smith, Robert Starer, John Verrall, and Robert Ward. He also served as the director of the American section of the International Society for Contemporary Music and was a founding member of the League of Composers. He died on October 24, 1952, in New York City of heart failure. Biography Early life Jacobi was the son of San Francisco wholesale wine merchant, Frederick Jacobi Sr. and Flora Brandenstein (daughter of tobacco wholesaler Joseph Brandenstein), whom Frederick Sr. had married in 1876. During the composer’s childhood years, he demonstrated his musical talent, composing short pieces at the piano and playing tunes from contemporary musical comedies by ear. In these years the family traveled each summer to visit relatives in New York City. The scenery of those cross-country train rides later provided the themes of a

Frederick May (composer)

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

Frederick May (9 June 1911 – 8 September 1985) was an Irish composer and arranger. His musical career was seriously hindered by a lifelong hearing problem and he produced relatively few compositions. Early years Frederick May was born into a Dublin Protestant family who lived in the suburb of Donnybrook. His father, also named Frederick, was employed at the Guinness Brewery. May pursued his musical studies at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, where he was taught composition by John Larchet. In 1930, McCullough Pigott and Co. published his Irish Love Song. The same year he was awarded the Esposito Cup at the Feis Ceoil and as a result of this, he was nominated as the first recipient of a new scholarship prize worth £100 to be spent on the further study of piano. In July he took his preliminary examination for the BMus at Trinity College Dublin before departing Dublin to utilise his scholarship in London. In September he enrolled at the Royal College of Music where his teachers included Charles Kitson, Ralph Vaughan Williams, R. O. Morris and Gordon Jacob. He took his final TCD examination in December 1931 submitting a string quartet and on 10 December his degree was conferred. Durin

Frederick T. Durrant

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Frederick Thomas Durrant (1895 – January 1979), typically known as F.T. Durrant, was an organist, musical academic and composer, long resident in Harrow. Career Durrant was born at Beer in Devon and was a chorister at Exeter Cathedral. He attended the Royal Academy of Music, where he won the Battison Haynes Prize in 1921 and the Charles Lucas Medal in 1923. In 1922 he married his wife Gladys Louise (1891–1975, also born in Beer) and they moved to Harrow-on-the Hill, at 71 Whitmore Road, where they stayed the rest of their lives. Durrant received his D.Mus. from the University of London in 1929, where he later became Dean of the Facility of Music. Composition His compositions included the Clarinet Quintet in E flat, inaugural winner of the Clements Memorial Prize in 1938, which was broadcast by the Whinyates String Quartet with soloist Pauline Juler on 22 July 1941, and subsequently performed at Conway Hall (also by Juler) in 1946. The Quintet was revived by Peter Cigleris at Conway Hall in 2019. His six part madrigal Requiescat won the Madrigal Society’s 1947 prize. A slow march, scored for military band, won a Liverpool Philharmonic Society competition in 1952, and was performed o

Fried Walter

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

Fried Walter (9 December 1907 in Ottendorf-Okrilla as Walter Emil Schmidt, 8 April 1996 in Berlin) was a German composer. He composed over 500 pieces and arranged more than 250 songs, including many Volkslieder, and he is considered one of the most versatile and prolific composers of German light music. Life Fried Walter was born as the son of an elementary school teacher near Dresden. His mother died when Walter was only 5 years old. Although his father encouraged him to also become a teacher, Walter focused his studies on musical instruments, including piano, cello, organ, and French horn. At the age of 17, he was accepted as a student for music theory and conducting at the Semperoper opera house in Dresden. He earned his first paycheck as a horn player playing Richard Wagner operas as an ensemble musician. After completing his education, he volunteered for the state theater in Gotha, after which he moved to the Reußisch-Fürstliche Theater in Gera. The Great Depression forced him to give up his position. Walter moved to Berlin, where he studied the techniques of silent film accompaniment from Giuseppe Becce; however, with the advent of sound film, his career as silent film accomp

Frieda Schmitt-Lermann

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Frieda Schmitt-Lermann (born 24 May 1885) was a German composer and pianist who wrote music for orchestra, television, theatre and voice. Life Schmitt-Lermann was born in Würzburg. She studied piano privately in Augsburg, then studied composition in Munich with Josef Schmid. Little is known about Schmitt-Lermann’s personal life. Schmitt-Lermann’s Kompositionen fuer Violine und Klavier was recorded commercially on LP KASKA 1 BLN 30. Her music was published by Boehm & Sohn and Otto Halbreiter. *music for television *Deutsche Schulmesse (two voices and organ) *Graduale fuer Mariae Empfangnis (choir and organ) References

Friederike Schwarz

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Friederike Schwarz (15 January 1910 – 5 May 1945) was a Czech composer, educator, pianist and writer. She, together with her sister, committed suicide during the Prague uprising. She sometimes published under the pseudonym rz. Biography Schwarz was born in Prague to a family of modest means. Her musical talent came to the attention of composer Fidelio Finke, director of the German Academy of Music and Performing Arts, who helped Schwarz get scholarships to study piano and composition at the Academy. She graduated in 1931 Schwarz’s Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra won a prize from the Prague Literary-Artistic Society. Her chamber music compositions were favorably reviewed in the Prager Tagblatt. Her compositions include: ;Chamber *Quintet (string quartet and clarinet) *Sonata (violin and piano) References Further reading * *

Friedrich Hollaender

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Friedrich Hollaender (in exile also Frederick Hollander; 18 October 189618 January 1976) was a German film composer and author. Life and career He was born in London to a Jewish family, where his father, operetta composer Victor Hollaender, worked as a musical director at the Barnum & Bailey Circus. Young Hollaender had a solid music and theatre family background: his uncle Gustav was director of the Stern Conservatory in Berlin, and his uncle Felix Hollaender was a well-known novelist and drama critic, who later worked with Max Reinhardt at the Deutsches Theater. In 1899 Hollaender’s family returned to Berlin. His father began teaching at the Stern Conservatory, where his son became a student in Engelbert Humperdinck’s master class. In the evening he played the piano at silent film performances in local cinemas, developing the art of musical improvisation. By the age of 18 he was employed as a répétiteur at the New German Theatre in Prague and also was put in charge of troop entertainment at the Western Front of World War I. Having finished his studies, he composed music for productions by Max Reinhardt and became involved in Berlin’s Kabarett scene. Together with Kurt Tucholsky,

Friedrich Wildgans

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

Friedrich Wildgans (5 June 1913 in Vienna – 7 November 1965 in Mödling) was an Austrian composer and clarinettist. Life Wildgans was born into the family of the well-known poet and Burgtheater director Anton Wildgans (1881-1932) and his wife Lilly, née Würzl. In 1915, the family moved to Mödling. From 1934 to 1935 he was in Salzburg Teacher at the Mozarteum. From 1936 to 1940, he worked as principal clarinettist in the stage orchestra of the Vienna State Theatres. Wildgans supported the conservative resistance group around Roman Karl Scholz, was therefore arrested by the Gestapo on 25 October 1940 and remained in pre-trial detention until 24 February 1942. After the liberation of Vienna in April 1945, he worked as a teacher at the Austrian Academy of Music, which he had to leave again at the beginning of the 1946/47 academic year. It was not until 1955 that he received a permanent position there again. From 1946 to 1950 Wildgans, who had been a member of the KPÖ since April 1945 (until his resignation or expulsion in July 1950), worked as a music officer in the Cultural Office of the City of Vienna under Viktor Matejka. Since its re-establishment in April 1945 he was executive vice

Fritz Büchtger

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Fritz Büchtger (14 February 1903 – 26 December 1978) was a German composer. Life Born in Munich, Büchtger studied at the Music Academie of Munich with , Hermann Wolfgang von Waltershausen and Anton Beer-Walbrunn. In March 1927, together with the young pianists Udo Dammert and Franz Dorfmüller, who were later joined by Carl Orff, Werner Egk and other artists, he founded the (Association for Contemporary Music), which performed approximately one hundred and seventy works by contemporary composers in Munich. Under the direction of Büchtger and the conductor Hermann Scherchen (1891–1966), who acted as the spiritual leader, this institution held four “Festwochen für Neue Musik” in particular until its end in 1932, in addition to the large number of individual concerts. * Die Himmelfahrt Christi : für gemischten Chor und Orchester. * Fritz Büchtger. * Le miroir brisé : 4 chansons d’amour. * Die Verklärung : für Bariton, Frauenstimmen und Streicher : Partitur zugleich Klavierauszug. External links * * * Gabriele E. Meyer: Neue Musik-Wochen in München, 1929-1931 Gründung der “Vereinigung für zeitgenössische Musik” Im: BLO (Historisches Lexikon Bayerns) References

Fritz Cohen

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Frederic Alexander “Fritz” Cohen (born 23 June 1904, Bonn, German Empire, died 9 March 1967, New York, United States) was a German composer best known for writing the music for Kurt Jooss’s ballets. Miscellaneous papers relating to the careers of Fritz and Elsa Cohen are held in the Dartington Hall Trust Archive in the United Kingdom. References and sources External links * Information page for Dartington Hall archive on the Cohens

Fritz Dietrich

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Fritz Dietrich (13 February 1905 – January 1945) was a German musicologist and composer. Biography Dietrich was born in Pforzheim. After his secondary education there, he attended the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology for one semester, before moving to music. He studied from 1925 in Freiburg with Wilibald Gurlitt and Heinrich Besseler. Later study saw him move to Heidelberg University, where Besseler had moved. For a short time, Dietrich studied in Leipzig at the conservatory, under Karl Straube. From 1931 to 1934, Dietrich took a music assistantship in Heidelberg, whilst training to teach at university level. This he did in 1935, but with the Nazi regime strengthening its grip on the German society, working opportunities for music teachers dwindled. Between 1935 and 1944 Dietrich worked for the Bärenreiter publishing house in Kassel, and himself published a collection of small notebooks with music for laymen. He was conscripted into the army, and in January 1945 went missing on the Eastern front in the area around Heiligenbeil (now Mamonovo in Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia) at the start of the East Prussian offensive by the Red Army. Dietrich’s known works were written for organ and

Fritz Heinrich Klein

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Fritz Heinrich Klein (2 February 1892 – 12 July 1977) was an Austrian composer. Life and music Klein was born in Budapest. He was a student of Alban Berg and the inventor of the all-interval twelve-tone row. He studied with Schoenberg from 1917 to 1918, with Berg from 1918 to 1924, and prepared the piano-vocal score for Berg’s Wozzeck and the piano score of Berg’s Chamber Concerto. Klein’s twelve-tone theories, which he refers to as “extonal”, appear to originate independently of Schoenberg’s as with Josef Matthias Hauer’s, and these claims as well as frequent stylistic changes helped to exclude him from the Second Viennese School, though Klein’s theories where highly influential on Alban Berg. Klein considered his piece for two pianos, Die Maschine: Eine extonale Selbstsatire The Machine: An Extonal Satire , Op. 1 (1921) the first in which a twelve-tone row appears along with its retrograde, inversion, and transposed forms. An all-interval row is a tone row arranged so that it contains one instance of each interval within the octave, 0 through 11. For example, the first all-interval row, by Klein: F, E, C, A, G, D, A, D, E, G, B, C. In integers this row is represented as 0 e 7 4 2

Fritz Ihlau

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Fritz Ihlau (28 August 1909 – 1995) was a German composer. He also composed under the pseudonym Fred Langen, especially rhythmically more modern works. Life Born in Hanover, Ilhau studied music, literature and theatre studies from 1930 to 1935 at Marburg University and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, where he received a doctorate (PhD). He joined the Christian student fraternity In the field of music, he studied counterpoint and composition with Hans Stieber. As a student, he gave concerts under the direction of Otto Ebel von Sosen and made radio recordings under the direction of Karl List. Afterwards, he graduated from the Tonmeisterschule in Frankfurt. Ihlau specialized as a music consultant and editor and worked at the radio stations in Hanover and at the . After the Second World War, he worked as a freelance journalist in Traunstein / Upper Bavaria. In 1950, he moved to WDR in Cologne as Tonmeister and was additionally appointed as the main program designer in 1961. Ilhau retired in 1975 but remained in the music world through his compositions. Ihlau’s oeuvre includes an operetta, a ballet, church music, songs, choral works and orchestral pieces. Work Works for orch

Fritz Lubrich

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Fritz Lubrich (26 January 1888 – 15 April 1971) was a German organist and composer. Lubrich was born in Neustädtel. His father (1862-1952) was a cantor and hymnologist. Lubrich jr. attended the teacher’s seminar in Żagań from 1905 to 1908 and was appointed in 1907 at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig, a student of Reger and Straube. At the end of his studies he received the Arthur Nikisch Prize for composition. From 1911 to 1919 Lubrich was a music teacher at the Protestant Teachers’ Seminar in Bielsko-Biała, and in 1917 he received the Austrian title of professor. In 1919 Lubrich became chief organist at the . In 1923 he also received the German and Polish professorial titles. In the 1920s, Lubrich became organist at the Church of the Resurrection, Katowice. After the Second World War he went to Hamburg and continued his work as an organist and pedagogue. Among Lubricht students were , Günter Bialas, Gerd Zacher and Kurt Schwaen. Lubricht died in Hamburg at age 83. Work * Kyrie eleison (Charakterstück in D), Op. 9 (1909) * Drei Stücke, Op. 13 (1911) * Drei Stimmungsbilder Op. 24 (1912) * Fünf Choral-Improvisationen, (1912) * Drei romantische Tonstücke (after three pictur

Fritz Müller-Rehrmann

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Fritz Müller-Rehrmann (3 December 1889, Nuremberg — 2 April 1949, Munich) was a German composer and conductor. Early life and education Müller-Rehrman was born in Nuremberg in 1889, the son of a head teacher and music director. He studied first with Felix Mottl and Friedrich Klose at the Münchener Akademie der Tonkunst between 1908 and 1912, before taking masterclasses with Friedrich Gernsheim and Georg Schumann in while serving in World War I. Career and political activities After completing his studies, Müller-Rehrmann worked as a conductor in Glogau from 1919 to 1920, returning to Munich in 1921 as a freelance composer. He published a book on music theory, Grundlagen der modernen Harmonik, in three volumes in 1922. Müller-Rehrmann joined NSDAP (Nazi Party) in 1932 (No. 929,179). He worked closely with youth organisations, providing music for gymnastic activities. After World War II he remained in Munich, dying in 1949. Selected works Orchestral works * Tanzbilder, op. 4. * Kriegsouvertüre 1914, op. 5 (1916) * Kleine Suite, op. 12 * Requiem, op. 16 * Suite für Orchester Nr. 2, op. 22 (1935) * Musik zu Gymnastic und Tanz, op. 24 * Gavotte für Flöte und Streichorchester, op. 27 Nr.

Fritz Reuter (composer)

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Fritz Reuter (9 September 1896 – 4 July 1963) was a German musicologist, music educator, composer and Kapellmeister. Reuter was one of the most important German music educators of the 20th century. After studying music and musicology in Dresden and Leipzig, with Teichmüller, Riemann, Schering and Abert, he received his doctorate in 1922 (Dr. phil.). In 1945, he was appointed Kapellmeister at the Volksoper in Dresden. In 1955, he was one of the initiators of the first Hallische Musiktage. Life Origin and music studies Born in Löbtau, now part of Dresden, Reuter came from a Saxon artisan family from the Ore Mountains. He was born as the son of the master builder and carpenter Friedrich August Reuter (born 1868) in a working-class suburb. – which stood in a line of tradition with the approaches of the philosopher Karl Christian Friedrich Krause. At the same time, Reuter studied in Leipzig at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig and at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig. His teachers included among others Otto Weinreich and Robert Teichmüller in piano, Stephan Krehl in composition and Bernhard Porst in bandmaster training, as well as Hugo Riemann, Hermann Abert and Arno

Fritz Spielmann (composer)

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Fritz Spielmann (20 November 190621 March 1997) was an Austrian composer, pianist, singer and cabaret artist. As an émigré in America from 1939 he composed under the name Fred Spielman. Early life Born in Vienna, Spielmann began studying piano and composition the Vienna Academy of Music from 1918, where his teachers included Joseph Marx and Hans Gál. He worked as an accompanist and conductor in Berlin and Breslau, and from 1931 he was one of the founders of the literary cabaret Der Liebe Augustin with Stella Kadmon. He became well known as a cabaret pianist and entertainer, mixing jazz and Viennese song. From 1934 until 1937 he formed a song-writing team with Stephan Weiss (1899-1989). The song ‘Schinkenfleckerln!’, taken up by Hermann Leopoldi was one of their biggest successes. Following the Anschluss he emigrated from Vienna to Paris in May 1938 - while most of his family fell victim to the Nazis. The following year he moved to New York and began working with fellow exiles Leopoldi and lyricist Jimmy Berg (1909-1988), changing his given name to Fred. America Written with Kermit Goell, Spielmann’s song ‘Shepherd Serenade’ was recorded by Bing Crosby, selling over a million copies

Fumio Hayasaka

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was a Japanese composer of classical music and film scores. Early life Hayasaka was born in the city of Sendai on the main Japanese island of Honshū. In 1918, Hayasaka and his family moved to Sapporo on the northern island of Hokkaidō. In 1933, Hayasaka and Akira Ifukube organized the New Music League, which held a new music festival the year after. Hayasaka won a number of prizes for his early concert works; in 1935, his piece Futatsu no sanka e no zensōkyoku won first prize in a radio competition, and another concert piece, Kodai no bukyoku, won the 1938 Weingartner Prize. Other early works include a Nocturne (1936) for piano and the orchestral Ancient Dance (1938). In 1939, Hayasaka moved to Tokyo to begin a career as film composer. By early 1940, Hayasaka was seen as “a major composer for Japanese Cinema”. Post-War film music After the war, Hayasaka continued working on films, quickly winning recognition for his abilities. In 1946, he received the film music award for An Enemy of the People (Minshū no Teki, 1946) at the first annual Mainichi Film Awards. The year after, 1947, Hayasaka received the Mainichi film music award for Teinosuke Kinugasa’s Actress (Joyu). In the late 19

Gábor Darvas

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Gábor Darvas (; until 1952 Gábor Steinberger; 18 January 1911 – 18 February 1985) was a Hungarian composer and musicologist. He was one of the first Hungarian composers to work in the field of electronic music. As a musicologist, his interest was primarily in music of the 15th and 16th centuries. Biography He was born at Szatmárnémeti (Austria-Hungary) in 1911. His family moved to Budapest in 1918, where he finished his high school studies. He studied piano from the age of nine, from 1926 until 1932 he attended the Academy of Music in Budapest as an instrumentalists and later studied composition under Zoltán Kodály. His orchestral compositions of the thirties were performed in concerts and in the Hungarian Radio. In 1939 he left the country. During the World War II, he lived in Chile, He died in 1985 in Budapest. Compositions * Improvisations symphoniques (1963) for piano and orchestra * Sectio aurea (1964) for orchestra * Medália (Medal) on a poem by Attila József (1965) for soprano, keyboard instruments, percussion and loudspeaker * Rotation for 5 (1967) for vibraphone, marimba, guitarre, cimbalom and piano * A torony (The tower) (1967) for voices and instruments * Magánzárka (So

Gabriel Cusson

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Gabriel Cusson (2 April 1903, Roxton Pond, Quebec - 18 Apr 1972, Montreal) was a Canadian composer and music educator. As a composer, his music was heavily influenced by the style of early 20th-century French composers. Most of his work remains unpublished, although a few of his compositions have been recorded including his Sérénade for orchestra and one of his suites by the Orchestre Métropolitain. The Canadian publishing company La Bonne Chanson has printed a number of his folksong arrangements. His other unpublished works include several motets, the cantata À la gloire de Jeanne Mance (1942), and incidental music for Antigone and the biblical dramas Jonathas and Tobie. Training Cusson was trained at the Institut Nazareth, a music conservatory in Montreal that awarded degrees through the University of Montreal. While there he studied the cello with Gustave Labelle, singing with Alfred Lamoureux, piano and organ with Arthur Letondal, and music theory with both Achille Fortier and Romain Pelletier. He graduated from the school in 1924 with a Bachelor of Music and that same year won the Prix d’Europe for cello performance. That competition win enabled him to study at the École Norma

Gabriel von Wayditch

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Gabriel von Wayditch (28 December 1888, Budapest28 July 1969 New York City) was a Hungarian-American composer whose output consisted primarily of 14 grand operas. The son of Dr. Aloysious (Lajos) von Wayditch von Verbovac (Verbovác), a nobleman and inventor who had taught physics at the University of Pécs, and Helena von Dönhoff, a Prussian baroness, who was according to familytrees related to the ancient magyar Árpád dynasty. Gabriel (Wayditch Gábor) was born in Budapest. He studied piano, conducting, and composition at the National Hungarian Academy of Music (now the Franz Liszt Academy of Music) where his teachers included Franz Liszt’s pupil Emil von Sauer and Hans von Koessler, who was also the teacher of composers Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, Ernő Dohnányi, and Kálmán Emmerich. Life and career In 1910, Gabriel von Wayditch began composing his first opera, , for which he also wrote his own Hungarian libretto. But after his parents separated, he emigrated to the United States with his father before completing it, arriving in New York harbor in 1911. In New York City, Wayditch worked as a theater conductor while completing Ópium Álmok, which lasts 4 hours and requires an orchestr

Gaetano Giuffrè

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Gaetano Giuffrè (born Corfu, 14 September 1918 – 8 January 2018) was an Italian-Greek-Swiss composer and maestro whose father was Giovanni Giuffrè, also a composer and maestro born in Corfu, Greece. Biography Born into a musical family, Giuffrè began playing violin and piano with his father at the age of 4 until he became an adult at the age of 18. In 1936, he moved to Athens to study composition with George Sklavos and Dimitri Mitropulos, focusing on fugues and counterpoints. In 1939, he moved to Rome and studied at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia where he was one of the students of renown composer, Alfredo Casella. There he acquired formation in choir studies with Elena Mangione and from choir director and influential composer, Goffredo Petrassi. From 1957 to 1972 he became an artistic director for Radio Svizzera Italiana in Lugano. During this period he received an award by the 8th International Competition G.B. Viotti in Vercelli, Italy for his work, Tema con Variazioni, for one piano. During this period he conducted and performed piano recitals throughout Europe. In 1957–1961, he was commissioned by the Italian State to direct his work, Aeroporto. The first showing of

Gail Kubik

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Gail Thompson Kubik (September 5, 1914 – July 20, 1984) was an American composer, music director, violinist, and teacher. He first gained widespread recognition for his scores for World War II documentary films, including Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (1944). He is best remembered for winning the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his Symphony Concertante, and for his score for Gerald McBoing-Boing. Early life and education Kubik was born in South Coffeyville, Oklahoma, the second of three sons to Henry and Evalyn O. Kubik, a singer who had studied with Schumann-Heink. In the 1930s his mother and her sons formed the Kubik Ensemble (Gail on violin, Howard on piano, and Henry Jr. on cello) and toured the midwest. All three brothers studied at the Eastman School of Music, where Kubik studied composition with Howard Hanson and violin with Samuel Belov and Scott Willits. It is likely that Kubik played violin in Eastman’s orchestra, taking part in the American Composers’ Concerts and getting nationally broadcast on NBC. Kubik graduated with distinction in 1934 in a class that included Wayne Barlow and Kent Kennan. Kubik then received his master’s degree in music in 1935 at t

Galina Konstantinovna Smirnova

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Galina Konstantinovna Smirnova (20 January 1910 - 1980) was a Russian composer, musicologist, and radio music editor who used folk songs in her compositions and composed at least one film score. Smirnova was born in Moscow. She studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Vissarion Shebalin from 1932 to 1940. Few details are available about her work as a musicologist and radio editor. Her music was published by Sovetskii Kompozitor and was recorded commercially by Albany Records U.S. Her compositions include: Chamber *Sonatina in b minor (flute and piano) Film *Italianskaia Suita, 10 Songs (text by Samuil Marshak and Gianni Rodari) Orchestra *A Dedication to Leningrad (oratorio for children’s chorus and orchestra) Vocal *Children’s Choral Pieces (vocal quartet) *“Dobroye Utro” *Northern Wind (vocal quartet) *“Pesni Zapadnikh Slavyan” (text by Alexander Pushkin) *“Pesnya Materei: Russian Folk Song” *Pomni sorok pervyǐ (songs for low voice and piano) *“Svadevnaya” (text by Aleksei Ivanovich Nedogonov) References

Galina Ustvolskaya

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Galina Ivanovna Ustvolskaya ( ) (17 June 1919 – 22 December 2006), was a Russian composer of classical music. Known by Dutch critic Elmer Schönberger as “the lady with the hammer”, her music has been described as demanding “everything from the performer”, uncompromising in her trademark textured homophonic blocks of sound. Ustvolskaya created her own unique style, characterized by unusual combinations of instruments that created highly specific tone clusters and textures and by her large dynamic ranges. She was reclusive and rarely accepted to be interviewed as she found it unpleasant to talk about her own music. In her lifetime, she only approved of 21 of her works for performance. Early years Galina Ustvolskaya was born in Petrograd (modern day St. Petersburg). Her mother was a school teacher; her father was a lawyer. Her early childhood took place during the Russian Civil War and the October Revolution. Despite her impoverished childhood and non-musical family, from a young age she developed an interest in music. She was deemed to be gifted when she began musical studies at the age of 7. Middle years Ustvolskaya studied at the Leningrad Conservatory from 1937 to 1939. Her teache

Gardner Read

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Gardner Read (January 2, 1913 in Evanston, Illinois – November 10, 2005 in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts) was an American composer and musical scholar. His first musical studies were in piano and organ, and he also took lessons in counterpoint and composition at the School of Music at Northwestern University. In 1932 he was awarded a four-year scholarship to the Eastman School of Music (B.M. and M.M.), where he studied with Bernard Rogers and Howard Hanson. In the late 1930s he also studied briefly with Ildebrando Pizzetti, and Aaron Copland. After heading the composition departments of the St. Louis Institute of Music, the Kansas City Conservatory of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music, Read became Composer-in-Residence and Professor of Composition at the School of Music at Boston University. He remained in this post until his retirement in 1978. His Symphony No. 1, op. 30 (1937, premiered by Sir John Barbirolli) won first prize at the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Society’s American Composers’ Contest, while his second symphony (op. 45, 1943) won first prize in the Paderewski Fund Competition. Another first prize came in the 1986 National Association of Teachers of

Gaspar Cassadó

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Gaspar Cassadó i Moreu (30 September or 5 October 1897 – 24 December 1966) was a Spanish cellist and composer of the early 20th century. Biography Gaspar Cassadó i Moreu was born in Barcelona to a church musician father, Joaquim Cassadó, and began taking cello lessons at age seven. When he was nine, he played in a recital where Pablo Casals was in the audience; Casals immediately offered to teach him. The city of Barcelona awarded him a scholarship so that he could study with Casals in Paris. In 1914 World War I broke out and his brother Agustí died a victim of an epidemic. Gaspar returned to Barcelona and began to offer concerts with the main orchestras of Spain. From 1918 he also performed in France and Italy, thanks to his friendship with Alfredo Casella. In 1920 he toured Argentina. From 1922 he began to make known his own compositions, both pieces for cello and concerts, chamber music, oratorios and a sardana. He also made transcriptions for cello. In 1923 and thanks to the friendship with Francesco von Mendelssohn he met the singer and pianist Giulietta Gordigiani, with whom he lived for more than three decades, settling in Florence. Gaspar and Giulietta created a cello and p

Gaston Allaire

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Joseph Georges-Émile Gaston Allaire (18 June 1916 – 15 January 2011) was a Canadian musicologist, organist, pianist, composer, and music educator of American birth. His compositional output includes several preludes for organ, an organ work on French carols, some motets and other choral works, a communion service, a prelude and fugue for string orchestra, and a polyphonic mass. He also wrote Suite laurentienne for orchestra from which the Poème and the Menuet were premiered by the Quebec Symphony Orchestra in 1949, and composed the music for the 1953 film The Man on the Beach. His Marche (1964) and Petite Suite (1965) were both written for the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps Band. Early life and education Born in Berlin, New Hampshire to parents Marie and Xavier, Allaire moved with his family to Danville, Quebec when he was just two years old. His mother was a homemaker and his father was the station master for the Danville train station. The eldest of 9 children, he began studying the organ and piano as a child. He began professional studies in the organ in Victoriaville in 1934, continuing with his education in Quebec City in 1936. He entered the Conservatoire national de musique i

Gaston Litaize

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Gaston Gilbert Litaize (11 August 1909 – 5 August 1991) was a French organist and composer. Considered one of the 20th century masters of the French organ, he toured, recorded, worked at churches, and taught students in and around Paris. Blind from infancy, he studied and taught for most of his life at the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles (National Institute for the Blind). Life Litaize was born in Ménil-sur-Belvitte, Vosges, in northeast France. An illness caused him to lose his sight just after birth. He entered the Institute for the Blind at a young age, studying with Charles Magin, who encouraged him to move to Paris Over the course of six years, he won first prizes in organ, improvisation, fugue, and composition, as well as the Prix Rossini for his cantata Fra Angelico. In 1938 he finished second to Henri Dutilleux in the Prix de Rome, said to be the first time that a blind person was accepted in the competition; subsequently he asked Dutilleux many times to compose for the organ, but nothing came of it. He began working as organist at Saint-Cloud in 1934, and after leaving the Paris Conservatoire in 1939 he returned to the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles to teach h

Gavriil Popov (composer)

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Gavriil Nikolayevich Popov (; 12 September 1904 – 17 February 1972) was a Soviet composer. Life and career Popov studied at the Leningrad Conservatory from 1922 until 1930 with Leonid Vladimirovich Nikolayev, Vladimir Shcherbachov, and Maximilian Steinberg. He was considered to have the raw talent of his slightly younger contemporary Dmitri Shostakovich. His early works, in particular the Septet (or Chamber Symphony) (Op. 2, 1927) for flute, trumpet, clarinet, bassoon, violin, cello and bass, and his Symphony No. 1 (Op. 7) are impressively powerful and forward-looking. The symphony had its premiere by the Leningrad Philharmonic in 1935 and was immediately banned by a local censor; Popov was accused of formalism, a terrible stigma at the time. His melodic and instrumental invention was sharp, deeply rooted in Russian folk music. Even pieces adapted from propagandist movies, such as his Symphony No. 2, recorded by Hermann Abendroth (Urania LP), can be profoundly stirring. His sense of the orchestra, brilliant and buoyant, his grasp of large formal patterns, as found in the huge Symphony No. 3 for large string orchestra, are equally outstanding. Symphony No. 6 “Festive” betrays a kind

Gayane Chebotaryan

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Gayane Chebotaryan (8 November 1918, Rostov-on-Don16 January 1998, Moscow) was an Armenian composer and musicologist. She was born in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, and graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory. She studied composition with As a composer, she was praised, along with other Armenian composers, by Dmitri Shostakovich for “working hard and successfully on new compositions.” Works Selected works include: *Piano Concerto *Piano Trio *Suite, for orchestra No. 2 *Six Preludes *Polifonicheskii al’bom dlia iunoshestva. 13 fortepiannykh p’es collection, 1975 Her work has been recorded and issued on CD, including: *Armenian Piano Trios, Audio CD (September 20, 2004) Et’Cetera, ASIN: B0006Z2LEC References External links *Gayane Chebotaryan - Piano Trio at Youtube *Gayane Chebotaryan - Piano prelude no. 3 on Youtube

Geirr Tveitt

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Geirr Tveitt (born Nils Tveit; 19 October 1908 – 1 February 1981) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. Tveitt was a central figure of the national movement in Norwegian cultural life during the 1930s. Life Early years Tveitt was born in Bergen, where his father briefly worked as a teacher. His parents were Håkonson Lars Tveit (1878–1951) and Johanna Nilsdotter Heradstveit (1882–1966). His family were of farmer stock, and still retained Tveit, their ancestral land in Kvam Municipality – a secluded area on the Hardangerfjord. The Tveit family would relocate to Drammen in the winter to work, but return to Hardanger in the summer to farm. Tveitt had originally been christened Nils, but following his increasing interest in Norwegian heritage, he thought the name was not Norwegian enough and changed it to Geir. He later added an extra r to his first name and an extra t to Tveit to indicate more clearly to non-Norwegians the desired pronunciation of his name. It was during his childhood summers in Hardanger that Tveitt gained knowledge of the rich folk-music traditions of the area. Historically, Hardanger’s relative isolation allowed for the development of a unique musical culture, with

Gene Gutchë

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Gene Gutchë (born Romeo Maximilian Eugene Ludwig Gutschë; 3 July 1907, Berlin – 15 November 2000, White Bear Lake, Minnesota) was a German composer active primarily in the United States. Gutchë earned degrees in business and economics but also studied piano with Ferruccio Busoni. In 1925 he moved to the U.S., working in both fields. In the 1950s he attended graduate school in music at the University of Minnesota and the University of Iowa, studying under Philip Greeley Clapp and settling in Minneapolis. He withdrew his early compositions at this time. While much of his work is neo-Romantic, he also experimented with polytonality, serialism, and microtones. Gutchë also published two books, Music of the People (1968) and Come Prima (1970). Selected works ;Orchestra * Symphony No.1 * Symphony No.2 for chorus and orchestra, Op.14 (1951) * Symphony No.3, Op.19 * Rondo Capriccioso, Op.21 * Dance Suite, Op.26 No.2 * Rhapsody, Op.26 No.3 * Holofernes Overture, Op.27 No.1 (1958) * Judith Prologue, Op.27 No.2 * Concertino, Op.28 (1956) * Symphony No.4 in one movement, Op.30 (1960) * Symphony No.5 for string orchestra, Op.34 (1962) * Bongo Divertimento, Op.35 (1965, revised 1993) * Genghis Kh

Gene Krupa

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Eugene Bertram Krupa (January 15, 1909 – October 16, 1973) was an American jazz drummer, bandleader, and composer. Krupa is widely regarded as one of the most influential drummers in the history of popular music. His drum solo on Benny Goodman’s 1937 recording of “Sing, Sing, Sing” elevated the role of the drummer from that of an accompanist to that of an important solo voice in the band. In collaboration with the Slingerland drum and Zildjian cymbal manufacturers, he became a major force in defining the standard band-drummer’s kit. Modern Drummer magazine regards Krupa as “the founding father of modern drumset playing”. Upon his death, The New York Times labeled Krupa a “revolutionary” known for “frenzied, flashy” drumming, with his work having generated a significant musical legacy that started “in jazz and has continued on through the rock era”. Early life The youngest of Anna (née Oslowski) and Bartłomiej Krupa’s nine children, Gene Krupa was born in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Bartłomiej was an immigrant from Poland born in the village of Łęki Górne, southeastern Poland. Anna was born in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, and was also of Polish descent. His parents were Roman Catho

Geoffrey Gwyther

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Geoffrey Matheson Gwyther (8 October 1892 – 27 July 1944) was an English singer, actor, songwriter, and composer. Gwyther was educated at Gresham’s School, Holt, where he was taught by Geoffrey Shaw and took delight in the music of Henry Purcell. This was later performed at Gwyther’s old school, under the direction of Shaw, and was well received. at Gresham’s. In March 1915, he was confirmed in that rank. By 1916, he had been promoted to lieutenant, and from April to June of that year had a temporary appointment as an instructor. In 1917, he was still serving with his regiment in France, now with the rank of Captain, but on 9 May 1917 was transferred to the retired list, due to ill health. On returning to civilian life, and in the years after the war, Gwyther became a successful singer and songwriter, Gwyther died on 27 June 1944 at the Bryn Mawr Hospital in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, following a heart attack. His obituary in The New York Times noted that he had been wounded in the First World War. Notes External links *Works by Geoffrey Gwyther, BBC Proms *Geoffrey Gwyther, IMDb

George Andreani

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George Andreani, pseudonym Josef Dvořáček (born as Josef Kumok; 28 February 1901 in Warsaw, Poland – 2 April 1979 in Buenos Aires, Argentina) was a Polish composer, film score composer, pianist, conductor, and actor. He was noted for his scores of some 75 Argentine films during the Golden Age of Argentine cinema from 1937 to 1959. Aside from his prolific work as a score composer, he was also conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica Schenley in the 1940s. Career He participated as an actor in the film Lelíček al Servicio de Sherlock Holmes, whose role was that of a composer (in addition to scoring the music for that film). He arrived in Buenos Aires in 1937 (where he adopted the name George Andreani). He collaborated with both Argentine and Chilean films. He worked with directors such as Carlos Hugo Christensen, Arturo García Buhr, Enrique Susini, among others. Most of the films he scored belonged to the Lumiton label. In Chile he was hired by Chile Films in 1946 and composed music for films of that studio such as La dama de la muerte and El diamante del Maharaja, as well as for other independent filmmakers. He conducted the large symphonic orchestra that he conducted at Radio Splendid a

George Antheil

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George Johann Carl Antheil ( ; July 8, 1900 – February 12, 1959) was an American avant-garde composer, pianist, author, and inventor whose modernist musical compositions explored the sounds – musical, industrial, and mechanical – of the early 20th century. Spending much of the 1920s in Europe, Antheil returned to the United States in the 1930s, and thereafter composed music for films, and eventually, television. As a result of this work, his style became more tonal. A man of diverse interests and talents, Antheil was constantly reinventing himself. He wrote magazine articles, an autobiography, a mystery novel, and newspaper and music columns. In 1941, Antheil and the actress Hedy Lamarr developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes that used a code (stored on a punched paper tape) to synchronize frequency changes, referred to as frequency hopping, between the transmitter and receiver. It is one of the spread spectrum techniques that became widely used in modern telecommunications. This work led to their induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014. Early life Antheil was born George Johann Carl Antheil, and grew up in a family of German immigrants in Trenton,

George Butterworth

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George Sainton Kaye Butterworth, MC (12 July 18855 August 1916) was an English composer who was best known for the orchestral idyll The Banks of Green Willow and his song settings of A. E. Housman’s poems from A Shropshire Lad. He was awarded the Military Cross for his gallantry during the fighting at the Battle of Pozières in the First World War, and died during the Battle of the Somme. Early years Butterworth was born in Paddington, London. Soon after his birth, his family moved to York so that his father, Sir Alexander Kaye Butterworth, could take up an appointment as general manager of the North Eastern Railway, which was based there. They lived at “Riseholme,” a house on Driffield Terrace, which later became part of the Mount School. In 2016, the centenary year of Butterworth’s death on the Somme, biographer Anthony Murphy, on behalf of the York Civic Trust, unveiled a blue plaque to his memory at College House, part of the Mount School. Butterworth received his first music lessons from his mother, who was a singer, and he began composing at an early age. As a young boy, he played the organ for services in the chapel of his preparatory school, Aysgarth School. He gained a scho

George Frederick McKay

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George Frederick McKay (June 11, 1899 – October 4, 1970) was a prolific modern American composer. Biography McKay was born in the small frontier wheat farming town of Harrington, Washington. His family later moved to Spokane, where he attended school up to his college years. He was attracted to American folk-song, including jazz and blues and Native American themes, and to a great degree, his music contains a poignant evocation of the West Coast American spirit, including glimpses of a populist era of street marches, honky-tonk dance halls and social chaos along with a recognition of the great natural beauty of his home region and the vitality of its people (i.e. Harbor Narrative-1934). He admired composers who involved national folk-culture in their music, e.g. Heitor Villa-Lobos, Carlos Chávez, William Grant Still, Antonín Dvořák and Béla Bartók. Many of McKay’s symphonic works center on folk themes and include pieces dedicated to Native American music. He was famous for his intellectual and moral support of young composers who studied with him in Seattle, such as William Bolcom, Goddard Lieberson and Earl Robinson. He also founded the Composition Department at the University of

George Gershwin

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

Ancestors#

Gershwin’s parents were both Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. His paternal grandfather, Jakov Gershovitz, was born in Odessa, then part of the Russian Empire, and had served for 25 years as a mechanic for the Imperial Russian Army to earn the right of free travel and residence as a Jew, finally retiring near Saint Petersburg, Russia. Jakov’s teenage son, Moishe, George Gershwin’s father, worked as a leather cutter for women’s shoes. George’s mother, Roza Bruskina, was born in Saint Petersburg. Moishe met Roza in Vilna, Russian Empire (now Vilnius, Lithuania), where her father worked as a furrier. She and her family moved to New York because of increasing anti-Jewish sentiment in Russia, changing her first name to Rose. Moishe, faced with compulsory military service if he remained in Russia, moved to America as soon as he could afford to (arrived on August 14, 1890). Once in New York, he changed his first name to Morris. Gershovitz lived with a maternal uncle in Brooklyn, working as a foreman in a women’s shoe factory. He married Rose on July 21, 1895, and Gershovitz soon Anglicized his name to Gershwine. Their first child, Ira Gershwin, was born on December 6, 1896, after which the family moved into a second-floor apartment at 242 Snediker Avenue in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn.

George Kleinsinger

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George Kleinsinger (February 13, 1914 – July 28, 1982) was an American composer mostly known for children’s compositions, Broadway scores, and film/television scores. He is best-known for a string of children’s compositions in collaboration with lyricist Paul Tripp (most notably Tubby the Tuba) and a series of works in collaboration with Joe Darion (including the musical Shinbone Alley) based on Don Marquis’ Archy and Mehitabel columns. Biography Early life, career, and death Born in San Bernardino, California to a Polish-Jewish family. In 1930, Kleinsinger graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School. He earned a B.A. degree in music from New York University, then further studied composition at Juilliard. He began his career playing in bands on the Borscht Belt, including playing with trumpeter Frankie Newton. He collaborated with Paul Tripp on a number of orchestral/vocal works for a young audience, beginning with “Tubby the Tuba”. In 1948, he wrote music for the original Max Fleischer/Jam Handy animated adaptation of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. This led to him being commissioned to set the song to music for the 1964 Rankin-Bass adaptation. The producers elected to use the Johnn

George Lloyd (composer)

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George Walter Selwyn Lloyd (28 June 1913 – 3 July 1998) was a British composer. Biography Early life Born in St Ives, Cornwall, of part Welsh, part American ancestry, Lloyd grew up in a very musical family. George’s father, William A. C. Lloyd, was an accomplished amateur flautist and an Italian opera aficionado, writing a biography of Bellini. George Lloyd’s mother played the violin, viola and piano. Both parents were leading members of the St Ives Arts Club and their house was a regular weekly venue for chamber music, so the young composer grew up with music all around him. His maternal grandmother was the American painter Frances (Fanny) Powell who had been an opera singer, and was an early pioneer of the St Ives artists’ colony. As a child George Lloyd suffered rheumatic fever and received most of his education at home. He showed an early attraction to music and began composing at the age of 9. He was trained in the dramatic aspects of opera by his father, who would regularly give him scenes from English plays to set to music. From the age of 14 George studied violin with Albert Sammons and composition with Frank Kitson and Harry Farjeon. He was a student at Trinity College Lon

George Lynn (composer)

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George Alfred Lynn (October 5, 1915 – March 16, 1989) was an American composer, conductor, pianist, organist, singer, and music educator who was born in Edwardsville, Pennsylvania and died in Colorado Springs, Colorado. A longtime member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, his compositional output encompasses more than 200 orchestral and choral pieces; many of which have been performed by major American symphony orchestras like the Denver Symphony, the American Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He taught on the music faculties of several prominent American colleges, notably conducting several university choirs. Throughout his life he was active as a conductor, organist, and pianist for various church and community choirs. Life and career Born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, George Lynn was the son of immigrants from Sweden. He began working as a professional church organist in 1927 at the age of twelve. He entered Westminster Choir College in 1934 where he earned a Bachelor of Music in 1938. Among his teachers were Paul Boepple (conducting), Roy Harris (composition), Carl Weinrich (organ), and John Finley Williamson

George Perle

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George Perle (6 May 1915 – 23 January 2009) was an American composer and music theorist. As a composer, his music was largely atonal, using methods similar to the twelve-tone technique of the Second Viennese School. This serialist style, and atonality in general, was the subject of much of his theoretical writings. His 1962 book, Serial Composition and Atonality: An Introduction to the Music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern remains a standard text for 20th-century classical music theory. Among Perle’s awards was the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his Wind Quintet No. 4. Life and career Perle was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, to Russian Jewish parents. He graduated from DePaul University, where he studied with Wesley LaViolette and received private lessons from Ernst Krenek. Later, he served as a technician fifth grade in the United States Army during World War II. He earned his doctorate at New York University in 1956. Perle composed with a technique of his own devising called “twelve-tone tonality”. This technique was different from, but related to, the twelve-tone technique of the Second Viennese School, of which he was an “early admirer” and whose techniques he used aspects of

George Posford

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George Posford, born Benjamin George Ashwell (23 March 1906 – 24 April 1976), was an English composer and conductor. Early life Benjamin George Ashwell was born in 1906 in Folkestone, Kent. He was educated at Downside School in Somerset and Christ’s College at Cambridge University. He studied law, but would become known for his musical achievements, after a song he co-wrote with Rodney Hobson was successfully interpolated in an early 1930s touring version of the show Lavender, which pointed him towards a new career. After Cambridge, Ashwell studied composition and orchestration at the Royal College of Music in London. Maschwitz, Posford and Grun also composed Paprika (1938), which flopped, but a revised version, Magyar Melody, ran at His Majesty’s Theatre for 105 performances. To the original score was added “Mine Alone”, composed by Manning Sherwin, which outlived the show. Posford and Harry Parr-Davies composed Full Swing (1940), starring Cicely Courtneidge and Jack Hulbert, which had 468 performances during the London blitz. Posford wrote a number of wartime revues for the duo. During World War II, he was in the Royal Corps of Signals and the London Fire Service. He was subseque

George Rochberg

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George Rochberg (July 5, 1918 – May 29, 2005) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. Long a serial composer, Rochberg abandoned the technique after his teenage son died in 1964, saying it had proved inadequate to express his grief and was empty of expressive power. By the 1970s, Rochberg’s use of tonal passages in his music had provoked controversy among critics and fellow composers. A professor at the University of Pennsylvania until 1983, Rochberg chaired its music department until 1968. He became the first Annenberg Professor of the Humanities in 1978. Life Born in Paterson, New Jersey, Rochberg attended first the Mannes College of Music, where his teachers included George Szell and Hans Weisse, then the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Rosario Scalero and Gian Carlo Menotti. He served in the United States Army in the infantry during World War II. He was Jewish. Rochberg chaired the music department at the University of Pennsylvania until 1968 and continued to teach there until 1983. In 1978, he was named the first Annenberg Professor of the Humanities. He married Gene Rosenfeld in 1941, and had two children, Paul and Francesca. In 1964, his son d

George Selwyn English

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George Selwyn English (16 September 1912 – 8 October 1980) was an Australian composer. Like Roy Agnew and Raymond Hanson, he was overshadowed by the Australian avant-garde of the 1960s. and a Wind Quintet (1969). He also wrote at least two symphonies: an undated in A minor and a Sinfonia (1947 or 1967). *For a Royal Occasion (1952), overture for full orchestra *Song for a Crowning (1953), text by Elizabeth Riddell *The Australian Dingo (1958), documentary film score *Death of a Wombat (1959) for narrator and 10 instruments *Botany Bay 1770 (1960), overture *Chiaroscuro (1966) for string trio *String Quartet (1966, inedited) for 3 recorders (Pastorale – Wayfarers – Shepherd’s song) *The First Waratah for narrator, wind quintet and percussion (1972) *Power with precision, documentary film score *All manner of trains, documentary film score *Fantasia for orchestra *Coach and horses for orchestra *All school’s songbook for unison and 2-part voices and piano Recordings * (LP, mono, 1961) English: The Death of a Wombat; Robert Hughes: Sinfonietta. – Sydney Symphony Orchestra, cond. English (1) and Nicolai Malko (2). – RCA L16233 References Sources * John Carmody. English, George Selwyn (

George Szell

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George Szell (; June 7, 1897 – July 30, 1970), originally György Széll, György Endre Széll, or Georg Szell, was an Austro-Hungarian-born American conductor, composer, and pianist. Considered one of the twentieth century’s greatest conductors, he was music director of the Cleveland Orchestra of Cleveland, Ohio, and recorded much of the standard classical repertoire in Cleveland and with other orchestras. Szell came to Cleveland in 1946 to take over its respected if undersized orchestra, which was struggling to recover from the disruptions of World War II. By the time of his death he was credited, to quote the critic Donal Henahan, with having built it into “what many critics regarded as the world’s keenest symphonic instrument.” Through his recordings, Szell has remained a presence in the classical music world long after his death, and his name remains synonymous with that of the Cleveland Orchestra. While on tour with the orchestra in the late 1980s, then-music director Christoph von Dohnányi remarked, “We give a great concert, and George Szell gets a great review.” Life and career Early life György Endre Széll was born in Budapest but grew up in Vienna. His family was of Jewish or

George Tompkins (composer)

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George Ira Tompkins (1888–1972), was a ragtime composer, vocal director and music teacher from Waterbury, Connecticut. His musical contributions in the early 20th century in the Farmington and Naugatuck Valley regions of Connecticut were numerous. He was one of the earliest violin students of The Institute of Musical Art (known today as The Juilliard School) and was also active as a violinist in the New York Symphony Orchestra. Education and background George Tompkins was a local musician to the populous city of Waterbury, Connecticut in the early 20th century. Tompkins was born on July 1, 1888 in the same city. Tompkins was a student at Crosby High School while in Waterbury. He started out in Waterbury as a violinist before moving to Simsbury, Connecticut. Prior to 1905, George Tompkins had played in the first Waterbury Symphony Orchestra, giving a violin performance at its final concert on May 23, 1905, at the Poli’s Theater of Waterbury. By age 16, George Tompkins was attending the Yale School of Music and was awarded a Lockwood scholarship in 1906. He was a student of violin professor Isidor Troostwyk. In 1907, he accompanied a vocal quartet based in Connecticut on violin in a

George Tremblay

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George Amédée Tremblay (14 January 1911 – 14 July 1982) was a Canadian (and later, naturalized American citizen) pianist, composer, and author who was active in the United States. Although his works display a broad range of stylistic influences, he is primarily associated with the twelve-tone technique. He is the author of the musical treatise The Definitive Cycle of the Twelve Tone Row. Tremblay was also noted for his unique capacity to extemporize on the piano and frequently performed as an improviser. Biography Born in Ottawa, Ontario, Tremblay was the son of composer and organist Amédée Tremblay and Rosa Martel Tremblay. As the son of an active composer and performer, young George was exposed to not only the classics, but to more contemporary composers; his father, Amédée, was an early champion of Cesar Franck, Max Reger, and Claude Debussy for Canadian audiences. He was a recurring panel member on the Sunday evening radio quiz show, Are You Musical?, on Los Angeles station KMPC. where he was receiving treatment for cirrhosis. The Definitive Cycle of the Twelve Tone Row The Definitive Cycle of the Twelve Tone Row (1974) is a music theory and composition treatise that is the res

Georges Auric

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Georges Auric (; 15 February 1899 – 23 July 1983) was a French composer, born in Lodève, Hérault, France. He was considered one of Les Six, a group of artists informally associated with Jean Cocteau and Erik Satie. Before he turned 20 he had orchestrated and written incidental music for several ballets and stage productions. He also had a long and distinguished career as a film composer. Early life and education Georges Auric began his musical career at a young age, performing a piano recital at the Société musicale indépendante at the age of 14. Several songs that he had written were then performed in the following year by Société Nationale de Musique. Along with his early successes professionally, Auric studied music at the Paris Conservatoire, as well as composition with Vincent d’Indy at the Schola Cantorum de Paris and Albert Roussel. Having gained recognition as a child prodigy both in composition and piano performance, he became a protégé of Erik Satie during the following decade. During the 1910s and 20s, he was a significant contributor of avant-garde music in Paris and was significantly influenced by Cocteau and the other composers of Les Six. Career Auric’s early composi

Georges Favre

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Georges Favre (26 July 1905 – 25 April 1993) was a French composer and musicologist. He was a student of Paul Dukas for composition and Vincent d’Indy for conducting. He composed a few pieces for piano, the opera Guna, and a sonata for violin and piano. He is better known as musicologist. He supported his PhD thesis on Boieldieu and published many works on Dukas. He was Inspector General of Music at the Ministry of Education. Musical works * Cantate du jardin vert (on texts by Madeleine Ley). Recording under the direction of Louis Frémaux - , microgroove 33 1/3 rpm, s.d., circa 1958. Literary works *1987: *1986: Silhouettes du Conservatoire : Charles-Marie Widor, André Gedalge, Max d’Ollone, La Pensée universelle, *1983: Compositeurs français méconnus : Ernest Guiraud et ses Amis, Émile Paladilhe et Théodore Dubois, La Pensée universelle, *1982: Musique et Naturalisme : Alfred Bruneau and Émile Zola, La Pensée universelle, *1979: La Vicomtesse Vigier : Sophie Cruvelli 1826-1907 Une Grande Cantatrice Niçoise, La Pensée universelle, *1976: Études musicales monégasques : notes d’histoire (XVIIIe-XXe siècles), A. et J. Picard, *1966: Écrits sur la musique et l’éducation musicale, Paris

Georges Migot

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Georges Elbert Migot (27 February 1891 – 5 January 1976) was a prolific French composer. Though primarily known as a composer, he was also a poet, often integrating his poetry into his compositions, and an accomplished painter. He won the 1921 Prix Blumenthal. Biography Of a Protestant family, Migot was born in the 11th arrondissement of Paris on 27 February 1891. His father was a doctor and his mother gave him his first piano lessons when he was seven years old. He very quickly began to compose and, at age fifteen, he produced his first published work: Noël for four voices a cappella. In 1909, he entered the Paris Conservatory and studied with Jules Bonval (harmony), André Gedalge (fugue), Charles-Marie Widor (composition), Alexandre Guilmant and Louis Vierne (organ), Vincent d’Indy (orchestration), Maurice Emmanuel (music history). He was passionate about Renaissance and Baroque lute players and composers, with François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau becoming important sources of inspiration. He was then mobilized during the First World War, and was seriously wounded in Longuyon (Meurthe et Moselle) in 1914. He had to use crutches during his convalescence, for more than a year

Georges Savaria

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Georges Savaria (27 March 1916 – 1998) was a Canadian pianist, composer, ondist, college administrator and music educator. His compositional output consists of a 1951 piano concerto, several songs and works for solo piano, and music for theatre, television, and radio. Some of his music was published by the periodical Le Passe-Temps. Early life and education Born in Montreal, Savaria is the son of organist Joseph-Élie Savaria with whom he studied the organ and piano. He also studied music theory in his native city with Claude Champagne. After winning the Prix d’Europe for piano in 1937, he studied in Paris at the Schola Cantorum with Daniel Lesur (counterpoint) and Olivier Messiaen (organ). He also studied privately in that city with Louis Aubert (music theory), Lazare Lévy (piano), Marguerite Long (piano), and Pierre Lucas (piano). During World War II he was interned in a Nazi concentration camp near Paris, but managed to escape and return to Canada in 1943. In 1980 he published a book, Hors de portée, which give a descriptive account of these events. References

Georges Tzipine

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Georges Samuel Tzipine (22 June 1907 – 8 December 1987) was a French violinist, conductor and composer. He was of Russian-Jewish origin. He was trained as a violinist at the National Conservatory of Music in Paris, winning a first prize in 1926, but moved to conducting in 1931 after support from Reynaldo Hahn. Jean Rivier (symphonies Nos. 3 and 5, for which he received a Grand Prix du Disque ), Albert Roussel, Georges Auric, Darius Milhaud, and Francis Poulenc. He conducted the premiere performances of Jacques Ibert’s Le Chevalier Errant (1951) with the ORTF, and the first recording of Alejandro García Caturla’s Premiere Suite Cubaine. His work was rarely available on CD until the release of EMI’s “Les Rarissimes” series. He conducted all the principal French orchestras, as well as the Hallé, the BBC Philharmonic, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra. From 1960 to 1965 he was the Chief Conductor of the Victorian Symphony Orchestra in Melbourne, Australia. He was appointed a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur. He died in 1987. References External links *

Georges Van Parys

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Georges Van Parys (7 June 1902 in Paris – 28 January 1971 in Paris) was a French composer of film music and operettas. Among his musical influences were the group Les Six, Maurice Ravel, and Claude Debussy. Later in his career he served as vice-president of the Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique. He is buried in the cemetery at Villiers-sur-Marne. Operettas * 1922: Madame la Comtesse * 1923: Une bonne à rien faire * 1927: Voila le printemps * 1936: Prends la route * 1941: Petites Annonces * 1941: L’École buissonnière * 1943: Une femme par jour * 1946: Virginie Déjazet * 1946: Les Chasseurs d’images * 1949: La Tour Eiffel qui tue * 1950: Tristoeil et Brunehouille * 1951: L’Affaire Fualdès (about murder of A.B. Fualdès & subsequent trial) * 1951: La Reine-Mère * 1953: Que d’eau, que d’eau * 1956: Minnie-Moustache * 1960: Le Jeu des dames * 1961: La Belle de Paris With Philippe Parès : * 1927: Quand y en a pour deux * 1927: Lulu, libretto Serge Véber, Théâtre Daunou * 1927: La Petite Dame du Train bleu * 1928: L’Eau à la bouche * 1929: Louis XIV * 1930: Le cœur y est * 1931: Couss-Couss * 1937: Ma petite amie * 1945: On cherche un roi * 1957: Le Moulin Sans-Souci

Georges-Émile Tanguay

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Georges-Émile Tanguay (5 June 1893 – 24 November 1964) was a Canadian composer, organist, pianist, and music educator. An associate of the Canadian Music Centre, his compositional output is relatively small; consisting of 4 orchestral works, 4 chamber music pieces, 9 works for solo piano, 2 works for solo organ, and 4 choral works. The library at Université Laval holds many of his original manuscripts and his personal papers. Early life and education Born in Quebec City, Tanquay earned a lauréat diploma from the Académie de musique du Québec where he was a pupil of Léon J. Dessane and Joseph-Arthur Bernier. He also studied with Arthur Letondal and Romain Pelletier in Montreal. From 1912 to 1914 he studied with Louis Vierne (organ) and Félix Fourdrain (harmony) in Paris. He then lived and worked in New York City where he studied the organ with Pietro Yon and Gaston Dethier. Tanquay returned to Paris in 1920 to study with Vincent d’Indy at the Schola Cantorum. He remained in that city for the next five years studying under Georges Caussade (harmony and counterpoint), Édouard Mignan (organ), and Simone Plé-Caussade (piano). Career Tanguay returned to Canada in 1925 to assume the post

Georgi Dimitrov (composer)

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Georgi Dimitrov () (2 May 1904 – 12 March 1979) was a Bulgarian composer. He was notable for composing the music for the national anthem of Bulgaria from 1947 until 1951, Republiko nasha, zdravey!. Other notable compositions including Foot and Cross, Kulak, and The Chervenkov Way. He spent his youth and teenage years in Belogradchik and Lom, where he studied at Lom Pedagogical School. Dimitrov was raised in a musical family; his mother was a singer, and his father was a violinist. He would follow in his father’s footsteps and also pick up the violin, studying under Belcho Belchev and Obreten Evstatiev. In the fall of 1927, Georgi Dimitrov became a student at the Warsaw Conservatory. Among his teachers were Stanisław Kazuro, Kasimir Sikorsky, Grzegorz Fitelberg, Stanisław Viekhovich. During his time at the conservatory, he would study music theory, harmony, voice, conducting, and composition, along with his violin training. He would also come into contact with Karol Szymanowski, a Polish composer. Georgi Dimitrov married Lyuba Palikarova.Now needing to support his new family, he took on work as a high school music teacher in the town of Grueth. In 1931, he moved to Warsaw to continu

Georgios Poniridis

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Georgios Poniridis (26 September 1892 – 31 March 1982) was a Greek composer and violinist. Life and career Georgios Poniridis was born in Chalcedon in what is today Kadıköy, Turkey on 26 September 1892. In his youth he studied the violin and was influenced by the Byzantine music of the Eastern Orthodox Church. As a young adult he trained at the Brussels Conservatory where he was a pupil of Paul Gilson, Alfred Marchot (violin), and Michel Brusselmans (music theory, composition). This was followed by further studies at the Schola Cantorum de Paris with Vincent d’Indy (counterpoint) and Albert Roussel, and private studies in violin with Eugène Ysaÿe. In Paris he befriended Igor Stravinsky and Erik Satie. After completing his studies he worked as a violinist in Brussels, Paris, and Cologne in the 1920s and 1930s, and also conducted a choir in Paris. During this period he wrote art songs, chamber music, and works for solo piano in a French neo-classicism style which were published by Éditions Maurice Senart and Francis Salabert in France and Oxford University Press in London. In 1938 he moved to Greece where he had significant music posts with the Athens State Orchestra, the Ministry of

Georgy Sviridov

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Georgy Vasilyevich Sviridov (; 16 December 1915 – 6 January 1998) was a Soviet and Russian composer. He is most widely known for his choral music, strongly influenced by the traditional chant of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as his orchestral works which often celebrate elements of Russian culture. Sviridov employed, especially in his choral music, rich and dense harmonic textures, embracing a romantic-era tonality; his works would come to incorporate not only sacred elements of Russian church music, including vocal work for the basso profundo, but also the influence of Eastern European folk music, 19th-century European romantic composers (especially Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky), and neoromantic contemporaries outside of Russia. He wrote musical settings of Russian Romantic poetry by poets such as Mikhail Lermontov, Fyodor Tyutchev, and Alexander Blok. Sviridov enjoyed critical acclaim for much of his career in the Soviet Union and Russia. Early life and youth Sviridov was born in 1915 in the town of Fatezh in the Kursk Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Kursk Oblast) in a family of Russian ethnicity. His father, Vasily Sviridov, a Bolshevik sympathizer during the R

Gerald Cockshott

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Gerald Wilfred Cockshott (14 November 1915 – 3 February 1979) was an English composer, librettist, writer and teacher. Life and career Cockshott was born in Bristol and educated at Taunton School and the University of Bristol where he received his BA in English. He was a friend of and influenced by the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams with whom he studied privately. A Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, he primarily composed choral music, much of it influenced by the English folk tradition, but also composed two operas and several instrumental works. He had originally written the libretto for the chamber opera Apollo and Persephone for Vaughan Williams, but decided to compose the work himself before showing it to him. Vaughan Williams gave the work his blessing and it was premiered in London in 1954 by the Intimate Opera Company. Apollo and Persephone went on to multiple performances in Europe and North America in the ensuing years. His second opera, A Faun in the Forest, for which he also wrote the libretto premiered in 1959 in Westport, Connecticut. He was also the founder of the Peter Warlock Society and served as its first chairman from 1963 to 1969. Cockshott died in West

Gerald Finzi

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Gerald Raphael Finzi (14 July 1901 – 27 September 1956) was an English composer. Finzi is best known as a choral composer, but also wrote in other genres. Large-scale compositions by Finzi include the cantata Dies natalis for solo voice and string orchestra, and his concertos for cello and clarinet. Life Gerald Finzi was born in London, the son of John Abraham (Jack) Finzi and Eliza Emma (Lizzie) Leverson. Finzi became one of the most characteristically English composers of his generation. Despite his being an agnostic of Jewish descent, several of his choral works incorporate Christian texts. Finzi’s father, a successful shipbroker, died a fortnight before his son’s eighth birthday. Finzi was educated privately. During World War I the family settled in Harrogate, and Finzi began to study music at Christ Church, High Harrogate, under Ernest Farrar from 1915. Farrar, a former pupil of Charles Villiers Stanford, was then aged thirty and he described Finzi as “very shy, but full of poetry”. He found solace in the poetry of Thomas Traherne and his favourite, Thomas Hardy, whose poems, as well as those by Christina Rossetti, he began to set to music. In the poetry of Hardy, Traherne, an

Gerald Strang

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Gerald Strang (February 13, 1908 – November 2, 1983) was an American composer who later in life turned to electronic and computer music. Early in his career he worked with Arnold Schoenberg as a teaching assistant and became one of the disciples of Schoenberg’s American period. Strang was born in Claresholm, Alberta and studied at Stanford University and the University of Southern California, where he completed a PhD in 1948. His teachers included Charles Koechlin and Ernst Toch. He was Arnold Schoenberg’s teaching assistant at UCLA between 1936 and 1938. In 1967 Strang edited Schoenberg’s Fundamentals of Musical Composition for publication. Strang became a lifelong teacher, at Long Beach City College (1938–58), San Fernando Valley State College (1958–65, where he founded the music department and taught Harold Budd), and California State University, then returning to Long Beach (1965–9) and UCLA (1969–74). In the 1930s he contributed to and (from 1936) acted as the managing editor of the New Music Society of California’s New Music journal. During the war he interrupted his musical activities, working as an engineer at the Douglas Aircraft Company. Cowell’s direct influence is evide

Geraldine Mucha

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Geraldine Thomson Mucha (5 July 1917 – 12 October 2012) was a Scottish composer. She was born in London and studied at the Royal Academy of Music. She married the Czech writer Jiří Mucha, son of the painter Alphonse Mucha, and in 1945 moved to Prague. She lived there for the greater part of the next sixty years. Early life and education Geraldine Mucha was born in London on 5 July 1917. She was the only child of Marcus Thomson (sometimes spelled Thomsen) who came from Glasgow, and of Maisie Evans, a New Zealander. Marcus Thomson studied at the Royal Academy of Music (R.A.M.) in London between 1902 and 1906 and became a successful baritone singer. In 1920 he was appointed as a singing professor at the R.A.M. where he remained on the staff until the 1950s. Maisie Evans studied music in Leipzig and during the First World War appeared in a leading role in the long running musical success Chu Chin Chow (His Majesty’s Theatre, London, 1916) and later on in Nigel Playfair’s famous production of The Beggar’s Opera (Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, 1920). Mucha herself showed an interest in music from a very early age and her father, impressed by her improvisations at the piano, taught her to re

Gerard Bunk

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Gerard Bunk (born 4 March 1888 in Rotterdam; died 13 September 1958 in Kamen) was a German-Dutch organist, pianist, harpsichordist, choirmaster and composer. Life and work Gerard Bunk was a student at the Rotterdam Conservatory of the Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Toonkunst since 1901. The focus of his education was on piano studies with Anton Verheij. After a short stay in Hull and London (with the pianist Mark Hambourg ), he came to Bielefeld in 1906 to the piano teacher Hans Hermanns, whom he followed to the Hamburg Conservatory. In 1907 Bunk became a piano teacher at the conservatory in Bielefeld. He trained himself at the organ mainly autodidactically, whereby his pianistic skills paid off. On 20 June 1907, Bunk gave his first organ concert in the Bielefeld Synagogue. Here and in the Neustädter Marienkirche he played cyclical concert series in the following years. On 5 May 1910, Bunk stood in for Karl Straube at the first concert of the Dortmund Max-Reger-Festival and took turns with Reger at the “giant organ” of St. Reinold’s Church, which had been built the previous year. Reger then recommended him to the Dortmund Hüttner Conservatory, where Bunk taught piano and later or

Gerard Carbonara

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Gerard Carbonara (8 December 1886, New York City – 11 January 1959, Sherman Oaks) was an American composer, conductor, opera coach and concert violinist. He received his formal music education at the National Conservatory of Music in New York on a scholarship. In 1908 he travelled abroad to Naples, where he continued his studies at the Naples Conservatory with composer Martucci Dworczak. He was employed as an opera coach in Milan in 1910. Later, he toured Europe as a concert violinist and conducted operas throughout Europe and, later, the US. Carbonara began his film music career at the end of the silent film era. In the 1930s and 1940s he scored numerous films at Paramount Pictures, including American Empire, The Shepherd of the Hills, as well as a series of Mutt and Jeff cartoons (with co-composer James Bradford). Carbonara composed several cues for Stagecoach (1939), but did not receive screen credit because of a clause in his contract. Although the score, which featured the music of several composers, won an Oscar, Carbonara was not counted among the winners. However, he was nominated for The Kansan in 1943. In the 1940s, especially after World War II, he composed and arranged

Gerhart von Westerman

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Gerhart von Westerman (19 September 1894 – 14 February 1963) was a German composer, artistic director and music writer. Life Born in Riga, after graduating from high school Westerman studied composition at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, where Paul Juon was his teacher. From 1918 he continued his studies with Walter Courvoisier and August Reuß in Munich and received his doctorate in 1921 with a thesis on “Giovanni Porta als Opernkomponist”. In Munich he became head of department at the radio station in 1925, later at the radio stations in Berlin and Saarbrücken. In 1939 the Berlin Philharmonic appointed him as its artistic director (as successor to Hans von Benda). He held this office until 1945 and then again from 1952 onwards until 1959 from. In 1951 he founded the Berliner Festwochen, which he organized every year from then on until 1959. Westerman died in Berlin at the age of 68. He is buried at the Waldfriedhof Dahlem. His grave is marked as dedicated as Works Orchestral pieces *Serenade, op. 7, 1928 *Intermezzi, op. 9, 1929 *Divertimento, op. 16, 1940 Operas *Prometheische Phantasie, composition and libretto, premiere 1960 in Dortmund *Rosamunde Floris, libretto, music by

Germaine Tailleferre

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Marcelle Germaine Tailleferre (; née Taillefesse; 19 April 18927 November 1983) was a French composer and the only female member of the group of composers known as Les Six. Biography Marcelle Germaine Taillefesse was born in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, Val-de-Marne, France. As a young woman she changed her last name from “Taillefesse” to “Tailleferre” to spite her father, who had refused to support her musical studies. She began studying piano with her mother at age four and composed short works of her own. She was said to have a very good ear, even at a young age, accurately judging the playing techniques of others. Tailleferre studied at the Paris Conservatory, where she met Louis Durey, Francis Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric, and Arthur Honegger. She won prizes in several categories. Most notably, Tailleferre wrote 18 short works in the Petit livre de harpe de Madame Tardieu for Caroline Luigini, the Conservatory’s assistant professor of harp. With her new friends, she was soon associating with the artistic crowd in the Paris districts of Montmartre and Montparnasse, including the sculptor Emmanuel Centore, who later married her sister Jeanne. She also fraternized with artist

Gertrude Martin Rohrer

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Gertrude Jane Martin Rohrer (25 December 1875 – 22 January 1968) was an American author and composer who wrote many songs, including the state song of Pennsylvania, a book, and at least one operetta. She was active in several music clubs. Rohrer was born in Indiana to Lucretia Mott McIntosh and the Reverend Daniel Cargill Martin. She graduated from Geneva College (Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania) in 1896 and her works are archived there. She married Frederick Findlay Rohrer and they had two sons, Frederick Findlay Rohrer JR. & Donald Rohrer . Rohrer’s songs were recorded by Victor Records (BVE-3514) and Columbia Records (W148742). She belonged to the Pennsylvania Federation of Music Clubs, the Manuscript Music Society (Pittsburgh) and served as president of the Tuesday Musical Club (Pittsburgh). Rohrer self-published some songs. Others were published by Eldridge Entertainment House Inc., G.M. Demarest, J. Fischer & Brother, the National Federation of Music Clubs, Theodore Presser Company, and Volkwein Brothers. They include: Operetta *Playroom at Night Vocal *“Boy of Mine” *“Home Again” *“Love’s on the Highway” *“Memories” *“My Little House” (text by Nancy B. Turner) *“Sleepy Song” (tex

Gertrude Price Wollner

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Gertrude Price Wollner (May 15, 1900 – March 1985) was an American writer and composer. Her teachers included Albert Stossel, E. Robert Schmitz, and Emile Jacques Dalcroze. She married Herbert J. Wollner on April 2, 1926 and they had a daughter named Zelda. She taught music lessons to her grandson, David Ethan Sussman, who would later become an internationally touring opera conductor. She published several articles about music education and one book, Improvisation in Music: Ways Toward Capturing Musical Ideas and Developing Them (1963). Wollner taught at Boston University, New England Conservatory of Music, and New York University. She believed that “For any age, a childlike attitude and tenacity of search are essential, and rewarding. Not all “creative” music-making needs to be great music that lasts forever. Through the doing, something genuine occurs which enhances all future music experience for the individual.” Wollner was an honorary member of Sigma Alpha Iota, the international music fraternity for women. Selected works Her compositions include: Chamber *Allegro (oboe and bassoon; 1950) *Cello Sonata (1946) *Quartet (English horn, violin, viola, and cello) *Trio (clarinet, v

Géza Frid

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Géza Frid (25 January 1904 – 13 September 1989) was a Hungarian–Dutch composer and pianist. Early years Géza Frid was born in Máramarossziget in the Máramaros County of Austria-Hungary (present-day Romania) and studied piano and composition in Budapest with a.o. Zoltán Kodály and Béla Bartók. He settled in Amsterdam in 1929 and became a Dutch citizen in 1948. He died in Beverwijk and was buried at Zorgvlied cemetery. Activities Frid gave many piano recitals all over the world: Italy (1926, 1955, 1965), Indonesia (1948–1949, 1951, 1956), Siam and Egypt (1951), Israel (1962, 1965, 1967), the Soviet Union, (1963), South- and North-America (1965, 1967), Turkey (1965), The Netherlands (1967), Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles (1970), the United States (1970, 1974), Hungary (1971, 1974). During the Second World War Frid was active in the resistance. He taught chamber music at the Conservatory of Music in Utrecht. Publications In 1976 his book Oog in oog met… (Face to face with…Tolstoj, T. Mann, G. Bomans, B. Mussolini, W. Mengelberg, B. Bartok and M. Ravel) was published (publ. Heuff). In 1984 he published his memoirs In 80 jaar de wereld rond (publ. Strengholt). Prizes In 1949 he

Giacinto Scelsi

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Giacinto Francesco Maria Scelsi, count d’Ayala Valva (; 8 January 1905 – 9 August 1988) was an Italian composer who also wrote surrealist poetry in French. He is best known for having composed music based around only one pitch, altered in all manners through microtonal oscillations, harmonic allusions, and changes in timbre and dynamics, as paradigmatically exemplified in his Quattro pezzi su una nota sola (“Four Pieces on a single note”, 1959). This composition remains his most famous work and one of the few performed to significant recognition during his lifetime. His musical output, which encompassed all Western classical genres except scenic music, remained largely undiscovered even within contemporary musical circles during most of his life. Today, some of his music has gained popularity in certain postmodern composition circles, with pieces like his “Anahit” and his String Quartets rising to increased prominence. Scelsi collaborated with American composers including John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Earle Brown, as well as being a friend and a mentor to Alvin Curran. His work was a source of inspiration to Ennio Morricone’s Gruppo di Improvvisazione di Nuova Consonanza, and his

Giacomo Benvenuti (composer)

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Giacomo Benvenuti (16 March 1885, Toscolano – 20 January 1943, Barbarano-Salò) was an Italian composer and musicologist. Life and career He was the son of organist Cristoforo Benvenuti and studied at the Liceo Musicale (now the Conservatorio Giovanni Battista Martini) in Bologna under Luigi Torchi (musicology) and Marco Enrico Bossi (organ). In 1919 his collection of songs for voice and piano accompaniment, Canti a una voce : con accompagnamento di pianoforte, was published in Bologna. In 1922 he published a collection of 17th-century art songs entitled 35 Arie di vari autori del secolo XVII. Composer Samuel Barber studied the works of Giulio Caccini, Andrea Falconieri, and other early Italian composers under his tutelage in Milan in 1933–1934. For the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma he adapted Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo for a production which premiered on 27 December 1934. The adaptation was later used for the first recording of L’Orfeo in 1939, which included a performance by the orchestra of La Scala Milan under conductor Ferrucio Calusio. References

Gian Carlo Menotti

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Gian Carlo Menotti (; ; July 7, 1911 – February 1, 2007) was an Italian composer, librettist, director, and playwright who is primarily known for his output of 25 operas. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship and never officially became an American citizen. One of the most frequently performed opera composers of the 20th century, he wrote his most successful works in the 1940s and 1950s. Highly influenced by Giacomo Puccini and Modest Mussorgsky, Menotti further developed the verismo tradition of opera in the post-World War II era. His father was a businessman and his mother a talented amateur musician. He spent three years studying at the conservatory, during which time he frequently attended operas at La Scala, which cemented his lifetime love for the artform. That same year, he met fellow Curtis schoolmate Samuel Barber, who became his partner in life as well as in their shared profession. As a student, Menotti spent much of his time with the Barber family in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and the two also spent several summer breaks in Europe attending opera performances in Vienna and in Italy while studying at Curtis. A cri

Gianandrea Gavazzeni

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Gianandrea Gavazzeni (25 July 19095 February 1996) was an Italian pianist, conductor (especially of opera), composer and musicologist. Gavazzeni was born in Bergamo. For almost 50 years, starting from 1948, he was principal conductor at La Scala, Milan, from 1966 to 1968, being its music and artistic director. He had his Metropolitan Opera debut on 11 October 1976. He conducted eight performances of Giuseppe Verdi’s Il trovatore that year at the Met. His compositions include concertos such as ‘Concerto bergamasco’; ‘The Song of St Alexander’; and sonatas. His last wife was the soprano Denia Mazzola-Gavazzeni. In January 1993, at age 83, he conducted Jules Massenet’s Esclarmonde at Teatro Massimo di Palermo, with his wife singing the title role. It was the first time he had conducted this opera. Gianandrea Gavazzeni died on 5 February 1996. References External links *Biography of Gianandrea Gavazzeni *New York Times, Gavazzeni’s death announcement

Gică Petrescu

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Gică Petrescu (; 2 April 1915 – 18 June 2006) was a prolific Romanian folk music composer and performer. Born in Bucharest, he made his debut at age 18 by joining a student band, having just graduated from the Gheorghe Șincai High School in his native city. His official debut was made by performing for radio audiences in 1937. Between 1937 and 1939, he carried on singing with the Radu Ghindă and Dinu Șerbănescu orchestras at the Sinaia Casino in the Carpathian Mountains. Some music critics have compared his talent and public appeal to the likes of Frank Sinatra or Maurice Chevalier. His showmanship and charm were able to attract audiences of all ages, while his music influences combine folk with classical orchestra arrangements. He holds the record for the number of most original (composed and performed) songs (over 1,500), in an amazingly varied discography, many of which became national hits and which were covered again and again by other Romanian artists. Some of those hits are: *Căsuța noastră (Our Little House) *București, București (Bucharest, Bucharest) *Dă-i cu șprițul pân’ la ziuă (Drink Spritz Until Daylight) *Du-mă acasă, măi tramvai (Take Me Home, Tram) *Uite-așa aș vre

Gideon Klein

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Gideon Klein (6 December 1919 – c. January 1945) was a Czech pianist, classical music composer, educator and organizer of cultural life at Theresienstadt concentration camp. Klein was murdered in the Holocaust. Life Klein was born into a Moravian Jewish family in Přerov and, showing musical talent early, studied piano with Růžena Kurzová and Vilém Kurz, and composition with Alois Hába (in 1939–1940). He was forced to abort his university studies in 1940 when the Nazis closed all institutions of higher learning following their occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. Since compositions and performances by Jewish musicians were banned, his own works could not be performed, though he managed to perform as a concert pianist under several aliases for a time, e.g., under the pseudonym Karel Vránek. Despite those harsh circumstances Klein managed to continue composing. In 1940 he was offered a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music in London, but by that time anti-Jewish legislation prevented his emigration. In December 1941 he was deported by the Nazis to Theresienstadt Ghetto concentration camp, where along with Leoš Janáček’s pupil Pavel Haas, Hans Krása, and Schoenberg’s pupil V

Gilardo Gilardi

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Gilardo Gilardi (May 25, 1889 – January 16, 1963) was an Argentine composer, pianist, and conductor who was the eponym of the Gilardo Gilardi Conservatory of Music in La Plata, Buenos Aires. He was born in San Fernando, Argentina and first learned music from his father before studying with the composer Arturo Berutti in Buenos Aires. He began composing as a teenager and he premiered his first opera, Ilse, at Teatro Colón opera house, aged 23. He co-founded the group Renovación (Renovation) in 1929, but left three years later, in 1932. He was professor at the University of La Plata and wrote an elementary course on harmony. Gilardi experimented with the pentatonic scale and Americas’ Indigenous music. Some of their works are the operas Ilse (1923) and La leyenda del Urutaú (The legend of the Urutaú) (1935), Primera serie argentina, (First Argentine series), Evocación quechua, Gaucho con botas nuevas (Gaucho with new boots) (1938, orchestra), a symphonic poem which won a national prize in 1939. Among his religious music Réquiem (1933) and Misa de Gloria (Glory Mass) (1936) are particularly esteemed. He also composed chamber music pieces: Sonata for violin and piano, Songs for voice a

Gilbert Vinter

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Gilbert Vinter (4 May 1909 – 10 October 1969) was an English conductor and composer, most celebrated for his compositions for brass bands. Life Vinter was born in Lincoln. As a youth, he was a chorister at Lincoln Cathedral, and eventually became Head Chorister there. He later became a bassoonist, playing in Thomas Beecham’s newly-formed London Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1930, he joined the BBC Military Band, where he did much of his early conducting. It was during that time that he also began to compose. During World War II, Vinter played in The Central Band of the RAF and later led several other RAF bands. He was conductor of the BBC Midland Light Orchestra, and the first principal conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra, from 1952 to 1953. In 1960, The Daily Herald newspaper and sponsors of brass band contests, commissioned Vinter to write his first major work for brass band, the result of which was Salute to Youth. Vinter was an adjudicator at the British Open Championships at Belle Vue, Manchester, in 1969 where his Spectrum was the test piece. Midway through the contest, however, he was forced to retire from ’the box’ due to his failing health. His position at the contest on t

Giorgio Federico Ghedini

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Giorgio Federico Ghedini (11 July 189225 March 1965) was an Italian composer. In addition to orchestral works, in 1949 he premiered a one-act opera based on Billy Budd by Herman Melville. Life Ghedini was born in Cuneo in 1892. He studied organ, piano and composition in Turin, then graduated in composition from the Bologna Conservatory under Marco Enrico Bossi in 1911. He worked as a conductor for a certain time, then he gave up to devote himself to teaching. He worked as a teacher of composition at the Turin Conservatory (1918–1937), Parma Conservatory (1937–1941), and finally the Milan Conservatory (1951–1962). Among his pupils, the most eminent were Marcello and Claudio Abbado, Luciano Berio, Guido Cantelli, Niccolò Castiglioni, Carlo Pinelli, and Fiorenzo Carpi. Guido Cantelli conducted the NBC Symphony Orchestra in a 2 February 1952 broadcast concert of Ghedini’s Pezzo concertante for two violins, viola, and orchestra. He died in Nervi, near Genoa, in 1965. Style The composer was a deep lover of ancient music; he transcribed many works by such composers as Girolamo Frescobaldi, Claudio Monteverdi, and Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli. Ghedini’s works are often inspired by music fr

Giovanna Bruna Baldacci

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Giovanna Bruna Baldacci (19 November 1886 – ? after 1910) was an Italian composer, pianist and poet. She studied piano and composition at the Istituto Musicale in Florence with Francesco Cilea and Moretti. After completing her studies, Baldacci worked as a concert pianist in Italy and Switzerland. She also taught choral singing and contributed articles to professional journals. In 1910 she won first prize for composition in an Italian Lyceum competition, for her work Madrigale. Life Giovanna Bruna Baldacci was born on 19 November 1886 in Pistoia, Italy. She was a composer, pianist and poet. She studied piano and composition at the Istituto Musicale (now called the Florence Conservatory) in Florence with Francesco Cilea and Moretti. At the institute she also studied under Edgardo Del Valle de Paz and Felice Boghen. In 1910 she won first prize for composition in an Italian Lyceum competition, for a work for three voices and piano called Madrigale. Baldacci’s compositions include choral works for children, songs and pieces for the piano. Baldacci’s date of death is unknown, but is thought to be after 1910. Works Baldacci composed mostly songs and piano pieces. Selected works include:

Giovanni D'Anzi

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Giovanni D’Anzi (1 January 1906 – 15 April 1974) was an Italian songwriter. Biography D’Anzi was born in Milan. In 1935 he wrote music and lyrics of “Oh mia bella Madonnina” (“My beautiful little Madonna”), a song dedicated to his hometown which soon became very popular and a sort of unofficial city anthem. Between the 1930s and 1950s Giovanni D’Anzi and Alfredo Bracchi formed a very prolific pair of songwriters. They worked for radio, cinema and theater productions. Several of their songs were great hits. Among them “Ma le gambe”, “Bambina innamorata”, “Ma l’amore no”, “Voglio vivere così”, “Ti parlerò d’amor”. His song “Malinconia d’amore” has been sung by both Luciano Pavarotti and José Carreras. Most of their songs were in Milanese dialect, and described ironically characters of the past in Milan, for example “La gagarella del Biffi Scala” (“The Spoiled Daughter of Mr Biffi Scala”) and “El Tumiami de Loret” (“The Braggart from Piazzale Loreto”), “El Biscella” (“The Silly-Bully Boy”). During the 1960s Giovanni D’Anzi retired from the musical scene. He moved to Liguria and took up painting. He died at Santa Margherita Ligure. Milan’s local authorities included him in the list of

Giovanni Fusco

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Giovanni Fusco (10 October 1906, Sant’Agata dei Goti, Benevento – 31 May 1968, Rome) was an Italian composer, pianist and conductor, who has written numerous film scores since 1936, including those of Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima mon amour (1959) and La guerre est finie (1966), as well as those of most of the 1948-1964 films directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, from N.U. (Nettezza Urbana) to Il deserto rosso, except for La notte (soundtrack by Giorgio Gaslini) and some of his early short films. Two of his soundtracks, those of Antonioni’s Cronaca di un amore and L’avventura, won Silver Ribbon for the best film score from Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists in 1951 and 1961, respectively. His brother Tarcisio Fusco was also a composer. His daughter was the operatic soprano Cecilia Fusco. Selected filmography * The Countess of Parma (1936) * Joe the Red (1936) * Doctor Antonio (1937) * The Sin of Rogelia Sanchez (1940) * Two on a Vacation (1940) * Two Hearts (1943) * The Models of Margutta (1946) * Hand of Death (1949) * Mistress of the Mountains (1950) *Cronaca di un amore (1950) * The Mistress of Treves (1952) * They Were Three Hundred (1952) * Orphan of the Ghetto (1954) *

Giovanni Gioviale

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Giovanni Gioviale (November 1885 – June 11, 1949) was an Italian composer and musician. He is considered one of the greatest mandolin virtuosos of all time. He also played guitar and banjo, and at the concert level with violin. He is special among the Italian mandolin masters, as one of the only ones to be recorded. He has also been credited for making famous the duo style of mandolin playing, in which one instrument sounds like several. Born Catania, Gioviale took up the mandolin when he was ten-years old. He was impressed by the music he heard at a barbershop. Craft halls were one of the types of place one could hear music in Catania then. He learned the mandolin first, then added banjo, guitar and violin, which he learned in school. He was an internationally travelling performer, performing in Spain, Africa, England, Austria and the United States. While in the United States, from 1926 to 1929, he recorded more than 50 recordings. After three years in the U.S., he missed his home and moved back to Italy. He was planning to return when he died in 1949. He continued to perform in Italy, playing in Turin, Milan, Rome, Genoa, and Palmero. In addition to his own works, he performed wo

Gisela Hernández

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Gisela Hernández Gonzalo (1912−1971) was a Cuban composer. Aware of political necessity, she established ties with the Castro government in return for recognition of her activities as a music teacher and composer. She was also a member of the nationalistic Grupo Minorista that led a movement to incorporate Afro-Cuban sounds into larger forms of music. Hernández taught music at the Hubert de Blanck Conservatory, and with Olga De Blanck Martín, director of the conservatory, she developed a music education system that made significant changes in Mexican music education. With de Blanck, she also co-founded Ediciones de Blanck publishing and became instrumental in publishing critical editions of Ignacio Cervantes’ music. Works Hernández often used Afro-Cuban elements in her compositions. Selected works include: *Triptico, song cycle, 1967 (Text: Guillén, poet) “Palma sola” “¡Ay, señora mi vencia!” “Sangres derramadas” *Deprisa tierra, deprisa (in Nueve canciones) (Text: Juan Ramón Jiménez) *Diálogo (in Nueve canciones) (Text: Dulce María Loynaz) *Huerto de marzo (in Nueve canciones) (Text: Federico García Lorca) *Mi corazón lo tragó el mar (in Nueve canciones) (Text: Mirta Aguirre Carre

Giulia Recli

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Giulia Recli (1890 – 19 December 1970) was an Italian composer and essayist. She won first and second prizes at musical competitions in New York, and her works Chimes at Sunrise and Nicolette s’Endorte were performed by the Metropolitan Opera. A concert of her work alongside that of three other women composers was performed in a symphony concert in Rome in 1965. Her music was also acclaimed in Germany. Recli was awarded the title Cavaliere Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana. Life Born in Milan, Recli was a student under Ildebrando Pizzetti and Victor de Sabata, learning piano, composition and singing. She was awarded first and second prizes at New York musical competitions. Recli’s works were introduced to American audiences by Tullio Serafin. In 1926, at a Metropolitan Opera concert headlining Belgian violinist, César Thomson, Recli’s Chimes at Sunrise was performed. In 1931, Recli’s Nicolette s’Endorte, described by The New York Times as a “graceful lullaby”, The other composers were Sandra Caratelli Surace, Norma Beecroft of Canada, and Claude Arrieu of France. Cohen describes her as the first Italian woman to have her music acclaimed in Germany. She was awarded the title Caval

Giulio Confalonieri

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Giulio Confalonieri (23 May 1896 - 29 June 1972) was an Italian musician, musicologist, composer and musical critic. Born in Milan, Confalonieri graduated in letters at the and in piano at the Bologna Conservatory. Between 1919 and 1920 he composed his first opera, “Rosaspina”, which was eventually staged only in 1939. In 1921 he moved to Paris, where he became friends with Paul Dukas, and then to London, where he stayed until 1927 teaching piano, performing as a concert pianist, and composing incidental music. Returned to Italy, after a long period of isolation and study, in the late 1930s Confalonieri resumed his activity as a composer, and in 1940, he started collaborating with the magazine Settegiorni as a musical critic. In 1944 he lost the use of a leg because of an accident, and then focused on writing, collaborating with a large number of publications, notably Il Giorno, Oggi and Epoca. References External links

Giuseppe Mulè

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Giuseppe Mulè (28 June 1885, Termini Imerese - 10 September 1951, Rome) was an Italian composer and conductor. His output includes numerous symphonic works and chamber works, incidental music for the stage, 7 operas, 5 film scores, and an oratorio. His work is characterized by its use of Italian folk melodies, verismo, and a tritone-inflected melodic style. Life and career Mulè studied at the Vincenzo Bellini Conservatory in Palermo. In 1903, even before completing his academic studies, he composed a Largo for cello and piano that was used as an opening song in national radio broadcasts in Italy for RAI. After graduating from the conservatory he pursued a career as a conductor in Italy, working with many of that nation’s leading orchestras. He became the director of the Palermo Conservatory in 1922. He left there in 1925 to become the director of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, a post he held for 20 years. During the fascist era he was recognized for his talent for organization. He was made national secretary of the Sindicato del Musicisti, which he represented in parliament alongside composer Adriano Lualdi from 1929 on. He retired in 1945 and lived in Rome until his dea

Giuseppe Pietri

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Giuseppe Pietri (Sant’Ilario, frazione of Marina di Campo, comune of Campo nell’Elba, 6 May 1886 – Milan, 11 August 1946) was an Italian composer, known primarily for his work in operetta. Excerpts from one of his works, the opera Maristella, were widely recorded and continue to be so on CD. The aria “Io conosco un giardino” from that work has been popular with tenors, and has been frequently recorded separately; among the singers to record it are Luciano Pavarotti, Beniamino Gigli, Joseph Calleja and more recently, Rolando Villazón. Pietri studied composition at the Milan Conservatory with Gaetano Coronaro. He studied harmony and counterpoint with Amintore Galli. He composed operas in versistical tradition, but it was his operettas that made him a popular success. He developed an independent Italian idiom for the operetta. The most famous was L’acqua cheta, which premiered in Rome in 1920. The text was from a 1908 Tuscan dialect piece by Augusto Novelli, a romantic comedy in the Florentine petty bourgeois style. Rompicollo was premiered in 1928 in Milan, and was translated into German as Das große Rennen (“The Big Race”). Works Operas * Calendimaggio, libretto by Pietro Gori, Flor

Glad Robinson Youse

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Gladys “Glad” Robinson Youse (1898 – 1985), was an American composer. Born in Miami, Oklahoma, Gladys Robinson graduated from Stephens College in 1919 with a music degree, then studied composition with Tibor Serly in New York. She married Clare Youse and the couple settled in Baxter Springs, Kansas, where they raised their daughter, Madolyn (1924-2018), later Mrs. Babcock, who earned her AA degree in 1944 from Stephens College and a Masters of Science Degree in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Minnesota. Glad Robinson Youse was a member of ASCAP and served on the board of the Sigma Alpha Iota Foundation in 1971. Youse composed sacred and secular music for solo voice, choir, and piano. Today, the National Federation of Music Clubs sponsors the biennial Glad Robinson Youse Adult Composers Contest, and Stephens College offers a Glad Robinson Youse Scholarship. The Competitions and Awards Division of the Texas Federation of Music Clubs has a Glad Robinson Youse Chair. Her compositions (all with piano accompaniment) include: *April is Forever (women’s choir or soprano) *“Arise My Love” (words from Song of Solomon; for solo voice) *Glorious Easter Morning (mixed choir) *“God’s

Gladys Rich

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Gladys Rich (26 April 1892 - 18 October 1972) was an American composer and music educator who is best known for her song “American Lullaby.” Rich was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Ann Walker Low and Ezra Clark Rich. Her family moved to Ogden, Utah, where she was baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1901. Rich entertained troops in Paris during World War I. She belonged to the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), Kappa Kappa Gamma, and Mu Phi Epsilon. Her compositions were published by Belwin Mills, G. Schirmer Inc., Galaxy Music Corporation, Carl Fischer Music, J. Fischer & Brothers, and Pioneer Music Press, *Messengers of Mercy (text by Minnie D. Warner) *Octavos *Partners *Sitting Home *Street of Little Houses References External links *Listen to American Lullaby by Gladys Rich.

Glenn Miller

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Alton Glen “Glenn” Miller (March 1, 1904 – December 15, 1944) was an American big band conductor, arranger, composer, trombonist, and recording artist before and during World War II, when he was an officer in the US Army Air Forces. Glenn Miller and his Orchestra was the best-selling recording band from 1939 to 1942. Unlike his military unit, Miller’s civilian band did not have a string section, but it did have a stand-up bass in the rhythm section. It was also a touring band that played multiple radio broadcasts nearly every day. Its best-selling records include Miller’s theme song, “Moonlight Serenade”, and the first gold record ever made, “Chattanooga Choo Choo”, a song on the soundtrack of Miller’s first film, Sun Valley Serenade, and the number-one song in the United States on December 7, 1941. The following tunes are also on that best-seller list: “In the Mood”, “Pennsylvania 6-5000” (printed as “Pennsylvania Six-Five Thousand” on record labels), “A String of Pearls”, “Moonlight Cocktail”, “At Last”, “(I’ve Got a Gal In) Kalamazoo”, “American Patrol”, “Tuxedo Junction”, “Elmer’s Tune”, “Little Brown Jug”, and “Anvil Chorus”. Including “Chattanooga Choo Choo”, five songs playe

Godfrey Ridout

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Godfrey Ridout (6 May 1918 in Toronto – 24 November 1984 in Toronto) was a Canadian composer, conductor, music educator, and writer. Life and career Ridout was a descendant of Thomas Ridout, the first Surveyor General of Upper Canada during the administration of Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe. He attended University of Toronto with John Beckwith. During his time at the Toronto University, he was a pupil of Ettore Mazzoleni (conducting), Weldon Kilburn (piano), and Charles Peaker (organ and counterpoint) at its Conservatory of Music. He then taught on the conservatory faculty from 1940 to 1948. He left there to join the faculty at Toronto University, where he taught until 1982. Among his notable pupils were Walter Babiak, Walter Buczynski, Hugh Davidson, Alan Detweiler, Ben McPeek, Welford Russell, Alfred Strombergs, and Charles Wilson. He contributed articles to numerous Canadian music publications, notably serving as the assistant editor of both Canadian Music (1940–1941) and Canadian Review of Music and Art (1942–1943). From 1973 to 1984 he was the author of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s program notes. As a conductor he served as the music director of the Eaton Operati

Godfrey Sampson

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Godfrey Sampson (1 June 1902 – 21 June 1949) was an English composer and organist, best remembered for his church and choral music. Sampson was born in Gloucester, the son of a clergyman, In 1932 he became a professor of composition there. While still a student Sampson composed a Cello Sonata that was performed by Douglas Cameron and Harry Isaacs at Grotrian Hall, Wigmore Street in 1926. This was followed by the Symphony in D, which was premiered at the Royal Academy in 1927 and repeated at the Henry Wood Proms in 1928, conducted by the composer. Isaacs was also the soloist in Sampson’s Symphonic Variations for piano and orchestra, broadcast on 8 June 1932 by the BBC Orchestra, conducted by Victor Hely-Hutchinson. However, most of his output in the 1930s consisted of short choral works, regularly published by Novello. A recital of his vocal and choral music was broadcast by BBC Radio on 23 June 1935, conducted by Leslie Woodgate. Sampson returned to larger form composition towards the end of his life with the Suite for Strings (1946), and a 15-minute setting of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Bells for eight part choir and orchestra (1946). In the 1920s, Sampson was an organist at his father

Goffredo Petrassi

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Goffredo Petrassi (16 July 1904 – 3 March 2003) was an Italian composer of modern classical music, conductor, and teacher. He is considered one of the most influential Italian composers of the twentieth century. Life Petrassi was born at Zagarolo, near Rome. At the age of 15 he began to work at a music shop to supply his family’s financial needs, and became fascinated by music. In 1928, he entered the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome to study organ and composition for five years under Vincenzo di Donato. In 1933, composer Alfredo Casella conducted Petrassi’s Partita for orchestra at the ISCM festival in Amsterdam. From 1940 to 1960 Petrassi was professor of composition at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory; later, he also became musical director of the opera house La Fenice, and from 1960 to 1978 he taught in the master courses in composition at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia. He was also a teacher at the Salzburg Mozarteum. Petrassi had many famous students, including Franco Donatoni, Aldo Clementi, Cornelius Cardew, Ennio Morricone, Karl Korte, Boris Porena, Norma Beecroft, Mario Bertoncini, Ernesto Rubin de Cervin, Eric Salzman, Kenneth Leighton, Peter Maxwell Davies, Michael Dell

Gonzalo Brenes

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Gonzalo Brenes Candanedo (May 18, 1907 – January 5, 2003) was a Panamanian composer, musicologist, civil servant, politician and educator. He was known for his work collecting and publishing Panamanian folk music. His compositions blended Panamanian folk songs with European classical music. He served a term in the National Assembly of Panama, and from 1953 to 1960 he was Panama’s Secretary of Culture. He taught at several institutions in Panama, including serving as the Advisory Director of Panama’s National Institute of Music. Early life and education The son of Don Agustín Brenes and Aurora Candanedo Gutiérrez, Gonzalo Brenes Candanedo was born on May 18, 1907, in David, Chiriquí, Panama. He studied piano in his youth with a variety of teachers, and began his higher education studies in music at the National Institute of Panama after winning a music scholarship through a performance competition in 1923. There he was a pupil of Dr. José Dolores Moscote with whom he studied music until he graduated in 1927. He pursued further studies at the Leipzig Conservatory (now the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig) in Germany where he was a pupil of composer Sigfrid Karg-Elert. He studi

Gordon Delamont

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Gordon Arthur Delamont (27 October 1918 – 16 January 1981) was a Canadian music educator, author, composer, and trumpeter. He is best remembered for his work as an educator, having helped shape the talents of dozens of notable musicians in Toronto. He also published several books on musical theory topics which have been used widely by schools in North America. As a writer he also contributed articles to Saturday Night, The Canadian Music Journal, and several jazz magazines and newspapers in Canada. As a composer The Canadian Encyclopedia describes him as “a guiding figure in Canada in the third-stream movement” His best-known work, Three Entertainments for Saxophone Quartet (premiered 1969, published by Kendor 1970), was recorded by the New York Saxophone Quartet and has been performed widely throughout North America and Europe. Life Born in Moose Jaw, Delamont was the son of bandmaster and cornetist Arthur Delamont. He grew up in Vancouver where he was a soloist with a boys’ band that his father directed. His father provided him with his earliest musical training. In 1939 he moved to Toronto at the age of 20 where he became principal trumpet of CBC Radio’s orchestra in that city a

Gordon Jacob

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Gordon Percival Septimus Jacob CBE (5 July 18958 June 1984) was an English composer and teacher. He was a professor at the Royal College of Music in London from 1924 until his retirement in 1966, and published four books and many articles about music. As a composer he was prolific: the list of his works totals more than 700, mostly compositions of his own, but a substantial minority of orchestrations and arrangements of other composers’ works. Those music he orchestrated range from William Byrd to Edward Elgar to Noël Coward. Life and career Jacob was born in Upper Norwood, London, the seventh son and youngest of ten children of Stephen Jacob, and his wife, Clara Laura, née Forlong. Stephen Jacob, an official of the Indian Civil Service based in Calcutta, died when Gordon was three. One of his older brothers was Archibald Jacob, choral composer, arranger and author of Musical Handwriting (OUP, 1937). Jacob was educated at Dulwich College, and enlisted in the Queen’s Royal Regiment (West Surrey) at the outbreak of the First World War. He was taken POW in 1917 after being one of 60 survivors from a battalion of 800. In the prison camp he studied a harmony textbook in the camp library

Gösta Nystroem

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Gösta Nystroem (13 October 1890 – 9 August 1966) was a Swedish composer. Life and career Nystroem, originally Nyström, was born in Silvberg, Sweden, a parish in the province of Dalarna, but spent most of his childhood in Österhaninge near Stockholm, at the time a small village but nowadays a suburban district. His father was a headmaster and an organist. In his younger days, Nystroem was both a composer and a painter (one of the first Swedish Cubists), but when he was about thirty years old, he eventually decided to focus on music. He studied composition in Stockholm (at the Royal College of Music, Stockholm ), Copenhagen, and Paris. He moved to Paris in 1919. Among his teachers in Paris were Vincent d’Indy and Leonid Sabaneyev. After living in France, mostly in Paris, * 1959 Piano Concerto “Concerto Ricercante” * 195? Midsummer Dream, after Martinson, for soprano & piano * 1962–63 Sinfonia Seria (Symphony No. 5) * 1963 Sinfonia di Lontano * 1964 Sommarmusik for soprano & orchestra * 1965 Sinfonia Tramontana (Symphony No. 6) External links * References

Gottfried Huppertz

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Gottfried Huppertz (11 March 1887 – 7 February 1937) was a German composer who is perhaps most known for his scores to German expressionist silent films such as the science fiction epic Metropolis (1927). He collaborated with director Fritz Lang on multiple occasions. Life Huppertz studied at the Conservatory of Music in Cologne and worked during World War I in Coburg, where he debuted in 1910 as a singer and actor. In 1920 he went to Berlin as an opera singer at the Nollendorfplatz theatre. His first composition, “Rankende Rosen”, was dedicated to the actor Rudolf Klein-Rogge, who introduced him in the early 1920s to director Fritz Lang and to Thea von Harbou (who later married Lang, but was at the time still married to Klein-Rogge). In the film, Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (1922), Huppertz worked as an extra in the role of a hotel manager. Huppertz composed his first film score for Lang’s film Die Nibelungen (1924). While working on his 1925 score for the film Chronicles of the Gray House, Huppertz began working on the score of another film for Lang, Metropolis (1927). This became his best-known film score. Besides scoring, Huppertz also wrote songs. Only some of his music has been r

Gottfried Müller (composer)

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Joachim Gottfried Müller (born 8 June 1914 in Dresden; died 3 May 1993 in Nuremberg) was a German composer, cantor, and organist. Life He was the son of theologian Adolf Müller (de:Adolf Müller) . He studied with Dresden church music director , and also for a year at the University of Edinburgh with Donald Francis Tovey. In 1932 Karl Straube taught him to play the organ in Leipzig. In the same year, Fritz Busch performed Müller’s 90th Psalm for soloists, choir and orchestra. A little later, Müller’s variations and fugue on the folk song “Morgenrot” op. 2 were premiered at the International Music Festival in Venice. With effect from May 1, 1933, Müller joined the NSDAP (membership number 2,458,091). In 1934, his German Heroes’ Requiem (op. 4), was premiered by Karl Elmendorff at the 1934 Tonkunstlerfest in Wiesbaden. It was dedicated “into the hands of the Führer”, and based on a text by Klaus Niedner. Joseph Goebbels noted it impressed Adolf Hitler. In a biographical note in 1961, the composer instead dedicated it “to the fallen soldiers of the First World War.” The work underwent several revivals in the following years. On the occasion of a performance in 1934, his teacher Karl St

Gottfried von Einem

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Gottfried von Einem (24 January 1918 – 12 July 1996) was an Austrian composer. He is known chiefly for his operas influenced by the music of Stravinsky and Prokofiev, as well as by jazz. He also composed pieces for piano, violin and organ. Biography Einem was born in the Swiss capital Bern into the noble family. According to Einem’s publisher, his father was William von Einem, military attaché of the Austro-Hungarian embassy. According to another source, however, he was adopted by Einem, his natural father being the Hungarian aristocrat Count László von Hunyadi. His mother, Baroness Gerta Louise née Rieß von Scheurnschloss, an officer’s daughter from Kassel, led a lavish lifestyle between Berlin and Paris. The family moved to Malente in the Prussian Province of Schleswig-Holstein, when Gottfried was four years old. After his school days in Plön and Ratzeburg, Gottfried von Einem went to Berlin in 1937, to study at the State School of Music with Paul Hindemith who nevertheless resigned his post in October that year in protest against his modernist music being banned from public performances by Joseph Goebbels. By the agency of the tenor Max Lorenz, he started an employment as a répé

Gottfried Wolters

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Gottfried Wolters (8 April 1910 – 25 June 1989) was a German choral conductor and composer. Life Wolters was born in Emmerich am Rhein. He began studying music at the University of Cologne, but did not complete his dissertation on Johann Baptist Wanhal as a symphonist. After the seizure of control by the National Socialists he worked as an editor at P. J. Tonger Verlag in Cologne and also as a freelance composer and choir director. As Gaumusikreferent of the German Labour Front (1935) was listed on the in the Soviet occupation zone. In the post-war years he founded the Norddeutscher Singkreis, a mixed choir, in Hamburg. With this choir he led Bach’s St John Passion and St Matthew Passion, Hugo Distler’s Choralpassion and Mörike’s Chorliederbuch, Günter Bialas’s Im Anfang and many more serious modern and Baroque works. His special love was the German and later the European folk song, which he sang together with his choir and the audience with his own instrumental movements at the monthly Open Singstunden in Hamburg. Worldly music from madrigal to vocal music by Paul Hindemith was another focus. In the early 1960s he founded the movement Europa Cantat with other European choral condu

Grace Adele Freebey

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Grace Adele Freebey (January 25, 1885 – March 30, 1943) was an American pianist, music teacher and composer. Early life and education Freebey was born on January 25 1885, in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, to Charles Peter Freebey and Joanna Estelle Walsh Freebey. Her mother was born in Canada. In childhood, she moved to Los Angeles with her parents and siblings. She studied piano with A. J. Stamm, Marie von Unschuld, Louis Bachner, and Ernest Hutcheson, and composition with conductor Henry Schoenefeld. Career Freebey performed as a concert pianist, and was accompanist for singers Ernestine Schumann-Heink and Ellen Beach Yaw, and cellists May Mukle and Alfred Wallenstein. In 1914, she toured in vaudeville with Wallenstein, a child prodigy. She was a member of the Schliewen Trio, with Wallenstein and violinist Richard Schliewen. She was business manager and accompanist of the all-woman Sunny Southland Trio. Freebey taught piano classes at her own studio in Los Angeles, and at the Wilson-Greene School of Music, and as head of the piano department at Martha Washington Seminary in Washington, D.C. “O Golden Sun” (1912), “North Wind”, “Wind of the West”, “May Day”, “Calling You”, “Somebody’s Comi

Grace Leboy

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Grace Leboy Kahn (September 22, 1890 – May 24, 1983) was an American composer. A prolific songwriter, among her best known works are “I Wish I Had A Girl” (1908) and selections from the Jumping Jupiter musical. Life and career Leboy was born in Brooklyn, New York to Samuel LeBoy (originally Lebovitch) and Celia Leboy (née Liborski), both Jewish immigrants. She grew up in Illinois and was the sixth of seven children. Leboy was a precocious musician, gaining employment as a pianist by age 15, and fame by age 18 with her song “I Wish I Had A Girl”. By age 21 she had songs on the Broadway stage in Jumping Jupiter. Notable performers of her day recorded her songs and compositions. Lyrics for many of her songs were written by Gus Kahn whom she married in 1916. They were the parents of Donald Gustave Kahn (July 17, 1918 – April 11, 2008) and Irene Kahn (1922–1985). Grace was played by Doris Day in I’ll See You in My Dreams, a film that portrays the lives and times of Leboy and Kahn. Selected compositions *Are You Lonesome 1909 *Bring Along Your Dancing Shoes 1915 *Dublin Bay 1912 *Early In The Morning (Down On The Farm) 1916 *Everybody Rag With Me 1914 *The Good Ship Mary Ann 1914 *Henry,

Grace Williams

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Grace Mary Williams (19 February 1906 – 10 February 1977) was a Welsh composer, generally regarded as Wales’s most notable female composer, and the first British woman to score a feature film. Early life Williams was born in Barry, Glamorgan, the daughter of William Matthews Williams and Rose Emily Richards Williams. Both of her parents were teachers; her father was also a noted musician. She learned piano and violin as a girl, playing piano trios with her father and her brother Glyn, and accompanying her father’s choir. At the County School she began to develop her interest in composition under the guidance of the music teacher Miss Rhyda Jones, and in 1923 she won the Morfydd Owen scholarship to the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire (now Cardiff University), where she studied under Professor David Evans. In 1926 she began studying at the Royal College of Music, London, where she was taught by Gordon Jacob and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Other notable female composers studying with Vaughan Williams at the RCM were Elizabeth Maconchy, Dorothy Gow and Imogen Holst, the daughter of Gustav Holst. In 1930 she was awarded a travelling scholarship, and chose to study with E

Graciela Olmos

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Marina Aedo (December 10, 1895 - May 31, 1962) was a singer-songwriter, soldier, alcohol trafficker, prostitute, pimp, and businesswomen, born in Casas Grandes, Mexico. While her birth name was Marina Aedo, she is better known by the name Graciela Olmos, or the nickname “La Bandida”. Early life Graciela Olmos was born on December 10, 1895 in the Hacienda de San Diego in Casas Grandes, Chihuahua. In her youth, she was tasked with various duties such as cleaning the hacienda and caring for the animals. The hacienda was attacked during the Mexican Revolution, leaving 12-year-old Olmos and her younger brother Benjamín orphaned. Involvement in the Mexican Revolution During the Revolution, Pancho Villa’s troops arrived in Irapuato, where Marina met José Hernández, known as “El Bandido”, and the two were married. Olmos the joined Pancho Villa’s army as a soldadera and served alongside Hernández until the Battle of Celaya, where he was killed, leaving her a widow at 20 years old. It was around this time that she was given the nickname “La Bandida”, the feminine equivalent to her late husband’s title, “El Bandido.” During her time with the troops she learned guitar and began composing songs

Graham George

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Graham Elias George (11 April 1912 – 9 December 1993) was a Canadian composer, music theorist, organist, choir conductor, and music educator of English birth. An associate of the Canadian Music Centre, his compositional output consists largely of choral works, many written for Anglican liturgical use. He also wrote three ballets, four operas, and some symphonic music. In 1938 he won the Jean Lallemand Prize for his Variations on an Original Theme. At first he employed traditional tertial harmony, but the influence of Hindemith led him to introduce quartal-quintal harmony as integral to his style. Successful completion of RCCO/RCO diplomas and external degrees had demanded he attain very considerable expertise in counterpoint, and so his neoclassic deployment of contrapuntal devices such as imitation, canon and fugue is hardly accidental. His archives are part of the collection at the Library and Archives Canada. Early life and education Born in Norwich, he moved to Canada in 1928 at the age of 16. He studied the organ and music composition with Alfred Whitehead. He earned the Associateship (1934) and Fellowship (1936) of the Royal Canadian College of Organists, the Associateship (1

Grete Hinterhofer

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Grete Hinterhofer (18 July 1899 – 27 June 1985) was an Austrian pianist, music teacher and composer. Life Hinterhofer was born in Wels. Her father was a teacher, and her mother was a piano teacher and composer. At the age of nine, Hinterhofer received her first private piano lessons from Cäcilie (von) Frank (1851-1936?), who ran an illustrious musical salon in the 1st district of Vienna and was piano accompanist to the Hellmesberger Quartet and Arnold Rosé. She received extensive artistic training from her and made several public appearances that were reviewed in local newspapers. Cäcilie (von) Frank’s apartment was also an important meeting place for the Viennese musical world. One of Hinterhofer’s schoolmates was Arnold Schönberg’s student Vilma von Webenau. She also took piano lessons in 1909/10 at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien with Hugo Reinhold and 1914 with Emil von Sauer. Residenz, Salzburg 2001, . . * Susanne Wosnitzka: “Gemeinsame Not verstärkt den Willen” – Netzwerke von Musikerinnen in Wien, in Annkatrin Babbe und Volker Timmermann (ed.): Musikerinnen und ihre Netzwerke im 19. Jahrhundert. Oldenburg 2016 (Schriftenreihe des Sophie Drinker Institut

Grete von Zieritz

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Grete von Zieritz (10 March 1899 – 26 November 2001) was an Austrian-German composer and pianist. She studied with Martin Krause, a student of Franz Liszt, Franz Schreker and Rudolf Maria Breithaupt. She became a composer, and music teacher. In 1939 she was the only woman at the International Music Festival in Frankfurt am Main among composers from 18 nations. In 2009 in Vienna’s Donaustadt the street Zieritzgasse was named after her. Life Grete von Zieritz was born in Vienna, Austria on 10 March 1899, into a noble family, and grew up in Vienna, Innsbruck and Graz. She received her first piano lessons at the age of six, and later studied at the Styrian Conservatory in Graz, studying piano with Hugo Kroemer and composition with Roderich Mojsisovics von Mojsvar. Moving to Berlin in 1917, she continued her studies with Martin Krause, a student of Franz Liszt, and Rudolf Maria Breithaupt. After the successful performance of her “Japanese Songs” in 1921, she decided to become a composer. She toured in Germany and abroad, often performing her own works, and won the Mendelssohn state prize for composition in 1928. In 1958 the Austrian Federal President appointed her as Professor, the firs

Grigor Yeghiazaryan

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Grigor Yeghiazaryan (), also known as Grigory Ilyich (Yegiayevich) Yegiazaryan (; December 21, 1908 − November 4, 1988), was a Soviet Armenian composer. After a childhood spent amidst the Armenian genocide, Yeghiazaryan joined the Red Army in 1921, playing in regimental bands until 1929. He enrolled in the Moscow Conservatory in 1930, where his teachers included Reinhold Glière and Nikolai Myaskovsky. Upon graduation, he taught and lectured in the Armenian SSR; first in Leninakan, then Yerevan. As composer, teacher, and functionary, he established himself as a crucial figure in Armenian musical culture of the mid-20th century. Biography Early life Yeghiazaryan was born to an Armenian peasant family in the village of Blur, Erivan Governorate, Russian Empire (today Enginalan, Iğdır Province, Turkey), on December 21, 1908. His family fled to Yerevan in 1918 as a result of the Armenian Genocide, in the course of which two of his brothers and three of his sisters died from starvation. While on an expedition foraging for food, he heard the sound of a nearby military band in a regiment of the 11th Red Army. When the bandmaster saw the sight of the young Yeghiazaryan, he took pity and offe

Grigori Gamburg

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Grigori (German) Semyonovich Gamburg (; also Grigorij Gamburg, Grigory Semenovich Hamburg; 22 October 1900 in Warsaw, Vistula Land, Russian Empire – 28 October 1967 in Moscow, Soviet Union) was a Russian (Soviet) violinist, violist, composer and conductor. Gamburg graduated from the Tiflis Conservatory (now the Tbilisi State Conservatoire) in 1922 studying composition with Nikolai Tcherepnin and violin with V.R. Vilshau (В.Р. Вильшау), and graduated in 1927 from the Moscow Conservatory studying composition with Nikolai Myaskovsky, violin with Boris Sibor (Борис Осипович Сибор), and conducting with Nikolai Malko. Gamburg did postgraduate studies in chamber music, and taught chamber music classes at the Moscow Conservatory from 1928 to 1941, becoming Professor of Chamber Music in 1939. From 1924 to 1930 he was violist with the Stradivari Quartet (of Moscow). From the early 1930s, Gamburg was conductor of the Radio Symphony Orchestra, and of the Orchestra of the Ministry of Cinematography of the USSR where he was musical director for many Russian-language films. From 1945 to 1954 Gamburg was professor of conducting at the Institute of Military Conductors (Институт Военных Дирижеров),

Grigory Frid

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Grigory Samuilovich Frid, also known as Grigori Fried (, 22 September N.S. 1915 – 22 September 2012), was a Russian composer of music written in many different genres, including chamber opera. Early life and education Born in Petrograd, now St. Petersburg, Frid studied in the Moscow Conservatory with Heinrich Litinsky and Vissarion Shebalin. He was a soldier in the Second World War. Career Frid was a prolific composer. His most notable works are his two chamber operas, both to his own libretti. The Diary of Anne Frank is a monodrama in 21 scenes for soprano and chamber orchestra, lasting about one hour. It was composed in 1968 and given a first performance with piano accompaniment at the All-Union House of Composers in Moscow on either 17 or 18 May 1972. The Letters of Van Gogh is a mono-opera in two parts for baritone and chamber ensemble, based on the letters of Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo. The opera was composed in 1975 and given its premiere in concert form at the same venue, on 29 November 1976. He wrote three symphonies (1939, 1955, 1964), a series of instrumental concertos including a Concerto for viola, piano and string orchestra (1981), music for theatre and cinem

Guido Guerrini (composer)

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Guido Guerrini (September 12, 1890 – June 14, 1965) was an Italian composer, violinist, violist, conductor, music educator, academic administrator, and music critic. He began his career as a violinist, violist, and conductor in Bologona in the 1910s. After serving in the Italian Army during World War I, he taught on the faculties of several music conservatories in Italy and was the longtime director of the Florence Conservatory from 1928 to 1947. His work in Florence was interrupted during World War II when he was imprisoned in an Italian fascist concentration camp in 1944–1945. While there he composed his opera Enea which was later staged at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma in 1953. He also served as director of the Bologna Conservatory (1947–1949) and the Conservatorio Santa Cecilia (1950–1960). At the time of his death in 1965 he was president of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. As a composer, Guerrini’s early music was inspired heavily was by Maurice Ravel and Richard Strauss, but he later mitigated his penchant for romantic music with a more architectural and intellectual approach to composing. His most successful pieces were his requiem Missa pro defunctis and his mass

Guido Pannain

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Guido Pannain (17 November 1891 – 6 September 1977) was an Italian musicologist, critic and classical composer. Life and career Born in Naples, Pannain was the son of the composer and pianist Eduardo Pannain and the nephew of the composer and music theorist Antonio Pannain. He got a degree in counterpoint and composition at the conservatory of San Pietro a Maiella Conservatory, and graduated in letters at the Federico II University. Between 1915 and 1947, he served as professor at the Naples Conservatory, and between 1952 and 1955 he was professor of music history at the Accademia Nazionale di Arte Drammatica Silvio D’Amico. Pannain was author of numerous studies and essays, often focusing on the history of the Neapolitan music; among his most important works, Modern composers (in Italian Musicisti dei tempi nuovi, 1932), a collection of profiles of the leading contemporary composers, La vita del linguaggio musicale: saggio di estetica (“The Life of Musical Language: An Essay on Aesthetics”, 1947), an essay in which he applied the Benedetto Croce’s neo-idealistic theories over music, and Storia della musica (1936-1964), a history of the music he co-wrote with Andrea Della Corte. He

Guido Santórsola

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Guido Antonio Santórsola di Bari Bruno (18 November 1904 in Canosa di Puglia, Italy – 24 September 1994 in Montevideo, Uruguay) was a Brazilian-Uruguayan composer, violinist, violist, viola d’amore player, and conductor of Ita birth. Life and music Santórsola was born in Italy and his family settled in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1909. After receiving initial musical instruction from his father, Enrico, he soon entered the Conservatório Dramático e Musical de São Paulo studying violin with Zaccaria Autuori, and counterpoint, harmony and composition with Agostino Cantù and Lamberto Baldi. He went to Europe to study violin with Gaetano Fusella (1876–1973) in Naples and Alfred Mistowski (1872–1964) at Trinity College, London. Returning to Brazil in 1925, he founded the Brazilian Musical Institute, and was violist of the Paulista Quartet and the Rio de Janeiro Teatro Municipal Orchestra. Subsequently, he was professor of violin, viola and harmony at the Conservatório Dramático e Musical de São Paulo before settling in Montevideo in 1931. Italian maestro Lamberto Baldi, director of the Orquesta Sinfónica del SODRE, invited Santórsola to be first violist of his orchestra and also perform with

Guillermo Venegas Lloveras

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Guillermo Segundo Venegas Lloveras (Quebradillas, Puerto Rico October 12, 1915 – Santurce, Puerto Rico July 23, 1993) was a Puerto Rican songwriter. After success in his youth with popular boleros, waltzes, tangos, marches, and danzas, in later life he returned to classical music. A two-hour television program was produced by Puerto Rico Lyric Theatre director Jesús Quiñones Ledesma (otherwise known by stage name as the operatic tenor Ricardo Ledesma). After his death the rights to his songs were disputed. Guillermo Venegas Lloveras died of stomach cancer on July 23, 1993 at Pavia Hospital in Santurce, Puerto Rico. Works *Génesis (Lucecita Benítez song) 1969 References

Guirne Creith

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Guirne Creith (born Gladys Mary Cohen; 21 February 1907, in London – 1996) was an English composer and pianist most active in the 1920s and 1930s. She received the Charles Lucas Prize in 1925, having entered the Royal Academy of Music just two years before under the pseudonym Guirne M Creith. A second recording came out in 2026. Works Many of Creith’s manuscripts are missing. Her compositions include four orchestral pieces (only the concerto survives), six works of chamber music (though all six of these are lost and known only from descriptions, so their instrumentation is a matter of conjecture; the Ballade might be for orchestra for example), six songs (five of them published between 1929 and 1956, and the other lost - apparently her only published works), and one ballet (also lost). In all, of these, only her published songs and the violin concerto are known to survive, and the latter only because the manuscript was rediscovered. BBC broadcast listings and newspaper reviews show that Creith’s time in the public spotlight was limited. Her Ballet Suite in Four Movements was broadcast on 8 February 1928, with the composer conducting. The orchestral tone poem May Eve was broadcast o

Gunnar Berg (composer)

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Gunnar Berg (11 January 1909 – 25 August 1989) was a Swiss-born Danish composer. A leading exponent of serialism in Denmark, he is considered to have written the first Danish serial piece, his Cosmogonie for two pianos, in 1952. Biography Early life and education in Switzerland The son of a Swedish mother and a Danish father, Gunnar Berg was born in St. Gallen, Switzerland on January 11, 1909. His father died when he was five years old. He lived in Copenhagen from the years 1921 to 1924 during which time he battled severe illness and spent most of his time in sanatoriums. Berg began studying the piano at the age of 14. He spent a short time in Paris before settling again in Copenhagen again in 1928. In 1931 he made the decision to devote his life to music and he managed to earn a place studying music at the Salzburg Festival in the summer of 1932. He later returned to that program for further studies in 1935. He studied privately with Knud Jeppesen who aided him in matriculating to the Royal Danish Academy of Music in 1936. There the composition program mirrored Danish tastes for the style of Carl Nielsen for which Berg had no interest. His compositions from the mid to late 1930s d

Gunnar de Frumerie

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Per Gunnar Fredrik de Frumerie (20 July 1908 – 9 September 1987) was a Swedish composer and pianist. He was the son of architect Gustaf de Frumerie and Maria Helleday. De Frumerie was born in Nacka, Stockholm County in 1908. After studying piano in Stockholm and Vienna, he studied under Alfred Cortot in Paris. He then studied at the Royal College of Music, Stockholm from 1923 to 1928. Frumerie later taught the piano at the same college, from 1945 to 1974. His compositions covered a wide area, from grand opera to piano miniatures, but he is best remembered for his piano works. His works possess a Brahmsian complexity mixed with an impressionistic elegance. His music has been compared to that of such composers as Lars-Erik Larsson or Wilhelm Peterson-Berger. Although not noted for his theatre work, he did write an opera, Singoalla (1940). He wrote many songs, often to words by Pär Lagerkvist. The cello concerto (1984) has an interesting history. It was adapted from his second cello sonata. He then adapted it into a trombone concerto, and was his last completed work. It was specifically written for the Swedish trombone virtuoso Christian Lindberg. His pupils included Laci Boldemann. T

Gunnar Sønstevold

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Gunnar Sønstevold (26 November 1912 – 18 October 1991) was a Norwegian composer. He was born in Elverum Municipality, and married composer Maj Sønstevold in 1941. He composed orchestral works, vocal music, chamber music, and music to a number of plays, ballets and films. He headed the Music Department of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation/Television from 1966 to 1974. He was awarded Filmkritikerprisen in 1955, for the film Det brenner i natt!. He received the Arts Council Norway music prize in 1972, and Radioteatret’s honorary prize in 1987. Career Sønstevold studied music in Oslo, beginning in 1932 with piano studies with Nils Larsen and Erling Westher as well as composition studies with Karl Andersen. Parallel to his studies, Sønstevold played piano and trombone in one of the leading jazz quartet of the era: Funny Boys (1932–39). After the outbreak of World War II, Sønstevold fled to Sweden where he subsequently met the composer Maj Lundén whom he married in 1941. From 1946 to 1969, Sønstevold composed music for 40 motion pictures and three full-length documentaries. As a theatre composer, Sønstevold penned the score for Jens Bjørneboe’s Semmelweis, Henrik Ibsen’s Catalina, T

Günter Bialas

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Günter Bialas (19 July 1907 – 8 July 1995) was a German composer. Life Bialas was born in Bielschowitz (today Bielszowice, a subdivision of Ruda Śląska) in Prussian Silesia. His father was the business manager of a German theatre, and his musical aesthetic was influenced by the personal experiences and connections he made while spending time at that theatre in his youth. The adolescent Bialas received lessons in piano and music theory from Fritz Lubrich, a former student of Max Reger, in Kattowitz (Katowice) between 1922 and 1925. After graduating from the German Minority-Gymnasium in Kattowitz in 1926, he studied musicology, Germanistics, and history at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Breslau from 1927 to 1931. He then proceeded to study music at the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin and subsequently taught at the Ursulines Girls’ School in Breslau-Karlowitz from 1934 to 1937. He pursued further studies in composition with Max Trapp in Berlin. Through some of his Romanian friends, he made the acquaintance of Sergiu Celibidache and prepared for the entrance examination to the Berlin University of the Arts. In 1939, he became a lecturer in music theory and composition at the

Günter Raphael

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Günter Raphael (30 April 1903 – 19 October 1960) was a German composer. Born in Berlin, Raphael was the grandson of composer Albert Becker. His first symphony was premiered by Wilhelm Furtwängler in 1926 in Leipzig with the Gewandhaus Orchestra. From 1926 to 1934 he taught in Leipzig, but illness and the rise of Fascism – he was declared a “half-Jew” – made this difficult for him. He received the Franz Liszt Award for composition in 1948. His compositions include five symphonies, concertos for violin and for organ, six string quartets, numerous solos and duos for strings and winds with and without piano of which several have been recorded. Raphael also composed organ, piano and choral works. He was also responsible for arranging a performance version of Antonín Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in A major (1865) when its piano and cello score was discovered in 1918. He was also an editor of classical and baroque scores for Breitkopf and Härtel, preparing editions of, for example, flute sonatas by Frederick the Great and works by Vivaldi and Johann Sebastian Bach (some of these can be found in the Cornell University Library). References External links *– 10k Official site in English *Official

Gustaf Nordqvist

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Gustaf Nordqvist (12 February 1886 – 28 January 1949) was a Swedish composer, organist, and music educator. Life and career Gustaf Lazarus Nordqvist was born on 12 February 1886 in Stockholm, Sweden. He studied at the Royal College of Music, Stockholm from 1901 through 1910 focusing on organ, piano, and music composition. In 1913 he pursued further studies in Berlin with Arthur Willner. In 1914 Nordqvist returned to Stockholm where he was appointed organist at Adolf Fredrik Church. He remained in that post until his death 35 years later. He was made a professor at that school in 1944 and continued to work in that position until his death in 1949. He concurrently worked as the principal organ teacher at ’s highly regarded music school in Stockholm from 1926 through 1949. In later years, his works drifted increasingly towards the sacred. Gustaf Nordqvist was voted into the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in 1932. References

Gustav Ernesaks

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Gustav Ernesaks (12 December 1908 – 24 January 1993) was an Estonian composer and a choir conductor. Biography Gustav Ernesaks was born on 12 December 1908 in Perila, Estonia. He was educated at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre where he was a pupil of Juhan Aavik and Artur Kapp. After completing his education, he founded the first professional choir in the history of Estonia in 1944, the State Academic Men’s Choir (now the Estonian National Male Choir). Ernesaks played an integral role in the Singing Revolution and was one of the father figures of the Estonian Song Festival tradition. One of his songs, a setting of Lydia Koidula’s poem Mu isamaa on minu arm, became an unofficial national anthem during the years of Estonian SSR. His performance of the song at the XVII Estonian Song Festival was one of the inspirations for Dmitri Shostakovich’s 1970 a capella choral cycle, Loyalty. He dedicated the score to Ernesaks, who also premiered it in Tallinn. He also composed the Estonian SSR anthem used between 1945 and 1990. In 1935, Ernesaks married Stella Merjam. They had three sons: Ott Ernesaks, Jüri Ernesaks and Peep Ernesaks. His wife died in 1973. Ernesaks died in Tallinn on

Guy de Lioncourt

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Guy de Lioncourt (1 December 1885 in Caen – 24 or 25 December 1961 in Paris) was a French composer. Life He studied music at the Schola Cantorum de Paris under Léon de Saint-Réquier (harmony), Amédée Gastoué (Gregorian chant), André Roussel (counterpoint), Vincent d’Indy (composition), Charles Pineau (organ), F. Mondain (woodwind) and Louis de Serres (singing). On 2 July 1912, at Boffres (Ardèche), he married Claire de Pampelonne, niece of Vincent d’Indy. They had five children: Colette, Jeanne, Vincent (died in childhood), Thérèse and Germaine (future wife of composer Jacques Berthier (1923-1994) - among their children was Vincent Berthier de Lioncourt). In 1918, he won the Grand Prix Lasserre with the opéra féerique La Belle au bois dormant (1912-1915). After having been the secretary general of the Schola Cantorum de Paris, he became its professor of counterpoint in 1914. Guy de Lioncourt played a major role in the foundation of the École César Franck, acting as its under director, then director in 1942, all the while teaching the composition class. His counterpoint (1914–1931) and composition (1932–1934) classes at the Schola Cantorum were formative for a multitude of famous st

Guy Warrack

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Guy Douglas Hamilton Warrack (6 February 1900 – 12 February 1986) was a Scottish composer, music educator and conductor. He was the son of John Warrack of the Leith steamship company, John Warrack & Co., founded by Guy’s grandfather, also called John. Life and career Warrack was born in Edinburgh. He was educated at Cargilfield Preparatory School and Winchester College, where he played organ in chapel services, arranged House choirs and played timpani in the school orchestra. At Magdalen College, Oxford he studied music under Sir Hugh Allen and Dr Ernest Walker. During his time as a student, he performed as organist at St Columba’s Presbyterian Church in Oxford, as well as in Edinburgh at churches such as St George’s United Free. He continued his studies at the Royal College of Music (RCM) where his professors included Holst and Vaughan Williams (composing) and Adrian Boult (conducting). He won the Foli Prize and the Tagore Gold Medal. Warrack also conducted at the Lyric Hammersmith and assisted Adrian Boult in an opera season at the Royal Court Theatre. He orchestrated the piano music of Fauré for choreographer Andrée Howard’s best known ballet, La Fête étrange, premiered on 23 Ma

György Kósa

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György Kósa (24 April 1897 – 16 August 1984) was a Hungarian composer. Life and career György Kósa was born in Budapest, Hungary on 24 April 1897. He began studying music with Béla Bartók when he was ten years old. From 1908-1912 he attended the Franz Liszt Academy of Music where he was a student of music composition with Zoltán Kodály, and Victor von Herzfeld. He also studied piano at that conservatory from 1908 through 1915, and later was a piano student of Ernst von Dohnányi in 1915-1916. Kósa worked at the Hungarian State Opera as a répétiteur in 1916-1917; notably serving in that capacity for the premiere production of Bartok’s opera The Wooden Prince (1917). After World War I, he gave tours of Europe and North Africa before ultimately settling in Tripoli, Libya where he worked as a pit orchestra conductor in the city’s theaters for two years. He returned to Hungary, and in 1927 joined the faculty of his alma mater, the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, as a professor of piano. He taught there for many years. Kósa was awarded the Ferenc Erkel Prize in (1955), and was later honored by the Hungarian People’s Republic as a Merited Artist and a Honoured Artist in 1972. Kósa died in Bu

György Ránki

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György Ránki (; 30 November 1907 – 22 May 1992) was a Hungarian composer. Life Born in Budapest, he studied composition with Zoltán Kodály at the Budapest Academy of Music from 1926-1930. He became interested in folk music and ethnomusicology, working with László Lajtha at the Museum of Ethnography in Budapest and later further studies in Asian folk music in London and Paris (at the Musée de l’Homme). He directed the music section of Hungarian radio in 1947–8, after which he gave his attention to composition. Ránki not only employed authentic folk melodies and musical idioms in his music but also pulled on jazz elements. He possessed a gift for the grotesque and unusual, the colourful and humorous, which may be traced in part perhaps to his studies of non-Western music. Works His greatest successes have been stage works, above all the opera Pomádé király uj ruhája (‘King Pomádé’s New Clothes’, based on the Andersen story), which draws most of its material from Hungarian folk music. He also wrote a two-act mystery opera, Az ember tragédiája (The Tragedy of Man), based on the eponymous play by Imre Madách. South Asian influences are particularly evident in Pentaerophonia for wind qui

Gyula Dávid

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Gyula Dávid (6 May 1913 – 14 March 1977) was a Hungarian violist and composer. Life and career Gyula Dávid was born in Budapest, Hungary on 6 May 1913. He studied composition with Zoltán Kodály at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music (FLAM) where he began his studies with the composer in 1938. He assisted Kodály with folk song collecting and a song he collected in Karád was utilized by Kodály as the basis for his composition Karádi nóták. Selected works ;Orchestral * Symphony No. 1 (I. szimfónia) (1947) * Tánczene, magyar népdalfeldolgozások (Dance Music, Based on Hungarian Folk Songs) (published 1952) * Symphony No. 2 (II. szimfónia) (1957) * Symphony No. 3 (III. szimfónia) (1960) * Sinfonietta for small orchestra (1961) * Színházi zene (Theatrical Music; Theatermusik) (published 1963) * Symphony No. 4 (IV. szimfónia) (1970) * Festive Overture (Ünnepi előjáték) (1972) ;Concertante * Concerto (Brácsaverseny) for viola and orchestra (1950) * Concerto (Hegedűverseny) for violin and orchestra (published 1970) * Concerto (Kürtverseny) for horn and orchestra (published 1976) ;Chamber music * Wind Quintet No. 1 (I. Fúvósötös) (published 1954) * Sonata (Sonata fuvolára és zongorára) for flute

H. Maurice Jacquet

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Maurice Henri Louis Fernand Jacquet (18 March 1886 – 29 June 1954) was a 20th-century French composer and conductor. He died on June 29, 1954, in New York. Biography The son of Alfred Eugene Gustave Jacquet, a photographer, and Jeanne Joséphine Henriette Noël, a singing teacher, H. Maurice Jacquet initially intended to become a virtuoso. He engaged in serious musical study under the direction of Francis Thomé, a composer and pianist. Since he showed serious provisions for musical composition, he followed his earlier training with lessons from Émile Pessard, a professor at the Conservatoire de Paris. A student of conductor Alexandre Luigini, he regularly directed works by Jules Massenet and Gustave Charpentier. H. Maurice Jacquet composed art songs, symphonic poems for soloists and orchestra as well as piano works. The creation of Messaouda, a one-act opéra comique written with Davin de Champclos and Andre Mauprey, was incredibly successful and received with great praise when it premiered at the Théâtre Moncey in Paris. Romanitza, a lyrical drama in four acts on a poem by Maurice Magre, was also presented with great success in April 1913 at the Théâtre Municipal of Calais. He also w

H. Owen Reed

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Herbert Owen Reed (June 17, 1910 – January 6, 2014) was an American composer, conductor, and author. Early life and education Reed was raised in rural Odessa, Missouri, where his first exposure to music was his father’s playing of the old-time fiddle, accompanied by his mother at the piano. In addition to his childhood with musically-inclined parents, he was also attracted to the popular piano music of the 1920s, such as the novelty piano tunes of Zez Confrey, and his family’s player piano, which played popular tunes. He studied piano with Odessa’s only piano teacher, Mrs. Felts, who attempted to interest him in the music of Bach and Beethoven. In 1937 he enrolled at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where he studied composition with Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers, conducting with Paul White, musicology with Howard Gleason, and music theory with Allen I. McHose. He received a Ph.D. in composition in 1939. In 1942, at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood, Massachusetts, he studied composition with Bohuslav Martinů, and contemporary music with Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein and Stanley Chappel. In the summer of 1947, he studied composition with Roy Harris at

Haig Gudenian

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Hayk Kyutenyan (Armenian: Հայկ Կիւտէնեան), anglicized as Haig Gudenian (19 May 1885 – 12 May 1972), was an Armenian American violinist, composer, and author. He left his home city of Constantinople in 1904 and went to western Europe where he studied music and violin under Vítězslav Novák, Otakar Sevcik, César Thomson, and Mathieu Crickboom. Playing a rare 18th-century Spanish violin in his concert performances, he was known for his virtuoso skill as a violinist, and for introducing Middle Eastern music, especially that of Anatolia and the Caucasus, to European and American audiences; almost all of his numerous compositions were inspired by the diverse cultural heritage of the region. Among his compositions are works such as “The Armenian Shepherd”, “Armenian Love Song”, and “The Arabian Boy”, that depict the lives and ideals of the Armenian people. Violinists Jascha Heifetz and Max Rosen, as well as pianist Percy Grainger, included various works of his in their repertoires. Early years Born in the city of Kayseri (Caesarea) in the Ottoman Empire, Gudenian attended the Turkish University of Constantinople, then moved to Brussels in 1904, where he studied violin under César Thomson a

Haim Alexander

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Haim Alexander (Hebrew: חיים אלכסנדר; August 9, 1915 – March 18, 2012) an Israeli composer and music educator. Biography Alexander was born in Berlin, Germany on August 9, 1915. He was a student at the Stern Conservatory in his native city but persecution from the Nazi Party forced him to leave in 1936. That same year he emigrated to Palestine. He studied piano and composition with Irma and Stefan Wolpe at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. Alexander also did work transcribing tradition Jewish music into musical notation for at the National Sound Archives at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. He was the recipient of several awards, including the Engel Prize in 1956 and the Artur Rubinstein Prize in 1973. In 1996 he received the ACUM Golden Feather Prize for lifetime achievement. Alexander died in Jerusalem on March 18, 2012. Selected works *6 Israeli Dances, fo piano, 1951 *Artza To our Country , for orchestra, 1951 *Ve’kibatzti etkhem I Will Even Gather You , for SATB chorus, 1952 *Bnot kol Sound Figures , for piano, 1965 *Nabut, ballet, 1971 *Tavniot Patterns , for piano, 1973; revised 1975 *Piano Concerto, for piano and orchestra, 1982 *Shirei Ahavah ve’Tzippia

Halsey Stevens

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Halsey Stevens (December 3, 1908 – January 20, 1989) was a music professor, biographer, and composer of American music. Life Halsey Stevens was born in Scott, New York and educated at Syracuse University and the University of California, Berkeley. He studied with William Berwald at Syracuse and with the composer Ernest Bloch at Berkeley. Stevens served as a faculty member at Syracuse University (1935–1937), Dakota Wesleyan University (1937–1941), Bradley University (1941–1946), the University of Redlands (1946), and then at the University of Southern California from 1946 until his retirement in 1976. His notable students there included Charles Lloyd, Houston Bright, Benjamin Lees, Morten Lauridsen, and Williametta Spencer. He died in a Long Beach, California, medical facility on January 20, 1989, after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. Music His recorded music includes, in chronological order of composition: * “Go, Lovely Rose,” for mixed chorus (SATB) a cappella (1942) * Quintet for Flute, Piano, Violin, Viola, and Cello (1945) * Symphony No. 1 (1945) * Three Inventions for Piano (1948) * Sonata for French Horn and Piano (1953) * Triskelion, for orchestra (1953) * Five Duos

Hanning Schröder

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Hanning Schröder (born Hans Schröder; 4 July 1896 – 16 October 1987) was a German composer and violist. From 1927, he worked in Berlin as a violist in orchestras for opera, radio and film, and in the Havemann String Quartet of his teacher Gustav Havemann. He formed the Harlan Trio with his wife and violinist Peter Harlan, performing Renaissance and Baroque music as pioneers of historical instruments. Due to his wife’s Jewish descent, he had to stop working under the Nazi regime from 1935. They hid a Jewish couple in the house in Berlin that they left for safety reasons, earning them a Righteous Among the Nations recognition. As a composer, Schröder is known for chamber music, especially a string quartet based on the song of the Moorsoldaten from the Börgermoor concentration camp. Biography Hans Schröder was born in Rostock, the son of a captain. He grew up in a music-loving family, learning to play the violin at a young age. He became leader of the family’s “Schröder House Orchestra” at the age of 15, leading public concerts. During the Weimar Republic era, Schröder first studied medicine in his hometown. He moved to study at the University of Freiburg in 1920, where he first began

Hanns Eisler

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Hanns Eisler (; 6 July 1898 – 6 September 1962) was an Austrian and German composer. He is best known for composing the national anthem of East Germany, for his long artistic association with Bertolt Brecht, and for the scores he wrote for films. The Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin is named after him. Family background Johannes Eisler was born in Leipzig, Saxony, on 6 July 1898 – the third child of Rudolf Eisler and Marie Ida Fischer. His father was a philosophy professor and an atheist of Jewish descent, and his mother was Lutheran of Swabian descent. In 1901, the family moved to Vienna. His older brother Gerhart was a communist journalist, At age 14, Eisler joined a socialist youth group. In 1917, one year after Eisler graduated high school, the 18-year-old Eisler was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army to fight during World War I, where he served as a front-line soldier. He found this time physically demanding, due to his poor health and small stature, and was injured several times in combat. Returning to Vienna after Austria’s defeat, he studied from 1919 to 1923 under Arnold Schoenberg. Eisler was the first of Schoenberg’s disciples to compose in the twelve-tone or

Hanns Jelinek

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Hanns Jelinek (5 December 1901 – 27 January 1969) was an Austrian composer of Czech descent who is also known under the pseudonyms Hanns Elin, H. J. Hirsch, Jakob Fidelbogen. Biography Jelinek was born and died in Vienna. His father was a machine operator (died 1917). At the age of 6 he began violin lessons and at age 7, began learning the piano. In 1918 he became a member of the newly founded Communist Party of Austria. In 1918–19 Jelinek studied with Arnold Schoenberg at Eugenie Schwarzwald’s School in Vienna, and privately with Alban Berg. These two influenced him to write many works in the twelve-tone technique. In 1920 he started the study with Franz Schmidt at the Vienna Academy of Music. However, in 1922 he broke off his studies for financial reasons, and thereafter studied music on his own. In order to support himself as a self-employed composer in Vienna, he appeared as a pianist in bars and cinemas and composed popular music under the pseudonym Hanns Elin. From 1958 on, he was a lecturer and, after 1965, a professor at the Vienna Academy of Music. In 1966, he was awarded the Grand Austrian State Prize. Compositions Since 1934 (starting with his Second String Quartet op. 1

Hanns Ludwig Kormann

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Hanns Ludwig Kormann (2 April 1889 – 18 February 1965) was a German conductor, composer, and tenor. Biography Born on 2 April 1889, in Leipzig, Kormann began his musical career as a singer, engaged as a Heldentenor in the Hoftheater Oldenburg for the 1914–1915 season. He then became a soldier for the duration of World War I, returning in 1919 to take up conducting posts in Bromberg, Bielefeld, and Jössnitz. Kormann joined the NSDAP (Nazi Party) in 1931 (Nr. 905,628). In close favour with Heinz Drewes, his operas experienced revivals and new premieres and several of his compositions were commercially released. He later co-ordinated Unterhaltungsmusik for the Reichsmusikprüfstelle. He was transferred to occupied Krakow where he ended the war. After the war, he returned to Buchholz, but was banned from public and radio performance for his political activities. After completing denazification in 1948, he moved to Erfurt, and finally Kalk, Cologne, where he died on 18 February 1965. References

Hanns Wolf

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Hanns Wolf (sometimes incorrectly called Hans Wolf; June 7, 1894 – July 2, 1968) was a post-romantic and modern composer, pianist and music professor. Nearly all his works were destroyed after World War II, and Wolf was nearly forgotten until 1996 when he was rediscovered by Karl Urlberger. Biography Hanns Wolf was born in Bamberg, Germany. Little is known about his childhood, however from 1908 to 1912, he studied under Max Meyer-Olbersleben for composition and Henryk van Zeyl (who was a student of Liszt) for piano in the Würzburg Music Conservatory. to 1924. organized many concerts that can be date backed as early as 1917. Wolf taught piano to Ottmar Geißler (Geissler). After 1924, Wolf was a professor in the Augsburg Musikhochschule, now known as Leopold Mozart Centre of the University of Augsburg. (who was an organ virtuoso), Piechler was the student of Heinrich Kaspar Schmid who was the director of the music school. Wolf also played piano around Europe, playing the works of Dobrowen and Wladigeroff. However, the outbreak of World War II forced him to stay in Germany. He continued to hold his position as a professor in the university until the war ended in 1945, when he resigned

Hanoch Jacoby

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Hanoch (Heinrich) Jacoby (; March 2, 1909 – 13 December 1990) was an Israeli composer and viola player. Biography Hanoch Heinrich Jacoby was born on March 2, 1909, in Königsberg, Germany (now Kaliningrad, Russia). There he learned to play the viola. From 1927 until 1930 he studied in the Royal Academy of Musical Performing Art (now the Berlin University of the Arts). His composition and viola teacher there was Paul Hindemith. He played in Michael Taube’s chamber orchestra in Berlin and from 1930 in the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 1933 he was fired due to the Nuremberg Laws. In 1934 he immigrated to Palestine as part of the Fifth Aliyah as a viola player in the Jerusalem string quartet formed in Jerusalem by Emil Hauser. He was one of the founders of a conservatory that later became the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. He taught violin, viola, music theory, and composition there, and was also its head from 1954 until 1958. During the same years he was also first viola player in the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and often conducted it. Since 1958 he played the viola in Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, which also performed his compositions, until his retirement in 1974. T

Hans Blüher

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Hans Blüher (17 February 1888 – 4 February 1955) was a German writer and philosopher. He attained prominence as an early member and “first historian” of the Wandervogel movement. He was aided by his taboo breaking rebellion against schools and the Church. He was received with some genuine interest but sometimes perceived as scandalous. During the transition from the German Empire to the Weimar liberal democracy, Blüher, a radical conservative and monarchist, became a staunch opponent of the Weimar Republic. In 1928, he had the opportunity to meet the former Kaiser Wilhelm II, in exile in the Netherlands. Blüher believed that pederasty and male bonding provided a basis for a stronger nation and state, which became a popular concept within certain segments of the Hitler Youth. Blüher later supported the Nazis but turned on them in 1934, when SA leader Ernst Röhm was murdered on Hitler’s orders during the Night of the Long Knives. Since 1924, Blüher, who had married a doctor and had two children, had worked as a freelance writer and practicing psychologist in Berlin-Hermsdorf. He worked there, after his retirement from public life during the Nazi period, on his major philosophical wor

Hans Carste

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Hans Friedrich August Carste (5 September 1909 in Frankenthal – 11 May 1971 in Bad Wiessee) was a German composer and conductor. He arrived in Berlin in 1931 after working in Vienna and Breslau. He composed film music and as well as songs for the stage. Electrola offered him and his orchestra an exclusive recording contract and he recorded many high quality sides for them. Hans Carste joined the NSDAP in 1933. In 1937, when Ludwig Rüth, the Jewish band leader, emigrated to South Africa, Hans Carste took up the baton. For some time the orchestra was still known as the Ludwig (Lewis) Rüth Orchester but acknowledged that Carste was the conductor. Within a short time it became known as the Hans Carste Orchester. In 1942, Carste was drafted and sent to the Eastern Front. He was badly injured and captured by the Red Army. Released in 1948, he returned to Germany, becoming one of the musical directors at Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor (RIAS) radio station in Berlin, and once again working for the stage and movies. In 1957, he became president of the Bureau International de l’Edition Mecanique (BIEM) in Paris. He withdrew from all activities in 1967 due to illness. One of his best-known

Hans Chemin-Petit

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Hans Helmuth Chemin-Petit (24 July 1902 – 12 April 1981) was a German composer, conductor and music educator. Life Born in Potsdam, the son of and a concert singer studied from 1920 to 1926 violoncello with Hugo Becker and composition with Paul Juon at the Musikhochschule Berlin. He began his musical career as a cellist. In 1929 he celebrated his first national compositional successes with the chamber opera Der gefangene Vogel at the Duisburg opera festival and in 1933 with the premiere of his 1st Symphony in Dresden under Fritz Busch. In addition to Busch, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Siegmund von Hausegger and Hans Joachim Moser were also among his patrons. From 1929, he taught at the Academy for Church and School Music in Berlin. After the Machtergreifung by the Nazis, Chemin-Petit was in the Nazi , which from 1938 called itself the National Socialist Altherrenbund of German Students. He also became a member of the National Socialist People’s Welfare and of the National Socialist Factory Cell Organization (NSBO), He was appointed a member of the Werkprüfungsausschuss der Deutschen Komponisten. In 1939, he took over the direction of the Reblingsche Gesangsverein and the cathedral choir i

Hans Erich Apostel

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Hans Erich Apostel (22 January 1901 – 30 November 1972) was a German-born Austrian composer of classical music. Life and career Hans Erich Apostel was born on 22 January 1901 in Karlsruhe, Germany. He studied at the Munz Conservatory in his native city from 1915 to 1919. There he was a pupil Alfred Lorenz who taught him piano, music theory, and conducting. In 1920 he was and at the Badisches Landestheater in Karlsruhe. He studied in Vienna with Arnold Schoenberg from 1921 to 1925, and from 1925 to 1935 with Alban Berg, two prominent members of the Second Viennese School. At the same time, he taught piano, composition and music theory privately. his works have rarely been performed. He is buried in the Zentralfriedhof in Vienna, Group 32 C, No. 57. References Further reading *Burton, Anthony. 2002. “Apostel, Hans Erich”. The Oxford Companion to Music, edited by Alison Latham. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. *Gruber, Gerold W. 1989. “Hans Erich Apostel: Fischerhausserenade op. 45 (1971)”. In Dodekaphonie in Österreich nach 1945, edited by Gottfried Scholz. Vienna: Verband der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaften Österreichs. *Gruber, Gerold W. 2001. “Apostel, Hans Erich”.

Hans Ewald Heller

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Hans Ewald Heller (17 April 1894 – 1 October 1966) was an Austrian-American composer, music critic and teacher. Life Heller studied with Camilla Horn and J. B. Foerster and received a doctorates from the University of Prague and the University of Vienna. He lived in Vienna where he worked as a music teacher and critic, editing several journals and magazines. He was an orchestrator for the Vienna Broadcasting System and taught classes on music for film. He was described in The New York Times as being the cousin of Albert Einstein. In 1938, he moved to the United States and died in 1966. References External links * “Heller, Hans Ewald”, Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon (in German) * “Hans Ewald Heller”, italianopera.org * “Hans Heller papers”, University of Oregon Libraries

Hans Felix Husadel

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Hans Felix Husadel (18 May 1897 – 25 July 1964) was a German composer and conductor, particularly noted for modernizing the military band and for his march compositions. Early life Husadel, born in Prenzlau, Uckermark, took Piano lessons from an early age. He also showed an affinity for painting, but music won out as a career choice. He served as a military musician in World War I (possibly running away from home to voluntarily serve). After the war he attended the Staatlichen Hochschule für Musik in Berlin. He studied piano and composition with Franz Schreker und Leo Schrattenholz. On 1 January 1923 he entered the German Army as a military musician in the 5th Preussische Infantry Regiment in Prenzlau. He was transferred between 1925 and 1928 back to Berlin to complete his musical training. He took over the Military band of the training battalion of Infantry Regiment No. 14 in Donaueschingen. His Sunday concerts included radio broadcasts and Husadel became conductor of the local orchestra too. At this time he became interested in modernizing military bands and creating new compositions for these organizations. His zeal in reorganizing and reforming the military band brought him to

Hans Friedrich Micheelsen

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Hans Friedrich Micheelsen (9 June 1902 – 23 November 1973) was a German composer and church musician. Micheelsen’s composition instructors included Paul Kickstat and Paul Hindemith. Micheelsen wrote vocal and instrumental music, especially for organ. He primarily composed sacred music, though he did write some secular chamber music. His sacred music is similar to the neo-Baroque music of other contemporary German organist-composers, such as Helmut Walcha and Hugo Distler. His style combined contrapuntal textures, melodies and harmonies drawn from the medieval church modes, and the angular rhythms and meters of the 20th century. Many of his works, including five of his seven Orgelkonzerte (organ concertos), are based on Lutheran chorales. When that school merged with the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik (the public music college in Hamburg), Micheelsen became head of its church music department. He taught there until his retirement in 1962. References

Hans Gahlenbeck

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Hans Gahlenbeck (27 September 1896 − 10 December 1975) was a German conductor and Generalmusikdirektor (GMD). Life Born in Rostock, from 1926 to 1928 Gahlenbeck was artistic director of the Orchestervereinigung Berliner Musikfreunde. In 1928, as conductor, he became the musical director of the Theater Kiel. After the departure of Fritz Stein as conductor of the Verein der Musikfreunde (Musikfreunde Kiel / VdM) and Kiel University Music Director, Gahlenbeck became his successor as director of the VdM concerts and municipal music director in 1933 and as general music director in 1934, which made it possible to abolish the separation of opera and concert activities. As expected, the concert programmes were “German” during the Nazi era: A lot of Beethoven and Mozart, Schubert, Brahms, Strauss and Pfitzner. In 1937 he became a member of the NSDAP. In 1938 he was appointed as GMD at the Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater Schwerin. In 1939 he received the honorary title Staatskapellmeister. He was active for the Gau Mecklenburg of the party, since about 1941 also as Gaubeauftragter für Musikangelegenheiten. After 1945 he continued to work as conductor or GMD in Mecklenburg in Schwerin and in

Hans Gál

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Hans Gál OBE (5 August 1890 – 3 October 1987) was an Austrian composer, pedagogue, musicologist, and author, who emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1938. Life Gál was born to a Jewish family in the small village of Brunn am Gebirge, Lower Austria, just outside Vienna, the son of a doctor, Josef Gál. In 1909, his piano teacher Richard Robert (who also taught George Szell, Rudolf Serkin and Clara Haskil) appointed Gál as a teacher when he became director of the New Vienna Conservatory. From 1909 to 1913, Gál studied music history at the University of Vienna under music historian Guido Adler, who published Gál’s doctoral dissertation on the style of the young Beethoven in his own Studien zur Musikwissenschaft. From 1909 to 1911, Gál studied composition privately with Eusebius Mandyczewski, who had been a close friend of Johannes Brahms, and with whom he later edited ten volumes of the Complete Edition of Brahms’s works, published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1926. Mandyczewski became a “spiritual father” to him. In 1915, Gál was the first recipient of the new Austrian State Prize for Composition for his first symphony, though he later discarded this work and its successors, as well as a l

Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt

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Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt (1 November 1901 – 15 August 1988) was a German composer, musicologist, and historian and critic of music. Life Stuckenschmidt was born in Strasbourg. At as early an age as 19, he was the Berlin-based music critic/correspondent for the Prague-based periodical Bohemia, and lived as a freelance music writer in Hamburg, Vienna, Paris, Berlin and Prague, becoming personally acquainted with numerous composers of avant-garde music. Amongst his most prominent musical productions were the “new music” concert cycle in Hamburg, and the 1927-8 concerts of the Berlin November Group with Max Butting. In 1929, Stuckenschmidt became the successor to Adolf Weissmans as the music critic at the Berliner Zeitung am Mittag. In December 1934, he was forbidden by the fascist government to continue as a musical critic because of his positive review of Alban Berg’s opera Lulu. Due to political pressure owing to the newly empowered Nazi regime, he left the paper, later moving to Prague before the Nazi work ban went into effect and continued writing for foreign newspapers. In March 1939, the German forces occupied Prague and seized Stuckenschmidt’s passport, cutting off his opportu

Hans Jürgen von der Wense

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Hans Jürgen von der Wense (10 November 1894 – 9 November 1966) was a German poet, composer, photographer, aphorist and hiker. Life Wense was born in Ortelsburg, then in East Prussia but today Szczytno in Poland, to a family of military and aristocratic background. In 1914 he began to study philosophy in Berlin. A keen musician, he played some of his own compositions to Arnold Schoenberg in 1915. From 1915 to 1918 he served in the German army. He began publishing his poetry in 1917. He took part in the Spartacist uprising of 1919 in Berlin. In the following years he pursued his music studies with Clara Zetkin, Hermann Scherchen and Ernst Krenek. Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt ranked Wense in 1921 with Erik Satie, Igor Stravinsky and Béla Bartók. Some of Wense’s early music showed traits of Dadaism, for example his 1919 opus “Music for piano, clarinet and suspended metal colander.” A wealthy older artist, Hedwig Woermann (1889–1960), began at this period to support him financially; this support continued until 1945 and allowed him to follow his various pursuits. Although Wense was gay, his friendship with Woermann was one of the deepest in his life. In 1932 Wense first visited the region

Hans Lang (Austrian composer)

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

Hans Lang (5 July 1908, in Vienna – 28 January 1992, in Vienna) was an Austrian composer of light music, film music and Viennese songs. He wrote one operetta, the musikalisches Lustspiel, Lisa, benimm dich!, which premiered in Vienna on 21 March 1939. Selected songs * It’s Oh So Quiet * Wozu ist die Straße da * Lach ein bissel, wein ein bissel * Liebe kleine Schaffnerin * Der alte Herr Kanzleirat * Wenn der Steffel wieder wird, so wie er war * Mariandl * Du bist die Rose vom Wörthersee * Stell dir vor, es geht das Licht aus * Wenn ich mit meinem Dackel * Wann i blau bin-siecht mei Alte “Rot” * Das Wiener Wetter * Der alte Sünder Film music References : Much of the information in this article is taken from the German Wikipedia article.

Hans Redlich

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Hans Ferdinand Redlich (11 February 1903 – 27 November 1968) was an Austrian musicologist, writer, conductor and composer who, due to political disruption by the Nazi Party, lived and worked in Britain from 1939 until his death nearly thirty years later. Redlich’s continental years Redlich was born in Vienna, the son of Josef Redlich (1869-1936), then Professor of History at the University of Vienna. He studied piano privately with Paul Weingarten and harmony and counterpoint with Hugo Kauder. He was a student of Carl Orff in Munich after 1921. He was a university student in both cities and studied German literature and musicology. Redlich served as répétiteur for the Berlin-Charlottenburg city opera in 1924–1925 and as opera conductor for the Stadttheater Mainz from 1925 to 1929. From 1929 until 1931, Redlich studied musicology at Frankfurt University where he completed a dissertation on stylistic changes in Claudio Monteverdi’s madrigals. From then until 1937, Redlich resided in Mannheim as a composer and writer. His interest in Monteverdi led to his preparation of a performing edition of the 1610 Vespers, based on Gian Francesco Malipiero’s pioneering collected edition of Montev

Hans Schimmerling

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Hans Schimmerling (born Hanus Aldo Schimmerling; 5 September 1900 – 19 October 1967) was a Czech-American pianist, composer, teacher, musicologist and writer. Life and education Schimmerling was born on 5 September 1900 in Brno, Moravia, Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic). He was born to Hugo Schimmerling, a dentist, and Eugenie (Jennie) Grossman. Both parents fell victims to the Holocaust in 1944. Hans Schimmerling grew up speaking both Slovak and German, later learning Italian and English. He started to study the piano at age six, adding the cello at age eleven and music theory at fourteen. He gave his first public recital at thirteen and was teaching at seventeen. He received degrees in both law and music from the University of Vienna and the Conservatory of Vienna respectively, and later graduated from the Composers and Conductors Department of the Academy of Music in Prague. Personal life and death Schimmerling married his wife, Mathylda, in 1932 and lived in Vienna from 1928 to 1938. He went into the hospital in New York City in 1967 for a minor operation and unexpectedly died on 19 October 1967, at the age of 67. Work Immediately after graduation, Schimmerling became t

Hans Spialek

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Hans Spialek (April 17, 1894 – November 20, 1983) was an Austrian-born American composer and orchestrator. Raised in Vienna and given an early musical education, he continued his studies in Moscow, at first as a prisoner of war during World War I, before settling in the US in 1924. He studied composing and conducting at the Vienna Conservatory, before fighting in the First World War. He was taken prisoner by Russian forces, but was allowed to continue his musical studies, and he conducted a prisoners’ orchestra. At Chappell, he shared an office with Robert Russell Bennett, with whom he collaborated on dozens of shows. Among the shows from the 1920s on which Spialek worked are Rosalie (1928), The New Moon (1928) and Fifty Million Frenchmen (1929). His many shows from the 1930s include The New Yorkers (1930), Gay Divorce (1932), Anything Goes (1934), On Your Toes (1936), Babes in Arms (1937), I Married an Angel (1938) and The Boys from Syracuse (1938). His 1940s shows include Pal Joey (1940), Panama Hattie (1940), Something for the Boys (1943), Are You with It? (1945), and Where’s Charley? (1948). an orchestral Sinfonietta (1936); and Manhattan Watercolors (“An Orchestral Entertainme

Hans Ulrich Staeps

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Hans Ulrich Staeps (1909–1988) was a German composer, music professor and professional recorder player. Staeps was born in Dortmund and was a professor at the Vienna Conservatory from 1940–1975. He was a prolific composer of recorder works, writing over 20 pieces for the instrument in a period of 30 years. Many of these compositions are works for recorder ensembles from 2 to 6 recorders, sometimes with piano, cembalo or guitar accompaniment. He also wrote songs, made transcriptions of classical works for recorder and wrote didactic books on player the recorder amongst others . Staeps was known to improvise his piano accompaniments, which often feature complex harmonies, with great ease. List of works * Aradische Stenz, recorders (5) * Aus unserm Hof daheim, recorders (3) * Berliner Sonate, recorders (3) * Chorische Quintett, recorders (5) * Divertimento, recorders (2) * Divertimento, recorders (2), piano, percussion * Dort nied’n in jenem Holze, recorders (4) * Einhorns Anmut, recorders (4) * Elemente des Zusammenspiels, recorders (4) * Fantasia con Echo, recorder, piano * Flötentänze, recorders (4) * Lied tönt fort, recorders (3) * Quintet, recorders (5) * Reihe kleiner Duette, re

Hans Vogt (composer)

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Hans Vogt (14 May 1911 – 19 May 1992) was a German composer and conductor. Career Born in Danzig, Vogt studied with Georg Schumann and Otto Frickhoeffer at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin from 1929 to 1934. From 1934 he worked in Minden as a cellist, pianist and conductor. Among his students was Barbara Heller. Vogt composed two operas, Die Stadt hinter dem Strom after the novel of Hermann Kasack and Athenerkomödie (The Metropolitans) on a libretto by Christopher Middleton after a fragment of Menander. Vogt wrote a symphony, two concertos for orchestra, two piano concertos, a violin concerto, a cello concerto, Serenade und Tarantella for viola and chamber ensemble, chamber music and Lieder. His sacred music included a Requiem, two chamber oratorios, a cantata, a Magnificat, and other choral music. In particular he composed the Psalm 129, De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine, for a seven-part mixed choir a cappella (1951),a Passion music Ihr Töchter von Jerusalem, weinet nicht über mich in Latin and German for tenor, mixed choir and percussion (1973), and a Canticum Simeonis for mixed choir and flute (1976). Vogt’s first opera, Die Stadt hinter dem Strom, was originally written for

Hans Weisbach

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Hans Edgar Weisbach (19 July 1885 – 23 April 1961) was a German conductor and pianist. Life Born in Głogów, Silesia, Weisbach came from a family of soldiers. Already from the age of seven he received piano as well as violin lessons and appeared as a pupil in various chamber music concerts. After his Abitur he studied violin at the Academic Academy of Music in Berlin, first with Joseph Joachim and Andreas Moser, then piano with Ernst Rudorff and Georg von Petersenn and finally conducting with Robert Hausmann. In addition, he took courses in philosophy and musicology. In 1908 Weisbach moved to Munich, where he worked as a trainee Kapellmeister at the court theatre there, now the Bavarian State Opera under Felix Mottl, and at the same time attended further lectures at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Three years later, he moved to Frankfurt, where he worked as a pianist and chamber musician at his own concert events and for the Frankfurter Museumsgesellschaft and was the second conductor of the “Rühlsche Oratorienverein”. After a short episode in Worms, where he took over the direction of the Konzertgesellschaft in 1913, and in Wiesbaden as well as a break due to the war, h

Hans-Joachim Koellreutter

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Hans-Joachim Koellreutter (2 September 1915 – 13 September 2005) was a Brazilian composer, teacher and musicologist. Koellreutter was born in Freiburg, Germany and lived in Brazil from 1937 onward, where he became one of the country’s most influential musicians. In Brazil Koellreuter taught many prominent composers, including Gilberto Mendes, Cláudio Santoro, Antônio Carlos Jobim, Denis Mandarino, Jayme Amatnecks, among others. He brought the theory of atonal music to Brazil, creating the group “Musica Viva” and inflating the debate between the “Nationalists” and “Serialists”. While the former group believed in the use of folklore material for the development of their compositions, the latter believed that the more rational approach of the European school was the path to truly contemporary works. This debate played a central role in the esthetic developments of Brazilian classical music throughout the 20th century. Death Koellreutter died in São Paulo, Brazil, 11 days after his 90th birthday. References

Hans-Martin Majewski

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Hans-Martin Majewski (14 January 1911 – 1 January 1997) was a German composer of film scores. Selected filmography References Bibliography * Bock, Hans-Michael & Bergfelder, Tim. The Concise Cinegraph: Encyclopaedia of German Cinema. Berghahn Books, 2009. External links *

Hans-Otto Borgmann

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Hans-Otto Borgmann (20 October 1901 – 26 July 1977) was a German film music composer during the Third Reich. He joined UFA as a silent film music conductor in 1928, and became head composer by 1931. A melody he had composed for a documentary on Svalbard island and had become well known was taken up by Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach who wrote new lyrics as “Our flag flutters before us”, becoming one of the Hitler Youth’s anthems. In 1938 he composed a Großdeutsche Hymne for Schirach which coincided with the Anschluss of Austria. From 1937 to 1951 he collaborated on a series of films with Veit Harlan. From 1959 to 1971 he withdrew from film popular music to lecture at the Max Reinhardt Theatre and privately compose difficult atonal music. Film music credits * When Love Sets the Fashion (1932) * Quick (1932) * Man Without a Name (1932) * Narcotics (1932) * The Beautiful Adventure (1932) * The White Demon (1932) * Spoiling the Game (1932) * You Will Be My Wife (1932) * The Cheeky Devil (1932) * A Door Opens (1933) * Goodbye, Beautiful Days (1933) * Happy Days in Aranjuez (1933) * The Star of Valencia (1933) *Hitler junge Quex. Ein Film vom Opfergeist der deutschen Jugend, 1933

Harald Genzmer

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Harald Genzmer (9 February 1909 – 16 December 2007) was a German composer of classical music and an academic. Biography The son of the legal historian , Genzmer was born in Blumenthal, near Kiel, Germany. He studied composition with Paul Hindemith at the Hochschule für Musik Berlin beginning in 1928. From 1938 he taught at the Volksmusikschule Berlin-Neukölln. During the early part of the Second World War he served as a military band clarinetist. When his pianistic abilities were noticed by the Musikmeister, he was put on detached duties as a pianist/accompanist for “Lazarettenkonzerte”, concerts for recuperating wounded officers. He was based for some time near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where he made the acquaintance of Richard Strauss. When the war ended, he was offered a post at the Musikhochschule München. This was blocked by the American authorities and so, from 1946 to 1957 he taught at the Musikhochschule in Freiburg im Breisgau. From 1957 to 1974 he taught at the Musikhochschule München. He hung a framed review from the Süddeutsche Zeitung above his piano, which stated after the premiere of his 1955 Sinfonietta for Strings that it was a work destined only for oblivion. Sharin

Harcourt Whyte

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Ikoli Harcourt-Whyte (; 19051977), popularly known as Harcourt Whyte, was a Nigerian composer best remembered for his classic hymn “Atula Egwu.” Life Ikoli was born in Abonnema in the old Niger Delta region in 1905. He was named Ikoli as a baby by his parents Munabo and Odibo. Between 1915 and 1918, he attended a number of schools including Bishop Crowther Memorial School. He was an active member of the school brass bands and took interest in playing the flute and side-drum. Later on in his life, he adopted the name Harcourt Whyte. His people, the Kalabaris relied on fishing and trading, and Ikoli as a child was trained in these skills. In 1919, he was diagnosed with leprosy after symptoms were first noticed in 1918. In the early 1920s, he was sent to Port Harcourt General Hospital where he developed his talent in music and went on to form a vocalist band with forty other people afflicted with leprosy. In 1932, he was transferred to Uzuakoli Leprosy Hospital, Bende Division, Eastern Nigeria where he met doctor-reverend-musician T.F. Davey from England. Whyte was encouraged by Davey, who took him on village survey tours to collect various traditional sounds. In 1949, after 34 years

Harilaos Perpessas

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Harilaos Perpessas (Greek: Χαρίλαος Περπέσσας) (10 May 1907 — 19 October 1995) was a Greek-German composer of the Postmodern period. Life and career Born to Greek parents in Leipzig, he moved to Berlin to study with Schönberg but opposed the latter’s compositional methods. More influential, as it turned out, was Berlin-based Nikos Skalkottas who urged Perpessas to emigrate to his parents’ homeland, which he did at the age of twenty-seven. He was to remain in Greece for fourteen years, through World War II, and gradually achieved success there as a composer, partly helped by conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos who championed his works. But in 1948 he moved decisively to the United States, settling in New York, where he enjoyed moderate success over a period of four decades and pursued a lifestyle of much seclusion. In 1992 he was transferred by friends to a residential home in Sharon, Massachusetts; there he died. Music Perpessas is seen as one of the first Greek composers to have moved away from the school of Musical Nationalism, often being grouped with Mitropoulos and Skalkottas. His orchestral works display chromatic polyphony and wide-leaping melodic lines with dramatic climaxes whic

Harl McDonald

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Harl McDonald (July 27, 1899 – March 30, 1955) was an American composer, conductor, pianist and teacher. McDonald was born in Boulder, Colorado, and studied at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Redlands, and the Leipzig Conservatory. He was appointed a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania in 1927 and enjoyed other appointments at the University including the Director of the Music Department and Director of the University’s Choral Society and the University of Pennsylvania Glee Club. Among his students there was Ann Wyeth McCoy. In addition to his administrative duties with the University, McDonald composed numerous musical works and served on the board of directors of the Philadelphia Orchestra Association. Performances were given at Constitution Hall in Washington D.C., Baltimore, and the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. His other works include a concerto for two pianos, two piano trios, and choral music. His 1938 Lament for the Stolen, for women’s chorus and orchestra, was written in commemoration of the Lindbergh kidnapping. External links * Guide to the Harl McDonald Recordings, 1937 - 1944 at the University of Pennsylvania * Grove Music Online *"

Harold Craxton

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Thomas Harold Hunt Craxton (30 April 188530 March 1971) was an English pianist, teacher and composer. Early life Born in London, and growing up in Devizes, Craxton began studying piano with Tobias Matthay and Cuthbert Whitemore in 1907. Career Craxton made a name for himself early in his career as an accompanist, touring for two years with Emma Albani and twelve with Clara Butt, covering Europe, South Africa, America, Canada, the South Sea Islands, Australia and New Zealand. He also had long associations with Nellie Melba, Lionel Tertis, Jacques Thibaud, Elena Gerhardt and John McCormack. In 1919 Craxton became a professor at the Royal Academy of Music. He remained there until 1961, although he continued teaching from his studio long into his later years. Some notable students included Winifred Atwell, Joyce Howard Barrell, Susan Bradshaw, Howard Brown, Mary Chandler, Elaine Hugh-Jones, Peter Katin, Alexander Kelly, Denis Matthews, Noel Mewton-Wood, Hamish Milne, Albert Alan Owen, Patrick Piggott, Alan Richardson, and Thorunn Tryggvason (later Ashkenazy). Craxton was also an active composer. His first published work was “Three Pieces for Pianoforte” (1911). Some of his songs were r

Harold Gramatges

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Harold Gramatges (26 September 1918 – 16 December 2008) was a Cuban composer, pianist, and teacher. Gramatges was born in Santiago, Cuba. In 1941, he entered the conservatory in Santiago de Cuba to study under professor Dulce María Serret, and went on to study composition at the Municipal Conservatoire of Havana with Amadeo Roldán and José Ardévol (Rodriguez 2001), and with professor Flora Mora. In 1942, he travelled to United States to complete his studies at Berkshire Music Center under Aaron Copland (composition) and Serge Koussevitzky (conducting) (Rodriguez 2001). He later founded and directed Cuba’s Municipal Conservatory Orchestra, where he worked as professor of Harmony, Composition, Aesthetics and Music History. In 1958, he received the Reichold of Caribbean and Central America Prize, conferred by the Detroit Orchestra for his Sinfonía en mi. In 1959, he created the Musical Department at Casa de las Américas. He has spent his life working on transforming and developing musical education in Cuba. In 1961 and 1964, he was the Cuban Ambassador to France. His work tends to bridge the forms of contemporary classical and modern Cuban or Latin American music. His catalog includes

Harold L. Walters

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Harold Laurence Walters (September 29, 1918 — October 22, 1984) was an American composer. He also used the pseudonym Fred L. Frank. Walters began taking music lessons and playing cornet at the age of eight. During his five years as a tuba player and arranger with the US Navy Band, he completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music (CCM) in Cincinnati, Ohio, under Nadia Boulanger. Walters also studied at the American University in Washington, D.C. and at the Washington College of Music, where he received his doctorate in 1943. Walters later worked as a conductor and composer in Washington and New York City for theaters, film and various orchestras; including the well-known orchestra of Sigmund Romberg. After 1947, he was associated with the music publisher Rubank, Inc. as a composer, arranger, and editor. Walters’ work includes around 1,500 compositions and arrangements as well as books on instrumental instruction. Walters conducted wind bands and orchestras all over the world. " T he smallest," he recalled, “was a 9-piece circus band and the largest was the 12,800-piece massed band at the University of Michigan.” He died on Octobe

Harold Levey

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Harold Levey (17 June 1894, New York City – 18 June 1967, New York City) was an American composer, lyricist, arranger, orchestrator, clarinetist, and conductor. He is best remembered for composing the scores to several Broadway musicals in the 1920s, and for creating music for Warner Bros. during the early years of sound films. Life and career Harold Albert Levey was born into a Jewish-American family on 17 June 1894 in New York City. A child prodigy, he was trained in his youth as a clarinetist at the National Conservatory of Music of America. He began his professional career at the age of 13 as a clarinetist in the New York Symphony Orchestra under conductor Walter Damrosch. At the age of 19 Levey became band leader of the Brighton Beach Band. He worked as a conductor of radio orchestras, and as a conductor and composer of music for Warner Brothers in the early years of sound films. Some of the films he scored included The Girl in the Glass Cage (1929) and The Royal Box (1929). He served as music director for Armstrong’s Theatre of Today; a radio program active from 1941-1954. He wrote the theme song for the 1963 television series The Dakotas. As a composer and arranger, Levey is

Harold Morris (composer)

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Harold Cecil Morris (March 17, 1890 – May 6, 1964) was an American pianist, composer and educator. Morris was born in San Antonio, Texas. He graduated from the University of Texas in 1910 and received his master’s degree from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music in 1922. He married Cosby Dansby, August 20, 1914; the couple had one daughter. Morris moved from his native San Antonio, Texas to New York in 1916. Performances and compositions Morris toured extensively as a recitalist and soloist and his compositions were performed frequently during his lifetime. He made his New York concert debut in recital in January 1921 at Aeolian Hall, with a program of Brahms, Busoni, Chopin, Godowsky, Cyril Scott and Charles Tomlinson Griffes. On November 21, 1931, Morris was the piano soloist for a performance of his Piano Concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Morris’ composition, Poem was performed by violinist and conductor Eugène Ysaÿe in Cincinnati, Ohio with the Cincinnati Orchestra on November 29, 1918. Violinist Josef Stransky performed the work at Carnegie Hall with the Philadelphia Orchestra three months later. Morris’ Violin Concerto received its world premiere o

Harold Van Heuvelen

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Harold John Van Heuvelen (March 30, 1919 – April 26, 2017) was an American composer and musician known principally for his Symphony No. 1 (opus 7), which was composed during World War II and which premiered 67 years later in 2012. Personal life Van Heuvelen was raised in Huron, South Dakota, the son of Carrie Catherine and Berend Van Heuvelen. Harold Van Heuvelen graduated from Huron High School. He spent a year at Huron College, before enrolling at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, graduating in 1940 with a degree in music. He also received a master’s degree in violin performance from the University of Michigan. After the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Van Heuvelen enlisted in the United States Army and served as a recruiter during World War II, eventually rising to the rank of colonel. He spent a further 33 years as an Army reservist. Around 1943, he married Fran Van Heuvelen and later became a music teacher in the Bismarck, North Dakota public schools from 1946 to 1948. In 2007, after the deaths of their respective spouses, Harold married Alma Van Heuvelen (née Viswat), whom he had met while they were both students at Hope College decades before. Music As a teenager, Van Heuvelen

Harold Vincent Milligan

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Harold Vincent Milligan was an American professional musician and musical writer. He is best known for his biography about the life of Stephen Foster. Early life His first public performance was at the age of 12. At 17 he was the organist for Calvary Presbyterian Church in Portland and a Portland synagogue. Milligan is best known for his biography of the 19th century composer and lyricist Stephen Foster. He spent much effort in collecting and editing undiscovered American songs from the 18th-century. Most of these newly discovered music manuscripts were written by Francis Hopkinson. Milligan wrote the first biography of Stephen Foster in (1920). He was very much involved with the opera during his lifetime. He was a commentator and associate director for the Metropolitan Opera radio programs. He was a lecturer on opera for Columbia University. He also worked for the Diapason and The New Music Review as their music critic. He contributed content for the American Organist and the Woman’s Home Companion. He was knowledgeable on other topics related to music of the times. He wrote “Stories of Famous Operas in 1950. Milligan was the editor of “The Best Known Hymns and Prayers of the Amer

Harriet Bolz

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Harriet Seymour Hallock Bolz (November 24, 1909 – March 9, 1995) was an American composer based in Ohio. Early life and education Harriet Seymour Hallock was born in Columbus, Ohio, the daughter of Roscoe Scott Hallock and Anna Druzilla Griffith Hallock. Both of her parents were also born in Ohio. Her father was a physician. She graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and earned a bachelor’s degree from Case Western Reserve University. She completed a master’s degree in composition at Ohio State University. She studied with Paul Creston and Leo Sowerby. In 1965 she was recognized by the National Federation of Music Clubs (NFMC) as winner of an adult non-professional composition competition. A piano quartet by Bolz had its premiere performance at an NFMC convention in 1983. and a 1986 harp recital at the University of Iowa. After a 1985 concert at Georgia State University, a reviewer described her Floret, a short piece for piano, as “witty, brilliantly pianistic.” She attended a 1992 concert at the Lancaster Festival composers’ symposium, saying “I’m always happy to have things performed. That’s how you learn.” Since her death, works by Bolz continue to appear on concert pr

Harry Archer (composer)

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Harry Archer (February 21, 1888 – April 23, 1960) was an American composer and orchestra leader. He is best remembered for six Broadway shows from the 2nd and 3rd decades of the 20th-century, but also made several popular recordings in the 1920s for Brunswick Records. Biography Harry Archer was born as Harry Auracher on February 21, 1888 in Creston, Iowa. He received his high-school education at Michigan Military Academy, Archer’s compositions had appeared in plays as early as 1911, This show was a huge success, and was not only staged on Broadway but also as far afield as Germany and Hungary. The breakout song was “I Love You”, which was the biggest hit of Archer’s career. Often the same recording would be used on both labels, but a pseudonym of The Vanderbilt Orchestra was used on the Vocalion label. In 1926 his recording of “Sweet and Low-Down” (Brunswick 3096) is listed at #10. “When Day Is Done” (Brunswick 3399) from 1927 is listed at #14. His last recording session took place on January 23, 1928, but a final #20 hit from March, 1928 “Thinking of You” (Brunswick 3704) was to follow. Shows *1912 – Pearl Maiden *1919 – Love for Sale *1921 – Peek-a-boo *1922 – Paradise Alley *192

Harry Partch

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Harry Partch (June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974) was an American composer, music theorist, and creator of unique musical instruments. He composed using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation, and was one of the first 20th-century composers in the West to work systematically with microtonal scales, alongside Lou Harrison. He built his own instruments in these tunings on which to play his compositions, and described the method behind his theory and practice in his book Genesis of a Music (1947). Partch composed with scales dividing the octave into 43 unequal tones derived from the natural harmonic series; these scales allowed for more tones of smaller intervals than in standard Western tuning, which uses twelve equal intervals to the octave. To play his music, Partch built many unique instruments, with such names as the Chromelodeon, the Quadrangularis Reversum, and the Zymo-Xyl. Partch described his music as “corporeal” (emphasizing its physical/visceral elements), and distinguished it from abstract music, which he perceived as the dominant trend in Western music since the time of J.S. Bach, whose seminal book of preludes and fugues called The Well-tempered Clavier (in Germa

Harutyun Hanesyan

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

Harutyun Hanesyan (; December 30, 1911 – March 7, 1987) was a Turkish violist and composer. He was Armenian by ethnicity. Biography Hanesyan was born on December 30, 1911, in Istanbul in the Ottoman Empire. He attended Esayan Lyceum and then Robert College. He graduated in 1931. Alongside his academic pursuits, Hanesyan took lessons in violin and theory from composer Haroutioun Sinanian. At the invitation of the local YMCA, he and his sister, pianist Anahid Hanesyan, presented a joint recital on May 29, 1932, launching a career in music. In 1944, Hanesyan joined the local symphony formed under the direction of composer Cemal Reşit Rey and remained with the ensemble until his retirement in 1972. During his tenure with the orchestra, he had many opportunities to play chamber music with Edgar Manas, Ekrem Zeki Ün, Lico Amar, Ferdi Statzer and Hüseyin Sadeddin Arel. Many of the public concerts were recorded and later broadcast on the Istanbul Municipal Radio Station. Following his retirement from the orchestra, Hanesyan established his own chamber orchestra in 1973 and performed many of his compositions in Istanbul and elsewhere. He recorded an LP, featuring some of his instrumental mu

Harvey Samuel Whistler

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Harvey Samuel Whistler Jr. (September 7, 1907 – March 17, 1976) was an American violinist, editor, arranger, and composer of educational music studies for studio, homogenous, and heterogeneous class instrumental (strings and band) instruction. His “Introducing the Positions for violin” remains one of the most recognized shifting etude books in the violin literature. to hotel owners, Harvey Samuel and Sallie Byrn Whistler. His mother, a classically trained pianist, insisted that music be part of Harvey Jr.’s education and oversaw his earliest training on piano. His father, like-minded in his wife’s approach, ensured his son attended the local symphony every other week. Personal records suggest Whistler used this period to study piano more seriously and to become better acquainted with woodwind, brass, and percussion instruments, eventually labeling himself a “legitimate” clarinetist. Whistler also continued studying violin and viola with Kornelis Bering, violinist with the San Francisco Symphony, Carl Grissen, violinist and author of the Learn with Tunes violin method, and Karl Ondricek, the Czech violin virtuoso. While there, he assumed a position as Chief of Musical Staff for Fox

Hasan Rashid

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Hasan Ahmad Rashid (: also spelled Hassan Rasheed; July 10, 1896 – May 25, 1969) was an Egyptian composer and operatic baritone. He was part of Egypt’s first generation of classical composers. Biography As a youth, Rashid studied violin and singing in Cairo. He went to England in 1914 to pursue studies in agriculture at Durham University. While there, he continued his studies in violin, composition, and singing, occasionally performing in University concerts as a violinist and a baritone. He returned to Cairo in 1918 where he began to compose vocal music to Arabic texts. He was part of that nation’s first generation of composers to produce classical music. Rashid’s work culminated in his sole opera Masra’ Antonio (Antony’s Death), which has an Arabic text, based on the first part of Ahmed Shawqi’s play Cleopatra’s Death. The work was influenced by Italian opera, yet Rashid’s melodic invention is not without originality. It is the first opera to be composed by an Egyptian. Parts of the work were produced in 1942, but a full staging was not mounted until 1973 by the Egyptian Opera Troupe at the Cairo Opera House. However, the Egyptian public found it difficult to accept the conventio

Hashimoto Kunihiko

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(September 14, 1904 – May 6, 1949) was a Japanese composer, violinist, conductor, and musical educator. Biography Hashimoto was born in the Hongō district of Tokyo. In 1923, he entered the Tokyo Music School (presently Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music) where he studied violin and conducting. In composition, he was largely self-taught, but later he would study that subject as a graduate student at the same school. Initially, he was active as a composer and arranger, but he soon made himself a name as an accomplished teacher, and in 1933 was appointed as professor at his alma mater. Some of his students who would go on to become distinguished composers in their own right were Akio Yashiro, Yasushi Akutagawa, Ikuma Dan, and Toshiro Mayuzumi. Between 1934 and 1937, he visited Wien as a Japanese government scholar to study with Egon Wellesz. During this period, he was introduced to the likes of Alban Berg, Wilhelm Furtwängler, and Bruno Walter. Before returning, he also made a sojourn to Los Angeles, where he studied with Arnold Schoenberg. In February 1949, Hashimoto converted to Catholicism. He died at age 44 on May 6, 1949, in Kamakura from gastric cancer. List of wor

Hazel Volkart

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Hazel O. Cline Volkart (20 May 1907 – 21 May 1985) was an American composer, music educator, and pianist. Volkart studied music at the Oklahoma College for Women, the Kansas City Conservatory, the University of Missouri (Kansas City), and the University of Kansas. Her teachers included Bertha Hornaday, Dr. Wiktor Labunskid, Dr. Francis Buebendort, and Carl Busch. She married Emil J. Volkart in 1931 and they had a daughter (Bettye). and an unspecified award in 1957. Volkart’s music was published by Mills Music, Schroeder & Gunther, Inc, and Theodore Presser Company. Her compositions included: Piano *At the Circus *Choctaw Indian Dance *Four Piano Pieces (Bob-o-Link, Dance of the Marionettes, Grandfather’s Clock, Little Lullaby) Strings String Method Books I, II, and III References External links *

Heathcote Dicken Statham

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Heathcote Dicken Statham CBE (7 December 1889 - 29 October 1973) was a conductor, composer and organist of international repute. Early life He was the eldest son of Henry Heathcote Statham (1839-1924) and Florence Elizabeth Dicken (1856-1938). His father was an amateur musician who played organ and contributed articles to Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians. From Gresham’s School, Holt, Statham proceeded to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where in March 1908 he was awarded the college’s organ scholarship of £60 a year for three years, before completing his musical education at the Royal College of Music, London. Career He became organist of Calcutta Cathedral 1913 - 1920, then St. Michael’s College, Tenbury 1920 - 1926, then St. Mary’s Church, Southampton 1926 - 1928, and finally of Norwich Cathedral, holding that post from 1928 to 1966. In the choir, Statham’s nickname was ‘Dickey’. As a composer he is best known for his Rhapsody on a Ground for organ (1944) In the 1980s Christopher Palmer arranged The Bells of St Chad’s: Postlude for strings from the final movement of his Four Diversions for organ (1957). He conducted the Norwich Philharmonic Orchestra on some one hu

Hector Gratton

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Joseph Thomas Hector Gratton (13 August 1900 – 16 July 1970) was a Canadian composer, arranger, conductor, pianist, and music educator. As a composer his music is written in an essentially folkloric and popular style which avoids harmonic sophistication. His compositional output includes several orchestral works, chamber works, and works for solo piano. He also wrote 4 ballets and a considerable amount of music for radio programs. In 1937 his symphonic poem Légende won the Jean Lallemand Prize which led to the work’s premiere performance that year by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under conductor Wilfrid Pelletier. The work was repeated by the orchestra in concerts the following year under conductor Sir Ernest MacMillan. Life and career Born in Hull, Quebec (now Gatineau, Quebec), Gratton studied music theory and composition with Albertine Morin-Labrecque, Oscar O’Brien, and Alfred Whitehead. He was a piano student of Alphonse Martin and Alfred La Liberté. From La Liberté he gained a great appreciation for the works and aesthetics of Nikolai Medtner and Alexander Scriabin, two composers which influenced his own compositional style. During the 1920s, Gratton toured with Charles Mar

Heidi Sundblad-Halme

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Heidi Gabriella Wilhelmina Sundblad-Halme (25 September 1903 – 30 April 1973) was a Finnish composer and conductor who founded the Helsinki Women’s Orchestra and conducted it for 30 years. Career Sundblad-Halme was born in Jakobstad, where her father Henrik Sundblad was a composer, cantor, and organist. She married Deputy Judge Helge Halme in 1930. The couple traveled to the Soviet Union and several Baltic countries, and published accounts of their travels in Finnish newspapers. Sundblad-Halme directed a private music school until they moved to Helsinki in 1933. Their son Hannu was born in 1935. Sundblad-Halme studied music at the Helsinki Conservatory (later the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki) from 1927 to 1933, then privately in Berlin and Lund, Switzerland. Her teachers included Dean Dixon, Leo Funtek, Clemens Krauss, Erkki Melartin, Väinö Raitio, and Sulho Ranta. During the mid-1930s, she conducted orchestra concerts in the Finnish cities of Turku, Tampere, and Helsinki. Conductor Georg Schnéevoigt reportedly suggested that Sundblad-Halme start an all-female orchestra so the men in regular orchestras wouldn’t be distracted by a female conductor. Orchest

Heino Eller

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Heino Eller (7 March 188716 June 1970) was an Estonian composer and pedagogue, known as the founder of contemporary Estonian symphonic music. Life and career Eller was born in Tartu on 7 March 1887, where he took private lessons in violin and music theory, played in several ensembles and orchestras, and performed as violin soloist. In 1907 he entered the Saint Petersburg Conservatory to study violin. From 1908 to 1911 he was a law student. In 1920 Eller graduated from the conservatory renamed to Petrograd Conservatory. His younger brother was sculptor Aleksander Eller. From 1920 to 1940, Eller was a professor of music theory and composition at the Tartu Higher School for Music. During this time he formed the Tartu school of composition, which gave rise to many composers, including Eduard Tubin. In 1940 he became a professor of composition at the Tallinn Conservatory and taught there until his death in 1970. Eller was a teacher of composition. The school he formed in Tartu counterbalanced the so-called Tallinn school headed by Artur Kapp. Eller’s pedagogical talent is versatile. The list of his pupils offers the best proof of this: each of them has created a distinguished original s

Heino Kaski

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Heino Wilhelm Daniel Kaski (21 June 1885 – 19 September 1957) was a Finnish composer, teacher and pianist. Life Kaski was born in Pielisjärvi into a cantor’s family. His father taught him the violin, and was generally supportive: when Kaski dropped out of secondary school to study music full-time in Helsinki, he did not object. Kaski first studied at the Helsinki Cantor-Organist school, then entered the Philharmonic’s Orchestra School. There, he continued studying the violin, but was also tutored in theory (by Ilmari Krohn) and composition (by Erkki Melartin). In 1911, on Jean Sibelius’s recommendation, Kaski received a grant that enabled him to study for four years in Berlin, under Paul Juon. In 1914 he returned to Finland; one of his larger works, Symphony in B minor, was composed in 1914–1919 under partial guidance from Selim Palmgren. The symphony was performed on October 2, 1919. The same year, Kaski went to Europe again, to study under Otto Taubmann in Berlin, and then traveled and studied in Italy and France. He finally returned to Finland in 1924, and since then worked as music teacher in various schools. He gave nine composition concerts and in 1950 was awarded the Pro Fin

Heinrich Konietzny

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Heinrich Josef Konietzny (born 7 May 1910 in Gliwice; died 23 April 1983 in Saarbrücken-Dudweiler) was a German musician, professor and composer. Life Heinrich Konietzny was born as the son of a Prussian Silesian military officer and socialist mayor. He gathered his first musical experiences on the mandolin, in singing and playing percussion instruments. At the age of eight he began his studies on the violin. Nine years old, he became student of the Konvikt of Bad Ziegenhals, where he chanted in a choir and received his first systematic education in music theory. He studied composition in Berlin in the class of Paul Hindemith. Since 1936 he played the bassoon in the symphonic orchestra of the Reichssender Saarbrücken (today: Saarländischer Rundfunk). 1947 he became an instructor at the Konservatorium Saarbrücken (University of Music Saarbrücken, today: Hochschule für Musik Saar). He was leader of the master class for composition, instrumentation and chamber music. He wrote six symphonies and a wealth of scores for radio plays and movies. Additionally he composed works for plucked string instruments in which he developed new sounds and ways to express musical ideas on these instrume

Heinrich Lemacher

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Heinrich Lemacher (26 June 1891 – 16 March 1966) was a German composer and music educator. Life Born in Solingen, Lemacher studied from 1911 to 1916 at the Cologne Conservatory and at Bonn University, where he received his doctorate in musicology in 1916. From 1925 to 1965 he taught composition, theory and music history at the Hochschule für Musik Köln, where he had been professor since 1928. Important students of Heinrich Lemacher were Heinrich Weber, Bernd Alois Zimmermann, and his long-time colleague at the Cologne Academy of Music Hermann Schroeder, who was also co-author of his most important teaching works. Lemacher died at the age of 74 in a Cologne hospital. He was widowed by Maria Augusta Horst, whom he had married in Cologne in 1927. Writings * 125 Jahre Gürzenichchor, Köln Chronik d. Jahre 1927-1952 z. 125-jährigen Jubiläum d. Gürzenichchors u.d. Kölner Concertgesellschaft. * Lehrbuch des Kontrapunktes. * Musical form. * Harmonielehre. * Musikalisches Brauchtum : Festschrift für Heinrich Lemacher. * Spasso ostinato. Hans Gerig Verlag, Cologne 1964. Work Ensemble-/Chamber music * Suite für Streicher op. 38/1 * Cellosonate op. 105 * Bläsersextett op. 208, für 3 Trompeten i

Heinrich Lindlar

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Heinrich Lindlar (6 August 1912 – 23 March 2009) was a German musicologist and music educator. Life Lindlar was born in Bergisch Gladbach. After studying music and musicology in Cologne, Bonn and Berlin, Lindlar was awarded the title of Dr. phil. with a work published in 1940 on Hans Pfitzners Klavierlied. After the Second World War he worked as music critic first for the General-Anzeiger in Bonn, later also for various national daily newspapers and specialist publications. From 1952 he published the series of publications Musik der Zeit, from 1958 the Kontrapunkte. In 1965 he went to the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg, where he was given the chair for modern music history. In 1969 he moved to Cologne as director of the . There he promoted the expansion of the school to a conservatory of a modern kind until his retirement in 1976. In addition, he taught at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. Lindlar’s often quoted critical examination of Karlheinz Stockhausens work prompted him to resign as director of the Cologne Courses for Neue Musik at the Rheinische Musikschule when Lindlar became director of the institute. Among his numerous publications some are considered standard works,

Heinrich Schalit

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Heinrich Schalit (January 2, 1886 – February 3, 1976) was an Austrian-American, Jewish composer and musician; best known for his sacred music, art songs, and chamber music. Along with other Jewish composers such as Isadore Freed, Hugo Chaim Adler and Abraham Binder, Schalit modernized Jewish sacred music in the first half of the 20th century. His most popular work is Freitagabend-Liturgie (Friday Evening Liturgy). Life and career Education Heinrich Schalit was born in Vienna, Austria on January 2, 1886 to Joseph Schalit and Josefine Fischer. He had four siblings, including first secretary of the Zionist Office, Isidor Schalit. Schalit began his musical education and career without any connection or influence to Jewish music. He studied organ, piano and composition privately in 1898 with Josef Labor; and in 1903 he began studying at the Conservatory of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. His teachers included Polish pianist Theodor Leschetizky and composer Robert Fuchs. In 1906, he graduated and received the Austrian State Prize for Students of Composition for his Piano Quartet in E minor. Schalit moved to Munich in 1907, where he worked as a private music teacher and composed nume

Heinrich Sutermeister

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Heinrich Sutermeister (12 August 1910 – 16 March 1995) was a Swiss composer, most famous for his opera Romeo und Julia. Life and career Sutermeister was born in Feuerthalen. Orff thereafter remained a powerful influence on his music. Returning to Switzerland in the mid-1930s, Sutermeister devoted his life to composition. He wrote some works for the radio, starting with Die schwarze Spinne in 1936, before turning later to television opera. His most successful stage work was Romeo und Julia, premiered in Dresden in 1940 under Karl Böhm. He was the brother of Hans Martin Sutermeister. Their grandfather was the folklorist Otto Sutermeister. He died in Vaux-sur-Morges. * Omnia ad Unum, cantata, 1965–66 * Cello Concerto No. 2, 1971 * Te Deum, 1975 * Clarinet Concerto, 1975–76 * Consolatio philosophiae, ‘Scène dramatique’, 1979 References ;Notes ;Sources *Warrack, John and West, Ewan (1992), The Oxford Dictionary of Opera, 782 pages, *Operone page on Sutermeister, accessed 1 April 2011

Heinrich Weber (composer)

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Heinrich Weber (9 October 1901 – 6 January 1970) was a German composer and organist. Life Born in Cologne, Weber studied first in Aachen and later at the Musikhochschule Köln. There, among others, his teachers were Hans Bachem (organ) and Heinrich Lemacher (harmony and theory). After some years as cantor at the city church in Mülheim an der Ruhr, he worked as a teacher for organ and theory at different schools of church music, among others more than 25 years at the in Aachen and last at the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf. Weber, meanwhile appointed Kirchenmusikdirektor of Mülheim, was regarded as an outstanding interpreter, especially of French organ music, and gained an excellent reputation as an improviser. His numerous organ compositions are oriented towards Paul Hindemith, whom he greatly admired, and towards the new French school, and represent a tonal language that clearly emancipates itself from . Weber was a member of the Reichsverband der katholischen Kirchenangestellten e. V. in Essen. Together with this association, Weber organized a study trip to Paris in 1956, where he gave the members the opportunity to meet Marcel Dupré and Rolande Falcinelli and to gain insig

Heinz Roemheld

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Heinz Roemheld (May 1, 1901 – February 11, 1985) was an American composer. Early life and career Born Heinz Eric Roemheld in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he was one of four children of German immigrant Heinrich Roemheld and his wife Fanny Rauterberg Roemheld. Heinrich was a pharmacist, but all the members of the family were musical. His brother Edgar Roemheld (1898–1964) became a conductor. His sister Irmgard Roemheld (1904–1995) became a well-known Milwaukee music teacher and radio broadcaster. Roemheld was a child prodigy who began playing the piano at four. He graduated from the Milwaukee College of Music at 19 and performed in theaters to earn money to study piano in Europe. In 1920, he went to Berlin, where he studied with Hugo Kaun, Ferruccio Busoni, and Egon Petri. While there, he appeared in concert with the Berlin Philharmonic. When he returned to America, Roemheld became involved in music for silent movies, both as a pianist and conductor. In 1925, he was sent back to Berlin as head of Universal Pictures theaters there but had to leave in 1929 due to the rise of Nazism. Back in America, Roemheld moved to Los Angeles and became a prominent cinema composer. He scored some scenes i

Heinz Röttger

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Heinz Martin Albert Röttger (6 November 1909 – 26 August 1977) was a German composer. From 1928 to 1931, Röttger attended the Akademie der Tonkunst in Munich, where he studied under Walter Courvoisier and Hugo Röhr. From 1930 to 1934, he studied under Alfred Lorenz and Adolf Sandberger at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München; his doctoral thesis was on problems of form in the work of Richard Strauss. Until the outbreak of the Second World War, he was Kapellmeister in Augsburg, in Bavaria. After the War, he worked at the Stralsunder Theater, in Stralsund in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern; in 1951, he became music director of the Volkstheater Rostock and the municipal orchestra there. In 1954, he was made chief musical director of the , in Dessau in Sachsen-Anhalt, where he remained until his death in Dessau on 26 August 1977. His works include Bellmann, 1946; Phaeton, 1957; Der Heiratsantrag, a comic opera after Anton Chekhov, 1960; Die Frauen von Troja, 1962; Der Weg nach Palermo, 1965; Spanisches Capriccio, 1976. References Further reading * Hollfelder, Peter: Die Klaviermusik, Hamburg 1999 * Laux, Karl (editor): Das Musikleben in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, Leipzig o.–J.

Heinz Schubert (composer)

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Heinz Richard Schubert (8 April 1908 – 1945) was a German composer and conductor. He is not related to the more well known composer Franz Schubert. Life Schubert was born in Dessau where he studied with Franz von Hoesslin and Arthur Seidl and in Munich with Hugo Röhr and Heinrich Kaminski. From 1926 to 1929, he was a master student of Siegmund von Hausegger and Joseph Haas at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich. In 1929, Schubert became theatre ensemble Kapellmeister in Dortmund and Hildesheim. After the Machtergreifung by the Nazis in 1933, he joined the National Socialist German Workers’ Party under the number 3.119.361 and became Kapellmeister in Flensburg in the same year. In 1936, his oratorio Das ewige Reich based on a text by Wilhelm Raabe for baritone, male choir and organ, was premiered. It was commissioned on the occasion of the Reichstagung der Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur. From 1938 until 1945, he was (with a break in 1942, when he worked in Münster) the municipal music director and musical director at the theatre in Rostock, conducting the municipal orchestra. Although he was able to make a successful career as a conductor during the National Socialist

Heinz Tiessen

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Richard Gustav Heinz Tiessen (10 April 1887 – 29 November 1971) was a German composer. Biography Tiessen was born at Königsberg, where he studied with composer Erwin Kroll before moving to Berlin. There, he enrolled at Humboldt University and at the Stern’sches Konservatorium, where he studied composition and music theory. He worked as a music critic for Allgemeine Musikzeitung from 1911 to 1917 before becoming a theater Kapellmeister and composer for Volksbühne in 1918. From 1920 to 1922, he conducted the Akademische Orchester and between 1925 and 1945, he taught music theory and composition at the Berliner Musikhochschule. He also co-founded the German division of the International Society for Contemporary Music and served as conductor of the Junger Chor. During the Third Reich, his music was classified as “undesirable” by the Nazi authorities, and after World War II, he almost completely stopped composing. From 1946 to 1949 he directed the city Konservatorium and beginning in 1955, he headed the department of composition and theory at the Berliner Musikhochschule. His best-known pupils were Eduard Erdmann and Sergiu Celibidache, another one was Eva Siewert. He died in Berlin. Ti

Heinz Wunderlich

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Heinz Wunderlich (25 April 1919 – 10 March 2012) was a German organist, academic, and composer. He was known for playing the organ works of Max Reger. He studied in Leipzig with Karl Straube, a friend of Reger. Wunderlich worked as both a church musician and academic in Halle until 1957 when he fled to West Germany and became a church musician and academic in Hamburg. He toured internationally and attracted students from many countries to study with him in Hamburg. After retiring from teaching, he went on to more compositions. Career Born in Leipzig, Wunderlich studied at the Musikhochschule there, with Karl Straube who was a friend of Reger and premiered many of his organ works. External links * * Wunderlich,Heinz Worlds of Music * Musikalische Chronik der Kantorei St. Jacobi St. Jacobi * Heinz Wunderlich (Conductor, Organ, Harpsichord) Bach cantatas Website * Heinz Wunderlich gestorben walcker.com * Organist und Pädagoge Heinz Wunderlich ist tot rp-online.de

Heitor Villa-Lobos

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Youth and exploration#

Villa-Lobos was born in Rio de Janeiro. His father, Raúl, was a civil servant, an educated man of Spanish extraction, a librarian, and an amateur astronomer and musician. In Villa-Lobos’s early childhood, Brazil underwent a period of social revolution and modernisation, abolishing slavery in 1888 and overthrowing the Empire of Brazil in 1889. The changes in Brazil were reflected in its musical life: previously European music had been the dominant influence, and the courses at the Conservatório de Música were grounded in traditional counterpoint and harmony. Villa-Lobos underwent very little of this formal training. After a few abortive harmony lessons, he learnt music by illicit observation from the top of the stairs of the regular musical evenings at his house arranged by his father. He learned to play cello, clarinet, and classical guitar. When his father died suddenly in 1899 he earned a living for his family by playing in cinema and theatre orchestras in Rio. Around 1905 Villa-Lobos started explorations of Brazil’s “dark interior”, absorbing the native Brazilian musical culture. Serious doubt has been cast on some of Villa-Lobos’s tales of the decade or so he spent on these expeditions, and about his capture and near escape from cannibals, with some believing them to be fabrications or wildly embellished romanticism. After this period, he gave up any idea of conventional training and instead absorbed the musical influences of Brazil’s indigenous cultures, themselves based on Portuguese and African, as well as American Indian elements. His earliest compositions were the result of improvisations on the classical guitar from this period. Villa-Lobos played with many local Brazilian street-music bands; he was also influenced by the cinema and Ernesto Nazareth’s improvised tangos and polkas. For a time Villa-Lobos became a cellist in a Rio opera company, and his early compositions include attempts at Grand Opera. Encouraged by Arthur Napoleão, a pianist and music publisher, he decided to compose seriously.

Helen Eugenia Hagan

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Helen Eugenia Hagan (January 10, 1891 – March 6, 1964) was an American composer, pianist and music educator of African descent. Life Helen Eugenia Hagan was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the daughter of John A. and Mary Estella Neal Hagan. She studied piano with her mother and then in the public schools of New Haven, Connecticut. Around the age of nine, she began playing organ for the Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church in New Haven. She studied at Yale School of Music with pianist H Stanley Knight and composer Horatio Parker, graduating in 1912 with a bachelor’s degree in music. In doing so, she became the first known African American woman to earn a Yale degree. She performed as soloist on her own Piano Concerto in C Minor in May 1912 with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra conducted by Parker. She received the Samuel Simmons Stanford scholarship to study in Paris, with Blanche Selva and Vincent d’Indy, and graduated from Schola Cantorum in 1914. and Wheeling (WV) in May. In February 1916 she performed in St. Joseph (MO). A 1917 Tulsa newspaper article publicizing her 12 February appearance there excerpted Hagen’s recent reviews from Chicago, Quincy (IL), Dallas, Mobil

Helen Glatz

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Helen Sinclair Glatz (née Hunter) (13 March 1908–15 June 1996) was an English composer and pianist, a pupil of Ralph Vaughan Williams, best known for her teaching at Dartington Hall and the Dartington International Summer School for over 40 years. Life Helen Sinclair Hunter was born in the South Shields, Durham, England. She studied music under Dr. William Gillies Whittaker at Armstrong College, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. She was the first woman from northern England to win an open scholarship for composition to the Royal College of Music, where she studied under Vaughan Williams and Gordon Jacob. Her contemporaries there included Elizabeth Lutyens, Elizabeth Maconchy and Imogen Holst. She was a Cobbett Prize winner for her Phantasy Trio for strings in 1931. During a composition scholarship in 1933, Hunter travelled to Vienna, Italy, and Budapest, where she studied under Zoltán Kodály and Sándor Vegh. She married linguist Wolf Glatz in Hungary and remained there during World War II until he could secure passage out of the country, fleeing as the Red Army took Budapest. Her pupils included bassoon and oboe player Lindsay Cooper, symphonic composer Philip Sawyers, Benjamin Britten’s music

Helen Roessing

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Helen Elizabeth Roessing Aiton (22 August 1891 – 27 May 1957) was an American composer of piano music whose composition won first prize at the Conservatoire Americain de Fountainebleau in France. She published her music under the name Helen Roessing. Roessing was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Laura Orr and George Roessing. She married Oliver Aiton in 1945. She also studied with Louise Robyn at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. In 1933 while presenting a recital in Pittsburgh, Marcel Dupre improvised on themes submitted by local composers, including one composed by Roessing. In addition to composing, Roessing was the music director at the Ellis School for Girls and worked as an accompanist and organist at several Presbyterian churches. Roessing’s works were published by Durand et Cie and J. Fischer & Bro. *Skiing *“Fashion” (text by Margaret Townsend Scully) References

Helen Searles Westbrook

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Helen Searles Westbrook (October 15, 1889 – 1967) was an American composer and organist who appeared with Chicago Symphony. Life Westbrook was born in Southbridge, Massachusetts. She began organ lessons at age eleven with her mother, who was also an organist. Westbrook then studied with Arthur Dunham, Frank van Dusen, Wilhelm Middleschutte and Adolf Weidig at the American Conservatory, where she received a gold medal, as well as a young American Artists award. She married James Westbrook. Westbrook was a theatre organist in Chicago. She played promotional concerts for the Hammond Organ Studios. She played with the Chicago Opera Company under Bruno Walter, as an organ soloist with Chicago Symphony, and on a WGN radio program for CBS which used her compositions “Dusk at Friendship Lake” and “Retrospection” as the program’s theme songs. She was the music director at Central Church in Chicago. Westbrook was a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) and the Chicago Club of Women Organists. She helped manage the club’s “Florence B. Price Organ Composition Contest” in 1954. Through Replica Records, Westbrook released at least one 33 rpm recording (“Hel

Helen Taylor (composer)

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Helen Taylor Johannesen (August 24, 1915—October 5, 1950) was an American composer. Biography Helen Taylor, who died in 1950, was a Juilliard-trained composer and the wife of pianist Grant Johannesen. Taylor grew up in Salt Lake City. She studied piano at the McCune School of Music. She received her BM from the University of Utah in 1937, her MM from Columbia Teachers College in 1941, and her degree in composition from Juilliard in 1945, where she completed a three-movement symphony. She worked at the Martha Graham Dance Company as a composition pianist and worked with Aaron Copland on “Appalachian Spring.” In this role, she honed her skills as an improviser. In 1948, her violin sonata was recognized with a National Association of Composers and Conductors Award. Helen Taylor Johannesen Scholarship Taylor’s sister, Beverly Sorensen, established the Helen Taylor Johannesen Memorial Endowed Scholarship at Brigham Young University. The scholarship supports a music composition major by paying for their tuition and lesson fees. References External links * Utah International Music Academy & Helen Taylor Johannesen Piano Competition, University of Utah.

Helmer Alexandersson

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Karl Helmer Alexandersson (16 November 1886 – 24 December 1927), was a Swedish composer and violinist. He was the brother of the actress Karin Alexandersson. Biography Alexandersson was born in Stockholm, where he attended the Royal College of Music before studying the violin under Johan Lindberg, counterpoint under Johan Lindegren, and instrumentation under Jean Paul Ertel in Berlin. His musical career had a promising beginning: he received several scholarships, and he was commissioned to write the official march of the Olympic Games in Stockholm 1912. His second symphony, premièred by George Schnéevoigt in 1919, was a success. After writing orchestral music for several Swedish films he devoted more of his time to writing music for silent films, and he played in person, along with, among others, Hilding Rosenberg in the orchestra pit at the Red Mill cinema in Stockholm. He died in poverty in 1927, and the funeral was funded by the city. Compositions ;Film music *1919 – Herr Arnes pengar *1923 – “Gunnar Hedes saga” *1925 – Ingmarsarvet ;Arrangement *1921 – “Värmlänningarna” ;Orchestral Music *1910 – Overture in C Minor *1919 – Symphony No. 2 in G Minor Recordings *Overture, Symphon

Helmut Bornefeld

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Helmut Bornefeld (14 December 1906 – 11 February 1990) was a German Protestant church musician, composer, church organ expert and writer. Career Born in Untertürkheim, Bornefeld began his vocational training in 1922 with an apprenticeship as gardener, which he completed with the skilled worker examination. From 1924 to 1928 he studied music at the Adler Conservatory in Stuttgart. In 1928 he moved to the Musikhochschule (today Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart), where he studied composition with Ewald Straesser, piano and organ with Hermann Keller. From 1935 to 1937 he completed his education by studying church music, which he completed with the A-exam. From 1937 to 1971 he worked, with the exception of a six-year interruption of the war from 1939 to 1945, as cantor and organist at the . In 1951 he was appointed Kirchenmusikdirektor there. From 1950 to 1958 he taught as lecturer for composition and at the . Together with Siegfried Reda, Bornefeld organized the from 1946 to 1960. Under his influence, numerous organs worthy of protection were – partly irrevocably – changed in character according to his ideas. By sawing off pipes, among other things, he e

Helmut Degen

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Helmut Degen (born 14 January 1911 in Aglasterhausen – died 2 October 1995 in Trossingen) was a German composer. Degen studied composition with Wilhelm Maler and Philipp Jarnach; and score and instrumentation with Ernst Gernot Klussmann at the Rheinische Musikschule in Cologne and the University of Bonn, writing his dissertation on Baroque librettist Friedrich Christian Bressand. He later taught theory at the Duisburg Conservatory and later at the Hochschule für Musikerziehung in Trossingen, becoming a professor in 1954. His works include educational chamber music in modern style. His style resembles Hindemith and uses methods similar to 12-tone composition. Selected works * Concerto for organ and orchestra (1938) * Sonata for viola and piano (1940); Willy Müller, Süddeutscher Musikverlag * Kleine Weihnachtsmusik (Short Christmas Music) for strings and woodwinds (1942); P. J. Tonger * Der flanderische Narr, Ballet (1942) * Kleines Konzert (Short Concerto) for violin and chamber orchestra (1944–1945) * Kammersinfonie (Chamber Symphony) for small orchestra (1947); Schott * Konzert Etüden (Concert Etudes) (1948); Schott * Suter, Oratorio (1950) * Unisono-Stücke for violin, or viola, o

Helmut Huchzermeyer

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Helmut Huchzermeyer (28 December 1904 – 1 March 1984) was a German philologist, musicologist and composer. Youth and education Huchzermeyer was born in Klaswipper, today part of Wipperfürth in the Oberbergischer Kreis in the administrative district of Cologne, as the son of the Lutheran pastor Carl Huchzermeyer (1858-1929). He was educated at the Städtisches Gymnasium in Wipperfürth until his Abitur in 1924. Throughout his school years, he received solid training in organ, piano and violin playing as well as in theoretical subjects (including musical composition) from the seminar music teachers Georg Beringer and Alfons Schmetz at the teacher training college in Wipperfürth. Until 1929, he studied Latin, Greek and possibly religious education at the universities of Cologne, Marburg and Münster. At the same time, he studied musicology with Ernst Bücken (Cologne), Hermann Stephani (Marburg) and Fritz Volbach (Münster). The latter, coming from Wipperfürth, became his special mentor. In 1930, Huchzermeyer received his doctorate in Münster with a thesis on “Ancient Greek music Aulos and Kithara in Greek music until the end of the classical period” (printed 1931). This work is regarded a

Helmut Schiff

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Helmut Adalbert Josef Schiff (30 January 1918 – 20 December 1982) was an Austrian composer and music educator. Life and career Schiff was born in Bratislava. After studying philosophy and musicology at the University of Prague and the University of Bratislava. (1936 to 1938), he studied piano and composition with Johann Nepomuk David from 1939 to 1943 at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig with Robert Teichmüller and Felix Petyrek. In addition, he also pursued piano studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna with Emil von Sauer in 1941 and taught at the Leipzig Music School. He was married to Helga Riemann from 1944 to 1977. The couple lived from 1944 until the 1970s, first in Gmunden and later in Altmünster, interrupted by a six-year stay (1953 to 1959) in Hamburg for professional reasons. Their sons were Hans Christian (born 1949) and Heinrich Schiff (1951-2016). Schiff taught composition and piano at the Bruckner Conservatory from 1946, with interruptions through employment in music and secondary schools, until his death in 1982. His estate is administered by the library of the Anton Bruckner Private University, with scholarships and prize money disbur

Helmuth Osthoff

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Helmuth Osthoff (13 August 1896 – 9 February 1983) was a German musicologist and composer. Much of his career was spent at Frankfurt University, prior to which he held posts at Halle University and Berlin University. He wrote the first major biography on the composer Josquin des Prez, published as a two volume monograph in 1962 and 1965 Life Born in Bielefeld, Osthoff, son of the bank director Heinrich Osthoff and his wife Berta, née Tepel, began his musical education while still at grammar school, taking lessons in piano playing, music theory, score playing and musical composition with Otto Wetzel in Bielefeld and Wilhelm Niessen in Münster. After Osthoff had taken part in the First World War from 1915 to 1918, he studied musicology, history of art and philosophy from 1919, first at Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster and from 1920 at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. In 1922, as a student of Johannes Wolf, he was awarded the title of Dr. ph. with his dissertation Der Lautenist Santini Garsi da Parma. After further musical training in composition with Wilhelm Klatte, piano with James Kwast and conducting with Gustav Brecher, which he completed both privately and at the Berl

Helvi Leiviskä

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Helvi Lemmikki Leiviskä (25 May 1902 – 12 August 1982) was a Finnish composer, writer, music educator, and librarian at the Sibelius Academy. Life Helvi Leiviskä was born in 1902 in Helsinki, Grand Duchy of Finland, and in 1927 graduated in composition from the Helsinki Music Institute (now the Sibelius Academy), where she studied with the Finnish composer Erkki Melartin. She continued her studies in Vienna, and then returned to Finland where she studied with the Finnish composer Leevi Madetoja. Selected works * Piano Concerto, 1935 * Triple Fugue for Orchestra, 1938 * Symphony No. 1, 1947 * Symphony No. 2, 1954 * Symphony No. 3, 1971 * Sinfonia Brevis, 1962 * Folk Dance Suite (Kansantanssisarja), 1934 * Hobgoblin of Darkness (Pimeän peikko), 1942 * The Lost Continent (Mennyt manner) for choir and orchestra, 1957 * Juha (film music), 1937 * Violin Sonata, 1945 * Piano Quartet, 1926 Discography * Helvi Leiviskä: Violin Sonata / Piano Quartet / Symphony No. 3. Finlandia Classics. (FINCLA-1, 2012). historical recordings from Finnish Radio, 1950s–1970s * Helvi Leiviskä: Piano Concerto / Symphony No 1. , Staatskapelle Weimar, and (piano). Hänssler Classic (HC23050, 2023). * Helvi Leivis

Hemanga Biswas

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Hemanga Biswas (; 14 December 1912 – 22 November 1987) was an Indian singer, composer, author and political activist, known for his literature in Bengali and Assamese, advocacy of peoples music, drawing from genres of folk music, including Bhatiali originally popular among the fishermen of Bengal. Early life Biswas was born in a Bengali Hindu family of Habiganj, Sylhet, British India (now in Bangladesh) on 14 December 1912 to Harakumar and Sarojini Biswas. He went to the Middle English School in Habiganj. He studied at the George Institution of Dibrugarh from 1925 to 1927 when Nilmoni Phukan was its headmaster. There he became interested in Assamese culture. He attended Habiganj Government High School in 1930. He also studied in MC College, Sylhet from 1930 to 1931. Biswas embraced the values of communism during his college years and wrote poems and plays on equal rights. During this time he started performing “gana sangeet.” He did not complete his formal education. Biswas became involved in a movement to ensure the rights of tea garden laborers, farmers, and the underprivileged throughout the region. For his political convictions, he was arrested in 1930. He was also associated w

Hendrik Andriessen

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Hendrik Franciscus Andriessen (17 September 1892 – 12 April 1981) was a Dutch composer and organist. He is remembered most of all for his improvisation at the organ and for the renewal of Catholic liturgical music in the Netherlands. Andriessen composed in a musical idiom that revealed strong French influences. He was the brother of pianist and composer Willem Andriessen and the father of the composers Jurriaan Andriessen and Louis Andriessen and of the flautist Heleen Andriessen. Life and career Andriessen was born in Haarlem, the son of Gezina Johanna (Vester), a painter, and Nicolaas Hendrik Andriessen, a church organist. He studied composition with Bernard Zweers and organ with at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. As the organist at St. Catherine’s Cathedral, Utrecht, he became well known for his improvisation abilities. From 1926 to 1954, he lectured in composition and music theory at the Amsterdam Conservatory while also teaching at the Institute for Catholic Church Music in Utrecht between 1930 and 1949. He was the director of the Utrecht Conservatory from 1937 to 1949. During World War II, Andriessen refused to join the “Cultural House” (Kultuurkamer) and was thus barred fr

Henk Badings

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Henk Badings (hĕngk bä’dĭngz) (17 January 190726 June 1987) was an Indonesian-Dutch composer. Early life Born in Bandung, Java, Dutch East Indies, as the son of Herman Louis Johan Badings, an officer in the Dutch East Indies army, Hendrik Herman Badings became an orphan at 7 years old. Having returned to the Netherlands in 1915, Badings took up violin and piano, however was dissuaded by his guardians from pursuing a career in music. Badings enrolled at the Delft Polytechnical Institute (later the Technical University), graduating in 1931. He worked as a mining engineer and palaeontologist at Delft until 1937, after which he dedicated his life entirely to music. Though largely self-taught, he became a pupil of Willem Pijper, the doyen of Dutch composers at the time, but their musical views differed widely and after Pijper had attempted to discourage Badings from continuing as a composer, Badings broke off contact. Music career In 1930 Badings had his initial big musical success when his first cello concerto (he eventually wrote a second) was performed at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Champions of his work included such eminent conductors as Eduard van Beinum and Willem Mengelberg.

Henri Bourtayre

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Henri Bourtayre (21 October 1915, Biarritz – 10 June 2009, Yvelines) was a French composer. Works Operettas * Miss Cow-Boy (1947, Paris, Casino-Montparnasse) * Tout pour elles (1955, Geneva) * Chevalier du Ciel (1955, Paris, Gaîté-Lyrique) * Louisiane mes amours (1970, Paris, Châtelet) Songs * 1941: Ma Ritournelle (paroles de Maurice Vandair) – Tino Rossi; * 1942: Dans le chemin du retour (paroles de Maurice Vandair) – Tino Rossi; * 1942: Quérida (paroles de Maurice Vandair) – Jaime Plana; Marie José; * 1943: La Guitare à Chiquita (paroles de Maurice Vandair) – Raymond Legrand; * 1943: Mon cœur est toujours près de toi (paroles de Maurice Vandair) – Georges Guétary; * 1944: El Cabrero (paroles de Maurice Vandair) – Marie José; * 1944: Fleur de Paris (paroles de Maurice Vandair) – Maurice Chevalier, Jacques Hélian; * 1944: Ma belle au bois dormant (paroles de Maurice Vandair) – Luis Mariano; * 1945: Baisse un peu l’abat-jour (paroles de Marcel Delmas) – Élyane Célis; * 1945: C’est la fête au pays (paroles de Maurice Vandair et Maurice Chevalier) – Maurice Chevalier; * 1945: Ça fait chanter les Français (paroles de Maurice Vandair et Maurice Chevalier) – Maurice Chevalier; * 1945: Ch

Henri Carol

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Canon Henri Carol (18 January 1910 – 23 September 1984) was a French organist, improviser, chef de chœur, composer, and pipe organ teacher. Career Born in Montpellier, Carol was a student at the Enclos Saint-François in Montpellier where he had Emmanuel Berlhe as his harmony and organ teacher. He obtained a first prize in piano at the Conservatoire de Bordeaux. Ordained a priest in 1933, he became a professor at the minor seminary of Saint-Roch in Montpellier where he held the position of chapel master. In January 1946, he was appointed Director of the master’s degree at the Monaco Cathedral, succeeding Canon Aurat, until June 1971. A complete musician, he was at the same time Kapellmeister, composer, conductor, musicologist and, for eleven years, professor at the Academy of Music Prince Rainier III Foundation of Monaco (1967). He became titular organist of the great organ of Monaco Cathedral in 1968, succeeding Émile Bourdon. In 1976, Carol published a precious little illustrated book on La Registration de l’orgue. On the evening of Sunday, 23 September 1984, Carol died in a car accident in Montélimar. He was 74 years old. After his death, his personal organ was installed in the S

Henri Cliquet-Pleyel

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Henri Cliquet-Pleyel was a French composer born on 12 March 1894 in Paris and died in that city on 9 May 1963. In 1913 he undertook musical studies at the Conservatoire de Paris under teachers André Gedalge and Eugène Cools, from whom he learned counterpoint and fugue, before taking up composition studies with Charles Koechlin, who had taught such diverse musicians as Poulenc, Milhaud (members of the group Les Six) and Cole Porter. He obtained a position as director of vocal studies at the school in Cannes, later transferring to Deauville, and finally to Aix-les-Bains. In 1923 he co-founded the School of Arcueil, with fellow musicians, Henri Sauguet, Maxime Jacob, and Roger Désormière. The four were devotees of the music of Erik Satie, who was living in Arcueil at the time. The musicians of this group dedicated themselves to the musical goals of clarity, simplicity, and a commitment to French musical tradition, including French humor, which they felt was typified by Satie’s music. The group was short-lived, and did not long survive Satie’s death in 1925. Cliquet-Pleyel is one of the few notable composers known to have written a piano concerto for the right hand alone (dozens of con

Henri Collet

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Henri Collet (; 5 November 1885 – 23 November 1951) was a French composer and music critic who lived in Paris. Biography Born in Paris, Collet first studied at the Conservatory of Music at Bordeaux before going to Madrid to study Spanish literature with Ramón Menéndez Pidal and composition with Felipe Pedrell and Federico Olmeda. Later, teachers in Paris included Déodat de Séverac, Gabriel Fauré and Manuel de Falla. In 1907, he gave his first public recitals as a pianist in Burgos and Madrid. In 1913, he earned his doctorate at the university of Bordeaux with a study about musical mysticism in sixteenth-century Spain. Besides composing and writing, Collet taught at the Institut d’études hispaniques and later at the Collège Chaptal. He received a number of awards including a silver medal from the Faculté de lettres of the university of Bordeaux (1908), the Prix Pierre Aubry (1913), and the composition prize of the city of Paris for his stage work La Chèvre d’or (1936). Works His music is marked by his admiration for Spanish culture – a result of his studies and travels over many years on Spain. In France, he contributed to the reputation of Spanish composers including Albéniz, Grana

Henri Dutilleux

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Henri Paul Julien Dutilleux (; 22 January 1916 – 22 May 2013) was a French composer of late 20th-century classical music. Among the leading French composers of his time, his work was rooted in the Impressionistic style of Debussy and Ravel, but in an idiosyncratic, individual style. Among his best-known works are his early Flute Sonatine and Piano Sonata; concertos for cello, Tout un monde lointain… (“A whole distant world”) and violin, L’arbre des songes (“The tree of dreams”); a string quartet known as Ainsi la nuit (“Thus the night”); and two symphonies: No. 1 (1951) and No. 2 Le Double (1959). Works were commissioned from him by such major artists as Charles Munch, George Szell, Mstislav Rostropovich, the Juilliard String Quartet, Isaac Stern, Paul Sacher, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Simon Rattle, Renée Fleming, and Seiji Ozawa. In addition to composing, he worked as the Head of Music Production for Radio France for 18 years. He also taught at the École Normale de Musique de Paris and at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique, and was twice composer in residence at the Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox, Massachusetts. Among Dutilleux’s many awards and honours were the Grand P

Henri Gagnon

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Henri Gagnon (; 6 March 1887 – 17 May 1961) was a Canadian composer, organist, and music educator. He spent 51 years playing the organ at the Notre-Dame Basilica-Cathedral of Quebec City where, according to music historian François Brassard, he earned “a prestige similar to that of the famous organists of Europe.” He was a much-admired teacher and taught at several institutions, notably succeeding Wilfrid Pelletier as the second director of the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Québec. As a composer, he produced mainly works for solo organ and piano; although he did write a few choral works and vocal pieces as well. One of his more popular works was Rondel de Thibaut de Champagne which Edward Johnson and Rodolphe Plamondon often performed in their recitals. Two of his works, Mazurka (1907) and Deux Antiennes, were recorded by the CBC Montreal Orchestra. Early life and education Born in Quebec City, Gagnon was from a prominent family of musicians in Canada. Both his father, Gustave Gagnon, and his uncle, Ernest Gagnon, were prominent organists and composers in Quebec City. He began studying solfège and piano with his father at the age of eight and he remained his principal teache

Henri Martelli

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Henri Martelli (25 February 1895 – 15 July 1980) was a 20th-century French composer. Biography Born in Santa Fe, Argentina and raised in Bastia, Martelli was student of Charles-Marie Widor and Georges Caussade at the Conservatoire de Paris. In 1919, he graduated in law from Université de Paris. He was director of chamber music programmes on the radio from 1940 to 1944, secretary of the Société Nationale de Musique and president of the French section of the ISCM in 1953. He wrote – in a neoclassical style – many chamber music works as well as lyrical and radio works. He died in Paris aged 85. Works Incidental music * 1923: La Chanson de Roland, opera (reworked 1962-63; Paris, 13 April 1967) * 1930: La Bouteille de Panurge, ballet (Paris, 24 February 1937) * 1951: Les Hommes de sable, ballet * 1958: Le Major Cravachon, opéra bouffe (Radiodiffusion française, 14 June 1959) Orchestral music * 1921: Rondo (1921) * 1922: Sarabande, Scherzo et Final * 1922: Divertissement sarrazin * 1928: Bas-reliefs assyriens, Op. 27 * 1931: Concerto for orchestra, Op. 31 * 1938: Violin Concerto No. 1 * 1949: Piano Concerto * 1953: Symphony No. 1, for strings * 1956: Symphony No. 2, for strings * 1956: D

Henri Nibelle

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Henri Jules Joseph Nibelle (6 November 1883 – 18 November 1967) was a French organist, choral conductor and composer. Biography Born in Briare, son and grandson of organists, Henri Nibelle attended the école Niedermeyer as early as 1898, before entering the Conservatoire de Paris, where in 1906 he won a first prize on fugue in the class of Fauré and a 1st accessit of organ in 1910 in the class of Guilmant. At the École Niedermeyer, Henri Nibelle was a student of Henri Büsser, with Maurice Le Boucher, Defosse, Roger Pénau. He also studied with Louis Vierne who dedicated to him Caprice, the third of the Pièces de Fantaisie for organ Op. 51. He began his career as an organist on the choir organ of the Versailles Cathedral in 1907. Two years later, he was appointed titular of the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul church, then became organist at the Grand Organ of in 1912, and succeeded Isidore Massuelle as maître de chapelle of this same church in 1931. Having become almost blind, he left Saint-François-de-Sales in 1959 to retire to Nice and dedicate himself to the composition of religious works: short masses, solemn masses, psalms, motets, spiritual hymns, etc. Nibelle died in Nice on 18 November

Henri Sauguet

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Henri-Pierre Sauguet-Poupard (18 May 1901 – 22 June 1989) was a French composer. Born in Bordeaux, he adopted his mother’s maiden name as part of his professional pseudonym. His output includes operas, ballets, four symphonies (1945, 1949, 1955, 1971), concertos, chamber and choral music and numerous songs, as well as film music. Although he experimented with musique concrète and expanded tonality, he remained opposed to particular systems and his music evolved little: he developed tonal or modal ideas in smooth curves, producing an art of clarity, simplicity and restraint. Career Sauguet started learning the piano at home when he was five years old. Later he was taught by the organist of the church of Sainte-Eulalie de Bordeaux. On the mobilization of his father in 1914, he was required to earn a living at a very young age. Eventually employed by the Prefecture of Montauban in 1919–1920, he formed a friendship with Joseph Canteloube, a former pupil of Vincent d’Indy. Together they collected and harmonized traditional songs under the title Chants d’Auvergne (Songs of Auvergne). During this period he continued his musical education with local organists and served as organist at the

Henri Tomasi

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Henri Frédien Tomasi (; 17 August 1901 – 13 January 1971) was a French classical composer and conductor. He was noted for compositions such as In Praise of Folly, Nuclear Era and The Silence of the Sea. Early years Henri Tomasi was born in a working-class neighborhood of Marseille, France, on 17 August 1901. His father Xavier Tomasi and mother Josephine Vincensi were originally from La Casinca, Corsica. When he was five, the family moved to Mazargues, France where Xavier Tomasi worked as a postal worker. There, he enrolled his son in music theory and piano lessons. At the age of seven, Tomasi entered the Conservatoire de Musique de Marseille. Pressured by his father, he played for upper-class families, where he felt “humiliated to be on show like a trained animal.” In 1913, the family moved back to Marseille. Tomasi had dreams of becoming a sailor and skipped many of his music classes. During the summer, he stayed with his grandmother in Corsica and learned traditional Corsican songs. In 1916, he won first prize in harmony, along with his friend Zino Francescatti, the celebrated violinist. World War I delayed his entrance into the Paris Conservatoire, so he played piano in Marseill

Henry Barraud (composer)

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Henry Barraud (; sometimes Henri; 23 April 1900 – 28 December 1997) was a French composer. He was born in Bordeaux. He was a student of Louis Aubert at the Conservatoire de Paris, but in 1927 failed to graduate, apparently because of his refusal to follow orthodox methods. Along with Pierre-Octave Ferroud and Jean Rivier, he helped to form the society Triton for the wider distribution of contemporary music. After the Liberation of Paris in 1944, he was named the Director of Paris Radio, and later, in 1948, of what later became ORTF, a position he held until his retirement in 1965. Works As a composer, Barraud wrote opera music, ballet music, orchestral music, chamber music, choral music and other vocal music. Paul Paray and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra recorded Barraud’s orchestral work Offrande à une ombre in 1957 for Mercury Records. This wartime memorial, commemorating the death during combat of Maurice Jaubert at the age of 40, was initially released on LP in monophonic sound; the stereophonic version was issued on CD by Philips Records. A work listed as Symphony #1 for full orchestra (not just strings) was recorded on French Columbia FCX 597 (LP) performed by Georges Tzipine

Henry Brant

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Henry Dreyfuss Brant (September 15, 1913 – April 26, 2008) was a Canadian-born American composer. An expert orchestrator with a flair for experimentation, many of Brant’s works featured spatialization techniques. Biography Brant was born in Montreal, to American parents (his father was a violinist), in 1913. Something of a child prodigy, he began composing at the age of eight, and studied first at the McGill Conservatorium (1926–29) and then in New York City (1929–34). He played violin, flute, tin whistle, piano, organ, and percussion at a professional level and was fluent with the playing techniques for all of the standard orchestral instruments. As a 19-year-old, Brant was the youngest composer included in Henry Cowell’s landmark book from 1933, American Composers on American Music; and Cowell realized that Brant had already demonstrated an early identification with the American experimental musical tradition. He was represented in Cowell’s anthology by an essay on oblique harmony, an idea which presaged some of the techniques used in his mature spatial compositions. Thereafter Brant composed, orchestrated, and conducted for radio, film, ballet, and jazz groups. The stylistic div

Henry Cowell

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Henry Dixon Cowell (; March 11, 1897 – December 10, 1965) was an American composer, writer, pianist, publisher, and music teacher. Earning a reputation as an extremely controversial performer and eccentric composer, Cowell became a leading figure of American avant-garde music for the first half of the 20th century. His writings and music served as a great influence on composers such as Lou Harrison, George Antheil, and John Cage. He is considered one of the most important and influential composers from the United States. Cowell was mostly self-taught and developed a unique musical language, often blending folk melodies, dissonant counterpoint, unconventional orchestration, and influences from ancient Celtic religion. He was an early proponent and innovator of many modernist compositional techniques and sensibilities, including string piano, prepared piano, tone clusters, and graphic notation. The Tides of Manaunaun, originally a theatrical prelude, is the best-known and most widely-performed of Cowell’s tone cluster pieces for piano. He was married to ethnomusicologist Sidney Robertson Cowell. Early life Childhood Cowell was born on March 11, 1897, in rural Menlo Park, California.

Henry Jolles

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Henry Jolles (born Heinz-Frederic Jolles; 28 November 1902 – 16 July 1965) was a German pianist and composer. Uprooted from his native Germany by the rise of Nazism, he spent his last quarter-century in Brazil. Life Jolles was born in Berlin to Dr Oscar Jolles and his wife, Gertrude (née Sternberg). His mother was Jewish but it is unclear if his father was, as well. and near the end of World War I the Kingdom of Württemberg would honor him with the Wilhelmkreuz, a recently created civilian decoration for merit in the war effort, for his management of that company’s metals business. After studying piano with Artur Schnabel and Edwin Fischer and composition with Paul Juon and, privately, with Kurt Weill, Jolles began to develop a successful performing career in the 1920s. His academic career also flourished, bringing appointment as professor at the Cologne Music Academy in 1928, at which point he moved from Berlin-Charlottenburg to Cologne. The ascendency of the Nazis brought an abrupt halt to this progress and several years of disruptions. In 1933, the regime directed Jolles’s dismissal from his Academy position, and, by 1934, Jolles had moved to Paris to escape persecution. There,

Henry Ley (organist)

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Henry George Ley (30 December 188724 August 1962) was an English organist, composer, and music teacher. Early life and education Born in Chagford, Devon, Ley was the son of the Rev. Gerald Lewis Henry Ley and Beatrice Emma Hayter-Hames. His father, his maternal grandfather, and several other maternal relatives served as Rector of Chagford. Ley was a chorister at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, a music scholar at Uppingham School, and in 1906 became an organ scholar at Keble College, Oxford. In 1908, he was president of the University Musical Club, and later he was an exhibitioner at the Royal College of Music, where he was a pupil of Sir Walter Parratt and Marmaduke Barton. Career Ley served as organist at St Mary’s, Farnham Royal, from 1905 to 1906 and at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, from 1909 to 1926. He became a professor of organ at the Royal College of Music in 1919 and was precentor of Radley College and Eton College, in charge of the chapel music, from 1926 to 1945. He was an Honorary Fellow of Keble College from 1926 to 1945. He died at Feniton in Devon in on 24 August 1962. Works Ley composed a number of choral works in the Anglican tradition, including anthems and

Henry Sullivan (composer)

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Henry Anthony Sullivan (1895–1975) was a composer, songwriter, and pianist. Early life He attended the Worcester Academy and Dartmouth College. Career In 1929, he wrote his first complete show, Almanac, From the show, I May Be Wrong (but I Think You’re Wonderful) was composed, with Sullivan writing the music and Harry Ruskin writing the lyrics. The song would go on to become a popular song with multiple cover versions. With Anderson’s 1931 production of Bow Bells, Sullivan wrote the music for Mona Lisa and other songs in the show. Sullivan would later write the music for the Broadway show Thumbs Up! (1934), with Anderson staging the show as well writing some of the lyrics. Together, they would write five songs for the film The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), along with other copyrighted songs as well. Broadway shows Source: Discography References External links *

Henryk Gold

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Henryk Gold (19029 January 1977 in New York City, United States) was a Polish-American composer, arranger, and orchestra director. Early Life and Family Henryk Gold was born in Warsaw into a highly musical family. His mother, Helena (née Melodyst), came from the famous Warsaw klezmer family Melodysta, and his father, Michał Gold, was the principal flutist of the Warsaw Opera Orchestra. His father died suddenly on stage during a concert in 1904, when Henryk was only two years old. Gold’s older brother, Artur Gold (1903–1943), also became a renowned composer and orchestra leader, but was murdered in Treblinka during the Holocaust. Henryk had two other brothers, Abram and Jaker, both musicians; Abram was killed in 1942, while Jaker’s fate remains unknown. His grandfather, Wolf Zeew Gold, was also a klezmer musician. Henryk Gold married Bronisława Gold (née 1911) in 1946, while they had met in 1942. Tragically, much of his family, including his first wife, daughter, and son, were killed during the Holocaust. His surviving relatives included a sister in Buenos Aires and two nephews, both musicians, whom Gold welcomed as his own family. Bronisława Gold remained in New York until her deat

Heraclius Djabadary

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Heraclius Alexandres dze Djabadary (, , pseud. Amiran d’Alasany; 17 October 1891 – 18 August 1937) was a Georgian composer and pianist who was active throughout Europe up until the 1930s. Djabadary was largely unknown in his homeland during his lifetime and was first discovered by Georgian audiences in the 1940s. His music is noted for its fusion of Western classical traditions with folk themes from Georgia, along with the eclectic sounds of the surrounding Caucasus region. Early life and education Djabadary was born on 17 October 1891 in Tiflis, the capital city of Georgia, then part of the Russian Empire. In 1905 he entered the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, where he studied under Arthur De Greef and François-Auguste Gevaert. In 1909 he went to Vienna to study composition under the direction of Richard Heuberger and piano under Juliusz Wolfsohn. In 1913, he made his debut in Vienna as a concert pianist with the Tonkünstler Orchestra under the baton of Oskar Nedbal, performing the “Georgian Rhapsody” that Djabadary had composed, which was well received. Later in 1913, he returned to Georgia and tried to make a musical career for himself there. However, after the Tsarist authoriti

Herbert Brün

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Herbert Brün (July 9, 1918 – November 6, 2000) was a composer and cybernetician. Born in Berlin, Germany, he taught at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign from 1962 until he retired several years before his death. He was a pioneer of electronic and computer music, incorporating ideas from cybernetics into his work. Career Brün left Germany in 1936 to study piano and composition at the Jerusalem Conservatory in Mandatory Palestine with Stefan Wolpe, Eli Friedman and Frank Pelleg. While in Palestine, he also worked as a jazz pianist. In 1948, he received a scholarship to further his studies in the United States at Tanglewood and Columbia University through 1950. His work in electronic music began in Paris in the late 1950s, followed by work at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk Studio for Electronic Music in Cologne and the Siemens studio in Munich. During the 1950s, he also worked as composer and conductor of music for the theater, gave lectures and seminars emphasizing the function of music in society, and did a series of broadcasts on contemporary music. After a lecture tour of the United States in 1962, he was invited by composer Lejaren Hiller to join the University of Illinois

Herbert Collum

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Herbert Collum (18 July 1914 − 29 April 1982) was a German organist, harpsichordist, composer and conductor. Life Herbert Collum was born in Leipzig, Germany on 18 July 1914. He received high school education between 1921 and 1929. He continued from 1930 to 1934 at the Church Music Institute in Leipzig, where he studied organ with Karl Straube and Günther Ramin, piano with Carl Adolf Martienssen, choral conducting with Kurt Thomas, and musical composition with Johann Nepomuk David and Fritz Reuter. Already by 1927 he had become deputy organist at the St. Matthäikirche Leipzig. From 1932 to 1935 he served as assistant to Ramin, Thomaskantor at the Thomaskirche. His appointment in 1935 as principal organist at the Kreuzkirche, Dresden, signalled the beginning of his creative period; he remained in that post until his death in April 1982 at the age of 67. His successor as organist was Michael-Christfried Winkler. At the end of World War II, Collum founded his own choir in 1946, with a dedicated set of concerts. To mark the 200th anniversary of J S Bach’s death, he organised 24 concerts between September 1949 and August 1950, featuring the Collum Choir and members of the Staatskapelle

Herbert Eimert

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Herbert Eimert (8 April 1897 – 15 December 1972) was a German music theorist, musicologist, journalist, music critic, editor, radio producer, and composer. Education Herbert Eimert was born in Bad Kreuznach. He studied music theory and composition from 1919 to 1924 at the Cologne Musikhochschule with Hermann Abendroth, , and August von Othegraven. In 1924, while still a student, he published an Atonale Musiklehre (Atonal Music Theory Text) which, together with a twelve-tone string quartet composed for the end-of-term examination concert, led to an altercation with Bölsche, who withdrew the quartet from the program and expelled Eimert from his composition class. In 1924, he began studies in musicology at the University of Cologne with Ernst Bücken, Willi Kahl, and Georg Kinsky, and read philosophy with Max Scheler (a pupil of Husserl) and Nicolai Hartmann. He attained his doctorate in 1931 with a dissertation titled Musikalische Formstrukturen im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. Versuch einer Formbeschreibung (Musical Form Structures in the 17th and 18th Century. Attempt at a Description of Form). Career From 1927 until 1933 he was employed at the Cologne Radio and wrote for music magazines

Herbert Elwell

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Herbert Elwell (May 10, 1898 – April 17, 1974) was an American composer and music critic. A native of Minneapolis, he was (with Aaron Copland and Virgil Thomson) among the first Americans to study in France with Nadia Boulanger. While in Paris his Quintet for Piano and Strings (1924) garnered more praise than George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which was premiered at the same concert. He began his studies in music at the University of Minnesota, and went on to work with Ernest Bloch prior to his sojourn in France. He also attended the American Academy in Rome during which time he composed his most frequently performed work, the ballet The Happy Hypocrite (1925). He also served as the music critic for The Plain Dealer for 32 years (from 1932 to 1964). As a composer, Elwell wrote a considerable body of chamber music and vocal music. Many of his vocal pieces were written for soprano Marie Simmelink Kraft. He also composed a number of orchestral works which were extolled by such conductors as Artur Rodzinski, Leopold Stokowski, William Steinberg and Howard Hanson. In 1961 he was awarded the first Cleveland Arts Prize for Music. His other accolades include the Paderewski Prize, the Marj

Herbert Howells

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Herbert Norman Howells (17 October 1892 – 23 February 1983) was an English composer, organist, and teacher, most famous for his large output of Anglican church music. Life Background and early education Howells was born in Lydney, Gloucestershire, the youngest of six children of Oliver Howells, a plumber, painter, decorator and builder, and his wife Elizabeth. His father played the organ at the local Baptist church, and Herbert showed early musical promise, first deputising for his father, and then moving at the age of eleven to the local Church of England parish church as choirboy and unofficial deputy organist. The Howells family’s precarious financial situation came to a head when Oliver filed for bankruptcy in September 1904, when Herbert was nearly 12. This was a deep humiliation in a small community at the time and one from which Howells never fully recovered. Financially assisted by a member of the family of Charles Bathurst, 1st Viscount Bledisloe, who had taken an interest in the budding musician, Howells began music lessons in 1905 with Herbert Brewer, the organist of Gloucester Cathedral, and at sixteen became his articled pupil at the Cathedral alongside Ivor Novello an

Herbert Menges

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Herbert Menges OBE (27 August 190220 February 1972) was an English conductor and composer, who wrote incidental music to all of Shakespeare’s plays. Life and career Siegfried Frederick Herbert Menges was born in Hove on 27 August 1902. His father was German and his mother British. His elder sister was the violinist Isolde Menges. Herbert appeared in public as a violinist at the age of four. He later abandoned the violin for the piano, which he studied with Mathilde Verne and Arthur De Greef. After some years the Players evolved into the Brighton Philharmonic Society, a forerunner of the Southern Philharmonic Orchestra, a professional group based in Brighton from 1945 which also gave regular concerts in Portsmouth and Hastings. Menges was a powerful advocate of the regional professional orchestras. He remained the orchestra’s musical director for the remaining 47 years of his life, during which time it became the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra in 1958, and conducted the orchestra 326 times. incidental music for all the plays of William Shakespeare, and numerous plays by other writers. He was associated with the productions of John Gielgud from 1933 onwards. His assistant there for

Herbert Sandberg (conductor)

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Herbert Ludwig Sandberg (26 February 1902 – 7 January 1966) was a Swedish conductor, librettist, and composer of Polish Jewish descent. Life and career Born in Breslau (now Wrocław), Sandberg was the son of Dr. Richard and Franziska Betty (née Rosenthal) Sandberg. He was educated in Germany where he was a student of Julius Prüwer in Breslau and Leo Blech in Berlin. He then became a conductor at the Royal Swedish Opera (RSO) in Stockholm in 1926 where he remained for the rest of his career. He notably conducted several world premieres at the RSO, including Lars-Erik Larsson’s Prinsessan av Cypern (1937), Hilding Rosenberg’s Lycksalighetens ö (1945), Natanael Berg’s Genoveva (1947), and Ture Rangström’s Gilgamesj (1952). In 1950 he conducted the world premiere of Birgit Cullberg’s ballet Medea to music by Béla Bartók at the Riksteatern Gävle, a work he also conducted for its American premiere with the New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center in 1958. He was a guest conductor on several occasions at the Bavarian State Opera, the Hamburg State Opera, and the Semperoper among other houses, and with the Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk in Hamburg and the RIAS Symphony Orchestra in Berlin. Sandbe

Herbert Sumsion

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Herbert Whitton Sumsion (14 January 1899 – 11 August 1995) was an English musician who was organist of Gloucester Cathedral from 1928 to 1967. Through his leadership role with the Three Choirs Festival, Sumsion maintained close associations with major figures in England’s 20th-century musical renaissance, including Edward Elgar, Herbert Howells, Gerald Finzi, and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Although Sumsion is known primarily as a cathedral musician, his professional career spanned more than 60 years and encompassed composing, conducting, performing, accompanying, and teaching. His compositions include works for choir and organ, as well as lesser-known chamber and orchestral works. Biography Training and early career Sumsion was born in Gloucester, a cathedral city on the River Severn. In 1908, at the age of nine, he became a Probationer in the choir at the cathedral there, which was then under the direction of Herbert Brewer. After two years, Sumsion became a full Chorister and sang with the choir until 1914. From 1911 to 1915 he was organist at Ashleworth, a small village six miles from Gloucester, responsible for the church choir and the “organ blower” for a fee of £5 a quarter, qui

Herman Berlinski

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Herman Berlinski (18 August 1910 – 27 September 2001) was a German-born American composer, organist, pianist, musicologist and choir conductor. Life Family background; early upbringing Before he was born, Herman Berlinski’s parents, Boris and Deborah Wygodzki Berlinski lived in the Jewish community of Łódź at the time when civil and political unrest was well underway in Russia from 1905, and growing discontent in Poland against the Russian rule had led to many uprisings. The largest of these, commonly called the June Days Uprising or the 1905 Łódź insurrection, took place in that same year. At that point, the Berlinskis fled to Leipzig, where they remained after the end of World War I, for although Poland was reconstituted in 1918, turmoil between Poland and the Soviet States of Russia and Ukraine continued until early 1921 as Russia attempted to reclaim the territory that had belonged to it in the days of the empire. Furthermore, by contrast with the relative poverty he had experienced working as a factory labourer in Łódź, Boris Berlinski had been able to gain a stable income in Leipzig from haberdashery. In any case, as Poland had regained its independent statehood, the Berlinsk

Herman David Koppel

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Herman David Koppel, known in Denmark as Herman D. Koppel, (1 October 1908 – 14 July 1998) was a Danish composer and pianist of Jewish origin. Born in Copenhagen, he fled the Nazis with his family to Sweden in 1943. He wrote 7 symphonies, numerous concertos, 6 string quartets and other chamber music, piano works, operas and film music. He was the father of Anders Koppel and Thomas Koppel, both composers, Lone Koppel, an opera singer, and Therese Koppel, pianist, and the brother of the violinist Julius Koppel. Early life and education Born on 1 October 1908 in Copenhagen, Herman David Koppel was the son of Isak Meyer Koppel (1888–1970) and Maria Hendeles (1889–1984). He was born shortly after his Jewish parents had emigrated to Denmark from Poland. Like his younger brother Julius (1910–2005), a violinist and concertmaster, he studied piano from the age of 17 at the Royal Danish Conservatory under Rudolph Simonsen and Emilius Bangert. In addition, he studied privately under the Norwegian-Danish pianist Anders Rachlew (1882–1970) and undertook study trips to Germany, England and France. Career Pianist As a pianist, Koppel premiered in 1930 at a concert where he included Carl Nielsen’s

Hermann Ambrosius

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Hermann Ambrosius (25 July 1897 – 25 October 1983) was a German composer and music educator. Life Born in Hamburg, Ambrosius came via Magdeburg, Berlin and Chemnitz to Leipzig, where he received his musical education. He was a master student of Hans Pfitzner at the Prussian Academy of Arts. From 1925 to 1942, Ambrosius was Tonmeister at the and since 1926 teacher at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig. After the Machtergreifung by the Nazis, Ambrosius became a member of the NSDAP on 4 March 1933 under the party number 2,994,125. Since 1936 he was also active as Gauobmann Mitte of the Reichsmusikkammer. From 1945 Ambrosius worked as a private music teacher, choir leader and freelance artist. After his death, the city of Engen honoured the composer and named a street after him. Ambrosius left an extensive compositional legacy of over 500 works. Especially his compositions for are of importance. They had already been the focus of attention of soloists and chamber music ensembles since the 1930s and have enjoyed ever increasing popularity ever since. The "" expressly promoted his work for this field and made him an honorary member. Ambrosius died in Enden at the age of 86. Work

Hermann Erdlen

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Hermann Erdlen (16 July 1893 – 30 June 1972) was a German composer. Life Born in Hamburg, Erdlen received his musical education at the Bernuth Conservatory in his native town and through studies with Emil Krause (composition), Goby Eberhardt (violin), Karl Goltermann (piano and organ) and Wilhelm Vilmar (singing). Like Erwin Lendvai, he was active in the Lobeda Movement founded by Carl Hannemann, whose members were later particularly fond of his Deutsches Requiem and the Saar-Kantate. The first song compositions by him appeared as early as 1910. In addition to his work as a composer, he was active as a music writer and music critic from 1911 to 1936 and gave guest performances as a conductor in Hamburg, Wiesbaden, Kiel, Dresden and at the . From 1928, he taught music theory, historical musicology and instrumentation at the Hansische and at the Institut für Lehrerfortbildung in Hamburg. Since 1 May 1937, Erdlen was a member of the NSDAP (member number: 4.956.880). From 1945 onwards, he worked as a freelance artist and music writer in Hamburg. Erdlen wrote works for orchestral and chamber music ensembles, works for (amateur) choir, solo songs and also stage music. His musical legacy

Hermann Grabner

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Hermann Grabner (12 May 1886 – 3 July 1969) was an Austrian composer and music teacher. Career Grabner was born in Graz. He studied law at the University of Graz graduating in 1909. In parallel, he studied music with Leopold Suchsland until 1910. He also played the viola for a while in the Grazer Theatherorchester. He then studied at the Leipzig Conservatory with Max Reger and Hans Sitt. In 1912, he worked as assistant to Reger in the Meininger Theater. In 1913, he became teacher of music theory at the Conservatoire de Strasbourg. He served in the Austrian Army during World War I. From 1919 to 1924, he was teacher of theory and composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Mannheim. He also taught at the Music Academy in Heidelberg. He was then teacher of composition at the Leipzig Conservatory, where his students included Hugo Distler, Artur Immisch, Hilding Hallnäs, Heinrich Feischner, and Miklós Rózsa. From 1930, he was music director of the University. From 1938 to 1946, he taught at the Berlin Musikhochschule. He was retired in June 1946 due to his SA membership and the Nazi-composition “Fackelträger”, Lieder des neuen Reiches. He composed one opera, Die Richt

Hermann Haller (composer)

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Hermann Haller (9 June 1914 – 13 August 2002) was a Swiss composer. Life Hermann Haller was born in Burgdorf, Switzerland. His uncle was the sculptor Hermann Haller. After his matura in 1933 he studied at the conservatory of Zurich: Volkmar Andreae, Paul Müller-Zürich and Rudolf Wittelsbach were his teachers. In 1938–39 he studied composition in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. After World War II Haller started to teach piano at the “Lehrerseminar” Küsnacht until 1979. He wrote many works, including three string quartets, two piano concertos, one symphony for large orchestra and a song cycle for baritone and orchestra, Ed è subito sera (1978), on poems of Salvatore Quasimodo. Works (selection) Chamber music * Sonate for flute and piano (1945) * String quartet (1961) * 6 Inventionen for flute and harpsichord (1966) * «In memoriam» 5 pieces for piano trio (1968) * Sonata for piano (1969) * String quartet #2 (1971) * 3 Nocturnes for viola and piano (1972) * Oktett for oboe, clarinet, bassoon, string quartet and piano (1976) * 5 pièces en forme de variations for wind quintet (1980) * «Blaue Wand», Impressionen nach einem Bild von Hans Fischli for flute, string sextet and piano (1986) * Stri

Hermann Heiss

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Hermann Heiss (29 December 1897 – 6 December 1966) was a German composer, pianist, and educator. His work was part of the music event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics. Life Heiss was born in Darmstadt and studied composition first in Frankfurt with Bernhard Sekles in 1921, and then in Vienna with Josef Matthias Hauer from 1924 to 1926. After leaving Hauer’s tutelage he returned to his native city to study the piano and compose. In 1928 he relocated to the island of Spiekeroog in the North Sea, where he taught music at the until 1933. He then moved to Berlin where he unsuccessfully sought performances of his works. During the war he composed music for the Luftwaffe and for other military groups . He was also self-taught. Hauer dedicated his book Twelve-Tone Technique (1925) to Heiss, who later claimed to have collaborated with Hauer on its contents . He introduced twelve-tone music at Darmstadt in 1946 and composed electronic music at the Studio for Electronic Music (WDR) in Cologne in 1956, where his Elektronische Komposition I was performed and broadcast in a concert of the Musik der Zeit series on 30 May 1956. He then founded a studio of his own in Darmstadt . R

Hermann Reutter

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Hermann Reutter (; 17 June 19001 January 1985) was a German composer and pianist who worked as an academic teacher, university administrator, recitalist, and accompanist. He composed several operas, orchestral works, and chamber music, and especially many lieder, setting poems by authors writing in German, Russian, Spanish, Icelandic, English, and ancient Egyptian and Greek, among others. He was director of Dr. Hoch’s Konservatorium in Frankfurt from 1936 to 1945 and of the Musikhochschule Stuttgart from 1956 to 1966. He then taught master classes, regularly at the Musikhochschule München and at universities in the United States, Europe, and Japan. He founded the Internationale Hugo-Wolf-Akademie in Stuttgart in 1968, serving as its president until his death. Career Reutter was born in Stuttgart, where he took singing lessons with Emma Rückbeil-Hiller. He moved to Munich in 1920 and studied voice with Karl Erler and then, at the Musikhochschule München, piano with Franz Dorfmüller, organ with Ludwig Mayer, and composition with Walter Courvoisier. In 1936, his opera Doktor Johannes Faust was premiered at the Oper Frankfurt. External links * * * Reutter, Hermann bmlo.uni-muenchen.de

Hermann Schroeder

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Hermann Schroeder (26 March 1904 – 7 October 1984) was a German composer and a Catholic church musician. Life Schroeder was born in Bernkastel and spent the greatest part of his life’s work in the Rheinland. His mother’s family had common ancestry with Beethoven. He studied from 1926 to 1930 at the Hochschule für Musik Köln, where his most important teachers were Heinrich Lemacher and Walter Braunfels (composition), Hermann Abendroth (conducting), and Hans Bachem (organ). His main sphere of activity as composer, conductor and organist were supplemental to his work as a professor of choral conducting, counterpoint, and composition. Upon graduation from the conservatory, he obtained a post teaching music theory at the Rheinische Musikschule in Cologne. Eight years later he became organist at the cathedral in Trier. He remained in this post until the end of the war, adding the position of director of the Trier School of Music in 1940. After the war he taught music theory at the Cologne Musikhochschule beginning in 1946, becoming a professor there in 1948 and deputy director in 1958. He was also a reader at Bonn University from 1946 until 1973, and a lecturer at the University of Colog

Hermann Unger

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Gustav Hermann Unger (26 October 1886 – 31 December 1958 ) was a German composer. Life Born in Kamenz, Unger was the son of the travelling theatre director Fritz Unger (1858-1922) and his wife Maria née Stein. Borna-Leipzig 1911. In 1913 Unger came to Cologne as editor of the Rheinische Musik- und Theater-Zeitung. After the National Socialists seized power, the director of the university Walter Braunfels was dismissed. The director of the music school Hermann Abendroth was also expelled from his office a year later. In 1935 Martin Karl Hasse took over the management of the university. Unger was appointed director of the Rheinische Musikschule and Hasse’s deputy. Although Unger was still a journalist polemicising against the accumulation of offices and mismanagement in Cologne before 1933, he accepted 16 offices close to the system after the seizure of power. External links * *

Hershy Kay

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Hershy Kay (November 17, 1919 – December 2, 1981) was an American composer, arranger, and orchestrator. He is most noteworthy for the orchestrations of several Broadway shows, and for the ballets he arranged for George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet. Biography The son of a Philadelphia printer, Kay became a student at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute (1936–1940) where he studied cello and composition under Randall Thompson, in whose classes he was a classmate of Leonard Bernstein. In New York he played in various pit orchestras and started arranging music to escape playing the cello. Self-taught as an orchestrator, for his first professional project Kay orchestrated several songs for Brazilian soprano Elsie Houston’s show at the Rainbow Room in 1940. When Leonard Bernstein commissioned Kay to orchestrate his musical comedy On the Town in 1944, Kay became one of the most sought after orchestrators on Broadway. later choreographed by Balanchine as Tarantella, led to a renewed interest in Gottschalk’s music. He also composed music for an LP, Mother Goose, with the actors Boris Karloff, Cyril Ritchard and Celeste Holm; this was first released on Caedmon in 1958. In 1961, Kay conducte

Hidemaro Konoye

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Viscount was a Japanese conductor and composer of classical music. He was the younger brother of pre-war Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe. Biography Konoye was born in Kōjimachi, Tokyo. He was the younger son of Duke Konoe Atsumaro, scion of one of the Five Regent Houses of the Fujiwara clan. The Konoe clan traditionally provided gagaku musicians to the Imperial Household. Despite this, Konoye pursued music over the objections of his family, who wished for him a career in politics. His decision was supported by his older brother, Fumimaro. Konoye attended the Gakushuin Peers School, where he became close friends with Takashi Inukai. Around this time, Konoye frequently visited the Tokyo Music School and was privately educated by Kosaku Yamada. After graduating from Gakushuin, he matriculated at Tokyo Imperial University to study literature, but lost interest and eventually withdrew. At the age of 25, he decided to go to Europe to study music. He studied in Paris under Vincent d’Indy and Berlin under Franz Schreker. He also studied conducting under Erich Kleiber, and Karl Muck. In 1924, he conducted at the Berlin Philharmonic. After spending a year a half, he returned to Japan

Hilda Dederich

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Hilda Dederich (1901–1969) was an English pianist, composer and piano teacher. She was a child prodigy and was the youngest of the pupils of Tobias Matthay. She was taught by Hedwig McEwen at the Tobias Matthay Pianoforte School on Wimpole Street in Marylebone. Dederich stayed at Matthay’s country house during the Second World War and subsequently taught and became a director of the school. In the 1920s Dederich appeared as ‘Aunt Hilda’ on the BBC radio programme Children’s Hour to talk to children about the basics of piano music. In her obituary in The Times, Ivor Newton wrote that Dederich “never knew her once show any concern for her own aggrandisement” and that “among artists such qualities of modesty and altruism are sadly rare”. Her composition “Moonlight Through the Cedar Tree” was recorded by David Reeves and released on his 2000 album Piano Music of the Unknown Impressionists on Fleur de Son. References External links *

Hilda Emery Davis

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Hilda Emery Davis (; November 1, 1895 – September 20, 1995) was an American composer and pianist, mainly active in Philadelphia. She was also married to famous orchestra leader Meyer Davis and was the mother of World Citizen Garry Davis. Life Hilda Hodgkins was born on November 1, 1895 in Salisbury Cove, an unincorporated village in Bar Harbor, Maine to Eugene Hodgkins and Bethia (known as Bertha) Emery. Hodgkins began learning the piano when she was five years old while living in Newburyport, Massachusetts. She also sang in her church choir, and often performed piano accompaniment for her older sister Doris (who later became concert contralto and wife of Pierre Monteux). Hilda and Meyer had four other children, Meyer Davis Jr. in 1919, Sol Gareth “Garry” in 1921, Emery in 1923, and Marjorie Rose “Margie” in 1931. The Davises maintained a close relationship with many leading orchestral conductors of the day, including Leopold Stokowski, who their children called “Stokey.” There the composer taught music lessons and accompanied visiting performers such as tenor Andrew McKinley on the piano and the organ. Music Although she is not as well known today, Davis was known as a “famous Phi

Hilda Pires dos Reis

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Hilda Pires dos Reis (10 October 1919 - 2001 ) was a Brazilian composer, conductor, educator and pianist. Pires dos Reis was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Narciza Aires dos Reis Pires and Antonio Joaquim Pires. Guilherme Fontainha, Arnaud Gouveia, Francisco Mignone, and Paulo Silva. She earned a doctorate in conducting and piano from the School of Music of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (EMUFRJ) and later became a professor and head of the composition department there. She also taught piano at the Brazilian Conservatory of Music in Rio de Janeiro. Her students included the Brazilian composer and violinist Guilherme Carneiro da Cunha Bauer. *Sonata No. 2 for cello and piano *String Quartet No. 1 *Valsa Seresta for bassoon and piano Orchestral works *Bailado dos Gigantes da Botas *“Eu Te Quis Tanto” *“Jongo” *“Legenda” *“Tristezas de Amor” *“Via-láctea” References

Hildegard Quiel

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Hildegard Quiel (23 April 1888 - 14 July 1971) was a German composer and pianist who wrote music for instruments, voice, and the theatre. She composed 25 lieder based on texts by Hermann Hesse. Life and works Quiel was born in Berlin, where her father Reinhold Quiel was a professor at the Berlin Main Cadet Academy. She studied at the Berlin Academy of Music (today the Berlin University of the Arts) from 1909 to 1913. Her teachers included Elisabeth Kuyper She died in Weiler im Allgäu. Her music was published by Paragon Verlag, *Sonata (violin and piano) Theatre *Rosenrot (Rose Red) *Schneeweisschen (Snow White) Vocal *25 lieder (texts by Herman Hesse) References

Hilding Hallnäs

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Hilding Hallnäs (24 May 1903 – 11 September 1984) was a Swedish composer. Hallnäs was married to the actress Gun Holmquist. Life and career Hallnäs was born in Halmstad, Sweden, in 1903. His father had been a tenor and sang in choirs. After matriculation in his home town, he entered the Royal College of Music, Stockholm in 1924, He was active in the Levande Musik (Living Music) concert association and the Gothenburg Composers’ Association. In 1974, he settled in Stockholm. Selected compositions Music for the stage * Ballet: Kärlekens ringdans (1955) * Ballet: Ifigenia (1961–63) Orchestral music * Divertimento for orchestra (1937) * Seven symphonies (including Sinfonietta pastorale (1944), Sinfonia notturna (1946), Small symphony for strings (1947), Metamorfose sinfonice (1952)) * Violin concerto (1945) * Piano concerto (1956) * Flute concertos (1957, 1962) * En grekisk saga (1967 – a protest against the junta’s seizure of power) * Viola concerto (1978) * Cello concerto (1981–82) Organ music * Fantasi (1936) * Fantasi and preludium with chorale (1957) * Pietà (1962) * Organ sonatas – No 1: De profundis (1965), No 2 (1977) * Passionsmusik - Musica dolorosa (1968) Chamber music * Viol

Hilding Rosenberg

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Hilding Constantin Rosenberg (June 21, 1892 – May 18, 1985) was a Swedish composer and conductor. He is commonly regarded as the first Swedish modernist composer, and one of the most influential figures in 20th-century classical music in Sweden. Life and career Born in Bosjökloster, he was an organist (completing his examinations in 1909), He died in Bromma, Stockholm. Selected compositions Orchestral music Symphonies * Symphony (no. 0) (1915–1916, withdrawn) * Symphony no. 1, op. 5 (1919, revised 1932, 1971) * Symphony no. 2, op. 62 Sinfonia grave (1934) * Symphony no. 3, The Four Ages of Man (1939, rev. 1943; 1949 with new third movement) * Symphony no. 4, The Revelation of John, for baritone, choir and orchestra (1940; Bible, Hjalmar Gullberg) * Symphony no. 5, Örtagårdsmästaren, for alto, mixed choir and orchestra (1944; Bible) * Symphony no. 6, Sinfonia semplice (1951) * Symphony no. 7, (1968, rev. 1968) * Symphony no. 8, In candidum, for mixed choir and orchestra (1974; Vilhelm Ekelund; rev. 1980 as Sinfonia serena) Concertante * Suite in D major, op. 13 (1922, version for violin and orchestra) * Violin concerto no. 1, op. 22 (1924) * Trumpet concerto, op. 47 (1928) * Variati

Hisatada Otaka

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Hisatada Otaka (Japanese: 尾高尚忠; 26 September 1911 – 16 February 1951) was a Japanese composer and conductor. He was the conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra from 1942 to 1951. Otaka was born in Japan and studied in musical arts early, however he dropped out of high school and moved to Vienna for six years for conducting and composing, during his studies in Vienna he became friends with Andrzej Panufnik and started composing works. In 1940, Otaka moved back to Japan where he took the role as conductor for the NHK Symphony Orchestra, become a music teacher and compose most of his significant works such as his Symphony and Cello Concerto, however his life came to an abrupt end at the age of 39, leaving an unfinished Flute Concerto rewrite which one of his students, Hikaru Hayashi, would take on and complete. When Otaka died he left behind three children, all of whom play his work regularly particularly the youngest son Tadaaki Otaka. In 1953, the NHK Symphony Orchestra created the Otaka Prize, which is named after Hisatada Otaka for his role in helping the orchestra. Otaka had written one of the first Japanese cello concertos and the first Japanese flute concerto, the latter being

Hisato Ohzawa

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(August 1, 1907—October 28, 1953) was a Japanese composer and conductor. Renewed interest in his work reflects the view that he was one of the preeminent Japanese composers of his day. Biography One of the foremost Japanese composers of the first half of the twentieth century, he grew up in Kobe, studying piano, organ and choral singing. He moved to the United States in 1930 to study composition with Frederick Converse and Carl McKinley at Boston University and the New England Conservatory of Music, also taking some lessons with Arnold Schoenberg. It was in America that his early works were composed: The Little Symphony (1932), his First Piano Concerto, his First Symphony, and a Double Bass Concerto (dedicated to Koussevitzky). He was the first Japanese musician who conducted Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1934 he moved to Paris and continued his studies, composing his Second Symphony and his Second Piano Concerto. He returned to Japan in 1936, where his works were met with mixed reactions, being technically too difficult for Japanese orchestras of the time, and being in a fairly modern style. Due to the increasing international tension of the time, he was less and less able to trav

Holger Gilbert-Jespersen

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

Holger Gilbert-Jespersen (22 September 1890 – 30 July 1975) was a Danish flutist, orchestral musician and academic flute teacher. In 1926, Carl Nielsen’s Flute Concerto was written for, dedicated to, and first performed by Gilbert-Jespersen in Paris. He was a member of the Royal Danish Orchestra from 1927 to 1956 as well as a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Music from 1927 to 1962, where he trained generations of flutists. Biography Holger Gilbert-Jespersen was born on 22 September 1890 in Ordrup, Denmark, the son of the physician Gilbert Lauri Jespersen (1851–1929) and the artist Anne Marie Schack Bruun (1849–1925). Gilbert-Jespersen studied the flute from 1908 to 1911 at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. His primary instructor was Frederik Storm of the Royal Danish Orchestra. After a few years of employment in a casino orchestra he went to London, where he studied with Albert Fransella. From 1913 to 1914, Gilbert-Jespersen was in Paris, studying flute with Adolphe Hennebains, the principal flute of the Grand Opéra in Paris, and was employed occasionally in the opera orchestra. When World War I broke out in 1914, he returned to Denmark to enter the security force. Career

Homer Keller

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Homer T. Keller (February 17, 1915 – May 12, 1996) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. He graduated from Oxnard Union High School in Oxnard, California in 1933, after which he attended the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Howard Hanson, obtaining B.M. (1937) and M.M. (1938) degrees. In 1939 he was awarded US$500 in the 1939 Henry Hadley Foundation competition. He taught at the University of Michigan (where his notable students included Leslie Bassett, George Balch Wilson, Norma Wendelburg, and Donald Harris) then at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon from 1958 to 1976. His notable students at the University of Oregon include Ralph Towner, Dean C. Taylor, Stephen Scott, and Robert Scott Thompson. Also at the University of Oregon, Keller worked with Jon Appleton to set up that university’s electronic music studio. While at the University of Michigan he also served on the Interlochen Music Camp staff where he helped and influenced many aspiring young musicians including notable Dwight Beckham in 1950. His music has been conducted by William Strickland. It is published by the American Composers Alliance. Keller’s last residence was Montclair,

Hong Nan-pa

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

Hong Nan-pa (April 10, 1898 – August 30, 1941) was a Korean composer, violinist, conductor, music critic and educator. He is best known as the composer of Bongseonhwa (봉선화, literally Garden Balsam) written in 1919. It is generally considered as the first true Korean original song composed in Western style. It was widely sung during the period. Hong also contributed to developing Korean culture during the period with his diverse cultural activities. Biography Hong Nan-pa was born at Hwalcho Village of Namyang Township in present Hwangseong County, Gyeonggi. He was the second son to his father, Hong Sun () of the native Hong Clan to Namyoung (南陽) and his mother from Lee Clan of Jeonju, Jeolla. He had one brother and two sisters. Nan-pa is his ho, or pen name, but his given name is Hong Yeong-hu. His family moved to Seoul when he was still a young child. As he lived near the Ewha Academy () located in the neighborhood of Jeong-dong, he attended Jeongdong Methodist Church and got access to hymn, a Western music. He learned basic Confucian studies at a local seodang (a kind of elementary school) and entered a middle school in 1910 which was affiliated with the Hwangseong Young Men’s Chr

Hooper Brewster-Jones

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

Hooper Josse Brewster-Jones (1887–1949) was a musician, composer, teacher and music critic, born near Orroroo on the Black Rock Plain, South Australia. His parents were William Arthur Jones (c. 1855–1947), a school master, and Rebecca née Williams. He attended school at Armagh and Bute, where he was taught by his father, including music. In June 1896, he performed a duet with Rebie Jones and then his own composition, “The Bute March” – he celebrated his ninth birthday a few days later. He left home at age 13 to board in Adelaide. He returned to Adelaide in 1909 to teach piano, composition and singing. In the following year, in June, he married Gerta Homburg, an amateur singer and authority on German lieder. During 1916, Brewster-Jones composed an opera in three acts. A correspondent from The Advertiser described the work, “The subject is an old Irish tragedy, ‘Deirdre’, and he has adopted a prose libretto. The ‘solo’, requirements are two sopranos, tenor, baritone, and bass. No chorus is introduced.” His works include an opera The Nightingale and the Rose from The Happy Prince and Other Tales. He worked with the Australian Broadcasting Commission as a pianist, radio lecturer and co

Howard Hanson

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

Howard Harold Hanson (October 28, 1896 – February 26, 1981) was an American composer, conductor, educator and music theorist. As director for forty years of the Eastman School of Music, he raised its quality and provided opportunities for commissioning and performing American classical music. In 1944, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his Symphony No. 4, and received numerous other awards, including the George Foster Peabody Award for Outstanding Entertainment in Music in 1946. Early life and education Hanson was born in Wahoo, Nebraska, to Swedish immigrant parents, Hans and Hilma (née Eckstrom) Hanson. In his youth he studied music with his mother. Later, he studied at Luther College in Wahoo, receiving a diploma in 1911, then at the Institute of Musical Art, the forerunner of the Juilliard School, in New York City, where he studied with the composer and music theorist Percy Goetschius in 1914. Afterward he attended Northwestern University, where he studied composition with church music expert Peter C. Lutkin and Arne Oldberg. Hanson also studied piano, cello, and trombone. He earned his BA degree in music from Northwestern in 1916, and began his teaching career as a teacher’s assistan

Hryhoriy Veryovka

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

Hryhoriy Huriyovych Veryovka (21 October 1964) was a Soviet and Ukrainian composer and choir director. He is best known for founding the renowned Veryovka Choir in 1943, and leading it for many years, gaining international recognition and winning multiple awards. Veryovka was also a professor of conducting at the Kyiv Conservatory, where he worked alongside faculty including Boleslav Yavorsky, Alexander Koshetz, Mykola Leontovych, and Mykhailo Verykivsky. Career Veryovka was born in an old Cossack town of Berezna (today urban-type settlement). He was the son of a peasant-craftsman who was the regent of a church choir and also played the violin. His mother was also involved in music, and performed many songs in the Ukrainian language. In 1923, he began to work as the choral conductor at his alma mater until 1927, and he also worked at the First Kyiv Music College and at the Ukrainian Republican Philharmonic. Right before the outbreak of World War II, he was working as the conductor of the choir for the Bilshovyk factory in Kyiv and returned to teaching at the Kyiv Conservatory. The first concert of the choir took place in August 1944 following the liberation of Kyiv, and it later ma

Hubert Klyne Headley

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

Hubert Klyne Headley (1906–1996) was an American composer, musician, and educator. Early life and education Headley was born at Parkersburg, West Virginia on June 19, 1906. When he was six, his family moved to Fresno, California. His father, Lewis Lee Headley, was Superintendent of Schools, and his mother, Belle Cook Headley, was an organist. At the age of ten he was introduced to Maurice Ravel, whose music had a strong effect on him. He studied music at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, graduating in 1928. While there, he met Flora Denius of Vallejo, also a student at the college’s music conservatory, whom he married in 1929. For eight years, Headley served as director of instrumental music for California high schools, Career In the fall of 1935, Headley joined the music department of Fresno State College, replacing Assistant Professor Arthur C. Berdahl. Monteux later conducted part of the work in a radio concert for The Standard Symphony Hour. Headley’s works would be performed regularly on this program for the next several years. Also in 1939, Headley joined the faculty at Santa Barbara State College, and succeeded Maurice Faulkner as conductor of the Univer

Hugh Armigel Wade

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

Hugh Armigel Wade (1 July 1907 – 10 April 1949) was an English songwriter and musician. Biography Hugh Armigel Wade was born in Market Deeping, Lincolnshire, on 1 July 1907. He was the third son of solicitor Richard Wade and his wife Alice. The Wade family lived at The Park, Market Deeping, in a building later renamed as Wade House. When Wade was 15 he won the Marlborough College Prize for Instrumental Composition. On the early morning of 31 May 1932, Stephen died of bullet wound and Barney was arrested and charged with murder. Hugh Armigel Wade and Arthur Jeffress appeared as witnesses at the trial. In 1936, he collaborated on “To and Fro”, in the 1940s worked with Leigh Stafford on Let it be Soon, and in 1948, he wrote Time May Change for the musical Maid To Measure. His songs were performed by: * Florrie Forde - “When the Lovebird Leaves the Nest” * Carl Brisson - “Why am I Blue?” “When I Met Sally” * Henry Hall and the BBC Dance Orchestra - “Singing in the Moonlight” * Layton and Johnstone - “Singing in the Moonlight” * The Melody Boys - “Singing in the Moonlight” * Charles Hill - “Rosalie” * Ted Heath - “Let it be Soon” * Charlie Chester and his Gang - “Let it be Soon” * Geral

Hugo Chaim Adler

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

Hugo Chaim Adler (17 January 1894 – 24 December 1955), was a Belgian cantor, composer, and choir conductor. He is primarily recognized for creating and popularizing contemporary versions of 19th-century Jewish cantorial music. He is the father of Samuel Adler, a prominent American composer of contemporary classical music. Personal life Hugo Chaim Adler was born in Antwerp, Belgium, while his Jewish-German parents were on holiday on January 17, 1894. He was one of eight sons born to his parents, Emma Dahl and Simon Adler. Raised in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, he studied music composition at the Hochschule für Musik Köln from 1912-1915 and played piano. In 1915 he was drafted into the German Army as an infantryman and was injured at the Argonne in 1918. All seven of his brothers served in the war, and all survived. After returning home, Adler began his tenure at the Haupt-Synagogue in Mannheim and met his wife Selma Rothschild. They had two children, Marianne and Samuel Adler. He participated in the Mannheim Holiday Choir and was a member of the local Liederkranz. That December, he was imprisoned for two months in The Netherlands due to his Jewish ancestry. Upon his release

Hugo Distler

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

August Hugo Distler (24 June 1908 – 1 November 1942) was a German organist, choral conductor, teacher and composer. Life and career Born in Nuremberg, Distler attended the Leipzig Conservatory from 1927 to 1931, first as a conducting student with piano as his secondary subject, but changing later, on the advice of his teacher, to composition and organ. He studied there with Martienssen (piano), Günther Ramin (organ) and Grabner (harmony). In 1937 Distler was appointed as a lecturer at the Württemberg Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart, where he also directed its two choirs. In 1940 he moved to Berlin to teach and conduct at the Hochschule für Musik there, and in 1942 he was named the conductor of the State and Cathedral Choir. However, his suicide was probably not a direct result of antagonistic government pressure; “rather, it appears that he saw the futility of attempting to serve both God and Nazis, and came to terms with his own conscience unequivocally.” He is buried in the Stahnsdorf South-Western Cemetery. Music Distler enjoyed his first success in 1935 at the official Kassel Music Days (Kasseler Musiktage). He achieved his greatest public success in 1939 at the German Choral

Hugo Friedhofer

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Hugo Wilhelm Friedhofer (May 3, 1901 – May 17, 1981) was an American composer and cellist, known for his film scores. He won an Academy Award for Best Original Score for The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), out of nine total nominations. Biography Hugo Wilhelm Friedhofer was born in San Francisco, California, United States. In 1929, he relocated to Hollywood, where he performed as a musician for Fox Studios productions such as Sunny Side Up (1929) and Grand Canary (1934). In 1946, Friedhofer was hired to compose the score for the 1946 William Wyler directed film, The Best Years of Our Lives, which earned him an Oscar for Best Original Score at the 1947 Academy Awards, A new recording of the score, released in 1979 by Entr’acte Recording Society, was favorably received at the time. Friedhofer was also nominated for eight other films, including The Woman in the Window, The Bishop’s Wife, Joan of Arc, Above and Beyond, Between Heaven and Hell, Boy on a Dolphin and An Affair to Remember (both nominated in 1958 ), as well as The Young Lions. Friedhofer, who was greatly admired by his colleagues, was also noted for his caustic, self-deprecating wit. When asked by fellow composer David Rak

Hugo Kauder

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

Hugo Kauder (9 June 188822 July 1972) was an Austrian-Jewish composer, music theorist, and teacher. He composed in a relatively traditional, Brahmsian contrapuntal–harmonic manner with substantial modal mixture. Kauder sought a synthesis of sound and word in his vocal music and was attentive to texts, praising the word painting of Schoenberg’s Op. 15 Stefan George settings. He was close to Rudolph Pannwitz, who wrote aphorisms and was influenced by George and Friedrich Nietzsche. He wrote over 300 works. A society (2002) and performance competition (2003) were founded in his name. Biography Kauder was born in Tovačov. His father Ignaz was Oberlehrer (principal) of the local German language primary school. The local violin teacher gave the boy Kauder lessons. This was his only formal training in music. In 1905, Kauder moved to Vienna to study engineering. He often skipped school with to study scores in the Imperial Court Library. Several volumes of Guido Adler’s Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich, a compendium of music including that of the Franco-Flemish School, especially interested him. He cited Josquin des Prez as a “teacher”. From 1911 to 1917, Kauder played violin in the Wie

Humphrey Procter-Gregg

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

Humphrey Procter-Gregg (31 July 1895 – 13 April 1980) was an English composer and academic. Career He was born in Kirkby Lonsdale and educated at King William’s College on the Isle of Man and at Peterhouse Cambridge, where he was organ scholar. He studied music with Charles Villiers Stanford (among his last pupils), Charles Wood and Julius Harrison at the Royal College of Music in London and gained a studentship at La Scala in Milan. After graduating, he went on to work at various opera houses (including Covent Garden, Thomas Beecham’s British National Opera Company and Carl Rosa) as stage manager, producer or manager. In 1936 Procter-Gregg became Reader in Music at the University of Manchester, founding the Chair of Music as Emeritus Professor in 1954 and retiring in 1962, when he was succeeded by Hans Redlich. Hope recalled him as “very old fashioned. He just about got as far as Delius, but nothing beyond that”. Peter Maxwell Davies was even more dismissive: “Procter-Gregg hated anything by Stravinsky or Bartok, and referred to Beethoven as that dreadful German bow-wow. I went there to do composition, but he disliked me so much and he disliked the music I wrote so much and I disl

Humphrey Searle

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

Humphrey Searle (26 August 1915 – 12 May 1982) was an English composer and writer on music. His music combines aspects of late Romanticism and modernist serialism, particularly reminiscent of his primary influences, Franz Liszt, Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, who was briefly his teacher. As a writer on music, Searle published texts on numerous topics; he was an authority on the music of Franz Liszt, and created the initial cataloguing system for his works. Biography Searle was the son of Humphrey and Charlotte Searle and, through his mother, a grandson of Sir William Schlich. He was born in Oxford where he was a classics scholar before studying—somewhat hesitantly—with John Ireland at the Royal College of Music in London, after which he went to Vienna on a six-month scholarship to become a private pupil of Anton Webern, which became decisive in his composition career. Searle was one of the foremost pioneers of serial music in the United Kingdom, and used his role as a producer at the BBC from 1946 to 1948 to promote it. He was General Secretary of the International Society for Contemporary Music from 1947 to 1949. He accepted this post with the encouragement of the new preside

Hunter Johnson (composer)

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Hunter Johnson (April 14, 1906 – August 27, 1998) was an American composer. His compositions include a piano sonata and the orchestral music for Martha Graham’s ballets Letter to the World, based on the life and poetry of Emily Dickinson, and Deaths and Entrances. His musical style was a combination of neoclassic, neoromantic, and nationalist. Johnson was born near Benson, North Carolina. He attended Benson High School and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before leaving the state to finish his undergraduate studies at the Eastman School of Music in 1929. UNC later awarded him an honorary doctorate. He taught at the University of Michigan (1929–33), the University of Manitoba (1944–47), Cornell (1948–53), the University of Illinois (1959–65) and the University of Texas (1966–71). He retired in 1971 and returned to the family farm in Benson. He was the first composer laureate of North Carolina, an award he received in 1991. Footnotes References * *Albany Records product information *Database of Recorded American Music article *Monaco, Richard A. (1960), “The Music of Hunter Johnson”. Ph.D. diss. Ithaca: Cornell University. *Monaco, Richard A., and Michael Meckna (2001)

Hyam Greenbaum

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Hyam ‘Bumps’ Greenbaum (12 May 1901 – 13 May 1942) was an English conductor, violinist and composer, who, in 1936, became the world’s first conductor of a television orchestra. He was friendly with many of his English music contemporaries, including Constant Lambert, Alan Rawsthorne, and William Walton, and often helped them with technical advice on orchestration. His brother Bernard (1917–1993) was an artist, and his sister was the pianist and composer Kyla Greenbaum (1922–2017). Early career As a child, Greenbaum was taught violin by his English mother Edith (née Etherington) and piano by his father (Solomon Greenbaum, a Jewish Russian born in Poland and sent to England to train as a tailor). He made his musical debut in Brighton at the age of seven, playing the Beethoven Violin Concerto in a velvet suit and lace collar. He studied at the Brighton School of Music before winning an open scholarship to the Royal College of Music in 1912, aged eleven. His nickname ‘Bumps’ was coined after a phrenologist “had expressed amazement at the configurations of his cranium”. and from 1923 until 1936 played second violin and piano for the Diaghilev Ballet. Others were Cecil Gray, E. J. Moeran

Ian Whyte (conductor)

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

Ian Whyte (13 August 1901 – 27 March 1960) was a Scottish conductor and composer, and founder of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Born in Dunfermline, Whyte studied in London, and was a pupil of Stanford and Ralph Vaughan Williams at the Royal College of Music. which Warrack conducted for the first ten years. Whyte took over as conductor in 1945 and stayed until 1960. He appointed young assistants to help with the orchestra that went on to be very influential in their own right: Alexander Gibson, Colin Davis and Bryden Thomson. His own considerable output of compositions and arrangements includes the ballet Donald of the Burthens (produced at Covent Garden in 1951), influenced by Scottish themes and folk tunes. The Scottish Music Information Centre holds 668 Whyte manuscripts, mostly unplayed. He died in Glasgow, March 27, 1960. Selected works Opera * Comala * The Forge * The Tale of the Shepherds Ballet *Goblin Haa * The Trout * Donald of the Burthens Orchestral * Symphony No. 1 (1949) * Symphony No. 2 * Edinburgh, symphonic poem (1945) * Tam O’Shanter, symphonic poem * The Rose Garden, symphonic poem * The Treadmill, overture * Oragif, overture * Concert Overture * Dunfermlin

Ichirō Fujiyama

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, born , was a Japanese singer and composer, known for his contribution to Japanese popular music called ryūkōka by his Western classical music skills. He was born in Chūō, Tokyo, and graduated from the Tokyo Music School. Although he was regarded as a tenor singer in Japanese popular music, he was originally a classical baritone singer. He also acted in various films, and was a close friend of Minoru Matsuya (1910–1995). His workroom has been reproduced inside the “NHK museum of broadcasting” as an exhibit. Life and career Fujiyama was born Takeo Masunaga in a store in Nihonbashi. He entered the Tokyo Music School and learned Western musical theory under German-born musician Klaus Pringsheim Sr. However, his home had the debt because of the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. As ryūkōka singer “Ichirō Fujiyama”, he signed with Nippon Columbia, though singing ryūkōka was a taboo for his school. Meeting composer Masao Koga, he debuted with song “Camp Kouta”. Fujiyama and Koga also recorded “Sake wa Namida ka Tameiki ka”. The song was released and became a big hit in 1931. One theory holds that “Sake wa Namida ka Tameiki ka” sold more than one million copies. Although Fujiyama immediately b

Ida Vivado

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Ida Vivado Orsini (1913–1989) was a Chilean pianist and composer. Biography Ida Vivado was born in Tacna, Peru. She graduated from the National Conservatory of Music in Chile with a degree in Interpretation in 1941 and took a position on the faculty at the National Conservatory. She continued her studies in composition with Domingo Santa Cruz and Free Focke. She received a scholarship to study in Italy in 1958 and studied instrumentation with Salvador Candianni. After completing her studies, Vivado worked as a composer, and served as president of the National Association of Composers of Chile (ANC) from 1971-73. Vivado married Don Marco Bontá, who died in 1974. She published the article “Alberto Spikin” in Reviste Musical Chilena (April–June 1972). Works Selected works include: *Estudios for piano (1966) *Ocho Trozos, piano for four hands (1974) *Tres Poemsa y una Canzion for voice and piano (1949) *Tres Preludios y Tema con Variaciones for piano (1952) *Suite for piano (1955) *Seis Danzas Antiguas for piano (1955) *Picaresca for voice and orchestra (1977) *Series Alternadas for piano (1986) Her music has been recorded and issued on CD: *Chilean music of the twentieth century, vol.

Iet Stants

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Hendrika Henriëtte Cornelia Stants, known as Iet Stants, (17 January 1903 - 3 February 1968) was a Dutch composer. From 1919 she studied at the Toonkunst music school in Utrecht and her first compositions – three songs, a string quartet, and three piano pieces survive from 1920. In 1921 she wrote a second quartet, a piano quintet, a parody opera, and a pastorale for orchestra. In 1925 she completed only a piano trio and a choir piece. Insecure and disillusioned she decided to stop composing. She took an office job and composed only sporadically. In October 1938 Stants married Leendert Sillevis from Culemborg, a widower fourteen years older than her. She began to compose again: a concerto grosso for flute, cello and string orchestra in 1940 and a suite for small orchestra in 1942. After the war Stants dedicated herself to music education and related social activities. Among other things, she became active as a board member and in the cultural and spiritual committee of Het Nederlandse Padvindersgilde (Dutch Girl-pathfinders Guild). See also References

Ignace Strasfogel

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Ignace Strasfogel (17 July 1909 – 6 February 1994) was a Polish pianist, composer and conductor. Biography Born in Warsaw, Strasfogel studied at the Hochschule fur Musik in Berlin where he was a pupil of modernist composer Franz Schreker. He began his career as a pianist and vocal coach; notably serving as an accompanist for prestigious artists such as Joseph Szigeti, Gregor Piatigorsky, and Lauritz Melchior among other soloists. In 1926, at the age of 17, his two piano sonatas won the Mendelssohn Prize. In 1934, Strasfogel was forced to emigrate from Nazi Germany to the United States. In America, he worked as a pianist and won fame as conductor of the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera. During the years of 1940 to 1941, and 1962, he conducted the Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, in the Naumburg Bandshell, Central Park, in the summer series. In 1983, Strasfogel ended a 35-year break from composing, producing works for piano, orchestra, chamber music and songs. Strasfogel died in New York City. His son (born 1940) is an opera director and librettist. Selected works Piano * 1923/1924 Capriccio mit alten Tänzen nach acht Kupferstichen von Jakob Callot * Oktober 1924 Scherzo

Ignacio Fernández Esperón

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aka (Oaxaca 14 February 1894 – 1968) was a Mexican composer. He grew up in Oaxaca in a middle-class home. His alias was a childhood nickname. In 1937, he debuted his music on XEW, Mexico City’s best known radio station. In 1947, he was given his own radio program . He composed over two hundred songs. Songs * “Íntima”. Text: Ricardo López Méndez (1903–1989) References

Igor Markevitch

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Igor Borisovich Markevitch (27 July 1912 – 7 March 1983) was a Russian composer and conductor who studied and worked in Paris and became a naturalized Italian and French citizen in 1947 and 1982 respectively. He was commissioned in 1929 for a piano concerto by impresario Sergei Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes. Markevitch settled in Italy during World War II. After the war, he moved to Switzerland. He had an international conducting career from there. He was married twice and had three sons and two daughters. Early life He was born in Kiev in the Russian Empire (present-day Kyiv, Ukraine) into a family of Ukrainian Cossack starshiny, who were ennobled in the 18th century. His great-grandfather, Andrey Markevitch, was a state secretary during the reign of Alexander II of Russia, actual privy councilor in St. Petersburg, and co-founder of the Russian Musical Society. Igor was the son of pianist Boris Markevitch and Zoia Pokhitonova (daughter of painter Ivan Pokhitonov). The family moved to France in 1914 when he was two years old. They moved again to Switzerland in 1916, during World War I, because of his father’s failing health (he later died of tuberculosis). The French pianist Alfr

Igor Stravinsky

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Early life in Russia, 1882–1901#

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was born in Oranienbaum, Russia—a town renamed Lomonosov in 1948, about 50 km mi west of Saint Petersburg—on 17 June 1882. Oranienbaum was then part of Petergofsky Uyezd in the Saint Petersburg Governorate of the Russian Empire and is now part of Petrodvortsovy District in Saint Petersburg. His mother, Anna Kirillovna Stravinskaya (), was an amateur singer and pianist from an established family of landowners. His father, Fyodor Ignatyevich Stravinsky, was a bass at the Mariinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg, descended from a line of Polish landowners. The name “Stravinsky” is of Polish origin, deriving from the Strava river in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The family was originally called “Soulima-Stravinsky”, bearing the Soulima arms, but “Soulima” was dropped after the partitions of Poland. The Stravinsky family vacationed in Oranienbaum during summers, and their primary residence was an apartment along the Kryukov Canal in central Saint Petersburg, near the Mariinsky Theater. Stravinsky was baptized hours after birth and joined to the Russian Orthodox Church in St. Nicholas Cathedral. Constantly in fear of the short-tempered Fyodor and indifferent towards Anna, Stravinsky lived there for the first 27 years of his life with three siblings: Roman and Yury, his older siblings who irritated him immensely, and Gury, his close younger brother with whom he said he found “the love and understanding denied us by our parents”. Stravinsky was educated by the family’s governess until the age of 11, when he began attending the Second Saint Petersburg Gymnasium in present-day Admiralteysky District, a school that he recalled hating because he had few friends. From the age of nine, Stravinsky studied privately with a piano teacher. He later wrote that Fyodor and Anna saw no musical talent in him due to his lack of technical skills; Stravinsky frequently improvised instead of practicing assigned pieces. His excellent sight-reading skill prompted him to frequently read vocal scores from Fyodor’s vast personal library. At around the age of 10, Stravinsky began regularly attending performances at the Mariinsky Theater, where he was introduced to Russian repertoire as well as Italian and French opera; by the age of 16, he attended rehearsals at the theater five or six days a week. By the age of 14, Stravinsky had mastered the solo part of Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and at the age of 15, he transcribed for solo piano a string quartet by Alexander Glazunov.

Ilmari Hannikainen

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Toivo Ilmari Hannikainen (19 October 1892 – 25 July 1955) was a Finnish composer and virtuoso pianist. Life Hannikainen was born in Jyväskylä, the son of Pekka Juhani Hannikainen and the brother of Väinö Hannikainen, both of whom were composers and of Tauno Hannikainen who was a cellist and conductor. After studying at the University of Helsinki (1911–14), he became a pupil of Franz Schreker at the Musikakademie in Vienna, and continued his studies with Alexander Siloti in Saint Petersburg (1915–17) and with Alfred Cortot in Paris (1919). Returning to Finland, he taught piano at the Helsinki Conservatory and later gained a Professorship at the Sibelius Academy. Hannikainen steered Finnish classical music from late Romanticism towards Impressionism. In addition to his piano miniatures, which best illustrated this development, he composed one opera, one piano concerto, one piano quartet, lieder, and film scores (notably, the 1934 Swedish film Sången om den eldröda blomman). Hannikainen drowned during a sailing trip in Kuhmoinen in 1955. Some musical colleagues, like Aarre Merikanto, considered his death a suicide. He is buried in the Hietaniemi Cemetery in Helsinki. In the 1970s, the

Ilse Fromm-Michaels

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Ilse Fromm-Michaels (Hamburg, 30 December 1888 – 22 January 1986) was a German pianist and composer. Life Ilse Fromm-Michaels was born in Hamburg and showed musical talent at an early age. She studied music in Berlin, first at the Hochschule fur Musik with Heinrich van Eyken for composition and with Marie Bender for piano. In 1905 she began study at the Sternsche Conservatory of Hans Pfitzner and James Kwast and completed her studies in 1913 with conductor and composer Fritz Steinbach and pianist Carl Friedberg in Cologne. In 1908 Fromm-Michaels began a career as a concert pianist, often playing her own works. She married Hamburg judge Dr. Walter Michaels, and after the Nuremberg Race Laws were instituted by the Nazis was banned from performing or publishing her compositions. She continued teaching music, and after World War II established the Hamburg First School of Music and Drama. In 1964 she was awarded the City of Hamburg’s Johannes Brahms Medal. In 1973 she moved to Detmold to be near her son, and died there in 1986. Works Selected works include: *Variationen über ein eigenes Thema, op. 8 (1918/19) *Vier Puppen, op. 4 (1908) *Der Hampelmann *Das Puppenmädchen *Der Harlekin *A

Ilza Niemack

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Ilza Louise Niemack (April 8, 1903 – July 12, 1993), born Ilse Niemack, was an American violinist, composer, and music educator. She taught at Iowa State University from 1935 to 1973, and the concert mistress of the Iowa State Symphony. Early life and education Niemack was born in Charles City, Iowa, the daughter of Julius Niemack and Stella Blumenstiel Niemack. Her father was a medical doctor born in Germany. Both of her parents were musical. She attended the Chicago Musical College, and studied with Leon Sametini and Leopold Auer. She also studied composition and theory with Felix Borowski and Rubin Goldmark. Career Niemack played an Amati violin built in 1655, a gift from her father when she made her New York debut at age 18. She toured in Germany, England, and the United States as a young woman. She played sonatas that she composed at New York City recitals in 1927 and 1934. She also played her Sonata in G Minor at the 1929 convention of the Society of Music Teachers of Iowa, accompanied by her mother on piano. “Perhaps no greater Iowa violinist, at least no other with greater promise, is living today than Miss Ilza Niemack,” noted a report in the journal of the Iowa State Teac

Imogen Holst

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Imogen Clare Holst (; 12 April 1907 – 9 March 1984) was a British composer, arranger, conductor, teacher, musicologist and festival administrator. The only child of the composer Gustav Holst, she is particularly known for her educational work at Dartington Hall in the 1940s, and for her 20 years as joint artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival. In addition to composing music, she wrote composer biographies, much educational material and several books on the life and works of her father. From a young age Holst showed precocious talent in composing and performance. After attending Eothen School and St Paul’s Girls’ School, she entered the Royal College of Music, where she developed her skills as a conductor and won several prizes for composing. Unable to follow her initial ambitions to be a pianist or a dancer for health reasons, Holst spent most of the 1930s teaching, and as a full-time organiser for the English Folk Dance and Song Society. These duties reduced her compositional activities, although she made many arrangements of folksongs. After serving as an organiser for the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts at the start of the Second World War, in 1942 she b

Ina Boyle

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Ina Boyle (; 8 March 1889 – 10 March 1967) was an Irish composer. Her compositions encompass a broad spectrum of genres and include choral, chamber and orchestral works as well as opera, ballet and vocal music. While a number of her works, including The Magic Harp (1919), Colin Clout (1921), Gaelic Hymns (1923–24), Glencree (1924-27) and Wildgeese (1942), received acknowledgement and first performances, the majority of her compositions remained unpublished and unperformed during her lifetime. Biography Boyle was born in Bushey Park near Enniskerry, County Wicklow, and grew up in a restricted circle consisting of her mother, father and sister. Her first music lessons were with her father William Foster Boyle, who was curate at St. Patrick’s Church, Powerscourt, and she was given violin and cello lessons by her governess with her younger sister Phyllis. From the age of eleven, she studied theory and harmony with Samuel Myerscough, the English organist who founded the Leinster School of Music in 1904. From 1904 onwards, she also undertook lessons via correspondence with Charles Wood, who was married to Boyle’s cousin Charlotte Georgina Wills-Sandford. From 1910 Boyle took lessons with

Ina Lohr

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Ina Lohr (also Marina Lohr; 1 August 1903 – 1983) was a Swiss composer, music teacher, conductor and a founding member of Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. She was a pioneer in early music, and received an honorary doctorate in theology from the University of Basel. Personal life and career Lohr was born in Amsterdam on 1 August 1903 as Marina Lohr. She grew up in a musical family, and studied the violin at the Muziek-Lyceum Amsterdam under Ferdinand Helman and graduated from there in 1929 with a violin pedagogy degree. As a student she learned Gregorian chant from Hubert Cuypers and was an assistant for the boys’ choir at the Mozes en Aäronkerk in Amsterdam. She also knew Belgian musicologist Charles van den Borren and Safford Cape, who was a pioneer of early music. Due to her health, she gave up performing around 1940 to concentrate on teaching. A biography of Ina Lohr by Anne Smith called Ina Lohr (1903-1983). Transcending the Boundaries of Early Music was published by Schola Cantorum Basiliensis Scripta in 2020. References

Inglis Gundry

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Inglis Gundry (8 May 1905 – 13 April 2000) was an English composer, novelist, musicologist, music pedagogue and writer. He is particularly remembered for his operas and for his numerous books; not only on music, but on a broad array of historical subjects. For five decades he lectured on music appreciation for WEA London and also taught on the music faculties at the University of Cambridge, the University of London, and the University of Surrey. Early career and wartime Born in Wimbledon to parents of Cornish descent, Gundry had a passion for Cornish culture and played an instrumental role in preserving Cornish folk songs and carols with the publication of Canow Kernow: Songs and Dances of Cornwall (1966). He had previously been named a bard of the Gorsedh Kernow in 1952. Gundry was educated at Rokeby and Mill Hill School, where he was scholar. Following this, Gundry studied classics and philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford, law at Middle Temple, and worked for a few years as a barrister before pursuing music studies at the Royal College of Music in 1935 where he was a pupil of Gordon Jacob (orchestration), R. O. Morris (counterpoint), and Ralph Vaughan Williams (composition). He

Ingolf Dahl

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Ingolf Dahl (June 9, 1912 – August 6, 1970) was a German-born American composer, pianist, conductor, and educator. Biography Dahl was born Walter Ingolf Marcus in Hamburg, Germany, to a German Jewish father, attorney Paul Marcus, and his Swedish wife Hilda Maria Dahl. He had two brothers, Gert Marcus (1914–2008; a noted Swedish artist and sculptor, and a recipient of the Prince Eugen Medal), and Holger, and one sister, Anna-Britta. In Hamburg, Dahl studied piano under Edith Weiss-Mann, a harpsichordist, pianist, and a proponent of early music. Dahl studied with Philipp Jarnach at the Hochschule für Musik Köln (1930–32). Dahl left Germany as the Nazi Party was coming to power and continued his studies at the University of Zurich, along with Volkmar Andreae and . Living with relatives and working at the Zürich Opera for more than six years, he rose from an internship to the rank of assistant conductor. He served as a vocal coach and chorus master for the world premieres of Alban Berg’s Lulu and Paul Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler. He settled in Los Angeles and joined the community of expatriate musicians that included Ernst Krenek, Darius Milhaud, Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, an

Ion Nonna Otescu

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Ion Nonna Otescu (15 December 1888 – 25 March 1940) was a Romanian composer and head of the Bucharest Conservatory (now the National University of Music) from 1918 until 1940. He was born in Bucharest and died there at the age of 51, having played an influential role in the musical life of his native country. Life and career Otescu was born in Bucharest and studied at the Conservatory there from 1903 to 1907 under Dumitru Georgescu-Kiriac and Alfonso Castaldi (1874–1942). He then went to Paris where he stayed until 1911 studying at the Schola Cantorum de Paris with Vincent d’Indy and at the Paris Conservatory with Charles-Marie Widor. He began teaching at the Bucharest Conservatory in 1913, and in 1918 he became its head, a position he held until his death in 1940. Otescu played an active role in the musical life of Romania and was instrumental in the founding of the (the precursor of the Romanian National Opera), the Romanian Composers Society, and the music journal Muzika. In 1913 he won the George Enescu Prize and in 1928 the Romanian National Prize for composition. His works were predominantly dramatic in nature: operas, ballets, and symphonic poems. However, he also composed a

Irene Britton Smith

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Irene Britton Smith (December 22, 1907 – February 15, 1999) was an American classical composer and educator. Biography Childhood and youth Irene Britton Smith was born on December 22, 1907, in Chicago, Illinois as the youngest of four siblings. She was of African-American, Crow, and Cherokee descent. Adult life Smith wanted to study music at Northwestern University but her family could not afford to send her there. Smith was an advocate of the phono-visual method of teaching reading and Chicago University Press published her monograph on the topic, Methods and Materials for Teaching Word Perception in Kindergarten Through Grade Three, in 1960. Musical activity As a child Smith studied piano with V. Emanuel Johnson and took violin lessons. From 1946 to 1947 Smith took a sabbatical from teaching to complete graduate work at the Juilliard School of Music, where she studied composition with Vittorio Giannini. Works This is a list of works by Smith. Violin * Reminiscence for violin, piano, 1941 * Sonata for Violin and Piano, 1947 (published by Vivace Press in 1996) Piano * Invention in Two Voices, 1940 * Passacaglia and Fugue in C-sharp Minor, 1940 (published by Vivace Press in 2001) *

Irene Cozad

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Irene Cozad (July 4, 1888 – August 2, 1970), later known as Irene Cozad-Sherer, was an American pianist, piano teacher, and composer of ragtime music. Early life Irene Bazelle Cozad was born in Lineville, Iowa, one of the nine children of Joseph Addison Cozad and Olive Jane Vanderbeck Cozad. Her father was a school teacher and worked at a newspaper. Career Cozad played and taught piano in Kansas City, Missouri. “The Minute Circle Whirl” (1916), “Because”, and “Kansas City Town” (1920). The last, “Kansas City Town”, was written for a contest marking the year that the city’s population reached one million. Her compositions are considered an example of the Kansas City Folk Rag genre. Personal life Irene Cozad married Joseph Whitman Sherer, a medical doctor, in 1912. They had a daughter, Jeanne, and a son, Joseph Jr. Her husband died in a car accident in 1940; she died in Kansas City in 1970, aged 82 years. Her compositions are sometimes featured in recordings and performances of ragtime works by women, including the collections Pickles and Peppers (1987) and Fluffy Ruffle Girls: Women in Ragtime (1999), both by Virginia Eskin. References External links * *

Irene M. Giblin

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Irene Marie Giblin (August 12, 1888 – May 12, 1974), also known as Irene Giblin O’Brien, was an American pianist and composer of ragtime. She published a total of ten pieces between 1905 and 1911. Her song “Chicken Chowder” of 1905 was her biggest success. Early life Irene M. Giblin was born to Richard T. Giblin, a printer, and Nora Reardon Giblin in 1888, in St. Louis, Missouri. She was the eldest of six children. Music Giblin was a popular young woman in the Irish-American community in St. Louis. She worked at music stores Grand Leader and Stix, Baer and Fuller, playing the piano for several hours a day to convince the customers to buy the latest scores. Giblin published a total of ten ragtime songs over a period of six years, from 1905 to 1911. Among them, “Sleepy Lou” and “The Aviator Rag” were popular sellers. However, it was her first rag, “Chicken Chowder” (1905) that was her most successful. She published her last rag in 1911, “The Dixie Rag”. Personal life Giblin married Edward Patrick O’Brien, an accountant for the Missouri Pacific Railway Company, in 1908. They had two sons: Richard in 1911 and Edward Jr. in 1915. Her husband died in 1958; Irene Giblin O’Brien died in 19

Irmgard Farden Aluli

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“Auntie” Irmgard Keali’iwahinealohanohokahaopuamana Farden Aluli (October 7, 1911 – October 4, 2001) was a Hawaiian composer who wrote over 200 songs. In Hawaii, she was considered a haku mele, or maker of songs. Aluli is considered the most prolific woman composer of Hawaii since Queen Lili’uokalani. She is the fourth person to be honored twice for a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Hawai’i Academy of Recording Arts (HARA). She has also been inducted into the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame. Biography Aluli was born in Pu‘unoa, Lahaina, on the island of Maui, in the then territory of Hawai‘i, on October 7, 1911. She was born into the large Farden family of Lahaina; one of Hawaiʻi’s foremost musical families. Aluli was one of 13 children (Margaret, Annie, Carl, Bernard, Emma, Maude, Aurora, Diana, Irmgard, Rudolph, Lurina, Edna & Llewellyn “Buddy”). Aluli first started performing publicly with the Annie Kerr Trio in 1925. which was a song she wrote about her childhood home in Lahaina. In the 1960s, she started a group called Puamana. The film features the group and also includes interviews with Aluli. Aluli performed publicly often until she hurt her hand in 1998. In 1998, she was hon

Irving Actman

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Irving Actman (June 2, 1907 – September 24, 1967) was an American conductor, musical director and composer. He is known for his work in film and on Broadway musicals, most notably as the music director of the original 1950 production of Guys and Dolls. Career Actman was a conductor, musical director, and composer for various shows. Starting out as the accompanist for the vaudeville actress Lita Grey, he began a long collaboration with Frank Loesser. While performing at a club, The Back Drop, Actman was offered the job of composing the music for the 1936 Broadway revue The Illustrator’s Show. The revue was a failure but, writing in the New York Evening Post, John Mason Brown singled out the Actman song “Bang-the Bell Rang” for praise. Several of Actman’s songs were recorded. Personal life Actman was married to Catherine Hanley, a chorus girl in the Ziegfeld Follies. Their daughter, Jane Actman was an actress. Actman has been described as a heavy, good natured pianist. He accompanied one of Maurice Chevalier’s performances. Theater *The Illustrator’s Show (48th Street Theatre, 1936). Composer. *Earl Carroll’s Sketchbook (Earl Carroll Theatre, 1929). Song composer. *Guys and Dolls (46

Irving Berlin

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Irving Berlin (born Israel Isidore Beilin; May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989) was a Russian-born American songwriter. His music forms a large part of the Great American Songbook. Berlin received numerous honors including an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, and a Tony Award. He also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Gerald R. Ford in 1977. The broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite stated he “helped write the story of this country, capturing the best of who we are and the dreams that shape our lives”. Born in Russia, Berlin arrived in the United States at the age of five. His family left Russia to escape pogroms against the Jewish village of Tolochin. He published his first song, “Marie from Sunny Italy”, in 1907, receiving 33 cents for the publishing rights, and became known as the composer of numerous international hits, starting with 1911’s “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”. He also was an owner of the Music Box Theatre on Broadway. For much of his career, Berlin could not read sheet music, and was such a limited piano player that he could only play in the key of F-sharp; he used his custom piano equipped with a transposing lever when he needed to play in keys other

Irving Fine

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Irving Gifford Fine (December 3, 1914 – August 23, 1962) was an American composer. Fine’s work assimilated neoclassical, romantic, and serial elements. Composer Virgil Thomson described Fine’s “unusual melodic grace” while Aaron Copland noted the “elegance, style, finish and…convincing continuity” of Fine’s music. Fine was a member of a close-knit group of Boston composers in the mid-20th century who were sometimes called the “Boston School.” Other members of the Boston School included Arthur Berger, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss, and Harold Shapero. Life Fine was born in Boston, Massachusetts, where he studied piano, and received both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Harvard University, where he was a pupil of Walter Piston. Fine was a conducting pupil of Serge Koussevitzky, served as pianist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and studied composition with Nadia Boulanger at the Fontainebleau School of Music in Paris and at Radcliffe College. From 1939 until 1950, he taught music theory at Harvard and conducted its Glee Club, becoming a close associate of Leonard Bernstein, Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Copland. From 1950, he taught at Brandeis University, where he

Irwin Dash

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Irwin Louis Dash (December 1, 1892 – March 18, 1984) was an American songwriter, music publisher and pianist, who sometimes used the pseudonym Lewis Ilda. Biography He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and published his first composition, “Blue Ribbon Rag”, a ragtime piano piece, in Philadelphia in 1911. By the early 1920s, he formed a songwriting partnership in New York City with Al Dubin and Jimmy McHugh. They wrote “It’s A Man, Ev’ry Time, It’s A Man” (1923, recorded by Marcia Freer); and were joined by Irving Mills to write “Hard Boiled Rose” (1924) and “Hinky Dinky Parlay Voo?” (1925). Dash worked as a songwriter for Leo Feist, and as an accompanist, and regularly worked in London as well as in New York. In the 1930s and 1940s, he published songs and dance music as the proprietor of Irwin Dash Music Co., Ltd., in Denmark Street, London. It was while visiting Dash’s office that singer Vera Lynn came across the song “We’ll Meet Again”, written by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles, which she then recorded; it became her signature song and epitomised the songs of the Second World War. Dash also wrote songs under the name Lewis Ilda. One of his best remembered songs is “I’ve Got a Love

Irwin Heilner

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Irwin Heilner (May 14, 1908 – January 18, 1991) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. His works are published by American Composers Alliance. Early life and education Heilner was born in New York City, the son of Julius Heilner and Genevieve Stern Heilner. His father was a confectioner, and his mother was a soprano singer. Career In 1932, Heilner was a member of the Young Composers’ Group, which was founded by the composer Elie Siegmeister and at the home of the composer Aaron Copland. Heilner studied briefly with Nadia Boulanger beginning in the late spring of 1932, on the recommendation of Aaron Copland. In 1936, violinist Lea Luboshutz included a composition by Heilner in her Carnegie Hall recital, and his “Suite for Orchestra” was performed by the New York Women’s Symphony Orchestra, also at Carnegie Hall. In 1945, compositions by Heilner were performed at a free concert at the Teachers Union Lounge on Astor Place. His music was conducted and recorded by William Strickland. Heilner also worked as a librarian at the Julius Forstman Library in Passaic, New Jersey. Personal life Heilner was married to Florence Heilner and had two children. He died in 1991, at t

Irwin Leroy Fischer

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Irwin Leroy Fischer (July 5, 1903 ) was an American composer and organist. He was a long-standing Dean of Faculty of the American Conservatory of Music and organist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for 22 years. Fischer was also a recording artist, radio performer and author. After being appointed to teach at the American Conservatory of Music in 1928, Fischer also studied with Boulanger in Paris in 1931 and with Kodály in Budapest in 1936. His works were favorable reviewed by notable critics such as the Chicago Tribune’s “fearsome” Claudia Cassidy. Selected publications * Roberts, Stella and Fischer, Irwin (1967), “Handbook of Modal Counterpoint”. Free Press; 1st edition, 160 pages. . * Fischer, Irwin Leroy (1950). “Harmony.” * Hundreds of published musical scores. * Coffee House Music References Further reading * External links * Short Biography * Longer Biography * Chicago Tribune Obituary * Irwin Leroy Fischer’s Music on Spotify *Irwin Fischer Papers at the Newberry Library

Irwin Swack

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Irwin Swack (November 8, 1916 – January 2, 2006) was an American composer of contemporary classical music from West Salem, Ohio. He held degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music (where he studied violin, graduating with a B.M. in 1939), the Juilliard School, Northwestern University (master’s degree), He studied with Henry Cowell (at Columbia University), Gunther Schuller (at Tanglewood), Vittorio Giannini (at Juilliard), Paul Creston (at Columbia University), and Normand Lockwood. His music was recorded on the Centaur, CRS, Opus One, and Living Artist Recordings labels. His music is published by Carl Fischer, Shawnee Press, Theodore Presser, and Galaxy Music. His last residence was in Bellmore, New York. Awards and grants * ASCAP Standard Awards * Ford Foundation grant * Meet-the-Composer grant * New York State Council on the Arts grant Works *Duets for Violin and Viola *Fantasie Concertante, string orchestra *Profiles, clarinet, violin and cello *Sonata for Flute and Piano *String Quartet no. 1 *String Quartet no. 2 *String Quartet no. 3 *String Quartet no. 4 *String Quartet no. 5 *Symphony no. 1 *Symphony no. 2 *The Visions of Isaiah, mixed choir and orchestra References Ext

Iša Krejčí

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Iša František Krejčí (10 July 1904 – 6 March 1968) was a Czech neoclassicist composer, conductor and dramaturge. Life Krejčí was born in Prague. He studied history and musicology at Charles University and concurrently piano playing with Albín Šíma and composition at the Prague Conservatory with Karel Boleslav Jirák and Vítězslav Novák and conducting with Václav Talich. He worked for the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava in 1928–32, Czech Radio in 1934–45, Olomouc Opera in 1945–58, and Prague National Theatre since 1958. As a conductor, he concentrated especially on the contemporary French repertoire and Igor Stravinsky’s compositions. His reputation as a composer was established in 1925 with a Divertimento (or Cassation) for four wind instruments. With this work, based on Classical forms, he became known as a Czech representative of neoclassicism . He wrote the operas Antigone (“Antigona”, after Sophocles, 1934) and An Uproar in Efes (“Pozdvižení v Efesu”, after Shakespeare, 1943) as well as four symphonies. He died in Prague. Selected works Stage works * Small Ballet, to the theme of Pantomime by Vítězslav Nezval, also as a composition for chamber orchestra (1926) * Pozdvižení

Isabel Aretz

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Isabel Aretz (14 April 1909 – 2 June 2005) was an Argentine–Venezuelan researcher, writer, ethnomusicologist and composer. Early years Isabel Aretz was born in Buenos Aires. She was educated at the National Conservatory of Music and Performing Arts, studying pedagogy, piano with Rafael González and harmony, counterpoint and composition with Althos Palma. She earned a doctorate in music from the Catholic University of Argentina in 1968. Career After completing her initial studies, Aretz became a senior lecturer at the National Conservatory and began work as an ethnomusic researcher and composer. In 1937 her orchestral work Punto premiered at the Teatro Cervantes. In the next decade, she collected and recorded traditional music, traveling in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia and Peru. In 1947 she married Venezuelan musician and writer Luis Felipe Ramón y Rivera. She was asked that same year to organize the music section of the Folklore Research Service established in Venezuela, and she continued her research on folk music there. The Escuela Nacional de Danzas de Argentina appointed her a professor of ethnomusicology in 1950. She was the first person at the school to hold t

Isabel McNeill Carley

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Isabel McNeill Carley (4 December 1918 – 14 July 2011) was a published writer, editor, composer and music teacher. She is considered one of the leaders of the Orff Schulwerk when it began to take hold in the United States in the 1960s. As a co-founder of the American Orff-Schulwerk Association (AOSA), Carley contributed greatly to the organization’s beginnings, serving as a board member and magazine editor. Carley devoted much of her life to musical instruction, publishing a series of books titled Recorder Improvisation and Technique. Carley died on 14 July 2011, at her home in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Early life and education Daughter of John T. and Netta H. McNeill, Isabel McNeill was born on 4 December 1918, in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up there and in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. For the next ten years, she and her family lived in New York, Oregon and Texas. In 1953, they moved to Indianapolis, Indiana. Carley completed a three-year education program in one year and earned a Specialist Diploma with honors to become the first American honors graduate at the institute. Philosophical views In her classes from pre-school to adult, Carley taught the importance of improvisation, speech

Isabelle Delorme

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Isabelle Delorme (4 November 1900 – 20 February 1991) was a Canadian composer, pianist, and music educator. As a composer, her works are lyrical in nature and follow more traditional ideas of harmony as opposed to the avant-garde music that was in vogue in her day. She was an active recitalist but is best remembered for her impact as a teacher of music theory. Career Delorme was born in Montreal. She began her professional studies at the École supérieure de musique d’Outremont with Sister Madeleine-Marie. She later studied privately with pianist Arthur Letondal and violinists Albert Chamberland and Agostino Salvetti. In 1918 she earned a teaching certificate from the Académie de musique du Québec. Delorme developed an interest in music composition in the late 1920s, and pursued formal training in this area with Claude Champagne from 1929 to 1939. She later studied with Nadia Boulanger at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau during the summers of 1955 and 1956. She wrote a modest body of symphonic works, piano works, and chamber music between 1940 and 1960, all of which remain unpublished. However, several of her pieces were played by the CBC Montreal Orchestra for broadcasts

Isadore Freed

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Isadore Freed (March 26, 1900 – November 10, 1960) was a Jewish composer of Belarusian birth. Biography Born in Brest-Litovsk, in what is now Brest, Belarus, Freed’s family emigrated to the United States when Freed was three years old and settled in Philadelphia, where his father owned a music store. Freed began playing piano at age seven, and began composing at age nine. Freed’s formal music education was at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a bachelor’s degree at the age of 18. After graduation from Penn, Freed briefly held a teaching post at The Curtis Institute of Music. In 1924, he married Riva Hoffmann, a dancer in Isadora Duncan’s troupe. Following this Freed went to Berlin where he briefly studied piano with Josef Weiss, and then to Paris where he studied composition with Ernest Bloch, Nadia Boulanger, Louis Vierne and Vincent d’Indy. He also studied piano with Józef Hofmann and George Bayle, and organ with Rollo Maitland. Freed returned to the United States in 1934, and shortly after he was employed by the composition department at Temple University from the mid-1930s until the mid-1940s, but sources disagree as to the dates of his appointment. In 1944, Freed

Isang Yun

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Isang Yun, or Yun I-sang (; 17 September 1917 – 3 November 1995), was a Korean-born composer who made his later career in West Germany. Early life and education Yun was born in Sancheong (Sansei), Korea in 1917, the son of poet Yun Ki-hyon. His family moved to Tongyeong (Tōei) when he was three years old. He began to study violin at the age of 13 whereupon he composed his first melody. Despite his father’s opposition to pursuing a career in music, Yun began formal music training two years later with a violinist in a military band in Keijō (present day Seoul). Eventually his father relented once Yun agreed to enroll in a business school while continuing his musical studies. In 1935 Yun moved to Osaka where he studied cello, music theory, and composition briefly at the Osaka College of Music. He soon returned to Tongyeong where he composed a “Shepherd’s Song” for voice and piano. In 1939 Yun traveled again to Japan, this time to Tokyo in order to study under Tomojiro Ikenouchi. When the Pacific War began in December 1941, he moved back to Korea where he participated in the Korean independence movement. He was arrested for these activities in 1943 and was imprisoned for two months. Yu

Isao Hayashi

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was a Japanese popular music and military music singer and composer. He took part in the Japan’s famous year-end show Kōhaku Uta Gassen eleven times. One of the well-known songs composed by him is the military song . Biography Hayashi was born in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan. In 1931, he debuted with song . He signed with the King Records label in 1936. Hayashi also composed Hachiro Kasuga’s “Nagasaki no Onna” and Michiya Mihashi’s “Ringo Mura Kara”. Hayashi served as the leader of the Japan Singers Association from 1989 to 1995. Discography * : 1937 * : 1939 * : 1950 * : 1954 * : 1955 References

Ismail Marzuki

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Ismail Marzuki (also known as Bang Ma’ing; 11 May 1914 – 25 May 1958) was an Indonesian composer, songwriter and musician who wrote around 202 to 240 songs between 1931 and 1958, including numerous popular patriotic songs. Among his best-known works are “Halo, Halo Bandung”, “Gugur Bunga”, and “Rayuan Pulau Kelapa”. In 1968, he was honoured with the creation of the well-known Taman Ismail Marzuki (the Ismail Marzuki Park, often called TIM) which is a cultural centre in Menteng in central Jakarta. In 2004 he was declared one of the National Heroes of Indonesia. Biography Marzuki was born in Kwitang, Jakarta (formerly known as Batavia) to a wealthy Betawi family. His father Marzuki owned an automobile repair shop, and played the rebana; his mother died while giving birth to him. Marzuki studied at an elementary school for Native Indonesians, the HIS (Hollandsch Inlandsche School) in Menteng; he later attended the Dutch-language middle school MULO (Meer Uitgebreid Lager Onderwijs) on Mendjangan Street (now Kwini I Street) in Jakarta. However, he did not study music formally, instead learning by himself. In 1931, he wrote his first song, “O Sarinah”, which was about a suffering people.

Isotaro Sugata

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Isotaro Sugata (Japanese: 須賀田礒太郎 Sugata, Isotaro; Yokohama, 15 November 1907 – Tanuma, Tochigi, 5 July 1952) was a Japanese composer. Biography Sugata received his education with missionaries in Kanto Gakuin University. There he was influenced by listening to hymns and received lessons for piano, violin, music theory and singing. In 1927 he acquired tuberculosis and then concentrated solely on his composition studies. From 1928 he studied with Kosaku Yamada and Kiyoshi Nobutoki, who had studied in Berlin. Nobutoki taught him music theory in the German tradition. In 1931 he began studies with Meiro Sugahara, who believed that German music was not a good model for Japanese composers who wanted to compose in Western style with Japanese sensibility, on the principles of Gagaku, Buddhist music and Kabuki music. He considered French, Italian and Russian music more appropriate for the Japanese mentality, because it offers more flexible sounds by using Whole tone and Japanese scales. Sugahara gave the advice to Sugata that composers such as Shiro Fukai were better than the works of Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky, Ottorino Respighi and Darius Milhaud to study. As a result, S

Israel Citkowitz

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Israel Citkowitz (6 February 1909 – 4 May 1974) Early life Israel Citkowitz was born on 6 February 1909 into a Jewish family in Skierniewice, Poland, the first of two children to Ida Frankon and Abraham Citkowitz. He was brought to the United States when he was three. Citkowitz had a sister, Rebecca. During the 1930s, Citkowitz published music criticism in Modern Music and Musical Mercury. Among his pieces was the first English-language introduction to Schenker’s ideas, The Role of Heinrich Schenker. Discography Source: * But Yesterday Is Not Today (1977). New World Records — NW 243 * Modern America Art Songs (Unknown). New Editions (2) — NE 2 Personal life On 15 September 1935, Citkowitz married Helen Margaret Simon in Manhattan, New York. They had two children. The couple divorced in 1948. On 15 August 1959, Citkowitz married the English writer and heir to the Guinness beer fortune, Lady Caroline Blackwood, 22 years his junior. They had three daughters: Natalya, Eugenia, and Ivana, born after they separated. On 22 June 1978, Natalya, Citkowitz’s eldest daughter with Blackwood, died at age 17 from postural asphyxia due to a drug overdose. Death Citkowitz died on 4 May 1974 at his

Issa El-Saieh

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Issa Joseph El-Saieh (February 22, 1919 – February 2, 2005), also known as Maestro, was a Haitian saxophonist, clarinetist, bandleader, composer, arranger, businessman, gallerist and art collector of Palestinian descent. Throughout his life and work he contributed to two facets of Haitian culture: music as well as art. From 1941 to the mid 1950s, as a musician, composer, arranger and bandleader of the Orchestre Saieh. In parallel to his music career, he began buying and collecting Haitian art. By the late 1950s, he founded the Galerie Issa, through which he promoted Haitian art and culture abroad. He died in Port-au-Prince from esophageal cancer on February 2, 2005, at the age of 85. Early life and education Issa El-Saieh was born in Petit-Goâve, Haiti, on February 22, 1919. Both his parents, Julia Moussa Talamas and Joseph Said El-Saieh, were Palestinian Christians who immigrated separately to Haiti from Bethlehem, Palestine. His mother, twice a widow, was a businesswoman who raised her three sons, Elias Noustas, Issa and André El-Saieh, between Petit-Goâve and Port-au-Prince. El-Saieh attended Saint-Louis de Gonzague in Port-au-Prince. In 1928, his younger brother André and him w

István Anhalt

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István Anhalt (April 12, 1919 – February 24, 2012) was a Hungarian-Canadian composer and teacher. Anhalt served as a professor of music at McGill University and founded the McGill University Electronic Music Studio. He also served as head of music at Queen’s University, Kingston. His works earned him recognition as one of the pioneers of electroacoustic music in Canada. In 2007, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Early life and education Childhood István Anhalt was born in Budapest, Hungary to a Jewish family on April 12, 1919. He was the son of Arnold Anhalt and Katalin Anhalt (née Herzfeld), When he was still an infant, Anhalt’s parents separated; he lived with his mother until age twelve, attending elementary school from 1925 to 1929. Although she had some interest in music and opera, his mother was not especially musical. However, there was a piano in the home and Anhalt began taking piano lessons at age six with a teacher who lived in his neighborhood and later from a family friend until he was twelve. He also learned to speak four languages: Hungarian, German, French, and English. His father’s financial troubles, his half-sister’s birth in 1935, and tension

Ivan Dzerzhinsky

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Ivan Ivanovich Dzerzhinsky () (April 9, 1909 – January 18, 1978) was a Soviet composer. The work for which he is best known, his opera , was more successful for its political potential than for any musical distinction. Early life Born in Tambov, Dzerzhinsky had an extended formal background in music. He studied piano with Boleslav Yavorsky at the First Music Tekhnikum in Moscow between 1925 and 1929. Afterwards he spent 1930–31 at the Gnesin School as a composition student of Mikhail Gnessin. Two years at the Leningrad Central Music Tekhnikum followed. There he studied composition first with Gavriil Popov, then with Pyotr Ryazanov. He then proceeded to the Leningrad Conservatory for two years of study with Boris Asafyev. This opera was premiered at the Leningrad Maly Opera Theater in October 1935. Joseph Stalin saw the work on January 17, 1936 and immediately recognized its propaganda value. Its subject was heroic and patriotic; it glorified the spirit of the Don Cossacks, whose support would become necessary in the event of war (a war that, incidentally, seemed increasingly inevitable); and its music was both lyrical and immediately appealing. Sholokhov’s novel, whose first editio

Ivan Romanoff

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Ivan Romanoff (8 March 1914 – 14 March 1997) was a Canadian conductor, violinist, arranger, and composer. For three decades he led the “Ivan Romanoff Orchestra and Chorus” on a variety of radio and television programs for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, on commercial recordings, and in live concerts throughout North America. As a composer he wrote a number of jingles for Canadian television and radio and incidental music for several television movies produced by the CBC. He also composed a number of songs that were written in a variety of national styles. Early life and education Born Ivan Pezhuk in Toronto, Romanoff was the son of Ukrainian immigrants. As a child he performed in a mandolin orchestra and was a violin pupil of Alexander Chuhaldin, Chris Dafeff, Broadus Farmer, and Kathleen Parlow at the Toronto Conservatory of Music. He began playing the violin in a number of radio orchestras conducted by Chuhaldin in the early 1930s and was at the same time actively performing in Toronto with Stanley St John’s dance band. Soon thereafter he appeared in the Promenade Symphony Concerts and he became active as a violinist with various orchestras at the Canadian Broadcasting Cor

Ivan Wyschnegradsky

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Ivan Alexandrovich Wyschnegradsky ( ; May 14 1893 – September 29, 1979), was a Russian composer primarily known for his microtonal compositions. For most of his life, from 1920 onwards, Wyschnegradsky lived in Paris. Life Ivan Wyschnegradsky was born in Saint Petersburg on May 4, 1893. His father, Alexander, was a banker, and his mother, Sophie, wrote poems. His grandfather Ivan was a celebrated mathematician who served as the Minister for Finance from 1888 to 1892. After his baccalaureate, Wyschnegradsky entered the School of Mathematics. He studied harmony, composition, and orchestration with Nicolas Sokolov at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Wyschnegradsky moved to Paris in 1920. Three years later, he married Hélène Benois, the daughter of Alexandre Benois. It was her second marriage. Their son Dimitri was born in 1924. He grew up to become an influential blues historian using the pen name Jacques Demêtre. Wyschnegradsky and Benois divorced in 1926. His second wife was Lucile Markov (Gayden). In 1942, Wyschnegradsky was arrested by the Germans and transferred to Royallieu-Compiègne internment camp, where he remained for two months. As an American, Lucile was interned at Vittel.

Ivana Lang

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Ivana Lang (15 November 1912 – 2 January 1982) was a Croatian composer, pianist and piano teacher. She was born in Zagreb, Croatia, Austro-Hungarian Empire). She completed piano studies in 1937 at the Music Academy in Zagreb. Ivana Lang composed orchestral works (concert for piano and orchestra), chamber music, an opera (“The Captain of Kastav”, ) and two ballets, “False Knight” () and “Dance of the Ghosts” (). Works (selection) *Agnus Dei for soprano and chamber ensemble Op 15 (1942) *Melodramas for voice and piano, Op 21 (1942) *Grotesque, for symphony orchestra Op 11 (1942) *Concerto for piano and orchestra Op 22 (1944) *The Silent Shadows, ballet in 3 acts Op 52 (1959) *To a Nameless One, four-song cycle for mezzo-soprano and piano Op 75 (1970) *Four Bagatelles for piano Op 59 (1962) *Four Bagatelles for harp and strings Op 86 (1974) *Four Compositions for piano Op 50 (1961) *The Black Olive, song cycle of five songs for dramatic soprano and piano Op 49 (1959) *Two Songs by Domjanić for voice and piano Op 17 (1942) *Two Istrian Songs from Pazin for female choir and piano Op 39 (1952) *The Dance of the Black People, ballet act with piano accompaniment Op 36 (1950) See also *Musi

Ivor Darreg

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Ivor Darreg (May 5, 1917 – February 12, 1994) was an American composer and leading proponent of microtonal or “xenharmonic” music. He also created a series of experimental musical instruments. Biography Darreg, a contemporary of Harry Partch and a close colleague of John H. Chalmers, Erv Wilson, and Joel Mandelbaum, was one of America’s leading theorists and practitioners of experimental intonation and experimental instrument building. Frequently he published his writings in his own Xenharmonic Bulletin. Darreg was born Kenneth Vincent Gerard O’Hara in Portland, Oregon. His father John O’Hara was editor of the (Portland) Catholic Sentinel newspaper and his mother was an artist. (His Uncle, Edwin Vincent O’Hara, was a Roman Catholic Bishop. ) He dropped out of school as a teenager, but he had both self-taught facility in at least ten languages and a basic understanding of all the sciences. His real love was music and electronics. Because of his choice of music, his father cast him out, and he and his mother set out on their own with little help from anyone. At that point he took on the name “Ivor,” which means “man with bow” (from his cello-playing talents) and “Drareg” (the retrogr

Ivor Gurney

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Ivor Bertie Gurney (28 August 1890 – 26 December 1937) was an English poet and composer. Born and raised in Gloucester, he suffered from bipolar disorder through much of his life and spent his last 15 years in psychiatric hospitals. Critical evaluation of Gurney has been complicated by this, and also by the need to assess both his poetry and his music. Gurney himself thought of music as his true vocation: “The brighter visions brought music; the fainter verse”. Life Ivor Gurney was born at 3 Queen Street, Gloucester, in 1890, as the second of four surviving children of David Gurney, a tailor, and his wife Florence, a seamstress. He showed musical ability at an early age. He sang as a chorister at Gloucester Cathedral from 1900 to 1906, when he became an articled pupil of Herbert Brewer at the cathedral. There he met fellow composer Herbert Howells, who became a lifelong friend. Alongside Gurney and Howells, Brewer’s third pupil at this time was Ivor Novello, then known as Ivor Davies. He also enjoyed an enduring friendship with the poet F. W. Harvey, whom he met in 1908. The adults of most significance in Gurney’s early life were the Rev. Alfred H. Cheesman, and two sisters, Emily

J. Harold Brown

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J. Harold Brown (1902 – September 17, 1982) was an American composer and musician best known for his production of The Saga of Zip Zan Rinkle, about a man who sleeps between 1948 and 1968 to witness large cultural changes in the United States. He trained the Karamu Quartet and traveled with Jimmie Lunceford’s band. Brown was dean of music at Florida A&M University and taught in high schools and colleges in Atlanta, Cleveland, and Indianapolis. Personal life and death Brown was born in Lakeland, Florida in 1902. He was married and had three daughters. Brown died in Atlanta, Georgia on September 17, 1982, at the age of 79. References Further reading * * *

J.-J. Gagnier

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Jean-Josaphat Gagnier (2 December 1885 – 16 September 1949) was a Canadian conductor, composer, clarinetist, bassoonist, pianist, arts administrator, and music educator. His compositional output mainly consists of works for orchestra and band, although he did write some choral pieces, songs, works for solo piano and organ, some incidental music for the theatre, and a work for solo harp. His compositions are written in a wide variety of styles from romanticism to impressionism to 20th century idioms. Life and career Born in Montreal, Gagnier was the son of clarinetist Joseph Gagnier and received his earliest musical training on that instrument from him. His other clarinet teachers included Oscar Arnold, Léon Medaer, Louis van Loocke, and Jacques Vanpoucke. He studied the bassoon with Émile Barbot and Carl Westermeier, the piano with Alexis Contant and Romain-Octave Pelletier I, and theory with Contant, Orpha-F. Deveaux, Romain Pelletier, and Charles Tanguy. He had 26 siblings, many of whom also became professional musicians of note; including Armand Gagnier, Ernest Gagnier, Guillaume Gagnier, Lucien Gagnier, Réal Gagnier, and René Gagnier. A number of his nieces and nephews also bec

Jack Beaver

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Jack Beaver (27 March 1900 – 10 September 1963) was a British film score composer and pianist. Beaver was born in Clapham, London. He studied at the Metropolitan Academy of Music, Forest Gate and then at the Royal Academy of Music under Frederick Corder. After graduating he worked for the BBC. In the early 1930s he played with the Michael Doré Trio and wrote some concert pieces, including the three movement Sonatina for piano. He also contributed music and arrangements for various BBC radio drama and music features, including most of the radio adaptions of films produced by Douglas Moodie, throughout the 1930s and 1940s. As (like Charles Williams) a member of the Gaumont–British Pictures composing team from the 1930s he was a prolific composer of film scores - around 40 scores between 1932 and 1947 - though many of his contributions were not credited. These included scores for the Secrets of Life series of documentaries produced between 1934 and 1947. He wrote music for Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (1935), and composed the pseudo piano concerto Portrait of Isla from the score for the 1940 Edgar Wallace film The Case of the Frightened Lady. This is perhaps the first example of a

Jack Delano

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Jack Delano (born Yakov Ovcharov, ; August 1, 1914 – August 14, 1997) was a Russian Empire-born Ukrainian photographer, filmmaker, and composer, who spent much of his life in Puerto Rico. In the United States, he worked for the Works Progress Administration, United Fund, and most notably, the Farm Security Administration (FSA). He wore many hats as he also was a composer known for his use of Puerto Rican folk material, started a television production company, and was a cartoonist, poet, professor, and architectural designer. Early life Delano was born Yakov Ovcharov to a Jewish family in , Podolia Governorate, Russian Empire (now Ukraine). Delano, along with his parents and younger brother, emigrated to the United States in 1923. The family arrived in New York on July 5, 1923, on the SS Homeric, and settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after. Career Farm Security Administration After graduating from the PAFA, Delano found it difficult to secure a career in painting, illustrating, or music, so he decided to look into a photography program he had heard about through the Federal Art Project (FAP). He had moved to New York and had been freelancing as a photographer at the time,

Jack Fascinato

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Jack Fascinato (1915–1994) was an American composer, small orchestra leader, arranger, and pianist best known for his work in early television. By the 1960s, he worked primarily in commercials and often with producer Ken Snyder. In that capacity, Fascinato scored or arranged several animated or film inserts for the television series Sesame Street. Early years Fascinato was a Missouri native who graduated from Culver-Stockton College and attended the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. While he was a student at Culver-Stockton he led a band composed of students from the college. The group played for events on- and off-campus, including radio broadcasts for a station in Jefferson City, Missouri. Career Fascinato was a frequent performer and arranger on Chicago radio, often working with The Dinning Sisters trio on various series. He was the musical director for Starring Curt Massey (1943), and then spent a stint in the US Navy. In 1948, after musicians’ union head James Petrillo lifted a ban keeping musicians from performing live on television, Fascinato became musical director on Burr Tillstrom’s Kukla, Fran and Ollie, playing piano accompaniment, arranging music for the occas

Jack Lathrop

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John Marcus Lathrop (May 11, 1913 – January 9, 1987) was an American vocalist and guitarist with the Tune Twisters, Glenn Miller, and Hal McIntyre. Beginning around 1947, Lathrop was leader of the Drug Store Cowboys. Early life Lathrop was born in Sherburne, New York. His parents, Margaret Lathrop (née Margaret Lowell; 1893–1958) and John Marcos Lathrop (1891–1974) were married May 28, 1912, in Manhattan. According to the 1920 US Census, his mother was divorced; and in 1920, he, his sister Kathryn (1914–1962), and his mother lived with his widowed maternal grandmother, Kittie Isabel Lowell (née Kittie Isabel Purdy; 1863–1938), who owned and ran a private boarding house in White Plains, New York. Career Guitarist and vocalist in combos and big bands Tune Twisters In the mid 1930s, Lathrop was one of founding members of the Tune Twisters, a swing jazz vocal trio originally composed of Andy Love (1911–1982), Robert Wacker (1909–1985), and himself. The Tune Twisters were featured on radio broadcasts and also recorded and performed with jazz artists that included Ray Noble in 1935 (with Noble, the Tune Twisters were initially known as “The Freshmen”), Bob Crosby in 1935, Glenn Miller in

Jack Mills (music publisher)

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

Jack Mills, born Jacob Minsky, (5 December 1891 – 23 March 1979) was a Russian-born American music publisher and songwriter. He immigrated to the United States at the age of five and grew up in New York City. His first job in the field of music was as a Tin Pan Alley “song plugger”; selling sheet music by playing songs on the piano for customers for a variety of music publishing firms in Manhattan. He ultimately became manager of the McCarthy & Fisher music publishing house prior to establishing his own company. In 1919 Jack Mills founded Jack Mills Music. He was originally motivated to start the company out of a desire to publish his own songs. He was soon after joined in this enterprise by his brother, Irving Mills. The company was later renamed Mills Music, Inc. in 1928. The company was noted for its many ragtime and jazz publications during the 1920s and 1930s, and for its relationship with the African-American music community during that period. The firm published works by many black composers. It was the most prolific music publishing company in the United States during the 1920s, but afterwards was surpassed by other publishing houses. After World War II, the organization sh

Jack Shaindlin

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Jack Shaindlin (April 14, 1909 – September 22, 1978) was a Russian-American musician, composer, arranger, conductor, and music director. He was musical director for The March of Time newsreel series. Early life and career Shaindlin was born in Karasubazar, Crimea, Russian Empire on April 14, 1909 to a Jewish family. His parents were Rachel ( Golden) and Chaim Shaindlin. His father owned and operated a coal business and was possibly shot and killed during a robbery of his business. Shaindlin came to North America, via Istanbul, on December 8, 1922 and entered the U.S. under the name Jacob Scheindlin. Shaindlin began his musical career as a pianist in silent movie halls, having relocated to the United States as a young boy (Chicago) along with his mother and brother Leo by winning a music scholarship/piano competition in Russia. He became a naturalized US citizen July 28, 1934. In the late 1940s he was musical director of the Carnegie Pops Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. He was cited by President Truman for his war contributions for his work on the documentary Tanks. He was the founder and President of Triumph Publications, Inc. of New York City, an extensive and progressive commercial s

Jack Westrup

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Sir Jack Allan Westrup (26 July 1904 – 21 April 1975) was an English musicologist, writer, teacher and occasional conductor and composer. Biography Jack Allan Westrup was the second of the three sons of George Westrup, insurance clerk, of Dulwich, and his wife, Harriet Sophia née Allan. He was educated at Dulwich College, London 1917–22, and at Balliol College, Oxford. He first read classics in which he gained first class honours in moderations (1924) and second class honours in literae humaniores (1926). He gained his B.Mus. degree in 1926, and a Master of Arts in 1929. In 1925, with William Henry Harris, he staged the first complete performance in modern times of Claudio Monteverdi’s opera L’Orfeo (but only over certain obstacles presented by Sir Hugh Allen ), and in 1927 he produced the first British performance of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea. (In February 1975 he was present at a new production of Orfeo to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the University Opera Club.) He was a music critic for The Daily Telegraph 1934–39, and also editor of the Monthly Musical Record 1933–45. From 1959 to 1976 he was editor of Music and Letters (Oxford University Press). He gave class

Jacob Avshalomov

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Jacob Avshalomov (March 28, 1919 – April 25, 2013) was a composer and conductor. Early life and education Jacob Avshalomov was born on March 28, 1919, in Tsingtao, China. His father was Aaron Avshalomov, the Siberian-born composer known for “oriental musical materials cast in western forms and media”; his mother was from San Francisco. Aaron Avshalomov had become friends with Gershkovitch in the Orient (Jacob was three years old when the two met). However, because they did not hold permanent visas the family returned to China. During this time he studied with Gershkovitch and participated in the Portland Junior Symphony. Portland Youth Philharmonic Following Gershkovitch’s death in 1953, guest conductors lead the Portland Junior Symphony (now known as the Portland Youth Philharmonic) for its thirtieth season—one was Avshalomov. The year 1984 marked the orchestra’s sixtieth anniversary as well as Avshalomov’s thirtieth year as conductor. Avshalomov retired in 1995 after an estimated 640 concerts and 10,000 auditions. In 2011 Avshalomov was one of three honorees to be recognized by the Portland Center for the Performing Arts Foundation for outstanding contributions to Portland’s art

Jacob Schaefer (composer)

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Jacob Schaefer (, 1888–1936) was a Russian-born Jewish American composer, political activist and choir director whose career ran from the 1910s to the 1930s. A committed Communist for the last two decades of his life, he founded and operated a number of workers’ orchestras and choirs in Chicago and New York, including most famously the Freiheit Gezang Farein. He composed a number of cantatas, oratorios and song arrangements which were performed by the ensembles he directed, as well as by their affiliated performing groups around the United States. Biography Early life Schaefer was born in Kremenets, Volhynian Governorate, Russian Empire (now located in Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine) on October 13, 1888. Jacob was born into a Jewish family of carpenters; his father, Moishe-Dovid, was a follower of Hasidic Judaism who knew many traditional songs and nigunim, and his mother was named Hania-Chava. (His father spelled the family name Soifer (), which Jacob occasionally did as well even after emigrating. It was through his new higher-paying music jobs that in 1911 he was able to purchase his own piano for the first time in his life. During the summer of 1914 there were extensive discussions a

Jacobo Ficher

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Jacobo Ficher (; 15 January 1896 – 9 September 1978) was a Russian-born Argentine composer, violinist, conductor, and music educator. Life Ficher was born in Odessa, in the Russian Empire, to Alexander Ficher, a trombonist in the Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra, and his wife Iente Mirl (Elena) Gotz. He began to study the violin at the age of five, but his lessons were interrupted when his mother died. In 1903 he was able to resume his violin studies with Pyotr Stolyarsky, and later with M. T. Hait. From 1912 to 1917 he was enrolled at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, where he continued his violin studies with Sergei Korguyev and Leopold Auer. His other teachers included Vasily Kalafati, Maximilian Steinberg, Nikolai Tcherepnin, and Nikolay Sokolov. On 3 June (Gregorian 16 June) 1920 he married Ana Aronberg, then a piano student at the Odessa Conservatory. The Revolution of 1917 was followed by deteriorating conditions in Odessa and so, in order to escape famine and persecution, the family—including his father with his second wife, his youngest brother Rachmiel (who was a cellist) and a sister-in-law—fled the city, traveling at first to Poland. In 1923 they moved to Argentina, arriv

Jacobo Palm

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Jacobo Palm (28 November 1887 – 1 July 1982) was a Curaçao-born composer. Biography Jacobo José Maria Palm was the grandson of Jan Gerard Palm (1831-1906) who is often referred to as the “father of Curaçao classical music”. At the age of seven Jacobo Palm started to take lessons in music from his grandfather. Jacobo played several musical instruments such as piano, organ, violin, clarinet and flute. As an organist, Palm played for more than 50 years (1914-1968) in the pro-cathedral Santa Ana in Curaçao. As a concert master, Jacobo Palm played for many years in the Curaçao Philharmonic Orchestra. He was also a member of the Curaçao string quartet in which he played the viola. As a concert pianist Jacobo Palm accompanied well known musicians such as Dalman from Argentina, Del Orbe from Santo Domingo, Luis Palma and the cellist Bogumil Sykora. Numerous students followed lessons in music from Jacobo Palm. They originate from countries such as The Netherlands Antilles, Aruba, Venezuela, Colombia and The Netherlands. His most talented students were his own daughters Irma Rojer-Palm (violin), Elsa Debrot-Palm (piano), Nelly Jongepier (piano), and composers Wim Statius Muller (piano) and h

Jacques Chailley

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Jacques Chailley (24 March 1910 – 21 January 1999) was a French musicologist and composer. Biography Chailley’s mother was the pianist Céliny Chailley-Richez (1884–1973), his father the cellist Marcel Chailley (1881–1936). He also took classes of conducting with Pierre Monteux, Willem Mengelberg and Bruno Walter in Amsterdam, while resident in the Descartes House (1935–1936). In this university, he completed his two theses on music, within the framework of the curriculum of Medieval French literature: L’École musicale de Saint-Martial de Limoges jusqu’à la fin du XIe as well as Chansons de Gautier du Coinci. It was from this period that his intense musicological production began with works devoted to Medieval music and musical theory and to the evolution of musical languages, to musical notation, as well as to several composers, including Johann Sebastian Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Berlioz, Schumann, Wagner. At the same time, he did not neglect the teaching and popularization works (music history, method of piano reading, guide for young pianists, etc.). From 1946 to 1961, he directed the choir “L’Alauda”. In 1969, he was also appointed the second president of the Consociatio internat

Jacques de Menasce

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Jacques de Menasce (August 19, 1905 – January 28, 1960) was a composer, pianist, and critic of Austrian, and later American, nationality. Jacques de Menasce was born in Bad Ischl, then in the German-speaking part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, into a Jewish family with roots in Egypt where they had amassed considerable wealth as merchants and bankers and played prominent roles in the Jewish community that centred in Alexandria. This was also the family from which sprang the Catholic writer Jean de Menasce, who was a first cousin of the composer’s father, Henri de Menasce. As a boy Jacques de Menasce’s portrait was painted by Oskar Kokoschka. He studied at the Vienna Music Academy as a young man under teachers who included Joseph Marx, Paul Pisk, and Emil von Sauer, and he was also much encouraged by Alban Berg, at whose instigation he composed his first piano concerto. His compositions include two piano concertos, the Sonata for Viola and Piano (championed by Lillian Fuchs), Hebrew Melodies for Violin and Piano, and the song cycles Quatre Chansons, Outrenuit, and Pour une Princesse. There exist a few recordings of his works. The first, on Vanguard Classics, contains performances o

Jacques Ibert

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Jacques François Antoine Marie Ibert (15 August 1890 – 5 February 1962) was a French composer of classical music. Having studied music from an early age, he studied at the Paris Conservatoire and won its top prize, the Prix de Rome at his first attempt, despite studies interrupted by his service in World War I. Ibert pursued a successful composing career, writing (sometimes in collaboration with other composers) seven operas, five ballets, incidental music for plays and films, works for piano solo, choral works, and chamber music. He is probably best remembered for his orchestral works including Divertissement (1930) and Escales (1922). As a composer, Ibert did not attach himself to any of the prevalent genres of music of his time, and has been described as an eclectic. This is seen even in his best-known pieces: Divertissement for small orchestra is lighthearted, even frivolous, and Escales (1922) is a ripely romantic work for large orchestra. In tandem with his creative work, Ibert was the director of the Académie de France at the Villa Medici in Rome. During World War II he was proscribed by the pro-Nazi government in Paris, and for a time he went into exile in Switzerland. Rest

Jacques Leguerney

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Jacques Leguerney (19 November 1906 – 10 September 1997) was a French composer especially noted for his art songs. Biography Jacques Leguerney was born in Le Havre. He has been referred to as “the latest – perhaps the last – great exponent of the mélodie”. He was largely self-taught, but studied with Nadia Boulanger for a short period. He was also influenced by Albert Roussel and Francis Poulenc, who was a close friend throughout his life. His art songs were championed by such singers as Gérard Souzay, his sister the soprano Geneviève Touraine and Pierre Bernac, and more recently by American baritone Kurt Ollmann and pianist Mary Dibbern. In addition to his art songs, he also wrote chamber music and orchestral music, including the ballet Endymion, followed by the ballet La Vénus Noire, which was a commission from the Paris Opéra. After the Paris Opéra did not produce this ballet, which he considered his masterpiece, Leguerney stopped composing. Chronological works list * 1928 “D’une fontaine” Philippe Desportes, in “Poèmes de la Pléiade, 8ème Recueil,” Editions Max Eschig, 1988. * 1928 “Le Tombeau de Ronsard” Pierre de Ronsard, in “Poèmes de la Pléiade, 8ème Recueil,” Editions Max

Jadwiga Szajna-Lewandowska

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Jadwiga Szajna-Lewandowska (22 February 1912 – 14 March 1994) was a Polish pianist, music educator and composer. Biography Jadwiga Szajna-Lewandowska was born in Brody, Austria-Hungary and studied piano with Marii Sołtysowej at the Conservatory of Music in Lwów, graduating in 1931. She continued her studies in composition with Tadeusz Szeligowski, Piotr Perkowski and Stefan Boleslaw Poradowski at the National Academy of Music in Wrocław, graduating in 1956. After completing her studies, she worked as a music educator, teaching accompaniment, chamber ensemble, music theory and composition. She died in Wrocław. Honors and awards *Opolska Wiosna Competition, second prize for the cantata Regiment (1960) *Opolska Wiosna Competition, second prize for the song cycle I envy the nut for soprano and chamber orchestra (1962) *Competition for composers in Mannheim, award for children’s ballet Ein Spaziergang in der Stadt (1971) *National Composition Competition, second prize for We Play in the Green (1970) *Prize of the city of Wrocław (1964) *Prime Minister’s Award (1974 and 1983) Works Jadwiga Szajna-Lewandowska composed mostly works for youth, including ballets and stage works. She also com

Jakob van Domselaer

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Jakob van Domselaer (15 April 1890 in Nijkerk, Gelderland – 5 January 1960) was a Dutch composer. Domselaer was born at Nijkerk, Netherlands. In 1912, he traveled to Paris where he met the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian (1872–1944), eventually becoming a part of Mondrian’s artistic circle known as “De Stijl.” Domselaer’s piano suite Proeven van Stijlkunst (Experiments in Artistic Style, 1913–17) represented the first attempt to apply principles of Neo-Plasticism to music, and Mondrian asserted that pieces were created under the influence of the plus-minus painting he created around the year 1915 . This austere, mathematically based music represents an important but as yet unacknowledged precedent to minimalism and has been little performed or recorded. He died at Bergen, Netherlands. Domselaer’s students have included the Dutch composers Nico Schuyt and Simeon ten Holt . At the Berlage Concourse in 1988, the Dutch pianist Kees Wieringa was one of the prize winners, playing piano music by Domselaer. He released a recording featuring the music of Domselaer in 1994 (DO Records CD, DR 001). Domselaer married Maaike Middelkoop, with whom he had three children. His son, Jaap van Domselaer (

Jakov Gotovac

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Jakov Gotovac (; October 11, 1895 – October 16, 1982) was a Croatian composer and conductor of classical music. His comedic opera, Ero s onoga svijeta (Ero the Joker), Croatia’s best-known opera, was first performed in Zagreb in 1935. Biography Gotovac was born in Split (then part of Austria-Hungary) and initially had little if any formal education in music. He was fortunate to be encouraged and supported by Josip Hatze, Cyril Metoděj Hrazdira and Antun Dobronić who instilled him with a nationalistic orientation in music. He started as a law student in Zagreb, but switched to writing music in 1920. In Vienna, he studied in the class of Joseph Marx. Back home, in 1922 he worked with Masaryk’s Philharmonia Society Kolo founded in Šibenik by Vice Iljadica in 1899. In 1923 he moved to Zagreb, where he kept working both as conductor and composer until his death. Between 1923 and 1958, he was the opera conductor at the Croatian National Theatre (Hrvatsko narodno kazalište), and leader of an academic musical society Mladost, and of the choir Vladimir Nazor. His best-known work is Ero s onoga svijeta (a libretto written by Milan Begović) which has been performed on all continents except Austr

Jakub Kagan

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Jakub Kagan (7 February 1896 – 1942) was a popular Polish-Jewish composer, pianist, jazz musician and arranger. In the early 1920s, he formed the Kagan’s Jazz Band in Warsaw, performing in operettas, cabarets, and hotels. Since 1922 Kagan was a feature artist at the Kabaret Mirage and at the Teatr Nowości. In 1926 he signed a contract with the luxury Hotel Bristol in Warsaw. His band performed world-renowned standards as well as his own compositions widely popular across the country. He died in Warsaw during the Holocaust in occupied Poland. After the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany he was deported to the Warsaw Ghetto where he played piano at the Splendid Café and the Melody Palace Theatre to survive. He was killed in 1942 possibly during the murderous Grossaktion Warsaw. His other brother, Feliks, who had changed his name to Kochański, also perished during the war. Only the youngest of the Kagan brothers, Alexander (born in 1906), survived the Holocaust as a soldier of the Polish Army in France (1939–40), interned in Switzerland. Popular songs References * Jakub Kagan, Biblioteka Piosenki, Nota biograficzna Bibliography * Stanisław Łoza (ed.), “Czy wiesz kto to jest?”, Wydawni

James Gayfer

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James McDonald Gayfer (26 March 1916 – 7 April 1997) was a Canadian bandmaster, clarinetist, composer, conductor, organist, military officer, and music educator. His compositional output encompasses several orchestral works, including two symphonies, numerous works for band and solo piano, a modest amount of chamber music, and several songs, hymns, and choral works. In 1944 his string quartet won the CPRS award and in 1947 his Six Translations from the Chinese for tenor and small orchestra won the Composers, Authors and Publishers Association of Canada competition. In 1953, he was appointed to the post of Director of Music of the Band of the Canadian Guards, serving until 1961. From then on, he served as a musical training officers of the Canadian Forces School of Music. In 1960 he wrote The Canadian Infantryman, the official march past of the Royal Canadian Infantry Corps. Although Gayfer’s works remain unpublished, some of them have been recorded by a number of artists, including Howard Cable, David Mills, and the Edmonton Wind Ensemble. The Band of the Royal 22 e Régiment continues to perform his works with some frequency. In 1983 he was awarded the Service Medal of the Order of

James Scott (composer)

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James Sylvester Scott (February 12, 1885 – August 30, 1938) was an American ragtime composer and pianist. He is regarded as one of the “Big Three” composers of classical ragtime along with Scott Joplin and Joseph Lamb. Early life and education Scott was born in Neosho, Missouri, to James Scott Sr. and Molly Thomas Scott, both former slaves. In 1901, his family moved to Carthage, Missouri, where he attended Lincoln High School. He was given a piano after taking music lessons. In 1902, he began working at the music store of Charles L. Dumars, first washing windows, then demonstrating music at the piano as a song plugger, including his own pieces. Demand for his music convinced Dumars to print the first of Scott’s published compositions, “A Summer Breeze - March and Two Step”, in 1903. Career Ragtime Historians Rudi Blesh and Harriet Janis recount that Scott went to St. Louis, Missouri, in search of his idol Scott Joplin in 1905. He located Joplin and asked if he would listen to one of his ragtime compositions. Upon hearing the rag, Joplin introduced him to his own publisher, John Stillwell Stark, and recommended he publish the work. Stark published the rag a year later as “Frog Legs

Ján Cikker

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Ján Cikker (29 July 1911 – 21 December 1989) was a Slovak composer, a leading exponent of modern Slovak classical music. He was awarded the title National Artist in Slovakia, the Herder Prize (1966) and the IMC-UNESCO International Music Prize (1979). Life Cikker was born in former Austria-Hungary, today Slovakia, in Banská Bystrica. His first music teachers were his mother, Mária Psotková, and Viliam Figuš-Bystrý. After he graduated from high school, he studied at the Prague Conservatory from 1930 to 1935, where he attended courses of composition of Jaroslav Křička, of conducting and organ. He then studied at the Master’s School of the Prague Conservatory from 1935 to 1936, where he was a student of Vítězslav Novák. Later on, he moved to Vienna, where he studied with Felix Weingartner from 1936-1937. From 1939 to 1949, he taught at the Bratislava Conservatory. At the same time he was a repertory advisor of the opera of the Slovak National Theatre from 1945 to 1948. He was forced to leave this post after the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948. Finally, he worked as professor for composition at the Bratislava Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (VŠMÚ), where he was the teac

Jan Ekier

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Jan Stanisław Ekier (29 August 1913 – 15 August 2014) was a Polish pianist and composer known for his authoritative edition of Chopin’s music for the Chopin National Edition. Biography Ekier was born in Kraków, Poland. As a youth, he studied piano with Olga Stolfowa, and later composition with Bernardino Rizzi at the Władysław Żeleński School of Music. He continued formal music studies at the Warsaw Conservatory, where his teachers included Zbigniew Drzewiecki (piano) and Kazimierz Sikorski (composition). He was awarded the III International Chopin Piano Competition’s 8th prize in 1937. He was later an organ student with Bronisław Rutkowski. In 1959, he started the project of a new critical edition of Chopin’s works that later became the Chopin National Edition. From 1967 to 2010, the entirety of Chopin’s known works were published in 37 volumes, accompanied by source and performance commentaries. In 2004, he received a special award from the Minister of Culture of Poland, “in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the preservation and popularization of the legacy of Fryderyk Chopin, in particular for the monumental edition of the National Edition of the Works of Fryderyk C

Jan Hanuš (composer)

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Jan Hanuš (May 2, 1915 – July 30, 2004) was a prolific Czech composer of the 20th century. Almost every category of composition is represented among his works, many of which are overtly political, expressing anti-Nazi, anti-Fascist and anti-Communist sentiments. Biography Hanuš studied composition independently with Otakar Jeremiáš while attending school at the Prague Conservatory, where he graduated in 1940. He subsequently studied at a business school, and then worked both as editor and editor-in-chief of several major publishing houses, including F. A. Urbánek & Sons, and Panton (Müller 2001). As an editor he played an important role in overseeing the editions of the collected works of Antonín Dvořák and Zdeněk Fibich, both of whom he later emulated in his works , as well as the complete works of Leoš Janáček (Müller 2001). Hanuš’s early works were principally aimed at the passionate, the philosophic, and the patriotic, as exhibited in his opera The Flames. The first post-war decade witnessed lyricism near to national tradition, but since the late fifties a new tendency of dramaticism in his works arose and a musically expressive innovation, reaching as far as the combination of

Jan Koetsier

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Jan Koetsier (14 August 1911 in Amsterdam – 28 April 2006 in Munich) was a Dutch composer and conductor. In 1950, Koetsier became the first of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. As a composer, he wrote chamber music,orchestral and choral works, as well as the opera . From 1966 to 1976, he taught conducting at the . A well-known example of his composition is Brass Symphony from 1979, which is divided into three movements and arranged for a brass dectet. In 1992, the Jan Koetsier Foundation was established by an endowment from the composer. One of the main responsibilities of the Foundation, which has been based at the since 2001, is the organization of the biennial International Jan Koetsier Competition. Selected works *Variation uber ein Kinderliend for orchestra (1932, revised 1967) *Concertino for viola and orchestra, Op. 21 (1940, revised 1955) *Symphony No. 2 for choir and orchestra (1947) *Partita for cor anglais and organ (1956) *Partita for trombone and organ, Op. 41, No. 3 (1976) *Cinq Impromptus for trombone quartet, Op. 55 (1970) *Sonatina trombone and piano, Op. 58, No. 1 (1970) *Allegro maestoso for bass trombone and piano, Op. 58, No. 2 (1972) * for brass ensemble,

Jan Meyerowitz

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Jan Meyerowitz (23 April 1913 – 15 December 1998) was a German–American composer and writer. Life Meyerowitz was born Hans-Hermann Meyerowitz in Breslau (today Wrocław), the son of a manufacturer. From 1927, he studied in Berlin with and Alexander von Zemlinsky. In 1933, he was forced to leave Germany because he was Jewish and continue his education in Rome with Ottorino Respighi, Alfredo Casella and the conductor Bernardino Molinari. In 1938, he moved to Belgium and in 1939 to the South of France, where he made contact with the French Resistance. His future wife, the singer Marguerite Fricker, helped him in Marseille to survive the Nazi occupation of France. In 1946 Meyerowitz emigrated to the U.S. and became an assistant to Boris Goldovsky, director of the opera program at Tanglewood. In 1951 he became an American citizen. Meyerowitz taught at Brooklyn College (1956–1962) and at the City College of New York. In 1956 Meyerowitz was awarded the first of two Guggenheim Fellowships. After his retirement, he returned to France where he died in Colmar. Selected works Compositions Stage works * Simoon (1949). Opera in one act. Libretto: Peter John Stephens (after August Strindberg). Pre

Jan Rychlík

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Jan Rychlík (27 April 1916 – 20 January 1964) was a Czech composer and music theorist. He was one of the most important exponents of the Czech New Music in the 1950s and 1960s. Biography Rychlik was born and died in Prague. His parents wanted him to study economics, but he was attracted by the music and foreign languages from an early age. In 1939, during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia he began to study at the Prague Conservatory. In addition to his drumming abilities, he was an excellent pianist and also played some other instruments. Shortly afterwards he focused also on orchestral compositions. Following World War II he devoted himself mainly to film music. He composed the score for the well-known musical comedy Limonádový Joe aneb Koňská opera. Some of the songs from the film became evergreens (“Arizona” and “So far”). He is also known as the author of the music for the French film La Création du Monde by Jean Effel. Jan Rychlík died at the age of 48. Following his death, Czech composer Otmar Mácha composed a memorial work, Variations on a Theme and on the Death of Jan Rychlík, for symphonic orchestra. Style Rychlík’s music output has two different poles, much like the

Jan Zdeněk Bartoš

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Jan Zdeněk Bartoš (4 June 1908 – 1 June 1981) was a Czech composer. Biography Bartoš was born on 4 June 1908 in Dvůr Králové nad Labem. He started to play the violin as a pupil of Karel Hršel in Hradec Králové. In 1924, after he graduated from business school, Bartoš left for France. He played as a concertmaster of the Messageries Maritimes naval company in Marseille. From 1929 to 1931 he travelled with that company to Africa, Asia and Madagascar. Bartoš died on 1 June 1981 in Prague, shortly before his 73rd birthday. Selected works ;Stage * Král manéže (Master of the Ring), Burlesque Ballet-Pantomime in 14 scenes * Prokletý zámek (The Cursed Mansion), Opera in 1 act (1951); libretto by Zdeněk Lorenc ;Orchestra * Symphony No.1 for large orchestra, Op.65 (1952) * Symphony No.2 for (chamber) orchestra, Op.78 (1956–1957) * Symphony No.3 for string orchestra (1964–1965) * Symphony No.5 * Symphony No.6 for brass quartet and string orchestra (1974) * Symphony No.7 (1977) ;Concert band * Z podkrkonošského špalíčku (1973) ;Concertante * Introdukce a rondo (Introduction and Rondo) for violin and orchestra, Op.13 (1937) * Concertino for bassoon and orchestra, Op.34 (1943) * Staří přátele (Ol

Jane Bos

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

Jane Bos (born Jane Malka-Meunier) was a French composer of film scores between 1927 and 1946, an era when it was very rare for women to do so. Born on 26 October 1897 in Marseille, she was a French composer and lyricist known by several pen names she used: Jane Bos (her preferred pseudonym) Jeanne Bos, Jane Boss and Paul Chantelauze. Apart from her work in film, Jane Bos also authored many pieces for piano, as well as songs, including some for Charles Trénet, during decades from the 1920s to the 1940s. Selected works include the following. *The Wonderful Day (1932) * Theodore and Company (1933) *Toto (1933) *600,000 Francs a Month (1933) * Mam’zelle Spahi (1934) *The Dying Land (1936) *The Mysterious Lady (1936) *Jacques and Jacotte (1936) * Temptation (1936) *The Men Without Names (1937) *The Club of Aristocrats (1937) * Madelon’s Daughter (1937) *The West (1938) *Troubled Heart (1938) * The Spirit of Sidi-Brahim (1939) *Miquette (1940) Selected songs * Hélène, music by Bos, lyrics by Charles Trenet, sung by Charles Trenet (1932) * Pourquoi? sung by Charles Trenet, 1935 * La terre qui meurt Music of the film “La terre qui meurt” (1936) by Jean Vallée * L’escale sung by André Duma

Jane Corner Young

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Jane Corner Young (March 25, 1915 – March 9, 2001) was an American composer, music therapist, and pianist. She was born in Athens, Ohio, and graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree from Ohio University in 1936. She completed a master of music degree in piano and composition in 1953 at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Young studied piano with Beryl Rubinstein and Arthur Loesser; composition with Marcel Dick; and Dalcroze eurythmics with Elsa Findlay and Ann Lombardo. Young taught privately and in public schools for over 27 years, and was a faculty member at the Cleveland Institute of Music. She chaired the Cleveland Composers’ Guild when it was formed in 1957, and also served as the director of music therapy at Hawthornden State Hospital (today known as Northcoast Behavioral Healthcare) in Northfield, Ohio. *Mu Phi Epsilon (winner, composition contest; 1971) Young’s compositions include: Chamber *Essences (for two violins; won 1961 Cleveland Institute Alumni Award) *Blues Art Song: Who There to Know *Captive (with L. Kenney) *Fantasy (with L. Kenney) *How I Like a Wild Tame Bird (with piano) *(The) Story of Fay (with bassoon, flute, oboe, piano, trumpet, violin and zither) *Such

Jane Joseph

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Jane Marian Joseph (31 May 1894 – 9 March 1929) was an English composer, arranger, and music teacher. She was a pupil and later associate of the composer Gustav Holst, and was instrumental in the organisation and management of various of the music festivals which Holst sponsored. Many of her works were composed for performance at these festivals and similar occasions. Her early death at age 34, which prevented the full realisation of her talents, was considered by her contemporaries as a considerable loss to English music. Holst first observed Joseph’s potential when he was teaching her composition at St Paul’s Girls’ School. She began to act as his amanuensis in 1914, when he was composing The Planets, her special responsibility being the preparation of the score for the “Neptune” movement. She continued to assist Holst with transcriptions, arrangements and translations, and was his librettist for the choral ballet The Golden Goose. During her short professional life she became an active member of the Society of Women Musicians, was the prime mover behind the first Kensington Musical Competition Festival, and helped to found the Kensington Choral Society. She also taught music at

Jane Vignery

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Jeanne Emilie Virginie Vignery (11 April 1913 – 15 August 1974) was a Belgian composer, teacher, and violinist who published her compositions under the name “Jane Vignery.” She is best remembered today for her Sonata for Horn and Piano, opus 7. Life and career Vignery was born in Ghent. Her father was an engineer. Her mother () and grandfather composed music and gave Vignery her first music lessons. Vignery went on to study at the Royal Conservatory of Ghent, the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, and with Nadia Boulanger, Jacques de la Presle, and Paul Dukas. Vignery was nominated for the Prix de Rome in 1941. In 1942, the Royal Belgian Academy awarded her the Prix Emile Mathieu for her Sonata for Horn and Piano. Her compositions included: Chamber *Sonata for Horn and Piano, opus 7 *Sonata for Violin, opus 8 Orchestra *La Fille de Jephte (solo voice and orchestra) *Vision de Guerre References

Jānis Ivanovs

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Jānis Ivanovs (27 March 1983) was a Latvian composer whose later career took place in the Soviet Union. In 1931, he graduated from the Latvian State Conservatory in Riga. In 1944, he joined the conservatory’s faculty, becoming a full professor in 1955. He is regarded as being the most distinguished Latvian symphonist. His love of melody is evident in each of his compositions, and forms the essence of his works. He often drew inspiration from the native songs of the Latgale district in eastern Latvia. His grasp of orchestral color and musical texture were highly regarded by his colleagues. The Latvian composer and music critic Marģeris Zariņš described Ivanovs’ symphonies as “like ancient Greek tragedies, filled with ecstasy and purification.” He is mostly remembered for his twenty-one symphonies. Nevertheless, he composed in many other fields, including five symphonic poems, concertos for piano, violin and cello, three string quartets, and numerous vocal, piano and various chamber works. He became the People’s Artist of the USSR in 1965, was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1950 and Latvian SSR State Prize in 1959 and 1970. Compositions Symphonies * No. 1 in B-flat minor Poema Sinfonia

Jānis Kalniņš (composer)

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Jānis Kalniņš (3 November 1904 in Pärnu – 30 November 2000 in Fredericton) was a Latvian Canadian composer and conductor. Latvia Jānis Kalniņš was the son of composer Alfrēds Kalniņš. He was a student first of Jāzeps Vītols at the Latvian Academy of Music, then with Erich Kleiber, Hermann Abendroth and Leo Blech. His two major operas were Hamlets (1936) and Ugunī (1937). He was chief conductor of the Latvian National Opera 1933–1944. Canada Kalniņš emigrated to Canada in 1948, taking a position as an organist in Fredericton, where he worked until retirement in 1991. He was awarded the Order of Vasa by the King of Sweden and the Order of the Three Stars by the State of Latvia, and received a New Brunswick Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1984, among others. Kalnins died in Fredericton in 2000. Works * Lolita’s Wonder Bird folktale opera (1935) * Hamlets (Hamlet) Opera (1936) * New Brunswick Rhapsody (1967) * New Brunswick Song Cycle (1984) * Requiem (1991) Selected recordings * New Brunswick Rhapsody Symphony Orchestra of the National Latvian Opera. Ave Sol BAF 9611, 1996. * “Potter’s Field” - choral symphony on Biblical texts in Latvian. Jānis Sproģis (Tenor) with the Latvian Na

Jaromír Vejvoda

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Jaromír Vejvoda (28 March 1902 – 13 November 1988) was a Czech composer. He is best known as the author of the “Beer Barrel Polka”. Life and work Vejvoda was born and died in Prague-Zbraslav. From 1936 to 1960, he lived in Vrané nad Vltavou, after he married the local native Božena Zamrazilová. He learned to play the fiddle and flugelhorn in a band led by his father. Later he played these instruments in a military band. He started to compose in the 1920s while he worked as a bartender in a pub owned by his father-in-law. In 1929 he wrote the Modřanská polka named after Modřany, a suburb of Prague where it was played the first time. This catchy tune became a hit and allowed Vejvoda to pursue music as a full-time professional. It was published in 1934 with lyrics Škoda lásky, kterou jsem tobě dala… Publishing house Shapiro Bernstein acquired the rights shortly before World War II and the polka, now the “Beer Barrel Polka” with the English lyrics “Roll out the barrel…”, became the most popular song of the Allies in the West, although the original Czech lyrics have a very different meaning and do not speak about beer. After the war this polka became popular around the world, in Ger

Jaromír Weinberger

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Jaromír Weinberger (8 January 1896 – August 8, 1967) was a Bohemian-born Jewish subject of the Austrian Empire, who became a naturalized American composer. Biography Weinberger was born in Prague, Austria-Hungary, into a family of Jewish origin. He heard Czech folksongs from time spent at his grandparents’ farm as a youth. He started playing the piano aged 5, and composing and conducting aged 10. He began musical studies with Jaroslav Křička, and later teachers included Václav Talich and Rudolf Karel. Between 1922 and 1926 he was professor of composition at the Ithaca Conservatory (now the music school of Ithaca College), New York. When he returned to Czechoslovakia he was appointed director of the National Theater in Bratislava, and later received appointments in Eger, Hungary, and Prague. In 1926 Weinberger completed Schwanda the Bagpiper (Švanda Dudák), which became highly successful, with thousands of performances in hundreds of theatres including the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. In later life, he developed cancer of the brain. This, together with money worries and the neglect of his music, prompted him to take a lethal sedative overdose in August 1967. His wife, Jane

Jaroslav Ježek (composer)

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Jaroslav Ježek () (September 25, 1906 – January 1, 1942) was a Czech composer, pianist and conductor, author of jazz, classical, incidental and film music. Life Ježek was born in the Prague quarter of Žižkov to the family of a tailor. He was almost blind from a young age. He studied composition at the Prague Conservatory as a pupil of Karel Boleslav Jirák (1924–1927), at the master school of composition with Josef Suk (1927–1930), and shortly also with Alois Hába (1927–1928). Ježek met the playwrights/comedians Jan Werich and Jiří Voskovec, leaders of the Osvobozené divadlo (Prague Liberated Theatre) in Prague, and took up the post of main composer and conductor for the theatre. During the next decade (from 1928 to 1939), he composed incidental music, songs, dances, and ballets for the comic and satirical plays of Voskovec and Werich. In 1934 he became a member of Czech Group of Surrealists. Forced to leave Czechoslovakia following the Nazi occupation, Ježek, Voskovec and Werich went into exile in New York City. He worked as a piano teacher and choirmaster there, and continued to work with Voskovec and Werich. In 1942, the long-ill Ježek died of chronic kidney disease in New York.

Jaroslav Kvapil (composer)

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Jaroslav Kvapil (21 April 1892 – 18 February 1958) was a Czech composer, teacher, conductor and pianist. Life and career Born in Fryšták, he studied with Josef Nešvera and worked as a chorister in Olomouc from 1902 to 1906. He then studied at the Brno School of Organists under Leoš Janáček, earning a diploma in 1909. He studied with Max Reger at the Leipzig Conservatory from 1911 through 1913. Kvapil was an excellent accompanist, noted for his skill in sight reading. As the choirmaster and conductor of the Brno Beseda (1919–47) he gave the world première of Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, and the Czech premières of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion (1923), Arthur Honegger’s Judith (1933) and Karol Szymanowski’s Stabat mater (1937). He received the Award of Merit in 1955. He taught at the School of Organists and at the Brno Conservatory, and he was appointed professor of composition at the academy in 1947. His students included Hana Janků, Miloslav Ištvan, Ctirad Kohoutek, Čestmír Gregor and Jiří Matys. Death He died in Brno at the age of 65. Selected works ;Orchestra * Dnes a zítra (Today and Tomorrow), Symphonic Overture * Notturno (1911) * Symphony No.2 * Symphony No.4 * Svít

Jaroslav Řídký

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Jaroslav Řídký (25 August 1897 – 14 August 1956) was a Czech composer, conductor, harpist, and music teacher. Life Řídký was born at Reichenberg, now Liberec. From 1919 to 1923 he studied at the Prague Conservatory with Josef Bohuslav Foerster, Karel Boleslav Jirák, and Jaroslav Křička. Besides teaching at the Conservatory from 1924 to 1949, he also played the harp for the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra between 1924 and 1938, and conducted the Philharmonic choir from 1925 to 1930. In 1928 Řídký attended as a conductor the premiere of Leoš Janáček´s chamber composition Capriccio. He died at Poděbrady. Style He composed seven symphonies and one sinfonietta, one string serenade, concertos for violin (1), piano (1), and cello (2), chamber music, pieces for piano, cantatas, and also prepared his own arrangements of folk songs. His work is composed rather in traditional style, first compositions are influenced by romanticism, later he composed in traditional, neo-classical style. His oeuvre contains 47 numbered opuses, both in chamber and orchestral instrumentation. Řídký composed also violin, piano and two violoncello concertos. In 1954 he was awarded National Prize for his Piano Concerto

Javier Ruiz Rueda

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Javier Ruiz Rueda (March 18, 1909 – September 8, 1993) was a Mexican composer and writer. He was born in Mexico City. Achievements Javier Ruiz Rueda was part of the great composers alongside Agustín Lara. His major musical works include Cosas del Amor and Dulce Aventura, for which he composed the music and José Antonio Zorrilla wrote the lyrics. Javier Ruiz Rueda also wrote jingles for radio; probably the most popular jingle is “Estaban los tomatitos …” for which he composed the music and Ramiro Gamboa wrote the lyrics. In the 1940s Soledad Orozco, wife of President Manuel Ávila Camacho, became active in the “League of Decency” (), a censorious conservative group that campaigned against indecency. The popular bolero was one of its targets, because of lyrics the League considered scandalous. Javier Ruiz Rueda was one of their targets and they succeeded in having one of his songs banned. He co-wrote, with José Antonio Zorrilla, the song “¿Qué pasa mi cuate?” recorded by Pedro Infante in 1946. He also co-wrote the screenplay for the 1950 film El amor no es negocio. Literary achievements Javier Ruiz Rueda worked with many composers and was friend to many of them. His passion for hist

Jay Blackton

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Jay Blackton (March 25, 1909 – January 8, 1994) was an American composer and conductor. In 1956 he won an Academy Award in the category Best Scoring of a Musical Picture for the film Oklahoma! and was also nominated for Guys and Dolls. He was the music director, orchestrator or arranger for more than 25 Broadway productions and national tours. Born Jay Schwartzdorf in New York City, he studied piano and conducting at the Juilliard School. He began his career in opera, as an assistant conductor at New York Opera Comique and then as the conductor at St. Louis Municipal Opera from 1937 to 1942. In 1943 Rodgers and Hammerstein hired him to orchestrate and conduct Oklahoma! on Broadway, and he followed this engagement as music director and often orchestrator or arranger of such musicals as Annie Get Your Gun, Call Me Madam, Guys and Dolls, Hello, Dolly! and George M!. In addition, he toured with Bob Hope and others. Blackton died in January 1994 of heart failure at the Granada Hills Community Hospital in Granada Hills, California, at the age of 84. Selected filmography * The Merry Widow (1952) * Oklahoma! (1955; co-won with Robert Russell Bennett and Adolph Deutsch) * Guys and Dolls (19

Jay Livingston

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Jay Livingston (born Jacob Harold Levison; March 28, 1915 – October 17, 2001) was an American composer best known as half of a composing-songwriting duo with Ray Evans, with whom he specialized in composing film scores and original soundtrack songs. Livingston composed the music while Evans wrote the lyrics. Biography Early life and family Jay Livingston was born Jacob Harold Levison in McDonald, Pennsylvania, United States, to Jewish parents. He had an older sister, Vera, and a younger brother, Alan W. Livingston, who became an executive with Capitol Records and later with NBC television. Career Livingston studied piano with Harry Archer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he organized a dance band and met Evans, a fellow student in the band. Though they began writing together in 1937, Livingston and Evans did not hit the top until 1946, when they set the music publishing business on fire with “To Each His Own,” which reached number one on the Billboard charts for three different artists, and occupied the top five positions on the “Most Played On the Air” chart for four different weeks (August 24, 1946, and again on September 7, September

Jean Absil

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Jean Absil (23 October 1893 – 2 February 1974) was a Belgian composer, organist, and professor at the Brussels Conservatoire. Biography Absil was born in Bonsecours, Hainaut, Belgium. His teacher there was Alphonse Oeyen, organist at the basilica of Bonsecours. From 1913 he studied organ and harmony at the Brussels Conservatoire, but upon graduating, decided to concentrate on composition instead. In 1922 Absil won the Belgian Prix de Rome and in 1934 the Prix Rubens, which allowed him to travel to Paris. Here, he met fellow contemporary composers Ibert, Milhaud, and Honegger. Absil gained international prominence with the premiere of his first piano concerto (op. 30), composed for the 1938 Queen Elizabeth Competition for Piano (Ysaye), for which it was the compulsory piece for all finalists. Only one of those, Moura Lympany, who won second prize (after Emil Gilels), performed the piece entirely from memory mistake free. From 1930 onwards, Absil taught harmony at the Brussels Conservatoire, becoming a professor of counterpoint there six years later. Amongst his Conservatoire pupils was Paul Danblon. He also taught at Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth and the Etterbeek Music School.

Jean Berger

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Jean Berger (; September 27, 1909 – May 28, 2002) was a German-born American pianist, composer, and music educator. He composed extensively for choral ensemble and solo voice. Early years Berger was born Arthur Schloßberg into a Jewish family in Hamm, Westphalia. He studied musicology at the universities of Vienna and Heidelberg, where he received his Ph.D. in 1931 with Heinrich Besseler as his advisor. He also studied composition with Louis Aubert in Paris. While working as the assistant conductor at an opera house in Mannheim, he was forcibly removed from a rehearsal by Nazi Brown Shirts. After the Nazi Party seized power in Germany in 1933, he moved to Paris, where he took the French name Jean Berger and toured widely as a pianist and accompanist. From 1939 to 1941, he was an assistant conductor at the Municipal Theater in Rio de Janeiro and on the faculty of the Brazilian Conservatory. He also toured widely throughout South America. In 1941, he moved to the United States and served in the U.S. Army starting in 1942. In 1943, he became a US citizen. He worked in the Office of War Information producing foreign-language broadcasts and USO shows until 1946. From 1946 to 1948, he wo

Jean Coulthard

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Jean Coulthard, (February 10, 1908 – March 9, 2000) was a Canadian composer and teacher. She was one of a trio of women composers who dominated Western Canadian music in the twentieth century: Coulthard, Barbara Pentland, and Violet Archer. All three died within weeks of each other in 2000. Her works might be loosely termed “prematurely neo-Romantic,” as the orthodox serialists who dominated academic musical life in North America during the 1950s and 1960s had little use for her. Life and career Early life and education Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Coulthard was the daughter of Jean Blake Robinson Coulthard, a prominent and influential music teacher in Vancouver. Through her mother, she received her earliest musical training and was introduced at an early age to the work of French composers like Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, both of whom were lifelong influences. In 1944-1945, Coulthard worked for an entire academic year with Bernard Wagenaar of the Juilliard School, New York. In 1948, she met the British composer Elizabeth Poston (who was visiting Canada) and they began a long friendship and an extensive correspondence over the next 30 years. Professional career Beginn

Jean Déré

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Jean Déré (23 June 1886 – 6 December 1970) was a French music educator and composer. Life Born in Niort, Déré was introduced to classical music by his father, who was organist and choir director in Niort, and performed in public at the age of six. From 1897 he studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he was a student of Louis Diémer, Albert Lavignac, Georges Caussade, Charles Lenepveu, Jules Massenet and Charles Marie Widor. Already in the time of the First World War he developed his first compositions, among them a symphonic poem and an opera. During this time he also taught in Niort and temporarily represented Widor as organist at The Great Organ of Église Saint-Sulpice de Paris, where he also met Albert Schweitzer several times. As the competition and the Prix de Rome were suspended during the war, Déré had already clearly exceeded the maximum age of thirty years laid down in the rules when he participated in 1919. He won the “Second Grand Prix” with the cantata Le Poéte et la Fée. He then taught counterpoint at the Conservatoire de Paris before becoming professor of solfège and harmony from 1937 to 1956. In 1933 he became one of the pioneers in the broadcasting of great cla

Jean Deslauriers

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Jean Deslauriers (24 June 1909 – 30 May 1978) was a Canadian conductor, violinist, and composer. As a conductor he had a long and fruitful partnership with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; conducting orchestras for feature films and television and radio programs for more than 40 years. He also worked as a guest conductor with orchestras and opera companies throughout Canada and served on the conducting staff of the Opéra du Québec. The Canadian Encyclopedia describes him as “a conductor with a sober but efficient technique, who was always faithful to the written score and equally at ease conducting concerts, opera, and lighter repertoire.” His best-known compositions are his Prélude for strings and the song, La Musique des yeux. He is the father of soprano Yolande Deslauriers-Husaruk. Life and career Born in Montreal, Deslauriers was a child prodigy and began his career as a concert violinist as a young teenager. He studied the violin with Émile Taranto and Camille Couture. He notably gave annual concert tours with singers Paul Dufault and Joseph Saucier in Canada and the United States between 1924 and 1929. He also studied with Claude Champagne (orchestration) Auguste Descar

Jean Doyen

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Jean Doyen (8 March 1907 – 21 April 1982) was a French classical pianist, pedagogue and composer. Biography Jean Doyen was born in Paris on 8 March 1907. He graduated from the Conservatoire de Paris as pianist in 1922. He began learning the instrument with Sophie Chéné (teacher of Blanche Selva), then studied with Louis Diémer (1919) and finally with Marguerite Long. In 1924, he made his solo debut with the Concerts Colonne. He also participated in Jacques Ibert’s ballet Les Rencontres, at the Opera Garnier. In 1926 he worked at the Radiodiffusion Française, but at the same time he returned to the Conservatoire in counterpoint class with Georges Caussade and music composition with Paul Vidal and Henri Büsser. From 1941 to 1977, he was professor of piano at the Conservatoire de Paris, succeeding Marguerite Long. Among his pupils were İdil Biret, Roger Boutry, Philippe Entremont, Marie-Thérèse Fourneau, Claude Kahn, André Krust, Arthur Moreira Lima, Bernard Job, Dominique Merlet and Chantal Riou. Doyen is best known for his interpretations of 19th and 20th century French music, notably in the works of Gabriel Pierné, Reynaldo Hahn and Vincent d’Indy and is considered one of the great

Jean Françaix

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Jean René Désiré Françaix (; 23 May 1912 – 25 September 1997) was a French neoclassical composer, pianist, and orchestrator known for his prolific output and vibrant style. Françaix composed for various genres, and is particularly known for his chamber works for piano as well as wind instruments. Life Françaix was born in Le Mans. His natural gifts were encouraged from an early age by his family. His father, Alfred Françaix, was Director of the Conservatoire of Le Mans as well as a musicologist, composer, and pianist; His mother, Jeanne Françaix, was a teacher of singing. Jean Françaix studied at the Conservatoire of Le Mans and then at the Paris Conservatory, and was only six when he took up composing, with a style heavily influenced by Ravel. Françaix’s first publication, in 1922, caught the attention of a composer working for the publishing house, who steered the gifted boy towards a gifted teacher, Nadia Boulanger (who, after her sister’s death in 1918, had given up composing and devoted her life to teaching, conducting, and playing the organ). Boulanger encouraged Françaix’s career, considering the young composer to be one of the best, if not the best, of her students. Noted p

Jean Hubeau

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Jean Hubeau (22 June 191719 August 1992) was a French pianist, composer and pedagogue known especially for his recordings of Gabriel Fauré, Robert Schumann and Paul Dukas, which are recognized as benchmark versions. Biography Admitted at the age of 9 years to the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, he studied composition with Paul Dukas, piano with Lazare Lévy, harmony with Jean Gallon, and counterpoint with Noël Gallon. He received first prizes in piano and in harmony in 1930 at 13 years. Aged 14 he won the first prize for accompanists, and in 1934, he received the second Prix de Rome was appointed to the vacancy left by Delvincourt at the head of the Music Academy in Versailles. Discography *Trumpet and piano with Maurice André *Gabriel Fauré - Complete works for solo piano *Gabriel Fauré - Elegie Op.24, Cello Sonatas No.1 Op.109 & No.2 Op.117 (Paul Tortelier, cello) *Claude Debussy - Cello Sonata (Paul Tortelier, cello) *Camille Saint-Saëns - Works for violin and piano (Olivier Charlier, violin) *Georges Onslow - Grand Sextet, Op. 77b and Grand Septet, Op. 79 *Paul Dukas - Works for piano *Jean Hubeau - Quatre Rondels de François Villon Mario Hacqua

Jean Kurt Forest

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Jean Kurt Forest (2 April 19093 March 1975) was a German violinist and violist, Kapellmeister and composer. He began his career as concertmaster in film orchestras conducted by Paul Dessau, then played principal viola in Frankfurt and Hamburg. Drafted to the Wehrmacht in 1942, he defected to the Red Army in 1945 and remained a prisoner of war until 1948. Back in East Berlin, he shaped musical life in the GDR in several positions, before he focused on composition from 1954, composing political songs and operas raising social awareness. Life Born Jean Kurt Forst Further reading * “Forest, Jean Kurt”. In Minister of Intra-German Relations (ed.): SBZ-Biographie. Ein biographisches Nachschlagebuch über die sowjetische Besatzungszone, collated by . Deutscher Bundes-Verlag, Bonn 1964, . * Hans-Joachim Kynaß: Jean Kurt Forest / Kurzbiographie und ausgewählte Werke, in association with the Music Council of the GDR. Association of German Composers and Musicologists, Musikinformationszentrum, Berlin 1967. External links * * Georg Plathe: Interview (interview, in German) in: Siegfried Trzoß: Schlagergeschichte(n) des Ostens, vol. 1. 1945–1965, Berlin 2007 * Jean-Kurt-Forest-Archiv Archives of

Jean Langlais

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Jean François-Hyacinthe Langlais III (15 February 1907 – 8 May 1991) was a French composer of modern classical music, organist, and improviser. He described himself as "" (“Breton, of Catholic faith”). Biography Langlais was born in La Fontenelle (Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany), a small village near Mont Saint-Michel, France to Jean-Marie-Joseph Langlais II, a blacksmith and Flavie Canto, a seamstress. Langlais became blind due to glaucoma when he was only two years old and was sent to the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles (National Institute for Blind Children) in Paris, where he began to study the organ, with André Marchal. From there he progressed to the Paris Conservatoire, obtaining prizes in organ and studying composition with Marcel Dupré and Paul Dukas. He also studied improvisation with Charles Tournemire. among them was the American Kathleen Thomerson, who later published a bio-bibliography about him. Another was Margreeth Chr. de Jong, a Dutch organist, composer and music educator. His first wife Jeannette asked his former student, personal recital liaison and friend Ann Labounsky in 1972 to write Langlais’ biography Jean Langlais the Man and His Music, though it was not

Jean Rivier

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Alexis Fernand Félix Jean Rivier (21 July 1896 – 6 November 1987) was a French composer of classical music in the neoclassical style. The son of , a co-inventor of Armenian paper, he composed over two hundred works, including music for orchestra, chamber groups, chorus, piano, and solo instruments. Rivier served as professor of composition at the Paris Conservatory from 1948 until his retirement in 1966. During the period 1948–1962, he shared this position with composer Darius Milhaud. Three of his notable students at the Paris Conservatory were Gareth Walters, Pedro Ipuche Riva, and Gerd Boder. Quote Compositions *3 Points Seches for piano *4 Fantasmes for piano *4 Sequences Dialogues (need instrumentation) *Alternances for piano *Andante espressivo ed allegro burlesco (three movements) for clarinet and piano *Aria for trumpet (or oboe) and organ *Brillances for 2 trumpets, 2 French horns, 2 trombones and 1 tuba *Capriccio (need instrumentation) *Comme une tendre berceuse for flute and piano *Concerto (arranged by Rene Decouais) (need instrumentation) *Concerto for alto saxophone, trumpet and string orchestra (1955) *Concerto for alto saxophone, baritone saxophone, 2 bassoons, tru

Jean Vallerand

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Jean Vallerand, CQ (December 24, 1915 – June 24, 1994) was a composer, music critic, violinist, conductor, arts administrator, writer, and music educator from Quebec. As a composer he was active from 1935 to 1969. An associate of the Canadian Music Centre, he was appointed a Knight of the National Order of Quebec in 1991. Life Born in Montreal, Quebec, Vallerand began studying the violin at age 5 with Lucien Sicotte, with whom he continued to study until he was 20. He entered the Université de Montréal in 1934 where he studied classical literature, earning a diploma there in 1938. While there he pursued private studies in music theory and music composition with Claude Champagne from 1935 to 1942. Vallerand began his career as a music critic in 1941 when he succeeded Léo-Pol Morin as critic for the Montreal newspaper Le Canada. He remained there through 1946, going on to hold posts as music critic at Montréal-Matin (1948–1949), Le Devoir (1952–1961), Le Nouveau Journal (a daily newspaper founded in Montreal by Angélina Berthiaume-Du Tremblay 1961–1962), and La Presse (1962–1966). He also reviewed cultural events for CBC Radio and CBC Television during the 1940s through the 1960s. He

Jean Wiener

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Jean Wiener (or Wiéner) (19 March 1896, 14th arrondissement of Paris – 8 June 1982, Paris) was a French pianist and composer. He was of some significance in the promotion of new music, both by his friends in the Les Six (Milhaud, Poulenc, etc.), and by composers such as Schoenberg, Berg and Webern. His compositions involve the use of jazz informed by French wit and elegance. He is best known for composing the music to more than 300 films of both feature and short film length. Life and career Early life, education, and classical pianist Jean Wiener was born in Paris on 19 March 1896. He was trained at the Conservatoire de Paris where he was a pupil of André Gedalge (composition) and Yves Nat (piano). At the conservatoire he befriended his fellow classmate Darius Milhaud Trained as a classical pianist at the conservatory, he was highly gifted in this regard and notably performed the premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s Trois mouvements de Petrouchka in December 1922 at a special Christmas concert organized by the composer. He subsequently worked as the pianist at Le Boeuf sur le Toit; beginning when it opened in January 1922 when Bar Gaya’s owner decided to open larger premises due to the l

Jean-Étienne Marie

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Jean-Étienne Marie (; 22 November 1917 – 25 December 1989) was a French composer of contemporary music. He is an important figure in the history and exploration of Microtonal music and electroacoustic. Biography Born in Pont-l’Évêque, Calvados, Marie studied at the Conservatoire de Paris with Simone Plé-Caussade. After World War II, he dedicated his life to music. He worked at the Radiodiffusion Française, where he was a specialist in broadcasting contemporary music festival. His students included author and composer Jeannine Richer. Marie was the disciple of Olivier Messiaen and of Darius Milhaud, but it is his meeting with microtonality pioneer Julián Carrillo that was crucial in his musical work. He created le CIRM in 1968 in Paris and set it to Nice in 1978. In 1979 he created the MANCA Festival (Musiques actuelles Nice Côte-d’Azur). Music He dedicated most of his work to microtonal and to mixed music. His works and his theorisation in microtonal music were significant in the modern knowledge of European microtonal music. Like Julian Carrillo, he explored the potential of microtonal scales, either widespread (1/4 tone, 1/3rd tone, 1/6tone) or less known (1/7th tone, 1/5th tone)

Jean-Jacques Grunenwald

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Jean-Jacques Charles Grunenwald, also known by his pseudonym Jean Dalve (2 February 1911 – 19 December 1982), was a French organist, composer, architect, and pedagogue. Life and work Grunenwald was born in 1911 in Cran-Gevrier (now part of Annecy), Haute-Savoie. He studied at the Paris Conservatory, where he received first prizes in organ (1935, class of Marcel Dupré) and composition (1937, class of Henri Busser). Two years later, Grunenwald won the prestigious Second Grand Prix de Rome for his cantata, La farce du Mari fondu. Additionally to his musical education, Grunenwald was enrolled at the École National des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he graduated in 1941 with a diploma in architecture. In 1955, Grunenwald became organist at St-Pierre-de-Montrouge in Paris. Two years later, he began a recording of the complete organ works of J. S. Bach on 24 LPs, which he completed in 1962. This recording was made at Soissons Cathedral with its Gonzales organ. From 1957 to 1961, he was professor of organ at the Schola Cantorum in Paris and from 1961 to 1966 an organ teacher at the Conservatoire de musique de Genève. Among his students were Jean-Pierre Decavèle, Raffi Ourgandijan, and Louis Ro

Jean-Siegfried Blumann

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Jean-Siegfried Blumann (2 February 1887 – 1965) was a German conductor and composer. Life Blumann was born in Osnabrück, in Hamburg according to other sources. Already at the age of four he showed interest in music and played harmonica. At the age of seven he received music lessons, at 13 he performed in public for the first time. Blumann attended the Kapellmeister class at the Hamburger Konservatorium. His studies also led him to the Conservatory in Vienna. On 5 October 1906 he conducted an orchestra for the first time in an examination concert in the . The Adagio by Ludwig van Beethoven, which he had instrumentalized himself, was performed. He then conducted a small amateur orchestra as well as a women’s choir until he went to the Mecklenburg State Theatre as répétiteur in 1908. Two years later he became choir director and kapellmeister in Lübeck. (today Albert-Vater-Straße) in the district . On 7 April 1933, Blumann, who presumably came from a Jewish family, was granted leave by the newly appointed National Socialist theatre management. Between 1933 and 1938 he fled from Germany and went to France where he lived during World War II as well as in the post-war period. At least in

Jeanne Barbillion

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Jeanne Marie Louise Barbillion (12 October 1895 – 8 August 1992) was a French pianist, violinist, and composer. Life Born in Paris, Barbillion attended the Schola Cantorum de Paris from the age of 8. She was a pupil of Vincent d’Indy (who nicknamed her “the Chameleon” ) who gave her orchestration lessons, and Berthe Duranton. In the late 1910s, she performed as a violinist with Vincent d’Indy in pieces by Nicola Porpora, Franz Schubert and Vincent d’Indy. In the 1920s, she created the Barbillion Quartet, in collaboration with Denise Vidaillet, Edwige Bergeron, Madeleine Portier, and Marcel Vernet. She composed and created several of her works for her quartet, (La tristesse de Pan, 13 March 1926) In 1972, she took part in a day in homage to Charles Fourier, for whom she composed a Hymne sylvestre for mixed choir and mezzo-soprano, Scènes champêtres for piano four hands, and En forêt for piano four hands. In 1926, she lived on . Barbillon died in Paris at the age of 96. Work * 1926. Provence. Deux pièces, for piano (éd. Maurice-Senart) * 1926. Sonate en ré majeur, for violin and piano (éd. Maurice-Senart). In concert at la Salle des agriculteurs in June 1925. at the September 1925 Sa

Jeanne Behrend

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Jeanne Behrend (11 May 1911 – 20 March 1988) was an American pianist, music educator, musicologist and composer. Life Jeanne Behrend was born in Philadelphia and graduated from the Curtis Institute in 1934, where she studied piano with Josef Hofmann and composition with Rosario Scalero. She made her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1922 and at Carnegie Hall in 1937, playing one of her own compositions. After completing her education, Behrend worked as a pianist and composer and taught music at Curtis Institute of Music, Juilliard, the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music, and Temple University. Becoming aware of the lack of opportunity for American composers, she became a champion of American music and concentrated on her career as a performer. Behrend edited a selection of Louis Moreau Gottschalk piano scores and his autobiography, Notes of a Pianist. She also edited a collection of Stephen Foster songs and one of American fuguing tunes. She married twice. Her first husband, pianist Alexander Kelberine died in 1940, and her second husband, Americana book dealer George S. McManus died in 1967. Works Selected works include: *A Child’s Day, piano suite *From Dawn to Dusk for or

Jeanne Boyd

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Jeanne Margaret Boyd (February 25, 1890 – August 8, 1968) was an American pianist, composer, arranger, and music educator, based in Chicago. Early life and education Boyd was born in Mount Carroll, Illinois, and raised in Fremont, Nebraska, the daughter of James P. W. Boyd and Jane Hughes Boyd (later known as Mrs. A. F. Plambeck). She attended the Frances Shimer School, and studied music with Emil Liebling, Lyravine Votaw, and Edgar A. Brazelton. Career Boyd taught at the Frances Shimer School from 1909 to 1914, and at the Lyceum Arts Conservatory from 1914 to 1917. She taught at the Bush Conservatory of Music in the 1920s. She also led workshops for piano accompanists. Boyd gave recitals of her own works and those of other composers. She was a member of the Society of American Musicians. Compositions Instrumental * Symphonic suite (1922) * Song against Ease (1940s, symphonic poem) * Eleventurous dances (1943, 1951; suite) * Introduction and fugue (1949) * Sonatine for Piano (1950s) * Andante lamentoso Vocal Boyd set the works of several poets to music, including poems by Sharmel Iris, Wilbur D. Nesbit, and Alan Seeger. She wrote songs for school use, including a children’s cantata

Jeanne Leleu

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Jeanne Leleu (29 December 1898 – 11 March 1979) was a French pianist and composer. She was born in Saint-Mihiel in northeastern France; her father was a bandmaster and her mother a piano teacher. She entered the Conservatoire de Paris at the age of nine, where she studied with Marguerite Long, Georges Caussade, Alfred Cortot and Charles-Marie Widor. With Geneviève Durony, Leleu gave the premiere performance of Ravel’s Ma mère l’oye in 1910. Ravel composed his Prélude for a Paris Conservatoire sight-reading competition in 1913 and Leleu won the prize. Her cantata Beatrix won the Prix de Rome in 1923. (She was only the third woman to win this premier Grand Prize after Lili Boulanger and Marguerite Canal.) She went on to win two other prizes: Georges Bizet and Monbinne. Works Leleu was known for symphonic and piano works and ballets. Her printed compositions were published in Paris. Selected works include: *Quatuor pour piano et cordes (1922) *Beatrix, cantata (1923) (Winner of the Grand Prize of Rome) *Esquisses italiennes (1926) *Suite symphonique (1926) *Deux danses, (1927) *Le Cyclope d’Euridipe (1928) *Transparences, symphony (1931) *Concerto pour piano (1935) *Un jour d’été, bal

Jef van Hoof

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Jef van Hoof (8 May 1886 – 24 April 1959) was a Flemish composer and conductor. Biography Born on 8 May 1866, in Antwerp, van Hoof was a pupil of Paul Gilson and was heavily influenced by the works of Peter Benoit. His dedication to the Flemish cause led him to collaborate with the German occupiers in World War I, for which he was subsequently sentenced to eight months in prison. He studied at the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp, of which he was the director from 1942 to 1944. In 1933, he founded the (Vlaams Nationaal Zangfeest) where he worked as a conductor for many years. He also conducted concerts associated with the Flemish Movement. He died in Antwerp on 24 April 1959, aged 72. He composed chamber music, symphonic works, art songs, works for solo piano, carillon, organ, as well as sacred music. He is particularly known for writing the Flemish patriotic song “Groeninge” to a text by Guido Gezelle. Works (Selection) Symphonies * Symphony No. 1 in A major (1938) * Symphony No. 2 in A-flat major (1938) * Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major (1945) * Symphony No. 4 in B major (1950) * Symphony No. 5 in E major (1955) * Symphony No. 6 in B-flat major (1959) Orchestral * Perzeus, Concert Over

Jeffrey Mark

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Jeffrey Mark (1898 – December 1965) was an English composer, folk song collector and writer. Life and career Mark was born in Carlisle, Cumberland, the son of a cabinet maker, and in 1909 won a scholarship to the Carlisle Grammar School. At 16 he joined Martin’s Bank in Carlisle. He enlisted in the war at the age of 17 as a gunnery officer, rising to the rank of first lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery. But he was gassed in France and hospitalised for a year. The medical consequences and trauma affected him for the rest of his life. In 1924 Mark moved to the US, where for three years he was head of the New York Public Library’s Music Department. While there he worked on the manuscripts of Orlando Gibbons held by the library. During his time in New York, he also studied the self-transformation ideas of G.I. Gurdjieff, under the guidance of A.R. Orage. A nervous breakdown led him to return to England. His Four North Country Songs, concert arrangements of dialect songs – including Sally Gray, L’al Dinah Grayson, Barley Broth and Auld Jobby Dixon – were first performed and broadcast in 1927, and published by OUP in 1928. They also acquired local popularity through performances by

Jehan Alain

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Jehan-Ariste Paul Alain (; 3 February 1911 – 20 June 1940) was a French organist, composer and soldier. Born into a family of musicians, he learned the organ from his father and a host of other teachers, becoming a composer at 18, and composing until the outbreak of the Second World War 10 years later. His compositional style was influenced by the musical language of the earlier Claude Debussy, as well as his interest in music, dance and philosophy of the far east. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Alain became a dispatch rider in the Eighth Motorised Armour Division of the French Army; he took part in the Battle of Saumur, in which he was killed. His younger brother was the composer, performer and musicologist Olivier Alain and his younger sister was the organist Marie-Claire Alain; the two were responsible for popularising his works. Biography Alain was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye in the western suburbs of Paris, into a family of musicians. His father, Albert Alain (1880–1971) was an organist, composer and amateur organ builder who had studied with Alexandre Guilmant and Louis Vierne. His younger brother was the composer, organist and pianist Olivier Alain (1918–1994), a

Jenő Ádám

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Jenő Ádám (12 December 1896 15 May 1982) was a Hungarian music educator, composer, and conductor. Early life and education Jenő Ádám was born in Szigetszentmiklós (Kingdom of Hungary) on 12 December 1896. From 1911-1915 he attended the teacher-training college in Budapest where he received instruction in the organ and music theory. During World War I he was a prisoner of war (POW) in Russia from 1916-1920; His methodology has had a profound impact on music education internationally and is still studied today by students of the Kodaly Method. The Organization of American Kodály Educators has established an academic scholarship in his name Ádám was also involved in broader music education efforts targeted toward the general population in Hungary. He gave several public lectures that were broadcast on Hungarian television and radio that aimed to popularize both Hungarian folk music and Western classical music. One of these was his own radio program, Fifteen Minutes of Folksong. He also gave lectures on television and radio programs as a guest outside of Hungary; continuing his advocacy on the international stage. While employed as the chorus master of the Hungarian State Opera he cond

Jenő Takács

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Jenő Takács (; 25 September 1902 – 14 November 2005) was a Hungarian composer and pianist. Life and work Born in Cinfalva on 25 September 1902, he studied at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna with Joseph Marx in composition and Paul Weingarten in piano until 1926 at the University of Vienna counterpoint with Hans Gál and musicology with Guido Adler. Since 1920, he had already undertaken tours through Germany, Hungary and Yugoslavia. In 1926 he made acquaintance with Béla Bartók; from which a lively contact arose until Bartók’s emigration to the United States in 1940. He was a professor of piano at the conservatory of Cairo, Egypt from 1927 to 1932, where he made Arab and Egyptian Music the subject of his research. He knew Egon Wellesz, Curt Sachs, Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Paul Hindemith. In the years 1932 to 1934 he was a professor of piano and composition at the University of the Philippines, Conservatory of Music. He gave concerts in Japan, China and Hong Kong. Due to a new professorship in piano at the conservatory in Cairo in 1938, he made his first trip to the United States. In 1939, he moved to Sopron in Hungary, however the German authorities made his

Jens Bjerre Jacobsen

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Jens Bjerre Jacobsen (13 October 1903 – 3 January 1986) was a Danish composer and organist. Jacobsen was born in Aarhus but grew up in Salling, where his father was a Grundtvigian Community pastor in Rødding-Krejbjerg. Jacobsen learned to play the piano at an early age from the organist and composer Laurids Lauridsen. At 15, he got admission into the Royal Danish Academy of Music. The time spent at the academy gave his earliest songs and choral work a strong element of Thomas Laub and Carl Nielsen. However, Jacobsen himself never acknowledged this, and claimed that his career as a composer only began after he moved to Paris. Jacobsen became an organist in Paris. Alfred Cortot, the famous pianist and conductor, taught him composition and honed his piano skills. Cortot was a big influence on Jacobsen. Under the former’s tutelage, Jacobsen made immense progress as a composer, a development that is specially noticeable in his music from the 1930s onwards. Notable works *Serenade (fløjte, obo og bratsch 1936) *Mosaïque musicale nr. 1 (fløjte, violin og cello 1936) *Sonatine (violin og klaver 1939) *Koncertante (violin og klaver 1940) *Duo concertante (cello og klaver 1942) *Croquis musi

Jeronimas Kačinskas

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Jeronimas Kačinskas (or Kacinskas; 17 April 1907 – 15 September 2005 ) was a Lithuanian-born American composer. Kačinskas was born in Viduklė, Kovno Governorate, Russian Empire, to the family of a church organist. He studied music at the National Conservatory of Lithuania in Klaipėda and at the Prague Conservatory. He later taught at the State Conservatory in Vilnius. His Nonet was premiered in London in 1938, and he married Elena Šlevaitė in 1941. In 1944, they escaped from Lithuania and travelled through Poland into Germany, where they were finally rescued by American troops. In 1949, they arrived in the United States, and Kačinskas became a church organist and choirmaster in Boston, Massachusetts. From 1967 to 1986, he taught at Berklee College of Music. In 1991 he was awarded Lithuanian National Prize. Works ;Opera * Juodas laivas (Black Ship) (1975); libretto by Algirdas Landsbergis ;Orchestral * Symphonic Fantasy No.1 (1940) * Giesmė į šviesą (Hymn to Light), Symphonic Poem (1947) * Atpirkimo misterija (Mystery of Redemption), Symphonic Poem (1956) * Lento, Symphonic Poem (1957) * Vilniaus siuita (Vilnius Suite) (1960) * Symphonic Fantasy No.2 (1960) * Transcendentinės išraiš

Jerzy Fitelberg

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Jerzy Fitelberg (May 20, 1903 – April 25, 1951) was a Polish-American composer. Biography Son of Grzegorz Fitelberg, Jerzy was born in Warsaw. He first studied music with his father. At a young age, his father had him play percussion in the orchestra of the National Theatre, Warsaw to gain experience. He subsequently studied in Moscow. From 1922–1926 he studied composition with Walter Gmeindl and Franz Schreker at the Berlin University of the Arts. In 1923 the University helped him get a deferment for the Polish military draft . In 1927 he re-orchestrated Arthur Sullivan’s music for „The Mikado” for Erik Charell’s re-staging as an operetta-revue in Berlin’s Grosses Schauspielhaus. (Review in the Times (London) September 2, 1927) In 1928, his String Quartet no. 2 won first prize in a competition organized by the Association of Young Polish Musicians in Paris. His works were heard at subsequent ISCM concerts of 1931, 1937, 1946 and 1951. Escaping the Nazis, he first traveled to Paris in 1933. There his music was published by Editions Max Eschig. Among the first works he composed in his new city were those reminiscent of Poland. His application for US Citizenship was filed on May 26,

Jessie Baetz

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Jessie Baetz (born Jessie Elizabeth Drummer; June 28, 1894 – November 28, 1980) the daughter of John Drummer and Esther Ann Oughtred Drummer. She studied and taught at the Toronto Conservatory of Music. Career She immigrated to New York City, where 1930s census records list her occupation as painter. Her art was included in a Christmas exhibit at the Jumble Shop on West 8th Street. She studied with modernist composer, Johanna Beyer, and played in her concerts for the New York Composers’ Forum. Baetz’s music was influenced by Beyer and Henry Cowell’s use of such techniques as tone clusters, polymeters, string piano, and playing the piano with forearms. Three of her works were performed at the Composers’ Forum on December 15, 1937, where they were part of a program that also included music by Rudolph Forst and Harrison Kerr. Her visual art consisted of “painting sculptures or spatial creations”, including colorful masks. 1966, and 1970. Personal life Jessie Drummer married fellow artist Walter Baetz in 1926. They lived in Shandaken, New York. In 1961 they were both rescued after a carbon monoxide accident in their home. Her husband died in 1978, and she died in November 1980, at a nu

Jesús Arámbarri

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Jesús Arámbarri Gárate (13 April 1902 in Bilbao – 11 July 1960 in Madrid) was a Spanish classical music conductor and composer native to the Basque Country. Jesús Arámbarri has been classed among the cultural treasures of the region, with Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, Jesús Guridi, Luís de Pablo, Maurice Ravel, and Pablo de Sarasate. His place in 20th-century classical music is part of a tradition which also includes Isaac Albéniz, José Antonio de Donostia, Manuel de Falla, Felipe Pedrell, Joaquín Rodrigo, Joaquín Turina, and José María Usandizaga. After his early music education at the Bilbao Conservatory of Music, Arámbarri’s teachers included Paul Le Flem, Paul Dukas and Vladimir Golschmann in Paris and Felix Weingartner in Basel. Arámbarri composed some of his most important works while he was a student. After his return to Bilbao he was primarily a conductor and composed only a few more works, which included In memoriam for Juan Carlos de Gortázar (1939), Ofrenda (Offering) for Manuel de Falla (1946), and Dedicatoria (Dedication) for Javier Arisqueta (1949). From 1933 in Bilbao, Arámbarri conducted the (then part-time) Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, which he developed into the first fu

Jesús Bal y Gay

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Jesús Bal y Gay (23 June 1905 – 3 March 1993) was a Spanish composer, music critic, and musicologist. He was a member of Generation of ‘27 and the Group of Eight, the latter of which also included composers Julián Bautista, Ernesto Halffter and his brother Rodolfo, Juan José Mantecón, Fernando Remacha, Rosa García Ascot, Salvador Bacarisse and Gustavo Pittaluga. He married Ascot in 1933. Career Jesús Bal y Gay was born in Lugo, where he began his musical studies. There he established contact with the group from the magazine Ronsel in whose publication he published Hacia el ballet gallego (Towards the Galician ballet) (1924), an effort which represented his launch into professional literary life. With the collaboration of Eduardo Martinez Torner, he embarked on a project that would see him taking many trips and much time, the Galician Songbook, which would not be completed until 1974. It was his most famous and celebrated work. He moved to Santiago de Compostela to study medicine, but he left everything to go to Madrid, where, in 1924, he joined the Residencia de Estudiantes. He died in Torrelaguna. References External links * online edition of Romances and sixteenth century Spanish

Jesús García Leoz

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Jesús García Leoz (Olite, Navarra, 10 January 1904 – 1953) was a Spanish composer, particularly noted for his film scores. He was a favourite pupil of Joaquín Turina and one of the “músicos del ‘27.” Works, editions and recordings * Cinco canciones para canto e piano (1934) (poems by Juan Paredes) * Tríptico de canciones para canto e piano (1937) (poems by Lorca) * Seis canciones para canto e piano (1939) (poems by Antonio Machado) * Dos canciones para canto e piano (1952) (poems by Juan Ramón Jiménez) * Symphony * Sonatina for small orchestra (1945) * Sonata for Violin and Piano * String Quartet in F minor (Opus 2) * Quartet for Piano and Strings * Piano Sonatina * La duquesa del candil (1948) zarzuela in three acts (libretto by Guillermo and Rafael Fernández-Shaw) Selected filmography * Fortunato (1942) * A Palace for Sale (1942) * I Will Consult Mister Brown (1946) * The Black Siren (1947) * Four Women (1947) * Lady in Ermine (1947) * Lola Leaves for the Ports (1947) * The Party Goes On (1948) * Guest of Darkness (1948) * Ninety Minutes (1949) * Night Arrival (1949) * A Man on the Road (1949) * Tempest (1949) * Wings of Youth (1949) * The Maragatan Sphinx (1950) * Tales of the A

Jesús Guridi

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Jesús Guridi Bidaola (25 September 1886 – 7 April 1961) was a Spanish Basque composer who was a key player in 20th-century Spanish and Basque music. His style fits into the late Romantic idiom, directly inherited from Wagner, and with a strong influence from Basque culture. Among his best-known works are the zarzuela El Caserío, the opera Amaya, the orchestral work Ten Basque Melodies and his organ works, where the Triptych of the Good Shepherd can be highlighted. Biography Guridi was born in Vitoria-Gasteiz into a family of musicians. His mother, Maria Trinidad Bidaola, was a violinist and his father, Lorenzo Guridi, was a pianist . After completing his early studies with the Piarists and the Jesuits of Zaragoza he moved to Madrid, where he received lessons from Valentín Arín. Later, in Bilbao, he received violin lessons from Lope Alaña, who introduced him to the society called “El Cuartito”, and studied harmony with José Sáinz Besabe . On 28 January 1901 he gave his first public concert with the Philharmonic Society of Bilbao. At the age of 18 he was enrolled in the Schola Cantorum in Paris, studying organ with Abel Decaux, composition with Auguste Sérieyx, and fugue and counterp

Jimmy McHugh

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James Francis McHugh (July 10, 1894 – May 23, 1969) was an American composer. One of the most prolific songwriters from the 1920s to the 1950s, he is credited with over 500 songs. His songs were recorded by many artists, including Chet Baker, June Christy, Bing Crosby, Marlene Dietrich, Deanna Durbin, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Adelaide Hall, Billie Holiday, Beverly Kenney, Bill Kenny, The Everly Brothers, Peggy Lee, Carmen Miranda, Nina Simone, Frank Sinatra, and Dinah Washington. Career McHugh who was of Irish descent began his career in his hometown of Boston, Massachusetts, United States, Eventually finding employment as a professional manager with the music publisher Jack Mills Inc., it was there that McHugh published his first real hit, “Emaline”, and briefly teamed up with Irving Mills as The Hotsy Totsy Boys to write the hit song “Everything Is Hotsy Totsy Now”. This songwriting partnership marked another of McHugh’s many collaborations, among them Ted Koehler (“I’m Shooting High”), Al Dubin (“South American Way”) and Harold Adamson (“It’s a Most Unusual Day”). As impressive as these master lyricists were, perhaps McHugh’s best symbiotic musical relationship was with th

Jiří Reinberger

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Jiří Emil Reinberger (14 April 1914 – 28 May 1977) was a Czech organist, organ expert, music educator and composer. Early life Jiří Reinberger was born on 14 April 1914 in Brno, Moravia, Austria-Hungary. He was the son of the Brno high school teacher of the same name and his wife Růžena (née Grünwald). He attended the high school in Holešov from 1925 to 1929. He graduated from a gymnasium in Brno in 1933. As part of extracurricular studies, he had already obtained a degree in organ performance at the Brno Conservatory under Eduard Tregler in 1932. Privately, he furthered his organ studies with Bedřich Antonín Wiedermann in Prague and with Günther Ramin and Karl Straube in Leipzig. At the Brno Conservatory, he earned his degree in 1938 under Vilém Petrželka obtained a degree in Composition. He then furthered his knowledge and skills at the Prague Conservatory in the master class of the composer Vítězslav Novák, graduating with a diploma in 1940. Career From February 1945, he taught organ at the Brno Conservatory and from 1945 to 1951 at the Prague Conservatory. From 1946, he worked as a music educator at the Music Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. There, he was ap

Joachim Ulric Voyer

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

Joan Mary Last

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

Joan Trimble

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

Joaquín Pardavé

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

Joaquín Rodrigo

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

Johan Kvandal

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

Johana Harris

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

Johann Nepomuk David

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

Johanna Beyer

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

Johannes Petzold

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

John Cage

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

John Cozens (musician)

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

John Donald Robb

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

John Fernström

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

John Gardner (composer)

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

John J. Becker

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

John Jacob Niles

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

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

John Laurence Seymour

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

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

John Lee (composer of church music)

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

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

John Rippiner Heath

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

John Rox

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

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

John Serry Sr.

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

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

John Vincent (composer)

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

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

John W. Duarte

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

John W. Schaum

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

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

John Weinzweig

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

John Wesley Work III

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

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

John Whitney (animator)

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

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

John Woods Duke

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

John Worley

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

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

Jón Leifs

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

Jón Þórarinsson

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

Jørgen Jersild

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Jørgen Jersild (17 September 1913 – 6 February 2004) was a Danish composer and music educator. He was a pupil of Poul Schierbeck and Albert Roussel. Jersild worked from 1953 to 1975 as a professor of ear training by The Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. Life Jersild learned how to play the piano at a young age and, when he was twelve, he arranged for the school orchestra and wrote some small compositions. He became a student of Rudolph Simonsen and later Poul Schierbeck, who taught him theory and composition, and Alexander Stoffregen, who gave him lessons on the piano. After a short stay in Paris in 1936 where he was taught for three months by Albert Roussel, he returned home and studied musicology at the University of Copenhagen. In 1940 he majored in musicology, but in 1939 he was employed as a program secretary with the DR, a national radio station in Denmark. In 1943 he became a teacher at The Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, during which his music was reviewed by the Berlingske Tidende. From 1953 to 1975, he was professor and taught ear training, instrumentation and composition. During those years he published a number of theoretical and practical musica

Jórunn Viðar

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

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

José Muñoz Molleda

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

José Pablo Moncayo

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

Josée Vigneron-Ramackers

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

Josef Tal

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

Joseph Achron

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

Joseph Ahrens

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

Joseph Beaulieu

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

Joseph Beer

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

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

Joseph Kosma

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

Joseph Meyer (songwriter)

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

Joseph R. Wood

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

Joseph Schillinger

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

Jovdat Hajiyev

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

Joyce Barthelson

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

Joyce Howard Barrell

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

Józef Koffler

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Józef Koffler (28 November 18961944) was a Polish composer, music teacher, musicologist and musical columnist. He was the first Polish composer living before the Second World War to apply the twelve-tone composition technique (dodecaphony). Biography Koffler was born on 28 November 1896 in Stryj, Austria-Hungary. He studied from 1914 to 1916 in Lwów and from 1918 to 1924 he studied music at the Academy of Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna. His teachers were Paul Graener and Felix Weingartner. From 1928 till 1941 Koffler was professionally active as music teacher in Lwów, teaching at the Lwów Conservatory. Polish exile composer Roman Haubenstock-Ramati studied in 1920–1923 composition together with Koffler in Lwów. Koffler was a composer of 20th-century avant-garde Polish music and the first Polish twelve-tone technique composer. He must have come into contact with Edward Clark, the British conductor, BBC music producer and former student of Arnold Schoenberg, as his “Variations on a Waltz by Johann Strauss”, Op. 23 (1935) were dedicated “À mon ami Edward Clark”. When German troops entered the town Koffler was captured with his wife and son and forcibly relocated to the ghetto

Juan de Dios Filiberto

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Juan de Dios Filiberto (8 March 1885 11 November 1964) was an Argentine violinist, conductor, poet and composer who became prominent in the Argentine tango genre. Life and work He was born Óscar Juan de Dios Filiberti in 1885 to Josefa Roballo, a mestizo descendant of one of the founding fathers of Argentina, Martín Rodríguez, and Juan Filiberti, a Genoese immigrant. An uncle introduced him to tango at the age of six, though he was forced to leave school at age nine, entering the labor force as a newsie and, later, bricklayer. He later worked as a stevedore and, eventually, shift supervisor for the local Mihánovich shipyards. The advent of organized labor in Argentina and poor working conditions helped lead Filiberto and most of his colleagues to join the stevedores’ union affiliated with the Argentine Workers’ Federation, where he supported an anarchist line and actively participated in a series of strikes in 1907. Given his first music lessons by Héctor Polzinetti, a carpenter at the dockyards, Filiberto and a number of friends created a musical ensemble known as “Orfeón Los del Futuro” (“The Orpheum of the Future”), for whom he played a pipe organ in theatres. A gift of a ticket

Juan Francisco García (composer)

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Juan Francisco García (born June 16, 1892 - November 18, 1974) was a Dominican merengue composer. He was one of several merengue musicians who sought to promote the genre in the early 20th century, along with Juan Espínola and Julio Alberto Hernández. Garcia was an educated musician who brought merengue to the upper-class of the country. Biography Juan Francisco García was born on June 16, 1892, in the city of Santiago de los Caballeros. From an early age García had an excellent musical ear and a knack for performing various musical instruments. He studied music theory with Maestro José García Oviedo and was later self-taught, he learned to play the cello and piano. The study method of Fetís was Garcia’s main guide in the art of composition, which he mastered and from which created an extensive and valuable catalog of works of various genres. His works are also permeated by the Dominican folklore, which he developed to a very high degree in works like the String Quartet No.1, which he composed in 1922 and premiered in Santiago de los Caballeros in 1929; and quisqueyana Symphony, completed in 1935 and was released on March 21, 1941, by the Symphony Orchestra of Santo Domingo at the

Juan García Esquivel

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Juan García Esquivel (January 20, 1918 – January 3, 2002), often known mononymously as Esquivel!, was a Mexican band leader, pianist, and composer for television and films. He is recognized today as one of the foremost exponents of a sophisticated style of largely instrumental music that combines elements of lounge music and jazz with Latin flavors. Esquivel is sometimes called “The King of Space Age Pop” and “The Busby Berkeley of Cocktail Music”, and is considered one of the foremost exponents of a style of late 1950s-early 1960s quirky instrumental pop that became known (in retrospect) as “Space Age Bachelor Pad Music”. Early life He was born in 1918, in Tampico, Tamaulipas, and his family moved to Mexico City in 1928 where he became a self-taught musician from an early age. In interviews, Esquivel’s family members have stated that the young boy started playing piano when he was around six years old, to the amazement of older musicians who would gather around him in disbelief and to his own delight exhibiting his musical gifts. They have also stated that Esquivel continued to eschew formal musical training as he grew older, preferring to learn from books and by listening to and

Juan José Castro

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Juan José Castro (March 7, 1895 – September 3, 1968) was an Argentine composer and conductor. Born in Avellaneda, Castro studied piano and violin under Manuel Posadas and composition under Eduardo Fornarini, in Buenos Aires. In the 1920s he was awarded the Europa Prize, and then went on to study in Paris at the Schola Cantorum under Vincent d’Indy and Édouard Risler. Returning to Buenos Aires in 1925, he was named conductor of the Renacimiento Chamber Orchestra in 1928 and the Teatro Colón in 1930. From 1939 to 1943 he was a professor at the Buenos Aires Conservatory. Castro’s international career began in the 1940s. In 1947 he conducted the Havana Philharmonic, and the Sodre Orchestra in Uruguay in 1949. In 1952-53 he was the conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (then known as the Victorian Symphony Orchestra) in Australia. He returned to the Americas and conducted the National Symphony in Buenos Aires from 1956-1960. From 1960 to 1964, he was director of the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico. His output encompasses works for opera, ballet, incidental music for theater and film, as well as orchestral pieces—alone, with soloists and/or choir—chamber ensembles, songs, and s

Juan Orrego-Salas

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Juan Antonio Orrego-Salas (January 18, 1919 – November 24, 2019 ) was a Chilean composer, musicologist, music critic, and academic. Life and career Born Juan Antonio Orrego-Salas in Santiago on January 18, 1919, Orrego-Salas studied at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música (Chile), the music school of the University of Chile, in his native city where he was a pupil of Pedro Humberto Allende (composition) and Domingo Santa Cruz Wilson (composition). He also earned of Bachelor of Arts in architecture in addition to earning his diploma in music composition from the University of Chile. In 1961, Orrego-Salas permanently relocated to the United States to work at Indiana University Bloomington, where he co-founded the Latin American Music Center (LAMC). One of his students at IU’s Jacobs School of Music was composer Ricardo Lorenz who succeeded him as director of the LAMC. In 1992, he was the inaugural winner of Chile’s National Prize for Musical Arts. He died in Bloomington, Indiana, on November 24, 2019. References External links * (accessed 1 October 2013). * La Ciudad Celeste, conducted by Carmen-Helena Téllez * A conversation with Juan Orrego-Salas, recorded March 1, 2014 * Interview

Juan Vert

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Juan Bautista Vert Carbonell (1890, in Carcaixent – 1931, in Madrid) was a Valencian composer of Spanish zarzuelas. He worked in collaboration with Reveriano Soutullo. Works References External links *

Julia Kerr

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Julia Kerr (née Weismann, 28 August 1898 – 3 October 1965) was a German composer and pianist. As a composer she used the name Julia Kerwey. She also worked as a translator during the Nuremberg trials. Biography Kerr was born in Wiesbaden on 28 August 1898 as Julia Anna Franziska Weismann to the Prussian prosecutor and his wife Gertrud, née Reichenheim. Her brother was the violinist Dietrich “Diez” Weismann (1900–1982). She studied music with Wilhelm Klatte in Berlin. Kerr married theater critic Alfred Kerr in April 1920. They had two children, Michael and Judith Kerr. The family were Jewish and it became necessary to flee Germany in 1933. Initially they fled to Switzerland and then France before settling in England in 1935. In London, Kerr worked in secretarial jobs until the end of the war. Once the war was over she took roles as an interpreter and secretary for the Nuremberg war crimes trials. Kerr returned to live in Germany after the war and was living in Berlin when she suffered a heart attack and died at the age of 67 in 1965. Kerr’s first opera was Die schoene Lau after a fairy tale by Eduard Mörike, first performed in 1928. In 1929 Alfred started to write the libretto for h

Julia Smith (composer)

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Julia Frances Smith ( January 25, 1905 – April 18, 1989 ) was an American composer, pianist and musicologist. Life and career She was born in Denton, Texas. She graduated from University of North Texas College of Music (1930) and then continued with graduate studies in piano and composition at the Juilliard School with Reuben Goldmark and Frederick Jacobi from 1932 to 1939, earning a diploma. She simultaneously studied at New York University earning a master’s degree in 1933 and a PhD in 1952. From 1932 to 1939, she served as pianist for the Orchestrette Classique of New York, a women’s orchestra. During this time, she also gave concerts of mostly American music in Latin America, Europe, and throughout the United States. As a performer, she became particularly associated with the works of Aaron Copland. From 1941 to 1946, she taught at the Hartt School, where she founded the department of music education. She collaborated with composer Cecile Vashaw on The Work and Play String Method, an instructional series for violin, viola, cello, and bass. She joined ASCAP in 1945. As a composer, Smith is best known for her operas and orchestral works, which have all been performed. Her music i

Julián Bautista

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Julián Bautista (21 April 1901 – 8 July 1961) was a Spanish composer and conductor. He was a member of Generation of ‘27 and the Group of Eight, the latter of which also included composers Jesús Bal y Gay, Ernesto Halffter and his brother Rodolfo, Juan José Mantecón, Fernando Remacha, Rosa García Ascot, Salvador Bacarisse and Gustavo Pittaluga. He composed the soundtracks to 37 movies in addition to more than 30 other classical works. He worked actively as a conductor with such orchestras as the Madrid Symphony Orchestra and the Spanish National Orchestra. Bautista was the son of Julián Bautista Swartz and Ventura Cachaza Vázquez. He began studying solfège at the age of 7 and piano at the age of 11 with Pilar Fernández de la Mora. At the age of 14 he began taking courses in harmony, counterpoint, and fugue at the Madrid Royal Conservatory where he was a pupil of Conrado del Campo. In 1940 he emigrated to Argentina, where he lived in Buenos Aires. Works Selected filmography * An Evening of Love (1943) * Our Natacha (1944) * The Phantom Lady (1945) * Back in the Seventies (1945) * The Earring (1951) *Suburb (1951) * Don’t Ever Open That Door (1952) External links *Julián Bautista: we

Julian Work

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Julian Cassander Work (September 25, 1910—June 15, 1995) was an arranger and composer. Work was born in Nashville, Tennessee, to a family of professional musicians. His grandfather, John Wesley Work (1848–1923) was a composer and arranger for the Fisk Jubilee Singers; his father, John Wesley Work Jr. (1871–1925) was the first African-American collector of folk songs and spirituals, and also a choral director, educator and songwriter; his brother John Wesley Work III (1901–1967) was a composer, educator, choral director, musicologist and scholar of African-American folklore and music; his mother, Agnes Hayes Work, was a singer who also helped train the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Work studied music with local teacher Mary E. Chamberlain and was involved in musical activities from an early age, participating in neighborhood musical groups and performing as a jazz pianist. By 1929 he had moved to New York City and was playing piano on the radio. He became a staff arranger for CBS Radio, becoming one of the first Black American composers to write music for radio and television. Work married Kathryn Holliday in 1953. Upon his retirement they moved to Tolland, Massachusetts, where he died. *My

Julie Reisserová

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Julie Reisserová née Kühnlova (9 October 1888 – 25 February 1938) was a Czech composer and music publicist. Biography Julie Reisserová was born in Prague. She studied piano with Adolf Mikeš and singing with Richard Figar. From 1919 until 1921 she studied composition in Prague with Josef Bohuslav Foerster. She continued her composition studies in Bern with Ernst Hohlfeld and with Albert Roussel (1924–1929) and Nadia Boulanger. Reisserová translated into Czech language Le testament de la tante Caroline (Aunt Caroline’s Last Will), by operetta by composer Albert Roussel and librettist Nino (Michel Veber). The operetta premiered on 14 November 1936 in Olomouc and was also staged on 18 April 1937 in Prague. She died in Prague in 1938, age 49. Selected works Notable works include: ; Orchestral music *Suite for Orchestra (), 1928–1931 *Pastorale Maritimo for Orchestra (), 1933 *Early Spring (), 1936 ; Solo piano *Esquisses, 1935 *Deux Allegros ; Vocal music *March (; orchestral songs), 1934 *Sous la neige (, ; song cycle for voice and piano), 1936 *Festive Day (; for women’s choir), 1936, dedicated to Františka Plamínková Reisserová also wrote In Margin Vitae, a book of her poems written

Julien-François Zbinden

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Julien-François Zbinden (11 November 1917 – 8 March 2021) was a Swiss composer and jazz pianist. Life Born in Rolle, Kanton Waadt, Zbinden studied piano in Lausanne and Geneva. He learned musical composition mainly autodidactically, but also took lessons with René Gerber. In 1938 he became pianist of a jazz band. From 1947 he worked at Radio Suisse Romande in Lausanne, first as a recording manager and from 1956 as head of the music department. From 1973 to 1979 and from 1987 to 1991 Zbinden was president of the Swiss Society for the Rights of Authors of Musical Works (SUISA). Zbinden is the winner of numerous prizes: the Henryk Wieniawski Composition Prize in Warsaw (1956), the Grand Prize of the Communauté radiophonique des programmes de langue française, the Swiss Radio Broadcasting Prize, the prize of the Société des auteurs et compositeurs dramatiques (SACD) and the prize of the Association des amis du Festival international de Lausanne. In 1978, he was appointed to the rank of Officer in the Officier des Arts et des Lettres. and in 1993 he received the Gold Medal of the City of Lausanne. He was an honorary member of the association Les Amis de Maurice Ravel. He lived in Lausan

Julio de Caro

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Julio de Caro (December 11, 1899 – March 11, 1980) was an Argentine composer, musician, and conductor prominent in the Tango genre. Life and work His father opened a conservatory in the San Telmo district, in 1913, soon becoming one of the city’s best known sources for music, instruments, parts, and lessons. He and his brother, Francisco, were both taught the piano and violin, respectively; though their father ultimately granted them their wish to exchange instruments (a third brother, Emilio, learned the violin). Against his father’s wishes, Julio obtained a spot as a second violinist at the Lorea Theatre for a 1915 performance of a zarzuela. Despite his father’s punishment and objections, the brothers began attending Buenos Aires’ popular tango recitals. Some of these early influences included bandleaders Eduardo Arolas, Juan Carlos Cobián, and Roberto Firpo. At his friends’ prompting, de Caro rose to the stage during a tango performance at the Palais de Glace, an elegant multi-purpose venue, in 1917. Granted an instrument by Firpo’s violinist, de Caro’s performance elicited a standing ovation, as well as Eduardo Arolas’ offer for a permanent spot in his orchestra. The elder de Caro

Julius Bürger

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Julius Burger (Bürger) (11 March 1897 in Vienna – 12 June 1995 in New York City) was an Austrian then American composer, pianist and conductor. He studied at the Vienna Academy of Music under Franz Schreker, and was one of the group of Schreker’s pupils - Alois Hába, Jascha Horenstein, Ernst Křenek, Karol Rathaus - who followed Schreker to Berlin when Schreker was appointed Director of the Hochschule für Musik. He had a long association with the Metropolitan Opera, New York first dating from his apprenticeship in 1924–1927, when Bruno Walter recommended him as assistant to Artur Bodanzky. He was an assistant to Otto Klemperer at the Kroll Opera, then following the Nazi ban on Jewish artists in 1933, drifted between Vienna, Brussels and Paris as well as visits to London to work for the BBC as an orchestrater. In February 1938 Bürger and his wife exited a train to Vienna in Paris, and in 1939 they departed permanently for America. His mother and four of his brothers were sent to Auschwitz, his mother being shot by the roadside and the brothers murdered in the camp. Works, editions and recordings * Stille der Nacht, for baritone and orchestra. Scherzo for Strings. Cello Concerto. Vari

Julius Harrison

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Julius Allan Greenway Harrison (26 March 1885 – 5 April 1963) was an English composer and conductor who was particularly known for his interpretation of operatic works. Born in Lower Mitton, Stourport in Worcestershire, by the age of 16 he was already an established musician. His career included a directorship of opera at the Royal Academy of Music where he was a professor of composition, a position as répétiteur at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, conductor for the British National Opera Company, military service as an officer in the Royal Flying Corps, and founder member and vice-president of the Elgar Society. Life and career Early years Harrison was born in 1885 in Lower Mitton, Stourport in Worcestershire. and his wife, Henriette Julien née Schoeller, a German-born former governess. He was educated at a dame school in Stourport, Harrison’s setting won the first prize at the Norwich Musical Festival, adjudicated by Frederick Delius, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Ernest Walker. The Times commented on the inadequacy of the libretto, and praised Harrison’s orchestration and melodies but complained that the work was “a series of pictures of unbridled passion devoid of all that o

June Weybright

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June Elizabeth Weybright Reeder (June 15, 1903 – November 15, 1996) was an American composer and music educator who is best known for her piano method books and compositions, published under the name June Weybright. She was born in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and studied at the Leo Miller Institute of Music (St. Louis, Missouri), Washington University, and the Juilliard School of Music. Her teachers included Kate Chittenden, Jessie L. Gaynor and Effa Ellis Perfield. Weybright began teaching in 1925, and married Leland Reeder in St. Louis on July 20, 1940. In addition to teaching, Weybright conducted choral groups and gave many lectures and workshops on topics such as “For a Musical America,” “Music in the Everyday Life of Our Juniors,” and “Reading Fluency for All Students.” She belonged to the Mu Phi Epsilon international music fraternity. Weybright composed or arranged over 300 piano pieces in 48 volumes, as well as pedagogical material on music theory, and music for four hands, six hands, and two pianos. She was published by Belwin Mills, which was later acquired by Alfred Music publishing company. Her best-known works include: *Belwin Piano Method (in five books) *Belwin Theory Wo

Juraj Stahuljak

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Juraj Stahuljak (16 July 1901, Sv. Jana – 8 February 1975, Zagreb) was a Croatian composer, organist, choir conductor and pedagogue. Biography Juraj Stahuljak (Sv. Jana by Jastrebarsko, 1901 – Zagreb, 1975) was the son of Vladimir Stahuljak (Bjelovar, 1876 – Zagreb, 1960), the first in the family to have music as one of his professions. After studying composition in Zagreb in 1904, Vladimir Stahuljak set out for Budapest, where at the M. Somogy Conservatory he took a degree in composition. When in addition to his musical education he also acquired a certificate to teach Croatian and German, he was eligible for employment in a number of Croatian cities. His first job was in Sv. Jana near Jastrebarsko, from 1900 to March 1903, where his son Juraj was born on 16 July 1901. The father was posted to various different positions and from 1903 to 1908 he lived with his family, in Remete, from 1908 to 1912 in Koprivnica, from mid-August 1912 to February 1914 in Čavle-Cernik over Sušak, and in Sušak itself, to which, after more than a year in Zadar, (March 1914 – mid-1915) the father had been forced to flee because of political denunciations on account of his Croatian patriotism, returning f

Jürg Baur

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Jürg Baur (11 November 1918 – 31 January 2010) was a German composer whose works include Incontri and Mutazioni. Baur studied at the Cologne University of Music and taught there in his later years. Baur was also awarded the Federal Cross of Merit. Education Baur was born in Düsseldorf, where he achieved early recognition as a composer at the age of 18, when his First String Quartet was premiered at the Düsseldorf Hindenburg Secondary School by the then-famous Prisca Quartet. He studied from 1937 to 1948 (interrupted by army service from 1939 to 1945, including several months as a Russian prisoner of war) at the Hochschule für Musik Köln (Cologne University of Music): composition with Philipp Jarnach, piano with Karl Hermann Pillney, and organ and sacred music with Michael Schneider. Even before completing his conservatory studies, he was appointed lecturer in music theory at the Düsseldorf Conservatory in 1946. He did postgraduate studies in musicology with Karl Gustav Fellerer and Willi Kahl from 1948 to 1951 at the University of Cologne. In 1952 he was appointed choirmaster and organist at the St Paulus-Kirche in Düsseldorf, a post he left in 1960 when he was awarded a scholarshi

Jussi Jalas

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Jussi Jalas (23 June 1908 – 11 October 1985) was a Finnish conductor and composer. Biography Jalas was born as Armas Jussi Veikko Blomstedt in Jyväskylä in 1908. His father was Yrjö Blomstedt, an architect known for his National Romantic Jugend architecture. He studied at the Helsingfors Conservatory 1923–30 (later renamed the Sibelius Academy), and then in Paris 1933–34, under Wladimir Pohl, Pierre Monteux and Rhené-Baton. He had further study in Germany, Austria and Italy before returning to Finland. He changed his surname to Jalas in 1943. He taught at the Sibelius Academy from 1945 to 1965, and was the music director of the Finnish National Opera from 1945. He conducted the Finnish premieres of Benjamin Britten’s operas Peter Grimes and The Rape of Lucretia. His wife Margareta née Sibelius was the daughter of Jean Sibelius, and virtually every one of his concerts included a work by his father-in-law. His own works included orchestral works, piano music and songs. He died in Helsinki in 1985, aged 77. Recordings His discography includes a complete recording of Leevi Madetoja’s opera, Juha, with Jorma Hynninen, as well as, for Westminster, Norman Treigle’s two recital albums, “Ar

K. P. H. Notoprojo

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Kanjeng Pangeran Harjo Notoprojo (Hanacaraka: ), also known as Tjokrowasito, Wasitodipuro, Wasitodiningrat, among other names (March 17, 1909 – August 30, 2007), was one of the most highly respected performers of Javanese gamelan. He led the Paku Alaman palace gamelan as well as the gamelan for the Radio Republik Indonesia Yogyakarta, and taught gamelan in universities around the world. He was also a noted composer and rebab performer. On March 9, 2004, he received the Nugraha Bhakti Musik Indonesia Award. Name His official name changed several times, corresponding to honors received during his lifetime. He was born in Yogyakarta, Central Java, as Wasi Jolodoro. He was first called Tjokrowasito (Cokrowasito in the new orthography); and known familiarly as Pak Tjokro (Cokro). As he became musically proficient, his peers called him Ki Tjokrowasito (Ki is an unofficial title of respect). In the 1960s, the Paku Alaman Palace honored him with the name K.R.T. Wasitodipuro, or “Wasito of the palace; and the additional honorifics K.R.T., or Kanjeng Raden Tumenggung. Later, he was honored again to become K.R.T. Wasitodiningrat, “Wasito of the world.” In 2001 he was recognized officially as

Kai Aage Bruun

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Kai Aage Bruun (23 January 1899 – 11 May 1971) was a Danish music writer, critic and composer. Bruun grew up in a musical home. His father was cellist in The Royal Chapel and was educated by The Royal Danish Academy of Music. His mother was the sister of composers Roger Henrichsen and Edgar Henrichsen and Kai Aage was thus cousin to jazz pianist Børge Roger-Henrichsen. Bruun began to play cello at the age of just 6, and in 1917 studied music in Leipzig. He was also involved in the practical music scene: in 1925 as co-founder of Student Musikforeningen where he directed a couple of years, 1926-1927 as conductor of the Student Sangforeningen and later, 1930-1931 as conductor of the Academic Orchestra. In addition, he worked as a music critic and assistant to Music History Museum. In 1927 he had, however, been employed by DR, Denmark’s national broadcasting station as the program secretary, and thus began a 30-year association with a medium where his abilities as a music facilitator came to full expression through numerous lectures and broadcasts. In 1949, he was deputy head of its music department and he worked a dozen years as a music consultant. In 1969 published his principal Dani

Kai Gullmar

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

Kai Gullmar (pseudonym for Gurli Maria Bergström), (2 April 1905 in Sundsvall – 25 March 1982 in Stockholm), was a Swedish composer, musician, singer and actress. Gullmar wrote music for more than 40 films between 1937 and 1960. Biography In 1924–1925, Gullmar studied in London. After her return to Sweden, she settled in Stockholm; she made her debut as a performer in a revue by Ernst Rolf in 1929. However, Gullmar’s parents forbade her from performing on stage, and she started working as a recording artist and composer for His Master’s Voice instead. Gullmar soon emerged as one of Sweden’s leading composers of schlager music, with entertainers such as Ulla Billquist, Karin Juel, Harry Brandelius and Karl Gerhard recording her compositions. During her career, Gullmar wrote music for more than 47 Swedish films. Simultaneously, she continued recording her own music and acting in revues as well as films. Kai Gullmar was openly lesbian and became known for her often androgynous way of dressing. She is buried at Norra begravningsplatsen in Stockholm. Known melodies En natt på Ancora bar (1933), Det borde vara förbjudet med så vackra ögon (1937), Blonda John (1938), Solen lyser även på l

Kai Normann Andersen

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Kai Normann Andersen (11 April 1900 – 24 June 1967) was a Danish composer who wrote film scores and music for stage revues and dramas. He composed songs for over 50 films between 1930 and 1965. In the 1930s and 1940s he dominated Danish film music. He has been called " o ne of the most appealing personalities of our time in the light music field". Twelve of his songs have been included in the Danish Culture Canon. Connie Hedegaard and Claus Hagen Petersen list him among the 100 most important Danes of the 20th century. Career Andersen was originally a bank clerk, but began composing for revues, studied music, and in 1919 became a full-time musician. He became director of revue productions in Copenhagen before extending his range into film and plays (by Kaj Munk and Kjeld Abell amongst others). He composed songs for over 50 films between 1930 and 1965. In the 1930s and 1940s, he dominated Danish film music. In the 1930s, he contributed prolifically to the score of films directed by George Schnéevoigt (1893–1961) including Præsten i Vejlby, Hotel Paradis - 1931, Skal vi vædde en million? - 1932, Kirke og orgel - 1932, Odds 777 - 1932, De blaa drenge - 1933, Kobberbryllup - 1933 and t

Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji

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Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (born Leon Dudley Sorabji; 14 August 1892 – 15 October 1988) was an English composer, music critic, pianist and writer. His music, written over a period of seventy years, ranges from sets of miniatures to works lasting several hours. One of the most prolific 20th-century composers, he is best known for his piano pieces, notably nocturnes such as Gulistān and Villa Tasca, and large-scale, technically intricate compositions, which include seven symphonies for piano solo, four toccatas, Sequentia cyclica and 100 Transcendental Studies. He felt alienated from English society by reason of his homosexuality and mixed ancestry, and had a lifelong tendency to seclusion. Sorabji’s mother was English and his father a Parsi businessman and industrialist from India, who set up a trust fund that freed his family from the need to work. Although Sorabji was a reluctant performer and not a virtuoso, he played some of his music publicly between 1920 and 1936. In the late 1930s, his attitude shifted and he imposed restrictions on performance of his works, which he lifted in 1976. His compositions received little exposure in those years and he remained in public view mainly

Kalitha Dorothy Fox

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

Kalitha Dorothy Fox (1894 – 11 August 1934) was an English composer. She was born in London to wealthy parents. Her mother died in 1905, and a year later, aged 11, she composed the solo piano piece Affliction – on the death of my mother, which was published by Augener. The arrangement - credited to ‘L.L’ - may have been by Liza Lehmann. A set of her mature compositions was published by Maurice Senart in the 1920s and 1930s, and there were occasional performances - her Suite for String Orchestra was heard in London in 1925, her substantial Piano Trio (lasting 40 minutes) was performed at a Society of Women Musicians concert at 74 Grosvenor Street, London on 10 July 1926, and her Viola Sonata was broadcast from Bournemouth on 21 November 1927. Another trio, for flute, viola and piano, was performed at Grosvenor Street on 9 July, 1932. There are modern recordings of her Chant Élégiaque, op. 6 for cello and piano, and of her Viola Sonata, op, 7. Fox suffered from ill-health and a nervous disposition throughout her life. A number of half-finished manuscripts were found in her luggage. The death and inquest received considerable attention in the newspapers. Her estate was valued at £13,6

Kálmán Mihalik

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Kálmán Mihalik (21 February 1896 – 6 September 1922) was a Hungarian physician and composer, best known for setting the music of the Székely Himnusz. Early life and studies Mihalik was born in Oravicabánya (now Oravița) to a Székely woman from Csík County and a burgess from Kassa (now Košice). He absolved his high school studies in the Piarist and the Unitarian grammar school of Kolozsvár (now Cluj-Napoca), making his matura in 1915. Subsequently, Mihalik was enrolled at the Franz Joseph University, however, his studies were interrupted by the World War I, forcing him to spend several years on the front. In the final period of the war, after the Romanian forces took over Kolozsvár, the university moved first to Budapest and later to Szeged, where Mihalik followed them. After finishing his studies he remained in the university, became the assistant lecturer of Béla Reinbold and worked as a medical researcher. Composer of the Székely Himnusz In 1920, together with four others, György Csanády founded the Association of Székely University and College Students (Székely Egyetemista és Főiskolai Hallgatók Egyesülete; SZEFHE), a self-help organization that aimed to create a sense of belong

Kan'ichi Shimofusa

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Kanichi Shimofusa (; March 31, 1898 - July 8, 1962) was a Japanese composer. Kanichi Shimofusa was born in Sunahara, Haramichi-mura, Saitama (now Ōtone, Saitama). He studied composition with Kiyoshi Nobutoki at Tokyo Music School (now Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, also called Geidai), where he graduated first on the list in 1920. Later, he studied with Paul Hindemith at Berlin University of the Arts in Germany, making him the forerunner of Brahms-Hindemith-descended German style at Tokyo Music School. His notable students at Tokyo Music School include Ikuma Dan, Makoto Sato, Yasushi Akutagawa, Mareo Ishiketa, Yuzo Toyama and ; his private students included Kunio Suda. Kanichi Shimofusa composed numerous nursery rhymes and government-approved music for music textbooks. He also composed a number of school songs for elementary, junior high, and high schools. The total number of his composition went over 1,000. His music style was unostentatious and steady. He became an associate professor at Tokyo Music School in 1934. He became a member of the textbook editorial committee of the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture in 1940. He became a professor at T

Karel Berman

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Karel Berman (14 April 1919 in Jindřichův Hradec, Czechoslovakia – 11 August 1995 in Prague, Czech Republic) was a Jewish Czech opera singer, composer, opera director, and translator. Life After extensive musical education, Karel Berman started his career as a bass singer of opera in Opava. In 1944 he composed Suite Terezin in three movements (‘Terezin’, ‘Horror’, and ‘Alone’); a work which musicologist Bret Web described as “a rare in situ tone portrait of life in a Nazi camp”. Later he was also imprisoned in Kaufering and Auschwitz. He taught at the Prague Conservatory from 1961 to 1971, and from 1964 at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Works * 1944 Poupata (“Buds”) Bass-baritone songs and piano **Majové ráno (Eva Nonfriedová) **Co se děje při probuzení (Kamil Bednář) **Děti si hrají (Josef Hora) **Před usnutím č. 1 (František Halas) **Velikonoční (František Halas) * 1938 - 1945 Reminiscences Suite Piano (first published in 2000) *Terezín Suite Piano *Broučci (“Glow-worms” - after the children’s book by Jan Karafiát) Soprano and piano (later made world-famous by Jiří Trnka as a cartoon) Recordings *Historical recording opera arias, conducted František Dyk Notes Reference

Karel Boleslav Jirák

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Karel Boleslav Jirák (né Karel Bohuslav Jirák; January 28, 1891, Prague, Bohemia – January 30, 1972, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.) was a Czechoslovak composer and conductor. Jirák became a pupil of Josef Bohuslav Foerster and Vítězslav Novák at the Charles University and at music academy in Prague. From 1915-18 he was the Kapellmeister at the Hamburg Opera and worked from 1918 to 1919 as a conductor at the National Theatre in Brno and Ostrava. From 1920-30, he was a composition teacher at the Prague Conservatory, and principal conductor of the Czechoslovak Radio Orchestra until 1945. In 1947, he emigrated to the United States, where from 1948 to 1967 a professor at Roosevelt University, Chicago, and, in 1967, a composition teacher at the Conservatory college in Chicago. He remained in this position until 1971. Jirák’s opera was Apolonius z Tyany (Apollonius of Tyana, 1912–1913), which was initially ignored by Prague’s National Theatre and later accepted under the title Žena a Bůh (The Woman and the God, 1936). He wrote six symphonies and several symphonic variations. In 1952, he wrote a Symphonic Scherzo for volume. He also wrote many suites and overtures, numerous pieces of chamber mus

Karel Reiner

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

Karel Reiner (27 June 1910 – 17 October 1979) was a Czech composer and pianist. He was persecuted by Nazis as a Jew and by communists as a formalist. He was the only classical composer to survive the concentration camp in Theresienstadt. Life He was born in Žatec, Bohemia into a Jewish family. His father Josef was a kantor in Žatec’s synagogue. He studied law, and acquired his doctorate in 1934. In 1929 he also studied composition privately with Alois Hába and composed Fantasia for Quarter - tone piano. In 1931 he graduated from the Master School of Composition with Orchestral suite, as a student of Josef Suk. Reiner was also a concert pianist who cooperated with Theatre of Emil František Burian (1934–1938). During World War II; he was imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps, first in Theresienstadt (deported on 7 July 1943), he participated in musical activities there, created incidental music for the play Esther, directed by Norbert Frýd. Later, on 28 September 1944, he was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, afterwards to Landsberg and finally to Kaufering, a subcamp of the Dachau camp. Following the death march and liberation he returned to Prague, where he reunited with his wife Ha

Karl Amadeus Hartmann

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

Karl Amadeus Hartmann (2 August 1905 – 5 December 1963) was a German composer. A major figure of the musical life of post-war Germany, he has been described as the greatest German symphonist of the 20th century. Life Born in Munich, the son of Friedrich Richard Hartmann, and the youngest of four brothers of whom the elder three became painters, Hartmann was himself torn, early in his career, between music and the visual arts. He was much affected in his early political development by the events of the unsuccessful Workers’ Revolution in Bavaria that followed the collapse of the German empire at the end of World War I (see Bavarian Soviet Republic). He remained an idealistic socialist for the rest of his life. At the Munich Academy in the 1920s, Hartmann studied with Joseph Haas, a pupil of Max Reger, and later received intellectual stimulus and encouragement from the conductor Hermann Scherchen, an ally of the Schoenberg school, with whom he had a nearly lifelong mentor-protégé relationship. He voluntarily withdrew completely from musical life in Germany during the Nazi era, while remaining in Germany, and refused to allow his works to be played there. An early symphonic poem, Mise

Karl Clausen

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

Karl Søren Clausen (15 August 1904 – 5 December 1972) was a Danish pianist, conductor, composer and musicologist. In addition to his work as a high school teacher in German and Music, he composed several instrumental and choral works, as well as songs. He became increasingly involved in work with amateur choirs and school singing, and he became a very popular choir conductor, who led several choirs to many musical successes, often with his own choir arrangements, based on folk melodies. The strong folk singing tradition that he experienced in his childhood Sønderjylland under German rule became decisively influential during his later career. In the late 1940s he began collecting sound recordings of folk singing in marginal, rural areas of Jylland, and in the 1960s he continued this work in the isolated Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic. Alongside teaching and collection work, Clausen also began studying the history of Danish and North German folk singing, and put folk singing into a new context, incorporating historical, religious and sociological aspects, As a young, talented pianist, he studied piano with Roger Henrichsen. In 1928, he took an MA degree from the University of Co

Karl Hajos

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

Karl Hajos (born Hajós Károly, January 28, 1889 – February 1, 1950) was a Hungarian composer who worked on many film scores. Born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Hajos emigrated to the United States in 1924 and worked in Hollywood. Beginning in the late silent era, he worked on over 100 films with a variety of directors and studios. He was one of nine composers employed on the 1931 Western Fighting Caravans. In 1934, he worked on Cecil B. Demille’s thriller Four Frightened People. He was nominated for two Academy Awards, in 1944 and 1945 in the Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture category for Summer Storm and The Man Who Walked Alone, respectively. Selected filmography * Loves of an Actress (1928) * The Woman from Moscow (1928) * Adoration (1928) * Beggars of Life (1928) * The Wolf of Wall Street (1929) * The Sea God (1930) * The Right to Love (1930) * The Night of Decision (1931) * Fighting Caravans (1931) * Four Frightened People (1934) * Werewolf of London (1935) * Summer Storm (1944) * Dangerous Intruder (1945) * The Man Who Walked Alone (1945) * Fog Island (1945) * Secrets of Linda Hamilton (1945) * The Mask of Diijon (1946) * Wild West (1946) * Wild Country (1947) * A

Karl Höller

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Karl Höller (25 July 1907 – 14 April 1987) was a German composer of the late Romantic tradition. Biography Karl Höller was born in Bamberg, Bavaria. He came from a musical family on both sides: his father Valentin Höller was the Bamberg Cathedral organist for 40 years, and his grandfather and great-grandfather were organists at Würzburg Cathedral. His aunt Gretchen was the first female organist at Würzburg. His mother was a singer, whose father had been a choir director and musician. He showed aptitude for the organ at an early age. He was a choirboy from age six, and he studied piano, organ and cello in Bamberg. He went to the Würzburg Conservatory where he studied composition under Hermann Zilcher; and to the Munich Academy of Music, where he studied composition with Joseph Haas and Waltershausen, organ with Gatscher, and conducting with Siegfried von Hausegger. After taking his composition and organ examinations in 1929, he became a master-class student of Haas. He taught at the Munich Academy (1933–1937), from 1937 in Frankfurt at the Hoch Conservatory and Hochschule für Musik (1938–1946), and the Munich Conservatory (Hochschule für Musik) (1949–1972; taking over the compositio

Karl Komma

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Karl Michael Komma (24 December 1913, Asch, Austria-Hungary (now Aš, Czech Republic) – 23 September 2012, Memmingen, Germany) was a German composer and music-publicist. Life Komma studied at the German Music Academy in Prague with George Szell, Fidelio F. Finke and before he went to Heidelberg in 1934 to study music with Heinrich Besseler. Komma graduated in 1936 with a dissertation on Jan Zach. During this time he also conducted composition studies with Wolfgang Fortner, who became a conductor for Komma (Donaueschingen, premiere of the “German Dances” for string orchestra, 1939). From 1940 to 1945, Komma was the head of the music school in what is now Liberec, and was awarded for his achievements. He also appeared in 1935 with a cantata for a NSDStB-Kundgebung in appearance, composed by a jubilant chorus for the annexation of Czechoslovakia by Hitler in 1938 and came with a pamphlet against Gustav Mahler in 1939 ( in Musik im NS-Staat), 1982, and Macht und Musik, 1992). In 1952, he received the Nordgau Culture Prize of the city of Amberg in the category of music. Komma, from 1954 to 1989, taught music history, music theory and composition at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart and worke

Karl L. King

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Karl L. King (February 21, 1891 – March 31, 1971) was a United States march music bandmaster and composer. He is best known as the composer of “Barnum and Bailey’s Favorite”. Early life Karl Lawrence King was born in the village of Paintersville, Ohio. He was the only child of Sandusky S. and Anna Lindsey King. The King family moved to Canton, Ohio, when he was eleven, the age he used newspaper carrier income to purchase his first musical instrument – a cornet. He studied with Emile Reinkendorff, director of the Grand Army Band of Canton, on this instrument. He grew up as a self-taught musician with very little schooling of any kind (he left school after the eighth grade, age fourteen). His only music instruction included assistance from local musicians when he played brass instruments in the Canton Marine Band. He also had four piano lessons and one harmony lesson from musical show director William Bradford. He learned to compose by studying scores. He quit school to learn the printing trade (while composing music at night), but soon switched to playing in and composing for bands. His first professional positions were in the Thayer Military Band in Canton, directed by William E. S

Karl Leichter

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Karl Leichter (13 October 1902 in Näpi, Rakvere Parish – 7 March 1987 in Tallinn ) was an Estonian musicologist. In 1929 he graduated in theory and composition, studying under Heino Eller with pupils such as Eduard Tubin, Alfred Karindi, Eduard Oja and Olav Roots. Between 1929 and 1931 he worked in the Estonian Folklore Archives. Following World War II and the ensuing Soviet occupation of Estonia, he worked hard to re-establish functioning musical education and musicological research. For a short period, he was dean of Tallinn State Conservatory, but quickly lost his position due to political reasons. Only after Stalin’s death could he slowly work his way back to a position as a teacher and eventually as the Chair of the Department of Composition and Musicology. He later worked in Stockholm and Helsinki. The Eduard Tubin Museum of Alatskivi Castle today contains exhibits related to him and his other peers who studied with him at the Tartu school. His large archive of correspondence with many important musicians throughout Estonia and abroad was donated by his widow to the Estonian Museum of Theatre and Music in the 1990s. References

Karl Ludwig Gerok

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Karl Ludwig Wilhelm Gerok (27 January 1906 – 28 June 1975) was a German organist, composer and organ teacher. Career Karl Ludwig Gerok was born in Oberfischach, the grandson of , a Stuttgart prelate and preacher (Oberhofprediger) at the Schlosskirche, the court church of the Stuttgart palace, and the author of Palmblätter. Karl Ludwig Gerok studied organ at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart under organist Arnold Strebel and then with Karl Straube in Leipzig. From 1930, Gerok was cathedral organist in Halberstadt. He worked from 1946 as an organ teacher at the School of Church Music (Kirchenmusikschule) in Esslingen am Neckar and later at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart where he taught Künstlerisches und liturgisches Orgelspiel (Concert and church organ playing). Among his students were composer Edgar Rabsch (de) (1928–1990) as well as Helmuth Rilling. He was the author of the standard work Lehrgang der Orgelimprovisation (Course of organ improvisation, 1976). From 1948, Gerok was organist at and from 1958 to 1969 served as organist of the collegiate church Stiftskirche, Stuttgart. During this time he was also a significant contributor and editor of the collection Württembergisches Choral

Karl Marx (composer)

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Karl Julius Marx (12 November 1897 – 8 May 1985) was a German composer and music teacher. Life Karl Marx was born in Munich, the son of Josef Marx and his wife Emilie, née Eheberg. After early violin and piano lessons, Marx first studied natural sciences at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in 1916. His encounter with Carl Orff, with whom he took private composition lessons after World War I, was decisive in determining his choice to turn to music professionally. From 1920 to 1922, Marx studied composition with Anton Beer-Walbrunn and conducting with and Siegmund von Hausegger at the Akademie der Tonkunst in Munich. From 1924 to 1935, Marx was solo repetiteur in Felix von Kraus’s singing class. From 1935 to 1939, he led his own interpretation class for lieder and oratorio singers at the Akademie der Tonkunst in Munich, where he also taught harmony and form theory from 1929 to 1939. From 1928 to 1939, he conducted the choir of the Munich Bachverein (until 1931 together with Edwin Fischer and until 1933 with Carl Orff). During this time, his first settings of texts by Rainer Maria Rilke were composed, and Marx had his first great success with Rilke’s motet Werkleute sind wir

Karl Pilß

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

Karl Pilß (4 April 1902 – 22 June 1979), alternative spelling Pilss, was an Austrian pianist, conductor, and composer. He also was a painter. Born in Vienna, he studied piano and music theory with Ferdinand Rebay from 1918 to 1922; from 1924 to 1927 composition with Franz Schmidt at the Vienna Academy of Music; from 1925 to 1927 conducting and to become a Kapellmeister with Robert Heger. From 1928 to 1934 he worked as répétiteur at the Wiener Singakademie. In 1932, Clemens Krauss hired him as assistant choir director for Ferdinand Grossmann at the Vienna State Opera. He also taught piano and music theory at the Wiener Volkskonservatorium that Grossman had established. From 1960 to 1968 he taught at the Vienna Academy of Music. He held various positions such as chorus master of the railroad employees choir, worked privately as a répétiteur from 1941 to 1966. He directed various choirs, including the Wiener Singverein. He was also director of studies at the Salzburg Festival from 1934 to 1966, where he had the opportunity to co-operate in productions with conductors such as Arturo Toscanini, Bruno Walter, Hans Knappertsbusch, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Karl Böhm, and Herbert von Karajan. A

Karl Rautio

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Karl “Kalle” Rautio (; 20 November 1889 – 15 December 1963) was the composer of the Anthem of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic and one of the founders of professional musical art in Karelia. Biography An ethnic Karelian, Karl Rautio was born into a peasant family in the Vaasa region of the Grand Duchy of Finland in 1889. The Rautios immigrated to the United States in 1903, where he made out a living as a miner, along with studying music. In 1922, he immigrated to the Soviet Union, settling in Karelia. References External links * The first page of Rautio’s First Symphony

Karl Schiske

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

Karl Hubert Rudolf Schiske (12 February 1916 – 16 June 1969) was an Austrian composer and musical composition professor. Life Schiske was born in Győr in what is now western Hungary which was then still part of the Danube Monarchy in 1916. In 1919 the family first moved to Orth an der Donau in Lower Austria and in 1923 to Vienna. He attended the grammar school in the Albertgasse, where he met his lifelong friend and later painter Carl Unger. From 1932 he received composition lessons from Ernst Kanitz, a pupil of Franz Schreker, and in 1939 he passed the final examination in composition at the Vienna University of Music as an external student. In addition, he studied musicology, art history, philosophy and physics at the University of Vienna and received his doctorate in 1942 on the use of dissonance in Bruckner’s symphonies. He received his training as a pianist with Roderich Bass and Julius Varga at the Neues Wiener Konservatorium and with Hans Weber at the Vienna Academy of Music. While still a student, the city orchestra of the Wiener Symphoniker and the Steinbauer Quartet performed his early works in the Wiener Musikverein and the Wiener Konzerthaus from 1939 onwards. In 1940 h

Karl-Birger Blomdahl

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

Karl-Birger Blomdahl (19 October 1916 – 14 June 1968) was a Swedish composer and conductor born in Växjö. He was educated in biochemistry, but was primarily active in music and by his experimental compositions he became one of the big names in Swedish modernism. His teachers included Hilding Rosenberg. He died in Kungsängen, Stockholm. His third symphony, Facettes – a work in one subdivided movement as a twelve-tone variation-form piece – from 1950 is a major contribution to the repertoire. In 1959 he composed the opera Aniara based on the poem by Harry Martinson. His output of compositions also includes concertos for violin and viola, a chamber concerto for piano, winds and percussion, at least one other opera (Herr von Hancken), and much chamber music, including a trio for clarinet, cello and piano. Works Stage *(1949) Agamemnon *(1958) Aniara, (libretto by Erik Lindegren based on a poem by Harry Martinson) Recorded and released by Columbia Masterworks as a double-album in the mid-60s. An edited version of Aniara was also side 2 of Columbia Masterworks 1968 Eugene Ormandy – Leonard Bernstein cover-version-album of music from 2001: A Space Odyssey.) It was conducted by Werner Jans

Karl-Rudi Griesbach

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Karl-Rudi Griesbach (14 June 1916 – 8 May 2000) was a German composer, librettist, dramaturge, music critic and academic teacher. Life Born in Breckerfeld, Westphalia, * Orchestral work ** Kleine Sinfonie (1950) ** Afrikanische Sinfonie (1963) ** Sinfonie (67) in memory of the Great Socialist October Revolution (1967) ** Ostinati for orchestra (1976) ** Kontakte for orchestra (1978) ** Szene for orchestra ** Konzertante Musik für Klavier und Kammerorchester (1964) * Stage works ** Kolumbus, opera (1958) ** Der Schwarze – der Weiße − und die Frau, opera (1963) ** Belle und Armand, opera (1988) ** Aulus und sein Papagei, opera (1982) ** Kleider machen Leute, ballet (1954) ** Schneewittchen, ballet (1956) ** Reinecke Fuchs, ballet (1977) ** Samson, ballet (c. 1980) * Vocal music ** Planetarisches Manifest, cantata after Johannes R. Becher for soprano, baritone, piano, choir and orchestra (1962) ** Trinke Mut des reinen Lebens, for baritone, female choir and orchestra based on texts by Goethe (1981) ** Song cycle, texts by Shakespeare, Brecht, and others ** Folk song arrangements * Piano and chamber music ** String Quartet (1977) ** Musik für Flöte und Streichtrio (1953) ** Kleine Olym

Kathe Volkart-Schlager

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Kathe Volkart-Schlager (7 February 1897 – 1976) was an Austrian composer and music educator, and pianist. Volkart-Schlager was born in Vienna and studied at the Stuttgart College of Music (now the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart) with Max Pauer, Wilhelm Kempff, and Joseph Hass. She graduated in 1917 and gave concerts and lectures for teachers, traveling to Sweden, Turkey, and Finland. She married architect Hans Volkart and they had at least three children, one of whom was psychotherapist and author Silvia Volkart Gorres. Volkart-Schlager taught at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart for many years. Volkart-Schlager’s music, much of it made for piano with four hands, was published by Suddeutscher Musikverlag (now Barenreiter). The owner, Willy Muller, was considered daring for publishing Volkart-Schlager’s works during the 1940s since she opposed Nazism. Compositions Chamber music *Cycle (cello and viola) *Singing Windrose (violin and piano) *Sonata in g minor (violin and piano) *Workbook for Young Cellists Piano *20 Piano Pieces for Teachers and Students *26 Piano Pieces for Teachers and Students *Fun Fair (12 pieces) *Old Dances *Pla

Katherine Kennicott Davis

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Katherine Kennicott Davis (June 25, 1892 – April 20, 1980) was an American composer, pianist, arranger, and teacher, whose best-known composition is the Christmas song “Carol of the Drum”, later known as “The Little Drummer Boy”. Life and career Katherine Davis was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, on June 25, 1892, to Maxwell Gaddis Davis and Jesse Foote Barton. She composed her first piece of music, “Shadow March”, at the age of 15. She graduated from St. Joseph Central High School in 1910. She then went on to study music at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. After graduation, she continued at Wellesley as an assistant in the Music Department, teaching music theory and piano; at the same time, she studied at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. She taught music at the Concord Academy in Concord, Massachusetts, and at the Shady Hill School for Girls in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She became a member of ASCAP in 1941. Katherine Davis was conferred an honorary doctorate from Stetson University, in DeLand, Florida. Davis continued writing music until she became ill, in the winter of 1979–1980. She died on April 20, 1980, at the age of 87, in Littleton, Massach

Kathleen Richards

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Kathleen Dale née Richards (29 June 1895, London – March 3, 1984, Woking) was an English composer, pianist, musicologist and translator. She used the name Kathleen Richards for her compositions, but from 1921 used her married name Kathleen Dale for recitals, broadcasts and authorship until the end of her life. Early life and marriage Kathleen Richards was educated at St Felix School in Southwold, Suffolk. She studied piano privately with York Bowen from 1914 and later (from 1924) with Fanny Davies. She also studied composition privately with Benjamin Dale from 1914. In 1916 she performed her Pastoral with the American violinist Olga Rudge, who became a lifelong friend. York Bowen included some of her songs (sung by his wife Sylvia) in an Aeolian Hall recital on July 4, 1916, and he performed her short piano piece A Dance in Spring at the same venue on 14 March 1919. She became Kathleen Dale by marriage to her former teacher, the pianist and composer Benjamin Dale, in 1921. They sometimes performed as a piano duet. The marriage ended in separation in 1930. Composer and author As a composer, her Minuet, Gavotte and Fugue for small orchestra was included in a Patron’s Fund rehearsal a

Kay Swift

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Katharine Faulkner “Kay” Swift (April 19, 1897 – January 28, 1993) was an American composer of popular and classical music, the first woman to score a hit musical completely. Written in 1930, the Broadway musical Fine and Dandy includes some of her best known songs; the song “Fine and Dandy” has become a jazz standard. “Can’t We Be Friends?” (1929) was her biggest hit song. Swift also arranged some of the music of George Gershwin posthumously, such as the prelude “Sleepless Night” (1946). Biography Katharine Faulkner Swift was born to English American Samuel Shippen Swift, a music critic, and Ellen Faulkner of England in New York City. Her father died when she was 17. Swift was educated at the Veltin School for Girls and then trained as a classical musician and composer at the Institute of Musical Art (today the Juilliard School), where she studied piano with Bertha Tapper. Her teacher of composition was Charles Martin Loeffler, while harmony and composition were taught to her by Percy Goetschius. Swift played professionally with the Edith Rubel Trio. While performing at a social event, she met the sister of her future husband, who arranged their meeting. James Paul “Jimmy” Warburg

Kazuo Yamada

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was a Japanese conductor and composer. Early life Kazuo Yamada was born in Tokyo in 1912. He began studies at Gakushuin and then Tokyo University of the Arts (formerly the Tokyo Music School). Studied piano with Leo Sirota and Paul Weingarten, and composition with Klaus Pringsheim, and graduated at the top of his class. Career Yamada formed the orchestra ‘Promethée’ as a composer. In 1937 he was awarded his first prize from the Japan Broadcasting Corporation for his symphonic music works, and in 1938 he was also awarded by the New Symphony Orchestra for his symphonic poem ‘Songs that youth can sing’ as well as the Weingarten Award for the symphonic ‘Kiso’. Yamada studied conducting technique under the tutelage of Józef Rosenstock, and premiered as a conductor for the New Symphony Orchestra in 1940. He was appointed to the post of chief conductor of the Japan Symphony Orchestra which was reorganized from the New Symphony Orchestra (which is now the NHK symphony orchestra) in 1942, greatly contributing to the improvement of the orchestra for the next 13 years. He was awarded the Mainichi Music Award in 1949 for the Japan premiere of the opera Hänsel und Gretel sponsored by NHK, and h

Kees van Baaren

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Kees van Baaren (; 22 October 1906 – 2 September 1970) was a Dutch composer and teacher. Early years Van Baaren was born in Enschede. His early studies (1924–29) were in Berlin with Rudolph Breithaupt (piano) and Friedrich Koch (composition) at the Stern conservatory. After returning to the Netherlands in 1929, he studied with Willem Pijper. He adopted Pijper’s “germ cell technique” in his compositions from about 1934 onward. While composing some works in an accessible, tonal style, in other pieces he developed a serial technique, which emerged fully with the Septet for five winds, violin, and double bass (1952). Career In 1948 Van Baaren became director of the Conservatoire of the Amsterdam Muzieklyceum Society (later merged into the Conservatoire of Amsterdam). In 1953 he was appointed director of the Utrechts Conservatorium. In 1958 he became director of the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. His students included many of the leading composers and performers of the next generation, including Louis Andriessen, Reinbert de Leeuw, Misha Mengelberg, Peter Schat, and Jan van Vlijmen. He died in Oegstgeest. Selected works * Concertino for piano and orchestra (1934) * Sonatina in memoria

Keith Bissell

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Keith Warren Bissell (12 February 1912 in Meaford, Ontario – 9 May 1992 in Newmarket, Ontario) was a Canadian composer, conductor, and music educator. He was particularly known for his choral music, which often implemented elements of Canadian folk music. A passionate educator, he was a pupil of Carl Orff and was influential in popularizing the Orff Schulwerk methodology within North America. From 1957 to 1958 he was President of the Ontario Music Educators’ Association. He was conductor and artistic director of the National Youth Orchestra of Canada in 1970–1971. He also was vice-president of the Canadian Music Council for several years and president of the Canadian Music Centre from 1975 to 1977. Bissell began his career as a public school teacher in Toronto from 1934 to 1948. During this time he began his professional music studies at the University of Toronto where he earned a Bachelor of Music in 1942. He was particularly influenced by his professor in music composition, Leo Smith. In 1948 Bissell was appointed the assistant supervisor of the music program for the Edmonton school district. After just one year he was made supervisor of the program, serving in that capacity for

Kemp Stillings

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

Katharine Kemp Stillings (June 30, 1888 – April 30, 1967) was a violinist, composer, and music educator. Early life Katharine Kemp Stillings was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and began studying violin from a very early age. She went to Berlin to study with Joseph Joachim, and to Saint Petersburg for further studies with Leopold Auer. Career Katherine Stillings performed in Russia and Finland before World War I. She played with pianist Frances Nash in 1917 and 1918, in New York and several other American cities, and was a guest soloist with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. She toured in South America in 1920. Stillings became suddenly blind in the 1920s, and after that focused on teaching. “It has been a handicap, but also a blessing,” she told an interviewer in 1940. “It has made my critical hearing ever so much more acute. Besides, something like this makes us so human.” She was on the faculty at the New Jersey College for Women from 1927 to 1952, and taught her own master classes in New York City, which were modeled on the pedagogy of Joachim and Auer. Her students included conductor Walter Eisenberg. Stillings published violin exercise boo

Kenneth Duffield

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Kenneth Launcelot Duffield (31 May 1885 – 23 November 1958) was an Australian theatrical composer, writer and pastoralist. Early life Kenneth Duffield was born on 31 May 1885, to a wealthy South Australian pastoral family. His grandfather was colonial politician Walter Duffield. He was educated at St Peter’s College in Adelaide. Moving to England, Duffield graduated in Arts from Cambridge in 1906 and a diploma in agriculture the following year. At Cambridge he was part of the Footlights Club. Career As a young man in England, Duffield composed words for songs with lyrics including by A. A. Milne and P. G. Wodehouse, and had a number of songs published. He returned to work at the family station Koonoona in South Australia for eight years. Soon before the outbreak of World War I, Duffield returned to England. He enlisted and rose to be a captain in the Royal Warwick Regiment. He was said to have “entertained troops on a battered 80 franc French piano, which was carried in a 30 franc cart”. He again returned to South Australia in 1922 to manage Koonoona following the death of his father. His musical comedy Hullo Healo was first presented in Adelaide in 1924 (as Healo) and at the Palac

Kent Kennan

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Kent Wheeler Kennan (April 18, 1913, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin – November 1, 2003, in Austin, Texas) was an American composer, author, educator, and professor. Biography He learned to play the organ and the piano and received degrees in composition and music theory from the University of Michigan and the Eastman School of Music. At the age of 23, he was awarded the Rome Prize, which allowed him to study for three years in Europe, primarily at the American Academy in Rome. He was the half brother of the diplomat and historian George F. Kennan. For most of his career, Kennan was a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, also teaching briefly at Kent State University. His work as a professor was briefly interrupted by World War II, when he served as a bandmaster for the United States Army. Upon his release, he taught for two years (1947-1949) at Ohio State University before returning to the University of Texas. His compositions include works for orchestra, chamber ensemble and solo instrument as well as songs and choral music. His Sonata for Trumpet and Piano is part of the standard repertoire for many collegiate trumpet studios. His Night Soliloquy was written in 1936 and is se

Kerstin Thieme

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Kerstin Thieme (23 June 1909, as Karl Thieme – 26 November 2001) was a German composer, composition teacher, music educator and music writer. Life and career Thieme was born in Bad Schlema, Ore Mountains. After her Abitur at the in Aue, she studied music education and composition at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig with Hermann Grabner from 1929 to 1934. Her fellow students included Hugo Distler and Miklós Rózsa. In 1933, she successfully passed the Staatsexamen for teaching at secondary schools and received her doctorate in 1934 with a thesis on the topic of “Klangstil des Mozartorchesters”. Her first teaching activities in Leipzig followed. From 1939 to 1945, Thieme was obliged to serve as a soldier on the front in the Second World War and later became a prisoner of war in Italy. After her political escape from the Soviet occupation zone in 1948, she obtained a position as Studienrat at the Labenwolf-Oberrealschule in Nuremberg, an arts grammar school, from 1950 to 1951. From 1956 to 1960, she was a lecturer at the Hochschule für Musik Nürnberg, where she taught music theory. From 1960 to 1974, she was a lecturer in the Department of Music Education at the Friedrich-Al

Kikuko Kanai

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was a Japanese composer and one of the first Japanese women to compose classical music in the Western tradition. Biography Kikuko Kawahira was born on the Ryukyu island of Miyako-jima, Okinawa, and studied voice at the Nihon Music School and composition at Tokyo Music School. She studied with teachers including with Taijiro Goh, Kanichi Shimofusa, Hisatada Otaka and Kishio Hirao. Working as a composer, she produced songs and orchestral music using the Ryukyuan pentatonic scale. In 1954 she studied the dodecaphonic method in Brazil with Hans-Joachim Koellreutter, and incorporated atonal composition into her work. She was awarded the Mainichi Prize for Cultural Publication in 1955, and a prize by the Okinawan government for her opera Okinawa monogatari in 1968. She died in Tokyo. The BBC describe her as “one of the first Japanese women to compose Western classical music”. Works Selected works include: *Ryūkyū no min’yō (‘Folksongs of Ryūkyū’) 1954 *Okinawa monogatari opera *Miyako-jima engi (Legend of Miyako Island) (ballet), 1949 *Ryūkyū hiwa (A Hidden Story of Ryūkyū) (jazz ballet), 1951 *Hiren Karafune (Love Tragedy on Tang Boat) (op, 4, Kanai and K. Yano), 1960 *Okinawa monogatar

Kim Won-gyun

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Kim Won-gyun (; 2 January 1917 – 5 April 2002) was a North Korean composer and politician. He is considered one of the most prominent, composer of North Korea. He composed “Aegukka” — the national anthem of the country — and “Song of General Kim Il Sung”, in addition to revolutionary operas. Career In his youth, Kim Won-gyun attended high school but dropped out after three grades. Before his musical career, Kim had been only “a farmer who just happened to write the ‘Song of General Kim Il Sung. After the success of the song, he was asked to compose “Aegukka”. As a musician, he was initially self-taught but went to Moscow in order to study there. At some point he attended a music school in Japan. he had risen in status. Kim is credited with contributing to “the creation of the ‘Sea of Blood’ -type revolutionary operas”. It is possible that he worked on the operatic version of Sea of Blood and a symphony based on music from the opera. He is also credited with the opera Chirisan. Kim served as a composer to National Art Theatre. and honorary member of the International Music Council. Besides his musical activities, he was a deputy to the ninth and tenth Supreme People’s Assemblies (SP

Kiyoshige Koyama

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, was a Japanese composer for orchestras, vocal, and traditional Japanese instrumentation. He was born in Nagano City, Nagano Prefecture. Although nationalistic he did not compose until his thirties, which was after the period of Imperial expansionism. Selection of works : Many works by Koyama are published by Ongaku-no-tomo-sha. Orchestral * 1946 Shinano bayashi for Orchestra * 1953/1958 Japanese Folk Songs for Chamber Orchestra * 1957 Kobiki-Uta (Woodcutter’s Song) for Orchestra * 1959 Symphonic Suite “Nohmen” (Masks for Play) * 1964 Ainu no Uta for string orchestra * 1976 Hinauta No. 1 for Orchestra * 1978 Hinauta No. 2 for Orchestra * 1981 Hinauta No. 3 for orchestra * 1988 Hinauta No. 4 for orchestra Wind orchestra *1970 Kobiki-uta for band *1970 Mogura-oi *1970 Otemoyan *1970 Echigo-jishi *1970 Dai-kagura *1980 Flow Festival *1991 Hinauta No. 5 *1993 Noh-men Choral * Lullaby of Itsuki Piano * 1966 Kagome Variations * 1969 Variations on “Kari kari watare” * Children Songs for piano * Collection of piano pieces * Intro to piano thru Japanese harmony * Coming Summer (Natsu wa kinu) Traditional Japanese instruments * 1962 Ubusuna for koto and other Japanese musical instruments *

Kjell Roikjer

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Kjell Maale Roikjer (14 June 1901 – 19 September 1999) was a Danish composer and bassoonist. Early life and education Roikjer was born and grew up in Malmö, Sweden, where his parents were photographers. At 17, he moved to Copenhagen and began an apprenticeship as a scene painter, but left it a few years later to pursue music. He had learned violin, but decided instead to become a bassoonist because there was less competition, and studied under Knud Lassen. Career He began his career in 1924 in Sweden, as bassoon soloist in the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra. In 1926 he returned to Copenhagen, becoming a member of the Tivoli Concert Hall orchestra and permanent assistant with the new Radio Symphony Orchestra. He became a Danish citizen in 1928. in which he played until 1948. He also worked as an archivist at the Tivoli Concert Hall, assisting in the reconstruction of the sheet music library following the hall’s destruction by the occupying Germans during World War II. Compositions Roikjer composed approximately 100 works, about one third after his retirement. His style was classically-inspired, in the French manner. He wrote mostly for small ensembles, often employing less frequentl

Klaus Egge

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Klaus Egge (July 19, 1906 – March 7, 1979) was a Norwegian composer and music critic. Background Egge was born in Gransherad, Telemark, Norway. He was the son of Rasmus Klausen Egge (1874-1962) and Rakel Abrahamsdatter Iversen (1877-1986). He graduated from the teacher school at Stord in 1927 and then started at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo. He trained under Arild Sandvold on the organ and with Gustav Lange (1861-1939) in harmony. He graduated in 1929 and worked as a primary school teacher in the following years in Porsgrunn (1930–34). He continued his musical education with private lessons from Nils Larsen and composition lessons with Fartein Valen. On April 4, 1934, he debuted as a composer at the University of Oslo. In 1937–38, he studied with Walther Gmeindel (1890-1958) in Berlin. He taught at the Frogner, Berle and Vestheim Gymnasium until 1945. Career Egge’s musical development can be separated into three periods. In the first period, folk music was the central source of inspiration. The second period is the period where Egge develops a more universal tonal language. The second period peaks with his development into a metamorphic technique, one where a musical moti

Knudåge Riisager

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

Knudåge Riisager (6 March 1897 – 26 December 1974 ) was a Danish composer. His work was part of the music event in the art competition at the 1928 Summer Olympics. Early life and education Knudåge Riisager was born in Kunda, in the Russian Empire, in what is today Estonia of Danish parents. His father Emil Riisager was an engineer, and the family returned to Denmark in 1900 when Knudåge was three years old. He graduated from Copenhagen University where he received violin lessons from Peder Møller, and studied music theory under Otto Malling and Peder Gram. For many years he worked in a government job, and also as a composer. In 1923, he went to Paris to study with Albert Roussel and Paul Le Flem, where he experienced at first hand French neoclassicism and the music of Igor Stravinsky and Les Six. Notable works ;Opera *Susanne, Op. 49 (1948) ;Ballet music *Benzin, Op. 17 (1930) *Cocktails-Party, Op. 19 (1930) (ikke opført) *Darduse, Op. 32 (1935–36) *Tolv med Posten, Op. 37 (1942) *Slaraffenland, Op. 33 (1936–40) *Qarrtsiluni, Op. 36 (1938–42) *Fugl Fønix (1944/45) *Etudes (1947) *Månerenen, Op. 57 (1956) *Fruen fra havet, Op. 59 (1959) *Galla-Variationer (1966) *Ballet Royal (1967)

Knut Nystedt

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Knut Nystedt (3 September 1915 – 8 December 2014) was a Norwegian orchestral and choral composer. Early life Nystedt was born in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway, and grew up in a Christian home where hymns and classical music were an important part of everyday life. His major compositions for choir and vocal soloists are mainly based on texts from the Bible or sacred themes. Old church music, especially Palestrina and Gregorian chants, have had a major influence on his compositions. Career Nystedt studied with Aaron Copland among others. He was the organist in the Torshov Church in Oslo from 1946 to 1982 and taught choir conducting at the University of Oslo from 1964 to 1985. Nystedt founded and conducted the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir from 1950 to 1990. He also founded and conducted the Schola Cantorum from 1964 to 1985. The choir Ensemble 96 published “Immortal Nystedt” in 2005. This CD was nominated in two categories in the 2007 Grammy Awards and was the first Norwegian CD so nominated. It was also the first CD with a Norwegian composer nominated for a Grammy. On the occasion of his 90th birthday in 2005, there were several concerts around the world held in his honour. Key Nystedt

Koharik Gazarossian

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Koharik Alis Gazarossian (Goharik Alis Łazarosian, ) (21 December 1907 – 29 October 1967) was an Armenian composer and pianist. She was born in Constantinople (Istanbul) and entered the Paris Conservatory in 1926 where she studied with Paul Dukas and Lazare Lévy. After completing her studies, she performed as a concert pianist in Europe and worked as a composer. She died in Paris. Life Koharik Alis Gazarossian was born on 21 December 1907 in Istanbul. was an Armenian composer and pianist. She studied the piano with Professor Hege as a child, and composing with Edgar Manas and Rudolph Leibovitch. Works Gazarossian composed piano, chamber and vocal works, and often incorporated liturgical or folk songs into her compositions. 3 pieces for violin and piano: *“O fille ta mere est morte” (O girl! Your mother is dead), a slow funeral moody piece announcing to the young lady that her mother died. *“La lune de la nuit” (The moon at night) *“O fille ton nom est Chuchan” ( O girl! Your name is Chouchan), a very vivid Armenian dance. References

Kōmei Abe

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was a neo-classical Japanese composer who specialized in string quartets. He performed both as cellist and clarinetist. Biography He was born in Hiroshima in a military family, and became interested in the violin during a stay in Tokyo. From 1929 he attended Tokyo Music School, where he studied cello under Heinrich Werkmeister (1883–1936), who had moved to Japan in 1907, and studied composition under the conductor Klaus Pringsheim Sr. (a former pupil of Gustav Mahler) who had been invited to Tokyo in 1931 to become a professor of music at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. From 1937 he studied with Joseph Rosenstock. In 1942, he had his first success with the premiere of the Cello Concerto, which he had completed five years before. However, in 1944 he was conscripted into the Navy. After the war, he became involved in broadcasting and co-founded the five-member Chijinkai (Earth-Human Association), which gave six concerts between 1949 and 1955. Between 1948 and 1954, he was the director of the Imperial orchestra. Although this orchestra usually performed Western music, many of its members had played traditional court music and thus, Abe learnt in detail about the

Konrad Pałubicki

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Konrad Józef Pałubicki (1910–1992) was a Polish composer, musicologist, teacher, cultural activist and animator in Gdańsk and Bydgoszcz. He created the hymn of Bydgoszcz and taught at the Academy of Music in Gdańsk and the Institute of Music Education of the Higher Pedagogical School in Bydgoszcz (today’s Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz). Biography Early life Konrad was born on 16 March 1910 in Dziembówko, a village near Chodzież. He was the son of Wanda Née Wyrwicka and Franciszek, a railway official. His mother was a teacher and played the piano; she instilled in her son a love of music, literature and theater. By the end of World War I, he moved with his parents to live in Bydgoszcz. There he attended the State High School of Humanities, today the High Seminary of Bydgoszcz Diocese at 18 Grodzka Street. At the age of 17, he became interested in music and started taking private piano lessons from , a pianist from Lviv who settled in Bydgoszcz in 1923 to teach at the Conservatory of Music. Thanks to a scholarship holder from the Directorate of Railways in Gdańsk, Pałubicki then studied music at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. In June 1937, he received a master’s

Kōsaku Yamada

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was a Japanese composer and conductor. Name In older Western reference sources, his name is given as Kôsçak Yamada. Biography Born in Tokyo, Yamada started his music education at Tokyo Music School in 1904, studying there under German composers and Heinrich Werkmeister. In 1910, he left Japan for Germany where he enrolled at the Prussian Academy of Arts and learnt composition under Max Bruch and Karl Leopold Wolf before returning to Japan in late 1913. He travelled to the United States in 1918 for two years. During his stay in Manhattan, New York City, he conducted a temporarily organized orchestra composed of members of New York Philharmonic and New York Symphony, short before their amalgamation. The beginning of his Symphony in F major, “Triumph and Peace” (1912) has a pentatonic theme G-A-D-E which reflects the Japanese national anthem based on Gagaku. This symphony was the first complete symphony with four movements in Japan. His Sinfonia “Inno Meiji” (1921) includes Japanese instruments such as the , an ancient Japanese double reed wind instrument, and other Asian instruments. Yamada composed about 1,600 pieces of musical works, in which art songs (Lieder) amount to 700 even e

Kosti Vehanen

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Kosti Vehanen (31 August 188713 March 1957) was a Finnish pianist and composer. As a pianist he performed in more than 3,000 concerts on four continents. While he did perform as a concert soloist with major symphony orchestras and performed in recitals, he is best remembered for his prolific work as an accompanist with some of the most important singers of the first half of the 20th century. As a composer, he produced piano pieces, arrangements of folk songs, solo songs, two ballets, and a violin and cello fantasy. In addition, Vehanen also penned several memoirs, including 1941 book chronicling his decade long experience serving as Marian Anderson’s accompanist. Life and career Born in Taivassalo, Vehanen entered the Helsinki Music Institute in 1905. He studied at the institute through 1910 where he was a pupil of Sigrid Schnéevoigt. He then pursued further studies in Berlin and Paris, and with Giovanni Sgambati in Rome. In 1912 Vehanen gave his first performances as a concert pianist in Turku and Helsinki. He was soon after engaged as a soloist with major symphony orchestras through Scandinavia and in Great Britain. He became a popular accompanist who was sought after by many fam

Kostiantyn Dankevych

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Kostiantyn Fedorovych Dankevych (December 24, 1905 – February 26, 1984) was a Soviet and Ukrainian composer, conductor, pianist and teacher. He was awarded the People’s Artist of the USSR in 1954. Biography Kostiantyn Dankevych was born in Odesa, in the Russian Empire (in present-day Ukraine). He studied at the Odesa Conservatory with Vasily Zolotarev and Mykola Vilinsky and graduated in 1929. His friendship and collaboration with Vilinsky lasted many years. He was made the director of Songs and Dance of the Red Army Choir in Tbilisi. Kostiantyn wrote his first symphony in 1937. Two years later he wrote his most popular score, the ballet Lileya. Dankevych taught composition at the Odesa Conservatory starting from 1944. In 1953, he was promoted to the staff of the Kyiv Conservatory. Dankevych used many Ukrainian and Russian Folk motifs. One of his notable works was his opera Bohdan Khmelnytsky (premiered January 29, 1951). Following its June premiere in Moscow, Pravda issued some vague and insignificant criticisms of the work, namely that it had not sufficiently portrayed the Polish gentry as enemies, that it did not depict the suffering of the masses, and it lacked a battle scene. The

Kristian Hauger

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Kristian Hauger (24 October 1905 – 18 October 1977) was a Norwegian pianist, orchestra leader and composer of popular music from the late 1920s to mid 1950s. Kristian Asbjørn Hauger was born in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway. His father, Hans August Hauger (1867–1928) was a businessman who operated the Norwegian Christmas Card Company (Norsk Julekortudsalg). He studied musical theory with composer Gustav Fredrik Lange (1861–1939) during 1921–22. From 1921 to 1925, he was a student of piano composer Nils Larsen (1888–1937). He formed the Kristian Hauger Jazz Orchestra in 1929 and became known to a wider audience with the Kristian Hauger Radio Dance Orchestra, which became a widely used studio orchestra in the 1930s. With his orchestra he also recorded a large number of his own compositions. He was musical director of the jazz stage at Bristol from 1928 to 1930, at Le Chat Noir from 1930 to 1936 and at Centralteatret on Akersgata in Oslo from 1936 to 1959. He composed about one thousand melodies throughout his career. His first composition was the prize-winning Charleston i Grukkedalen, which became a great success. Among his songs are Blåklokker (1929, lyrics Herbert Herding), En Osl

Kristo Kono

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Kristo Kono (17 July 1907 – 22 January 1991) was an Albanian composer and recipient of the People’s Artist title in 1961, the highest artistic recognition title during the communist era. He was one of the early contributors to Albanian music and opera who spent all his life in their service; one of the symbols of the cultural traditions of his hometown of Korçë, same as other musicians as Tefta Tashko-Koço, Jorgjia Truja, and Kristaq Antoniu; Early life and work Kono was born on 22 January 1907 in Korçë, back then still part of the Ottoman Empire, today’s southeastern Albania. His interest in music showed up at a very early age. He followed the “Vatra” orchestral band in order to learn how to play the clarinet. In the 1920s he would start to compose songs and small instrumental parts. Rise as a composer After World War II, Kono’s artistic creativity intensified. He went deeper in the study of folk songs and patriotic songs. His big jump in fame came with the composition of major choral and instrumental works: instrumental poems and cantata. They were the first of their kind in Albania. The best known were the instrumental poems Borova (Borova) and Labëria (Labëria), and the cantata

Kurken Alemshah

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Kurken M. Alemshah (; 22 May 1907 – 14 December 1947) was an Armenian composer and conductor. Biography Alemshah was born in Bardizag (now , near İzmit, Turkey). He began schooling in his hometown, but during the Armenian Genocide his parents sent him to Italy to continue his education at the Moorat-Raphael College in Venice. In 1923, when his teachers there became aware of his musical gifts, they enrolled him at the Milan Conservatory to study music. Following his graduation, Alemshah joined the faculty of the Paris branch of the Murat-Raphaelian school, where he organized the Giligia choir, performing not only in Paris, but also traveling to Venice, directing the choir in an all-Komitas program at St. Mark’s Square. Alemshah presented Tchouhadjian’s popular comic opera Leblebidji Hor-Hor Agha (The Chickpea Vendor), and Haygagan harsanik (The Armenian Wedding), a composition put together by combining Alemshah’s own melodies with popular songs. In 1937, Haygagan harsanik received second prize in an international competition in which twenty nations participated. Concurrently, Alemshah conducted the Alakyaz Choir on a number of occasions, initially to mark the establishment of the So

Kurt Atterberg

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Kurt Magnus Atterberg (, 12 December 188715 February 1974) was a Swedish composer and civil engineer. Along with Ture Rangström, he was one the foremost Swedish composers of the generation succeeding Wilhelm Peterson-Berger, Wilhelm Stenhammar and Hugo Alfvén. Atterberg is best known for his symphonies, operas, and ballets. Biography Atterberg was born in Gothenburg. His father was Anders Johan Atterberg, engineer; his uncle was the chemist Albert Atterberg. His mother, Elvira Uddman, was the daughter of a famous male opera singer. In 1902, Atterberg began learning the cello, having been inspired by a concert by the Brussels String Quartet, featuring a performance of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 8. Six years later he became a performer in the Stockholm Concert Society, now known as the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as publishing his first completed work, the Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 1. His String Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 2, soon followed. While already studying electrical engineering at the Royal Institute of Technology, Atterberg also enrolled at the Royal College of Music, Stockholm in 1910 with a score of his Rhapsody and an incomplete versi

Kurt Hessenberg

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Kurt Hessenberg (17 August 1908 – 17 June 1994) was a German composer and professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt. Life Kurt Hessenberg was born on 17 August 1908 in Frankfurt, as the fourth and last child of the lawyer Eduard Hessenberg and his wife Emma, née Kugler. Among his ancestors was Heinrich Hoffmann, whose famous children’s book Struwwelpeter Hessenberg was to arrange for children’s choir (op. 49) later in his life. From 1927–1931 Hessenberg studied at the Leipzig Conservatory. Among his teachers were Günter Raphael (composition) and Robert Teichmüller (piano). In 1933 Hessenberg became a teacher at the Hoch’sche Konservatorium in Frankfurt am Main, where he himself had taken his earliest music lessons. In 1940 Hessenberg received the “Nationaler Kompositionspreis” (national prize for composition), joined the NSDAP in 1942, and in 1951 he was awarded the Robert-Schumann-Prize of the city of Düsseldorf for his cantata “Vom Wesen und Vergehen” op. 45. Hessenberg was appointed professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in 1953 and taught there until his retirement in 1973. Kurt Hessenberg died in Frankfurt am

Kurt Roger

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Kurt George Roger (3 May 1895 – 4 August 1966) was an Austrian–American composer. Roger was born in Austria on 3 May 1895 to Viennese parents and studied in Vienna with Guido Adler, and in class with Arnold Schoenberg - though not following Schoenberg’s 12-tone system. He taught at the Vienna Conservatoire from 1923 to 1938 and his works were receiving high-profile performances (including the premiere of his String Quintet No.1 by the Rosé String Quartet) until the Nazi Anschluss forced his emigration to the United States via London. He became an American citizen in 1945 and held teaching positions in New York and Washington DC, lecturing at several universities and giving radio talks, notably on Bruckner and Mahler. His music has received many notable performances including those by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Rafael Kubelik, the Rochester Philharmonic under Erich Leinsdorf, the New York Chamber Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington DC, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Northern Orchestra under Sir Charles Groves and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Jac van Steen. From 1948 onwards Roger was invited back to Austria on lecture tours, whose

Kurt Schwaen

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Kurt Schwaen (June 21, 1909 in Katowice – October 9, 2007 in Berlin) was a German composer. Professional career Schwaen studied piano, organ and composition under Fritz Lubrich. From 1929 to 1933 he studied at the universities of Berlin and Breslau, where his teachers included Curt Sachs and Arnold Schering. In 1930 he met Hanns Eisler who had a profound impact on his compositional style. After becoming active in an anti-fascist student group, he joined the Communist Party of Germany; from 1935 to 1938 he was imprisoned because of his political views. After the war he returned to Berlin and spent much of his time working to rebuild the musical culture of that city by writing compositions for amateur music groups, choirs, music schools and chamber ensembles, publishing and serving as a musical advisor. Between 1953 and 1956 he worked with Bertolt Brecht who had a profound impact on his future compositions. He also worked with Ernst Busch. He composed in several genres, producing a cantata for children entitled King Midas. In 1961 he became a member of the DDR Akademie der Künste, where he was head of the music department from 1965 to 1970. From 1962 to 1978 he was president of the E

Kurt Striegler

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Kurt Emil Striegler (7 January 1882 – 4 August 1958) was a German composer and director. Life and career Born in Dresden, the son of a chamber musician at the Saxon State Theatre, he attended the Royal Saxon Kapellknaben Institute in Dresden and was appointed Kapellmeisteraspirant at the Dresdner Hofkapelle by Ernst von Schuch in 1905. In 1912, he was appointed Kapellmeister. For more than 50 years, he was committed to Dresden’s musical life as a teacher, conductor, musician and composer. From 1939 to 1945, he directed the , the Dresden Men’s Singing Society and was docent for composition, conductor training and instrumentation teaching at the orchestra school of the Staatskapelle Dresden. Strieglers’ students include the composer, writer, librettist and director Robert Bosshart, the conductor Rolf Kleinert and the composer and conductor Herbert Trantow. Striegler was a member of the NSDAP and in 1933 succeeded Paul Büttner, director of the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden, and Fritz Busch, general music director of the Semperoper, both of whom had been forced out of office by the National Socialist rulers. In 1950, Striegler moved to Munich. In 1953, the painter a

Kurt Thomas (composer)

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Kurt Georg Hugo Thomas (25 May 1904 – 31 March 1973) was a German composer, conductor and music educator. Life Thomas was born in Tönning. The family lived from 1910 in Lennep where he attended the from 1913 to 1922. Completing with the Abitur on 21 April 1922, he studied law and music at the Leipzig University. He completed his studies in 1925 and worked as a lecturer of music theory at the Landeskonservatorium der Musik zu Leipzig. He composed a Mass in A minor as his Op. 1, which earned him the Beethoven Prize of the Preußische Akademie der Künste in 1927. Initiated by Karl Straube, he was appointed a teacher of composition and leader of the Kantorei (chorale) of the (Institute of church music). The choir was named “Kurt-Thomas-Kantorei” and toured in Germany. He became a member of the NSDAP in 1940, number 7.463.935. External links * * * * Musensöhne documentary about Kurt Thomas and the Musisches Gymnasium Frankfurt am Main (1939–45) (90 minutes), WDR 2012 * Kurt Thomas (Conductor, Thomaskantor, Composer) Bach Cantatas Website * Kurt Thomas (1904-1973), a remarkable Thomas Kantor and Bach conductor authenticsound.org *

Kurt Weill

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Kurt Julian Weill (; ; March 2, 1900 – April 3, 1950) was a German-born American composer active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht. With Brecht, he wrote his best-known work, The Threepenny Opera, which includes the ballad “Mack the Knife”. Weill held the ideal of writing music that served a socially useful purpose, Gebrauchsmusik. He also wrote several works for the concert hall and a number of works on Jewish themes. He fled Nazi Germany in 1933, arriving in the United States two years later. Settling in New York, he made a substantial contribution to American musical theater through works such as Lady in the Dark and Street Scene. Family and childhood Weill was born on March 2, 1900, the third of four children to Albert Weill (1867–1950) and Emma Weill (née Ackermann; 1872–1955). He grew up in a religious Jewish family in the “Sandvorstadt”, the Jewish quarter in Dessau in Saxony (now part of Saxony-Anhalt), where his father was a cantor. At the age of twelve, Weill started taking piano lessons and made his first attempts at

L. Scinti Roger

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Luigi Scinti Roger (15 January 1885 – 10 February 1964) was an Italian composer, who emigrated to New York in 1910, and composed music mainly for Italian immigrants in United States. Sometimes known as Louis Roger, he was a talented organist, pianist and orchestra leader. He played in several theaters in United States and Canada including La Sirena Theater, the Verdi Theater and the Naples Garden Theater in Rhode Island and the Columbia Theater in New York. He wrote music for several songs including , and he composed marches, symphonies and musical dramas, among them, , , , . Biography Born on 16 January 1885 in Santa Maria a Vico, Italy, Luigi Scinti Roger was the son of Baron Tommaso Scinti Roger and Lady Vincenza Petrucci. He studied music at the San Pietro a Maiella Conservatory in Naples. But he said to be a composer already when he was eleven years old, when he used to be up early on Sundays, singing and playing in several Churches. He was a friend of the famous Italian musician E.A. Mario (real name Giovanni Ermete Gaeta), and also of the famous inventor of the wireless, Guglielmo Marconi. Luigi earned a Certificate of Radio Operator signed by the inventor of wireless, one o

Lajos Bárdos

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Lajos Bárdos (1 October 1899 – 18 November 1986) was a composer, conductor, music theorist, and professor of music at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, in Budapest, Hungary, where he had previously studied under Albert Siklós and Zoltán Kodály. His younger brother, György Deák-Bárdos, was also a composer. Together with Kodály, Bárdos laid the foundations of 20th-century Hungarian choral music. From 1928 to 1967 he was a professor at the Academy, where he reformed the syllabus––emphasizing the training of choral conductors, the teaching of church music history, and instruction in music theory and prosody. In 1931, along with György Kerényi and Gyula Kertész, he founded the publishing company Magyar Kórus (Hungarian Chorus), publishing 2,000 works of old masters and modern composers over the next 20 years, before being shut down by the communist regime in 1950. As the most active disseminator of sacred music in Hungary, Bárdos was targeted at the time with threatening criticism. (For example, one writer in the new journal Éneklö Nép (Singing People) proclaimed, “We must take care to eradicate men such as Lajos Bárdos as soon as possible!”) The irony is that the rich supply of music p

Lamartine Babo

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Lamartine Babo (10 January 1904 — 16 June 1963) was one of the most important popular composers of Brazil. He also appeared in four films. Career Babo composed several satirical sambas, marchinhas and other songs. Babo is especially remembered for composing anthems for all the main professional football clubs of Rio de Janeiro (América, Bangu, Bonsucesso, Botafogo, Canto do Rio, Flamengo, Fluminense, Madureira, Olaria, São Cristóvão, and Vasco da Gama). References External links * *

Lars-Erik Larsson

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Lars-Erik Vilner Larsson (15 May 190827 December 1986) was a Swedish composer, conductor, radio producer, and educator. He wrote three of the most popular works (each a suite) in Swedish art music: A Winter’s Tale (; 1937–1938), the Pastoral Suite (; 1938), and God in Disguise (; 1940). Other notable works by Larsson include three symphonies, a sinfonietta, and numerous concertante works. Biography Larsson was born in Åkarp in 1908, the son of a factory worker and a nurse. He studied with Ernst Ellberg at the Stockholm Conservatory (1925–1929) and with Alban Berg and Fritz Reuter in Vienna and Leipzig (1929–1930), then worked for Swedish Radio and taught at the Stockholm Conservatory (1947–1959) and Uppsala University, where he held the position as Director musices (1961–1966). One of his pupils was composer Hans Eklund. His style as a composer is eclectic, ranging from the late Romantic to techniques derived from Arnold Schoenberg’s twelve-note system, but original in method. He was the first Swede to write serial music (1932). Yet other works of that period are post-Sibelian or neo-classical, and his output generally is characterized by variety of style. He wrote for the theatre,

Lasse Dahlquist

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Lars Erik (“Lasse”) Dahlquist (14 September 1910 – 14 October 1979) was a Swedish composer, singer and actor. Many of his songs are among the most popular sing-along songs in Sweden, such as Oh boy oh boy oh boy and Gå upp och pröva dina vingar. He was married to Inez Margareta Dahlquist, née Lindquist (1911–2004) from 1936 and they had a son; the saxophonist Robert “Bob” Dahlquist (2 September 1938 – 6 September 2005). On Saltholmen, at the terminal of the boats of Styrsöbolaget, there is a place called Lasse Dahlquists Plats. He was born in Örgryte, and grew up in Lidingö. As a child, he spent his summers at his grandfather’s farm, Langegården, on Brännö, in the Gothenburg archipelago, where he built his own home. He worked at Sven-Olof Sandberg’s music publishment Svenska Noter and in 1931 he began recording gramophone records. In 1977 he received the Evert Taube award. He died on Brännö of laryngeal cancer Selected filmography *Pojkarna på Storholmen (1932) * Jolly Musicians (1932) *Skärgårdsflirt (1935) * Just a Bugler (1938) *Styrman Karlssons flammor (1938) *Sjöcharmörer (1939) * The Crazy Family (1940) * Goransson’s Boy (1941) * It Is My Music (1942) * Eaglets (1944) *Sista

László Lajtha

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László Lajtha (; 30 June 1892 – 16 February 1963) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist and conductor. Career Lajtha was born to Ida Wiesel, a Transylvanian-Hungarian and Pál Lajtha, an owner of a leather factory. His father had ambitions to become a conductor, played the violin well and also composed. Lajtha studied with Viktor Herzfeld in the Academy of Music in Budapest and then in Leipzig, Geneva and finally Paris where he was a pupil of Vincent d’Indy. Before the First World War, in collaboration with Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, he undertook the study and transcription of Hungarian folk song, heading up a project to produce a series of folk music recordings. Throughout the war he served at the front as an artillery officer, an experience recalled in his sombre Second Symphony (1938) – a work that remained unperformed until 1988. In 1919 he married Róza Hollós, and began teaching at the Budapest National Conservatory. Among his pupils was the conductor János Ferencsik, who was later one of the principal champions of his music. From 1928 he was a member of the International Commission of Popular Arts and Traditions of the League of Nations. He was also a member of the I

László Weiner

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László Weiner (9 April 1916 in Szombathely, Hungary – 25 July 1944 in Lukov) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and conductor who was murdered in the Holocaust. Weiner studied piano and conducting at the Budapest Music Academy and was a composition student of Zoltán Kodály from 1934 to 1940. Weiner was married in 1942 to singer Vera Rózsa. By February 1943, Weiner had been deported by the Nazis to the Lukov forced labor camp in Slovakia where he was later murdered. Kodály attempted to save Weiner and colleague Jenő Deutsch to no avail. Due to the efforts of violist Pál Lukács, several of Weiner’s compositions were published by Editio Musica Budapest in the 1950s and 1960s. Selected works ;Orchestral * Concerto for flute, viola, piano, and string orchestra (1941?) * Overture (published 1995) ;Chamber music * 1938: String trio “Vonosharmas Szerenad” for violin, viola, and cello * Duo for violin and viola (1939) * Sonata for viola and piano (1939?) * Two Movements for clarinet and piano ;Vocal * Three Songs (published 1994) Discography * Weiner: Chamber Music with Viola, Hungaroton HCD 32607 * In Memoriam: Hungarian Composers, Victims of the Holocaust, Hungaroton HCD32597 References Ex

Lauma Reinholde

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Lauma Reinholde (1906 - 1986) was a Latvian composer, pianist and teacher who toured internationally and composed over 300 works. Although sometimes known as Lauma Vikmane after her marriage, she is best known as Lauma Reinholde. Reinholde was born in Riga to a musical family. Her mother Alvine Rozenberga was a pianist. Her father Janis Reinholde was a composer, conductor, and violinist. Reinholde began studying piano at age three and attended the Riga Conservatory (today the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music) and the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Her teachers included A. Daugulis, E. Daugovet, and Jāzeps Vītols. After graduating in 1926, Reinholde studied abroad. Describing this time in an autobiographical article (On the Path of My Life. Zeltene, No. 3, 01.02.1934), she noted, “Although I wanted to go abroad to improve my skills immediately after graduating from the conservatory, I only managed to do so after two years, as I could not find the funds sooner. With a grant from the cultural fund and a part of my own savings, I set out into the world. I had to endure many indescribably difficult days during these times of studying abroad (in Germany and Poland). I often ran out o

Launy Grøndahl

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Launy Grøndahl (30 June 1886 – 21 January 1960) was a Danish conductor and composer. Grøndahl studied the violin from the age of eight. His first work as a professional musician was as a violinist with the Orchestra of the Casino Theatre in Copenhagen, aged thirteen. Launy Valdemar Grondahl is known to posterity for two things: his distinguished 31–year conducting career with the Danish National Radio Symphony Orquestra, and his Trombone Concerto dating from 1924. Launy Grøndahl was born in Denmark on 30 June 1886. He began his studies with Anton Bloch, Ludolf Nielsen and Axel Gade, and what marks his life as a violinist and composer was a scholarship from the Kobenhavns Orkestreforenings Jubioeumslegat (granting of the Jubilee of the Copenhagen Orchestral Association) in the summer of 1924. This thanks to the manager of the Vacuum Oil Company, Carls A. Muchaelsen, had donated kr. 2500 to honor a talented member in connection with the association’s 25th anniversary jubilee on 25 April 1924. With the Grøndahl scholarship, the recipient can tour Europe in search of musical knowledge and maturation in Paris, Vienna and Milan, among other cities. Notable works Some of his first works i

Lawrence Benjamin Brown

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Lawrence Benjamin Brown (August 29, 1893 – December 25, 1972) was an American singer, composer and pianist born in Jacksonville, Florida. He is best known for his arrangements of Negro spirituals, many of which he performed as accompanist for Paul Robeson, performing on piano and singing harmony. Early life Lawrence was raised by his father, Clark Benjamin Brown, and his stepmother, Cenia Brown. Lawrence’s birth mother died when he was three years old. Clark and his father were formerly enslaved. Education and early career Brown’s first music teacher was William Riddick, and was sent to study his principal instrument, piano, in Boston, Massachusetts. He worked as an elevator operator to make up for the costs his scholarships did not cover. He made his debut as a concert accompanist for tenor Sydney Woodward, and was later discovered by tenor Roland Hayes, with whom he toured from 1918 to 1923, including a performance at Buckingham Palace in 1921. While in England, he attended Trinity College for advanced training, where he received education in composition from Amanda Aldridge. In addition to piano and vocal arrangements, he performed string arrangements with cellist Beatrice Harri

Lazar Weiner

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Lazar Weiner (, October 24, 1897 – January 10, 1982) was a Russian and American composer of Jewish music. He also worked as conductor, vocal coach, and accompanist. He was trained as a pianist at the Kiev Conservatory where he began his studies at the age of 13. He studied music composition in New York with Frederick Jacobi and Robert Russell Bennett, and was also well known vocal coach in Manhattan. The composer Yehudi Wyner was his son. Works Weiner composed more than 200 art songs as well as Yiddish and Hebrew cantatas and full synagogue services. He wrote several cantatas, among them Legend of Toil (1933), Fight for Freedom (1943), and To Thee, America (1944). He also wrote the music to the Yiddish play Generations of Green Fields (1974). References External links * Biography at the Milken Archive of Jewish Music

Lee Pattison

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Lee Pattison (July 22, 1890, in Grand Rapids, Wisconsin – December 22, 1966, in Claremont, California) was a noted American pianist, composer, arranger, opera director, and teacher. From about 1919 until 1931 he was a member of the popular two-piano team of Guy Maier and Lee Pattison. Lee Pattison Recital Hall at Scripps College in Claremont, California, is named for him. Early life Lee (Marion) Pattison was born in Grand Rapids, Wisconsin, on July 22, 1890. His father, Joseph Marion Pattison, was a public school teacher, and his mother, Mary Alice McVicker, a private music teacher. While he was still a boy, his family moved to Iowa. Maier and Pattison returned to Boston in 1914. Maier and Pattison After Maier and Pattison heard a two-piano performance by Harold Bauer (1873–1951) and Ossip Gabrilowitsch (1878–1936), they began to play together. In 1928, they gave the Carnegie Hall premiere of Mozart’s Andante and Variations, K. 501, a work composed in 1786 but never before played in the New York hall. As their reputation grew, they became known as “The Piano Twins.” In March 1937, Maier and Pattison joined in a reunion concert on the stage of the Works Progress Administration Theat

Leevi Madetoja

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Leevi Antti Madetoja (; 17 February 1887 – 6 October 1947) was a Finnish composer, music critic, conductor, and teacher of the late-Romantic and early-modern periods. He is widely recognized as one of the most significant Finnish contemporaries of Jean Sibelius, under whom he studied privately from 1908 to 1910. The core of Madetoja’s oeuvre consists of a set of three symphonies (1916, 1918, and 1926), arguably the finest early-twentieth century additions to the symphonic canon of any Finnish composer, Sibelius excepted. As central to Madetoja’s legacy is Pohjalaisia (The Ostrobothnians, 1923), proclaimed Finland’s “national opera” following its successful 1924 premiere and, even today, a stalwart of the country’s repertoire. Other notable works include an Elegia for strings (1909); Kuoleman puutarha (The Garden of Death, 1918–21), a three-movement suite for solo piano; the Japanisme ballet-pantomime, Okon Fuoko (1927); and, a second opera, Juha (1935). Madetoja’s fourth symphony, purportedly lost in 1938 at a Paris railway station, never materialized. Acclaimed during his lifetime, Madetoja today is seldom heard outside the Nordic countries, although his music has in recent decade

Leif Halvorsen

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Leif Fritjof Halvorsen (July 26, 1887 – December 28, 1959) was a Norwegian violinist, conductor, and composer. Halvorsen was born in Kristiania Halvorsen was the concert master for the National Theater Orchestra from 1915 to 1917, and the conductor at Oslo’s Opera Comique from 1918 to 1921, where he conducted a number of opera performances. He became the director of the Holter Choir () in 1930. Leif Halvorsen was a highly sought-after violin teacher, and he composed violin pieces, a string quartet, two cantatas, piano pieces, and music for poems by Heinrich Heine and Vilhelm Krag. In 1921 he composed music for the silent film Growth of the Soil (Markens Grøde), directed by the Danish film director Gunnar Sommerfeldt. This was the first Norwegian film to receive original music. The premiere took place at the National Theater on December 26, 1921, where Hamsun himself was present. In 2009, the film with its music by Leif Halvorsen was shown at the Hamsun jubilee in Hamarøy Municipality. A DVD with the movie has been released, with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra playing Leif Halvorsen’s score. In 1915, Halvorsen married the singer Haldis Halvorsen, née Michelsen (1889–1936). The compos

Leith Stevens

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Leith Stevens (September 13, 1909 – July 23, 1970) was an American music composer and conductor of radio and film scores. Early life and education Leith Stevens was born in Mount Moriah, Missouri, He was a child prodigy pianist who accompanied operatic vocalist and early audio recording artist Madame Schumann-Heink. During World War II Stevens worked as radio director for the Southwest Pacific Area for the U.S. Office of War Information. He was musical director of the War Production Board (WPB) series Three Thirds of a Nation presented on Wednesdays on the NBC Blue Network. Career As early as 1934, Stevens was active in radio broadcasting. Radio highlights in an April 28, 1934, newspaper listed “Romantic songs have been chosen by Charles Carlile, tenor, for his broadcast with Leith Stevens’ orchestra over WBBM at 5:45.” Stevens worked as an arranger for CBS radio, and his numerous radio credits over several decades include The Abbott and Costello Show, Academy Award Theater, Action Eighty, American School for the Air, Arch Oboler’s Plays, Big Town, The Black Book, CBS Radio Workshop (later called Columbia Workshop), The Doctor Fights, Encore Theater, Escape, The Free Company Rogue'

Lemuel McPherson Christian

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Lemuel McPherson Christian MBE (1 May 1913 – 12 June 2000), widely referred to as L. M. Christian, was a Dominican music educator and composer, who wrote the music for “Isle of Beauty, Isle of Splendour”, the national anthem of the Commonwealth of Dominica, the words being written by Wilfred Oscar Morgan Pond (1912–1985). Also a music teacher, Christian ran the first music school in the Eastern Caribbean. Biography Early years Lemuel McPherson Christian was born on 1 May 1913 on the island of Saint Kitts, to parents from Antigua, Beryl and William Matthew Christian. William Christian (1879–1961) was serving as a police sergeant in the Leeward Islands Police Force, and Lemuel (one of eight children born to his mother, the others being Edris, Henckell, Ruby, Wendell, Floss, Clement and Daisy) went to Dominica as a child with his parents, in 1918. Encouraging Lemuel’s early passion for music, his parents bought him a guitar on which to develop his talent, and he would go on to master 25 instruments. By 1935, he established, together with his older brother Henckell and sister Ruby, the Christian Family Orchestra. which he ran in conjunction with typing classes, opening the Christian Co

Lennie Tristano

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Leonard Joseph Tristano (March 19, 1919 – November 18, 1978) was an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and teacher of jazz improvisation. Tristano studied for bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music in Chicago before moving to New York City in 1946. He played with leading bebop musicians and formed his own small bands, which soon displayed some of his early interests – contrapuntal interaction of instruments, harmonic flexibility, and rhythmic complexity. His quintet in 1949 recorded the first free group improvisations. Tristano’s innovations continued in 1951, with the first overdubbed, improvised jazz recordings, and two years later, when he recorded an atonal improvised solo piano piece that was based on the development of motifs rather than on harmonies. He developed further via polyrhythms and chromaticism into the 1960s, but his music was infrequently recorded. Tristano started teaching music, especially improvisation, in the early 1940s, and by the mid-1950s was concentrating on teaching in preference to performing. He taught in a structured and disciplined manner, which was unusual in jazz education when he began. His educational role over three decades meant that

Lennox Berkeley

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Sir Lennox Randal Francis Berkeley CBE (12 May 190326 December 1989) was an English composer. Biography Berkeley was born on 12 May 1903 in Oxford, England, the younger child and only son of Aline Carla (1863–1935), daughter of Sir James Charles Harris, former British consul in Monaco, and Royal Navy Captain Hastings George FitzHardinge Berkeley (1855–1934), the illegitimate and eldest son of George Lennox Rawdon Berkeley, the 7th Earl of Berkeley (1827–1888). He attended the Dragon School in Oxford, going on to Gresham’s School, in Holt, Norfolk and St George’s School in Harpenden, Hertfordshire. He studied French at Merton College, Oxford, graduating with a fourth class degree in 1926. While at university he coxed the college rowing eight. He became an honorary fellow of Merton College in 1974. In 1927, he went to Paris to study music with Nadia Boulanger, as her first English student. There, Berkeley became acquainted with Francis Poulenc, Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger and Albert Roussel. Berkeley also studied with Maurice Ravel, often cited as a key influence in Berkeley’s technical development as a composer. In 1936, he met Benjamin Britten, also a former pu

Léo Chauliac

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Léo Chauliac, né Léon Chauliac (6 February 1913 – 27 October 1977), was a French jazz pianist, composer and conductor. A jazz pianist in the 1930s, Léo Chauliac was the accompanist of Charles Trenet from 1941 to 1943, a singer for whom he composed many popular songs. He rubbed shoulders and played with the greatest musicians of the time: Hubert Rostaing, Aimé Barelli, Alix Combelle and Henri Crolla. For a while, as conductor of the orchestra of the famous restaurant Maxim’s, he will be the companion for some records by André Claveau and Jacqueline Danno. But it was above all with Jean-Claude Pascal that he wove a long musical career in the 1960s, orchestrating among other things Nous les amoureux, winner of the 1961 Eurovision Song Contest. Career Born in 1913 in Marseille, Chauliac began his piano studies at the Conservatoire de Marseille where he won a first prize after two years. Then, he came to Paris where he worked with José Iturbi and especially his sister Amparo Iturbi and followed the courses of the Conservatoire de Paris. On November 15, 1930, he was admitted to Santiago Riera’s piano class, which he followed until 1935. In 1931 he obtained the 2nd Medal of Solfeggio, in

Léo Ferré

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Léo Ferré (; 24 August 1916 – 14 July 1993) was a Monégasque poet and composer, and a dynamic and controversial live performer. He released some forty albums over this period, composing the music and the majority of the lyrics. He released many hit singles, particularly between 1960 and the mid-1970s. Some of his songs have become classics of the French chanson repertoire, including “Avec le temps”, “C’est extra”, “Jolie Môme” and “Paris-Canaille”. Early life Ferré was the son of Joseph Ferré, French staff manager at Monte Carlo Casino, and Marie Scotto, a Monégasque dressmaker of Italian descent from Piedmont; he had a sister, Lucienne, two years older. Ferré had an early interest in music. At age seven, he joined the choir of the Monaco Cathedral and discovered polyphony through singing pieces by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Tomás Luis de Victoria. His uncle, former violinist and secretary at the Casino, used to bring him to performances and rehearsals at the Monte Carlo Opera. Ferré listened to such musicians as bass singer Feodor Chaliapin, discovered Beethoven under the baton of Arturo Toscanini (Coriolanus), and was deeply moved by the Fifth Symphony. But it was the s

Leo Funtek

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Leo Funtek (August 21, 1885 – January 13, 1965) was a Slovenian violinist, conductor and arranger. He is best known for work as a music professor and for his 1922 arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky’s piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition. Funtek was born in Ljubljana, Austria-Hungary. He received his musical education at the Leipzig Conservatory (now the Felix Mendelssohn College of Music and Theatre) and Leipzig University. He was concertmaster with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra from 1906 to 1909, and then was orchestra director of the Viipuri orchestra from 1909 to 1910. He is credited with the introduction of orchestral training into the conducting class. and the composer Usko Meriläinen. As an arranger, Funtek is best known for his orchestral arrangement of Pictures at an Exhibition, which he published in July 1922, just months before an orchestration by the French composer Maurice Ravel, of whose project Funtek was seemingly unaware. He died in Helsinki. References

Leo Leux

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Leo Leux (7 March 1893 – 8 September 1951) was a German composer of film scores. He began working on films during the Weimar Republic, following the introduction of sound films. During the Nazi era, Leux worked largely on entertainment films such as Truxa (1937) as well more ideogically-oriented films such as Venus on Trial (1941). He continued to work in cinema following World War II, right up to his death in 1951. Selected filmography * Susanne Cleans Up (1930) * A Woman Branded (1931) * Durand Versus Durand (1931) * My Heart Longs for Love (1931) * The Love Hotel (1933) * Little Dorrit (1934) * The Double (1934) * The Switched Bride (1934) * At Blonde Kathrein’s Place (1934) * The Young Count (1935) * His Late Excellency (1935) * Knockout (1935) * A Doctor of Conviction (1936) * Maria the Maid (1936) * The Unsuspecting Angel (1936) * The Bashful Casanova (1936) * Truxa (1937) * The Ways of Love Are Strange (1937) * My Son the Minister (1937) * The Beaver Coat (1937) * Star of the Circus (1938) * Adventure in Love (1938) * Two Women (1938) * The Golden Mask (1939) * Robert and Bertram (1939) * My Daughter Doesn’t Do That (1940) * Venus on Trial (1941) * My Friend Josephine (1942)

Leo Maguire

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Patrick Leo Maguire (1903 – 17 December 1985) was an Irish singer, songwriter, and radio broadcaster. Born in Dublin’s inner city, Maguire trained as a baritone under Vincent O’Brien, John McCormack’s voice teacher. For many years he performed with the Dublin Operatic Society. Maguire was a prolific composer, writing over 100 songs. These include “Come to the Céile”, “The Old Killarney Hat”, “If You’ll Only Come Across the Seas to Ireland”, “The Dublin Saunter” (which he wrote for Noel Purcell) and “Eileen McManus” (recorded by Daniel O’Donnell). His most famous song is “The Whistling Gypsy”. It was also a hit in Ireland and later in the United States. Maguire also wrote parodies and humorous songs under the name Sylvester Gaffney. In parallel with his musical career, Maguire worked as a broadcaster on Radio Éireann. The programme with which he is most closely associated is the Walton’s Programme. This was a weekly sponsored show during which Maguire played recordings of popular Irish ballads. He finished each show with the catchphrase “if you feel like singing, do sing an Irish song.” The programme was broadcast for almost 30 years until its cancellation in January 1981. Reference

Leo Ornstein

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Leo Ornstein (born Lev Ornshteyn; ; c. December 11, 1895 – February 24, 2002) was an American experimental composer and pianist of the early twentieth century. His performances of works by avant-garde composers and his own innovative and even shocking pieces made him a cause célèbre on both sides of the Atlantic. The bulk of his experimental works were written for piano. Ornstein was the first important composer to make extensive use of the tone cluster. As a pianist, he was considered a world-class talent. By the mid-1920s, he had walked away from his fame and soon disappeared from popular memory. Though he gave his last public concert before the age of forty, he continued writing music for another half-century and beyond. Largely forgotten for decades, he was rediscovered in the mid-1970s. Ornstein completed his eighth and final piano sonata in September 1990 at the age of ninety-four, making him the oldest published composer in history at the time (a mark since passed by Elliott Carter). Early life Ornstein was born in Kremenchug, Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire (today part of Ukraine). He grew up in a musical environment—his father was a Jewish cantor (Hazzan), while a viol

Leo Quayle

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Leo Quayle (11 December 1918 - 19 May 2005) was a South African conductor described as the “South African maestro of music theatre.” Early life Quayle was born in Pretoria where he trained with his father, Leo Quayle snr., and Isadore Epstein. He conducted an orchestra for the first time at the age of fourteen, and conducted the Pretoria Juvenile Orchestra in 1934. He won the University of South Africa Scholarship for Piano in 1936. He took up this scholarship at the Royal College of Music in 1937, and returned after the end of the Second World War. He studied under Herbert Fryer and Constant Lambert at the Royal College of Music where he won the Stier Prize for conducting in 1939, and the Hopkinson Gold Medal in 1946. He spent the Second World War in South Africa as an organiser/director of the Union Defence Force Entertainment Unit. Career During the 1940s and 1950s he was firstly the assistant and later the principal conductor at the Sadler’s Wells Opera Company in London as well as one of the first music directors for the Welsh National Opera. He directed television operas, conducted ballet and film music at Denham Film Studios, and conducted various British orchestras includin

Leo Rowlands

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Leo Rowlands, O.F.M. Cap. (1891–1967) was a Welsh Catholic priest and musical composer, associated with Rhode Island. Early life Rowlands was born to Welsh parents (his father was a Congregationalist missionary) in Madagascar on 17 September 1891 and spent the first seven years of his life there before returning to be educated in schools in London and Wales. In 1912 he graduated in music from the University of Wales, Cardiff, going on to the Royal Academy of Music where he studied the piano, composition and singing with Frederick Corder and York Bowen and took his doctorate in music in 1914. In the same year he was received into the Roman Catholic Church and joined the army, serving as a cyclist and gunner in Italy and Flanders. He was captured in Neuve Chapelle in March 1918 and remained a prisoner until the end of the war. Musical career After a period as a music teacher at the Seaford School in Seaford on the south coast of England, Rowlands joined the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin in 1920 and was ordained a priest in 1926. He spent the 1930s-1940s at the Friary of St Francis, Providence, Rhode Island, as part of a mission of the British Capuchin Province to the United States.

Leo Smit (Dutch composer)

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Leopold “Leo” Smit (14 May 1900 – 30 April 1943) was a Dutch composer, murdered during The Holocaust at the Sobibor extermination camp. Life He came from a mixed Ashkenazi and Portuguese-Sephardi Jewish family. He was born at 17, Amsterdam, and studied piano at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam with Sem Dresden and Ulfert Schults and then composition with Bernard Zweers and Sem Dresden. In 1927 he moved to Paris, where the music of Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky made a deep impression on him. Here he was in close contact with the group of composers known as Les Six, which included Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger, and Francis Poulenc. He married Lien de Vries in Amsterdam in January 1933. At the end of 1936, Smit moved to Brussels, where he stayed for a year. In late 1937, he returned to Amsterdam, where he completed his last work, the sonata for flute and piano, on February 12, 1943. On April 27, 1943 he was deported to Sobibor, where he was killed three days later. After his death there was for a time little interest in his music, but since the late 1980s, his work has been performed regularly. A 4-CD box set containing his complete works, Kamermuziek en Orkestwerken (NM 93003)

Leo Sowerby

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Leo Salkeld Sowerby (1 May 1895 – 7 July 1968) was an American composer and church musician. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1946 and was often called the “Dean of American church music” in the early to mid-20th century. His many students included Florence Price and Ned Rorem. Biography Leo Sowerby, son of Florence Gertrude Salkeld and John Sowerby, was born on 1 May 1895, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he began to compose at the age of 10. His interest in the organ began at the age of 15, and he was self-taught at the instrument. He studied composition with Arthur Olaf Andersen at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. Early recognition came when his Violin Concerto was premiered in 1913 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He spent time in France during the First World War in the role of bandmaster. In 1919, Sowerby became associate organist at Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago, and in 1927 he became organist and choirmaster at St. James Episcopal Church in Chicago, which was consecrated as a cathedral in 1955 while he was there. In 1962, after his retirement from St. James, he was called to Washington National Cathedral to become the founding director of the C

Leó Weiner

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Leó Weiner (16 April 1885 – 13 September 1960) was one of the leading Hungarian music educators of the first half of the twentieth century, and a composer. Life Education Weiner was born in Budapest to a Jewish family. His brother gave him his first music and piano lessons. As children, he and Fritz Reiner played piano four hands. Weiner later studied at the Academy of Music in Budapest, studying with János (Hans) Koessler. While there, he won numerous prizes, including the Franz Liszt Stipend, the Volkmann Prize and the Erkel Prize (all for one composition, his Serenade Op. 3); the Haynald Prize for his Agnus Dei; and the Schunda Prize for the Hungarian Fantasy for tárogató and cimbalom. Teaching career In 1908 he was appointed music theory teacher at the Budapest Academy of Music, professor of composition in 1912 and professor of chamber music in 1920. Peter Erős, Béla Síki, and Georg Solti; violinist Tibor Varga; cellists Edmund Kurtz and János Starker; and pianist György Sebők. He died in Budapest. Compositions The early Romantics from Beethoven through Mendelssohn most strongly influenced Weiner’s compositional style. His orchestration seems much indebted to later Romantic Fre

Léo-Pol Morin

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Léo-Pol Morin (13 July 1892 – 29 May 1941) was a Canadian pianist, music critic, composer, and music educator. He composed under the name James Callihou, with his most well known works being Suite canadienne (1945) and Three Eskimos for piano. He also composed works based on Canadian and Inuit folklore/folk music and harmonized a number of French-Canadian folksongs. Victor Brault notably transcribed his Inuit folklore inspired Chants de sacrifice for choir and 2 pianos. As a writer, Morin displayed a heavy interest in the music of Canada and the use of various folklore traditions within music composition. He wrote musical criticism for several Canadian publications and also published a book and a collection of essays. As a pianist, he played a major role in advocating music by French composers in his native country; notably performing the Canadian premieres of works by Claude Debussy, Gabriel Fauré, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Maurice Ravel, Albert Roussel, and Erik Satie among others. He likewise was an exponent of works by Canadian composers in France, including pieces by François Brassard, Claude Champagne, Henri Gagnon, Émiliano Renaud, Léo Roy, and Georges-Émile Tanguay.

Leon Carr

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Leon Carr (June 10, 1910 – March 27, 1976) was an American songwriter, composer, arranger, pianist, and conductor. He developed several famed marketing jingles used in advertisements, including “Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut…” for Mounds candy, “See the USA in Your Chevrolet” for Chevrolet, and the “Bert the Turtle” theme song for the 1952 nuclear public education awareness film Duck and Cover. Early life and education Carr was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on June 10, 1910. Carr was educated at Pennsylvania State University. He also studied the Schillinger System at New York University in New York City. Career Carr moved to New York City in 1935. His marketing jingles are among the best known in the history of broadcast advertising. His biggest non-jingle hit was “There’s No Tomorrow”, a parody of “O Sole Mio”, which was popularized by Tony Martin in the film Two Tickets to Broadway; it spent 27 weeks on the Billboard charts in 1949, peaking at #2. Carr’s other popular song compositions include “Bell Bottom Blues”, “Hotel Happiness”, “Herthquake”, “Hey There Lonely Girl”, “Your Socks Don’t Match”, “A Man Could Be a Wonderful Thing”, “Goblins in the Steeple”, “Big Name Button”

Leon Kirchner

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Leon Kirchner (January 24, 1919 – September 17, 2009) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he won a Pulitzer Prize for his String Quartet No. 3. Life and career Kirchner was born in Brooklyn, New York. He began his music studies at the age of four. Five years later, his family moved to Los Angeles. He began composing while a student at Los Angeles City College. With the encouragement of his piano teachers and Ernst Toch, he entered the University of California, Los Angeles to study with Arnold Schoenberg. Kirchner began graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley and was awarded the George Ladd Prix de Paris in 1942. As World War II put Europe in turmoil, he went to New York and studied with Roger Sessions. At the war’s end, he returned to Berkeley as a lecturer and assisted Sessions and Ernest Bloch in theory. Kirchner held a Slee Professiorship at the University of Buffalo (succeeding Aaron Copland), and professorships at the University of California, University of Southern California, Yale University, the Juilliard School of Music, an

Leon Stein

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Leon Stein (September 18, 1910 in Chicago – May 9, 2002 in Laguna Hills, California) was an American composer and music analyst. Stein attended DePaul University, where he achieved his MM in 1935 and his Ph.D. in 1949; he studied under Leo Sowerby, Eric DeLamarter, Frederick Stock, and Hans Lange. He taught at DePaul from 1931 to 1978; he was dean of the School of Music there between 1966 and 1976. Stein was also Director of the Graduate Division at De Paul University of Music. College of Jewish Studies, Chicago. He directed a number of Chicago ensembles, including the City Symphony of Chicago. Stein’s compositions were modernist in character; his works for saxophone are his most popular pieces. He also wrote on music, particularly Jewish music. His manuscripts are held in the Richardson Library at DePaul. He has two sons. Books *The Racial Thinking of Richard Wagner (1950) *Structure and Style: The Study and Analysis of Musical Forms (1962, 3rd ed. 1979) *Anthology of Musical Forms (1962) Music ;Stage *The Fisherman’s Wife (1954) *Deirdre (1955) *2 early ballets ;Orchestral *Violin Concerto (1939) *3 Hassidic Dances (1940–41) *Symphony No. 1 (1940) *Symphony No. 2 (1942) *Triptych

Leonard B. Meyer

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Leonard B. Meyer (January 12, 1918 – December 30, 2007) was a composer, author, and philosopher. He contributed major works in the fields of aesthetic theory in music, and of compositional analysis. Career Meyer studied at Columbia University, where he received a B.A. in Philosophy and an M.A. in Music. He continued at University of Chicago, where he was awarded a Ph.D. in History of Culture in 1954. As a composer, he studied under Stefan Wolpe, Otto Luening, and Aaron Copland. In 1946, he became a member of the music department at the University of Chicago, in 1961 he was appointed professor of music at the University of Chicago and in 1975 professor of music and the humanities at the University of Pennsylvania. He became professor emeritus at Pennsylvania in 1988. Meyer’s 1967 work “Music, the Arts, and Ideas,” was influential in defining the transition to postmodernism in light of new works such as George Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater, which was premiered at the University of Chicago in 1967. Other major written works include The Rhythmic Structure of Music (with Grosvenor Cooper, 1960), Explaining Music (1973), and Style and Music: Theory, History, and Ideology (1989;

Leonard Bernstein

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Leonard Bernstein ( ; born Louis Bernstein; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first American-born conductor to receive international acclaim. Bernstein was “one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history” according to music critic Donal Henahan. two Tony Awards, and 16 Grammy Awards (including the Lifetime Achievement Award) as well as an Academy Award nomination. He received the Kennedy Center Honor in 1981. As a composer, Bernstein wrote in many genres, including symphonic and orchestral music, ballet, film and theatre music, choral works, opera, chamber music, and pieces for the piano. Bernstein’s works include the Broadway musical West Side Story, which continues to be regularly performed worldwide, and has been adapted into two (1961 and 2021) feature films, as well as three symphonies, Serenade (after Plato’s Symposium) (1954) and Chichester Psalms (1965), the original score for Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront (1954), and theater works including On the Town (1944), Wonderful T

Leonard Woods (sculptor)

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Leonard Archibald Woods (1919–2014) was a Canadian sculptor, art historian, musician, composer, and author. He is best known for his sculptures The Angelic Symphony, as well as for being a co-founder of Langley Community Music School. Biography Woods was born on 13 November 1919 in Stonewall, Manitoba. His father worked at the nearby Stony Mountain Penitentiary. He studied under LeMoine Fitzgerald at the Winnipeg School of Art, where he also learned sculpture, graduating in 1940. During World War II he served in the Royal Canadian Air Force before being discharged in 1943. After his service, he further trained in sculpture with Emmanuel Hahn at the Ontario College of Art. Woods moved west to British Columbia where he re-opened the sculpture department at the Vancouver School of Art. In 1946, Woods exhibited three works with the British Columbia Artists Exhibition held at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Two years later, he created four bas-relief sculptures for the chancel of St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church in Vancouver. They were entitled The Angelic Symphony. Inspired by Psalm 150, the angels are represented playing modern musical instruments: a flute, a cello, a trumpet, and a pair

Léonce de Saint-Martin

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Léonce Marie-Joseph, Comte de Saint-Martin-de-Paylha (31 October 1886 – 10 June 1954) was a French organist and composer. He served as titular organist of Notre-Dame de Paris from 1937 until his death. Biography He was born in Albi, Tarn, into an aristocratic family. One of his distant relatives was Louis Claude de Saint-Martin. In 1937 he succeeded Louis Vierne as organist at Notre-Dame de Paris, having previously been Vierne’s assistant for 17 years. He held the post until his death in 1954. Saint-Martin was heavily attacked for his appointment to Notre Dame by the Cathedral chapter, since it was done without competition. Saint-Martin was also mainly self-taught, and did not enter the conservatory, and thus was deemed to be an amateur organist. These accusations were easily seen to be false by eye-witnesses, such as Pierre Cochereau, who took Saint-Martin’s place as titular organist after the latter’s death. An example of his fine skill can be seen in his organ compositions, filled with emotional and spiritual writing. Saint-Martin was also a pious man, as he stated “but whatever the Good Lord wills is fine by me” concerning his death. His virtuosity can be seen by the fact that

Leopold Spinner

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Leopold Spinner (26 April 1906 – 12 August 1980) was an Austrian-born, British-domiciled composer and editor. Biography Spinner was born of Austrian parentage in Lemberg (now Lviv, Ukraine, Lwów, Poland during the interwar period). From 1926 to 1930 he studied composition in Vienna with Paul Amadeus Pisk and afterwards began to attract international attention with works which were performed at the ISCM Festivals or awarded prizes. From 1947 he worked as a music-copyist and arranger for Boosey & Hawkes, In 1958 he succeeded Erwin Stein as editor at Boosey & Hawkes, later becoming Chief Editor. He remained with Boosey & Hawkes until his retirement in 1975. His skills and exactitude were highly praised by Stravinsky. Compositions From 1926 to his death in London in 1980 Spinner steadily and painstakingly built up an individual body of work, Michael Graubart has championed Spinner’s music in articles and performances. In 1982 he conducted the first performances of two works from 1971 in London: The Wind Sonata, Op. 23 and the Two Songs, Op. 24 for soprano and six instruments. Malcolm Hayes highlighted the unusual scoring of the Wind Sonata (D clarinet, oboe, horn and bassoon), and its

Leroy Anderson

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Leroy Anderson ( ; June 29, 1908 – May 18, 1975) was an American composer of short, light concert pieces, many of which were introduced by the Boston Pops Orchestra under the direction of Arthur Fiedler. John Williams described him as “one of the great American masters of light orchestral music.” Early life Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts to Swedish parents, Anderson was given his first piano lessons by his mother, who was a church organist. He continued studying piano at the New England Conservatory of Music. In 1925, Anderson entered Harvard College, where he studied musical harmony with Walter Spalding, counterpoint with Edward Ballantine, canon and fugue with William C. Heilman, orchestration with Edward B. Hill and Walter Piston, composition, also with Piston, and double bass with Gaston Dufresne. He also studied organ with Henry Gideon. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude in 1929 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. At Harvard University Graduate School, he studied composition with Walter Piston and George Enescu and received a Master of Arts in Music in 1930. He and his brother played in dance orchestras on Scandinavian cruise ships in the summers of 1930 an

Leroy Ostransky

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Leroy Ostransky (January 17, 1918 – October 11, 1993) was an American composer, music educator, and writer of books on jazz. Early life Ostransky grew up in a Jewish ghetto on the Lower East Side in New York city, the son of Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Max Ostransky and Sophie Ostransky (née Friedman). Ostransky’s father, a saloon owner during prohibition known to the neighborhood as “Sharkey”, had greater aspirations of success for his son Leroy as a violinist. Ostransky’s memoir details his difficult relationship with his father, who could be both physically and emotionally manipulative and even abusive. Musical career After leaving home at seventeen, Ostransky worked as a pianist in a jazz club before receiving his doctorate in musical arts at the State University of Iowa in 1959. He went on to found the Workshop Band, one of America’s early experimental jazz bands. In addition to his published books, Ostransky composed 75 educational pieces and had five of his compositions performed by the Seattle Symphony. Literary work As an author about the history of jazz, Ostransky wrote several books on the subject. Paul Oliver has found that few authors “were as liberal with their

Leroy Robertson

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Leroy Robertson (December 21, 1896 – July 25, 1971) was an American composer and music educator. Robertson was born in Fountain Green, Utah. One of his earliest instructors was Anthony C. Lund. He graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music with a certificate in public school music and diplomas in composition, violin (after studies with Harrison Keller), and piano in 1923, the same year he was awarded the Endicott prize for “Overture in E Minor”. Following his graduation, Robertson taught music at North Cache High School in Richmond, Utah and at Pleasant Grove High School in Pleasant Grove, Utah, where he also supervised music in the Alpine School District. Robertson was appointed to the music faculty at Brigham Young University in 1925. He soon became professor and chairman of the music department, a position he held until 1948. In 1930, Robertson studied with Ernest Bloch at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He would continue his studies with Bloch in Roveredo Capriasca, Switzerland in 1932, and with Hugo Leichtentritt in Berlin, Germany, in 1933. Robertson received a BA degree and an MA degree from Brigham Young University in June 1933. Between 1933 and 1945, Rob

Les C. Copeland

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Leslie Crawford Copeland (June 4, 1887 – March 3, 1942) was an American composer and pianist. Leslie was the youngest of six children born to Willis Emerson Copeland and Fannie Amelia Searles. He was an acquaintance of S. Brunson Campbell, a white player who had studied under Scott Joplin in Sedalia, Missouri. In his late teens, he performed in Lew Dockstader’s minstrel troupe, the Lew Dockstader Minstrels. At this same time, he would write three notable rags which were featured in the Minstrels: Cabbage Leaf Rag, Invitation Rag (containing heavy foreshadowing of the novelty piano genre ), and the Dockstader Rag. He also wrote songs during this time. After 1912, Copeland left the Dockstader company and began performing in vaudeville, working for various companies including that of Benjamin Franklin Keith. During this time, he wrote several songs for vaudeville with lyricist Jean Havez. He also wrote his famous “38th Street Rag” in this period. Copeland continued performing, eventually contributing a song (I Ain’t Married No More) to the Ziegfeld Follies of 1917. His work took him across the U.S. and parts of Europe, performing at various venues such as the New York Bar in New York Cit

Letty Katts

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Violet Katts (3 January 1919 – 19 September 2007 ), was an Australian songwriter who published under the name Letty Katts, often spelled Lettie. She is best known for her songs “A Town Like Alice” (1956) and “Never Never” (1945), frequently referred to as “Riding to the Never Never”. History Katts was born in 1919, the only daughter of Anton Katts (22 January 1888 – March 1952) and Lucretia Katts, née Pimblett, who married on 11 June 1921. (perhaps Ostrog, Šentjernej) and in 1912 left as a refugee for Australia, and founded a radiator repair and sheet metal fabrication shop “King & Katts” at 623 Wickham Street, Fortitude Valley, Queensland. Around 1925 they built a large house, “Roseneath”, in Enoggera where Letty grew up. Both parents were musicians: Anton played balalaika and mandolin; Lucretia was a pianist, and Katts had private piano tuition, initially with Constance Hartshorn, organist for the Enoggera Presbyterian church, then from around 1930 with John Ellis, who took out a newspaper advertisement when Kitts graduated ATCL and LTCL in 1939. Katts married John Stanton Davis Mellick (born 22 February 1920), on 8 December 1941. Katts worked as a music teacher while her husband

Lev Knipper

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Lev Konstantinovich Knipper (; 3 December 1898 – 30 July 1974) was a Soviet and Russian composer and OGPU/NKVD agent. Life and career Lev Knipper was born in Tiflis to railway engineer Konstantin Leonardovich Knipper and Elena-Luiza Yulyevna Rid. Shortly after his birth, the family relocated to Tsarskoye Selo, then to Yekaterinoslav in 1910, and then Saint Petersburg in 1913. He was greatly influenced by his father’s sister, the actress Olga Knipper (wife of the playwright Anton Chekhov), who encouraged his musical interests. He learned to play clarinet, double bass, various brass instruments, and taught himself to play piano. Knipper enlisted in the White Army in 1916. Following the Russian Civil War of 1917, he became stranded in Turkey, though was eventually able to reunite with his aunt Olga, who was touring abroad. Upon his return to the RSFSR in 1922, he was repeatedly interviewed and ultimately recruited by the OGPU foreign department. At their behest, Knipper travelled to Germany in 1922–23, where he made the acquaintance of composers Alois Hába, Philipp Jarnach, and Paul Hindemith. Hindemith’s music in particular had a strong influence on Knipper’s own compositional langua

Lewis Lane

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Lewis Lane (August 3, 1901 – January 24, 1977) was an American pianist, composer, lecturer, and musicologist with the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) where he worked from 1928 to 1949. Early life and education Charles Lewis Lane was born August 3, 1901, in Freehold Borough, New Jersey to August P. and Elizabeth (Cottrell) Lane. He attended Freehold High School, graduating in 1920 before moving to New York to attend the New York College of Music. During this time he studied with Edwin Hughes and Rubin Goldmark. Career Lewis toured as a concert-pianist from 1926 to 1928. His compositions were well known to NBC (NBC-WJZ) radio listeners. Although he did not stop completely, in 1928 Lane interrupted a promising career as a concert pianist to begin his new career at the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). He founded NBC’s Department of Musical Research and was responsible for collating more than 80,000 items. His theory was that cataloging all records and documentation of classical masters is essential to ensure convenient access for anyone seeking information about them in the future. “Fragments” (Opus 6), published in 1938 by the Composers’ Press, Inc. is based on four lines from

Lex van Delden

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Lex van Delden, born Alexander Zwaap (10 September 1919 – 1 July 1988) was a Dutch composer and the father of actor Lex van Delden. Early life and education Born Alexander Zwaap in Amsterdam, the only child of Wolf Zwaap, a school-teacher, and his wife Sara Olivier, Lex van Delden took piano-lessons from an early age—first with Martha Zwaga, and later with Cor de Groot. He started composing at the age of eleven, when he set poems by Guido Gezelle to music since a long illness prevented him from playing the piano. He remained self-taught as a composer. Despite his artistic promise and interests (by the age of fourteen, for instance, he was accompanying the famous German Expressionist dancer/choreographer, Gertrud Leistikow, and he also moved in the circle of one of Holland’s foremost composers of the time, Sem Dresden) he enrolled at the University of Amsterdam in 1938 to study medicine and remained self-taught in music. Still a student, he made his début as a composer in 1940 with the song cycle L’amour (1939; for soprano, flute, clarinet and string trio), written at the request of the young composer/conductor Nico Richter, who was in charge of the students’ orchestra. World War II

Lila Lalauni

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Lila Lalauni (; 9 June 1918 – 12 February 1996) was a Greek pianist and composer who frequently performed in Greece and around Europe. She was also the first person to teach Manolis Kalomiris’ Symphonic Concerto for piano and orchestra. Early life and education Lila Lalauni was born on 9 June 1918 in Athens and was the daughter of music critic Alexandra Lalauni (1894–1974) and musician Alexandros Xanthopoulou. She was the granddaughter of composer Timotheos Xanthopoulos (c. 1864–1942). She expressed a talent for music at an early age and became a piano child prodigy. From the age of six, she began studying piano in Vienna. Three years later, aged nine, Lalauni performed as a soloist with the Vienna Symphony orchestra as well as performing with the Athens Conservatory Symphony orchestra aged twelve. From 1927 to 1930 she studied piano at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and then afterwards studied composition under Robert Konta, before graduating from the academy in 1934. Afterwards, Lalauni travelled to Paris where she was taught to play the organ by Marcel Dupré. She was also taught by the composer Karl Weigl and the pianist Artur Schnabel. Career Lalauni made her debut as a concer

Lila-Gene George

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Lila-Gene George (September 25, 1918 – December 22, 2017) was an American composer and pianist. Her work included chamber music, piano and vocal music. Education George graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a B.A. in English and French in 1939 and a bachelor’s in music theory in 1940. and in 1969 won the Sigma Alpha Iota Oklahoma Composer’s Award. for nine summers in Fontainebleau, France, and with Narcis Bonet for two summers. From 1963 to 1965 she studied under German-American composer Otto Luening at Columbia University. As an adjudicator for the National Piano Guild, she judged a student piano recital at a festival sponsored by the San Jacinto Music Teachers Association in March 1972. On November 20, 1986, it was reported that George would have a recital at the Horton Foote Theater at Wharton Junior Community College that Sunday. Personal life After graduating college, she married on September 11, 1941, to Richard P. George, a petroleum engineer. They were married for 66 years until Richard’s death. , the Junior League of Houston , the Houston Friends of Music (now Chamber Music Houston) , and the International Alliance of Women in Music in memory of noted composer and

Lili Boulanger

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Marie Juliette Boulanger (; 21 August 189315 March 1918), professionally known as Lili Boulanger (), was a French composer and musician, associated with the Symbolist and Impressionist movements. The first woman to win the Grand Prix de Rome composition competition, her older sister was the composer and composition teacher Nadia Boulanger; their father was the composer Ernest Boulanger. Critics and scholars have praised her output for its harmonic language, formal control, and emotional depth, despite the brevity of her career. Her notable works include her three psalms for chorus and orchestra, the song-cycle Clairières dans le ciel (to poems by Francis Jammes), the D’un soir triste and D’un matin de printemps diptych, the Vieille prière bouddhique, Pie Jesu, her Prix de Rome cantata Faust et Hélène and various others. Boulanger died in 1918 at the age of 24, after years of chronic illness. Biography Early life and education Marie Juliette Boulanger was born on 21 August 1893 to a middle-class musical family in the ninth arrondissement of Paris. Her mother was Raïssa Ivanovna Myshetskaya (Mischetzky; 1858–1935), a Russian princess from Saint Petersburg who descended from Michael o

Lili Wieruszowski

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Lili Wieruszowski (10 December 1899 in Cologne – 2 March 1971) and her sister Helene became a well-known historian. Lili’s parents converted from Judaism to Protestantism and raised their daughters as Protestants. Wieruszowski studied music at the Cologne Conservatory, then at the Berlin University of Music. In 1925 she was employed as an organist at the Charlottenburg Epiphany Congregation. This job ended in 1933 when she was banned from playing the organ in Germany because of her Jewish background. She moved to Basel where she became well known as an organist and composer during the 1940s and 1950s. Her music was published by Schott, Foetisch, Krumpholtz, and Zwingli Verlag. Wieruszowski’s compositions include: Organ *22 Chorale Preludes and Intonations *Chorale Preludes 1946 (with Rudolph Moser) *43 Chorale Preludes 1956 *26 Chorale Preludes 1965 Vocal *Geneva Psalter *Huguenot psalms *Psalm 25 *Psalm 33 *Psalm 47 *Psalm 107 *psalm settings in the Swiss Evangelical Reformed Church Hymnal (some with instrumental accompaniment) References

Lilian Elkington

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Iris Lilian Mary Elkington (15 September 1900 – 13 August 1969) was an English pianist and composer. She studied piano, organ and composition (with Sir Granville Bantock) at the Birmingham and Midland School of Music and began her musical career as a pianist, performing piano concertos and solo pieces at Birmingham Town Hall and in Bournemouth and Harrogate. Howard Carr conducted a second performance 15 months later, on 21 December 1922 in Harrogate. During the 1920s it was played fairly often around the Midlands area. Marriage By 1924 she had formed a duo with the violist and violinist Arthur Kennedy, whom she met while studying in Birmingham. A pupil of Rowsby Woof at the Royal Academy of Music, Kennedy later played with various BBC orchestras. After her marriage to Kennedy in August 1926 she gradually withdrew from both composing and performing, except as a local church musician. She made occasional appearances in BBC radio broadcasts of recitals from Birmingham between 1925 and 1929, including a performance of works by Liszt, Chabrier, Chopin and Dohnanyi in April 1926. She was organist at the Sacred Heart Church in Aston (where she was also married), at Abbey Church in Erdingt

Lino Liviabella

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Lino Liviabella (7 April 1902 – 21 October 1960) was an Italian composer. Liviabella was born in Macerata. In 1936 he won a silver medal in the art competitions of the Olympic Games for his “La vittoria” (“The Victor”). He died, aged 58, in Bologna. Selected works ;Chamber music * Sonata No. 1 in A minor for violin and piano (1920–1928) * Natale, Suite for violin and piano (1923) * Sonatina per l’Elevazione for violin and harmonium (1924) * Canzonetta for violin and piano (1925) * Aria for violin and organ or harmonium (1925) * String Quartet No. 1 (1926) * Danza for violin solo (1926) * Adagio for oboe and piano (1926) * S. Francesco, Meditazione for viola, 2 violins, double bass and organ (1926) * Due espressioni liriche (2 Lyric Expressions) for string quartet (1927) * Preludio in modo minore for 2 violins, cello and harmonium (1928) * String Quartet No. 2 (1929) * Bululù, Marionetta meccanica del romanzo “Eva ultima” di Massimo Bontempelli for violin and piano (1930) * Canto andaluso for violin and piano (1930) * Sonata ciclica for cello and piano (1931) * Sonata No. 2 in One Movement for violin and piano (1932) * Lento for flute, 2 violins, piano and harp * Sonata No. 3 in One

Lionel Daunais

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

Noël Ferdinand Lionel Daunais, (December 31, 1901 – July 18, 1982) was a French Canadian baritone and composer. Life Born in Montreal, Quebec, Daunais studied singing with Céline Marier and harmony and composition with Oscar O’Brien. In 1923, he won first prize at the Montreal Musical Festival. He made his professional opera debut in January 1926 as Ourrias in Charles Gounod’s Mireille at the Orpheum in Vancouver. The following March he gave his first recital at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Daunais was also awarded the Prix d’Europe in 1926 which provided him with the opportunity to pursue studies in Paris with Émile Marcellin at the Opéra-Comique. In 1929, he joined the roster of principal artists at the Opera of Algiers. With that company he sang several leading roles, including Escamillo in Carmen, Figaro in The Barber of Seville, Giorgio Germont in La traviata, Lescaut in Manon, and Valentin in Faust. In 1933, the TL was engaged by CRBC for its network series One Hour with You, on which the group performed for 87 weeks. In 1934, the TL released the LP album Chansons de Lionel Daunais for Radio Canada International. In 1936, the group performed for the CBS radio network in New York w

Lionel Newman

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

Lionel Newman (January 4, 1916 – February 3, 1989) was an American conductor, pianist, and film and television composer. He won the Academy Award for Best Score of a Musical Picture for Hello Dolly! with Lennie Hayton in 1969. Newman was one of ten children, the youngest of seven boys, born to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents. While the family had little money, the children’s mother, Luba, was a strong woman who encouraged them to achieve. Newman migrated to Hollywood where, at the age of 16, he began conducting for impresario Earl Carroll. This was where he met his future wife, Beverly Carroll, an Earl Carroll Vanities showgirl, and niece of the impresario. Newman had formal training in New York, and after moving to Los Angeles, he continued his studies with Joseph Achron and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. In the 1930s, Newman earned his stripes conducting national tours and working as the piano accompanist for Mae West. She used to scold him for holding his hands too high in the pit saying, “I’m the show, Newman, not you.” At the age of 18, he obtained a job playing piano on the Holland America ocean liner, the S.S.Rotterdam, with his “Newman’s Society Orchestra”. This trip had great

Liu Xue'an

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

Liu Xue’an (刘雪庵 1905–1985), whose pen names were Yan Ru (晏如), Wu Qing (吴青), and Su Ya (苏崖) was a Chinese composer. Among his best known songs include “The Great Wall Ballad”, “When Will You Return?,” and “Red Bean Poem” (红豆词). He taught at the Sunan College of Education in Suzhou, the music department of the East China University in Shanghai and at the Arts Normal College and the Conservatory of Chinese. Liu was criticized and suffered during the Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1957 and during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. He offered a public self-criticism in 1980 before he was rehabilitated, however criticism of his song “When Will You Return?” continued in mainland China for some time as an example of “yellow music”, a product of decadent and immoral society. References

Ljubica Marić

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Ljubica Marić (Љубица Марић , 18 March 1909 – 17 September 2003) was a composer from Yugoslavia. She was a pupil of Josip Štolcer-Slavenski. She was known for being inspired by Byzantine Orthodox church music. She was professor at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade and a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Ljubica Marić is considered to be the most original Serbian composer of the twentieth century and musically the most influential one. Life Born in Kragujevac, Serbia to Father Pavle and Mother Katarina née Đorđević, a descendant of Vojvoda Čolak-Anta Simeonović, one of the leaders of the First Serbian Uprising. Ljubica traveled a huge artistic and intellectual journey in order to facilitate the advancement of Serbian music. She was the first Serbian to get a diploma in composition in 1929. At the State Conservatory in Prague, she attended postgraduate studies under Josef Suk. While she was a student, she received praise in festivals in Amsterdam, Strasbourg and Prague. She was described as a genially gifted woman, and her music was promoted by the great supporter of contemporary music, Hermann Scherchen. Her music was performed by the most important chamber ensemble

Lois Albright

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

Lois H. Albright Billingsley (May 17, 1904 – August 26, 1995) was an American pianist, violinist, singer, conductor and composer, based in Chicago as a young woman, in Phoenix in midlife, and in New York City in her later years. Early life and education Albright was born in Elwood, Indiana, the daughter of Frank A. Albright and Catherine (Kate) Benefiel Albright. Her father was a minister. Her sisters Pearl and Maude were also musical. She began performing music as a teenager. She studied with Sidney Silber, P. Marinus Paulsen, and Louis Luntz. Career Albright played both piano and violin in recitals and concerts. After a piano recital in 1927, L. M. Spaulding in The Music News reported that “Miss Albright played with such beauty of expression and masterly technique that she won the keenest attention of her audience.” While she was in Chicago, she was active in the Chicago Radio Ensemble, the Chicago Lyric Theater, the Fine Arts Vocal Ensemble, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She was also head of the music department at Harding College for two years. Albright moved to Arizona with her ailing mother in 1948. She was a founder and general director of the Phoenix Civic Light Opera

Lois Rhea

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Lois Burford Rhea Land (24 September 1916 – December 2004) was an American composer, music educator, and organist. She taught and published as Lois Rhea and Lois Rhea Land. Rhea was born in Milton, Kansas, to Lela Baker and Melville C. Burford. They had one daughter. Although information on a later marriage is not available, after Raymond’s death in 1970, she changed her name to Lois Rhea Land. Rhea served as an organist for Munger Place and Northaven United Methodist churches in Texas, and Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Rockwall, Texas, among others. From 1945 to 1964, she worked as a music teacher in Corpus Christi, Texas, public schools. She was an accompanist for the Texas All-State Choir in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1964, she moved to Southern Methodist University, where she chaired the graduate music education division until 1980. She then became an adjunct professor of music education at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas until 1988. Edwin H. Morris and Company, Elkan-Vogel, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Lawson-Gould Music, Mark Foster Music, Plymouth Music Company Inc., Prentice-Hall, and Southern Music. *A Guide to Student Teaching in Music (with Joan Boney) *The

Lojze Bratuž

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

Lojze Bratuž (February 17, 1902 – February 16, 1937) was a Slovene choirmaster and composer from Gorizia who was killed by Italian Fascist squads. He is regarded as a martyr of the anti-Fascist struggle of the Slovene population in the Slovene Littoral region during Italian rule. Biography Bratuž was born in a Slovene-speaking family in the town of Gorizia, then the center of the Austro-Hungarian County of Gorizia and Gradisca. He was educated in the town’s Slovene schools and chose a career in music. After the Slovene Littoral and the adjacent regions of Inner Carniola were annexed to the Kingdom of Italy under the Treaty of Rapallo in 1920, Bratuž remained loyal to his Slovene origins and resisted the forced Italianization of the region, which was populated by a Slovene majority. Initially, he taught singing and was a choirmaster in the village of Šmartno in the Gorizia Hills north of Gorizia, and later in a small seminary in Gorizia. In 1929, he was imprisoned for a short time by the Fascist authorities due to his Slovene patriotism. In 1930, he was appointed coordinator of church choirs in the Gorizia region by the archbishop of Gorizia, Frančišek Borgia Sedej. He led the only

Lola Folman

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Lola Folman (1912–1979) was a Polish Jewish singer and composer popular in Poland in the 1930s. Folman was a folk singer. She was often accompanied by pianist-improviser Max Fishman, was soloist with the Moshe Shneur Choir in Warsaw and later a composer and performer in kleynkunst and revi-teater. Folman married lyricist Yitskhok Perlov (who wrote the words to her famous Dos Baytshl Kreln). “Then Lola Folman, a woman of about thirty, slightly plump, dressed in short trousers fashioned, apparently, from an old floral dress and an open, sleeveless shirt - the finest of feminine fashion on the ship - climbed to the top of the companionway ladder. It was hard to guess, from her appearance, why she had gone up there, but when she opened her mouth and began to sing in a lovely clear strong voice, folk-songs from a world no longer extant, a shudder ran through the audience. … Lola Folman sang a new song, Exodus, which excited all of us and was cheered to the echo. The words were written by her husband Yitzhak Perlov.” Folman gave performances in the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp in 1948. She emigrated to New York and was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Queens, NY in 1979. See al

Lora Aborn

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Lora Aborn Busck (May 30, 1907 – August 25, 2005) was an American composer. Biography Lora Aborn was born in New York City and began studying piano, music theory and composition at the Effa Ellis Perfield School of Music. She continued studying piano and voice in California and played in a jazz band. She attended Oberlin Conservatory where she studied composition under Dr. George W. Andrews. Aborn continued her studies at the American Conservatory in Chicago under John Palmer and was awarded a gold medal for composition at graduation. She composed a number of commissioned works, and her music has been played and recorded in the United States, China and Europe. She was honored in a list of top American women composers. For many years, Aborn was the organist, director of music and composer-in-residence at the Unitarian Universalist Church, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple. She married Harry Busck, an antiquarian book seller who died in 1999, and had two daughters. Aborn died August 25, 2005, in Chicago. A species of moth was named Lora Aborn’s moth in her honor. Works Aborn composed five full length ballets, two operas, works for chamber choir, vocal solos and choral works. Ballet:

Lorenc Antoni

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Lorenc Antoni (23 September 1909 – 21 October 1991) was an Albanian composer, conductor, and ethnomusicologist. Early years Lorenc Antoni was born on 23 September 1909 in Üsküp (now Skopje), in the Kosovo Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire (present-day North Macedonia). Three years later, the region with which we would be associated for the rest of his life came to be first part of the Kingdom of Serbia and later Yugoslavia. He was raised as a Catholic in the Albanian Catholic community of Skopje, and is the cousin of Agnesë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (Mother Teresa). Since a child, he was active in various musical ensembles of the Albanians. He studied music privately in Skopje and Belgrade. After completing his education at the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje, he relocated to Ferizaj. Career In 1941 Antoni began teaching music in Ferizaj, Prizren, and Pristina. In 1948 Antoni established in Prizren one of the Josip Slavenski music schools of former Yugoslavia for beginners and intermediate music performers. He led and conducted the choir of the school. He also conducted the Symphony Orchestra of the city of Prizren. In the study of folklore, Antoni wrote a seven-volume work on Albanian folk musi

Lothar Windsperger

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Lothar Windsperger (22 October 1885 – 30 May 1935) was a German composer as well as long-standing literary editor and publisher at Schott. Life and career Born in Ampfing, Windsperger, son of a well-known organist and school teacher, received his first basic musical education from his father, who he lost at the age of five. Windsperger nevertheless remained true to music, even when he first began his training as a primary school teacher in Rosenheim, where he had moved with his mother in 1898, at a . In 1900 he finally changed to the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich. There he was taught composition and harmony by Josef Rheinberger and Rudolf Louis, among others, and piano by August Schmid-Lindner. Later he continued his studies with Hugo Riemann in Leipzig and work weeks with Hermann Abendroth at the Rheinische Musikschule in Cologne. In February 1905 Windsperger appeared in Munich with an orchestral concert in which he performed his one-hour, one-movement “Sinfonie der Sehnsucht”. According to the judgement of H. Teibler in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung of 24 February 1905 (p. 151), however, he thereby “only provoked the unwillingness of all well-meaning people

Lotte Backes

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Lotte Backes (May 2, 1901 - May 12, 1990) was a German pianist, organist, and composer. Life Backes was born in Cologne into a musical family. Her mother, also a composer, was her first teacher. She went on to study organ and piano at the music conservatories in Strasbourg (1915-1917) and Dusseldorf. (1918-1922). She then continued her studies at the Academy of Arts in Berlin. From 1935 to 1938. she studied composition at the Prussian Academy of Arts. Her works written prior to 1945 were destroyed during World War II. She lived in Berlin from 1931 to 1990. Her works after 1947 include two operas, a symphony, and works for choir and organ. She was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit. Works Orchestra * Sommerliche Wanderung (1947) * Symphonic Poems Chamber Ensemble * Walk in the summer, fl, ob, van, vlc, per, hp, cel * Sprazzo di luce, string quartet, hp, perc (1974) * Reisebilder, string quartet (1980) * Ballade, fl, hp, pf (1980) * Concertante, vlc and pf (1966) * Concerto, vln and organ (1970) * Episodio, trp and organ (1972) * Movimenti improvvisati, hp and per (1973) * Serenata, vln and hp (1965) * Sonata, trp and org (1972) * Sonata I, vln and org (1972) * Spielmusik, ob and pf

Lou Carter

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

Louis Carter (September 15, 1918 – September 25, 2005) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and songwriter. He had a long yet low-profile career. Biography Carter played in various big bands, especially those led by Jimmy Dorsey and Glenn Gray. In 1946, he founded the trio “The Soft Winds” together with Herb Ellis and Johnny Frigo. The group recorded on the Majestic and Mercury labels and wrote a number of hits, among them are “I Told Ya I Love Ya, Now Get Out” and “Detour Ahead”. The latter became a jazz standard and was played by such prominent musicians as Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Irene Kral, Stan Getz, and Woody Herman. After the trio disbanded in 1950, Carter was a sideman for various bands and worked on two of Buck Clayton’s studio albums. A reunion of the Soft Winds occurred during the 1995 Floating Jazz Festival. The double album Then and Now…: The Soft Winds, 1946–1996 was released. The album included previously unreleased radio recordings from 1947 to 1948 and 11 new tracks. Carter also had a side career as a performer of novelty songs, in the persona of “Louie the Singing Cab Driver.” Bronx-accented Louie was a regular on The Perry Como Show i

Lou Harrison

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

Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer, music critic, music theorist, painter, and creator of unique musical instruments. Harrison initially wrote in a dissonant, ultramodernist style similar to his former teacher and contemporary, Henry Cowell, but later moved toward incorporating elements of non-Western cultures into his work. Notable examples include a number of pieces written for Javanese style gamelan instruments, inspired after his introduction to noted gamelan musician Kanjeng Notoprojo. Harrison would create his own musical ensembles and instruments with his partner, William Colvig, who are now both considered founders of the American gamelan movement and world music; along with composers Harry Partch and Claude Vivier, and ethnomusicologist Colin McPhee. The majority of Harrison’s works and custom instruments are written for just intonation rather than the more widespread equal temperament, making him one of the most prominent composers to have experimented with microtones. He was also one of the first composers to have written in the international language Esperanto, and among the first to incorporate strong themes of homosexuality

Lou Koster

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Lou Koster (7 May 1889 – 17 November 1973) was a Luxembourgish composer and pianist. Specializing in violin and piano, she studied at the Luxembourg Conservatory until 1906, then taught there from 1908. While still young, she began to compose. Her first success was her one-act operetta An der Schemm (At the Baths), composed in 1922. From 1933, many of her orchestral works, especially her waltzes and marches, were played for radio by the RTL Grand Symphony Orchestra. Her greatest success was however the choral ballad Der Geiger von Echternach (The Echternach Fiddler) which she completed when she was 83. It was premiered in the Abbey of Echternach in July 1972 to great acclaim. Early life and education Born on 7 May 1889 in Luxembourg City, Louise Koster was the daughter of the railway official Jean Koster (1852–1919) and Emma Hoebich (1865–1950). Her maternal grandfather, Franz Ferdinand Bernhard Hoebich (1813–1900), who was born in Silesia, was the conductor of the military band in Echternach from 1842. He later directed the music corps at the grand-ducal court. After retiring in 1878 and becoming a widower in 1882, Hoebich became the music teacher of Lou and her sister Lina (1891–

Louiguy

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

Louis Guglielmi (3 April 1916 – 4 April 1991), known by his pen name Louiguy (), was a French musician. He wrote the melody for Édith Piaf’s lyrics of “La Vie en rose” and the Latin jazz composition “Cerisier rose et pommier blanc”, a popular song written in 1950, made famous in English as “Cherry Pink (and Apple Blossom White)”, which was recast as a resounding mambo hit for Pérez Prado. Guglielmi was born in Barcelona. He studied music at the Conservatoire de Paris in the same class as Maurice Baquet, Henri Betti, Paul Bonneau and Henri Dutilleux. He created almost three dozen film scores, beginning in 1946 with La Rose de la mer and including To Die of Love (1971). Among the last was the score for Jean Gabin’s final gangster flick, Verdict (1974). He died in Vence, one day after his 75th birthday. Selected filmography * A Cop (1947) * City of Hope (1948) * Memories Are Not for Sale (1948) * The Heroic Monsieur Boniface (1949) * Toâ (1949) * Two Doves (1949) * The Treasure of Cantenac (1950) * The Atomic Monsieur Placido (1950) * One Only Loves Once (1950) * Dakota 308 (1951) * Tomorrow We Get Divorced (1951) * Adhémar (1951) * Village Feud (1951) * The Sleepwalker (1951) * The H

Louis Applebaum

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

Louis Applebaum (April 3, 1918 – April 19, 2000) was a Canadian film score composer, administrator, and conductor. Early life He was born in Toronto, Ontario, and studied at the Toronto Conservatory of Music with Leo Smith and the University of Toronto with Boris Berlin, Healey Willan and Ernest MacMillan. He also studied composition privately in New York. Film composition Applebaum composed approximately 250 film scores for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) between 1942 and 1960, serving as its music director from 1942 to 1948, then as a consultant from 1949 to 1953. His NFB credits include Royal Journey (1951), The Stratford Adventure (1954) and Paddle to the Sea (1966). He was nominated, along with co-composer Ann Ronell, for an Academy Award for the score of the 1945 war film, The Story of G.I. Joe. He won a 1968 Canadian Film Award for his non-feature music score of Athabasca. He resigned from his administrative duties at Stratford in 1960 though he continued until 1999 to provide incidental music for festival productions. He was composer, music director or sound designer for 70 productions over 46 years. His fanfares have been played prior to every performance at Stratford

Louis Beydts

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Louis Beydts (/bets/) was a French composer, music critic and theatre director, born 29 June 1895 in Bordeaux and died on 15 August 1953 at Caudéran in Gironde. Life and career His father was a wine-merchant who played the flute, while his mother played the piano. At 16, having finished his school studies, he went into the family business. Having learnt the piano and tried some composition, at 18 he studied harmony, counterpoint and fugue with Julien Fernand Vaubourgoin, director of the Bordeaux Conservatoire, although Beydts never enrolled there. Through Vaubourgoin he gained a strict classical harmonic technique. Beydts also studied with André Messager to whom he paid homage in Moineau with a variation on the theme of the swing duet. In Paris he had a work for voice and orchestra Le Sommeil performed at the Concerts Lamoureux in 1926. In 1927 Adieu was performed by the Concerts Colonne, and Le Promenoir des deux amants at the Concerts Pasdeloup. (originally entitled La Noce, staged at the Théâtre Marigny on 13 March 1931) with limited success. In November 1931 la S A D M P (la Société anonyme des messieurs prudents) with words by Sacha Guitry, was seen at the Théâtre de la Madele

Louis De Francesco

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Louis De Francesco, born Luigi Ettore De Francesco, (December 26, 1886 - October 5, 1974) was an Italian-born American composer and conductor. Life and career The son of Vincent De Francesco, Louis Ettore De Francesco was born in Atessa, Italy on December 26, 1886. For more than three years he worked as a conductor with the De Koven Opera Company; leading performances of Robin Hood on tour from 1915 to 1917. He also worked as a conductor for an opera company organized by Oscar Hammerstein I and for the Aborn Opera Company. In September 1917 De Francesco became a naturalized American citizen. In the 1920s he was active as a conductor of live orchestras which accompanied silent films. By 1927 he was music director of the Famous Players Road Show with The Musical Courier describing him as “one of the most capable directors of motion picture music in the country.” In 1928 music publisher Samuel Fox (SF) hired De Francesco to work as film score composer John Stepan Zamecnik’s assistant in the Sound Synchronization department of his company which contracted with film companies like Paramount Pictures. De Francesco’s first score for SF was the The Wedding March (1928) which he co-wrote wi

Louis Durey

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Louis Edmond Durey (; 27 May 18883 July 1979) was a French composer. He was among the Les Six group of composers. Biography Durey was born into a bourgeois Parisian family, the son of a local businessman. It was not until he was nineteen years old that he chose to pursue a musical career after hearing a performance of music by Claude Debussy. As a composer, he was primarily autodiadictic. From the beginning, choral music was of great importance in Durey’s productivity. His L’Offrande Lyrique (1914) has been called the first piece of French twelve-tone music. The first of his works to gain recognition in the music world was for a piano duet titled Carillons. At a 1918 concert, this work attracted the interest of Maurice Ravel, who recommended him to his publisher. Communicating with his colleague, Darius Milhaud, he asked him to contribute a piano piece that would bring together the six composers who, in 1920 were dubbed Les Six, culminating in L’Album des Six. Despite their acclaim, Durey refused participation in the 1921 collaborative work Les mariés de la tour Eiffel, which gravely offended Jean Cocteau. Following the Les Six period, Durey continued with his career. Never feeling

Louis Forbes

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Louis Forbes (born Louis Forbstein on August 12, 1902, in St. Louis, Missouri-June 17, 1981) was an American composer, songwriter and conductor. Career Forbes was a music student under the tutelage of renowned musicians Edward Kilenyi and Max Steiner. He was under contract to David O. Selznick for seven years, and later served as the director of music for Goldwyn Productions for three years. He also worked for RKO, contributing to several popular films with his musical compositions. In 1951, Forbes joined the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). Throughout his career, he penned a number of popular songs, including the “Appointment in Honduras” theme. Forbes’ talent and dedication to his craft earned him critical acclaim and recognition in the industry. He was nominated for five Academy Awards for his music scoring on the films Intermezzo (1939); Up in Arms (1944); Wonder Man (1945); Brewster’s Millions (1945); and This Is Cinerama (1952). Notably, Forbstein was the brother of Leo F. Forbstein, another prominent composer and conductor in the film industry. Forbes died on June 17, 1981, in Los Angeles, California. Film credits * Hong Kong Affair (1958) *Thi

Louis Fourestier

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Louis (Félix André) Fourestier (31 May 1892 – 30 September 1976) was a French conductor, composer and pedagogue, and was one of the founders of the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris. Early years, compositions and prizes Fourestier was born in Montpellier, where he studied the cello at the local conservatory. He entered the Conservatoire de Paris in 1909 and was a pupil of Alexandre Guilmant, Paul Dukas, André Gedalge, Paul Vidal, Xavier Leroux (harmony) and Vincent d’Indy (conducting), winning prizes for harmony and counterpoint. In 1924, he won the Prix Rossini for his cantata Patria. This was followed by the Prix de Rome in 1925 for another cantata, La mort d’Adonis, and in 1927 the First Grand Prix for the symphonic poem Polynice. Conducting career Returning from Rome, Fourestier was engaged as a cellist at the Opéra Comique. His conducting career commenced when, in 1927, he took charge of the orchestra for a performance of Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana, and he was appointed principal conductor later that year, leaving the company in 1932. He subsequently conducted various orchestras in Paris and elsewhere (Angers, Cannes and Vichy). Professor of conducting and final years

Louis Levy

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Louis Levy (20 November 1892 – 18 August 1957) was an English film music director and conductor, who worked in particular on Alfred Hitchcock and Will Hay films. He was born in London and died in Slough, Buckinghamshire (now Berkshire). Early life As a child Louis Levy played the violin, beginning with a toy violin that his father bought him at the age of seven. He later became the pupil of Guido Papini but due to his parents’ limited means, ended his studies with Papini and began a period of self-study. This led to him gaining a scholarship at the London College of Music. Papini refused to allow Levy to study under anyone else, so resumed his tuition, this time free of charge. Career He started his career in 1910, arranging and performing music for silent films. He became the head of the music department for all Gainsborough Pictures productions from 1933 onwards. The rich sounds emanating from his large orchestra are all the more impressive when one realises that electrical sound industry was barely ten years old. He worked in particular on Alfred Hitchcock and Will Hay films, directing the music for The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes. Levy later had a long running BBC radio seri

Louise E. Stairs

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Louise E. Simpson Stairs (March 24, 1892 - November 1975) was an American composer, organist, and pianist, who sometimes published under the pseudonym Sidney Forrest. She composed several cantatas, as well as piano and vocal works for children. Stairs was born in Troupsburg, New York, to Alice Clare Stephens and Colonel Ellsworth Simpson. She married Alpheus Wade Stairs on September 3, 1912, and they had a daughter (Ruth). Oliver Ditson, and Theodore Presser Co. Her compositions include: Cantatas *Choral Cantata *Infant Holy: Christmas Cantata *Light O’er Bethlehem: Christmas Cantata Organ *Advent Prayer *Arietta *Soldiers at Play *To Whit, To Whoo Vocal *“His Loving Call” *“Lift Up Your Heads” *“Nest of Baby Bunnies” *“Robin Redbreast’s Song” *“Robin’s Song” *“Sailboats” *“So Longeth My Soul for Thee” *“There is an Eye that Never Sleeps” *“When the Robin Sings” *“Woodland Concert” *Hear works for organ by Louise E. Stairs References

Louise Talma

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Louise Juliette Talma (October 31, 1906 – August 13, 1996) was an American composer, academic, and pianist. After studies in New York and in France, piano with Isidor Philipp and composition with Nadia Boulanger, she focused on composition from 1935. She taught at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, and at Hunter College. Her opera The Alcestiad was the first full-scale opera by an American woman staged in Europe. She was the first woman in the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the first woman awarded the Sibelius Medal for Composition. Career Born in Arcachon in France to an American mother, Alma Cecile Garrigues, a professional soprano who took the name Cecile Talma around 1900, and a father whose identity remains unknown. Mother and daughter returned to the United States in 1914, settling in New York City. Talma grew up surrounded by music but was also an excellent science student and considered becoming a chemist before deciding on a career as a musician. After graduating from Wadleigh High School, Talma studied chemistry at Columbia University while simultaneously studying piano and composition at the Institute of Musical Arts (now Juilliard) in New York from 192

Loulou Gasté

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Louis “Loulou” Gasté (18 March 1908 – 8 January 1995) was a French composer of songs. He composed more than 1000 songs, including “Battling Joe” and “For You”. The song “For You” was popularised internationally as “Feelings” and has been covered almost 1200 times. Personal life and death Gasté discovered and helped launched the career of French singer and actress Line Renaud in 1945. They married in 1950. He died at home, at Rueil-Malmaison, close to Paris on 8 January 1995. Selected compositions * 1941: “Avec son Ukulélé” (for Jacques Pills) * 1941: “Le Chant du Gardian” (for Tino Rossi) * 1943: “Elle Etait Swing” (for Jacques Pills) * 1943: “L’âme au Diable” (for Léo Marjane) * 1943: “Sainte-Madeleine” (for Léo Marjane) * 1944: “Domingo” (for Lucienne Delyle) * 1945: “Le Petit Chaperon Rouge” (for Lisette Jambel) * 1945: “Quand un Cow-boy” (for Georges Guétary) * 1945: “Le Rythme Américain” (for Lily Fayol) * 1945: “Ce n’était pas Original” (for Jacqueline François) * 1945: “Le Porte Bonheur, Chica Chica” (for Jacques Hélian) * 1945: “Un Oiseau Chante” (for Gisèle Pascal) * 1945: “Luna Park” (for Yves Montand) * 1945: “Battling Jo” (for Yves Montand) * 1947: “Au Chili” (for Jacqu

Lü Ji (composer)

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Lü Ji (; Yale romanization: Lyǔ Jì; 1909 – January 5, 2002), originally named Lü Zhanqing (吕展青; pinyin: Lǚ Zhǎnqīng; Yale romanization: Lyǔ Jǎn-Chīng), was a Chinese composer. He was also a music writer, educator, and administrator. He was born in Xiangtan, Hunan in 1909 and became interested in music from an early age, learning to play several traditional instruments.He graduated from Changsha Chang Jun Secondary School in Changsha, https://web.archive.org/web/20090202024045/http://haotushu.com/book/15433/ and studied music at the Shanghai Music Training School (now the Shanghai Conservatory of Music).In 1931 or 1932 he joined the Leftist Dramatic League in Shanghai, https://web.archive.org/web/20110221052001/http://www.kervan.unito.it/contents/documents/k1_pisa.pdfand he joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1935. http://www.csonline.com.cn/infomation/rlcsmr/t20040810_219132.htm He became one of the most active composers of revolutionary Chinese music during the 1930s. In a 1936 article entitled “Zhongguo xin yinyue” (China New Music), he set out his philosophy about revolutionary music: After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, he was appointed vice pres

Luciano Gallet

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

Luciano Gallet (June 28, 1893 in Rio de Janeiro – October 29, 1931 in Rio de Janeiro) was a Brazilian composer, conductor and pianist. Gallet was born in Rio de Janeiro to a French-Brazilian father and a French mother and displayed musical talent at a young age, winning the Gold Medal from the Instituto Nacional de Música in 1916. He began piano playing as a school boy, and first studied and graduated in architecture, before enrolling at the Instituto Nacional de Música to study music with Henrique Oswald, Abdon Milanez and Agnelo França. In 1917, he studied harmony with Darius Milhaud. In 1922, he started to conduct the choir and the orchestra of the Instituto Nacional de Música and in 1926 he became publisher of the music magazine Weco. In 1930 he was one of the founders of the Associação Brasileira de Música and became Director of the Instituto Nacional de Música. Gallet spearheaded a campaign called Reagir! (to fight back) in 1930 to “rescue” Brazilian music and culture from what he saw as popular indifference. His initial article, published in the newspaper O Globo, was republished and circulated widely. Gallet was married to Luisa Gallet until his death in 1931. She later mar

Luciano Sgrizzi

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Luciano Sgrizzi (30 October 1910 – 11 September 1994) was an Italian harpsichordist, organist, pianist and composer. Life and career Luciano Sgrizzi was born in Bologna on October 30, 1910. His father, Domenico Sgrizzi, was a postal worker who died when Luciano was six years old. At the age of 13 he began studies as a pianist at the Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna. and by Alessandro Scarlatti. He made a number of recordings, of which seven were awarded the Grand Prix du Disque. These included the complete concertos of Antonio Vivaldi and Johann Sebastian Bach for solo harpsichord, and many of the sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti. In 1980 he was named Commendatore of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic and in 1985 was named Officier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by French Cultural Minister Jack Lang. He died in Monte Carlo, (Monaco), where he had lived for the last few years of his life. Compositions * Dancing Song: Valzer (1933) * Concerto for piano and orchestra (1935) * String trio (1935) * Concerto per orchestra (1936) * Impressioni (1936) * Introduction and Scherzo, flute and piano (1937) * Paesaggi (1951) * Suite Napoletana (1951) * Englische Suite nach Werken der

Lucie Vellère

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Lucie Vellère (23 December 1896 – 12 October 1966) was a Belgian composer. Biography Lucie Vellère was born in Brussels, and began piano lessons with her father at the age of six. She studied with Emile Chaumont for violin, Paul Miry for harmony, and Joseph Jongen for composition. She was awarded the 1957 “Prix du Brabant” and received an award from the American Section of the International Council for Women for her compositions. She made her primary living as a pharmacist and composed as a hobby. Selected works Vellère composed works for voice, solo instruments, chamber ensembles, chorus and orchestra in a traditional style. Most of her works show impressionistic tendencies. *Chanson nocturne (for violin and piano) 1920 *String Quartet No. 1 in d minor 1937 *String Quartet No. 2 in e minor 1942 *Piano Trio 1947 *Fantaisie en trois mouvement (for violin and piano) 1950 *String Quartet No. 3 1951 *Nocturne (for cello and piano) 1954 *Petite Symphony 1956 *Arlequinade (for trumpet and piano) 1959 *Bagatelles (String Trio) 1960 *Dialogue (for oboe and piano) 1960 *Intermède (for flute and piano) 1960 *Sonata for violin and viola 1961 *Divertissement (for violin and piano) 1962 *String

Lucien Cailliet

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Lucien Cailliet (May 22, 1891 – January 3, 1985) was a French-American composer, conductor, arranger and clarinetist. Biography Cailliet was born in 1891 at Dampierre-sur-Moivre, in northern France. He studied at several French music conservatories, most notably the Conservatory in Dijon, where he graduated at age 22. He also received a degree from the National Conservatory in Paris. He became a bandmaster in the French Army and, in 1915, toured the United States with the French Army Band, including performances at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition. In 1919 or 1920, Cailliet emigrated to the US and joined the Philadelphia Orchestra, as a clarinetist, saxophonist, and staff arranger, where he worked closely with Leopold Stokowski. Around this time he also founded the Cherry Hill Wind Symphony, which would later become the Wind Symphony of Southern New Jersey. In 1923, at age 32, he became an American citizen, and attended graduate school at the Philadelphia Musical Academy. Cailliet served as Associate Conductor of The Allentown Band (Pennsylvania) beginning in 1934, during which time he conducted many of his own arrangements. After receiving his Doctor of Music Degree in

Lucien Martin

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Lucien Martin (30 May 1908 – 29 October 1950) was a Canadian violinist, conductor, and composer. Only one of his compositions was published, the art song La Chanson des belles, which was performed by Jeanne Desjardins in its premiere on the CBC Radio program Sérénade pour cordes. Life and career Born in Montreal, Martin was the son of violinist and string-instrument maker Cyrice Martin. He began his musical training with his father before entering the Conservatoire national de musique at the age of 7. He excelled at the school and earned a gold meld just a couple years later. He was named “the champion young violinist of the world” by the American press after a triumphant concert at the Central Theater in Biddeford, Maine in 1916. Martin continued his violin studies in Montreal with Albert Chamberland (1917–1920), Alfred De Sève (1920–1923), and Camille Couture (1923–1925). He also studied harmony with Georges-Émile Tanguay. From 1925–1928 he toured the United States as a concert and recital violinist. He won the Prix d’Europe in 1931 which enabled him to pursue further studies in France at the École Normale de Musique de Paris with Maurice Hayot. He earned a ’licence de concert’ f

Lūcija Garūta

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Lūcija Garūta (14 May 1902 – 15 February 1977) was a Latvian pianist, poet and composer. She is mostly known for composing the cantata Dievs, Tava zeme deg! in 1943. Life and career Lūcija Garūta was born in Riga (at the time Russian Empire) in the family of an accountant. From 1919 to 1925, she studied at the Latvian Conservatory with professor Jāzeps Vītols for piano and others including Jānis Mediņš, and . During her studies she was the pianist répétiteur at the Latvian National Opera. After graduation, she worked at Riga Radio from 1925 to 1926. In 1926 she took a position teaching music theory and piano at the . In 1926 she also continued her studies with Alfred Cortot, Isidor Philipp and Paul Le Flem, and in 1928 she studied composition with Paul Dukas at the Paris École Normale de Musique. In 1926 she made her debut in Paris, and afterwards became active as a composer, holding concerts with singers , and Mariss Vētra, violinist Rūdolfs Miķelsons and cellist Atis Teihmanis. In 1939 she served on the Latvian music promotion association’s board of directors. In the 1920s and 1930s, Lūcija Garūta was one of the most active pianists both as a soloist as well as accompanist, perfo

Lucio Agostini

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Lucio Agostini (30 December 1913 (Fano, Italy) – 15 December 1996 (Toronto)) was an Italian-born composer, arranger, and conductor who established his career in Canada. Life At age three, Agostini moved with his family to Montreal, Quebec, Canada. His father, Giuseppe Agostini, was a composer and conductor and it is from him that he had his initial musical training beginning at age five. He later pursued further studies in harmony and composition with Louis Michiels and Henri Miro and in cello with Peter Van der Meerschen. At 16, Agostini was playing with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra as a cellist and was a part-time band player in a nightclub band playing saxophone and clarinet. From 1932 to 1943, he composed film music for the Associated Screen News of Canada newsreels, and in 1934 he began working as a conductor for the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (the forerunner to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). In Toronto, where he moved in 1943, he composed and conducted the incidental music for drama series and variety programs on the CBC radio and television, and for over 20 years he held the position as conductor and arranger on the popular weekly series Front Page Ch

Lucrecia Roces Kasilag

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Lucrecia Roces Kasilag (31 August 1918 – 16 August 2008) was a Filipino composer and pianist. She is particularly known for incorporating indigenous Filipino instruments into orchestral productions. Biography Lucrecia “King” Roces Kasilag was born in San Fernando, La Union Philippines, the third of the six children of Marcial Kasilag Sr., a civil engineer, and his wife Asuncion Roces Ganancial, a violinist and a violin teacher. She was Kasilag’s first solfeggio teacher. The second was Doña Concha Cuervo, who was a strict Spanish woman. Kasilag later studied under Doña Pura Villanueva, during which time performed her first public piece, Felix Mendelssohn’s May Breezes, at a student recital when she was ten years old. During World War II, she took up composition, and on 1 December 1945, she performed her own compositions in a concert at Philippine Women’s University. From 1946 to 1947, Kasilag taught at the University of the Philippines’ Conservatory of Music and worked as secretary-registrar at Philippines Women’s University. She completed a Bachelor of Music in 1949, and then attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, studying theory with Allen I. McHose and compo

Ludmila Frajt

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Ludmila Frajt (31 December 1919 – 14 March 1999) was a Yugoslav and Serbian composer. She wrote choral, orchestral and chamber works, music for films and radio-dramas, electro-acoustic works, as well as music for children. She has won numerous awards for her music for children. Biography Ludmila (Lida) Frajt was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia into a family of musicians. Her father Jovan (Jan) Frajt, born in 1882 in Plzeň (nowadays in the Czech Republic), settled in Serbia in 1903. He worked as a violinist, organist, conductor, composer and music publisher. He founded a publishing house Edition Frajt in Belgrade. After his death in 1938, his son Stevan Frajt, also a musician, continued to run this family business. Ludmila Frajt received her first music lessons at home; then she attended the Belgrade Music School, where one of her teachers was Josip Slavenski. In 1938 she enrolled to study composition at the newly founded Belgrade Music Academy (nowadays Faculty of Music), with Miloje Milojević. Her studies were interrupted by the World War II. After the country was liberated, she resumed her study. However, her professor Milojević died in 1946, and therefore she graduated with Josip S

Ludvig Irgens-Jensen

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Paul Ludvig Irgens-Jensen (13 April 1894 – 11 April 1969) was a Norwegian twentieth-century composer. Biography Irgens-Jensen studied piano with Nils Larsen while a philology student at the University of Oslo. He began composing in 1920 and the radical nature of his work attracted some interest. In 1928, Irgens-Jensen submitted his Passacaglia for Orchestra to the International Schubert Competition to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Franz Schubert’s death. The competition was eventually won by Kurt Atterberg’s Symphony No. 6. Although Irgens-Jensen’s work only received second prize in the Scandinavian Composers Division, the work was performed all over the world and helped Irgens-Jensen gain international fame. In 1930, the composer achieved another great success with his choral symphonic work Heimferd, written to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the death of St. Olav II of Norway. This work won first prize in a composition competition and quickly became popular in Norway. Heimferd is now considered an important landmark in the history of Norwegian choral music. During the Second World War, Irgens-Jensen composed several songs and orchestral works to patriotic texts; due t

Ludwig Lenel

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Ludwig Lenel (May 20, 1914 – April 22, 2002) was a German organist and composer. Early life and education Lenel was born May 20, 1914, in Strasburg, Germany during the German Empire in present-day France, the son of the late Walter and Luise (Borckenhagen) Lenel. During his youth, Lenel met and was strongly influenced by Albert Schweitzer, who frequently stayed with the Lenel family while visiting Heidelberg. He then later studied organ with Schweitzer, and assisted him on tours of Germany and Switzerland in 1932 and 1936, respectively. In between those tours, Lenel’s concert for two violins and string orchestra premiered at the Collegium Musicum in Heidelberg in 1933. In 1935, he was awarded his diploma from Hochschule fuer Musik in Cologne. In 1938, he was awarded a diploma from Basel Music Academy in Switzerland. After emigrating to the United States, Lenel worked as an organist while continuing his study of music composition at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, where he was awarded his masters of music degree in 1940. Career Lenel served on the faculties of Monticello College and Elmhurst College in Illinois, Westminster College in Pennsylvania, and The New School for Social Re

Ludwig Roselius (composer)

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Ludwig Roselius (2 August 1902 – 6 February 1977) was a German composer and conductor. Life and career Roselius was born in Kassel, the son of the merchant Georg Roselius and a relative of the coffee magnate Ludwig Roselius. He was a répétiteur at the Deutsche Opernhaus Berlin for the 1921/1922 season. He studied composition with Georg Schumann at the Prussian Academy of the Arts from 1921 to 1923, and received a PhD from Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin on the subject of the motets of Andreas Raselius in 1924. He achieved his greatest success with the stage works Godiva and especially Gudrun, which was premièred in Graz in 1938 and performed again in Berlin. He was drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1941 and ended World War II as a prisoner of war. He received the Bremer Musikpreis in 1964 in recognition of his contributions. Roselius died 6 February 1977 in Bremen. * Der dunkle Reigen, op. 23 (Totentanzsuite) * Festliche Intrade for speaker, choir, and orchestra * Zwischen Meer und Moor, op. 27 (Niederdeutsche Suite für Orchester) * Friesische Musik, op. 30 * Es waren zwei Königskinder, op. 31 (Fantasie für Orchester) Instrumental works * Variationen für Klavier über ein deutsche

Ludwig Schmidseder

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Ludwig Schmidseder (24 August 1904, in Passau – 21 June 1971, in Munich) was a German composer and pianist of the “Light Muse”. Several of his Schlager compositions are still popular tunes today. The young Schmidseder followed his father’s wishes and trained as a banker, whilst taking piano lessons in secret. He furthered his musical education at the Munich Conservatorium, then left for South America in 1926, ending up in Rio de Janeiro. Starting out as a dishwasher, he went on to become an entertainer and play in a trio on ocean cruises. Schmidseder composed music for the trio, and developed into a virtuoso piano player. From 1930 he worked in Berlin, composing film music, creating operettas and writing more than 500 songs, some of which became much-loved hits. He moved from being a bar pianist (until 1936) to being the house composer at the old Berlin Metropol-Theatre. His operetta Die Oder Keine (That One or No One) was performed more than 600 times. Schmidseder joined the NSDAP on 1 May 1933. After World War II, Schmidseder continued to compose film music and appear in films. The corpulent cook would later become famous as a TV cook and produced a book of recipes. Selected work

Luella Totten

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Luella Totten (c. 1870 – November 5, 1950) was an American pianist, composer, and music educator. She was also known as Louis von Heinrich. Early life Luella G. Totten was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the daughter of William Henry Denny Totten and Ann Elizabeth Covert Totten. Her father was in the iron business. “Pittsburgh, that wonderful city of steel, iron, coal, smoke, art and progress, with its unnumbered millions and millionaires, has produced nothing more remarkable than this woman composer,” declared a music magazine in 1908. She studied piano in Chicago, and in Vienna with Theodor Leschetizky. She also worked with Edvard Grieg. Later in life, she studied composition at Yale University School of Music. In 1900 she won the Steinert Scholarship, a competitive award for piano study at Yale. In 1902 she became the third woman to earn a Bachelor of Music degree at Yale. She pursued further studies in composition at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and with Max Reger in Leipzig, before World War I. Career Totten taught music at Shimer College from 1894 to 1898. She had an affair with politician and physician Henry Winfield Haldeman. She was fired from her position at S

Luigi Dallapiccola

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Luigi Dallapiccola (3 February 1904 – 19 February 1975) was an Italian composer and pianist known for his lyrical twelve-tone compositions. Biography Dallapiccola was born in Pisino d’Istria, Austria-Hungary (current Pazin, Croatia), to Italian parents. Unlike many composers born into highly musical environments, his early musical career was irregular at best. Political disputes over his birth region of Istria led to instability and frequent moves. His father was headmaster of an Italian-language school – the only one in the city – which was shut down at the start of World War I. The family, considered politically subversive, was placed in internment at Graz, Austria, where the budding composer did not even have access to a piano, though he did attend performances at the local opera house which cemented his desire to pursue composition as a career. Once back in Pisino after the war, he travelled frequently. Dallapiccola took his piano degree at the Florence Conservatory in the 1920s. He also studied composition with Vito Frazzi. He became a professor at the conservatory in 1931; Dallapiccola’s early experiences under the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini coloured his outlook and o

Luigi Russolo

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Luigi Carlo Filippo Russolo (30 April 1885 – 4 February 1947) was an Italian Futurist painter, composer, builder of experimental musical instruments, and the author of the manifesto The Art of Noises (1913). Russolo completed his secondary education at Seminary of Portogruaro in 1901, after which he moved to Milan and began gaining interest in the arts. He is often regarded as one of the first noise music experimental composers with his performances of noise music concerts in 1913–14 and then again after World War I, notably in Paris in 1921. He designed and constructed a number of noise-generating devices called Intonarumori. Biography Luigi Russolo was perhaps the first noise artist. His 1913 manifesto, L’Arte dei Rumori (The Art of Noises), stated that the industrial revolution had given modern men a greater capacity to appreciate more complex sounds. Russolo found traditional melodic music confining, and he envisioned noise music as its future replacement. Russolo designed and constructed a number of noise-generating devices called Intonarumori, and assembled a noise orchestra to perform with them. A performance of his Gran Concerto Futuristico (1917) was met with strong disapp

Luis Abraham Delgadillo

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Luis Abraham Delgadillo (August 25, 1887 – December 20, 1961) was a Nicaraguan composer. He was director-general of musical culture for Nicaragua and later led the National School of Music in Managua and the National Symphony Orchestra. Biography Luis Abraham Delgadillo was born on August 26, 1887, in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, where he was first educated. He then studied music at the Milan Conservatory in Italy at the initiative of the Nicaraguan government, for five years. Upon his return to Nicaragua, Delgadillo took conductorship of the Banda de los Supremos Poderes (Band of the Supremos Poderes). He was also made the first director-general of musical culturethe position having been created specifically for him. From 1921 to 1925 he lived in Mexico City where he taught music theory at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música. Delgadillo conducted at Carnegie Hall in New York City in 1930. He was in New York when the 1931 Nicaragua earthquake occurred, composing Romance Oriental (Eastern Romance) in response. He taught composition in Panama City for two years beginning in 1943, simultaneously editing the journal Armonía. Delgadillo founded Nicaragua’s National School of Music a

Luís de Freitas Branco

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Luís Maria da Costa de Freitas Branco (12 October 1890 – 27 November 1955) was a Portuguese composer, musicologist, and professor of music who played a pre-eminent part in the development of Portuguese music in the first half of the 20th century. Life Luís Maria da Costa de Freitas Branco was born in Lisbon into an aristocratic family who for centuries had had close ties to the royal family in Portugal. His brother, Pedro, was a conductor. Luís had a cosmopolitan education, studied piano and violin beginning in childhood and began composing at a precocious age. He studied music in Berlin and Paris, where he worked with Engelbert Humperdinck and other composers. He returned to Portugal and became professor of composition starting in 1916 at the Lisbon Conservatory of Music, where he became a leading force in restructuring musical education. There he taught, among many others, Joly Braga Santos. During the 1930s he increasingly encountered political difficulties with the authorities and was finally forced into retirement from his official duties in 1939. He continued to compose, however, and to pursue his research into Portuguese early music, publishing several books and numerous art

Luis Gianneo

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Luis Gianneo (9 January 1897 – 15 August 1968) was an Argentine composer, pianist and conductor. As music educator, he was the teacher of composers Ariel Ramirez, Juan Carlos Zorzi, Marta Lambertini, , and Rodolfo Arizaga, among others. Founder of Orquesta Juvenil de Radio Nacional and co-founder of Symphonic Orchestra of Tucumán. Gianneo is acknowledged as a leading Argentine composer and one of the most influential members of the Grupo renovación, which he joined in 1931. He composed nearly 100 works including every genre except opera. His earliest compositions exhibit the influence of indigenous culture and landscape of northwest Argentina; after joining the Grupo renovación, he adopted a neoclassical approach; in 1960 he traveled to Europe, where he met Goffredo Petrassi and Luigi Dallapiccola, who brought his attention to the post-war avant-gardists and prompted him to incorporate a dissonant atonal language and free use of serialism in his late works. Homage To commemorate the 50th anniversary of his death, with two concerts in the Salón Dorado of the Teatro Colón, on 4 August and on 25 August 2018 respectively, the Cuarteto Gianneo performed the world premiere of his complet

Luis Pacheco de Céspedes

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Luis Pacheco de Céspedes (25 November 1895 – 16 February 1982) was a Peruvian composer, violinist, and conductor. Life and career Luis Pacheco de Céspedes was born in Lima, Peru on 25 November 1895. He was trained as a musician in his native city by violinist Claudio Rebagliati (1843–1909) and musicologist and composer Luis Villalba Muñoz (1872–1921). In 1910 he went to Paris where he was a pupil of the writer Henri Duvernois. After graduating from the conservatory he worked for many years as an arranger for the music publishing firm of Francis Salabert; specializing in orchestration. With the onset of World War II, Céspedes left France for Peru where his compositional style transitioned into incorporating Peruvian folk music into his compositions. His wife, the American choreographer and dancer , was a collaborator, often designing dances to accompany his music. In 1941 he was appointed musical director of Radio Nacional del Perú, and was also active as a guest conductor of operas at the Gran Teatro Nacional del Perú. In 1946 he was the recipient of the government of Peru’s Duncker Lavalle National Prize for his string quartet Siclla. three sonatas for violin and piano, the opera

Luis Sandi

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Luis Sandi Meneses (22 February 1905, Mexico City – 1996), was a musician, teacher and composer. Biography The complete name is Luis Sandi Meneses. Born February 22, 1905 in Mexico City, the only child of Genaro Sandi and María Meneses. Sandi did not attend public primary school, but was privately tutored by his mother’s sister, Manuela Meneses, who was a public school teacher. Between the ages of six and fourteen Sandi lived in Tacubaya, a suburb of Mexico city. As his interest in music increased, at the age of fifteen Sandi entered the National Conservatory of music where he studied violin with José Rocabruna, an eminent Spanish violinist. Sandi studied voice with Elvira González, and composition with Estanislao Mejía (b. 1882) a nationalist. Sandi also had a composition workshop with Carlos Chávez with whom he studied instrumental conducting. Luis Sandi conducted in various instances Orquesta Sinfónica de México and Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional. At one time, he focused on composition. From his production, opera Carlota (libretto by Francisco Zendejas) and Bonampak ballet stand out. His continuous contact with Coro de Madrigalistas (which he founded in 1938) made him compose and a

Luther Henderson

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Luther Henderson (March 14, 1919 – July 29, 2003) was an American arranger, composer, orchestrator, and pianist best known for his contributions to Broadway musicals. Early life and career Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Henderson relocated to the Sugar Hill section of Harlem at the age of four. Following a short stint studying mathematics at the City College of New York, he enrolled at the Juilliard School of Music, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1942. Drafted into the Navy during World War II, Henderson became an arranger for the Navy band stationed at the Naval Station Great Lakes, prior to becoming the staff orchestrator for The U. S. Navy School of Music in Washington, D.C., from 1944 to 1946. Following the war, Henderson began a long professional association with a number of musical notables of the era, including Duke Ellington, Lena Horne, Jule Styne, and Richard Rodgers. Notably, Henderson maintained a lengthy pre-professional relationship with Ellington, having been neighbors with the Ellington family as a child and schoolmate with his son, Mercer. Henderson went on to serve as classical orchestrator for Ellington’s symphonic works, receiving the nickname

Lycia de Biase Bidart

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Lycia de Biase Bidart (18 February 1910 – 10 July 1991) was a Brazilian pianist, violinist, conductor, music educator and composer. She was one of the first women to conduct an orchestra in Brazil, leading the Rio de Janeiro Municipal Theater Symphony Orchestra in 1933 and 1934. Life and career Lycia de Biase was born in Vitoria, Espírito Santo, the daughter of Commander Pietrângelo De Biase, born in Castellucci Superiore, Italy (1884) and Maria Arcângela Vivacqua De Biase, born in Muniz Freire, Espírito Santo. Lycia began her studies in Rio de Janeiro with Neusa Franca for piano and Giovanni Giannetti for harmony and composition, and later continued her studies with Magdalena Tagliaferro. She married João Baptista Bidart. Works Selected works include: *A noiva do mar, opera, 1939 *Estudos expressionistas for two horns *Cantos tupis for horn, flute and clarinet, 1975 * Ballet fantasia: simbolismo e vivência do Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro, ballet, 1976 References

Lydia Auster

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Lydia Martynovna Auster (; 30 May 1912 – 3 April 1993) was a Soviet and Estonian composer. She was born in Petropavlovsk, Akmolinsk Oblast, Russian Empire. After musical studies in Omsk in 1927–1931, she transferred to the Leningrad Conservatory, where she studied with Mikhail Youdin. She later continued studies at the Moscow Conservatory with Vissarion Shebalin. After her graduation in 1938, she continued post-graduate studies. These were interrupted in 1941, then resumed in 1944. During her period away from studies, she worked as a staff composer for the Ashgabat Philharmonic Orchestra in the Turkmen SSR. After the end of the Great Patriotic War, Auster went to the Estonian SSR to study the local folk music. In 1948, Auster was appointed music director of the Estonian SSR Television and Radio Committee. Despite her position, she faced criticism for formalism by Soviet authorities. Nevertheless, she continued to serve in her position until 1984. She was also on the board of the Union of Composers of the Estonian SSR. Auster was awarded and People’s Artist of the Estonian SSR in 1957 and 1984 respectively. According to , Auster’s ballets, along with those of Eugen Kapp, were crucia

Lydia Boucher

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Lydia Boucher (28 February 1890 – 5 March 1971) was a Canadian composer, music educator, and nun. She was active as a composer from 1923 to 1971, producing several choral works and pieces for solo piano and organ. Most of her works are sacred and many of them were published by L’Édition Belgo-Canadienne, Musica Enrégistré, and Éditions canadiennes. Her first composition was Ave Maria (1923) and her last work was Hommage à Mère Marie-Anne (1971). Of particular note is her oratorio L’Oeuvre d’Esther Blondin which premiered in 1949. Some of her other notable pieces include the piano works Trois Préludes (1928–30) and La Ronde des aiguilles (1950), and the Alleluia for organ (1958). Life and career Born in Saint-Ambroise-de-Kildare, Quebec, Boucher studied music with Claude Champagne (music composition), Fleurette Contant (singing), J. Alexandre Delcourt (violin), Auguste Descarries (piano and composition), Rodolphe Mathieu (piano and harmony), Louis Michiels (composition), and Raoul Paquet (organ). She became a novitiate at the Sisters of Saint Anne in 1907. She took her vows in 1909 Composer Alice Vinette (Sister Marie-Jocelyne) was a contemporary of Boucher’s. Boucher was active as

Lyubomir Pipkov

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Lyubomir Panaïotov Pipkov () (September 6, 1904 – May 9, 1974) was a Bulgarian composer, pianist, and music educator. He is considered among the founders of Bulgaria’s modern professional musical establishment and one of its most important composers. Life Pipkov was born to a musical family in Lovech, Principality of Bulgaria, on September 6, 1904. His father, Panayot Pipkov, was a composer and bandmaster; his grandfather, Hristo Pipkov, was a clarinetist. As a child, Pipkov demonstrated an interest in painting and poetry before turning to music. In 1919 he enrolled in the Sofia Music School (today the Lyubomir Pipkov National School of Music), where he studied under Ivan Torchanov, Heinrich Wiesner, and Dobri Hristov. Two years later he composed the fight song for PFC Levski Sofia, an early composition which was subsequently lost. After graduation, Pipkov composed a number of works, among them his first major score, the 22 Variations for piano. The 1940s would see Pipkov establish himself at the head of Bulgaria’s musical establishment. He began by completing his Symphony No. 1, the first of four, in 1940. Pipkov dedicated the score to the fighters of the Republican cause in the S

Lyubov Streicher

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Lyubov Lvovna Streicher (3 March 1888 – 31 March 1958) was a Russian composer, teacher and violinist. She was a founding member of the Society for Jewish Folk Music. Streicher was born in Vladikavkaz. She graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where she studied with Leopold Auer, Mikhail Gnessin, Anatoly Lyadov, and Maximilian Steinberg. In 1908, she joined Gnessin and Lazare Saminsky as founding members of the Society for Jewish Folk Music in St. Petersburg. The Society was part of the Jewish art music movement. It promoted Jewish folk music through research, composition, performance, and publishing. Branches of the Society were established in several Russian cities, and it remained active through 1919. Compositions At least one of Streicher’s compositions, “A Simple Soviet Man,” was recorded commercially by pianist Maria Yudina in 1937. Streicher’s compositions included: Ballet Noch Fialki “Song of Songs” Ten Jewish Work Songs “Ya Lesom Shia” References External links *Hear “Shir Hashirim” by Lyubov Streicher

Ma Ke (composer)

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Ma Ke (; 1918 – July 27, 1976) was a Chinese composer and musicologist, best known for his patriotic songs, including “Nanniwan”. Ma was born into a Christian family, at Xuzhou, Jiangsu, and his name was said to be derived from the saint Mark. Having enjoyed chemistry in high school, he studied it at Henan University, where he encountered the composer Xian Xinghai. Ma suspended his studies and became a follower of Xian, including an anti-Japanese roadshow tour of the country. In 1939, Ma traveled to Yan’an. On Xian’s recommendation, he studied at Luxun Academy of Arts with composer Lü Ji and others. He began to collect and record many Chinese folk songs. In 1947, he joined the Chinese Communist Party. After 1949, he was appointed the Vice President of the China Conservatory of Music and the head of the Chinese Opera House. He composed more than 200 musical works, including “Nanniwan”; We are Democratic Youth (我们是民主青年); Powerful Workers (咱们工人有力量); Lüliang Mountains Cantata (吕梁山大合唱); the yangge opera The Couple Learn to Read (夫妻识字); the opera Zhou Zishan (周子山) (co-composed with Zhang Lu () and Liu Chi); The White Haired Girl with Ju Wei, Zhang Lu, and Xiang Yu; Xiaoerhei’s Marriage (

Madalyn Akers Phillips

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Madalyn Akers Phillips (August 1889 – August 24, 1949), born Maddalena Marie Heryer, was an American composer and organist. Early life and education Heryer was born in Hutchinson, Kansas, the daughter of David Heryer and Ida May Sperry Heryer. Both of her parents were musical and they identified her musical talents at an early age. She attended Knox Conservatory of Music, and earned a master’s degree in composition from the American Conservatory of Music in 1927, under the supervision of Adolf Weidig. Career Akers Phillips began giving recitals and performing her compositions as a young woman. and 1946 and 1947 benefit concerts in Chula Vista, California, the latter with actor William Farnum. Akers was featured on “Meet the Composer”, a radio program about California composers, in 1932. Compositions by Akers Phillips were featured in 1939 at a festival in California, sponsored by the Native Composers Society, alongside works by Charles Wakefield Cadman and Nathaniel Dett, among others. She chaired a benefit concert for the Red Cross in 1942 in Chula Vista, and a musicale of the Musical Merit Foundation in San Diego in 1946. She was a member of the Order of the Eastern Star, and sou

Madelene Van Aardt

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Madelene Olivier Van Aardt (14 August 1896 – 6 July 1982) was a South African composer and teacher. Her published compositions include the piano piece Fusion (1935) and four songs, with two in English and two in Afrikaans. Van Aardt was among the first composers to write in the popular light Afrikaans music () genre. Life and career Madelene Olivier was born on 14 August 1896 in Graaff-Reinet, Cape Province, then in the Union of South Africa. She earned an associate degree from Trinity College London, UK. In 1950 she returned to South Africa, and lived in Somerset East from then onwards. Although the International Encyclopedia of Women Composers describes her as a teacher, it does not list the schools where she taught. According to her footstone, at some point she married and had children, presumably adopting the surname ‘Van Aardt’ from her husband. She died on 6 July 1982 and was buried in Somerset East’s main cemetery; her footstone includes an epitaph, . In the early 20th century, the music of South Africa saw the emergence of a new popular music genre in the Afrikaans language: light Afrikaans music (). Van Aardt was among the earliest composers in the genre, alongside Danie B

Mae Doelling Schmidt

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Mae Doelling Schmidt (née Mary Metzke; 22 May 1888 Chicago – 11 March 1965 Chicago) was an American virtuoso pianist, composer, clubwoman, and music educator from Chicago. She was on the faculty of the American Conservatory of Music. Early life Mae Doelling Schmidt, born Mary Metzke, was the youngest of four girls born to Julius (aka August) Metzke (surname also spelled Mätzke; 1847–1907) and Marie J. Schwechert (maiden; 1854–1892), both German immigrants from Prussia who married in Chicago on August 28, 1878. Mae’s mother died when she was years old. Adoptee parents Separated from her sisters when she was a toddler, Mae, when she was five, was adopted by German-born Chicagoans, Paul Wilhelm Doelling (1846-1909) Paul and Ida Doelling also adopted Paula Hoffman in 1891. Formal education At the age of 9 Doelling began studying in the Children’s Department of the American Conservatory of Music, where at age 10 she earned a Silver Medal, A 1922 report described Doelling as “forceful when necessary”, but adding that “she relies on brains rather than physical strength to bring out the beauties of the music.” She often included her own compositions in her programs. Her piano compositions

Maj Sønstevold

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Maj Sønstevold (born Lundén; 9 September 1917 – 14 March 1996) was a Swedish composer who lived and worked in Norway. Biography Maj Sønstevold was born in Sollefteå, Sweden. She studied piano in Stockholm and with Billy Mayerl in London. She married Norwegian composer Gunnar Sønstevold and in 1945 moved to Norway, where she worked as a composer and music teacher. Later she and her family spent time in Vienna, where she studied with Hanns Jelinek and Karl Schiske and graduated in composition in 1966 from the Akademisches Hauptseminar. From 1971 to 1985 Sønstevold taught in the Music Department of Oslo University. In 1974 she and her husband founded The Maj and Gunnar Sønstevold Music Institute in Rakkestad. Søstevold held a number of positions on the Norwegian music scene and served as a board member of organisations Music Information Centre Norway, the Norwegian Society of Composers and the Norwegian Academy of Music. Output Maj Sønstevold composed jazz, light music and avant garde music for theatre, film, radio and television. She also composed for orchestra, chamber ensemble, choir and solo instrument. Selected works Film music * Skøytekongen (1953) * Trost i taklampa (1955) * To

Mana-Zucca

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Mana-Zucca (December 25, 1885 – March 8, 1981) was an American actress, singer, pianist and composer. Biography Mana-Zucca was born Gussie Zuckermann (first name uncertain) in New York City on December 25, 1885. The daughter of Polish immigrants, she was a child prodigy who began composing at an early age. Mana-Zucca was interested in music when she was very young. She was frustrated at the age of three when she found that her toy piano didn’t have half tones. Her first piano teacher was her neighbor called Patotnikoff. Not long after that, her piano teacher was changed to Platon Brounoff, who was a Russian immigrant. Shortly after giving her first recital at the age of three and a half, she got a scholarship at the age of four when she had an audition for the National Conservatory of Music (New York City). In the conservatory, she studied with different teachers, including Misses Margulies and Okell. At the age of seven she began to study piano with the eminent Polish pianist and pedagogue Alexander Lambert, who taught at the New York College of Music. Lambert was not only her teacher but also her concert manager and mentor. Her practice regime, dictated by Lambert, was rigorous. So

Manfred Gurlitt

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Manfred Gurlitt (6 September 1890 – 29 April 1972) was a German opera composer and conductor. He studied composition with Engelbert Humperdinck and conducting with Karl Muck. He spent most of his career in Japan. Life Manfred Ludwig Hugo Andreas Gurlitt was born in Berlin on 6 September 1890 to the art dealer Fritz Gurlitt (1854-1893) and Annarella Gurlitt (1856-1935). The Gurlitt family included many who distinguished themselves in the arts. Manfred was the cousin of musicologist Wilibald Gurlitt (1889-1963) and the great-nephew of the composer Cornelius Gurlitt. Another cousin was Hildebrand Gurlitt (1895–1956), an art dealer who was one of a very few authorized by the Nazis to deal in “degenerate art” and whose holdings of art works looted from Jews during the years of Nazi rule came to light in the 21st century. He studied composition for a time with Engelbert Humperdinck and music theory with Hans Hermann and Hugo Kaun. From 1908 to 1910, he was a coach at the Berlin Court Opera and in 1911 acted as musical assistant to Karl Muck at Bayreuth. In 1911-12, he was second conductor in Essen, then in Augsburg for two years. in 1914 he was given the post of first conductor at the Br

Manoah Leide-Tedesco

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Tranquillo Manoah Leide-Tedesco (August 19, 1894 – January 29, 1982) was an Italian-American composer, conductor and violinist. Biography Tranquillo Manoah Leide-Tedesco was born in Senigallia, Italy, but grew up in Naples. His father, Lazzaro Leide-Tedesco, originally from Reggio Emilia, became rabbi of the Jewish community of Greater Naples (1904–1941) and the chief rabbi of Naples. Manoah Leide-Tedesco grew up in an artistic family of composers, singers and musicians. His brother, Enrico Leide (1887–1970) was a concert cellist and orchestra conductor, conducting the first Atlanta Symphony Orchestra from 1920 to 1930. Educated at the University of Naples, Leide-Tedesco did his post graduate studies in Czechoslovakia (1925–1931), receiving his Doctorate in Philology and Sociology. He attended the Prague Conservatory where he continued his musical studies under Ildebrando Pizzetti, Josef Suk and Karel Jirák. From 1922 through 1935, Leide-Tedesco conducted many of the leading symphony orchestras of Central Europe including the Philharmonics of Prague, Vienna and Pressburg. During this time he was entrusted with some of the first performances of the works of Maurice Ravel (L’enfant e

Mansi Barberis

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Mansi (Clemensa) Barberis (March 12, 1899 – October 11, 1986) was a Romanian violinist, music educator, conductor, and composer. Life Clemensa Barberis was born in Iași, the daughter of Giuseppe Barberis and Marguerita Cazaban. She began to improvise on the piano at an early age. When an aunt transcribed one of the pieces, composer George Enescu recommended that Barberis take theory lessons. She studied with Italian professors in Iași and later studied violin, voice, and composition at the George Enescu Conservatory. Barberis graduated from the Conservatory in 1922. She married surgeon Gheorghe Plăcințeanu, taking the surname Barberis-Plăcințeanu, and had a daughter, which she left with her parents so she could continue her studies in Berlin. She returned to Romania after a year and took professional employment, but later continued her studies in Paris during three sessions, studying voice, conducting, opera, composition and orchestration. In 1936 she also studied voice briefly in Vienna with Max Reger. Her opera were performed at the Romanian National Opera, Bucharest and by the Opera Company of Iași. Her music was also recorded and broadcast on Romanian Television (RTV). She was

Manuel de Falla

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Biography#

Falla was born Manuel María de los Dolores Falla y Matheu in Cádiz. He was the son of José María Falla, a Valencian, and María Jesús Matheu, from Catalonia. In 1889 he continued his piano lessons with Alejandro Odero and learned the techniques of harmony and counterpoint from Enrique Broca. At age 15 he became interested in literature and journalism and founded the literary magazines El Burlón and El Cascabel.

Manuel Esperón

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Manuel Esperón González (August 3, 1911 – February 13, 2011 ) was a Mexican songwriter and composer. Along with the famous Mexican author Ernesto Cortazar, Esperón cowrote many songs for Mexican films, including “¡Ay, Jalisco, no te rajes!” for the 1941 film of the same name, “Cocula” for El Peñón de las Ánimas (The Rock of Souls) (1943), and “Amor con amor se paga” for Hay un niño en su futuro (1952). In 2001, he was given a tribute at the Palace of Fine Arts in the historical center of Mexico City. Until his death in 2011, he was the honorary President for life of the Society of Authors and Composers of Mexico. Selected filmography * Come on Ponciano (1937) * While Mexico Sleeps (1938) * Father’s Entanglements (1939) * The League of Songs (1941) * When the Stars Travel (1942) * I Danced with Don Porfirio (1942) * The Rock of Souls (1942) * Alejandra (1942) * María Eugenia (1943) * The Rebel (1943) * Land of Passions (1943) * The Escape (1944) * The Three Caballeros (1945) * The Mulatta of Cordoba (1945) * Adam, Eve and the Devil (1945) * Love Makes Them Crazy (1946) * Ramona (1946) * Caribbean Rose (1946) * Tragic Wedding (1946) * It’s Not Enough to Be a Charro (1946) * The Assoc

Manuel Palau

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Manuel Palau Boix (4 January 1893 – 18 February 1967) was a Spanish composer and teacher in Valencia Conservatory. He wrote a large number of symphonic, band (wind orchestra), choral and chamber works. He was one of the most popular and important composers of his time. He received the Spanish National Music Award (Premio Nacional de Música) twice, first in 1927 and again in 1945. His music is known within the Spanish classical music for being a representative of what it has been called “Mediterranean” style, like other Spanish musicians such as Vicente Asencio or Oscar Esplá. The cities of Valencia, Alfara del Patriarca, Llíria, Alaquàs and Xirivella named streets after him. There is a Spanish choir called Manuel Palau in his honor. Biography Palau lived some of the sweetest and most bitter moments of art in Spain. He had the good fortune to be a contemporary of a large number of artists (painters, poets, musicians) and scientists who had achieved international significance. However, he also had the misfortune of living through the horrendous events of the military insurrection against the legitimate government of the country and suffered the post-war horrors that severely impeded

Manuel Ponce

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Manuel María Ponce Cuéllar (8 December 1882 – 24 April 1948), known in Mexico as Manuel M. Ponce, was a 20th-century Mexican composer, music educator, and scholar whose work connected the concert scene with a mostly forgotten tradition of popular song and Mexican folklore. Many of his compositions are strongly influenced by the harmonies and form of traditional songs. Biography Early years Born in Fresnillo, Zacatecas, Manuel Maria Ponce moved with his family to the city of Aguascalientes only a few weeks after his birth and lived there until he was 15 years old. He was famous for being a musical prodigy; according to his biographers, he was barely four years of age when, after having listened to the piano classes received by his sister, Josefina, he sat in front of the instrument and interpreted one of the pieces that he had heard. Immediately, his parents had him receive classes in piano and musical notation. Traveling years In 1901 Ponce entered the National Conservatory of Music, already with a certain prestige as a pianist and composer. There he remained until 1903, the year in which he returned to the city of Aguascalientes. This was only the beginning of his travels. In 1904

Manuel Quiroga (violinist)

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Manuel Quiroga Losada (15 April 189219 April 1961) was a Spanish violinist and composer. He was described by music critics as “the finest successor of Pablo de Sarasate”, and he is sometimes referred to as “Sarasate’s spiritual heir”. Enrique Granados, Eugène Ysaÿe (whose sixth Solo Sonata is dedicated to Quiroga) and other composers dedicated compositions to him. Violinists Ysaÿe, Fritz Kreisler, George Enescu, Mischa Elman and Jascha Heifetz, as well as composers such as Igor Stravinsky and Jean Sibelius, held Quiroga’s artistry in great regard. Biography Early years Manuel Quiroga Losada was born in Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain in 1892. His first study of the violin was with a local amateur named Juan Sayago. He then moved on to a more qualified teacher, Benito Medal. He gave his first public concert in 1900, at the age of 8. and in 1904 at the Circulo Mercantil in Santiago de Compostela. and Jules Boucherit; he also had some lessons with Jacques Thibaud in 1911. He also associated with George Enescu and Eugène Ysaÿe, and learned some of Kreisler’s compositions, while enjoying the friendship of Manuel de Falla, Joaquín Turina, Pablo Casals, Darius Milhaud, the cellist Juan Ruiz Ca

Marc Blitzstein

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Marcus Samuel Blitzstein (March 2, 1905 – January 22, 1964), was an American composer, lyricist, and librettist. He won national attention in 1937 when his pro-union musical The Cradle Will Rock, directed by Orson Welles, was shut down by the Works Progress Administration. He is known for The Cradle Will Rock and for his off-Broadway translation and adaptation of The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. His works also include the opera Regina, an adaptation of Lillian Hellman’s play The Little Foxes; the Broadway musical Juno, based on Seán O’Casey’s play Juno and the Paycock; and No for an Answer. He completed translations and adaptations of Brecht’s and Weill’s musical play Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and of Brecht’s play Mother Courage and Her Children with music by Paul Dessau. Blitzstein also composed music for films, such as Surf and Seaweed (1931) and The Spanish Earth (1937), and he contributed two songs to the original 1960 production of Hellman’s play Toys in the Attic. Life and career Blitzstein was born in Philadelphia on March 2, 1905. His father descended from a family of Jewish bankers. Blitzstein’s musical gifts were apparent at an early age; h

Marc Delmas

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Marc Marie Jean Baptiste Delmas (28 March 188530 November 1931) was a French expressionist composer and writer. Life and career Marc Delmas was born in Saint-Quentin, Aisne, France, and studied at the Conservatoire de Paris with Xavier Leroux and Paul Vidal. He won the Prix Rossini in 1911 with Anne Marie, Second Grand Prix de Rome with his cantata Le et la Fée Poète and later the Prix Cressent and Prix Ambroise-Thomas. In 1914 Delmas and Marcel Dupré were tied for first prize on the first ballot of the Prix de Rome, and Camille Saint-Saëns was called in to break the tie. He voted for Dupré, and Delmas took second prize. Delmas taught music in Paris, and was a biographer of noted musicians. He took part in the choral movement and participated in the Conseil Superieur de la Musique Populaire. He died in Paris at the age of 46. Works Delmas was a prolific composer, known primarily for his stage works, but he was also author of choral, solo and chamber music. Selected works include: *Laïs, opera 1908 *Sylvette, operetta 1932 *Camille, opera comique *Balade féerique for French Horn and piano *Promenade for Clarinet and Piano (1920) *Lusacienne, rhapsody for violin and orchestra (1928)

Marc Lavry

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Marc Lavry (; December 22, 1903, Riga – March 24, 1967, Haifa) was an Israeli composer and conductor. Born in Latvia and trained in Germany, Lavry immigrated to Palestine in 1936, where he was instrumental in developing the “Mediterranean School” of composition, that merged elements of oriental Jewish and Arab music with modern European classical music. Biography Lavry was born Mark Levin in Riga, Latvia on December 22, 1903. As a child, he studied piano at the Riga Conservatory of Music, where he also began composing. After graduating high school, he moved to Germany, where he earned a degree in architecture, and continued his music studies at the Leipzig Conservatory. He studied piano with Professor Robert Teichmüller, and composition with Paul Graener, and later with Alexander Glazunov. After discovering there already was an older, then more established composer and conductor named Mark Levin, he decided to change his own name to Marc Lavry. He began his conducting career as music director of the opera house in Saarbrücken, and later, of the Tanzbühne Laban, the dance theater directed by modern dance pioneer Rudolf von Laban. In 1929, he became conductor of the Berlin Symphony O

Marc Vaubourgoin

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Jean Joseph Marc Vaubourgoin (19 March 1907 in Caudéran (today a western neighbourhood of Bordeaux) – 1 April 1983 in the 10th arrondissement of Paris ) was a 20th-century French composer. Biography Marc Vaubourgoin’s father, Julien Fernand Vaubourgoin, a composer and teacher, gave him his first music lessons. Marc entered the Conservatoire de Bordeaux and then completed his studies at the Conservatoire de Paris with André Gedalge, Noël Gallon (counterpoint and fugue), Charles-Marie Widor and Paul Dukas (composition). In 1930, he won the 2nd Grand Prix de Rome for his cantata Actéon. He directed the Conservatoire de Nantes from 1937 to 1943, then became conductor for the Radiodiffusion française. In 1954, he became director of the musicology department of the ORTF. As such, he was interested in exhuming works by composers from the 18th century that had been forgotten until then, such as Hippolyte et Aricie by Jean-Philippe Rameau, while baroque music was not yet in fashion. Marc Vaubourgoin had two sons who also distinguished themselves in the field of the Arts: Jean-Raphaël Vaubourgoin, an architect and Thierry Vaubourgoin, a painter. Works * Impressions de Cornouaille: ** Saint-M

Marcel Delannoy

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Marcel-François-Georges Delannoy (9 July 1898 – 14 September 1962) was a French composer and critic. He wrote operas, ballets, orchestral works, vocal and chamber works, and film scores. Life and career Marcel Delannoy was born at La Ferté-Alais, Essonne, France. He initially studied painting and architecture and entered the École des Beaux-Arts, but at age 20 he took up music. Having been mobilised during the First World War, he then worked as an artist. However, he was initially self-taught and never attended a conservatory, but he did receive some encouragement from Arthur Honegger (whose biography he wrote in 1953) and some lessons from Alexis Roland-Manuel and André Gedalge. He made his name with the opera Le Poirier de misère (1927), which attracted favourable commentary from Maurice Ravel, among others. That same year, he was one of ten composers who collaborated on a children’s ballet, L’éventail de Jeanne (contributing the ‘Bourrée’). In 1932, Delannoy was one of five composers approached by the producers of the film Don Quichotte for a series of songs to be sung by its star, the Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin. The other composers invited were Ravel, Jacques Ibert, Manuel d

Marcel Dupré

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Marcel Jean-Jules Dupré (; 3 May 1886 – 30 May 1971) was a French organist, composer, and pedagogue. Early life and education Born in Rouen into a wealthy musical family, Marcel Dupré was a child prodigy. His father Aimable Albert Dupré was titular organist of Saint-Ouen Abbey from 1911 till his death and a friend of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who built an organ in the family house when Marcel was 10 years old. His mother Marie-Alice (née Chauvière) was a cellist who also gave music lessons, and his paternal uncle Henri Auguste Dupré was a violinist and violist. Both of his grandfathers, Étienne-Pierre Chauvière (maître de chapelle at Saint-Patrice in Rouen and an operatic bass) and Aimable Auguste-Pompée Dupré (also a friend of Cavaillé-Coll) were also organists. Having already taken lessons from Alexandre Guilmant (due to his appealing to his father), Dupre entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1904, where he studied with Louis Diémer and Lazare Lévy (piano), Guilmant and Louis Vierne (organ), and Charles-Marie Widor (fugue and composition). In 1914, Dupré won the Grand Prix de Rome for his cantata Psyché. Performances Dupré became famous for performing more than 2,000 organ recitals t

Marcel Grandjany

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Marcel Georges Lucien Grandjany ( ) (3 September 1891 – 24 February 1975) was a French-American harpist and composer. Biography Early life Marcel Grandjany was born in Paris and began the study of the harp at the age of eight with Henriette Renié. At age eleven, he was admitted to the Conservatoire de Paris, where he studied with Alphonse Hasselmans, winning the coveted Premier Prix at age thirteen. Career At seventeen he made his debut with the Concerts Lamoureux Orchestra, and gave his first solo recital, winning immediate acclaim. He appeared with Maurice Ravel in Paris in 1913. His London debut was in 1922 and his New York debut in 1924. He appeared as soloist with major orchestras under the direction of Gabriel Pierné, Alfred Cortot, Walter Damrosch, Serge Koussevitzky, George Szell, Fritz Reiner and Vladimir Golschmann, among others. From 1921 to 1926, he headed the harp department of the Fontainebleau Summer School. He moved to the United States in 1936 and was appointed head of the Harp Department at the Juilliard School in 1938, where he taught until his death in 1975. In 1943 he was chosen to organize the harp department of the Conservatoire de musique et d’art dramatique

Marcel Landowski

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Marcel François Paul Landowski (18 February 1915 – 23 December 1999) was a French composer, biographer and arts administrator. Biography Born at Pont-l’Abbé, Finistère, Brittany, he was the son of French sculptor Paul Landowski and great-grandson of the composer Henri Vieuxtemps. He was father of a son and two daughters. The younger, Manon Landowski is singer-songwriter, performer, author and composer of musical shows. As an infant he showed early musical promise, and studied piano under Marguerite Long. He entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1935; in addition one of his teachers was Pierre Monteux. Administrative career In 1966, France’s Cultural Affairs minister André Malraux appointed Landowski as the ministry’s director of music, a controversial appointment made in the teeth of opposition from the then ascendant modernists, led by Pierre Boulez. One of his first acts was the establishment, in 1967, of the Orchestre de Paris, appointing Charles Munch as its first director. He also championed the establishment of regional orchestras at a time when interest in them appeared to be waning. This was part of a so-called “ten-year plan for music”, instituted with the intention of establ

Marcel Lanquetuit

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Marcel Louis Robert Lanquetuit (8 June 189421 May 1985) was a French composer, organist, conductor, improviser and teacher of music. Life Marcel Lanquetuit was born in 1894 in Rouen, Normandy, France. His father, Charles (18601932), was a church musician at the church of St-Godard de Rouen. Lanquetuit began his musical studies in his hometown under Albert Dupré, and then began learning the organ and music theory (harmony, counterpoint, fugue) privately with Albert’s son Marcel Dupré. From 1910 to 1914, he played the organ at St-Godard de Rouen. Meanwhile, he continued his studies. In 1913, he studied at the Paris Conservatory of Music under Eugène Gigout, and in 1914 won the Conservatory’s 1st prize for organ. He served in the armed forces from 19141919, and in 1918 he married Marcelle Lacombe. They had one son, Pierre, an architect. He became principal organist at St-Godard de Rouen in 1920. In 1926, he made a recital tour of the United States, visiting New York City, Princeton and Philadelphia (where he played the famous Wanamaker Organ, by some measures the largest pipe organ in the world, in Wanamaker’s department store). In 1938, he was appointed principal organist at Rouen Ca

Marcel Mihalovici

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Marcel Mihalovici (Bucharest, 22 October 1898 – Paris, 12 August 1985) was a French composer born in Romania. He was discovered by George Enescu in Bucharest. He moved to Paris in 1919 (at age 21) to study under Vincent d’Indy. His works include his Sonata number 1 for violin and piano (1920), Mélusine opera (1920, libretto by Yvan Goll), his 1st string quartet (1923), 2nd string quartet (1931), Sonata number 2 for violin and piano (1941), Sonata for violin and cello (1944), Phèdre Opera (1949), Étude in two parts for piano and instrumental ensemble (1951) and Esercizio per archi (1960). Many of his piano works were first performed by his wife, the concert pianist Monique Haas. Mihalovici was the original composer for the music of Samuel Beckett’s radio play Cascando (1962). His Fifth Symphony features a soprano singing a setting of a Beckett poem, and he used Krapp’s Last Tape as the basis for a small opera, Krapp, ou, La dernière bande. His memories of their friendship are recounted in the collected work Beckett at Sixty A Festschrift by John Calder, Calder and Boyars (1967). A strong proponent of neoclassicism, during his career Mihalovici embraced a variety of contemporary styl

Marcel Poot

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Marcel Michel, Baron Poot (7 May 1901 – 12 June 1988) was a Belgian composer, professor, and musician who was born in Vilvoorde and died in Brussels. Biography Youth and education Poot was born in Vilvoorde, Belgium, on 7 May 1901. His father, , was the director of the in Brussels and led a wind band in Vilvoorde. Encouraged by his father, Poot learned to play clarinet in his childhood. Although pressured from an early age to pursue a musical career by his father, Poot did not believe himself to be especially talented: Although I was very mediocre, I began studying music at an early age. My father had me join the clarinetists of a local band in which he was saxophonist. Less apt than my young friends, I soon had to give up this position. From then on dates my unpopularity in Vilvoorde. My father, however was determined to make me a musician. We then tried the piano. The town organist, Gerard Nauwelaerts, taught me scales and the Czerny exercises. This did not amuse me at all. But the laborious study continued until I was able to play with my professor overtures by Suppé arranged for four hands. My father then decided to enroll me at the Brussels Conservatory. The first time I was t

Marcel Quinet

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Marcel Alfred Quinet (6 July 1915 – 16 December 1986) was a Belgian composer and pianist. He studied at the Mons Conservatory briefly and then the Brussels Conservatory, where he obtained prizes for harmony in 1936, counterpoint in 1937, fugue in 1938, and a higher piano diploma in 1943. Among his teachers at the Conservatory were Raymond Moulaert and Léon Jongen. A continued his studies with Jean Absil, and won the Belgian Prix de Rome in 1945 for his cantata La vague et le sillon. In 1946 he was awarded the Agniez Prize for his orchestral Divertissement. In 1943 he became the head of the piano faculty at the Brussels Conservatory where he also taught harmony and fugue. Among his pupils there was Paul Danblon. In 1956 he was appointed professor at the Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth. In 1957 he won second prize in the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition and his Piano Concerto no.1 was used as a test piece in the 1964 session of the same contest. In 1976 he was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium. Quinet’s music is very similar in style to Hindemith and is distinguished by formal clarity and the absence of lyrical effusion. His earlier works were more closely related t

Marcel Rubin

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Marcel Rubin (7 July 1905 – 12 May 1995) was an Austrian composer. Born in Vienna, where he studied with Richard Robert and Franz Schmidt, he later emigrated to Paris, where he pursued further studies with Darius Milhaud. After living in Mexico City for a while, he returned to Vienna after the end of World War II. Among the works he composed there are ten symphonies and the opera Kleider machen Leute (1969). Honours and awards * 1959: State Prize for Music * 1961 and 1965: Award from the Theodor-Körner Foundation * 1964: Title of Professor * 1969: City of Vienna Prize for Music * 1970: Grand Austrian State Prize for Music * 1974: Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class * 1979: Honorary Member of the Austrian Society for Contemporary Music * 1980: Austrian Decoration for Science and Art * 1985: Honorary Member of the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna * 1986: Gold Medal of Vienna Selected compositions Stage works *Die Stadt, ballet (1933, rev. 1980) *Kleider machen Leute, opera (1969) *Der Schneider im Himmel, fairy tale in music (1981) Cantatas & oratorios *Die Albigenser (1961) *O ihr Menschen. Ein Heiligenstädter Psalm (1977) *Auferstehung (1986) *Licht über Da

Marcel Stern (composer)

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Marcel Stern (4 November 1909 – 2 August 1989) was a French composer and violinist. Life Born in Paris, Stern studied at the Conservatoire de Paris and won the Premier Grand Prix de Rome in 1936 with the cantata Gisèle. After his stay at the Villa Medici in Rome, the Société Nationale performed his Divertissement for Orchestra in Paris in 1939. The Second World War interrupted his musical career, though he completed his symphony La Libération during the Liberation in Cannes. The symphony was premiered on the radio in 1945 and by the Concerts Colonne in 1948 at the Théâtre du Châtelet under the direction of Paul Paray. and the Concerto: pour piano et orchestre (1968). He also composed several transcriptions of works by other composers for violin and orchestra, including George Enescu’s First Romanian Rhapsody. Compositions Classical works (selection) *1935: Cantata Le Château endormi (deuxième Second Grand Prix de Rome) *1936: Cantata Gisèle (Premier Grand Prix de Rome) *1939: Divertissement for small orchestra *1945: Symphony La Libération in E *1964: Bucolique and Iberica, two pieces for flute solo *1968: Concerto for piano and orchestra (YouTube) Cinema Marcel Stern also distingu

Marcel Tyberg

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Marcel Tyberg (27 January 1893, in Vienna – 31 December 1944, in Auschwitz-Birkenau) was an Austrian composer, conductor and organist. His music is late-Romantic in style. Biography and career Marcel Tyberg was born into a musical family in Vienna. His father, Marcell Tyberg (Sr.), was a well-known violinist, while his mother, Wanda Paltinger Tybergova, was a pianist in the school of Theodor Leschetizky, and a colleague of Artur Schnabel. Although little is known about his musical education, it is assumed that Tyberg had some formal training in orchestration, counterpoint and harmony outside the family home. Tyberg’s father was on good terms with the renowned violinist Jan Kubelik and the two families frequented one another. Marcel dedicated lieder to Jan’s two daughters and, despite a twenty-year age gap, cultivated a lifelong friendship with their young brother, the conductor Rafael Kubelik. Tyberg also became friendly with the Italian violinist and conductor, Rodolfo Lipizer. Tyberg’s Piano Sonata No. 1 (1920) and his Symphony No. 1 (1924) both date from his time in Vienna. In 1927, following the death of his father, Tyberg moved with his mother to the town of Abbazia (Opatija),

Marcelle Soulage

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Marcelle Fanny Henriette Soulage (12 December 1894 – 17 December 1970) (sometimes published under the name of Marc Sauval ) was a French pianist, music critic and composer. Career Marcelle Soulage was born in Lima, Peru, to French parents. Her father was a mining engineer and had been appointed Professor of Mineralogical Chemistry in Lima. The family returned to Paris when Marcelle was four-and-a-half years old. She began piano lessons at the age of five, and subsequently entered the Conservatoire de Paris studying with Georges Caussade, Paul Vidal, Vincent d’Indy and Nadia Boulanger. Soulage served as professor of piano and harmony at the Conservatoire d’Orléans (1921–1925) and professor of solfege at the Conservatoire de Paris (1949–1965). Soulage composed orchestral works, chamber music and songs, sometimes writing under the pseudonym Marc Sauval. Her Suite for violin, viola and piano won the Prix Lépaulle in 1918, and Cello Sonata the Prix des Amis de la Musique in 1920. Soulage’s music is published by: Evette & Schaeffer; Buffet-Crampon; Max Eschig; Rouart, Lerolle & Cie; L. Philippo. She died in Paris, France. Selected works ;Orchestral * Valse (1911); composed under the pseu

Marcelo Koc

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Marcelo Koc (4 June 1918 in Vitebsk, Belarus – 26 October 2006 in Buenos Aires) was an Argentine composer. Education and career Koc studied at the Academy of Music in Łódź, Poland and in 1938 went to Buenos Aires where he continued his education with Jacobo Ficher, and Juan Carlos Paz. His œuvre consists of more than 101 works and includes orchestral and concertante works, chamber music, piano and vocal music. Selected works ;Orchestral * Invención a 4 voces (Four-Part Invention), Op. 8 (1948) * Preludio, Intermezzo y Fuga for string orchestra, Op. 13 (1951) * Divertimento para Orquesta de Vientos (Divertimento for Wind Orchestra), Op 17 (1957) * Divertimento para Orquesta de Cuerdas (Divertimento for String Orchestra), Op 17b (1957) * 3 Piezas, Op. 18 (1958) * Estructuras Líricas, Op. 23 (1966) * Núcleos, Op. 25 (1970) * Música para cuerdas (Music for Strings), Op. 34 (1986) * Tríptico, Op. 45 (1998) * Sonoridades, Op. 61 (2000) * Tres Momentos Musicales for string orchestra, Op. 63 (2000) * Música para Conjunto de Cámara (Music for Chamber Ensemble), Op. 67 (1983) * Música 2001 for string orchestra, Op. 74 (2001) ;Concertante * Concerto for violin and orchestra, Op. 26c (1974) *

Marco Antonio Rivera Useche

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Marco Antonio Rivera Useche (1895–1990) was a Venezuelan musician and composer. He was born in San Cristóbal on 19 June 1895 and died on 15 July 1990. He married Juanita Moreno Morales, with whom he had five children in 1937. Education Rivera was of humble origins. After completing primary education he began to work, eventually practicing the trades of carpentry, jewelry, heraldry and shoemaking. In 1910 he began studying music with the Italian master Nicolas Constantino Chicaroni (Vironto, Italy, 1857 - San Cristóbal, 1927), who had arrived in San Cristóbal in the company of other Italian musicians to be incorporated into the Táchira State Band, including Angelo Mottola (1881-1966), author the state Hymn of Anzoátegui. Career From 1912 Rivera became a full member of the TáchiraState band and from 1913 he started to receive a salary of Bs 100 per month. In 1916 he was exiled for a short period in Colombia for a confrontation with the president of the state, Eustace Gomez, cousin to the president of Venezuela, Juan Vicente Gómez. On his return he began to study English with a German professor named Sildner. He again went into exile in Colombia in 1919 but continued his musical studi

Margaret Bonds

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Margaret Allison Bonds (March 3, 1913 – April 26, 1972) was an American composer, pianist, arranger, and teacher. One of the first Black composers and performers to gain recognition in the United States, she is best remembered today for her popular arrangements of African-American spirituals and frequent collaborations with Langston Hughes. She was the first African American woman to perform with the all-White and all-male Chicago Symphony Orchestra, one of the first African American women to have her music broadcast on European radio, the first African American woman to have her music performed widely in Africa, only the second African American woman in classical music to be elected to full membership in ASCAP, and the first woman, Black or white, to win three awards from ASCAP. Life Family background Margaret Jeanette Allison Majors was born in Chicago, Illinois on March 3, 1913. Her father, Monroe Alpheus Majors, was an active force in the civil rights movement as a physician and writer. His work included founding a medical association for black physicians who were denied membership in the American Medical Association on the basis of race. As an author, Majors is known for his b

Margaret Drynan

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Margaret Isobel Drynan (December 10, 1915 – February 18, 1999) was a Canadian composer, musician, writer and educator. She was born Margaret Isobel Brown in Toronto. She received a BMus from the University of Toronto in 1943. She studied with Arthur Benjamin, Madeline Bone, Michael Head, E. Kelvin James, James Campbell McInnes, Molly Slater and Healey Willan. She was a long-time member of the choir at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Toronto, also singing with the Tudor Singers and the Toronto Bach Choir. She was choirmaster and organist for Holy Trinity Church in Oshawa. From 1960 to 1969, she was music supervisor for the Oshawa elementary school board and, from 1969 to 1981, was music consultant for the Durham District School Board. From 1983 to 1990. she was choirmaster and organist for t. Matthew’s Anglican Church in Oshawa. Drynan died in Oshawa at the age of 83. References

Margaret Purcell

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Margaret Purcell (18 August 1914 – Fall 1991 Purcell’s father was the journalist Pendleton Dudley and her mother the motorist Hermine Dudley. Purcell’s sister was the dancer, choreographer, and teacher Jane Dudley. Education Margaret Purcell studied piano with pianist and composer Katherine Heyman between 1927 and 1928, who was a proponent of the music of Alexander Scriabin. and her mother Hermine Dudley was the first women motorist to drive across the United States. Hermine took her daughter Margaret on a trip abroad in 1938, taking several weeks to explore the fjords and roads of Norway and Sweden. Margaret’s later marriage to Richard Purcell was short, due to an accident. conducting the American Chamber Music Ensemble. This concert also included works by Vincent d’Indy and Richard Arnell. This event also featured choreography by her sister Jane Dudley, and took place at Studios 1 and 2, The Place. Purcell’s setting of text demonstrates a wide interest in authors including Rabindranath Tagore, Langston Hughes, Walter De La Mare, Otomo no Yakamochi and the Hindu mystic Lalla. Selected works References

Margaret Sutherland

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Margaret Ada Sutherland (20 November 189712 August 1984) was an Australian composer, among the best-known female musicians her country has produced. Career Margaret Sutherland’s father was George Sutherland, a journalist and writer and member of a prominent Scottish-Australian family. The painter Jane Sutherland was her aunt and the physicist and mathematician William Sutherland was her uncle. Her sister, Ruth Sutherland was a painter and writer. Her first piano teacher was another aunt, Julia Sutherland (1861-1930), a pupil of Louis Pabst, a German émigré then considered to be Melbourne’s leading piano teacher (himself a pupil of Anton Rubinstein, and Percy Grainger’s first teacher). The Four Temperaments (orchestrated by Robert W. Hughes in 1964), concertos for various instruments (including violin), a symphonic poem entitled Haunted Hills (1953), and the chamber opera The Young Kabbarli (1964; libretto by Maie Casey). A severe stroke in 1969 ended her composing career. Despite the emphasis on non-vocal works in her total output, one of Sutherland’s most recognised pieces is “In the Dim Counties” (1936) for voice and piano accompaniment from Five Songs. Sutherland sets her music

Margaret Wigham

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Margaret Viola Wigham (February 3, 1904 – April 17, 1972) was a composer, music educator and pianist, born in Minnesota. She was nationally known as a mid-century composer of student piano pieces. Her pieces often had an educational focus such as chromaticism, counterpoint, learning to play in different keys, or using each hand independently. Her works were published by Oliver Ditson Co., Willis Music, Harold Flammer Inc, Belwin Inc, and R. D. Row. They were also published in Braille and made available through the Library of Congress National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled. Her compositions include: Orchestra *Concerto for Two Pianos Piano *Bachette *By the Little Mill *Carefree *Fun with a Hoop *Gay Caprice *Happitat *Hop Along My Little Froggie *In the Chapel *Introduction and Sonatina *Just Before Dawn *Little Prelude *Merrily Over the Waves We Go *Musical Moods in All Keys *Musical Playmates *Now It’s Time to Run and Play *O So Happy *Old Cowboy Trail *On Swan Lake *Puppet Mischief *Rhapsody *Scampering Whole Steps *Scherzino Vocal *“I Wonder Where the Robins Go?” (words by Margaret Wigham and Wilma Wigham) References

Margareta Xenopol

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Margareta Xenopol (28 January 1892 – 8 July 1979) was a Romanian composer, pianist and singer. She was the daughter of historian and author Alexandru Dimitrie Xenopol. Life Xenopol was born in Iași, on 28 January 1892. Romanian opera singer Elena Cernei recorded several of Xenopol’s songs. Works Her compositions include: *Autumn Song *Blue Cigarette Smoke *(The) Days Pass, But the Love Remains *Four Romances *I Am Watching You *I Love Like I Never Loved *Romances without Music *Three Romances *Why Do I Dream? *You Forget Romance References

Margarete Schweikert

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Margarete Schweikert (16 February 1887 – 13 March 1957) was a German composer, music critic, violinist, and pianist who composed chamber music, approximately 160 songs, and a children’s operetta, The Frog King. Biography Schweikert was born in Karlsruhe, the only child of Friedrich and Luise Petry Schweikert. Her father sold insurance and was also a music critic for Neue Stuttgarter Musikzeitung and Karlsruher Blätter. He gave Schweikert her first violin lessons. Her mother played piano and helped her family manage the Jakob Petry Jewelry Store. Schweikert attended the Munz Conservatory and the Baden Conservatory (today the Baden University of Music). She changed her name to Voigt-Schweikert, but continued to publish her music and writing under the name “Margarete Schweikert.” Works Schweikert wrote music criticism for the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Karlsruher Tagblatt, Münchner Zeitung, and Neue Musikzeitung. In 1950 Schweikert became an expert advisor for music at the Karlsruhe Gemeinschaft Deutscher und Oesterreichischer Künstlerinnenvereine (GEDOK; Association of German and Austrian Female Artists). From 1955 until her death in 1957 she served as the director of GEDOK. Schwei

Margaritis Kastellis

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Margaritis Kastellis (Castellis) () (1907–1972 ) was a Greek composer and army officer known for his work in military music. His arrangement and adaptation of the Hymn to Liberty for military band is still played Greece today. He was born in Chrysoupoli (a city in northern Greece) and died in Athens. He joined the Greek Army at an early age, as a musician, and upon completion of a full career, he left with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, having served as Chief Inspector of Military Bands nationwide. Selected works Compositions For orchestra *Introduction and Round Dance from Epirus *Prelude and Dance from Epirus *Greek Dances (on motives taken from Greek Island tunes) For military band *Introduction and Round Dance from Epirus *On the Mountain Slopes of Zagori *The Booted Eagle *Thessaly (march) Chamber music *Little Suite for clarinet and bassoon *Elegy for two clarinets Piano music *Greek Dances *Little Greek Suite (4 hands) Songs *Listen to my Secret *The Hazelnut Tree *The Sailor *The Shepherdess’ Lover *The Heart of a Woman (for 4 voices) Arrangements and transcriptions For Orchestra *Little Lemon Tree *The Zalongo Dance *Vassiliki (Gives the Orders) *Farewell, ye Fair Maids *

Marģeris Zariņš

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Marģeris Zariņš (24 May 1910, Jaunpiebalga – 27 February 1993, Riga) was a Latvian composer and writer. He was an author of symphonic and vocal symphonic music, choir music, vocal chamber music, cantatas, oratories and operas; contemporary picaresque novels and short stories. He is considered to be the first representative of the Postmodern style in Latvian literature. Biography His father was a choir conductor, organist and organ builder. He completed his primary education at , by which time he was already performing as an organist. After 1925, he attended the then, in 1928, studied organ, piano and composition at the Riga Conservatory. He slowly gained recognition as a composer while working as a teacher and a librarian. Following the Soviet Occupation, he was appointed musical director at the Dailes Theatre (1940–1950), and served as chairman of the Latvian Composers’ Union (1951–1952, 1956–1968). He was also the Director of the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra for the 1951–1952 season. Although he was forced to compose in the acceptable Soviet musical styles, he attempted to experiment whenever possible. Toward the end of the 1960s, he turned to writing. In 1969, the journal

Marguerite Canal

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Marie-Marguerite-Denise Canal (29 January 189027 January 1978) was a French conductor, music educator and composer. She was born in Toulouse into a musical family, and her father introduced her to music and poetry. She studied singing and piano at the Paris Conservatoire in 1911, and after completing her work there, became a teacher at the Conservatoire. In 1917, she became the first woman in France to conduct an orchestra. Works Canal composed mainly for voice and instrument performance and was noted for songs. Selected works include: *Don Juan, drama, 1920 *Requiem, 1921 *Sonata for Violin and Piano, 1922 *Le Jardin de L’Infante (A. Samain) *Nell (Leconte de Lisle) *Ici bas tous les lilas Meurent (Sully Prud’homme) *Douceur du Soir (G. Rodenbach) *Un grand sommeil noir (Verlaine) *Ecoutez la chanson bien douce (Verlaine) *Il pleure dans mon coeur (Verlaine) *Amours triestes, song cycle *Tlass alka, opera, (begun in 1922 but was never completed) Her works have been recorded and issued on CD, including: *Marguerite Canal (1890-1978) Songs, Sonata for Violin and Piano References

Marguerite Monnot

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Marguerite Monnot (28 May 1903 – 12 October 1961), was a French songwriter and composer best known for having written many of the songs performed by Édith Piaf (“Milord”, “Hymne à l’amour”) and the music for the stage musical Irma La Douce. Career She was classically trained by her father and at the Paris Conservatory (her teachers included Nadia Boulanger, Vincent d’Indy, and Alfred Cortot). Monnot made the unusual switch to composing popular music after poor health ended her career as a concert pianist at the age of eighteen. Soon after, she wrote her first commercially successful song, “L’Étranger”. In 1935, she met Édith Piaf, and in 1940, they became a female songwriting team, remaining friends and collaborators throughout most of their lives. Monnot worked with lyricists such as Raymond Asso, Henri Contet, Georges Moustaki, and collaborated with musicians and writers including Charles Aznavour, Yves Montand, Boris Vian, and Marlene Dietrich, who gathered in Piaf’s living room regularly to play and sing. In 1955, she achieved major success with her setting of Alexandre Breffort’s book, Irma la Douce, which was translated into English and had long runs in London and on Broadway

Marguerite Roesgen-Champion

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Marguerite Sara Roesgen-Champion (24 January 1894 – 30 June 1976) was a Swiss composer, pianist and harpsichordist who used the pseudonym Jean Delysse. She composed works for orchestra, harpsichord and piano, as well as chamber and choral works. As a pianist she performed several piano concertos by Mozart and Haydn. On harpsichord she performed compositions for harpsichord by Jean-Henry d’Anglebert and Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach. Roesgen-Champion founded a concert series entitled Suites Française which was used a showcase for students of distinction from the Paris Conservatory. Life Marguerite Sara Roesgen-Champion was born on 24 January 1894 in Geneva. She was a composer, pianist and harpsichordist, and used the pseudonym Jean Delysse. Roesgen-Champion’s mother was singer Cecile Roesgen-Liodet, so Marguerite received her first music lessons at home. She studied at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève, notably piano with Marie Panthès, and composition with Ernest Bloch and Jaques-Dalcroze. Roesgen-Champion died 30 June 1976 in Paris. Works * Sonata for Flute and Keyboard * Blue and Gold Story, piano with 4 hands * French Suite for flute and harp * Domine not in Furore for mi

Maria Bach

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Emilie Marie Baroness von Bach (1896–1978) was an Austrian pianist, violinist, composer and artist. Early life and family Maria Bach was born in Vienna, Austria, on 11 March 1896. Her parents were Robert Bonaventura Michael Wenzel von Bach and Eleonore Josepha Maria Theresia Auguste Bach. In 1897, she moved with her family to the castle, Leesdorf, in Baden, Austria. Bach’s father, Robert, was an attorney, painter, and violinist. Her mother, Elenore, was both a singer and composer who performed under the conductors Gustav Mahler and Johannes Brahms. Maria had two older sisters, Theresa and Katharina, and a younger sister, named Henriette. Theresa wrote poetry that was put to Bach’s music. Katharina married into a highly aristocratic family. Henriette was a solo cellist. Marie took piano lessons at the Musikschule Grimm in Baden and at the age of fourteen began violin lessons. Early music Maria Bach began private piano lessons at the age of five with a faculty member at the Grimm School of Music. She would later take lessons with Paul De Conne in 1912. At the same time, she also began violin lessons with Jaroslav Suchy of the Vienna Opera. On Sundays Maria and Henriette were allowed

María de Baratta

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María Mendoza de Baratta (27 February 1890 – 10 June 1978), also known by the pseudonym Yara Maya, was a Salvadoran ethnomusicologist, composer, pianist, folklorist and advocate for the preservation of Indigenous heritage. Baratta published the first ethnomusicological study of indigenous music of El Salvador. Baratta first studied piano with her mother and, from the age of six, solfège with Agustín Solórzano. Enrolling at the Conservatorio de Música de El Salvador , Baratta studied under Maria Zimmerman and Antonio Gianoli. Baratta continued her studies in Italy at the Bologna Conservatory, and in the United States at Arrillaga Musical College under Vicente de Arrillaga. Career Between 1926 and 1938 Baratta engaged in an active performing career; she also represented the country at various folkloric congresses. During her career she was a member of the Athenaeum of El Salvador, the Salvadoran Academy of History, and the Union of American Women. In 1962 she was elected a Woman of the Americas. She composed a handful of works during her career, only a few of which were published; they include the ballet El Teocalli, Canto al Sol, Ofrenda de la Elegida, Los Tecomatillos, Nahualismo,

María Grever

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María Grever (14 September 1885 – 15 December 1951) was the first female Mexican composer to achieve international acclaim. She is best known for the song “What A Difference A Day Makes” (originally “Cuando vuelva a tu lado”), which was popularized by Dinah Washington and has been covered by numerous artists. Early life María Joaquina de la Portilla Torres was born to a Spanish father (Francisco de la Portilla) and Mexican mother (Julia Torres) in León, Guanajuato. For the first six years of her life she lived in Mexico City, moving to her father’s natal city, Sevilla, in 1891. She studied music in France, with Claude Debussy and Franz Lenhard among her teachers. In 1900, she moved back to Mexico and continued her musical studies at her aunt’s solfège school. In 1907, the then 22-year-old de la Portilla married Leo A. Grever, an American oil company executive, and in 1916 became a U.S. citizen and moved to New York City, where she lived for the rest of her life. Career Grever wrote more than 1000 songs — the majority of them boleros — and her popularity reached audiences in Latin America, Europe, and the United States. She was said to have possessed perfect pitch and wrote most of

Maria Hofer

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

Maria Hofer (1894–1977) was a renowned organist, pianist and composer. The daughter of an accomplished female singer, she was born in Amstetten, Lower Austria. Already as a child she was learning the organ, and within a few years was permitted to participate in church services as organist. Maria Hofer’s later musical education took place at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, where she studied piano teaching. She also began an organ study, but soon resigned because she did not get along with her teacher. According to Maria Hofer’s Curriculum Vitae written in 1966/1967 and other auto/biographical documents her tutors included Franz Schmidt, Hermann Graedener, Ernst Ludwig, and Richard Stöhr. Her ability to improvise at the organ was fostered by the organist of St. Stephan’s Cathedral, Victor Boschetti; she began to compose in earnest during the First World War. One of Maria Hofer’s non-performing roles was to advise the Viennese publishing-house Universal Edition about organ works; she herself described the post as important for her musical development, since it brought her into contact with many prominent artistic figures, including Maurice Ravel, Alexander Zemli

María Luisa Escobar

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María Luisa González Gragirena de Escobar (née María Luisa González Gragirena; known artistically by her married name María Luisa Escobar; also credited as Maritza Graxirena; 5 December 1903 – 14 May 1985) was a Venezuelan musicologist, pianist, composer, and caricaturist. She founded the Caracas Athenaeum in 1931. She also served as president of the Venezuelan Red Cross (Valencia, 1921; Caracas, 1922–23). Early life and education María Luisa González Gragirena was born in Valencia in 5 December 1903, the daughter of Henrique A. González and Maria Gragirena y Mijarez de González. At the age of five, she entered the Colegio de Lourdes where she began to study piano. A year later, she composed her first piece titled “Blanca, la niña Angélica” (Blanca, the girl Angélica). At the age of eight, she travelled with her parents to Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles, and entered the Welgelegen Habaai School where she studied French and English in addition to piano, violin, and musical composition, concluding with a Baccalaureate in 1917. With this union, she had another son, Toney Escobar González. With Saluzzo, and the musician/composer Pedro Antonio Ríos Reyna, in addition to other artists, sh

Maria Rodrigo

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María Rodrigo (20 March 1888 – 8 December 1967) was a Spanish pianist and composer. She was the daughter of Pantaléon Rodrigo, and studied music at the Madrid Conservatorium under José Tragó for piano, Valentín Arín for harmony and Emilio Serrano for composition. Maria was the first woman to have her opera performed in Spain. Her sister Mercedes Rodrigo was equally intelligent, being the first woman from Spain to obtain a degree in psychology from the Rousseau Institute in Geneva. The two left Spain for Switzerland during the Spanish Civil War, moved in 1939 to Bogotá, Colombia, at the invitation of rector Agustín Nieto Caballero, and in 1950 to Puerto Rico at the invitation of José María García Madrid. With Pablo Casals, Rodrigo founded the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music. She died in Puerto Rico in 1967. Maria was one of the few composers that addressed the composition of zarzuelas, a genre of Spanish music. Early life Background and early life The environment that Maria Rodrigo had growing up was very cultured, and her childhood consisted of being surrounded by high intellects. She acquired her first musical abilities from her father and then piano with Jose Trago and composit

María Teresa Lara

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María Teresa Lara Aguirre del Pino (Tlatlauquitepec, 1904 – May 23, 1984) was a Mexican lyricist and composer. Family Lara was a daughter of Joaquín M. Lara and his wife, María Aguirre del Pino. Her aunt was Refugio Aguirre del Pino. Her elder brother was Agustín Lara, who was a songwriter and composer, singer and actor. Her sister-in-law was María Félix, mother of actor Enrique Álvarez Félix, who appeared in many telenovelas. She worked with Agustín on several songs and married Nicanor Guzmán Guerrero (1909 – 1992). Some of Agustín’s songs were copyrighted in her name. Works, editions and recordings * Me dejaste * Valencia * Toledo – recorded on recital ¡Ay, ay, ay! References

Maria Teresa Pelegrí i Marimón

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Maria Teresa Pelegrí i Marimón (4 March 1907– 18 March 1996 ) was a Spanish composer. She was born in Barcelona and studied piano as a child. When she married, she gave up her musical activities, but after twenty years renewed her interest. She studied piano with Joan Gibert and Carles Pellicer, counterpoint and fugue with Josep Poch and composition with Josep Soler. She also took classes on twentieth-century music with Carles Guinovart. Personal papers (scores) of Maria Teresa Pelegrí are preserved in the Biblioteca de Catalunya. Works Selected works include: *Praeludium und Tiento for organ (1975) *Quatre chansons sentimentales: “Le coucher du soleil romantique”, text Charles Baudelaire; “L’heure exquise”, text of Paul Verlaine; “Autome” sic for “Automne” , text by Guillaume Apollinaire; “Saisir”, text by Jules Supervielle *Per a Viola i Piano *Duetto for Cello and Piano *First String Quartet (1974) *Second String Quartet (1984) *Third String Quartet *Tocatta for nine *Passacaglia for Wind, bass, percussion *Variations for orchestra *Tragic poem for orchestra, inspired by La casa de Bernarda Alba of Federico García Lorca *Sinfonietta for wood and string orchestra *Concerto for Vi

María Teresa Prieto

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

María Teresa Prieto (18961982) was a Spanish composer and pianist who lived and worked in Mexico. Prieto’s music was often performed in prestigious venues such as the Palacio de Bellas Artes but was largely forgotten after her death. She studied with pianist and composer Saturnino del Fresno in Asturias. In 1931, she moved to Madrid where she studied with Benito de la Parra at the Conservatory of Madrid. During this time, she was introduced to modal music which greatly influenced her later works. Exile In 1935, Prieto’s mother died, leaving her alone in Spain. Prieto went to stay with her brother Carlos in Mexico in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War. During her first years in Mexico, Prieto studied with composer Manuel Ponce. She also studied with Darius Milhaud at Mills College in Oakland, California, in 1946 and 1947. She returned to Spain briefly in 1958 to receive the Samuel Ross prize for Modal Quartet, but never returned to live there. Death In 1982, Prieto’s health deteriorated. She died on January 24th, 1982, in Mexico City. Compositional style During her early music education, Prieto was introduced to the works of J. S. Bach and baroque counterpoint. While studying with Ro

Mariano Mores

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

Mariano Alberto Martínez (18 February 1918 13 April 2016), known professionally as Mariano Mores, was an Argentine tango composer and pianist. Biography Mariano Martínez was born in the San Telmo section of Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1918. Mores left this orchestra in 1948 to form his own, which made its debut at the Presidente Alvear Theater. Pianist, composer and conductor, Mariano Mores established himself as one of the leading tango performers. Together with Enrique Santos Discépolo, he authored such classics as Uno (1943), Sin palabras (1946) and Cafetín de Buenos Aires (1948). Mores and José María Contursi wrote En esta tarde gris (1941), Tu piel de jazmín (1941), Grisel (1942) and Cristal (1944). He co-wrote La calesita (1953) and El patio de la morocha (1951) with Cátulo Castillo, Una lágrima tuya (1949) with Homero Manzi and, Cuartito Azul (1939) with Mario Battistella. Mariano Mores took part in several musical films together with such stars as Delia Garcés, Osvaldo Miranda, Virginia Luque and Hugo del Carril. He starred in the 1949 films Corrientes, calle de ensueños, and La Doctora quiere tangos with Mirtha Legrand. For the 1953 film La voz de mi ciudad he composed one

Marij Kogoj

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Marij Julij Kogoj (Trieste, 20 September 1892 – Ljubljana, 25 February 1956) was a Slovenian composer and writer of Italian birth. He is noted for his expressionist music, including the opera (Black Masks), work that was well received in 1920s Slovenia amid a flowering of avant-garde artistic, cultural, and political movements. As a young man, he studied with Franz Schreker and then Arnold Schoenberg. In 1932, schizophrenia ended his career prematurely. His music and milieu is receiving renewed attention in the 21st century, but he remains little known internationally. Biography and music Kogoj was born an orphan in Trieste, where he was misidentified as his deceased brother Marij (27 April 1895 – 31 January 1896). In 1910, he began composing as a self-taught musician while at school in Gorizia (1907–1914). He studied counterpoint and composition with Franz Schreker at the Vienna Music Academy (1914–1917) and then continued his studies with Arnold Schoenberg at Eugenie Schwarzwald’s school (1918). In 1919, he married Marija Podlogar. Among the Slovenian avant-garde, Kogoj was an especially prominent figure between 1919 and 1922. He performed his own music as part of the September 1

Marija Hladnik Berden

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

Marija Hladnik Berden, also known as Mimi Hladnik (30 March 1892 – 10 May 1924), was a Slovenian teacher, organist, and composer. She was regarded as one of the most musically gifted women of her generation in Lower Carniola, where she worked as a teacher, church organist, soprano, and pianist. She composed mainly church music, appeared as a soloist, and in addition to her regular employment also taught piano. Her life ended tragically when she was poisoned at the age of thirty-two. Childhood and education She was born on 30 March 1892 into a Slovenian family in Novo Mesto, where she was baptised on 2 April in the Novo Mesto Cathedral. At the time of her birth, her father held the poorly paid post of chapter organist. Because of this, he had the right to use a small plot of church-owned farmland, which he cultivated together with her mother, whose parents were farmers. Of her surviving sisters, one devoted herself to teaching, another, Štefanija Hladnik Hanak, was employed as a piano teacher and founded the Ignacij Hladnik Music School in Novo Mesto, while another was a milliner. Of all the children, she was the most musically gifted and therefore her father’s favourite. Her classm

Marinus De Jong

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Marinus de Jong (14 January 1891, Oosterhout - 13 July 1984, Ekeren) was a Belgian composer and pianist of Dutch origin. Biography Marinus de Jong was born in Oosterhout (The Netherlands) to a working-class family with twelve children. His musical talent became apparent early in his life: he was accepted into the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp (Belgium) at the age of fifteen, where he was taught by Lodewijk Mortelmans and Emile Bosquet. At the start of World War I De Jong returned to his native town to recover from a burn-out, but he returned to Belgium after the Armistice of 11 November 1918. He gained fame as a pianist and toured throughout Europe and the United States between 1920 and 1922. Afterwards he married Johanna Corthals, with whom he settled in Kapellenbos, and in 1926 De Jong traded in his Dutch nationality for a Belgian one. In this same year, he was made a teacher of counterpoint and fugue at the Lemmensinstituut, where he would work until 1963. In 1931 he was also appointed professor of piano at the Conservatory of Antwerp, where he became professor of counterpoint and fugue in 1948. In these teaching positions, he wrote two treaties on harmony and counterpoint, of

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco

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Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (3 April 1895 – 16 March 1968) was an Italian composer, pianist and writer. He was known as one of the foremost guitar composers in the twentieth century with almost one hundred compositions for that instrument. In 1939 he emigrated to the United States and became a film composer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for some 200 Hollywood movies for the next fifteen years. He also wrote concertos for Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky. Biography Born in Florence, he was descended from a prominent banking family that had lived in Tuscany, specifically in Siena, until the latter half of the 19th century. His father was Amedeo and his elder brothers Ugo (born in 1890, lawyer) and Guido (born in 1891, engineer). Castelnuovo-Tedesco was first introduced to the piano by his mother, Noemi Senigaglia, and he composed his first pieces when he was just nine years old. After completing a degree in piano in 1914 under Edgardo Del Valle de Paz (1861–1920), well-known composer and pianist pupil of Beniamino Cesi, he began studying composition under renowned Italian composer Ildebrando Pizzetti, and received a diploma in composition in 1918. He soon came to the attention of compos

Mario Cazes

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Mario Cazes (17 July 1890 – 3 November), was a 20th-century French composer, conductor and violinist extremely popular during the 1920s and 1930s. He was a recipient of the ordre national of the Légion d’honneur. Marius Joseph Cazes, the son of Cazes Joseph-Auguste and Avérous Zélie, was the eldest in a family of five brothers and two sisters. Considered one of the greatest violinists of his time, he was the first with his band to perform on Radio Tour Eiffel in 1927. Compositions *1924: Elle est jolie jolie (fox-trot) sung by Denantès *1924: Serenata deï Fiori (Sérénade Boston) sung by Emma Liebel *1924: Violon tzigane (Boston) *1924: Dis-moi je t’aime *1924: Miarko-Tango *1924: Mon Lulu, sung by Emma Liebel *1925: Rien qu’une nuit, “Valse Boston” sung by Georges Vorelli *1925: Sous un clair de lune (Fox-trot) *1925: Napoletana, Emma Liebel, Sonnelly, sung by Emma Liebel *1925: Noël *1926: J’ai peur de toi, 1926. *1926: Pourquoi pleurer ma mie ?, sung by Georges Vorelli, Emma Liebel *1926: Pourquoi ?, sung by Emma Liebel *1926: Un p’tit brin de muguet, “Fox Trot” *1926: Je pense à toi, sung by Mistinguett *1927: C’est l’oiseau blanc, lyrics by Didier Gold, éd. Marcel Labbé *1927:

Mario Nascimbene

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

Mario Nascimbene (28 November 1913 – 6 January 2002) was one of the best known Italian film soundtrack composers of the 20th century. His career spanned six decades, during which time he earned several awards for the innovative contents of his composing style. During his career he composed soundtracks for more than 150 films. Biography Nascimbene studied composition and orchestral conducting at the “Giuseppe Verdi” Conservatory of Music in Milan under the guidance of Ildebrando Pizzetti, Following graduation he wrote several pieces for chamber music and ballet. He was commissioned to write the soundtrack for the film “L’amore canta” (Love Song), directed in 1941 by Ferdinando Maria Poggioli, and the success of this film opened the doors of an entirely new career for him. He was one of the few composers in Italy whose career was based on his work in the cinema. He was particularly appreciated for the revolutionary innovation of incorporating the sounds of non-orchestral instruments like that of a jaw harp or a harmonica, everyday noises (like the tick-tock of a clock, the ring of a bicycle bell or the ticking sound of typewriters in Rome 11:00) in a musical score, with the purpose t

Mario Ruiz Armengol

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

Mario Ruiz Armengol (known as “Mayito” or “Mister Harmony”) (March 14, 1914 in Veracruz, Mexico – December 22, 2002 in Cancun, Mexico), was a Mexican pianist, composer, arranger, conductor and music teacher. He was the son of pianist and conductor Ismael Ruiz Suárez and Rosa Armengol. Early life and career Ruiz Armengol started to play piano at eight years old and debuted as a conductor at fifteen, along with Leopoldo Beristaín. At sixteen years old Ruiz Armengol was one of the founding members of the XEW-AM (a legendary Mexican radio broadcaster) music band. He studied with José Rolón, Rodolfo Halffter and Joaquín Amparán, and in 1942 met Mexican composer Manuel M. Ponce with whom he started a close friendship. By 1954 he was nicknamed “Mr. Harmony” by American musicians such as Duke Ellington, Billy May and Clare Fischer. Ruiz Armengol became very famous for his boleros. He also wrote more than 31 children’s songs, 19 Cuban dances, 16 studies, 16 reflections, 32 miniatures, 5 waltzes, scherzos, minuets, sonatas, fantasies, preludes and piano works for four hands, chamber music for piano and violin, violoncello, harp and flute. He was a highly reputed Mexican musician, a master of

Mario Talavera

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Mario Talavera Andrade (December 13, 1885 – March 27, 1960) was a Mexican musician, tenor, songwriter and conductor. Born and raised in Xalapa, Mario Talavera was the son of Francisco and Sebastiana (née Andrade) Talavera. The young Mario grew up with an intense love for music, especially opera and art songs. He also showed an early interest for composition, writing his first piece of music at the age of nine. As a teenager, he moved with his parents to Córdoba, Veracruz, where he completed his basic education. In 1945 Talavera became a founding member of the SACM (Sociedad de Autores y Compositores de México, for its acronym in Spanish) along with Alberto Domínguez, Alfonso Esparza Oteo, Manuel Esperón, Ignacio Fernández Esperón, Agustín Lara and Consuelo Velázquez, among others. Talavera died in 1960 in Mexico City from advanced arteriosclerosis at the age of 74. References

Marion Morrey Richter

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Dr. Marion Morrey Richter (2 October 1900 - 6 January 1996) was an American composer, music educator and pianist Richter was born in Columbus, Ohio, to Dr. Charles Bradfield Morrey, a bacteriologist, and Grace Hamilton Morrey, a concert pianist and music educator. Her brother Charles Bradfield Morrey Jr. became a well-known mathematician. She married Otto Clarence Richter in 1928 and they had one son. Richter’s mother was her first music teacher. She went on to earn a B.A. at Ohio State University, as well as a master’s degree and a doctorate in music education from Columbia University. She also studied at the Juilliard School, receiving fellowships there from 1925-29. Richter’s teaching career included work at: *1917-22 the Morrey School (her mother’s music school) *1923-28 Heckscher Foundation *1929-52 Columbia University summer school *1934-52 Juilliard summer school. Richter presented lectures and piano recitals throughout the United States and in China, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, and the Soviet Union. An active member of the National Federation of Music Clubs (NFMC), she was a NFMC Rose Fay Thomas Fellow and chaired the NFMC American Music Department. As the NFMC Ra

Marion W. Easterling

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Marion Wesley Easterling (March 12, 1910 - December 10, 1989) was an American music composer in the genre of southern gospel who claimed he had written around 300 songs. His compositions include “When I Wake Up To Sleep No More”, “Lord Lead Me On”, “Standing By The River”, “Rainbow Of Love”, and “When He Reached Down His Hand For Me”. His first broadcast was on December 2, 1947 Easterling died December 10, 1989, in a Birmingham, Alabama hospital and is buried in Martin Memorial Cemetery in Clanton, Alabama. References Footnotes Sources *1986 Congressional Record, Vol. 132, Pages S 4478 - S 4479 *The Montgomery Advertiser, December 12, 1989, Page 6C. Retrieved May 29, 2022. *Love, Joyanna. “WKLF celebrating 70 years of broadcasting”, The Clanton Advertiser, February 1, 2019. Retrieved June 4, 2022. WKLF celebrating 70 years of broadcasting External links *

Marius Flothuis

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Marius Flothuis (30 October 1914 – 13 November 2001; born and died in Amsterdam) was a Dutch composer, musicologist and music critic. Biography Flothuis first took courses at Vossius Gymnasium in Amsterdam. There he studied piano and music theory with . His musicology studies continued at the University of Amsterdam under the direction of Albert Smijers and . Flothuis graduated in 1969 with a thesis on the arrangements of the works of Mozart. In 1937, Marius Flothuis became assistant artistic director of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. In 1942 his career was interrupted because of his refusal to cooperate with occupying Germans. From 1946 to 1950 he was librarian at the Donemus Foundation, and was a music critic there until 1953. That year Flothuis re-joined the Concertgebouw orchestra, becoming artistic director until 1974. Marius Flothuis was also professor of musicology at the Utrecht University from 1974 to 1983. His international reputation was then based on his studies devoted to Mozart. From 1980 to 1994, he was president of Zentral Institut für Mozart-Forschung in Salzburg. He was considered an authority in the field of Mozart music, which led him to write cadenzas for some

Marius Monnikendam

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Marinus Adrianus (Marius) Monnikendam (28 May 189622 May 1977) was a Dutch composer, organist, and music critic. He studied at the Amsterdam Conservatory. In 1925 Monnikendam went to Paris and attended Vincent d’Indy’s Schola Cantorum. During this time, he published his first works for piano and cello. He then became a lecturer at the Rotterdam Conservatory and the Amsterdam Music Lyceum. Monnikendam composed mostly religious and secular works. He also published books on César Franck and Igor Stravinsky. His Lamentations of Jeremiah for chorus and orchestra, written in 1956 was broadcast by Radio Holland during the funeral services for both former Queen Wilhelmine (1962) and President John F. Kennedy (1963). His most popular work is the Toccata for Organ (1936). His son was film director Vincent Monnikendam. Life He was the son of diamond worker Juda Monnikendam and Catharina Cornelia Bierboom. As a child he lived opposite a church with a Cavaillé-Coll organ, which he often visited and which had a lasting influence on his future career as an organ composer. At the age of 11 he went to the boarding school and gymnasium of the Fathers of Monfort at Schimmert, where there was only a p

Marius Ulfrstad

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Marius Moaritz Ulfrstad (11 September 1890 – 29 October 1968) was a composer, organist and music teacher. His compositions were well known at his time, but are largely forgotten today. Biography Ulfrstad was born in Ellingsøya, the son of teacher Mauritz Ulvestad (1858-1919) and Lisa Kvalstein (1861–97). After middle school exam and teacher education Ulfstad started at the Conservatory of Music in Kristiania and completed an organist examination there in 1911. In 1912 he settled in Ålesund as a singer and organist, but studied later composition in Germany, France, and Italy. In 1914 he became organist in Kragerø, and in 1917 he moved to Kristiania, where he worked as a music analyst, conductor, and music teacher. Ulfrstad debuted as a composer in 1919, the same year as he was first married to the singer Ragnhild Albertha Hovde (1895-1978), the marriage was canceled in 1940. He started at the Music Academy in Kristiania in 1922, he was a board member of the Composer Association and a time chairman of the Young Tone Society. His work was part of the art competitions at the 1924 Summer Olympics and the 1928 Summer Olympics. In 1943 Ulfstad was injured in a fire, which characterized hi

Marjan Kozina

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

Marjan Kozina (4 June 1907 – 19 June 1966) was a Slovene composer. He is considered one of the most important Slovene composers of the 20th century. His best known works include a symphony, composed in stages through the late 1940s; the opera Equinox, completed in 1943; two ballets from the early 1950s, and the music for the film On Our Own Land (Na svoji zemlji), which he later arranged into a suite for orchestra. Life Kozina was born to a musical family in Novo Mesto, then part of Austria-Hungary. In Ljubljana, Kozina began studying philosophy and mathematics and in the same time also piano and violin, but later completely turned to the study of music. He graduated from composition in Vienna in 1930, and completed the studies of conducting and composition also in Prague. After his return from Prague he worked for a short time (1932–34) at Ljubljana and Maribor Opera, and then worked at Maribor Music Society (). From 1940 until 1943 and from 1945 until 1947, he worked as a music teacher at the Academy of Music in Belgrade. In World War II, his house was bombed in an air raid and his wife imprisoned by the Gestapo. In September 1943, after the capitulation of Italy, he joined the S

Marjorie Goetschius

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Marjorie Goetschius (23 September 1915 – 7 May 2001) was an American composer, pianist, cellist, and singer. She was born in Raymond, New Hampshire. Her songs were interpreted by popular singers such as Frank Sinatra and Ray Charles. Life Marjorie Goetschius was the granddaughter of Maria Stefany, an opera singer, and Percy Goetschius, a music theorist and composer. She learned to play the piano at the age of five from her mother, Pauline Gaiser (1890–1975), who was a concert pianist. Marjorie met her husband Emery Deutsch at the Juilliard School of Music. A composer of serious music for the concert hall, at Deutsch’s suggestion Goetschius began composing popular songs. Her song “I Dream of You” stayed on the hit parade for 16 weeks in 1944–45. which Goetschius wrote as an adaptation of an Italian lullaby inspired by the birth of her son. * “I’ll Always Be With You” (February 7, 1945) * “Was the Last Time I Saw You (The Last Time)” * “This Is My Confession” References Further reading * * *

Mark Brunswick

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Mark Brunswick ( January 6, 1902 – May 25/26, 1971) was an American composer of the twentieth century. He had only recently completed the second act of an opera based on Ibsen’s The Master Builder when he died suddenly in London in May 1971, at the start of what was to have been an extended tour of Europe with his wife, Natascha Artin Brunswick. Brunswick had been at work on the opera for several years, and Act I had not long before received a concert performance as a work in progress at the City College of New York. Biography Born in New York City, Brunswick was the third of four children of secular Jewish parents. His father, of an Alsatian family background, was a successful manufacturer in the garment industry. His mother was an educated German-born woman, trained as an opera singer, who encouraged Mark’s artistic interests and his pursuit of an education that diverged from the conventional. He attended the Horace Mann School in New York, and later Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. Though he took some courses in the extension division of Columbia University, he never formally acquired a college degree. Having by the age of 15 decided on a career of musical composition a

Mark Fax

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

Mark Oakland Fax (15 June 1911 – 2 January 1974) was an American composer and a professor of music. Child prodigy Born on June 15, 1911, in Baltimore, Maryland, Fax was a child prodigy. By age fourteen, Fax was employed as a theater organist playing scores to silent films in Baltimore’s Regent Theater on Saturdays, and gospel music at an African American church on Sundays. then at Eastman earning a Master’s degree in composition. While at Eastman he studied with Howard Hanson. He completed his bachelor’s of music degree with honours; won the prestigious Julius Rosenwald Fellowship in a national competition; and was elected to the All-University Honour Society. Depression-era conditions compelled him to turn down graduate fellowship offers, and he accepted a position at Paine College in Georgia, Public attention In the Washington limelight, he finally received public attention. Washington Post critic Paul Hume praised Fax’s Sonata for Clarinet and Piano as “striking…difficult…a work of surprising contrapuntal texture” and declared the composer’s oeuvre “music of rare power.” Til Victory is Won (1967), Fax’s epic operatic history of the African American experience, was mounted at the

Mark Fradkin

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Mark Grigoryevich Fradkin (May 4, 1914 – April 4, 1990) was a Soviet composer, author of numerous popular songs (many of which were co-written with poet Yevgeny Dolmatovsky) and musical scores for forty films. In 1979, Mark Fradkin received the USSR State Prize and, in 1985, he was granted the status of the People’s Artist of the USSR. Biography Mark Fradkin was born in Vitebsk, Russian Empire (now Belarus), to a family of doctors. In the 1920s, having graduated from the technological secondary school, Mark joined a clothing factory in Vitebsk. After two years there, he joined the Third Belorussian Theatre as an actor (later musical administrator). In 1934, he enrolled in the Leningrad Theatre Institute where he started writing music. In 1938-1939, he studied in the Belorussian Conservatory under the guidance of Professor Aladov while working as an actor in the Minsk Children Theater (ТЮЗ). Family Mark Fradkin’s father, Grigory Konstantinovich Fradkin, a medical doctor in Kursk, was executed by the White Army troops retreating from the city in 1920. His mother, Yevgenya Mironovna Fradkina (née Shagalova), also a medical doctor, was murdered during the Holocaust, along with many other

Mark Lothar

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Mark Lothar ló:tar (born Lothar Hundertmark; 23 May 1902 in Berlin – 6 April 1985 in Munich) was a German composer. Life From 1921 to 1926, he studied piano with Franz Schreker and Walther Carl Meiszner in Berlin and with Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari in Munich. Early on he became famous accompanying singers such as Erna Berger, Corry Nera, who in 1934 on became his wife, and Hermann Prey. In 1933 he was recruited as a music specialist for the German Theater by Max Reinhardt, since Lothar was a member of the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur, an antisemitic organization forming part of the Völkisch movement. One year later he became the musical director of the Prussian State Theater in Berlin thanks to Gustaf Gründgens. He held this position until 1944. During his tenure, he composed various pieces on behalf of Joseph Goebbels. In May 1938 his opera Tailor Wibbel, inspired by a play by Hans Müller-Schlösser, was performed at the Berlin State Opera. In August 1944, Adolf Hitler included in the Gottbegnadeten list, an exclusive list of artists exempt from military service. Since 1945 he worked for the Bavarian state theater and since 1955 as free composer based in Munich. He was also renown as a

Mark Wessel (composer)

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Mark Wessel (March 26, 1894 – May 9, 1973) was an American pianist and composer. Life Wessel was born in Coldwater, Michigan, and graduated from Northwestern School of Music, now known as Bienen School of Music; he later taught piano and theory there. When Wessel left Northwestern, he became a professor of piano and composition at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Wessel was a former pupil of Arnold Schoenberg. He was twice awarded Guggenheim Fellowships, in 1930 and 1932. He was also the recipient in 1930 of a Pulitzer Scholarship to further his education in Europe. In the 1938 contest of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Society his choral-orchestral work The King of Babylon won honorable mention, while his former student David Van Vactor won the competition with his Symphony in D. He died on May 9, 1973, in Orchard Lake, Oakland County, Michigan. Selected compositions *Adagio, for orchestra *Allegro pomposo, for two pianos (pub. 1982) *The Amorous Peacock, for piano *Ballade, for solo violin, solo oboe, string orchestra (1931) *Ballade, for violin and piano (1937) *Concertino, for flute or violin and chamber orchestra (1928) *Concerto, for piano and orchestra (1941) *The D

Marko Rothmüller

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Marko Rothmüller (born Aaron Rothmüller; 31 December 190820 January 1993) was a Croatian operatic baritone, composer and pianist. Early life and education Rothmüller was born in the village of Trnjani near Slavonski Brod to a Jewish family, who owned a store. He was raised with five siblings (three brothers and two sisters): Branko, Avraham, Erich Cvi, Tilika and Elvira. When he was four, Rothmüller moved to Zagreb with his parents Josef and Ana (née Hahn) Rothmüller. He studied at Zagreb Music Academy at the University of Zagreb. He later went to Vienna to train under Regina Weiss, Franz Steiner and Alban Berg. He lived and worked in Zagreb until 1935. Career In 1932 he made his debut in Hamburg, with the role of Ottokar in Der Freischütz and was immediately ranked among the leading European interpreters of heroic baritone roles. Because of antisemitism in Nazi Germany, Rothmüller returned home to Zagreb in 1933. In 1935 he moved to Zurich, where until 1947 he was a permanent member of the Zurich opera emphasizing the roles in Verdi and Wagner operas. Between 1946 and 1949, he was a member of the Vienna State Opera. In London’s Royal Opera House, Rothmüller made his debut in 1939

Marta Canales

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Marta Canales Pizarro (17 July 1893 – 6 December 1986) was a Chilean violinist, choral conductor, and composer. She was born in Santiago and made her debut as a violinist at age eleven playing Mendelssohn’s “Concerto”. With her brothers, she founded a chamber ensemble that was active from 1916–1920. After her performing career ended, she studied composition with Luigi Stefano Giarda, and then worked as a composer and choral conductor. She died in Santiago, aged 93. Works Selected works include: *“Marta y María”, oratorio for soloists, chorus, organ and string orchestra (1929) *“Misa de Eucaristía” for four mixed voices, chorus and string orchestra (1930) *“Misa de Navidad” for mixed chorus of four voices and orchestra (1930) *“Misa en estilo gregoriano” for voice and organ (1933) *“Madrigales Teresianos”, collection of twelve chorals, four mixed voices on the poetry of St. Teresa of Jesus (1933) *“Himnos y cantos sacros en estilo gregoriano” for voice and organ (1936–1940) *“Elevación”, poem for organ, harp and string orchestra *“Cuatro canciones de cuna” for four voice choirs *“Dos canciones” for four equal voices *“Cantares Chilenos”, collection of ten tunes, harmonized choruses

Marthinus Lourens de Villiers

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Marthinus Lourens de Villiers was a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church from 1912 to 1930, then a full-time musician until his death in 1977 and is especially known for his setting of Die Stem. Biography The son of Dirk de Villiers, organist of the Dutch Reformed Church, and Tina Smith, he was introduced to the piano, organ and violin at a very young age by his parents, owners of a music institute in Wellington. He later took up the clarinet and played in the Wellington brass band. He obtained his baccalaureate in 1904, a year after publishing his first piano composition. From 1905 to 1907, de Villiers taught music in Wepener in the Orange Free State. There he founded a brass band, composed and was organist of the Dutch Reformed Church. He then studied from 1908 to 1911 at the theological seminary in Stellenbosch, during which time he became interested and involved in the defense of the Afrikaans language against English. Of British but also Boer descent, he was also affected by the destruction of the Second Boer War, by the efforts to rebuild the population, by his friendships, notably with the former president Marthinus Steyn. He gradually became a pro-Afrikaner activist. From

Marti Montserrat Guillemat

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Martí Montserrat Guillemat (sometimes erroneously cited as Guillamet, b: El Morell, Tarragona, July 4, 1906 – d: Barcelona, January 12, 1990), also known as Serramont, was a Catalan musician. Composer, conductor, pianist, accordionist and organist. The Serramont Orchestra was founded in 1932, with slight variations from Musette Serramont Orchestra or Serramont and José de Morato Orchestra, was active more than three decades. He performed throughout Spain and in several countries: Portugal, Morocco, Algeria, Belgium, Switzerland and France. He accompanied popular singers of the era as Mario Visconti. Throughout his career, he performed in nightclubs as the Rigat and El Oro del Rin. His orchestra was the first to perform on Spanish TV at their Catalan studio in Miramar (Barcelona). At a very young age he learned to play the piano by ear and at the age of 9 he used to play at his father’s café in El Morell. Years later, he also in other surrounding villages until the family moved to Barcelona and Martin studied in the Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu. His repertoire dominated the dance music. His first composition, the schottish Ni Pintao dates from 1925. In 1927 he worked as

Martin Mulvihill

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Martin Mulvihill (born in Ballygoughlin, County Limerick, Ireland in 1923; died 21 July 1987) was an Irish traditional musician, composer, teacher, and author. He composed roughly 25 tunes in the Irish traditional style. Although his mother Brigid Flynn played the concertina and fiddle, In 1971 the Mulvihill family relocated to New York City. Mary Rafferty (of Cherish the Ladies), Willie Kelly, and Patrick Clifford. In 1984, Mulvihill was honored with a NEA National Heritage Fellowship. In 1986, he self-published a songbook titled First Collection of Traditional Irish Music. On 21 July 1987, while on vacation in County Limerick, Ireland, he suffered a heart attack and died. All four of the Mulvihill children are musicians, with Brendan having become a noted performer and recording artist in the traditional Irish fiddle genre. Discography *Traditional Irish Fiddling from County Limerick (Green Linnet LP/cassette, 1978), with Mick Moloney *Irish Music: The Living Tradition (Green Linnet LP/cassette, 1978), Martin Mulvihill School *The Humors of Glin (Global Village cassette, 1986), with Donie O’Sullivan and Gabriel Fitzmaurice References External links * * *Biographical information *

Martin Scherber

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Martin Scherber (16 January 1907 – 10 January 1974) was a German composer and the creator of what he described as “metamorphosis symphonies”. Childhood and youth Scherber was born as the third child of Marie and Bernhard Scherber in Nuremberg, where his father was First Bassist in the orchestra of the State Opera House. Martin was a quiet child, both alert and dreamy, always full of questions. With his great gift for everything technical, it was generally assumed he would become an engineer and for this reason he attended the secondary modern High School (Oberrealschule, today: Hans Sachs Gymnasium). But already early, at about five years of age, he began to play everything on the piano by heart. He had the absolute hearing. He didn’t want to learn any notes, but after conflicts with his father he accepted them as a mean of the representation of music. Later his strength lay in improvising. He seemed to be immediately at home in music. At the age of thirteen he made his first compositions. At this time, he was having advanced piano lessons with the Nuremberg opera conductor, Karl Winkler. He made his first public appearances as a pianist in 1922. In composing and improvising he fel

Martindale Sidwell

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Professor Martindale Sidwell FRCO (23 February 1916 – 20 February 1998) was an English organist, composer and teacher. Life John William Martindale Sidwell was born in Little Packington, Warwickshire on 23 February 1916, the son of John William Sidwell, a musician, and Mary Martindale. At the age of seven, he joined the choir at Wells Cathedral, and later became assistant organist. He was awarded ARCO in 1936 and FRCO in 1938. During the Second World War he served firstly with the North Somerset Yeomanry and later with the Royal Engineers. Invalided out he became temporary organist at Holy Trinity Church, Leamington Spa and director of music at Warwick School. Sidwell studied at the Royal Academy of Music with C.H. Trevor. He composed one piece which remained unpublished in his lifetime, a Festal Jubilate for choir and organ. A number of Anglican chants by him are still in the repertoire of some Cathedrals and major churches. He was one of the editors of Secular and Sacred Music published in 1966. In 1944 he married Barbara Hill, a pianist and harpsichordist. He died on 20 February 1998 in London. Appointments *Sub Organist at Wells Cathedral 1932 - ? *Assistant Organist at Wells C

Marvin Duchow

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Marvin Duchow (June 10, 1914 – May 24, 1979) was a Canadian composer, teacher and musicologist who lived and worked in Montreal, Quebec. He was an expert on Renaissance music and the music of eighteenth century France. The McGill University Music Library in Montreal is named after him, as is the Duchow String Quartet. Early life and education Duchow was born in Montreal, Quebec. He began studying music theory in 1933 with Claude Champagne at the McGill Conservatory, and took private lessons in composition. After graduating with a Bachelor of Music, from 1937 to 1939 he attended the Curtis Institute, where he studied composition with Rosario Scalero and music criticism with Samuel Chotzinoff. He then attended New York University, while supporting himself by teaching. Career Duchow taught music at several schools while completing his education at New York University. He then returned to Montreal, where he taught at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal and, beginning in 1944, at McGill University. From 1957 to 1963 he was the dean of McGill’s Faculty of Music. Among his notable students was composer Alan Belkin and Andrew Homzy https://homzy.ca - a jazz musician/musicologist who w

Mary Chandler (composer)

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Kathleen Mary Chandler (16 May 1911 – 19 November 1996) was an English composer, oboist, pianist and teacher. Born in Eltham, South London, she studied music privately and at the Blackheath Conservatoire from August 1928, with Harry Farjeon (composition) and Harold Craxton (piano). Chandler maintained her interest in music, joining the Society of Women Musicians in 1935 and having her music first performed in public the following year. She took up the oboe from scratch in 1940, when her teachers were Margaret Eliot and Léon Goossens. She joined the Tunbridge Wells Symphony Orchestra on oboe as an amateur in 1942. In 1944, invited by George Weldon, she was appointed principal oboist of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (where she was a colleague in the oboe section with Ruth Gipps), and gave many recitals and broadcasts in the Midlands area. In May 1956 the CBSO gave the first performance and broadcast of her Concerto for Oboe d’amore with Léon Goossens as the soloist. The orchestra also performed her 1956 Trumpet Concerto, with soloist Bram Gay. After leaving the CBSO in 1958 she formed the Mercian Trio (flute, oboe and piano), which toured the country. In 1960 she was appo

Mary Elaine Gentemann

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Sister Mary Elaine Gentemann, CDP (October 4, 1909 – December 7, 2008) was an American religious sister and musical composer, a member of the religious order of the Sisters of Divine Providence. She is known for creating the first Mass integrating Negro Spirituals, “Mass in Honor of Blessed Martin de Porres” (1945). Personal life Gentemann was born on October 4, 1909, in Fredericksburg, Texas. At age 19, she entered the religious order of the Sisters of Divine Providence becoming known as Sister Elaine. She received a Bachelor of Music from Our Lady of the Lake College in 1929 and a Master of Music from the American Conservatory of Music. Later, she studied composition under Otto Luening, going on to study at the Juilliard School and the Teachers College, Columbia University. From 1929 to her retirement in 1999, she taught music courses at Our Lady of the Lake. During this period, she composed a Mass integrating Negro Spirituals, entitled “Mass in Honor of Blessed Martin de Porres”. Notably, this was 9 years before Our Lady of the Lake allowed Black students and 20 years before the Second Vatican Council would allow vernacular liturgy and modern music. She used the tune of “Nobody

Mary Watson Weaver

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Mary Eliza Watson Weaver (January 16, 1903 – November 16, 1990) was an American composer, pianist, and poet who was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Life Mary received B.A. and B. M. degrees from Smith College (Massachusetts) and Ottawa University (Kansas). She continued to study music with Rosario Scalero and Deems Taylor at the Curtis Institute of Music (Philadelphia), and privately in New York and France. Mary married composer and organist Powell Weaver on March 24, 1938, and they had one son (Thomas Watson Weaver). She gave lectures and recitals, and taught piano at the Kansas City Conservatory, the Curtis Institute, the University of Missouri–Kansas City (1946 – 1957), the Manhattan School of Music (New York; 1957 – 1970), and the Henry Street School of Music (New York). Compositions Mary’s compositions were published by Belwin-Mills, G. Schirmer Inc., Galaxy Music Corporation, and Shawnee Press. She collaborated with her husband on some compositions (noted below), and he set some of her poems to music. Her musical compositions, all for voice, include: *All Weary Men (with Powell Weaver; mixed chorus; 1949) *Confess Jehovah (mixed chorus; 1951) *“Cradle Song” (text by Padraic Co

Mary Wiggins

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Mary Wiggins (February 10, 1904 – April 17, 1974) was an American composer, educator, organist, and pianist, born in Indiana, Pennsylvania. Biography Wiggins studied composition at Carnegie-Mellon University with Roland Leich, and privately with Gladys W. Fisher and Harvey B. Gaul. Wiggins taught organ at Schenley High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1951 to 1957. She taught piano privately and at the Pittsburgh Musical Institute from 1959 to 1962, and received an award from the National Federation of Music Clubs in 1973. Wiggins died in 1974 in Pittsburgh. *pieces for organ *pieces for violin ;Piano *Catch Me! *Cathedral Bells *Frolicking Waves ;Vocal *The Ghost References

Masao Koga

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was a Japanese composer, mandolinist, and guitarist of the Shōwa era who was dubbed “Japan’s Irving Berlin” by Universal Press Syndicate. His melancholy style, based upon Nakayama Shimpei’s yonanuki scale, was popularly known in Japan as . He was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure (Fourth Class) and the People’s Honor Award for his contributions to Japanese music. Life Koga was born in 1904 in the village of Taguchi (today part of the city Ōkawa) in the Mizuma District of Fukuoka Prefecture; he was the sixth of eight children. In 1910, Koga’s father, Kitarō, died. As a result, Koga, his mother, older sister, and younger brother moved to Korea in 1912, where his eldest brother had migrated for work. His family first traveled to Incheon, before settling in Keijo (today part of Seoul). During this period, Koga was gifted a taishōgoto from his cousin; then later, while enrolled at the Keijō Good Neighbor Trade School, a mandolin from an older brother living in Osaka. He was regarded as a notable figure for establishing the genre enka, though Koga considered that he was a ryūkōka composer. He wrote numerous songs for Ichiro Fujiyama and Hibari Misora. Koga’s songs have been heard

Matei Socor

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Matei Socor (September 15, 1908 – May 30, 1980) was a Romanian composer and communist activist. Biography Born in Iași, his father was the noted journalist Emanoil Socor, He completed high school in his native city, followed by the Bucharest Conservatory from 1927 to 1929 and the Leipzig Conservatory from 1930 to 1933. In 1929-1930 and 1934-1939, Socor was a collaborator at the Bucharest Folklore Institute. From 1933, he was active as a conductor, both domestically and abroad. He composed music in almost every genre, including choral, vocal symphonic, symphonic, chamber and opera. In 1945, following the establishment of a communist-dominated government, he was placed in key posts as a propagandist. From 1945 to 1952, he headed Romanian Radio. From 1949 to 1954, he was president of the Romanian Composers’ Union, In his post, Socor laid down the ideological parameters for artistic music under the new communist dictatorship and became the ruling party’s key representative in its relations with the musical community. Echoing familiar rhetoric of the day, he claimed that western music was undergoing a “full-blown process of decadence”, that Paul Hindemith was promoting mysticism while O

Matelo Ferret

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Jean Pierre “Matelo” Ferret (1918 – 24 January 1989) (also spelled Matelot, Matlo and Matlow, surname also later spelled Ferré on occasion) was a French musette and gypsy jazz guitarist and composer. He was an associate of Django Reinhardt and the youngest brother of guitarists Baro and Sarane Ferret. He recorded with his own sextet in Paris in the 1940s and continued performing there, with occasional recording sessions, until his death in 1989. He was noted for a musical style that incorporated Russian and Hungarian influences and lived long enough to see a resurgence of interest in gypsy jazz in which he was recognised as one of the great surviving players of the genre. Two of his sons, Boulou and Elios Ferré, continue to play a more modern and individualistic form of gypsy jazz-based guitar music in Paris. Biography Born into a Romani family, Matelo Ferret was the youngest of the three brothers from Rouen, France who made their way to Paris and there made the acquaintance of Django Reinhardt in 1931. He was known by his French nickname “Matelo,” which meant “sailor”. He replaced guitarist Gusti Malha alongside accordionist Émile Vacher and later played with Guérino, another well

Matilde Capuis

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Matilde Margherita Mary Capuis (1 January 1913 – 31 January 2017) was an Italian organist, pianist, music educator and composer. She was born in Naples and studied at the Conservatorio di Musica Benedetto Marcello di Venezia with Gabriele Bianchi and at the Florence Conservatory. After completing her studies, she took a position at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi of Turin where she became chair of theory and then composition. For many years she performed in a duo with cellist Hugh Attilio Scabia. Capuis died in 2017 at the age of 104. Works Capuis’ compositions include: *Symphony in G major *Concentus brevis (Concerto) for oboe and string orchestra (1975) *Overture for orchestra *Variations for orchestra *Corale for organ, string orchestra and two horns *Dialogue for string orchestra *Leggenda par la Notte di Natale for string orchestra *Three Moments for cello and string orchestra *Fantasia *Preludio e fughetta *Suite in Miniature for piano trio *Sonata No. 1 in C Minor for cello and piano *Sonata No. 2 in D Minor for cello and piano *Sonata No. 3 in F-sharp Minor for cello and piano (1966) *Sonata No. 4 in G major for cello and piano (1975) *Sonata No. 5 for cello and piano (198

Matilde Salvador i Segarra

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Matilde Salvador Segarra (23 March 1918 – 5 October 2007) was a Spanish composer and painter. Life Salvador was born and raised in Castellón de la Plana, Valencian Community. She was married to the composer Vicente Asencio (1908–1979). She was a leading figure in promoting the culture and music of the Valencian Community. One of her most famous compositions was Homenatge a Mistral for solo guitar. Matilde Salvador died of a stroke on 5 October 2007 in her native Valencia, aged 89. Works Piano * 1935 Campanas * 1937 Danza de la luna. (de Romance de la luna) (Fuera de catálogo) * 1937 Danza del niño mirando a la luna. (de Romance de la luna) (Fuera de catálogo) * 1946 Planyívola (Fuera de catálogo) * 1954 Judas (Fuera de catálogo) Vocal * 1935 Canción de atardecer, para voz y piano. (de Set cançons) (Fuera de catálogo) * 1935 Cuentan que la rosa, para voz y piano. (de Set cançons) (Fuera de catálogo) * 1935 Nana, para voz y piano. (de Vuit cançons) (Fuera de catálogo) * 1936 El amor y la llama para voz y piano. (de Set cançons) (Fuera de catálogo) * 1937 Tres cançons valencianes, para voz y piano, (Existe en versión orquestral realizada por Vicente Asencio) ** Cançó alegre ** Cançó d

Matthijs Vermeulen

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Matthijs Vermeulen (born Matheas Christianus Franciscus van der Meulen) (8 February 1888 – 26 July 1967), was a Dutch composer and music journalist. Early life Matthijs Vermeulen was born in Helmond. After primary school he initially wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father, who was a blacksmith. During a serious illness his inclination towards the spiritual gained the upper hand. Inspired by a thoroughly Catholic environment, he decided to become a priest. However, at the seminary, where he learned about the principles of counterpoint of the sixteenth-century polyphonic masters, his true calling – music – came to light. On his eighteenth he abandoned his initial ideas and left school. In the spring of 1907 he moved to Amsterdam, the country’s musical capital. There he approached Daniël de Lange, the director of the conservatory, who recognized his talent and gave him free lessons for two years. In 1909 Vermeulen began to write for the Catholic daily newspaper De Tijd, where he soon distinguished himself by a personal, resolute tone which stood out in stark contrast to the usually long-winded music journalism of the day. The quality of his reviews also struck Alphons Diepenb

Matvey Blanter

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Matvey Isaakovich Blanter (; 10 February 190327 September 1990) was a Soviet composer, and one of the most prominent composers of popular songs and film music in the Soviet Union. Among many other works, he wrote the famous “Katyusha” (1938), performed to this day internationally. He was active as a composer until 1975, producing more than two thousand songs. Childhood and education Blanter, the son of a Jewish craftsman, was born in the town of Pochep, then in the Chernigov Governorate of the Russian Empire. He studied piano and violin at the Kursk Higher Music School. From 1917 to 1919, he continued his education in Moscow, studying violin and composition. Career Blanter’s first songs were composed in the 1920s. At the time, he wrote light dance and jazz music, including “John Gray” (1923), a foxtrot that became a major hit. In the 1930s, as Soviet culture grew more ideologically strict, Blanter shifted toward writing Soviet propaganda songs. He emerged as one of the creators of the Soviet “mass song”. Some of Blanter’s 1930s songs were styled after the Red Army songs of the Russian Civil War (1918–1921) and mythologized the war’s Bolshevik heroes. The most famous among these are

Mátyás Seiber

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Mátyás György Seiber (, sometimes given as Matthis Seyber; 4 May 1905 – 24 September 1960) was a Hungarian-born British composer who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1935 onwards. His work linked many diverse musical influences, from the Hungarian tradition of Bartók and Kodály, to Schoenberg and serial music, to jazz, folk song, and lighter music. Early life Seiber was born in Budapest. His mother, Berta Patay, was a well known pianist and teacher, so the young Seiber gained considerable skill with that instrument first. At the age of ten, he began to learn to play the cello. After attending grammar school, where he was regarded as “outstanding” in mathematics and Latin according to the almanacs of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, he studied the cello and composition from 1918 to 1925, and composition with Zoltán Kodály from 1921 to 1925. For his degree, he wrote his String Quartet No. 1 (in A minor). Pieces composed at this time, such as the Serenade for Six Wind Instruments of 1925, show him combining traditional Hungarian folk tunes with the forms of Western art music. Seiber submitted his Serenade to a composition contest in Budapest shortly after its completion. W

Maurice Besly

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Edward Maurice Besly (1888–1945) was an English composer, conductor, schoolteacher, organist, and arranger best known for his popular ballads, The Second Minuet and Time, You Old Gipsy Man. More ambitious vocal pieces were the Four Poems Op 24, Charivaria (5 songs), and his setting of Christina Rossetti’s The shepherds had an angel for soprano solo and chorus. Besly was born in Normanby, Yorkshire, and was educated at Tonbridge School and Caius College, Cambridge. After a short stage career he studied music at the Leipzig Conservatorium under Teichmüller, Schreck, and Krehl. From 1912 to 1914 he was a music-master at Tonbridge School, returning there after World War I as Assistant Music Master. In 1919 he became director of music and organist of Queen’s College, Oxford (1919–1926), and subsequently took over the Oxford Orchestral Society from Sir Hugh Allen. He gave his first concert in London with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1923, and conducted the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra, and the Scottish Orchestra for a portion of the season in 1924. He was sometime Director of the Performing Rights Society. In his latter years he worked in legal practice as a solicitor and notary publi

Maurice Blackburn (composer)

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Joseph Albert Maurice Blackburn (22 May 1914 – 29 March 1988) was a Canadian composer, conductor, sound editor for film, and builder of string instruments. He is known for his soundtracks for animated film. Personal life Blackburn was born in Quebec City, Quebec. He was a graduate of the Université Laval and the New England Conservatory in Boston. Blackburn composed the music for McLaren’s animation film Blinkity Blank (1954) which won twelve prizes, including the Short Film Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1969 he created an animated film of his own, Ciné-Crimé. He composed the opera Une mesure de silence, whose libretto was written by his wife Marthe. In 1983 he was awarded the Albert-Tessier Prize by the Quebec government. Discography Compilations * Filmusique-Filmopéra with Yves Daoust (Analekta, AN 7005/06, 1996) (2CD) References

Maurice Duruflé

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Maurice Gustave Duruflé (; 11 January 1902 – 16 June 1986) was a French composer, organist, musicologist, and teacher. He is particularly well known for his Requiem (1947). Life and career Duruflé was born in Louviers, Eure in 1902. He attended Rouen Cathedral Choir School from 1912 to 1918, where he studied piano and organ with Jules Haelling, a pupil of Alexandre Guilmant. The choral plainsong tradition at Rouen became a strong and lasting influence. until 1927. In 1920 Duruflé entered the Conservatoire de Paris, graduating with first prizes in organ with Eugène Gigout (1922), harmony with Jean Gallon (1924), fugue with Georges Caussade (1924), piano accompaniment with César Abel Estyle (1926) and composition with Paul Dukas (1928). In 1939, he premiered Francis Poulenc’s Organ Concerto (the Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani in G minor); he had advised Poulenc on the registrations of the organ part. In 1943 he became Professor of Harmony at the Conservatoire de Paris, from the Vichy regime. Also in 1947, Marie-Madeleine Chevalier became his assistant at St-Étienne-du-Mont. They married on 15 September 1953. (Duruflé’s first marriage to Lucette Bousquet, in 1932, ended in ci

Maurice Franck

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Maurice Franck (22 April 1897 – 21 March 1983) was a French conductor, composer and music educator. Life Born in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, Franck was one of the sons of Jules Franck, harp soloist at the Paris Opera, and Clémence Braun, a good amateur pianist. He married Marcelle Horvilleur, also a musician. Among his cousins were Geneviève Zadoc-Kahn, stage manager of the concerts, and Suzanne Braun, ophthalmologist and wife of politician Louis Vallon. Franck studied at the Conservatoire de Paris with Marcel Samuel-Rousseau and Paul Vidal. He participated five times in the Prix de Rome, where he won the first Second Grand Prix with his cantata L’autre Mère. From 1937 onwards, he directed a harmony class at the Conservatoire de Paris. Later, he became president of the Conservatoire’s alumni association. At the same time, he taught at Studios Pleyel, Lycée la Fontaine and at the Beethoven Institute founded by Hélène Amiot, alongside other pedagogues such as Noël Gallon, Maurice Hewitt, Georges Jouatte, André-Lévy, René Maillard, René Leroy, Auguste Le Guennant and René Saorgin. At the beginning of the war, Maurice Franck was taken prisoner and sent to an Oflag. He was released

Maurice Jaubert

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Maurice Jaubert (3 January 1900 – 19 June 1940) was a prolific French composer who scored some of the most important films of the early sound era in France, including Jean Vigo’s Zero for Conduct and L’Atalante, and René Clair’s Quatorze Juillet and Le Dernier Milliardaire. Many of his film scores were used as the basis for concert pieces. The song “À Paris, dans chaque faubourg” remains well known today. François Truffaut used his music posthumously in four of his films. Serving in both world wars, he died in action during World War II at the age of 40. Early life and education Born in Nice on 3 January 1900, he was the second son of François Jaubert, a lawyer who would become the president of the Nice bar. Jaubert grew up in a musical household, and began playing the piano aged five. After gaining his baccalaureat from the Lycée Masséna in Nice in 1916, he enrolled at the Nice Conservatory of Music, where he studied harmony, counterpoint and piano. He was awarded the first piano prize in 1916. In his films L’Histoire d’Adèle H. (1975), L’Homme qui aimait les femmes (1977) and La Chambre verte (1978) and Small Change (Divertimento from the Sonata a due), François Truffaut uses mus

Maurice Ohana

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Maurice Ohana (12 June 1913 – 13 November 1992) was a French composer. Ohana’s output includes choral works, string quartets, suites for ten-string guitar, a Tiento for six-string guitar, and operas. Life and career Ohana was born in Casablanca, Morocco (during the French protectorate). His father, an Andalusian of Sephardic Jewish descent, had been born in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar, while his mother had Andalusian-Castilian origins. He originally studied architecture, but abandoned this in favour of a musical career, initially as a pianist. He studied under Alfredo Casella in Rome, returning to France in 1946. Around this time he founded the “Groupe Zodiaque”, which fought against prevailing musical dogma. His mature musical style shows the influence of Mediterranean folk music, particularly the Andalusian cante jondo. In 1976 he took French citizenship. He is also known for his extensive use of microtonality; for example, third- and quarter-tones in pieces like Le Tombeau de Debussy and Si le jour paraît…. He was influenced by the use of microintervals in the cante jondo. Ohana rarely composed for large symphony orchestra: Synaxis (1966), Livre des Prodiges (1

Maurice Thiriet

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Maurice Thiriet (; 2 May 1906 – 28 September 1972) was a French composer of classical and film music. Biography Born in Meulan, Yvelines, Maurice Thiriet attended the Paris Conservatory from 1925 to 1931, studying counterpoint and fugue with Charles Koechlin, and orchestration and arrangement under Alexis Roland-Manuel. Thiriet’s career revolved mainly around film music, completing around seventy scores from 1942 to 1960. A fellow composer Maurice Jaubert, whose life was cut short during World War II, is often cited as a major influence on Thiriet’s outlook. In 1939, Jacques Rouché opened the doors of the Paris Opéra to him with La Nuit vénitienne, a ballet that immediately won over Reynaldo Hahn. Mobilized in 1940, he was taken prisoner and sent to Stalag IX A. During his imprisonment, he wrote Trois Motets for choir and Œdipe roi, an oratorio that premiered in Paris on January 11, 1942, after his return to France. It was performed by the Chorale Yvonne Gouverné and the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, conducted by Charles Munch. Jean Cocteau himself recited the text. The Trois Motets (Sub Tuum, O Salutaris, and Agnus Dei), written in memory of Maurice Jauber

Maurice Vaute

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Maurice Vaute (27 April 1913 – 21 June 2000) was a Belgian composer of classical music, conductor and music teacher. Biography Maurice Vaute was born on 27 April 1913 in Roisin and studied at the Conservatories of Mons and Brussels (harmony, fugue, saxophone, etc.). He was a music teacher as well as an orchestra and choir conductor. His compositions are deposited as “Fonds Maurice Vaute” in the library of the Brussels conservatory. He died in Chimay. Style Initially, he was influenced by Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, and Joseph Jongen, his teacher. Later, his compositions were atonal. Compositions Symphonic works *Auprès de toi - aria, 1936 *Arlequins-fantaisie *Gavotte ancienne *Menuetto allegretto *Triptyque for strings and harpsichord *Deux mouvements pour les temps venus *Trinôme for orchestra, soli and wind trio *Concerto for saxophone alto and orchestra *Symphonie de danses for orchestra and saxophone trio *Espace, intensité (symphonie libre) *Les heures, Trois mouvements symphoniques 1. Prélude 2. Rondo giocoso 3. Postlude *Concerto for piano and orchestra *Concerto for violin and orchestra *Rondo pastoral Ballet *Le reflet dans la Meuse (argument de Malfère) *Melos Solo in

Maurice Yvain

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Maurice Yvain (12 February 1891 – 27 July 1965) was a French composer noted for his operettas of the 1920s and 1930s. Some of which were written for Mistinguett, at one time the best-paid female entertainer in the world. In the 1930s and 1940s, he became a major success in the United States and several of his pieces appeared in the famous Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway. He also composed music for several films of notable directors such as Anatole Litvak, Julien Duvivier, and Henri-Georges Clouzot. Yvain’s music blended with the then “spirit of Paris”. Biography Maurice Yvain was born in 1891 into a musical family in Paris. He was educated by his father, who played the trumpet in the Orchestre de l’Opéra-Comique. From 1903, he studied at the Conservatoire de Paris where he was a pupil of Louis Diemer and Xavier Leroux. An excellent pianist, he first played as an accompanying pianist at the Casino d’Évian. He went on to play with the orchestra at the Casino de Monte Carlo and in the Parisien Cabaret des Quat’z’Arts. After military service from 1912 to 1919, One of his early successes was “Dansez-vous le foxtrot” in 1919. Maurice Chevalier, whom he had met in the army, introduced him to

Max Baumann

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Max Georg Baumann (20 November 1917, Kronach – 17 July 1999, Berlin) was a German composer. Biography He studied conducting, piano, and trombone Berlin Hochschule für Musik with Konrad Friedrich Noetel and Boris Blacher. He spent two years as a choir director and deputy Kapellmeister at the opera in Stralsund (1947–1949). He taught piano and music theory at the Berlin College of Music (1946–1978). In 1960 he was appointed professor. After meeting French organist Jean Guillou during this time, Baumann wrote his first compositions for organ (Invocation op. 67 no. 5, Trois pièces brèves op. 67 no. 6, Psalmi op. 67 no. 2), which Guillou premiered in a concert on January 20, 1963, at St. Matthias church in Berlin. Baumann also appeared as conductor and choirmaster and, in 1963, became interim conductor of the choir at St. Hedwig’s Cathedral. His cantata Libertas cruciata was the first composition written specifically with stereo FM radio in mind. Awards * 1953: Berlin Art Prize. * 1963: Prix Italia for the Dramatic Cantata Libertas cruciata - the first stereophonic work. * 1977: Gold Medal “for special merits” by the district Kronach. * 1977: Golden Orlando di Lasso Medal of general Cec

Max Butting

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Max Butting (6 October 1888 – 13 July 1976) was a German composer. Life Max Butting was the son of an ironmonger and of a piano teacher. He received his first musical instruction from his mother and later from the organist Arnold Dreyer. After attending secondary school (Realgymnasium), he studied at the Akademie der Tonkunst (Academy of Composition) in Munich from 1908 to 1914. There, he received instruction in composition from Friedrich Klose, conducting from Felix Mottl and Paul Prill, as well as singing from Karl Erler. He also attended lectures in psychology, philosophy and musicology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Butting learned composition by private instruction from Walter Courvoisier, for the most part, whom Klose had recommended to him after a disagreement. Butting was medically unfit for service in World War I. On the urging of his father, he worked as an assistant in his father’s business when he returned to Berlin in 1919, where he remained until 1923. However, he was allowed sufficient free time for composing. He quickly got in contact with other young artists and became friendly with Walter Ruttmann and Philipp Jarnach, among others. In 1921, Butting

Max Deutsch

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Max Deutsch (17 November 1892 – 22 November 1982) was an Austrian-French composer, conductor, and academic teacher. He studied with Arnold Schoenberg and was his assistant. Teaching at the Sorbonne and the École Normale de Musique de Paris, he influenced notable students such as Philippe Capdenat, Donald Harris, György Kurtág, Philippe Manoury, and Jeannine Richer. Career Born in Vienna, Deutsch was a pupil of and assistant to Arnold Schoenberg. He studied under him in Vienna before the First World War, and followed Schoenberg as his assistant to Amsterdam in 1921. Deutsch was a fellow and taught at UNESCO and at the Sorbonne (Paris IV) from 1970 to 1971, and finally, from 1972 to the École Normale de Musique de Paris. He died in Paris. After the Second World War, he devoted himself mainly to teaching music, chiefly following the principles of Schönberg. In Paris, among his hundreds of students, there were composers: Jorge Arriagada, , Colette Bailly, Sylvano Bussotti, Philippe Capdenat, Gérard Condé, Rudi Martinus van Dijk, Ahmed Essyad, Jacqueline Fontyn, Sylvia Hallett, Donald Harris, Félix Ibarrondo, Oswaldo González, György Kurtág, Philippe Manoury, , Luis de Pablo, Yves-Marie

Max Drischner

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Max Drischner (31 January 1891 – 25 April 1971) was a German composer, Kantor, organist, and harpsichordist. Life and work Max Drischner was born in Prieborn (now Przeworno), Silesia. After completing his A-levels at the grammar school in Züllichau, he started theological studies in 1910 at Leipzig and Breslau. However, after seven semesters, he gave this up to study the organ, piano, and harpsichord at the Berlin Music Academy. A teacher in his principal subject, Wanda Landowska, had a major influence on him. Between 1916 and the end of the First World War, he was a voluntary medical orderly in France. During this time, he lost the top of a finger on his left hand. After the war, through self-teaching, he acquired an extensive knowledge of music before the Bach period. He gave his first harpsichord concerts in Breslau in 1920 and in Brieg in 1923. In Brieg, he was trained by Paul Hielscher in organ playing and choir leading. In 1923, he founded a youth choir that was later united with the choir from St. Nikolai in Brieg. In 1924, he was appointed as cantor and organist of St. Nikolai in Brieg. During his tenure in Brieg, he composed the majority of his organ and vocal works. He al

Max Fishman

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Max Shakhnovich Fishman (Polish: Mieczysław (Mietek) Fiszman /Fischman/; Romanian: Max Fișman; Russian: Макс Шахнович Фишман, known as Max Benovich Fishman), (December 12, 1915—September 24, 1985) was a Moldavian Soviet composer, pianist, and teacher. Fishman was raised within Jewish, Polish, and Russian cultural traditions. . Born in Warsaw he studied piano at the Chopin University of Music. He was well-known in the Polish music scene. During the Nazi invasion in Poland in 1939 he fled to the Soviet Union. Later he was arrested by the NKVD and deported. In the 1950s, Fishman lived in Chișinău. He laid the pedagogical foundation of the Academy of Music, Theatre and Fine Arts in Chișinău. He composed, including piano concertos, chamber music and orchestral works. His aesthetic reflects blend of Ashkenazi Jewish folk motifs, Slavic Romanticism, and Soviet neoclassicism. Biography Life in Poland Max Fishman was born on December 12, 1915, in Warsaw, in the family of an entrepreneur, philanthropist and the head of the Warsaw synagogue (1870, Opatów – July 1, 1936, Warsaw) and Esther Fishman, née Bleiberg (1880, Ćmielów – according to some sources 1942–1943 in the Warsaw Ghetto or Trebli

Max Janowski

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Max Janowski (1912 – April 8, 1991) was a composer of Jewish liturgical music, a conductor, choir director, and voice teacher. Born in Berlin into a musical family, Max was the son of Chaim Janowski, a choir director, and , an opera singer. As a youth, Max studied at the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory (Klindworth-Scharwenka-Konservatorium) in Berlin. In 1933, he won a piano contest, which led to him becoming the head of the piano department at the Musashino Academia Musicae in Tokyo, Japan. He emigrated to the United States in 1937 and served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Max Janowski’s choral works include the traditional Jewish prayers “Avinu Malkeinu” (“Our Father, Our King,” a hymn for the High Holy Days), “Sim Shalom” (“Song of Peace,” which was dedicated to the American diplomat Ralph Bunche), “Yismehu,” and “ve-Shomeru”. From 1938 until his death, Janowski was the music director at KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation in Hyde Park in Chicago. On January 29, 2012, the centennial of his birth, a Gala Concert featuring several cantors, cantorial soloists, and area chorales was held at K.A.M. Isaiah Israel to celebrate Janowski’s life and music. Baritone Sherrill Milnes an

Max Kortlander

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Maximilian Joseph Kortlander (September 1, 1890 – October 11, 1961) was an American composer, arranger, and pianist. He is best known for his numerous piano rolls which he performed for QRS Music Technologies, Inc. He often collaborated with fellow QRS pianist and composer, Pete Wendling. A song they wrote together in 1922, “Whenever You’re Lonesome (Just Telephone Me)” has become a jazz standard. Life and career Source: Max Kortlander was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1890 to parents Joseph and Elizabeth Kortlander. He attended the Oberlin College Conservatory after high school, and later the American Conservatory, in Chicago, Illinois. In 1914, he was hired by QRS and began writing his own compositions in 1917. His first songs were entitled “The Ragtime Sailor Man” and “Chicken Pranks”. After moving to New York City, he wrote the hit song “Tell Me” (1919), which was recorded by Al Jolson, one of the most popular singers of the time. It garnered total sales of up to $100,000. In 1928, he and Wendling wrote a theme for the popular cartoon, Felix the Cat. It was recorded by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. The original cutting machine used by Kortlander to cut piano rolls is on disp

Max Trapp

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Hermann Emil Alfred Max Trapp (November 1, 1887 – May 31, 1971) was a German composer and teacher. A prestigious figure in the Berlin cultural scene during the 1930s, Trapp, amongst others in the Nazi-influenced scene, was regularly invited to contribute to concert programs and competitions. Trapp was born in Berlin and attended the Berlin Hochschule für Musik (now the Berlin University of the Arts) where he studied under Paul Juon and Ernő Dohnányi. After the completion of his studies, he did not have regular employment and worked as an itinerant pianist. In 1920, however, he obtained a post as lecturer at the Berlin conservatoire, becoming a professor there in 1926. His best-known pupils include Josef Tal, Saburō Moroi and Günter Raphael. Between 1926 and 1930, Trapp offered a master class in composition at the music conservatoire in Dortmund. In 1932 he joined the NSDAP. In June 1933, Trapp joined the Nazi movement through an “Appeal to the Creative” (Appell an die Schaffenden). In 1934, he stepped down from the Berlin conservatoire and became the director of a masterclass in composition at the Berlin Academy of Arts (since merged with the University of the Arts). Here from 1936

Max Wohlberg

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Max (Moshe) Wohlberg (February 9, 1907 - April 19, 1996) He was one of the initial members of the Cantors Assembly established in 1947 and served as its president from 1949 to 1951. He helped to found the cantorial school at the Jewish Theological Seminary where he was Professor and head of the nusach department. Self-taught, he developed a curriculum for studying nusach and producing scholarly research, His music was rooted in Jewish liturgical traditions, incorporating biblical cantillations, synagogue motifs, Yiddish song phrases, and Israeli folk melodies. These influences stemmed from his extensive exposure to Jewish musical life and were further enriched by his teaching and research. References

Maxime Jacob

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Maxime Jacob, or Dom Clément Jacob, (13 January 1906 in Bordeaux – 26 February 1977 in En-Calcat Abbey, Dourgne, Tarn) was a French composer and organist. Biography Jacob studied at the Paris Conservatory with Charles Koechlin and André Gedalge; an admirer of Darius Milhaud and Erik Satie, he was a member of the École d’Arcueil, a group of young composers sponsored by Satie after his rupture with his previous group of protégés, Les Six. Other members of this short-lived group included Henri Cliquet-Pleyel, Henri Sauguet and Roger Désormière. In 1927, Jacob worked with Antonin Artaud at the Théâtre Alfred Jarry composing the score for his production of Ventre brûlé; ou La Mère folle (1927). :252 In 1929, Jacob converted from Judaism to Catholicism (influenced by Jacques Maritain) and became a Benedictine monk at En-Calcat Abbey. He would go on to study organ with Maurice Duruflé, as well as Gregorian chant. Jacob also published two books, L’art et la grâce (1939) and Souvenirs a deux voix (1969). In the English-speaking world, his hymn tune “Living God” in 77.77 meter with 77.77 refrain, used for I Received the Living God (J’ai reçu le Dieu vivant), is well known. Works Vocal *Par l

Melville Cook

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Alfred Melville Cook (18 June 1912 – 22 May 1993) was a British organist, conductor, composer and teacher. Early life and education Cook was born in Gloucester. He was a chorister at Gloucester Cathedral (1923–1928) and articled pupil there under Herbert Sumsion (1929–1932). He also studied with Herbert Brewer and Edward Bairstow. He held the ARCO (1931) and the FRCO with the Harding Prize (1931). He studied at Durham University, receiving the B.Mus. in 1934 and D.Mus. in 1940. Career Cook was assistant organist of Gloucester Cathedral (1932–1937) and was also organist of All Saints’ Church, Cheltenham (1935–1937). In 1937 or 1938, aged 25, he was appointed choirmaster and organist at Leeds Parish Church. (See also Choir of Leeds Parish Church). During the war he served with the Royal Artillery in the Orkney Islands, East Africa, India and the Far East, and it was during this period that he met his wife Marion in Scotland. By 1946 he had returned to Leeds, during which time he performed on national radio both as a solo organist and choirmaster. He worked as director of the Parish Church Choir where he broadened the musical repertoire of Leeds Parish Church, introducing more unaccom

Menachem Avidom

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Menachem Avidom (; January 6, 1908 – August 5, 1995) was an Israeli composer. His Hebrew surname is the combination of the names of his daughters Daniella and Miriam (Avi - the father of; D - for Daniella; O - and; M - for Miriam). Biography Avidom was born Mendel Mahler-Kalkstein in Stanislaviv, Austria-Hungary on January 6, 1908. This put him in Poland after World War I. He emigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1925 and, soon after, went to study at the American University of Beirut (from 1926 to 1928). After further studies at the Paris Conservatory (from 1928 to 1931) with Henri Rabaud, he moved to Tel Aviv, where he taught music theory. From 1945 through 1952 he served as general secretary of the Israeli Philharmonic. He was also chair of the Israel Composer’s League from 1958 through 1971. Awards * In 1961, Avidom was awarded the Israel Prize for music, in recognition of his opera Alexandra ha’Hashmonait. Works ;Vocal *In Every Generation, opera, 1955 *Alexandra ha’Hashmonait, opera, 1961 *The Farewell, opera, 1971 *The First Sin, opera, 1980 *Me’Arat Yodfat, opera *4 other operas *Kantatat t’hilim, cantata, 1955 *12 Hills, cantata, 1976 ;Orchestral *Symphony No. 3: Yam tichoni

Meredith Willson

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Robert Reiniger Meredith Willson (May 18, 1902 – June 15, 1984) was an American flautist, composer, conductor, musical arranger, bandleader, playwright, and writer. He is perhaps best known for writing the book, music, and lyrics for the 1957 hit Broadway musical The Music Man and composed symphonies and popular songs. He was twice nominated for Academy Awards for film scores. Early life Willson was born in Mason City, Iowa, to Rosalie Reiniger Willson and John David Willson. He had a brother two years his senior, John Cedrick, and a sister 12 years his senior, children’s writer Dixie Willson. Willson attended Frank Damrosch’s Institute of Musical Art (which later became The Juilliard School) in New York City. He married his high-school sweetheart, Elizabeth “Peggy” Wilson, on August 29, 1920; they were married for 26 years. As a child, Willson played the bass drum for a Salvation Army band. and later the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Arturo Toscanini (1924–1929). He then moved to San Francisco, California, as the concert director for radio station KFRC, and then as a musical director for the NBC radio network in Hollywood. His on-air radio debut came on KFRC in 1928 on Blu

Merle J. Isaac

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Merle John Isaac (October 12, 1898 – March 11, 1996) was an American composer and prolific arranger who focused on arranging famous pieces for performers of lower experience, especially school orchestras. Early life and education Isaac was born in Pioneer, Iowa on October 12, 1898 to William P. and Elizabeth J. Isaac. Merle was of Welsh and Scottish descent; his mother emigrated from Scotland as a child his paternal grandparents were Welsh. Shortly before 1900, the Isaac family moved from Iowa to Illinois. Isaac’s parents later bought a piano and he continued studying piano and organ with Carnduff until he finished eighth grade. Isaac enrolled at Crane Junior College, now known as Malcolm X College. After attending classes there in the morning, he dedicated his afternoons to practicing the church organ. This led him to a weekend job accompanying silent films on organ at movie theaters in the area. In 1993, the American String Teachers Association gave Isaac a lifetime achievement award, and annually through 1997 continued giving awards under his name. They also have an annual Merle J. Isaac composition contest to “encourage the composition, publication, and performance of music of

Mervyn Roberts

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Mervyn Roberts (23 November 1906 12 July 1990), full name William Henry Mervyn Roberts, was a Welsh composer, best known for his piano music. Eiluned Davies regarded him as one of ‘Y Pump Cymreig’ (The Welsh Five) along with Denis ApIvor, Daniel Jones, Grace Williams and David Wynne, all born in the first two decades of the 20th Century. Career Roberts was born into an aristocratic family in Abergele, Denbighshire - he was the second son of the first Lord Clwyd. He studied English and history at Trinity College, Cambridge from 1925 until 1928, and then at the Royal College of Music with R. O. Morris, Gordon Jacob and Arthur Alexander. He was most successful as a composer during the 1940s and 1950s, when a number of his works were published. He was an occasional teacher, a contributor to music journals and during the war worked in the Civil Service. In 1947 he married the pianist Eileen Easom. From 1963-67 he taught piano at Christ’s Hospital, Horsham. Music His music, chromatic but basically tonal, is almost entirely for the keyboard and follows in the tradition of Arnold Bax and John Ireland. The piano works include the set of ten Variations on an Original Theme for two pianos (19

Michael Bowles

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Michael Andrew Bowles (; 30 November 1909 – 6 April 1998) was an Irish conductor and composer, who was also active in New Zealand, the US, and England. Life Bowles was born in Riverstown, County Sligo, and grew up in Boyle, County Roscommon. In 1924, he moved to Dublin with his family, where he studied the piano at the Read School and joined the Department of Education in 1927 to embark on a career as a civil servant. In 1932, he was persuaded by Fritz Brase to join the Army School of Music as a conducting pupil. After obtaining a BMus at University College Dublin he was seconded to the Army No. 2 Band in Cork and joined Radio Éireann in 1941 as Acting Director of Music, succeeding Vincent O’Brien. When, in 1942, this position became full-time, he resigned from the Army. From 1941 to 1948 he was the main conductor of the Radio Éireann Orchestra, but disagreements surrounding the orchestra’s expansion in 1948 caused his resignation. On 6 June 1945, he married Kathleen FitzGerald, daughter of Irish politician Martin FitzGerald. Bowles had suggested an enlargement of the orchestra to 65 players, with an eventual figure of 80 in mind, as early as 1946. The Irish government considered i

Michael Head (composer)

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Michael Head, FRAM (28 January 190024 August 1976) was an English composer, pianist, organist and singer who left some enduring works still popular today. He was noted for his association with the Royal Academy of Music. His compositional oeuvre mainly consists of songs, as well as choral works and few larger-scale pieces such as a piano concerto. Early life Michael Dewar Head was born in Eastbourne, East Sussex, on 28 January 1900. His father was a barrister and journalist and his mother an accomplished amateur singer and pianist. His mother’s influence evidently dominated, and at age 10 he commenced his musical training, taking lessons in piano with Jean Adair and in singing with Fritz Marston at the Adair-Marston School of Music. Head began to study at the Royal Academy of Music but was soon called up for service in the First World War. While working at an ammunition factory, he composed the song cycle Over the rim of the moon (Head et al., 1920). This was to become his first published work. After the war, Head resumed his studies at the academy. He studied composition with Frederick Corder, piano with T B Knott and organ with Reginald Steggall. He won a scholarship for composit

Michael Jary

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Michael Jary (Maximilian Michael Andreas Jarczyk; 24 September 1906 – 12 July 1988) was a German composer who was born in Laurahütte, Siemianowitz and died in Munich. Early years Jary’s father worked at the Königshütte (Chorzów today) iron works and his mother was a tailor. He planned to become a missionary and went to school at the monastery of the Steyl Missionaries near Neisse (Nysa today), where he discovered his love of music. At the age of 18 he moved to the conservatory at Beuthen (Bytom today). He conducted the church choir and started to write his first chamber music works that were transmitted on the radio Gliwice. The city theatre of Neisse and Plauen gave him a position as a second concert master. In 1929 Jary was accepted at the Staatliche Akademische Musikhochschule at Berlin, meanwhile he made money playing as a pianist at cafés or movies. In 1931 he received the Beethoven-prize of Berlin. During the Nazi years When Jary delivered his graduation concert on 8 February 1933, he was bullied by members of the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur. Paul Graener, the new director of the Stern’sches Konservatorium denigrated his concert as “the cultural bolshevistic musical stammer

Michael Krasznay-Krausz

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Michael Krasznay-Krausz (also known as Michael Krausz; Hungarian: Krasznai Krausz Mihály; 11 April 1897 – 3 November 1940) was a Hungarian–Austrian composer. He was born in Pancsova, Austria-Hungary (present-day Pančevo, Serbia), and died in Budapest. Life Krasznay-Krausz was born into a Jewish family; his father owned a gramophone factory. He began composing at the age of 13. He studied counterpoint and composition at the Budapest Academy of Music under Victor von Herzfeld, as one of his first students, and also studied with Zoltán Kodály. In 1919, his opera Mariká premiered at the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest. He subsequently moved to Vienna, where he initially focused on symphonic and operatic works before turning to operetta in 1923. His first operetta, Bajazzos Abenteuer (Bajazzo’s Adventures), premiered on 22 December 1923 at the Johann Strauss Theatre in Vienna. Another operetta, A Woman with Style, starring Fritzi Massary, was a major success in Berlin in 1927. In the early 1930s, Krasznay-Krausz moved to Berlin, where his works continued to be staged until he was forced to leave in 1933. In May 1934, he was accused of plagiarism by Paul Abraham in connection with his

Michael Mosoeu Moerane

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Michael Mosoeu Moerane (20 September 1904 – 27 January 1980) was a choral music composer and the first black South African to write a symphonic poem, in 1941. Early life Moerane was a member of the Bafokeng, specifically the Mahoona clan – traditional healers whose longer history can be traced back several centuries through the lineage of the Bakwena royal family. He was born on 20 September 1904 in Mongoloaneng, a village in the Mount Fletcher district of South Africa close to the border with Lesotho. He was one of seven children born to Eleazar Jakane Moerane and his wife Sofi Majara, whose grandparents were disciples of Moshoeshoe I and were among the first Basotho converts to Christianity. The two most celebrated are his younger brother, Manasseh Tebatso Moerane, the educationist, cultural activist and journalist who became an Editor of The World newspaper, and his younger sister, Epainette Mbeki, one of the first women to join the Communist Party of South Africa, a stalwart community activist and promoter of women’s development, and mother to a future President of South Africa, Dr. Thabo Mbeki. Education His father’s primary school provided Moerane’s first elementary schooling

Michael P. Grace II

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Michael Paul Grace ll (August 6, 1917 – April 1, 1995) was the producer of the Broadway shows King of Friday’s Men (1951) and John Murray Anderson’s Almanac (1953). Grace was the lyricist and composer of some of the music for the Almanac show and was the author/co-author of a variety of copyrighted music in the recording industry. In the 1950s, he was the assignor for a variety of patented technologies. He later became an oil and gas producer as well as becoming involved in mining industry applications of oil and gas technology by means of what is called solutions mining. He made philanthropic donations to create several professorships at Notre Dame University. Early life Michael P. Grace II was born on August 6, 1917. His father was Joseph P. Grace, the former chairman of W. R. Grace and Company. His siblings were Janet Maureen Grace, Charles M. Grace and J. Peter Grace, who was also the former chairman of W. R. Grace and Company. His grandfather was William Russell Grace, the first Roman Catholic mayor of New York City and the founder of W. R. Grace and Company. His great uncle was an industrialist and chairman of the board of the directors of W. R. Grace, Michael P. Grace. He at

Michael Tippett

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Sir Michael Kemp Tippett (2 January 1905 – 8 January 1998) was an English composer who rose to prominence during and immediately after the Second World War. In his lifetime he was sometimes ranked with his contemporary Benjamin Britten as one of the leading British composers of the 20th century. Among his best-known works are the oratorio A Child of Our Time, the orchestral Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli, and the opera The Midsummer Marriage. Tippett’s talent developed slowly. He withdrew or destroyed his earliest compositions, and was 30 before any of his works were published. Until the mid-to-late 1950s his music was broadly lyrical in character, before changing to a more astringent and experimental style. New influences—including those of jazz and blues after his first visit to America in 1965—became increasingly evident in his compositions. While Tippett’s stature with the public continued to grow, not all critics approved of these changes in style, some believing that the quality of his work suffered as a consequence. From around 1976 his late works began to reflect the works of his youth through a return to lyricism. Although he was much honoured in his lifetime,

Michał Kondracki

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Michał Kondracki (5 October 1902 – 27 February 1984) was a Polish composer. His work was part of the music event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics. Michał Kondracki was born on October 5, 1902 in Poltava, and died on 27 February 1984 in Glen Cove (near New York), Polish composer. In the years 1923-27 he studied at the conservatory in Warsaw with R. Statkowski and K. Szymanowski (composition) and H. Melcer (piano). In 1927-30 he studied at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris with P. Dukas, P. Vidal and N. Boulanger; he was also secretary of the Association of Young Polish Musicians in Paris. After returning to Warsaw he occupied himself with composing, music criticism and journalism, and charitable activities. Kondracki was co-organizer and vice president of the Polish Society for Contemporary Music, vice-president of the Association of Writers and Music Critics, a member of the artistic advisory board of the Warsaw Opera and board member of: the Society of Friends of Artistic Dance Society and the K. Szymanowski Society. He also collected folk music of the Hucul, Podhale and Żywiec regions. The outbreak of war in 1939 found him in the Mediterranean. In 1940 he ar

Michalis Souyioul

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Michail Sougioultzoglou ( ; 1 August 1906 – 16 October 1958), known professionally as Michalis Souyioul ( ) was a prominent Greek composer of light music in the early 20th century. Biography He was born in Aydın, in the Ottoman Empire on 1 August 1906. His family were wealthy skinners. They emigrated to Athens in 1920. He was a relative of well-known Greek photographer Nelly’s. He initially worked as a self-employed pianist and later went to Marseille to study music. From 1931, he toured Europe with an Argentinian orchestra. During the Interwar period and the 1950s, he was extremely prolific, writing over 700 songs in different styles (tango, waltz, serenades, folk, laiko, romances amongst others). He composed also music for the Greek theatre (45 productions) and for Greek movies (ten films). His compositions were among some of the most popular pieces of the time. He co-worked with some of the most well-known lyricists (such as Alekos Sakellarios) and singers (Sofia Vembo, Nikos Gounaris, Tony Maroudas, Kalouta sisters, Stella Greka) of the time. Souyioul had four children: daughters Maria, Iro and Aliki and son Thanos. Thanos (born 1942) was an actor (who worked alongside famous a

Michel Boulnois

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

Michel Boulnois (31 October 1907 – 30 November 2008) was a 20th-century French organist and composer. Biography Born in Paris in a family of musicians, his father, Joseph Boulnois, was also an organist and composer. Michel Boulnois was only eleven years old when his father, a sub-officer, died at the age of 34 from the 1918 flu pandemic. Michel followed the same artistic path, that of the Conservatoire de Paris where he was a student of Noël Gallon, Marcel Dupré, Henri Büsser, among others. He also followed courses of musical analysis by Nadia Boulanger. He graduated from the conservatory in 1937 with a first prize of organ. He became titular organist of the organ of the Église Saint-Philippe-du-Roule of Paris in 1937, a position he held for 53 years until 1990. He composed pieces for organ, orchestra and chamber music. He died on 30 November 2008 in Provins, aged 101. He was married with Suzanne Sohet, composer and music educator. Principal works Organ: *1944: Symphonie pour grand orgue *1952: 3 pièces pour la fête du Saint-Sacrement *1959–1963: Messe pour la fête de l’Annonciation *1974: Variations et fugue sur le Veni Creator *1976: Élégie pour violon et orgue. Sources * Diction

Michiko Toyama

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Michiko Francoise Toyama (September 1, 1913 – March 31, 2006) was a Japanese modernist composer. to study at the Columbia–Princeton Electronic Music Center (today known as the Computer Music Center). Biography Toyama was born in Osaka to Sutezo Toyama and Haru (Haruko) Toyama. Toyama’s mother, Haru, was one of the first graduates of the Tokyo Music School, and encouraged her daughter’s musical education. In 1937, Jacques Ibert recommended that Toyama submit her composition Voice of Yamato to the 15th Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM), where it won a prize. Beginning in 1948, she returned to Japan and taught as an assistant professor at the Osaka Academy of Music in both piano and counterpoint. In 1952, Toyama studied with Darius Milhaud, Olivier Messiaen, and Noel Gallon at the Paris Conservatory. In 1955, she received a scholarship to study at Tanglewood with Roger Sessions. She studied conducting at the Pierre Monteux School and Columbia University. At the Center, Toyama and Edgard Varese shared an enthusiasm for Japanese gagaku court music. In 1960, Toyama’s compositions were released on Folkways Records Album No. FW 8881. Toyama said, “composin

Mieczysław Weinberg

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Mieczysław Weinberg (December 8, 1919 – February 26, 1996) was a Polish, Soviet, and Russian composer and pianist. Born in Warsaw to parents who worked in the Yiddish theatre in Poland, his early years were surrounded by music. At the age of 12, he began formal music lessons. Later, he studied piano at the Warsaw Conservatory. In 1939, Weinberg fled Warsaw when Germany invaded Poland and started World War II. His family was later murdered at the Trawniki concentration camp. Weinberg found refuge in the Soviet Union. He established himself successfully in Moscow with support from Dmitri Shostakovich and the Committee on the Arts. Postwar changes in Soviet cultural policy led to increased persecution of minority groups, including Jews. Although Weinberg’s music was well regarded and regularly played, he was surveilled and harassed by the MVD. On February 6, 1953, Weinberg was arrested and jailed at Lubyanka Prison. Intercession on his behalf by Shostakovich and Stalin’s death led to Weinberg’s release on April 25. The 1960s were the peak of Weinberg’s professional success. Aside from his concert works, his music for film also became well known. His score for Fyodor Khitruk’s cartoon

Miguel Ablóniz

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Miguel Ablóniz, also known as Michelis Ablonitis (29 May 1917 – 19 July 2001) was a Greek-Italian guitarist and composer who composed and performed in diverse styles, including classical and Bossa Nova. Career Ablóniz began playing the guitar at the age of eight in self-study. He began his musical career as a teenager when he appeared on the radio and gave concerts in Cairo. Later he studied music theory, piano, violin and guitar at the Barcelona Conservatory. He was taught by Emilio Pujol, Juan Díaz del Moral, and Pujol’s wife Matilde Cuervas, from whom he learned to play flamenco. After he moved to Italy, he initially continued his career as a concertizing musician, but in 1953 he founded his own music school in Milan. He also taught the master class at the School of Music at Ithaca College in New York City for many years. He had great success as a teacher: his ideas on technique and performance aesthetics proved influential in the international guitar scene; he held renowned annual masterclasses in New York, and was the teacher of musicians such as Aldo Minella and Riccardo Zappa. As a composer, he collaborated mainly with the publishing houses Casa Ricordi and Bèrben. Among his

Miguel Bernal Jiménez

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Miguel Bernal Jiménez (16 February 1910 – 26 July 1956) was a Mexican composer, organist, teacher, and musicologist. He is widely regarded as the best representative of 20th century Mexican religious music, in addition to his important contributions to the Mexican nationalist music movement. He is considered by some to be the mainstay of the nacionalismo sacro (sacred nationalism) movement. Biography He was born in the city of Morelia, Michoacán. He began his musical career at the age of seven as a choirboy in the Orfeón Pío X, studying in the Colegio de Infantes de la Catedral. His talent was discovered by his teachers Felipe Aguilera Ruiz and Ignacio Mier y Arriaga, who succeeded in getting him recommended and admitted in 1928 to the Instituto Pontificio de Música Sagrada (Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music) of Rome by the Canónigo José María Villaseñor. In this institution he was instructed in organ, counterpoint, fugue, paleographic musicology, composition, orchestration, harmony and Gregorian chant, by his teachers Cesare Dobici, Raffaele Manari, Raffaele Casimiri, Paolo M. Ferretti, and Licinio Refice. He graduated two years later with the titles of Doctor in Gregorian chan

Miguel Sandoval (composer)

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Miguel Angel Sandoval Cabrera (3 November 1902 – 24 August 1953), was a Guatemalan-born American pianist, conductor and composer. He spoke Spanish, English, French, and Italian. His musical works contributed greatly to both countries, and he is viewed as a musical ambassador of Guatemala. Early life Miguel Sandoval was born in the town of Guazacapán, Guatemala (in the department of Santa Rosa) on November 3, 1902. Fray Angel Cabrera, who was a priest and his mother’s uncle, supervised Sandoval’s primary education. Sandoval’s musical resources were limited in the small town where he grew up. He had access to a home piano, which he began playing when he was age 10, the church harmonium, and two phonographs owned by wealthy members of the community. As a young boy, he was fascinated by the military bands and marimba orchestras who played on national holidays and feast days. In 1912, Sandoval and his mother moved to Guatemala City, where he attended the private Anglo-German high school. In 1917, an earthquake devastated Guatemala City, leaving buildings in rubble and thousands of Guatemalans homeless. All schools in Guatemala City were closed, so with the help of Fray Cabrera, Sandoval

Mihail Andricu

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Mihail Andricu (22 December 1894, Bucharest – 4 February 1974, Bucharest ) was a Romanian composer, violinist, and pianist. He studied with Alfonso Castaldi, Robert Klenck and Dumitru Kiriac. Andricu graduated from the National University of Music Bucharest (1903 to 1912), after which he studied with Gabriel Fauré (1913–1914) and Vincent d’Indy in Paris (1919–1922). From 1926 to 1948 he was a professor of chamber music and from 1948 to 1959 he was a professor of composition. Andricu was expelled from the composers’ union in 1959 and his mention was prohibited. Highly prolific, Andricu composed eleven symphonies, thirteen sinfoniettas, and three chamber symphonies. Specific pieces include a symphonic suite: Cinderella. Honors *Enescu Prize for composition (Op. 1) in 1923 *Enescu Prize for composition (Op. 2) in 1924 *Robert Cremer Prize in 1931 *Anhauch Prize in 1932 *Romanian Academy Award in 1949 References

Mikalay Shchahlou-Kulikovich

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(; 13 October 1896 – 31 March 1969) was a cultural and social activist, composer and musicologist, researcher of Belarusian church and secular music. Biography Kulikovich was born on October 13, 1896, in Moscow (according to other sources his date of birth is April 4 at the Smolensk Oblast). Born in the Orthodox Russian – Belarusian family, father’s family came from the Don Cossacks and the mother from Smolensk. Since childhood, brought up by his maternal aunt, who was Abbess of the Orthodox Monastery in Tula. He sang in the church choir, where he revealed his musical abilities. He graduated from the Moscow Synodal School of Church Music, where he was influenced by the famous reformer of Russian church music Alexander Kastalsky. Prior to 1925 he studied at the Moscow Conservatory as a singer took part in the European tour. In 1930 Kulikovich was engaged in collecting and studying Smolensk song folklore. For a time he lived in the Ukrainian SSR and from 1936 in Minsk. He worked as a music editor at the Belarusian Radio. Since 1937 he was the conductor of a symphony orchestra of the Belarusian Radio Committee. He was one of the organizers of the Opera and Ballet Theatre of Belarus. A

Mikhail Goldstein

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Mikhail Emmanuilovich Goldstein (, also transcribed as Michael Emmanuilowitsch Goldstein, ; pen name: Mykhailo Mykhailovsky; 18 September 19177 September 1989) was a German composer, violinist and violin teacher of Jewish origin, brother of prominent violinist Boris Goldstein. Biography Goldstein was born as Moisey (Moishe) Goldshteyn in Odessa on October 1, 1917, the son of personal distinguished citizen Mendel Abramovich-Geynikhovich Goldshteyn (born 1885 in Odessa) and Sura Iosifovna Goldshteyn (nee Kigel, born 1887 in Orhei), who registered their marriage on July 26, 1909 in Odessa. His paternal grandparents, married in Odessa on August 10, 1876, were Odessa dweller Abram-Geynikh Goldshteyn and Nemyriv dweller Pesya Yudkovna Siminshteyn. Michael Goldstein started studying the violin at age four at the School of Stolyarsky in Odessa with Pyotr Stolyarsky who was also the teacher of David Oistrach and Nathan Milstein. He was the author of the celebrated musical hoax “Ovsianiko-Kulikovsky’s Symphony No. 21” as well as several others, notably “Expromt” by Balakirev", “Albumblatt” (Листок из Альбома) by Glazunov"’ the “Viola Concerto in C Major by Ivan Khandoshkin”, etc. He concentr

Mikhail Zhukov (conductor)

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Mikhail Nikolayevich Zhukov (; 14 January 1901, Moscow – 8 November 1960, Moscow) was a Soviet and Russian conductor and composer. Zhukov graduated 1918 from the National Choral Academy in Moscow. In 1919-22 he was first concert master, then 1922-32 conductor at the Stanislavski Opera Studio. From 1932-35 conductor at the Leningrad Opera) and then again 1935-38 conductor at the Stanislavsky Opera Studio, and having obtained a diploma in the first all-Soviet conductor’s competition in Moscow in 1938, 1939-41 chief conductor there. From 1944-46 he was conductor of Moscow Theatre of Operetta. From 1946-1949 he was conductor of the Latvian Opera and Ballet in Riga with Leonid Vigners. Then from 1951 till his death conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre. Zhukov is particularly noted for his association with Sergei Prokofiev, having conducted the premiere (1940) and first recording (1960) of Semyon Kotko. Awards * Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1941) * Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1950) * Stalin Prize, 2nd class (1950) Compositions Operas: * Triumph (“Триумф” 1924) * The Gadfly (“Овод” 1928) based on The Gadfly by Ethel Voynich. * Thunderstorm (“Гроза” 1941) References

Miklós Radnai

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Miklós Radnai (1 January 1892 – 4 November 1935) was a Hungarian composer, critic and music writer. From 1925 to his death in 1935, he was a noted Intendant of the Hungarian Royal Opera House in Budapest. Biography At an early age he had lessons with the blind pianist Attila Horváth, and also studied the violin. While still in secondary school, he entered the Academy of Music in Budapest, where he studied under János Koessler and Viktor Herzfeld. He taught theory at another music school, and had an extended tour of European countries. In 1919 he became a teacher at the Academy of Music. In 1924, with some associated artists, he gave a performance of his own works, including his Violin Sonata, Poems for piano, and songs. In 1925 he became director of the Hungarian Royal Opera House, the youngest director since Gustav Mahler. He restored the institution’s artistic reputation that had deteriorated during and after World War I, and put its financial affairs on a sound footing. His first venture was to stage the Hungarian premiere of Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. These were followed by the Hungarian premieres, mostly shortly after their world premieres, of Stravinsky’s Oedipus

Miklós Rózsa

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Miklós Rózsa (; April 18, 1907 – July 27, 1995) was a Hungarian-American composer trained in Germany (1925–1931) and active in France (1931–1935), the United Kingdom (1935–1940), and the United States (1940–1995), with extensive sojourns in Italy from 1953 onward. Best known for his nearly one hundred film scores, he nevertheless maintained a steadfast allegiance to absolute concert music throughout what he called his “double life”. Rózsa achieved early success in Europe with his orchestral Theme, Variations, and Finale (Op. 13) of 1933, and became prominent in the film industry from such early scores as The Four Feathers (1939) and The Thief of Bagdad (1940). The latter project brought him to Hollywood when production was transferred from wartime Britain, and Rózsa remained in the United States, becoming an American citizen in 1946. During his Hollywood career, he received 17 Academy Award nominations including three Oscars for Spellbound (1945), A Double Life (1947), and Ben-Hur (1959), while his concert works were championed by such major artists as Jascha Heifetz, Gregor Piatigorsky, and János Starker. Early life Miklós Rózsa was born in Budapest and was introduced to classical

Mikola Ravienski

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Mikola Jakaŭlievič Ravienski (; ; 5 December 1886 – 9 March 1953) was a Belarusian composer, conductor and music critic who authored music for the famous hymn Mahutny Boža (Almighty God). Early life Ravienski was born on 5 December 1886 into the family of a gardener working at the Kaplancy estate in Igumensky Uyezd, Minsk Governorate of the Russian Empire (nowadays the village of Kaplancy in Byerazino District, Minsk Region, Belarus). From the age of five he sang in a local church choir and was later invited to a church choir in Minsk where he received his primary musical education. In 1903 he was posted as a choir conductor to a Minsk monastery and then to Navahrudak where he collected over 500 folk songs. Later life From 1919 Ravienski worked in Minsk as a choir conductor and a school teacher. At this time his first compositions appeared - songs based on poems by Maksim Bahdanovič, Kanstancyja Bujło, an introduction to the poem “Hapon” by Vincent Dunin-Marcinkievič, the song “Oh you, Neman River” based on poetry of Źmicier Žyłunovič. In 1922 a compilation of his music was published. All of Ravienski’s manuscripts and print-outs were destroyed in a fire caused by German bombing of

Mildred Adair

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Mildred Grace Adair (August 5, 1895 – April 30, 1943), later Mildred Grace Adair Stagg, was an American composer, pianist and teacher. Her compositions were mostly for piano solo, although she also wrote vocal and organ works. They were composed primarily as instructional material, while her church music was published for liturgical use. Life and career Mildred Grace Adair was born on August 5, 1895, in Clayton, Alabama, US. Her parents were John D. Adair (1869–1897) and Carrie Bennett Adair (1873–1926); Adair’s father died two years after her birth. Her childhood was spent in Dothan, Alabama, where she attended local high school and later Judson College, a private women’s school in Marion, Alabama. Adair was a composer, pianist and teacher. From 1910 to 1934, she gave music lessons in Dothan, and later worked as the organist for the city’s First Baptist Church. She also chaired Dothan’s Harmony Club. Around 1934, Adair married Loring G. Stagg (born 1882), a real estate agent from West Virginia; the couple had three children: a son and two daughters. In 1935, the family moved to Orange County, Florida for one year and lived in Miami form 1938 until her death. Adair died on April 30

Milenko Paunović

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Milenko Paunović (November 29, 1889 in Újszentiván – October 1, 1924 in Belgrade) was a Serbian composer and writer, the author of the first Serbian musical drama. Biography Paunović was educated in the Serbian Grammar School in Novi Sad (1900–1908) where he attended his first violin classes. As a final year violin student, he learned at the Conservatory in Prague in 1909. He studied composition with Max Reger at the Conservatory in Leipzig (1909–1911) and simultaneously attended Hugo Riemann’s lectures at the University in the same town. He was a choir leader in Ruma and Novi Sad (1913) and in the Academic Singing Society Obilić in Belgrade (1923), a teacher of music in the Male Teaching College in Jagodina (1914; 1918–1920) and a professor of the Musical School Stanković (1921–1922). As a soldier at the Thessalonica front line, he was an active participant in Serbian art in refuge. From 1921 he was a conductor in the Orchestra of the Royal Guard and an officer of the Ministry of the Military where he was successful in improving the material status of army musicians. Paunović received a Medal of St. Sava of the 4th Order, a Medal of the Romanian Crown of the 5th Degree and the Alb

Miloslav Kabeláč

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Miloslav Kabeláč (1 August 1908 – 17 September 1979) was a Czech composer and conductor. Kabeláč belongs to the foremost Czech symphonists, whose work is sometimes compared with Antonín Dvořák’s and Bohuslav Martinů’s. In the communist period, his work was on the periphery of official attention and was performed sporadically and in a limited choice of compositions. Life Kabeláč was born in Prague. In 1928–31 he studied at the Prague Conservatory as a pupil of Karel Boleslav Jirák, simultaneously (in 1930–31) he was a pupil of Alois Hába. In 1932–54 Kabeláč was employed by Prague Radio. From 1957 to 1968 he worked as a teacher at the Prague Conservatory. During his life Kabeláč was active in Umělecká beseda, in the Federation of Czechoslovak Composers and other organisations. In the 1960s he tried to revive contacts with Western modern music and composers, but after the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia he was silenced. His works were performed only abroad from then on. Works Miloslav Kabeláč belongs to the most distinguished Czech composers of the 20th century. He soon created a distinctive style for which the auspicious melody and harmony, the ingenious polyphony and the cons

Milton Adolphus

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Irving Milton Adolphus (January 27, 1913 – August 16, 1988) was an American pianist and composer. Biography Milton Adolphus (January 27, 1913 – August 16, 1988) was an American composer, pianist, and music administrator whose career spanned popular music, classical composition, and public service. His output includes more than 200 orchestral, chamber, and vocal works, among them 13 symphonies and 35 string quartets, including one unnumbered quartet. He was also active in music education, arts administration, and civil rights organizations. Adolphus was born in the Bronx, New York City, and received his early musical training there. He later attended Yale University, where he studied music before continuing advanced compositional studies in Philadelphia with Rosario Scalero, a teacher known for his emphasis on formal clarity and structural discipline and for his influence on a generation of American composers. During the early 1930s, Adolphus worked as a pianist and arranger in stage shows and dance bands, participating in the professional popular-music environment of the period. In 1930, while still in his teens, he composed the melody later known as “Dream a Little Dream of Me.” C

Milton Ager

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Milton Ager (October 6, 1893 – May 6, 1979) was an American composer, regarded as one of the top songwriters of the 1920s and 1930s. in Chicago, Illinois, the sixth of nine children. He taught himself to play the piano, and attended McKinley High School, but left after only three years and embarked on a career in music. He worked as a song plugger for music publishers Waterson, Berlin & Snyder in Chicago, and also accompanied touring singer Gene Greene and provided accompaniment to silent movies. He moved to New York City in 1914, as an arranger for the publishing firm, and began composing music in association with Pete Wendling. After some time in the US Army’s Morale Division in Fort Greenleaf, Georgia, he returned to work in 1918 and wrote his first hit song, “Everything is Peaches Down in Georgia” with lyricist Grant Clarke, for Al Jolson. He then started working with lyricist Jack Yellen, and they wrote together for the 1920 Broadway show What’s in a Name, featuring the song “A Young Man’s Fancy”. He continued to have success over the next few years with the songs “I’m Nobody’s Baby” (1921, written with Benny Davis and Lester Santly), and “Who Cares?” (1922, written with Yelle

Milton Babbitt

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

Milton Byron Babbitt (May 10, 1916 – January 29, 2011) was an American composer, music theorist, mathematician, and teacher. He was a Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur Fellowship recipient, recognized for his serial and electronic music. Babbitt’s compositional approach was deeply inspired by Arnold Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique. He built a compositional system based on permutations of the total chromatic. Biography Babbitt was born on May 10, 1916, in Philadelphia to Albert E. Babbitt and Sarah Potamkin, who were Jewish. He was raised in Jackson, Mississippi. Babbitt began studying the violin when he was four, but soon switched to clarinet and saxophone. Early in his life he was attracted to jazz and theater music, and “played in every pit orchestra that came to town”. Babbitt was making his own arrangements of popular songs by age 7, “wrote a lot of pop tunes for school productions”, and won a local songwriting contest when he was 13. A Jackson newspaper called Babbitt a “whiz kid” and noted “that he had perfect pitch and could add up his family’s grocery bills in his head. In his teens he became a great fan of jazz cornet player Bix Beiderbecke”. Babbitt’s father was a mathemati

Milton Samuels

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Isadore Milton Samuels (January 28, 1904 – January 29, 1990) was an American pianist, composer, and music publisher. Early life Samuels was born January 28, 1904, in Denver, Colorado, to Russian-Jewish Immigrants Elias Samuels and Rachel Samuels (nee Varchavsky). Elias was the first rabbi and cantor at Temple Beth Medrosh Hagadol in Denver. Samuels showed an early proclivity to music, and his father hoped he would also choose a career as a cantor. Samuels, however, was far more interested in popular music and jazz. Musical career Samuels got his first job at 13 playing piano in a local bordello and played there until he was 19 when he formed his own touring dance band. He entered the music publishing business in 1926 working as a pianist and song plugger. He continued to work as a music publisher, first in Chicago during the 1930s and early 1940s, and then in Hollywood from 1943 until the late 1960s. He worked the longest as the Hollywood manager for the publishing firm Bregman, Vocco, & Conn from 1949 until 1967. Samuels was a prolific songwriter throughout his entire life, writing popular songs in a variety of genres, production pieces, music for film, and ad jingles. He began wr

Milton Suskind

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Milton Suskind, also known by the pseudonym Edgar Fairchild, (June 1, 1898 – February 20, 1975) was an American pianist, composer, songwriter, music arranger, music editor, and conductor. He used his own name as a classical pianist and for his music compositions written in the tradition of Western classical music. He adopted the pseudonym Edgar Fairchild when performing, recording, and composing popular music such as jazz. He began this practice at the Ampico Company where he made piano rolls as a performer and arranger from 1917 through the 1920s in a variety of music genres. His work as a music editor at Ampico was equally diverse with his role as music editor extending from overseeing the Ampico rolls of classical pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninoff and those made by jazz musician Eubie Blake. Suskind wrote the score to the Broadway musical Florida Girl (1925), and was a contributing composer to the Broadway shows The New Yorkers (1927) and The Illustrators’ Show (1936). He also worked as the pianist in the pit orchestras of several Broadway shows; sometimes in piano duos which led to him forming music partnerships with first pianist Ralph Rainger in the 1920s and later Ada

Mimi Wagensonner

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Maria Wagensonner-Schipper (13 March 1897 – 21 August 1970), best known as Mimi Wagensonner, was an Austrian composer and poet. Wagensonner was born in Aussig an der Elbe in what is now the Czech Republic to Franz Schipper and Maria Stangl Schipper. She had one brother and one sister. The family moved to Vienna during her childhood. She married Josef Wagensonner in 1923. She had one son (Diether) and one stepson (Hermann). Wagensonner studied piano with A. Subak and Mannheimer; harmony with Richard Stohr; and composition with Karl Weigl at the New Vienna Conservatory. She also studied and taught at the Music Academy in Vienna (today known as the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna). Her other publications included: Music for voice or piano *Adagio *Andante *Before NIght *Singing Sheets for Music Education (1969) Poetry *Die Katz von Ravenna (The Cat of Ravenna) References

Minuetta Kessler

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Minuetta Shumiatcher Borek Kessler (September 5, 1914 – November 30, 2002) was a Russian-born Canadian and later American concert pianist, classical music composer, and educator. A child prodigy, she performed her first composition at a recital at the age of 5 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and went on to study at the Juilliard School in New York City. She composed hundreds of pieces, including music for piano, violin, voice, flute, clarinet and cello, as well as for chamber ensembles. She performed all over Canada and in Boston and New York, including performances at Carnegie Hall and The Town Hall, and with the Boston Civic Symphony and the Boston Pops. The New York Times called her “a rare phenomenon among the younger pianists of today – more musician than pianist”. the eldest child of Abraham Isaac Shumiatcher, a lawyer who attended the University of Alberta Faculty of Law and was appointed a Queen’s Counsel, and his wife, Luba Lubinsky, a graduate of the University of Warsaw who worked as a tutor for children in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Her parents had moved to Calgary before her birth, but her mother was visiting her native country when Minuetta was born. Her paternal grandfat

Mireille Hartuch

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Mireille Hartuch (30 September 1906 – 29 December 1996) was a French singer, composer, and actress. She was generally known by the stage name “Mireille,” it being a common practice of the time to use a single name for the stage. Biography Mireille was born in Paris to Jewish immigrant parents. Her father, Henri (Hendel) Hartuch came from Poland, and her mother, Mathilda Rubinstein, from Britain. Early on, Mireille was taught to play the piano and encouraged to pursue a theatrical and musical career by her mother, herself the child of a musical family. At the age of six she appeared in her first film in a walk-on role, for which she traveled to Britain. As a teenager she worked in theater and began composing music influenced by the great dance halls of Paris. In 1928 she began a collaboration with lyricist Jean Nohain (1900–1981) that led to considerable success for many years. Fluent in English, she spent two years in the United States, first in New York City where she performed on Broadway, then in Hollywood, where she appeared in films. In 1931, she appeared in L’aviateur with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Buster se marie with Buster Keaton. Meanwhile in France, contemporary stars M

Miriam Gideon

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Miriam Gideon (October 23, 1906 – June 18, 1996) was an American composer who wrote at least 130 pieces of music. Life Miriam Gideon was born in Greeley, Colorado, on October 23, 1906. She studied organ with her uncle Henry Gideon and piano with Felix Fox. She also studied with Martin Bernstein, Marion Bauer, Charles Haubiel, and Jacques Pillois. She studied harmony, counterpoint, and composition with Lazare Saminsky and at his suggestion also composition with Roger Sessions, after which she abandoned tonality and wrote in a freely atonal or extended post-tonal style. She attended Boston University and graduated with a degree in music in 1926. Gideon moved to New York City, where she taught at Brooklyn College, City University of New York (CUNY) from 1944 to 1954 and City College, CUNY from 1947 to 1955. She then taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America at the invitation of Hugo Weisgall in 1955, and at the Manhattan School of Music from 1967 to 1991. She was rehired by City College in 1971 as full professor and retired in 1976. Gideon composed a lot of vocal music, setting texts by Francis Thompson, Christian Morgenstern, Anne Bradstreet, Norman Rosten, Serafin, Joaquí

Miriam Hyde

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Miriam Beatrice Hyde (15 January 191311 January 2005) was an Australian composer, classical pianist, music educator, and poet. She composed over 150 works for piano, 50 songs, other instrumental and orchestral works and performed as a concert pianist with eminent conductors including Sir Malcolm Sargent, Constant Lambert, Georg Schnéevoigt, Sir Bernard Heinze and Geoffrey Simon. She also had books of poetry published, and wrote an autobiography. Life Hyde was born in Adelaide, a daughter of Clarence and Muriel Hyde (née Gmeiner) of Torrens Park. Music was an important part of her family life: her mother played and taught piano; her aunt, Clarice Gmeiner, played violin, viola and harp with the South Australian Symphony Orchestra; and her younger sister, Pauline, played violin and sang. Her early music lessons were provided by her mother, but in 1925 she won a scholarship to attend the Elder Conservatorium of Music in Adelaide. After graduating with her Bachelor of Music degree in 1931, she won an Elder Overseas Scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London, which she attended from 1932 to 1935. In 1935, she performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 under Malcolm Sargent, and

Mirrie Hill

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Mirrie Irma Hill (née Solomon) (1 December 18891 May 1986) was an Australian composer. Early life Mirrie Irma Jaffa Hill was born on 1 December 1889 in the Sydney suburb of Randwick. She was the youngest of three, born to Levien Jaffa Solomon and Kate Caroline. She had a good ear early on, detecting dissonance and running out of the room whenever her aunt would play Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words. She studied composition with Alfred Hill, who would later become her husband, at Shirley School, Edgecliff. With Alfred Hill as conductor, Godfrey Smith and the Sydney Amateur Orchestral Society performed Mirrie Hill’s first orchestral work, Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra, in 1914 at the Sydney Town Hall. She was unable to study in Germany because of World War I, so she instead went to the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music, where she was awarded a scholarship by the director, Henri Verbrugghen. Mirrie Hill described her own music as “not in the very modern idiom but entirely individual as to style and content.” Although she did create many longer pieces of music for orchestra and ensembles, Hill became known as a miniaturist because a great deal of her published works wer

Mischa Portnoff

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Mischa Portnoff (August 29, 1901 – May 15, 1979) was an American composer and teacher. Introduction American composer and teacher Mischa Portnoff’s distinctive gift as a musician was the breadth of his mastery. His classical compositions, ranging from works for solo piano to symphony orchestra, blended romantic passion with contemporary innovation. His lighter music was performed both on the Broadway stage and in Hollywood films. Mischa’s publications for piano students introduced innovative approaches to instruction and learning; they included material representative of different eras and cultures, as well as numerous arrangements of hit show tunes. His talent as a young pianist led to successful concert tours throughout Europe and North America. Mischa was born in Berlin in 1901. At the age of eight, he began learning to play the piano from his father, Leo Portnoff, a well-known violinist and composer. He later studied with Leo and others at Berlin’s Stern Conservatory, where Leo taught from 1906 to 1915. He completed his formal studies spending two years at the Swedish Royal Academy of Music, mastering piano technique, theory and composition. Professional life In 1918, Mischa, w

Mohamed El Qasabgi

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Mohamed el-Qasabgi (; pronounced in local Egyptian dialect as Mohamed el-Asabgi; 15 April 1892 in Cairo – 25 March 1966) was an Egyptian musician and composer, and is regarded as one of the leading Egyptian composers in the 20th century. Most of his credits went to Umm Kulthum, Asmahan, and Layla Murad who sang most of his great works and scores. Until today, most critics classify Mohamed El Qasabgi as the master of the oud due to his great abilities and skills which he had during his time. In most of his tunes, there is a real sensation of the pure Oriental spirit, mixed with European musical techniques and taste. This was mostly seen in songs like Ya Toyour, Raa’ El Habeeb, Ana Albi Daleeli. In the above-mentioned songs and many others, he was widely recognized by most musicians and critics at that time as the leader of development of Oriental music, and mixing it with newest musical techniques and influences brought in from Western classical traditions of his time. Important dates * 1892 Birth of El Qasabgi. * 1917 Actual journey begins. * 1920 Mohamed El Qasabgi composes songs for great singers of that time, including the legendary Mounira El Mahdeya. * 1920 through 1923 The le

Mohamed Iguerbouchène

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Mohamed Iguerbouchène; (; 13 November 1907 – 23 August 1966) was an Algerian composer. Early life Mohamed Iguerbouchène was the eldest of eleven children born to Saïd Ben Ali and Sik Fatma Bent Areski. He attended an English primary school in Algiers. It was there that he was spotted by Bernard Fraser Ross (born Bernard Fraser), a homosexual Scottish bachelor and wealthy heir who spent his winters in Algiers. Fraser Ross had previously served eight years in prison as a procurer for Lord Battersea and other aristocrats. Ross convinced Iguerbouchène’s parents to let him take the boy to England to pursue a career in music. Training Due to Fraser Ross’s reputation, Iguerbouchène was likely privately educated. He later lied about his early years: claims that he studied at a Norton College, the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music, or even one of the predecessors of the Royal Northern College of Music, and under Robert Fischhof and Alfred Grünfeld have proven to be false. However, he was certainly a musical prodigy. Early works included Kabylia Rapsodie n. 9 and Arabic rapsodie n. 7. Inheritance and marriage Following Fraser Ross’s death in 1929, Iguerbouchène inherited all

Mohammed Abdel Wahab

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Mohammed Abdel Wahab (), ; 13 March 1902 – 4 May 1991), was an Egyptian singer and actor best known for his romantic and Egyptian patriotic songs. He was known for his Egyptian nationalist and Arab nationalist and revolutionary songs like “O Egypt, Happiness Is Here”, “The Call of Duty”, “The Greatest Homeland”, “The Rising Generation”, “Egypt Called Us and We Have Answered”, “Tell Egypt”, “Patriotism Is My Obligation”, “Voice of the Masses”, “O Breeze of Freedom”, and “Arms from My Country”. He also composed the national anthem of Libya, which was adopted from 1951 to 1969, and again since 2011. in a neighborhood called Bab El-Sheriyah, where there is now a statue of him. He began his singing career at an early age and made his first public performances at age seven at local productions. He was 13 when he made his first recording. Mohamed Abdel Wahab was a very close friend to compatriot singer Abdel Halim Hafez. Film career In 1933, Abdel Wahab began composing his own style of Egyptian film musical after visiting Paris and familiarizing himself with French musical film. He introduced a lighthearted genre of musical film to Egyptian culture eventually composing eight musical comed

Mohammed Flayfel

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Mohammed Flayfel (1899–1986; ) was a Lebanese composer and musician. Born in 1899 in the Ashrafiyeh neighborhood of Beirut, some of his notable compositions include “Mawtini” (the national anthem of Iraq and former national anthem of Palestine until 1996) and Suriyah, Ya Dhat al-Majdi (the anthem of the short-lived Arab Kingdom of Syria). His “Humat ad-Diyar” was selected in a 1938 competition as the national anthem of Syria. He also worked on several other patriotic songs, occasionally in collaboration with his brother, Ahmad Salim Flayfel. Mohammed Flayfel is also credited for discovering the talents of a young Fairuz when she participated in a radio talent show and he advised her to enroll in the Lebanese Conservatory. He died in 1986. References

Montague Phillips

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Montague Fawcett Phillips (13 November 1885 – 4 January 1969) was a British composer of light classical music and songs, including the popular operetta The Rebel Maid of 1921. Career Born in Tottenham, London, Phillips began his musical career as a choirboy at Saint Botolph’s Church, Bishopsgate. He studied piano and organ and made his debut as an organist at the age of twelve. In 1901 he attended the Royal Academy of Music, studying with Frederick Corder and John Blackwood McEwen. His contemporaries at the academy included Arnold Bax, York Bowen and Benjamin Dale. In 1926 he became a professor at the Royal Academy, while working as a freelance composer and performing as a pianist, accompanist and conductor. His students there included Dennis Brain. Phillips was friendly with the composers Eric Coates and Haydn Wood. He lived in Esher for more than 50 years, residing at Clare Cottage, Clare Hill where he died in 1969 at the age of 84, outliving most of his contemporaries. His obituary in The Times described him as “essentially a composer in the salon tradition of the late nineteenth century, to which his musical idiom belonged”. His wife Clara Butterworth, with whom he had a son an

Mordecai Seter

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Mordecai Seter (; February 26, 1916 – August 8, 1994), was a Russian-born Israeli composer. Early life Seter was born Marc Starominsky in Novorossiysk, Russia, in 1916 and emigrated with his family to Mandate Palestine in 1926. Seter learned to play the piano from the age of seven in Russia, and continued with his lessons and studies in Tel Aviv. In 1932, he went to Paris, France, where he studied composition at the Ecole Normale de Musique with Paul Dukas and Nadia Boulanger. There, he pursued a musical language founded on his own unique synthesis of the latter, and other, European influences with more local ones. Style Upon his return to Palestine in 1937, Seter grew interested in developing a style inspired by Middle Eastern Jewish musical traditions. In Paris, he had been fascinated with cantus firmus-based techniques found in Western Medieval and Renaissance music, which derived from Catholic plainchant. Therefore, when, in 1938, he encountered the volumes of Abraham Zevi Idelsohn’s Thesaurus of Hebrew Oriental Melodies that contained traditional Sephardic and Mizrahi liturgical tunes, he consciously adopted them as a major influence, not only in and of themselves, but eventua

Mordechai Zeira

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Mordechai Zeira (; July 6, 1905 – August 1, 1968), born in Kiev as Dmitry Greben, was an Israeli composer. Mordechai Zaira (Greben) was one of the most important Israeli composers and songwriters. He wrote melodies for the best poets and songwriters, including Jacob Orland, Nathan Alterman, Aharon Ashman and Alexander Penn. His works are still played today, some in modern versions by young artists. At the time he was called “the troubadour of the Hebrew singer”. Biography Mordechai Zaira was born Dmitry Mark (Mitya) Greben in the city of Kiev in the Russian Empire (now the capital of Ukraine). He studied mechanics at the Polytechnic of Kyiv, but due to the difficulties of earning a living, he stopped his studies after two semesters and moved to sewing shoes. In 1924 he was arrested for being in the Zionist youth movement Hashomer Hatzair, but received a permit to leave the Soviet Union and immigrated to Israel at the age of 19. In Israel, he joined Kibbutz Afikim (then called “Kibbutz Hashomer Hatzair S.S.S.R.”), which was then located near Yavne’el. The members of the kibbutz staged a performance of a Hebrew opera called “Carmela”. The orchestra, which included a concertina and co

Morfydd Llwyn Owen

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Morfydd Llwyn Owen (1 October 1891 – 7 September 1918) was a Welsh composer, pianist and mezzo-soprano. A prolific composer, as well as a member of influential intellectual circles, she died shortly before her 27th birthday. Early life and education Owen was born in Treforest, Wales on 1 October 1891 to William Owen, an accountant, and his wife, Sara Jane (née Jones), who ran a drapery business. They were both amateur musicians. She was a musical child, showing great talent at an early age and received piano lessons early on. While in her teens she appeared as a soloist in a performance of the Grieg Piano Concerto. At 16 she began to study piano and composition with Dr David Evans in Cardiff and had her first published work, a hymn tune entitled “Morfydd”, produced in 1909. After attending Pontypridd County School and two years of study with Evans, Owen won a scholarship to study at University College, Cardiff and was formally admitted into the composition class. Many of her works were performed in student recitals at Cardiff, and she graduated in 1912. The same year, she was admitted to the Gorsedd of the Bards at the Wrexham National Eisteddfod under the name Morfydd Llwyn Owen,

Morishige Takei

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was a Japanese composer and court official during the reign of Emperor Showa. Biography He studied Italian at Tokyo College of Language. After studying in Italy and discovering the mandolin and guitar, he returned to Japan and in 1915 established what would become the Sinfonia Mandolini Orchestra, a mandolin orchestra. The orchestra would continue (with breaks) through 1949, when he died. He became a composer, with 114 compositions for mandolin and guitar. World War II affected music in Japan, through the National Mobilization Law of 1938. One of the effects of the law was to allow the government to assert control of music, banning western music and instruments, including the electric guitar, banjo and ukulele. In spite of this, Takei was able to maintain his mandolin-guitar orchestra until 1943. His orchestra, named the Orchestra Sinfonica Takei in 1923, was temporarily renamed Takei-Gakudan (shedding non-Japanese words in its name), December 1941. After the war, he rose higher in the imperial court. He continued the work of promoting the mandolin and guitar, giving a concert with his orchestra November 6, 1949. He fell ill at a rehearsal, however, on December 12 and died two days

Morris Davis (composer)

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Morris Cecil Davis (1 March 1904 – 13 November 1968) was a Canadian composer, arranger, and conductor. He was sometimes referred to as “Rusty Davis”. A largely self-taught composer and orchestrater, he wrote more than 200 jingles for Canadian radio and television. He also contributed incidental music to more than 100 radio and TV programs and composed more than 30 scores for feature films; including the scores to Whispering City (1947), La Forteresse (1947), Le Curé de village (1949), and Tambour battant (1952). He also composed a number of orchestral works, songs, and jazz pieces. His jazz concerto Blues and Finales in G (1942) is written in the style of Rhapsody in Blue, and his Serenade for Trumpet in Jazz (composed before 1948) was played often in concerts by Maynard Ferguson. Life and career Born in Ottawa, Davis began his musical education in Montreal where he studied the piano with such teachers as Nicholas Eichorn, Alfred La Liberté, and A.E.J. MacCreary. He studied law at McGill University (MU) where he earned of Bachelor of Arts in 1930. While a student there he notably wrote the MU’s annual Red and White Revue in 1926 and 1927. In 1927 he co-wrote the review The Little R

Morton Gould

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Morton Gould (December 10, 1913 – February 21, 1996) was an American composer, conductor, arranger, and pianist. Biography Morton Gould was born in Richmond Hill, New York, United States. radio program, Keep ‘Em Rolling, and Major Bowes’ Shower of Stars, as well as The Chrysler Hour on CBS, where he reached an audience of millions. In 1942, he composed music for the short film Ring of Steel, directed by Garson Kanin and produced by the Film Unit of the U.S. Office for Emergency Management. In 1943, he was hired by the William H. Weintraub advertising agency as its musical director, believed to be the first position of its kind in the advertising field. In 1936, Gould married Shirley Uzin, and lived in apartment with her and her sister on Austin Street in Forest Hills, Queens. The marriage ended in divorce in 1943, and Gould moved into an apartment on nearby 78th Avenue with his brother, Walter Gould, adjacent to Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. In the following year, Gould married Shirley Bank. This marriage, too, ended in divorce. Gould had four children with Shirley Bank. On February 16, 1945, their son Eric was born. Their first daughter, Abby, was born on February 3, 1950, Gould comp

Moses Milner

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Mikhail “Moshe” Arnoldovich Milner (Мильнер, Михаил “Моше” Арнольдович; 1886–1953) was a Russian Jewish pianist and composer. He is notable as composer, and conductor, of the first Yiddish opera in post-revolution Russia “Die Himlen brenen” (“The Heavens Burn”) in 1923. Biography Moses Milner was born in Rokitno Basilovsky, Kiev Governorate in 1886. He sang in the choir of the Brodsky Choral Synagogue in Kiev, then attended the Kiev Conservatory. He studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory from 1907 till 1915. While in St Petersburg Milner began to compose Yiddish songs for Susman Kiselgof (Зусман Кисельгоф)’s Society for Jewish Folk Music (Общество еврейской народной музыки). He also wrote incidental music for Jewish theaters. He provided music for the Habima Theater and State Jewish Theater, Moscow (GOSET) (Государственный еврейский театр (ГОСЕТ)), and the Leningrad choir Evokans (Евоканс). He died in Leningrad in 1953. References

Moshe Wilensky

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Moshe Wilensky (, also, “Vilensky”; 17 April 1910 – 2 January 1997) was a Polish-Israeli composer, lyricist, and pianist. He is considered a “pioneer of Israeli song” and one of Israel’s leading composers, and was a winner of the 1983 Israel Prize, the state’s highest honor. Life Wilensky, who was Jewish, was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1910, the son of Zelig and Henia (née Liebman). He studied music at the Warsaw Conservatory in Warsaw, specializing in conducting and composition, and immigrated to Palestine in 1932. Music career A pianist and composer, Wilensky wrote music for theaters and musical troupes of the Israel Defense Forces, including the Nahal choir in the 1950s. He worked with the Kol Yisrael orchestra. Among his songs are “Kalaniyot” (“Anemones”), “Hayu Zmanim” (“In Those Times)”, “Autumn,” “Ring Twice and Wait,” “Each Day I Lose,” “The Last Battle”, and “Mul Har Sinai” (“Opposite Mt. Sinai”). He wrote music for many of Natan Alterman’s poems. In 1983, Wilensky was awarded the Israel Prize, for Hebrew song (melody). In 1990, a special concert in honor of his 80th birthday was given by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2005, Vilenski was voted the 187th-greatest Isra

Muriel Herbert

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Muriel Emily Herbert (1897 – 1 May 1984) was a British composer of the early 20th century. Much of her work is for solo voice and piano, with art song settings of texts by English and Irish poets such as Thomas Hardy, Robert Herrick, Ben Jonson, James Joyce, and W. B. Yeats. Early life Herbert was born in 1897, in Sheffield, and grew up in Liverpool, England. She was the youngest child and only daughter. Herbert grew up singing and playing music in her home, as her mother was the church choir director. Her older brother, Percy, was also a musician and encouraged Herbert to study music, for which she had a natural ability. Herbert began writing down songs for voice and piano at a young age. Her father died in 1909, and the Herbert family struggled with poverty. Hugh Farrie, a journalist for the Liverpool Post, encouraged Herbert to become a concert pianist, but her interest was in composition. Marriage and Paris In 1925, after marrying a young French academic, Emile Delavenay, Herbert traveled to Paris for her honeymoon. Here she was introduced to James Joyce by Emile’s friend, the Irish poet Tom McGreevey. Herbert played and sang her versions of Joyce’s poems, “I hear an army charg

Muriel Pollock

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Muriel Pollock (January 21, 1895 – May 25, 1971) was an American songwriter, composer, pianist, and organist. She wrote and performed music for Broadway shows, radio programs, children’s plays, and piano rolls. Early life Mary Pollock was born in Kingsbridge, New York, the daughter of Joseph Pollock and Rose Graff. Both parents were immigrants from Russia. Her father ran a news stand. She studied at the New York Institute of Musical Art, a precursor of the Juilliard School. Career As a young woman, Pollock played the organ in silent movie theatres, and worked at her father’s news stand. She wrote a musical, Mme. Pom Pom, in 1914, with Marie Wardall. Another 1914 work, “Carnival”, was written for a fundraising event for the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children in Rockaway Park. Pollock’s Broadway credits included Jack and Jill (1923), for which she supplied “additional music”; Rio Rita (1927–1928) and Ups-a Daisy (1928), in which she appeared playing piano duets with Constance Mering; Pleasure Bound (1929), for which she wrote the music; and the musical revue Shoot the Works (1931), for which she wrote both music and lyrics. Pollock worked at Mel-o-Dee Music Company and Rhythmodik Music C

Murray Adaskin

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Murray Adaskin, (March 28, 1906 – May 6, 2002) was a Canadian violinist, teacher, and composer. Biography Born in Toronto to Latvian Jewish immigrant parents, Adaskin was introduced to the violin by his brother, Harry; he also studied in Paris with Marcel Chailley (1929), and in Toronto with Luigi von Kunits, William Primrose (1937), and Kathleen Parlow (1941-43). During the 1940s, he commenced compositional studies with John Weinzweig, Charles Jones and Darius Milhaud at the Music Academy of the West. Among his notable pupils were composers Boyd McDonald, Paul Pedersen, Rodney Sharman and Timothy Williams, and violinist Andrew Dawes. A founding member of the Canadian League of Composers, Adaskin composed more than half of his oeuvre of 130 compositions after retiring to Victoria in 1973. The Order of Canada was conferred on him in 1980. The Adaskin portrait in the Canadian Composers Portraits series was released in 2002. He died in Victoria on May 6, 2002. Compositional style Adaskin’s works encompass orchestra, band and chamber ensembles, solo and duo instruments, voice, and student and occasional pieces. He also wrote the chamber opera, Grant, Warden of the Plains (1967). His tr

Muslim Magomayev (composer)

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Abdulmuslim Muhammad oghlu Magomayev (; 18 September 1885 – 28 July 1937), commonly known as Muslim Magomayev (), was an Azerbaijani composer and conductor. He is the paternal grandfather and namesake of Azerbaijani opera singer Muslim Magomayev. Early life He was born Abdulmuslim Magomayev into a family of a blacksmith on the same day another prominent Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov was born. He studied at a primary school in Grozny before being admitted to the Gori Pedagogical Seminary (in present-day Georgia) in 1900. There, Magomayev developed a passion for music and conducting. That was also where he first met Uzeyir Hajibeyov, then his fellow student. However, Magomayev found the musical career financially unpromising and decided to focus on teaching. In 1905, he acquired his teaching certificate at the Tiflis Teachers’ College and was appointed a teacher to the village of Bekovichi (now Kizlyar, Republic of North Ossetia–Alania). In 1906, he was voluntarily reappointed to Lankaran (present-day Azerbaijan). In 1911, he received a license that allowed him to teach in high schools and moved to a Baku suburb, Sabunchu. While teaching at a school, he took up music and cond

Mykhailo Verykivsky

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Mykhailo Verykivsky ( 20 November 189614 June 1962) was a Ukrainian composer, conductor and teacher. He was an Honored Artist of Ukraine in 1944. Biography In early years Mykhailo Verykivsky grows in an atmosphere of love and respect for Ukrainian native folk songs, which influenced his musical work. After graduating from elementary school, Verykivsky entered the city school and was admitted to the bishop’s choir. He continued his musical education at the Kremenets Commercial School (1912–1914), where he conducted the choir and orchestra of folk instruments, played in the school symphony orchestra, studied cello, piano and made his first attempts at composition - he created piano preludes and romances. In 1914 Verykivsky began to study at Kyiv Conservatory as double bass player. From 1922 he works as a teacher at the Mykola Lysenko Institute of Music and Drama and, later, in Kyiv Conservatory (until 1960, with a break in 1941–1944; from 1946 he was its professor). 5 operas (including Taras Shevchenko-based operas The Sotnyk and The Servant Girl); an oratorio on Marusia Bohuslavka; five cantatas; a concerto for piano and orchestra (1950); a number of orchestral works; a large body o

Myrtle Elvyn

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Myrtle Elvyn (born circa 1887 – died February 1975), later Myrtle Elvyn-Bloch, was an American pianist and composer. Early life Myrtle Elvyn was born in Sherman, Texas and raised in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Edward Elvyn and Fannie M. Goldsmith Elvyn. Her parents were from Arkansas and Kentucky. Theatrical manager Sid Grauman was her first cousin; their mothers were sisters. She studied music with Carl Wolfsohn in Chicago, and in Europe with Leopold Godowsky. She also studied composition with Hugo Kaun. Career Elvyn made her debut as a pianist in Berlin in 1904, and played in Germany, Austria, Holland, Belgium, and Great Britain from 1905 to 1907. She was described as one of the three great American women pianists in 1908, along with Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler and Julie Rivé-King. “Myrtle Elvyn is wholly unexcelled in power, brilliance and endurance in the playing of strictly ‘show pieces’”, declared one music writer in 1914. Elvyn toured nationally in the United States from 1909 to 1914. She performed Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in A major with the New York Philharmonic on November 21, 1909. She lived in Chicago and concentrated her performing schedule especially in the A

Näcip Cihanov

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Näcip Ğayaz ulı Cihanov (15 January 19112 June 1988, Russification : Nazib Gayazovich Zhiganov) was a Soviet and Tatar composer, pedagogue and statesman. He was born in Uralsk; and died in Ufa. Cihanov wrote eight operas (notably Altınçäç and Cälil), three ballets, 15 symphonies, other symphonic works (Qırlay, Suite on Tatar Themes, Näfisä, Symphonic novellas, and Symphonic Songs among them), the cantata Republic of Mine (1960), camera-instrumental compositions, and romances and songs. Granted the titles of People’s Artist of the USSR (1957) and Hero of Socialist Labour (1981), Cihanov served as artistic leader of the Tatar Opera and Ballet from 1941 to 1943, chairman of Tatarstan’s Composers Union from 1939 to 1977, and rector of Kazan Conservatory from 1945 to 1988. He was made professor in 1953; Kazan Conservatory was renamed in his honor in 2000. Importantly, Cihanov was one of the founders of the State Symphony Orchestra of Tatarstan. In his capacity as statesman, he served as a deputy in the Supreme Soviet of RSFSR (1951–1959), the Tatar ASSR (1963–1967, 1977–1988), and indeed the Soviet Union (1966–1970). Operas *Qaçqın (1939) *İrek (1940) “Freedom” *Altınçäç (1941) “The gol

Nadia Boulanger

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Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher, conductor and composer. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the twentieth century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist. Born into a musical family (her father Ernest and sister Lili were acclaimed composers), Boulanger entered the Conservatoire de Paris at an early age but, believing that she lacked particular compositional talent, she forsook writing music and became a teacher. In that capacity, she influenced generations of young composers, especially those from the United States and other English-speaking countries. Among her students were many important composers, soloists, arrangers, and conductors, including Grażyna Bacewicz, Daniel Barenboim, İdil Biret, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, David Diamond, John Eliot Gardiner, Philip Glass, Roy Harris, Quincy Jones, Dinu Lipatti, Igor Markevitch, Astor Piazzolla, Julia Perry, George Walker, and over 250 others. She taught in the United States and the United Kingdom, working with music academies including the Juilliard School, the Yehudi Menuhin School, the Longy School, the Royal College of Music and

Naida McCullough

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Naida Portia McCullough (c. 1901 – September 19, 1989) was an American educator, pianist, and composer based in Los Angeles. Early life Naida McCullough was born in Colorado, the younger daughter of George A. McCullough and Georgia A. McCullough. She was raised in Denver, where she began as a performer and learned to play the church organ, and graduated from Los Angeles High School in the winter class of 1917. She and her elder sister, Yolande McCullough (1898–1964), taught music classes together as young women. Yolande married Leonard Stovall, a doctor in World War I who worked on tuberculosis prevention after the war. College activities McCullough was described in 1921 as “the first colored girl to graduate from the music department of the University of Southern California”. She was the first African American woman to receive a Pi Kappa Lambda Key (Music). McCullough was a founding member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority chapter at USC, and she helped to found the chapter at UCLA in 1925, and was a founding member of the west coast graduate chapter, in 1927. She was president of the Los Angeles graduate chapter in the 1940s, succeeded by Audrey Boswell Jones in 1945. She perform

Najla Jabor

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

Maia de Carvalho Najla Jabor (25 September 1915 – 9 March 2001) was a Brazilian conductor and composer. She composed concerti and symphonic works, but is best known for sacred songs. She was born and died in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Works Selected works include: *Suite de seis peças, no. 3. Um adeus (Text: Alda Pereira Pinto), no. 5. A um poeta (Text: Alda Pereira Pinto), no. ?. Louco devaneio (Text: Alda Pereira Pinto) *A palavra de Deus (Text: Stela Dubois) *A semente é a dor amor (Text: Roque Martins) *A um poeta (in Suite de seis peças) (Text: Alda Pereira Pinto) *A um poeta - Loucos devaneios *Alucinação (Text: José Alfredo Maia de Carvalho) *Assim falou o poeta *Ave Maria (Text: Bible or other Sacred Texts) *Balada n.1: Teus olhos (Text: Beni Carvalho) *Balada n.2 (Text: Ricardina Marques da Silva) *Barcarola, op. 92 (Text: Dylma Cunha de Oliveira) *Batuque n.1 (Text: Silvio Moreaux) *Batuque n.2 (Text: Raimundo de Brito) *Berceuse, op. 11 *Canção bárbara (Text: Olga Mayer) *Canção de amor (Text: Iveta Ribeiro) *Canção do trovador (Text: José Alfredo Maia de Carvalho) *Canção dos olhos *Canção simples (berceuse), op. 83 (Text: Nóbrega de Siqueira) *Copo de cristal (Text: Agrip

Nancy Plummer Faxon

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

Nancy Plummer Faxon (November 19, 1914 – February 1, 2005) was an American soprano, music educator, and composer of organ music. Early life and education Nancy Blanton Plummer was born in Jackson, Mississippi, the daughter of Walter George Plummer and Emily Blanton Plummer. She graduated from Millsaps College in 1936. As a young woman she was in theatrical productions with fellow Mississippian Eudora Welty. She went on to earn master’s degrees in voice and piano in 1938, at Chicago Musical College, where she was a student of Rudolph Ganz and Nelli Gardini. She studied composition with Max Wald. Career As a young soprano in Chicago, Nancy Plummer joined the Sorrentine Touring Opera Company in 1938 as a soloist. Nancy Plummer Faxon was a member of American Women Composers. She wrote over a hundred choral and orchestral compositions, mostly for performance at Trinity Church. The Brookline Library Music Association gave a concert of Faxon’s compositions in 1985. A CD titled The Music of Nancy Plummer Faxon (2001) was recorded by the Ralph Farris Chorale and the Madison Symphony, at the Old South Church in Boston. In 1986, she was the recipient of the Orah Ashley Lamke Award from Mu Phi

Nathaniel Cleophas Davis

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Nathaniel Cleophas “N.C.” Davis (1888-1972) was an African American musician, composer, educator, bandleader, and owner/publisher of N.C. Davis Music Company of Nashville, Tennessee. Early life Born in Tennessee on August 14, 1888, Nathaniel Davis was living and working as a trombonist in Nashville by 1908. With his brothers Otis B. Davis and Clarence M. Davis, he started N. C. Davis Music Publishing at 510 1/2 Cedar Street, Nashville. He taught music for a time at Fisk University and the Tennessee School for the Blind, and founded his own music teaching business about 1913, referred to a different times as the Traveling Conservatory of Music and the Davis Band and Orchestra School. Among his pupils at Fisk University was trumpeter Adolphus Anthony “Doc” Cheatham. When Davis registered for the draft shortly after the United States entered World War I, he described himself as self-employed and a “band organizer and school teacher.” From March 29, 1918 to March 7, 1919, Davis served with the U.S. Army’s 368th Regiment (92nd Infantry Division) as a musician. The Regiment, whose enlisted men and junior officers were African Americans but its senior officers all white, was stationed in

Necil Kazım Akses

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

Necil Kazım Akses (6 May 1908 – 16 February 1999) was a Turkish classical composer. Life Akses studied music and composition at the Musikakademie in Vienna with Joseph Marx and at the Prague Conservatory in Prague with Josef Suk and Alois Hába. He helped co-found the Ankara State Conservatory with the composer Paul Hindemith and served as director of the institution for a while. Together with Cemal Reşit Rey, Ulvi Cemal Erkin, Ahmet Adnan Saygun, and Hasan Ferit Alnar, Akses belonged to a group called The Turkish Five, who were the first Turkish composers to adapt their homeland’s musical tradition to the techniques of Western classical composition. (Their name alluded to the Russian Five.) In 1949, Akses entered the service of the Turkish state. He worked as the Turkish cultural attaché in Bern and Bonn, among other posts. Akses composed orchestral works, chamber music, and pieces for piano. His most famous work is his Violin Concerto (1969). Works Operas * Mete, opera in one act. Libretto: Yaşar Nabi Nayır (1933) * Bay önder, opera in one act. Libretto: Münir Hayri Egeli (1934). (First performance: 27 December 1934-Ankara-Conductor: Adnan Saygun) * Timur, opera in four acts. Libr

Nellie Weldon Cocroft

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

Ellen Weldon Cocroft (November 4, 1885 – June 27, 1986) was an American musical composer. Early life Ellen Estelle Weldon was born on November 4, 1885, in Quitman, Georgia, the daughter of Richard Weldon and Virginia (Massey) Weldon. She was the eldest of three daughters, including Jeanivieve (b. 1893) and Minnie (b. 1896). Nellie Cocroft was a church organist and choir director in Thomasville. Her husband ran a music store, and published her compositions to sell in the shop under the name “N. Weldon Cocroft”. Published works by Nellie Weldon Cocroft included “When the Birds are Singing in the Springtime” (1909), “Pinywoods Rag” (1909), and “I’se Gwine to Highball” (1910). After a lengthy divorce in 1923-1924, and upon losing custody of her son, Cocroft’s “Georgia Cracker”, performed by pianist Nora Hulse (d. 2020), was included in Hulse’s 2002 compilation Ragtime refreshments: 25 rags by women composers. Music by Nellie Weldon Cocroft is played at the “Jazz & Swing Club” at the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. References External links * * Nellie Weldon Cocroft at WorldCat.

Netty Simons

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Netty Simons (née Rothenberg) (26 October 1913-1 April 1994) was an American pianist, music editor, music educator and composer. Biography Netty Simons was born in New York City and studied music at Third Street Music School. She graduated from New York University where she studied with Marion Bauer and Percy Grainger from 1931 to 1937, and taught at the Third Street Music School from 1928 to 1933. In 1933 she began studies with Alexander Siloti at the Juilliard School of Music, and in 1938 with composer Stefan Wolpe. From 1961 to 1962 she was producer and coordinator of concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York City. She received a Recording Publication Award from the Ford Foundation in 1971. Her papers are archived at the New York Public Library Selected works *Songs for Wendy for voice and viola (c.1975) *Quartet *Quartet for Strings *Quintet *Night Sounds for piano *Windfall *Illuminations *Piano Work 1952 *2 Dot for 2 Pianos *Trialogue I: The Tombstone Told When She Died for alto, baritone and viola (1963); words by Dylan Thomas *Trialogue II: Myselves Grieve for alto, baritone and viola (1969); words by Dylan Thomas *Trialogue III: Now (Now, Say Nay) for mezzo-soprano, baritone a

Nicanor Abelardo

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Nicanor Santa Ana Abelardo (February 7, 1893 – March 21, 1934) was a Filipino composer known for his kundiman songs. Biography Early life Nicanor Abelardo was born in San Miguel de Mayumo, Bulacan to Valentin Abelardo and Placida Santa Ana, on February 7, 1893 His mother belonged to a family of artists in Guagua, the Henson. He was introduced to music when he was five years old when his father taught him solfeggio, the bandurria, and the guitar at 6. His quick mastery of the instruments made him a local prodigy. He could play his father’s arrangement of Rossini’s “William Tell Overture” on the guitar at age 6. He also learned the violin and other string instruments given to him by his father, and learned how to play quickly without much difficulty. In 1901, he wrote his first composition, “Ang Unang Buko”, and dedicated it to his grandmother. In 1902, Nicanor’s uncle, the painter Juan Abelardo, took him to Manila to attend several schools. During this time Nicanor became the favorite among the haranistas who admired his skill at such a young age. This was also the time when he learned how to play the piano. He saw a piano for the first time at a factory of one of his uncle’s client

Nicholas G. J. Ballanta

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Nicholas G.J. Ballanta (1893–1962) was a Sierra Leonean music scholar, composer, and educator who conducted field research on the music of West Africa in the early 20th century. His education in European music influenced his musical compositions. The years he spent collecting indigenous African music prompted him to compose musical plays or operas set in African villages; his work combines elements from both African and European music. Early life Nicholas George Julius Taylor was born to Krio parents on 14 March 1893 in Kissy, near the city of Freetown in Sierra Leone. His mother was a Christian woman named Sarian Ade Wray, and his early memories included singing in the choir at St. Patrick’s Anglican Church. His father, Gustavus Taylor, played the violin and organ. A ship’s engineer, Gustavus Taylor travelled between Sierra Leone and the Gambia. Nicholas remembered his father performing concerts in the Gambia. Gustavus died in a shipping accident when Nicholas was ten years old. In 1905, Nicholas was sent to the CMS Grammar School in Freetown. Completing the high school course in less than the normal three years, he went to work as a clerk in the Sierra Leone attorney general’s of

Nico Dostal

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Nico Dostal (full name: Nikolaus Josef Michael Dostal) (27 November 1895 – 27 October 1981) was an Austrian composer who later specialised in operetta and film music. Life Dostal was born in Korneuburg, Lower Austria, and was the nephew of composer Hermann Dostal. He initially studied law at the University of Vienna, but turned to studying music at the Academy for Church Music in Klosterneuburg, and made a name for himself when his Great Mass in D major premiered in Linz in 1913. After participating in World War I, Dostal worked as the theatre Kapellmeister in Innsbruck, St. Pölten, Vienna, Chernivtsi and Salzburg, before moving to Berlin in 1924, where he turned his hand to secular music. He worked in music publishing and as a freelance arranger for Oscar Straus, Franz Lehár and Robert Stolz, among others. Whilst working as a Kapellmeister and composer, Dostal wrote the music for the film The Emperor’s Waltz (1933) and enjoyed great success with his first operetta Clivia. This was followed by Die Vielgeliebte (1934) (The Much-Loved), Die ungarische Hochzeit (1939) (The Hungarian Wedding), and numerous pieces of film music. In 1946 Dostal moved to Vienna, then in 1954 to Salzburg,

Nicolae Bretan

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Nicolae Bretan (; 25 March 1887 – 1 December 1968) In 1916, he received a degree in law at the University of Cluj. In addition to composing, Bretan held various positions as baritone singer, actor, stage director, and director-general. He made his professional debut as a singer in 1913 in Bratislava, continuing to roles in Oradea and at the Hungarian Theatre of Cluj, where he served as first baritone from 1922 to 1940. Over his career he performed works by Verdi, Gounod, Bizet, Puccini, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Delibes, and Rossini. Bretan also worked as a translator of libretti, translating his own Luceafărul into Hungarian and Golem into Romanian and German. In 1915 Bretan married pianist Nora Osvát. Together they had two children: (baritone) and Judit (actor and educator). In 1944, Osvát’s family, who were Jewish, were transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp and murdered. Refusing to become a member of the Romanian Communist Party in 1948, he was not favoured by the Romanian communist regime, who treated the composer as a “non-person”. Biographer Hartmut Gagelmann attributes Bretan’s lack of wider recognition to censorship by the Communist Party of Romania, though this claim

Nicolas Nabokov

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

Nicolas Nabokov (Николай Дмитриевич Набоков; 17 April 1903 – 6 April 1978) was a Russian-born composer, writer, and cultural figure. He became a U.S. citizen in 1939. Life Nicolas Nabokov, a first cousin of Vladimir Nabokov, and of the baron Eduard von Falz-Fein, was born to a family of landed Russian gentry in the town of Lubcza near Minsk, and was educated by private tutors. In 1918, after his family fled the Bolshevik Revolution to the Crimea, he began his musical education with Vladimir Rebikov. After living briefly in Germany he settled in Paris in 1923, where he studied at the Sorbonne. Nabokov was married five times. His first wife was the Russian princess Nathalie Shakhovskaya (1903–1988). His last (1970–1978) was the French photographer Dominique Nabokov. He had three sons: French publisher Ivan Nabokov, Alexander Nabokov, and anthropologist Peter Nabokov. His close friends included the philosopher and fellow émigré Isaiah Berlin and composer Igor Stravinsky. Career After the years in Paris from 1923 to 1932, in 1933 he moved to the U.S. as a lecturer in music for the Barnes Foundation. He taught music at Wells College in New York from 1936 to 1941, then moved to St. John'

Nicolas Slonimsky

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Nicolas Slonimsky (April 27 1894 – December 25, 1995), born Nikolai Leonidovich Slonimskiy (), was a Russian-American musicologist, conductor, pianist, lexicographer, and composer. Best known for his writing and musical reference work, he wrote the Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns and the Lexicon of Musical Invective, and edited Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. Biography Early life in Russia and Europe Slonimsky was born Nikolai Leonidovich Slonimskiy in Saint Petersburg. He was of Jewish origin; his grandfather was Rabbi Chaim Zelig Slonimsky. His parents adopted the Orthodox faith after the birth of his older brother, and Nicolas was baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church. His maternal aunt, Isabelle Vengerova, later a founder of Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music, was his first piano teacher. He grew up in the intelligentsia. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, he moved south, first to Kiev , then to Constantinople, and ultimately to Paris, where many other Russian musicians and his sister Yulia Slonimskaya Sazonova had already fled. He worked as accompanist to the conductor Serge Koussevitzky, and he toured Europe in 1921–22 as accompanist to tenor

Niels Viggo Bentzon

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Niels Viggo Bentzon (24 August 1919 – 25 April 2000) was a Danish composer and pianist. Biography Bentzon was born and died in Copenhagen. He was the son of Viggo Bentzon (1861-1937), Rector of Copenhagen University, and Karen Hartmann (1882-1977), concert pianist. Through his mother, Bentzon was descended from the Danish composer Johann Hartmann and was the great-grandson of the Danish composer J.P.E. Hartmann. From 1938 to 1942, he studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen under Knud Jeppesen and Christian Christiansen. He then taught at The Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus (1945–50) and at The Royal Danish Academy (1950–88). As a pianist, he left many recordings of works by Beethoven, Scriabin, Busoni, Schoenberg, Petrassi and others, as well as himself. He is also well known for the three-note jingle D/Eb/Bb (pronounced D/S/B in Danish) on the acronym of DSB, the Danish Railroad Company “Danske Statsbaner”, his most performed piece as it is played on arrival of any train in Danish rail stations. Niels became well-known in Denmark as a composer, as he has over 650 works to his credit, often times experimenting with avant-garde techniques. Works Niels Viggo Bentz

Nikolai Peiko

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Nikolai Ivanovich Peiko (; 25 March 1916, Moscow – 1 July 1995, Moscow) was a Russian and Soviet composer and professor of composition. Early life Peiko began his music education at the Academic Music College from 1933 through 1937 where his teachers included Igor Sposobin (harmony) and Genrik Litinsky (composition). This was followed by three years of training at the Moscow Conservatory where his teachers included Nikolai Myaskovsky (composition), Nikolai Rakov (orchestration), and Viktor Zukkerman (analysis). He graduated in 1940. Career Peiko worked in a military hospital during World War II and taught at the Moscow Conservatory from 1942 to 1949. After working in the period 1941–1943 in Ufa at a military hospital, Peiko partly worked with and was influenced by Dmitri Shostakovich. From 1959 until retirement Peiko was professor of composition at the Gnessin State Musical College where his students included Sofia Gubaidulina, Alexander Arutiunian, and Inna Zhvanetskaya. Peiko taught his students twelve-tone technique. Peiko’s first successful work was From the Legends of Yakuta (1940). During World War II he composed several patriotic pieces, including Dramatic Overture (1941) an

Nikolai Rakov

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

Nikolai Petrovich Rakov (; 14 March 1908 – 3 November 1990) was a Soviet violinist, composer, conductor, and academic at the Moscow Conservatory where he had studied. He composed mostly instrumental works, for orchestra, chamber music and piano music, especially pedagogic works. In 1946, he received the Stalin Prize for his first violin concerto, which became known internationally. Life Born in Kaluga, Rakov first studied violin at the Rubinstein Music School in his hometown, and later composition at the Moscow Conservatory with Reinhold Glière and Sergei Vasilenko. External links * Catalog of works (in English) * Nikolai Petrovich Rakov musicalics.com * Midi samples of selected works (in Russian) * Broadcast from 1955 of Rakov’s Scherzino for violin and piano (British Library)

Nikos Gounaris

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Nikos Gounaris (; 1915 – 5 May 1965) was a Greek tenor who was enormously popular as a light music singer in the 1950s. Biography Gounaris was born in 1915 in Zagora. He began playing the mandolin at the age of four. He attended the Athens Conservatoire. Gounaris was a Greek elafró/light music singer and among the foremost Greek composers and musicians of the 1950s and 1960s. He was especially popular in the Greek community in America. A great deal of his entertainment was at two Greek resorts in the Catskills in upstate NY, the Sunset and the Monte Carlo. He mainly sang about the sad side of love and betrayed lovers. Hit songs included “Ena vradi pou ‘vrehe,” “Glikia mou matia agapimena,” and “Omorfi Athina”. He composed about 400 songs and played with the Trio Bel Canto during the 1960s. He died in 1965 in Athens of cancer. Famous songs *Αγάπη μου όμορφη - My beautiful love *Από τότε, την Άνοιξη - Since then, in Springtime *Αυτός ο άλλος - That other man *Γλυκά μου μάτια αγαπημένα - My sweet, beloved eyes *Είναι αργά πια τώρα να χωρίσουμε - It’s too late for us to split up *Εκεί ψηλά στον Άη-Λια - On top of St Elias’ hill *Ένα βράδυ που ‘βρεχε - On a rainy night *Θυμήσου - Rememb

Nikos Skalkottas

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

Nikos Skalkottas (; 21 March 1904 – 19 September 1949) was a Greek composer of 20th-century classical music. A member of the Second Viennese School, he drew his influences from both the classical repertoire and the Greek tradition. He also produced a sizeable amount of tonal music in the last phase of his musical creativity. Biography Skalkottas was born in Chalcis on the island of Euboea. He started violin lessons with his father and uncle Kostas Skalkottas at the age of five, three years after his family moved to Athens because Kostas had lost the post of town bandmaster in 1906 due to political and legal intrigues . He continued studying violin with at the Athens Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1920 with a diploma of high distinction. The following year a scholarship from the Averoff Foundation enabled him to study abroad. From 1921 to 1933 he lived in Berlin, where he first took violin lessons at the Prussian Academy of Arts with Willy Hess . Deciding in 1923 to give up his career as a violinist and become a composer, he studied composition with Robert Kahn, Paul Juon, Kurt Weill and Philipp Jarnach. Between 1927 and 1932 he was a member of Arnold Schoenberg’s Mastercl

Nina Makarova

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Nina Vladimirovna Makarova (; 12 August 1908, Yurino, Nizhny Novgorod Governorate – 15 January 1976, Moscow) was a Russian composer who had great interest in Russian and Mari folksongs. She studied under Nikolai Myaskovsky, like composer Aram Khachaturian, whom she married in 1933. Her nickname was “Gayane” (Гаянэ). She conducted her symphony in Moscow on 12 June 1947. She also co-composed several pieces with her husband, including the music to Margarita Aliger’s play “A Tale of Truth” (1947) and music to ’s play “Spring Stream” (1953). Nina and Aram’s son, Karen, became an art critic. Works *Two Melodies for oboe and piano *Piano Sonatina (1933) *Violin Sonata (1934) *Two Melodies for violin and piano *Symphony in D minor (1938) – revised in 1962. CD Russian Disc RDCD 11382: USSR SO, O. Koch (cond) *Six Etudes for piano (1938) *“Cantata for Molotov” for soloists, chorus and orchestra (1940) *Song Cycle after Pushkin *Song Cycle after Rustaveli *Children Song dedicated to Stalin *Music to the Play “A Tale of Truth” after M. Aliger – composed jointly with Aram Khachaturian. First Performance: 1947, Moscow, Central Theater of the Red Army. Producer: A. Okunchikov. Designer: N. Shifri

Nino Marcelli

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Nino Marcelli (about 1890 – August 4, 1967) was an Italian composer and conductor who revived the San Diego Symphony orchestra. Marcelli wrote compositions for musical theatre and oratorio including one for the Bohemian Club. After the war, Marcelli settled in San Francisco with a position as cellist in the San Francisco Symphony. Marcelli used four main themes for Philistine: the theme of Dagon, the God of the Philistines; the theme of Saph, the nobility of the race; the theme of Saph’s love for humanity and his belief in brotherhood; and the theme of the forest. In 1937, Marcelli published two instructional books, one for cellists and the other for bass players, and in 1939 he published an instructional book for orchestra and band. Marcelli spoke as a guest lecturer at University of Southern California, University of Idaho, Western State College of Colorado and the California Music Colony. In 1950, he joined with George A. Finder to create a multi-colored plastic ukulele that would aid instruction. At Marcelli’s death, aged 77, in August 1967, the San Diego Tribune memorialized him, saying: Works *1922 – The Rout of the Philistines, A Forest Play, a Grove Play *Song of Thanks, ch

Nino Rota

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Giovanni “Nino” Rota Rinaldi (; ; 3 December 1911 – 10 April 1979) was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor and academic who is best known for his film scores, notably for the films of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti. He also composed the music for two of Franco Zeffirelli’s Shakespeare screen adaptations, and for the first two installments of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather trilogy, earning the Academy Award for Best Original Score for The Godfather Part II (1974). During his long career, Rota was an extraordinarily prolific composer, especially of music for the cinema. He wrote more than 150 scores for Italian and international productions from the 1930s until his death in 1979 – an average of three scores each year over a 46-year period, and in his most productive period from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s he wrote as many as ten scores every year, and sometimes more, with a remarkable thirteen film scores to his credit in 1954. Alongside this great body of film work, he composed ten operas, five ballets and dozens of other orchestral, choral and chamber works, the best known being his string concerto. He also composed the music for many theatre productions by Vis

Ninón Lapeiretta de Brouwer

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

Ninón Lapeiretta Pichardo de Brouwer (January 4, 1907 – September 22, 1989), also called Ninón Lapeiretta de Brouwer, was a composer and pianist from the Dominican Republic. She is known for her works for various instruments including piano, wind ensemble, full orchestra and voice. She sometimes utilized national Dominican music as a starting point for her work. Early life She was born Ninón Lapeiretta Pichardo in Santo Domingo, daughter of Natalia Pichardo Gómez and Alesandro Lepeiretta, an immigrant from France. As a child she studied piano. Career Her earliest works were more traditional canciones, criollas, and dances. In 1940 she began to study under Enrique Casal Chapí, the director of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional (OSN) in the Dominican Republic. Lapeiretta de Brouwer continued to compose pieces, expanding to ballets and works for orchestras and ensembles. As director, Casal Chapí often championed native composers and performed their works with the symphony, and Lapeiretta de Brouwer earned exposure both in the Dominican Republic and abroad. The OSN under Casal Chapí premiered Lapeiretta de Brouwer’s work Dos Caprichos for wind ensemble in 1942, as well as her orchestral p

Noel Estrada

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Noel Epifanio Estrada Suárez (June 4, 1918 – December 1, 1979) Musical compositions Estrada became a government employee after being honorably discharged from the Army. He was a protocol official for the State Department. It was during the 1940s and 1950s that he wrote and interpreted his songs in Puerto Rico and in the U.S. Among the many songs which he wrote were the following: “El Romance del Cafetal” (Romance of the coffee field); “Verde Navidad” (Green Christmas); “El Amor del Jíbaro” (The poor farmers Love); “Pobre Amor” (Poor Love); “Pedacito de Borinquen” (A piece of Puerto Rico); “Amor del Alma” (Love of the Soul); “Lo Nuestro Termino” (Our love is Finished); “Llévame a Ver a Jesús” (Take Me to see Jesus"); etcetera. However, it was “En mi Viejo San Juan” (In my Old San Juan) that would bring Estrada international acclaim. “En Mi Viejo San Juan” Estrada composed “En mi Viejo San Juan” in the 1940s, in New York City. It is Estrada’s most popular composition, and is considered a second national anthem by many Puerto Ricans, especially those who live abroad. The City of San Juan honored Estrada as an adopted citizen and would later adopt the song as its official city anthem.

Norbert Glanzberg

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

Norbert Glanzberg (né Nathan Glanzberg; 12 October 1910 – 25 February 2001) was a Galician-born French composer. Mostly a composer of film music and songs, he was also notable for some famous songs of Édith Piaf. In his twenties he lived in Germany, where he began his career scoring films for directors including Billy Wilder and Max Ophüls. When the Nazi regime came to power there in 1933, he, as a Jew, fled to Paris, where he performed in nightclubs under bandleaders such as Django Reinhardt, which is where he first met Piaf. At different times from 1939 to 1945 he toured with Piaf, when he wrote many of her songs and accompanied her on piano when she sang. For many of those years they were lovers, and Piaf saved his life on more than one occasion by hiding him from both the French Vichy police, who were helping the Nazis round up Jews for deportation, and later from the Nazi occupiers themselves. After the war he continued writing film scores for French films along with composing classical music, which included works and songs from Berlin and romantic classics. At the end of his career he wrote a concerto for two pianos in 1985 which was inspired by the novels of Isaac Bashevis S

Norbert von Hannenheim

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

Norbert Wolfgang Stephan Hann von Hannenheim (15 May 1898, Nagyszeben – 29 September 1945 in the Landeskrankenhaus Obrawalde near Międzyrzecz) was an Austro-Hungarian-born German composer. He is seen as one of the most brilliant later pupils of Arnold Schoenberg. Life A member of the Saxon community in Transylvania, Hannenheim was born in the city of Nagyszeben (in German: Hermannstadt, present-day Sibiu). He visited the German High School in Hermannstadt and received private piano lessons. Hannenheim occupied himself with music since his childhood and occasionally wrote compositions as an autodidact. In 1916 he was scheduled to perform a movement of his piano sonata, but recruitment into the army prevented this. From his early times date some tonalic settings of poems, which he partly published himself. He studied in Graz, Austria, from 1922 to 1923, and subsequently with Paul Graener in Leipzig. Here he composed pieces of chamber music for different ensembles, pieces for orchestra, one concerto for violin with chamber orchestra, one concerto for violoncello with chamber orchestra, one symphony for big orchestra in one movement and a concerto for big orchestra. In 1925, in the com

Norman Cazden

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Norman Cazden (September 23, 1914, in New York City – August 18, 1980, in Bangor, Maine) was an American composer. The son of Russian immigrants, he studied first at the Juilliard School of Music and New York’s City College, and then in 1944 at Harvard University under Aaron Copland and Walter Piston. While still a student at the Juilliard School, he composed for dance companies and wrote his first symphony. He also performed as a concert pianist and was a piano teacher at Juilliard from 1934 to 1949. After 1941, he worked at Camp Woodland in the Catskill Mountains, where he succeeded Herbert Haufrecht as musical director from 1945 to 1960. Cazden also taught at the Peabody Conservatory, the University of Michigan, and since 1950 at the University of Illinois in Champaign Urbana. After being investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee, he lost this position in 1953 and received no academic position for the next 16 years. He gave private piano lessons during this time and worked on research on folk music. Beginning in 1969 he taught at the University of Maine. Cazden composed an operetta, music for the stage, two symphonies, two chamber music concerts, a brass suite,

Norman Dello Joio

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Norman Dello Joio (January 24, 1913 – July 24, 2008) was an American composer active for over half a century. Best known for his choral music, he won a Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1957. Life Dello Joio was born in New York City to Italian immigrants. He began his musical career as organist and choir director at the Star of the Sea Church on City Island in New York at age 14. His father, Casimiro Dello Joio, was an organist, pianist, part-time composer, and vocal coach and coached many opera stars from the Metropolitan Opera. He taught Norman piano starting at the age of four. In his teens, Norman began studying organ with his godfather, Pietro Yon, who was the organist at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. In 1939, he received a scholarship to the Juilliard School, where he studied composition with Bernard Wagenaar. While he was a student, he worked as organist at St. Anne’s Church, but he soon decided that he didn’t want to make his living as an organist. In 1941, he began studying with Paul Hindemith, who encouraged him to follow his own lyrical bent, rather than sacrificing it to atonal systems. He received numerous awards and much recognition. He was a prolific composer in a variety of ge

Norman Demuth

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Norman Demuth (15 July 1898 – 21 April 1968) was an English composer and musicologist, remembered largely for his biographies of French composers. Biography Early life Demuth was born in Croydon, Surrey, at 91 St James’ Road. On leaving Repton School in 1915, he volunteered as Rifleman No. 2780 with the 5th London Regiment (London Rifle Brigade) in the City of London on 17 September 1915, falsifying his age by adding one year on enlistment to seek active-service for which he was then under-age. In early March 1916 he was sent to France with a reinforcement draft to the Regiment’s 1st Battalion on the Western Front, and was wounded in the leg by shrapnel fragments from the accidental detonation of a Mills Bomb on 28 June 1916 in the frontline village of Hebuterne during the prelude of the Battle of the Somme. He was medically evacuated to England and subsequently discharged from the British Army as medically unfit for further war service in November 1916. In Forgotten Voices of the Great War, Demuth says: Almost the last feather I received was on a bus. I was sitting near the door when I became aware of two women on the other side talking at me, and I thought to myself, “Oh Lord, he

Norman Fulton

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Robert Norman Fulton (23January 19095 – August 1980) was an English-born composer, broadcaster and teacher of Scottish ancestry. Life and career Fulton was born in London but educated in Scotland at Glasgow High School. From 1929 until 1933 he studied harmony and composition with Norman Demuth at the Royal Academy of Music. He worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation from 1936 until 1960, composing much incidental music for radio features between 1937 and the early 1950s, including the music for Children’s Hour throughout the 1940s. In 1953 he was appointed Head of West Regional Music. From 1963 until February 1967 he was the presenter of Music to Remember on the BBC Home Service. In 1966 he returned to the Royal Academy as professor of harmony and composition. He married Olga Pett Ridge, daughter of the novelist William Pett Ridge, in 1936, and there were a son and a daughter. He lived at 55 Clarence Road, Bickley in Kent. Fulton died of lung cancer at Guy’s Hospital on 5 August 1980, aged 71. His daughter Jill Pett Fulton had a successful career as a ballerina and married the conductor Karl Anton Rickenbacher. Selected works Fulton composed three symphonies. No. 1, the Sinfon

Norman Peterkin

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George Norman Peterkin (Liverpool, 21 December 1886 – Guildford, 15 December 1982) was an English composer and music publisher. He is perhaps best known today for his brief song “I heard a piper piping”. Peterkin was born in Liverpool and was mostly self-taught in music. He started work with the local organ builder Rushworth & Dreaper in the late 1900s, moving to their Singapore office in 1911, and later to Hong Kong. While there he established himself as a pianist and also began to compose, much influenced by Cyril Scott. He returned to England in 1918. In 1924 he became second-in-command to Hubert Foss at the Oxford University Press Music Department (which had published some of his songs), taking over as head of department when Foss resigned in 1941. The strain of keeping things going almost alone throughout the war exhausted him, and he asked for early retirement at the end of 1947. He was succeeded at OUP by Alan Frank. As a composer, Peterkin wrote mostly songs and a few short piano pieces, such as the suites Dreamer’s Tales (1918), Betel-Jade-Ivory (1920) and Centaurs. A Rhapsody for violin (or oboe) and piano was published by OUP in 1926. Most of his works were composed duri

Norman Spencer (composer)

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Norman Spencer Matthews (March 3, 1891– February 15, 1940), was an American musician and songwriter. He is best known for having served as musical director/composer for Warner Brothers’ /Leon Schlesinger’s Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoon shorts from 1933 to 1936. Career Spencer was born in Minneapolis. By 1911 he was living in California and working as a pianist. Beginning in 1919 he was credited as a songwriter for many songs as well as writing scores for musical stage shows. Spencer served as composer and director of music for Leon Schlesinger Productions from 1933 to 1936, along with fellow composer Bernard Brown, creating film scores for animated short films in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series produced by Leon Schlesinger. His son Norman, Jr. reportedly handled the musical arrangements for both series. Filmography Clifford McCarty lists the following credits for Norman Spencer: *Buddy’s Day Out (1933) *I’ve Got to Sing a Torch Song (1933) *Beauty and the Beast (1934) *Buddy and Towser (1934) *Buddy of the Apes (1934) *Buddy the Detective (1934) *Buddy the Gob (1934) *Buddy the Woodsman (1934) *Buddy’s Bearcats (1934) *Buddy’s Beer Garden (1934) *Buddy’s Circ

Ödön Pártos

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Ödön Pártos alternate transcription in English: Oedoen Partos, , (Eden Partosh) (1 October 1907 in Budapest – 6 July 1977 in Tel Aviv) was a Hungarian-Israeli violist and composer. A recipient of the Israel Prize, he taught and served as director of the Rubin Academy of Music, now known as the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music in Tel Aviv. Biography Partos was born in Budapest (at that time, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) and studied at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, together with Antal Doráti and Mátyás Seiber, studied the violin with Jenő Hubay and composition with Zoltán Kodály. Upon completing his studies, he was accepted to the position of Principal Violinist in an orchestra in Lucerne, after which he played in other European orchestras, among them, in Berlin. In 1934, following Hitler’s ascendance to power, Partos returned to his birthplace, Budapest, where he was Principal Violinist in the city’s symphony orchestra. In 1936, Bronisław Huberman founded the Palestine Orchestra (now: Israel Philharmonic Orchestra), for which he recruited Jewish musicians cast out of Europe’s orchestras. Huberman sought to include Partos, though the latter’s take-up of the post was delayed

Olav Kielland

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Olav Løchen Kielland (16 August 1901 – 5 August 1985) was a Norwegian composer and conductor. Early life and education Olav Løchen Kielland was born in Trondheim, the son of Gabriel Kielland (1871–1960) and Margit Løchen (1875–1951). He took his final exams at the Trondheim Cathedral School in 1919. He studied to become an architect like his father at the Norwegian Institute of Technology from 1919 until 1921. He then moved to Leipzig where he studied conducting, composition, piano and bassoon at the Music Conservatory. In 1929 he attended Felix Weingartner’s masterclass for conductors in Basel, Switzerland. Career Kielland had his debut as a conductor and pianist in Trondheim in 1923. He was repetiteur with the Casino Theatre in Oslo, and conductor with the Stora Teatern in Gothenburg. In 1931, he became the conductor for the Filharmonisk Selskap, now the Oslo Philharmonic), and served as artistic director from 1933 until 1945. In 1939, Kielland was offered the position as chief conductor by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, but was hindered by the outbreak of World War II and could not travel and accept the position. During the war, Kielland was for a short period a member of

Olav Roots

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Olav Roots (26 February 1910 – 30 January 1974) was an Estonian conductor, pianist and composer. Roots was born in Uderna. He studied at the Music School of Tartu from 1923 to 1928, studying piano with Artur Lemba and composition under Heino Eller with musicians such as Eduard Tubin, Eduard Oja, Alfred Karindi and Karl Leichter. He then studied at the Estonian Music Academy in Tallinn, where he subsequently taught piano and music theory until 1935. In addition, he completed his piano studies with Alfred Cortot in Paris. In 1942 he studied with Clemens Krauss in Salzburg. In 1944, Roots moved to Sigtuna in Sweden. He taught there at the Estonian School and directed the Stockholm Joint Youth Choir. In November 1952 he became conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia in Bogotá, Colombia, His Symphony dedicated to the Colombia Symphony Orchestra was first performed under his direction 10 November 1967, and he was made an Honorary citizen of Colombia the same year. He died in Bogotá. References

Ole Windingstad

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Ole Windingstad (May 18, 1886 – June 3, 1959) was a Norwegian conductor, pianist and composer. He was the conductor of the Scandinavian Symphony Orchestra in Brooklyn, New York and the Hudson Valley Philharmonic. His most notable symphonic composition was The Tide. Biography Ole Windingstad was born in Sandefjord, Norway. At age 14, he studied at the Music Conservatory in Oslo, Norway and three years later in Leipzig Germany . There he studied piano, organ, composition and conducting. In 1905 he traveled to the United States. He settled in New York in 1906. Ole Windingstad married Anna Hansen. They had five children: Solveig, Alf, Edgar, Jane and Arthur. Solveig, Alf and Jane died of Spanish flu in 1918, and Edgar died in a traffic accident in 1959. In 1926 he was appointed Knight to the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav for his work with Norwegian music in America. Ole Windingstad’s most important musical work was a symphony called The Tides, which was composed in 1936 and first performed in Albany in 1938. The Tides was also played in New Orleans in 1941. During his tour as conductor in 1955, Ole Windingstad also performed the piece at the Aula University in Oslo Norway. He was c

Olga de Blanck

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Olga de Blanck y Martín (11 March 1916 – 28 July 1998) was a Cuban pianist, guitarist and composer. Education Born in Havana to composer Hubert de Blanck and his second wife Pilar Martín, in 1924 de Blanck entered the National Conservatory of Music, which her father had founded in 1885. There, she studied piano, solfeggio and music theory. After graduating, she continued harmony studies in Havana with noted Cuban composer, violinist and professor of music Amadeo Roldán (1900–1939), and with professor of music and conductor Pedro Sanjuán (1887–1976). She lived in New York City from 1935–1938 and studied fugue and counterpoint there with Brazilian composer Walter Burle Marx (1902–1990). She lived in Mexico from 1943–1944, studying with composer, violinist and music theorist Julián Carrillo (1875–1965) and composer Carlos Jiménez Mabarak (1916–1994). Career On her return to Cuba, she joined the staff of the National Conservatory of Music, where she collaborated on its technical direction, and worked with composer and professor of music Gisela Hernández (1912–1971) to develop a pedagogy for teaching elemental music. She also was instrumental in founding Ediciones de Blanck, a publishin

Olga Diener

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Olga Diener (1890–1963) was a Swiss composer, musician, and poet. Biography Diener was born in St. Gallen in 1890. She studied violin and composition in St. Gallen, before continuing her studies in London, Basel, and Paris. Diener’s poetry was first published in 1925 as part of a collection of contemporary lyric poetry by Swiss women. That same year, three of her pieces were premiered by Kornelia Bruggmann and . As of 2025, Diener is the subject of an archival research project comprising Philippe Diener, pianist Simone Keller, and producer and composer . The project aims to get Diener’s music published by a major music publisher. References

Oliver Wallace

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Oliver George Wallace (August 6, 1887 – September 15, 1963) was a British-American composer and conductor from London. He was especially known for his film music compositions, which were written for many animation, documentary, and feature films from Walt Disney Studios. Biography Wallace was born on August 6, 1887, in London. After completing his musical training, he emigrated to the Canada originally, and then shortly after to the United States in 1904, becoming a US citizen ten years later. He initially worked primarily on the West Coast in Seattle as a conductor of theater orchestras and as an organist accompanying silent films. At the same time, he also made a name as a songwriter, writing tunes such as the popular “”. With the advent of the talking film era, he worked increasingly for Hollywood film studios in the 1930s. In 1936 he joined Disney Studios and quickly became one of the most important composers in the studio for animated short films. He provided the music for 139 of these shorts. One of his best-known pieces is the song “Der Fuehrer’s Face” from the 1942 Donald Duck propaganda cartoon, though he was uncredited. This parody of a Horst Wessel song was, mainly throu

Olivier Alain

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Olivier Georges Alain (3 August 1918 – 28 February 1994) was a French organist, pianist, musicologist and composer. Life Alain was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, into a musical family. His father, Albert Alain (1880–1971) was an organist and composer, as was his elder brother Jehan Alain (1911–1940), and his younger sister, Marie-Claire (1926–2013), was herself a noted organist. He studied at the Paris Conservatory, where he received first prizes in composition (1951, class of Tony Aubin) and musical analysis (1950, class of Olivier Messiaen). In 1950, he became director of the conservatory in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where he worked until 1964. From 1960 to 1974, he served as director of the École César Franck in Paris, and in 1976 founded the Conservatoire National de Région in Paris, whose director he was until 1985, and where he taught classes in musical analysis and chamber music. His notable students include composers Alain Gagnon. Alain’s catalog of musical compositions contains almost 170 compositions of various genres, most of which are still unpublished. He also published a book on harmony (Paris, 1965) and a monograph on Johann Sebastian Bach (Paris, 1970). His

Olivier Messiaen

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Youth and studies#

Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen was born on 10 December 1908 at 20 Boulevard Sixte-Isnard in Avignon, France, into a literary family. He was the elder of two sons of Cécile Anne Marie Antoinette Sauvage, a poet, and , a scholar and teacher of English from a farm near Wervicq-Sud who also translated William Shakespeare’s plays into French. Messiaen’s mother published a sequence of poems, (The Budding Soul), the last chapter of (As the Earth Turns), which address her unborn son. Messiaen later said this sequence of poems influenced him deeply and cited it as prophetic of his future artistic career. His brother , four years his junior, became a poet. At the outbreak of World War I, Pierre enlisted and Cécile took their two boys to live with her brother in Grenoble. There Messiaen became fascinated with drama, reciting Shakespeare to his brother. Their homemade toy theatre had translucent backdrops made of cellophane wrappers. At this time he also adopted the Roman Catholic faith. Later, Messiaen felt most at home in the Alps of the Dauphiné, where he had a house built south of Grenoble. He composed most of his music there. Messiaen took piano lessons, having already taught himself to play. His interests included the recent music of French composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, and he asked for opera vocal scores for Christmas presents. He also saved to buy scores, including Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt, whose “beautiful Norwegian melodic lines with the taste of folk song … gave me a love of melody”. Around this time he began to compose. In 1918 his father returned from the war and the family moved to Nantes. Messiaen continued music lessons; one of his teachers, Jehan de Gibon, gave him a score of Debussy’s opera , which Messiaen called “a thunderbolt” and “probably the most decisive influence on me”. The next year, his father gained a teaching post at Sorbonne University in Paris. Olivier entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1919, aged 11. Messiaen made excellent academic progress at the Conservatoire. In 1924, aged 15, he was awarded second prize in harmony, having been taught in that subject by professor Jean Gallon. In 1925, he won first prize in piano accompaniment, and in 1926 he gained first prize in fugue. After studying with Maurice Emmanuel, he was awarded second prize for the history of music in 1928. Emmanuel’s example engendered an interest in ancient Greek rhythms and exotic modes. After showing improvisational skills on the piano, Messiaen studied organ with Marcel Dupré. He won first prize in organ playing and improvisation in 1929. Despite his grief, he resumed his studies, and in 1930 Messiaen won first prize in composition.

Omer Létourneau

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Joseph Hercule Omer Létourneau (13 March 1891 – 14 August 1983) was a Québécois pianist, organist, composer and orchestra conductor from Saint-Sauveur. Early life and education Though born in Québec proper, Létourneau studied organ and piano with of Joseph-Arthur Bernier in Saint-Sauveur, Quebec. Career Létourneau won the Prix d’Europe in 1913, and travelled to Paris, France to perform on piano and organ. At the beginning of World War I, he returned to Quebec and became organist of the St-Sauveur of Quebec Church, a position he held for many years. In 1917 he directed the production of L’Accordée de village in the Auditorium de Québec in Quebec City which included performances from singers such as baritone Joseph Fournier de Belleval. After the war he went once more to Paris to complete his studies, then returned to Quebec. He founded a magazine, La Musique, and opened a music store, La Procure musicale. During the 1930s he taught at l’Ecole de Music; one of his notable students was Edwin Bélanger. During this time he also led the Laurentian Quartet. In 1981 he was the subject of a television documentary, M. Omer Letourneau: La Vie musicale a Quebec depuis trois generations. Person

Osamu Shimizu

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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

Óscar Esplá

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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 Lorenzo Fernández

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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

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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 Rasbach

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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 van Hemel

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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 Lindberg (composer)

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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 Morawetz

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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 Sala

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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

Osvald Chlubna

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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

Osvaldo Fresedo

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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

Otakar Jeremiáš

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Otakar Jeremiáš (17 October 1892 – 5 March 1962) was a Czech composer, conductor and teacher. He was the son of composer Bohuslav Jeremiáš and the brother of composer Jaroslav Jeremiáš. Life Jeremiáš was born in Písek. An accomplished cellist and pianist, he studied at the Prague Conservatory of Music. He lived in České Budějovice, where he directed a local music school until February 1929, when he was appointed head conductor of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra. When he succeeded Charvat as conductor of the Radiojournal Orchestra in 1929, there were only 27 players, but he managed to increase its size to 45 by 1931 and by 1936 there were 70, achieved by much negotiation, good salaries for the players, as well as his own charisma. In 1945 Jeremiáš left the Radio Symphony Orchestra to become president of the Prague National Theatre Opera. From 1949 he was chairman of the Federation of Czechoslovak Composers (Svaz československých skadatelů). He died in Prague. Jeremiáš’s view of conducting was set out in an article in 1943 where he wrote “My ideal is a creative orchestra, whose members, in accord with the efforts of the conductor, creatively collaborate during their performance”.

Othmar Schoeck

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Othmar Schoeck (1 September 1886 – 8 March 1957) was a Swiss Romantic composer and conductor. He was known for his considerable output of art songs and song cycles but also wrote operas, notably the one-act Penthesilea, premiered in Dresden in 1927, and instrumental works, including two string quartets and concertos for violin (for Stefi Geyer), cello and horn. Biography Early life and career Schoeck was born in Brunnen, studied briefly at the Leipzig Conservatory with Max Reger in 1907/08, but otherwise spent his whole career in Zürich. His father, Alfred Schoeck was a landscape painter, and as a young man, Othmar seriously considered following in his father’s footsteps and attended classes at an art school in Zürich before dropping out to go to the Zürich Conservatory. During World War I Schoeck earned his living in Zurich initially as a chorus director and as a freelance accompanist and conductor. An annuity given him by the Winterthur industrialist Werner Reinhart from 1916 onwards, coupled with the income from his appointment as conductor of the St. Gall Symphony orchestra in 1917 (with special permission to remain resident in Zürich), allowed Schoeck to give up choral conduct

Othmar Steinbauer

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Othmar Steinbauer (6 November 1895 – 5 September 1962) was an Austrian composer and music theorist. He progressed developments in twelve-tone composition (). His own teachers included Joseph Marx, Anton Webern, Arnold Schoenberg and Josef Matthias Hauer. Life Othmar Steinbauer was born in Vienna. His father was a bank employee, originally from Styria. Steinbauer attended teacher training college on the northwest side of Vienna. On passing his exams here he volunteered for military service in 1915. propounded by Othmar Spann, of whose teachings Steinbauer was an enthusiastic adherent between 1925 and 1930. In February 1928 Steinbauer set up a chamber orchestra, the “Wiener Kammer Konzert Vereinigung” which performed successfully under his direction for the next three years in Germany and Austria. Hauer was able to instruct Steinbauer on the basis of his Divertimento for smnall orchestra Op.61 which he dedicated to him. and said to be particularly suitable for making music in the home. From 1952 Steinbauer taught the violin at the Vienna Music Academy (today the University for the Music and Presentational Arts). Between 1959 and his retirement in 1961 he also provided special courses

Otis René

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Otis Joseph René Jr. was an American songwriter and record label owner. As a songwriter, he is notable as the co-author of “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South”, which became a signature song for Louis Armstrong. Biography Otis René was born in New Orleans. Prior to devoting his full-time efforts to music, Otis René was a pharmacist in New Orleans. He moved to Los Angeles and married in 1930. He is best known as the co-author of the 1931 song “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South”, co-written with his brother Leon René, and Clarence Muse. Other songs co-written by Otis René include “Someone’s Rocking My Dreamboat”, included by Murray Head on his 1975 album Say It Ain’t So and “That’s My Home”, included by Tony Bennett on his 2002 album, A Wonderful World. During the 1940s, with his brother, Leon René, Otis René established and ran the independent rhythm and blues labels Exclusive Records and Excelsior Records. Otis was responsible for and publicly identified with Excelsior Records, In support of their record labels, Otis René and Leon René purchased their own record plant, but when the format changed from 78 rpm to 45rpm, they could not press the new speed. Otis René’s Excelsior label exi

Ottalie Mark

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Ottalie Mark (born Thilla Mark, October 3, 1896 - November 13, 1979) was an American musicologist, copyright consultant, composer, and music editor. Early life and education Ottalie Mark was born on October 3, 1896, the daughter of Hyman David and Rose (née Glass) Mark, who immigrated to the United States from Lithuania in the 1880s. The family lived at 76 Chrystie Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and her father worked in the garment industry. She was the eighth of nine children, four brothers and five sisters. She was brought up in an Orthodox Jewish household. Mark was educated at Washington Irving Art School (a branch of the Wadleigh High School for Girls), and NY Prep School. She got her undergraduate degree from NYU in Pre-Law. She studied music with conductor Sunia Samuels and violinist Michael Sciapiro. Career Mark’s first job after military service was as secretary to Martha Wilchinski, Head of Publicity at Roxy Rothafel’s Capitol Theatre, in the early 1920s. She was also a cueing assistant to Ernö Rapée, the Capitol Theatre’s Music Director. A “cueing assistant” is a person who works with an orchestra in a silent film theater, instructing the musicians on which

Ottmar Gerster

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Ottmar Gerster (29 June 1897 – 31 August 1969) was a German viola player, conductor and composer who in 1948 became rector of the Liszt Music Academy in Weimar. Life Ottmar Gerster was born some 50 km (30 miles) north of Frankfurt during the closing years of the nineteenth century. His father was a neurologist and his mother was a pianist. He attended an Academic secondary school (“Gymnasium”) and entered, in 1913, the Dr Hoch Music Conservatory where his teachers included Bernhard Sekles (improvisation) and Adolf Rebner (violin). It was at the Hoch Conservatory that Gerster also got to know Paul Hindemith who was a near contemporary. setting a text by Baldur von Schirach. In 1936 there was a popular song entitled “The stranger bride” and a choral song “German airmen”. Gerster’s Opera “The Witches of Passau” had its first performance in Düsseldorf in 1941. Further productions quickly followed in Bremen, Magdeburg, Essen und Liegnitz, and in the same year the city of Düsseldorf awarded him its version of the Robert Schumann Prize for the work. In 1943 the National Office for Music Production (die Reichsstelle für Musikbearbeitung) gave him a 50,000 Mark contract to compose his opera

Otto Abel

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Otto Abel (October 24, 1905 – September 21, 1977) was a German organist, cantor, composer, editor, and Protestant . Life Born in Berlin, from 1930 to 1970, Abel was Kantor and organist at the Immanuelkirche in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg. From 1959, he also served as the Regional Church Music Director for the Eastern Region of the Evangelical Church in Berlin, Brandenburg, and Silesian Upper Lusatia. From 1956 onwards, he was the Church Music Editor at the Evangelische Verlagsanstalt in East Berlin. Abel composed several church pieces for the organ. He died on a journey in Tettnang, Baden-Württemberg. Compositions * Angels We Have Heard on High (translation from French) (EG 54, 418) * Von guten Mächten treu und still umgeben (Melody and movement 1959, texte by Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1944) (EG 65, Gesangbuch der Evangelisch-reformierten Kirchen der deutschsprachigen Schweiz 353, Katholisches Gesangbuch der deutschsprachigen Schweiz 554) * O Heiland, reiß die Himmel auf; Little Advent cantata for soprano, three-part mixed choir with flute, oboe, and organ with cello ad libitum; published by Evangelische Verlagsanstalt in Berlin; 1956 * Sei Lob und Ehr dem höchsten Gut; Cantata for mixed choi

Otto Albert Tichý

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Otto Albert Tichý (14 August 1890 – 21 October 1973) was a Czech composer, teacher and organist. Early life and education Otto Albert Tichý was born in Martínkov, Moravia, in a Catholic family of a provincial teacher. He studied different instruments and played the organ from an early age. He began composing as a boy. He became a devoted student of Vítězslav Novák at the Prague Conservatory. However, he interrupted his study to work nine years at the most spiritual publisher of this time, Josef Florian, solely for room and board. In 1919 he resumed his study as a pupil of French composer and teacher Vincent d’Indy at the Schola Cantorum. Tichý initially studied organ, Gregorian chant and composition, then contrapuntalism and concord. At Schola Cantorum he got the opportunity to experience music from the 16th to the 18th centuries in vocal polyphony. Career After he successfully finished his study, he lived as a private music teacher and organist. He spent six years in France and after his marriage moved to Lausanne with his family, where he worked as organist in cathedral Notre Dame and as professor of music at Dominican gymnasium. In 1936 he returned to Czechoslovakia. After ten y

Otto Ebel von Sosen

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Otto Ebel von Sosen (26 March 1899 – 6 February 1974 ) was a German musician, conductor and composer. Life Born in Rendsburg, Sosen studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich. From 1920, he worked as Kapellmeister at several small German Opera houses before he was called to Hanover on 1 April 1926 to work at the , which since its commissioning on 20 November 1924 was accommodated in the attic of the administrative building of Hanomag. On 16 December of the same year, and from there he was already active as conductor and as the first director of the institution. As such, Sosen began to build up a Radio orchestra with initially only three, in 1927 already with 17 musicians. In the following year 1928, he founded and directed, at first under the name “Niedersächsisches Landesorchester”, the later Niedersächsisches Symphonie-Orchester. Still at the time of the Weimar Republic, he had the orchestra from 1931 to broadcast over the radio on Mondays for more than a decade, initially from the Leineschloss. Holzminden: Weserlandverlag, 1953 * Femmes compositeurs de musique. Dictionnaire biographique. Paris, Rosier 1910 (?) See also * Gottbegnadeten list. Further reading *

Otto Frickhoeffer

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Otto Frickhoeffer (29 March 1892 – 9 April 1968) was a German composer and conductor. Life Born in Bad Schwalbach as the son of a medical officer, Frickhoeffer wanted to become a musician. Since the father insisted on studying medicine, Frickhoeffer enrolled at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. In the summer semester of 1911 he became active in the Corps Brunsviga Munich. As he changed to the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg. Only when he had passed the there did his parents agree to a career as a pianist. The First World War interrupted the hopeful beginning. Not fully fit for service at the Western Front, he was used during his medical training to take care of wounded transports. When the war ended, his hands were no longer suitable for playing the piano. One way out was to study musical composition and conducting. From 1918 Frickhoeffer lived in Berlin as a singing teacher and composer. Ernst Klee quotes from the Nazi reference work Das Deutsche Führerlexikon as having been involved in Frickhoeffer’s political activities with the Alldeutscher Verband and the Citizens’ Defense after the First World War and was later a member of the Nazi Party. In addition, he was h

Otto Joachim (composer)

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Otto Joachim (October 13, 1910 – July 30, 2010) was a German-born Canadian violist and composer of electronic music. Early life and education Joachim was born in Düsseldorf, Joachim to Jewish parents. His father was an opera singer. He trained as a violinist at Düsseldorf and at the Rheinische Musikschule in Cologne. Career In 1934 Joachim left Nazi Germany (as did many Jewish composers of his time). He played in Singapore and Shanghai during the war years, opened a radio shop, and experimented with electronic instruments and accessories. He also performed occasionally in the Shanghai Municipal Symphony Orchestra and organized an orchestra to perform Jewish and other Western music. Joachim left Shanghai at the time of the Communist takeover of China, and settled permanently in Montreal in 1949. For the next 15 years Joachim worked as a player, teacher, instrument builder and composer. He played in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, and beginning in 1956 taught violin and viola at both the McGill Conservatory and at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal. In the 1950s Joachim experimented with twelve-tone music, and in 1956 composed String Quartet, an instrumental piece whi

Otto Luening

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Otto Clarence Luening (June 15, 1900 – September 2, 1996) was a German-American composer and conductor, and flutist. He was an early pioneer of tape music and electronic music. Biography Luening was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to German parents, Eugene Luening, a conductor and composer, and Emma (nee Jacobs), an amateur singer. When he was 12, his family moved to Munich, where he studied music at the State Academy of Music. At age 17, he moved to Switzerland and attended the Municipal Conservatory of Music in Zürich and University of Zurich, where he studied with Ferruccio Busoni and Philipp Jarnach, and was also an actor and stage manager for James Joyce’s English Players Company. He returned to the United States in 1924, and appeared mainly as a conductor of operas, in Chicago and the Eastman School of Music. His conducting premieres included Virgil Thomson’s The Mother of Us All, Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Medium, and his own Evangeline. Luening’s tape music, including A Poem in Cycles & Bells, Gargoyles for Violin & Synthesized Sound, and Sounds of New Music demonstrated the early potential of synthesizers and special editing techniques for electronic music. An October 28, 1952

Otto Mortensen

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Otto Hübertz Mortensen (18 August 1907 – 30 August 1986) was a Danish composer and conductor. He also played the organ and piano. For a number of years he worked at the Royal Danish Theatre as a rehearser for the opera, and later worked at Aarhus University. As a composer, Mortensen composed both vocal works and instrumental music. He is most famous for arranging countless choral works and for writing the melodies for a number of Danish songs, e.g. Septembers himmel, Min skat, Sommervise (Du danske sommer jeg elsker dig…), and the Norwegian Kringsatt av fiender (lyrics by Nordahl Grieg). In the years leading up to his death, he worked on new melodies to a number of psalms, e.g. At sige verden ret farvel. The melody for the poem by Helge Rode, Du gav os de blomster, som lyste imod os, was selected by the Danish Ministry of Culture in 2006 as one of 12 songs to be a part of the Canon of Culture (Danish: Kulturministeriets Kulturkanon) in the category musical scores. List of compositions The following works do not make a complete listing. * Quintette pour Flûte, Hautbois, Clarinette, Cor et Basson (1944) * Sonata for oboe and piano * Four Songs (1945) * Songs (7 songs, undated), for v

Otto Wartisch

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Otto Alexander Hermann Wartisch (18 November 1893 – 29 April 1969) was a German composer, conductor, and cultural figure in Nazi Germany. Life Born in Magdeburg, Wartisch received his doctorate from Erlangen with a dissertation titled Studien zur Harmonik des musikalischen Impressionismus in 1928, which was published in 1930. Also in 1930, he became a member of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (membership number 400.618). After the Nazi seizure of power, he succeeded Carl Corbach as SA-Standartenführer from 1934 to 1939, and acted as Kapellmeister of the Hofkapelle and the conductors of the Loh-Orchester Sondershausen. During the Second World War, he became the SA-Oberführer Intendant of the Katowice opera house. Wartisch organised, in cooperation with the Auschwitz concentration camp, “troop support events” for the concentration camp personnel there, such as performances of the farces Gitta hat einen Vogel on 5 April 1943 and Gestörte Hochzeitsnacht on 2 October 1943. Wartisch died in Wolfratshausen at age 75. Work * Kaukasische Komödie One-act opera, premiered 8 March 1933 in Nuremberg * Jahrmarktsballade ‘heitere Funkoper’, first broadcast on 17 February 1950 b

Paiboon Butkhan

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Paiboon Butkhan (; 4 September 1918 - 29 August 1972) was a Thai composer, playwright, and screenwriter with many famous works. He would eventually be dubbed, “The number one genius composer in Thailand” and be honored as Burapasilpin in the performing arts category in 2015. Biography Kru Paiboon Butkhan, whose former name was Paiboon Praneet, was born at Ban Thong Khung, Chiang Rak Yai Subdistrict, Sam Khok District, Pathum Thani Province. He was the son of Mr. But and Mrs. Prom Praneet. His was from a poor farming family and had three siblings. When he was 6 years old, his father died, so he was raised by Mr. Jane Butkhan, who was his uncle and brought him came to Pathum Wan district, Phra Nakhon Province and changed his surname from Praneet to Butkhan. After graduating, Kru Paiboon Butkhan worked as a Thai language teacher at Kuang Siew School, then resigned to work as an electrician at Samsen Power Plant, then resigned again to work with the drama troupe, the Mae Kaew troupe and the Chantha-ropas troupe, acted as the writing radio plays and composing songs. Kru Paiboon Butkhan’s song started had recording the platter around 1947 by the induction of Sawasdee-phab Bunnag, who was

Pál Kadosa

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Pál Kadosa (; 6 September 1903, Léva, Austria-Hungary (now Levice, Slovakia) – 30 March 1983, Budapest) was a pianist and Hungarian composer of the post-Bartók generation. His early style was influenced by Hungarian folklore while his later works were more toward Hindemith and expressively forceful idioms. He was born in Levice. He studied at the national Hungarian Royal Academy of Music under and Zoltán Kodály. He was appointed to the faculty of the Fodor School in 1927 where he taught until 1943 when he was forced out due to wartime political issues. In 1945 he joined the faculty of the Franz Liszt Academy where he taught, eventually becoming head of the piano department, until his death in 1983. His students included such leading musicians as György Ligeti, György Kurtág, Iván Erőd, Ferenc Rados, Arpad Joó, András Schiff, Zoltán Kocsis, Dezső Ránki, Valéria Szervánszky, Ronald Cavaye, Jenő Jandó, Kenji Watanabe, István Kassai, and Balázs Szokolay, among others. Kadosa served on the Hungarian Arts Council and become an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music. Kadosa’s work included two operas, eight symphonies, four sonatas, and six concertos. References External links * *

Páll Ísólfsson

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Páll Ísólfsson (12 October 1893 – 23 November 1974) was an Icelandic organist, composer, pianist, conductor, and school director. He was one of the first Icelanders to study music abroad and is seen as one of the most influential Icelandic musicians in the first half of the twentieth century. Through his work as performer, composer, conductor, and the first director of the Reykjavík School of Music, he played a large part in creating a culture of Western classical music in Iceland. Life and career Páll Ísólfsson was born in Stokkseyri in southern Iceland on 12 October 1893, the son of the composer, organist, and inventor Ísólfur Pálsson and his wife Þuríður Bjarnadóttir. Ísólfsson left the small town for Reykjavík at age 15, living with his uncle, Jón Pálsson, and his wife, Anna S. Adólfsdóttir. Although Ísólfsson had initially intended to study printing, his uncle decided to pay for his organ studies in Germany, and thus Ísólfsson left for Leipzig in autumn 1913. There, he studied at the Leipzig Conservatory with the renowned organist Karl Straube, making excellent progress, and often substituting for his teacher at the St. Thomas Church. It was during a break from his studies, wh

Palmira Jaquetti i Isant

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Palmira Jaquetti i Isant (1895–1963) was a Catalan folklorist, poet, businesswoman, composer, musicologist, ethnologist and writer. Biography Jaquetti was born in 1895 in Barcelona. After completing her Bachelor of Arts, she taught music and French literature at a high school. Her volume of poetry, La estrella dentro del hogar (The Star Within the Home) (1938), written during the Spanish Civil War reflected a marked sensitivity and musical stylization. She also published song booklets Between 1925 and 1940, she carried out missions to collect popular songs for the Obra del Cançoner Popular de Catalunya (Work of the popular songbook of Catalonia). Jaquetti was one of the most important collectors of these songs worldwide. The sheer number of songs collected in her field work with d’Aoust, María Carbó Soler and Mercè Porta Pino is considered to be a pillar in the field. Jaquetti continued with this worke on her own even after the project was disbanded during the Civil War. In the postwar period, she continued her occupation as a French teacher until the traffic accident in which she died in 1963 in Santa Margarida i els Monjos. Death and legacy In 1927, she married the Belgian painte

Pamela Harrison (composer)

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Pamela Harrison (28 November 1915 – 28 August 1990) was an English composer, pianist and music teacher. Harrison’s music was influenced by composers including E.J. Moeran, Arnold Bax and John Ireland, and French music. She first made her mark as a composer with the Quintet for flute, oboe and strings, written in 1938 and first performed that year at a concert of the Society for the Promotion of New Music. The Quintet was heard again in 1944 at Fyvie Hall, Regent Street, played by an ensemble led by Leonard Hirsch. She also continued to compose and perform. Her String Quartet was played more than once at the wartime Myra Hess National Gallery concerts in 1944. Harvey was a member of the Hirsch String Quartet and made his professional conducting debut with the Jacques Orchestra at the Wigmore Hall in 1950 (at which he conducted his wife’s Suite for Tomothy). That year he formed the Harvey Phillips String Orchestra (with leader Hugh Bean), which included in its repertoire Harrison’s Five Poems of Ernest Dowson for tenor and string orchestra - the first London performance with Peter Pears as the soloist on 15 December 1952 at the Royal Festival Hall - and her Six Poems of Baudelaire. P

Pamela Motley Verrall

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Pamela Motley Verrall (13 August 1915 – 1996) was a Welsh composer and music educator. Her compositions and arrangements for school ensembles were published by Bosworth, Chester Music (now Wise Music), Cramer & Company, Feldman, and Forsyth Publishing. Verrall was head of the music departments in various schools in the South East of England, including Aldershot Manor Secondary School, The Winston Churchill School, Woking (mid-1970s), Elmhust Ballet School, Camberley and St. Catherine’s School for Girls, Twickenham. She composed at least 90 sacred and secular songs, as well as chamber music and musicals for children which have been performed on radio and television. Her cantata for schools Johnny Appleseed (1971), and her hymn tune Cross Over the Road were perhaps the best known of her works. Chamber *Clarinets in Chorus *Clarinets in Concert *Seven Romances (clarinet and piano) *Six Conversations (clarinet and piano) *Six Dance Duets (recorder and piano) *Six Miniatures for Recorders * The Well Tempered Wind Quartet, Bach arrangements for flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon *Woodwind Trio (oboe, clarinet and bassoon) Theatre *Around the World: Francis Drake *Babushka (Christmas Play)

Parashkev Hadjiev

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Parashkev Hadjiev (Bulgarian: Парашкев Хаджиев; born in Sofia, Bulgaria, 27 April 1912 – 1992) was a Bulgarian composer. He was the son of conductor Todor Hadjiev, an early champion of Bulgarian opera. Some view Parashkev Hadjiev as perhaps the most important post-war composer in Bulgaria. He taught at the Bulgarian State Conservatory where one of his pupils was composer Tsvetan Tsvetanov. Works Operas * Once Upon a Time (1957) * A Madcap (1959) – Libretto Ivan Genov * Albena (1962) – libretto Peter Filchev (after the drama of Yordan Yovkov) * Aika (1963) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSv5VWjdc4U * July Night (1964) – after the drama of Ivan Genov Early ballad * Millionaire (1965) – a comedy Yordan Yovkov * Masters (1966) – a drama of R. Stoyanov * Golden Apple – (1972) * Leto 893 (1973) – Libretto Pancho Panchev * Maria Desislava (1978) – Libretto Kamen Zidarov * Ioannis Rex (1981) – Libretto Радко Радков / Radko Radkov * Paradoxes three one-act operas: Divorce, Thief and Gifts (1982) * I, Claudius (1984) * Star without name (1985) – Libretto Ognyan Stamboliev * Malingerer (1987) * Babinata bread (1989) * Inspector (1990) * John Kukuzel Love (1992) Operetta * Divided (1952) * Ic

Parsegh Ganatchian

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Parsegh Ganatchian (17 April 1885 – 21 May 1967) was an Armenian composer, conductor, and sociocultural activist. He is best-known for his part in arranging the music to Mer Hayrenik (Our Fatherland), the Armenian national anthem. He comes from a modest background; his father was a shoemaker. Career Ganatchian was born in Rodosto (present-day Tekirdağ), in the Ottoman Empire. In 1888 his family moved to Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), where he received his primary education in Gedikpaşa Armenian school. Hamidian Massacres forced the family to move to Bulgaria, through Sliven to Varna, where he studied music theory, took lessons in the violin and conducting lessons under the supervision of . In 1903, Ganatchian studied playing the piano and harmony in Bucharest, returning to Istanbul in 1908, where he formed the “Knar” wind orchestra (in Armenian «Քնար»). His meeting with Komitas Vardapet in December 1910 was a decisive milestone in his career. Ganatchian also established the , while continuing his education in harmony and conducting. In 1919, he conducted a concert dedicated to Komitas and his works with 300 singers and musicians. Starting in 1920, Ganatchian continued his m

Patricia Blomfield Holt

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Patricia Blomfield Holt (15 September 1910 – 5 June 2003) was a Canadian composer, pianist and music educator. An associate of the Canadian Music Centre and a member of the Association of Canadian Women Composers, her compositions have been performed by notable musical ensembles throughout North America and Europe. Life Born Patricia Blomfield in Lindsay, Ontario, Blomfield Holt began her career in her teenage years as a largely self-taught composer and pianist. She studied with Norah de Kresz privately before she entered The Royal Conservatory of Music at the age of 19 in 1928. She studied and taught concurrently for the next ten years. She was a pupil there of Norman Wilks, Hayunga Carman, Leo Smith, Ernest MacMillan and Healey Willan. She was a self-taught composer until she began studying with Willan in 1936. In 1938 she won the Vogt Society Award for the best music composition for her Suite No. 1 for Violin and Piano. Her Suite No. 2 was described by London’s Musical Times: “The language is frankly of the 19th century, and the forms are reminiscent of Schumann, but the material is handled with certainty and a nice sense of texture”. She also left her teaching position at The R

Patrick Hadley

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

Patrick Arthur Sheldon Hadley (5 March 1899 – 17 December 1973) was a British composer. Biography Patrick Sheldon Hadley was born on 5 March 1899 in Cambridge. His father, William Sheldon Hadley, was at that time a fellow of Pembroke College. His mother, Edith Jane, was the daughter of the Revd Robert Foster, chaplain to the Royal Hibernian Military School in Dublin. Patrick attended St Ronan’s Preparatory School (in Worthing, Sussex) and Winchester College (in Hampshire). However the First World War interrupted his education. He enlisted in the army and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery. He managed to survive unscathed until the last weeks of the war, when he received an injury necessitating the below-knee amputation of his right leg. This profoundly damaged his confidence and also caused him to perhaps drink more than was wise; he was in constant pain, for which alcohol provided some relief. Patrick’s elder brother Peyton Sheldon Hadley, a former pupil of Charterhouse School, who served in the infantry, was also wounded in the closing months of the War. He was invalided home to convalesce, but died of pneumonia that October. A memorial to Peyton

Patrick Piggott

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Patrick Piggott (15 June 1915 – 9 May 1990) was an English composer, pianist and musicologist. Piggott was born in Dover. He studied with Harold Craxton (piano) and Benjamin Dale (composition) at the Royal Academy of Music, and took further study with Emile Bosquet and Julius Isserlis (piano) and with Nadia Boulanger (composition) in Paris. Exempted from National Service during World War II on medical grounds, Piggott supported his sick mother and brother by performing as a pianist and teacher. After the war he was a lecturer at Cardiff University. In the 1960s he was employed by the BBC as Head of Music for the Midland Region, while continuing to tour as a concert pianist - specialisms included the music of John Field and Rachmaninov. Piggott died in Bristol on 9 May 1990. As a pianist, Piggott was a frequent recitalist and broadcaster, but left no commercial recordings. As a composer he produced orchestral music, including the Prologue, Action and Denouement (1955), chamber music, including three string quartets (1966, 1975, 1983), and several song cycles. But he is best remembered for his virtuosic piano music, including the 24 Preludes in three sets of eight (1963, 1977, 1989).

Paul Abraham

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Paul Abraham (; 2 November 1892 – 6 May 1960) was a Jewish-Hungarian composer of operettas, who scored major successes in the German-speaking world. Abraham was born in Apatin, Austria-Hungary (today Serbia), and studied at the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music in Budapest from 1910 to 1916. He studied cello with Adolf Schiffer and composition with Viktor Herzfeld. Career Abraham was a son of Jakab Ábrahám (c. 1859–1909) – who was a merchant from Apatin, later head of a small private bank – and Flóra Blau (1872–1943), who came from Mohács (South-Hungary, next to Danube). Like many other composers of operettas, Abraham started with works of a serious nature. During the decade following his studies he wrote, among other things, sacred music, string quartets and a concerto for violoncello. When he was appointed conductor at the Budapest Operetta Theatre in 1927 he found his way to this more popular art form which was more suited to his talent. He wrote his first operetta, Der Gatte des Fräuleins, in 1928. With his third, Viktoria und ihr Husar (1930), he achieved a resounding success. Through this work, and the next two operettas from 1931 and 1933 Die Blume von Hawaii (The Fl

Paul Arma

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Paul Arma (Hungarian: Arma Pál, aka Amrusz Pál; né Weisshaus Imre; 22 November 1905 – 28 November 1987) was a Hungarian-French pianist, composer, and ethnomusicologist. Arma was born in Budapest in 1905. He studied under Béla Bartók from 1920 to 1924 at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, after which time he toured Europe and America giving concerts and piano recitals. Béla Bartók influenced Arma in his love for folksong and collection. He left Hungary in 1930, eventually settling in Paris in 1933, where he became the piano soloist with Radio Paris. His music is generally characterised by modernist tendencies, although his varied output includes folk song arrangements, film music, popular and patriotic songs, in addition to solo, chamber, orchestral and electronic music. Arma died in Paris in 1987. Selected works * Chants du Silence for voice and piano (1942–44) * Concerto for string quartet and orchestra (1947) * Violin Sonata (1949) * 31 Instantanés for woodwinds, percussion, celesta, xylophone and piano (1951) * Cantate de la Terre (1952) * Improvisation, Précédée et Suivie de ses Variations for orchestra and tape (1954) * Sept Variations Spatiophoniques for tape (1960) * Chant du

Paul Ben-Haim

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Paul Ben-Haim (or Paul Ben-Chaim, ; 5 July 1897 – 14 January 1984) was an Israeli composer. Biography Paul Frankenburger (later Ben-Haim) was born in Munich, Germany. He studied composition with Friedrich Klose and he was assistant conductor to Bruno Walter and Hans Knappertsbusch from 1920 to 1924. He served as conductor at Augsburg from 1924 to 1931, and afterwards devoted himself to teaching and composition, including teaching at the Shulamit Conservatory in Tel Aviv, Israel. Ben-Haim immigrated to British Mandate of Palestine in 1933 and lived in Tel Aviv, near Zina Dizengoff Square. He Hebraized his name, becoming an Israeli citizen upon that nation’s independence in 1948. Music career Ben-Haim composed chamber music, works for choir, orchestra and solo instruments, and songs. He championed a specifically Jewish national music: his own compositions are in a late Romantic vein with Middle Eastern overtones, somewhat similar to Ernest Bloch. Ben-Haim’s Symphony No. 1 premiered in 1941. It is considered the first symphony written in Israel. His students include Eliahu Inbal, Henri Lazarof, Ben-Zion Orgad, Ami Maayani, Shulamit Ran, Miriam Shatal, Rami Bar-Niv and Noam Sheriff. Be

Paul Bonneau

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Paul Bonneau (14 September 1918 – 8 July 1995) was a French conductor, composer and arranger, whose career was mainly in the field of light music and films. Career Born in Moret-sur-Loing in 1918, Paul Bonneau studied music at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris in the same class as Maurice Baquet, Henri Betti, Henri Dutilleux and Louiguy. He won the premier prix d’harmonie (1937) in the class of Jean Gallon, the premier prix de fugue (1942) in the class of Noël Gallon and the premier prix de composition (1945) in the class of Henri Büsser. In 1939, he was Army deputy chief of music and in 1945 was made director of music for the Republican Guard. He then became conductor of light orchestral music on national radio, a position he held for thirty years. His first radio broadcast was on 27 November 1944. Bonneau wrote the score for Roland Petit’s ballet Guernica, premiered in 1945. Over 30 years Paul Bonneau led 638 light music recording sessions, corresponding to more than 1,500 concerts broadcast on the national radio stations. In 1960, with the agreement of the RTF, he founded the vocal group Les Djinns who played and recorded 88 songs. Bonneau worked as a composer or as

Paul Bowles

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Paul Frederic Bowles (; December 30, 1910 – November 18, 1999) was an American composer, author, and translator. He became associated with the Moroccan city of Tangier, where he settled in 1947 and lived for 52 years to the end of his life. Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City, during which he displayed a talent for music and writing, Bowles pursued his education at the University of Virginia before making several trips to Paris in the 1930s. He studied music with Aaron Copland, and in New York wrote music for theatrical productions, as well as other compositions. He achieved critical and popular success with his first novel The Sheltering Sky (1949), set in French North Africa, which he had visited in 1931. Life 1910–1930: family and education Paul Bowles was born in Jamaica, Queens, New York City, as the only child of Rena (née Winnewisser) and Claude Dietz Bowles, a dentist. His childhood was materially comfortable, but his father was a cold and domineering parent, opposed to any form of play or entertainment, and feared by both his son and wife. According to family legend, Claude had tried to kill his newborn son by leaving him exposed on a window-ledge du

Paul Creston

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Paul Creston (born Giuseppe Guttoveggio; October 10, 1906 – August 24, 1985) was an American composer of classical music. He composed six symphonies and several concertante works for violin, piano, accordion, marimba and saxophone. He has been described as a leading American Neo-Romantic composer of his time. Biography Born in New York City to Sicilian immigrants, Creston was self-taught as a composer. His work tends to be fairly conservative in style, with a strong rhythmic element. His pieces include six symphonies; a number of concertos including two violin concertos and a marimba concerto (premiered by Ruth Stuber); a piano concerto, premiered by Earl Wild; concerto for two pianos and orchestra; an accordion concerto; and a concerto for alto saxophone dedicated to Cecil Leeson). The sonata was arranged by Marco Ciccone for saxophone and orchestra in 2008. Creston composed a suite for organ, Op.70. Several of his works were inspired by the poetry of Walt Whitman. Creston was one of the most performed American composers of the 1940s and 1950s. Several of his works have become staples of the wind band repertoire. Zanoni, Prelude and Dance and the Celebration Overture have been and

Paul de Maleingreau

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Paul Constant Eugène de Maleingreau (23 November 1887 - 9 January 1956) was a Belgian composer and organist. Biography Paul Constant Eugène Malengreau was born in Trélon, Nord, France. He later changed his surname to “de Maleingreau”. From 1905 to 1912 he studied at the Brussels Conservatory where his principal teachers were Alfons Desmet, Paul Gilson and Edgar Tinel. He began teaching at the Conservatory in 1913 and was professor of organ (succeeding Desmet) from 1929 until 1953. His pupils included Pierre Froidebise, Charles Koenig, Robert Kohnen, Marcel Druart, Paul Sprimont and Herman Roelstraete. In 1921 and 1922 he was the first to play Bach’s complete organ works in Brussels. Gregorian plainsong forms the basis of most of Malengreau’s compositions, and indeed part of his output is intended for the liturgy. He also wrote programme music, his organ symphonies being inspired by paintings by Rogier van der Weyden and the van Eyck brothers. While the chromaticism and cyclic treatment of themes reveal the influence of Franck, certain harmonic progressions are typical of Impressionist music. He was a member of the Libre Académie, and died in Brussels in 1956. Selected works :Public

Paul Dessau

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Paul Dessau (19 December 189428 June 1979) was a German composer and conductor. He collaborated with Bertolt Brecht and composed incidental music for his plays, and several operas based on them. Biography Dessau was born in Hamburg into a musical family. his cousin, Max Winterfeld, became known under the name Jean Gilbert as a composer of operettas; From 1909, Dessau studied with Florian Zajic at the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory in Berlin, majoring in violin. Dessau died on 28 June 1979 at the age of 84, in Königs Wusterhausen, on the outskirts of Berlin. * Einstein, 1969–1973, libretto by Karl Mickel, 16 February 1974 Further reading and documentary * Dessau, Paul. Notizen zu Noten, ed. Fritz Henneberg (Reclam, Leipzig 1974). * Dessau, Paul. Aus Gesprächen (VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1974). * Henneberg, Fritz. Dessau – Brecht. Musikalische Arbeiten. (Henschel, Berlin 1963). * Hennenberg, Fritz. Paul Dessau. Eine Biographie. (VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1965). * Lucchesi, Joachim (ed.). Das Verhör in der Oper: Die Debatte um die Aufführung “Das Verhör des Lukullus” von Bertolt Brecht und Paul Dessau (BasisDruck, Berlin 1993). * Paul Dessau - Let´s Hop

Paul Hermann (composer)

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Paul Hermann (Budapest, 27 March 1902 – unknown 1944), also known as Pál Hermann, was a virtuoso cellist and composer. Career Hermann was born in Budapest, Hungary, on 27 March 1902 and came from a Jewish family. About his early childhood not much more than an anecdote remains: he was only prepared to study for his piano lessons if for every étude he prepared, he would receive one cent. He studied at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music from 1915–1919 and developed close relationships, both musical and personal, with his teachers of composition Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, violinist Zoltán Székely, and pianists Géza Frid and Lili Kraus. At the Franz Liszt Academy of Music he studied cello under Adolf Schiffer and composition, first under Leo Weiner, who was also his teacher of chamber music. Already during his studies, Hermann was a frequent performer within and outside of the Liszt Academy. He started his international cello career at the age of 16, playing as a soloist music venues in Europe. Hermann felt that there was no need to finish his studies at the Liszt Academy. Among the works Hermann premiered or gave notable early performances of as a virtuoso cellist during the 1920s w

Paul Hindemith

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Paul Hindemith ( ; ; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German and American composer, music theorist, teacher, violist, and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advocate of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) style of music in the 1920s, with compositions such as Kammermusik, including works with viola and viola d’amore as solo instruments in a neo-Bachian spirit. His other notable compositions include the song cycle Das Marienleben (1923), the oratorio Das Unaufhörliche (1931), Der Schwanendreher for viola and orchestra (1935), the opera Mathis der Maler (1938), and the symphony Mathis der Maler (1934), the Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber (1943), and the oratorio When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d (1946), a requiem based on Walt Whitman’s poem. Hindemith and his wife emigrated to Switzerland and the United States ahead of World War II, after worsening difficulties with the Nazi German regime. In his later years, he conducted and recorded much of his own music. Most of Hindemith’s compositions are anchored by a foundational tone, and use musical forms and counterpoint

Paul Lamkoff

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Paul Lamkoff, (Plonsk, Russian Empire, 14 December 1888 - 11 March 1953) was a Polish-born American cantor and early Hollywood film composer. He is sometimes credited by the less anglicized name Paul Lampkovitz. Background Many details about Lamkoff’s early life prior to emigrating to the United States are uncorroborated, including his place of birth and his musical training, and professional engagements. His place of birth is listed variously as either Poland or Russia. He was said to have trained at the Petrograd Conservatory (now the St. Petersburg Conservatory), possibly at the same time as future fellow Hollywood composer Dimitrio Tiomkin and also under Glazunov and Rimsky-Korsakov. He may have conducted opera throughout eastern Europe, and played violin with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, and cantored. The popularity of “talkies” that exploded in the late 1920s allowed the professional musicians already established in Los Angeles, like Lamkoff, to profit on the burgeoning film music industry, although much of Lamkoff’s work went uncredited. At one point he transcribed “by dictation” a symphonic work that Fred Fisher was composing for a film sequence. Along with other talents

Paul Lavalle

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Paul Lavalle (born Joseph Usifer, September 6, 1908 - June 24, 1997) was an American conductor, composer, arranger and performer on clarinet and saxophone. Early years Lavalle was born in Beacon, New York, the son of Ralph and Jennie Usifer, both Italian immigrants. Graduating from Beacon High School, he planned to study law at Columbia University. After winning a scholarship there, Lavalle studied music at the Juilliard School Plays for Americans (1942), Highways in Melody, The Stradivari Orchestra (1943), Strictly Business (1940), The Ted Steele Show (1942), and Dough Re Mi (1942-1943). On his radio shows he collaborated with Victor Borge, Mario Lanza, Robert Merrill and Dinah Shore. In November 1944, his jazz composition “Always” made it to number 29 on the top 40 charts. In 1940, The New York Times described him as “NBC’s ubiquitous music maker” and said he was “of small size, dynamic, dark haired…” Lavalle told the reporter, “Music is my life, and I am happy that it is so.” Lavalle was selected over several applicants to become the conductor of the Band of America in 1948. They performed on the weekly radio program Cities Service Concerts on NBC Radio for eight years and alm

Paul Misraki

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Paul Misraki (28 January 1908 – 29 October 1998) was a French composer of popular music and film scores. Over the course of over 60 years, Misraki wrote the music to 130 films, scoring works by directors like Jean Renoir, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Becker, Jean-Pierre Melville, Jean-Luc Godard, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Orson Welles, Luis Buñuel and Roger Vadim. For his work, he was made a Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur. Biography and film career Born Paul Misrachi in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire (now Istanbul, Turkey) into a French Jewish family of Italian descent, Misraki showed an early aptitude for music. He went to Paris to study classical composition, and by the 1930s had become an established jazz pianist, arranger, and writer of popular songs; around this time he began composing film scores, with his first known work being for Jean Renoir’s first sound film, On purge bébé (Baby’s Laxative, 1931), for which he was not credited. Like Renoir, Misraki fled France during the World War II German occupation. After a brief stay in Argentina, Misraki ended up in Hollywood, where he composed the music to all of Renoir’s American films. After the war, Misraki returned to France, working

Paul Nordoff

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Paul Nordoff (June 6, 1909 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – January 18, 1977 in Herdecke, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany) was an American composer and music therapist, anthroposophist and initiator of the Nordoff-Robbins method of music therapy. His music is generally tonal and neo-Romantic in style. Career Born in Philadelphia, he studied the piano at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music (later the University of the Arts), receiving a B.M. degree in 1927 and an M.M. degree in 1932. He later studied with Rubin Goldmark at the Juilliard School, and in 1960 he received a Bachelor of Music Therapy from the Combs College of Music in Philadelphia. He served as head of composition at the Philadelphia Conservatory (1938–1943), a teacher at Michigan State College (1945–1949), and professor of music at Bard College (1948–1959). While still a student he encountered the work of Rudolf Steiner and became a member of the Anthroposophical Society in 1943, visiting its centre in Dornach to lecture at the conferences held there on Music after 1954. His work as a composer was acknowledged by two Guggenheim Fellowships (in 1933 and 1935) and the Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship for Music for his

Paul Pratt

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Paul Pratt (25 November 1894 – 8 May 1967) was a Canadian clarinetist, pianist, conductor, music educator, composer, and public administrator. His compositional output includes marches, waltzes, a Fantaisie-Impromptu for band, and some works for solo piano. Life and career Pratt was a clarinetist in the Symphonie Dubois in 1916–1917 and in the Canadian Grenadier Guards Band from 1919 to 1939. He was the Montreal Orchestra’s bass clarinetist from 1931 to 1941 and played the contrabass clarinet for the CSM orchestra from 1935 to 1946. He also played the clarinet in the Little Symphony of Montreal and the Van der Meerschen band in St-Lambert. From 1950 to 1967 he was music director of the Metropolitan Concert Band of Montreal and from 1956 to 1957 he was president of the Canadian Band Association’s Quebec and Ontario divisions. He also served for some years as the music director of the South Shore Band of Longueuil and the Gais Longueuillois Quartet. In 1935 Pratt was elected the mayor of Longueuil. He enjoyed wide popularity in that post, and remained mayor for the next 31 years, stepping down in 1966. He was decorated twice while in office, once by George V the United Kingdom in 193

Paul Sawtell

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Paul Sawtell (February 3, 1906 – August 1, 1971) was a film score composer. Biography Sawtell was born Paul Sawatzki in the village of Geluwe, in the German Reich (now Poland). Sawtell began his career with RKO, and eventually joined Universal Pictures. Sawtell worked on many western and horror films, and also scored the Sherlock Holmes films The Pearl of Death and The Scarlet Claw. In the late 1940s, Sawtell returned to RKO. He also worked for various independent producers, including Eagle-Lion Films’ production of T-Men (1947). He also composed and arranged the uncredited music for the Venice, Italy sequences in This is Cinerama (1952). In the late 1950s, Sawtell struck up an alliance with fellow film composer Bert Shefter and they produced many film scores together, including those of classic science fiction and horror films such as Kronos, It! The Terror from Beyond Space, Return of the Fly, The Lost World, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (in cooperation with producer Irwin Allen), and Jack the Giant Killer in 1962. In 1965 they composed some scores for the director Russ Meyer, such as the cult classic Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Motorpsycho. The last score they provided w

Paul van Katwijk

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Paul van Katwijk (December 7, 1885 – December 11, 1974) was a Dutch-American pianist, conductor, composer, and music educator. He was an important figure in the classical music culture of Dallas, Texas, for much of the 20th century. He served as the music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra for eleven years. Early life and musical training Paulus van Katwijk was born in Delfshaven in the Netherlands on December 7, 1885, to Johannes van Katwijk and Catharina Scholten. He was a pupil of Carl Oberstadt (who was in turn a student of Robert and Clara Schumann) at the Royal College of Music in The Hague, Netherlands. He subsequently studied in Vienna and Berlin with the eminent pianist Leopold Godowsky. Career Following several years of teaching in Europe, during which van Katwijk had begun to develop a reputation as a fine teacher, he came to the United States in 1912. He was appointed to the piano faculty of Christian College in Columbia, Missouri, then to similar positions at the University of Chicago and at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. In 1918 van Katwijk accepted the post of head of the piano department at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He would remain on th

Paula Nenette Pepin

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Antonietta Paule Pepin Fitzpatrick (9 April 1908 – 14 November 1990), also known as Nenette, was a French composer, pianist and lyricist. Biography Nenette was born on the island of Saint Pierre et Miquelon, a French overseas territory located in the Atlantic coast of Canada. Her father Emmanuel Victor Pepin was French, and her mother Henriette Fitzpatrick was Canadian of Irish origin. She was known by her family as Nenette, diminutive of Antonietta. While still a child during the First World War, she moved to France with her parents and her older sister, Jeanne Henriette. In 1926 Jeanne finished school and travelled with a dance company to Buenos Aires, where she met her first husband. Two years later, once Nenette finished school, Jeanne invited her and her father to come out to Argentina. The two settled in Villa Ballester in Buenos Aires in 1928. Nenette entered the National Music Conservatory, where she studied piano under Juan José Castro, Pascual de Rogatis and Isabel Aretz. She toured Argentina on numerous occasions, performing classical music on the piano. In 1942, after a concert she gave in Tucumán, the organizers took her to hear folk music from northern Argentina playe

Pauline Alderman

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Edith Pauline Alderman (January 16, 1893 – October 11, 1983) was an American musicologist and composer. She was the founder and the first Chairwoman of the Department of Music History and Literature (musicology) at the University of Southern California, between 1952 and 1960. Biography Early life and education Alderman was born in Lafayette, Oregon and received training in piano and organ, as well as in English and German literature in her youth. She graduated from Washington High School in Portland, Oregon. Her first teaching career started at the McMinnville junior high school in 1916 where she taught English literature. Later life and death She moved to Europe in 1938, where she decided to take lessons from Donald Francis Tovey at the University of Edinburgh. She moved to at the University of Strasbourg for doctoral studies. Alderman presented her dissertation at USC which she named Antoine Boësset and the Air de Cour and in 1946 she received the first PhD degree in music at USC. (1938) and the operetta Come On Over (1940), which won the ASCAP Award for 1940, the first time the prize was won by a woman. The International Congress on Women in Music sponsored by International Alli

Pauline Hall (composer)

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Pauline Margrete Hall (2 August 1890 – 24 January 1969) was a Norwegian composer and music critic. She was the founding chairwoman of Ny Musikk (1938–1961) and served as president of the International Society for Contemporary Music (1952–1953). Background Pauline Hall was born at Hamar in Hedmark, Norway. She was the daughter of Isak Muus Hall (1849–1914) and Magdalena Catharina Agersborg (1854–1934). Her father was a pharmacist who operated several pharmacies in Hamar, at Kabelvåg in Lofoten and in Tromsø. From 1908 she studied piano with composer and pianist Johan Backer Lunde (1874–1958) in Kristiania (now Oslo). From 1910 to 1912 she studied the theory and composition of classical composers with music educator Catharinus Elling. She also had a study stay in Paris from 1912 to 1914. Career Hall’s debut as a composer came in 1917 with a full-length concert evening in Oslo featuring solely her works. Hall was initially known as a composer of romances, but today her orchestral works, and in particular 1929’s Verlaine Suite, stand out as centerpieces of her compositional output. French impressionism and literature would prove to be key sources of inspiration for Hall, an influx that

Pavel Bořkovec

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Pavel Bořkovec (10 June 1894 – 22 July 1972) was a Czech composer and music teacher. Life Bořkovec was born on 10 June 1894 in Prague. He studied at the Prague Conservatory under Josef Suk. From 1946 to 1967 he taught at the Academy of Musical Arts in Prague. His students there included Pavel Blatný, Jiří Pauer, Vladimír Sommer, Petr Eben, Jan Klusák and Jan Truhlář. Among his compositions are two operas, two piano concertos, a concerto grosso, a ballet, and five string quartets. His work was also part of the music event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics. Bořkovec died on 22 July 1972 in Prague. Selected works ;Stage * Krysař, Ballet-Pantomime in 2 scenes (1939) * Paleček, Opera (1959) * Satyr, Opera after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1942) ;Orchestra * Concerto for cello and orchestra (1952) * Concerto No.1 for piano and orchestra (1931) * Concerto No.2 for piano and orchestra (1949–1950) * Concerto for Violin and Orchestra * Concerto grosso (1942) * Partita per grande orchestra (1936) * Sinfonietta in uno movimento (1967–1968) * Symphony No.1, Op.6 * Symphony No.2 (1955) * Symphony No.3 (1959) ;Chamber music * Dva tance, Tango a Menuet (2 Dances, Tango and Minuet)

Pavel Haas

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Pavel Haas (21 June 189917 October 1944) was a Czech composer who was murdered during the Holocaust. He was an exponent of Leoš Janáček’s school of composition, and also utilized elements of folk music and jazz. Although his output was not large, he is notable particularly for his song cycles and string quartets. Pre-war Haas was born in Brno, into a Moravian-Jewish family. His father, Zikmund, a shoemaker by trade, was from the Moravian region, while his mother, Olga (née Epstein), was born in Odesa. His brother, Hugo Haas (1901–1968), was a popular actor in interwar Czechoslovakia. After studying piano privately, Haas began his more formal musical education at the age of 14 and studied composition at the Brno Conservatory from 1919 to 1921 under Jan Kunc and Vilém Petrželka. This was followed by two years of study in the master class of the noted Czech composer Leoš Janáček. Janáček was by far Haas’s most influential teacher, and Haas, in turn, proved to be Janáček’s best student. In 1935, he married Soňa Jakobson, the former wife of Russian linguist Roman Jakobson. Of the more than 50 works Haas wrote during the rest of his life, only 18 were given opus numbers by the self-criti

Pavel Šivic

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Pavel Šivic (born February 2, 1908, in Radovljica, Slovenia — died May 31, 1995, in Ljubljana ) was a Slovenian composer, concert pianist, and music educator. Šivic wrote the libretto to this opera himself, which is based on the 1967 play of the same name by Andrej Hieng. He was also active as concert pianist and accompanist in Ljubljana; contributing greatly to the music life of that city. He was given the Prešeren Award in 1965. Partial list of works *Oj, ta prešmentana ljubezen Oh, that Cursed Love (operetta in 3 Acts, libretto by M. Simončič); 29 April 1931 *Dogodek v mestu Gogi An Event in the Town of Goga (ballet), 1967 *Cortesova vrnitev The Return of Cortés , 1971 (opera in 3 Acts, libretto by Šivic, after A. Hieng); 20 March 1974 *Svitanje The Daybreak (opera in 1 Act, libretto by Šivic, after B. Šömen); 10 May 1979 *Samorog The Unicorn (opera in 3 Acts, libretto by Šivic, after G. Strniša), 1981 *Kaznovana radovednost Curiosity Punished (Children’s opera in 1 Act, libretto by Šivic and V. Rudolph); 9 February 1988 *Hiša iz kart (opera), 1989 References

Pedro Espinel Torres

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Pedro Espinel Torres (August 1, 1908 – November 8, 1981 in Lima) was a Peruvian composer of música criolla. He is best known for his piece El Rey de las Polkas. Life Espinel worked in various jobs — messenger, printing apprentice and worker in a wood warehouse — while cultivating his passion for music. He formed small musical groups with guitar and castañuelas, with which they softened bar meetings and fiestas, gaining the love of the Limeño public. In 1925 he became a member of the conductor Felipe Pinglo Alva, considered the “Padre de la Canción Criolla”. This friendship gave rise to a deep admiration and a great musical influence that marked his style. Espinel learned from Pinglo the art of combining popular poetry with Creole melody, which led him to develop his own style. Musical works Throughout his career, Pedro Espinel composed more than 300 songs, covering genres such as waltzes, marineras and tonderos, however, it was with the música criolla that he reached his maximum splendor. References External links * Biographical video about the composer. * Biography of the singer and songwriter (Digital Peru)

Peggy Glanville-Hicks

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Peggy Winsome Glanville-Hicks (29 December 191225 June 1990) was an Australian composer and music critic. Biography Early life and education Peggy Glanville-Hicks, born in Melbourne in her family’s home, was first educated at Milverton, a girls’ grammar school for “ladies” which taught subjects such as music, elocution, grammar, arithmetic, scripture, and physical exercise. She transferred to the larger and more prestigious Methodist Ladies’ College when she was nine years old. She received instruction in piano and displayed an early aptitude for the instrument, prompting her parents to acquire a grand piano for their home. She was granted U.S. citizenship in 1949. After leaving America, she lived in Greece from 1957 to 1975. In the United States she asked George Antheil to revise his Ballet Mécanique for a modern percussion ensemble for a concert she helped to organize. In 1966, after years of failing eyesight, she was diagnosed with a brain tumour, which was surgically removed, and she regained her sight. However, a result of this operation was her loss of a sense of smell. She died in Sydney in 1990. She had returned to Australia at the encouragement of James Murdoch and others.

Peggy Hubicki

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Margaret Olive Hubicki MBE (2 July 1915 – 3 January 2006) was an English composer and teacher of musical harmony, who invented the Colour-Staff method to help people with dyslexia to read music. Life Hubicki was born Margaret Mullins in Hampstead, London on 2 July 1915. Her mother was Scottish and her father English. She studied piano and composition at the Royal Academy of Music with Benjamin Dale, winning the gold medal of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, and at her graduation recital in 1934 performed a sonata of her own composition. She was one of the founders of the British Dyslexia Association, and involved in the Council for Music in Hospitals. She was also one of the first teachers, and a governor, of the Yehudi Menuhin School. An album of her compositions, Dedication in Time, was released on the Chandos label in 2005 to celebrate her 90th birthday. References

Peggy Stuart Coolidge

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

Peggy Stuart Coolidge (19 July 1913 – 7 May 1981) was an American composer and conductor. She was one of the first female American composers to have a recording devoted to her symphonic works, and the first American composer (male or female) to have a concert devoted entirely to her works presented in the Soviet Union. Although she does not quote particular melodies, her compositional style is accessible and influenced by American folk and popular idioms; her success at creating a distinctly American musical voice places her among such figures as Charles Ives, Aaron Copland and George Gershwin. Peggy Stuart was born in Swampscott, Massachusetts. After the war she moved to New York City, and started a research project in music psychotherapy at a mental institution. In 1952 she married Joseph R. Coolidge, a freelance writer from Boston who was a descendant of Thomas Jefferson and a decorated Army captain and OSS operative who’d been wounded in French Indochina soon after World War II. Together they wrote a number of children’s stories with Peggy’s background music, and other songs in traditional folk style. She wrote her only film score for The Silken Affair, starring David Niven, in

Per-Martin Hamberg

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

Per-Martin Hamberg (born 14 July 1912 in Grundsunda, Sweden,– d. 11. December 1974 in Lidingö, Sweden) was a Swedish composer, scriptwriter, director, author and radio producer. Per-Martin Hamberg was born in Ångermanland, but, at age 3, came to Stugun in Jämtland County where his father worked as priest. Per-Martin finished High School at Östersund in 1932. Already during his high school years he performed at local city shows with his own melodies. Then he moved to Stockholm, where he passed the exam in Philosophy at Stockholm University in 1939. In high school at Östersund he met Karin Juel, and with her help he was able to publish a number of melodies, including Stora Skrällen and a ballade on the fiddlers of the French king. Karin Juel often hired Hamberg to be her accompanying pianist. During his first year in Stockholm, Hamberg describes his aspiration for his former hometown Östersund in the known melody „Nu tänds åter ljuse i min lilla stad“ under the pseudonym Erik Decker. Hamberg was hired by Sveriges Radiotjänst in 1945. Two years later he became head of the entertainment section and reorganized the radio entertainment program. Some of the radio shows which were redefine

Percy Code

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

Edward Percival “Percy” Code (3 July 1888 – 16 October 1953) His father, Edward Thomas Code, was a trumpeter who led his own ensemble, Code’s Melbourne Brass Band. Percy learnt to play cornet and violin from his father, and played in his band. Aged 22 in 1910, he won the solo championship at the Royal South Street Competition in Ballarat. This saw him invited to England to play principal cornet with the Besses o’ th’ Barn Band, where he played professionally for the next few years. After returning to Australia, he conducted community bands in cities such as Ballarat. He married Elsie Maude Miller in 1915, but the couple never had children, and lived apart for many years. In 1921 Code moved to the United States, where he performed as a trumpeter with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Alfred Hertz. In San Francisco he also worked as a film composer and theatre pit musician. He returned to Australia in 1924, working as a radio music presenter, in addition to continuing to conduct and write music. From 1929 he worked as a conductor with the ABC until retiring in 1951. Percy Code died in Melbourne in 1953. Legacy Code’s compositions are not well known outside t

Percy Faith

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

Percy Faith (April 7, 1908 – February 9, 1976) was a Canadian-American bandleader, orchestrator, composer and conductor, known for his lush arrangements of instrumental ballads and Christmas standards. He is often credited with popularizing the “easy listening” or “mood music” format. He became a staple of American popular music in the 1950s and continued well into the 1960s. Early life Faith was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Beginning with stations CKNC and CKCL, he was a staple of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s live-music broadcasting from 1933 to 1940, when he resettled in Chicago, Illinois. From 1938 to 1940 on the MBS radio network, and from 1948 to 1949 on the CBS radio network, he also served as the orchestra leader on The Coca-Cola Hour (also called The Pause That Refreshes). The orchestral accordionist John Serry Sr. collaborated with Faith in some of these broadcasts. Faith also led the orchestra on The Woolworth Hour on CBS radio (1955–1957). He moved from Canada to Great Neck, New York, and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1945. *“I Cross My Fingers” Vocal: Russ Emery US No. 20, 1950 *“All My Love” (US No. 7, 1950) *“Christmas

Percy Turnbull

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

Percy Turnbull (14 July 1902 – 9 December 1976) was an English composer and pianist best known for his piano character pieces and songs. Early life Percy Purvis Turnbull trained as a chorister at the Cathedral Church of St Nicholas in Newcastle and took piano lessons from Sigmund Oppenheimer. After leaving school in 1916 he began working for the Tyne Improvement Commission, but kept up his musical interests in his spare time, encouraged by one of the leading musicians of the area, William Gillies Whittaker, founder and conductor of the Newcastle Bach Choir. He won a scholarship to attend the Royal College of Music in 1923 and studied there with Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams and John Ireland. While there he won the Mendelssohn Scholarship and Arthur Sullivan Prize for his composition. He also began to give piano recitals and worked as an accompanist for 2LO and early BBC radio. Career After college, Turnbull took on a variety of musically-related jobs, editing piano rolls at the Aeolian Company (where his boss was Percy Scholes), playing for the Empire Theatre in Swansea and working as a music copyist for Hubert Foss at the Oxford University Press, as well as teaching piano.

Pete Rugolo

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Pietro Rugolo (December 25, 1915 – October 16, 2011), known professionally as Pete Rugolo, where his father earned a living as a shoemaker. He began his career in music playing the baritone horn, like his father, but he quickly branched out into other instruments, notably the French horn and the piano. He received a bachelor’s degree from San Francisco State College and then went on to study composition with Darius Milhaud at Mills College in Oakland, California, where he earned a master’s degree. After he graduated, Rugolo was hired as an arranger and composer by guitarist and bandleader Johnny Richards. 1940s and 1950s Rugulo spent World War II playing with altoist Paul Desmond in an Army band (1942-1945). While Rugolo continued to work occasionally with Kenton in the 1950s, he spent more time creating arrangements for pop and jazz vocalists, most extensively with former Kenton singer June Christy on such albums as Something Cool, Among his albums were Adventures in Rhythm, Introducing Pete Rugolo, Rugolomania, An Adventure in Sound: Reeds in Hi-Fi, and Music for Hi-Fi Bugs. Rugolo’s arrangements for the album The Four Freshmen and Five Trombones propelled the group to recognitio

Peter Crossley-Holland

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

Peter Crossley-Holland (28 January 1916 – 27 April 2001 both composed in 1938, won him a composition scholarship at the Royal College of Music, where he was taught by John Ireland. He later he returned to Oxford for a B. Mus. degree. His graduating piece was in the celtic style, “A Song of Saint Columba”. Career From 1948, he was a producer for the BBC Radio classical music station Third Programme, Personal life He married Joan Mary Cowper in 1939. They had two children, Kevin and Sally. He set some of his son’s poems to music; his final work, the song “The Philosopher Bird” has words by his son Kevin and is dedicated to his daughter Sally. He and his wife were divorced in 1970. He subsequently married Dr. Nicole Crossley-Holland (née Marzac), a French medieval historian who taught at Aberystwyth University. He died in London of a heart attack on 27 April 2001, age 85. References

Peter Gellhorn

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Peter Gellhorn (born Hans Fritz Gellhorn; October 24, 1912 – February 13, 2004) was a German conductor, composer, pianist, and teacher. In 1935, he settled in England, where he continued his career thereafter. Life Gellhorn, the son of an architect, was born as Hans Fritz Gellhorn in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland). He came from a musical family and was educated at the Schiller Realgymnasium, at Berlin University and at the Berlin Music Academy. He was a pupil of the composer Franz Schreker. When the National Socialists came to power he was obliged to leave Germany (since his father was Jewish) and settled in England in 1935. In 1937 he recorded a collection of twenty Songs by Famous Russian Composers for Parlophone Records with the Russian tenor Vladimir Rosing. The reviewer in The Gramophone wrote, “In the person of Hans Gellhorn Rosing found his best accompanist.” Gellhorn was interned in Mooragh Camp on the Isle of Man as an enemy alien from 1939 to 1941. Ralph Vaughan Williams intervened to help get him released. He finally became a naturalized citizen in 1947 and changed his name to Peter. Gellhorn married the actress Olive Layton (1918–2009, daughter of the economist

Peter Kreuder

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

Peter Paul Kreuder (18 August 1905 – 28 June 1981) was a German-Austrian pianist, composer and conductor. Life Kreuder was born in Aachen, the son of a Kammersänger. He enrolled as a piano student at the Cologne Conservatory in 1910, where he performed his first concert one year later, and at music academies in Munich, Berlin and Hamburg. After World War I he worked as a composer of musical performances at the Hamburg Kammerspiele theatre, at the Munich Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz, as well as of several Kabarett and revue productions. In the meantime he continued his studies, taking his exams at the Munich Academy of Music in 1924. In 1925 he was employed as Kapellmeister at the Deutsches Theater München, and conducted theatre ensembles, first in Munich and then in Berlin, where he worked with Max Reinhardt. In 1930 he met with Friedrich Hollaender, whom he assisted arranging the musical score of Josef von Sternberg’s film The Blue Angel starring Marlene Dietrich. During the 1930s and 40s he became one of the most sought-after German musical film composers; his credits run to some 150 movies. Several songs, performed by stars like Zarah Leander or Marika Rökk, are popular and cov

Peter Paul Fuchs

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

Peter Paul Fuchs (October 30, 1916 – March 26, 2007) was an Austrian-born conductor and composer, best known for his conducting appointments with American orchestras and for his teaching. He was also a prolific composer although little of his music survives in performance. His writings include two influential music text books. Early life Fuchs was born on October 30, 1916, in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, son of Dr. Adolf Fuchs, a well known heart specialist, and Marianne Ruzicka, a piano teacher. His grandfather was Alois Ruzicka, a prominent Viennese lawyer, originally from the same hometown as Gustav Mahler, and who had encouraged Mahler’s father to further young Gustav’s musical studies. After his academic studies in the “gymnasium”, he graduated in 1935 from the Vienna Academy of Music where his mentors were Felix Weingartner and Joseph Krips in conducting, and Karl Weigl in composition. In 1936 Fuchs was engaged as conductor and repetiteur for the German Theater in Brno, Czechoslovakia. The volatile politics of the period and the imminent Nazi invasion meant he was forced to leave Brno. Without a valid passport or job he spent two years living in exile in Switzerland and Italy unt

Peter Pope (composer)

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

Peter Searson Pope (25 March 1917 – 27 November 1991) was a British composer. Biography Peter Pope was born in London in 1917 and was educated at Uppingham School and at the Royal College of Music, where he studied composition with John Ireland and R.O. Morris, singing with Freda Swain and piano with Cyril Smith. In 1939 he won the Octavia Traveling Scholarship to study composition with Nadia Boulanger at the American Conservatoire in Fontainebleau, Paris and it was clear from subsequent documentation that he was one of her inner circle of favoured students. His studies were, however, cut short by the German invasion of Paris in 1940 and, when Nadia Boulanger emigrated to the United States, he had to flee across France, returning to England on a Spanish trawler. He later saw service in the Royal Army Medical Corps and was attached to the 8th Army as it advanced from North Africa through Sicily and Italy. After the war he composed several chamber works and his major break came in April 1948 when a piano quartet of his was performed at Wigmore Hall. It was favourably reviewed by William Mann, then assistant music critic of The Times, who opined that the new composer’s work would be '

Peter Schacht

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

Peter Schacht (1 July 1901 – 25 January 1945) was a German composer. Life Born in Bremen, Schacht came from a wealthy Bremen merchant family. In his home town, he attended the humanistic Gymnasium, being particularly interested in mathematical questions. Early on he also received piano, violin and clarinet lessons. which he left again in 1934 in protest against the exclusion of the so-called “Jüdisch versippt”. From 1921 to 1926 he went to the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig, where he studied with (piano) and Fritz Reuter (music theory and composition). Afterwards, he wanted to enter the master class by Arnold Schoenberg at the Prussian Academy of Arts, which included Alfred Keller, Natalia Pravosudovich, Nikos Skalkottas, and Norbert von Hannenheim. Schacht applied for the class with a neoclassicist String Quintet, which is considered his first surviving composition. After an initial rejection, Schoenberg accepted him into his private circle of students which included . His Variations on a Folk Song for piano (1927) were probably written under Schoenberg. In the winter semester of 1927/28 he officially became Schoenberg’s (longest) master student (until 1932). In 1929 he c

Peter Warlock

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

Philip Arnold Heseltine (30 October 189417 December 1930), known by the pseudonym Peter Warlock, was a British composer and music critic. The Warlock name, which reflects Heseltine’s interest in occult practices, was used for all his published musical works. He is best known as a composer of songs and other vocal music; he also achieved notoriety in his lifetime through his unconventional and often scandalous lifestyle. As a schoolboy at Eton College, Heseltine met the British composer Frederick Delius, with whom he formed a close friendship. After a failed student career in Oxford and London, Heseltine turned to musical journalism, while developing interests in folk-song and Elizabethan music. His first serious compositions date from around 1915. Following a period of inactivity, a positive and lasting influence on his work arose from his meeting in 1916 with the Dutch composer Bernard van Dieren; he also gained creative impetus from a year spent in Ireland, studying Celtic culture and language. On his return to England in 1918, Heseltine began composing songs in a distinctive, original style, while building a reputation as a combative and controversial music critic. During 1920–2

Peter Zauner (composer)

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

Peter Zauner (1 December 1886 – 26 June 1973) was an Austrian farmer, Kapellmeister, composer, church musician and music teacher. In his Austrian homeland he is primarily remembered as the composer of the anthem of the Burgenland state, “Mein Heimatvolk, mein Heimatland”. Life Zauner was born in Pöttsching, Burgenland, as the son of a winegrower, master shoemaker and musician who was a member of the Carl Michael Ziehrer musical ensemble, where he rose to play the lead violin. His son Peter received his first violin lessons at the age of five. During his military service in Vienna, beginning in 1903, he received further music lessons and joined the military music corps of the Infantry Regiment 71 in Trenčín and worked from 1908 as a conductor in Pöttsching and Wiener Neustadt. During the First World War he served as a combat medic at the rank of a sergeant. Upon his return to his home town Pöttsching he took over his family farm and from 1919 to 1948 he served as music teacher in the rural areas of the Mattersburg and Eisenstadt districts. He established his Z-Banda and quickly became a role model for many concert bands of the Burgenland. He and his band had already been renown thro

Pēteris Barisons

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

Pēteris Barisons (Sēlpils, 18 April 1904 — 13 July 1947) was a Latvian late romantic composer noted specially for his vocal output, which remain his most performed works. A disciple of Ernests Vīgners and Jānis Mediņš, in 1945 he was appointed a professor at the Latvian Conservatory, but he died just two years later, leaving a third symphony uncompleted. He was also active in conducting, which he studied under Jāzeps Vītols, briefly taking charge of the Latvian National Symphony for the 1936–37 season, and he premiered his Symphony No. 1 himself. Works Orchestral * Andante cantabile (1933) *Scherzo (1933) *Symphony No. 1 (1935) *Three Preludes (1935) *Tragic Poem (1936) *Līgo (1936) *Flower Wind (or Wreath of Flowers) (symphonic suite) (1937) *Symphony No. 2 Romantic (1939) *Latvian Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra (1945) *Childhood Morning (symphonic suite) (1946) *Formal Overture (unfinished) *Symphony No. 3 (unfinished) Chamber *Cradle Song for violin and piano (1929) *Scherzo for violin and piano (1929) *Evening Song for cello and piano (1931) *String Quartet (1932) *Sunset song for violin and piano (1933) *Melody for violin and piano (1933) *Toy for violin and piano (1933) Pia

Philip Bezanson

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Philip Thomas Bezanson (January 6, 1916 – March 11, 1975) was an American composer and educator. Life Born in Athol, Massachusetts, Philip Bezanson graduated from Yale University School of Music in 1940. Following military service, he enrolled in the graduate program of musical composition at the State University of Iowa. He joined its faculty in 1948 and received his PhD there in 1951. In 1954, Bezanson was appointed head of the program in musical composition, and in 1961, was made a full professor. In 1964, Dr. Bezanson was appointed to the faculty and named head of the Music Department of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He held the latter post until 1973 when he returned to full-time teaching at the University for the last two years of his life. An influential educator and composer, Philip Bezanson helped guide the Department of Music at UMass Amherst through its period of rapid expansion in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Dr. Bezanson was active as a composer, particularly from 1946 through 1975, and he received several awards, including the prestigious Fromm Foundation award for his Piano Sonata in 1953. A prolific and productive composer, Bezanson won several prestig

Philip Gbeho

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

Philip Comi Gbeho (14 January 1904 – 24 September 1976) was a Ghanaian musician, composer and teacher. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Arts Council of Ghana and was a director of music and conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra in Ghana. However, he is probably best known as the composer of the musical arrangement for Ghana’s National Anthem. Gbeho grew up in the southeastern town of Keta where he learned to play the organ at school and was a pupil organist. He furthered his musical education at teacher training college. In addition to teaching, he became an organist at the local cathedral where he founded a leading choir and started a small school of music to prepare students for external music exams. He received scholarships to study at the Trinity College of Music in London, where he held lectures, led a dance troupe, and became a regular broadcaster on the BBC overseas radio programmes. On his return to the Gold Coast, he embarked on a campaign to popularise indigenous music. He was a strong advocate for the establishment of an Arts Council and the building of a National Theatre. He was also the leading force behind the creation of a National Symphony Orch

Philip Herschkowitz

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

Philip Herschkowitz (; Russian: Филипп Гершкович, Filipp Gershkovich) (7 September 1906 – 5 January 1989) was a Romanian-born composer and music theorist, pupil of Alban Berg and Anton Webern, who spent 47 years, from 1940 to 1987, in the Soviet Union. Biography Born to a Jewish family in Iaşi, he graduated from the conservatory in the city in 1927 and entered the Music Academy in Vienna, Austria, where he studied with Joseph Marx. Then he studied privately with Berg (1928–1931), and with Webern (1934–1939). He left Nazi German-occupied Austria and arrived in the Soviet Union in 1940, settling first in Chernovtsy, which he left on 22 June 1941 at the beginning of the German invasion, and then moving to Tashkent (in the Uzbek SSR) where he lived until 1944. He settled in Moscow in 1946, where we began to teach privately, exerting a major influence on several generations of Russian musicians, including leading figures of the so-called “Underground division”. Among these were the composers Andrei Volkonsky, Edison Denisov, Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina, Nikolai Karetnikov, Boris Tishchenko, Valentin Silvestrov, Leonid Hrabovsky, Vyacheslav Artyomov, Vladimir Dashkevich, Alexande

Philip James

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Philip Frederick Wright James (May 17, 1890 – November 1, 1975) was an American composer, conductor and music educator. Life James was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. At an early age he began piano, violin and theory lessons, and served as choirboy in several New Jersey churches. From 1904 to 1909 he studied organ with J. Warren Andrews and in 1907 began advanced harmony and counterpoint lessons with Homer Norris. In World War I James played in and subsequently became bandleader of the American Expeditionary Forces Headquarters Band. Victor Herbert heard his work with the band and upon James’ discharge from the Army hired him as musical director for his musical comedy My Golden Girl. In 1921 James co-founded and became the first conductor of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. From 1929 to 1936 James was conductor of the Bamberger Symphony, broadcast weekly over radio station WOR in New York. In 1923 James began a long teaching career at New York University, serving as head of the music department from 1934 until his retirement in 1956. His students at NYU included Milton Babbitt, Bernard Herrmann, and Marvin David Levy. In 1932 he won a $5000 prize from NBC for his satirical compo

Philip Martell

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Philip Martell (6 October 1907 – 11 August 1993) was a British composer, arranger, musical director, orchestra leader, and most notably head of music at Hammer Studios. Early life Born in Whitechapel and brought up in the East End, Martell began to play the violin at the age of five, enrolling at the Guildhall School of Music in 1919, aged 11. After graduation he began working in the West End of London as leader and then conductor, and also became involved with the early film industry, arranging sequences of classical music to accompany silent films. But as sound came to films in the 1930s Martell returned to the theatre, and also formed his own orchestra, The Forum Orchestra, in 1936. By the early 1950s he was conducting London productions of top musicals and shows, such as Love From Judy (Saville Theatre, September 1952), After the Ball (Globe Theatre, 1954) and Free as Air (Savoy Theatre, 1957). Film career Martell received his first film credit as musical director in 1949 on Val Guest’s Murder at the Windmill and was both musical director and composer of the film score to Guest’s Miss Pilgrim’s Progress (1950). He was sponsored by Guest to join Hammer Studios in 1954. He succee

Philip Radcliffe

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Philip FitzHugh Radcliffe (27 April 1905 – 2 September 1986) was an English academic, musicologist and composer, born in Godalming, Surrey. Early life He was educated at Charterhouse and read Classics at King’s College, Cambridge, gaining a scholarship and a First in Part I of the degree, but then only a Third in Part II, causing him to switch his attention to music, studying under Edward Dent and Henry Moule. He was a gifted pianist. Career Philip Radcliffe had his first sight of Cambridge in December 1923 when he sat for a scholarship examination. “I attended evensong in the Chapel of my future College and can still recall the impact made upon me by the quiet, other-world sound of the choir singing Remember, O thou man.” His dissertation on tonality in sixteenth and seventeenth century music developed on the work of Richard Terry and Edmund Fellowes. Radcliffe became a music fellow at King’s College, Cambridge in 1931, and a lecturer between 1947 and 1972. His pupils included Philip Brett, Winton Dean, Jeremy Dibble, Peter Dickinson, Sebastian Forbes and Richard Lloyd. He lived in King’s for the rest of his life, never leaving it for more than a few weeks. His academic writings i

Philipp Jarnach

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Philipp Jarnach (26 July 1892 17 December 1982 in Börnsen) was a German composer of contemporary music (“Neue Musik”), pianist, teacher, and conductor. Along with composers such as Hindemith, Jarnach is considered one of the leading and formative composers of the late German Romantic and early modern (“Neue Musik”) eras. Jarnach was born in Noisy-le-Sec, France, the son of a Spanish sculptor and a Flemish mother. Until 1914 he lived in Paris, where he studied piano under Édouard Risler and harmony under Albert Lavignac at the Conservatoire de Paris. During the First World War he was a student of Ferruccio Busoni in Zürich. He later completed the opera Doktor Faust, which Busoni had left unfinished on his death in 1924. In the 1920s Jarnach worked in Berlin as a pianist, conductor and composer. In 1927 he became a teacher in composition at the Hochschule für Musik Köln. In 1949 he founded the Hamburger Musikhochschule (Hamburg Music Academy) which he directed until 1959 and at which he taught until 1970. His students included Ivan Rebroff (known as Hans Rolf Rippert at that time), Kurt Weill, Otto Luening, Wilhelm Maler, Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Jürg Baur, Walter Steffens, Colin Brum