classical music
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Amy Beach *IX 5 1867 — The Life You Give
Amy Marcy Beach, born Amy Marcy Cheney, on September 5, 1867, in Henniker, New Hampshire, U.S.A., is the pianist and composer known for her Piano Concerto (1900) and her Gaelic Symphony (1894), the first symphony by an American woman composer. Amy Cheney had already demonstrated precocious musical talent when the family moved to Boston in…
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John Cage *IX 5 1912 / The Life You Give
John Cage, born John Milton Cage, Jr., September 5, 1912, in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., is the avant-garde composer whose inventive compositions and unorthodox ideas profoundly influenced mid-20th-century music. The son of an inventor, Cage briefly attended Pomona College and then traveled in Europe for a time. Returning to the United States in 1931, he…
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Giacomo Meyerbeer *IX 5 1791 — The Life You Give
Giacomo Meyerbeer, born Jakob Liebmann Meyer Beer, September 5, 1791, in Tasdorf, near Berlin, Germany, is the opera composer who established in Paris a vogue for spectacular romantic opera. Born of a wealthy Jewish family, Meyerbeer studied composition in Berlin and later at Darmstadt, where he formed a friendship with C.M. von Weber. His early…
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Anton Bruckner *IX 4 1824 — The Life You Give
Anton Bruckner, born Josef Anton Bruckner, Sept. 4, 1824, in Ansfelden, Austria, is the composer of a number of highly original and monumental symphonies. He was also an organist and teacher who composed much sacred and secular choral music. Bruckner was the son of a village schoolmaster and organist in Upper Austria. He showed talent…
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Engelbert Humperdinck *IX 1 1854 — The Life You Give
Engelbert Humperdinck, born September 1, 1854, in Siegburg, Prussia [Germany], is the composer known for his opera Hänsel und Gretel. Humperdinck studied at Cologne and at Munich. In 1879 a Mendelssohn scholarship enabled him to go to Italy, where he met Richard Wagner, who invited him to assist in the production of Parsifal at Bayreuth.…
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Rebecca Clarke *VIII 27 1886 — The Life You Give
Rebecca Helferich Clarke, born on August 27 1886, is the classical composer and violist, internationally renowned as a viola virtuoso who also became one of the first female professional orchestral players in London. In many respects, Rebecca Clarke had a troubled childhood. Her father maintained a strict sense of Victorian morals and could be quite…
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Leonard Bernstein *VIII 25 1918 / The Life You Give
Leonard Bernstein, born August 25, 1918, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, is the conductor, composer, and pianist noted for his accomplishments in both classical and popular music, for his flamboyant conducting style, and for his pedagogic flair, especially in concerts for young people. Bernstein played piano from age 10. He attended Boston Latin School; Harvard University (A.B.,…
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Karlheinz Stockhausen *VIII 22 1928 / The Life You Give
Karlheinz Stockhausen, born Aug. 22, 1928, in Mödrath, near Cologne, Germany, is the composer, and important creator and theoretician of electronic and serial music who strongly influenced avant-garde composers from the 1950s through the ’80s. Stockhausen studied at the State Academy for Music in Cologne and the University of Cologne from 1947 to 1951. In…
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Claude Debussy *VIII 22 1862 / The Life You Give
Claude Debussy, born Achille-Claude Debussy, on August 22, 1862, in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France, is the composer whose works were a seminal force in the music of the 20th century. He developed a highly original system of harmony and musical structure that expressed in many respects the ideals to which the Impressionist and Symbolist painters and writers…
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Lili Boulanger *VIII 21 1893 / The Life You Give
Lili Boulanger was born on August 21, 1893 in Paris, France, to a musical family. Her mother, father, and sister Nadia were all trained composers or performers. When her father, Ernest, was only 20, he won the Prix de Rome. This coveted prize, which provided a year’s study in Rome, was the greatest recognition a…
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Antonio Salieri *VIII 18 1750 / The Life You Give
Antonio Salieri, born Aug. 18, 1750, in Legnago, Republic of Venice [Italy], is the composer whose operas were acclaimed throughout Europe in the late 18th century. At the age of 16, Salieri was taken to Vienna by F.L. Gassmann, the imperial court composer and music director (Hofkapellmeister), and was introduced to Emperor Joseph II. During…
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Cécile Chaminade *VIII 8 1857 — The Life You Give
Cécile Chaminade, born Aug. 8, 1857, in Paris, France, is the composer and pianist known chiefly for her piano music, which she performed on numerous concert tours, particularly in England. Chaminade’s earliest music studies were with her mother, a pianist and singer. Because her father forbade her enrollment in a conservatory, Chaminade studied composition privately…
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Enrique Granados *VII 27 1867 / La Vida Que Das
See the biography in English below Enrique o Enric Granados y Campiña nacido en Lérida, 1867, en el canal de la Mancha, fue pianista y compositor español, hijo de padre cubano y de madre gallega. Su disposición para la música se reveló ya en su niñez; estudió los primeros elementos de solfeo y teoría, en…
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Alexis Weissenberg *VII 26 1929 — The Life You Give
If one wanted to make a biographical feature film about a classical musician, the life of the Bulgarian-American-French pianist Alexis Weissenberg would furnish ideal subject material. Born in Sofia in 1929, Weissenberg was taught to play the piano by his mother. Several members of her family were Vienna Conservatory-trained musicians, and Weissenberg grew up in…
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Evelyn Glennie *VII 19 1965 / The Life You Give
Evelyn Glennie is the world’s foremost, and first full-time, solo percussionist. She has been pivotal to the expansion of percussion as solo instruments, personally having commissioned over 200 new works. The recipient of enormous media attention due to her deafness, Glennie is likewise noteworthy for the variety of her repertoire and recording projects. Glennie was…
Sila Blume 