composer
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Johannes Brahms *V 7 1833 / The Life You Give
Johannes Brahms, born May 7, 1833, in Hamburg, Germany, is a composer and pianist of the Romantic period, who wrote symphonies, concerti, chamber music, piano works, choral compositions, and more than 200 songs. Brahms was the great master of symphonic and sonata style in the second half of the 19th century. He can be viewed…
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Alessandro Scarlatti *V 2 1660 — The Life You Give
Alessandro Scarlatti, born Pietro Alessandro Gaspare Scarlatti, May 2, 1660, Palermo, Sicily, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies [now in Italy], was a composer of operas and religious works. Scarlatti was sent to Rome at about the age of 12; there he met Bernardo Pasquini, by whom he was greatly influenced. The first of his 115…
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Tim Hodgkinson *V 1 1949 — The Life You Give
Tim Hodgkinson (b. 1949) studied social anthropology at Cambridge, and co-founded the politically and musically radical group HENRY COW with Fred Frith in 1968. In addition to composing, he has a long involvement in improvisation, and came back to anthropology in the 1990’s with research into music and shamanism in Siberia. He has participated in…
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Ellen Taaffe Zwilich *IV 30 1939 — The Life You Give
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, born April 30, 1939 in Miami, Florida, U.S.A., is a composer, and the first woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize in composition. Taaffe began composing as a child, and, by the time she finished high school, she had studied piano, violin, and trumpet. After receiving both a bachelor’s (1960) and a…
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Duke Ellington *IV 29 1899 — The Life You Give
Duke Ellington, born Edward Kennedy Ellington, April 29, 1899, in Washington, D.C., U.S.A., is the pianist who was the greatest jazz composer and bandleader of his time. One of the originators of big-band jazz, Ellington led his band for more than half a century, composed thousands of scores, and created one of the most distinctive…
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Sergey Prokofiev *IV 23 1891 — The Life You Give
Sergey Prokofiev, born Sergey Sergeyevich Prokofiev on April 23 1891, in Sontsovka, Ukraine, is the composer who wrote in a wide range of musical genres, including symphonies, concerti, film music, operas, ballets, and program pieces. Prokofiev (Prokofjev in the transliteration system of the Russian Academy of Sciences) was born into a family of agriculturalists. Village…
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Ethel Smyth *IV 22 1858 — The Life You Give
Dame Ethel Smyth, born Ethel Mary Smyth, on April 22, 1858, in London, is the composer whose work was notably eclectic, ranging from conventional to experimental. Born into a military family, Smyth studied at the Leipzig Conservatory and was encouraged by Johannes Brahms and Antonín Dvořák. She first gained notice with her sweeping Mass in…
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Germaine Tailleferre *IV 19 1892 — The Life You Give
Of significance as the sole female member of the post-World War I group of French composers known as Les Six, Germaine Tailleferre remained a prominent — if somewhat inaccessible — musician long after the disintegration of that group during the middle and late 1920s. She left behind, at her death in 1983 at the age…
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Florence Price *IV 9 1887 / The Life You Give
The first African-American woman whose music was played by a major symphony orchestra, Florence Price was a pioneering figure in 20th century American music. In the 21st century, her music has been performed increasingly often, especially since a large cache of her compositions was rediscovered in 2009. Price was born Florence Beatrice Smith in Little…
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Giuseppe Tartini *IV 8 1692 — The Life You Give
Giuseppe Tartini, born April 8, 1692, in Pirano, Istria, Republic of Venice [now Piran, Slovenia], is the violinist, composer, and theorist who helped establish the modern style of violin bowing and formulated principles of musical ornamentation and harmony. Tartini studied divinity and law at Padua and at the same time established a reputation as a…
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Ravi Shankar *IV 7 1920 — The Life You Give
Ravi Shankar, born Ravindra Shankar Chowdhury, on April 7, 1920, Benares [now Varanasi], India, is the musician, player of the sitar, composer, and founder of the National Orchestra of India, who was influential in stimulating Western appreciation of Indian music. Born into a Bengali Brahman (highest social class in Hindu tradition) family, Shankar spent most…
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Sergei Rachmaninoff *IV 1 1873 — The Life You Give
Sergey Rachmaninoff, born March 20 [April 1, New Style], 1873, in Oneg, near Semyonovo, Russia, is the composer who was the last great figure of the tradition of Russian Romanticism and a leading piano virtuoso of his time. He is especially known for his piano concerti and the piece for piano and orchestra titled Rhapsody…
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Joseph Haydn *III 31 1732 — The Life You Give
Joseph Haydn, born Franz Joseph Haydn, on March 31, 1732, in Rohrau, Austria, is the composer who was one of the most important figures in the development of the Classical style in music during the 18th century. He helped establish the forms and styles for the string quartet and the symphony. Early years Haydn was…
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Pierre Boulez *III 26 1925 — The Life You Give
Pierre Boulez, born March 26, 1925, in Montbrison, France, is the most significant French composer of his generation, as well as a noted conductor and music theorist who championed the work of 20th-century composers. Boulez, the son of a steel manufacturer, majored in mathematics at the Collège de Saint-Étienne, where he also took music lessons;…
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Béla Bartók *March 25 1881 — The Life You Give
Béla Bartók, born March 25, 1881, in Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary, Austria-Hungary [now Sânnicolau Mare, Romania] is the composer, pianist, ethnomusicologist, and teacher, noted for the Hungarian flavour of his major musical works, which include orchestral works, string quartets, piano solos, several stage works, a cantata, and a number of settings of folk songs for voice and…
Sila Blume 