- Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein (August 25 1918 – October 14 1990) was an American conductor, composer, and pianist. He was the first conductor born in the United States of America to receive world-wide acclaim, and is known for both his conducting of the New York Philharmonic, including the acclaimed "Young People's Concerts" series, and his multiple compositions, including "West Side Story", … - Lorin Maazel
Lolin Varencove Maazel is an American conductor, violinist and composer. At twelve he toured America to conduct major orchestras. He made his violin debut at the age of fifteen, and in 1960, he became the first American to conduct at Bayreuth. He was conductor of the Deutsche Oper Berlin from 1965 to 1971 and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1965 to 1975. In 1972, Maazel began his tenure as Music Director at the Cleveland Orchestra. - Zubin Mehta
Zubin Mehta (b. April 29, 1936) is an Indian conductor of classical music. Zubin Mehta was born into an aristocratic Indian Parsi family in Bombay (now Mumbai), India, the son of Mehli and Tehmina Mehta. His father Mehli Mehta was a violinist and founding conductor of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra. Zubin is an alumnus of St Mary's School (I.C.S.E.), Mazagoan, Mumbai. - Riccardo Muti
Riccardo Muti (b. July 28, 1941) is an Italian conductor known for his work as music director of La Scala opera house in Milan, and with the Philadelphia Orchestra. - Emanuel Ax
Emanuel Ax (born June 8, 1949) is a Jewish-American pianist. Born in Lviv, Ukraine (then a constituent republic of the Soviet Union) to parents Joachim and Hellen Ax, both Nazi concentration camp survivors. Emanuel began to study piano at the age of six and Joachim was his first piano teacher. When he has eight the family moved to Warsaw and then two years later, to Winnipeg, Canada where he continued to study music, … - Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter (Bruno Walter Schlesinger) (September 15, 1876 - February 17, 1962) was a German-born conductor and composer. He was born in Berlin, but moved to several countries between 1933 and 1939, finally settling in the United States in 1939. He began using Walter as his surname in 1896, and officially upon naturalising to Austria in 1911. - Alan Gilbert
Alan Gilbert is an American conductor, born in New York in 1967. His father, Michael Gilbert, is a retired violinist from the New York Philharmonic, while his mother, Yoko Takabe, continues to play as a member of the orchestra. Growing up in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, he attended the Ethical Culture School and Fieldston. Gilbert studied the violin and viola at various institutions such as Harvard University, … - Gustavo Dudamel
He's the rock star of classical music. Handsome, talented, charismatic - the usual accolades apply to Gustavo Dudamel , at age 27, incoming music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He guest-conducts the New York Philharmonic Saturday at Tilles... - Marin Alsop
Marin Alsop's first performance as Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra on 27 September was recently featured on NBC's Today Show. The program included Adams, Fearful Symmetries and Mahler's Symphony No. 5. Click here to visit the MSNBC site - to view the programme, enter 'Marin Alsop' under Find Film search box. - Evgeny Kissin
Evgeny Igorevich Kissin is a virtuoso classical pianist. Kissin was born in Moscow to a Jewish family. At age 11 months, he reportedly was able to hum along to a Bach tune his sister Alla was playing on the piano. At age 6 he commenced his own piano studies at the esteemed Gnessin School of Music for Gifted Children where he became a student of Anna Pavlovna Kantor. - Alice Tully
Alice Tully (September 14 1902 - December 10 1993) was a singer, music promoter and philanthropist. Tully began her career as a mezzo-soprano, then became a soprano. She studied in Paris, France and made her debut in 1927 with the Pasdeloup Orchestra. In 1933, she appeared in "Cavalleria Rusticana" in New York City. In 1958, Tully inherited the estate of her grandfather, William Houghton, founder of the Corning Glass Works. - James Conlon
James Conlon (born 1950) is a prominent American conductor. He is known for both his symphonic and operatic work. Born in Manhattan and raised in Queens, Conlon was one of five children born into a Catholic union household led by an Irish father and a German-Italian mother. Although his parents were not wealthy, they shared a vigorous belief in self-education and passionately supported his intellectual and musical aspirations. - Lukas Foss
BPO Music Director: 1963-71 As a fifteen-year-old prodigy Lukas Foss arrived in America in 1937 where he enrolled at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music. By that time he had already been composing for eight years, with lessons in his native Berlin with his first piano teacher, Julius Herford . After his family fled Nazi Germany in 1933 Foss studied in Paris with Lazare Levy , Noel Gallon and Felix Wolfes , and advanced flute with Louis Moyse . - Leon Fleisher
Leon Fleisher (born July 23, 1928) is an American pianist and conductor. He was born in San Francisco, California, where he started studying the piano at age 4. He made his public debut at age 8 and played with the New York Philharmonic under Pierre Monteux at 16. He studied with Artur Schnabel. He made a memorable series of recordings with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra before losing the use of his right hand due to focal dystonia. - Gerard Schwarz
Gerard Schwarz (born August 19, 1947) is an American conductor. He is currently the Music Director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, a post he has held since 1985, having joined the organization in 1983. He was also Music Director of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (RLPO) and is Music Advisor and Principal Conductor of the five-week summer Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina. His contract with the RLPO ended in September 2006. - Gil Shaham
Gil Shaham (born February 19, 1971) is an award-winning violinist of Israeli descent. Born in Urbana, Illinois, he moved to Israel at the age of 2 with his parents, both scientists, Jacob Shaham and Meira Diskin. At age 10, he made debuts with the Jerusalem Symphony and Israel Philharmonic orchestras, and was admitted to Juilliard, where he studied with the famed Dorothy DeLay and Hyo Kang. Both he and his sister, the pianist Orli Shaham, attended Columbia University. - Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar ("Robi Shôngkor", (born April 7, 1920, in Benares, United Provinces, British India) is an Indian composer best known for his virtuosity on the sitar. A disciple of Allauddin Khan (founder of the Maihar gharana of Indian classical music), Pandit Ravi Shankar is, perhaps, the best-known Indian instrumentalist in the world. He is well known for his pioneering work in bringing the power and appeal of Indian classical music tradition, … - Kristin Chenoweth
Kristin Chenoweth (born Kristi Dawn Chenoweth on July 24, 1968) is an American singer and Tony Award-winning American musical theatre, film, and television actress. Chenoweth is a person of small stature (four feet, eleven inches tall and 95 pounds) and has a distinctive speaking voice; in "FHM's" March 2006 issue, she compared her voice to that of Betty Boop. Chenoweth is a coloratura soprano. - John Barbirolli
Sir John Giovanni Battista Barbirolli, CH, was a British conductor and cellist. Barbirolli was particularly associated with the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, which he led for nearly three decades. He was also music director of the New York Philharmonic and the Houston Symphony Orchestra, and conducted many other orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. - Krystian Zimerman
Krystian Zimerman is a Polish classical virtuoso pianist. He was born in Zabrze and studied at the Katowice Conservatory under Andrzej Jasinski. His career was launched when he won the Warsaw International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition in 1975. He performed with the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Herbert von Karajan in 1976 and he made his American début with the New York Philharmonic in 1979. He has toured widely and made a number of recordings. - Andrew Litton
Andrew Litton (born May 16, 1959, New York City) is an American orchestral conductor. He is a graduate of The Fieldston School, and holds both undergraduate and Masters degrees in music from Juilliard. He was Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra from 1988 to 1994. and is now its Conductor Laureate. He served for twelve seasons as Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra from 1994 to 2006. - Bramwell Tovey
Bramwell Tovey joined the VSO as Music Director in September 2000. Since September 2002 he has also been Chief Conductor and Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg. From 1989 to 2001 he was Artistic Director of the Winnipeg Symphony where he established the WSO's New Music Festival as one of the premiere new music events in North America. - Kaija Saariaho
Kaija Saariaho is a Finnish composer. Kaija Saariaho studied composition in Helsinki, Freiburg and Paris, where she has lived since 1982. Her studies and research at IRCAM have had a major influence on her music and her characteristically luxuriant and mysterious textures are often created by combining live music and electronics. Although much of her catalogue comprises chamber works, from the mid-nineties she has turned increasingly to larger forces and broader structures, … - Jaime Laredo
Jaime Laredo (born June 7, 1941 in Cochabamba, Bolivia) is a violinist and conductor. Currently the conductor and Music Director of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, he began his musical career when he was five years old. In 1948 he came to North America and took lessons from Antonio DeGrass. He also studied with Frank Houser before moving to Cleveland, Ohio, to study under Josef Gingold in 1953. - Yuri Bashmet
Yuri Bashmet, was acclaimed "Best Album of 1998" by The Strad magazine, and was nominated for a Grammy Award. As a soloist and a conductor, Bashmet has performed with leading symphony orchestras: Berliner Philharmoniker, Berlin Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Вауrische Rundfunk, San Francisco Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Wiener Philharmonic, Orchestra Radio France, Orchestre de Paris, etc. - Rudolf Serkin
Rudolf Serkin (March 28, 1903 - May 8, 1991) was a Bohemian-born pianist. He was born in Cheb (Eger), Bohemia (now Czech Republic) to a Russian-Jewish family. Hailed as a child prodigy, Serkin was sent to Vienna at the age of nine, where he studied piano with Richard Robert and, later, composition with Joseph Marx making his public debut with the Vienna Philharmonic at 12. - Xian Zhang
Xian Zhang, born in Dandong, China) is a Chinese American conductor. She was appointed Associate Conductor of the New York Philharmonic in July 2005 by Music Director Lorin Maazel. Zhang, who will serve a two-year term in her new position, was named Assistant Conductor in September 2004. Xian Zhang received both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. - Giuseppe Sinopoli
Giuseppe Sinopoli (November 2, 1946 - April 20, 2001) was a conductor and composer. He obtained a degree in medicine from the University of Padua. He completed a dissertation on criminal anthropology. Sinopoli was born in Venice, Italy, and later studied at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatoire and at Darmstadt, including being mentored in composition with Karlheinz Stockhausen. He began to make a name for himself as a composer of serial works, … - Stephen Hough
Stephen Hough (born November 22, 1961) is a British-born classical pianist and composer. He became an Australian citizen in 2005. Hough was born in Heswall (then in Cheshire) on the Wirral Peninsula, and grew up in Hoylake, where he began piano lessons at the age of five. In 1978, he was a finalist in the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition. In 1982, he won the Terence Judd Award in England. - Audra McDonald
Audra McDonald (born July 3, 1970) is a four-time Tony Award-winning American actress and singer. - John Harbison
John Harris Harbison (born December 20, 1938 in Orange, New Jersey) is a composer, best known for his operas and large choral works. Harbison won the prestigious BMI Foundation's Student Composer Awards for composition at the age of sixteen in 1954. He studied music at Harvard University, where he sang with the Harvard Glee Club, and later at Princeton. He is an Institute Professor of music at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. - Dennis Russell Davies
Dennis Russell Davies is an American conductor and pianist. He was born in Toledo, Ohio and studied piano and conducting at the Juilliard School of Music where he received his doctorate. He is a noted champion of living composers and modern music including Hans Werner Henze, William Bolcom, Lou Harrison, Alan Hovhaness, John Cage, Philip Glass, Giya Kancheli, Arvo Pärt, Virgil Thomson, and Aaron Copland. - Susan Graham
Susan Graham (born 1960, Roswell, New Mexico) is an American mezzo-soprano. She was raised in Midland, Texas. She is a graduate of Texas Tech University and of the Manhattan School of Music. She studied the piano for 13 years. She was a winner in the Metropolitan Opera's National Council Auditions, and also a recipient of the Schwabacher Award from the Merola Program of San Francisco Opera. Graham made her international début at Covent Garden in 1994, … - Joseph Alessi
Joseph Alessi is a world-renowned, primarily classical trombonist. He has been Principal Trombone for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra since 1985 and is on the faculty of the Juilliard School. In recognition to his influence in the field, in 2002 he was winner of the International Trombone Association's annual award. - Gregor Piatigorsky
Gregor Piatigorsky was a Ukrainian cellist well known in his time. Gregor Piatigorsky, or occasionally known as "Grisha," was born in Ekaterinoslav and studied violin and piano with his father as a child. After seeing and hearing the cello, he determined to become a cellist and constructed a play cello with two sticks. He was given a real cello when he was seven. He won a scholarship to the Moscow Conservatory, … - Paula Robison
Paula Robison is an American flutist who has appeared as soloist with the New York Philharmonic and co-founded the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She plays on a Brannen-Cooper flute. Born in Tennessee and raised in California, Robison began playing flute early on, and by 19 she was studying at the Juillard School, debuting with the New York Phil the next year. Robison has performed on "Live from Lincoln Center" and "Christmas at Kennedy Center". - Aaron Jay Kernis
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis , who has enjoyed a close association with the Minnesota Orchestra since 1992, was named new music advisor in 1998. In that role-one of the longest ongoing positions of its kind in the U.S.-he advises the music director in commissioning and supporting contemporary music for Orchestra concerts, education programs and special projects. - Thomas Schippers
Thomas Schippers (March 9, 1930 - December 16, 1977) was an American orchestral conductor. He was highly-regarded for his work in opera. Schippers was born in Portage, Michigan. He began playing piano at age four. He attended the Curtis Institute and the Juilliard School. He made his debut at the New York City Opera at age twenty-one, and the Metropolitan Opera at twenty-three. He conducted world premieres of now well known music by Gian Carlo Menotti and Samuel Barber. - Philippe Entremont
Philippe Entremont (b. Rheims, June 7, 1934) is a French pianist and conductor. He has made many recordings during his career, notably one in 1961 of Tchaikovsky's "Piano Concerto No. 1", with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. Philippe Entremont was born to musical parents, for his mother was a "Grand Prix" pianist and his father an operatic conductor. Philippe first received piano lessons from his mother at the age of six. - Morton Feldman
Morton Feldman was an American composer, born in New York City. A key figure in modern music, Feldman's compositions went through several phases. He was a pioneer of aleatoric music and indeterminate music, and in requiring improvisation. His compositions are characterized by their quietness, slowness, and often by their extreme length, especially in his later music.
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