- Barry Mills - Composer
- Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 - September 28, 1991) was an American jazz musician, widely considered one of the most influential of the 20th century. A trumpeter, bandleader and composer, Davis was at the forefront of almost every major development in jazz from World War II to the 1990s. He played on various early bebop records and recorded one of the first cool jazz records. He was partially responsible for the development of modal jazz, … - Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a prolific German composer and organist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity. - John Williams
John Towner Williams (born February 8 1932) is an American composer, conductor and pianist. In a career that spans six decades, Williams has composed many of the most famous film scores in history, including those for "Jaws", "Star Wars", "Superman", "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial", "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Jurassic Park", "Schindler's List", "Hook", "Memoirs of a Geisha", and "Harry Potter". - Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was an African American jazz composer, pianist, and band leader who has been one of the most influential figures in jazz, if not in all American music. As a composer and a band leader especially, Ellington's reputation has increased since his death, with thematic repackagings of his signature music often becoming best-sellers. A man of suave demeanor and puckish wit that masked occasional brusqueness, … - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (baptized Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. His output of over 600 compositions includes works widely acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. Mozart is among the most enduringly popular of European composers and many of his works are part of the standard concert repertoire. - Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven, (baptized December 17, 1770 - March 26, 1827) was a German composer. He is regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of music, and was a crucial figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western classical music. His music and his reputation inspired — and in many cases intimidated — ensuing generations of composers, musicians, and audiences. - John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 - August 12, 1992) was an American composer. He is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition "4'33", whose three movements are performed without a single note being played. He was a pioneer of chance music, non-standard use of musical instruments, and electronic music. Though he remains a controversial figure, he is generally regarded as one of the most important composers of his era. - 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", … - Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John CBE (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 25 March, 1947) is a five-time Grammy and one-time Academy Award-winning English pop/rock singer, composer and pianist. In his four-decade career, John has been one of the dominant forces in rock and popular music, especially in the 1970s. John has sold more than 250 million albums plus hundreds of millions of singles, making him one of the most successful artists of all time. - John Coltrane
John William Coltrane, nicknamed Trane, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Although recordings of his work from as early as 1946 exist, Coltrane's recording career did not begin in earnest until 1955. From 1957 onward he recorded and produced dozens of albums, many of them not released until years after his death. - Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner (22 May 1813 - 13 February 1883) was a German composer, conductor, music theorist, and essayist, primarily known for his operas (or "music dramas" as they were later called). Unlike most other great opera composers, Wagner always wrote the scenario and libretto for his works himself. Wagner's compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their contrapuntal texture, rich chromaticism, harmonies and orchestration, … - Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms (May 7, 1833 - April 3, 1897) was a German composer of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, he eventually settled in Vienna, Austria. - Philip Glass
Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an Academy Award-nominated American composer. His music is frequently described as "minimalist", though he prefers the term "theater music". He is considered one of the most influential composers of the late-20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public (apart from precursors such as Kurt Weill and Leonard Bernstein), … - David Bowie
David Bowie (born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947) is an English singer, songwriter, actor, multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger and audio engineer. Active in five decades of rock music, and frequently re-inventing his music and image, Bowie is widely regarded as an influential innovator, particularly for his work through the 1970s. Bowie has taken cues from a wide range of fine art, philosophy and literature. He is also a film and stage actor, … - Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder (born Stevland Hardaway Judkins on May 13, 1950, name later changed to Stevland Hardaway Morris), is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. Wonder has recorded more than thirty Top 10 hits, won twenty-two Grammy Awards (a record for a solo artist), plus one for lifetime achievement, won an Academy Award for Best Song and been inducted into both the Rock and Roll and Songwriters halls of fame. - Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12 1940 in Chicago, Illinois) is an Academy Award and multiple Grammy Award-winning jazz pianist and composer. Hancock is one of jazz music's most important and influential pianists and composers. He embraced elements of rock, funk, and soul while adopting freer stylistic elements from jazz. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet", Hancock helped redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section, … - Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone (born November 10, 1928; sometimes also credited as "Dan Savio" or "Leo Nichols") is an Italian composer especially noted for his film scores. He has composed and arranged scores for more than 400 film and television productions, more than any other composer living or deceased. He is best known for the characteristic sparse and memorable soundtracks of Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns "A Fistful of Dollars" (1964), … - Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim (b. March 22 1930) is widely seen as his generation's leading writer of the stage musical. Described by Frank Rich in the "The New York Times" as "the greatest and perhaps best-known artist in the American musical theater," he is one of the few people to win an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards (seven, more than any other composer), multiple Grammy Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize. - Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash was an influential American country and rock and roll singer and songwriter. Cash was the husband of country singer and songwriter June Carter Cash. Cash was known for his deep, distinctive voice, the "boom-chick-a-boom" or "freight train" sound of his Tennessee Three backing band, his dark clothing, and demeanor, which earned him the nickname "The Man in Black." He started all his concerts with the simple introduction "Hello, … - Franz Schubert
Franz Seraphicus Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer. He wrote some 600 Lieder, seven completed symphonies, the famous "Unfinished Symphony", liturgical music, operas, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music. He is particularly noted for his original melodic and harmonic writing. While Schubert had a close circle of friends and associates who admired his work (including his teacher Antonio Salieri, and the prominent singer Johann Michael Vogl), … - Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian composer, considered by many in both the West and his native land to be the most influential composer of 20th century music. He was a quintessentially cosmopolitan Russian who was named by "Time" magazine as one of the most influential people of the century. In addition to the recognition he received for his compositions, he also achieved fame as a pianist and a conductor, often at the premieres of his works. - Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler (July 7, 1860 - May 18, 1911) was a Bohemian-Austrian composer and conductor. Mahler was best known during his own lifetime as one of the leading orchestral and operatic conductors of the day. He has since come to be acknowledged as among the most important post-romantic composers. With the exceptions of an early piano quartet and "Totenfeier", the original tone-poem version of the first movement of the second symphony, … - Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss (June 11, 1864 - September 8, 1949) was a German composer of the late Romantic era and early modern era, particularly noted for his tone poems and operas. He was also a noted conductor. - Hans Zimmer
Hans Florian Zimmer (born September 12, 1957) is an Academy Award, Grammy, and Golden Globe award-winning film score composer from Germany. - Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton CBE (born 30 March 1945), nicknamed "Slowhand", is a Grammy Award winning English guitarist, singer and composer, who is one of the most successful musicians of the 20th century, garnering an unprecedented three inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Often viewed as one of the greatest guitarists of all time among critics and fans alike, … - Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann (June 8, 1810 - July 29, 1856) was a German composer and pianist. He was one of the most famous Romantic composers of the nineteenth century, as well as a famous music critic. An intellectual as well as an aesthete, his music reflects the deeply personal nature of Romanticism. Introspective and often whimsical, his early music was an attempt to break with the tradition of classical forms and structure which he thought too restrictive. - Jerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King "Jerry" Goldsmith was a famous and prolific American film score composer from Los Angeles, California. Goldsmith was nominated for eighteen Academy Awards (winning one, for "The Omen"), and also won five Emmy Awards. - Ray Charles
Ray Charles was the stage name of Ray Charles Robinson, a pioneering American pianist and soul musician who shaped the sound of rhythm and blues. He brought a soulful sound to country music, pop standards, and a rendition of "America the Beautiful" that Ed Bradley of "60 Minutes" called the "definitive version of the song, an American anthem - a classic, … - Ray Charles
Ray Charles (born Charles Raymond Offenberg, September 13, 1918 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, vocal arranger and conductor who is best- known as organizer and leader of The Ray Charles Singers. The Ray Charles Singers were featured on Perry Como's records, radio shows and television shows for 35 years. - Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt was a Hungarian virtuoso pianist and composer of the Romantic period. He was a renowned performer throughout Europe during the 19th century, noted especially for his showmanship and great skill with the piano. Today, he is considered to be one of the greatest pianists in history, despite the fact that no recordings of his playing exist. Liszt is frequently credited with re-defining piano playing itself, and his influence is still visible today, … - Steve Reich
Stephen Michael Reich (born October 3, 1936) is an American composer. He is a pioneer of minimalism, although his music has increasingly deviated from a purely minimalist style. Reich's innovations include using tape loops to create phasing patterns (examples are his early compositions, "It's Gonna Rain" and "Come Out"), and the use of processes to create and explore musical concepts (for instance, "Pendulum Music" and "Four Organs"). - Claude Debussy
Achille-Claude Debussy (August 22, 1862 - March 25, 1918) was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel he is considered the most prominent figure working within the style commonly referred to as Impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions. Debussy was not only among the most important of all French composers but also a central figure in all European music at the turn of the twentieth century. - Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 - December 4, 1993) was an American composer, guitarist, singer, film director, and satirist. In his more than 30-year long career, Frank Zappa established himself as one of the most prolific and distinctive musician-composer-band leaders of his era. Zappa worked in almost every musical genre and wrote music for rock bands, jazz ensembles, synthesisers and symphony orchestra, as well as radiophonic works constructed from pre-recorded, … - George Gershwin
George Gershwin (September 26, 1898 - July 11, 1937) was an American composer. He wrote most of his vocal and theatrical works in collaboration with his elder brother, lyricist Ira Gershwin. George Gershwin composed both for Broadway and for the classical concert hall. He also wrote popular songs with success. Many of his compositions have been used on television and in numerous films, and many became jazz standards. - Joseph Haydn
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) is the composer of three wonderful trios for flute, cello and piano, the first of which was composed in 1790 and ranks among the best of Haydn's chamber music. The trio is vivacious and bright, full of energy and joy. ... Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) is the composer of three wonderful trios for flute, cello and piano, the second of which was written in 1790 and seems to be the most "classical" of the three trios. - Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland was an American composer of concert and film music, as well as an accomplished pianist. Instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, he was widely known as “the dean of American composers.” Copland's music achieved a difficult balance between modern music and American folk styles, and the open, slowly changing harmonies of many of his works are said to evoke the vast American landscape. - Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, born and known generally as Felix Mendelssohn (February 3, 1809 - November 4, 1847) was a German composer and conductor of the early Romantic period. Born to a notable Jewish family, being the grandson of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. His work includes symphonies, concertos, oratorios, piano and chamber music. After a long period of relative denigration due to changing musical tastes in the late 19th century, … - Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, nicknamed "Il Prete Rosso" ("The Red Priest"), was an Italian priest and baroque music composer, as well as a famous violinist; he was born and raised in the Republic of Venice. "The Four Seasons", a series of four violin concertos, are his best known works and highly popular Baroque music pieces. - Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk (October 10, 1917 - February 17, 1982) was a jazz pianist and composer. Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire (including his classic works "'Round Midnight" and "Blue Monk"). He is often regarded as a founder of bebop, although his playing style evolved away from the form. His compositions and improvisations are full of dissonant harmonies and angular melodic twists, …
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