- 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. - 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, … - Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich was born in St. Petersburg, Russia on September 25, 1906. Years after his death, he remains one of the most important figures in 20th-century classical music and one of the most controversial. Under pressure from Soviet authorities, he compromised his art. At least that was how it seemed. (09/25/2006) - Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, OM, GCVO (2 June 1857 - 23 February 1934) was an English Romantic composer. Several of his first major orchestral works, including the "Enigma Variations" and the "Pomp and Circumstance Marches", were greeted with acclaim. He also composed oratorios, chamber music, symphonies and instrumental concertos. He was appointed Master of the King's Musick in 1924. - Neville Marriner
Sir Neville Marriner (born April 15, 1924) is an English conductor and violinist. Marriner was born in Lincoln and studied at the Royal College of Music and the Paris Conservatoire. He played the violin in the Philharmonia and London Symphony Orchestra and formed the Jacobean Ensemble with Thurston Dart before going to Hancock, Maine, in the United States to study conducting with Pierre Monteux at his school there. In 1959 he founded the Academy of St. - Isaac Stern
Isaac Stern was one of the finest violin virtuosi of the twentieth century. Born in Kremenetz, Ukraine on July 21, 1920, Isaac Stern was ten months old when his family moved to San Francisco. He received his first music lessons from his mother before enrolling at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 1928. He studied there until 1931, then studied privately with Louis Persinger. - David Oistrakh
David Fyodorovich Oistrakh was a Jewish Soviet violinist who made many recordings and was the dedicatee of numerous violin works. His recordings and performances of Shostakovich's concerti are particularly well known, but he was also a performer of classical concerti. He worked with orchestras in Russia, and also with musicians in Europe and the United States. - Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst was an English composer and was a music teacher for over 20 years. Holst is most famous for his orchestral suite "The Planets". Having studied at the Royal College of Music in London, his early work was influenced by Ravel, Grieg, Richard Strauss, and Ralph Vaughan Williams, but most of his music is highly original, with influences from Hindu spiritualism and English folk tunes. - John Corigliano
John Corigliano (b. February 16, 1938) is an American composer of classical music and a teacher of music. - Steven Isserlis
Steven Isserlis (born December 19 1958, London) is one of the most prominent living cellists. He is notable for his diverse repertoire, distinctive sound and total command of phrasing. He studied at Oberlin Conservatory of Music and was also highly influneced by the great iconoclast of Russian cello playing, Daniil Shafran. Isserlis plays both as soloist and chamber musician and has rediscovered many previously neglected works. - Fabio Biondi
Fabio Biondi (born March 15, 1961) is an Italian violinist and conductor. Born in Palermo, Sicily, Biondi began his international career at the age of 12 playing a concerto with the RAI Symphony Orchestra. When he was 16, he performed Bach's violin concertos at the Musikverein in Vienna. Since then, he has performed with a number of baroque ensembles including La Capella Reial, Musica Antiqua Wien, Seminario Musicale, La Chapelle Royale and Les Musiciens du Louvre. - James MacMillan
Dr James MacMillan (born on July 16, 1959) is a Scottish classical composer. MacMillan was born at Kilwinning, North Ayrshire, but lived in the south Ayrshire town of Cumnock until 1977. He studied composition at the University of Edinburgh with Rita McAlister, and at Durham University with John Casken, gaining a PhD in 1987. He was a music lecturer at the University of Manchester from 1986-1988. After his studies, MacMillan returned to Scotland, composing prolifically, … - Leo Brouwer
Juan Leovigildo Brouwer Mezquida (born March 1, 1939) is a Cuban composer, guitarist and conductor. Brouwer was born in Havana, and went to the United States to study music at the University of Hartford and later at the Juilliard School, where he was taught composition by Stefan Wolpe. Brouwer's early works show the influence of Cuban folk music, but during the 1960s and 70s, he became interested in the music of modernist composers such as Luigi Nono and Iannis Xenakis, … - Carl Stamitz
Karel Stamic (May 7, 1745 - November 9, 1801), who took the German form of his name Karl Philipp Stamitz and is now better known as Carl, was a Bohemian composer, violin, viola and viola d'amore virtuoso. He was the most prominent of the second generation of the so-called Mannheim school. Stamitz was born in Mannheim and was first taught music by Johann Stamitz, his father and founder of the Mannheim school. - Ruggiero Ricci
Ruggiero Ricci is an Italian-American violin virtuoso who has become famous in particular for his performances and recordings of the works of Paganini. He is the son of Italian immigrants. His father first taught him to play the violin. At age seven, Ricci studied with Louis Persinger and Elizabeth Lackey. Persinger would become his piano accompanist for many recitals and recordings. - Paul Badura-Skoda
Paul Badura-Skoda is an Austrian pianist. He won first prize in the Austrian Music Competition in 1947. In 1949, he performed with distinguished conductors like Wilhelm Furtwängler and Herbert von Karajan. He has specialized in works of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, but has an extensive repertoire, with a vast amount of recordings, including more than 200 LPs. Together with his wife Eva Badura-Skoda, he has also produced musical scholarship of impressive quality. - Camargo Guarnieri
Mozart Camargo Guarnieri (February 1, 1907 Tietê, São Paulo – January 13, 1993 São Paulo) was a Brazilian composer. He studied piano and composition at the São Paulo Conservatório, and subsequently worked with Charles Koechlin in Paris. Some of his compositions received important prizes in the United States in the 1940s, giving Guarnieri the opportunity of conducting them in New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago. - Mark-Anthony Turnage
Mark-Anthony Turnage (born June 10, 1960 in Corringham, Essex) is an English composer of classical music. He has also been strongly influenced by jazz, and by Miles Davis in particular. Turnage's music is often in a characteristic personal style, with strong rhythmic thrust, involved jazz harmonies, colourful orchestration with prominent use of tuned and untuned percussion, … - David Diamond
David Leo Diamond (July 9 1915 - June 13 2005) was an American composer of classical music. 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, and is considered one of the preeminent American composers of his generation. - Ferdinando Carulli
Ferdinando Maria Meinrado Francesco Pascale Rosario Carulli (February 9, 1770-February 17, 1841) was one of the most famous composers for classical guitar and the author of the first complete classical guitar method, which continues to be used today. He wrote a variety of works for classical guitar, including concertos and chamber works. He was an extremely prolific writer for guitar, writing over 400 works for the instrument in the space of 12 years. - Carl Czerny
Carl Czerny (sometimes Karl; February 21, 1791 - July 15, 1857) was an Austrian pianist, composer and teacher. He is best remembered today for his books of etudes for the piano. Czerny was born in Vienna to a family of Bohemian origins. He was taught piano by his father before taking lessons from Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Antonio Salieri, and Ludwig van Beethoven. - Johann Friedrich Fasch
Johann Friedrich Fasch was a German composer. He was born in Buttelstädt, was a choirboy in Weissenfels and studied under Johann Kuhnau at the Thomasschule in Leipzig (he later founded a Collegium Musicum in the city). He then traveled throughout Germany, becoming a violinist in the orchestra in Bayreuth in 1714, and also holding court posts in Greiz and Lukavec. In 1722 he was appointed Kapellmeister at Zerbst, a post he held until his death. - Paul Creston
Paul Creston (born Giuseppe Guttoveggio October 10, 1906 in New York City - died August 24, 1985 in San Diego, California) was an American composer of classical music. Born in New York City, Creston was self‐taught as a composer. His work tends to be fairly conservative in style, firmly tonal (as opposed to atonal) in style, and with a strong rhythmic element. His pieces include six symphonies, a number of concerti, including two for violin, … - Johann Joachim Quantz
Johann Joachim Quantz was a German flautist, flute maker and composer. He was born in Oberscheden, near Göttingen, Germany, and died in Potsdam. Quantz began his musical studies as a child with his uncle (his father - a blacksmith - died when Quantz was young), later going to Dresden and Vienna. It was during his time as musician to Frederick Augustus II of Poland that he began to concentrate on the flute, performing more and more on the instrument. - Lazar Berman
Lazar Naumovich Berman (Russian Лазарь Наумович Берман, "Lasari Naumovič Berman February 26, 1930 in Leningrad - February 6, 2005 in Florence) was a Soviet Russian classical pianist. Berman's playing showed great technical brilliance, showmanship, emotional and physical force. He had the endurance to play three concertos or four sonatas in one night, and was considered a brilliant interpreter of Franz Liszt, … - Joseph Jongen
Joseph Jongen was a Belgian organist, composer, and music educator. Jongen was born in Liège. On the strength of an amazing precocity for music, he was admitted to the Liège Conservatoire at the extraordinarily young age of seven, and there he spent the next sixteen years. The admission board was not disappointed. Jongen won a First Prize for Fugue in 1891, an honors diploma in piano the next year, and another for organ in 1896. - Kees Bakels
Kees Bakels (born in Amsterdam) is a Dutch conductor. Bakels began his musical career as a violinist, and later studied conducting at the Amsterdam Conservatory and the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy. He has appeared with many orchestras as a guest conductor, in addition to holding titled positions with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and, most recently, the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. - Sally Beamish
Sally Beamish (born 26 August 1956, London) is a British composer of chamber, vocal, choral and orchestral music. Beamish studied the viola at the Royal Northern College of Music, where she received lessons from Anthony Gilbert and Lennox Berkeley. She later studied in Germany with the Italian violinist Bruno Giuranna. As a violist in the Raphael Ensemble, she recorded four discs of string sextets. However, it was as a composer that she made her mark, … - Ross Edwards
Ross Edwards, born Sydney, December 23, 1943, is an Australian composer of a wide variety of music including orchestral and chamber music, choral music, children's music, opera and film music. - Antonio Rosetti
Antonio Rosetti was a classical era composer and double bass player, and was a contemporary of Haydn and Mozart. Rosetti was born around 1750 in Litoměřice, a town in Northern Bohemia, and was originally called Franz Anton Rösler. He is believed to have received early musical training from the Jesuits. In 1773 Rosetti left this native country and joined the Hofkapelle of Prince von Öttingen-Wallerstein, whom he served for sixteen years, … - Benjamin Godard
Benjamin Louis Paul Godard (Paris August 18, 1849 - January 10, 1895 at Cannes) was a French composer probably best known as a writer of salon music. He studied at the Conservatoire de Paris under Reber (harmony) and Henri Vieuxtemps (violin). He accompanied Vieuxtemps twice to Germany, and also devoted himself to chamber music. He composed music with great facility. In 1876 his "Concerto romantique" was performed at the Concerts Populaires, … - Giuseppe Sammartini
Giuseppe Baldassare Sammartini (January 6 1695 - November 1750) was an Italian composer and an oboist. A native of Milan, he moved to London together with his brother Giovanni Battista Sammartini. He had started playing the oboe in Milan and in London took up the post of oboist in the Opera orchestra in 1727. He later left the Opera and was patronised by Frederick, Prince of Wales and his wife. - Edmund Rubbra
Edmund Rubbra (23 May 1901-14 February 1986) was a British composer. He composed both instrumental and vocal works for soloists, chamber groups and full choruses and orchestras. He was highly respected by fellow musicians and was at the peak of his public popularity in the mid-20th century. The most famous of his works are his eleven symphonies. Although he was composing at a time when many people wrote twelve-tone music, he decided not to compose in this style. - Witold Lutosławski
Witold Lutosławski was one of the major European composers of the 20th century. He was possibly the most significant Polish composer after Chopin, and was one of the pre-eminent musicians of his country during the last three decades of the century. During his lifetime he earned a large number of international awards and prizes, including the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest honour. - Giovanni Battista Sammartini
Giovanni Battista Sammartini (1700 or 1701 - January 17, 1775) was an Italian composer, organist, choirmaster and teacher. He counted Gluck among his students, and was highly regarded by younger composers including Johann Christian Bach. It has also been noted that many stylizations in Joseph Haydn's compositions are similar to those of Sammartini, although Haydn denied any such influence. - Marisa Robles
Marisa Robles (born April 5, 1937) is one of the world's best-known harpists. She was born in Spain, where she studied the harp with Luisa Menarguez, and studied music at the Madrid Conservatory, graduating at the age of sixteen in 1953. She made her concert debut at seventeen, performing with flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal. The concerto for flute and harp by Mozart which they performed together was to become the piece for which she is best known. - Samson François
Samson Pascal François was a French pianist. François was born in Frankfurt where his father worked at the French consulate. His mother, Rose, named him Samson, for strength, and Pascal, for spirit. François discovered the piano early – at the age of two – and his first studies were in Italy, with Mascagni, who encouraged him to give his first concert at the age of six. Moving from country to country with his itinerant family, he studied in Belgrade with Cyril Licar, … - Philip Martin
Philip Martin is an Irish pianist and composer. Philip Martin was born in Dublin and studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, under Franz Reizenstein, Lennox Berkeley, Richard Rodney Bennett and Louis Kentner. He enjoys a dual career as both a pianist and composer. Among his compositions are two piano concertos, "Through Streets Broad and Narrow" for chamber orchestra, and a concerto for harp dedicated to the Irish harpist Andreja Maliř. - Angelo Gilardino
Angelo Gilardino (born 1941 in Vercelli) is an Italian composer, guitarist and musicologist. During his concert career, from 1958 to 1981, he premiered hundreds of new works for the guitar. He taught at the Liceo Musicale "G. B. Viotti" in Vercelli from 1965 to 1981, and held a professorship at the Antonio Vivaldi Conservatory in Alessandria from 1981 to 2004. The Conservatory awarded him the Marengo Music Prize in 1998. - David Tanenbaum
David Tanenbaum (born 1956) is an American classical guitarist. Tanenbaum made his concert debut at the age of 16. He has since become known as an enthusiastic promoter of new music for his instrument, although his repertoire also includes much music from other periods. Among other works, he has premiered Hans Werner Henze's concerto "An eine Aeolsharfe" (1985-6) and Peter Maxwell Davies's "Sonata" (1984).
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