Era: 20th Century

20th Century Japanese

ABE, Kōmei

Born in Hiroshima, 1 September 1911
Died in Tokyo, 28 December 2008

[KOH-may AH-bay]

Abe studied cello, composition, and conducting at the Tokyo Academy of Music.
In addition to composing, Abe taught at the Elizabeth College of Music in Hiroshima, and at the Kyoto Municipal College of Arts.¹
Abe composed orchestral music, chamber music and film music, and was a particularly prolific composer of string quartets.²

Learn More
Short biography from Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians

Pieces

Symphony No. 1 (1957)

20th Century English

ADDINSELL, Richard

Born in London, Jan 13, 1904
Died in Chelsea, London, Nov 14, 1977³

Biography

Pieces

Warsaw Concerto

20th Century Ghanaian

ADDY, Obo

Photograph of Obo Addy by K. Kendall, via Wikimedia Commons

Born in Accra, Ghana, January 15, 1936
Died in Portland, OR, September 13, 2012

[OH-boh AE-dee]

Obo Addy was the son of a priest and medicine man of the Ga people of southern Ghana. He studied drumming from a young age and actively participated in ceremonies and rituals in his community.
As a performing artist, Addy was particularly drawn to Highlife, a style of music that involved playing African rhythms on European instruments.
In 1972, Addy and his brothers performed at the Olympic Games in Munich, Germany.
In 1978, the musician emigrated to the United States, eventually settling in Portland, OR.⁴
In addition to his performing and composing, Addy made a significant impact on bringing world music to Portland and surrounding areas. He taught at Lewis & Clark College, hosted weekly drumming classes at Lincoln High School in Portland, and, together with his wife, created the Homowo African Arts and Cultures.⁵

Learn More
Biography
Video lecture from the Oregon Historical Society

Pieces

Wawshishijay (Our Beginning)

20th Century American Belgian

ADLER, Hugo Chaim

Born in Antwerp, January 14, 1894
Died in Worcester, MA, December 24, 1955

Hugo Adler was a Jewish composer, choral conductor and cantor. He has composed several cantatas and full liturgical services.
Adler was cantor of the Haupt-Synagogue in Mannheim from 1922-1939, when he and his family emigrated to the USA. Afterward he became cantor and music director of Temple Emanuel in Worcester, Massachusetts.⁶
Adler was the father of composer Samuel Adler.

Biography from the Jewish Music Research Centre

Pieces

Hannerot Hallalu

20th Century Nigerian

AKPABOT, Samuel Ekpe

Image courtesy of Discogs: https://www.discogs.com/fr/artist/5050120-Sammy-Akpabot

Born in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, October 3, 1932
Died on August 7, 2000

Akpabot was a Nigerian composer and ethnomusicolgist. He studied composition, organ, and trumpet in London at the Royal College of Music,⁷ and studied Nigerian music at the University of Ife in Nigeria.⁸
Akpabot studied ethnomusicology at the University of Chicago and Michigan State. His doctoral dissertation, on the music of the Ibibo people of Nigeria, was published in 1975.⁹
Akpabot taught at Michigan State University and the University of Uyo in Nigeria.¹⁰
Akpabot’s compositions include concert works blending Nigerian folk elements and Western classical style, as well as sacred music.¹¹

Short biography from Naxos

Pieces

Scenes from Nigeria, Op. 1

20th Century Swedish

ALFVÉN, Hugo

Born in Stockholm, May 1, 1872
Died in Falun, May 8, 1960

[al-VAY-n] / Swedish pronunciation]

Alfvén was a violinist and choral conductor as well as a composer.
Alfvén was the Music Director of Uppsala University from 1910–39.

Biography from Naxos

Pieces

20th Century English

ALWYN, William

Born in Northampton, Nov 7, 1905
Died in Southwold, Sept 11, 1985

Alwyn was a composer, and a flutist with the LSO (London Symphony Orchestra).¹¹
Alwyn was married to composer Doreen Carwithen, also known as Mary Alwyn.
Known for: film music: he composed for films by British Ministry of Information during WWII; collaborated notably with director Carol Reed, and his most famous score was for Odd Man Out (1947)¹²

Short biography

Pieces

20th Century American

ANDERSON, Leroy

Image courtesy of The New York Times

Born in Cambridge, MA, June 29, 1908
Died in Woodbury, CT, May 18, 1975

Leroy Anderson was a conductor, arranger, and composer known for his memorable melodies and unusual instrumental scoring (ex: “The Typewriter”).
In addition to writing hit songs such as “Sleigh Ride” and “Blue Tango,” Anderson is known for his collaboration with Arthur Fiedler, former principal conductor of the Boston Pops.¹³ While Fiedler was at the podium, Anderson became the principal arranger for the Boston Pops and premiered many works with the ensemble.
In the 1950s, Anderson reached peak fame and recorded much of his own music. One such recording, “Blue Tango,” sold over a million copies.
- Fun fact – in 1953, a study named Anderson the American composer most frequently performed by native orchestras.
From Grove Music Online:

“Anderson raised the prominence of the popular orchestral miniature, and such music proved useful not only to pops concerts, but to radio, television and Muzak, making his music familiar to millions who would not necessarily recognize his name.”¹⁴

Learn More

Leroy Anderson Official Website
Leroy Anderson’s profile in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, where he was elected posthumously in 1988.

Pieces

Sleigh Ride

20th Century Dutch

ANDRIESSEN, Hendrik

Born in Haarlem, Sept 17, 1892
Died in Haarlem, April 12, 1981¹⁵

[HEN-drik an-DREE-sen / Dutch Pronunciation]

Biography from Donemus publishing house

Pieces

20th Century Modernist American

ANTHEIL, George

Born in Trenton, NJ, July 8, 1900
Died in New York, Feb 12, 1959

George Anthiel [AN-tile / pronunciation] was an American pianist and composer of German descent. Part of the avant-garde arts scene in 1920s Paris, he was friends with Erik Satie, Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, and Pablo Picasso.
In his late teens, Anthiel studied composition under Ernest Bloch in New York.
During his early career, Anthiel composed music influenced by Stravinsky and cubism; later, he was drawn to the use of American folk music idioms. Eventually he settled in Hollywood and composed film scores, symphonies, and ballets.
- Fun fact – while living in Hollywood, Anthiel befriended actress Hedy Lamarr. During the Second World War, the two develop the concept of frequency hopping for radio-controlled torpedoes, for which they were granted a US Patent in 1942.
- Additional fun fact – Antheil was something of a polymath. In addition to his interest in science, he also wrote murder mysteries and newspaper articles on various topics, from contemporary music to human anatomy.¹⁶

Learn More
Short biography

George Antheil climbing into his Parisian apartment above Shakespeare and Company (image source)

Pieces

A Jazz Symphony

20th Century English

ARNOLD, Sir Malcolm

Image courtesy of Wise Music Classical.

Born in Northampton, Oct 21, 1921
Died in Norwich, Sept 23, 2006

Arnold won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music when he was only 16.
Arnold was an excellent trumpeter who played in the London Symphony Orchestra and other ensembles early in his career.
Arnold was a prolific composer of both film music and concert music.¹⁷

Arnold’s Obituary in The Guardian

Pieces

20th Century Swedish

ATTERBERG, Kurt

Born in Göteborg, Dec 12, 1887
Died in Stockholm, Feb 15, 1974¹⁸

Biography from Naxos

Pieces

Suite No. 7, Op. 29 (Incidental Music to Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra)

20th Century Polish

BACEWICZ, Grażyna

Born in Łódź, Feb 5, 1909
Died in Warsaw, Jan 17, 1969

Grażyna Bacewicz (pronunciation) was a Polish-Lithuanian violinist, pianist, and composer.
She began composing around age 13 and studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in 1932.
Bacewicz had an interesting professional duality in that she pursued performance and composition on relatively equal terms for much of her career. Bacewicz even premiered many of her own works. However, due to injuries from a car accident in 1954, Bacewicz gave up performing and focused exclusively on composition from then on.
The bulk of Bacewicz’s compositional output is chamber music, and much of her music is written for strings.
- Fun tie into radio – Bacewicz wrote several pieces for radio broadcast, including a radio opera in 1959 (The Adventure of King Arthur).

“I do not believe in inspiration; for me composing is like sculpting in stone rather than putting on paper the sounds of my imagination.”
Grażyna Bacewicz

While Bacewicz has always been appreciated in her home country, the composer has remained more obscure in international concert halls.
Fun fact – In addition to music, Bacewicz also wrote novels and short stories.¹⁹

“Bacewicz’s position in Polish postwar music is undeniable: hers was an individual and independent voice; she was more innovative than is generally acknowledged and she carried the torch for the many Polish women composers who followed her example.”
Grove Music Online²⁰

Learn More

Biography from the Adam Mickiewicz Institute

Pieces

20th Century English

BAINTON, Edgar

Born in London, Feb 14, 1880
Died in Sydney, Australia, Dec 8, 1956²¹

[Pronounced BAYN-ton]

Biography from the Australian Dictionary of Biography

Pieces

20th Century American

BALLARD, Louis Wayne

Image source: https://pages.stolaf.edu/americanmusic/2019/09/19/macdowell-vs-ballard-a-comparison-of-american-indian-identity-in-classical-music/

Born in Devil’s Promenade, OK, July 8, 1931
Died in Santa Fe, Feb 9, 2007

Native American composer and educator of Cherokee Indian, Quapaw Indian, French, and Scottish descent.
As a composer, Ballard’s music synthesizes 20th Century classical techniques and Native American elements and traditions.
- Growing up, Ballard took traditional voice and piano lessons while also actively participating in the War Dance Society of the Quapaw and other Native American community events.
- After obtaining his master’s degree in composition from University of Tulsa, Ballard studied privately with he studied privately with composers Darius Milhaud, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Carlos Surinach, and Felix Labunski.²²

“An intimate knowledge of Amerindian culture enabled him to create innovative works in many genres that sensitively and respectfully recreate tribal worlds.”
Grove Music Online²³

Learn More:

“The Legacy of Louis Ballard, father of Native American Music” from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Pieces

Late Romantic English

BANTOCK, Sir Granville

Born in London, Aug 7, 1868
Died in London, Oct 16, 1946²⁴

Biography from Hyperion Records

Pieces

The Pierrot of the Minute

20th Century American

BARBER, Samuel

Born in West Chester, PA, March 9, 1910
Died in New York, Jan 23, 1981

Barber was a musical prodigy. He wrote his first opera at age 10 (his family’s cook wrote the libretto). He entered the recently-founded Curtis Institute of Music when he was 14.
- Barber met his partner Gian Carlo Menotti while he was a student at Curtis.
- Barber also taught at Curtis from 1939-1942.
During his lifetime, Barber was one of the United States’ most-performed composers, both at home and abroad. His many honors included:
- Commissions for Martha Graham, for the 25th anniversary of the League of Composers, and for the opening of Lincoln Center.
- He won two Pulitzer prizes; in 1958 and 1963.
- He inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1958, and won the Gold Medal for Music at the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1976.²⁵

Short biography from NPR

Pieces

20th Century Late Romantic English

BARNS, Ethel

Image courtesy of the Sophie Drinker Institute

Born in 1874
Died in Maidenhead, Dec 31, 1948

Ethel Barns was an English violinist and composer who received her formal training at the Royal Academy of Music starting at age 13. By 17, Barns had published her first composition, a Romance for violin and piano.
As a composer, Barns wrote most often for her primary instrument, the violin. Her music ranges from short, inventive solo pieces to large-scale works for violin and orchestra.
Following her marriage to baritone Charles Phillips, the couple established their popular Barns-Phillips Chamber Concerts at London’s Bechstein Hall.
- Barns regularly programmed her own music for these concerts, which helped her gain notoriety as a composer. Prominent violinists like Joseph Joachim soon started adding her music to their repertoire.
Like Ethel Smyth, Barns actively participated in the fight for women’s equality. She served on the first council of the Society of Women Musicians, which was founded in 1911.²⁶

Learn More

Short biography from Naxos

Pieces

La Chasse (The Hunt)

20th Century Late Romantic Paraguayan

BARRIOS, Agustín

Born in San Juan Bautista de las Misiones, May 5, 1885
Died in San Salvador, Aug 7, 1944

Agustín Barrios [PRONUNCIATION] was a guitarist and composer who was born in Paraguay, and who lived and concertized in locations throughout South America during his career. Later in his life he lived in Germany and Central America.
During the 1930s, Barrios adopted the performance persona of “Mangoré,” dressing as a Guaraní chieftan. His name is often given as Agustín Barrios Mangoré.
Reportedly, Barrios composed hundreds of works for the guitar, but his manuscripts were not terribly well organized. Around 130 Barrios compositions have been located.²⁷

Learn More
Short biography from the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society

Pieces

20th Century English

BARRY, John

Born in York, England, 3 Nov 1933
Died in Oyster Bay, NY, 30 Jan 2011

Barry is known for:
- rock- and jazz-influenced film music
- arranging or composing scores for many James Bond films, including Dr No (1962, arranger) & The Living Daylights (1987, composer)
- He composed musical Billy (1974), and also composed symphonic-style film scores, incl. The Lion in Winter (1968) and Dances with Wolves (1990).
Barry became interested in composing film music while working as a projectionist at his father’s movie theaters.²⁸

Short biography from NPR

Pieces

Out of Africa: Main Theme

20th Century Hungarian

BARTÓK, Béla

Béla Bartók, photographed in 1927

Born in Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary [now Sînnicolau Mare, Romania], March 25, 1881
Died in New York, Sept 26, 1945

[PRONUNCIATION]

Although we know Bartók today primarily as a composer, during his lifetime he was active as pianist, teacher, and an ethnomusicologist dedicated to Hungarian folk music.
Along with Liszt, Kodály, and Dohnányi, Bartók is one of Hungary’s best known and most esteemed composers.²⁹

Learn More
Short biography

Pieces

20th Century American

BAUER, Marion Eugénie

Born in Walla Walla, WA, Aug 15, 1882
Died in South Hadley, MA, Aug 9, 1955

Marion Bauer was a composer, though she is probably best remembered as a writer on music, educator, and advocate for contemporary American composers, particularly women composers.
Bauer taught music history and composition at NYU from 1926–51 and was affiliated with Julliard from 1940 until her death.
Bauer was a champion of American music and contemporary composers. She was a founding member of the American Music Guild, the Society of American Women Composers, and the American Composers Alliance, among many other organizations.
As a composer, Bauer’s music rarely ventured beyond extended tonality, emphasizing coloristic harmony and diatonic dissonance.
- Interestingly, in the 1920s, her music was seen as modernist. However, by the 1940s, it was viewed as conservative and well-crafted.
Fun fact – Bauer was one of Nadia Boulanger‘s many illustrious pupils.³⁰
Interesting connection to Portland – Bauer’s parents were Jewish immigrants from France and had gotten married at Beth Israel Synagogue in Portland, Oregon. Bauer would later complete her formal academic education at St. Helen’s Hall in Portland, a private high school where her mother taught German.³¹

Learn More

Biography from the Jewish Women’s Archive
Short biography from Naxos

Pieces

Up the Ocklawaha, Op. 6

20th Century Late Romantic English

BAX, Sir Arnold

Sir Arnold Bax, photographed by Herbert Lambert, circa 1922

Born in Streatham, UK, Nov 8, 1883
Died in Cork, Oct 3, 1953

Sir Arnold Bax was well regarded as English symphonist in 1920s and 30s.
He also composed ballets, tone poems, and film scores, including Oliver Twist (1948, dir. David Lean).³²

Short biography

Pieces

Late Romantic Romantic American

BEACH, Amy Marcy Cheney

Born in Henniker, NH, Sept 5, 1867
Died in New York, NY, Dec 27, 1944

Amy Marcy Cheney was a child prodigy: she could sing forty melodies accurately at the age of 1; she taught herself to read at age 3; she could compose and play by ear by age 4.
Amy Marcy Cheney played her premiere as a piano soloist with orchestra in 1883, and premiered with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1885, playing Chopin’s f minor concerto.
After her 1885 marriage, at her husband’s request, Amy Beach reduced her public appearances as a pianist, and played only for charity. (A professional career was considered inappropriate for a married woman of her social status.) Beach transferred her main musical efforts to composing.
At her husband’s request, during her married life Beach frequently published as “Mrs. H.H.A. Beach.”
Beach’s Symphony in e minor, Op. 32, “Gaelic,” was the first symphony by an American to garner international acclaim. It premiered with the Boston Symphony Orchestra on October 30, 1896.
George Whitefield Chadwick and other contemporaries considered Beach part of the Second New England School of composers.³³

Biography from the Library of Congress

AmyBeach.org

Pieces

20th Century American

BEACH, Priscilla Alden

1902-1970

Beach grew up in Rome, New York, the daughter of the owner of a lumber company. Her family was descended from Mayflower passengers John and Priscilla Alden.³⁴
Beach studied at the Eastman School of Music and the Julliard School.³⁵
Beach also used the professional pseudonym Alden Beach.³⁶
Beach composed during her education, then pivoted to a science and research career. She was a laboaratory technician at Johns Hopkins, and directed Special Research at Shelton College in New Jersey.³⁷
- In the 1940s, Beach also co-authored several books on cats with radio evangelist John Hosford Hickey.

Pieces

City Trees

20th Century English

BENNETT, Sir Richard Rodney

Born in Broadstairs, March 29, 1936
Died in New York, Dec 24, 2012³⁶

Biography from Universal Edition

Pieces

Reflections on a 16th-Century Tune

20th Century English

BERKELEY, Sir Lennox

Born in Sunningwell Plains, Boars Hill, Oxford, May 12, 1903
Died in London, Dec 26, 1989

Lennox Berkeley was an English composer from an aristocratic family.
Berkeley loved French music, was a friend of Ravel and Poulenc, and studied with Nadia Boulanger.
Berkeley was a devout Catholic and he was notable for the deep emotion of his religious music (a quality also present in his instrumental slow movements, according to Grove’s article).³⁸

Short biography

Pieces

Serenade for Strings, Op. 12

20th Century Mexican

BERNAL JIMÉNEZ, Miguel

Born in Morelia, Michoacán, Feb 16, 1910;
León, Guanajuato, July 26, 1956

Miguel Bernal Jiménez [pronunciation] is revered as a composer of sacred music with conservative stylistic traits and an overriding sense of Mexican Nationalism.
At 18, Jiménez was sent to Rome to study at the Pontificio Istituto di Musica Sacra. He completed his degree in 1933 in organ, composition, and Gregorian chant.
In his professional career, Jiménez was an active educator and lecturer, in addition to composing and conducting. In 1939, he founded the Schola Cantorum magazine, the first periodical to publish musicological, musical, and educational material.
- Like Carlos Chávez, Jiménez fought for increased access to music, particularly sacred music.
- From 1954 until his death, Jiménez taught at Loyola University, New Orleans.
As a composer, Jiménez wrote ballets, opera, symphonic works, organ works, and sacred vocal music.³⁹

Pieces

Tres cartas de de México

20th Century American

BERNSTEIN, Leonard

Leonard Bernstein, photographed in 1971 in rehearsal for his Mass.

Born in Lawrence, MA, Aug 25, 1918
Died in New York, NY, Oct 14, 1990

Short biography

Pieces

20th Century German

BIEBL, Franz

Born in Pursruck [Oberfalz], Sept 1, 1906
Died in Munich, Oct 2, 2001

Franz Biebl [“BEE-bull”; PRONUNCIATION] was a choral conductor, educator, recording engineer, and composer of primarily choral music.
In 1939, Biebl began teaching at the Mozarteum in Salsburg. In 1943, he was drafted into military service and became a prisoner of war from 1944-46. During this time, he developed an appreciation for American folk songs and spirituals.
Following the war, Biebl worked as a church choir director and as a recording engineer for Bavarian Broadcasting.
As a composer, Biebl wrote over 2000 original works and arrangements. His most well-known piece is Ave Maria (Angelus Domini), which became particularly popular in the U.S. following a 1990 recording by Chanticleer.⁴⁰

Learn More

Short biography from the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society

Pieces

20th Century American Swiss

BLOCH, Ernest

Ernst Bloch, photographed in January 1956

Born in Geneva, July 24, 1880
Died in Portland, OR, July 15, 1959

Swiss-born Jewish musician Ernest Bloch worked as composer, conductor and teacher both in Europe and America. He eventually became a naturalized American citizen and founding director of the Cleveland Institute of Music.⁴¹
In 1952 Bloch retired to Agate Beach, Oregon,⁴² where he composed, and enjoyed his hobbies of photography, mushroom collecting, and polishing agates.⁴³

Short biography from the Oregon Encyclopedia

Pieces

20th Century American

BONDS, Margaret

Born in Chicago, IL, 3 March 1913
Died in Los Angeles, CA, 26 April 1972

Margaret Bonds studied piano and composition during her high school years in Chicago with Florence Price and William Levi Dawson. She went on to earn degrees from Northwestern University and The Julliard School.
In 1933, Bonds appeared as soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Florence Price’s Piano Concerto. She was the first African-American woman to appear as a soloist with the Chicago SO.
Bonds was an especially prolific composer of vocal works. She composed musicals, choral music and songs, and frequently collaborated (in each of these genres) with poet Langston Hughes. She also arranged spirituals, many commissioned by Leontyne Price .⁴³

Biography from BlackPast.org

Pieces

20th Century Dutch

BOSMANS, Henriëtte

Born in Amsterdam, 6 Dec, 1895
Died in Amsterdam, 2 Jul, 1952

Henriëtte Bosmans [PRONUNCIATION] was the only child of musician parents. Her father was the principal cellist of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and her mother was a piano teacher.
Having studied both piano and composition, Bosmans began performing as a professional concert pianist at 19 years old. Throughout the 1920s, she toured across Europe while also composing.
Following the Nazi occupation during WWII, Bosmans was forced to stop performing publicly due to her Jewish heritage (her mother was Jewish), thereby severely damaging her professional career. That didn’t stop her from organizing underground concerts.
- In a terrifying turn of events, Bosmans’s (now elderly) mother was arrested and deported to a camp. However, through her own advocacy and the help of highly regarded acquaintances, Bosmans was able to use her professional status to keep her mother alive through the war.
Following the war, Bosmans experienced a creative renaissance and wrote many new compositions. Sadly, not long after, her health began to deteriorate. She died in 1952 from stomach cancer.
As a composer, many of Bosmans’s best-known compositions were inspired by her romantic relationships with both men and women, including cellist Frieda Belinfante, violinist Francis Koene, and soprano Noémie Pérugia.⁴⁴⁴⁵

Pieces

Impressions

20th Century English

BOUGHTON, Rutland

Born in Aylesbury, Jan 23, 1878
Died in London, Jan 25, 1960

[“BOW-ton”]

Rutland Boughton’s artistic goal (expressed in book Music Drama of the Future, which he co-authored in 1911) was to foster a British version of Wagnerian music drama.⁴⁶ For this purpose he founded and directed the Glastonbury Festival from 1914-1927,⁴⁷ in which British artists, musicians and writers worked together to create or revive operas, plays and concerts.
In addition to operas, including a cycle about King Arthur, Boughton composed choral and orchestral music, and was a writer on the topics of music drama and J.S. Bach.⁴⁸

Short biography

Pieces

Three Folk Dances

20th Century French

BOULANGER, Lili

Lili Boulanger, photographed in 1913.

Born in Paris, Aug 21, 1893
Died in Mézy, March 15, 1918

PRONUNCIATION

Marie-Juliette Olga “Lili” Boulanger was the first woman to win the Prix de Rome for composition (1913).
She was the younger sister of composition pedagogue and conductor Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979).
Lili Boulanger suffered from chronic ill health, dying in 1918 at age of 24.
Boulanger’s compositions include songs, chamber music, choral works.
Boulanger was deeply affected by living through the First World War. Many of Boulanger’s works deal with themes of war or prayers for peace.⁴⁹
- Together, Lili and Nadia Boulanger organized a charity to help musicians who had become WWI veterans.⁵⁰

Learn More
Short biography from Naxos

Pieces

20th Century French

BOULANGER, Nadia

Born in Paris, Sept 16, 1887
Died in Paris, Oct 22, 1979

Not only a composer, Nadia Boulanger [PRONUNCIATION] was a conductor, the older sister of composer Lili Boulanger, and one of the 20^th century’s most influential teachers of composition.
- Partial list of Boulanger students from the World Heritage Encyclopedia
Boulanger studied at the Paris Conservatory from the age of 10. Her teachers included Widor and Fauré (composition) and Vierne and Guilmant (organ). She placed second in the Prix de Rome competition in 1908.
Boulanger ceased composing in the 1920s, a few years after the death of her sister Lili. Boulanger felt that her sister had been more talented than herself, so she redirected her own efforts away from original composition, and instead toward teaching, and promoting the music of her sister and other 20^th-century composers, notably Stravinsky.³²
Short biography from UNC Chapel Hill

“I’m not sure you did the right thing in giving up composition.”
Gabriel Fauré, to Nadia Boulanger³³

Pieces

Trois pièces pour piano

20th Century English

BOWEN, York

Image courtesy of the York Bowen Society

Born in London, Feb 22, 1884
Died in London, Nov 23, 1961

York Bowen was a composer and pianist whose particular talent for the keyboard instrument was recognized at an early age.
Starting at age 14, Bowen studied at the Royal Academy of Music, where he won all the piano and composition prizes. In his mid-twenties, he became a professor at the institution.
Bowen pursued both composition and piano performance professionally. As a pianist, he was known for his technical and artistic excellence.
- As a composer, Bowen wrote over 160 works. Like many of his English contemporaries, Bowen preferred the Romanticism of the previous century to the Avant-Garde movement emerging in the 20th.
Fun fact – Saint-Saëns thought that Bowen was the “finest of English composers.”⁵¹

Learn More

Short biography from the York Bowen Society
Biography from Naxos

Pieces

Concerto for Horn, String Orchestra, and Timpani, Op. 150

20th Century Romanian

BRETAN, Nicolae

Born in Năsăud, March 25, 1887
Died in Cluj, Dec 1, 1968

[“nee-koh-LIE-uh bray-TAHN”/ PRONUNCIATION]

Bretan was a baritone and conductor who held posts at Hungarian and Romanian opera companies.⁵²
Bretan composed opera, Lieder and other vocal works.⁵³

Short biography from the Nicolae Bretan Foundation

Pieces

The Evening Star: Prelude

20th Century English

BRIDGE, Frank

Born in Brighton, Feb 26, 1879
Died in Eastbourne, Jan 10, 1941

Bridge was a violist and conductor, and he studied composition at the RCM with Charles Villiers Stanford.
Bridge’s only composition student was Benjamin Britten.⁵⁴

Short biography

Pieces

Late Romantic English

BRIGHT, Dora

Born in Ecclesall Bierlow, York, August 16, 1862
Died in London, Nov 16, 1951

Sometimes this composer is known by her married name, Dora Knatchbull.

Bright was an English composer, concert pianist, and music critic.
Bright studied piano and composition at the Royal College of Music, where she and Edward German were part of the same artistic circle.
After her marriage to Wyndham Knatchbull, she transitioned away from public performances and toward more composition and working as a music critic.⁵⁵

Biography from the British Music Collection