Born in New York, NY, March 27, 1892
Died in Santa Monica, CA, April 3, 19721
Categories
GROFÉ, Ferde
Era: 20th Century
Categories
GUARNIERI, Mozart Camargo
Born in Tietê, São Paulo, Feb 1, 1907
Died in São Paulo, Jan 13, 1993
- Guarnieri was a leading figure in Brazilian music in the 20th century. As a teacher and by the example of his compositions, he helped create a Brazilian school of composition that affirmed tonality and drew on Brazilian folk music.
- Among Guarnieri’s many positions, he was permanent conductor of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra and director of the São Paulo Conservatory. He also taught composition and conducting at the Santos Conservatory.2
- Guarnieri’s father named all four of his sons after opera composers. His brothers were named Rossine, Verdi, and Bellini. Guarnieri preferred to use his mother’s maiden name, Camargo, instead of the name Mozart.3
- Biography from Vermont Public Radio
Categories
GUASTAVINO, Carlos
Born in Santa Fe, Argentina, April 5, 1912
Died in Santa Fe, Argentina, Oct 29, 20004
- Carlos Guastavino’s music is almost entirely made up of “miniatures,” i.e., songs for voice and piano and piano character pieces.
- Guastavino has been referred to as “The Argentine Schubert” or “The Schubert of the Pampas” due to his extensive output of art songs.5
- The composer strongly opposed mid-20th-century contemporary musical trends and never diverged from tonal harmony and traditional forms. His music has a nationalist sentiment and portrays a tender nostalgia for his homeland.
- Guastavino maintained a long collaborative friendship with poet León Benarós (translate to English), whose words Guastavino set to music in more than 60 songs.6
Guastavino’s obituary in The Guardian
Pieces
Full name also spelled Sofiya Asgatovna Gubaydulina
Born in Chistopol′, Oct 24, 1931
- Gubaidulina is a Russian composer, but she has resided in Germany since 1992.7
- Gubaidulina studied at the Kazan’ Conservatory, and went on to study composition at the Moscow Conservatory.8
- In the 1970s, Gubaidulina was involved in electronic music and improvisational movements in Russia.9
- During her early Soviet years, Gubaidulina earned most of her income as a film composer. Since the advent of fewer restrictions under Gorbachev, she has focused increasingly on her own musical interests, especially sacred music.10
- Influences in Gubaidulina’s music include her Tatar heritage and her Russian Orthodox faith.11
- Listen for: rhythmic sequences, including the importance of silence, are important in Gubaidulina’s style. She often creates rhythm governed by mathematical sequences, including the Fibonacci sequence.12
Categories
HAGAN, Helen Eugenia
Born in Portsmouth, NH, Jan 10, 1893
Died in New York, March 6, 1964
- Helen Hagan was an African-American composer and pianist.9
- Hagan was educated at Yale University and at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, where her teachers included Vincent D’Indy.10
- During WWI, Hagan played for African American troops in Europe.11
- Hagan turned to teaching after struggling to find performing opportunities due to her race. She spent much of her as a college educator. She taught at Bishop College, Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial College (now Tennessee State University).12 She was also head of the music department at the George Peabody College for Teachers.13
Categories
HAHN, Reynaldo
Born in Caracas, Aug 9, 1874
Died in Paris, Jan 28, 1947
- Born in Venezuela to a Catholic Spanish mother and German Jewish father, Hahn’s family moved to Paris when he was four. He was educated at the Paris Conservatoire and achieved early and career-long success with his mélodies (French art songs).12
- One of Hahn’s teachers at the Conservatoire, Jules Massenet, did much to help launch the young composer’s career. The two remained close until Massenet died in 1912.14
- Hahn was a baritone and often performed his own songs in salon gatherings, accompanying himself at the piano.
- Hahn was also a conductor and music critic.
- Fun fact: Two of Hahn’s best friends were Sarah Bernhardt and Marcel Proust. Hahn had actually been lovers with the latter for a couple of years in the mid-1890s, after which they remained close friends.
- Additional fun facts:
- Hahn composed a musical comedy about the young Mozart (Mozart, 1925). 15
- While in his 40s, Hahn enlisted to fight in the trenches in WWI and was awarded the Croix de Guerre.16
- Additional fun facts:
“Hahn would not have been dismayed that his reputation today rests firmly on his 100-or-so songs.”
BBC Music Magazine
Learn More
Biography from the European Institute of Jewish Music (IEJM)
Categories
HALVORSEN, Johan
Born in Drammen, March 15, 1864
Died in Oslo, Dec 4, 1935
- In addition to composing, Halvorsen was a violin virtuoso, taught violin at the Helsinki Music Institute, and was one of Norway’s most prominent conductors.
- Halvorsen was friends with Edvard Grieg, who was a generation older.
- Style: Halvorsen was influenced by Norwegian composers like Grieg, but his orchestration shows the influence of French Romantic composers.17
Categories
HANSON, Howard
Born in Wahoo, NE, Oct 28, 1896
Died in Rochester, NY, February 26, 1981
- Hanson was a composer, conductor and educator.
- Hanson was the first18 director of the Eastman School of Music, serving from 1924-1964. He was also highly involved with American music educator organizations, including the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) and Music Educators National Conference (MENC).
- Hanson’s composition honors include a Pulitzer Prize for his 4th Symphony.19
Categories
HARRIS, Sir William
Born in London, March 28, 1883
Died in Petersfield, Sept 6, 197320
- Fun fact – among his many other professional positions (choirmaster, organist, and composer), Harris was also the piano teacher to the young princesses Elizabeth and Margaret while he served as Director of Music of St George’s Chapel, Windsor.21
Categories
HARRISON, Pamela
Born in Orpington, Nov 28, 1915
Died in Firle, East Sussex, Aug 28, 1990
- Pamela Harrison was an RCM-educated composer, pianist, and scholar of Dalcroze eurythmics. Her teachers included Gordon Jacob and her composition influences included Bax and Ireland.22
Categories
HARTY, Hamilton
Born in Hillsborough, Co. Down, Dec 4, 1879
Died in Brighton, Feb 19, 1941
- Sir Herbert Hamilton Harty was a composer, conductor and pianist.
- Harty was highly sought after as a collaborative pianist in London.
- Harty was the conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, in whose programs he frequently promoted new works by living composer. Harty also frequently conducted the London Symphony Orchestra.
- Fun fact: Harty had his first appointment as a parish organist when he was 12.23
Categories
HASHIMOTO, Qunihico
Born in Toyko, September 14, 1904
Died in Kamakura, May 6, 1949
The composer’s name is sometimes spelled “Kunihiko Hashimoto.”
- Hashimoto was a Japanese composer studied at the Toyko Academy of Music, and latterly in Austria with Egon Wellesz. His studies abroad took place from 1934-1937, and also included a trip to the United States, where he studied with Schoenberg.
- From 1937 until the close of WWII, Hashimoto taught composition at the Toyko Academy of Music. He also directed the institution’s student orchestra.
- Hashimoto’s works include art songs influenced by Debussy, as well as large-scale orchestral pieces.24
Categories
HE Luting
Born in Shaoyangong, Hunan, July 20, 1903
Died April 27, 1999
Note: He is the composer’s surname and Luting is his given name.
A guide for pronouncing Chinese names
- He Luting was one of the most influential classical musicians and educators in 20th-century China.25
- He directed the Shanghai Conservatory from 1949 to 1984, with an interruption during the Cultural Revolution under Mao Zedong, when the government suppressed what were deemed Western influences, including Western classical music.26
- Like many Chinese intellectuals, He was persecuted by the government during the Cultural Revolution. He was particularly targeted for his defense of the music of Debussy. He Luting was the only person who was subjected to a “struggle session” (torture and interrogation) on live public television. He came to be seen as hero for intellectual freedom in China.27
- He Luting’s compositions include patriotic works, film scores, operas, and orchestral works. He frequently combined Chinese folk melodies with Western harmonization.28
Categories
HERBERT, Victor
Born in Dublin, Feb 1, 1859
Died in New York, May 26, 1924
- Victor Herbert composed operetta, and he was one of the first advocates for copyright and performance-rights legislation for composers.
- Herbert testified before Congress in support of providing recording royalties to composers during proceedings surrounding a copyright law enacted in 1919. He was also one of the founders of ASCAP.26
Categories
HERRMANN, Bernard
Born in New York, NY, 29 June 1911
Died in Los Angeles, CA, 24 Dec 197529
Biography from the Bernard Herrmann Society
Pieces
Categories
HINDEMITH, Paul
Born in Hanau, nr Frankfurt, Nov 16, 1895
Died in Frankfurt, Dec 28, 1963
- Paul Hindemith was the foremost German composer of his generation, in addition to being a respected theorist, violist, educator, and conductor.30
- In 1921, Hindemith founded the Amar Quartet so that he would have a group that was able and willing to play his own (extremely difficult) music. The ensemble was named after its first violinist, Licco Amar. Hindemith’s brother, Rudolf, played cello.31
- Hindemith’s music was tonal but not based on the traditional scale. He ranked the 12 tones from most consonant to most dissonant and sought to blend tradition and modernity.
- He was also a big proponent of utility music (Gebrauchsmusik), music composed to serve a specific purpose. He considered composing music as craftsmanship to meet social needs rather than a practice to satisfy one’s artistic expression.
- Hindemith’s music was grounded in the tradition of Bach’s counterpoint. One clear example is his massive Ludus Tonalis (“Game of Tones”), comprising interludes and fugues in all 24 keys and an apparent reference to Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier.
- A description of Hindemith by the composer’s friend, conductor and arts patron, Paul Sacher:
“…the bad boy of contemporary music. His early music was really impudent, without consideration for his listeners, outside the tradition. In contrast to that of the Second Viennese School, his music – like Stravinsky’s – had a strong rhythmic element, and that appealed to me greatly. And he could be merry and humorous.”
BBC Music Magazine
- Fun Fact – Glenn Gould was one of the composer’s greatest admirers. Gould wrote that Hindemith’s music represented a “true amalgam of ecstasy and reason.” Not only did Gould record many of his works, but he also won his only Grammy for his liner notes accompanying a recording of Hindemith’s piano sonatas.32
Learn More
Biography from the Hindemith Foundation
Biography from Deutsche Grammophon
Pieces
Categories
HOLST, Gustav
Born in Cheltenham, Sept 21, 1874
Died in London, May 25, 1934
Pieces
- A Moorside Suite
- Brook Green Suite (string orchestra)
- In the Bleak Mid-Winter
- Lyric Movement for Viola and Small Orchestra
- The Perfect Fool
- The Planets, Op. 32
- The Planets: “Neptune, the Mystic”
- The Planets: “Venus, the Bringer of Peace”
- Three Pieces for Oboe and String Quartet, Op. 2
- Two Songs without Words, Op. 22 (Country Song; Marching Song)
Categories
HOLT, Nora
Born in Kansas City, KS, 1885
Died in Los Angeles, CA, Jan 24, 1974
- Nora Holt was an American composer, singer, pianist, and music critic.
- Holt was the first African American to earn a Master of Music degree (Chicago Musical College, 1918).
- Holt studied with Nadia Boulanger in the 1920s.
- Holt served as music critic for The Amsterdam News in New York from 1943–64.
- Holt was a founding member of the National Associated of Negro Musicians (Betty Jackson King became the association’s president in the 1980s).
- Though Holt composed over 200 works, at this point, one or two of her works is known to have survived.3334
Categories
HONEGGER, Arthur
Born in Le Havre, March 10, 1892
Died in Paris, Nov 27, 1955
Categories
HORNER, James
Born in Los Angeles, Aug 14, 1953
Died in Santa Barbara, CA, June 22, 2015
- Horner was a film composer and conductor who studied with Ligeti and composed many scores for film and TV, including Star Trek II and III (1980s), Willow (1988), Apollo 13 (1995), Braveheart (1995), Titanic (1997), A Beautiful Mind (2001), the theme for CBS Evening News, and many more.
- Horner won Grammys for the song Somewhere Out There (An American Tail, 1986), and Academy Awards for best song and score for Titanic.36
Categories
HOVHANESS, Alan
Born in Somerville, MA, March 8, 1911
Died in Seattle, June 21, 2000
Categories
HOWELL, Dorothy
Born in Birmingham, Feb 25, 1898
Died in Malvern, Jan 12, 1982
- Howell was a pianist and composer who studied at the Royal Academy of Music. She also taught harmony and counterpoint there from 1924-1970.
- Howell’s style is neoromantic and many of her works feature the piano, a reflection of her performance specialization in that instrument.39
Categories
HOWELLS, Herbert
Born in Lydney, Gloucestershire, Oct 17, 1892
Died in London, Feb 23, 1983
- Herbert Howells was a distinguished English composer best known for his choral and organ music, though he also wrote songs, piano works, and chamber/ orchestral music. His Three Carol Anthems (which includes “A Spotless Rose”) helped bring the young composer to prominence.
- Howells studied at the Royal College of Music and was a pupil of Charles Villiers Stanford (Stanford even described Howells as his “son in music”). Hubert Parry, director of the institution at the time, also made a significant impact on the young composer. Parry’s “philosophy and humanity inspired a deep and lasting affection.”40
- Howells was deeply affected by the death of his nine-year-old son, Michael, in 1935 due to polio. Everything Howells wrote after that significant life event was in some way written in memory of Michael.
- Howells’s ability to express deep emotion and pathos is part of what has made his music so powerful and enduring.
- As a composer, Howells felt a strong connection to music from the Tudor era (as did Vaughan Williams), which is evident in much of his music.41
- Fun fact – Howells had a love of cathedral architecture and often wrote church music for specific buildings.42
“Howells is a composer whose music stirs profound emotional reactions from performers and audiences alike.”43
Short biography from the Herbert Howells Trust
Pieces
Categories
HUANZHI Li
Born in Hong Kong, 2 January 1919
Died in Beijing, 19 March 2000
Categories
HUBAY, Jenő
Born in Budapest, Sept 15, 1858
Died in Budapest, March 12, 1937
- Hubay was a violinist and composer. He performed frequently with his mentor and fellow Hungarian, Liszt, and was friends with Belgian violinist Henri Vieuxtemps, who recommended Hubay for Head of Violin Studies at the Brussels Conservatory.
- Hubay created a violin pedagogy legacy at the Budapest Academy of Music, where he taught both before and after fleeing the short-lived Soviet regime in Hungary.44
Categories
HURUM, Alf
Born in Christiania [now Oslo], Sept 21, 1882
Died in Honolulu, Aug 12, 197245
Categories
IBERT, Jacques
Born in Paris, Aug 15, 1890
Died in Paris, Feb 5, 196246
Categories
IPPOLITOV-IVANOV, Mikhail
Born in Gatchina, near St Petersburg, 7/Nov 19, 1859
Died in Moscow, Jan 28, 1935
- Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov [“MEEK-hyl ih-POL-ee-toff ee-VAN-off”] studied composition with Rimsky-Korsakov.
- He taught at the Tblisi Conservatory in Georgia and at the Moscow Conservatory, and he directed the Moscow Conservatory from 1905-1924.
- Ippolitov-Ivanov was also a choral and opera conductor.
Categories
IRELAND, John
Born in Bowdon, Cheshire, Aug 13, 1879
Died in Rock Mill, Washington, Sussex, June 12, 1962
- John Ireland studied composition with Stanford, at the RCM, worked as a choirmaster and organist.
- Ireland eventually taught at the RCM himself, where his students included Benjamin Britten.48
Categories
IVES, Charles
Born in Danbury, CT, Oct 20, 1874
Died in New York, NY, May 19, 1954
- Ives was a professional organist and received a rigorous training in composition. Thus, though he spent 30 years in the insurance industry, the image of Ives as an amateur composer is a misconception.
- Though Ives’ experimental and avant-garde works are more familiar, he also composed tonal, Romantic works, sometimes combining styles within one piece.
- Ives’ music began to draw attention when a younger generation of composers (including Henry Cowell, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein) discovered and promoted Ives’ self-published works in the 1920s and 30s.49
Biography from the Charles Ives Society
Categories
JACOB, Gordon
Born in London, July 5, 1895
Died in Saffron Walden, June 8, 1984
- Gordon Jacob was an English composer, educator, and writer.
- He studied at the Royal College of Music with Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, Herbert Howells, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and many other notable English musicians.
- Not long after finishing his studies, Jacob joined the teaching staff at RCM himself, where he held a position for over 40 years. His pupils included Sir Malcolm Arnold, Imogen Holst, Elizabeth Maconchy, and Ruth Gipps.
- Like many of his English colleagues, Jacob avoided the rise of the Avant-Garde in the mid-20th century. His music was influenced by early 20th-century French and Russian schools of thought.
- In a BBC TV documentary in 1959, Jacob said, “I personally feel that the day that melody is discarded, you may as well pack up music altogether.”
- Fun fact – Jacob provided music for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.50
Categories
JANÁČEK, Leoš
Categories
JENKINS, Cyril
Born in Dunvant, Swansea, October 9, 1885
Died in Hove, Sussex, March 15, 197852
Categories
JOHNSON, J. Rosamond
Born in Jacksonville, FL, Aug 11, 1873
Died in New York, NY, Nov 11, 1954
- J. (John) Rosamond Johnson was a versatile composer who wrote concert music, church music, opera and musicals.
- Johnson studied music with his mother, a singer and teacher, and at the New England Conservatory.
- Johnson wrote and acted in musicals co-authored with his brother, lyricist, writer, and actor James Weldon Johnson. Their shows were remarkable for their caricature-free depictions of African-American and Native American characters. The Johnson Brothers also wrote Tin Pan Alley songs and appeared in a duo vaudeville act.
- J. Rosamond Johnson is the composer of the African-American anthem Lift Every Voice and Sing.53
Categories
JOPLIN, Scott
Born in northeast TX, between July 19, 1867 and mid-Jan 1868
Died in New York, NY, April 1, 191754
- Scott Joplin was known as the “king of ragtime” at the turn of the 20th Century. In fact, today, the composer’s name is practically synonymous with the term, “ragtime.”
- Despite the composer’s success in publishing ragtime, Joplin aspired to write theatrical works. He wrote a ballet called The Ragtime Dance and two operas – A Guest of Honor and Treemonisha. Sadly, A Guess of Honor was never published, and the manuscript has since been lost.56
- In 1907, Joplin published an instructional book outlining his musical technique called The School of Ragtime.57
Categories
KABALEVSKY, Dmitri
Born in St Petersburg, 17/Dec 30, 1904
Died in Moscow, Feb 14, 1987
- Kabalevsky was a professor at the Moscow Conservatory and a music critic in print and on the radio.
- Kabalevsky composed many works for children, starting when he taught piano to children during his own conservatory study.
- Kabalevsky was a writer on music education and he helped develop school music programs. 58
Categories
KERN, Jerome
Born in New York, NY, January 27, 1885
Died in New York, NY, November 11, 1945
- Jerome Kern was one of the leading musical theater composers of the 20th century. His most famous musical contribution was Show Boat, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein.
Learn More
Biography via the Songwriters Hall of Fame
Biography via Encyclopedia Britannica
Categories
KHACHATURIAN, Aram
- Khachaturian was one of the most important composers of the Soviet era along with Prokofiev and Shostakovich.
- He was also a conductor and a professor at the Moscow Conservatory.
- Khachaturian’s music is notable for integrating elements of traditional Armenian music.
- Fun fact: Khachaturian was the first Russian composer to score a sound film.
- Sweet fact: Khachaturian’s first experiences of music were listening to the folk music of his home town of Tblisi, and listening to his mother sing (he dedicated his Opus 1 to his mother.)59
Categories
KING, Betty Jackson
Born in Chicago, February 17, 1928
Died in Wildwood, New Jersey, June 1, 1994
- Betty Jackson King was an American composer, choral conductor, and music educator.
- King received her BA (piano) and MA (composition) from Chicago Musical College of Roosevelt University.
- King worked as a public school music teacher in Chicago and New Jersey, and directed many Chicago choirs, including the liturgical choirs and the Betty Jackson King Singers.
- As a composer, King specialized in sacred and choral music.60
- King’s many honors included serving as president of the National Association of Negro Musicians.61
Categories
KLEMPERER, Otto
Born in Breslau, May 14, 1885
Died in Zürich, July 6, 1973
- Klemperer was one of the leading German conductors of his generation, and was considered an authority on the Austro-German repertoire, especially Beethoven.
- He received one of his first major appointments at the Neues Deutches Theater in Prague in 1907 thanks to a recommendation from Mahler, and went on to become an important opera conductor.
- In the 1930s Klemperer emigrated to avoid antisemitic oppression in Nazi Germany.
- In 1954 Klemperer was appointed director of the Philharmonia Orchestra, but in 1964 Walter Legge, the orchestra’s founder, chose to disband it. The musicians rebelled, reformed as The New Philharmonia Orchestra with Klemperer’s support, and he remained with the group for the rest of his career.
- Klemperer studied composition with Schoenberg in the 1930s in Los Angeles. His music is also influenced by Mahler’s.62