Nationality: 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.¹
In 1952 Bloch retired to Agate Beach, Oregon,² where he composed, and enjoyed his hobbies of photography, mushroom collecting, and polishing agates.³

Short biography from the Oregon Encyclopedia

Arthur Honegger, photographed in 1928.

Born in Le Havre, March 10, 1892
Died in Paris, Nov 27, 1955

Honegger attended the Zurich and Paris Conservatories.
Honegger was a member of Les Six, the French anti-Wagner composers group influenced by Satie, along with Milhaud, Poulence, Auric, Durey and Tailleferre.
Honegger’s music is also heavily influenced by Bach’s contrapuntal style.³

Romantic Swiss

Born in Lachen, Switzerland, 27 May 1822
Died in Frankfurt, Germany, 24 June 1882

Joachim Raff was a Swiss-German Romantic composer and educator who was popular during his own lifetime but has since been overlooked by his 18th-century German contemporaries.
As a teenager, Raff taught himself piano, violin, and composition. In 1850, he became an assistant to Liszt for several years and embraced the new German school of composing. In 1877, he became the director of the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, a post he held until his death in 1882.
As a composer, Raff was quite prolific and wrote in nearly every musical genre of the time. His catalog of over 400 works includes symphonies, concerti for various instruments, operas, choral and chamber music, Lieder, and piano works.⁴

Learn More
Biographical Sketch

Photograph of Oswald Russell courtesy of Music Unites Jamaica Foundation.

Born in Kingston, Aug 16, 1933⁵
Died in Geneva, July 2, 2012⁶

Russell was composer and pianist who utilized both classical and jazz styles.
Russell studied at institutions including the Royal Academy of Music, the Julliard School, and the Geneva Conservatory. He taught at the Jamaica School of Music, the Institut Jacques-Dalcroze (Geneva), the Geneva Conservatory, the Kinshasa Conservatory in Zaire, and several other institutions. His teaching specialties were piano, keyboard harmony, and improvisation.
Russell’s compositions include jazz works, liturgical music, and music for film, theater, or ballet.⁷