Born Today! 20.04.2024

Ferdinando Angelo Maria Provesi (1770 – 1833) was a native of Parma, Italy. He was regarded as one of the greatest Italian opera composers of the era . Provesi is best known as being an early tutor of Giuseppe Verdi when he was the Maestro di cappella (master of music) at the St. Bartolomeo cathedral in Busseto (the town very close to Le Roncole, the village where Verdi was born.) Provesi was also director of the municipal music school and local Philharmonic Society. He began teaching Verdi in 1824 when the future composer was 11 years old. When he died in Busseto in 1833, it opened the way for the young Verdi to apply to take over his post in the town, a post which he held for two-and-a-half years after which Verdi returned to Milan.

Baron Theodor Döhler (20 April 1814 – 21 February 1856) was a German composer and a notable piano virtuoso of the Romantic period. He studied under Julius Benedict, Carl Czerny, and Simon Sechter.

Auguste Chapuis (25 April 1858 – 6 December 1933) was a 19th/20th century French composer, organist, and professor. He was a student with César Franck. The rue Auguste-Chapuis in the 20th arrondissement of Paris was named after him when he died in 1933. He was awarded the Prix Rossini in 1886 for Les Jardins d'Armide on a libretto by the playwright Émile Moreau. In 1894, he succeeded Adolphe Danhauser as head of the municipal orphéon of Paris.

Feodor Feodorovich Koenemann (Russian: Фёдор Фёдорович Кёнеман; sometimes transliterated as Fyodor Keneman) (Moscow, Russia, 20 April [O.S. 4 April] 1873 – 29 March 1937) was a pianist, composer and music teacher. His last name originated from the Prussian family name Könemann of his father Friedrich Napoleon Könemann (Moscow, 27 February 1838 – Moscow, 23 March 1903).

Nikolai Yakovlevich Myaskovsky (Russian: Никола́й Я́ковлевич Мяско́вский; Polish: Mikołaj Miąskowski; 20 April 1881 – 8 August 1950), was a Russian and Soviet composer. He is sometimes referred to as the "Father of the Soviet Symphony". Myaskovsky was awarded the Stalin Prize five times.

Fred Raymond aka Raimund Friedrich Vesely (20 April 1900 – 10 January 1954) was an Austrian composer. Raymond, born in Vienna, was the third child (after two daughters) of Vinzenz Vesely, an employee of the Austrian state railway system, and his wife Henriette, née Dluhos. Both parents were of Czech descent. They intended their son to study mining after high school, and pursure a career in the civil service. After the premature death of both his parents, Raymond studied at a commercial academy and trained as a banker. Raymond composed operetta music as well as copious pieces for films and Schlager, which were very successful in the 1920s and 1930s and were commonly heard being sung and whistled in the streets. He became world-famous with his 1925 composition "Ich hab mein Herz in Heidelberg verloren" ("I Lost My Heart in Heidelberg"), and his pieces were considered to be very much in the typical style of the 1920s, especially "Ich hab' das Fräulein Helen baden seh'n" ("I Saw Miss Helen Bathing") or "Ich reiß' mir eine Wimper aus" ("I Lost An Eyelash"). Due to a weak heart, he spent his military service with a propaganda company which served the Belgrade military transmitter. After the war, he took a short break from the Salzburg Radio Orchestra to go to Hamburg, where he finished his last two operettas, Geliebte Manuela (Beloved Manuela) and Flieder aus Wien (Lilacs from Vienna). In 1951, he moved to a new home in Überlingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, where he spent three years with his young wife Eva-Maria before dying of a heart failure shortly before the birth of their son, Thomas. His marble grave is located in Überlingen, on the shore of Lake Constance, and is decorated with a lyre. To commemorate the eightieth year of his birth, a street was named after him in the Donaustadt district of Vienna.

Jin Xiang (20 April 1935 – 23 December 2015) was a Chinese composer and conductor. He studied composition at the China Central Conservatory from 1954. In 1959 he received his Bachelor of Arts in Composition. Since being labelled a rightist in 1957, he was sent to work in Art Troupe of Aksu Prefecture after graduation, and had to labor at the same time. In 1973, he became a conductor of Orchestra of Song and Dance Ensemble of Xinjiang Song, Dance and Drama Theatre. After the Cultural Revolution he returned to Beijing and was conductor and composer in residence of the Orchestra of Beijing Song and Dance Ensemble from 1979–1984. Jin Xiang came to the United States in 1988 and was a visiting scholar at the Juilliard School in 1998 and the University of Washington and the composer-in-residence at the Washington National Opera. From 1994-1995 he was the Art Director of the China Performing Administration Centre of the Ministry of Culture. In 1996, he founded and was the president of the East-West Music Exchange Association, a non-profit that promoted the exchange of eastern and western music.He died on 23 December 2015, aged 80.

Sir John Eliot Gardiner (born 20 April 1943) is an English conductor, particularly known for his performances of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, especially the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage of 2000, performing Bach's church cantatas in liturgical order in churches all over Europe, and New York City, with the Monteverdi Choir, and recording them at the locations.