Born Today! 19.09.2024

Jacques de Saint-Luc (baptized 19 September 1616 – ca. 1710) was a Walloon lutenist and composer. Saint-Luc was born in Ath in 1616; nothing is known about his early years. In 1639 he was invited to become a musician at the court in Brussels, and two years later he had his portrait painted by Gerard Seghers. He moved to Paris in the mid- or late 1640s, but returned to Brussels in October 1647. He evidently spent the next few decades in Brussels, marrying in 1658. An important correspondent of Saint-Luc's from these years was Constantijn Huygens. In August 1684 Saint-Luc was still living in Brussels, but nothing is known of his whereabouts during the next 16 years: the next mention of him is from 1700, when he visited Berlin on the occasion of the marriage of Prince Frederick of Hesse-Cassel and Princess Louise Dorothea of Prussia. He apparently traveled to Berlin from Vienna, where, according to contemporary sources, he was employed by Prince Eugene of Savoy. Saint-Luc was still alive in 1707 and 1708, when he published some of his compositions in Amsterdam; his date of death is unknown. The long lifetime of at least 94 years aroused suspicions. And indeed, the booklet to a CD issued in 2018 (by Evangelina Mascardi, http://www.musiqueenwallonie.be/, booklet text obviously not available online) proposes that some of the music attributed to Jacques was in fact composed by his son Laurent (born and baptised in Brussels in 1669). More than 200 pieces by Saint-Luc survive, and show that he was one of the most prominent lutenists of his time. Although he was influenced by French composers (Ennemond Gaultier, Denis Gaultier, Charles Mouton, and others) and adopted their scheme of grouping pieces into suites, he only used the characteristic French style brisé in his preludes.

Henricus Jacobus de Croes, Hendrik Jacob de Croes, known as Henri-Jacques de Croes (baptised 19 September 1705 in Antwerp, died 16 August 1786 in Brussels) was a Flemish composer and violinist. He was Kapellmeister of Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine, governor of the Austrian Netherlands whose court was based in Brussels. He composed various violin concertos, masses, motets, chamber music and an opéra comique.

Dalibor Cyril Vačkář (19 September 1906 – 21 October 1984) was a Czech contemporary composer. He was renowned throughout Czechoslovakia.

Massimo Filippo Antongiulio Maria Freccia (19 September 1906 – 16 November 2004) was an Italian American conductor. He had an international reputation but never held a post as music director of a major orchestra or opera house. Unusually for an Italian, he built his career around symphonic music rather than opera. For several years he was an assistant to Arturo Toscanini, whom he venerated, and he was regularly invited by Toscanini to conduct the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Massimo Freccia came from a wealthy background and counted royalty and aristocrats among his friends. He was born on 19 September 1906 in the Tuscan village of Valdibure, near Pistoia, not far from Florence. His father was a solicitor and landowner, his mother from an aristocratic Pistoian family. She was a good amateur pianist, and encouraged Massimo's growing interest in music, engaging a violin teacher for him when he was six. He had no formal school education. When World War I broke out, his Russian great-aunt came to live with them. Brought up by his mother on Vivaldi and Corelli, he was introduced to Tchaikovsky, Schumann and Wagner which his great-aunt played for hours on the piano. She recounted tales of her youth in Saint Petersburg when she met Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. In 1923, when he was 17, Freccia went to the Florence Conservatory of Music, where he became friends with the composer Luigi Dallapiccola, who introduced him to the music of the contemporary school of Italian non-operatic composers such as Gian Francesco Malipiero, Giorgio Federico Ghedini, Goffredo Petrassi and Alfredo Casella. Freccia began to conduct in a garage adjoining the family's villa in Florence, which he converted into a studio where he and his fellow-students played through works for small orchestra. He was entirely self-taught as a conductor, learning mainly by watching others. He obtained a job as apprentice at the opera in Florence, playing the celesta in the pit and then rushing backstage to play the harmonium so that the prima donna could stay on pitch. From Florence he went to Vienna, where he heard Richard Strauss conduct his operas, Mozart masses in the churches, and Bruckner and Mahler symphonies in the concert-halls. At an Italian Embassy party he met Franz Schalk, then music director of the State Opera. When Freccia expressed his admiration for the young Wilhelm Furtwängler's concerts, Schalk turned frosty and described Furtwängler as a "talented amateur". But he gave Freccia a pass to attend rehearsals at the Opera, where he heard singers such as Elisabeth Schumann, Lotte Lehmann, Leo Slezak and Alfred Piccaver. He also heard Schalk conduct the Vienna premiere of Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex. Freccia then moved for two years to Paris, where he met Jean Cocteau, Stravinsky and Picasso. He also met the pianist Arthur Rubinstein and the composer Maurice Ravel, to whom he showed a tone-poem which he had composed in Vienna. Ravel played some of it, studied the score, complimented Freccia on his technique and orchestration and ended by saying: "But my dear young man, all that is very good, but it's all Ravel!" His friendship with the composer Joaquín Nin led to his first engagement in 1929. When a ballet company was formed in Paris around the dancer Antonia Mercé y Luque (known as La Argentina), Freccia was appointed assistant conductor. This led to a post as conductor of a group specialising in contemporary Italian music. After a spell with them, he returned to Vienna to conduct the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, where he was noticed by a Hungarian who had just founded the Budapest Symphony Orchestra. Freccia was appointed conductor and met Zoltán Kodály and Béla Bartók. He conducted the first performance of the orchestral version of the latter's Transylvanian Dances. In 1934 Freccia took the orchestra on an Italian tour. Benito Mussolini attended the concert, in Rome, and summoned Freccia to meet him next day in the Palazzo Venezia to discuss his views on the string section. While on a visit to New York in 1937, Freccia was invited - on Toscanini's recommendation - to return the following year to conduct the New York Philharmonic in a series of summer concerts at the Lewissohn Stadium. Sensing that war in Europe was inevitable, he sought a residence visa for the United States. Through Arthur Judson, the NYPO manager, he accepted an engagement with the Havana Philharmonic Orchestra, thereby being able to return from Cuba on a permanent Italian visa. He found the orchestra a poor ensemble, but trained it skillfully and was appointed its music director 1939-43. Soloists of the quality of Arthur Rubinstein and Jascha Heifetz played with it. It was in Cuba that he forged a friendship with George Gershwin and met his future wife Maria Luisa (Nena) Azpiazu. After four years Freccia returned to New York on a special visa. He was rejected for the U.S. Army, and in 1944 became conductor of the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra, where he remained for eight years. He returned to Cuba in 1945 to marry Nena. In 1952 he left New Orleans for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Freccia made his London debut in October 1954 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) in the Royal Festival Hall, conducting the British premiere of Samuel Barber's oratorio Prayers of Kierkegaard. This had not been a success at its American premiere, but Freccia had liked it and persuaded Barber to revise and cut it. The composer told him: "It's practically your work." Freccia returned to London for several years as guest conductor of the LPO, the Philharmonia, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. In 1959 Freccia returned to Italy for six years as conductor of the RAI Orchestra. During that time he twice conducted concerts for Pope John XXIII. Freccia made some international tours, conducting in Japan in 1967 and then in Australia. In later years he conducted frequently in Monte Carlo. For four years he conducted concerts with the Juilliard Orchestra in New York. He returned to Vienna in 1981 to conduct the Radio Orchestra and conducted the RPO in London in 1983 and 1986 in concerts for the RAF Benevolent Fund. His last London appearance was on 15 June 1987, when he conducted Verdi's Requiem at the Festival Hall in the presence of Diana, Princess of Wales in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of Toscanini's death. Freccia lived in London for many years. His last concert was in 1998 when, at the age of 92, he conducted Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in the square at Montepulciano. He made fine recordings of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique with the RPO, and Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony with the LPO, as well as several discs of the Russian and Italian repertoire. He accompanied soloists such as Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli and Earl Wild in the piano concerto repertoire. Massimo Freccia published an autobiography, The Sounds of Memory, in 1990 when he was 84, in which he expressed candid views on other conductors. Most of them, he wrote, were too conceited, mistrustful and even occasionally vicious. Sir Thomas Beecham, for instance, "emphasised his pomposity" by his poses and pretensions. "Not once have I been touched by his performances. I always found his artistry superficial." Herbert von Karajan was "not a nice man". Leopold Stokowski produced a lush sound, yet "one had the feeling that underneath there was something false. His speech was particularly affected... He gave the impression of a glittering, multi-coloured painted shell; when one looked inside one found an infinite emptiness." Only Toscanini escaped savage censure, although Freccia conceded that his reputation for strict observance of the score was a myth. He died on 16 November 2004, aged 98, survived by his wife. They had no children, although she had a daughter from her first marriage.

Gustaf Allan Pettersson (19 September 1911 – 20 June 1980) was a Swedish composer and violist. He is considered one of the 20th century's most important Swedish composers and was described as one of the last great symphonists, often compared to Gustav Mahler.: 3  His music can hardly be confused with other 20th-century works. In the final decade of his life, his symphonies (typically one-movement works) developed an international following, particularly in Germany and Sweden. Of these, his best known work is Symphony No. 7. His music later found success in the United States.: 7  The conductors Antal Doráti and Sergiu Comissiona premiered and recorded several of his symphonies. Pettersson's song cycle Barefoot Songs influenced many of his compositions. Doráti arranged eight of the Barefoot Songs. Birgit Cullberg produced three ballets based on Pettersson's music. Pettersson studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music's conservatory. For more than a decade, he was a violist in the Stockholm Concert Society; after retiring he devoted himself exclusively to composition. Later in his life, he experienced rheumatoid arthritis. Pettersson was awarded the Swedish royal medal Litteris et Artibus.

Karen Surenovich Khachaturian (Russian: Карэн Суренович Хачатурян, Armenian: Կարեն Խաչատրյան) (Moscow, 19 September 1920 – Moscow, 19 July 2011) was a Soviet and Russian composer of Armenian ethnicity and the nephew of composer Aram Khachaturian. Khachaturian was born in Moscow, the son of Suren Khachaturian, a theatrical director. His studies under Genrikh Litinsky at the Moscow Conservatory were interrupted by a term of duty in the entertainment division of the Red Army. Resuming his studies in 1945, he worked with Dmitri Shostakovich and Nikolai Myaskovsky. In addition to a Violin Sonata (1947), his works include a Cello Sonata (1966), a String Quartet (1969), four symphonies (1955, 1968, 1982, 1991) and a ballet, Cipollino (1973), as well as various other orchestral works and music for the theater and films. Rhythmic drive and a careful and idiomatic use of his instrumental forces characterize his compositions. He adopted a primarily tonal approach to composition. His works have been recorded by artists including David Oistrakh, Jascha Heifetz, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Vladimir Yampolsky. A recording of the opening of his first symphony was played in a lecture-demonstration given at the University of Warwick during the first academic year in which it had undergraduates (1965–1966), by Geoffrey Bush. From 1952 to 2011 he taught at the Moscow Conservatory (since 1981 - professor). Among his students: A. Tchaikovsky, Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina, A. Baltin, A. Vieru (Romania), N. Terahara (Japan), Kang San U (PRC), V. Babushkin, V. Polyansky, Ashot Ariyan and many others.

Rodrigo Riera (19 September 1923 – 19 August 1999), was a Venezuelan guitarist and composer. He wrote a vital and important body of works for the guitar, inspired by and dedicated to the rich musical legacy of his region in the Lara state (Capital city: Barquisimeto) in Western Venezuela, displaying a loving nationalism that led him to be associated with the work of Antonio Lauro but with a technique that is more accessible to beginners and intermediate guitar players. He was also an important educator of the classical guitar. Many guitarists active today studied with him in the 1980s and 1990s. Lastly, he had an important career as a concert guitarist, but his recordings are relatively scarce and hard to find.

Zygmunt Krauze (born September 19, 1938) is a Polish composer of contemporary classical music, educator, and pianist.

Eduardo Marturet (born September 19, 1953) is a Venezuelan conductor and composer represented by Tempo Primo. He is the Music Director and Conductor of The Miami Symphony Orchestra (MISO).

Jóhann Gunnar Jóhannsson (Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈjouːhan ˈjouːhansɔn]; 19 September 1969 – 9 February 2018) was an Icelandic composer who wrote music for a wide array of media including theatre, dance, television, and film. His work is stylised by its blending of traditional orchestration with contemporary electronic elements. Jóhann released solo albums from 2002 onward. In 2016, he signed with Deutsche Grammophon, through which he released his last solo album, Orphée. Some of his works in film include the original scores for Denis Villeneuve's Prisoners, Sicario, and Arrival, and James Marsh's The Theory of Everything. Jóhannsson was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score for both The Theory of Everything and Sicario, and won a Golden Globe for Best Original Score for the former. He earned a second Golden Globe nomination for Arrival. He was a music and sound consultant on Mother!, directed by Darren Aronofsky in 2017. His scores for Mary Magdalene and Mandy were released posthumously. His only directorial work, Last and First Men, premiered at the Manchester International Festival in 2017, where he also performed the score live with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.

Ken Namba (難波 研, Nanba Ken, born September 19, 1983) is a Japanese composer, performer and researcher.