Born Today! 17.05.2025

Stanisław Moniuszko (Polish: [stãˈɲiswaf mɔ̃ˈɲuʃkɔ] ; May 5 (17), 1819 – June 4, 1872) was a Polish composer, conductor, organist and pedagogue. He wrote many popular art songs and operas, including The Haunted Manor and Halka, and his music is filled with patriotic folk themes of the peoples of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (mainly Poles, Lithuanians and Belarusians). He is generally referred to as "the father of Polish national opera". Since the 1990s Stanisław Moniuszko has been recognized in Belarus as an important figure to Belarusian culture as well.

Antonio Scontrino (17 May 1850, Trapani – 7 January 1922, Florence) was an Italian composer. Scontrino studied at the Palermo Conservatory from 1861 and 1870 and later in Munich. He began performing as a double bassist in 1891. In 1898, he became a professor of composition at the Palermo Conservatory and also taught in Florence afterwards. (Indeed, there are references to him as a teacher of counterpoint at the Florence Conservatory somewhat earlier, in 1897.) He composed five operas (from 1879 to 1896), several large orchestral works (including symphonies), one concerto each for double bass, bassoon, and piano, four string quartets and a prelude and fugue for quartet, incidental music, pieces for piano, choral music, and lieder. Scontrino's String Quartets are: E minor (Prelude and Fugue) 1895?; G minor in 4 movements, 1900; C major 4 movements, 1903; A minor 4 movements, 1905?; F major 4 movements, 1918? The Conservatorio di Musica "Antonio Scontrino" in Trapani is named in his memory.

Aleksander Michałowski (17 May [O.S. 5 May] 1851 – 17 October 1938) was a Polish pianist, pedagogue, and composer. He was influential in the teaching of piano technique, especially based upon his study of the works of Chopin and Bach.

Werner Egk (German pronunciation: [ˈɛk], 17 May 1901 – 10 July 1983), born Werner Joseph Mayer, was a German composer.

Werner Egk (German pronunciation: [ˈɛk], 17 May 1901 – 10 July 1983), born Werner Joseph Mayer, was a German composer.

John Nathaniel Vincent Jr. (May 17, 1902 – January 21, 1977) was an American composer, conductor, and music educator. Vincent was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and studied at the New England Conservatory of Music under Frederick Converse and George Chadwick graduating with a diploma in 1927. He continued his studies at George Peabody College where he earned a bachelor's and a master's degree followed by doctoral studies at Harvard University from 1933 to 1935. While at Harvard studying under Walter Piston he won the John Knowles Paine Traveling Fellowship for two years of study with Nadia Boulanger. He was able to study original manuscripts of all classical composers at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (French National Library). After transferring to Cornell University he earned his PhD in 1942. Made field recordings for Library of Congress with Alan Lomax, using Fairchild machine to preserve notables of the old South. Vincent was head of the music department at Western Kentucky University from 1937 to 1945 and Schoenberg's successor as professor of composition at UCLA, a position he held from 1946 to 1969. He surveyed music schools to create UCLA's state-of-art music building and Schoenberg Hall. As a composer, Vincent's music is known for its rhythmic vitality and lyricism. Although his music is essentially classical in form it is distinctly individual. The free tonality of his work makes use of what he calls 'paratonality': the predominance of a diatonic element in a polytonal or atonal passage. Vincent wrote numerous orchestral works, chamber music pieces, art songs, and choral works. He also wrote one ballet, 3 Jacks (1942), a film score, Red Cross (1948), and an opera, Primeval Void (1969). In 1951 his book The Diatonic Modes in Modern Music was published. He also conducted orchestras throughout the US, and all South American countries sponsored by U.S.-State Dept, and he was a director of the Rustic Canyon art-colony Huntington Hartford Foundation from 1952 to 1965. He died in Santa Monica, California in 1977. Vincent was founding-director of Walt Disney's California Institute of the Arts.

Fritz Lehmann (17 May 1904 – 30 March 1956) was a noted German conductor, whose career was cut short by his early death at the age of 51. His repertoire ranged from the Baroque through to contemporary works, in both the concert hall and the opera house. He was an early advocate of period performance practice. and founded the Berliner Motettenchor. He is best known through a number of recordings he left.

Sándor Végh (17 May 1912 – 7 January 1997) was a Hungarian, later French, violinist and conductor. He was best known as one of the great chamber music violinists of the twentieth century.

Berthe di Vito-Delvaux (17 May 1915 – 2 April 2005) was a Belgian composer.

Berthe di Vito-Delvaux (17 May 1915 – 2 April 2005) was a Belgian composer.

Dennis Brain (17 May 1921 – 1 September 1957) was a British horn player. From a musical family – his father and grandfather were horn players – he attended the Royal Academy of Music in London. During the Second World War he served in the Royal Air Force, playing in its band and orchestra. After the war, he was the principal horn of the Philharmonia and Royal Philharmonic orchestras, and played in chamber ensembles. Among the works written for Brain is Benjamin Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings (1944). Other composers who wrote for him include Malcolm Arnold, Lennox Berkeley, Alan Bush, Gordon Jacob, Humphrey Searle and Mátyás Seiber. Brain was killed in a car crash at the age of 36.

Alan Lorber is a prolific American music arranger, record producer, and composer. He was especially active in the 1960s and produced a wide variety of music. Among his own recordings is the 1967 album The Lotus Place which features pop covers with Indian influences. He created the "Bosstown Sound" in the late 1960s. In 2010, Alan Lorber published the book Benny Allen was a Star: a New York Music Story, a work of fiction with autobiographical aspects.

Philippe Boesmans (17 May 1936 – 10 April 2022) was a Belgian pianist, composer and academic teacher. He studied to be a pianist at the Royal Conservatory of Liège, and was self-taught as a composer, influenced by the Liège Group of Henri Pousseur, André Souris, and Célestin Deliège, and by attending the Darmstädter Ferienkurse. He worked for the Radio Télévision Belge de la Communauté Française (RTBF) from 1961, as a producer from 1971. Boesman became primarily recognised for his operas, with works written for the Royal Opera House La Monnaie in Brussels as composer in residence since 1985. Four operas were written in collaboration with Luc Bondy who adapted plays for him, Schnitzler's La Ronde, Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, Strindberg's Miss Julie and Iwona, księżniczka Burgunda by Witold Gombrowicz, and who directed the world premieres of the operas. Au monde was honoured with an International Opera Award in 2015. His last opera based on Feydeau's vaudeville 'On purge bébé' had its world premiere at La Monnaie in Brussels in December 2022.

Joanna Bruzdowicz (17 May 1943 – 3 November 2021) was a Polish composer.

Pat Irwin (born May 17, 1955) is an American composer and musician who was a founding member of two bands that grew out of New York City's No Wave scene in the late 1970s, the Raybeats and 8-Eyed Spy. He joined The B-52s from 1989 through 2008. He currently performs and records with SUSS who have released several records on the indie label Northern Spy. He composed the score for the Showtime series, Dexter: New Blood. Other television scores include HBO's Bored to Death, Showtime's Nurse Jackie, and The Good Cop on Netflix. He has composed scores for many cartoons including Rocko's Modern Life, Pepper Ann, A Little Curious, and Class of 3000. Independent film credits include My New Gun, But I'm A Cheerleader, and Bam Bam and Celeste.