Born Today! 27.10.2024

Anna (or Ann) Selina Storace (Italian: [stoˈratʃe]; 27 October 1765 – 24 August 1817), known professionally as Nancy Storace, was an English operatic soprano. The role of Susanna in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro was written for and first performed by her. Born in London, she began her singing career as a child prodigy in England by the age of 12. This led to further study in Italy and to a successful singing career there during the late 1770s. While in Monza (or shortly before in Milan) in 1782, she was recruited to form part of Emperor Joseph II's new Italian opera company in Vienna, where the assembled singers who joined her "created in the two years leading up to the premiere of The Marriage of Figaro, were welded into the finest buffa ensemble anywhere." In Vienna, she befriended both Mozart and Joseph Haydn. A sudden failure of her voice in 1785 caused her to withdraw from the stage for five months; though her career continued to be successful, she never fully recovered her former vocal prowess. After marrying in 1784, she left Vienna in 1787 and returned to London, where she continued her career, notably singing in her brother Stephen Storace's operas. She remained in London, but by 1808 had retired from the stage. She died in 1817.

Anton de Kontski (25 September 1816 – 7 December 1899) was a Polish-American pianist and composer. He was also known as Antoni Kątski and Antoine de Kontski, sometimes with the appellation "Chevalier."

Samuel Conlon Nancarrow (; October 27, 1912 – August 10, 1997) was an American-Mexican composer who lived and worked in Mexico for most of his life. Nancarrow is best remembered for his Studies for Player Piano, being one of the first composers to use auto-playing musical instruments, realizing their potential to play far beyond human performance ability. He lived most of his life in relative isolation and did not become widely known until the 1980s.

Dominick Argento (October 27, 1927 – February 20, 2019) was an American composer known for his lyric operatic and choral music. Among his best known pieces are the operas Postcard from Morocco, Miss Havisham's Fire, The Masque of Angels, and The Aspern Papers. He also is known for the song cycles Six Elizabethan Songs and From the Diary of Virginia Woolf; the latter earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1975. In a predominantly tonal context, his music freely combines tonality, atonality and a lyrical use of twelve-tone writing. None of Argento's music approaches the experimental, stringent avant-garde fashions of the post-World War II era. As a student in the 1950s, Argento divided his time between the United States and Italy, and his music is greatly influenced by both his instructors in the United States and his personal affection for Italy, particularly the city of Florence. Many of Argento's works were written in Florence, where he spent a portion of every year. He was a professor at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He frequently remarked that he found residents of that city to be tremendously supportive of his work and thought his musical development would have been impeded had he stayed in the high-pressure world of East Coast music. He was one of the founders of the Center Opera Company (now the Minnesota Opera). Newsweek magazine once referred to the Twin Cities as "Argento's town." Argento wrote fourteen operas, in addition to major song cycles, orchestral works, and many choral pieces for small and large forces. Many of these were commissioned for and premiered by Minnesota-based artists. He referred to his wife, the soprano Carolyn Bailey, as his muse, and she frequently performed his works. Bailey died on February 2, 2006. In 2009, Argento was awarded the Brock Commission from the American Choral Directors Association.

Igor Mikhailovich Butman (Russian: Игорь Михайлович Бутман; born 27 October 1961) is a Russian jazz saxophonist born in Leningrad, Soviet Union (now St. Petersburg, Russia) in 1961. Butman holds dual citizenship for both the United States and Russian Federation. He is considered to be a virtuoso saxophonist, and a skilled bandleader. American saxophonist Grover Washington, Jr. was instrumental in introducing Igor Butman to American audiences by featuring the Russian saxophonist on his 1988 album, Then and Now. American trumpet player Wynton Marsalis has also been a strong champion of Igor Butman. Bill Clinton has called Butman his "favorite living saxophone player".

Vanessa-Mae (Chinese: 陈美; pinyin: Chén Měi; born 27 October 1978), also called Vanessa-Mae Vanakorn Nicholson, is a British violinist with album sales reaching several million, having made her the wealthiest entertainer under 30 in the United Kingdom in 2006. She competed under the name Vanessa Vanakorn (Thai: วาเนสซ่า วรรณกร, romanized: Wa-nes-sa Wan-na-kon; her father's surname) for Thailand in alpine skiing at the 2014 Winter Olympics. She was initially banned from skiing by the International Ski Federation (FIS) after participating in a qualifying race allegedly organised to enable her to qualify for the Winter Olympics. An appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport led to the ban being nullified, citing lack of evidence for her own wrongdoing or any manipulation. The FIS later issued an apology to her.