Born Today! 26.04.2024

Count Matvei Wielhorski (Russian: Матве́й Ю́рьевич Виельго́рский, Polish: Mateusz Wielhorski) (born Saint Petersburg, 15 April [O.S. 26 April] 1794 – died Nice, March 5, 1866) was a Russian cellist and count of Polish parentage. His ability to play cello was praised by Hector Berlioz. He studied music in Italy with Luigi Cherubini and returned to Russia where he became a patron of the arts. He supported Mikhail Glinka who would become Russia's first major composer and entertained Robert and Clara Schumann on their visit to Russia. Schumann dedicated his Piano Quartet to Wielhorski.

Auguste Mathieu Panseron (26 April 1796 – 29 July 1859) was a French composer and voice teacher.

Sir Alfred Scott Scott-Gatty (né Gatty; 26 April 1847 – 18 December 1918) was a long serving officer of arms at the College of Arms in London and a successful composer.

Lev Eduardovich Conus (Russian: Лев Эдуа́рдович Коню́с, Lev Eduárdovich Konyús), known in Western Europe and the US as Leon Conus (1871–1944), was a Russian pianist, music educator, and composer. A brother of the composers Georgi Conus and Julius Conus, he studied together with Sergei Rachmaninoff in Anton Arensky's advanced composition class and served as chief professor of piano at the Moscow Conservatory until 1918. Together with his wife, the pianist and pedagogue Olga Kovalevskaya Conus (1890-1976) they left the Soviet Union for Paris in 1921 where he subsequently taught at the city's Russian Conservatory, before finally moving to the United States in 1935. He taught in Cincinnati until his death at the age of 73. After his death, his wife published Fundamentals of Piano Technique, an influential book of Leon Conus's technical exercises for pianists.

Sigurd Christian Jag Erland Vogt von Koch (26 April 1910 – 31 January 2009) was a Swedish composer. He wrote symphonies, ballets, an opera, and other compositions, including music for film.

Oldřich František Korte (26 April 1926; Šaľa, Slovakia – 10 September 2014; Prague) was a Czech composer, pianist, publicist and writer. From 1943 to 1949 he studied at the Prague Conservatory, as a pupil of F. Pícha. He was forced to interrupt his studies in 1944–45, when he was imprisoned in a concentration camp. Following the communist Victorious February in 1948 Korte was once more affected by the political situation in former Czechoslovakia. He was forced to find work out of the artistic professions. Nevertheless, he never gave up his musical and literary activities, and gradually became a respected composer and pianist. Korte cooperated with the important Czech experimental theatre Laterna Magika, whose director Alfréd Radok offered him the post of pianist. He toured four continents with the ensemble of Laterna Magika, and played in more than 3000 performances.

Francis Albert Lai (French: [fʁɑ̃sis lɛ]; 26 April 1932 – 7 November 2018) was a French composer, noted for his film scores. He won the 1970 Oscar for Best Music, Original Score and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score for the film Love Story. The soundtrack album went to No. 2 in the Billboard album charts and the film's theme, "Where Do I Begin", was a hit single for Andy Williams.

Ilkka Taneli Kuusisto (born 26 April 1933) is a Finnish opera composer, conductor, choirmaster and organist.

Conrad Stephen Susa (April 26, 1935 – November 21, 2013) was an American composer. Born in Springdale, Pennsylvania, Susa studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and the Juilliard School, where his teachers included William Bergsma, Vincent Persichetti and, by his own claim, P. D. Q. Bach, the fictitious spoof character created by American composer Peter Schickele. He was an organist at Springdale High School. From 1959 to 1994, Susa was composer-in-residence for the Old Globe Theater (San Diego, California), where he wrote incidental music for over 200 productions there. In 1988, he joined the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and remained there as a professor of composition until his death. Susa became particularly known for his 5 operas. His 1973 chamber opera, Transformations, set to texts from the poems of Anne Sexton, is one of the most frequently performed operas by an American composer. His other compositions include choral works and incidental music for various plays. His music is published by the E.C. Schirmer Music Company.

Ronaldo Miranda (b. April 26, 1948 Rio de Janeiro) is a Brazilian composer and music professor. Miranda studied at the Escola de Música da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, under Henrique Morelenbaum for composition and Dulce de Saules for piano. From 1974 to 1981 Miranda was the primary music critic for the Jornal do Brasil. In 1977, Miranda won first prize in the chamber music category at the Concurso Nacional de Composição para a II Bienal de Música Brasileira Contemporânea da Sala Cecília Meireles. After this, he became a freelance composer. The following year, he represented Brazil at the Tribune International de Componistes de UNESCO in Paris, France. In 1981 he was awarded a gold medal by the governor of Rio de Janeiro state. He was in the program at the World Music Days in Aarhus, Denmark in 1983, at the Tenth Musik-Biennale in Berlin, Germany, and at the World Music Days in Budapest, Hungary in 1986. His opera Dom Casmurro premiered at the Municipal Theater of São Paulo in 1992, and was very popular with both audience and critics. In 2001, he won the Troféu Carlos Gomes and the Composer of the Year award by the governor of São Paulo state. Miranda's works have been performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, England; the Zürich Town Hall in Zürich, Switzerland; the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria; the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and in Carnegie Hall in New York City. Miranda is currently a professor at the Escola de Música da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, and an adjunct director at the Sala Cecília Meireles concert hall in Rio de Janeiro. On September 22, 2006 premiered at the Theatro São Pedro in São Paulo his opera "A Tempestade" ("The Tempest"), to which he wrote the libretto himself based on the homonymous play by William Shakespeare.

Klaus Lang (born 26 April 1971 in Graz) is an Austrian composer, concert organist, improviser, and academic teacher. His opera Die Architektur des Regens (The Architecture of Rain) after the Noh play Shiga by Zeami was premiered at the Munich Biennale in 2008. In 2006, Lang was appointed Professor of composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz. In 2010 he was awarded the Andrzej-Dobrowolski-Preis of the Steiermark. He was commissioned by Katharina Wagner to write an opera, The Vanished Wedding, to be premiered at Bayreuth, although not at the Festspielhaus and not part of the Bayreuth Festival. It is claimed to be the first world premiere at Bayreuth since the premiere of Wagner's Parsifal in 1882. The Vanished Wedding was premiered at the Reichshof, a disused Bayreuth cinema, on 23 July 2018, the day before the start of the 2018 Bayreuth Festival.