Born Today! 05.04.2024

Pasquale Anfossi (5 April 1727 – February 1797) was an Italian opera composer. Born in Taggia, Liguria, he studied with Niccolò Piccinni and Antonio Sacchini, and worked mainly in London, Venice and Rome. He wrote more than 80 operas, both opera seria and opera buffa, although he concentrated on church music, especially oratorios, during his last years. Anfossi died in Rome in 1797.

Domenico Vincenzo Maria Puccini (5 April 1772 – 25 May 1815) was an Italian composer, a contemporary of Muzio Clementi, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Franz Schubert and Ludwig van Beethoven. Puccini was born in Lucca into a Tuscan musical family of at least five generations: his father was Antonio Puccini, his grandfather was Giacomo Puccini (senior), his son was Michele Puccini, and his grandson was the opera composer Giacomo Puccini. His works include a piano concerto in B and several dozen piano sonatas. Puccini died in Lucca in 1815.

Louis Spohr ([ˈluːi ˈʃpo:ɐ], 5 April 1784 – 22 October 1859), baptized Ludewig Spohr, later often in the modern German form of the name Ludwig was a German composer, violinist and conductor. Highly regarded during his lifetime, Spohr composed ten symphonies, ten operas, eighteen violin concerti, four clarinet concerti, four oratorios, and various works for small ensemble, chamber music, and art songs. Spohr invented the violin chinrest and the orchestral rehearsal mark. His output spans the transition between Classical and Romantic music, but fell into obscurity following his death, when his music was rarely heard. The late twentieth century saw a modest revival of interest in his oeuvre primarily in Europe, but his reputation has never been restored to that of his lifetime.

Vincenzo Fioravanti (5 April 1799 – 28 March 1877) was a prolific Italian opera composer active in Naples. He composed 39 operas, of which 34 were performed in his lifetime. Like his father, Valentino Fioravanti, he specialised in the opera buffa genre, but he also composed sacred music including two oratorios during his time as maestro di cappella of Lanciano Cathedral (1839–1843).

Pietro Platania (5 April 1828 – 26 April 1907) was an Italian composer and music educator.Platania was born at Catania and was a student of Pietro Raimondi at the Palermo Conservatory. Beginning in 1882, he was the maestro di cappella of Milan Cathedral, and from 1885 to 1902, he served as the director of the Naples Conservatory. As a composer, he was known for his orchestral and church music. He was considered by Gioacchino Rossini and Giuseppe Verdi, among others, to be the greatest master of counterpoint of his day; the latter invited him to contribute to the Messa per Rossini, for which he wrote the Sanctus. He died in Naples.

Toussaint Prévost, known under the pseudonym Théodore Ritter (5 April 1840 – 6 April 1886) was a 19th-century French composer and pianist.

Franz Eckert (5 April 1852 – 6 August 1916) was a German composer and musician who composed the harmony for Japan's national anthem, "Kimigayo" and the national anthem of the Korean Empire, "Aegukga".

Alfonso Rendano (5 April 1853 – 10 September 1931) was an Italian pianist and composer. Rendano was born in Cosenza. He was particularly precocious and at the age of ten he was admitted to the Naples Conservatory, where he was noticed by Sigismund Thalberg who sent him to Paris, recommending him to Rossini. In 1866 he studied under Georges Mathias, Chopin's pupil. For about 15 years, he carried out an intense musical activity; he then devoted himself to teaching, first in Naples, then in Rome. Rendano also enjoyed the support of Franz Liszt who tried to help ensure that Rendano's Piano Concerto would receive a performance in a coming German music festival. Liszt wrote of the work: "It is a vigorous, original and remarkable work which I greatly appreciate."Rendano wrote the opera Consuelo, successfully staged in Turin and in Germany. He held his last concert at Rome's Teatro Valle in 1925. He died in Rome in 1931. The main theatre of Cosenza is named after him.

Louis-Gaston Ganne (5 April 1862 in Buxières-les-Mines (Allier) – 13/14 July 1923 in Paris) was a conductor and composer of French operas, operettas, ballets, and marches.

John White (5 April 1936 – 4 January 2024) was an English experimental composer and musical performer. He invented the early British form of minimalism known as systems music, with his early Machines.

Pieter Jan Leusink (born 5 April 1958 in Elburg) is a Dutch conductor of classical music. He studied organ in Zwolle at the Municipal Conservatory and took conducting lessons from Gottfried van der Horst. He founded the Stadsknapenkoor Elburg (Elburg City Boys' Choir) in April 1981 and founded three musical events in Elburg's St Nicholas Church, a Festival of Lessons and Carols in December, J.S. Bach's St Matthew Passion (BWV 244) during the Easter season, and summer concerts in July and August. He began conducting the Holland Boys Choir in 1984; currently it has 80 singers.Ten years later, in 1994, he founded The Leusink Bach Orchestra and one year later, an adult mixed choir, The Bach Choir of the Netherlands. They later merged into The Bach Choir and Orchestra. He is best known for his recordings of Bach in particular, as well as Handel, Mozart, Fauré and Antonio Vivaldi and has performed in England, Wales, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Poland, Latvia and his native Netherlands. Every year throughout the Netherlands about 150 concerts are performed by the choirs and the orchestra of Leusink. In 1999 and 2000 Leusink recorded all of Bach's sacred cantatas within 15 months.In 2004, Leusink was honoured by his conferment to Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion. In 2018, four female musicians accused Leusink of sexual misconduct. Two months later two more women came forward. At the time, Leusink denied the allegations; according to his counsel Peter Plasman, it was claimed they were based on differences of opinion of a business nature. After complaints from two female musicians dating back to 2012–2013 and 2013–2016, the Dutch College of Human Rights (College voor de Rechten van de Mens) ruled in June 2022 that Leusink was guilty of sexual harassment.

Christophe Looten (born 5 April 1958) is a French composer. Born in Bergues, he was made Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in January 2000.