Born Today! 18.08.2024

Johann Gottlob Friedrich Wieck (18 August 1785 – 6 October 1873) was a noted German piano teacher, voice teacher, owner of a piano store, and author of essays and music reviews. He is remembered as the teacher of his daughter, Clara, a child prodigy who was undertaking international concert tours by age eleven and who later married her father's pupil Robert Schumann, in defiance of her father's extreme objections. As Clara Schumann, she became one of the most famous pianists of her time. Another of Wieck's daughters, Marie Wieck, also had a career in music, although not nearly so illustrious as Clara's. Other pupils included Hans von Bülow.

Benjamin Louis Paul Godard (18 August 1849 – 10 January 1895) was a French violinist and Romantic-era composer of Jewish extraction, best known for his opera Jocelyn. Godard composed eight operas, five symphonies, two piano and two violin concertos, string quartets, sonatas for violin and piano, piano pieces and etudes, and more than a hundred songs. He died at the age of 45 in Cannes (Alpes-Maritimes) of tuberculosis and was buried in the family tomb in Taverny in the French department of Val-d'Oise.

Eusebius Mandyczewski (Ukrainian: Євсевій Мандичевський, romanized: Yevsevii Mandychevskyi, Romanian: Eusebie Mandicevschi; 18 August 1857, in Molodiia – 13 August 1929, in Vienna) was a Romanian musicologist, composer, conductor, and teacher. He was an author of numerous musical works and is highly regarded within Austrian, Romanian and Ukrainian music circles.

Hermann Zilcher (18 August 1881 – 1 January 1948) was a German composer, pianist, conductor, and music teacher. His compositional oeuvre includes orchestral and choral works, two operas, chamber music and songs, études, piano works, and numerous works for accordion. As a music teacher, Zilcher also enjoyed an outstanding reputation. His students included, among others, Norbert Glanzberg, Karl Höller, Winfried Zillig, Kurt Eichhorn, Maria Landes-Hindemith, and Carl Orff. After the seizure of power by the Nazis, Zilcher became a member of the party, a fact for which he would later be criticized.

Marcel Auguste Louis Samuel-Rousseau (né Rousseau; 18 August 1882 – 11 June 1955) was a French composer, organist, and opera director.

Sir Ernest Alexander Campbell MacMillan, (18 August 1893 – 6 May 1973) was a Canadian orchestral conductor, composer, organist, and Canada's only "Musical Knight". He is widely regarded as being Canada's pre-eminent musician from the 1920s through the 1950s. His contributions to the development of music in Canada were sustained and varied, as conductor, performer, composer, administrator, lecturer, adjudicator, writer, humourist, and statesman.

Tan Dun (Chinese: 谭盾; pinyin: Tán Dùn, Mandarin pronunciation: [tʰǎn tu̯ə̂n]; born 18 August 1957) is a Chinese-born American composer and conductor. A leading figure of contemporary classical music, he draws from a variety of Western and Chinese influences, a dichotomy which has shaped much of his life and music. Having collaborated with leading orchestras around the world, Tan is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Grawemeyer Award for his opera Marco Polo (1996) and both an Academy Award and Grammy Award for his film score in Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). His oeuvre as a whole includes operas, orchestral, vocal, chamber, solo and film scores, as well as genres that Tan terms "organic music" and "music ritual." Born in Hunan, China, Tan grew up during the Cultural Revolution and received musical education from the Central Conservatory of Music. His early influences included both Chinese music and 20th-century classical music. Since receiving a DMA from Columbia University in 1993, Tan has been based in New York City. His compositions often incorporate audiovisual elements; use instruments constructed from organic materials, such as paper, water, and stone; and are often inspired by traditional Chinese theatrical and ritual performance. In 2013, he was named a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.

Andrew Schultz (born 18 August 1960 in Adelaide, South Australia) is an acclaimed Australian classical composer. A musician with a large and widely performed output and an international sphere of activity he has, since 2008, lived in Sydney, New South Wales. He studied at the Universities of Queensland and Pennsylvania and at King's College London and he has received many awards, prizes and fellowships including a Fulbright Award (1982), the Albert H. Maggs Composition Award (1985), Grand-Prix, Opera Screen de Opéra-Bastille (1991), the APRA Award for Classical Composition of the Year (1993), the Schueler Award (2007), the Paul Lowin Prize (2009) and the Centenary of Canberra Symphony Commission (2012). He holds a Bachelor of Music (Hons), Master of Music, and Doctor of Philosophy in musical composition. His compositions cover a broad range of chamber music, orchestral and vocal works and have been performed, recorded and broadcast widely by leading groups and musicians internationally. He has held many commissions, including from the major Australian orchestras, and five Artist Fellowships from the Australia Council for the Arts. Schultz has written a number of large scale works including three symphonies and three operas. The operas — Black River (1989), Going into Shadows (2001) and The Children's Bach (2008) — have been presented live and on film around the world (see: Black River). Other major works include Violin Concerto (1996), Journey to Horseshoe Bend (2003, based on the book by Ted Strehlow), Song of Songs (2004) and To the evening star (2009). Each of these works has been recorded, and likewise many other of his chamber and orchestral works have been released on compact disc or on-line. Journey to Horseshoe Bend and Black River are considered innovative in their socially relevant topics and their use of indigenous performers to support narratives that encompass the clash of native and settler cultures in Australia. Schultz has held residencies and academic posts in the UK, France, the USA, Canada and Australia. He is Professor of Music at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia having previously been Professor of Composition at the University of Wollongong, Australia, and Head of Composition and Music Studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London.

Lev Zhurbin (born August 18, 1978, in Moscow, Soviet Union) is a composer and violist.