Born Today! 06.11.2024

Sigmund Theophil Staden (6 November 1607 – 30 July 1655) was an important early German composer. Staden was born in Kulmbach in the Principality of Bayreuth, son of Johann Staden, the founder of the so-called Nuremberg school. Based in Nuremberg, he was the composer of Seelewig (1644), the first German Singspiel. The only other works of his that survive are three Friedens-Gesänge from 1651.

Carlo Agostino Badia (1672 – 23 September 1738) was an Italian court composer best known for his operas and oratorios. Badia was born in Verona and around 1697 moved to Vienna, where many of his operas were premiered until his death. He was employed as chapel-master to emperor Leopold I for some time.

Carlo Agostino Badia (1672 – 23 September 1738) was an Italian court composer best known for his operas and oratorios. Badia was born in Verona and around 1697 moved to Vienna, where many of his operas were premiered until his death. He was employed as chapel-master to emperor Leopold I for some time.

Giuseppe Donizetti (6 November 1788 – 12 February 1856), also known as Donizetti Pasha, was an Italian composer. From 1828 he was Instructor General of the Imperial Ottoman Music at the court of Sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808–1839). He was replaced by Guatelli Pasha after his death. His younger brother was the opera composer Gaetano Donizetti. He studied music first with his uncle, Carini Donizetti, and, later, he was a pupil of Simone Mayr. After enlisting in Napoleon's army (1808), he served there as band leader. He took part in the campaigns against Austria and in Spain, and followed Napoleon to Elba. He was present at the Battle of Waterloo. After the fall of Napoleon, he continued his career as a bandmaster in the Savoy army. A few years later, he was invited to serve the Ottoman Empire by Giovanni Timoteo Calosso, a fellow Sardinian. Donizetti Pasha, as he was called in the Ottoman Empire, played a significant role in the introduction of European music to the Ottoman military. Apart from overseeing the training of the European-style military bands of Mahmud's modern army, he taught music at the palace to the members of the Ottoman royal family, the princes and the ladies of the harem, is believed to have composed the first national anthem of the Ottoman Empire, supported the annual Italian opera season in Pera, organised concerts and operatic performances at court, and played host to a number of eminent virtuosi who visited Istanbul at the time, such as Franz Liszt, Parish Alvars and Leopold de Meyer. Although the elder Donizetti was born in Bergamo, Italy, Istanbul became a second home for him, and he lived there until his death in 1856. He is buried in the vaults of the St. Esprit Cathedral, near the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul, in Pera. Emre Aracı published a comprehensive biography of Giuseppe Donizetti in Turkish in 2007. The volume Giuseppe Donizetti Pasha: Musical and Historical Trajectories between Italy and Turkey, edited by Federico Spinetti, was published in English and Italian by the Fondazione Donizetti in 2010.

Beniamino Cesi (6 November 1845 – 19 January 1907) was a celebrated Italian concert pianist and teaching professor of piano, who taught many of the most distinguished early 20th century pianists of the Neapolitan school, so that his influence spread very widely.

Olaus Andreas Grøndahl (4 November 1847 — 31 December 1923) was a Norwegian conductor, singing teacher and composer. The music journalist Cecilie Dahm described him as "... a central figure in Norway's choral movement". His best known work was Foran Sydens Kloster (Ung Magnus og Foran sydens kloster), a cantata for male choir. He also conducted the first performances of several choral works by Edvard Grieg.

John Philip Sousa ( SOO-zə, SOO-sə, Portuguese: [ˈso(w)zɐ]; November 6, 1854 – March 6, 1932) was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era known primarily for American military marches. He is known as "The March King" or the "American March King", to distinguish him from his British counterpart Kenneth J. Alford. Among Sousa's best-known marches are "The Stars and Stripes Forever" (National March of the United States of America), "Semper Fidelis" (official march of the United States Marine Corps), "The Liberty Bell", "The Thunderer", and "The Washington Post". Sousa began his career playing violin and studying music theory and composition under John Esputa and George Felix Benkert. Sousa's father enlisted him in the United States Marine Band as an apprentice in 1868. Sousa left the band in 1875, and over the next five years, he performed as a violinist and learned to conduct. In 1880, Sousa rejoined the Marine Band and served there for 12 years as director, after which he was hired to conduct a band organized by David Blakely, P.S. Gilmore's former agent. Blakely wanted to compete with Gilmore. From 1880 until his death, Sousa focused exclusively on conducting and writing music. He aided in the development of the sousaphone, a large brass instrument similar to the helicon and tuba. Upon the United States joining World War I, Sousa was awarded a wartime commission of lieutenant to lead the Naval Reserve Band in Illinois. He then returned to conduct the Sousa Band until his death in 1932. In the 1920s, Sousa was promoted to the permanent rank of lieutenant commander in the naval reserve.

Heinz Martin Albert Röttger (6 November 1909 – 26 August 1977) was a German composer. From 1928 to 1931 Röttger attended the Akademie der Tonkunst in Munich, where he studied under Walter Courvoisier and Hugo Röhr. From 1930 to 1934 he studied under Alfred Lorenz and Adolf Sandberger at the University of Munich; his doctoral thesis was on problems of form in the work of Richard Strauss. Until the outbreak of the Second World War he was Kapellmeister in Augsburg, in Bavaria. After the War he worked at the Stralsunder Theater, in Stralsund in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern; in 1951 he became music director of the Volkstheater Rostock and the municipal orchestra there. In 1954 he was made chief musical director of the Landestheater Dessau, in Dessau in Sachsen-Anhalt, where he remained until his death in Dessau on 26 August 1977. His works include Bellmann, 1946; Phaeton, 1957; Der Heiratsantrag, a comic opera after Anton Chekhov, 1960; Die Frauen von Troja, 1962; Der Weg nach Palermo, 1965; Spanisches Capriccio, 1976.

Maurice Bourgue (French: [buʁɡ]) (6 November 1939 – 6 October 2023) was a French oboist, composer, conductor, and academic teacher who made an international career. He was principal oboist with the Orchestre de Paris from its foundation in 1967 until 1979. He founded a wind octet of members of the orchestra in 1972, for performing and recordings. He taught chamber music at the Conservatoire de Paris and the Geneva Conservatoire. Bourgue played in world premieres, such as Les Citations by Henri Dutilleux in 1991.