Born Today! 14.12.2023

Tommaso Bernardo Gaffi (14 December 1667 - Rome, 11 February 1744) was an Italian baroque composer. He was a pupil of Bernardo Pasquini, organist of the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, where Gaffi succeeded him in 1704. As Pasquini he enjoyed the patronage of cardinals Benedetto Pamphili and Pietro Ottoboni, as well as Prince Francesco Maria Ruspoli. His own students included Girolamo Chiti and Andrea Basili.

Giuseppe Valentini (14 December 1681 – November 1753), nicknamed Straccioncino (Little Ragamuffin), was an Italian violinist, painter, poet, and composer, though he is known chiefly as a composer of inventive instrumental music. He studied under Giovanni Bononcini in Rome between 1692 and 1697. From 1710 to 1727 he served as ‘Suonator di Violino, e Componitore di Musica’ to Prince Michelangelo Caetani. He also succeeded Corelli as director of the concertino at San Luigi dei Francesi, from 1710 to 1741. Though during his lifetime overshadowed by the likes of Corelli, Vivaldi, and Locatelli, his contribution to Italian baroque music is noteworthy, and many of his works were published throughout Europe.

Jan Antonín Koželuh (also Johann Antonin Kozeluch, Koscheluch, Jan Evangelista Antonín Tomáš; 14 December 1738 in Velvary – 3 February 1814 in Prague) was a Czech composer.

Nikolaus Kraft (14 December 1778, Eszterháza, Hungary – 18 May 1853, Cheb, Bohemia) was an Austrian cellist and composer (six cello concertos). He was the son of Antonín Kraft, under whom he first studied. He then trained under Jean-Louis Duport (1801). He claimed to have been the soloist for the premiere of Beethoven's Triple Concerto and played alongside Mozart and Anton Teyber on 12 April 1789 at Dresden on Mozart's Berlin journey.

Louise Pauline Marie Héritte-Viardot (14 December 1841 – 17 January 1918) was a French singer, pianist, conductor and composer. She was born in Paris, the eldest child of Pauline Viardot-Garcia and Louis Viardot, niece of Maria Malibran and sister to composer and conductor Paul Viardot.In 1863 Viardot married Ernest Héritte, Honorary Consul and Chancellor of the Embassy of France in Berne. Her performing career was ended by illness, and with the help of Clara Schumann, she found a teaching position as a singing teacher at the Hoch Conservatory. She died in Heidelberg.

Lluïsa Casagemas i Coll (b. 13 Dec 1873, d. ? after 1930; one source says c. 1942) was a Catalan violinist, singer and composer. She was born in Barcelona and studied composition with Francesc de Paula Sánchez i Gavagnach and violin with Agustí Torelló. She began composing at an early age and made her debut as a composer in 1893 with a symphonic poem.Casagemas' opera Schiava e regina won a prize at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1892; it has to be performed in 1893 at Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona; it would be the first opera by a woman performed there. However, an anarchist attack with a bomb interrupted the opera season and the theatre was closed for months. So, the opera was not performed; as a compensation for the author, several fragments were performed before the Spanish royal family in Madrid in 1894. After, it was forgotten and never performed nor recorded. Afterward Casagemas sang her own compositions at the salon of novelist Emilia Pardo Bazán, and he introduced her to musical and literary society.

Joseph Marie Alphonse Nicolas Jongen (14 December 1873 – 12 July 1953) was a Belgian organist, composer, and music educator.

Dobri Hristov (Bulgarian: Добри Христов; 14 December 1875 – 23 January 1941) was one of the major Bulgarian composers of the 20th century. He wrote mainly choral music, as well as some church music and music for the orchestra. Hristov was born in Varna, then in the Ottoman Empire. He graduated from the Prague Conservatory in 1903 (under the directorship of the famous Czech composer Antonín Dvořák). He returned to Bulgaria and helped with the development of Bulgarian music culture, using many Bulgarian folklore elements in his compositions. He was conductor of "The Seven Saints" ensemble and choir in the church of the same name in Sofia, Bulgaria between 1911 and 1928. He died in Sofia in 1941 at age 65.

Paul Walford Corder (14 December 1879 - 6 August 1942) was an English composer and music professor. Corder was born at Pimlico, London, the son of musician Frederick Corder and his wife Henrietta Walford. He was baptised at St Gabriel's, Warwick Square, London, on 1 March 1880. He studied under his father at the Royal Academy of Music and won the Goring Thomas scholarship for composition in 1901. In 1907 he joined the staff of the Academy as Professor of Composition and Harmony.His aunt Rosa Corder painted a portrait of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Corder was strongly influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite movement. He composed operas, ballets, cantatas and piano works. Many of his orchestral works remain unpublished and unknown but some of his keyboard pieces were published and achieved some public attention. He was a close friend of Arnold Bax with whom he spent holidays in Cornwall. Bax dedicated the song "Aspiration" (1909) and his Fourth Symphony (1931) to Corder.Paul and his sister Dolly moved to Looe Island, Cornwall in 1921, the island being bought with the proceeds of the sale of Frederick Corder's collection of first editions. It is said that Dolly was so distraught at Paul's death in 1942 that she destroyed many of his musical manuscripts. From 1932 Corder lived for many years at White Cottage, Netley Heath, Surrey, with his sister Dolly. One of his hobbies was furniture-making.

Manolis Kalomiris (Greek: Μανώλης Καλομοίρης; December 14, 1883, Smyrna – April 3, 1962, Athens) was a Greek classical composer. He was the founder of the Greek National School of Music.

Frantz Casseus (14 December 1915 – 3 June 1993) was a Haitian-American guitarist and composer. Born and raised in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, he spent most of his adult life in the United States where he immigrated in 1946 hoping to meet pianist Fats Waller. Though influenced by jazz and European classical music, Casseus's compositions maintained a focus on Haitian folk forms, which he incorporated into his recordings and his published compositions. Casseus was a frequent collaborator with Harry Belafonte who recorded his song "Merci Bon Dieu". Casseus played on Belafonte's breakthrough album Calypso. Between 1953 and 1969, Casseus recorded three albums for Smithsonian Folkways. Casseus wrote music until the last years of his life, but from the 1970s tendonitis in his left hand curtailed his performance and recording career. Casseus was an early guitar teacher to the American musician Marc Ribot (b. 1954), whose aunt and uncle were friends of Casseus. Ribot has played a significant role in preserving Casseus' musical legacy. As part of these efforts, Ribot edited a collection of Casseus' solo guitar compositions, and performed those same pieces on a CD issued in 1993.

René Eespere (born 14 December 1953 in Tallinn) is an Estonian composer. Eespere's music is noted for its spiritual dimension; he has also incorporated elements from pop music. His best-regarded works are Glorificatio (1990) and Two Jubilations (1995), both written for mixed chorus.

Florin Chilian (born 14 December 1968) is a Romanian musician.