Born Today! 13.05.2024

Wojciech Żywny (Czech: Vojtěch Živný; 13 May 1756 – 21 February 1842) was a Czech-born Polish pianist, violinist, teacher and composer. He was Frédéric Chopin's first professional piano teacher.

Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer. He is best known for 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado. His works include 24 operas, 11 major orchestral works, ten choral works and oratorios, two ballets, incidental music to several plays, and numerous church pieces, songs, and piano and chamber pieces. His hymns and songs include "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and "The Lost Chord". The son of a military bandmaster, Sullivan composed his first anthem at the age of eight and was later a soloist in the boys' choir of the Chapel Royal. In 1856, at 14, he was awarded the first Mendelssohn Scholarship by the Royal Academy of Music, which allowed him to study at the academy and then at the Leipzig Conservatoire in Germany. His graduation piece, incidental music to Shakespeare's The Tempest (1861), was received with acclaim on its first performance in London. Among his early major works were a ballet, L'Île Enchantée (1864), a symphony, a cello concerto (both 1866), and his Overture di Ballo (1870). To supplement the income from his concert works he wrote hymns, parlour ballads and other light pieces, and worked as a church organist and music teacher. In 1866 Sullivan composed a one-act comic opera, Cox and Box, which is still widely performed. He wrote his first opera with W. S. Gilbert, Thespis, in 1871. Four years later, the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte engaged Gilbert and Sullivan to create a one-act piece, Trial by Jury (1875). Its box-office success led to a series of twelve full-length comic operas by the collaborators. After the extraordinary success of H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) and The Pirates of Penzance (1879), Carte used his profits from the partnership to build the Savoy Theatre in 1881, and their joint works became known as the Savoy operas. Among the best known of the later operas are The Mikado (1885) and The Gondoliers (1889). Gilbert broke from Sullivan and Carte in 1890, after a quarrel over expenses at the Savoy. They reunited in the 1890s for two more operas, but these did not achieve the popularity of their earlier works. Sullivan's infrequent serious pieces during the 1880s included two cantatas, The Martyr of Antioch (1880) and The Golden Legend (1886), his most popular choral work. He also wrote incidental music for West End productions of several Shakespeare plays, and held conducting and academic appointments. Sullivan's only grand opera, Ivanhoe, though initially successful in 1891, has rarely been revived. In his last decade Sullivan continued to compose comic operas with various librettists and wrote other major and minor works. He died at the age of 58, regarded as Britain's foremost composer. His comic opera style served as a model for generations of musical theatre composers that followed, and his music is still frequently performed, recorded and pastiched.

Johannes Haarklou (May 13, 1847 – November 26, 1925) was a Norwegian composer, organist, conductor, and music critic.

Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Моде́ст Ильи́ч Чайко́вский; 13 May [O.S. 1 May] 1850–15 January [O.S. 2 January] 1916) was a Russian dramatist, opera librettist and translator.

August Enna (13 May 1859 – 3 August 1939) was a Danish composer, known mainly for his operas. Enna was born in Nakskov, Lolland, Denmark, but his ethnic origins lay in Sicily. His first major success as a composer was The Witch (1892), which was followed by several popular operas, songs, two symphonies (in D minor and E major), and a violin concerto. Strongly influenced by Wagner's music, he was himself an influence on Danish composers, such as Carl Nielsen. August Enna also wrote piano music.

Raoul Laparra (13 May 1876 – 4 April 1943) was a French composer.

Arthur-Vincent Lourié, born Naum Izrailevich Luria (Russian: Наум Израилевич Лурья), later changed his name to Artur Sergeyevich Luriye (Russian: Артур Серге́евич Лурье) (14 May 1892 – 12 October 1966) was a Russian composer, writer, administrator, and musical agent. Lourié played an important role in the earliest stages of the organization of Soviet music after the 1917 Revolution but later went into exile. His music reflects his close connections with contemporary writers and artists, and also his close relationship with Igor Stravinsky.

Isaac Iosifovich Schwartz (Russian: Исаак Иосифович Шварц; 13 May 1923 – 27 December 2009), also known as Isaak Shvarts, was a Soviet composer. Schwartz was born in Romny in the Ukrainian SSR in 1923. His family moved to Leningrad in 1930, where he learned to play the piano. He gave his first concert in 1935 with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra. Schwartz's father was professor of archeology at the Leningrad State University: he was arrested in 1936 and executed two years later as part of the Great Purge. Schwartz's family was exiled to Kyrgyzstan in 1937, and Schwartz gave private music lessons in Frunze (now Bishkek) as well as occasionally accompanying the silent films at the cinema with live music. During the Second World War, Schwartz directed one of the sections of the Red Army Choir. During that time, he met Mariya Dmitriyevna, the sister of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who introduced him to her brother. Shostakovich helped Schwartz gain entry to the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in Leningrad, from whence he graduated with a diploma in composition in 1951. He joined the Union of Soviet Composers in 1955. Only years later did he discover that Shostakovich had paid for his education. When Shostakovich was dismissed from the Conservatory, Schwartz was asked to denounce Shostakovich, but he refused. Schwartz's first major commission was the music for the film Our Correspondent in 1959. He went on to compose the music for more than 100 Soviet films, including White Sun of the Desert (Белое солнце пустыни, 1969) and The Captivating Star of Happiness (Звезда пленительного счастья, 1975). Perhaps his best known work outside of the Soviet Union was for Akira Kurosawa's 1975 film Dersu Uzala. He won the prestigious Nika Award of the Russian Academy of Cinema Arts and Sciences for 1992 for his music for the films White King, Red Queen (Белый король, красная королева) and Luna Park (Луна-парк). Schwartz also composed music for ballets and theatrical performances and, to a lesser extent, for television. His one symphony, Gelbe Sterne – Purimspiel im Ghetto, composed in 1993, was first performed in Saint Petersburg in 2000: it was inspired by the story of the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania. The work was recorded on Capriccio with Russian National Philharmonic Orchestra under Vladimir Spivakov in 2005 (currently available as a download only). Schwartz died in Siversky, near Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation, on 27 December 2009, aged 86.

Kenneth L. Jennings (May 13, 1925 – August 20, 2015) was an American choral conductor and composer. He was the Harry R. and Thora Helseth Tosdal Professor of Music Emeritus and Director Emeritus of the St. Olaf Choir. He was a published arranger, composer, and choral music educator.

Eberhard Schoener (born 13 May 1938, Stuttgart) is a German musician, composer, conductor, and arranger. His activities combine many styles and formats. Originally a classical violinist and conductor of chamber music and opera, he was one of the early adopters and popularizers of the Moog synthesizer in Europe. In the 1970s he traveled to Indonesia and incorporated musical elements from Asia into his own work. He has collaborated with rock musicians such as Jon Lord and The Police and also with Electronic Music German Pioneer band Tangerine Dream on an orchestral arrangement for the "Mojave Plan" track for a live performance on a German TV show. He has composed film scores, videos, music for television, and an opera to be broadcast via the Internet. He has won numerous awards, including the 1975 Schwabing Art Prize for music, the 1992 Bambi Award for creativity and a lifetime achievement award at the Soundtrack Cologne Festival of Music and Sound in Film and the Media in November 2014.

Piotr Moss (born 13 May 1949 in Bydgoszcz) is a Polish composer of contemporary classical music. Since 1981, he has lived in Paris and since 1984 has been a French citizen. Moss studied in Poland with Piotr Perkowski, Grażyna Bacewicz, Krzysztof Penderecki and, from the late 1970s onwards, in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. His important work as a composer is characterized by a permanent search for new sounds and new eclectic stylistic associations in a genre related to Alfred Schnittke's style of music. In 2011, his concerto for clarinet d' un silence... was recorded by Jean-Marc Fessard. See the Polish article to have a complete list of Moss' compositions.

John Lunn (born 13 May 1956) is a Scottish composer, known for the music from the series Downton Abbey and for many other television and movie soundtracks.

Alexander Igorevich Rybak (Russian: Александр Игоревич Рыбак; born 13 May 1986) or Alyaxandr Iharavich Rybak (Belarusian: Аляксандр Ігаравіч Рыбак) is a Belarusian-Norwegian singer-composer, violinist, pianist, author and actor. Based in Los Angeles, Rybak extensively worked on television programs and on tours in Europe, particularly in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe throughout the early 2010s. Performing in English, Russian and Norwegian, Rybak held on to a teen idol status in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and to a certain extent in Western Asia in his early twenties. His debut 2009 album, Fairytales, charted in the top 20 in nine European countries, including a top position in Norway and Russia. After two pop albums in Fairytales and No Boundaries (2010), Rybak switched to become a family-oriented artist, focusing on children's and classical music and frequently performing with youth orchestras throughout the world. Rybak is known for his extensive involvement in the Eurovision Song Contest. Representing Norway in the 2009 contest in Moscow, Russia, he won the competition with 387 points—the highest tally any country has achieved in the history of Eurovision under the then-voting system—with "Fairytale", a song he wrote and composed. Winning at the age of 23, Rybak remains the youngest solo male winner of the contest and the only Belarusian-born winner to date. His win was celebrated throughout Europe for crushing stereotypes about the contest, such as needing an over-the-top performance or the influence of neighbour voting. Since then, Rybak has been involved several times in the contest. He represented Norway again in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal, with the song "That's How You Write a Song", winning the second semi-final and finishing in 15th place in the final. He performed as an opening act for the 2010 final and as an interval act in 2012 and 2016. Rybak has frequently provided commentary on the contest, and also worked as a journalist in 2011, and as a judge on the Belgian national finals in 2016 and 2023.