Born Today! 01.02.2024

Kaspar Förster (also Caspar Foerster) (baptized 28 February 1616 in Danzig – 2 February 1673 in Oliva, near Danzig) was a German singer and composer. Förster studied music under his father Kaspar (1574-1652) and then under Marco Scacchi in Warsaw. He sang bass and conducted choirs at the Polish court in Warsaw from 1638 to about 1643, then served as kapellmeister to Frederik III of Denmark in Copenhagen between 1652 and 1655. In 1655, a war broke out between Denmark and Sweden, and Förster returned to Danzig, working as cantor at the Marienkirche there. He returned to the employ of Frederik from 1661 to 1667. During this time he visited Venice several times and played a role in bringing aspects of Italian musical style to northern Europe. He also studied under Giacomo Carissimi in the 1660s. Late in his life he worked briefly in Hamburg before returning to his birthplace. Förster's surviving works are mostly sacred cantatas for three voices, with two violins and continuo. Some 35 survive, and they often contain very low and difficult bass parts. His other works include two oratorios, six trio sonatas, and four secular cantatas.

Henri Desmarets (February 1661 – 7 September 1741) was a French composer of the Baroque period primarily known for his stage works, although he also composed sacred music as well as secular cantatas, songs and instrumental works.

Francesco Maria Veracini (1 February 1690 – 31 October 1768) was an Italian composer and violinist, perhaps best known for his sets of violin sonatas. As a composer, according to Manfred Bukofzer, "His individual, if not subjective, style has no precedent in baroque music and clearly heralds the end of the entire era", while Luigi Torchi maintained that "he rescued the imperiled music of the eighteenth century", His contemporary, Charles Burney, held that "he had certainly a great share of whim and caprice, but he built his freaks on a good foundation, being an excellent contrapuntist". The asteroid 10875 Veracini was named after him.

Francisco António de Almeida (c. 1702–1755) was a Portuguese composer and organist. From 1722 to 1726 he was a royal scholar in Rome. In 1724, Pier Leone Ghezzi drew his caricature, describing him as "a young but excellent composer of concertos and church music who sang with extreme taste". He returned to Portugal in 1726, where he became organist of the Royal and Patriarchal Chapel. In 1728, the first of his serenatas, Il trionfo della virtù, was performed in Lisbon at the palace of Cardinal João da Mota e Silva. His comic opera, La pazienza di Socrate, was performed at the royal palace in 1733. It was the first Italian opera in Portugal. A contemporary diarist states that Almeida composed music for the popular performances of presépios (Nativity scenes) in the Mouraria quarter of Lisbon. He probably died in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755.

William Linley (1771–1835) was one of seven musical siblings born to Thomas Linley the elder and his wife Mary Johnson.

William Linley (1771–1835) was one of seven musical siblings born to Thomas Linley the elder and his wife Mary Johnson.

Hippolyte André Jean Baptiste Chélard (1 February 1789 – 12 February 1861) was a French composer, violist, and conductor of the Classical era. He was born in Paris and studied composition with François-Joseph Gossec and viola with Rodolphe Kreutzer. Chélard won the 1811 Prix de Rome for his cantata Ariane. He earned his living for much of his career as a violist at the Paris Opera. His 1827 opera Macbeth was a flop in Paris, but a great success in Munich. From that time on, he composed for the German market, his most popular work being Die Hunnenschlacht which premiered in Munich in 1835. The compositions of Chélard reflect a variety of stylistic traditions including the Gluck-Cherubini-Spontini and German Romantic schools. While some his work enjoyed limited success, particularly among amateur keyboardists, it is mostly notable in the development of southern German music at the time. Some aspects of Chélard's music are said to be echoed in the works of Berlioz and Liszt.He died in Weimar, where he established himself as theater-conductor and in the 1840s he had met, and signed a contract dividing conducting duties with, the newly arrived Franz Liszt.

Adolf Fredrik Lindblad (1 February 1801, Skänninge – 23 August 1878, Linköping) was a Swedish composer from the Romantic era. He is mostly known for his compositions of Swedish song or lieder, of which he produced over 200. His other well-known compositions include his Symphony No. 1 in C major, Symphony No. 2 in D major, and an opera titled Frondörerna (The Rebels). He was a well-respected friend of Felix Mendelssohn, and had a collaborative relationship with the famous Swedish soprano, Jenny Lind.

Emilio Pizzi (1 February 1861 – 27 November 1940) was an Italian composer. His output of works include 10 operas, a ballet, an oratorio, and numerous vocal and chamber works. Pizzi graduated from the Milan Conservatory in 1884 where he was a pupil of Antonio Bazzini and Amilcare Ponchielli and attended classes with Pietro Mascagni. Shortly after completing his education, he moved to London where he remained for almost 13 years. In 1885 his operetta Lina won the Bonetti Competition. In 1889 his first opera, Guglielmo Ratcliff, won first prize at the Baruzzi Competition. His fourth opera, Gabriella, was commissioned by Adelina Patti and she portrayed the title role when the work premiered in Boston in 1893 at the Metropolitan Theatre with the composer in attendance. Pizzi returned to Italy in 1897 to succeed Antonio Cesaro as the maestro di cappella at the Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo. He also taught at the Bergamo Conservatory. He returned to London in 1900 where he became a popular composer of vocal pieces. He died in Milan at the age of 79.

Julius or Jules Conus (Russian: Юлий Эдуардович Конюс, Yuly Eduardovich Konyus; 1 February 1869 – 3 January 1942) was a Russian violinist and composer. Conus was born in Moscow, the son of the pianist Eduard Conus. His brothers were the musicians Georgi Conus and Lev Conus. All three brothers studied in the Moscow Conservatory; among their teachers were Sergei Taneyev and Anton Arensky. Following the Russian Revolution he emigrated to France, where his son, Serge Conus, was born. Another of his sons, Boris, married the daughter of Sergei Rachmaninoff. Julius Conus returned to Moscow in 1939, dying there in 1942. His compositions include a concerto for violin which has been recorded by, among others, Jascha Heifetz.

Thomas Frederick Dunhill (1 February 1877 – 13 March 1946) was a prolific English composer in many genres, though he is best known today for his light music and educational piano works. His compositions include much chamber music, a song cycle, The Wind Among the Reeds, and an operetta, Tantivy Towers, that had a successful London run in 1931. He was also a teacher, examiner and writer on musical subjects.

Antonio Guarnieri (Venice, Italy, 1 February 1880 — Milan, Italy, 25 November 1952) was an Italian conductor and cellist. After playing cello in the Martucci string quartet he turned to conducting in 1904, being engaged by the Vienna Court Opera in 1912. He succeeded Arturo Toscanini at La Scala in 1929 and stayed there until shortly before his death. A highly regarded technician at the podium, he conducted many important world premières, Ottorino Respighi's Belfagor, for instance. It was hearing Guarnieri's conducting of Claude Debussy's Nocturnes that caused Claudio Abbado to resolve to become a conductor.

Francesco Balilla Pratella (Lugo, Italy February 1, 1880 – Ravenna, Italy May 17, 1955) was an Italian composer, musicologist and essayist. One of the leading advocates of Futurism in Italian music, much of Pratella's own music betrays little obvious connection to the views espoused in the manifestos he authored.

Pierre Capdevielle (1 February 1906 – 9 July 1969) was a French conductor, composer, and music critic. In 1938 he was awarded the Prix Blumenthal and in 1948 he founded the Centre de documentation de musique internationale. For many years he was President of France's chapter of the International Society for Contemporary Music. He also served on the music council of UNESCO. In 1961 he was made a Chevalier of the Order of the Légion d'honneur.

Sándor Veress (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈʃaːndor ˈvɛrɛʃ], (1907-02-01)1 February 1907 – (1992-03-04)4 March 1992) was a Swiss composer of Hungarian origin. He was born in Kolozsvár/Klausenburg, Transylvania, Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire, nowadays called Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and died in Bern. The first half of his life was spent in Hungary; the second, from 1949 until his death, in Switzerland, of which he became a citizen in the last months of his life. Veress studied and later taught at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest. Among his teachers were Zoltán Kodály, with whom he studied composition, and Béla Bartók, with whom he studied piano; as an assistant to László Lajtha he did field research on Hungarian, Transylvanian, and Moldavian folk music. Among the composers who studied under him are György Ligeti, György Kurtág, Heinz Holliger, Heinz Marti, Jürg Wyttenbach and Roland Moser. He wrote numerous chamber music pieces and symphonic works. He wrote one opera, Hangjegyek lázadása (1931). Veress was awarded the Kossuth Prize in 1949 in Hungary (though as an émigré he was unable to collect this award) and the Bartók-Pásztory Prize in 1985; in Switzerland he received the Berne canton prize in 1976.

Mozart Camargo Guarnieri (February 1, 1907 – January 13, 1993) was a Brazilian composer. Guarnieri was born in Tietê, São Paulo. He studied piano, composition, and conducting in São Paulo and Paris. His compositions received significant recognition in the United States during the 1940s, leading to conducting opportunities in major American cities. A key figure in the Brazilian national school, Guarnieri served as a conductor, a member of the Academia Brasileira de Música, and Director of the São Paulo Conservatório. His extensive oeuvre includes symphonies, concertos, operas, chamber music, piano pieces, and songs. Regarded by some as the most important Brazilian composer after Heitor Villa-Lobos, Guarnieri was awarded the Gabriela Mistral Prize shortly before his death.

Mozart Camargo Guarnieri (February 1, 1907 – January 13, 1993) was a Brazilian composer. Guarnieri was born in Tietê, São Paulo. He studied piano, composition, and conducting in São Paulo and Paris. His compositions received significant recognition in the United States during the 1940s, leading to conducting opportunities in major American cities. A key figure in the Brazilian national school, Guarnieri served as a conductor, a member of the Academia Brasileira de Música, and Director of the São Paulo Conservatório. His extensive oeuvre includes symphonies, concertos, operas, chamber music, piano pieces, and songs. Regarded by some as the most important Brazilian composer after Heitor Villa-Lobos, Guarnieri was awarded the Gabriela Mistral Prize shortly before his death.

Zinaida Ignatyeva (Russian: Зинаи́да Игна́тьева; also spelled Zinaida Ignatieva; 1 February 1938 – 23 March 2022) was a Russian pianist. Born in Moscow, Ignatyeva was a student at the Moscow Conservatory under Samuil Feinberg, where she was awarded the VI International Chopin Piano Competition's 5th prize. Ignatyeva is a professor at the Moscow Conservatory, where she was appointed a teacher after graduating in 1962. She was active as a concert pianist within the USSR. She was named a People's Artist of Russia.

Michael Jeffrey Shapiro is an American composer, conductor, and author. The son of a Klezmer band clarinetist, Michael Shapiro spent most of his high school years in Baldwin, a Long Island suburb, where he was a music student of Consuelo Elsa Clark, William Zurcher, and Rudolf Bosakowski. The winner of several piano competitions during his youth, he earned his B.A. at Columbia College, Columbia University, where he majored in English literature and concentrated in music, benefiting most—according to his own assessment—from some of the department's stellar musicology faculty, He studied conducting independently with Carl Bamberger at the Mannes College of Music in New York and later with Harold Farberman at Bard College. At The Juilliard School, where he earned his master's degree, he studied solfège with Renée Longy. His composition teachers were Elie Siegmeister, Sir Malcolm Arnold, and Vincent Persichetti. Shapiro is Laureate Conductor of the Chappaqua Orchestra in New York’s Westchester County, which he conducted for the world premiere of his score for the classic 1931 film Frankenstein (directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff) (which has since its premiere received over sixty productions internationally including the West Coast premiere of its operatic version at the LA Opera and the East Coast premiere at the Atlanta Opera), as well as for the world premiere of his own orchestral work, Roller Coaster, which received its West Coast premiere under the baton of Marin Alsop in 2010 at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music while Shapiro was a composer in residence. He served for two years as the music consultant to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., where he produced and performed music by a number of composers who were either murdered by the Germans and their collaborators or had survived as refugees from the Third Reich. He has also been the assistant conductor at the Zurich Opera Studio. He has conducted many orchestras including in the U.K. the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Michael Shapiro's exclusive publisher is Universal Edition Vienna.

Fausto Romitelli (1 February 1963 – 27 June 2004) was an Italian composer.

Victor Dmitriyevich Smolski (Russian: Виктор Дмитриевич Смольский, Belarusian: Віктар Дзмітрыевіч Смольскі, born 1 February 1969) is a guitarist who was a member of the German heavy metal band Rage from 1999 until 2015, and a member of the metal bands Almanac, Mind Odyssey and Lingua Mortis Orchestra (LMO).

Mikołaj Górecki (born 1971) is a Polish composer. He is the son of the composer Henryk Górecki (1933-2010). In 1995 he graduated with honours in composition from the Music Academy in Katowice. In 1996, he received two scholarships from The Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. In 2000 he received a doctorate in composition from Indiana University, Bloomington in the United States. In 2001-2002 he lectured at McGill University in Montreal. He currently lives and works in the United States.

Juan Manuel Abras Contel (in Swedish and Polish, Jan Emanuel Abras; born 1 February 1975) is a classical music composer, conductor, musicologist and historian from Sweden. Born in Stockholm to a European family (French, Italian, etc.) that moved around the world, Abras became a cosmopolitan artist and scientist.