Born Today! 17.08.2024

Nicola (or Niccolò) Antonio Giacinto Porpora (17 August 1686 – 3 March 1768) was an Italian composer and teacher of singing of the Baroque era, whose most famous singing students were the castrati Farinelli and Caffarelli. Other students included composers Johann Adolph Hasse, Matteo Capranica and Joseph Haydn.

Joseph Kaspar Mertz (17 August 1806 – 14 October 1856) was a guitarist and composer from the Austrian Empire.

Benjamin Bilse (17 August 1816 – 13 July 1902) was a German conductor, composer, and violinist.

Peter Benoit (17 August 1834 – 8 March 1901) was a Flemish composer of Belgian nationality.

Leo Ascher (17 August 1880 – 25 February 1942) was an Austrian composer of operettas, popular songs and film scores.

Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Kasyanov (Russian: Александр Александрович Касьянов; 17 August 1891 – 13 February 1982) was a Soviet and Russian composer, conductor, pianist and professor. He received the Order of Lenin in 1967, Order of the October Revolution in 1981, and People's Artist of the USSR in 1971.

Salvatore Allegra (13 July 1898, Palermo, Italy – 9 December 1993, Florence, Italy) was an Italian composer. Allegra was born in Palermo. He composed a number of operettas in the 1920s, including Il gatto in cantina (1930), which is still performed sometimes, passing then to operas, such as the dark "verista" drama Ave Maria, which was first staged at La Scala in 1934, which was followed by I Viandanti (1936), Il Medico suo malgrado (1938) and Romulus (1952). He completed and edited some last works of the late Ruggero Leoncavallo, including the one-act opera Edipo Re (1920) and the operetta Le maschere nude (1925). After the war he composed a number of musical scores for films, among which Amori e veleni (1950) with Amedeo Nazzari and directed by Giorgio Simonelli. He died in Florence.

Henri Frédien Tomasi (pronounced [ɑ̃ʁi fʁedjɛ̃ tomazi]; 17 August 1901 – 13 January 1971) was a French classical composer and conductor. He was noted for compositions such as In Praise of Folly, Nuclear Era and The Silence of the Sea.

Abram Chasins (August 17, 1903 – June 21, 1987) was an American composer, pianist, piano teacher, lecturer, musicologist, music broadcaster, radio executive and author. Born in Manhattan, New York, he attended the Ethical Culture schools and undertook additional studies through the Columbia University Extension School. He studied piano with Ernest Hutcheson and Bertha Tapper, and composition with Rubin Goldmark at the Juilliard School of Music before proceeding to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where he undertook further piano studies with Józef Hofmann. In 1931 he studied music analysis with Sir Donald Tovey in London. Chasins' career as a pianist lasted from 1927 until 1947. He gave many solo recitals and performed with major orchestras in the United States, Canada, South America and Europe. On January 1, 1929, he made his debut playing his Piano Concerto No 1 with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Ossip Gabrilowitsch. He also gave the premiere performance of his Second Piano Concerto in March 1933, again with the Philadelphia Orchestra, this time conducted by Leopold Stokowski. From 1926 to 1935 Chasins taught piano as a member of the faculty of the Curtis Institute. He was associated with the radio station WQXR from 1941 to 1965, becoming the music director in 1946. His own radio series, "Piano Pointers", ran from 1932 to 1939 and he used his E flat minor Prelude as the program's theme. In 1949 he married Constance Keene, a pianist and former student of his, with whom he performed and recorded piano duos. In 1972 he joined the University of Southern California as musician-in-residence, and reorganized the student-run radio station KUSC into a channel for classical and modern music. He retired in 1977, and died of cancer at his home in Manhattan on June 21, 1987. Chasins wrote over 100 compositions, mostly for the piano. His Three Chinese Pieces (1920s) were performed by celebrated pianists including Josef Lhévinne, Józef Hofmann, William Kapell and Shura Cherkassky, and in its orchestrated version was the first American work to be performed by Arturo Toscanini with the New York Philharmonic. The "Concert Paraphrase on Strauss's 'Artist's Life'" is among his best works for two pianos, four hands, and his 24 Preludes for Piano (1928) continue to be used as teaching pieces. He also wrote a number of books on music and musicians, including Speaking of Pianists (1958), The Van Cliburn Legend (1959), The Appreciation of Music (1966), Music at the Crossroads (1972) and Stoki, the Incredible Apollo (1978), a biography of Leopold Stokowski.

Maestro Chev. Carmelo Pace (August 17, 1906 – May 20, 1993) was a Maltese composer, and a professor of music theory and harmony. Born in Valletta, Malta on August 17, 1906, Pace was the eldest of three children. His parents were Anthony Pace and Maria Carmela née Ciappara.

Erkki Aaltonen (17 August 1910 – 8 March 1990) was a Finnish composer.

Valery Aleksandrovich Gavrilin (Russian: Валерий Александрович Гаврилин, (17 August 1939 – 28 January 1999) was a Soviet and Russian composer. People's Artist of the RSFSR (1985).

Muslim Muhammad oghlu Magomayev (Azerbaijani: Müslüm Məhəmməd oğlu Maqomayev / Мүслүм Мәһәммәд оғлу Магомајев; 17 August 1942 – 25 October 2008), dubbed the "Soviet Sinatra", was a Soviet and Russo-Azeri opera and pop singer. He achieved widespread recognition throughout Russia and the post-Soviet world for his vocal talent and charisma, including a People's Artist of the USSR award in 1973.

Heiner Goebbels (born 17 August 1952) is a German composer, conductor and professor at Justus-Liebig-University in Gießen and artistic director of the International Festival of the Arts Ruhrtriennale 2012–14. His composition Stifters Dinge (2007) received five votes in a 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000, and writers for The Guardian ranked his composition Hashirigaki (2000) the ninth greatest classical composition of the same period.

Johannes Maria Staud (born 17 August 1974) is an Austrian composer.

Tarja Soile Susanna Turunen-Cabuli (born 17 August 1977), known professionally as Tarja Turunen or simply Tarja, is a Finnish heavy metal singer, best known as the former lead vocalist of Nightwish. Turunen studied lyrical singing at Sibelius Academy and Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe. She is a professional classical lied singer with a three-octave vocal range, and founded symphonic metal band Nightwish with Tuomas Holopainen and Emppu Vuorinen in 1996. Their combination of hard and fast guitar riffs with Turunen's dramatic, "operatic" lead vocals quickly achieved critical and commercial popularity. Their symphonic metal style, soon dubbed "opera metal", inspired many other metal bands and performers. Turunen was fired from the band on 21 October 2005 (just after the performance of the band's End of an Era concert) for personal reasons accompanied by an open letter from the band. She started her solo career in 2006 with the release of a Christmas album called Henkäys ikuisuudesta. In 2007, Turunen released My Winter Storm, an album featuring various styles including symphonic metal, and started the Storm World Tour. She performed several concerts in Europe, playing in metal festivals including the Graspop Metal Meeting and the Wacken Open Air, before releasing her third album, What Lies Beneath, supported by a tour, which lasted until April 2012. Her first live DVD Act I was filmed during this tour on 30 and 31 March 2012 in Argentina. Act I was released in August 2012. Turunen started the Colours in the Dark World Tour in October 2013 to promote her new album Colours in the Dark. Her second live DVD was filmed during the events of Beauty and the Beat with Mike Terrana and was released in May. In September 2015, Tarja Turunen released her first classical studio album, Ave Maria – En Plein Air. In August 2016 she released her sixth studio album The Shadow Self, with a prequel EP The Brightest Void released on 3 June. On 17 November 2017, she released her second Christmas album, From Spirits and Ghosts, putting a dark orchestral twist on various classic holiday songs. In 2018, she released the follow-up to her first live album, Act II, which was filmed during her world tour for The Shadow Self. Her eighth studio album and her fifth metal album, In the Raw, was released on 30 August 2019. Turunen's third Christmas album and the follow-up sequel to From Spirits and Ghosts, entitled Dark Christmas, was released on 10 November 2023.