Born Today! 16.05.2025

Friedrich Wilhelm Berner (16 March 1780 – 9 May 1827) was a German organist, composer, teacher and writer on music theory.

Georges-Eugène Marty (Paris, 16 May 1860 – Paris, 11 October 1908) was a French conductor and composer associated with both major opera houses in Paris.

Alfred Richard Gotthilf Sormann (May 16, 1861 – September 17, 1913) was a German pianist and composer. Sorman was born on May 16, 1861 in Danzig, Kingdom of Prussia. He studied at the Hochschule in Berlin under Ernst Rudorff, Karl Heinrich Barth, Philipp Spitta, and Woldemar Bargiel; in 1885 he was a pupil of Franz Liszt. His debut performance was in 1886, and he gave successful concerts in chief German towns. In 1889 he became court pianist to Friedrich Wilhelm, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. He died in Berlin. Among his works are the operas Die Sibylle von Tivoli (Berlin, 1902) with the libretto by Adelaide Rosa Schultze Henke (née Zingler, the mother of Harald Schultz-Hencke) and König Harald (Stettin, 1909); a piano concerto in E minor (opus 7); two string quartets; a piano trio; concert études; and other piano pieces.

Richard Tauber (16 May 1891 – 8 January 1948) was an Austrian lyric tenor and film actor. He performed the tenor role in numerous operas, including Don Giovanni by Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte.

Paul Amadeus Pisk (May 16, 1893, Vienna – January 12, 1990, Los Angeles) was an Austrian-born composer and musicologist. A prize named in his honor is the highest award for a graduate student paper at the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society. Pisk earned his doctorate in musicology from Vienna University in 1916, studying under Guido Adler. Afterwards he studied conducting at the Imperial Academy of Music and the Performing Arts graduating in 1919. His teachers there included Franz Schreker (counterpoint). Pisk also studied privately with Arnold Schoenberg from 1917 to 1919. He then taught at the Vienna Academy and gave adult education lectures, especially at the Volkshochschule Volksheim Ottakring, where from 1922 to 1934 he was director of the music department. He also taught at the New Vienna Conservatory from 1925 to 1926 and the Austro-American Conservatory near Salzburg from 1931 to 1933. Pisk's students included Leopold Spinner. He was also a board member, secretary, and pianist in Schoenberg's Society for Private Musical Performances. He was among the founding members of the International Society for Contemporary Music and from 1920 to 1928 was coeditor of Musikblätter des Anbruch and music editor of the Arbeiter-Zeitung. The first airing of his music by the British Broadcasting Corporation took place on July 3, 1930, when Austrian pianist Friedrich Wührer played Pisk's Suite for Piano. In 1936 he emigrated to the United States and taught at the University of Redlands (1937–1951), the University of Texas at Austin (1951–1963), and Washington University in St. Louis (1963–1972). He composed orchestral works, ballets, chamber music and songs, as well as writings in music theory. His notable students include Leopold Spinner, Samuel Adler, Gary Lee Nelson, and Thomas F. Hulbert.

Ivan Alexandrovich Wyschnegradsky (US: vish-ne-GROD-skee; Russian: Ива́н Алекса́ндрович Вышнегра́дский May 14 [O.S. 2 May] 1893 – September 29, 1979), was a Russian composer primarily known for his microtonal compositions. For most of his life, from 1920 onwards, Wyschnegradsky lived in Paris.

Vera Rózsa OBE (or Vera Rózsa-Nordell, Hungarian: [ˈvɛrɒ ˈroːʒɒ]; 16 May 1917 – 15 October 2010) was a Hungarian singer, voice teacher, and vocal consultant. She lived in the United Kingdom from 1954.

Ginette Keller (16 May 1925 - 27 June 2010) was a French composer.

Ján Zimmer (16 May 1926 – 21 January 1993) was a Slovak post-romantic composer and pianist.

Paul Angerer (16 May 1927 – 26 July 2017) was an Austrian violist, conductor, composer and radio presenter.

Zlata Moiseyevna Tkach (née Zlata Beyrihman; Russian: Злата Моисеевна Ткач; Yiddish: זלאַטע טקאַטש; Romanian: Zlata Tcaci; 16 May 1928 – 1 January 2006) was a Moldovan composer and music educator. She was the first woman to become a professional composer in Moldova.

Donald James Martino (May 16, 1931 – December 8, 2005) was a Pulitzer Prize winning American composer.

Olav Anton Thommessen (born 16 May 1946) is a Norwegian contemporary composer who has been one of the foremost modernist composers in Norway since the 1970s. His main compositions include Et glassperlespill and Gjennom Prisme. He was a professor of composition at the Norwegian Academy of Music until retiring in 2014, and has also been an influential figure in music education and music organisations in Norway. Thommessen has played a significant role in aesthetic discourse in Norway and is known for his modernist and atonal stance. In later life he has become known for engaging in a critical public dialogue with his former student Marcus Paus about the future of art music, that has resulted in the opera monologue The Teacher Who Was Not To Be with a libretto by Thommessen; a 2015 debate between the two was described as "the biggest public debate about art music" in Norway since the 1970s.