Born Today! 03.12.2023

Johann Franz Xaver Sterkel (3 December 1750 in Würzburg – 12 October 1817 in Würzburg) was a German composer and pianist in the 18th and early 19th centuries. He was educated at the University of Würzburg and in 1778 he became chaplain and musician at the court in Mainz. He lived in Regensburg (from 1802 to 1810), then in Aschaffenburg, and finally retired to Würzburg in 1815. At first Sterkel was an organist in Neumünster. In 1774 he was ordained a priest. He moved to Mainz and became court chaplain, but toured Italy as a pianist from 1779 to 1782. After a visit to Italy in 1782, where he met Padre Martini, he returned to Mainz, becoming music director to the Electoral orchestra in 1793. From 1793 to 1797 he was court Kapellmeister at Mainz. When the capella was disbanded, he went to Würzburg, Regensburg and later Aschaffenburg, where he served the Grand Duke of Frankfurt. From 1810 to 1814, as a prolific and successful composer he wrote mostly instrumental music, including symphonies and concertos, chamber works with keyboard solo, piano sonatas and piano duets. Many of the sonatas have a lyricism and loose-knit structure pointing towards Franz Schubert. Among his vocal works are the Italian opera Farnace (Naples, 1782), Italian arias, songs and ensembles and German lieder. His works as well as his distinctive playing style (which impressed Beethoven in 1791) contributed to the development of a pianistic idiom.

Louis Adam or Jean-Louis Adam (born Johann Ludwig Adam) (3 December 1758 – 8 April 1848) was a French composer, music teacher, and piano virtuoso.

Joseph Gelinek (3 December 1758 – 13 April 1825) was a Czech-born composer and pianist, living in Vienna for most of his career. He was known particularly for composing piano variations.

Dominique-François-Xavier Boisselot (3 December 1811 – 8 April 1893) was a French composer and musical instrument manufacturer. He is the author of the opéra-comique in three acts Ne touchez pas à la reine to a libretto by Eugène Scribe and Gustave Vaëz. Boisselot left many art songs, including Villanella, whose text was written for Boisselot by Théophile Gautier in 1837.

Korla Awgust Kocor (3 December 1822 – 19 May 1904; German: Karl August Katzer) was a Sorbian composer and conductor. Kocor was born in Berge/Zahor near Großpostwitz/Budestecy. He was the composer of the music of the Lusatian national anthem Rjana Łužica. He has been called the "founding father of secular Sorbian music."

Mathilde Aloisia Kralik von Meyrswalden (3 December 1857, in Linz – 8 March 1944) was an Austrian composer.

Lev Konstantinovich Knipper (Russian: Лев Константинович Книппер; 3 December [O.S. 21 November] 1898 – 30 July 1974) was a Soviet and Russian composer of partial German descent and an active OGPU/NKVD agent.

Giovanni Rota Rinaldi (Italian: [dʒoˈvanni ˈrɔːta riˈnaldi]; 3 December 1911 – 10 April 1979), better known as Nino Rota (IPA: [ˈniːno]), was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor and academic who is best known for his film scores, notably for the films of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti. He also composed the music for two of Franco Zeffirelli's Shakespeare screen adaptations, and for the first two installments of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather trilogy, earning the Academy Award for Best Original Score for The Godfather Part II (1974).During his long career, Rota was an extraordinarily prolific composer, especially of music for the cinema. He wrote more than 150 scores for Italian and international productions from the 1930s until his death in 1979 — an average of three scores each year over a 46-year period, and in his most productive period from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s he wrote as many as ten scores every year, and sometimes more, with a remarkable thirteen film scores to his credit in 1954. Alongside this great body of film work, he composed ten operas, five ballets and dozens of other orchestral, choral and chamber works, the best known being his string concerto. He also composed the music for many theatre productions by Visconti, Zeffirelli and Eduardo De Filippo as well as maintaining a long teaching career at the Liceo Musicale in Bari, Italy, where he was the director for almost 30 years.

Rob Waring (born December 3, 1956 in Yonkers, New York) is an American-Norwegian Contemporary music composer and performer (drums and vibraphone), commonly associated with symphony orchestras and jazz ensembles.

Matt Haimovitz (born December 3, 1970) is a cellist based in the United States and Canada. Born in Israel, he grew up in the US from the age of five. He plays mainly a cello made by Matteo Goffriller in 1710.