Born Today! 26.02.2024

Stefano Landi (baptized 26 February 1587 – 28 October 1639) was an Italian composer and teacher of the early Baroque Roman School. He was an influential early composer of opera, and wrote the earliest opera on a historical subject: Il Sant'Alessio (1632).

Dietrich Becker (ca. 1623 – Hamburg, 12 May 1679) was a German Baroque violinist and composer. Little is known about Becker's musical education. His first position was as organist at Ahrensberg. In his second position, in the service of the Chapelle Ducale (Ducal Chapel) of the Duke Christian-Ludwig at Celle, he mainly devoted himself to the violin. In 1662 he settled in Hamburg as a violinist in the service of the Conseil de la Ville (City Council) and in 1667 he was named Maître de Chapelle (Chapel Master). In 1668 Becker dedicated a collection of pieces entitled Musikalischen Frühlingsfrüchte (Musical Spring Fruit) to the mayor and members of the City Council. This collection consisted of chamber sonatas and suites for 3 to 5 voices with basso continuo. In 1674, his Zweystimmigen Sonaten und Suiten (Sonatas and Suites for Two Voices) was published. Becker's chamber music was among the most significant instrumental music coming from Germany during this time.

Francesco Nicola Fago, 'II Tarantino' (26 February 1677 – 18 February 1745) was an Italian Baroque composer and teacher. He was the father of Lorenzo Fago (1704-1793).

Anton (Antonín, Antoine) Joseph Reicha (Rejcha) (26 February 1770 – 28 May 1836) was a Czech-born, Bavarian-educated, later naturalized French composer and music theorist. A contemporary and lifelong friend of Beethoven, he is now best remembered for his substantial early contributions to the wind quintet literature and his role as teacher of pupils including Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz and César Franck. He was also an accomplished theorist, and wrote several treatises on various aspects of composition. Some of his theoretical work dealt with experimental methods of composition, which he applied in a variety of works such as fugues and études for piano and string quartet. None of the advanced ideas he advocated in the most radical of his music and writings, such as polyrhythm, polytonality and microtonal music, were accepted or employed by other nineteenth-century composers. Due to Reicha's unwillingness to have his music published (like Michael Haydn before him), he fell into obscurity soon after his death and his life and work have yet to be intensively studied.

Giuseppe Lillo (26 February 1814 - 4 February 1863) was an Italian composer. He is best known for his operas which followed in the same vein of Gioachino Rossini. He also produced works for solo piano, a small amount of sacred music, and some chamber music.

Franz Joseph Strauss (26 February 1822 – 31 May 1905) was a German musician. He was a composer, a virtuoso horn player and accomplished performer on the guitar, clarinet and viola. He was principal horn player of the Bavarian Court Opera for more than 40 years, a teacher at the Royal School of Music, Munich, and a conductor. Strauss is perhaps best known as the father of the composer Richard Strauss, on whose early musical development he was a great influence, steering his son to the classical and away from modern styles. As a composer, Strauss senior is remembered for his works for the horn. They include two concertos and numerous smaller works.

Filippo Marchetti (26 February 1831, Bolognola, Macerata – 18 January 1902, Rome) was an Italian opera composer. After studying in Naples, his first opera was "successfully premiered" in Turin in 1856. With only limited success, he became a teacher of singing and composition in Rome before composing Romeo e Giulietta for a premiere in Trieste in 1865. Overshadowed like other Italian opera composers of his period by the genius of Verdi, Marchetti achieved one great success with his 1869 opera - Ruy Blas - which was based on Victor Hugo's play, Ruy Blas. It has been noted that "it was one of the first Italian operas to show the influence of French grand opera, partly, no doubt in response to its French source". The opera was performed into the 20th Century.

Aleksander Zarzycki (26 February 1834 in Lwów (Lemberg), Austria-Hungary (now Lviv, Ukraine) – 1 November 1895 in Warsaw) was a Polish pianist, composer and conductor. Author of piano and violin compositions, mazurkas, polonaises, krakowiaks, and songs. In 1871 he co-founded and became the first director of the Warsaw Music Society (Warszawskie Towarzystwo Muzyczne). In the years 1879–1888 director of the Warsaw Music Institute (Insytut Muzyczny w Warszawie). His Grande Polonaise and Piano Concerto have been recorded by Jonathan Plowright.

Adolphe-Léopold Danhauser (26 February 1835 – 9 June 1896) was a French musician, educator, music theorist and composer.

Alfred Bachelet (26 February 1864 – 10 February 1944) was a French composer, conductor and teacher.

Tekla Griebel-Wandall (26 February 1866 – 28 June 1940) was a Danish composer and music educator.

Richard Wetz (26 February 1875 – 16 January 1935) was a German late Romantic composer best known for his three symphonies. In these works, he "seems to have aimed to be an immediate continuation of Bruckner, as a result of which he actually ended up on the margin of music history".

Franz Beyer (26 February 1922, in Weingarten – 29 June 2018, in Munich) was a German musicologist, who is best known for his revising and restoration of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's music, in particular his unfinished Requiem, KV 626, which he restored in the early 1970s.In 1962 he became professor for viola and chamber music at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München. His revision of the Requiem was in keeping with Mozart's actual musical style, not his own interpretation of the work. He has also revised and/or edited works of other composers. He has also played in the Collegium Aureum as a violist, and collaborated with the Melos Quartet as additional violist when performing Mozart's string quintets.

Nadezhda Simonyan (February 26, 1922 - June 7, 1997) was a Russian composer, who wrote over 40 film scores for movies, radio, and television, as well as chamber and orchestral works, and music for circus performances.Simonyan was born in Rostov-on-the-Don. She studied composition and piano at Leningrad Conservatory, where she received a diploma in 1950 and earned a medal. Her teachers included Oles Chishko and Venedikt Pushkov.In 1956, Simonyan wrote her first film soundtrack for Old Man Khottabych, a children's film by Gennadii Kazanskii. Peter Rollberg described Simonyan's strength as a composer as a “. . . warm melodiousness that equally energizes cheerful, dramatic, and tragic episodes with a pragmatic, flexible approach to instrumentation.” In 1960, Italian film maker Federico Fellini praised her soundtrack for the movie Lady with the Dog. She often used smaller chamber orchestras, sometimes with folk instruments, for her film scores.

Mark Bucci (26 February 1924, New York City – 22 August 2002, Camp Verde, Arizona) was an American composer, lyricist, and dramatist. Influenced by Giacomo Puccini, his work is composed in a contemporary yet lyrical style, which frequently employs marked rhythms and memorable harmonies and melodies.

Theodore Mook (born February 26, 1953, Mount Kisco, New York) is an American cellist who has played in more than 1,000 Broadway performances in New York City, produced records, played on motion picture soundtracks and, along with Ezra Sims, invented computer fonts used in microtonal music composition. He is best known for his interest and contributions to microtonality music.Mook began his music career in Boston, Massachusetts after graduating Boston University. He was a member of Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble and played with other ensembles in the area before relocating to New York City in 1983. In New York, Mook performed cello in Broadway shows Little Women, Bombay Dreams, Taboo and Jekyll & Hyde. He also played with the New York Consortium for New Music, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and at other venues around the city.Outside of New York City, Mook has performed at the Library of Congress, the American Academy in Rome, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, among other venues. He performed cello for the soundtracks for the Wendigo (film) and Space Cowboys.After moving to Charlestown, Rhode Island, Mook played alongside Grammy-winning artist Eugene Friesen.

Raphaël Cendo (born 26 February 1975) is a French composer of contemporary classical music.