Born Today! 02.03.2024

Johann Samuel Schroeter or Schröter (2 March 1753 – 2 November 1788) was a German pianist and composer, active in London from 1772.

Antoine-Frédéric Gresnick (2 March 1755 – 16 October 1799) was a Belgian classical composer. He was born in Liège. He studied music in Naples. By 1780 Gresnick was working in Lyons and, after visiting Berlin and London, he moved in 1794 to Paris where he died in 1799. He is chiefly remembered for writing opera buffa, of which he wrote at least twenty-three.

Johann Christian Friedrich Hæffner (2 March 1759 in Oberschönau – 28 May 1833 in Uppsala) was a German-born Swedish composer. Hæffner received his first musical education with the Schmalkalden organist Johann Gottfried Vierling. He studied in Leipzig from 1776, and then worked as a music conductor in theatres in Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg from 1778 to 1780. He moved to Stockholm, Sweden in 1781 at the invitation of the German congregation there (Tyska kyrkan) to assume the position of organist, which he held until 1793. The same year (1781) he was employed at the Royal Theatre in Stockholm as well as conductor of the orchestra for the Stenborg theatres. In 1786 Hæffner was appointed assistant conductor of the Royal Orchestra (hovkapellet) and from 1795 to 1807 he held the post of hovkapellmästare (Chief conductor of the Royal Orchestra). He was also an instructor at the Royal Dramatic Training Academy. He was married twice, first to the Swedish actress and singer Elisabeth Forsselius. Since King Gustaf IV Adolf closed the Royal Opera (and its orchestra) in 1807, Hæffner moved to Uppsala, where in 1808 he was appointed Director musices of the university and simultaneously was employed as organist of the cathedral. In Uppsala he organized the studentsång ("Student singing") - four-voice male choir singing. This practice rapidly spread to the other Nordic universities and is still today a coveted tradition, not only among university students, but for the last century also in many (most ?) male choirs all over Sweden. Hæffner's passion and work for this has procured for him the name Studentsångens fader ("Father of 'studentsång'). The starting point of this tradition is usually set to a performance of Under Svea banér (words by P.D.A. Atterbom, music by Hæffner) by a student choir celebrating the war hero Klingspor on 24 October 1808. Hæffner composed three operas, theatre music, a mass, songs with piano accompaniment, and was responsible for the new Swedish chorale book in 1819. Noteworthy is his oratorio Försonaren på Golgatha ("The Saviour on Golgatha"). Hæffner died in Uppsala on 28 May 1833.

Sir George Alexander Macfarren (2 March 1813 – 31 October 1887) was an English composer and musicologist.

Antonio Buzzolla (2 March 1815 – 20 March 1871) was an Italian composer and conductor. A native of Adria, he studied in Venice, and later worked with Gaetano Donizetti and Saverio Mercadante. He composed five operas, but was better known in his lifetime for ariettas and canzonettas in the Venetian dialect. Beginning in 1855 he served as the maestro di cappella of the Cappella Marciana at St Mark's Basilica in Venice. Buzzolla was one of the composers invited by Giuseppe Verdi to contribute to the Messa per Rossini; he composed the opening movement, the Requiem e Kyrie. He died in Venice in 1871 and was interred at the San Michele cemetery on the Isola di San Michele in Venice.

Antonio Buzzolla (2 March 1815 – 20 March 1871) was an Italian composer and conductor. A native of Adria, he studied in Venice, and later worked with Gaetano Donizetti and Saverio Mercadante. He composed five operas, but was better known in his lifetime for ariettas and canzonettas in the Venetian dialect. Beginning in 1855 he served as the maestro di cappella of the Cappella Marciana at St Mark's Basilica in Venice. Buzzolla was one of the composers invited by Giuseppe Verdi to contribute to the Messa per Rossini; he composed the opening movement, the Requiem e Kyrie. He died in Venice in 1871 and was interred at the San Michele cemetery on the Isola di San Michele in Venice.

Giulio Briccialdi (1/2 March 1818 – 17 December 1881) was an Italian virtuoso flautist and composer, a technical innovator on his instrument and a professor of music. Briccialdi was born in Terni. His contributions include inventing the B-flat thumb key for the Boehm flute. He died in Florence.

Bedřich Smetana ( BED-ər-zhikh SMET-ə-nə, Czech: [ˈbɛdr̝ɪx ˈsmɛtana] ; 2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style that became closely identified with his people's aspirations to a cultural and political "revival". He has been regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music. Internationally he is best known for his 1866 opera The Bartered Bride and for the symphonic cycle Má vlast ("My Fatherland"), which portrays the history, legends and landscape of the composer's native Bohemia. It contains the famous symphonic poem "Vltava", also popularly known by its German name "Die Moldau" (in English, "The Moldau"). Smetana was naturally gifted as a composer, and gave his first public performance at the age of six. After conventional schooling, he studied music under Josef Proksch in Prague. His first nationalistic music was written during the 1848 Prague uprising, in which he briefly participated. After failing to establish his career in Prague, he left for Sweden, where he set up as a teacher and choirmaster in Gothenburg, and began to write large-scale orchestral works. In the early 1860s, a more liberal political climate in Bohemia encouraged Smetana to return permanently to Prague. He threw himself into the musical life of the city, primarily as a champion of the new genre of Czech opera. In 1866 his first two operas, The Brandenburgers in Bohemia and The Bartered Bride, were premiered at Prague's new Provisional Theatre, the latter achieving great popularity. In that same year, Smetana became the theatre's principal conductor, but the years of his conductorship were marked by controversy. Factions within the city's musical establishment considered his identification with the progressive ideas of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner inimical to the development of a distinctively Czech opera style. This opposition interfered with his creative work, and may have hastened a decline in health that precipitated his resignation from the theatre in 1874. By the end of 1874, Smetana had become completely deaf but, freed from his theatre duties and the related controversies, he began a period of sustained composition that continued for almost the rest of his life. His contributions to Czech music were increasingly recognised and honoured, but a mental collapse early in 1884 led to his incarceration in an asylum and subsequent death. His reputation as the founding father of Czech music has endured in his native country, where advocates have raised his status above that of his contemporaries and successors. However, relatively few of Smetana's works are in the international repertory, and most foreign commentators tend to regard Antonín Dvořák as a more significant Czech composer.

Théophile Ysaÿe (French: [te.ofil iza.i]; 2 March 1865 – 24 March 1918) was a Belgian composer and pianist, born in Verviers, Belgium. His brother was the violinist and conductor Eugène Ysaÿe.

Léon Jongen (2 March 1884 – 18 November 1969) was a Belgian composer and organist.

Harald Søltoft Agersnap (March 2, 1899 – January 16, 1982) was a Danish composer, conductor, cellist, and pianist. He studied with Otto Malling and Carl Nielsen, as well as with his father, Hans Agersnap. Agersnap's training in music began at the Royal Danish Academy of Music where he studied from 1914 to 1917. He began his career as an orchestral cellist. Before that, he had been a conductor in two places: at the Royal Danish Theatre (1926–29) and at The Comedy House (1929–30). From 1932-38 he also led the amateur male choir Bel Canto. Agersnap's association with the Royal Danish Theatre began in 1931 as a pianist. In 1934 he was appointed choirmaster, a position he held until 1966.Agersnap worked as a composer in numerous genres. He composed the music for the plays Aladdin, Feast At Solhaug and The Princess and Half The Kingdom. He also created chamber music, orchestral music, and over 90 songs during his life.His manuscripts are held at the Royal Danish Library.

Kurt Julian Weill (March 2, 1900 – April 3, 1950) was a German-born American composer active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht. With Brecht, he developed productions such as his best-known work, The Threepenny Opera, which included the ballad "Mack the Knife". Weill held the ideal of writing music that served a socially useful purpose, Gebrauchsmusik. He also wrote several works for the concert hall and a number of works on Jewish themes. He became a United States citizen in 1943.

Marcus Samuel Blitzstein (March 2, 1905 – January 22, 1964), was an American composer, lyricist, and librettist. He won national attention in 1937 when his pro-union musical The Cradle Will Rock, directed by Orson Welles, was shut down by the Works Progress Administration. He is known for The Cradle Will Rock and for his off-Broadway translation/adaptation of The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. His works also include the opera Regina, an adaptation of Lillian Hellman's play The Little Foxes; the Broadway musical Juno, based on Seán O'Casey's play Juno and the Paycock; and No for an Answer. He completed translation/adaptations of Brecht's and Weill's musical play Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and of Brecht's play Mother Courage and Her Children with music by Paul Dessau. Blitzstein also composed music for films, such as Surf and Seaweed (1931) and The Spanish Earth (1937), and he contributed two songs to the original 1960 production of Hellman's play Toys in the Attic.

Urato Watanabe (渡辺浦人, Watanabe Urato, March 2, 1909 – October 18, 1994) was a Japanese classical and film music composer.

John Linton Gardner, CBE (2 March 1917 – 12 December 2011) was an English composer of classical music.

Mario Zafred (2 March 1922 Trieste – 22 May 1987 Rome) was an Italian composer, music critic, and opera director. He also served as the president of various Italian music conservatories including the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.

Robert Hanell (2 March 1925 – 14 March 2009) was a German conductor and composer.

Witold Szalonek (born in 1927 in Czechowice-Dziedzice, died in 2001 in Berlin) was a Polish composer.In 1949-56 he studied at the State Higher School of Music in Katowice. Following his first successes at international composers' competitions, he received a grant from Kranichsteiner Musikinstitut in Darmstadt (1960). In 1962-63 he continued his studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. In 1967 he began to teach composition at the Katowice School and in 1970-74 was in charge of the Department of Composition and Theory. In the early 1970s he was invited by the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst to work as artist in residence at West Berlin's Hochschule der Künste. In 1973 he won the competition to succeed Boris Blacher as Professor of Composition there. He has conducted numerous seminars and courses in composition in Poland, Denmark, Germany, Finland and Slovakia. In 1990 he received an honorary doctor's degree from the Wilhelmian University in Münster. In 1963 Szalonek discovered and classified the so-called 'combined sounds' generated by the woodwind instruments. He is also the author of theoretical studies on a wide range of subjects, including combined sounds, sonorism, Chopin and Debussy.

Dan Welcher (born March 2, 1948) is an American composer, conductor, and music educator.

David Hykes (born March 2, 1953, Taos, New Mexico) is a composer, singer, musician, author, and meditation teacher. He was one of the earliest modern western pioneers of overtone singing, and since 1975 has developed a comprehensive approach to contemplative music which he calls Harmonic Chant (harmonic singing). After early research and trips studying Mongolian, Tibetan, and Middle Eastern singing forms, Hykes began a long series of collaborations with traditions and teachers of wisdom and sacred art, including the Dalai Lama and the Gyuto and Gyume monks.Hykes founded the Harmonic Choir in 1975, and has performed and taught Harmonic Chant and the related Harmonic Presence work in America, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Japan, Australia and many other countries. Of overtone singing and his own study of the form, music theorist Charles Madden writes, "David Hykes has done everything I had hoped to do, and more." His choir incorporates both basic overtone singing as well as additional advanced forms.His work is organised within The Harmonic Presence Foundation.His song, "Rainbow Voice", has been featured in the films Blade: Trinity (2004), Blade (1998), Baraka (1992), and Dead Poets Society (1989).