Born Today! 05.01.2025

Antonio Lotti (5 January 1667 – 5 January 1740) was an Italian composer of the Baroque era.

Pietro Filippo Scarlatti (5 January 1679 – 22 February 1750) was an Italian composer, organist, and choirmaster. He was born in Rome, the eldest of Alessandro Scarlatti's children and a brother of composer Domenico Scarlatti and began his musical career in 1705 as choirmaster of the cathedral of Urbino. Three years later, in 1708, his father brought him to Naples, where he became an organist at court. In 1728, his only opera Clitarco was premiered at Naples' Teatro San Bartolomeo; the score has been lost. His other principal works include three cantatas and a multitude of keyboard toccatas, one of which was recorded by Luciano Sgrizzi. He died in Naples in 1750.

Auguste Mermet (5 January 1810 – 4 July 1889) was a French opera composer.

Lucien-Leon Guillaume Lambert or Lucien Lambert, Jr. (1858–1945) was a French pianist and composer of African-American Creole descent. His family was noted for talent in music and gained international acclaim.

Meliton Balanchivadze (Georgian: მელიტონ ბალანჩივაძე; 24 December 1862 – 21 December 1937) was a Georgian opera singer, composer and a member of Georgia's cultural scene, both under the Russian Empire and during the country's independence. Two of his sons, George and Andria, had illustrious careers, the former as a pioneering choreographer in the United States, and the latter as Soviet Georgia's leading classical composer.

Eugénie-Emilie Juliette Folville (5 January 1870 – 28 October 1946) was a Belgian pianist, violinist, music educator, conductor and composer.

Nikolai Karlovich Medtner (Russian: Николай Карлович Метнер, romanized: Nikolay Karlovich Metner; 5 January 1880 [O.S. 24 December 1879]–13 November 1951) was a Russian composer and pianist. After a period of comparative obscurity in the 25 years immediately after his death, he is now becoming recognized as one of the most significant Russian composers for the piano. A younger contemporary of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin, he wrote a substantial number of compositions, all of which include the piano. His works include 14 piano sonatas, three violin sonatas, three piano concerti, a piano quintet, two works for two pianos, many shorter piano pieces, a few shorter works for violin and piano, and 108 songs including two substantial works for vocalise. His 38 Skazki (generally known as "Fairy Tales" in English but more correctly translated as "Tales") for piano solo contain some of his most original music.

Reginald Smith Brindle (5 January 1917 – 9 September 2003) was a British composer and writer.

Alfred Brendel (born 5 January 1931) is a Czech-born Austrian classical pianist, poet, author, composer, and lecturer who is noted for his performances of Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven.

Victor Mikhailovich Lebedev (5 January 1935 – 11 March 2021) was a Russian composer (Heavenly Swallows, Be My Husband, Gardes-Marines, Ahead!). He was born in Leningrad, USSR. He was awarded the title of People's Artist of Russia in 2005. In 1968, he composed an opera of Aleksandr Volkov's The Wizard of the Emerald City, a Russian retelling of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, on a libretto by William Roshchin and Vladimir Uflyand. Author of music for 106 Russian films. Member of the Guild of Composers of the Union of Cinematographers of the Russian Federation. He was married three times. Second marriage with ballerina and actress Natalya Sedykh.

Maurizio Pollini (5 January 1942 – 23 March 2024) was an Italian pianist and conductor. He was known for performances of Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, and the Second Viennese School, among others. He championed works by contemporary composers, including Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, George Benjamin, Roberto Carnevale, Gianluca Cascioli and Bruno Maderna. Several compositions were written for him, including Luigi Nono's ... sofferte onde serene ..., Giacomo Manzoni's Masse: omaggio a Edgard Varèse, and Salvatore Sciarrino's Fifth Sonata. As a conductor he was instrumental in the Rossini revival at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, conducting La donna del lago from a new critical edition in 1981. He also conducted from the keyboard. Pollini was also a left-wing activist in the 1960s and 1970s, and he remained politically engaged in later life. He maintained some separation between these ideals and his music.

Miklós Perényi (born 5 January 1948) is a Hungarian cellist. He was born in Budapest into a musical family and studied at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest with Ede Banda and Enrico Mainardi. He continued his studies at the Accademia Santa Cecilia, graduating in 1962. In 1963 he won a prize at the Pablo Casals International Violoncello Competition in Budapest. In 1965 and 1966 he studied with Pablo Casals in Zermatt and Puerto Rico and afterward performed at Marlboro Festival for four consecutive years. In 1974 he became a lecturer and in 1980 a professor at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music, but while teaching continued to perform internationally. He has been a regular guest of the Theatre de la Ville in Paris for solo works and chamber music performances.

William John Sweeney (born 5 January 1950) is a Scottish composer.

Leslie Byron Dunner (born January 5, 1956) is an American composer, conductor, clarinetist, and college professor. He was born in New York City and attended the University of Rochester Eastman School of Music, graduating in 1978 with a B.A. degree. He received an M.A. degree in music theory and musicology from Queens College in 1979, and a D.M.A. in orchestral conducting from the University of Cincinnati in 1982. From 1982-1986 he served as Assistant Professor and Director of Instrumental Music at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Dunner's first appointment as music director was with the Symphony Nova Scotia in 1996. He remained with that orchestra for three seasons. In 1998, while still in his second year as music director of Symphony Nova Scotia, Dunner took up the post of music director of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra.

Carl Unander-Scharin (born 1964) is a Swedish opera singer, composer, professor, and researcher.

Daniel Felsenfeld (born January 5, 1970) is a composer of contemporary classical music and a writer.