Born Today! 27.01.2024

Antonio Scandello (January 17, 1517 – January 18, 1580) was an Italian composer, born in Bergamo. He worked as musician at the court of the Electors of Saxony in Dresden. In 1549 he became court-bandmaster, and in 1568 Kapellmeister succeeding Mattheus Le Maistre. His music combines elements of the Italian Renaissance with German musical traditions. Scandello composed a memorial mass for the Saxon Elector Maurice (Missa super Epithaphum Mauritii), who had been wounded to death at the battle of Sievershausen. The mass is based on a motet on the Latin epitaph of Maurice by the headmaster Georg Fabricius of the Misnian princely school. It was conducted at the burial of the Elector in the Freiberg minster in 1562. Scandella died in 1580 in Dresden.

Martin-Joseph Mengal (27 January 1784 - 4 July 1851) was a Belgian composer and teacher. Mengal came from a musical family and received horn and violin lessons as a child, and by the age of 13 played first horn at the Ghent opera. From 1804 Mengal moved to Paris to study at the Conservatoire de Paris with Frédéric Duvernoy and Charles Simon Catel, but in December the same year he joined the French military service and marched in the War of the Third Coalition against Italy, Austria and Prussia under Napoleon I. Mengal's connections with composer Anton Reicha and with the diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord made it possible to stage his operatic work at the Paris Opéra-Comique. In 1825 Mengal returned to Ghent, becoming conductor of the Opera Orchestra in Antwerp in 1830, and shortly afterward took the same position in The Hague. Mengal was the founding director of the Royal Conservatory of Ghent in 1835 and served as director there until his death. His students there included François-Auguste Gevaert. His operas include Les infidèles (1823, Paris), Le Vampire ou L'Homme du néant (1826, Ghent), Apothéose de Talma (1826, Ghent), and the comic opera Un jour à Vaucluse ou Le Poète ambassadeur (1830, Ghent). A few compositions from his younger brother Jean-Baptiste Mengal (1792–1878) have also survived.

Martin-Joseph Mengal (27 January 1784 - 4 July 1851) was a Belgian composer and teacher. Mengal came from a musical family and received horn and violin lessons as a child, and by the age of 13 played first horn at the Ghent opera. From 1804 Mengal moved to Paris to study at the Conservatoire de Paris with Frédéric Duvernoy and Charles Simon Catel, but in December the same year he joined the French military service and marched in the War of the Third Coalition against Italy, Austria and Prussia under Napoleon I. Mengal's connections with composer Anton Reicha and with the diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord made it possible to stage his operatic work at the Paris Opéra-Comique. In 1825 Mengal returned to Ghent, becoming conductor of the Opera Orchestra in Antwerp in 1830, and shortly afterward took the same position in The Hague. Mengal was the founding director of the Royal Conservatory of Ghent in 1835 and served as director there until his death. His students there included François-Auguste Gevaert. His operas include Les infidèles (1823, Paris), Le Vampire ou L'Homme du néant (1826, Ghent), Apothéose de Talma (1826, Ghent), and the comic opera Un jour à Vaucluse ou Le Poète ambassadeur (1830, Ghent). A few compositions from his younger brother Jean-Baptiste Mengal (1792–1878) have also survived.

Juan Crisóstomo Jacobo Antonio de Arriaga y Balzola (27 January 1806 – 17 January 1826) was a Spanish Basque composer. He was nicknamed "the Spanish Mozart" after he died, because, like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, he was both a child prodigy and an accomplished composer who died young. They also shared the same first and second baptismal names; and they shared the same birthday (due to both having been born on the feast of St. John Chrysostom), 27 January (fifty years apart).

Carlotta Ferrari (27 January 1831 – 22 November 1907) was an Italian composer noted for opera.

Georg Hellmesberger Jr. (27 January 1830 – 12 November 1852) was an Austrian violinist and composer.

Carlotta Ferrari (27 January 1831 – 22 November 1907) was an Italian composer noted for opera.

Gaspar Villate (27 January 1851 – 9 October 1891) was a Cuban composer who produced abundant and wide-ranging work, mostly centered on opera. Villate was born in Havana. After writing the score of Angelo, tirano de Padua, he and his family immigrated to the US in 1868 when war broke out in Cuba, returning in 1871. He then composed a second opera, Las primeras armas de Richelieu. Sent to Paris to complete his studies, he wrote various contradanzas when he returned. He spent much of his life in Europe, but also wrote creole works La virgen tropical and Adios a Cuba. His eight waltzes, his Soirées cubaines, and his romances were appreciated in Parisian salons. He wrote scores for La Czarina, premiered in the Royal Theatre of Le Havre, and Baltazar, at the Royal Theatre of Madrid. He died in Paris. Villate was a close friend of Italian composer Verdi, and no doubt was influenced by him: Villate's work became European in taste. Despite this, his creole contradanzas are held in higher esteem today.

Robert O'Dwyer (in Irish: Riobárd Ó Duibhir) (27 January 1862 – 6 January 1949) was an Irish composer mainly known for having written one of the first operas in the Irish language.

Claude Terrasse (27 January 1867 – 30 June 1923) was a French composer of operettas. Terrasse was born in L'Arbresle, Rhône. He became known by writing the music for the play Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry in 1896. In Paris, his brother-in-law, the painter Pierre Bonnard, introduced him to the artistic world and the avant-garde literature and art of the time. Bonnard also did several portraits of him. In 1890, Terrasse married Andrée Bonnard, sister of the artist Pierre Bonnard. By 1899, they had six children, several of whom appear in Bonnard paintings. Their son Charles Terrasse published a monograph on Bonnard in 1927.Terrasse died in Paris, and was buried in the Montmartre Cemetery.

Claude Terrasse (27 January 1867 – 30 June 1923) was a French composer of operettas. Terrasse was born in L'Arbresle, Rhône. He became known by writing the music for the play Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry in 1896. In Paris, his brother-in-law, the painter Pierre Bonnard, introduced him to the artistic world and the avant-garde literature and art of the time. Bonnard also did several portraits of him. In 1890, Terrasse married Andrée Bonnard, sister of the artist Pierre Bonnard. By 1899, they had six children, several of whom appear in Bonnard paintings. Their son Charles Terrasse published a monograph on Bonnard in 1927.Terrasse died in Paris, and was buried in the Montmartre Cemetery.

Eduard Künneke (also seen as Edward and spelled Künnecke) (27 January 1885 – 27 October 1953 in Berlin) was a German composer notable for his operettas, operas, theatre music and some orchestral works. Kuenneke was born in Emmerich, Lower Rhine. After obtaining his school diploma he moved in 1903 to Berlin where he studied musicology and the history of literature; he translated Beowulf into German. He was subsequently accepted into Max Bruch's master-school for musical composition attached to the Royal Academy of Arts. By 1907 Kuenneke was already a repetiteur and chorus master at a Berlin operetta theatre, the Neues Operettentheater am Schiffbauerdamm, but relinquished his post as chorus master after his opera Robins Ende (1909) was premiered in Mannheim and Coeur-As (1913) in Dresden. Thereafter he received productions at 38 German opera houses. From 1908 to 1910 he also worked as a music director for Odeon Records and conducted (without label credit) two of the earliest complete symphony recordings, the Beethoven Fifth and Sixth Symphonies with the "Grosses Odeon Streich-Orchester". In 1911 Künneke became a conductor of the German Theatre in Berlin, where he wrote incidental music for Max Reinhardt including music for Reinhardt’s staging of Part Two of Goethe's Faust. With the coming of The Great War he became a horn player and conductor in a regimental band. In 1916 the focus of his interests began to shift to musical comedy. However, due to financial woes he took a post as serial conductor for Heinrich Berté's prettified Schubert pastiche Das Dreimaderlhaus (Blossom Time). This inspired him to write an equally maudlin singspiel Das Dorf ohne Glocke (The Village without a Bell)(1919). Subsequently he composed one operetta after another, altogether more than a dozen, and all at a high level of craftsmanship. He toured the US but, as one writer put it, "his experiences were not exactly positive". During the National Socialist years he advanced to become the "Master of German Operetta". The trauma of the war years had its effect upon Künneke and with a heart complaint he withdrew into the solitude of his study as an "independent scholar". He died on 27 October 1953. At the funeral ceremony in Berlin he was lauded as the last great figure and noblest musician of Berlin operetta. Künneke's graceful music is distinguished by its rhythm and striking harmonies. His best-known work is the 1921 operetta Der Vetter aus Dingsda; many of his songs are still familiar today. In 1926, when his operetta Lady Hamilton was premiered in Breslau, he formed what became a long friendship with the conductor Franz Marszalek. Marszalek was a dedicated advocate of Künneke's music, and during his tenure at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne (1949–65) made numerous recordings of his works (many currently unavailable) with the Cologne Radio Orchestra and the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra. Künneke's daughter was the actress and singer Evelyn Künneke.

Lyle Russel "Skitch" Henderson (January 27, 1918 – November 1, 2005) was an American pianist, conductor, and composer. His nickname "Skitch" came from his ability to "re-sketch" a song in a different key. Bing Crosby suggested that he should use the name professionally.

Lyle Russel "Skitch" Henderson (January 27, 1918 – November 1, 2005) was an American pianist, conductor, and composer. His nickname "Skitch" came from his ability to "re-sketch" a song in a different key. Bing Crosby suggested that he should use the name professionally.

Helmut Zacharias (27 January 1920 – 28 February 2002) was a German violinist and composer who created over 400 works and sold 14 million records. He also appeared in a number of films, usually playing musicians.

Vicente Bianchi Alarcón (January 27, 1920 – September 24, 2018) was a Chilean composer, pianist, conductor, and orchestra and choir director. He received the Premio Nacional de Artes Musicales de Chile in 2016. He is remembered for composing music to accompany the poems of Pablo Neruda, and for his liturgical music, including the Chilean Mass (composed in 1964) and the Te Deum (1970–2000).

Jean-Michel Damase (27 January 1928 – 21 April 2013) was a French pianist, conductor and composer of classical music.

John Andrew Howard Ogdon (27 January 1937 – 1 August 1989) was an English pianist and composer.

Raymond Deane (born 27 January 1953) is an Irish composer.

Roberto Paci Dalò is an Italian author, composer and musician, film maker and theatre director, sound and visual artist, radio-maker. He is the co-founder and director of the performing arts ensemble Giardini Pensili and he has been the artistic director of Wikimania 2016 Esino Lario. He won the Premio Napoli per la lingua e la cultura italiana in 2015.