Chantal Incandela

Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (March 18, 1844 - June 21, 1908) was a Russian composer and professor, and member of the composer group The Big Five.  Continue reading →

Robert Fuchs (Feb. 15, 1847 - Feb. 19, 1927) was an Austrian composer and music professor who taught many famous composers.  Fuchs studied at the Vienna Conservatory, with Otto Dessof and Joseph Hellmsberger. He became Professor of Music Theory in 1875, and held it until 1912. He was highly regarded as a composer, and had a great admirer in Johannes Brahms. Fuchs did little to promote his music however; he wouldn't arrange concerts, preferring to live a quiet life. As a professor, he taught many famous composers, such as Gustav Mahler, Jean Sibelius, Hugo Wolf, and Alexander Zemlinksy. Continue reading →

Theodore Akimenko (Feb. 8, 1876 - Jan. 8, 1945) was a Ukranian pianist, professor, and composer.  He is the older brother of the composer Jakob Akimenko.  Continue reading →

Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (Nov. 2, 1739 - Oct. 24, 1799) was an Austrian composer and violinist. Introduced to the violin at the age of six, he was able to take lessons thanks to his father's financial position, and one of his violin teachers was able to get him in to a church orchestra when he was only eleven years old.  Continue reading →

Dame Ethel Mary Smyth DBE (April 22,1858 - May 8, 1944) was an English composer and member of the women's suffrage movement. The fourth of eight children, Smyth showed a keen interested in music as a career. Her father, a major general in the Royal Artillery, was not particularly supportive, though that didn't stop her from pursuing music anyway. Smyth studied privately, and then attended the Leipzig Conservatory. She wrote orchestral and choral works, chamber pieces, operas, and works for piano.  Sadly deafness brought her musical career to an end, but between 1919 and 1940, she found herself an author, writing ten successful books. Continue reading →

Rued Langgaard (July 28, 1893 - July 10, 1952) was a Danish composer and organist, born to musical parents. He began piano lessons at five years old, with his parents as his first teachers, and was playing Chopin Mazurkas at age seven. He started composing not long after for the piano, and began taking organ and violin lessons. Continue reading →

Maria Szymanowska (Dec. 14, 1789 - July 25, 1831) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. Born in Warsaw, the history of her musical studies is largely unknown, but we know that she gave her first public recitals in Paris and Warsaw in 1810. Continue reading →

Nikolai Nikolayevich Tcherepnin was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Born to important wealthy parents, his father insisted he study law, which he did at the University of St. Petersburg, and received his degree in 1895. He composed during this time as well however, and earned a degree in composition in 1898 under Rimsky-Korsakov, and a degree in piano with K.K. Fan-Arkh. Continue reading →

Sophie Menter (July 29, 1846 - Feb. 23, 1918) was a German pianist and composer, born to musical parents. At the age of fifteen she soloed with an orchestra, and her concertizing after that took her all around Germany and Switzerland. Continue reading →

Toivo Ilmari Hannikainen (Oct. 19, 1892 - July 25, 1955) was a Finnish composer, born in to a musical family. His father Pekka Junani Hannikainen was a composer, as was his  brother Väinö Hannikainen; his other brother Tauno Hannikainen was a conductor. Ilmari studied music at the University of Helsinki, and went on to study in Vienna, St. Petersburg, and Paris. He taught piano at the Helsinki Conservatory, and was later a professor at the Sibelius Academy.  Continue reading →