piano

Józef Wieniawski (May 23, 1837 - Nov. 11, 1912) was a Polish pianist, composer, teacher, and conductor, and younger brother of Henryk Wieniawski, a famous violinist and composer. Continue reading →

Paul Marie Theodore Vincent d'Indy (March 27, 1851 - Dec. 2, 1931) was a composer and teacher born in Paris, France. His first piano lessons were at a young age, given by his grandmother. Continue reading →

Arthur William Foote (March 5, 1853 - April 8, 1937) was an organist, pianist, and composer born in Salem, Massachusetts. Foote was part of the Second New England School, more commonly known as the Boston Six, along with Amy Beach, George Whitefield Chadwick, Edward MacDowell, John Knowles Paine, and Horatio Parker. Foote, unlike the others in the Boston Six, was trained entirely in America, and his main teacher was Paine. Continue reading →

John Knowles Paine (Jan. 9, 1839 - April 25, 1906) was an organist and composer born in Maine, to a musical family. HIs grandfather built pipe organs, and his father and uncles were all music teachers. In the 1850s, Paine took organ and compositions with Hermann Kotzschmar, and completed his first composition (a string quartet) in 1855. He was appointed organist of Portland's Haydn Society, and gave recitals to help fund a trip to Europe. Continue reading →

Horatio William Parker (Sept. 15, 1863 - December 18, 1919 )was an American composer, teacher, and organist, who came to be a part of the Second New England School, also commonly known as the Boston Six, along with Amy Beach, George Whitefield Chadwick, Arthur Foote, Edward MacDowell, and John Knowles Paine. Continue reading →

Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (Sept. 5, 1867 - December 27, 1944) was an American composer and pianist.  Extremely gifted from a young age, Beach's talents seemed to run in the family, with various members playing instruments or singing, and showing great aptitude for music. Continue reading →

Paul (Russian: Pavel) Pabst (May 15, 1854 - June 9, 1897) was a pianist and composer born in to a family of musicians in East Prussia. Pabst was fortunate to meet Anton Rubinstein as a young child, and moved to Russia in 1878. In that same year, Pabst, who was an accomplished pianist by this time, accepted Nikolai Rubinstein's invitation to become a professor at the Moscow Conservatory. Continue reading →

Hyacinthe Jadin (April 27, 1776 - Sept. 27, 1800) was a pianist and composer born in to a musical family in Versailles. His uncle George Jadin was a composer, and his father was an orchestral musician. He also had five musical brothers. Continue reading →

Ludvig Albert Hegner (May 1, 1851 - Nov. 7, 1923) was a Danish double bassist and composer, born in Copenhagen. There is not a great deal known about him, and what is known mainly surrounds his work as a double bassist. Continue reading →

Marie-Juliette Olga "Lili" Boulanger (Aug. 21, 1893 - March 15, 1918) was a French composer, and  the younger sister of the famed composition teacher/composer Nadia Boulanger. Born in Paris, Lili Boulanger was a child prodigy; at the age of two, it was discovered that she had perfect pitch. Her parents, both musicians, encouraged her musical education, and she would accompany her sister Nadia to classes at the Paris Conservatory, studying music theory and organ. Her sister Nadia was one of her teachers, and later on studied with Paul Vidal, George Caussade, and Gabriel Faure, who was particularly impressed by her abilities. Lili would go on to win the Prix de Rome at the age of 19; she was the first woman to ever win the composition prize. Tragically, she died at the young age of 24. Continue reading →