Musician's Birthdays November 29-December 5

• November 29 - Gaetano Donizetti (1797) Italian composer; Billy Strayhorn (1915) American jazz composer, lyricist and pianist; Chuck Mangione (1940) American jazz musician and composer

• November 30 - Brownie McGhee (1915) American jazz singer and guitarist; Paul Stookey (1937) American folk singer, songwriter and guitarist; Radu Lupu (1945) Rumanian pianist

• December 1 - Mary Martin (1913) American singer and actress, primarily for the musical theater; Lou Rawls (1936) American singer of popular music; Bette Midler (1945) American pop-rock singer and actress

• December 2 - Robert Kajanus (1856) Finnish conductor and composer; Sir John Barbirolli (1899) British conductor and cellist; Jörg Demus (1928) Austrian pianist

• December 3 - Nicola Amati (1596) Italian violin maker, teacher of Guarneri and Stradivari; Anton Webern (1883) Austrian composer and conductor; Maria Callas (1923) American soprano

• December 4 - André Campra (1660) French composer; Yvonne Minton (1938) Australian mezzo-soprano; Dennis Wilson (1944) American rock-and-roll singer and drummer

• December 5 - Francesco Geminiani (1687) Italian violinist, writer and composer; José Carreras (1946) Spanish tenor; Jim Messina (1947) American rock guitarist and singer

Musician's Birthdays November 22-28

November 22 - Hoagy Carmichael (1899) American jazz pianist and songwriter; Benjamin Britten (1913) British composer; Gunther Schuller (1925) American composer, conductor, French-horn player and educator.

November 23 - Manuel de Falla (1876) Spanish composer and conductor; Jerry Bock (1928) American songwriter for the musical theater; Krzysztof Penderecki (1933) Polish comoser.

November 24 - Lilli Lehmann (1848) German soprano; Scott Joplin (1868) American ragtime composer and pianist; Alfred Schnittke (1934) Soviet composer.

November 25 - Giuseppe Guarneri (1666) Italian violin maker; Virgil Thomson (1896) American composer, conductor and music critic; Paul Desmond (1924) American jazz alto saxophonist and composer.

November 26 - Eugene Istomin (1925) American pianist; Alan Stout (1932) American composer; Tina Turner (1938) American soul-rock singer.

November 27 - Sir Julius Benedict (1804) German-born English conductor and composer; Charles Koechlin (1867) French composer; Jimi Hendrix (1942) American rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter.

November 28 - Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632) Italian-born French composer and conductor; Anton Rubinstein (1829) Russian composer and pianist; Randy Newman (1943) American pop-rock songwriter, singer and pianist.

Birthdays November 15-21

A few of the Musical Birthdays the week of November 15-21.

Petula Clark (1932) British pop singer; Daniel Barenboim (1942) Argentine-born pianist and conductor; W. C. Handy (1873) American Blues composer and band leader; Paul Hindemith (1895) German-born American composer and conductor; Lawrence Tibbett (1896) American baritone; Gorden Lightfoot (1938) Canadian folk singer, guitarist and songwriter; Carl Maria von Weber (1786) German composer, conductor and pianist; Sir William Gilbert (1836) British author and librettist, best known for his comic operettas written with Sullivan; Eugene Ormandy (1899) Hungarian-born American conductor; Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov (1859) Russian composer and conductor; Tommy Dorsey (1905) American trombonist and band leader

This Week's Birthdays

Today, November 10 we celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther (1483) and François Couperin (1668) French composer and organist. Also this week includes the birthdays of Ernest Ansermet (1883) Swiss conductor, Alexander Borodin (1833) Russian composer, Lucia Popp (1939) Czech soprano, Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778) German pianist and composer, and Aaron Copland (1900) American composer and conductor.