Musical Birthdays, April 25-May 1

• April 25 - Italo Tajo (1915) Italian bass; Ella Fitzgerald (1918) American singer of jazz and popular music; Albert King (1923) American blues singer and guitarist.
• April 26 -Gertrude "Ma" Rainey (1886) American blues, jazz and vaudeville singer; Joseph Fuchs (1900) American violinist; Bobby Rydell (1942) American rock-and-roll singer and drummer.
  
• April 27 -Friedrich von Flotow (1813) German composer; Nicolas Slonimsky (1894) Russian-born American musicologist, musical lexicographer and composer; Judith Blegen (1941) American soprano.
  
• April 28 - Hermann Suter (1870) Swiss composer and conductor; Louise Homer (1871) American contralto; Nan Merriman (1920) American mezzo-soprano.
  
• April 29 - Sir Thomas Beecham (1879) British conductor; Duke Ellington (1899) American jazz pianist, bandleader and composer; Zubin Mehta (1936) Indian conductor.
  
• April 30 - Franz Lehar (1870) Austrian composer of operettas; Robert Shaw (1916) American conductor; Willie Nelson (1933) American country-music singer, songwriter and guitarist.
  
• May 1 - Kate Smith (1909) American singer of popular music; Judy Collins (1939) American guitarist, songwriter and singer of folk and popular music; Rita Coolidge (1945) American rhythm-and-blues and country-music singer.
  

Musical Birthdays, April 18-25

• April 18 - Franz von Suppé (1819), Austrian composer and conductor; Leopold Stokowski (1882), British-born American conductor; Catherine Malfitano (1948), American soprano.
• April 19 - Augustus D. Juilliard (1836), American music patron, founder of the Juilliard School of Music; Germaine Tailleferre (1892), French composer; Murray Perahia (1947), American pianist and conductor.
  
• April 20 - Nicolai Miaskovsky (1881), Russian composer; John Eliot Gardiner (1943), British conductor; Perter Frampton (1950), British rock singer and guitarist.
  
• April 21 - Estelle Liebling (1880), American soprano; Randall Thompson (1899), American composer; Bruno Maderna (1920), Italian-born German conductor and composer.
  
• April 22 - Dame Ethel Smyth (1858), British composer; Yehudi Menuhin (1916), American violinist; Charles Mingus (1922), American jazz double-bass player, pianist, composer and bandleader.
• April 23 - Albert Coates (1882), British conductor and composer; Sergei Prokofiev (1891), Russian composer and pianist; Roy Orbison (1926), American rock-and-roll singer, songwriter and guitarist.
  
• April 24 - Giovanni Battista Martini (1706), Italian music scholar and composer; Violet Archer (1913), Canadian pianist and composer; Barbara Streisand (1942), American actress and singer of popular music.
  
• April 25 - Italo Tajo (1915), Italian bass; Ella Fitzgerald (1918), American singer of jazz and popular music; Albert King (1923), American blues singer and guitarist.
  

Musical Birthdays April 11-17

April 11 - Sir Charles Halle (1819) German-born British pianist and conductor; Alberto Ginastera (1916) Argentinian composer; Kurt Moll (1938) German bass.
April 12 - Lionel Hampton (1913) American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, drummer, and bandleader; Montserrat Caballé (1933) Spanish soprano; Herbie Hancock (1940) American jazz pianist and composer.
April 13 - Félicien David (1810) French composer; Sir William Sterndale Bennett (1816) British pianist, conductor, and composer; Margaret Price (1941) British soprano.
April 14 - Loretta Lynn (1932) American country-music singer, songwriter, and guitarist; Morton Subotnick (1933) American composer of experimental music; Julian Lloyd Webber (1951) British cellist.
April 15 - Domenico Gabrieli (1651) Italian composer and cellist; Bessie Smith (1894) American blues, jazz and vaudeville singer; Neville Marriner (1924) British violinist and conductor.
April 16 - Henry Mancini (1924) American arranger, composer, conductor, and pianist; Herbie Mann (1930) American jazz flutist; Dennis Russell Davies (1944) American conductor.
April 17 - Artur Schnaber (1882) Austrian-born American pianist; Gregor Piatigorsky (1903) Russian-born American cellist and composer; Don Kirshner (1934) American pop-music entrepreneur.

Musical Birthdays April 4-10

• April 4 - Hans Richter (1843) German conductor; Pierre Monteux (1875) French conductor; "Muddy" Waters (1915) American blues singer and guitarist.
• April 5 -Ludwig Spohr (1784) German violinist, composer and conductor; Albert Roussel (1869) French composer; Herbert von Karajan (1908) Austrian conductor.
  
• April 6 - Edison Denisov (1929) Soviet composer; André Previn (1929) German-born American pianist, composer and conductor; Merle Haggard (1937) American country-music singer, fiddler and guitarist
  
• April 7 - Robert Cassadesus (1899) French pianist and composer; Billie Holiday (1915) American jazz singer; Ravi Shankar (1920) Indian sitarist and composer.
  
• April 8 -Sir Adrian Boult (1889) British conductor; Franco Corelli (1921) Italian tenor; Jacques Brel (1929) Belgian-born French singer and songwriter.
  
• April 9 - Efrem Zimbalist (1890) Russian-born American violinist and composer; Paul Robeson (1898) American bass; Antal Dorati (1906) Hungarian-born American conductor and composer.
  
• April 10 - Eugène d'Albert (1864) British-born German pianist and composer; Sigmund Spaeth (1885) American music scholar; Claude Bolling (1930) French jazz pianist and composer.
  

Birthdays, March 28-April 3

• March 28 - Rudolf Serkin, 1903 (Austrian pianist); Robert Ashley, 1930 (American composer); Samuel Ramey, 1942 (American bass)
• March 29 - Sir William Walton, 1902 (British composer); Pearl Bailey, 1918 (American jazz singer); Richard Rodney Bennett, 1938 (British composer)
• March 30 - Sergei Vasilenko, 1872 (Russian composer); Gordon Mumma, 1935 (American composer of experimental music); Eric Clapton, 1945 (British rock guitarist and singer)
• March 31 - Franz Josef Haydn, 1732 (Austrian composer); Sergei Diaghilev, 1872 (Russian impressario; founder of the Ballets Russe); Herb Alpert, 1935 (American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer)
• April 1 - Ferruccio Busoni, 1866 (Italian pianist and composer); Sergei Rachmaninoff, 1873 (Russian-born American composer and pianist); Alberta Hunter, 1895 (American blues singer)
• April 2 - Kurt Herbert Adler, 1905 (Austrian-born American conductor and opera director); Marvin Gaye, 1939 (American soul singer and songwriter); Leon Russell, 1941 (American rock singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist)
• April 3 - Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, 1895 (Italian-born American composer); Wayne Newton, 1942 (American singer of popular music); Garrick Ohlsson, 1948 (American pianist)
  

Birthdays March 21-27

I have failed to list musician's birthdays for several weeks. This week, however, we celebrate several outstanding musicians' births which I wish to acknowledge.

• March 21 - Johann Sebastian Bach (1685), Modest Mussorgsky (1839)
• March 22 - Stephen Sondheim (1930), Andrew Lloyd Webber (1948)
• March 23 - Régine Crespin (1927)
• March 24 - Byron Janis (1928)
• March 25 - Arturo Toscanini (1867), Béla Bartók (1881), Aretha Franklin (1942)
• March 26 - Pierre Boulez (1925), Dianna Ross (1944), Teddy Pendergrass (1950)
• March 27 - Vincent d'Indy (1851), Sarah Vaughan (1924), Mstislav Rostropovich (1927)

Birthdays

Happy Birthday today (January 27) to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756), Edouard Lalo (1823), and Jerome Kern (1885)

O Mozart, immortal Mozart, how many, how infinitely many inspiring suggestions of a finer, better life have you left in our souls!

- Franz Schubert