Pick a Day

Music History Events: Births

June 2, 1857 Composer Edward Elgar is born in Worcester, England.

November 6, 1854 John Philip Sousa is born in Washington, DC. He serves as the director of the President's Own Marine Corps band from 1880 to 1892 before touring the world with his own Sousa Band and earns the title of March King thanks to famous compositions like "The Liberty Bell," "Semper Fidelis," "The Washington Post" and "Stars And Stripes Forever."

October 22, 1854 James Bland is born in Flushing, New York. While minstrel shows in the US were dominated by men in blackface, the African American artist would surpass them as "The World's Greatest Minstrel Man."

July 3, 1854 Czech composer Leoš Janáček is born in Hukvaldy, Moravia.

March 18, 1844 Composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov is born in Russia.

June 15, 1843 Romantic era composer Edvard Grieg is born in Bergen, Norway.

September 8, 1841 Composer Antonin Dvorak is born near Prague, Czech Republic (then part of Bohemia in the Austrian Empire).

May 7, 1840 The composer Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky is born in Votkinsk, Russia.

March 21, 1839 Composer Modest Mussorgsky is born in Russia.

January 9, 1839 Composer John Knowles Paine is born in Maine.

January 6, 1838 Romantic composer Max Bruch is born in Cologne, Germany.

November 12, 1833 Composer Aleksandr Borodin, part of a group of Russian composers known as The Five, is born in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

May 7, 1833 Composer Johannes Brahms is born in Hamburg, Germany.

October 22, 1832 Conductor and composer Leopold Damrosch is born in Posen, King of Prussia. The violinist would earn a PhD in medicine to appease his parents before turning his focus completely to music.

June 22, 1830 Composer/pianist Theodor Leschetizky is born in Lancut, Poland.

November 28, 1829 Pianist/composer Anton Rubinstein is born in Vikhvatinets, a village in present-day Moldova (formerly part of the Russian Empire).

January 24, 1829 Composer William Mason, who becomes the first American piano student of Franz Liszt and Ignaz Moscheles, is born in Boston, Massachusetts.

November 20, 1827 Composer Edmond Dede is born in New Orleans, Louisiana.

March 16, 1823 Hymn composer William Henry Monk is born in London.

December 10, 1822 Composer Cesar Franck is born Cesar-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck in Liege (now in Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of Netherlands).

June 20, 1819 Jacques Offenbach, composer and cellist of the Romantic period, is born in Cologne, Germany.

May 22, 1813 Richard Wagner is born in Leipzig, Germany.

June 8, 1810 Romantic era composer Robert Schumann is born in Zwickau, Germany.

February 3, 1809 German composer Felix Mendelssohn is born in Hamburg.

November 14, 1805 Composer and pianist Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel is born in Hamburg, Germany.

December 11, 1803 Composer Louis-Hector Berlioz is born in Isere, France. Known for his Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts.

November 3, 1801 Italian opera composer Vincenzo Bellini is born in Catania, Sicily.

January 31, 1797 Austrian composer Franz Schubert is born in Vienna.

June 16, 1792 Francis Johnson, an African American musician and composer during the Antebellum era, is born in Martinique in the West Indies.

September 5, 1791 Opera composer Giacomo Meyerbeer is born Jacob Liebmann Beer near Berlin, Germany.