The musical journey of Itzhak Perlman, born in Tel Aviv on 31 August 1945, from young prodigy to one of the world’s most celebrated violinists, is a testament to his unyielding spirit and extraordinary talent. Stricken with polio at the

The French composer Félicien David died at Saint-Germain-en-Laye on 29 August 1876 at the age of 66. He was well-known and respected during his lifetime. At the premiere of Le Désert at the Paris Conservatoire on 8 December 1844, Hector

The Czech-Moravian composer Bohuslav Martinů died on 28 August 1959 in Liestal, Switzerland. His music remains one of the great unexplored territories of twentieth-century classical music, and it is difficult to know where to start. Martinů’s music unmistakably belongs to

Ralph Vaughan Williams remained creatively active into old age. Between 1954 and 1958, he composed four songs to poems by his second wife, Ursula Vaughan Williams. Possibly intended as two separate song cycles, they were assembled and published posthumously under

Can you name the longest-running series of family concerts of classical music in the world? If you grew up in the second half of the 20th century, this is probably not a really difficult question. The answer, of course, is

George Li, born on 24 August 1995 in Boston, Massachusetts, grew up in a family of music lovers. His parents had immigrated from China, and the family frequently attended concerts in the Boston area. Classical music has been part of

Conductor Karina Canellakis was born and raised in New York City in a family of musicians. She entered the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied both violin and conducting. She later studied conducting at the Juilliard School. She spent

In a career lasting the better part of forty years, Claude Debussy composed nearly ninety art songs, also known as mélodies. He was not especially well educated in literature, but his mélodies became a vehicle for the development of a