On 22 December 1808, Ludwig van Beethoven invited audiences to a benefit concert at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna. One of the most remarkable events of Beethoven’s career, the concert saw the public premieres of his Fifth and

Conductor, pianist, and composer Michael Tilson Thomas has won twelve Grammy Awards and amassed a discography of more than 120 recordings. During his tenure with the San Francisco Symphony, he recorded the complete symphonies of Gustav Mahler and pioneering discs

British cellist Steven Isserlis, born 19 December 1958 made his breakthrough in 1988 when he asked John Tavener to write a dedicated work for cello and orchestra. Isserlis premiered The Protecting Veil at the BBC Proms and quickly followed up

When Camille Saint-Saëns died of a heart attack on 16 December 1921 in Algiers, his body was taken back to Paris for a state funeral at the Madeleine. His career had spanned 70 years and five continents. He performed as

Clarinet superstar Martin Fröst has been described as having “a virtuosity and a musicianship unsurpassed by any clarinettist, perhaps any instrumentalist, in recent memory.” In 2014 he received the Léonie Sonning Music Prize, one of the world’s highest musical honours,

In Korean, the name “Bomsori” basically means “the sound of spring,” but professionally, the violinist Bomsori Kim has earned the nickname “Competition Huntress.” Indeed, she has won a long list of competitions, including the 62nd ARD International Music Competition, the

Konstantin Lifschitz stunned the international music scene with his recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations in 1994. The recording received a Grammy nomination and was celebrated as the most convincing Bach interpretation since Glenn Gould. Critics praised his “joy and energy

Olga Maria Elisabeth Frederike Schwarzkopf was born in Jarocin near Poznán, then Germany, now Poland, on 9 December 1915. She was to become the pre-eminent female lieder singer of the post-war decades and an operatic artist “in whom personal beauty,