Julia Myra Hess was born on 25 February 1890 in London, as the youngest of four children. Her paternal grandfather Samuel Hess had migrated from his native Alsace to England, and he established a highly successful textile firm in London’s

Commissioned for the 1606/7 Carnival season, Monteverdi’s first opera L’Orfeo was performed in Mantua on 24 February 1607. Essentially, it was commissioned by Francesco Gonzaga in competition with his brother Ferdinando Gonzaga, both sons of the Duke of Mantua. Claudio

A contemporary newspaper reported, “No soldiers paraded, no trumpets blared, no drums rolled out an elegy. But throughout the Western World last week a mighty marching tune reverberated. Sir Edward Elgar, 76, was dead on 23 February 1934.” During an

Born on 22 February 1972 in Fuentes de Satélite, Mexico, Rolando Villazón has firmly established himself as one of the world’s most critically acclaimed tenors of our day. Raised in a suburban area of Greater Mexico City, he was discovered

For every aspiring pianist, Carl Czerny is still a household name. His extensive sets of technical exercises are part of nearly every pianist’s training. Czerny was also the most famous student of Beethoven, and in turn a teacher of Liszt.

On 20 February 1996, while undergoing treatment for abdominal cancer, Tōru Takemitsu died at the age of sixty-five. He had been diagnosed mid-1995, and “by October the disfiguring side-effects of the medical treatments were pronounced.” Takemitsu became increasingly weak and

Gil Shaham is rightfully considered one of the foremost violinists of our time. Born on 19 February 1971 in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, his playing combines inimitable warmth and generosity of spirit. Musical America named him “Instrumentalist of the Year 2012,” and

Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857) has been described as a “dilettante of genius.” His compositions are widely considered the foundation of Russian music, but he primarily wrote them while living and traveling in Western Europe for 23 years. During the 1850s, Glinka