For Renée Fleming, born on 14 February 1959 in Indiana, Pennsylvania, music was part of her earliest memories. “My memories so often involve someone singing,” she writes, “or me singing, or someone striking the first notes on the piano that

On 13 February 1882 in Podgórze, near Kraków, Salomea (Salcia) Friedman (Freudmann) gave birth to her son Solomon Isaac (Ignacy). She had already suffered six miscarriages and stillbirths before giving birth, and she had married the father Nachman Wolf (Wolko)

Although Felix Mendelssohn predated Brahms, his cello music is on the cusp of romanticism, bridging the classical and the romantic periods of music. He wrote two cello sonatas, No. 1 in B-flat Op. 45, and No. 2 in D Major

Roses are gorgeously beautiful flowers, and they are associated with romantic love and beauty. And as far back as I can remember, which isn’t really all that long, the rose has been one of the most recognized symbols of Valentine’s

A week of concertizing, teaching, and community outreach started in Guangzhou six years ago and has expanded to include orchestras from up and down the Pearl River. The Guangzhou Symphony has been joined by the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Shenzhen

It is often said that life inspires art; that to its ultimate goal, art takes inspiration and pays homage to nature and to life. Over the years, it has been an obsession for artists; to imitate life. But what about

The “opera fantastique” The Tales of Hoffmann (Les Contes d’Hoffmann) by Jacques Offenbach was first played publically, without the third act, at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 10 February 1881. The composer did not live to see the premiere, as

In 1885, as Johannes Brahms was writing his Fourth Symphony, Albano Maria Johannes Berg was born on 9 February. The “o” on his first name quickly disappeared, and he was the third of four children of Johanna and Conrad Berg.