Jacques Offenbach composed some of the catchiest tunes and melodies ever written, and he exerted a powerful influence on subsequent composers for the music theatre. Initially, however, he was primarily known as a traveling cello virtuoso. He was born Jacob

For our 26th annual summer program this year, Morningside Music Bridge has selected 65 outstanding musicians, aged 12 to 18, from 11 countries. Representing the highest international standards of excellence, the young violinists, violists, cellists, and pianists will receive full

One October evening in 1898, having returned home after a long day teaching, Edward Elgar lit a cigar and began to improvise at the piano. Elgar recalls, “I began to play, and suddenly my wife interrupted by saying: ‘Edward, that’s

Antonín Rejcha, later Antoine or Anton Reicha (1770-1836) came from a hard childhood. His father, Simon, the town piper of Prague, died when he was 10 months old and at age 11, he ran away from his mother who couldn’t

Charles Gounod, born on 17 June 1818 in Paris, is primarily remembered as the composer of the opera Faust and an Ave Maria descant to the first prelude of J.S. Bach’s C-major prelude from the WTC. Yet in his day,

We have a variety of images of Henry VIII, King of England (1491-1547). The majority of them come from late in his life, when he was overweight and suffering from a sequential wife problem. Or maybe it was a sequence

When it comes to collaborations between clarinetists and composer we quickly think of Mozart and Stadler, Weber and Baermann, and Brahms and Mühlfeld. In my opinion, these pairing should also include Louis Spohr and Johann Simon Hermstedt. Hermstedt was born

Bergen is Norway’s second-largest city, picturesquely located on the west coast of the country. It is known as “the city of seven mountains,” and the birthplace of Edvard Hagerup Grieg. He was born on 15 June 1843 to Alexander Grieg