Macdowell Biography

Edward Alexander MacDowell (December 18, 1860 – January 23, 1908) was an American composer and pianist of the Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites "Woodland Sketches," "Sea Pieces," and "New England Idylls." "Woodland Sketches" includes his most popular short piece, "To a Wild Rose." In 1904 he was one of the first seven Americans honored by membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Edward MacDowell was born in New York City. He received his first piano lessons from Juan Buitrago, a Colombian violinist who was living with the MacDowell family at the time. He later received lessons from friends of Buitrago, including Teresa Carreño, a Venezuelan pianist.

His family later moved to Paris, France, where in 1877 he was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire. He then continued his education at Dr. Hoch's Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany where he studied piano with Carl Heymann and composition with Joachim Raff. When Franz Liszt visited the conservatory in 1879 and attended a recital of student compositions,

Who is Jay Chou?

Jay Chou (born 18 January 1979) is a Taiwanese musician, singer-songwriter, music and film producer, actor and director who has won the World Music Award four times. In 1998 he was discovered in a talent contest where he displayed his piano and song-writing skills. Over the next two years, he was hired to compose for popular Mandarin singers. Although he was trained in classical music, Chou combines Chinese and Western music styles to produce songs that fuse R&B, rock and pop genres. He composes all his own songs, as well as songs for other singers.

In 2000, Chou released his first album, titled Jay, under the record company Alfa Music. Since then he has released one album per year except in 2009, selling several million copies each. His music has gained recognition throughout Asia, most notably in regions such as Taiwan, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and in overseas Asian communities, winning more than 20 awards each year. He has sold more than 28 million albums worldwide up to 2010. He debuted his acting career in Initial D (2005), for which he won Best Newcomer Actor in both the Hong Kong Film Awards and the Golden Horse Awards,

Biography of Daniel Auber

Daniel François Esprit Auber (January 29, 1782 – May 13, 1871) was a French composer who became an important contributor to the French opera comique. He was taught by Cherubini whom he later surpassed with the popularity of his operas; however, he never forgot his parents and his Normandy upbringing. Auber's success in creating opera comiques only cemented his sense of personal integrity and his pathway to making a meaningful contribution to the music and societal world.The son of a Paris print-seller, Auber was born in Caen in Normandy.

Destined by his father for the print selling trade, he was allowed, nevertheless, to indulge his fondness for music, and at an early age learnt to play several instruments, his first teacher being the Tirolean composer, Josef Alois Ladurner (March 7, 1769 – February

20, 1851). Sent at the age of 20 to London to complete his business training, he was obliged to leave England as a result of the breach of the Treaty of Amiens (1804).

About Carl Maria Von Weber

Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (18–19 November 1786 – 4–5 June 1826) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school.

Weber's operas Der Freischütz, Euryanthe and Oberon greatly influenced the development of the Romantic opera in Germany. Der Freischütz came to be regarded as the first German "nationalist" opera, Euryanthe developed the Leitmotiv technique to a hitherto-unprecedented degree, while Oberon anticipated Mendelssohn's music for A Midsummer Night's Dream and, at the same time, revealed Weber's lifelong interest in the music of non-Western cultures. This interest was first manifested in Weber's incidental music for Schiller's translation of Gozzi's Turandot, for which he used a Chinese melody, making him the first Western composer to use an Asian tune that was not of the pseudo-Turkish kind popularized by Mozart and others.

About Hiromi Uehara

Hiromi Uehara (上原ひろみ, born 26 March 1979), known as Hiromi, is a jazz composer and pianist born in Hamamatsu, Japan. She is known for her virtuosic technique, energetic live performances and blend of musical genres such as jazz, progressive rock, classical and fusion in her compositions.

Hiromi started learning classical piano at age 6. She was introduced to jazz by her piano teacher Noriko Hakita when she was 8. At age 14, she played with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. When she was 17, she met Chick Corea by chance in Tokyo, and was invited to play with him at his concert the next day. After being a jingle writer for a few years for Japanese companies such as Nissan, she enrolled to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. There, she was mentored by Ahmad Jamal and had already signed with jazz label Telarc before her graduation.

Biography of John Williams

John Towner Williams was born on 8 February 1932, Floral Park, Long Island, New York, USA. 

As one of the best known, awarded, and financially successful composers in US history, John Williams is as easy to recall as John Philip Sousa, Aaron Copland or Leonard Bernstein, illustrating why he is "America's composer" time and again. With a massive list of awards that includes over 41 Oscar nominations (five wins), twenty-odd Gold and Platinum Records, and a slew of Emmy (two wins), Golden Globe (three wins), Grammy (18 wins), National Board of Review (including a Career Achievement Award), Saturn (six wins), and BAFTA (seven wins) citations, along with honorary doctorate degrees numbering in the teens, Williams is undoubtedly one of the most respected composers for Cinema. He's led countless national and international orchestras, most notably as the nineteenth conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1980-1993, helming three Pops tours of the US and Japan during his tenure. He currently serves as the Pop's Conductor Laureate. Also to his credit is a parallel career as an author of serious, and some not-so-serious, concert works - performed by the likes of Mstislav Rostropovich, André Previn, Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Shaham,Leonard Slatkin, James Ingram, Dale Clevenger, and Joshua Bell. Of particular interests are his Essay for Strings, a jazzy Prelude & Fugue, the multimedia presentation American Journey (aka The Unfinished Journey (1999)), a Sinfonietta for Winds, a song cycle featuring poems by Rita Dove, concerti for flute, violin, clarinet, trumpet, tuba, cello, bassoon and horn, fanfares for the 1984, 1988 and 1996 Summer Olympics, the 2002 Winter Olympics, and a song co-written with Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman for the Special Olympics! But such a list probably warrants a more detailed background...

Vanessa Carlton Biography

Vanessa Carlton was born in August 16, 1980 

Along with Michelle Branch and Nelly Furtado, Vanessa Carlton helped usher in a new era of female songwriters during the early 2000s. "A Thousand Miles," her first single, was one of the biggest songs of 2002, topping the pop charts in America and cracking the Top Ten in England. None of her subsequent singles came close to matching that song's success, but Carlton continued releasing albums into the following decade, fine-tuning a sweeping, cinematic pop sound that featured her vocals and piano skills at the forefront.

Raised in Milford, a tiny town in eastern Pennsylvania, Vanessa Carlton took piano lessons from her mother and composed her first song as an eight-year-old. Several years later, she was accepted into the School of American Ballet in New York. Despite being one of the best dancers in her class, she became frustrated with the strictness of the discipline and began to look elsewhere for inspiration, eventually winding up at the piano located inside her Manhattan dorm. Carlton began writing songs again, reaching beyond the classical music of her youth to incorporate influences from pop artists like Tori Amos and Fiona Apple. When it came time to graduate, she halted her dancing career and enrolled at Columbia University instead, where she continued to work on her songwriting. 

Joseph Haydn Biography

Franz Joseph Haydn is best remembered for his symphonic music, honored by music historians who have dubbed him the "Father of the Symphony." That is a well-known fact. But did you know that Haydn worked his way from peasant to Kapellmeister where he lived in the house of a prince? Did you know that although Austria was his home, he traveled to London to write his most famous symphonies? Did you know that Haydn's oratorio "The Creation" grew out of his love of nature, as he was an avid hunter and fisherman? Or did you know that Haydn was mentor to a young music student by the name of Mozart?

These are the lesser-known facts, the parts of Haydn's life that allow us to peek inside a great man's legacy to see what made him tick. Haydn was indeed a self-made man. Born in the small village of Rohrau, Austria on March 31, 1732, Franz Joseph Haydn was the second of twelve children. His father was a wagon maker by trade, but quite musical. On Sundays, the Haydn family often gave private concerts. Haydn's father played the harp while Haydn and his mother sang.

About Carter Burwell

Carter Benedict Burwell (born November 18, 1955) is an American composer of film scores. 

Burwell was born in New York City, the son of Natalie (née Benedict), a math teacher, and Charles Burwell, who founded Thaibok Fabrics, Ltd. He graduated from King School in Stamford, Connecticut, and Harvard College, where he was a cartoonist for The Harvard Lampoon.

As a film composer, Burwell has had a long working relationship with the Coen Brothers, providing music for every film they have made (except for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, where he provided additional music to a score of traditional songs produced by T-Bone Burnett). He enjoys working with left-field directors, such as Spike Jonze. Among his best known film scores are Miller's Crossing(1990), And the Band Played On (1993), Conspiracy Theory (1997), Hamlet (2000), The Spanish Prisoner (1997), Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), In Bruges (2008), Twilight (2008) Where The Wild Things Are (2009) and The Blind Side (2009).

Burwell, like many composers, studied piano as a child, but eventually quit. His interest in music reignited when Steve Kraemer, a fellow high school student, taught him basic blues improvisation on the piano. To the annoyance of his family and friends he kept this up through college.

Ultimately the punk rock movement and its encouragement to get on stage no matter how poorly educated or prepared gave him the impetus to start performing. He did this in New York with several bands notably The Same, Thick Pigeon and Radiante.

Biography of Kitaro

Kitaro (japanese: 喜多郎) was born on the 4th. of February, 1953 as Masanori Takahashi in Toyohashi, Japan. In Highschool he loved Soul and Rhythm & Blues. He learned playing E-Guitar and performed with his band "Albatross" on parties and in clubs. His biggest influence in this time was Otis Redding. "Rhythm and blues has a kind of depth, emotions how can I say it? The audience feels something like same kind of emotions from my music. My music is not rhythm and blues, but it feels like soul.".

His nickname Kitaro was given to him by friends after the main character from the japanese cartoon television series "Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro".

In the early '70s he changed completely to keyboards. He joined the band "Far East Family Band" and toured with them around the world. In Europe he met the german synthesizer musician and Tangerine Dream-cofounder Klaus Schulze. Schulze produced two albums for the band and expanded Kitaro's knowledge of synthesizers.

A quotation from Kitaro gives us his view on synthesizers: "With a synthesizer I could create an ocean, a winter coastline, a summer beach, a whole scene."

In 1976 Kitaro left the "Far East Family Band" and made a long trip throught asia, visiting countries like Laos, China and Thailand. In India he lived for about 6 months in Poona at the (at that time) famous ashram of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

About David Foster

David Walter Foster, OC, OBC (born November 1, 1949), is a Canadian musician, record producer, composer, singer, songwriter and arranger, noted for discovering successful singers Celine Dion, Josh Groban, and Michael Bublé and for producing some of the most successful artists in the world.

Foster was a keyboardist for the pop group Skylark discovered by Eirik Wangberg. The band's song “Wildflower” was a top ten hit in 1972. He has worked as a producer with a wide range of musical stars, including Andrea Bocelli, Céline Dion, Mariah Carey, Charice Pempengco, Gloria Estefan, Nsync, Neil Diamond, Whitney Houston, Cher,Kenny Loggins, Prince, Chicago, Earth Wind and Fire, Chaka Khan, Barbra Streisand, Donna Summer, Kenny Rogers, Boz Scaggs, Olivia Newton-John, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Beyonce Knowles, Destiny's Child, The Bee Gees, Bryan Adams, Christina Aguilera and many other people. He produced Japanese singer Seiko Matsuda's 1988 album "Citron", also arranging and co-writing all the songs on the album, including the number one single "Marrakech".

Together with Jay Graydon he formed the band Airplay, which is often labeled the most important album within the Westcoast AOR genre.

He has produced debut albums for The Corrs, Michael Bublé, Renee Olstead, Josh Groban which were released under his own record label, 143 Records, and distributed through Warner Music. Foster helped launch Kevin Sharp's career after the two met through the Make-A-Wish Foundation and he produced David Hayes singing a song by composed by Ed Scheid and Laramy Smith title "Friend".