20th century | Musicosity

20th century

Peter Maxwell Davies

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE (b. 8 September 1934), is a British composer and conductor. His surname is "Davies", and "Maxwell" is his middle name. To his friends, Davies is known as "Max". Davies was born in Salford, England. He took piano lessons and composed from an early age. After education at Leigh Grammar School, he studied at the University of Manchester and at the Royal Manchester College of Music (amalgamated into the Royal Northern College of Music in 1973), where his fellow students included Harrison Birtwistle, Alexander Goehr, Elgar Howarth and John Ogdon.

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Gunther Schuller

Gunther Schuller (born November 22, 1925) is an American composer and horn player. He is regarded as one of the key figures in contemporary classical music. He studied at the Saint Thomas Choir School and became an accomplished horn player; at the age of seventeen he was principal hornist with the Cincinnati Symphony, and two years later took up a similar position with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. In 1959 he gave up performance to devote himself to composition. He has conducted internationally and studied and recorded jazz with such greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and John Lewis.

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Benjamin Britten

Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten of Aldeburgh, OM (22 November 1913–4 December 1976) was a British composer, conductor, and pianist. Life: Britten was born in Lowestoft in Suffolk, the son of a dentist and a talented amateur musician. He began composing prolifically as a child, and in 1927 began private lessons with Frank Bridge. He also studied, less happily, at the Royal College of Music under John Ireland and with some input from Ralph Vaughan Williams.

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Dieter Schnebel

Schnebel has become one of the many important postmodern composers through a unique craft, challenging our definitions of music, its limits, and even its unusual sound capabilities from humans themselves. But before developing into a professional expresser of music as an art form, Schnebel underwent vigorous studies in various fields. He began with a general private music study with Wilhelm Sibler from 1942 until 1945, when he started piano lessons with another Wilhelm(!), Wilhelm Resch, and lasted with him until 1949 at the age of 19.

Read more about Dieter Schnebel on Last.fm.

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Britten

This page is for soul artist Britten, not classical artist Benjamin Britten. He has his own page. (http://www.last.fm/music/Benjamin+Britten) In one word, Britten is “soulful”. He can’t help it. Since birth, thanks to his father, his down-home country surroundings have been filled with the sounds of Motown legends like Steve Wonder and the Jackson Five and Memphis icons like Al Green. As a matter of fact, it was while riding in the car and listening to Al that Britten realized his fate. “Hearing Love and Happiness was one of the first times that I knew I wanted to be an artist.

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Alexander Scriabin

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin(Александр Николаевич Скрябин) (1872-1915, Moscow) was a Russian composer and pianist. Many of Scriabin's works are written for the piano; the earliest pieces resemble Frédéric Chopin and include music in many forms that Chopin himself employed, such as the etude, the prelude and the mazurka. Later works, however, are strikingly original, employing very unusual harmonies and textures.

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