Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791) was an Austrian composer of the Classical Era.
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Michael Haydn (1737 - 1806) was an Austrian Classical composer.
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Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750) was a German composer of the Baroque era.
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Georg Philip Telemann (1681 – 1767), a German Baroque composer, was one of the most prolific composers, writing over 3,000 compositions.
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Claudio Monteverdi (1567 – 1643) was an Italian composer and musician.
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Peter Abelard was a French composer, poet, and philosopher from the medieval period.
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Eric Whitacre was born in Nevada, USA in 1970. He is a well known choral composer, conductor, and a pioneer of virtual choirs. His choirs have brought together over 15,000 singers from 129 countries. He has written symphonies, music for films like Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and choir workds like Deep Field and Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine
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Andrew Lloyd Webber an English composer born in 1948. Though he has composed music for movies and a Latin Requiem Mass, he is most known for his musical theater compositions. Among his most famous musicals are Cats, Evita, Phantom of the Opera, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat.
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Leonard Bernstein (1918 - 1990) was an American composer and conductor. He was an amazing pianist, a famous conductor of the New York Philharmonic, and composer of orchestral music, ballet, film, theater, choral, opera, and works for the piano. His most well known music is the Broadway musical, West Side Story.
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Cole Porter (1891 - 1964) an American born composer who wrote many songs for Broadway. He wrote many famous songs like "Night and Day" and I"ve Got You Under My Skin" as well as the Broadway hits 'Anything Goes' and 'Kiss Me, Kate.'
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Sergei Prokofiev (1891 - 1953) was a quirky Russian composer. He loved chess, biographies of musicians, making doll houses, and of course writing music. His most famous piece of music was Peter and the Wolf which introduces the instruments of the orchestra, written for children, his own and the children of Russia.
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Richard Strauss (1864 - 1949) is a German composer who is not related to Johan Strauss. Strauss lived in Germany during WW1 and WW2, and sadly socialized with many Nazi's though he did not agree with the Nazi Party. He was married to a highly temperamental singer named Pauline who he loved dearly. He is well known for his operas like Don Juan and his tone poems like Also Sprach Zarathustra.
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Teresa Carreno (1853 - 1917) was a Venuzelan born composer, pianist, conductor, and singer. She performed for Abraham Lincoln at the White House when she was nine. At age 62, she performed for President Woodrow Wilson. She was quite popular and was nicknamed the Valkyrie of the Piano.
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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893), a Russian composer was a brilliant composer. He composed in a patriotic Russian style where one was completely immersed in the music. Though he had a troubled personal life and often struggled with anxiety; his great tenderness for children lead him to compose the most epic ballets like Swan Lake and the Nutcracker.
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Lili-uokalni (1838 - 1917) was the first and last Queen of Hawaii. She was a well educated and highly traveled queen, she met President Cleveland and Queen Victoria. During her reign, Liliuokalni fought against the overtaking of the Hawaiian monarchy by foreign business men, eventually being put under house arrest and then abdicating the throne. She wrote the song Aloha Oe as a love song about two people embracing farewell. The song became known as an Hawaiian farewell song.
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Englishmen, William Schwenck Gilbert (1836 - 1911), a lyricist, and Arthur Sullivan (1842 - 1900), a composer, worked together to create fourteen operas. These operas turned the Italian opera upside - writing them in English, more relatable, and not so grand or serious. The two most famous Gilbert and Sullivan operas are The Mikado and The Pirates of Penzance.
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Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897), a German composer, who became part of one of the 3 B's (Bach, Beethoven, Brahms). He is best known for his Hungarian Dances, symphonies, and his most famous, Lullaby. Brahms was a charming man who loved food especially chicken with paprika, herring, eggnog, and coffee and friends like Johann Strauss and Clara Schumann.
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Johann Strauss Jr. (1825 - 1899) was an Austrian composer known as the Waltz King. Waltz fever had hit Europe, waltz being the first dance in which partners embrace each other and was known as a light hearted happy style of music. Strauss Jr.'s most famous works are the operetta Die Fledermaus and the Blue Danube Waltz.
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Gioachino Rossini (1792 - 1868) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He wrote over 40 operas by the age of 40 where upon he retired from public life for about 10 years. He was known for his comedic chops (both in his compositions and at the piano as a mimic). His most famous works are the Barber of Seville and the William Tell Overture.
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Ludwig Von Beethoven (1770 - 1827), a German Classical/Romantic Era Composer during the Napoleonic era. He is well known for pieces like his 5th Symphony, 9th Symphony (Ode to Joy), and Fur Elise. Beethoven was most certainly a character - ill tempered at times, never did his laundry, loved macaroni and cheese, deaf, and a musical genius.
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