An old Chinese Proverb reads, “Giving your son a skill is better than giving him one thousand pieces of gold.” Such was certainly the case with Riccardo Chailly, born on 20 February 1953 into a highly musical family of Romagnol

Popular music is full of “one-hit wonders,” with a singer or group experiencing real mainstream success with a single hit song. The same might be said of classical music, as we only need to think of Pachelbel and his famous

The Geneva International Music Competition is one of the world’s leading international music competitions, alternating between several main disciplines every year. Prizewinners include some of the world’s best artists, including Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (piano), Pamela Bowden (voice), Heinz Holliger (oboe),

On 24 January 1892, Jules Massenet left for Vienna and stayed at the famous Hotel Sacher, across from the stage entrance of the opera house. He had arrived to oversee rehearsals for his new opera Werther, and wrote, “All the

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)

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.