Shulamit Ran is an Israeli-American composer. She moved from Israel to New York City at 14, as a scholarship student at the Mannes College of Music. Her Symphony (1990) won her the Pulitzer Prize for Music. She was the second woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, the first being Ellen Taaffe Zwilich in 1983. Ran was a professor of music composition at the University of Chicago from 1973 to 2015. She has performed as a pianist in Israel, Europe and the U.S., and her compositional works have been performed worldwide by a wide array of orchestras and chamber groups.
Joseph Joachim Raff was a German-Swiss composer, pedagogue and pianist.
John Harris Harbison is an American composer and academic.
Pēteris Vasks is a Latvian composer.
Peter Mennin was a prominent American composer, teacher and administrator. In 1958, he was named Director of the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and in 1962 became President of the Juilliard School, a position he held until his death in 1983. Under his leadership, Juilliard moved from Claremont Avenue to its present location at Lincoln Center. Mennin is responsible for the addition of drama and dance departments at Juilliard. He also started the Master Class Program, and brought many artists to teach including Maria Callas, Pierre Fournier and others.
Richard Danielpour is an American composer and academic, currently affiliated with the Curtis Institute of Music and the University of California, Los Angeles.
Bernard Rands is a British-American contemporary classical composer. He studied music and English literature at the University of Wales, Bangor, and composition with Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna in Darmstadt, Germany, and with Luigi Dallapiccola and Luciano Berio in Milan, Italy. He held residencies at Princeton University, the University of Illinois, and the University of York before emigrating to the United States in 1975; he became a U.S. citizen in 1983. In 1984, Rands's Canti del Sole, premiered by Paul Sperry, Zubin Mehta, and the New York Philharmonic, won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He has since taught at the University of California, San Diego, the Juilliard School, Yale University, and Boston University. From 1988 to 2005 he taught at Harvard University, where he is Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music Emeritus.
Christopher Chapman Rouse III was an American composer. Though he wrote for various ensembles, Rouse is primarily known for his orchestral compositions, including a Requiem, a dozen concertos, and six symphonies. His work received numerous accolades, including the Kennedy Center Friedheim Award, the Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition, and the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He also served as the composer-in-residence for the New York Philharmonic from 2012 to 2015.
The String Octet in E-flat major, Op. 20, MWV R 20, was written by the 16-year-old Felix Mendelssohn during the fall of 1825 and completed on October 15. Written for four violins, two violas, and two cellos, this work created a new chamber music genre. Conrad Wilson summarizes much of its reception ever since: "Its youthful verve, brilliance and perfection make it one of the miracles of nineteenth-century music." This was one of the first works of Mendelssohn to be very well received.
Geraldine Lamboley Walther is an American violist. From 2005 to May 2020 she was a member of the Takács Quartet. During this time she also taught at the University of Colorado Boulder. She was also the principal violist of the San Francisco Symphony, a role she held from 1976 through 2005. Previously, she was assistant principal viola of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Miami Philharmonic. In 1979, she won the First Prize at the Primrose International Viola Competition.
John Dalley is an American violinist. He was raised in a musical family. His father was an orchestra conductor, violinist, composer, instrumental teacher, and music educator. His mother, from Bloomington, Illinois, was a cellist, music teacher, and music publisher.
Ralph Henry Kirshbaum is an American cellist. His award-winning career combines the worlds of solo performance, chamber music, recording and pedagogy.
Enrique Graf is a Uruguayan-American pianist.
Andor John Toth was an American classical violinist, conductor and educator with a musical career spanning over six decades. Toth played his violin on the World War II battlefields of Aachen, Germany; performed with the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Arturo Toscanini in 1943 at age 18; and formed several chamber music ensembles, including the Oberlin String Quartet, the New Hungarian Quartet, and the Stanford String Quartet. For 15 years he was the violinist in the Alma Trio. Toth conducted orchestras in Cleveland, Denver and Houston. In 1969, he was the founding concertmaster of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra under Neville Marriner. Toth taught at five important colleges and universities, and recorded for Vox, Decca Records and Eclectra Records.
Vahram Ohani Babayan is a contemporary Armenian composer, pianist, and music theorist. He has composed a variety of music, including opera and ballet, symphonies, chamber music, and vocal compositions.
Alan Shulman was an American composer and cellist. He wrote a considerable amount of symphonic music, chamber music, and jazz music. Trumpeter Eddie Bailey said, "Alan had the greatest ear of any musician I ever came across. He had better than perfect pitch. I've simply never met anyone like him." Some of his more well known works include his 1940 Neo-Classical Theme and Variations for Viola and Piano and his A Laurentian Overture, which was premiered by the New York Philharmonic in 1952 under the baton of Guido Cantelli. Also of note is his 1948 Concerto for Cello and Orchestra which was also premiered by the New York Philharmonic with cellist Leonard Rose and conductor Dmitri Mitropoulos. Many of Shulman's works have been recorded, and the violinist Jascha Heifetz and jazz clarinetist Artie Shaw have been particular exponents of his work both in performance and on recordings.
Reza Vali is an Iranian musician and composer.
Quartet San Francisco is a non-traditional and eclectic string quartet led by violinist Jeremy Cohen. The group played their first concert in 2001 and has recorded five albums. Playing a wide range of music genres including jazz, blues, tango, swing, funk, and pop, the group challenges the traditional classical music foundation of the string quartet.
Founded in 1976, the Elgin Youth Symphony Orchestras (EYSO) is the oldest and largest youth orchestra program in northwest Illinois and is composed of three full orchestras, two string orchestras, a brass choir, two percussion ensembles, a flute choir, and a large Chamber Music Institute.
The String Quartet No. 2 is the second string quartet by the American composer Christopher Rouse. The work was commissioned by the Cleveland Quartet with additional contributions from the Eastman School of Music and was completed May 6, 1988. It was given its world premiere at the Aspen Music Festival by the Cleveland Quartet in July 1988. Rouse dedicated the composition to the people of the Soviet Union.
