December 12 is a crazy day in American jazz and popular music history, a day that saw the births of five count em, five significant musicians, three of whom have something very special in common.

Here We Go Again . . . It has come to pass. I have been writing these Music History Monday posts for long enough that Monday dates and events have begun to repeat. And as a result, December 5, which w

We mark the New York premiere on November 28, 1925 97 years ago today of Aaron Coplands Music for the Theater, at a League of Composers concert conducted by Serge Koussevitzky at New Yorks Town

We mark the death on November 21, 1695 327 years ago today of the English composer and organist Henry Purcell, in London. He lies buried today in a place of singular honor, adjacent to the organ o

We mark the birth on November 14, 1805 217 years ago today of the German composer, pianist, wife, mother, and hausfrau Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel, in the Hanseatic city of Hamburg. She died on May

We mark the birth on November 7, 1926 96 years ago today of the dramatic coloratura soprano Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, in Sydney, Australia. She died on October 10, 2010, in Montreux, Switzerla

Before moving forward, the title of this post The Grandmother of All Drop Parties! demands an explanation-slash-definition. A grandmother is the mother of a parent, though in this usage, tha

Before moving on to Carl Ruggles, the featured composer of todays post, we would offer the warmest of happy birthdays to one of the most brilliant composers of the twentieth century, who also happene

Name the Composer/Pianist: he was a student of Wolfgang Mozart, Antonio Salieri, Muzio Clementi, and Joseph Haydn; friend to Franz Schubert and a friend (and rival!) of Ludwig van Beethoven; and teach

We mark the birth on October 10, 1903 119 years ago today of the Russian-American composer of concert music Vladimir Aleksandrovich Dukelsky. As a composer of popular music, and as a major contri