John Adams is an incredibly awesome San Francisco Bay Area-based composer. You also may have noticed that many of my posts on Twitter are labeled with the #JohnAdamsFanClub hash tag.  I may be biased, but either way, his music is fantastic.
b. Feb. 15, 1947 in Worcester, MA
John Adams graduated from Concord High School in Concord, [...]

b. November 14, 1900, Brooklyn, NY
d. December 2, 1990, North Tarrytown, NY
Aaron Copland was a famed American composer and an accomplished pianist. He was known as the “Dean of American Composers.”
His composition style was a unique hybrid of American folk idioms and modern classical music and is identified by his iconic use of percussive orchestration, [...]

b. 1874   Danbury, Connecticut
d. 1954   New York, NY
Charles Ives was a super-cool, trail-blazing composer who also had a successful career as an insurance salesman. He’s our composer of the week!
Charles Ives grew up in Danbury, Connecticut, where his father, George Ives, worked as a music teacher and band leader. George Ives had a tremendous impact [...]

Yes! Today is the kickoff of Salon97’s American Composers Month. Our classical trivia text message today (sign up for free in the red box on the right-hand sidebar!) highlighted John Philip Sousa, so we thought it only appropriate to include a video of one of his marches.
“The Washington Post” was written as a tribute to [...]

b. May 15, 1908 in Akarp, Sweden
d. December 26, 1986 in Helsingborg, Sweden
Lars-Erik Larsson’s Nordic Romanticism awesomeness makes him our composer of the week!
Larsson worked as a music critic in addition to working as a conductor, composer, and producer for Swedish radio after studying at the Stockholm Conservatory. Holding these positions presented Larsson with an [...]

Felix Mendelssohn, a musical prodigy who is known as the Mozart of the 19th Century, is our Composer of the Week, and he was also featured at our recent Summer Music Soiree listening party!
b. February 3, 1809 in Hamburg, Germany
d. November 4, 1847 in Leipzig, Germany
Felix Mendelssohn began writing masterpieces at the tender age [...]

Few people have heard of Quincy Porter or his fabulous compositions. His undeniable underdogness makes him our Composer of the Week.
b. February 7, 1897 in New Haven, Connecticut
d. November 12, 1966 in Bethany, Connecticut
Quincy Porter, who’s compositional style bridged Impressionism with chromaticism to create his own idiom, composed a catalog of music including two [...]

DYK? The band Phoenix wrote Lisztomania in honor of composer Franz Liszt’s studly awesomeness.
That was yesterday’s weekly classical trivia text message. I thought it only apropos to follow up and post the video on our site!
Here’s Lisztomania by Phoenix (yes, it was featured on Gossip Girl, too):

And that isn’t where “Lisztomania” ends, either! In [...]

Igor Stravinsky wrote a ton of super awesome music — and he is considered by many to be the most influential composer of the 20th century! He is our Composer of the Week.
b. June 17, 1882
d. April 6, 1971
“Consonance, says the dictionary, is the combination of several tones into a harmonic unit. Dissonance [...]

Previously heard at Salon97’s “Living Composers in the Dead of Winter” and “Terrible Twos” events, Arvo Pärt is a truly one of a kind and amazing composer, and he’s our Composer of the Week!
b. September 11, 1935 in Paide, Estonia
Arvo Pärt began studying music at an early age and had already worked as [...]