September 6 – Happy Birthday to Composers!

nPosted on September 6, 2017

Key Points

There are a lot of talented people in the world!

nThat’s what I always think when I see local dance competitions, recitals, and drawing contests. The people I see taking home platinum ribbons and gold medals, or earning standing ovations, are not famous even in Southern California (although they might be in their own school or town), let alone the nation or the world. But they are awfully good at what they do. I have to think that ALL OVER Southern California, and all over the nation, and all over the world there are just as many non-famous-but-very-talented kids and adults as there are right here where I live.

nI was looking at a list of people born on this date, and I noticed a woman composer born way back in the early 1600s. A woman composer back then was very unusual, and I wondered if I should write about her.

nBut then my eye fell on another composer and then yet another one, and I got curious. I set out to discover how many composers were born on September 6 and became famous enough to merit a Wikipedia entry.

nIt turns out that there are lots of composers on Wikipedia’s list of September 6 birthdays!

nHere’s the list:

Isabella Leonarda

nIsabella Leonarda – 1620 – Italian composer, educator
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nSebastian Knüpfer – 1633 – German composer, cantor

nVincent Novello – 1861 – English composer, publisher

nFerdinand Hummel – 1855 – German composer, conductor, pianist

nWalford Davies – 1869 – English composer, organist

Louis Silvers

nLouis Silvers – 1889 – American composer

nBilly Rose – 1899 – American composer, manager

nWayne Barlow – 1912 – American composer, organist, director

nArthur Oldham – 1926 – English composer, conductor

nYevgeny Svetlanov – 1928 – Russian composer, conductor

nGilles Tremblay – 1932 – Canadian composer, educator

Joan Tower

nJoan Tower – 1938 – American composer, pianist, conductor

nMelih Kibar – 1951 – Turkish composer

nPatrick O’Hearn – 1954 – American composer, bassist

Nigel Westlake

nNigel Westlake – 1958 – Australian composer, conductor

nMark Chesnutt – 1963 – American singer-songwriter, guitarist

nTerry Bickers – 1965 – English singer-songwriter, guitarist

nWilliam DuVall – 1969 – American singer-songwriter, guitarist

Macy Gray

nMacy Gray – 1967 – American singer-songwriter, producer, actor

nCisco Adler – 1978 – American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer

nMax George – 1988 – English singer-songwriter, actor

nMatt McAndrew – 1990 – American singer-songwriter, guitarist

Patrick Brasca

nPatrick Brasca – 1999 – Canadian-Taiwanese singer-songwriter

nHere are some important points:

n(1) You can see that, starting with people born in the 1960s, Wikipedia no longer used the word “composer” for folks who wrote music, but instead used the word “songwriter.” Specifically, “singer-songwriter.” I have a feeling this is partly because the various forms of popular music, including rock and country, since the mid-1960s have been dominated by singers and bands who write their own music, rather than perform others’ songs. I once read that the super-stardom of the Beatles made that change.

nSo, since the 1970s, there have been fewer people who just sit and compose music but don’t perform. Even songwriters who wrote super famous songs for other folks, like Carole King and Neil Diamond, ended up performing their own songs after the Beatles-induced music biz transformation.

(2) You can see that there are no super-duper famous composers like Mozart or Bach born on this date. This list is not household-name famous, but it is Wikipedia-entry famous. I want to point out that there had to have been other folks who could be considered “composers” (people who write music) born on this date – folks who wrote music but never got even Wikipedia-entry level famous.

(3) You can see that there are lots of composers from Europe, several from the United States, two from Canada, and one each from Australia and Turkey – but none from South America, Africa, or most of Asia. That makes this list of composers (like most such lists) very Euro-centric. We all know that there had to have been some people writing music on those other continents – including some folks who were born on September 6.