#16551
George W. Johnson
1846 - 1914 (68 years)
George Washington Johnson was an American singer and pioneer sound recording artist. Johnson was the first African American recording star of the phonograph. His most popular songs were "The Whistling Coon" and "The Laughing Song".
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Edward G. Cox
1876 - 1963 (87 years)
Edward Godfrey Cox was an American linguist and yachtsman. He was born in Ottawa, Ohio and became a professor at Cornell University and then University of Washington. He was the editor of the journal Modern Language Quarterly from 1943 to 1963, when he died.
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Fanny Brice
1891 - 1951 (60 years)
Fania Borach , known professionally as Fanny Brice or Fannie Brice, was an American comedian, illustrated song model, singer, and actress who made many stage, radio, and film appearances. She is known as the creator and star of the top-rated radio comedy series The Baby Snooks Show.
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Julius Klengel
1859 - 1933 (74 years)
Julius Klengel was a German cellist who is most famous for his études and solo pieces written for the instrument. He was the brother of Paul Klengel. A member of the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig at fifteen, he toured extensively throughout Europe as cellist and soloist of the Gewandhaus Quartet. His pupils include Guilhermina Suggia, Emanuel Feuermann, Gregor Piatigorsky and Alexandre Barjansky.
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Jeannette Mirsky
1903 - 1987 (84 years)
Jeannette Mirsky Ginsburg was an American writer who was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1947 for her biographical writings on the history of exploration. Early life and education Jeannette R. Mirsky was born in Bradley Beach, New Jersey and raised in New York City, the daughter of Michael David Mirsky and Frieda Ettleson Mirsky. Her father was in the garment business. Her brother was Alfred Mirsky , a cell biologist involved in the discovery of DNA. She was a student at the Ethical Culture School, class of 1921. She attended Barnard College, graduating in 1924. She did graduate work in anthropology at Columbia University with Franz Boas and Margaret Mead.
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Pierre Collet
1914 - 1977 (63 years)
Pierre Collet was a French film actor. He appeared in more than 100 films and television shows between 1943 and 1977. Selected filmography Goodbye Leonard - Le marchand d'habits Night Shift - Un réparateur de ligne Coup de tête - Florence est folle Night Warning La Maison sous la mer - Un mineur Histoires extraordinaires - Cotin / FrançoisThe Winner's Circle - Royal Affairs in Versailles - Petit rôle If Paris Were Told to Us - Petit rôle Méfiez-vous fillettes - Thérèse Étienne - L'avocatÉchec au porteur - MorignyLe désordre et la nuit - Un inspecteur Le vent se lève - CrewmanLe f...
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Henri Gagnon
1887 - 1961 (74 years)
Henri Gagnon was a Canadian composer, organist, and music educator. He spent 51 years playing the organ at the Notre-Dame Basilica-Cathedral of Quebec City where, according to music historian François Brassard, he earned "a prestige similar to that of the famous organists of Europe". He was a much admired teacher and taught at several institutions, notably succeeding Wilfrid Pelletier as the second director of the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Québec. As a composer, he produced mainly works for solo organ and piano; although he did write a few choral works and vocal pieces as well. One...
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Alessandro Rolla
1757 - 1841 (84 years)
Alessandro Rolla was an Italian viola and violin virtuoso, composer, conductor and teacher. His son, Antonio Rolla, was also a violin virtuoso and composer. His fame now rests mainly as "teacher of the great Paganini", yet his role was very important in the development of violin and viola technique. Some of the technical innovations that Paganini later used largely, such as left-hand pizzicato, chromatic ascending and descending scales, the use of very high positions on violin and viola, octave passages, were first introduced by Rolla.
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Erich Welter
1900 - 1982 (82 years)
Erich Welter was a German economist and the founding editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from November 1949. Welter was a professor of economics at the University of Mainz between 1946 and 1973.
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Arabella Goddard
1836 - 1922 (86 years)
Arabella Goddard was an English pianist. She was born and died in France. Her parents, Thomas Goddard, an heir to a Salisbury cutlery firm, and Arabella née Ingles, were part of an English community of expatriates living in Saint-Servan near Saint-Malo, Brittany. She remained very proud of her French background all her life, and spiced her conversation with French phrases .
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Scott Bradley
1891 - 1977 (86 years)
Walter Scott Bradley was an American composer, pianist, arranger, and conductor. Bradley is best remembered for scoring MGM's theatrical cartoons, including those starring Tom and Jerry, Barney Bear, Screwy Squirrel, Droopy, George and Junior and many one-off cartoons.
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Ferdinand Büchner
1823 - 1906 (83 years)
Ferdinand Büchner was a German flautist and composer. Ferdinand Büchner began studying the flute at an early age with his father, who played a leading role in the musical life of Bad Pyrmont. He was later taught by the flutist Christian Heinemeyer. He traveled to London, where he had his first public engagement at the age of 13. In 1847 he received an engagement in Berlin, where he remained for three years. In 1850 he traveled to Russia, and was intensely involved in the musical life of St. Petersburg. In 1856 he was appointed principal flute of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. He retained the position until shortly before his death.
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Toivo Haapanen
1889 - 1950 (61 years)
Toivo Elias Haapanen was a Finnish conductor and music scholar. Early life and education Haapanen was born in 1889 in Karvia, Finland. His sister was the writer Tyyni Tuulio. His son is the violinist Tuomas Haapanen.
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Sophie Tucker
1886 - 1966 (80 years)
Sophie Tucker was an American singer, comedian, actress, and radio personality. Known for her powerful delivery of comical and risqué songs, she was one of the most popular entertainers in the U.S. during the first half of the 20th century. She was known by the nickname "the Last of the Red-Hot Mamas".
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Louis Plaidy
1810 - 1874 (64 years)
Louis Plaidy was a celebrated German piano pedagogue and compiler of books of technical music studies. Life Born in Hubertusburg, Saxony, Plaidy initially focused on the violin, and toured as a concert violinist, but he later studied the piano, particularly the technical aspects of playing. Plaidy was renowned for his ability to impart technical skills to his students.
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Carl Borgstrøm
1909 - 1986 (77 years)
Carl Hjalmar Borgstrøm was a Norwegian professor of Indo-European linguistics who made significant contributions to the scientific study of Scottish Gaelic and Irish. His key publications on Scottish Gaelic include: The dialect of Barra in the Outer Hebrides Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap 8 A linguistic survey of the Gaelic dialects of Scotland. The dialects of the Outer Hebrides Oslo University Press A linguistic survey of the Gaelic dialects of Scotland. The dialects of Skye and Ross-shire Oslo University Press
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Peter Vogel
1937 - 1978 (41 years)
Peter Vogel was a German film actor. He appeared in more than 60 films between 1954 and 1978. He was born in Munich, Germany and died in Vienna, Austria, after committing suicide. His father was the actor Rudolf Vogel. He was married to the Austrian actress Gertraud Jesserer and is the father of actor-journalist Nikolas Vogel. was interred next to his father at Bogenhausener Friedhof, Germany.
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Lucijan Marija Škerjanc
1900 - 1973 (73 years)
Lucijan Marija Škerjanc was a Slovene composer, music pedagogue, conductor, musician, and writer who was accomplished on and wrote for a number of musical instruments such as the piano, violin and clarinet. His style reflected late romanticism with qualities of expressionism and impressionism in his pieces, often with a hyperbolic artistic temperament, juxtaposing the dark against melodic phrases in his music.
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Makar Yekmalyan
1856 - 1905 (49 years)
Makar Grigori Yekmalyan was an Armenian composer. Biography Yekmalyan studied at the Echmiadzin seminary and later in St Petersburg with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. He then taught music in Tbilisi , where he died in 1905.
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Sam Woodyard
1925 - 1988 (63 years)
Sam Woodyard was an American jazz drummer. He was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, United States. Woodyard was largely an autodidact on drums and played locally in the Newark, New Jersey, area in the 1940s. He performed with Paul Gayten in an R&B group, then played in the early 1950s with Joe Holiday, Roy Eldridge, and Milt Buckner. In 1955, he joined Duke Ellington's orchestra and remained until 1966.
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Leandro Campanari
1859 - 1939 (80 years)
Leandro Campanari was an Italian violinist, conductor, composer and music teacher, brother of cellist and baritone Giuseppe Campanari. Career Leandro Campanari was born in Rovigo, Italy on 20 October 1859. He began studying at a very early age and was sent by the city of Venice to the Musical Institute of Padua when nine years old. At 12 he toured Italy as a violinist prodigy, and to London where he played under Julius Benedict. Later he was associated with Franco Faccio and Antonio Bazzini. At 15 he entered the Conservatory of Music in Milan and studied the violin, harmony, counterpoint and conducting with the most eminent teachers of that institution.
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Robert Kahn
1865 - 1951 (86 years)
Robert Kahn was a German composer, pianist, and music teacher. Life Kahn was born in Mannheim, the second son of Bernhard Kahn and Emma Eberstadt. One of his seven siblings was the wealthy financier Otto Kahn whose son Roger Wolfe Kahn was a successful jazz musician, composer and aviator. His parents belonged to a distinguished German-Jewish family of bankers and merchants. In 1882, Kahn entered the Königlichen Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, where he studied for the next three years. Between 1885 and 1886, he continued his musical education under Josef Rheinberger in Munich. On a visit to Vi...
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Franz Strauss
1822 - 1905 (83 years)
Franz Joseph Strauss was a German musician. He was a composer, a virtuoso horn player and accomplished performer on the guitar, clarinet and viola. He was principal horn player of the Bavarian Court Opera for more than 40 years, a teacher at the Royal School of Music, Munich, and a conductor.
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Ray Martin
1918 - 1988 (70 years)
Ray Martin was an Austrian-British orchestra leader. He was noted for his light music compositions. Allmusic journalist Bradley Torreano stated, "Ray Martin created a legacy for himself in British popular music through his work with his orchestra during the 1950s. His regular appearances on radio and television kept him in the public spotlight, while his position at EMI Records made him an influential producer at the label. His use of pseudonyms has blurred the path of his career through the years, making his many contributions even harder to keep track of. But his original compositions are ...
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Wilbur Ware
1923 - 1979 (56 years)
Wilbur Bernard Ware was an American jazz double bassist. He was a regular bassist for the Riverside record label in the 1950s, and recorded regularly in that decade with Johnny Griffin, Kenny Dorham, Kenny Drew, and Thelonious Monk. He also appeared on records released by J.R. Monterose, Toots Thielemans, Sonny Clark, Tina Brooks, Zoot Sims, and Grant Green, among others.
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Martin Sommerfeld
1894 - 1939 (45 years)
Martin Sommerfeld was a Jewish emigre from Nazi Germany to the U.S. who was a professor at the University of Frankfurt and subsequently at Columbia University, the City College of New York, Smith College, and Middlebury College, where he taught German language and literature. He authored and edited a number of volumes on German literature from the 16th to the 20th centuries, and he wrote numerous contributions to the four-volume Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturgeschichte .
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John Kirwan
1869 - 1949 (80 years)
Sir John Waters Kirwan, KCMG was the President of the Western Australian Legislative Council and first Federal member for Kalgoorlie in the Australian House of Representatives. Biography Early life He was born in Liverpool, England, of Irish parents.
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Dorothy Dandridge
1922 - 1965 (43 years)
Dorothy Jean Dandridge was an American actress and singer. She was the first African-American film star to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, which was for her performance in Carmen Jones . Dandridge also performed as a vocalist in venues such as the Cotton Club and the Apollo Theater. During her early career, she performed as a part of The Wonder Children, later The Dandridge Sisters, and appeared in a succession of films, usually in uncredited roles.
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Vadim Borisovsky
1900 - 1972 (72 years)
Vadim Vasilyevich Borisovsky was a Soviet and Russian violist. Biography Born in Moscow, Borisovsky entered Moscow Conservatory in 1917 studying the violin with Mikhail Press. A year later, on the advice of violist Vladimir Bakaleinikov, Borisovsky turned his attentions to the viola. He studied with Bakaleinikov and graduated in 1922. Borisovsky became Professor of Viola at the conservatory in 1925
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Jessie Matthews
1907 - 1981 (74 years)
Jessie Margaret Matthews was an English actress, dancer and singer of the 1920s and 1930s, whose career continued into the post-war period. After a string of hit stage musicals and films in the mid-1930s, Matthews developed a following in the USA, where she was dubbed "The Dancing Divinity". Her British studio was reluctant to let go of its biggest name, however, which resulted in offers for her to work in Hollywood being repeatedly rejected.
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Michael Mann
1919 - 1977 (58 years)
Michael Thomas Mann was a German-born musician and professor of German literature. Life Born in Munich, Michael Mann was the youngest child of writer Thomas Mann and Katia Mann. He was of Jewish descent from his mother's side. Due to his being the grandson of Júlia da Silva Bruhns, he was also of Portuguese-Indigenous Brazilian partial descent.
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Hall Overton
1920 - 1972 (52 years)
Hall Franklin Overton was an American composer, jazz pianist and music teacher. Life He was born in Bangor, Michigan, the first of the three sons of Stanford and Ruth Overton. He grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. After taking piano lessons as a youngster, Overton realized he'd have to travel beyond his small Midwestern town to find the kind of music instruction he wanted. His high school music teacher recognized Overton's gift and recommended he attend The Chicago Musical College after graduation. Overton studied theory and composition there from 1940 to 1942.
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Vera Griner
1890 - 1992 (102 years)
Vera Griner , was a Russian Empire-born Soviet rhythmitician, born 5 April 1890 in Saint Petersburg, died 24 June 1992 in Moscow. Her father, Alexander Alvang, was a well-known barrister. Since 1908 the Alvang family had been living in Munich. It was here that Alvang became acquainted with Rhythmics. In 1911 she came to Dresden, where she took lessons from Dalcroze, and attended the newly founded Hellerau Institute. In 1912 Alvang, together with several pupils of Dalcroze came to St. Petersburg to train to be a teacher with courses set by Prince Serge Wolkonsky. After a year she was a teacher and a student of Hellerau, and in May 1913 she graduated from the Institute and returned to St.
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Wilhelm Kosch
1879 - 1960 (81 years)
Wilhelm Franz Josef Kosch was an Austrian historian of literature and theatre and lexicographer. The lexicon that he conceived and later revised several times, the is a references in the field of German literature.
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Erich Katz
1900 - 1973 (73 years)
Erich Katz was a German-born musicologist, composer, music critic, musician and professor. He fled the Nazis in 1939, arriving first in England, emigrating to the United States in 1943, where he became a citizen. He was a driving force behind the early music and recorder movements in the United States. Bernard Krainis, a co-founder of New York Pro Musica studied with Katz.
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Hot Lips Page
1908 - 1954 (46 years)
Oran Thaddeus "Hot Lips" Page was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and bandleader. He was known as a scorching soloist and powerful vocalist. Page was a member of Walter Page's Blue Devils, Artie Shaw's Orchestra and Count Basie's Orchestra, and he worked with Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and Ida Cox. He was one of the five musicians booked for the opening night at Birdland with Charlie Parker in 1949.
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Jimmy Preston
1913 - 1984 (71 years)
James Alfred Smith Preston , was an American R&B bandleader, alto saxophonist, drummer and singer who made an important contribution to early rock and roll. Career Preston was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, and formed his own group in 1945. His first R&B top ten hit was with "Hucklebuck Daddy" in 1949, recorded for Philadelphia's Gotham Records. His main claim to fame was to record, as Jimmy Preston and His Prestonians, the original version of "Rock the Joint" for Gotham in 1949. The sax breaks on "Rock the Joint" were the work of tenor player Danny Turner . "Rock the Joint" was re-recorded by...
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Herbert Kegel
1920 - 1990 (70 years)
Herbert Kegel was a German conductor. Kegel was born in Dresden. He studied conducting with Karl Böhm and composition with Boris Blacher at the Dresden Conservatory from 1935 to 1940. In 1946 he began conducting in Pirna and Rostock; and in 1948 he began a three-decade-long association with the Leipzig Radio Orchestra and Choir, of which he became the principal conductor in 1960. Meanwhile, in 1977 Kegel took the position of principal conductor of Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, which he kept until 1985.
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Richard Bonelli
1889 - 1980 (91 years)
Richard Bonelli was an American operatic baritone active from 1915 to the late 1970s. Although he sang predominantly on stage in both light and grand operas, he also performed at various times on radio, in concerts and films, as well as on television.
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Bernhard Molique
1802 - 1869 (67 years)
Bernhard Molique was a German violinist and composer. Biography He was born in Nuremberg. His father was a musician and the boy studied various instruments, but finally devoted himself to the violin. In 1815, he received some lessons from Louis Spohr, and then studied the violin for two years at the University of Munich under Pietro Rovelli.
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Anton Margaritha
1490 - 1542 (52 years)
Anton Margaritha was a sixteenth-century Jewish Hebraist and convert to Christianity. He was a possible source for some of Martin Luther's conception of Judaism. Biography Anton Margaritha's father, Jacob Margolioth, was a Rabbi in Ratisbon, Germany. Anton converted in 1522, being baptized at Wasserburg am Inn, and later became a Lutheran. He suffered imprisonment and then expulsion from Augsburg due to complaints from the Jewish community there and action by Charles V.
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Leigh Harline
1907 - 1969 (62 years)
Leigh Adrian Harline was an American film composer and songwriter. He was known for his "musical sophistication that was uniquely 'Harline-esque' by weaving rich tapestries of mood-setting underscores and penning memorable melodies for animated shorts and features."
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Joe Liggins
1915 - 1987 (72 years)
Joseph Christopher Liggins, Jr. was an American R&B, jazz and blues pianist and vocalist who led Joe Liggins and his Honeydrippers in the 1940s and 1950s. His band appeared often on the Billboard magazine charts. The band's biggest hit was "The Honeydripper", released in 1945. Joe Liggins was the older brother of R&B performer Jimmy Liggins.
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Franciscus Portus
1511 - 1581 (70 years)
Franciscus Portus was a Greek-Italian Renaissance humanist and classical scholar. Biography Born on Crete on 22 August 1511, Portus was orphaned early. He studied in his youth with Arsenius Apostolius. He went to study in Italy thanks to the generosity of a family friend. He studied for six years in Padova, and then went to Venice, where he was admitted to the city's Greek school, where he soon became the director . During the decade from 1526 to 1535, one should also note his important activity as a copyist of Greek manuscripts. However, he was an adherent of Reformed Christianity, and cert...
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Ferdinand Löwe
1865 - 1925 (60 years)
Ferdinand Löwe was an Austrian conductor. Biography Löwe was born in Vienna, Austrian Empire where along with Munich, Germany his career was primarily centered. From 1896 Löwe conducted the Kaim Orchestra, today's Munich Philharmonic, where he returned from 1908 to 1914. In 1900 Löwe founded and conducted the Wiener Concertvereinsorchester, today the Vienna Symphony. He taught at the Vienna Conservatoire from 1884. He was elected director in 1919 and served until 1922.
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Fosco Giachetti
1900 - 1974 (74 years)
Fosco Giachetti was an Italian actor. Fosco Giachetti was the protagonist of Lo squadrone bianco , directed by Augusto Genina. He became the leading man in Fascist propaganda films such as Tredici uomini e un cannone , Sentinelle di bronzo , Scipione l'Africano, Edgar Neville's Italian Carmen fra i rossi , L'assedio dell'Alcazar and Bengasi . In 1942, he also co-starred in Goffredo Alessandrini's two part Noi Vivi and Addio Kira!.
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John Johnson
1540 - 1594 (54 years)
John Johnson was an English lutenist, composer of songs and lute music, attached to the court of Queen Elizabeth I. He was the father of the lutenist and composer Robert Johnson. External links Music Collection in Cambridge Digital Library which contains early copies/examples of Johnson's compositions
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Váša Příhoda
1900 - 1960 (60 years)
Váša Příhoda was a Czech violinist and minor composer. Considered a Paganini specialist, his recording of the Violin Concerto in A minor by Dvořák is still praised. Career Váša Příhoda was born in Vodňany in 1900. His father, Alois Příhoda, was his first teacher and remained so for ten years. Váša studied privately with Jan Mařák , making his first public concert at age 13, playing the 4th Violin Concerto by Mozart. At age 19 a tour of Italy proved unsuccessful; poverty-stricken, he joined the orchestra of the Café Grand’Italia in Milan to earn money.
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Carl T. Fischer
1912 - 1954 (42 years)
Carl T. Fischer was a Native American jazz pianist and composer. He worked with Frankie Laine, and composed Laine's 1945 hit song We'll Be Together Again, and You've Changed with lyrics by Bill Carey.
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Maceo Pinkard
1897 - 1962 (65 years)
Maceo Pinkard was an American composer, lyricist, and music publisher. Among his compositions is "Sweet Georgia Brown", a popular standard for decades after its composition and famous as the theme of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team.
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