Music history, daily

On This Day in Music

Composers born, composers lost, and pieces that met the world for the first time — and every name here is playable in the library.

August 20

  • 1561Jacopo Peri was born — Italian singer and composer. source 465 years ago
  • 1611Tomás Luis de Victoria died — Spanish priest and composer. source 415 years ago
  • 1707Nicolas Gigault died — French organist and composer. source 319 years ago
  • 1720Bernard de Bury was born — French harpsichord player and composer. source 306 years ago
  • 1937Stelvio Cipriani was born — Italian composer. source 89 years ago
  • 1960Dom Duff was born — Breton singer-songwriter, guitarist, composer. source 66 years ago
  • 2013Don Hassler died — American saxophonist and composer. source 13 years ago
  • 2013Marian McPartland died — English-American pianist and composer. source 13 years ago

Every entry is drawn from our source-cited composer biographies and piece notes — dates come from published references, not from memory. Browse any composer to read the full biography, or the library to play their music.

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