• 1834 ~ Amilcare Ponchielli, Italian composer
More information about Ponchielli
• 1903 ~ Arthur (Morton) Godfrey, Ukulele playing, TV/radio entertainer
1918 ~ Alan Jay Lerner, American lyricist for the musical theater
Read quotes by and about Lerner
More information about Lerner
• 1930 ~ Dudley “Big Tiny” Little Jr, American pianist on the Lawrence Welk Show
• 1939 ~ Jerry Allison, Drummer with The Crickets
• 1939 ~ Frank Sinatra recorded All or Nothing at All with the Harry James Band. The tune failed to become a hit until four years later – after Ol’ Blue Eyes had joined the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra.
• 1945 ~ Itzhak Perlman, Israeli-born American violinist, recorded with André Previn and Scott Joplin
• 1945 ~ Van Morrison, Songwriter, singer with Them
• 1955 ~ Anthony Thistlethwaite, Saxophone with The Waterboys
• 1957 ~ Glenn Tilbrook, Guitar, singer, songwriter with Squeeze
• 1959 ~ Tony DeFranco, Singer with The DeFranco Family
• 1970 ~ Debbie Gibson, Singer
• 1976 ~ A judge ruled that George Harrison was guilty of copying from the songHe’sSo Fine (a 1963 Chiffons hit). The judge said that the chorus to Harrison’s My Sweet Lord was identical to He’s So Fine and it eventually (appeals went on for about five years) cost the former Beatle over half a million dollars.
• 1987 ~ This day saw the largest preorder of albums in the history of CBS Records. 2.25 million copies of Michael Jackson’s Bad album were shipped to record stores. The LP followed in the tracks of the Jackson album, Thriller, the biggest Jackson-seller of all time (35 million copies sold). The Bad album was successful but sold only 13 million copies.
• 2002 ~ Lionel Hampton, American Jazz vibraphone player and actor, died at the age of 94
• 2016 ~ Jacques Leduc, Belgian composer, died at the age of 84
• 1682 ~ Johann Heinrich Kittel, Composer, died at the age of 29
• 1702 ~ Johann Schneider, Composer
• 1775 ~ August Harder, Composer
• 1817 ~ Ignace Xavier Joseph Leybach, Composer
• 1832 ~ Johan August Soderman, Composer
• 1839 ~ Friedrich Gernsheim, Composer
• 1853 ~ Francesco Fanciulli, Composer
• 1871 ~ Karl Tausig, Polish pianist, died at the age of 29
• 1873 ~ Antonina Neshdanova, Russian soprano
• 1875 ~ Donald Francis Tovey, English, musicologist and composer
• 1876 ~ Vittorio Gnecchi, Composer
• 1878 ~ Henri Zagwijn, Composer
• 1885 ~ Benjamin James Dale, Composer
• 1904 ~ Jef Alpaerts, Flemish pianist and conductor
• 1908 ~ Rudolf Petzold, Composer
• 1913 ~ Everett Helm, Composer
• 1915 ~ Esther Williamson Ballou, Composer
• 1916 ~ Eleanor Steber, American soprano. She was an internationally acclaimed Metropolitan Opera diva, appeared in 50 different leading operatic roles, heard in more premieres at the Met than any other artist.
• 1928 ~ Vince Guaraldi, Pianist on the Charlie Brown TV specials
• 1933 ~ Mimi Hines, Pop singer in Ford & Hines (with husband, Phil Ford) and Broadway singer
• 1939 ~ Spencer Davis, Musician with Spencer Davis Group
• 1939 ~ Charlie Barnet and his orchestra recorded Cherokee for Bluebird Records. Listen carefully and you’ll hear the horn of Billy May on the piece.
• 1952 ~ Phoebe Snow, American singer of popular music
• 1952 ~ Nicolette Larson, Singer
• 1954 ~ The first Newport Jazz Festival was held on the grass tennis courts of the Newport Casino in Newport RI. Eddie Condon and his band played Muskrat Ramble as the opening number of the world’s first jazz fest.
• 1961 ~ Rocker Bobby Lewis was starting week #2 of a seven-week stay at number one (one, one, one) on the pop-music charts with his smash, Tossin’ and Turnin’. Lewis, who grew up in an orphanage, learned to play the piano at age 5. He became popular in the Detroit, MI area before moving on to fame and fortune with Beltone Records.
• 1967 ~ John (William) Coltrane passed away
• 1967 ~ Monkees performed at Forest Hills NY as Jimi Hendrix’s opening act
• 1968 ~ The Beatles’ feature-length cartoon, Yellow Submarine, premiered at the London Pavilion. The song, Yellow Submarine, had been a #2 hit for the supergroup (9/17/66) and was the inspiration for the movie.
• 1987 ~ “Les Miserables” opened at Imperial Theatre in Tokyo
• 2002 ~ Lee Maye, a singer who played in the Milwaukee Braves outfield with Hank Aaron in the 1960s, died. He was 67. Maye began his 13-year major league career in 1959 and played with the Braves from 1959 to 1965. He later played for the Houston Astros, Cleveland Indians, Washington Senators and Chicago White Sox before retiring in 1971. Maye had a lifetime average of .274 and was admired for his ability to juggle his baseball and music careers. He performed with two doo-wop groups – Arthur Lee Maye and the Crowns, and Country Boys & City Girls – and sometimes sang with The Platters. He produced several popular singles during his 1960s recording career, including Gloria, Cool Loving and I Wanna Love.
• 2014 ~ Elaine Stritch, American actress (30 Rock, Two’s Company), singer and member of the American Theater Hall of Fame, died in her sleep at the age of 89
• 2016 ~ Gary S. Paxton [Larry Wayne Stevens], American musician and songwriter (Monster Mash, Alley Oop), died at the age of 77
Humoresques Op. 101 (B. 187), is a piano cycle by the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, written during the summer of 1894. One writer says “the seventh Humoresque is probably the most famous small piano work ever written after Beethoven’s Für Elise.
Orchestra:
Ragtime:
Jazz with Wynton Marsalis on trumpet
Zez Confrey gave this a makeover and included Way Down Upon the Swanee River:
Find the original Humoresque on IMSLP. The O’Connor Music Studio Lending Library has versions of Humoresque available at several levels and Confey’s Humorestless played in the video above.
Today, we start with Spring from the Four Seasons by Vivaldi. Many OCMS students have played this already in one of their Piano Pronto books. It’s also available in Piano Maestro.
If you have it in your piano book, today would be a great day to review it. (HINT – there might be a quick review at your next lesson!)
Vivaldi was born in Venice, Italy, March 4, 1678 and spent most of his life there. His father taught him to play the violin, and the two would often perform together.
He taught at an orphanage for girls and wrote a lot of music for the girls to play. People came from miles around to hear Vivaldi’s talented students perform the beautiful music he had written.
Many people think Vivaldi was the best Italian composer of his time. He wrote concertos, operas, church music and many other compositions. In all, Antonio wrote over 500 concertos.
His most famous set of concertos is The Four Seasons which is a group of four violin concerti. Each of which gives a musical expression to a season of the year. They were written about 1721 and were published in 1725 in Amsterdam.
Here’s a piano version similar to the one in Movement 1 but in a different key.
And the original with Itzhak Perlman playing and conducting!
Want to play a version of this but aren’t using these books? Just ask!
• 1834 ~ Amilcare Ponchielli, Italian composer
More information about Ponchielli
• 1903 ~ Arthur (Morton) Godfrey, Ukulele playing, TV/radio entertainer
1918 ~ Alan Jay Lerner, American lyricist for the musical theater
Read quotes by and about Lerner
More information about Lerner
• 1930 ~ Dudley “Big Tiny” Little Jr, American pianist on the Lawrence Welk Show
• 1939 ~ Jerry Allison, Drummer with The Crickets
• 1939 ~ Frank Sinatra recorded All or Nothing at All with the Harry James Band. The tune failed to become a hit until four years later – after Ol’ Blue Eyes had joined the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra.
• 1945 ~ Itzhak Perlman, Israeli-born American violinist, recorded with André Previn and Scott Joplin
• 1945 ~ Van Morrison, Songwriter, singer with Them
• 1955 ~ Anthony Thistlethwaite, Saxophone with The Waterboys
• 1957 ~ Glenn Tilbrook, Guitar, singer, songwriter with Squeeze
• 1959 ~ Tony DeFranco, Singer with The DeFranco Family
• 1970 ~ Debbie Gibson, Singer
• 1976 ~ A judge ruled that George Harrison was guilty of copying from the songHe’sSo Fine (a 1963 Chiffons hit). The judge said that the chorus to Harrison’s My Sweet Lord was identical to He’s So Fine and it eventually (appeals went on for about five years) cost the former Beatle over half a million dollars.
• 1987 ~ This day saw the largest preorder of albums in the history of CBS Records. 2.25 million copies of Michael Jackson’s Bad album were shipped to record stores. The LP followed in the tracks of the Jackson album, Thriller, the biggest Jackson-seller of all time (35 million copies sold). The Bad album was successful but sold only 13 million copies.
• 2002 ~ Lionel Hampton, American Jazz vibraphone player and actor, died at the age of 94
• 2016 ~ Jacques Leduc, Belgian composer, died at the age of 84
• 1682 ~ Johann Heinrich Kittel, Composer, died at the age of 29
• 1702 ~ Johann Schneider, Composer
• 1775 ~ August Harder, Composer
• 1817 ~ Ignace Xavier Joseph Leybach, Composer
• 1832 ~ Johan August Soderman, Composer
• 1839 ~ Friedrich Gernsheim, Composer
• 1853 ~ Francesco Fanciulli, Composer
• 1871 ~ Karl Tausig, Polish pianist, died at the age of 29
• 1873 ~ Antonina Neshdanova, Russian soprano
• 1875 ~ Donald Francis Tovey, English, musicologist and composer
• 1876 ~ Vittorio Gnecchi, Composer
• 1878 ~ Henri Zagwijn, Composer
• 1885 ~ Benjamin James Dale, Composer
• 1904 ~ Jef Alpaerts, Flemish pianist and conductor
• 1908 ~ Rudolf Petzold, Composer
• 1913 ~ Everett Helm, Composer
• 1915 ~ Esther Williamson Ballou, Composer
• 1916 ~ Eleanor Steber, American soprano. She was an internationally acclaimed Metropolitan Opera diva, appeared in 50 different leading operatic roles, heard in more premieres at the Met than any other artist.
• 1928 ~ Vince Guaraldi, Pianist on the Charlie Brown TV specials
• 1933 ~ Mimi Hines, Pop singer in Ford & Hines (with husband, Phil Ford) and Broadway singer
• 1939 ~ Spencer Davis, Musician with Spencer Davis Group
• 1939 ~ Charlie Barnet and his orchestra recorded Cherokee for Bluebird Records. Listen carefully and you’ll hear the horn of Billy May on the piece.
• 1952 ~ Phoebe Snow, American singer of popular music
• 1952 ~ Nicolette Larson, Singer
• 1954 ~ The first Newport Jazz Festival was held on the grass tennis courts of the Newport Casino in Newport RI. Eddie Condon and his band played Muskrat Ramble as the opening number of the world’s first jazz fest.
• 1961 ~ Rocker Bobby Lewis was starting week #2 of a seven-week stay at number one (one, one, one) on the pop-music charts with his smash, Tossin’ and Turnin’. Lewis, who grew up in an orphanage, learned to play the piano at age 5. He became popular in the Detroit, MI area before moving on to fame and fortune with Beltone Records.
• 1967 ~ John (William) Coltrane passed away
• 1967 ~ Monkees performed at Forest Hills NY as Jimi Hendrix’s opening act
• 1968 ~ The Beatles’ feature-length cartoon, Yellow Submarine, premiered at the London Pavilion. The song, Yellow Submarine, had been a #2 hit for the supergroup (9/17/66) and was the inspiration for the movie.
• 1987 ~ “Les Miserables” opened at Imperial Theatre in Tokyo
• 2002 ~ Lee Maye, a singer who played in the Milwaukee Braves outfield with Hank Aaron in the 1960s, died. He was 67. Maye began his 13-year major league career in 1959 and played with the Braves from 1959 to 1965. He later played for the Houston Astros, Cleveland Indians, Washington Senators and Chicago White Sox before retiring in 1971. Maye had a lifetime average of .274 and was admired for his ability to juggle his baseball and music careers. He performed with two doo-wop groups – Arthur Lee Maye and the Crowns, and Country Boys & City Girls – and sometimes sang with The Platters. He produced several popular singles during his 1960s recording career, including Gloria, Cool Loving and I Wanna Love.
• 2014 ~ Elaine Stritch, American actress (30 Rock, Two’s Company), singer and member of the American Theater Hall of Fame, died in her sleep at the age of 89
• 2016 ~ Gary S. Paxton [Larry Wayne Stevens], American musician and songwriter (Monster Mash, Alley Oop), died at the age of 77
Today, we start with Spring from the Four Seasons by Vivaldi. Many OCMS students have played this already in one of their Piano Pronto books. It’s also available in Piano Maestro.
If you have it in your piano book, today would be a great day to review it. (HINT – there might be a quick review at your next lesson!)
Vivaldi was born in Venice, Italy, March 4, 1678 and spent most of his life there. His father taught him to play the violin, and the two would often perform together.
He taught at an orphanage for girls and wrote a lot of music for the girls to play. People came from miles around to hear Vivaldi’s talented students perform the beautiful music he had written.
Many people think Vivaldi was the best Italian composer of his time. He wrote concertos, operas, church music and many other compositions. In all, Antonio wrote over 500 concertos.
His most famous set of concertos is The Four Seasons which is a group of four violin concerti. Each of which gives a musical expression to a season of the year. They were written about 1721 and were published in 1725 in Amsterdam.
Here’s a piano version similar to the one in Movement 1 but in a different key.
And the original with Itzhak Perlman playing and conducting!
Want to play a version of this but aren’t using these books? Just ask!
• 1834 ~ Amilcare Ponchielli, Italian composer
More information about Ponchielli
• 1903 ~ Arthur (Morton) Godfrey, Ukulele playing, TV/radio entertainer
1918 ~ Alan Jay Lerner, American lyricist for the musical theater
Read quotes by and about Lerner
More information about Lerner
• 1930 ~ Dudley “Big Tiny” Little Jr, American pianist on the Lawrence Welk Show
• 1939 ~ Jerry Allison, Drummer with The Crickets
• 1939 ~ Frank Sinatra recorded All or Nothing at All with the Harry James Band. The tune failed to become a hit until four years later – after Ol’ Blue Eyes had joined the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra.
• 1945 ~ Itzhak Perlman, Israeli-born American violinist, recorded with André Previn and Scott Joplin
• 1945 ~ Van Morrison, Songwriter, singer with Them
• 1955 ~ Anthony Thistlethwaite, Saxophone with The Waterboys
• 1957 ~ Glenn Tilbrook, Guitar, singer, songwriter with Squeeze
• 1959 ~ Tony DeFranco, Singer with The DeFranco Family
• 1970 ~ Debbie Gibson, Singer
• 1976 ~ A judge ruled that George Harrison was guilty of copying from the songHe’sSo Fine (a 1963 Chiffons hit). The judge said that the chorus to Harrison’s My Sweet Lord was identical to He’s So Fine and it eventually (appeals went on for about five years) cost the former Beatle over half a million dollars.
• 1987 ~ This day saw the largest preorder of albums in the history of CBS Records. 2.25 million copies of Michael Jackson’s Bad album were shipped to record stores. The LP followed in the tracks of the Jackson album, Thriller, the biggest Jackson-seller of all time (35 million copies sold). The Bad album was successful but sold only 13 million copies.
• 2002 ~ Lionel Hampton, American Jazz vibraphone player and actor, died at the age of 94
• 2016 ~ Jacques Leduc, Belgian composer, died at the age of 84
• 1682 ~ Johann Heinrich Kittel, Composer, died at the age of 29
• 1702 ~ Johann Schneider, Composer
• 1775 ~ August Harder, Composer
• 1817 ~ Ignace Xavier Joseph Leybach, Composer
• 1832 ~ Johan August Soderman, Composer
• 1839 ~ Friedrich Gernsheim, Composer
• 1853 ~ Francesco Fanciulli, Composer
• 1871 ~ Karl Tausig, Polish pianist, died at the age of 29
• 1873 ~ Antonina Neshdanova, Russian soprano
• 1875 ~ Donald Francis Tovey, English, musicologist and composer
• 1876 ~ Vittorio Gnecchi, Composer
• 1878 ~ Henri Zagwijn, Composer
• 1885 ~ Benjamin James Dale, Composer
• 1904 ~ Jef Alpaerts, Flemish pianist and conductor
• 1908 ~ Rudolf Petzold, Composer
• 1913 ~ Everett Helm, Composer
• 1915 ~ Esther Williamson Ballou, Composer
• 1916 ~ Eleanor Steber, American soprano. She was an internationally acclaimed Metropolitan Opera diva, appeared in 50 different leading operatic roles, heard in more premieres at the Met than any other artist.
• 1928 ~ Vince Guaraldi, Pianist on the Charlie Brown TV specials
• 1933 ~ Mimi Hines, Pop singer in Ford & Hines (with husband, Phil Ford) and Broadway singer
• 1939 ~ Spencer Davis, Musician with Spencer Davis Group
• 1939 ~ Charlie Barnet and his orchestra recorded Cherokee for Bluebird Records. Listen carefully and you’ll hear the horn of Billy May on the piece.
• 1952 ~ Phoebe Snow, American singer of popular music
• 1952 ~ Nicolette Larson, Singer
• 1954 ~ The first Newport Jazz Festival was held on the grass tennis courts of the Newport Casino in Newport RI. Eddie Condon and his band played Muskrat Ramble as the opening number of the world’s first jazz fest.
• 1961 ~ Rocker Bobby Lewis was starting week #2 of a seven-week stay at number one (one, one, one) on the pop-music charts with his smash, Tossin’ and Turnin’. Lewis, who grew up in an orphanage, learned to play the piano at age 5. He became popular in the Detroit, MI area before moving on to fame and fortune with Beltone Records.
• 1967 ~ John (William) Coltrane passed away
• 1967 ~ Monkees performed at Forest Hills NY as Jimi Hendrix’s opening act
• 1968 ~ The Beatles’ feature-length cartoon, Yellow Submarine, premiered at the London Pavilion. The song, Yellow Submarine, had been a #2 hit for the supergroup (9/17/66) and was the inspiration for the movie.
• 1987 ~ “Les Miserables” opened at Imperial Theatre in Tokyo
• 2002 ~ Lee Maye, a singer who played in the Milwaukee Braves outfield with Hank Aaron in the 1960s, died. He was 67. Maye began his 13-year major league career in 1959 and played with the Braves from 1959 to 1965. He later played for the Houston Astros, Cleveland Indians, Washington Senators and Chicago White Sox before retiring in 1971. Maye had a lifetime average of .274 and was admired for his ability to juggle his baseball and music careers. He performed with two doo-wop groups – Arthur Lee Maye and the Crowns, and Country Boys & City Girls – and sometimes sang with The Platters. He produced several popular singles during his 1960s recording career, including Gloria, Cool Loving and I Wanna Love.
• 2014 ~ Elaine Stritch, American actress (30 Rock, Two’s Company), singer and member of the American Theater Hall of Fame, died in her sleep at the age of 89
• 2016 ~ Gary S. Paxton [Larry Wayne Stevens], American musician and songwriter (Monster Mash, Alley Oop), died at the age of 77
Humoresques Op. 101 (B. 187), is a piano cycle by the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, written during the summer of 1894. One writer says “the seventh Humoresque is probably the most famous small piano work ever written after Beethoven’s Für Elise.
Yo Yo Ma (cello) and Itzhak Perlman (violin)
Orchestra:
Ragtime:
Jazz with Wynton Marsalis on trumpet
Zez Confrey gave this a makeover and included Way Down Upon the Swanee River:
Find the original Humoresque on IMSLP. The O’Connor Music Studio Lending Library has versions of Humoresque available at several levels and Confey’s Humorestless played in the video above.
1918 ~ Alan Jay Lerner, American lyricist for the musical theater
Be sure your student reads and listens to 
Grammy winner
MaryO'Studio 