Celebrating July Musicians Birthdays with Stamps

It is time to celebrate July Musicians Birthdays with stamps. A lot of musicians and composers appear on stamps. You can read about many of them on this blog, from classical composers to American pop stars. Yet, in order to highlight a few more of these stamps and the musicians on them, I am sharing a monthly calendar of musicians birthdays. It will not even be close to complete. Yet, each moth I will select a few stamps from my collection and share them with links to relevant articles elsewhere on my blog. If you are looking for more musician birthdays you can check out this site.

July Birthdays

July 2
Christopher Willibald Gluck (1714-1787) was a German opera composer. He gained prominence in Vienna, where he revolutionized opera, reforming both the use of music and drama. He was a leading proponent of the use of recitatives for advancing the narrative and cutting down overly long da capo arias. In 1773, he moved to Paris where he combined elements of Italian opera with French traditions. Among his best known works include the operas La clemenza di Tito, Alceste and Iphigénie en Tauride.

July 3
Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) was a Czech theorist, critic, composer. He was born in Hukvaldy, Moravia, in the Austrian empire. He showed signs of musical talent at an early age as a singer, pianist, and organist. Janáček began composing at the age of twenty and like Dvorak, who became his friend, incorporated elements of traditional Czech folk music into his work. His last works are his most famous including The Cunning Little Vixen, the Glagolitic Mass, and the rhapsody Taras Bulba.

M. L. Vasanthakumari (1928-1990) was an Indian singer. Was a Carnatic musician who sang many film songs in India. She was a contemporary of D. K. Pattammal and M. S. Subbulakshmi and the three are commonly called the female trinity of Carnatic music. In addition to singing for films, Vasanthakumari was a popular singer for live performance, particularly performing unfamiliar ragas.

July 4
Flor Peeters (1903-1986) was a Belgian organist and composer. Born in the village of Tielen on the Belgian side of the border with The Netherlands, Peeters began playing organ at the age of sixteen. In 1923, he became the chief organist at the St. Rumbold’s cathedral in Mechelen, where he would work most of his life. He was famous for his concerts and recordings on important organs. He wrote more than one hundred pieces, most for the organ.

Stephen Foster (1826-1864) was an American songwriter

July 6
Bill Haley (1925-1981) was an American rock and roll musician.

July 7
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Jewish composer and conductor. Mahler was one of the great Romantic composer and bridged the gap between the romantics and modernism. He was the greatest conductor of his generation, including stints at both New York’s Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic. His ten symphonies are part of the modern symphonic canon.

July 10
Henryk Wieniawski (1835-1880) was a Polish violinist and composer. Henryk was born in Lublin in eastern Poland. His father was Jewish, but converted to Catholicism. Wieniawski began playing violin as a young child and was accepted into the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 8. After graduating in 1846, he toured Europe and was known for his virtuosity. He published his first compositions in 1847. Despite his great fame early in his life, he was plagued by health issues and died at the age of 44.

July 11
Antônio Carlos Gomes (1836-1896) was a Brazilian composer. His was the first work by a composer in the western hemisphere that was accepted by Europeans. He was even a succesful opera composer that was presented in Italy during the golden age of opera alongside Verdi and Puccini. After his travels in Brazil, he wrote an anti-slavery opera entitled Lo schiavo, which debuted in 1889.

July 14
Woody Guthrie (1912-1967) was an American folk singer and songwriter.

July 15
Dorothy Fields (1904-1974) was an American lyricist. She was born in New Jersey and grew up in New York City. Her father had a popular vaudeville act and later became a producer of Broadway shows. This led Fields to begin her career appearing on stage before she turned her attention to writing librettos and lyrics. She wrote the lyrics for more than 400 songs for Broadway musicians including “The Way You Look Tonight,” “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” “I’m in the Mood for Love,” “Big Spender,” and many others. Her early fame as a lyricist led her to work with leading figures in American music including Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, and Cy Coleman.

July 16
Eugene Ysaÿe (1858-1931) was a Belgian violinist. He began playing violin at the age of five with his father as his teacher. In 1867, Ysaÿe entered into the Royal Conservatory of Liège. Later, he studied with Wieniawski in Brussels and Vieuxtemps in Paris. As the principal violinist in the ensemble that would become the Berlin Philharmonic, many musicians came to hear him play including Joseph Joachim, Franz Liszt, and Clara Schumann. At the age of twenty-seven, he began a solo tour. He led a highly successful performing career as well as composer for the instrument.

July 19

Brian May (b. 1947) is an English musician, songwriter, and guitarist who is the lead guitarist for the rock band Queen.

July 21
Sara Carter (1898-1979) was an American country music singer and member of the Carter Family.

July 22
Francesco Cilea (1866-195) was an Italian opera composer. He was born in Palmi near Reggio di Calabria. He studied music at the Conservatory in Naples, quickly drawing attention for his talent at composition. Cilea is best known for his operas L’arlesiana and Adriana Lecouvreur. His last opera Gloria had its premiere at La Scala in Milan on April 15, 1907 with Arturo Toscanini conducting.

July 26
Mick Jagger (b. 1943) is an English singer and songwriter and the lead singer for the rock band The Rolling Stones.

July 30
François-Auguste Gevaert (1828-1908) was a Belgian musicologist. Although his father was a baker, Gevaert was allowed to study music and he entered the Ghent conservatory in 1841. He became an organist in a Jesuit church, while his compositions won him the Belgian Prix de Rome. After spending time in Rome, he returned to Brussels where he was appointed to run the Conservatory. In this role, he became an important teacher, historian, and lecturer. His publications include a treatise on instrumentation and another on harmony.