March Musicians Birthdays with Stamps

It’s time to celebrate March 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.

The Birthdays

March 1
Glenn Miller (1904-1944), American jazz trombonist, composer, and bandleader. Born in Clarinda, Iowa, he first learned cornet and mandolin. His family moved to Fort Morgan, Colorado, before he entered high school and he began at the University of Colorado in Boulder, before dropping out to pursue a music career. His first big break was landing a spot in Ben Pollack’s band in 1926. He went on to play in the Dorsey Brothers band, before starting his own in 1937. His compositions including “In The Mood,” Chattanooga Choo Choo,”and “At Last,” were among the biggest of the Swing era. His band was the number one selling group of recordings between 1939 and 1942. He entered the military during World War II and died in a plane crash in 1944.

March 2
Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884), Czech composer. He was a leader in the creation of a Czech national style, and is known for his large scale works including his opera The Bartered Bride and his symphonic cycle, My Fatherland. He was an influence on many other composers, particularly Czech composers like Anton Dvorak, but also other composers who developed their own national styles.

Kurt Weill (1900-1950), German composer. His work was primarily for the stage. Weill is most famous for his partnership with Bertolt Brech and their work The Threepenny Opera, which included their ballad “Mack the Knife.” Weill fled Nazi Germany in 1933 and went first to Paris, then to New York in 1935. He spent the rest of his life in the United States, becoming a citizen in 1943.

March 4
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), classical violinist and composer. Vivaldi was born and spent most of his life in Venice. At the age of sixteen he entered the priesthood and was ordained in 1703. He was given a dispensation from saying the mass and spent most his life composing music. He wrote a large number of operas, perhaps as many as one hundred, though only around fifty survive today. This ensured his fame throughout Europe and his music influenced most other composers of the baroque era. Today, he is better known for his instrumental music, including concertos for violin, mandolin, and others. His most famous work are his violin concertos known as the Four Seasons.

March 5
Gangubai Hangal (1913-2009), Indian singer of Hindustani music. Hangal was born in Dharwad, and her mother was a vocalist in the Carnatic tradition. Her only education was in elementary school. However, she began a formal musical training at the age of 13. She struggled against prejudice over her mother’s low social status and a belief that women should not sing professionally. She became succesful in the 1940s, touring throughout India and performing on All India Radio. At first, her focus was on light classical music, but later she only sang ragas. Her last concert was in 2006 to mark her 75th year as a professional musician.

Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959), Brazilian conductor and composer. Villa-Lobos was born in Rio de Janeiro and had very little formal musical training, instead teaching himself to play cello, clarinet, and classical guitar. After his father died in 1899, Villa-Lobos supported his family by playing in cinemas and in theater orchestras. For a decade, he entered the “deep interior” of Brazil, supposedly studying native Brazilian musical culture. He also spent a great deal of time playihng in street bands and learning Brazilian folk music. He began composing classical music drawing on themes and rhythms from these other traditions. Villa-Lobos eventually would compose more than two thousand works and he became the best known South American composer of all time.

March 6
Bob Wills (1905-1975), American western swing songwriter and bandleader. He is considered by many to have been one of the founders, along with Spade Cooley, of the popular genre known as “Western Swing.” Wills formed several bands that played primarily in Texas, then throughout the American southwest. He was known for his jazz-like arrangements and for his hot fiddle playing. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1968 and died at the age of 70 in 1975.

March 7
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), French pianist, conductor, and composer. Born into a musical family, Ravel attended the Paris Conservatoire. After this musical training, he began composing works that drew on elements of modernism, baroque, neoclassicism, and other styles. He was experimental with musical form. Ravel’s music was described as “impressionist” along with the music of fellow Frenchman Claude Debussy. Both composers rejected the term. Ravel’s most famous piece was his Bolero.

Alejandro Caturla (1906-1940), Cuban classical composer. Caturla was born in the town of Remedios where he studied the violin. When he was sixteen he won a position in the second violin section of the newly formed symphonic orchestra of Havana. As a teenager he began writing music and incorporated elements of Cuban folk music, particularly Afro-Cuban rhythms and instruments. He moved to Paris in 1925 to study with the French teacher Nadia Boulanger. He was also a lawyer and a judge and was murdered by a gambler who he was about to pass judgment upon.

March 9
Samuel Barber (1910-1981), American pianist, conductor, and composer. Barber was born into a wealthy and distinguished family in West Chester, Pennsylvania. His mother was a pianist and his aunt a leading contralto at The Metropolitan Opera. At an early age, Barber began his musical training, studying piano. He wrote his first music at the age of seven. At 14, he entered the Curtis Music institute in Philadelphia where he studied off and on for nine years. HIs music was embraced by American critics and he rose to become one of the greatest American composers. His most famous piece is probably his Adagio for Strings written in 1936.

March 10
Arthur Honegger (1892-1955), Swiss composer. He was a member of the group of composers who worked in Paris that were known as Les Six. Learn more here.

March 13
Hugo Wolf (1860-1903), Austrian composer. Wolf was famous for his lieder, or German art songs. Learn more here.

Mohammed Abdel Wahab (1901-1991), Egyptian singer and composer. He was born and spent most of his life in Cairo. Wahab is best known for his Egyptian national songs and is thought to have composed more than 1800 songs. He also played many instruments including mandolin and oud.

March 14
Johann Strauss Sr. (1804-1849), Austrian composer. He was famous for light symphonic music, especially dance forms like waltzes, polkas, and galops. His sons, especially his namesake Johann Strauss Jr., followed in this tradition. These light orchestral pieces are still extremely popular in Vienna and throughout the world today. His most famous piece is probably the Radetzky March.

March 17
Sayed Darwish (1892-1923), Egyptian popular music composer. He is largely considered to be the father of Egyptian popular music and the greatest Egyptian composer. His family could not afford to send him for a formal education, so instead he entered a religious school and mastered the recitation of the Quaran. He went on to study at al-Azhar, one of the most respected religious university in the world. Darwish left after two years to pursue a music career. After starting in cafes, he moved to Cairo to work in theater and opera. His music is a blend of Egyptian themes and melodies with western instruments and forms.

Nat King Cole (1919-1965), American pop and jazz pianist and singer. Cole was born in Montgomery, Alabama and learned to play the piano and organ from his mother. The family later moved to Chicago where he was able to receive musical training at Wendell Phillips Academy High School, and after school sneak into jazz clubs. At 15, he dropped out of high school to pursue a musical career. He moved to Los Angeles where he found work playing piano in nightclubs and formed his own band. Cole recorded “Sweet Lorraine” in 1940, which became his first hit. He went on to record more than 100 songs, many of which became hits on the pop charts. Cole’s popularity led him to host a television show, becoming the first Black man to host a show in America.

March 18
Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908), Russian composer.

March 19
D. K. Pattammal (1919-2009), Indian Carnatic singer.

March 20
Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1915-1973), American singer, guitarist, and songwriter

March 21
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), German composer

March 24
Muthuswami Dikshitar (1775-1835), South Indian singer, veena player, and composer. He is one of the musical trinity of Carnatic music. Around 500 of his musical compositions are known to survive. They are noted for their elaborate and poetic descriptions of Hindu deities. His music is widely performed in classical concerts of Carnatic music today.

Georg Philip Telemann (1681-1767), German composer. He was mostly a self taught musician and became a composer against his family’s wishes. He held important positions as organist and musical director in Leipzig, Sorau, Eisenach, adn Frankfurt. In 1721, he became the musical director of Hamburg’s five main churches. A prolific composer, he had a large influence on both Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frederick Handel. Bach even made him the godfather to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.

March 25
Bela Bartok (1881-1945), Hungarian pianist, ethnomusicologist, and composer. Along with Franz Liszt, he is treasured as one of Hungary’s greatest composers. His study of folk music led him to write music that incorporated Hungarian elements into his classical forms. Bartok was also one of the founders of comparative musicology, which was later renamed ethnomusicology. He wrote large form works including an opera and several ballets, and several orchestral works. Bartok is also well known for his chamber music including several string quartets and a piece for Strings, Percussion and Celesta.

Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957), Italian conductor. He was one of the most famous musicians of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Born in Parma, Italy, he won a scholarship to a local music conservatory where he studied cello. He first stepped in as a substitute conductor while he was on tour with an orchestra in South America. His charisma and intensity created an immediate fan base. He went on to become the conductor of several famous ensembles including the music director of La Scala in Milan, the New York Philharmonic, and later, the conductor of the NBC Symphony Orchestra.

Elton John (b. 1947), British rock musician. One of rock music’s greatest performers, he is perhaps the most accomplished pianist in the genre’s history. He has sold more than 300 million records and is famous for songs such as “Goodbye Yello Brick Road,” “I’m Still Standing,” and “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues.” He also composed the music for The Lion King, and Billy Elliot the Musical.

March 27
Ferde Grofe (1892-1972), American pianist, arranger, and composer. Grofe was born in New York City to a musical family of German immigrants. His mother taught him to play the violin and piano. After his father died in 1899, his mother took him to Leipzig to study piano, viola, and composition. He became proficient on a wide range of instruments including piano, violin, viola, baritone horn, alto horn, and cornet. This led to his work as a musical arranger, including for Paul Whiteman. Grofe orchestrated George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue for Whiteman’s orchestra.

March 30
Ali Riahi (1912-1970), Tunisian singer and composer. Riahi was from a distinguished Tunisian family, the grandson of Sidi Brahim Riahi, an important theologian, scholar, and ambassador. Ali Riahi pursued a musical path. In 1938, he was invited to join the roster of performers on Tunisian radio, which was just beginning. In 1950, the BBC created an entire show about the singer. He became one of the best known musicians in his country.

March 31
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), Austrian composer