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(b Puerto Príncipe, Cuba, ?Nov 28, 1844; d Havana, ?Dec 31, 1918). Pianist, music teacher, arranger, conductor, composer, and lawyer of Cuban birth, naturalized American. Born into a prominent family in Puerto Príncipe, Cuba (present-day Camagüey), Agramonte strongly supported the movement for independence from Spain. He studied music and the law in Cuba, Spain, and France. After vocal studies with Enrico Delle Sedie (1822–1907) and François Delsarte (1811–71) at the Paris Conservatory, he immigrated to the United States, settling in New York in 1869, where he remained until after Cuban independence in 1898. He became a US citizen in 1886.

In the 1870s and 1880s, Agramonte taught music at the Academy of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx. In the 1890s he taught with Dudley Buck and William Mason at the Metropolitan College of Music and ran his own School of Opera and Oratorio at his home, teaching singers such as ...

Member of Aubert family

(b Paris, Dec 15, 1732; d c1810). French writer, dramatist and abbé, son of Jacques Aubert. He may have composed some of the music to his own plays (Jephté ou le voeu, 1765; and La mort d’Abel, 1765), but he is remembered more for his essays on music, the most famous being his reply to J.-J. Rousseau’s controversial ...

Member of Bach family

(46) (b Weimar, March 8, 1714; d Hamburg, Dec 14, 1788). Composer and church musician, the second surviving son of (7) Johann Sebastian Bach (24) and his first wife, Maria Barbara. He was the most important composer in Protestant Germany during the second half of the 18th century, and enjoyed unqualified admiration and recognition particularly as a teacher and keyboard composer.

He was baptized on 10 March 1714, with Telemann as one of his godfathers. In 1717 he moved with the family to Cöthen, where his father had been appointed Kapellmeister. His mother died in 1720, and in spring 1723 the family moved to Leipzig, where Emanuel began attending the Thomasschule as a day-boy on 14 June 1723. J.S. Bach said later that one of his reasons for accepting the post of Kantor at the Thomasschule was that his sons’ intellectual development suggested that they would benefit from a university education. Emanuel Bach received his musical training from his father, who gave him keyboard and organ lessons. There may once have been some kind of ...

[‘il Moretto’]

(b Verona, c1577; d Verona, Feb 15, 1637). Italian maestro and composer. He was of modest origins (his stepfather was a cobbler); his nickname (‘the little Moor’) in the Verona documents renders some African or Levant heritage plausible at the very least. Educated in the Verona scuola degli accoliti (which implied taking minor orders), he became a singer at the cathedral under Baccusi in 1603 and also worked for the Accademia Filarmonica from 1602, despite his class status. In 1609, he arranged for a long sabbatical to go to Rome, where he was maestro at S Maria dei Monti (almost a job switch with G.F. Anerio, who went thence to Verona); more importantly, he saw his first works into fairly cheap print, a medium that would underlie his future career. Back in Verona in 1611, he was the cathedral’s second but final choice to be the new ...

[Cornelia]

(b Bergamo, 1644; d Milan, after 1675). Italian composer. She was well known as a singer in her native city; on April 19, 1661 she took final vows at the Benedictine house of S Margarita in Milan. Maria Cattarina was her religious name. Marino Armellini’s account (Biblioteca benediction-casinensis, 1731) of her early death is inaccurate, since she is listed at this monastery into the 1670s. Calvi mentioned that her Motetti à voce sola was printed in 1659; no trace of this collection survives, nor of the madrigals, six-voice Masses, and Vespers that he reported she had composed. The disappearance of her music may have resulted from her conflicts with S Margarita over her spiritual dowry, as well as from Archbishop Alfonso Litta’s musical restrictions at the monastery in the 1660s.

(b Gloucester, Dec 13, 1770; d Holmer, nr Hereford, Feb 22, 1836). English organist and composer. He was the son of John Clarke of Malmesbury, Wiltshire (d. 1802) and Amphillis Whitfeld (d. 1813). He studied music at Oxford (against his family's wishes) under Philip Hayes. He was organist at Ludlow parish church, 1789, then at Armagh Cathedral, 1794, where his ‘irresponsibility and extravagance’ got him into bad odour with the authorities. Next he was Master of the Choristers at St Patrick's and Christ Church cathedrals, Dublin, 1798; organist of Trinity and St John's colleges, Cambridge, 1799; and organist of Hereford Cathedral, 1820. He was pensioned off by the Hereford chapter in 1833, having become incapacitated by paralysis. He took the BMus degree at Oxford (1793), honorary MusD at Dublin (1795) and MusD at Cambridge (1799, incorporated at Oxford, 1810). In ...

(b Washington, DC, Nov 21, 1947). American hymn writer and seminary professor. She grew up studying piano, then focused on religious studies as an undergraduate at Southwestern at Memphis University, later called Rhodes College (BA 1969). She earned advanced degrees from Chicago Theological Seminary (MDiv 1973, DD 1983), the University of Notre Dame (MA 1987), and Boston University (DD 1989). She was ordained by the United Church of Christ in 1974 and served at various churches until accepting the position of professor of worship at the Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in 1989. Having written songs as a child, she became interested in writing hymn texts in the mid-1970s. She has written nearly 200 poem-texts, including “Arise, your Light Has Come,” “O Loving Maker of the Earth,” and “When we are Tested,” most of which have appeared in various hymnals and edited collections. Some of her texts have been designed for special occasions, such as “Send us your Spirit” for the ...

(b Peoria, IL, July 14, 1939). American jesuit priest, educator, and composer. Best known for the post–Vatican II Catholic liturgical congregational music he composed as one of the “St. Louis Jesuits” in the 1960s and 70s, Foley is nevertheless primarily an educator in the field of liturgy. He earned a PhD in Theology (specialty in Liturgy and Aesthetics) from Graduate Theological Union (1993); studied music at the University of Wichita and St. Louis University; and pursued further composition studies with Samuel Dolin, Reginald Smith Brindle, Paul Fetler, and Dominick Argento.

In addition to founding and serving as the director of the St. Louis University Center for Liturgy, Foley has taught liturgy among other courses at the university. His diverse publications include a book, Creativity and the Roots of Liturgy (Pastoral Press, 1994). His dedication to writing prayerful, scripture-based, and accessible vernacular liturgical music for assemblies led naturally to his founding of the National Liturgical Composers Forum....

(b Kitzingen, Bavaria, Germany, Feb 23, 1905; d Brookline, MA, March 10, 1995). Composer, organist, conductor, and writer on music, of German birth. After attending the State Academy of Music in Munich, Germany (1925–9), he worked as a conductor in both Bielefeld and Würzburg in the early 1930s. Because his Jewish background prevented him from holding a state position under the Nazis, he became enmeshed in Jewish musical life in Frankfurt, where he was a member of the Jüdischer Kulturbund and a musician for the West End Synagogue. He immigrated to the United States in 1937 and took up a position as organist for Temple Beth Zion in Buffalo, New York, until 1941. Between 1940 and 1941 he studied with paul Hindemith , and was influenced to adopt modernist techniques in setting Jewish subjects and texts. He moved to Boston, where he worked at Temple Israel from ...

[William J. ]

(b Alexandria, IN, March 28, 1936). American gospel songwriter, performer, producer, and publisher. He grew up on a small farm in Indiana and graduated from Anderson College with a major in English and a minor in music. He went on to receive a master’s degree in guidance and counseling and met his future wife and song-producing partner, Gloria Sickal, while both were teaching high school. Gaither started singing gospel music as a child and in 1956 formed the Bill Gaither Trio with his brother Danny and his sister Mary Ann. He started his own publishing company in 1959. He continued to perform and compose while a teacher at Alexandria High School and in 1961 formed the Gaither Music Company to publish his works. After their marriage in 1962, Gaither and his wife wrote their first major song, “He touched me,” which was a significant hit by 1963. He re-formed the Bill Gaither Trio with Gloria and Danny, and in ...