Mary Lynn Lightfoot

Mary Lynn Lightfoot is the Choral Editor for Heritage Music Press, the educational music division of The Lorenz Corporation in Dayton, Ohio.

In addition to her editorial responsibilities, Mary Lynn has effectively established herself with an active composing career and currently has over 230 published choral compositions, arrangements, and musicals.

She has received an annual ASCAP Award for her compositions from the ASCAP Standard Awards Panel since 1988, and was selected an Outstanding Young Woman of America in 1984. Mary Lynn has received two prestigious awards from the Missouri Choral Directors Association (MCDA): in 1994, she was the recipient of the Luther T. Spayde Award for Missouri Choral Conductor of the Year, and in 2005, the recipient of the Opus Award for her SSA composition, The Rhodora. In conjunction with her writing, Mary Lynn is in frequent demand as a guest conductor/clinician for both schools and churches, having had the privilege of working with thousands of singers, students, teachers, and directors through workshops, clinics, and conventions in 36 states and throughout Canada.

Mosie Lister

In 1939, Mosie Lister studied music at the Vaughan School Of Music in Tennessee. He began his musical career as a singer, performing as an original member of the Sunny South Quartet before World War II. After a four year stint with the Navy, he worked a few months again with the Sunny South Quartet before leaving to form the Melody Masters with Jim Wetherington, Alvin Tootle, Lee Kitchens, and Wally Varner in 1946. Lister remained in Atlanta when the Melody Masters moved to Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1948, Lister was tapped by Hovie Lister to be the original baritone for the Statesmen. (Despite their common last name, similar first names and involvement with the Statesmen, Mosie is no relation to Hovie).

Franz Liszt

Liszt was born in the village of Doborjan, near Sopron, Hungary, in what was then the Austrian Empire (Doborjan is now Raiding in Austria after the Treaty of Trianon of 1920). His baptism record is in Latin and lists his first name as Franciscus. The Hungarian variant Ferenc is often used, though Liszt never used this himself. His father, Adam Liszt, was Hungarian and his mother was Austrian-born Anna Liszt, nee Lagen.

Liszt displayed incredible talent at a young age, easily sight-reading multiple staves at once. His father, who worked at the court of Count Esterhazy, gave him his first music lessons when he was six years old. Local aristocrats noticed his talent and enabled him to travel to Vienna and later to Paris with his family. As a result, Liszt never fully learned Hungarian; his later letters and diaries show that he came to regret this deeply. One letter to his mother begins in faltering Hungarian, and after an apology continues in French (his preferred language).

Frank Loesser

Frank Loesser has been called the most versatile of all Broadway composers. His five Broadway musicals, each a unique contribution to the art of the American musical theater, were as different from each other as they were from the theater of their day: Where's Charley?, Guys And Dolls, The Most Happy Fella, Greenwillow and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. Long before he wrote Where's Charley?, he was already known to America from the dozens of songs that had become enormous popular hits from his Hollywood career. He had supplied lyrics to the music of such greats as Jule Styne, Hoagy Carmichael, Burton Lane and Arthur Schwartz, among others, penning such standards as "On a Slow Boat to China," "Two Sleepy People," "Heart and Soul," "I Don't Want to Walk Without You," "Spring Will Be a Little Late this Year," "(See What) The Boys in the Backroom (Will Have)," "They're Either Too Young or Too Old" and his 1948 Academy Award winner, "Baby, It's Cold Outside."

Frederick Loewe

Frederick Loewe was born on June 10, 1901 in Berlin to Viennese parents, Edmond and Rosa. His father, Edmond Loewe, was a very famous musical star who traveled considerably, including North and South America, and much of Europe. Fritz grew up in Berlin and attended a Prussian cadet school from the age of five until he was thirteen. He hated the school because his parents would leave him there while they toured worldwide. One of Fritz's most bitter memories was spending even the Christmas holidays at school with two or three other boys. He never cared for Christmas very much because of that experience.

By the age of seven or eight, Fritz learned by ear and played on piano, every new song his father rehearsed for a new musical in which he was appearing. He was able to play the entire score and help his father in rehearsals. This impressed his father greatly, and Edmond suggested giving Fritz music lessons. His mother, however, was never moved by Fritz's talent, saying; "Oh, they all do that!"

Fritz eventually did attend a famous conservatory in Berlin, one year behind the virtuoso Claudio Arrau. Both won the coveted Hollander Medal, awarded by the school, and Fritz gave performances as a concert pianist while still in Germany.

Kenny Loggins

Kenneth Clark Loggins is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. His early songwriting compositions were recorded with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in 1970 which led to seven albums, performing as the group Loggins and Messina from 1972 to 1977. As a solo artist, Loggins experienced a string of soundtrack successes, including an Academy Award nomination for "Footloose" in 1984. His early soundtrack contributions date back to the film A Star Is Born in 1976, and for much of the 1980s and 1990s, he was known as "The Soundtrack King". Finally Home was released in 2013, shortly after Loggins formed the group Blue Sky Riders with Gary Burr and Georgia Middlema

Zhou Long

Born into an artistic family, Zhou Long began studying piano from an early age. Due to the artistic restrictions implemented during the Cultural Revolution, he was forced to delay his piano studies and live on a rural state-run farm where he operated a tractor in the fields. The deserted landscapes with horrible winds and fires experienced during the Cultural Revolution made a deep impression and influence his compositions even today. Nearing the end of the Cultural Revolution, he was able to resume his musical studies in the areas of composition, music theory, conducting and also traditional Chinese music. Only one year after the end of the Cultural Revolution, Zhou Long was one of one hundred students chosen from eighteen thousand applicants to study at the newly reopened Beijing Central Conservatory in 1977.

Robert Lopez

Robert Lopez is an American songwriter of musicals, best known for co-creating The Book of Mormon and Avenue Q, and for composing the songs featured in the Disney animated film Frozen. He is the youngest of only twelve people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award, and the quickest (10 years) to win all four. Robert Lopez was born in Manhattan to Frank and Katherine Lopez. He is partly of Filipino descent through his father, Frank; his paternal grandfather was Filipino and his paternal grandmother was Filipino and Scottish-American. His father eventually became director of publications for NYU Langone Medical Center.

In 1999, Lopez and Marx, who collaborated on both music and lyrics, began work on Avenue Q, a stage musical which, using puppet characters, similar to those on Sesame Street, dealt with adult themes and ideas. The show, for which Lopez also provided the animated segments, was his first professional experience. After playing Off-Broadway, the show transferred in July 2003 to Broadway's John Golden Theatre, where it proved both a critical and popular success, winning the 2004 Tony Award for Best Musical, and earning Lopez and Marx the Tony Award for Best Original Score. The Original Cast Recording was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2004.

Lorde Lorde

Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor, better known by her stage name Lorde, is a New Zealand singer-songwriter and record producer. Born in Takapuna and raised in Devonport, Auckland, she became interested in performing as a child. In her early teens, she signed with Universal Music Group and was later paired with songwriter and record producer Joel Little. At the age of sixteen, she released her first extended play, The Love Club EP (2012), reaching number two on the national record charts in both New Zealand and Australia.

Sir James MacMillan

Sir James MacMillan is one of today's most successful composers and is also internationally active as a conductor. His musical language is flooded with influences from his Scottish heritage, Catholic faith, social conscience and close connection with Celtic folk music, blended with influences from Far Eastern, Scandinavian and Eastern European music.

MacMillan enjoys a flourishing career as conductor of his own music alongside a range of contemporary and standard repertoire, praised for the composer's insight he brings to each score. In October 2014 MacMillan founded his music festival, The Cumnock Tryst, which takes place annually in his native Ayrshire. MacMillan was awarded a CBE in 2004 and a Knighthood in 2015.

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism of the early 20th century. While in his lifetime his status as a conductor was established beyond question, his own music gained wide popularity only after periods of relative neglect, which included a ban on its performance in much of Europe during the Nazi era. After 1945 his compositions were rediscovered by a new generation of listeners; Mahler then became one of the most frequently performed and recorded of all composers, a position he has sustained into the 21st century. In 2016, a BBC Music Magazine survey of 151 conductors ranked three of his symphonies in the top ten symphonies of all time

Melissa Manchester

Melissa Manchester is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Since the 1970s, her songs have been carried by adult contemporary radio stations. She has also appeared as an actress on television, in films, and on stage. She studied songwriting at New York University with Paul Simon. Manchester played the Manhattan club scene where she was discovered by Barry Manilow who introduced her to Bette Midler. In 1971 she became a member of the Harlettes, the back-up singers for Midler.

Henry Mancini

Enrico Nicola "Henry" Mancini was an American composer, conductor and arranger, who is best remembered for his film and television scores. Often cited as one of the greatest composers in the history of film, he won four Academy Awards, a Golden Globe, and twenty Grammy Awards, plus a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995.

His best known works include the jazz-idiom theme to The Pink Panther film series ("The Pink Panther Theme"), his "Moon River" to Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the theme to the Peter Gunn television series. The Peter Gunn theme won the first Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Mancini also had a long collaboration on film scores with the film director Blake Edwards

Mancini was nominated for an unprecedented 72 Grammys, winning 20. Additionally he was nominated for 18 Academy Awards, winning four) He also won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for two Emmys.

Barry Manilow

Barry Manilow is an American singer-songwriter, arranger, musician, and producer with a career that has spanned more than 50 years. His hit recordings include "Mandy", "Can't Smile Without You", and "Copacabana (At the Copa)". He has recorded and released 47 Top 40 singles, including 12 that hit number one and 27 of which appeared within the top ten, and has released many multi-platinum albums.

Johnny Marks

John David Marks was an American songwriter. He specialized in Christmas songs and wrote many holiday standards, including "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (a hit for Gene Autry and others), "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" (a hit for Brenda Lee), "A Holly Jolly Christmas" (recorded by the Quinto Sisters and later by Burl Ives), "Silver and Gold" (for Burl Ives), "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" (introduced by Bing Crosby), and "Run Rudolph Run" (recorded by Chuck Berry). In addition to his songwriting, he founded St. Nicholas Music in 1949, and served as director of ASCAP from 1957 to 1961. In 1981, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame

Bob Marley

Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician who became an international musical and cultural icon, blending mostly reggae, ska and rocksteady in his compositions. Starting out in 1963 with the group the Wailers, he forged a distinctive songwriting and vocal style that would later resonate with audiences worldwide. The Wailers would go on to release some of the earliest reggae records with producer Lee "Scratch" Perry.

Lin Marsh

Lin Marsh is a highly sought-after composer, specializing in vocal works for young people. She is also one of the UK's most well-respected singing leaders, travelling the country inspiring students and teachers with her dynamic workshops. Lin trained at Trinity College of Music and London University, later gaining an MA in Performance Arts at Middlesex University. She has worked extensively in music education in all sectors and with organisations such as the London Mozart Players, Birmingham Symphony Hall Education, The Royal Opera House Education department, Glyndebourne Education, Opera North and Youth Music Theatre UK. As a voice specialist, Lin works throughout the country running courses for teachers on singing, performance and composing skills, and directs many choral festivals for all key stages, as well as presenting and adjudicating festivals.

Frank Martin

The freelance composer and teacher Frank Martin was born on September 15, 1890, in Geneva and died on December 24, 1974, in Naarden (Holland). Frank Martin was born into a family of hugeunots who fled from the region of Montelimar in 1754 and settled in Geneva. He grew up in Geneva as the son of the vicar Charles Martin and attended the classical college there until completion of his undergraduate studies. Frank Martin learned to play the piano very early. At the age of 12 (1903) he had the opportunity of hearing St. Mathew's Passion by Johann-Sebastien Bach in Geneva. The emotions that Martin felt were very decisive and influenced his first compositions. Frank Martin never attended a conservatory but studied composition from 1906 onwards under Joseph Lauber (1864-1952) who had taught in Geneva since 1901. From 1908 onwards he studied (for two years) mathematics and physics at the University of Geneva but did not complete these studies, choosing instead to devote himself entirely to music. His first success came in 1911: his 'Trois poemes paiens' (1910) were performed at the Festival of Musicians in Vevey. Hans Huber (1852-1921) and Friedrich Klose (1862-1942) encouraged him to continue with his compositions.

Joseph Martin

Joseph Martin, a native of North Carolina, earned his Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. Subsequently he earned a Master of Music degree in Piano Performance at the University of Texas, Austin. Joseph taught for five years in the Piano Pedagogy Department of the University of Texas. His piano teachers include Jimmy Woodle, David Gibson, Amanda Vick Lethco, Martha Hilley and Danielle Martin. While at Furman University, he was accompanist for choral director and composer Milburn Price and, inspired by his teaching, Martin began to compose.

His music can be heard in such diverse locations as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York City; Constitution Hall in Washington DC, The Lawrence Welk Theatre in Branson, Missouri; St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City; and in hundreds of worship services in churches across the United States and Canada. He continues to surprise audiences with the variety and scope of his compositions and arrangements.

Steve Martland

Steve Martland was born on 10 October 1959 in Liverpool and studied composition in Holland with Louis Andriessen. His preoccupation with the function of the composer in society is reflected in his commitment to music education. He has directed many composition projects in schools both at home and abroad and he ran Strike Out, his own annual composition course for school children.

Most recently Martland wrote the test piece for the TROMP International Music Festival and Competition: Starry Night for percussion and string quartet. His widely performed choral music includes Street Songs, originally for the King's Singers and Evelyn Glennie and later presented by the Monteverdi Choir and Colin Currie under John Eliot Gardiner with a film by the Quay brothers; and Tyger Tyger, for Youth Music's nationwide Sing Up campaign. Future plans include more choral music, in collaboration with Paul Hillier.

Sir Paul McCartney

Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer. With John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, he gained worldwide fame as the bassist of the rock band the Beatles, one of the most popular and influential groups in the history of pop music; his songwriting partnership with Lennon is one of the most celebrated of the 20th century. After the band's break-up, he pursued a solo career and formed Wings with his first wife, Linda, and Denny Laine.

McCartney has been recognised as one of the most successful composers and performers of all time.(2) More than 2,200 artists have covered his Beatles song "Yesterday", more than any other copyrighted song in history. Wings' 1977 release "Mull of Kintyre" is one of the all-time best-selling singles in the UK. A two-time inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as a member of the Beatles in 1988, and as a solo artist in 1999),(3) and a 21-time Grammy Award winner (having won both individually and with the Beatles), McCartney has written, or co-written, 32 songs that have reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, and as of 2009 he has 25.5 million RIAA-certified units in the United States. McCartney, Lennon, Harrison and Starr received MBEs in 1965, and in 1997, McCartney was knighted for his services to music.

James McCullough

James McCullough worked for twenty years at Boston State College (now the University of Massachusetts Boston campus) as Head of the Curriculum Materials Research and Resource Center to support himself as a composer. As their Literature and Curriculum Materials Specialist, he also taught the undergraduate and graduate courses in Children's and Young Adult Literature.

Later, returning full-time to music, he held a professional position at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Then, for five years he also served as the Arts Administrator of the Music, Literature, and Folk Life programs at the Massachusetts Council for the Arts, Humanities, and Sciences (now the Massachusetts Cultural Council).

During that time he continued to perform locally as a tenor soloist, and to compose music for many national and local Boston music organizations. A student of Daniel Pinkham and Undine Smith Moore, his complete music titles to date with their publishers are listed in The Boston Composers Project, which is published by the MIT Press.

Cecilia McDowall

Born in London,1951, Cecilia McDowall has won many awards and been eight times short-listed for the British Composer Awards. In 2014 she won the British Composer Award for Choral Music. Much of McDowall's choral music is performed worldwide, as well as her orchestral music. Recent important commissions include one for the BBC Singers, Westminster Cathedral Choir, London Mozart Players and a joint commission from the City of London Sinfonia. Three Latin Motets were recorded by the renowned American choir, Phoenix Chorale; this Chandos recording, Spotless Rose, won a Grammy award and was nominated for Best Classical Album. New commissions for 2016 include works for the BBC Singers, Choir of King's, Cambridge and a new song cycle for Roderick Williams, amongst others. In 2013 she received an Honorary Doctorate in Music from the University of Portsmouth.

Bobby McFerrin

On the 11th of March, 1950, Bobby McFerrin was born. His parents were classical singers and he began to study music theory early on in his life. His family then moved to Los Angeles. During high school and then in College, UCSC, he focused on the piano. Once he finished college, Bobby McFerrin toured with numerous bands including the Ice Follies.

However, it was only in 1977 that Bobby McFerrin decide to become a singer. At one point he met Bill Cosby who arranged for him take part in the 1980 Playboy Jazz Festival. It was only two years later where he released his firm album called "Bobby McFerrin" in 1982. It was in 1983, that Bobby McFerrin started converting without a band. This eventually led him to make a solo tour in Germany. It was in Germany that he recorded his album "The Voice". From that point on, he continued to make solo tours in the most prestigious locations. It is also important to realize that Bobby McFerrin worked with several important people like Garrison Keillor, Jack Nicholson, and Joe Zawinul. On "Another Night in Tunisia", Bobby McFerrin won two Grammies.

Sarah McLachlan

Sarah McLachlan was adopted in Halifax, Nova Scotia. As a child, she took voice lessons, along with studies in classical piano and guitar. When she was 17 years old, and still a student at Queen Elizabeth High School, she fronted a short-lived rock band called The October Game. One of the band's songs, "Grind", credited as a group composition, can be found on the independent Flamingo Records release 'Out of the Fog' and the CD Out of the Fog Too. It has yet to be released elsewhere. Her high school yearbook predicted that she was "destined to become a famous rock star."

Following The October Game's first concert at Dalhousie University opening for Moev, McLachlan was offered a recording contract with Vancouver-based independent record label Nettwerk by Moev's Mark Jowett. McLachlan's parents insisted she finish high school and complete one year of studies at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design before moving to Vancouver and embarking on a new life as a recording artist, and McLachlan finally signed to Nettwerk two years later before having written a single song.

Paul Mealor

Described in the New York Times as, 'one of the most important composers to have emerged in Welsh choral music since William Mathias... A real and original talent', Paul Mealor's music has rapidly entered the repertoire of choirs and singers around the world. His music has been described as having, 'serene beauty, fastidious craftsmanship and architectural assuredness... Music of deep spiritual searching that always asks questions, offers answers and fills the listener with hope...' His sacred motets, songs and cycles have been performed, broadcast and recorded by artists in the UK, USA and much further afield.

Mealor was catapulted to international attention when 2.5 billion people (the largest audience in broadcasting history) heard his Motet, Ubi caritas performed by the choirs of Westminster Abbey and Her Majesty's Chapel Royal, conducted by James O'Donnell at the Royal Wedding Ceremony of His Royal Highness Prince William and Catherine Middleton (now TRH The Duke & Duchess of Cambridge) at Westminster Abbey, 29th April 2011.

Kirke Mechem

Kirke Mechem is a prolific composer with a catalogue of over 250 works. He enjoys an international presence, as ASCAP recently registered concert performances of his music in 42 countries. Born and raised in Kansas and educated at Stanford and Harvard Universities, Mechem conducted and taught at Stanford, and served as composer-in-residence for several years at the University of San Francisco. Mechem also lived in Europe, spending three years in Vienna where he came to the attention of Josef Krips, who later championed the composer's symphonies as conductor of the San Francisco Symphony. He has been honored and recognized for his contributions from such organizations as the United Nations, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Gallery, the American Choral Directors Association, and the Music Educators National Conference. He was presented with a lifetime achievement award from the National Opera Association.

Kevin Memley

Kevin A. Memley is a choral composer and pianist with over 70 published works to his credit. His music has been performed around the world. He has conducted his works in Carnegie Hall, has been featured prominently in ACDA conventions, and is commissioned frequently for new works. Kevin's music is published through Pavane, G. Schirmer, GIA/Walton, Gentry, John Rich Music Press and Epiphany House. He has also composed, orchestrated and conducted for three feature films.

Felix Mendelssohn

Mendelssohn was the son of a banker, Abraham, who was himself the son of the famous Jewish philosopher, Moses Mendelssohn, and of Lea Salomon, a member od the Itzig family. Abraham sought to renounce the Jewish religion; his children were first brought up without religious education, and were baptised as Lutherans in 1816. (Abraham and his wife were not themselves baptised until 1822). The name Bartholdy was assumed at the suggestion of Lea's brother, Jakob, who had purchased a property of this name and adopted it as his own surname. Abraham was later to explain this decision in a letter to Felix as a means of showing a decisive break with the traditions of his father Moses: 'There can no more be a Christian Mendelssohn than there can be a Jewish Confucius'. Although Felix continued to sign his letters as 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy' in obedience to his fsther's injunctions, he seems not to have objected to the use of 'Mendelssohn' alone.

Alan Menken

Alan Irwin Menken is an American musical theatre and film composer and pianist. Menken is best known for his scores for films produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. His scores for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Pocahontas have each won him two Academy Awards. He also composed the scores for Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Newsies (1992), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997), Enchanted (2007) and Tangled (2010), among others. He is also known for his work on musical theatre works for Broadway and elsewhere. Some of these are based on his Disney films, but other stage hits include Little Shop of Horrors (1982), A Christmas Carol (1994) and Sister Act (2009).

Menken has collaborated with such lyricists as Howard Ashman, Tim Rice, Glenn Slater, Stephen Schwartz and David Zippel. With eight Academy Award wins (four each for Best Score and Best Original Song), Menken is the second most prolific Oscar winner in the music categories after Alfred Newman, who has nine Oscars. He has also won eleven Grammy Awards, a Tony Award and other honors.

Gian Carlo Menotti

Gian Carlo Menotti was an Italian-American composer, librettist, director, and playwright who is primarily known for his output of 25 operas. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship. One of the most frequently performed opera composers of the 20th century, his most successful works were written in the 1940s and 1950s. Highly influenced by Giacomo Puccini and Modest Mussorgsky, Menotti further developed the verismo tradition of opera in the post-World War II era. Rejecting atonality and the aesthetic of the Second Viennese School, Menotti's music is characterized by expressive lyricism which carefully sets language to natural rhythms in ways that highlight textual meaning and underscore dramatic intent.

Johnny Mercer

John Herndon "Johnny" Mercer was an American lyricist, songwriter and singer. He was also the founder of Capitol Records.

He is best known as a lyricist, but he also composed music. He was also a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as those written by others. From the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s, many of the songs Mercer wrote and performed were among the most popular hits of the time. He wrote the lyrics to more than fifteen hundred songs, including compositions for movies and Broadway shows. He received nineteen Academy Award nominations, and won four Best Original Song Oscars.

Freddie Mercury

Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara) was a British singer, songwriter and record producer, known as the lead vocalist and co-principal songwriter of the rock band Queen. He also became known for his flamboyant stage persona and four-octave vocal range.(3)(4)(5) Mercury wrote and composed numerous hits for Queen ("Bohemian Rhapsody," "Killer Queen," "Somebody to Love," "Don't Stop Me Now," "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," and "We Are the Champions."); occasionally served as a producer and guest musician (piano or vocals) for other artists; and concurrently led a solo career while performing with Queen.

Mercury was born of Parsi descent in the Sultanate of Zanzibar and grew up there and in India until his mid-teens, before moving with his family to Middlesex, England - ultimately forming the band Queen in 1970 with Brian May and Roger Taylor. Mercury died in 1991 at age 45 from complications from AIDS, having acknowledged the day before his death that he'd contracted the disease.

Cristi Cary Miller

Cristi Miller is highly regarded across the United States as a master teacher, conductor and composer. After graduating from Oklahoma State University, she began her teaching career instructing grades 7-12. She eventually moved to the Putnam City School system in 1989 where she worked in the elementary classroom for 21 years. During her time at Putnam City, she was the co-director of the Putnam City Honor Choir. This chorus was highly regarded in their area, winning many honors at festivals and competitions.

Cristi has served as the Elementary Representative on the Oklahoma Choral Directors Association Board of Directors as well as the Elementary Vice President and President for the Oklahoma Music Educators Association. Along with her educational responsibilities, Mrs. Miller authors and co-authors a column for a national music magazine entitled Music Express! and was a contributing writer for the Macmillan McGraw-Hill music textbook series, Spotlight on Music.

Lin Manuel Miranda

Lin-Manuel Miranda is an American composer, lyricist, playwright, and actor best known for creating and starring in the Broadway musicals Hamilton and In the Heights. He co-wrote the songs for Disney's Moana soundtrack (2016) and is set to star in their upcoming film Mary Poppins Returns. Miranda's awards include a Pulitzer Prize, two Grammy Awards, an Emmy Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, and three Tony Awards.

Miranda also wrote the book, music and lyrics for another Broadway musical, Hamilton. The show earned the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, and was nominated for a record-setting 16 Tony Awards, of which it won 11, including Best Musical, Best Original Score and Best Book. For his performance in the lead role of Alexander Hamilton, Miranda was nominated for another Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical.

Vytautas Miskinis

As a composer Miskinis is very popular in Lithuania and abroad. He has written over 400 secular and about 150 religious works, and over 100 folk song arrangements for various ensembles. As a result of many years of work with "Azuoliukas" choir, songs for children constitute a large part of his oeuvre. Being open to the tendencies of the day, the composer also pays great attention to the age and the abilities of the singer. His works display close connection between music and text. His religious music is mostly based on Latin texts. Texture of his works is melodic-harmonic, with elements of polyphony, aleatoric and sonoristic effects.

Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell is one of the most highly regarded and influential songwriters of the 20th century. Her melodious tunes support her poetic and often very personal lyrics to make her one of the most authentic artists of her time. As a performer she is widely hailed for her unique style of playing guitar. Mitchell's unflinching struggle for her own artistic independence has made her a role model for many other musicians, and somewhat of a bane to music industry executives. She is critical of the industry and of the shallowness that she sees in much of today's popular music. Mitchell is also a noted painter and has created the beautiful artwork that appears on the packaging of her music albums.

Meredith Monk

Meredith Monk is a composer, singer, director/choreographer and creator of new opera, music theater works, films and installations. A pioneer in what is now called "extended vocal technique" and "interdisciplinary performance," Monk creates works that thrive at the intersection of music and movement, image and object, light and sound in an effort to discover and weave together new modes of perception. Her groundbreaking exploration of the voice as an instrument, as an eloquent language in and of itself, expands the boundaries of musical composition, creating landscapes of sound that unearth feelings, energies, and memories for which we have no words. She has alternately been proclaimed as a "magician of the voice" and "one of America's coolest composers." During a career that spans more than 45 years she has been acclaimed by audiences and critics as a major creative force in the performing arts.

Claudio Monteverdi

In Claudio Monteverdi's lifetime, Western art music stood at a crossroads. There were two major types of vocal music at that time: popular songs on mundane themes and music intended to accompany church services. The former group included fairly simple settings for solo voice and madrigals, which set music for two or more independent voice parts. Church music had evolved by the early 16th century into an elaborate polyphony. Josquin Desprez and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina were the foremost composers in this style, in which four or more parts develop musical lines from the tunes to popular and even bawdy songs. Each of the four or more parts wove these tunes together in a dense counterpoint, with no part assigned a primary melodic or harmonic function. The music displayed the consummate skills of their composers, and sounded breathtakingly beautiful when done by a capable choir. However, by the late 16th century, this type of contrapuntal music had become too difficult for most church choirs to sing and most parishioners to understand.

Donald Moore

Donald P. Moore holds a Bachelor of Music degree in organ performance and a Master of Arts in Teaching degree from Kent State University, Kent, Ohio. Mr. Moore is Organist-Choirmaster at Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. He is a prolific composer, arranger, lyricist and author with over 500 compositions in print with Alfred Publishing, BriLee Music, Warner Brothers Publications, Hal Leonard, Heritage Music Press and Coronet Press including sacred, secular educational and pop choral works, music collections, organ and piano works and eight educational books.

Cristobal de Morales

Almost all of his music is sacred, and all of it is vocal, though instruments may have been used in an accompanying role in performance. He wrote many masses, some of spectacular difficulty, most likely written for the expert papal choir; he wrote over 100 motets; and he wrote 18 settings of the Magnificat, and at least five settings of the Lamentations of Jeremiah (one of which survives from a single manuscript in Mexico). The Magnificats alone set him apart from other composers of the time, and they are the portion of his work most often performed today. Stylistically, his music has much in common with other middle Renaissance work of the Iberian peninsula, for example a preference for harmony heard as functional by the modern ear (root motions of fourths or fifths being somewhat more common than in, for example, Gombert or Palestrina), and a free use of harmonic cross-relations rather like one hears in English music of the time, for example in Thomas Tallis. Some unique characteristics of his style include the rhythmic freedom, such as his use of occasional three-against-four polyrhythms, and cross-rhythms where a voice sings in a rhythm following the text but ignoring the meter prevailing in other voices. Late in life he wrote in a sober, heavily homophonic style, but all through his life he was a careful craftsman who considered the expression and understandability of the text to be the highest artistic goal.

Thomas Morley

Thomas Morley was an English composer, theorist, singer and organist of the Renaissance. He was one of the foremost members of the English Madrigal School. Referring to the strong Italian influence on the English madrigal, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians states that Morley was "chiefly responsible for grafting the Italian shoot on to the native stock and initiating the curiously brief but brilliant flowering of the madrigal that constitutes one of the most colourful episodes in the history of English music."

Living in London at the same time as Shakespeare, Morley was the most famous composer of secular music in Elizabethan England. He and Robert Johnson are the composers of the only surviving contemporary settings of verse by Shakespeare.

Morley was active in church music as a singer, composer and organist at St Paul's Cathedral. He was also involved in music publishing. From 1598 up to his death he held a printing patent (a type of monopoly). He used the monopoly in partnership with professional music printers such as Thomas East.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Probably the greatest genius in Western musical history, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria, Jan. 27, 1756, the son of Leopold Mozart and his wife, Anna Maria Pertl. Leopold was a successful composer, violinist and assistant concertmaster at the Salzburg court.

Wolfgang began composing minuets at the age of 5 and symphonies at 9. When he was 6, he and his older sister, Maria Anna (who was nicknamed "Nannerl"), performed a series of concerts to Europe's courts and major cities. Both children played the keyboard, but Wolfgang became a violin virtuoso as well.

Jason Mraz

Jason Thomas Mraz is an American singer-songwriter who first came to prominence in the San Diego coffee shop scene in 2000. In 2002, he released his debut studio album, Waiting for My Rocket to Come, which contained the hit single "The Remedy (I Won't Worry)". With the release of his second album, Mr. A-Z, in 2005, Mraz achieved major commercial success. Mraz has won two Grammy Awards and received two additional nominations, and has also won two Teen Choice Awards, a People's Choice Award and the Hal David Songwriters Hall of Fame Award.

Nico Muhly

Nico Muhly is an American composer and sought-after collaborator whose influences range from American minimalism to the Anglican choral tradition. The recipient of commissions from The Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, St. Paul's Cathedral, the Philadelphia Orchestra and others, he has written more than 80 works for the concert stage, including the operas Two Boys (2010), Dark Sisters (2011), and Marnie; the song cycles Sentences (2015), for countertenor Iestyn Davies, and Impossible Things (2009), for tenor Mark Padmore; a viola concerto for violist Nadia Sirota; the choral works My Days (2011) and Recordare, Domine (2013), written for the Hilliard Ensemble and the Tallis Scholars respectively and most recently Looking Up (2017), a work for choir and orchestra for the Cathedral Choral Society.

John Musto

Composer and pianist John Musto is that all too rare exemplar, the classical composer whose work is both critically acclaimed and widely performed, who has also distinguished himself as an instrumental soloist and chamber musician. His activities encompass virtually every genre: orchestral and operatic, solo, chamber and vocal music, concerti, and music for film and television.

His music embraces many strains of contemporary American concert music, enriched by sophisticated inspirations from jazz, ragtime and the blues.

These qualities lend a strong profile to his vocal music, which ranges from a series of operas - Volpone, Later the Same Evening, Bastianello and The Inspector - to a catalogue of art songs that is among the finest of any living American composer.

Willie Nelson

Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 30, 1933)(1) is an American country singer-songwriter, author, poet, actor, and activist. His 1975 album Red Headed Stranger was a huge commercial success and, along with the 1978 album "Stardust", made Nelson one of the most recognized artists in country music.

Nelson started studying music from mail order material that his grandparents gave him. He wrote his first song at age seven and joined his first band at nine. During high school, he toured locally with the Bohemian Fiddlers as their lead singer and guitar player. After graduating from high school in 1950, he joined the Air Force. However, he was discharged due to back problems. After his return, Nelson attended Baylor University for two years but dropped out because he was succeeding in music. During this time, he worked as a disc jockey in Texas radio stations and a singer in honky tonks.

Randy Newman

Randy Newman's pop songs of the 1970s earned him a reputation as a songwriter's songwriter, but he's famous to most audiences for his songs and scores for popular movies such as Toy Story (1995), Bug's Life (1998) and Monsters, Inc. (2001). Randy Newman began writing songs at an early age, and in 1968 released his first album, Randy Newman Creates Something New Under the Sun. During the 1970s he released several albums that received critical praise and won over loyal fans, even if they didn't make Newman into rock star celebrity. He had a top 40 hit with "Sail Away" (1972), but it was his 1977 song "Short People," a controversial parody about bigotry, that became his biggest hit. Since the 1980s he has concentrated on writing film scores, including Ragtime (1981), The Natural (1984, starring Robert Redford), James and the Giant Peach (1996) and the sequels Toy Story 2 (1999) and Toy Story 3 (2010).

Brad Nix

Brad Nix is a widely-recognized composer, orchestrator, and arranger, and has written for many of the nation's major publishers. He currently serves as Choral and Keyboard Editor for the Lorenz Corporation, and has well over 200 choral pieces in print, as well as many piano folios and orchestrations.

Brad frequently travels throughout the country as a clinician for reading sessions and conferences, and his music has been heard in venues ranging from Carnegie Hall in New York City to the famed St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church in central London, as well as countless churches all over the world.

Brad received his DMA degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He and his wife, Pattie, along with their three children, are proud to make their home in Bastrop, TX.

Tarik O'Regan

Tarik O'Regan has written music for a wide variety of ensembles and organizations; these include the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Sydney Dance Company, Chamber Choir Ireland, BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, and the Royal Opera House, London.

The Phoenix, his opera about the life of Lorenzo Da Ponte, commissioned by Houston Grand Opera with a libretto by John Caird, will receive its premiere in April 2019, starring Thomas Hampson in the title role. Other highlights of the 2018/19 season include revival performances of two large-scale concert works, Solitude Trilogy and Mass Observation, by the Vancouver Chamber Choir and Houston Chamber Choir respectively.

O'Regan's work, recognized with two GRAMMY nominations and two British Composer Awards, has been recorded on 36 albums and is published exclusively by Novello & Co. Ltd, part of the Music Sales Group.