Cellist Leonard Rose birthday July 27

Leonard Rose (July 27, 1918 – November 16, 1984) was an American cellist and pedagogue.
Rose was born in Washington, D.C., his parents were immigrants from Kiev, Ukraine. Rose took lessons from Walter Grossman, Frank Miller and Felix Salmond and after completing his studies at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music at age 20, he joined Arturo Toscanini's NBC Symphony Orchestra, and almost immediately became associate principal. At 21 he was principal cellist of the Cleveland Orchestra and at 26 was the principal of the New York Philharmonic.

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Maria João Pires birthday July 23

Maria João Pires born in Lisbon, Portugal, July 23, 1944) is a Portuguese pianist. International fame came in 1970, when she won the Beethoven Bicentennial Competition in Brussels. She has since then regularly performed with major orchestras throughout the world, interpreting works by Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, Schubert, Mozart, Brahms, Chopin and many other classical and romantic composers. She appears regularly with major world orchestras in Europe, America, Canada, Israel and Japan.

ISAAC STERN birthday July 21

Isaac Stern (Ukrainian: Исаак Стерн, Russian: Айзек Стерн; 21 July 1920, Kremenets – 22 September 2001) was a Ukrainian-born violinist. He was renowned for his recordings and for discovering new musical talent.

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Kurt Masur birthday 18 July 1927

Kurt Masur is a German conductor, particularly noted for his interpretation of German Romantic music. Masur was born in Brieg, Lower Silesia, Germany (now Brzeg in Poland) and studied piano, composition and conducting in Leipzig, Saxony. Masur has been married three times. His second wife, with whom he had a daughter, died in 1972 in a car accident in which Masur was severely injured. He and his third wife, Tomoko, have a son, Ken, a classical singer and conductor.

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Pinchas Zukerman birthday July 16, 1948

Pinchas Zukerman (Hebrew: פנחס צוקרמן‎, born July 16, 1948) is a world-renowned violinist, violist, and conductor. He is considered one of the greatest violinists of the 20th and 21st centuries, and his ongoing 45-year career has seen him perform with the world's best-known orchestras and record over 100 works. Zukerman has held the position of Principal Conductor and Music Director of Ottawa's National Arts Centre Orchestra since April 1998, and the position of Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra since 2009.

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VAN CLIBURN

Harvey Lavan "Van" Cliburn Jr. (born July 12, 1934) is an American pianist who achieved worldwide recognition in 1958, at age 23, he won the first quadrennial International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow, at the height of the Cold War. Van Cliburn was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, and began taking piano lessons at the age of three from his mother, Rildia Bee O'Bryan Cliburn. O'Bryan was taught by Arthur Friedheim, a pupil of Franz Liszt. At six years old, Cliburn moved with his family to Kilgore, Texas, and at twelve he won a statewide piano competition which enabled him to debut with the Houston Symphony Orchestra. He entered the Juilliard School at age 17, and studied under Rosina Lhévinne, who trained him in the tradition of the great Russian romantics. At age 20, Cliburn won the Leventritt Award, and made his Carnegie Hall debut.

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David Zinman

David Zinman (born New York City, U.S., 9 July 1936) is an American conductor and violinist.
After early violin studies at the Oberlin Conservatory, Zinman studied theory and composition at the University of Minnesota and took up conducting at Tanglewood. He then worked in Maine with Monteux from 1958 to 1962, serving as his assistant from 1961 to 1964.
Zinman held the post of tweede dirigent (second conductor) of the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra from 1965 to 1977. He was the principal conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra from 1979 to 1982.
In the USA, Zinman was music director of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra from 1974 to 1985. With the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, he served two years as principal guest conductor, and became the orchestra's music director in 1985. During his Baltimore tenure, Zinman began to incorporate the ideas of the historically informed performance movement into performances of the Beethoven symphonies. Upon the conclusion of his tenure as music director in 1998, he was named the orchestra's conductor laureate. However, in protest at what he saw the Baltimore orchestra's overly conservative programming in the years since his departure, Zinman resigned the title of conductor laureate in 2001. In 1998, Zinman was appointed music director of the Aspen Music Festival and School, where he founded and directed its American Academy of Conducting until his sudden resignation in April 2010.

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