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In 1726 Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sacred Cantata No. 55 (“Ich armer Mensch, ich Sündenknecht”) premiered as part of hiss third annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig (1725/27). 

In 1839 Giuseppe Verdi first opera “Oberto” was premiered at Teatro alla Scala in Milan. 

In 1866 Ambroise Thomas’s opera “Mignon” premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris. 

In 1876 Tchaikovsky’s “Marche slav” premiered in Moscow (Julian date: Nov. 5). 

In 1877 Gilbert & Sullivan’s operetta “The Sorcerer” premiered at the Opera Comique Theatre in London. 

In 1888 Tchaikovsky conducted the premiered of his Symphony No. 5 in St. Petersburg (Julian date: Nov. 5). 

Hershy Kay

In 1919 Hershy Kay was born in Philadelphia. The son of a Philadelphia printer, Kay became a student at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute (1936-1940) where he studied cello and composition under Randall Thompson, in whose classes he was a fellow student of Leonard Bernstein. In New York he played in various pit orchestras and started arranging music to escape playing the cello. Self-taught as an orchestrator, for his first professional project Kay orchestrated several songs for Brazilian soprano Elsie Houston’s show at the Rainbow Room in 1940.When Leonard Bernstein commissioned Kay to orchestrate his musical comedy On the Town in 1944, Kay became one of the most sought after orchestrators on Broadway. Later collaborations with Bernstein include Peter Pan(1950) and Candide (1956). Kay also did orchestrations for Marc Blitzstein (Juno), Harvey Schmidt (110 in the Shade), Cy Coleman (Barnum) and Andrew Lloyd Webber (Evita). In 1954, George Balanchine commissioned Kay to compose the score for his ballet Western Symphony, set in the American West. Kay later wrote the score for Balanchine’s Stars and Stripes, based on John Philip Sousa’s music. A composer in his own right, Hershy Kay’s reconstruction and orchestration of Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s Grande Tarantelle, Op. 67, for piano and orchestra July 24, 1957, later choreographed by Balanchine as Tarantella, led to a renewed interest in Gottschalk’s music. He also composed music for an LP, Mother Goose, with the actors Boris Karloff, Cyril Ritchard and Celeste Holm; this was first released on Caedmon in 1958. He also re-orchestrated Sigmund Romberg’s music in a 1963 Columbia Masterworks recording of selections from the 1924 operetta The Student Prince, starring Roberta Peters, Jan Peerce, and Giorgio Tozzi. 1

In 1924 Ernst von Dohnányi conducted the premiere of his “Ruralia Hungarica” in Budapest.

David Amram

Happy 84th birthday David Amram! Born on this day in 1930 in Philadelphia. As a classical composer and performer, his integration of jazz (including being one of the first noted as an improvising jazz French hornist), folkloric and world music has led him to work with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Willie Nelson, Langston Hughes, Charles Mingus, Pepper Adams, Leonard Bernstein, Sir James Galway, Tito Puente, Mary Lou Williams, Joseph Papp, Arthur Miller, Arturo Sandoval, Stan Getz, Pete Seeger, Elia Kazan, Christopher Plummer, Henry Kissinger, Ingrid Bergman, Odetta, Lord Buckley, Dustin Hoffman, Steve Allen, Machito, Earl “Fatha” Hines, Allen Ginsberg, Nina Simone, Gregory Corso, Bob Dylan, Steve Goodman, Gerry Mulligan, Sonny Rollins, T.S. Monk, Hunter S. Thompson, Johnny Depp, Levon Helm, Betty Carter andJack Kerouac. In the early 1950s, he was encouraged to pursue his unique path by mentors Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, the New York Philharmonic‘s conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos, Miles Davis, Aaron Copland, Gunther Schuller, and visual artists Jackson Pollock, Joan Mitchell, Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline. Today, as he has for over 50 years, Amram continues to compose music while traveling the world as a conductor, soloist, bandleader, visiting scholar, and narrator in five languages. Amram is mentioned in the popular children’s song “Peanut Butter Sandwich” by Raffi, in the line “one for me and one for David Amram”. 2

In 1937 Daniel Gregory Mason’s “A Lincoln Symphony” was premiered by John Barbirolli conducting the New York Philharmonic. 

In 1955 Leonard Bernstein’s incidental music for “The Lark” (play by Jean Anoilh adapted by Lillian Hellman) premiered in New York City at the Longacre Theater, performed by New York Pro Musica conducted by Noah Greenberg. A trial run of this show had opened in Boston at the Plymouth Theater on October 28, 1955. 

In 1959 Heitor Villa-Lobos died at age 72 in Rio de Janeiro. 

In 1977 Vincent Persichetti’s “Concerto for English Horn & Strings” was premiered by soloist Thomas Stacy, Erich Leinsdorf conducting the New York Philharmonic.

In 1982 Eduard Tubin died at age 77 in Stockholm. 

In 1991 Katherine Hoover’s “Canyon Echoes” was premiered by flutist Susan Morris De Jong and guitarist Jeffrey Van, at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. 

In 1996 Michael Torke’s “Chrome” for flute and piano was premeired at Colden Center in Queens, N.Y., by Marina Piccinini (flute) and Andreas Haefliger (piano). 

  1. Wikipedia contributors, “Hershy Kay,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hershy_Kay&oldid=690390812 (accessed November 17, 2015).
  2. Wikipedia contributors, “David Amram,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Amram&oldid=680052948 (accessed November 17, 2015).