1875 Italo Montemezzi – Italian opera composer (d.1952); best known for his opera L'amore dei tre re (The Love of the Three Kings, 1913), once part of the standard repertoire, now seldom performed.
1910 William Schuman – American composer and music administrator (d.1992); won the inaugural Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1943 for his cantata A Free Song from poems by Walt Whitman; president of the Juilliard School in 1945, founding the Juilliard String Quartet while there; left in 1961 to become the first president of Lincoln Center, a position he held until 1969; awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1987.
1912 David Raksin – American film and television composer (d.2004); among his earliest film assignments was as assistant to Charlie Chaplin in the score to Modern Times (1936); best remembered for his haunting theme to the film Laura (1944).
1938 Simon Preston – English organist, conductor and composer (died May 13, 2022); his many recordings include the complete works of J. S. Bach; Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).
1963 Philip Lasser – American composer, pianist, and music theorist (61 years old); a member of the faculty at the Juilliard School in New York City.
1965 Richard Tognetti, violinist and composer (59 years old); Artistic Director and Leader of the Australian Chamber Orchestra; was made an ‘Australian National Treasure’ in 1999.