Archives: Composers

Born in Havana, Cuba, Lourdes C. Montgomery moved to the United States at age five. She studied jazz piano at Miami-Dade Community College with Sanford Gold and, at the University of Miami, music composition with Dr. Dennis Kam as well as classical piano with Dr. Rosalina Sackstein. Many of Lourdes’ sacred and liturgical compositions are published by Oregon Catholic Press, who also produced her CD entitled “De La Cruz a la Gloria”, and World Library Publications.

In 2008, Lourdes was honored to have her song Bienaventurados (“The Beatitudes”) was performed at the mass of Pope Benedict XVI that was held at the National Stadium in Washington, D.C., and televised nationally. In 2005 Lourdes became music director at St. Vincent de Paul Church in the Ozark Mountains of NW Arkansas, where she now lives with her double bassist husband Michael Montgomery.

Jan [Johann] Geissel was a Czech double bassist, teacher, and composer, born in Pardubice in 1859, who lived most of his life in Strasbourg and died there in 1919.

He wrote a number of works for double bass and his Concerto in A major Op.32 and Konzertstück Op.24 are still in print today, helping to keep his name alive a hundred years after his death. Several of his works have been recorded and his music successfully combines musical and technical challenges in equal measure, written in an accessible musical style and part of the rich heritage of music from the mid to late 19th-century.

Charles Harford Lloyd (1849-1919) was an English composer and organist. He was a fairly prolific composer, primarily of church music, and was organist of Gloucester Cathedral, Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford and Eton College Chapel. Between 1887 and 1892 Lloyd taught organ and composition at the Royal College of Music in London and after his retirement from Eton was appointed organist of the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace

v was born in Barquisimeto, Venezuela in 1954. He graduated as a classical guitarist from the “Vicente Emilio Sojo” Conservatory in 1980 and began his double bass studies with Volmar Laubach in 1978, and later with Joel Novoa at the “Simón Bolívar” Conservatory in Caracas, in 1984.

Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689-1755) was a French Baroque composer writing a wealth of instrumental and vocal music. He was one of the first composers to have no patrons, having been awarded a royal licence to engrave music in 1724, and became a wealthy man from the sales of his music.

Boismortier was a prolific composer and he, alongside Rameau, lived through the Rococo age of Louis XV both writing music of great elegance and sophistication which proved popular with performers and audiences alike.

Daniel Chiva Sanz is a double bassist and composer from Ludiente (Spain). He is dedicated to orchestral playing, with experience in ensembles from early music to contemporary, and is highly interested in solo playing, focusing on new repertoire for unaccompanied double bass.

Daniel’s compositions have been published by Recital Music (UK) and ProBass (Germany), and have been performed in more than 5 countries. He has orchestrated and performed the almost forgotten Concerto No.2 Op. 25 by Th. A. Findeisen.

Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) was born in Dublin, studied at Cambridge University and in Leipzig and Berlin, and in 1882 was one of the founding fathers of the Royal College of Music in London, where he taught composition for the rest of his life.

He was a prolific composer, writing seven symphonies, nine operas, concertos, orchestral music, choral music and songs, which he combined alongside his teaching and conducting duties. Stanford, together with Hubert Parry and Alexander Mackenzie, were considered responsible for a renaissance in music in Britain, and towards the end of the 20th-century there has been a resurgence of interest in his music.

19th-century German composer-pianist Johann Friedrich Burgmüller (1806-1874) lived most of his life in Paris and wrote in a lyrical and romantic style, typical of the age, and composed a series of collections of teaching pieces for the beginner pianist

Johann Baptist Vanhal (1739-1813) was a prolific and successful Czech composer and teacher. He worked in Vienna from the 1780s and was one of the first independent musicians, not employed by the Emperor or one of the many influential aristocratic families.

Vanhal composed over 700 works, including more than 100 string quartets, 73 symphonies, 95 sacred works, and a large number of instrumental and vocal works.

He composed a number of pieces for double bass, including a Concerto, which is popular with bassists into the 21st-century and is at the heart of the solo repertoire.