John Adams is one of the most famous composers in the world. 

He was born in America in 1947. 

He began performing music when he was 10 years old. 

He is a conductor (someone who leads the music) and a composer (someone who writes the music). 

Florence was born in 1887 in Arkansas to a music teacher mother and a dentist father. She graduated high school as valedictorian by the age of 14. 

Florence went on to study at the New England Conservatory of Music, one of the few music schools to accept black students at the time, and earned two diplomas in piano and organ. By 1910, she was head of the music department at Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Price also earned a living from her music by playing the organ for silent film 

screenings and writing songs for radio adverts.

Dubbed ‘le Mozart noir’ (‘Black Mozart’), Chevalier de Saint-Georges is remembered as the first classical composer of African origins.

 Born in the French colony of Guadeloupe, he was the son of George Bologne de Saint-Georges, a wealthy married planter, and Anne dite Nanon, an African slave on his plantation.

Have you heard the word identity before? Your identity is what makes you unique e.g. the way you look, your beliefs or your personality, for example. 

It’s important that we celebrate each other’s differences, as well as the things that we have in common. 

The idea of celebrating in December with special songs has been around for many hundreds of years - even before Jesus was born.

But of course they didn't call them Christmas carols back then, because Christmas didn't exist!

In Roman times, when it was dark and cold, people used to cheer themselves up with a winter festival called the Saturnalia. It was a long, noisy party, with lots of wild dancing and singing. 

Louis Armstrong grew up in an area nicknamed ‘The Battlefield’, due to how poor the community was. He was raised by his grandmother, and when he was 10 years old he had to leave school to get a job in order to support his family. 

He learnt to sing from his friends in the streets of his hometown. When he was 11 years old, he was sent to a home for boys. While he was there, he was given music lessons and learnt to play the cornet. At 14, he left the home and set his sights on becoming a professional musician. He started 

performing on steamboats that cruised the Mississippi river. 

Soweto Kinch was born in London in 1978. 

His mother was a British-Jamaican actress and his father was a Barbadian playwright.

 He moved to Birmingham when he was 9 years old.  

Kinch became passionate about jazz at 13 years of age, when he met one of his musical heroes. He first began to play on the piano, but later changed to use the saxophone as his main instrument. 

Kinch went onto study Modern History at Oxford University, but later came 

back to his musical roots. 

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was a Pakistani vocalist, musician, composer and music director. 

Khan was born into a Punjabi Muslim family in Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan, in 1948. His ancestors learned music and singing there and adopted it as a profession. 

 Although Nusrat early signs of musical talent  before he had reached age 10, he did not begin to devote himself to the qawwali tradition until he sang at his father’s funeral in 1964. Two years later he gave his first public performance as a 

qawwal, singing with his uncles.

Choose a female composer on the next slide to Listen and Appraise. 

What instruments can you hear?

What is the tempo?

How does the composer build atmosphere?

If this music was a colour, what colour would it be?

Does it sound similar to anything else you’ve heard?

Find out about the composer you have listened to at home and share 

your research with your class. 

The idea of celebrating in December with special songs has been around for many hundreds of years - even before Jesus was born.

But of course they didn't call them Christmas carols back then, because Christmas didn't exist!

In Roman times, when it was dark and cold, people used to cheer themselves up with a winter festival called the Saturnalia. It was a long, noisy party, 

with lots of wild dancing and singing.

Florence was born in 1887 in Arkansas to a music teacher mother and a dentist father. She graduated high school as valedictorian by the age of 14. 

Florence went on to study at the New England Conservatory of Music, one of the few music schools to accept black students at the time, and earned two diplomas in piano and organ. By 1910, she was head of the music department at Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Price also earned a living from her music by playing the organ for silent film 

screenings and writing songs for radio adverts.

Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer who lived in the Romantic period. He is one of the most popular of all Russian composers. He wrote melodies which were usually dramatic and emotional. He learned a lot from studying the music of Western Europe, but his music also sounds very Russian.

Hans Zimmer was born in Germany in 1957. 

As a child, Zimmer was given piano lessons. However, he didn’t like how formal his lessons were and soon became disinterested. 

In an interview with Reddit, Zimmer said:

"My formal training was two weeks of piano lessons. I was thrown out of eight schools. But I joined a band. I am self-taught. But I've always heard music in my head. And I'm a child of the 20th century; computers came in very handy."

Described as “our greatest living composer” by The New York Times, Steve Reich is one of the most important and influential musicians of the contemporary era. 

His works have helped to define an entire genre of classical music called minimalism and, although Reich is now into his eighties, he continues to compose a large amount of music every year.

Dubbed ‘le Mozart noir’ (‘Black Mozart’), Chevalier de Saint-Georges is remembered as the first classical composer of African origins.

 Born in the French colony of Guadeloupe, he was the son of George Bologne de Saint-Georges, a wealthy married planter, and Anne dite Nanon, an African slave on his plantation.

Scott Joplin was born in 1868 in Texas, U.S.A.

Joplin grew up in a musical family of railway laborers in Texarkana, Arkansas, and developed his own musical knowledge with the help of local teachers. While in Texarkana, Texas, he formed a vocal quartet and taught mandolin and guitar.

Joplin moved to Sedalia, Missouri in 1894 and earned a living as a piano teacher. 

He began publishing music in 1895 and publication of his 

"Maple Leaf Rag" in 1899 brought him fame.

John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932) is an American composer, conductor, pianist and trombonist.

 Regarded by many as the greatest film composer of all time, he has composed some of the most popular, recognizable, and critically acclaimed film scores in cinematic history in a career spanning over six decades. 

Williams has won 25 Grammy Awards, seven British Academy Film Awards, five Academy Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. 

With 52 Academy Award nominations, he is the second most-nominated 

individual, after Walt Disney.

Fanny Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg, Germany, and grew up in Berlin. As a kid, Fanny took music lessons and performed with her younger brother Felix, who also grew up to be a famous musician. 

They both played the piano and composed. They also liked to put on plays. Their father had no problem with his son being a professional musician, but he told Fanny that there was only one suitable thing for her to become: a housewife.

Georges Bizet was born in Paris on 25 October 1838. His father, Adolphe Bizet, had been a hairdresser and wigmaker before becoming a singing teacher despite his lack of formal training.

Georges Bizet's parents were both musicians, so he grew up surrounded by music. They actually wanted their son to become a composer when he grew up. Bizet loved music, but he also loved to read books. His parents wound up hiding his books so that he would spend more time on his music.

He would listen to his father carry out his singing lessons and eventually learned to sing difficult songs accurately from memory and developed an ability to identify and analyse complex chordal structures.

John Adams is one of the most famous composers in the world. 

He was born in American in 1947. 

He began performing music when he was 10 years old. 

He is a conductor (someone who leads the music) and a composer (someone who writes the music).