George Benda

Classical Music / Composer Datebook:  June 30

Georg (or Jiri) Benda (1722-1795)

Georg Benda, Czech composer was baptized on June 30, 1722, in Stare Benatky.

Benda was a member of a prominent Czech musical family. With his brothers Franz, Johann and Joseph, he was violinist in the Prussian court orchestra. He also became Kapellmeister at the Gotha court, writing sacred cantatas, instrumental music and an Italian opera.

He wrote church music, cantatas, chamber music, and stage works, particularly melodramas, i.e., works combining spoken text and music. First successful ones were Ariadne auf Naxos and Medea. He also wrote Singspiels Walder and Romeo und Julie.

Richard Rodgers

Musicals / Composers


Richard Rodgers was born on June 28, 1902, in Hammels Station, Long Island, borough of Queens, New York City. He is one of the most renowned Broadway composers with string of successes on stage and screen first with librettist Lorenz Hart, and hitting the box office when he teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II.

Rodgers studied at Columbia University (1919-21) and the Institute of Musical Art (1921-23), later at Juilliard School, New York.

His first smash at the Broadway musical with Oscar Hammerstein II was Oklahoma (1943, NY), followed by Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949), The King and I (1951) and The Sound of Music (1959).

With Lorenz Hart, his earlier collaboration before Hammerstein II, Rodgers aimed to use good poetry in place of the banal lyrics of current popular songs. Their association produced 30 stage musicals as well as films.

A Tribute to Richard Rodgers