A guide to the thousands of characters, who people the history of music, this volume brings together all the biographical information about composers, performers, music theorists and instrument makers from the days of praise chants to the bop and pop of today. A companion to The New Harvard Dictionary of Music, this biographical dictionary emphasizes classical and art music, but also gives attention to jazz and blues, rock and pop, and hymns and showtunes across the ages - with care devoted to coverage of the 20th century. That the Belgian composer Jean Absil was professor of fugue at the Brussels Conservatory is a little-known fact. And few are aware that Roy Acuff began his country-and-western career in medicine shows. The writings of the 17th-century organist Jakob Adlung may be obscure, while Theodor Adorno's are widely read and studied. But they can all be found in the A's, along with 218 more entries, from Herb Alpert and the Andrews Sisters to Carl Friedrich Abel and Emanuel Ax. Here then is the information you need about 5500 figures in the world of music - the major, the minor, the famous, the nearly forgotten, from Bach and Beeethoven to Irving Berlin, Benny Goodman and Bruce Springsteen - capsule summaries of the lives and careers behind the music enjoyed in every era.