Jody Nagel  American teacher and composer

Born: Franklin, PA (USA), 29.05.1960 

Nagel's teachers of composition included among others Eugene Kurtz, Morton Subotnick and Peter Sculthorpe, and his teachers of theory have included John Peel, Pat McCreless, Elliott Antokoletz and Roger Graybill.
He holds a Master of Arts in music theory and composition from the University of Pittsburgh (1985) and a Bachelor of Arts (magna cum laude) from Marietta College (1982) and In 1992 he received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition from the University of Texas at Austin.
In the Autumn of 1992 Jody Nagel joined the Ball State University School of Music faculty.

Final Episode   
Written for his colleague Annemarie Schuessler, who after a stroke was able to play with her left hand only. Se also  Dmitri Schirin. 
Two years after her stroke Annemarie Schuessler went on tour to St. Petersburg, Russia to give lectures about and performing left-hand works.

Annemarie Schuessler, Assistant professor 
of Piano, Ball State University

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Maryanne Nagy 

Born: ?

Miss Nagy is mostly known for her piano duets (one piano four hands). 

One-Handed Solitaire  1970 (Lee Roberts)

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Luis (Alberto) Nájera Medina  Mexican composer 

Born: México City, 09.11.1971

A late starter in music, Mr. Nájera’s formal music education did not begin until after he graduated as an Industrial and Systems Engineer in Mexico (Instituto Tecnologico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey - Technological Institute of Superior Studies of Monterrey) in 1996. 
He moved to Brisbane, Australia to pursue a career in the arts and graduated as Bachelor of Music (University of Queensland) in 2000 and a Bachelor of Creative Industries (Dance) (Queensland University of Technology) in 2005. In 2004 he received the Percy Brier Memorial Prize for the  composition for his brass septet Vibratica. Currently he is finalizing a Ph.D. in composition (University of Queensland) which focuses on creating programmatic music for mostly neglected instruments (recorder, guitar, percussion) inspired by landscape sceneries of Australia, dance movements, and Mexican folk songs and rhythms. 

Luis Nájera's musical output consists of the following works: L.I   (1998) Chronicles:  7 pieces for guitar quartet, L.II  (1999) Viento Oceanico (Oceanic Wind) for clarinet, piano, viola and cello, L.III (1999) El Delfin Volador (The Flying Dolphin) for solo piano, L.IV  (2000) The Hermit's Lair: 3 pieces for solo guitar, L.V   (2000) Aztec Symphony: 3 movements for recorders and percussion, L.VI  (2001) Dunerunner for solo ukulele, L.VII (2002) The Thundergod: concerto for percussion ensemble and orchestra, L.VIII (2003) Songs of the Earth Mother: 6 Songs for barbershop quartet and accompanying instruments, L.IX  (2003) Sol y Luna (Sun and Moon): 2 Pieces for recorder ensemble and guitar, L.X (2004) The Fire Gypsy for violin and piano, L.XI  (2003-5) Starchildren, 3 Movements: concerto for guitar and orchestra, L.XII (2004-5) Sea Stories: 22 pieces for solo piano for dance class, L.XIII (2005) The Jewelmaker for violin, cello and piano, L.XIV (2004) Vibratica for brass septet and L.XV  (2005) Journey to the Secret Garden for recorder ensemble, guitar and percussion.

Tales of the Enchanted Lake. L.XVI (2005-2006)
This set of five pieces were written after the composer dislocated his left clavicle in a cycling accident at the end of 2005. Originally meant for the right hand, this set was converted to one hand after the composer slowly regained his use of his left hand. There are five pieces in this set of 23 pages: 1. The Fairy’s Swing (Dec 2005), 2. The Satyr (Dec 2005), 3. The Enchanted Lake (Dec 2005), 4. The Imp and the Satyr (Jan 2006) and 5. The Centaur’s Step (Dec 2005).

Now - let me explain something which has probably made you curious about this article. If you have been dedicated/stubborn/patient enough to stay with me this far on the site, you are probably fed up with Opuses, Köchels, Deutschs etc. so here is at least a composer who has made his mind up to invent a system entirely of his own - built on his first name and Roman numbers. So - L.XVI in fact means Luis 16 - or - if you must - Luis Nájera Medina's opus 16 and so on.

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Emile (Gueorguiev) Naoumoff  Bulgarian/French piano virtuoso and composer

Born: Sofia (Bulgaria) 20.02.1962

Emile Naoumoff revealed himself as an astounding musical prodigy at age five, taking up study of the piano and adding composition to his studies a year later. At the age of eight, after a fateful meeting in Paris, he became the last disciple of Nadia Boulanger, who referred to him as "the gift of my old age". He studied with her until her death in late 1979.

	Nadia Boulanger instructing the 10 years old Emile Naoumoff. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ur7SoOVRhk

Through her he was introduced to Clifford Curzon, Igor Markevitch, Robert and Gaby Casadesus, Nikita Magaloff, Jean Françaix, Leonard Bernstein, Soulima Stravinsky, Aram Khachaturian and Yehudi Menuhin with whom he had the chance to study. Indeed Lord Menuhin conducted the premiere of Naoumoff's first Piano Concerto, with the composer as a soloist when he was ten years old (Naoumoff!).
He pursued studies at the Paris Conservatory with Lelia Gousseau, Pierre Sancan, Geneviève Joy-Dutilleux, as well as at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris with Pierre Dervaux (conducting). In 1981, at age 19, he was signed as a composer with the music publisher Schott, Mainz. He was the youngest on their rost.
After the death of (Juliette) Nadia Boulanger on October 22 1979 at the ripe age of 92having been one of the major musical, teachers and influences in the 20^th century, Naoumoff at only 17 years took over her classes at the summer sessions of the Conservatoire d'Art Americain in Fontainebleau. Later, in 1984, he was appointed at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique, Paris.

Naoumoff's  great break through as a pianist cam in 1984 when the announced soloist  for Tchaikowsky's  Piano Concerto No. 1 in Monte Carlo was taken ill. Emile Naoumoff substituted without notice to great success.. Since then his career has really taken off.
He is regularly invited by the world's premier orchestras: the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the Berlin Symphony, the Vienna Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, National Symphony in Washington, Moscow Symphony, NHK Symphony, the Residentie Orkest of the Hague, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France, Camerata Bern, and has collaborated closely with renowned conductors such as Leonard Bernstein, Igor Markevitch, Leonard Slatkin, Mstislav Rostropovich and Eliahu Inbal and others. He also earned a personal invitation from Rudolf Serkin to perform at the Marlboro Festival and has given recitals throughout Europe, the USA and Asia. Naoumoff was invited to the Evian Festival, presided by Mstislav Rostropovich, with whom he performed.his own piano concerto version of Moussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition was premiered with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. under the baton of Mstislav Rostropovich. He has received numerous awards, including the Médaille d'honneur de Paris, an honour bestowed upon him by Jacques Chirac, and the Prix de Composition de l'académie des Beaux Arts.
In 1996, he opened his own summer academy at the Chateau de Rangiport in Gargenville, France in the spirit of Nadia Boulanger. Since 1998, he is a professor at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
Recently, he was appointed Associate Professor at the School of Music of the Indiana University in Bloomington.  Naoumoff gave master classes in the USA, Spain, Luxembourg and Japan,

Prelude for left hand for piano, ( This piece can alså be played by the right hand or both hands)  (Schott ( Mainz) in a set called:  Fantasies: ISMN 979-0-001-1952-6  ED 21727)

Photos by the curtesy of Bruno Monssaingeon and Frederic Reglain

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Alberto Beriot Nepomuceno  Brazilian composer, pianist and conductor

Fortaleza, Brazil, 06.06.1864 - Rio de Janeiro, 16.10.1920

Nepomuceno's father was school teacher in Recife and he taught the boy the basics of music. At the age of eighteen he became conductor of the concerts at the Club Carlos Gomes but this only lasted a short time, for after his father had died Alberto went to Rio de Janeiro where he at once was recognized as a major talent.
He still lacked a proper musical education but together with Arthur Napoleão and Jose White he formed a trio playing in the Club Beethoven. Here he was heard by one Rodolfo Bernardelli who acting as a patron sent him to the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome for further studies.
Alberto Nepomuceno's musical studies also took him to. Vienna 1891 on extended holiday from the Academische Meisterschule. Here Nepomuceno became a student of Theodor Lechetizky (I 830-191 5). who had been a student of Czerny, and here he met another very accomplished student, Valborg Bang Hermansen Rendtler (I 864-1946). a Norwegian pianist. who had studied with Grieg. Following a two-year courtship. Valborg and Alberto married in Cristiania (the former name of Oslo) in July of 1893.
After Rome came studies in Berlin and Paris before Nepomuceno returned to Brazil 1895 to become professor of organ at the Instituto Nacional di Musica and the year after he was made conductor og the Sociedade de Concertos Populares.
At that time he had also made his début as a composer in a concert with his own works. The next year again his Serie Brasileira was heard for the first time from which the Batuque became immensely popular. In 1898 he made his début as an opera composer with Artemis, and then he went back to Europe.
On his return in 1902 he was appointed director of the Instituto Nacional di Musica. Several works followed: the opera Abul, a symphony in G minor, a piano concerto, many piano pieces and songs and - probably his best work: the piano trio in F sharp Minor.

Nepomuceno at the piano

Nepomuceno and Valborg had four children of which the first - Sigrid - who was born with only a left arm and it was for her he wrote the following works for the left hand alone. 

Cinco pequenas peças (Five small Pieces): 1. Barcarola, 2. Melodia, 3. Dança, 4. Brincando, 5. Polka
Composed in 1906  and premiered by Sigrid Nepomuceno in Auditório Colegio Sion in Petrópolis,  1907.

Two nocturnes; 1. C major, 2. G major
Composed in 1918 and premiered by Sigrid Nepomuceno in Rio de Janeiro, 1919

Nepomuceno 
with his wife

The two nocturnes and the five small pieces are recorded by  Maria Inês Guimarães: Marco Polo 8.223548

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Ernesto Júlio de Nazareth  Brazilian composer, pianist and conductor

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 20.03.1863 - near Jacarepaguá, 01.02.1934

Nazareth's mother, Carolina da Cunha gave him his first piano lessons.She died when he was ten and he continued his piano studies with Eduardo Moreira and Charles Lucien Lambert.

Strongly influenced by Chopin, Nazareth published his first composition Você Bem Sabe  in 1877, at the age of 14. At this time, he began his professional career playing in cafes, bal rooms, society parties and in lobbies of movie theaters. In 1893, Casa Vieira Machado published his famous tango Brejeiro.

In 1879, he wrote the tango Cruz perigo. In 1880 only aged 17 he made his first public appearance at the Mozart Club. The following year, he was more or less established as a composer. In 1885, he performed in concerts in different clubs of the court. In 1893, Casa Vieira Machado launched a new catalogue of his compositions, which achieved national and even international success.

His first concert as a pianist was in 1898 and the following year he prepared the first edition of the tango Turuna. In 1905, he saw his first work, Brejeiro, recorded by singer Mario Pinheiro with the title O sertanejo enamorado with lyrics by Catulo da Paixão Cearense. Three years  later, in 1908, he began working as a pianist at the Mozart Club.

About 1911 he began to give private piano lessons and in 1921 he was hired as a pianist for Casa Gomes and the Odeon Cinema from 1920-1924. In São Paulo and Campinas he performed several shows in the Municipal Theater and at the Conservatory. He was presented with a grand piano from  admirers. He was one of the first artists to play for the Society Radio of Rio de Janeiro. In 1932 he presented for the first time, a recital in which he performed only his compositions.One of Nazaret's greatest successes was the piano piece Escovado which the French composer Darius Milhaud later made his own in Le Boeuf sur le Toit. Well creativity has many faces.

In 1933  a period of mental instability followed, due to the deaths of his wife and daughter, as a result of syphilis and his hearing worsened caused by a fall during childhood. Nazareth was taken to the Juliano Moreira Asylum in Jacarepaguá. On February 1, 1934, Nazareth fled the asylum and was found alone three days later in the adjacent forest near a waterfall, dead by drowning.[3]

Polca para a mão esquerda (Polka for the left hand)

Elegia para piano (Elegy for the left hand left hand)

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(No portrait)

Newstead

Born: ?

Pieces For Left hand Alone op. 63: 1. Dream Hours, 2. Sunlit Joys, 3. In the Fading Sunset, 4. Plantation Dance, 5. Sea Flowers, 6. Wayside Gardens.  (Wood)

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xxx

xxx

River Fowey Lullaby  (Fand Music)

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Carl (August) Nielsen  Danish composer

Nørre-Lyndelse, Funen, Denmark, 09..06.1865 - Copenhagen, 03.10.1931

Nielsen was son of a painter and village musician and began his musical career in his father's dance band touring all the local communities as a violinist an polka-composer. In 1879 he joined the Danish Army as a bugler - and five years later he arrived in Copenhagen where he was admitted to the Royal Danish Conservatory as a pupil of J. P. E. Hartmann and Niels W. Gade (composition).
His formal debut as a composer came in 1888 where his Small Suite for Strings was performed with great success. For many years Nielsen played in the orchestra of the Royal Danish Opera and later on he succeeded Gade as teacher at the conservatory and became the most influential stamp on Danish music for the next generations.
His most important works are two operas (Saul and David and Maskarade), 6 symphonies, three concertos (violin, clarinet and flute), 4 string quartets, two violin sonatas and a plethora of choral works and songs which became the very archetype of Danish music.

(Sænk kun dit hoved du blomst op. 21) See James Marchand

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(No portrait)

Rudolf Friedrich Niemann  German pianist and composer

Wesselburen, Holstein, 04.12.1838 - Wiesbaden, 03.05.1898

Niemann was son of the local organist and was sent to Leipzig where he studied with Ignaz Moscheles (1853-1856). Later he went to Paris to study at the Conservatoire as pupil of Marmontel and Halévy and then finished his education with Hans von Bülow in Berlin. 

	Antoine François Marmontel 16.06.1816 - 17.01.1898 For more than 40 years one of  the most influential teachers of  the Paris Conservatoire

After that he toured Europe either as a concert pianist alone or from 1873 to 1877 with the Dutch violinist August Wilhelmj who not only had a dazzling career as solo violinist who - among other things championed Raff's violin concertos - but also became principal violinist in the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra at the premiere of Wagner's Der Ring des Niebelungen in 1876.

	August (Emil Daniel Ferdinand Victor) Wilhelmj 21.09.1845 - 22.01.1908

In 1883 Niemann was appointed piano teacher at the Robert Fuchs' Conservatory in Wiesbaden and has composed many pieces of piano music, songs and a violin sonata.
Niemann's son Walter (1876- ?) also became a pianist and composer

Konzertwalzer op. 36  (Litolff)

3 Kleine Konzertstücke op. 40: 1. Romanze, 2. Alla Gavotte, 3. Presto (Perpetuum Mobile).  1896 (Kistner)
Dedicated to Géza Zichy

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(No portrait)

Andrew Noble

Born: ? 

x  X

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Pehr Henrik Nordgren  Finnish composer

Saltvik, Åland, 19.01.1944 - Veteli, 25.08.2008

Pehr Henrik Nordgren studied musicology at the University of Helsinki, taking an MA in 1967, and composition as a private student of Joonas Kokkonen from 1965 to 1969. From 1970 to 1973, he studied composition and traditional Japanese music at the Tokio University of Art and Music. Since then he has lived at Kaustinen, working primarily as a freelance composer.

Concerto for piano left hand only and chamber orchestra, op. 129 (2004)

:Kwaidan II, Three Ballads after Japanese Ghost Stories for piano left hand, Op.127 (2004)

Photo an information: Finnish Music Information Centre (FIMIC)

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(No portrait)

Isabel Stewart North 

Born: ? 

The Fable op. 19  1912 (North Publishing)

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Llwyn-yr-Eos, Cardiff, Wales, 15.01.1893 - London, 06.03.1951

Ivor Novello was the son of the well-known singer and teacher Clara Novello Davies and attended Magdalen College School, Oxford.
He attracted attention with his very familiar song Keep the Home Fires Burning which he composed during WW I. At the same time his show Theodore & Co became a great hit. After the was he was engaged with a successful film career (also in Hollywood), appeared on stage; mostly in shows written by himself in operettas and generally composed to the librettos of Christopher Hassall.
He was known for his luxurious life together with different male lovers, but this way of living was cut short during WW II when he was sentenced to eight weeks in prison (he served four) for misuse of petrol coupons, a serious offence in wartime Britain.
After his release after only four weeks he was a broken man but continued on stage until his sudden death from a coronary thrombosis. But he is remembered not only for his songs but also for the Ivor Novello Awards for songwriting and the former Strand Theater was in 2005 renamed to the Novello Theater.

(My Dearest Dear, from the London musical The Dancing Years produced in 1939) see John Amriding

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Madlow nr. Cottbus, south-east of Berlin, 07.07.1924 - Spremberg, 20.07.1998

Nowka studied first with the Reger pupil Hermann Grabner (1886-1969) at the High School of Music in Berlin-Charlottenburg (1942-43) and after the war he was engaged from 1947 to 1952 as répétiteur and conductor in Cottbus, Stendal and Schwerin. During this time he also attended the master classes (1952-54) at the German Academy of Arts in Berlin where his teachers were Max Butting (1888-1976) and Hanns Eisler (1898-1962).

He has received several awards for his music f.ex. The East German Arts Prize and the Schwerin Fritz Reuter Arts Prize. Much of his music is based on dance music and folk elements from his native district of which he made a thorough study during the years 1952 to 1961 and this music has a wide appeal. Later on he turned to twelve-tone music and aleatoric composition. 
Among his rich output are several concertos: for violin op. 77, for flute harp and strings op. 46, for oboe and chamber orchestra op. 24, a Sinfonietta Sorbica op. 42, two Sinfoniettas without opus number, a Symphony op. 55, 8 Wendische Tänze op. 26, 27 & 59, Konzertante Variationen über ein Thema von Hanns Eisler, three sonatas for orchestra,  the operas Jan Suschka from 1957 and Die Erbschaft (The Inheritance) from 1958 and the ballet Eine Bauernlegende (A Peasant's Legend). Besides Nowka has composed much chamber music f.ex. four string quartets, divertimento for nine instruments, piano pieces (among these two sonatas) and songs - f.ex. Vier Gesänge wider den Krig (Five Songs Against War) in 1957.

Piano concerto op. 71  (1963) (Verlag Neue Musik)
There are three movements - the finale being a Toccata - all very effectively laid out for the left hand.