Maurice Ravel, composer of the Bolero, and many other less famous but more wonderful musical works, wears the birthday hat this week.
Although you'll often hear him lumped with Debussy as an "impressionist," few composers were less fuzzy and more definite than Ravel. "I tore my work out of me, drop by drop," goes the most famous quotation from this musician.
He was one of the master orchestrators, as you can tell from his arrangement of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. He was also short (5' 4") and a very private man — and modest.
Find out more about Ravel, listen to his music, watch videos and dig up fun facts on the SFCV composer biography page for Ravel. Ravel might have been born 138 years ago today, but this video is still fresh. Here's his most famous piece performed by the Vienna Philharmonic and the (slightly younger) conductor Gustavo Dudamel.