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    Early Life   Chiquinha Gonzaga (Francisca Edwiges Neves Gonzaga), Brazilian composer has her "canonization" as there is no doubt of her place in the history of Brazil. However, it is necessary to complete this story to obtain an identity, for she had neither parents nor siblings who could give testimony about her life. Born illegitimate in 1847, Chiquinha Gonzaga was abandoned by her mother and raised by her grandmother. She may have been born as Carolina Josefina de Almeida Prado on June 7th 1847, in Rio de Janeiro, but her real name should have been Maria Rita Joaquina Gonzaga. Her father mixed up the baptismal certificates, and she went through life with a different name. She showed an early interest in music, and at the age of 9, she began to study with a priest. In 1865, she moved to Rio de Janeiro, where she continued her musical studies and worked as a piano teacher, adopting Chiquinha.   Personal Life   There are many different stories about who Ch

Early Life   Justin Holand is an American as well as a Canadian classical guitarist and composer. He was born on October 22 1984, in Nova Scotia, Canada. There are no sources to prove that he has received formal training in music, but he taught himself guitar when he was just 9 years old. He started performing in public when he was only 10 years old, and by the time he turned 15, he had already composed a guitar concerto. Justin entered the prestigious Juilliard School of Music in New York at the age of 16 and graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree in classical guitar performance four years later.   Personal Life   Free-black Justin Holland was born on July 26, 1819. This means that he was the first or second eldest son of farmer Exum Holland. He was one of his three sons but also five daughters to be born before him! Free blacks lived near the family in a neighbourhood with whites with some money and people who didn't have slaves. People in Norfolk County used t

  A Biography of Julia Perry: American Composer   Early Life   Nineteenth-century American composer Julia Smith Perry has made a name for herself as a dynamic and accomplished woman. She defied the social conventions of her time by devoting much of her life to composing music, writing poetry, reading broadly in literature and philosophy, gardening, and entertaining guests from New York City's intellectual circles in her home on Staten Island. Perry was born into a musical family on October 12, 1849, in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father, Dr John Howard Perry, was a noted physician and musician who composed and performed his own music. Julia's mother, Sarah Augusta Smith Perry, was also a talented musician and an accomplished painter.   Julia was the second of four children and the only daughter in the family. At age seven, she began piano lessons and showed a natural aptitude for music. At age fifteen, Perry moved to New York City with her parents. There she began priv