Suzanne Ciani was the first female composer to write the complete score for a major motion picture - “The Incredible Shrinking Woman” in 1981.

The first true opera was Monteverdi's Orfeo (1607).

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) spent most of his life as a violin teacher at a school for orphaned girls. He wrote most of his music for the students at the orphanage, which had developed an orchestra that was famous all over Europe.

When he was ten-years-old, composer Ralph Vaughn Williams wrote a puppet opera called "The Galoshes of Happiness."

The first African-American band to play in Carnegie Hall was Count Basie’s Band in 1939.

When Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) died, there was a simple funeral since Austria was being invaded by Napoleon's troops. A couple of amateur medical students secretly stole Haydn's head and put the skull in a little black box with a white silk cushion. They wanted to read the bumps on his head. In 1820, Prince Nicolaus Esterhazy had the body exhumed. When he discovered that the body had no head, he tracked down the thieves, and demanded that it be returned. They had already donated the skull to a Viennese musical society, and gave him someone else's. It wasn't until 1954 that Haydn's head was buried along with the rest of his body.

Billy Rose claimed to have written the first commercial jingle in 1924. Its title was "Does the Spearmint Lose Its Flavor On the Bedpost Overnight?" The song made the pop charts in 1961 recorded by Lonnie Donnegan and re-named "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor On the Bedpost Overnight?"

Franz Schubert's friends called him "Schwammerl" or "Tubby." "Schwammerl" is actually German for "little mushroom."

The song "Over the Rainbow" was almost taken out of the movie "The Wizard of Oz,” and the part of Dorothy almost went to Shirley Temple. That's really hard to imagine!

David Lanz and Paul Speer’s “Behind the Waterfall” (1985) is considered to be the first “new age” single.

Giuseppe Verdi is the only prominent classical composer who was also a successful farmer.

Have you ever wondered why Yankee Doodle stuck a feather in his cap and called it Macaroni? In this case, "macaroni" doesn't refer to pasta, but to a mid-18th century English social club of young men who wanted to bring the British influences to the US. The line from the song was originally intended to discredit American Revolutionaries.

Daisy and Violet Hilton may have made up the most unusual jazz band ever. They performed all over the East Coast in the 1920's and '30's, with Daisy playing the saxophone and Violet playing the piano. What made them so unusual? They were Siamese twins joined at the hip.

Francis Scott Key, who wrote the lyrics to "The Star-Spangled Banner," was a lawyer and became a district attorney in Washington, D.C.

John Cage won $6000 in 1958 for answering questions about mushrooms on an Italian television show.

The Yamaha baby grand piano that Freddie Mercury wrote some of Queen’s greatest hits on was sold at an auction at Sotheby's in London for $2.2 million on September 6, 2023. Sotheby’s said it was the highest price ever paid for a composer’s piano. Mercury bought the piano (a Yamaha G2) in 1975 and had it imported to England from Japan. Mercury died in 1991 and left his home in London as well as his piano and most of his estate to his close friend, Mary Austin. Gee, my piano is at least 15 years newer, is bigger and has all three pedals! I wonder if it's worth even more! (Yes, I'm kidding about that last part!)