Composer fact sheets for kids
One page for each composer. Read the story, play the three pieces, then write and draw. The sheets work for homeschool composer study, music class, or a rainy afternoon.
Baroque era
About 1600 to 1750. Busy, steady music with a strong beat. The harpsichord and the organ are common.
Classical era
About 1750 to 1820. Clear tunes and balanced phrases. The symphony and the piano grow up in these years.
Romantic era
About 1820 to 1900. Bigger orchestras, strong feelings, and music that tells stories.
Franz Schubert
He wrote more than 600 songs.
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel
She wrote more than 400 pieces. Most were not published while she lived.
Felix Mendelssohn
He wrote his overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream when he was 17.
Frédéric Chopin
Almost all of his music is for the piano.
Clara Schumann
She played concerts for more than 60 years.
Johannes Brahms
His Lullaby is one of the best-known cradle songs in the world.
Camille Saint-Saëns
He wrote Carnival of the Animals as a joke for his friends.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
He wrote three famous ballets: Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker.
Antonín Dvořák
He loved trains and went to the station in Prague to watch them.
Edvard Grieg
He wrote music for a play about Peer Gynt, a boy who meets trolls.
Modern era
About 1900 to 2000. New sounds, new rhythms, and music for film, ballet, and the concert hall.
Claude Debussy
He wrote a set of piano pieces called Children's Corner for his young daughter.
Gustav Holst
He wrote The Planets, with one piece for each of seven planets.
Maurice Ravel
In Boléro, one tune repeats again and again while the orchestra grows louder.
Igor Stravinsky
At the first show of The Rite of Spring, the crowd grew so loud that the dancers could hardly hear the music.
Florence Price
In 1933 the Chicago Symphony Orchestra played her Symphony No. 1. She was the first Black woman to have a symphony played by a major American orchestra.
Sergei Prokofiev
In Peter and the Wolf, each character has its own instrument.
Aaron Copland
He used cowboy songs and folk tunes in his ballets.
Benjamin Britten
He wrote The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra to show each instrument family in turn.
How to use the fact sheets
Pick one composer for the week or the month. Print the sheet and read the story together. Play one piece from the list each time you sit down. The child ticks a box after each piece and fills in the bottom half at the end.
To plan a full year, read composer study for homeschool, or build a schedule with the composer study planner. To see who lived when, open the composer timeline.