VIDEO PODCAST: John Dante Prevedini leads a discussion about Youth Involvement in Classical Music - this specially extended illustrated feature includes contributions from Christopher Morley, Gerald Fenech, Halida Dinova, Patricia Spencer and Roderic Dunnett.
VIDEO PODCAST: Women Composers - Our special hour-long illustrated feature on women composers includes contributions from Diana Ambache, Gail Wein, Hilary Tann, Natalie Artemas-Polak and Victoria Bond.
Czech composer, arranger, violinist and kapellmeister Georg Anton Benda was born in what is now Benátky nad Jizerou in Bohemia on 30 June 1722 into a family of musicians.
Benda worked for Frederick the Great in the chapel of Berlin, as a composer and arranger for his older brother Franz Benda, and as kapellmeister for the Duke of Gotha.
His most important contribution is in the development of the German melodrama, and he was commissioned by Abel Seyler to write several of these, including Ariadne auf Naxos - which is generally thought to be his best, Medea and Pygmalion.
Benda lived until 6 November 1795, when he died, aged seventy-three, at Köstritz in what is now Thuringia in Germany.