St. Patrick’s Day celebrations commence tomorrow. People around the world will be indulging in corned beef and cabbage, wearing shamrock-shaped glasses and drinking a waterfall of Guinness.

However, we have to thank Ireland for a lot more than a global holiday, including many classical music greats like romantic composer and pianist John Field, romantic composer and conductor Hamilton Harty, tenor Michael Kelly and baroque composer Richard Woodward – just to name a few.

To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and Ireland’s worldwide impact on classical music, here’s a quick lesson on classical geography from the FSO:

• Argentina: Most people wouldn’t consider classical music a prevalent genre in South America, but Carlos Guastavino, Alberto Ginastera, Astor Piazzolla, Osvaldo Golijov, Ariel Ramirez, Gerardo Gandini and Mario Davidovsky proved otherwise with more than 95 albums combined.
• Austria: Austria is responsible for gracing the world with the presence of some of the most beautiful compositions. The country is home to composers Franz Schubert, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Joseph Haydn, who made their mark on the world of classical music through their stage presence and revolutionary works.
• The Czech Republic: Famous composers Antonín Leopold Dvořák and Bedřich Smetana called the Czech Republic home for a number of years before achieving worldwide recognition in classical music.
• France: A handful of the world’s best composers hail from this beautiful country, including Frédéric François Chopin (who’s also Polish), Claude-Achille Debussy, Hector Berlioz, Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns and Joseph Maurice Ravel.
• Germany: The country undoubtedly dominates the world of classical music. They’ve given us almost a quarter of the greatest all-time composers, including Richard Wagner, Robert Schumann, Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Felix Mendelssohn, Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel.
• Hungary: Hungary gave the world some of the most important composers of all time. Franz Liszt was a prolific 19^th-century virtuoso pianist, conductor, music teacher, philanthropist, and Franciscan tertiary. He, 20^th-century composer Béla Viktor János Bartók, and Kodály Method creator Zoltán Kodály call this nation home.
• Italy: This nation is home to more than rolling vineyards and the fashion capital of the world. Famed composer, violinist and guitarist Niccolò Paganini and opera composer Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi are natives of this gorgeous country.
• Norway: Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg is widely considered one of the leading composers of the Romantic era. His impactful compositions are still part of standard classical repertoire. Another Norwegian prodigy was violinist and composer Ole Bornemann Bull, who was known for his unique performance method.
• Russia: The largest nation in the world is home to some of the most gorgeous pieces of classical music, thanks to natives Alexander Scriabin, Sergei Prokofiev, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff.
• Spain: Classical composers Manuel de Falla y Matheu, Isaac Albéniz and Enrique Granados shared worldwide fame after growing up in the country of passion.
• The United States of America: Composer Aaron Copland was one of the most famous classical composers to come out of our great country. The New York native was also a composition teacher, writer and conductor. He shares recognition with fellow New York native, pianist and composer George Gershwin and jazz orchestra spearhead and Washington, D.C. native Duke Ellington.

Around the world, people can follow a compass to find classical music. If you’d like more fun information like this, subscribe to our weekly blog: