Biography
Scott Joplin (1868 – 1917) was an American composer and pianist, known as the king of ragtime, as he was one of the pioneers of this musical genre that flourished at the beginning of the 20th century in the USA.
Joplin was born in Texarkana in Northwest Texas on November 24, 1868 to a family of railroad workers. They had no money for lessons, but because he showed great passion for music, a neighboring music teacher took him on, offering him free piano lessons and helping the family financially to buy a second-hand piano. While in Texarkana, he formed a vocal quartet with which he began performing. In the late 1880s, he quit his job as a railroad worker and traveled the American South as an itinerant musician. He went to Chicago for the 1893 World's Fair, which was instrumental in spreading ragtime across America. From 1895 he started publishing his music. Major recognition came in 1899 with the composition Maple Leaf Rag, which was the first major success of ragtime and had a decisive influence on subsequent composers of the genre. He lived in the town of Sentalia, Missouri and began teaching piano and playing in various shops. A few years later he moved to New York, in order to find a financier for his first opera A Guest of Honour.
In June 1904 he married for the second time, but his wife died unexpectedly after three months. After a few years he was diagnosed with syphilis. In 1916, syphilis caused him dementia, and in January 1917 he entered a mental hospital in Manhattan, where he breathed his last on April 1, 1917. Joplin's music came to the fore again in the early 1970s, after great success of the film "To Kendri", the soundtrack of which contained many of his pieces, while in 1975 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his music.