Rachmaninoff was born on April Fools 1873 to a Russian-Moldavian family.
By the age of 18 he was an excellent pianist. Two years later, he wrote an opera that was given the Moscow Conservatory’s Great Gold Medal, the third person to receive that honor.
Later in his life he wrote many other works that have come to be respected as the works of a genius.
He died in his Beverly Hills home on March 28,1943.