Events in Music
- May 18 Irish Music Festival 1st held in Dublin
Music History
May 18 Paul Dukas' symphonic scherzo "The Sorcerer’s Apprentice" (used in Disney's Fantasia film) premieres, based on poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Birthdays in Music
- May 2 J. Fred Coots, American songwriter ("Santa Claus Is Coming To Town"; "Love Letters In The Sand"), born in Brooklyn, New York (d. 1985)
- May 14 Sidney Bechet, American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, band leader, and composer ("Petite Fleur"), born in New Orleans, Louisiana (d. 1959)
- May 16 Walther Geiser, composer
- May 22 Marcelle Meyer, French contemporary classical (Les Six) and Baroque revivalist (Bach; Rameau) concert pianist, born in Lille, France (d. 1958)
- May 23 Fred Guy, American jazz banjo player and guitarist (Joseph C. Smith's Orchestra; Duke Ellington's Washingtonians) , born in Burkeville, Virginia (d. 1971)
- May 29 Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Austrian-American composer (Violanta, The Adventures of Robin Hood), born in Brünn, Austria-Hungary (d. 1957)
- May 29 Ignace Lilien, Dutch-Austrian composer, born in Lemberg (now in Lviv, Ukraine) (d. 1964)