Louis Moreau Gottschalk(born 1829, New Orleans, La., U.S.A--died 1869, Rio de Janeiro, Braz.), the first American pianist to achieve international recognition and the first American composer to utilize Latin-American and Creole folk themes and rhythms. Son of an English-German father and an aristocratic Creole mother, Gottschalk was a child prodigy on several instruments. In Paris from age 13 he became a favourite of the aristocracy.

After playing in concerts throughout Europe, Gottschalk made his New York City debut in 1853. He toured the United States and West Indies and spent several years as a vagabond in the Caribbean. In 1865 he began a South American tour that ended abruptly in his death while conducting at a festival of his works. His compositions include Gran Tarantella for piano and orchestra, La Bamboula and other piano pieces, and vocal works, many typical of early 19th-century sentimental salon music. Although, like Frédéric Chopin, he was a pianist and composer in the Romantic tradition, Gottschalk lacked Chopin's harmonic inventiveness and was more superficial. His music underwent a revival in the mid-20th century. He was the author of Notes of a Pianist (1881).

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