Giacomo Meyerbeer
The first piano teacher the boy had was Franz Lauska, who also taught the royal princes.  He also had lessons in composition.  Meyerbeer first played in public in 1801 playing Mozart's Piano Concerto in D Minor in Berlin. He wrote his first opera in 1810.  In the same year he went to Darmstadt to study with the well-known music theorist Abbé Vogler.  There he met the young Carl Maria von Weber who was also a pupil of Vogler.  He left Vogler in 1811 and tried to get some work in Munich.  In 1813 he found he had been offered a job as court composer to the Grand Duke of Hessen.  Vogler had probably recommended him for the job.  At this time Meyerbeer was better known as a pianist than as a composer.  He travelled to London to hear an important pianist based there, namely J.B.Cramer.  There he met other famous pianists such as Kalkbrenner and Ferdinand Ries.