Year 1755 (MDCCLV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Sunday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar).

Zachary Richard, CM is a Cajun singer/songwriter and poet. His music is an innovative combination of Cajun and Zydeco musical styles.

Zachary Richard began his musical career at the age of 8, as soprano in the Bishop's Boys Choir at Saint John’s Cathedral in Lafayette, Louisiana. He attended Cathedral High School and Tulane University, graduating summa cum laude in 1972.

Richard has recorded Cajun and zydeco music for over 35 years. He has recorded sixteen studio albums of which five were declared gold albums in Canada with a double platinum (Cap Enragé). Although recording in both English and French, Richard’s career has been notably Francophone. He has been awarded 5 Prix Félix (Quebec music award named after Félix Leclerc). He is an Officer in the Ordre des Arts et Lettres de la République Française and a member of the Ordre des Francophones d’Amérique. In 1980, he was awarded the Prix de la Jeune Chanson Française by the French Minister of Culture.

In addition to his musical works, Richard published works include 3 volumes of poetry and 3 children’s books. Faire Récolte earned the Prix Champlain (Quebec) in 1998 and Feu received the Roland Gasparic Award (Bucharest, Romania) in 2002.

Francesco Durante (31 March 1684 – 30 September 1755) was a Neapolitan composer.

He was born at Frattamaggiore, in the Kingdom of Naples, and at an early age he entered the Conservatorio dei poveri di Gesù Cristo, in Naples, where he received lessons from Gaetano Greco. Later he became a pupil of Alessandro Scarlatti at the Conservatorio di Sant'Onofrio. He is also supposed to have studied under Bernardo Pasquini and Giuseppe Ottavio Pitoni in Rome, but there is no documentary evidence. He is said to have succeeded Scarlatti in 1725 at Sant' Onofrio, and to have remained there until 1742, when he succeeded Porpora as head of the Conservatorio di Santa Maria di Loreto, also in Naples. This post he held for thirteen years, till his death in Naples. He was married three times.

His fame as a teacher was considerable, and Niccolò Jommelli, Giovanni Paisiello, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Niccolò Piccinni and Leonardo Vinci were amongst his pupils. As a teacher, he insisted on the unreasoning observance of rules, differing thus from Scarlatti, who treated all his pupils as individuals. A complete collection of Durante's works, consisting almost exclusively of sacred music, was presented by Selvaggi, a Neapolitan art collector, to the Paris library. A catalogue may be found in Fétis's Biographie universelle. The imperial library of Vienna also preserves a valuable collection of Durante's manuscripts. Two requiems, several masses (one of which, a most original work, is the Pastoral Mass for four voices) and the Lamentations of the prophet Jeremiah are amongst his most important settings.

Alan Donald James Macfarlane FBA FRHistS (born 20 December 1941) is a renowned anthropologist and historian and a Professor Emeritus of King's College, Cambridge. He is the author or editor of 20 books and numerous articles on the anthropology and history of England, Nepal, Japan and China. He has focused on comparative study of the origins and nature of the modern world. In recent years he has become increasingly interested in the use of visual material in teaching and research. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Historical Society.

Macfarlane was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford and Sedbergh School. He then read Modern History at Worcester College, University of Oxford from 1960 to 1963 completing a Bachelor of Arts and went on to his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy on 'Witchcraft prosecutions in Essex, 1560-1680: A Sociological Analysis' in 1967. He also completed a Master of Philosophy in Anthropology on 'The regulation of marital and sexual relationships in 17th century England' at the London School of Economics in 1968 and a second Doctorate in Anthropology on 'Population and resources in central Nepal' in 1972 at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London.

Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (23 December 1689 – 28 October 1755) was a French baroque composer of instrumental music, cantatas, opéra-ballets, and vocal music. Boismortier was one of the first composers to have no patrons: having obtained a royal license for engraving music in 1724, he made enormous sums of money by publishing his music for sale to the public.

The Boismortier family moved from the composer's birthplace in Thionville (in Lorraine) to the town of Metz where he received his musical education from Joseph Valette de Montigny, a well-known composer of motets. The Boismortier family then followed Montigny and moved to Perpignan in 1713 where Boismortier found employment in the Royal Tobacco Control. Boismortier married Marie Valette, the daughter of a rich goldsmith and a relative of his teacher Montigny.

In 1724 Boismortier and his wife moved to Paris where he began a prodigious composition career, writing for many instruments and voices. He was prolific: his first works appeared in Paris in 1724, and by 1747 he had published more than 100 works in various vocal and instrumental combinations. His music, particularly for the voice, was extremely popular and made him wealthy without the aid of patrons. He died in Roissy-en-Brie.