Composer and bandleader Julius Lenzberg -- known as "Jules" to his friends and family -- hailed from Baltimore and began his career accompanying dancing lessons at the piano; his first composition, "Ball's Academy March" (1894), was dedicated to his employer. Lenzberg had already published a few pieces by 1903 when he married and moved to New York City; thereafter he began a long round of jobs serving as an orchestra leader at various vaudeville houses in Manhattan -- in the summer, he led a band out on Long Island. After settling in Queens about 1910, Lenzberg resumed his interest in composition and in short order produced his two masterpieces; "Hungarian Rag" (1913) and "Operatic Rag" (1914). Both were fashioned after pre-existing classical compositions, although Lenzberg's transformations of them were suitably original and very well done -- many other composers who tried to mine a similar vein, at least within the context of ragtime, were not nearly as successful artistically.