Living composers

What living composers are you listening to at the moment?

And what pieces would you recommend as having something worthwhile to say?

If you suggest a composer you should probably suggest a work.

Andrew

John Adams - Short Ride in a Fast Machine, Hallelujah Junction, Nixon in China

John Corigliano - Violin Concerto, Symphony No. 1

Eric Whitacre - everything...

Christopher Rouse - Flute Concerto, Trombone Concerto

Aaron Jay Kernis - Lament and Prayer, Newly Drawn Sky

Oleg Paiberdin- Contemporary music: mp3: new music of the contemporary Russian composer Oleg Paiberdin.

Micheal Nyman - Time Lapse and soundtrack from 'the piano'

Sy Brandon - Celebration Overture. A little reminiscent of Jupiter the Bringer of war - or at least reminds me of it - but is a coherent, well written piece filled with interesting harmonic ideas.

Ethan Haimo - Symphony no.1 I think I only listened to the Presto as I was in a hurry, but I'm assuming the rest is good!

For anybody with naxosmusiclibrary access, I recommend searching for Masterworks of the new Era (where you can find the above two pieces). It's well worth checking out even if you only like a small number of pieces and you're bound to find some harmonies you've never heard before.

Apart from that, John Williams Star Wars soundtrack :) .

There's bound to be lots more but I havn't done enough research into recent compositions, something I must do more of.

Michael Torke

Steve Reich

Nico Muhly

Eric Whitacre

Arvo P

Michael Torke

Olivie Messiaen- he might have died recently... not sure

Messiaen died in 1992.

Messiaen died in 1992.

ok thanks.... still a great composer

ok thanks.... still a great composer

Your welcome, I know hes amazing!

Paul Newland (Standing Jump, from criticalnotice.com )

Jo Kondo (you won't find much available, so whatever you can find is good)

Rihm (anything for voices is amazing)

Sciarrino (his piano writing is very nice)

Birtwistle (Tragic Theatre, Silbury Air, Grimethorpe Aria, he's got loads of good works)

Louis Andriessen (anything, really)

Julian Anderson (Khorovod and The Book of Hours - the only two pieces of him I've ever listened to)

Chamber music by Carter is good (haven't listened to any orchestral pieces of his), and I absolutely adore the Ancient Voices of Children by Crumb (along other pieces of his).

If you also accept music by people who have just recently deceased (i.e. less than 10 years ago), I would also include Takemitsu (I love everything I have listened to so far, although I have a tendency to re-listen to his "From Far Beyond Chrysanthemums And November Fog" and "Hika", but also his orchestral pieces are pretty damn good), Xenakis (Evryali is just incredible, Pithoprakta is very nice too, and any of the pieces for strings are good), and Ligeti (his piano etudes are amazing, and his orchestral pieces too).

And the list goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on (and on).

Contemporary (and later 20th century) music is so varied that you can't possible list everything you like. Someone might say "I like Mozart and people who sound like him", but now no one sounds like anyone else, it's not about a movement or a group but about the individual, and since anyone is free to do what they want, it's what the individual does with this freedom that makes him a unique composer. And that's why the music of all the people I mentioned above is so varied and different, yet I like all the pieces equally - it would be very difficult to say I prefer a piece by Takemitsu over a piece by Ligeti, exactly because their styles/compositional voices are so different.

Your "living composers" thing, however, is a bit annoying, because I wouldn't be able to include in the list composers such as Scelsi, Feldman, Cage or Messiaen, all of which have written pieces which have something very contemporary about them, and which I also admire and like as much as composers living today.

Take care and enjoy :) Hope you find something you too like, from what people suggest.