# Top 20 Living Classical Composers / Top 50 or so Living Composers (any genre)



## christomacin (Oct 21, 2017)

I've been thinking lately about the state of music today, how many greats (or at least purported greats) are still living, how much longer they might live and how much more they might achieve, and if there are any younger ones coming up who might become of equal stature some day. Obviously, time passes on, people get old, people die, so to an extent it's just the natural order of things. Is there reason to be a bit worried or alarmed, or not? Anyway, what I've done is make a list of living classical composers who, love them, hate them, or indifferent to them, are certainly widely known and acclaimed and have been for several decades now. I also made a second list of living Pop music composers by way of comparison. Perhaps I'm showing my age here, because I couldn't think of any Pop composers younger than Bono, Madonna, or Björk. I'm sure I've left something out, but I think this is a fairly comprehensive list of major composers in various genres still living. So you can peruse the list and then read a few of my observations below. 

Top 25 (edit) Classical (or at least Classical-ish) Living Composers

1. Thomas Adès (47) 
2. Alexandre Desplat (56) 
3. Hans Zimmer (60) 
4. John Adams (71) 
5. John Rutter (72) 
6. Vangelis (75) 
7. Ellen Taafe Zwilich (78)
8. Charles Wuorinen (79)
9. William Bolcom (79) 
10. John Corigliano (80) 
11. Steve Reich (81) 
12. Philip Glass (81) 
13. Terry Riley (82) 
14. La Monte Young (82) 
15. Arvo Pärt (82) 
16. Harrison Birtwistle (83)
17. Krzysztof Penderecki (84) 
18. Lalo Schifrin (85) 
19. Rodion Schedrin (85) 
20. John Williams (85) 
21. Sofia Gubaidulina (87) 
22. Ennio Morricone (88) 
23. George Crumb (88)
24. Carlisle Floyd (91)
25. György Kurtág (92)

Honorable Mention (Non-Classical) Living Composers
*(note: I am thinking here mostly of individual composers not team or group efforts)

Björk Guðmundsdóttir (52) Pop Composer
Madonna Louis Ciccone (59) Pop Composer
Bono (57) Pop Composer
Sting (66) Pop Composer
Stevie Wonder (67) Pop Composer
Billy Joel (68) Pop Composer
Bruce Springsteen (68) Pop Composer
Andrew Lloyd Webber (70) Musical Theater Composer
James Taylor (70) Pop Composer
Ian Anderson (70) Pop Composer
Elton John (71) Pop Composer
Benny Anderson (71) Pop Composer
Peter Townshend (72) Pop Composer
Neil Young (72) Pop Composer
Van Morrison (72) Pop Composer
John Fogerty (72) Pop Composer
Joni Mitchell (74) Pop Composer
Roger Waters (74) Pop Composer
Paul McCartney (75) Pop Composer
Brian Wilson (75) Pop Composer
Chick Corea (76) Jazz Composer
Carole King (76) Pop Composer
Bob Dylan (76) Pop Composer
Paul Simon (76) Pop Composer
Neil Diamond (77) Pop Composer
Judy Collins (78) Pop Composer
Herbie Hancock (78) Jazz Composer
Gordon Lightfoot (79) Pop Composer
Willie Nelson (84) Pop Composer
Quincy Jones (85) Jazz (and Other) Composer
Stephen Sondheim (88) Musical Theater Composer
Burt Bacharach (90) Pop Composer

A few observations I'll make here:

1. Penderecki, Crumb and Kurtag are among the very last of the Old Guard Avant-gardists, although Penderecki hasn't been terribly avant-garde for several decades now. There are a few others like Charles Wuorinen and Ellen Taafe Zwilich as well, but very few. To be frank, I think the passing of most of these will be met with little attention and even less mourning.

2. Shchedrin, Corigliano, Gubaidulina, and Bolcom are the last major "polystylist" composers

3. Minimalists Reich, Glass, Young, Riley, Pärt and Adams are very much alive by getting up there in years.

4. Among film composers, only three giants from the "Silver Age of Cinema" are still living (Schifrin, Williams, and Morricone). There are a few from the younger generation such as Desplat (not too bad, but not on their level) and Hans Zimmer (not so good, in my opinion)

5. Jazz music is in pretty poor shape. Only Chick Correa and Herbie Hancock are the only true Jazz giants still living. I don't see anyone of their stature arise in the near future - if ever.

6. I can't speak to the quality level of newer Pop composers. Luckily there are many giants still alive, and considerably younger than most Classical and Jazz composers, and they should be around and maybe even active for a while longer yet...but they're getting up there too.

7. Most of the famous living Classical composers were born before 1940. Most composers after that period seemed to go into Pop music which is why there are so many more of them still alive. There's a huge time gap between the birthdays of the minimalists and the only composer born after the 1950's most people have even heard of which would be Thomas Adès, and hardly anyone at all born after him that I know of (which maybe my own problem, mightn't it?).

8. Perhaps there are worthy composers out there who are fairly young, but it seems it's much harder these days to have the same massive cultural impact of composers from past eras because of the Balkanized and increasingly fragmented nature of society. Universal acclaim is harder and harder to come by these days. For instance, it's hard to imagine a widely influential cultural movement the likes of the Darmstadt School, Minimalism, John Williams or Ennio Morricone, Be-Bop Jazz, Jazz Fusion, or Rock and Roll coming along anytime soon. The jury is still out on Rap Music, Spectral, and such. I personally don't like Rap, so that's probably a bias of mine there.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

To the list of pop composers I would add:

Neil Finn (58)
Lin Manuel Miranda (38)
Benj Pasek (32)
Justin Paul (33)
Ed Sheeran (27)


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

We ran a game very recently to determine the favourite living composers of the participants. The top 10:

01 Pēteris Vasks
02 Kalevi Aho
03 Arvo Pärt
04 Valentyn Sylvestrov
05 Kaija Saariaho
06 Sofia Gubaidulina
07 Krzysztof Penderecki
08 Terry Riley
09 John Adams
10 Per Nørgård


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I think it is very hard to see contemporary music in the context of posterity. Who from the list will still be recognised fifty years on? I am not sure if composers write for now or for posterity but for some reason posterity is important to me: I like to believe that the new music I invest time and effort in will still be around when I am not! Gyorgy Kurtag strikes me as one who will because he seems to incorporate so many disparate strands from today's music in his pieces.


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## christomacin (Oct 21, 2017)

Art Rock said:


> We ran a game very recently to determine the favourite living composers of the participants. The top 10:
> 
> 01 Pēteris Vasks
> 02 Kalevi Aho
> ...


I did put Pärt, Gubaidulina, Penderecki, Riley and Adams on my list, but not the other 5 (all of whom I have heard of at least). Of those, Nørgård and Sylvestrov are from the same generation (born in the 1930's) as most of the others on my list, while three of them (Vasks, Aho and Saariaho) were born past 1939. I could have mentioned Aulis Salinnen (born 1935) as well. He has a few pieces that have enjoyed a modicum of popularity outside the Classical bubble in his life time. Future generations will sort this out, it's out of our hands really.

I don't care for what I've heard by Saariaho or Vasks so far. I'll give Nørgård a listen to see what it does for me:


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