# Contemporary Composers: Recommendations?



## Evoken (Oct 13, 2013)

Greetings,
If I am not mistaken the 'contemporary' term would refer to composers who have emerged since the 1940s or somewhere around that. I would like to explore the works of these more recent composers, but I am not sure where to start. What are the best/most renowed and which works would you recommend?

Thansk in advance!


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## Guest (Dec 10, 2013)

First, I would jettison the idea of "best/most renowned." That will get you a lot of things that other people like. You may like some of it, too. But there's so much more. And look at the downside of idolatry: dozens of threads on TC about this or that aspect of Mr. Louis Beethoven. Nice German chap. Wrote some smashing music. But enough already!! There are thousands of other composers worth listening to as well. You know....

Second, go to Youtube. Look for the channels of John11Inch and of the Wellesz Society. Those two alone would keep anyone busy for weeks if not months. Once you're done sampling their offerings, you won't feel any uncertainty about where to start. You will have started and gone quite far, already.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

If you must have a list, here's the Guardian's list of 50 (on the right of the article). They also mention John11Inch as a source, plus a couple other YouTube channels.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2012/apr/23/welcome-new-contemporary-music-guide


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Some of my faves: 
- Gorecki
- Kilar
- Penderecki
- Part
- Rautavaara
- Auerbach
- Schnittke
- Ligeti
and Berio


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## Guest (Dec 11, 2013)

You'll like Arvo Part, Vamos. Tons of others ofc, that's just the first one that stuck out to me in Cosmos' list as being a nice accessible beginning.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

I like Pascal Dusapin a lot, I recommend checking out his string quartet _Time Zones_ and his opera _Perelà, uomo di fumo_.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Higdon is accessible enough, and her works have a beginning, a middle and an end, not just middle. I hate to start in the middle. Finnissy isn't so accommodating, but once you get in it's all there.


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## Evoken (Oct 13, 2013)

some guy said:


> First, I would jettison the idea of "best/most renowned." That will get you a lot of things that other people like. You may like some of it, too. But there's so much more. And look at the downside of idolatry: dozens of threads on TC about this or that aspect of Mr. Louis Beethoven. Nice German chap. Wrote some smashing music. But enough already!! There are thousands of other composers worth listening to as well. You know....
> 
> Second, go to Youtube. Look for the channels of John11Inch and of the Wellesz Society. Those two alone would keep anyone busy for weeks if not months. Once you're done sampling their offerings, you won't feel any uncertainty about where to start. You will have started and gone quite far, already.


Thanks some guy, I appreciate your point but as you say, 'there's so much more' and so much that it can be daunting to someone who is only getting started exploring classical music. So, asking for recommendations is a good way to narrow things down and start small; which in turns allows one to better appreciate the music, focusing first with a couple composers and then expanding from there.

I'll check out that YouTube channel you mentioned tho, thanks! 



GreenMamba said:


> If you must have a list, here's the Guardian's list of 50 (on the right of the article). They also mention John11Inch as a source, plus a couple other YouTube channels.
> 
> http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2012/apr/23/welcome-new-contemporary-music-guide





Cosmos said:


> Some of my faves: Gorecki, Kilar, Penderecki, Part, Rautavaara, Auerbach, Schnittke, Ligeti and Berio


Nice, I'll check some of those to start, thanks!



arcaneholocaust said:


> You'll like Arvo Part, Vamos. Tons of others ofc, that's just the first one that stuck out to me in Cosmos' list as being a nice accessible beginning.


Ah, cool I start with that one and then I'll check some of the list compiled by The Guardian to see how it goes.



Crudblud said:


> I like Pascal Dusapin a lot, I recommend checking out his string quartet _Time Zones_ and his opera _Perelà, uomo di fumo_.


Fair enough, will check that out.

Thanks again for the pointers.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Concert Band*

One genre that has produce a large body of outstanding music is the concert band. There is some great stuff out there if you give it a chance.

Vincent Persichetti, Morton Gould, Norman Dello Joio and William Schuman have all composed some outstanding works for concert band:

Some living composers who have composed great music for the band are:

Donald Grantham

_Southern Harmony_






David Maslanka

_Symphony Number Four_





(_Links for A Child Garden of Dreams_)





















David Gillingham

_Concertino for 4 Percussion & Wind Ensemble_





Mark Camphouse

(Links for _Watchman, Tell us of Night_)









_Foundation_. I play with the City of Fairfax Band. The Band commissioned the piece and we performed the premier. This is a studio band that was hired to record the work for the publisher. The work was composed as a memoriam for our late president and incorporated some of his favorite hymns. Because of my late friend this work has a special meaning for me.





Frank Ticheli

_Blue Shades_
MP3 of the City of Fairfax Band with yours truly on bassoon. Warning: Our clarinetist did such a smoking job on the clarinet the audience gave her an ovation in the middle of the piece.
View attachment cfb-BlueShades.mp3


I just previewed this post and I am going a bit overboard. This is a genre that is unjustly ignored by many. It is currently dominated by American Composers although in the past twenty years there have been some European and Japanese composers who have been making some great contributions. If your interested in some more atonal, adventuresome stuff try Karel Husa.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

GreenMamba said:


> If you must have a list, here's the Guardian's list of 50 (on the right of the article). They also mention John11Inch as a source, plus a couple other YouTube channels.
> 
> http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2012/apr/23/welcome-new-contemporary-music-guide


Here's the list:

No 50: Karlheinz Stockhausen
No 49: Alfred Schnittke
No 48: Iannis Xenakis
No 47: Magnus Lindberg
No 46: Galina Ustvolskaya
No 45: Alexander Goehr
No 44: La Monte Young
No 43: Gérard Grisey
No 42: György Kurtag
No 41: George Benjamin
No 40: John Tavener
No 39: Toru Takemitsu
No 38: James Dillon
No 37: Terry Riley
No 36: Henri Dutilleux
No 35: Witold Lutosławski
No 34: Gerard Barry
No 33: Cornelius Cardew
No 32: Luciano Berio
No 31: Philip Glass
No 30: Luigi Nono
No 29: Meredith Monk
No 28: Morton Feldman
No 27: Rebecca Saunders
No 26: Hans Werner Henze
No 25: Steve Reich
No 24: Louis Andriessen
No 23: Jörg Widmann
No 22: Thomas Adès
No 21: Wolfgang Rihm
No 20: Jonathan Harvey
No 19: Brian Ferneyhough
No 18: John Adams
No 17: Peter Maxwell Davies
No 16: John Cage
No 15: Olga Neuwirth
No 14: Per Nørgård
No 13: Michael Finnissy
No 12: Pierre Boulez
No 11: Kaija Saariaho
No 10: Richard Rodney Bennett
No 9: Bernd Alois Zimmermann
No 8: Arvo Pärt
No 7: Helmut Lachenmann
No 6: Oliver Knussen
No 5: Judith Weir
No 4: John Zorn
No 3: Harrison Birtwistle
No 2: Pauline Oliveros
No 1: Elliott Carter


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

My favorites include Ligeti, Hans Werner Henze, Henri Dutilleux and several others. I'm always on a journey of discovery. It never gets old.


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## Dom (Nov 26, 2013)

Kalevi Aho:


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