Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE is an English composer, pianist, librettist, musicologist, and filmmaker. He is known for numerous film scores, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano. He has written a number of operas, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat; Letters, Riddles and Writs; Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs; Facing Goya; Man and Boy: Dada; Love Counts; and Sparkie: Cage and Beyond. He has written six concerti, five string quartets, and many other chamber works, many for his Michael Nyman Band. He is also a performing pianist. Nyman prefers to write opera over other forms of music.
Lou Silver Harrison was an American composer, music critic, music theorist, painter, and creator of unique musical instruments. Harrison initially wrote in a dissonant, ultramodernist style similar to his former teacher and contemporary, Henry Cowell, but later moved toward incorporating elements of non-Western cultures into his work. Notable examples include a number of pieces written for Javanese style gamelan instruments, inspired after studying with noted gamelan musician Kanjeng Notoprojo in Indonesia. Harrison would create his own musical ensembles and instruments with his partner, William Colvig, who are now both considered founders of the American gamelan movement and world music; along with composers Harry Partch and Claude Vivier, and ethnomusicologist Colin McPhee.
Alan Hovhaness was an American composer of Armenian ancestry. He was one of the most prolific 20th-century composers, with his official catalog comprising 67 numbered symphonies and 434 opus numbers. The true tally is well over 500 surviving works, since many opus numbers comprise two or more distinct works.
Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish conductor and composer. He is the music director of the San Francisco Symphony and conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Stephen O'Malley is an American guitarist, producer, composer, and visual artist from Seattle, Washington, who has conceptualized and participated in numerous drone metal, doom metal, and experimental music bands, most notably Sunn O))).
Richard Danielpour is an American composer and academic, currently affiliated with the Curtis Institute of Music and the University of California, Los Angeles.
Robert Joffrey was an American dancer, teacher, producer, choreographer, and co-founder of the Joffrey Ballet, known for his highly imaginative modern ballets. He was born Anver Bey Abdullah Jaffa Khan in Seattle, Washington to a Pashtun father from Afghanistan and a mother from Italy.
Feels is the sixth studio album by American experimental pop band Animal Collective, released on October 18, 2005 by FatCat Records. The album received acclaim from music critics, and was included at number 55 on Pitchfork's list of "The 200 Best Albums of the 2000s". As of 2008, Feels sold 55,000 copies in the US.
Eyvindur Y. Kang is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist. His primary instrument is viola, but has also performed on violin, tuba, keyboards and others.
Wolves in the Throne Room is an American black metal band formed in 2002 in Olympia, Washington, by brothers Aaron and Nathan Weaver. They have released seven full-length albums, two live albums, and two EPs to date. They have stated one of the founding concepts of the band to be channeling the "energies of the Pacific Northwest's landscape" into musical form.
The Joseph H. Bearns Prize in Music was established on February 3, 1921, by Lillia M. Bearns in memory of her father. The purpose of the prize is to encourage talented young composers in the United States. Administered by Columbia University, the prize is open to United States citizens who are between 18 and 25 years old. It is divided into two categories: larger-form works and smaller-form works. The Joseph H. Bearns Prize is one of the most significant awards granted to young American composers, and in 2006, it amounted to a total of $7,200.
Lori Goldston is an American cellist and composer. Accomplished in a wide variety of styles, including classical, world music, rock and free improvisation, she came to prominence as the touring cellist for Nirvana from 1993–1994 and appears on their live album MTV Unplugged in New York. She was a member of Earth, the Black Cat Orchestra, and Spectratone International, and also performs solo.
Charles A. Looker is an American composer, improviser, vocalist, and guitarist known for his work in experimental metal, contemporary classical, avant-jazz, and Renaissance and Medieval musical forms.
Daniela Malusardi is an Italian choreographer, teacher and dancer.
Sub Verses is the sixth and final studio album by experimental rock band Akron/Family. It was released on April 30, 2013, on Dead Oceans Records.
Randall Dunn is an American record producer, audio engineer, composer, and musician.
Degenerate Art Ensemble is a Seattle-based multi-art performance company whose work is inspired by punk, comics, cinema, nightmares and fairy tales driven by live music and visceral movement theater and dance. The group was founded and is co-directed by dancer/performer/director Haruko Nishimura and composer/conductor/performer Joshua Kohl. Degenerate Art Ensemble is both a multi-discipline performance company and a band, having performed major dance and live music works, orchestral concerts, rock shows and site-specific street spectacles.
John Thomas Holiday Jr. is an American operatic countertenor. His repertoire focuses on the Baroque and contemporary composers, including staged opera and opera in concert, works for voice and orchestra, and experimental mixed-media. He has participated in several world premieres. He has performed with several opera companies in the United States, toured with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and sung in Shanghai and several European cities. He also sings gospel, pop, and jazz; he was a contestant on season 19 of NBC's The Voice, a vocal competition television series.
Peter Seabourne is an English contemporary classical composer based in Lincolnshire, England.
Athlantis is a live album by violinist/multi-instrumentalist Eyvind Kang which was released in 2007 on Ipecac Recordings.
