Charles Peter Wuorinen was an American composer of contemporary classical music based in New York City. He also performed as a pianist and conductor. Wuorinen composed more than 270 works: orchestral music, chamber music, solo instrumental and vocal works, and operas, such as Brokeback Mountain. His work was termed serialist but he came to disparage that idea as meaningless. Time's Encomium, his only purely electronic piece, received the Pulitzer Prize. Wuorinen taught at several institutions, including Columbia University and the Manhattan School of Music.
Alfred Whitford (Fred) Lerdahl is the Fritz Reiner Professor Emeritus of Musical Composition at Columbia University, and a composer and music theorist best known for his work on musical grammar and cognition, rhythmic theory, pitch space, and cognitive constraints on compositional systems. He has written many orchestral and chamber works, three of which were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Music: Time after Time in 2001, String Quartet No. 3 in 2010, and Arches in 2011.
Michael Kevin Daugherty is an American composer, pianist, and teacher. He is influenced by popular culture, Romanticism, and Postmodernism. Daugherty's notable works include his Superman comic book-inspired Metropolis Symphony for Orchestra (1988–93), Dead Elvis for Solo Bassoon and Chamber Ensemble (1993), Jackie O (1997), Niagara Falls for Symphonic Band (1997), UFO for Solo Percussion and Orchestra (1999) and for Symphonic Band (2000), Bells for Stokowski from Philadelphia Stories for Orchestra (2001) and for Symphonic Band (2002), Fire and Blood for Solo Violin and Orchestra (2003) inspired by Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, Time Machine for Three Conductors and Orchestra (2003), Ghost Ranch for Orchestra (2005), Deus ex Machina for Piano and Orchestra (2007), Labyrinth of Love for Soprano and Chamber Winds (2012), American Gothic for Orchestra (2013), and Tales of Hemingway for Cello and Orchestra (2015). Daugherty has been described by The Times (London) as "a master icon maker" with a "maverick imagination, fearless structural sense and meticulous ear."
Karel Husa was a Czech-born classical composer and conductor, winner of the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Music and 1993 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. In 1954, he emigrated to the United States and became an American citizen in 1959.
Steven Edward Stucky was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer.
Ladislav Kubík was a Czech-American composer. His style is associated with other post-war Eastern European composers, such as Krzysztof Penderecki and Witold Lutosławski.
David Lang is an American composer living in New York City. Co-founder of the musical collective Bang on a Can, he was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music for The Little Match Girl Passion, which went on to win a 2010 Grammy Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance by Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices. Lang was nominated for an Academy Award for "Simple Song #3" from the film Youth.
George Tsontakis is an American composer and conductor.
Zhou Long is a Chinese American composer. He won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Emil Viklický is a Czech jazz pianist and composer.
Vytautas Barkauskas was a Lithuanian composer and Professor of Composition of the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre.
Jimmy López Bellido is a classical music composer from Lima, Peru. He has won several international awards and has been nominated to a Latin Grammy Awards. Pieces composed by him have been performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Peru, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. His works have been performed at Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House, Gewandhaus Leipzig, and during the 2010 Youth Olympic games in Singapore. His music has been featured in numerous festivals, including Tanglewood Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Grant Park Music Festival, Darmstadt International Course for New Music, and Donaueschingen Music Festival.
Gerald Eckert is a German composer, cellist, and painter. He currently lives in Eckernförde.
Theodore Antoniou, was a Greek composer and conductor. His works vary from operas and choral works to chamber music, from film and theatre music to solo instrumental works. In addition to his career as composer and conductor, he was professor of composition at Boston University. His education included studies in violin, voice, and composition at the National Conservatory of Athens, the Hellenic Conservatory, and conducting at both The Hochschule für Musik and the International Music Centre in Darmstadt. He was a member of the Academy of Athens.
Miguel Ángel Roig-Francolí is a Spanish/American composer, music theorist, and pedagogue. His 1980 Cinco piezas para orquesta, commissioned by Radio Nacional de España and written in a postmodern, neotonal style, won first prize in the National Composition Competition of the Spanish Jeunesses Musicales in 1981 and second prize at the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers in 1982, and continues to be widely performed in Spain. His later compositions often have spiritual themes and are based on sacred texts and the melodies of Gregorian chant. In 2016 he won the American Prize in Composition for Perseus, for symphonic band. An expert on Renaissance composers Tomás de Santa María, Antonio de Cabezón, and Tomás Luis de Victoria, he has published numerous scholarly articles and monographs and two textbooks. Roig-Francolí is a Distinguished Teaching Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the University of Cincinnati – College-Conservatory of Music.
Lei Liang is a Chinese-born American composer who was a winner of the Grawemeyer Award and a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music. He is Chancellor's Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego.
Dmitry Borisovich Kabalevsky was a Soviet composer, conductor, pianist and pedagogue of Russian gentry descent.
Mehmet Erhan Tanman is a contemporary Turkish composer. One of the late-generation contemporary Turkish composers, he was honoured with the Deutsche Welle Composition Prize in 2012 and the Donizetti Classical Music Awards Young Musician of The Year award in 2013.
Michael Gilbertson is an American composer, conductor and pianist. He was one of three finalists for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music, making him one of the youngest finalists in the history of the award.
Narong Prangcharoen is a Thai composer of contemporary music. His compositions have won him the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Barlow Prize, and the Alexander Zemlinsky International Composition Competition Prize. He is the founder of Thailand International Composition Festival (TICF). Currently, he serves as Dean of the College of Music, Mahidol University in Thailand, as well as composer-in-residence for Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra and Pacific Symphony in Orange County, California. His scores for orchestra and wind ensemble are published exclusively by Theodore Presser Company.
