List of minimalist composers

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The following is a list of minimalist composers:

By country

Australia

Belgium

Canada

Denmark

Estonia

Finland

France

Georgia

Germany

Hungary

Italy

Japan

Latvia

Netherlands

Poland

Russia

Serbia

South Africa

South Korea

Sweden

Switzerland

Ukraine

United Kingdom

United States

By movement

Mystic minimalists

A number of composers showing a distinctly religious influence have been labelled the "mystic minimalists", or "holy minimalists":

Contents

Precedent composers

Other composers whose works have been described as precedents to minimalism include:

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minimalism</span> Movements in various forms of art and design

In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism was an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, and it is most strongly associated with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arvo Pärt</span> Estonian composer (born 1935)

Arvo Pärt is an Estonian composer of contemporary classical music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs tintinnabuli, a compositional technique he invented. Pärt's music is in part inspired by Gregorian chant. His most performed works include Fratres (1977), Spiegel im Spiegel (1978), and Für Alina (1976). From 2011 to 2018, and again in 2022, Pärt was the most performed living composer in the world, and the second most performed in 2019, after John Williams. The Arvo Pärt Centre, in Laulasmaa, was opened to the public in 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henryk Górecki</span> Polish composer (1933–2010)

Henryk Mikołaj Górecki was a Polish composer of contemporary classical music. According to critic Alex Ross, no recent classical composer has had as much commercial success as Górecki. He became a leading figure of the Polish avant-garde during the post-Stalin cultural thaw. His Anton Webern-influenced serialist works of the 1950s and 1960s were characterized by adherence to dissonant modernism and influenced by Luigi Nono, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Krzysztof Penderecki and Kazimierz Serocki. He continued in this direction throughout the 1960s, but by the mid-1970s had changed to a less complex sacred minimalist sound, exemplified by the transitional Symphony No. 2 and the Symphony No. 3. This later style developed through several other distinct phases, from such works as his 1979 Beatus Vir, to the 1981 choral hymn Miserere, the 1993 Kleines Requiem für eine Polka and his requiem Good Night.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Tavener</span> English composer (1944–2013)

Sir John Kenneth Tavener was an English composer, known for his extensive output of choral religious works. Among his best known works are The Lamb (1982), The Protecting Veil (1988), and Song for Athene (1993).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gidon Kremer</span> Latvian violinist

Gidon Kremer is a Latvian classical violinist, artistic director, and founder of Kremerata Baltica.

Minimal music is a form of art music or other compositional practice that employs limited or minimal musical materials. Prominent features of minimalist music include repetitive patterns or pulses, steady drones, consonant harmony, and reiteration of musical phrases or smaller units. It may include features such as phase shifting, resulting in what is termed phase music, or process techniques that follow strict rules, usually described as process music. The approach is marked by a non-narrative, non-teleological, and non-representational approach, and calls attention to the activity of listening by focusing on the internal processes of the music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kremerata Baltica</span> Orchestra composed of musicians from Baltic states

Kremerata Baltica is a chamber orchestra consisting of musicians from Baltic countries. It was founded by Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer in 1997. Gidon Kremer is an artistic director of Kremerata Baltica.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giya Kancheli</span> Georgian composer (1935–2019)

Gia Kancheli was a Georgian composer. He was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, and resided in Belgium in later life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pēteris Vasks</span> Latvian composer

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Symphony No. 3 (Górecki)</span> Symphony by Henryk Gorecki

The Symphony No. 3, Op. 36, also known as the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, is a symphony in three movements composed by Henryk Górecki in Katowice, Poland, between October and December 1976. The work is indicative of the transition between Górecki's earlier dissonant style and his later more tonal style and "represented a stylistic breakthrough: austerely plaintive, emotionally direct and steeped in medieval modes". It was premièred on 4 April 1977, at the Royan International Festival, with Stefania Woytowicz as soprano and Ernest Bour as conductor.

Holy minimalism, mystic minimalism, spiritual minimalism, or sacred minimalism are terms, sometimes pejorative, used to describe the musical works of a number of late-twentieth-century composers of Western classical music. The compositions are distinguished by a minimalist compositional aesthetic and a distinctly religious or mystical subject focus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victoria Poleva</span> Ukrainian composer (born 1962)

Victoria Vita Polyova is a Ukrainian composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yaacov Bergman</span> Israeli-born conductor (1945–2023)

Yaacov Bergman was an Israeli-born conductor. He was the musical director and conductor of the Walla Walla Symphony from 1987 until his death, conductor of the Portland Chamber Orchestra, and artistic director of the Siletz Bay Music Festival in Oregon. He conducted as a guest worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Era Orchestra</span> Ukrainian orchestra

New Era Orchestra is an orchestra from Kyiv, Ukraine, founded in 2007 by its conductor and artistic director Tetiana Kalinichenko. The orchestra plays both contemporary and classical music. Among others, the orchestra has performed with renowned soloists such as Joshua Bell, Sarah Chang, Avi Avital and Danjulo Ishizaka.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Odradek Records</span> American cooperative record label

Odradek Records is a cooperative, non-profit record label that releases recordings of classical music.

The Preis der Europäischen Kirchenmusik is a German music prize awarded annually since 1999 by the Schwäbisch Gmünd Festival Europäische Kirchenmusik. Awards are given to excellent composers and artists for achievements in the field of sacred music. The prize is endowed with €5,000.

Symphony No. 2, Op. 132, Mysterious Mountain is a three-movement orchestral composition by the Armenian-American composer Alan Hovhaness. The symphony was commissioned by the conductor Leopold Stokowski and the Houston Symphony, and premiered live on NBC television in October 1955 on the Houston Symphony's first program with Stokowski as conductor. The first and most popular recording of the work, released in 1958 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performing under Fritz Reiner, is often regarded as the foremost performance of the piece. This recording, like early performances of the work, predates the composer's decision to categorize the work "symphony". Later on, the G. Schirmer published score was titled Mysterious Mountain with "Symphony No. 2" printed as a subtitle in smaller typeface.

The Symphony No. 22, Op. 236, City of Light is a four-movement symphony for orchestra by the American composer Alan Hovhaness. The work was commissioned by the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for the centennial of Birmingham, Alabama and was completed in 1970. The work has been recorded multiple times and remains one of Hovhaness's more popular compositions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joep Beving</span> Dutch composer and pianist

Joep Beving is a Dutch composer and pianist.

<i>Monotone-Silence Symphony</i> Musical composition by the French artist Yves Klein

The Monotone-Silence Symphony is a piece of minimalist music by the French artist Yves Klein. It consists of 20 minutes of an orchestra performing the chord of D major, followed by a 20 minute silence.

References

  1. Perlein and Corà 2000, 226: "This symphony, 40 minutes in length (in fact 20 minutes followed by 20 minutes of silence) is constituted of a single 'sound' stretched out, deprived of its attack and end which creates a sensation of vertigo, whirling the sensibility outside time."
  2. See also at YvesKleinArchives.org a 1998 sound excerpt of The Monotone Symphony Archived 2008-12-08 at the Wayback Machine (Flash plugin required), its short description Archived 2008-10-28 at the Wayback Machine , and Klein's "Chelsea Hotel Manifesto" Archived 2010-06-13 at the Wayback Machine (including a summary of the 2-part Symphony).