George Henry Crumb or George Henry Jr. Crumb is an American composer of modern classical and avant-garde music. He is known as an explorer of unusual timbres, alternative forms of notation, and extended instrumental and vocal techniques, which obtain vivid sonorities. Examples include seagull effect for the cello, metallic vibrato for the piano, and using a mallet to play the strings of a double bass, among numerous others. Crumb's most renowned works include Ancient Voices of Children (1970), Black Angels (1971), and Makrokosmos III (1974).
Howard Harold Hanson was an American composer, conductor, educator, music theorist, and champion of American classical music. As director for 40 years of the Eastman School of Music, he built a high-quality school and provided opportunities for commissioning and performing American music. In 1944, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his Symphony No. 4, and received numerous other awards including the George Foster Peabody Award for Outstanding Entertainment in Music in 1946.
Marc-André Hamelin, OC, CQ, is a Canadian virtuoso pianist and composer. Hamelin is recognized worldwide for the originality and technical proficiency of his performances of the classic repertoire. He has received 11 Grammy Award nominations.
Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji was an English composer, music critic, pianist and writer whose musical output spanned eight decades and ranges from sets of miniatures to works lasting several hours. One of the most prolific 20th-century composers, he is best known for his piano music, notably nocturnes such as Gulistān and Villa Tasca, and large-scale, technically intricate compositions, which include seven symphonies for piano solo, four toccatas, Sequentia cyclica and 100 Transcendental Studies. He felt alienated from English society by reason of his homosexuality and mixed ancestry, and had a lifelong tendency to seclusion.
Lowell Liebermann is an American composer, pianist and conductor.
Opus clavicembalisticum is a work for solo piano composed by Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, completed on June 25, 1930.
Earle Brown was an American composer who established his own formal and notational systems. Brown was the creator of "open form," a style of musical construction that has influenced many composers since—notably the downtown New York scene of the 1980s and generations of younger composers.
Anton Emil Kuerti, OC is an Austrian-born Canadian pianist, music teacher, composer, and conductor. He has developed international recognition as a solo pianist.
Howard While Skempton is an English composer, pianist, and accordionist.
Samuel Hans Adler is an American composer, conductor, author, and professor. During the course of a professional career which ranges over six decades he has served as a faculty member at both the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School. In addition, he is credited with founding and conducting the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra which participated in the cultural diplomacy initiatives of the United States in Germany and throughout Europe in the aftermath of World War II. Adler's musical catalogue includes over 400 published compositions. He has been honored with several awards including Germany's Order of Merit – Officer's Cross.
Jonathan Powell is a British pianist and self-taught composer.
Leslie John Howard is an Australian pianist, musicologist and composer. He is best known for being the only pianist to have recorded the complete solo piano works of Franz Liszt, a project which included more than 300 premiere recordings. He has been described by The Guardian as "a master of a tradition of pianism in serious danger of dying out".
David Dubal is an American pianist, teacher, author, lecturer, broadcaster, and painter.
Garrett Byrnes is an American composer.
Erik William Chisholm was a Scottish composer, pianist, organist and conductor sometimes known as "Scotland's forgotten composer". According to his biographer, Chisholm "was the first composer to absorb Celtic idioms into his music in form as well as content, his achievement paralleling that of Bartók in its depth of understanding and its daring", which led some to give him the nickname "MacBartók". As composer, performer and impresario, he played an important role in the musical life of Glasgow between the two World Wars and was a founder of the Celtic Ballet and, together with Margaret Morris, created the first full-length Scottish ballet, The Forsaken Mermaid. After World War II he was Professor and Head of the South African College of Music at the University of Cape Town for 19 years until his death. Chisholm founded the South African College of Music opera company in Cape Town and was a vital force in bringing new operas to Scotland, England and South Africa. By the time of his death in 1965, he had composed over a hundred works.
Paul Rapoport is a Canadian musicologist, music critic, composer and professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
John Ralph Alexander Giles (Alex) Abercrombie is a British pianist, composer, and mathematician.
Alistair Hinton is a Scottish composer.
Jake Runestad is an American composer and conductor of classical music based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has composed music for a wide variety of musical genres and ensembles, but has achieved greatest acclaim for his work in the genres of opera, orchestral music, choral music, and wind ensemble. One of his principal collaborators for musical texts has been the poet Todd Boss.
"Gulistān"—Nocturne for Piano, commonly known as Gulistan, is a piano piece by Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji written in 1940. Its title refers to Golestan, a collection of poems and stories by 13th-century Persian poet and writer Sa'di. The piece lasts about 30 minutes in performance and is often considered one of Sorabji's greatest works.
