A concerto is, from the late Baroque era, mostly understood as an instrumental composition, written for one or more soloists accompanied by an orchestra or other ensemble. The typical three-movement structure, a slow movement preceded and followed by fast movements, became a standard from the early 18th century.
Milton Byron Babbitt was an American composer, music theorist, mathematician, and teacher. He was a Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur Fellowship recipient, recognized for his serial and electronic music.
George Rochberg was an American composer of contemporary classical music. Long a serial composer, Rochberg abandoned the practice following the death of his teenage son in 1964; he claimed this compositional technique had proved inadequate to express his grief and had found it empty of expressive intent. By the 1970s, Rochberg's use of tonal passages in his music had provoked controversy among critics and fellow composers. A professor at the University of Pennsylvania until 1983, Rochberg also served as chairman of its music department until 1968. He became the first Annenberg Professor of the Humanities in 1978.
John Harris Harbison is an American composer, known for his symphonies, operas, and large choral works.
Per Nørgård is a Danish composer and music theorist. Though his style has varied considerably throughout his career, his music has often included repeatedly evolving melodies—such as the infinity series—in the vein of Jean Sibelius, and a perspicuous focus on lyricism. Reflecting on this, the composer Julian Anderson described his style as "one of the most personal in contemporary music". Nørgård has received several awards, including the 2016 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize.
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.
Laurindo Almeida was a Brazilian guitarist and composer in classical, jazz, and Latin music. He and Bud Shank were pioneers in the creation of bossa nova. Almeida was the first guitarist to receive Grammy Awards for both classical and jazz performances. His discography encompasses more than a hundred recordings over five decades.
Sérgio Assad is a Brazilian guitarist, composer, and arranger who often performs with his brother, Odair in the guitar duo Sérgio and Odair Assad, commonly referred to as the Assad Brothers or Duo Assad. Their younger sister Badi is also a guitarist. Assad is the father of composer/singer/pianist Clarice Assad. He is married to Angela Olinto.
James Zuill Bailey, better known as Zuill Bailey is a Grammy Award-winning American cellist, chamber musician, and artistic director. A graduate of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University and the Juilliard School, he has appeared with major orchestras internationally. He is a professor of cello at the University of Texas at El Paso. Bailey has an exclusive international recording contract with the Telarc label.
Matthew John Hindson AM is an Australian composer.
Jindřich Feld was a Czech composer of classical music.
Jukka Santeri Tiensuu is a Finnish contemporary classical composer, harpsichordist, pianist and conductor.
Roberto Sierra is a Puerto Rican composer of contemporary classical music.
Svante Henryson is a composer, cellist, bass guitarist and double bassist, active within jazz, classical music, and hard rock.
Richard Festinger is an American composer of contemporary classical music, pianist and educator.
Simon Steen-Andersen is a Danish composer, performer, director and media artist.
Gene Pritsker is a Russian-born composer, guitarist, rapper and record producer living in New York City. He moved to the United States with his family in 1978 and lived in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. He attended the Manhattan School of Music from 1990 to 1994 where he studied composition with Giampaolo Bracali.
Sebastian Fagerlund is a Finnish composer. He is described as “a post-modern impressionist whose sound landscapes can be heard as ecstatic nature images which, however, are always inner images, landscapes of the mind”. Echoes of Western culture, Asian musical traditions, and heavy metal have all been detected in his music.
Benjamin Verdery is an American classical guitarist, composer and teacher. Verdery has performed at venues including Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera, and Wigmore Hall (London). He has played and recorded with a wide range of classical and other musicians, including guitarists William Coulter, Leo Kottke, Paco Peña, Andy Summers and John Williams, vocalist Hermann Prey, composer Anthony Newman, and his wife, flutist Rie Schmidt. New York Times classical music critic Allan Kozinn described Verdery as "one of the guitar’s grand individualists" and "an iconoclastic player," known as much for his devotion to new music and transcriptions of Jimi Hendrix songs as for inventive interpretations of Bach. As of 2021, Verdery had released 19 albums and been featured on several others. He has taught at the Yale School of Music since 1985.
