Shulamit Ran is an Israeli-American composer. She moved from Israel to New York City at 14, as a scholarship student at the Mannes College of Music. Her Symphony (1990) won her the Pulitzer Prize for Music. In this regard, she was the second woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, the first being Ellen Taaffe Zwilich in 1983. Ran was a professor of music composition at the University of Chicago from 1973 to 2015. She has performed as a pianist in Israel, Europe and the U.S., and her compositional works have been performed worldwide by a wide array of orchestras and chamber groups.
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."
Tania León is a Cuban-born composer of both large scale and chamber works. She is also renowned as a conductor, educator, and advisor to arts organizations.
Michael Gordon is an American composer and co-founder of the Bang on a Can music collective and festival.
Julius Eastman was an American composer, pianist, vocalist, and dancer whose work is associated with musical minimalism. He was among the first composers to combine minimalist processes with elements of pop music, and involve experimental methods of extending and modifying music in creating what he called "organic music". He often gave his pieces titles with provocative political intent, such as Evil Nigger and Gay Guerrilla, and has been acclaimed following new performances and reissues of his music.
P. Q. Phan, is a Vietnamese composer of contemporary classical music living in the United States. He became interested in music while studying architecture in 1978 and taught himself to play the piano, compose, and orchestrate. In 1982, he immigrated to the United States and began his formal musical training.
The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) is a professional orchestra in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Ronald Caltabiano is an American arts administrator and composer of contemporary classical music, with his music showing elements of modernism and romanticism.
Currently entering its fourth decade, Orchestra 2001 was founded at Swarthmore College, where it was Ensemble-in-Residence for over twenty-five years. In addition to concerts in the Philadelphia area, the ensemble has brought new American music to countless new audiences through national and international tours and commercial recordings.
Nickitas John Demos is a Greek American composer. He is known for his inventive inclusion of Greek elements and influence in his music.
Malaysian contemporary music is an artistic phenomenon within Malaysia that has its roots in the 1980s with pioneer composers like Valerie Ross. However, little information about that period exists in written sources. The genre gained visibility and momentum only in the new millennium due to the internet phenomenon, and in 2002 in particular, when the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) programmed several works by Malaysian composers, namely Chong Kee Yong's Echoed Dream (2002), Sunetra Fernando's 'Wayang' (2002) and Tazul Izan Tajuddin's Sebuah Tenunan III (2003). They represent the first local commissions by a professional symphony orchestra in the country. Interest in orchestral music by Malaysian composers grew and when the orchestra held its first Forum For Malaysian Composers in 2003 the event was a triumph for the local music scene.
The Ars Nova Singers is a choral ensemble based in Boulder, Colorado, USA. Founded in 1986, Ars Nova Singers is composed of about 40 selectively auditioned singers from the Boulder / Denver metropolitan area. Ars Nova has achieved significant national recognition, recording ten critically acclaimed solo recordings as well as performing on seven recordings with Boulder composer and instrumentalist Bill Douglas (musician).
Clarice Assad is a Brazilian-American composer, pianist, arranger, and singer from Rio de Janeiro. She is influenced by popular Brazilian culture, Romanticism, world music, and jazz. She comes from a musical family, which includes her father, guitarist Sergio Assad, her uncle, guitarist Odair Assad, and her aunt, singer-songwriter Badi Assad.
Robert Paterson is an American composer of contemporary classical music, as well as a conductor and percussionist. His catalog includes over 100 compositions. He has been called a "modern day master" and is primarily known for his colorful orchestral works, large body of chamber music and clear vocal writing in his operas, choral works, vocal chamber works and song cycles.
Petr Kotik is a composer, conductor and flutist living in New York City. He was educated in Europe. From 1960 to 1963, Kotik studied composition privately with Jan Rychlík in Prague, and from 1963 to 1966 at the Music Academy in Vienna with Karl Schieske, Hans Jelinek, and Friedrich Cerha. In Prague, he founded and directed Musica Viva Pragensis (1961–64) and the QUAX Ensemble (1966–69). He came to the United States in 1969 at the invitation of Lukas Foss and Lejaren Hiller to join the Center for Creative and Performing Arts at the University at Buffalo.
David Felder is an American composer and academic who is a SUNY Distinguished Professor at the University at Buffalo. He is also the director of both the June in Buffalo Festival and the Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music.
Ostrava Days is a three-week-long exposition of contemporary classical music that takes place biennially in the city of Ostrava, The Czech Republic. The last season (2013) ran from August 12 to August 31, 2013. The event is considered to be one of the largest of its type in the world. Ostrava Days exposition is organized by the Ostrava Center for New Music (OCNM), an organization founded in 2000 by a Czech composer living in New York Petr Kotík. The institution was established solely for the purpose of organizing Ostrava Days, an event that consists of two parts—a summer institute and festival.
Harold Rosenbaum is an American conductor and musician. He is the artistic director and conductor of the New York Virtuoso Singers and the Canticum Novum Singers. The New York Virtuoso Singers appear on 48 albums on labels including Naxos Records and Sony Classical. He has collaborated extensively with many ensembles including the New York Philharmonic, Juilliard Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, Bang on a Can, Mark Morris Dance Group, Orchestra of Saint Luke's, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Riverside Symphony, and Brooklyn Philharmonic.
Jeff Witscher is an American electronic musician.
Jack Callahan is an American experimental musician and audio engineer. He is best known for performing under the moniker die Reihe, taken from the journal of the same name edited by Herbert Eimert and Karlheinz Stockhausen.
