Victoria Jordanova is an American composer, harpist, and media artist born in 1952 in former Yugoslavia, active in the field of contemporary classical music, experimental music and media arts. Her work encompasses contemporary classical composition, improvisation and electroacoustic music. According to New Music Box "Jordanova has a tightly controlled focus to her work, a singularity of vision, while melding experimental techniques, electronics and improvisation with her classical music education..." [1]
Jordanova has released six albums on CRI, Innova and Arpaviva labels, and her music was included in "The Composer-Performer (Forty Years of Discovery)" [2] the CRI anniversary anthology release of American music. Her first album "Requiem for Bosnia and other works" [3] [4] was selected as one of the top ten classical releases in 1994 by Tim Page (New York Newsday). [5] In 2007 Jordanova published first recording ever of John Cage's "Postcard from Heaven" for 20 harps and 20 voices, all of the harp parts were recorded by Jordanova and all the voices by Pamela Z. In 2002 Jordanova founded Arpaviva Recordings, a Los Angeles-based independent music and media label.
Jordanova performed at Lincoln Center, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, MOMA, LACMA, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and other venues nationally and internationally. Her compositions were performed/presented by the California EAR Unit, [6] [7] Bang on a Can All Stars, [8] [9] San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, San Francisco Creative Voices, Zeitgeist, pianists Jenny Q. Chai, [10] Anthony DeMare, [11] Michiko Saiki, percussionist Amy Knoles, oboist Libby Van Cleve, flutist Patricia Kaczmarczyk.
Eve Beglarian is a contemporary American composer, performer and audio producer of Armenian descent. Her music is often characterized as postminimalist.
Kathleen Deanna Battle is an American operatic soprano known for her distinctive vocal range and tone. Born in Portsmouth, Ohio, Battle initially became known for her work within the concert repertoire through performances with major orchestras during the early and mid-1970s. She made her opera debut in 1975. Battle expanded her repertoire into lyric soprano and coloratura soprano roles during the 1980s and early 1990s, until her eventual dismissal from the Metropolitan Opera in 1994. She later has focused on recording and the concert stage. After a 22-year absence from the Met, Battle performed a concert of spirituals at the Metropolitan Opera House in November 2016, and again in May 2024.
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.
Allison Cameron is a Canadian composer of contemporary classical music. She composes works for conventional classical instruments, early music instruments, and modern electric instruments such as the electric guitar. She is also a performer of free improvisation and experimental music.
The California EAR Unit was an American chamber ensemble dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music. The group was founded in March 1981 in Los Angeles, California.
Pamela Z is an American composer, performer, and media artist best known for her solo works for voice with electronic processing. In performance, she combines various vocal sounds including operatic bel canto, experimental extended techniques and spoken word, with samples and sounds generated by manipulating found objects. Z's musical aesthetic is one of sonic accretion, and she typically processes her voice in real time through the software program Max on a MacBook Pro as a means of layering, looping, and altering her live vocal sound. Her performance work often includes video projections and special controllers with sensors that allow her to use physical gestures to manipulate the sound and projected media.
Alan Feinberg is an American classical pianist. He has premiered over 300 works by such composers as John Adams, Milton Babbitt, John Harbison, Charles Ives, Steve Reich, and Charles Wuorinen, as well as the premiere of Mel Powell's Pulitzer Prize winning Duplicates. He is an experienced performer of both classical and contemporary music and is well known for recitals that pair old and new music.
Ruth Lomon was a Canadian classical composer.
Bethany Beardslee is an American soprano and grandmother to ex-model Ella Winham. She is particularly noted for her collaborations with major 20th-century composers, such as Igor Stravinsky, Milton Babbitt, Pierre Boulez, George Perle, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and her performances of great contemporary classical music by Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Anton Webern. Her legacy amongst mid-century composers was as a "composer's singer"—for her commitment to the highest art of new music. Milton Babbitt said of her "She manages to learn music no one else in the world can. She can work, work, work." In a 1961 interview for Newsweek, Beardslee flaunted her unflinching repertoire and disdain for commercialism: "I don't think in terms of the public... Music is for the musicians. If the public wants to come along and study it, fine. I don't go and try to tell a scientist his business because I don't know anything about it. Music is just the same way. Music is not entertainment."
Theodor Raoul Bleckmann is a German singer and composer.
Miriam Gauci is a Maltese operatic soprano, particularly associated with lyric Italian roles.
Ransom Wilson is an American flutist, conductor, and educator.
Wu Han (吴菡) is a Taiwanese-American pianist and influential figure in the classical music world. Leading a multifaceted career, she has risen to international prominence through her activities as a concert performer, recording artist, educator, arts administrator, and cultural entrepreneur. She is currently the Co-Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival and Institute in California and Co-Founder of ArtistLed. She also serves as Artistic Advisor for Wolf Trap’s Chamber Music in the Barns series and the Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach. She was appointed Artistic Director of La Musica in 2022.
Stephen L. (Lucky) Mosko was an American composer. His music blended high modernism with world music, and he was an expert in Icelandic folk music. His, "seemingly contradictory," influences include uptown, downtown, and the West Coast school; including John Cage, Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Morton Feldman, and Mel Powell.
Kathleen Supové is an American pianist specializing in modern classical music. She has premiered the works of dozens of composers on her Exploding Piano series. Her recitals involve recitation, costume, theatrical elements such as lighting, and sets. Kathleen's intention is to augment and extend the piano recital, and to borrow from contemporary theater, film and dance to create a new context for modern classical music. She also performs works that extend the sonic world of the piano recital, by using electronics both live and pre-recorded, preparation of the piano, and playing inside the piano on the strings themselves.
Lynn Vartan is an American percussionist. She began performing as a child in Fresno, California. Her principal instrument is the marimba.
Jack Vees is an American composer and bassist from Camden, New Jersey.
Symphony No. 12 (Lodger) is the twelfth symphony by the American composer Philip Glass. The work was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and premiered January 10, 2019, with John Adams conducting the LA Phil at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. The European premiere followed on May 9, 2019 with a performance by the London Contemporary Orchestra at Southbank Centre.
Mak Grgić is a two-time Grammy-nominated Slovenian classical guitarist and entrepreneur.
Karol Bennett is an American soprano known for her performances of lieder, chanson, and oratorio and her championing of music by living composers.