Stephen Michael Reich is an American composer who is known for his contribution to the development of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, and canons. Reich describes this concept in his essay, "Music as a Gradual Process", by stating, "I am interested in perceptible processes. I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music." For example, his early works experiment with phase shifting, in which one or more repeated phrases plays slower or faster than the others, causing it to go "out of phase." This creates new musical patterns in a perceptible flow.
Anthony Braxton is an American experimental composer, educator, music theorist, improviser and multi-instrumentalist who is best known for playing saxophones, particularly the alto. Braxton grew up on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, and was a key early member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. He received great acclaim for his 1969 double-LP record For Alto, the first full-length album of solo saxophone music.
Walter Hamor Piston, Jr., was an American composer of classical music, music theorist, and professor of music at Harvard University.
Evan Ziporyn is an American composer of post-minimalist music with a cross-cultural orientation, drawing equally from classical music, avant-garde, various world music traditions, and jazz. Ziporyn has composed for a wide range of ensembles, including symphony orchestras, wind ensembles, many types of chamber groups, and solo works, sometimes involving electronics. Balinese gamelan, for which he has composed numerous works, has compositions. He is known for his solo performances on clarinet and bass clarinet; additionally, Ziporyn plays gender wayang and other Balinese instruments, saxophones, piano & keyboards, EWI, and Shona mbira.
Dave Douglas is an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and educator. His career includes more than fifty recordings as a leader and more than 500 published compositions. His ensembles include the Dave Douglas Quintet; Sound Prints, a quintet co-led with saxophonist Joe Lovano; Uplift, a sextet with bassist Bill Laswell; Present Joys with pianist Uri Caine and Andrew Cyrille; High Risk, an electronic ensemble with Shigeto, Jonathan Aaron, and Ian Chang; and Engage, a sextet with Jeff Parker, Tomeka Reid, Anna Webber, Nick Dunston, and Kate Gentile.
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.
Marilyn Crispell is an American jazz pianist and composer. Scott Yanow described her as "a powerful player... who has her own way of using space... She is near the top of her field." Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote: "Hearing Marilyn Crispell play solo piano is like monitoring an active volcano... She is one of a very few pianists who rise to the challenge of free jazz." In addition to her own extensive work as a soloist or bandleader, Crispell is also known as a longtime member of saxophonist Anthony Braxton's quartet in the 1980s and '90s.
The Creative Music Studio (CMS) was a premier study center for contemporary creative music during the 1970s and 1980s, based in Woodstock, New York. Founded in 1971 by Karl Berger, Ingrid Sertso, and Ornette Coleman, it brought together students and leading innovators in the jazz and world music communities. Unprecedented in its range and diversity, CMS has provided participants with an opportunity to interact personally with musical giants of improvisation and musical thought.
Vinny Golia is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist specializing in woodwind instruments. He performs in the genres of contemporary music, jazz, free jazz, and free improvisation.
Michael Mantler is an Austrian avant-garde jazz trumpeter and composer of contemporary music.
Tyondai Adaien Braxton is an American composer and musician. He has been composing and performing music under his own name and collaboratively under various group titles and collectives since the mid-1990s, including in the experimental rock group Battles from its formation in 2002 until his departure from the group in 2010.
Todd Reynolds is an American violinist, composer, and conductor well known for his work with amplified violin and electronics.
Kevin Norton is an American percussionist and composer active in the New York City jazz and contemporary music scenes. He has performed and recorded with a diverse group of musicians, including Anthony Braxton, Paul Dunmall, Milt Hinton, Fred Frith, David Krakauer, Joëlle Léandre, Frode Gjerstad, Wilber Morris, James Emery, Bern Nix, and many others. In 1999, he founded Barking Hoop Recordings, a record label dedicated to releasing new and original music. Kevin Norton has also spent summers at camp Encore/Coda in Maine teaching music theory classes and private percussion classes. The label has released 11 CDs to date, which feature Norton's own groups as well as artists such as Anthony Braxton, Kevin O'Neil, Billy Stein, and the String Trio of New York.
Warren Smith is an American jazz drummer and percussionist, known as a contributor to Max Roach's M'boom ensemble and leader of the Composer's Workshop Ensemble (Strata-East).
Hugh Ragin is an American jazz trumpeter.
Bryce David Dessner is an American composer and guitarist based in Paris, and a member of the rock band the National. Dessner's twin brother, Aaron is also a member of the group. Together, they write the music in collaboration with lead singer and lyricist Matt Berninger.
Roger John Goeb was an American composer.
François Cotinaud is a French saxophonist, clarinetist, composer, and soundpainter.
Taylor Ho Bynum is a musician, composer, educator and writer. His main instrument is the cornet, but he also plays numerous similar instruments, including flugelhorn and trumpet.
Soundpainting is a universal multi-disciplinary live-composing sign language for every kind of artist, and is still evolving since its creation in 1974 by Walter Thompson in Woodstock, New York. Soundpainting gives to the soundpainter the possibility to compose multi-disciplinary creations in real time by signing gestures to indicate the material the performers will realize and the soundpainter will shape into the composition.
