Classical Music Forum banner

A Contemporary Music Repertoire (a work in progress)

346K views 208 replies 41 participants last post by  Chat Noir 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi everyone,

For the past year or so, I've been on and off working on compiling a large, but hopefully comprehensive, list of contemporary classical music. In fact, I'm still working on it, but I thought I would share my current progress in case anyone is interested.

What is this list exactly? Well, in the most precise terms, it is simply an aggregation of works of the most-acclaimed contemporary composers that both critics and casual listeners seem to recommend. I did this through plenty of research across various forums, books, articles and reviews (including a drop of my own preferences). As I disclaim in the link, this list is obviously not scientific nor perfect by any means, but I hope it provides a good overview of contemporary classical music especially for novices.

To breakdown its sheer vastness, I created a couple tiers to distinguish the most-recommended works:

⋆⋆⋆ means an essential work, among the most esteemed of the contemporary era
⋆⋆ means a fairly important work, good to know especially if you're interested in that particular composer

Of the composers listed, am I missing any of their important works or your favorites? Do you disagree strongly with any of the star ratings (or lack thereof)? Or generally, if anyone has any questions or feedback, I'd be happy to hear!

Edit: I should have made it more clear that there are tons of absent composers that I just haven't had time to include yet. Each composer entry takes many hours to complete thoroughly so I appreciate all of your patience.
 
See less See more
#171 · (Edited)
Apologies for waiting so long to do Manoury. I was going to work my way through his music and develop a list as I went, but I got about half way before getting sidetracked with other composers. It's hard to listen to one composer at a time with no breaks for other music. Lesson learned, I guess.

Anyways, I just compiled tonight Manoury's most important works with your rating system. One thing I'm not sure of is whether to include pieces that get regularly performed (that is, "regular" as far as contemporary music is concerned) but have no commercial recording or recording of a live performance. I did include several of those, but I can take them out if you want. On the other hand, if you want all of Manoury's works, I can do that too.

EDIT: I just made Tensio and Le Livre des claviers ***. I also suspect La Trilogie Köln will become a *** as time goes on, but it's too early to tell.

I also added Partita II

- Cryptophonos [piano solo] (1974) **
- Numéro huit [103 musicians] (1980, rev. 1987)
- Zeitlauf [mixed choir, ensemble, tape & live electronics] (1982)
- Jupiter [midi-flute & live electronics] (1986-1987, rev. 1992, 1996) ***
- Le Livre des claviers [six percussionists] (1987-1988) ***
- Pluton [midi-piano & live electronics] (1988, rev. 1989) ***
- La Partition du Ciel et de l'Enfer [midi-flute, piano, midi-piano, ensemble & live electronics] (1989)
- Neptune [2 midi-vibraphones, marimba/tam-tam & live electronics] (1991)
- Michigan Trio [clarinet, violin & piano] (1992)
- En écho [soprano & live electronics] (1993-1994)
- Passacaille pour Tokyo [piano solo & 17 instruments] (1994)
- Métal [six sixxens] (1995)
- 60e Parallèle [opera] (1995-1996)
- Ultima [clarinet, cello & piano] (1995-1996)
- Fragments pour un portrait [30 musicians] (1998) **
- Toccata [piano solo] (1998)
- Sound and Fury [109 musicians] (1998-1999) **
- K … [opera] (2000-2001) **
- La ville [piano solo] (2001-2002)
- Fragments d'Héraclite [mixed choir] (2003)
- Partita I [viola & live electronics] (2006) **
- Trakl Gedichte [mixed choir] (2006)
- Veränderungen [piano solo] (2008)
- Stringendo [string quartet] (2010)
- Synapse [violin & orchestra] (2010)
- Tensio [string quartet & live electronics] (2010) ***
- Echo-daimónon [piano, orchestra & live electronics] (2011-2012)
- Partita II [violin & live electronics] (2012)
- Illud etiam [soprano, clarinet & live electronics] (2012, rev. 2015)
- Melancolia (d'après Dürer) [string quartet] (2013)
- Zones de turbulences [two pianos & orchestra] (2013)
- La Trilogie Köln (2013-2019) **
--- Ring [grand spatialized orchestra] (2016)
--- In situ [group of soloists, string orchestra & eight spatialized orchestral groups] (2013)
--- Lab.Oratorium [2 actors, soprano, contralto, chamber choir, grand amateur choir, grand spatialized orchestra & live electronics] (2019)
- Le temps, mode d'emploi [two pianos & live electronics] (2014) **
- Bref aperçu sur l'infini [cello & orchestra] (2015)
- B-Partita (in memoriam Pierre Boulez) [violin, ensemble & live electronics] (2016) **
- États d'alerte [two percussionists & orchestra] (2017)
- Kein Licht [opera] (2017) **
- Saccades [flute & orchestra] (2018)
- Anticipations [grand spatialized orchestra] (2019)
 
#172 · (Edited)
Though I won't get to them right away, other more recent, well-known contemporary composers I can do are:

Mark Andre
Pierluigi Billone (Andre and Billone are, imo, Lachenmann's two best students)
Rebecca Saunders (one of Ferneyhough's best students, though her aesthetics is closer to Lachenmann)
Simon Steen-Andersen (a creative multi-media composer like van der Aa and who challenges the boundaries of music in a Cagean fashion)
Enno Poppe
Bernhard Lang (Poppe and Lang use algorithms to generate their music. Specifically, Poppe uses mathematical models of plant growth and Lang is into "loop aesthetics")

Also, someone should do Richard Barrett, though I'm familiar with his work.
 
#178 · (Edited)
Hi, everyone.

I appreciate the (mostly) constructive activity on this thread. Just to let you know on the current status of things, I took a bit of a break due to some big life events but things are starting to settle down now. I have had an entry on Pauline Oliveros nearly complete for some time and hope to publish it soon (Manoury will be on deck shortly). I've been doing some rethinking on how I consider genre for this project and I think I may reverse one criterion I had earlier, namely that all the works listed need be strictly classical, mainly thanks to Oliveros whose works tended to straddle a few different genres. Thus, I think I will be adding some Terry Riley and La Monte Young works/albums I otherwise excluded. But all other entries should remain the same.

Lastly, the Google site will be forcibly receiving a makeover soon enough as it seems Google is no longer supporting this older format. I'll be working on that in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!
 
#182 ·
How do you define Contemporary Music? Strictly speaking it means music by living composers, or the music of our time, or with an easy dating measure, music written since 1970.

Insisting on "esteemed" works would leave out most that has been written in the last 20 years, since there hasn't been enough time for the works nor the younger composers to become "esteemed."

Which is the reason I wouldn't participate in this list, even though I am extremely interested in new music.
 
#183 ·
How do you define Contemporary Music?
Music composed since the 1970s.

Insisting on "esteemed" works would leave out most that has been written in the last 20 years, since there hasn't been enough time for the works nor the younger composers to become "esteemed."
That is true which is exactly why you should participate, otherwise those composers may never be put on our radars. This list, while still being selective so far, I hope will be very comprehensive some day.
 
#185 · (Edited)
Thanks Lisztian.

I finally got around to adding an entry for Kalevi Aho as a break from the more recent avant-garde ones. Hope this satisfies some 2-year old requests in this thread. His oeuvre of mostly conventional compositional forms seems almost out of place amidst all the modern eclecticism. But a welcome addition nevertheless.
 
#187 · (Edited)
Simon Steen-Andersen (1976-; Danish)

Steen-Andersen has some of the most creative music I've ever heard. He's a hybrid of Schaeffer's musique concrète, Lachenmann's extended techniques, Cage's philosophizing, and Kagel's theatrics, but he goes in a direction all his own. It's the way he combines sampler sounds with instruments, or the way he prepares the instruments, or the way he integrates visual media with sound, or the way he uses everyday tactile objects, that is unlike anything I've heard. Some of his early stuff can be hit or miss -- though if you're familiar with the ideas behind the music and have a good ear, they're still pretty interesting, the problem with them is that they're very performance dependent -- but starting with his work Run Time Error, he's really taken off with some great pieces. Run Time Error in particular is an experimental piece fertile in musical ideas like Cage's 4'33" (in my opinion, it's more interesting than 4'33"); in fact, I'd go as far as to say that, were it not for the cultural milieu Steen-Andersen is currently composing in and were Run Time Error created in the fifties like 4'33", it would've achieved the level of infamy 4'33" currently has.

The 2 pieces I recommend hearing first are:
TRIO, which premiered at the 2019 Donaueschingen festival and is an amazing spectacle of video and sound (piece starts at 1 hour 39 minute mark)
Run Time Error, a site specific video installation performance, where every performance of it is essentially a different composition (this youtube video is one such performance)

I've posted a bit about his music here on TC, so I'll just link to some of my posts:
post on TRIO that I wrote last week in one of those stupid "I hate contemporary music" threads.
post on Run Time Error
post on his Piano Concerto
couple posts on Black Box Music and Double Up

As far as ranking the pieces for Trout's list, I weighed different types of evidence. I checked for number of performances on youtube, checked for what's been commercially recorded, checked for amount and variety of information from a simple google search, the number of performances listed on the Steen-Andersen's personal website, and my personal opinions of the pieces (I listened to every work I could find and read the scores while listening; most of the scores and program notes can be found here). I've also listened to a couple interviews on youtube and this 2 hour lecture given by Steen-Andersen on his own music. But the best pieces of evidence are:

This essay "Have you Seen the Music"

The only two books I've read on more recent contemporary music had extended discussions on Steen-Andersen's Run Time Error and Black Box Music. I doubt that's a coincidence.

This 2017 survey of over 100 music professionals asking who they thought were the best composers since 2000 and what were the best works (when you click on the link, then click on "Get More Information" for the survey results). Steen-Andersen had the second highest point total, behind only G. F. Haas. As an aside, this survey is a *fantastic* place to start checking out 21st century music.

Anyways, here's the list. Some notes:

1. loloopop is more of a visual art installation than a piece of music and is a collaboration effort with artist Carl Krull. I included it because I found it to be pretty interesting and I think it showcases in a different way the connections between Steen-Andersen's music and other artistic media, but if you think it's beyond the scope of this list, you can take it down.

2. It's rather difficult to give the instrumentation for (Self Reflecting) Next to Beside Besides. Steen-Andersen composed a work called Besides in 2003. He then wrote 13 solo pieces (the first of which is called Beside Besides, the others called Next to Beside Besides) that are each different takes on the coda of Besides. These 13 works can also be played simultaneously in any combination. This is the Next to Beside Besides series. Steen-Andersen then added an option for these solos to be projected onto video screens while other solos are being played, again in any combination. This is the Self Reflecting Next to Beside Besides series. I put "Self Reflecting" in () in order to condense these two series into one entry while indicating that the video part is optional. I'll leave it up to you if you have a better way of writing it. I'm also gonna leave the individual entries in the series below, so that you have the complete information, but I know you'll want to condense it all down to one line. Again, I'm not sure how to phrase the instrumentation in such a way so that I capture all the necessary information, so I'm leaving it up to you :)

3. TRIO would easily be a *** piece except for two things. First, it was only composed two years ago. Second, it's the product of a specific time and place and is essentially a glorification of the SWR radio station and the Donaueschinger festival (whose 100th anniversary is this year). This implies that only the SWR orchestra can play it and can only be played for a short while before it loses its wider significance, thus limiting the number of performances. But other than that, it's an impeccably composed work. I gave it **, but if you think otherwise, go for it.

EDIT: I just listened to The Loop of the Nibelung, which came out last July, and it's definitely good enough to be included. It's basically Run Time Error meets Wagner.

- String Quartet No. 1 (1999)
- Praesens [14 musicians] (2001)
- Besides [amplified piccolo flute, amplified piano, amplified violin & dampened string trio] (2003)
- Rerendered [amplified & prepared piano solo, 2 assistants & video installation] (2003, rev. 2004)
- (Self-Reflecting) Next to Beside Besides [combinations of 1 or more solo instruments (optional video installation)] (2003-2008)
o Beside Besides (Next to Beside Besides No. 0) [dampened cello solo (optional amplification)] [2003]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 1 [amplified & dampened double bass solo] [2005]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 2 [amplified & dampened saxophone solo] [2005]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 3 [amplified & prepared accordion solo] [2005]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 4 [amplified & prepared snare drum solo] [2006]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 5 [amplified & prepared piccolo solo] [2006]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 6 [amplified, dampened & prepared violin solo] [2006]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 7 [amplified & prepared piano & whammy pedal] [2006]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 8 [amplified & prepared guitar solo] [2006]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 9 [amplified & prepared double bass solo] [2007]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 10 [miniature camera & visual installation] [2007]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 11 [amplified vibraphone solo] [2007]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 12 [amplified & prepared accordion solo] [2008]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 13 [amplified & prepared guitar solo] [2008]
- Amid [flute, Bb clarinet, prepared piano, guitar, percussion, dampened violin & dampened cello] (2004)**
- Amongst [amplified guitar solo & orchestra] (2005)
- loloopop (with Carl Krull) [audio-visual installation] (2006)
- In spite of, and maybe even therefore [amplified flute, amplified Bb clarinet, contrabassoon, amplified & dampened F horn, percussion, prepared piano & double bass] (2007)
- Studies for String Instrument Nos. 1-3 [1 or more string instruments, whammy pedal & video installation] (2007-2011)**
- Difficulties Putting it into Practice [2 or 4 amplified musicians] (2007, rev. 2010/2014)
- On and Off and To and Fro [prepared soprano saxophone, vibraphone & double bass; 3 prepared megaphones] (2008)
- Pretty Sound (Up and Down) [amplified piano solo] (2008)
- Ouvertures [amplified gu-zheng solo, sampler & orchestra] (2008-2010)
- Run Time Error [site-specific video installation performance] (2009-present)***
- Double Up [chamber orchestra & sampler] (2010)**
- History of my Instrument [amplified & prepared harp, amplified toy harp & video installation] (2011)
- Black Box Music [conductor solo, sinfonietta, amplified black box & video installation] (2012)***
- String Quartet No. 2 [with amplified & prepared bows] (2012)
- Inszenierte Nacht [music theater & live electronics] (2013)
- Buenos Aires [opera] (2014)
- Piano Concerto [piano solo, orchestra, sampler & video installation] (2014)**
- Asthma [amplified accordion & video installation] (2017)
- TRIO [orchestra, big band, choir & video installation] (2019)**
- The Loop of the Nibelung [singers, musicians & site-specific video installation performance] (2020)
 
#189 ·
Simon Steen-Andersen (1976-; Danish)

Steen-Andersen has some of the most creative music I've ever heard. He's a hybrid of Lachenmann's extended techniques, Cage's philosophizing, and Kagel's theatrics, but he goes in a direction all his own. It's the way he combines sampler sounds with instruments, or the way he prepares the instruments, or the way he integrates visual media with sound, or the way he uses everyday tactile objects, that is unlike anything I've heard. Some of his early stuff can be hit or miss -- though if you're familiar with the ideas behind the music and have a good ear, they're still pretty interesting, the problem with them is that they're very performance dependent -- but starting with his work Run Time Error, he's really taken off with some great pieces. Run Time Error in particular is an experimental piece fertile in musical ideas like Cage's 4'33" (in my opinion, it's more interesting than 4'33"); in fact, I'd go as far as to say that, were it not for the cultural milieu Steen-Andersen is currently composing in and were Run Time Error created in the fifties like 4'33", it would've achieved the level of infamy 4'33" currently has.

The 2 pieces I recommend hearing first are:
TRIO, which premiered at the 2019 Donaueschingen festival and is an amazing spectacle of video and sound (piece starts at 1 hour 39 minute mark)
Run Time Error, a site specific video installation performance, where every performance of it is essentially a different composition (this youtube video is one such performance)

I've posted a bit about his music here on TC, so I'll just link to some of my posts:
post on TRIO that I wrote last week in one of those stupid "I hate contemporary music" threads.
post on Run Time Error
post on his Piano Concerto
couple posts on Black Box Music and Double Up

As far as ranking the pieces for Trout's list, I weighed different types of evidence. I checked for number of performances on youtube, checked for what's been commercially recorded, checked for amount and variety of information from a simple google search, the number of performances listed on the Steen-Andersen's personal website, and my personal opinions of the pieces (I listened to every work I could find and read the scores while listening; most of the scores and program notes can be found here). I've also listened to a couple interviews on youtube and this 2 hour lecture given by Steen-Andersen on his own music. But the best pieces of evidence are:

This essay "Have you Seen the Music"

The only two books I've read on more recent contemporary music had extended discussions on Steen-Andersen's Run Time Error and Black Box Music. I doubt that's a coincidence.

This 2017 survey of over 100 music professionals asking who they thought were the best composers since 2000 and what were the best works (when you click on the link, then click on "Get More Information" for the survey results). Steen-Andersen had the second highest point total, behind only G. F. Haas. As an aside, this survey is a *fantastic* place to start checking out 21st century music.

Anyways, here's the list. Some notes:

1. loloopop is more of a visual art installation than a piece of music and is a collaboration effort with artist Carl Krull. I included it because I found it to be pretty interesting and I think it showcases in a different way the connections between Steen-Andersen's music and other artistic media, but if you think it's beyond the scope of this list, you can take it down.

2. It's rather difficult to give the instrumentation for (Self Reflecting) Next to Beside Besides. Steen-Andersen composed a work called Besides in 2003. He then wrote 13 solo pieces (the first of which is called Beside Besides, the others called Next to Beside Besides) that are each different takes on the coda of Besides. These 13 works can also be played simultaneously in any combination. This is the Next to Beside Besides series. Steen-Andersen then added an option for these solos to be projected onto video screens while other solos are being played, again in any combination. This is the Self Reflecting Next to Beside Besides series. I put "Self Reflecting" in () in order to condense these two series into one entry while indicating that the video part is optional. I'll leave it up to you if you have a better way of writing it. I'm also gonna leave the individual entries in the series below, so that you have the complete information, but I know you'll want to condense it all down to one line. Again, I'm not sure how to phrase the instrumentation in such a way so that I capture all the necessary information, so I'm leaving it up to you :)

3. TRIO would easily be a *** piece except for two things. First, it was only composed two years ago. Second, it's the product of a specific time and place and is essentially a glorification of the SWR radio station and the Donaueschinger festival (whose 100th anniversary is this year). This implies that only the SWR orchestra can play it and can only be played for a short while before it loses its wider significance, thus limiting the number of performances. But other than that, it's an impeccably composed work. I gave it **, but if you think otherwise, go for it.

- String Quartet No. 1 (1999)
- Praesens [14 musicians] (2001)
- Besides [amplified piccolo flute, amplified piano, amplified violin & dampened string trio] (2003)
- Rerendered [amplified & prepared piano solo, 2 assistants & video installation] (2003, rev. 2004)
- (Self-Reflecting) Next to Beside Besides [combinations of 1 or more solo instruments (optional video installation)] (2003-2008)
o Beside Besides (Next to Beside Besides No. 0) [dampened cello solo (optional amplification)] [2003]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 1 [amplified & dampened double bass solo] [2005]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 2 [amplified & dampened saxophone solo] [2005]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 3 [amplified & prepared accordion solo] [2005]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 4 [amplified & prepared snare drum solo] [2006]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 5 [amplified & prepared piccolo solo] [2006]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 6 [amplified, dampened & prepared violin solo] [2006]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 7 [amplified & prepared piano & whammy pedal] [2006]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 8 [amplified & prepared guitar solo] [2006]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 9 [amplified & prepared double bass solo] [2007]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 10 [miniature camera & visual installation] [2007]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 11 [amplified vibraphone solo] [2007]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 12 [amplified & prepared accordion solo] [2008]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 13 [amplified & prepared guitar solo] [2008]
- Amid [flute, Bb clarinet, prepared piano, guitar, percussion, dampened violin & dampened cello] (2004)**
- Amongst [amplified guitar solo & orchestra] (2005)
- loloopop (with Carl Krull) [audio-visual installation] (2006)
- In spite of, and maybe even therefore [amplified flute, amplified Bb clarinet, contrabassoon, amplified & dampened F horn, percussion, prepared piano & double bass] (2007)
- Studies for String Instrument Nos. 1-3 [1 or more string instruments, whammy pedal & video installation] (2007-2011)**
- Difficulties Putting it into Practice [2 or 4 amplified musicians] (2007, rev. 2010/2014)
- On and Off and To and Fro [prepared soprano saxophone, vibraphone & double bass; 3 prepared megaphones] (2008)
- Pretty Sound (Up and Down) [amplified piano solo] (2008)
- Ouvertures [amplified gu-zheng solo, sampler & orchestra] (2008-2010)
- Run Time Error [site-specific video installation performance] (2009-present)***
- Double Up [chamber orchestra & sampler] (2010)**
- History of my Instrument [amplified & prepared harp, amplified toy harp & video installation] (2011)
- Black Box Music [conductor solo, sinfonietta, amplified black box & video installation] (2012)***
- String Quartet No. 2 [with amplified & prepared bows] (2012)
- Inszenierte Nacht [music theater & live electronics] (2013)
- Buenos Aires [opera] (2014)
- Piano Concerto [piano solo, orchestra, sampler & video installation] (2014)**
- Asthma [amplified accordion & video installation] (2017)
- TRIO [orchestra, big band, choir & video installation] (2019)**
You may be interested in my interview with Simon Steen-Andersen from 2014.
 
#188 · (Edited)
In case anybody's interested, here's a list of every work Steen-Andersen composed (sans some works composed in the last year) plus my personal ranking of every work I could find on youtube. Rankings are out of 10 at the end of each entry.

• 4 Petitesses [cello solo] [1998]
• Study for Alto Saxophone and Percussion [alto saxophone & percussion] [1998] [5.7/10]
• Suite [ensemble] [1998]
• Aurora Ritual [orchestra] [1999]
• Étude No. 1 [piano solo] [1999]
• Polaroid [tape] [1999]
• Punctus Contra Punctum [organ] [1999]
• Sinfonietta Variations [saxophone & sinfonietta] [1999]
• String Quartet No. 1 [string quartet] [1999] [6.4/10]
• De Profundis [soprano saxophone & percussion] [2000] [5.2/10]
• De Profundis [soprano saxophone & percussion, arranged for bass clarinet & percussion] [2000, revised 2000] [5.2/10]
• Impromptu [english horn, bass clarinet, bassoon & baritone saxophone] [2000]
• in-side-out-side-in [guitar solo] [2000-2001] [5.3/10]
• Electro Miniature [tape] [2001] [4.1/10]
• Praesens [14 musicians] [2001] [6.6/10]
• Among (Unattended Ones) [2 percussionist with adjustable amplification] [2002]
• Spin-Off [soprano saxophone, C trumpet, accordion & double bass] [2002] [3.4/10]
• Split Point [percussion solo] [2002] [3.8/10]
• Besides [amplified piccolo flute, amplified piano, amplified violin & dampened string trio] [2003] [5.0/10]
• Drownwords [amplified soprano & amplified guitar] [2003] [3.6/10]
• Rerendered [amplified & prepared piano solo, 2 assistants & video installation] [2003, revised 2004] [6.8/10]
• (Self-Reflecting) Next to Beside Besides [combinations of 1 or more solo instruments (optional video installation)] [2003-2008] [5.5/10]
o Beside Besides (Next to Beside Besides No. 0) [dampened cello solo (optional amplification)] [2003]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 1 [amplified & dampened double bass solo] [2005]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 2 [amplified & dampened saxophone solo] [2005]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 3 [amplified & prepared accordion solo] [2005]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 4 [amplified & prepared snare drum solo] [2006]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 5 [amplified & prepared piccolo solo] [2006]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 6 [amplified, dampened & prepared violin solo] [2006]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 7 [amplified & prepared piano & whammy pedal] [2006]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 8 [amplified & prepared guitar solo] [2006]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 9 [amplified & prepared double bass solo] [2007]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 10 [miniature camera & visual installation] [2007]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 11 [amplified vibraphone solo] [2007]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 12 [amplified & prepared accordion solo] [2008]
o Next to Beside Besides No. 13 [amplified & prepared guitar solo] [2008]
• Amid [flute, Bb clarinet, prepared piano, guitar, percussion, dampened violin & dampened cello] [2004] [6.4/10]
• [sproglyd] [interactive webpage] [2005]
• Amongst [amplified guitar solo & orchestra] [2005] [5.2/10]
• Within Amongst [amplified guitar solo] [2005] [4.2/10]
• loloopop (with Carl Krull) [audio-visual installation] [2006] [7.2/10]
• Tal Vez Quizás [clarinet & video installation] [2006]
• Chambered Music [12 musicians & sampler] [2007] [4.1/10]
• In spite of, and maybe even therefore [amplified flute, amplified Bb clarinet, contrabassoon, amplified & dampened F horn, percussion, prepared piano & double bass] [2007] [4.8/10]
• Nothing Integrated [amplified clarinet, amplified percussion, amplified cello & video installation] [2007]
• In Her Frown [2 amplified musicians] [2007, revised 2010] [5.1/10]
• Studies for String Instrument [2007-2011] [6.0/10]
o Study for String Instrument No. 1 [1 or more string instrument] [2007]
o Study for String Instrument No. 2 [1 or more string instrument & whammy pedal] [2009]
o Study for String Instrument No. 3 [amplified & prepared cello (optional additional string instruments) & video installation] [2011]
• Difficulties Putting it into Practice [2 or 4 amplified musicians] [2007, revised 2010, 2014] [5.1/10]
• A Bit of Nothing Integrated [2 performers & video installation] [2008] [4.0/10]
• On and Off and To and Fro [prepared soprano saxophone, prepared vibraphone, prepared double bass & 3 prepared megaphones] [2008] [7.5/10]
• Pretty Sound (Up and Down) [amplified piano solo] [2008] [6.1/10]
• soundTAG (with Kaj Aune) [audio-visual installation] [2008]
• Ouvertures [amplified gu-zheng solo, sampler & orchestra] [2008-2010] [6.9/10]
• Self Simulator [interactive audio-visual installation] [2009]
• Run Time Error [site-specific video installation performance] [2009-present] [9.2/10]
• Double Up [chamber orchestra & sampler] [2010] [9.4/10]
• Beloved Brother [dampened guitar solo] [2011] [3.7/10]
• History of my Instrument [amplified & prepared harp, amplified toy harp & video installation] [2011] [4.9/10]
• Black Box Music [conductor solo, sinfonietta, amplified black box & video installation] [2012] [10/10]
• Half a Bit of Nothing Integrated [1 performer & video installation] [2012]
• Im Rauschen [piccolo, flute, clarinet & live electronics] [2012] [3.5/10]
• Obstruction Studies [2012]
o Obstruction Study No. 1 [string quartet with prepared bows] [2012]
o Obstruction Study No. 2 [string quartet, white noise & light installation] [2012]
o Obstruction Study No. 3 [string quartet with amplified & prepared bows] [2012]
• String Quartet No. 2 [string quartet with amplified & prepared bows] [2012] [5.7/10]
• Inszenierte Nacht [voice, trumpet, trombone, 2 percussion, piano, guitar, cello, electric keyboard, live electronics, light installation & stage setting] [2013]
• Buenos Aires [opera] [2014]
• Mono (Autotune Study) [low male voice, electric keyboard & autotune] [2014] [4.0/10]
• Piano Concerto [piano solo, orchestra, sampler & video installation] [2014] [9.6/10]
• Korpus [7 or 8 musicians on marimba eroica, chromelodeon 1 & bloboy] [2015]
• if this then that and now what [4 actors, 18 musicians, light installation & stage setting] [2016]
• Asthma [amplified accordion & video installation] [2017] [7.6/10]
• TRIO [orchestra, big band, choir & video installation] [2019] [9.9/10]
• The Loop of the Nibelung [singers, musicians & site-specific video installation performance] [2020] [9.4/10]
 
#193 ·
Apologies, Trout, for not being able to do Rebecca Saunders. I realized that I didn't know her music as well as I should.

The next composer I can do is Enno Poppe. He's probably the next composer I plan to to take a serious dive into, and I can build up a list while I'm listening to his music.
 
#194 ·
Morten Lauridsen deserves a place on your list.
 
#195 ·
I'd forgotten about this project - I do remember its earlier days but had forgotten completely about the resource that was being developed - and was just going through the list with a focus on composers whose names begin with an M. Do we need to add Bruno Maderna, Annunzio Mantovani and perhaps Louis Thomas Hardin (aka "Moondog")?
 
#196 ·
Apologies, I've been away from this project for some time. (I still haven't yet added Steen-Andersen for whom calvinpv did some excellent work in compiling an entry for.) Suggestions for composers are still welcome, although I suspect that I may eventually cap the list at some point now that many of the biggest names are there. Not that I'd ever really consider this project complete in any sense, but more so that I don't have as much time or interest for it as I used to.



Maderna and Mantovani I think are a bit too old to qualify as "contemporary" according to the cutoff I'm using (1970s). Moondog I know only a little about but I'd be inclined to disqualify him as well considering how influential his 40s and 50s works seem to be.
 
#197 ·
^ Thanks, Trout. I wasn't clear about Mantovani - I meant Bruno Mantovani (not the slick light music practitioner) who was born in 1974. As for Maderna, he died in 1973 but (as far as I am aware) composed several important works in the 70s - for example, Biogramme, Aura, the oboe concertos and Ausstrahlung. Fair enough on Moondog.
 
#199 ·
Has Krzysztof Meyer been added?

I am a big fan of his string quartets, he's written 15 so far, and Naxos has released 1-13 - but he's written in all forms.

Krzysztof Meyer (born 11 August 1943) is a Polish composer, pianist, and music scholar, formerly Dean of the Department of Music Theory (1972-1975) at the State College of Music (now Academy of Music in Kraków), and president of the Union of Polish Composers (1985-1989). Meyer served as professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne from 1987 to 2008, prior to his retirement.
Here's the Wikipedia entry on him.
 
#200 ·
Dear Trout,
It's a tremendous and very impressive project and I appreciate that you are not trying to grow your list too fast. But about some composers (like for example, Auerbach, Martynov, Pelēcis, Shchedrin, Tavener) I am wondering whether you decided not to include them or, perhaps, they are still waiting in the queue for their fate.
 
#204 · (Edited)


Here's a young composer from Latvia, Platons Buravickis and his Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra titled Plastmasas temperatūra which translates to Temperature of Plastics. It was composed in 2019 and is featured on a new album of orchestral commissions that was recently released on the Latvian label, SKANI.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top