Stephen Michael Reich (born October 3, 1936) is an American composer. He is a pioneer of minimalism, although his music has increasingly deviated from a purely minimalist style. Reich's innovations include using tape loops to create phasing patterns (examples are his early compositions, "It's Gonna Rain" and "Come Out"), and the use of processes to create and explore musical concepts (for instance, "Pendulum Music" and ""Four Organs").
Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. (born December 11, 1908) is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City, a composer encompassing many facets of classical music, from neoclassicism to serialism. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, during which time he published his first composition in 1937 and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music.
Bernard Johan Herman Haitink, CH, KBE (born 4 March 1929) is a Dutch conductor and violinist. Haitink was born in Amsterdam, the son of Willem Haitink and Anna Haitink. He studied music at the conservatoire in Amsterdam. He played the violin in orchestras before taking courses in conducting under Ferdinand Leitner in 1954 and 1955. Haitink became second conductor of the Netherlands Radio Union Orchestra in 1955.
Visit James's official site here: http://www.jameshannigan.com James Hannigan works in games, television and film, with game credits including various EA Sports titles, entries in the Harry Potter, Warhammer, Command and Conquer, Lord of the Rings and Theme Park series, along with contributing to television shows such as ITV's Primeval. After starting out at Electronic Arts in the mid-1990s, James later based himself at the Pinewood Studios complex in West London...
A contemporary string ensembles that performs the works of composers such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass throughout the world. Currently composed of Ian Humphries (violin), Darragh Morgan (violin), Nic Pendlebury (viola), and Deirdre Cooper (cello). Official web site: www.smithquartet.com
Krzysztof Penderecki (born November 23, 1933 in D?bica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these works exhibit novel compositional techniques. Since the 1970s Penderecki's style has changed to encompass a post-Romantic idiom.
German composer, keyboardist, musicologist and educator, born 1955 in Rheinberg.
Oliver Knussen (born June 12, 1952 in Glasgow, Scotland) is a UK composer and conductor. He began composing at about the age of six – but it was an ITV programme about his father's work with the London Symphony Orchestra that prompted the commissioning for his first symphony (1966-1967). Aged 15, Knussen stepped in to conduct his symphony's première at the Royal Festival Hall, London, on 7 April 1968 after István Kertész fell ill.
John Rutter (born September 24, 1945) is an English composer, choral conductor, editor, arranger and record producer. Born in London, he was educated at Highgate School, where a fellow pupil was John Tavener. He then studied music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was organ scholar and then director of music from 1975 to 1979. In 1981 he founded his own choir, the Cambridge Singers, which he conducts and with which he has made many recordings of sacred choral repertoire (including his own works), particularly under his own label Collegium Records.
Joby Talbot is a British Composer. He was born in Wimbledon, London, August 25 of 1971, Talbot initially studied composition at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College under Robert Saxton. In 1993 Talbot first met Neil Hannon and began arranging and performing with his group The Divine Comedy. One of their tracks, "In Pursuit of Happiness", was used as the theme music for BBC TV's Tomorrow's World.