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Conlon Nancarrow (b. October 27, 1912, Texarkana - d. August 10, 1997, Mexico City) was an American-born composer who lived most of his life in Mexico. Nancarrow is remembered almost exclusively for the pieces he wrote for the player piano. He was one of the first composers to use musical instruments as mechanical machines, utilising their capacity to play complex polyrhythms at tempos far beyond human performance ability.

Read more about Conlon Nancarrow on Last.fm.

Aldo Clementi (25 May, 1925 - 3 March, 2011) was the last survivor of the great generation of Italian postwar musical avant-gardists. He was also its quietest and most self-effacing member, both personally and musically. After a hesitant start, he developed a technique that allowed him to produce works as calmly consistent in sound and technique as a Renaissance motet, and some would say just as beautiful.

Pierre Boulez (born March 26, 1925) is a composer and conductor of contemporary and classical music. Boulez is also an articulate, perceptive and sweeping writer on music. Some articles

Michael Finnissy is an English composer and pianist born in Tulse Hill, London in 1946.
Finnissy's own ablilities as a pianist underlie much of his compositions. A significant number of these are piano transcriptions in his very complex style which typically involves irrational musical rhythmic values, virtuosic technique (in the piano pieces) and intricate linear, rather than harmonic, textures.