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.
Frank Martin (15 September 1890 – 21 November 1974) was a Swiss composer, who lived a large part of his life in the Netherlands. He was born in Geneva, the tenth and last child of Charles Martin, a pastor. Before he started school, he was already playing the piano and improvising. At nine, he was composing complete, fully formed songs, without having had any instruction in song forms or harmony. A performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion which he heard at the age of twelve left upon him an ineradicable impression, and Bach became his true master.
Gunther Schuller (born November 22, 1925) is an American composer and horn player. He is regarded as one of the key figures in contemporary classical music. He studied at the Saint Thomas Choir School and became an accomplished horn player; at the age of seventeen he was principal hornist with the Cincinnati Symphony, and two years later took up a similar position with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. In 1959 he gave up performance to devote himself to composition. He has conducted internationally and studied and recorded jazz with such greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and John Lewis.
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE (b. 8 September 1934), is a British composer and conductor. His surname is "Davies", and "Maxwell" is his middle name. To his friends, Davies is known as "Max". Davies was born in Salford, England. He took piano lessons and composed from an early age. After education at Leigh Grammar School, he studied at the University of Manchester and at the Royal Manchester College of Music (amalgamated into the Royal Northern College of Music in 1973), where his fellow students included Harrison Birtwistle, Alexander Goehr, Elgar Howarth and John Ogdon.
Wolfgang Rihm (b. 13 March 1952) is a German composer from Karlsruhe. He finished both his school and his studies in music theory and composition in 1972, two years before the premiere of his early work Morphonie at the 1974 Donaueschingen Festival launched his career as a prominent figure in the European new music scene. Rihm's early work, combining contemporary techniques with the emotional volatility of Gustav Mahler and of Arnold Schönberg's early expressionist period was regarded by many as a revolt against the avant-garde generation of Pierre Boulez...
Schnebel has become one of the many important postmodern composers through a unique craft, challenging our definitions of music, its limits, and even its unusual sound capabilities from humans themselves. But before developing into a professional expresser of music as an art form, Schnebel underwent vigorous studies in various fields. He began with a general private music study with Wilhelm Sibler from 1942 until 1945, when he started piano lessons with another Wilhelm(!), Wilhelm Resch, and lasted with him until 1949 at the age of 19.
Harrison Birtwistle is one of the world's foremost living composers. Born Accrington, 1934, he studied Clarinet and Composition at the Royal Manchester College of Music from 1953 where, along with fellow students Peter Maxwell Davies, Alexander Goehr, John Ogdon and Elgar Howarth, he formed the New Music Manchester group which was dedicated to performing avant-garde and contemporary compositions.
Thomas Mapfumo (born 1945 in Marondera, Zimbabwe) is a Zimbabwean musician known as "The Lion of Zimbabwe" for his immense popularity and for the political influence he wields through his music. Pre-Independence, his songs openly called for the violent overthrow of the government, with lyrics like "Mothers, send your sons to war." Since the white government didn't understand Shona, however, at first they didn't realize how radical the songs were.
Harold Arlen (February 15, 1905 – April 23, 1986)
Was an American composer of popular music. Having written over 400 songs, a number of which have become known the world over, Arlen is a highly regarded contributor to the Great American Songbook. His 1938 song "Over the Rainbow” was voted the twentieth century's No. 1 song by the Recording Industry Association of America Biography Arlen was born Hyman Arluck, in Buffalo, New York, the child of a Jewish cantor.