71 articles
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland (1900-1990), the "Dean of American Music," was an American composer, teacher, and conductor who created a distinctly American concert style in works such as Appalachian Spring, Rodeo, and Fanfare for the Common Man.
Alban Berg
Alban Berg (1885–1935), Austrian composer of the Second Viennese School and pupil of Schoenberg; wrote the atonal opera Wozzeck (premiered Berlin 1925), the twelve-tone Lulu, and the Violin Concerto.
Alfredo Casella
Alfredo Casella (1883–1947), Italian composer, pianist, conductor, and critic born in Turin and trained in Paris under Fauré, led the generazione dell'ottanta in modernizing Italian instrumental music; known for Italia, La Giara, Partita, Sinfonia, and Missa solemnis pro pace.
Alma Deutscher
Alma Deutscher is a British composer and violinist known for her classical-romantic style. She won the European Culture Prize in 2019 and wrote the opera Cinderella.
Anna Vilenskaya
Anna Vilenskaya (Анна Виленская, born 1998, Saint Petersburg) is a Russian-born musicologist, composer, and lecturer based in Austin, Texas, known for the Open Music Lecture Hall YouTube channel, Forbes Russia 30 Under 30 recognition, and a 2026 dispute with medievalists.
Anton Webern
Anton Webern (1883–1945), Austrian composer and conductor of the Second Viennese School with Schoenberg and Berg; 31 opus works under five hours, rigorous twelve-tone technique, shot by an American soldier in 1945, postwar model for serialism.
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg (Arnold Schönberg, 1874–1951), Viennese-born composer who pioneered atonality and invented the twelve-tone method, teacher of Berg and Webern, exile in Los Angeles, rival of Stravinsky.
Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt (born 11 September 1935) is an Estonian composer, creator of the tintinnabuli style after his modernist Soviet-era period, an exile in Berlin from 1980, and one of the world's most performed living composers.
Béla Bartók
Bela Bartok (1881-1945), Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist; with Kodaly collected folk songs, wrote Bluebeard's Castle, Mikrokosmos, Concerto for Orchestra, and researched Turkish-Hungarian folk music links.
Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist whose opera Peter Grimes (1945) revived English opera; he also wrote the War Requiem and founded the Aldeburgh Festival.
Bryce Dessner
Bryce Dessner (born 1976, Cincinnati) is an American composer and guitarist, founding member of The National, Grammy winner, and film scorer (The Revenant, The Two Popes, Train Dreams), known for concertos and works for Kronos Quartet.
Carl Orff
Carl Orff (Karl Heinrich Maria Orff, 1895–1982) was a German composer and music educator, famous for Carmina Burana (1937) and the Orff-Schulwerk music education method; distinct from other namesakes by his Munich birth, Günther-Schule work, and Dießen foundation.
Charles Ives
Charles Edward Ives (1874–1954), American modernist composer from Danbury, Connecticut, also an insurance agent with the firm of Ives and Myrick; known for the Concord Sonata, The Unanswered Question, polytonality, and the 1947 Pulitzer for his Third Symphony.
Consuelo Velázquez
Consuelo Velázquez Torres (1916–2005), Mexican concert pianist and composer known as Consuelito, wrote Bésame mucho (1941), the most-covered Spanish-language song, plus Amar y vivir, Cachito, and Yo no fui; SACM president and federal deputy.
Deems Taylor
Deems Taylor (1885-1966), American composer, critic, and radio commentator; wrote the Met-commissioned operas The King's Henchman and Peter Ibbetson, the Through the Looking Glass suite, and narrated Disney's Fantasia.
Edgard Varèse
Edgard Varèse (1883–1965), French-born American composer of "organized sound": Ionisation for 13 percussionists, Déserts with tape, and Poème électronique (1958), his only purely electronic work, premiered in the Philips Pavilion at Brussels Expo 58.
Eric Whitacre
Eric Whitacre, American Grammy-winning choral composer and conductor (Lux Aurumque, Sleep, Light & Gold), creator of the Virtual Choir projects uniting over 100,000 singers from more than 145 countries.
Fikret Amirov
Fikret Amirov (Fikrət Əmirov, 1922–1984) was a Soviet and Azerbaijani composer born in Ganja who created the symphonic mugam in 1948 and wrote the opera Sevil and the ballet A Thousand and One Nights.
Francis Poulenc
Francis Poulenc (1899-1963), French composer and pianist of Les Six, known for melodious diatonic songs, sacred works like Litanies a la vierge noire, and the opera Dialogues des Carmelites.
George Gershwin
George Gershwin (1898–1937), American composer born Jacob Gershovitz in Brooklyn, wrote Broadway musicals with lyricist brother Ira, Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris, and the opera Porgy and Bess; died at 38 after brain tumor surgery.
Gordon Getty
Gordon Peter Getty (born 1933), American composer, son of J. Paul Getty, based in San Francisco; tonal operas Plump Jack, Usher House, The Canterville Ghost, Goodbye Mr. Chips, and The White Election song cycle.
György Ligeti
György Ligeti (1923-2006), Hungarian-Austrian avant-garde composer born in Transylvania, creator of micropolyphony in Apparitions and Atmosphères, opera Le Grand Macabre, and the Piano Études; famous worldwide through Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze (1926–2012), German composer, also known for Das Floß der Medusa and The Bassarids; lived in Italy from 1953, wrote 15 operas and 10 symphonies, blended serialism with lyricism, and was a committed political leftist.
Henri Dutilleux
Henri Paul Julien Dutilleux (1916–2013) was a French composer of orchestral, concertante, and chamber music whose small, meticulously revised catalog made him one of the most performed French composers.
Hikari Ōe (大江光)
Hikari Ōe (大江光) is a Japanese composer and the eldest son of novelist Kenzaburō Ōe. He is known for his savant abilities and his 1996 film score A Quiet Life.
Iannis Xenakis (Ιάννης Ξενάκης)
Iannis Xenakis (Ιάννης Ξενάκης), 1922–2001, Greek-French composer, architect, and engineer; pioneer of stochastic music, Philips Pavilion designer, author of Formalized Music, 1997 Kyoto Prize laureate.
Igor Stravinsky (Игорь Фёдорович Стравинский)
Igor Stravinsky (Игорь Фёдорович Стравинский, 1882–1971), Russian-born composer of the Rite of Spring, Firebird, and Petrushka; career spans Russian, neoclassical, and late serial periods.
JoAnn Kuchera-Morin
JoAnn Kuchera-Morin is an American composer and professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, known for founding CREATE in 1986 and directing the AlloSphere Research Facility.
John Adams (composer)
John Coolidge Adams (born 1947, Worcester, Massachusetts) is an American composer and conductor, not the presidents or John Luther Adams. Known for minimalism, Nixon in China, Harmonielehre, Doctor Atomic, Pulitzer-winning On the Transmigration of Souls, 2019 Erasmus Prize.
John Cage
John Cage (1912–1992) was an American avant-garde composer, philosopher, and visual artist, pioneer of chance operations, indeterminacy, and the prepared piano; best known for the silent piece 4'33" and his lifelong collaboration with Merce Cunningham.