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.
Born in Hanau in 1895, Paul Hindemith was taught the violin as a child. He entered the Hoch'sche Konservatorium in Frankfurt am Main where he studied conducting, composition and violin under Arnold Mendelssohn and Bernhard Sekles, supporting himself by playing in dance bands and musical-comedy outfits. He led the Frankfurt Opera orchestra from 1915 to 1923 and played in the Rebner string quartet in 1921 in which he played second violin, and later the viola. In 1929 he founded the Amar Quartet, playing viola, and extensively toured Europe.
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.
Albert Charles Paul Marie Roussel (April 5, 1869 - August 23, 1937) was a French composer. Born in Tourcoing, France, Roussel's earliest interest was not in music but mathematics. He spent a time in the French Navy, and in 1889 and 1890 he served on the crew of the frigate Iphigénie. These travels affected him artistically, as many of his musical works would reflect his interest in far off, exotic places.
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
Александр Константинович Глазунов (Alexander Glazunov; 10th August 1865–21st March 1936) was a Russian composer and influential music teacher. Glazunov was born in St Petersburg. He studied music under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The first of his nine symphonies was premiered in 1882, when Glazunov was sixteen years old. His popular "Stenka Razin" was also a youthful work. Glazunov also wrote three ballets.
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.
John Casken (b.1949) is an English composer, and Professor of Music at the University of Manchester since 1992. Casken was born in Barnsley, Yorkshire, England. After attending the University of Birmingham, Casken travelled to Poland in 1971, where he studied at the Academy of Music in Warsaw, and with Witold Lutosławski—who was to have a deep influence on his compositions. He came to the attention of the musical community in 1980, when he was the featured composer at the Bath Festival.