Contemporary Classical Composers - new discoveries

I think the big division occurs between Modernists who were deliberately trying to break with previous generations, and those that viewed their music as part of the long tradition.

  The Second Viennese School still sounds pretty radical to my ears.  It is interesting that the likes of Webern and Berg were contemporaneous with Rachmaninov , Sibelius and Vaughn Williams 

  I really enjoy Walter Piston and American composers who followed in his wake,such as Copland, Bernstein, Diamond, Perischetti, Schuman, Harris.  Over the pond Simpson and Rawsthorne.  In Russia after Shostakovich and Vainberg Schnittke and Gulbaidulina.  From Poland Bacewicz.

Very good post with which i concur from mahler123...

But even this distinction is not enough between more traditionals composers and modernists one...

Where is Philip Glass ?

Where is Sorabji ?

Where is Charles Ives ? Nor traditional nor modernist...

Where is Nyman writing music as Sangam inspired by non-european traditions of India or Persia etc in my book it is not traditional at all nor modernist as the  Viennese school which look already an "old" traditional school to me almost out of fashion as such ?

In neither of this 2 polarized classification...these two groups separate on two extreme limits... Creativity is not limited by ideological borders nor by history ...

Yes, I over simplified, as many composers can’t be pigeon holed into one of the two camps.  Perhaps there are 3 main divisions.  The first two that I previously elucidated would probably describe Classical Music for a good chunk of the 20th Century, but in the last 50 years or so we have rise of composers who find these distinctions irrelevant, just want to create, and let people like me do the pigeon holing.

  I dislike minimalism.  If I want to listen to mind numbing repetition I can tune into pop music.

  Ives is truly unique.  For me, he is a composer that I tend to respect more than I love.  I do like his Concord Sonata, and Central Park in the Dark.  I enjoy the 4 symphonies but tend not to seek them out.

  Not that familiar with Nyman

I dislike minimalism. If I want to listen to mind numbing repetition I can tune into pop music.

Ives is truly unique. For me, he is a composer that I tend to respect more than I love. I do like his Concord Sonata, and Central Park in the Dark. I enjoy the 4 symphonies but tend not to seek them out.

Not that familiar with Nyman

i feel the same as you in your last post...For Ives...

Save for minimalism...

I dont like all minimalist music first, second i can meditate and think write with minimalist music as a tool to guide my thinking process out of any distraction and keep it focused ... I will not listen most classical music this way , save Bach, and i had no use for any pop music ...I prefer jazz ...

Then some minimal music can be a tool for keeping consciousness on some trance like thinking mode... Some thinker more concentrated than me prefer silence... I myself like to alternate silence and music especially if i wrote... When thinking out of the silence hours, music give us a dream like states when our thought organize themselves without the conscious ego impediment ...Music is a thinking sleep mode where we go deeper without any ego to keep us at the surface of waters ...

Then i dont like minimalism for the sake of it generally , but as a necessary musical state in my listenings...( Glass for example is an exception we can call his music minimalism but it is more than that because of his rythmic sophisticated mastery and his content )

Pop music i had no use for it as in many hours listening sessions even for an hour ... I like to have a few minutes nostalgia on the radio in my car listening by chance a song that remind me my 20 years old... I dont see any other reason to listen pop extensively ... I prefer Jazz or  Persian or Indian music ( rag music is great as minimalism for thinking as well as Bach)  and other cultures music even fado to pop ...

I dont dislike pop ... Many pop singers and musicians had a deep impact on me... But i dont go for them out of the random moment in my life where by accident they remind me of the past...

For example "California dreaming " by Mamas and the Papas... I had 13 years old or 14... I walked in our new apartment too small for my poor family , and the rythmic irresistible hope suggested by the well done harmony transform my sadness in pure joy... how can i forgot that ? Each time this music play i feel young again .,..

The same is true at the same age for Otis Redding marvelous "dock of the bay" which create the opposite in me , a deep sense of my solitude on the dock of St Lawrence river ...how can i forget this special feeling of sadness being alone ? Each time i hear it i reenter in my young self ...

I remember the exact moment of my first listening of the group Cream  on the stairs  between two levels of the school House, or Jimi Hendrix or the first listening of Frank Zappa... Each pop music is for me a deep memory ... But i dont entertain ONLY AND MERELY  nostalgia when i listen music... I use music to dream, think, sleep , or meditate and contemplate the musical content...Nostalgia is great only by chance or for very short moment of choice ...

Currently living composers:

Beat Furrer (Swiss Austrian) born 1954.

A relativity recent discovery of mine. So far, I like everything I’ve heard.