Contemporary Classical Composers - new discoveries

@mahler123 we may be missing out so let’s not worry about that criteria. The thread has evolved beyond it and I think it’s great.

@mahgister went thru few of your recommendations.

I’m familiar with Philip Glass’ work and wanted to give him another chance thinking it’s been years and may be something changed in me and I will love it. He’s still not one of my favorites although I admire the minimalist style and don’t hate it. Just don’t love it.
I enjoyed Robert Simpson’s string quartets and am going thru some of his other work. Thank you!

Going to go listen to this young lass later this month...

’The Peel’s acoustics suck for bands and such, but for soloists’ ? Better... ;)

Smashing Pumpkins? You couldn’t hear the person next to you SHOUTING.

Leo Kottke? Great, thanks.

...and with Jiji, we get to sit. In chairs...and not just at the bar....*LOL*

The Symps' 'ALT' programs are fun diversions....(and affordable...👍).

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