Music Subject Overview
Musical modernism is understood here in the broadest sense, including compositional practices from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Of course, modernist practice is…
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Barraine, Elsa Jacqueline (1910–99)
Elsa Barraine’s precocious musical talents were recognized at an early age, and she entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of twelve. She studied composition…
Nono, Luigi (1924–90)
Luigi Nono stands out as one of the most uncompromising modernist composers of the Italian avant-garde. Together with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez, Nono was…
Branca, Glenn (1948--)
Glenn Branca (b. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1948) is an American composer noted for his works for massed electric guitars. Branca began his compositional career in New…
Modernist Music in Turkey (1923--)
Modernist music in Turkey owes its foundations to the late bourgeoisie revolution in 1923. The young republic, motivated by the building of a modern nation-state,…
Tavener, John Kenneth (1944–2013)
John Tavener was an English composer. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where his composition teachers were Lennox Berkeley and David…
Héctor Tosar (1923–2002)
Héctor Tosar was a composer, pianist, director, and composition teacher in Uruguay, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and the United States. One of the best-known Uruguayan composers…
Gillespie, Dizzy (1917–93)
Dizzy Gillespie was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader. Over the course of his artistic career Gillespie was based in New York City, where…
Perle, George (1915–2009)
George Perle (1915–2009) was an American composer and scholar, awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, a Pulitzer Prize (1986) for his Wind Quintet no. 4, and…
Rugeles, Alfredo (1949--)
The Venezuelan maestro Alfredo Rugeles was born in Washington, D.C., on 13 December 1949, while his parents were on diplomatic service. Composer, conductor, lecturer, and…
Kurtág, György (1926--)
Unlike his friend György Ligeti, who emigrated from Hungary in 1956, György Kurtág remained until after the end of the Cold War in Budapest, where…
Kröpfl, Francisco (1931--)
Francisco Kröpfl is an Argentinean composer and researcher. His work as a pedagogue through the development of several generations of Latin American composers is widely…
African Hip-Hop
There are several features that distinguish African Hip-Hop music from the genre’s American origins. Principal targets of its social critique such as disenfranchisement and social…
Iturriaga (Romero), Enrique (1918--)
Enrique Iturriaga is a Peruvian composer and music pedagogue. He is one of the lead representatives of the so-called Generación del 50, a Peruvian composers’…
Wood, Hugh (1932--)
Hugh Wood is one of the leading British composers of his generation. In his contributions to all of the major musical genres (with the sole…
Dench, Christopher (1953--)
Christopher Dench is one of a group of British composers who emerged in the early 1980s associated with the notion of New Complexity (other composers…
Paz, Juan Carlos (1897–1972)
Juan Carlos Paz (1897–1972) was an Argentine composer, critic, writer, and self-described “compositional guide” who played a key role in twentieth-century Argentine contemporary music. Known…
Braxton, Anthony (1945--)
Anthony Braxton, born 4 June 1945 in Chicago, Illinois, is an avant-garde jazz multi-instrumentalist and composer who performs and records primarily on saxophones. An active…
Ferrari, Luc (1929–2005)
French experimental composer Luc Ferrari was one of the key figures in the development of electroacoustic music in France during the late 1950s and 1960s.…
Castle, Vernon (1887–1918) & Castle, Irene Foote (1893–1969)
During the years 1911–1917, Irene Foote Castle (1893–1969) and her husband Vernon Castle (1887–1918) explicitly marketed ragtime dancing as “modern” to their upper-class and, increasingly,…
Tenney, James (1934–2006)
American composer James Tenney produced a wide range of innovative works, including computer music, Fluxus-inspired text scores, and chance-based instrumental pieces founded on the overtone…
Parker, Charles ‘Charlie’ Jr. (1920-1955)
Charlie Parker, known as ‘Yardbird’ or ‘Bird,’ was a famous American jazz saxophonist. Parker is best known for developing the style of jazz known as…
Papineau-Couture, Jean (1916–2000)
Grandson to Quebec’s art music scene pioneer Guillaume Couture (1851–1915), composer Jean Papineau-Couture (1916–2000) played a major role in the development of the province’s musical…
Zorn, John (1953--)
John Zorn is an American avant-garde saxophonist and composer. Zorn performs on alto saxophone and is one of the leading figures in New York City’s…
Malipiero, Gian-Francesco (1882–1973)
Gian-Francesco Malipiero was an Italian composer whose life spanned an expansive period of Italian history, from the post-Risorgimento years through two disastrous wars and into…