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Spanish composer and pianist; very important to Spain
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Austrian composer; some orchestral works can represent maximalism; large 10 programmatic symphonies, orchestral Lieder; conductor in Europe and the USA
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French composer and pianist; inventor of musical impressionism; influential modern composers
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English composer of German descent; used impressionism
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Italian composer and conductor; he became the official composer of the Fascist regime in the 1930's
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Composer of tone poems and some of the first modern operas; accomplished conductor; works epitomized maximalism
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Finnish; his later music is more modern
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Danish; prolific and important to the history of Scandinavian music
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French composer, teacher, and critic; only allowed a few of his works to be published
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Not an impressionist, but a leader in new French aesthetics on which impressionism was built; incredible innovator
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French composer; extremely versatile; innovator in pianistic style; expert orchestrator
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Important Italian composer; advocated moving away from "the tyranny of major and minor keys"'; yet his music sounds more conservative than his talk
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American; popularized ragtime
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American composer and pianist; very successful in Europe; conservative style; wrote scholarly articles
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Catalan composer; teacher and pianist; He is a representative composer of the 19th century Spain
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The leading conservative German composer; also a conductor
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Became the leader in English music; collector and editor of folksongs and hymns, musical editor of the English Hymnal; teacher and conductor
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Influenced by chromaticism and inpressionism; complex original harmonic language; virtuoso pianist
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German composer; Post-Wagnerian harmony; extreme chromaticism; master of counterpoint
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Not interested in nationalism; master of melody; virtuoso pianist; toured the USA
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American; probably the most innovative, original, and creative of all 20th century composers; worked virtually in isolation; made a living in insurance
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The father of 12-tone music; important as an innovator; teacher of Webern and Berg
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English; influenced by folksong and Hindu mysticism; original composer and important teacher
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The principal Spanish composer of the 20th century; used Spanish popular and folk music; earned international fame
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Italian composer; used impressionism
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Hungarian composer and pianist important ethnomusicologist; known for his rhythmic music; he incorporated his own native folk music into his compositions
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Polish composer; the central figure in Polish music in the early 20th century
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One of the most versatile and interesting composers of the 20th century; rhythmic style; harmonically interesting
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Hungarian; ethnomusicologist, music educator; created moveable 'do' solfege system
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Italian composer and musicologist; original and inventive
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Student of Schoenberg; known for his musical brevity and clarity of texture; uses pointilism; wrote no operas
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French-American; wrote non-tonal music, focusing on elements other than pitch; innovative; took interest in electronic music and the idea of organized sound as music
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American composer and pianist; interested in ethnic music
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Student of Schoenberg; expressive language; often atonal
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Italian inventor, painter, and composer; he created a riot in Milan in 1913 when he demonstrated his new instruments that were to produce machine noises of daily experiences
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American composer; adapted Juba folk dance and idioms of black spirituals; the first African-American woman to win widespread fame as a symphonic composer; even so, she was omitted from the New Grove Dictionary in 1980
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Austrian composer; awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1956 for his Symphony no. 3; prolific composer
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Important teacher of composers in the 20th century; most prominent American composers of the first half of the century studied with her; conductor and composer
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Brazilian composer and cellist
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Turned communist in 1936; not talked about much in music history; anti-USA
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Swiss composer of French descent
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American Songwriter
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Russian composer and pianist, important as a Russian voice in Western culture
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From Switzerland; admired Bach
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Friends with Satie; used polytonality; one of the first to use jazz in concert music; came to the US in 1940
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French composer; too modest; beautiful music
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French composer; first woman to win the Prix de Rome, 1913; sister of Nadia
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Czech composer, theorist and teacher
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American composer and teacher; Neo-classic and crafted-oriented
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American composer; the first African-American composer to have his symphony performed by a leading orchestra; the first black American to conduct a major orchestra; the first black American to write for radio, TV, and films; he incorporated folk idioms, jazz, and spirituals
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German conductor, teacher, author and composer; wrote music for the practicing musician; Gebrauchsmusik
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German composer and educationist; indebted to folksong (Bavarian); wrote a collection of graded material for children for use in schools
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American composer, theorist, and teacher; atonal mostly; intense and dissonant
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American composer, teacher, and conductor of Swedish ancestry; Neo-romantic style
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American composer and critic; influenced by hymnody; his style unwittingly foreshadowed minimalism
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Brother of George; used the pen name Arthur Francis early in his career (Arthur was their brother and Francis was their sister)
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American composer, teacher, and writer; innovator of indeterminacy (chance music) his experimental enthusiasm helped to create modern music
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Influential American composer, pianist, and conductor who worked in Hollywood; he successfully fused jazz and pop music into the classical style and concert hall
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German composer; pupil of Schoenberg; politically committed composer in East Germany Post WWII; fought against capitalism and fascism
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American composer; influenced by folk music
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French composer; by age 15 he had written over 200 works; wrote for French film
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French composer; delicate and sometimes irreverent style; harmonically charming
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American Jazz composer, band-leader and pianist; Created a unique style of big-band jazz; one of the first African-American composers to cross races with his music
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Mexican composer, conductor, teacher, writer, and government official; extremely important to Mexican culture
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American composer and teacher
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Mexican composer and violinist of international acclaim; he is representative of the "metizo realism" movement that drew upon the popular culture of Mexico
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music experienced the most varied and radical developments in its history; no one style or trend; tonality was abandoned then redefined into neo-tonality; mixed meter and new ideas about rhythm, bizzare rhythms and new notations; most things that were common in music were taken to their limits then abandoned; Blues, ragtime, jazz, followed by rock, pop, and urban vernacular music; new electronic instruments that changed musical composition and performance
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style of music which musical elements were pushed to the extreme; Expansion - expand forms, genres, and sizes of traditional musical entities; music was thick with motives and themes; Maximalist music often used an orchestra;
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Claude Debussy introduced Impressionism in France in the 1890's; Vague quality of each musical element; Harmonics were also vague, but tonal; Parallel chords, fifths, sevenths, and ninths were used to create color; dissonance was common; variations and sonata form were abandoned for large-scale, binary and ternary forms; quiet dream-like quality, loud dynamics were short lived in pieces; new tone colors were introduced.
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Most rebellious of Post-Romantic styles; Strong Emotional Expression; Melodies were optional; harmonies could not be analyzed; texture was often indeterminable; Rhythm, form, and timbre stayed traditional; binary and ternary forms were popular as were variations and even contrapuntal devices, all within an atonal system; 12 tone technique was created by Schoenberg in 1921; mostly atonal
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Most popular American composer of the 20th century; teacher, conductor, author; his music still has a special appeal to the American public
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American composer of Austrian birth; trained in Vienna
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German opera composer in Berlin; moved to the USA, composed on Broadway in New York City
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African-American jazz musician who revolutionized jazz; singer, band-leader and trumpeter
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American innovator, inventor of new instruments; developed a 43-note scale
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American composer and folk-music specialist; married to musicologist Charles Seeger; most popular among modernists in the 1920's and 30's
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French composer and organist; not very prolific; influenced by chant; popular among choral musicians today
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English composer; a central figure for England; wrote an example pf Dadaism with his chamber piece, Facade (1922-29)
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Armenian composer; one of the pillars of the Russian school of composers
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Italian composer and teacher; after Dallapiccola, he is the most important composer in Italy during his day
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Italian composer, pianist, and writer; the principal innovator in Italy in the 20th century
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One of England's most important and original composers; favored neo-classicism
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American composer; exponent of serialism
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Versatile; the most important Russian composer working in Russia in his day
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American composer, teacher; innovative treatment of rhythm and form; contributed compositions into the 21st century
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French composer, author, and organist; incorporated sounds of nature; innovator in rhythm; the first to advocate total serialism
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American composer and accomplished singer; child prodigy and gifted melodist; continued with a successful conservative tonality in the midst of 20th century musical experiementations
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return to ideals of clarity; Used textures, topics, and forms from the past and combined them with modern harmony, tonality, and timbres; Johann Sebastian Bach; Neo-Classicism began with a revival of Bach's music, aswell as the interest of the harpsichord;
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western visual art movement; folk like; Paul Gauguin (artist); Igor Stravinsky vigorous, Rite of Spring
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American composer and teacher; used borrowed subjects
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French composer, theorist, writer, and teacher; the innovator of musique concrete
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Composer in America but of Italian birth; important as a modern opera composer; Samuel Barber's partner in life and work
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American composer of Armenian and Scottish descent; Armenian influence in his music
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American composer and philosopher; most innovative composer of the 20th century; changed the definition of music; used indeterminacy; he was the center of avant-garde music in the mid-20th century
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Mexican composer of American birth; interested in jazz, African music, and music of India; used piano player rolls to play his rhythmically complex music
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American composer, organist, teacher; studied with Hindemith; considers himself an arch conservative
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American composer of Canadian birth; a leader in spatial music
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American composer, conductor, arranger and pianist; won a Pulitzer Prize in 1995
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Polish composer and a leader in aleatoric (chance) music
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Most prolific and best-known English composer of the 20th century; kept opera alive in English speaking countries
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a movement of anti-art thinking in which artists and poets in the mid 1910's reacted against war and the bourgeois in Europe. Dadaism encouraged the questioning of traditional artistic expectations (avant garde)
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American composer and theorist; retrained tonal centers in his 12-tone music which he called, "twelve-tone tonality;" won.a Pulitzer Prize in 1986
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American composer, pianist, and conductor
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American composer, pianist, and conductor
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American composer, teacher, writer; used serialism; he denied the importance of his audience
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Argentine composer and pianist
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African-American composer; not folk-oriented; favored neo-classicism
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American composer and teacher; favored the gamelan
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American composer and teacher; his opera The Crucible won the Pulitzer Prize in 1962
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American composer and teacher who helped revive tonality in the 1970's
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American conductor, composer, teacher, author, pianist; most influential American musician of the 20th century; brought classical music to the public via various media
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Russian composer whose musical style is uniquely her own
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Percussion ensembles; less pitch focused; Edgard Varese new vision of musical timbres with modern orchestration techniques; experimented with strings often
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Composer of the first commercially released film to feature an entirely electronic soundtrack; a pioneer in electro-acoustic music; John Cage used the Barron studio for his first tape work in 1953; husband of Bebe Barron until the 1970's
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American composer of great versatility; his Piano Concerto No.1 won a Pulitzer Prize in 1958
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Czech-born composer and teacher; his Strong Quartet No.3 won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969
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American composer, conductor, and teacher; used syllables in organized sound structures; united avant-garde and romantic aesthetics
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American composer with eclectic style; studied with Henry Cowell; worked to create electronic-sounding acoustic instruments
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American composer, conductor, and pianist of German birth; recognized for his experiments with improvisation and aleatoric (change) music
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French composer of Greek parentage and Romanian birth; advocated Stochastic music (music based on mathematical calculations)
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American composer and pianist; first African American composer to win the Pulitzer Prize (1996)
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American composer, poet, and author
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Austrian composer of Hungarian birth; wrote textural music with sound blocks
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Italian composer, conductor, and teacher; innovative and modern
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Important Italian composer, conductor, and teacher; advocated new tonalities and techniques; his recent death leaves Italy lacking internationally famous composers
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French composer, author, and conductor; advocated total serialism; he said, "all art of the past must be destroyed"; post modern
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American composer, teacher, conductor, author, and jazz musician; won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994; recognized for his Third Stream style, which combines jazz idioms with classical art music; in 1972 he orchestrated Scott Joplin's opera from 1910, Treemonisha for its long-delayed premiere
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Composer of the first commercially released film to feature an entirely electronic soundtrack; a pioneer in electro-acoustic music; John Cage used the Barron studio for his first tape work in 1953; she was married to Louis Barron until the 1970's
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German composer who created a fusion of past musical traditions and new trends; used traditional genres
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American, microtonal composer; studied with Parch and Cage
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American composer; first to use open form; a leading representative of the Cage school in the 1950's
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American composer; also a representative of the Cage school in 1950's
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French composer who has been influential as a teacher and composer
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American composer; one of the foremost composers of opera in the USA in the 20th century
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American composer, conductor and teacher; Jewish-German heritage; faculty member at the Julliard School since 1997
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Scottish composer; uses traditional genres in a modern context
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African-American composer; uses Jazz and post-Webern styles
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German composer, teacher, conductor, and theorist; he helped to pioneer electronic music and new forms of modern notation; he has been one of the most important musical innovators in the 20th century, post WWII
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American composer; most popular for expressing despair during the Vietnam War
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American composer
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Armenian composer interested in space and temporality; incorporated aspects of Armenian folk elements
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American saxophonist and composer; the primary innovator of the free-jazz movement in the 1960's; his album, Sound Grammar won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007
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American composer and lyricist
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German-Argentine composer, filmmaker, dramatist and performer; self taught as a composer
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Russian composer; works have spiritual connotations; believes music has mystical properties; unusual instrumental combinations
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Japanese; pioneer of electronic music known as TOrmita; producer of analog synthesizer arrangements
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American composer; accomplished tape-music composer
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Russian composer and pianist; prolific and versatile composer embracing many styles
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American composer and conductor; considered one of the best film score composers in America
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Polish composer; wrote textural music using sound blocks; his atonal music has public appeal; Poland's greatest living composer
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American composer and teacher; accomplished tape-music composer; his 1966 composition, Silver Apples of the Moon was the first electronic piece to be commissioned by a recording company
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Polish composer; neo-tonal; his later works focused on tonal consonance
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American composer, teacher, and conductor
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British composer and conductor; known for his avant-garde music in England; in 2004 he was made "Master of the Queen's Music"
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American composer of Argentine origin; known for his works that combine live performance with recorded electronic sounds; won a Pulitzer Prize in 1971 for his Synchronisms No.6 for Piano and Electronic sound
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Known for his Russian film music; moved 8 to Germany; called his style polystylistic, incorporating styles from the Baroque to the present
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Georgian composer from the Soviet Union; known for his film music
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Estonian composer; assimilates older styles with a newly created modern tonality; created his own sort of spiritual minimalism with his tintinnabuli technique
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American composer and performer; one of the founders of minimalism with his 1964 work, In C; interested in electronic and tape music; influenced by jazz and Indian classical music
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American composer; used a variety of experimental ideas (some vulgar); one of the founders of minimalism; influenced by ethnic music; he continues to experiment with time in his music, some pieces having no end yet; known for his development of drone music
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American composer and percussionist; one of the pioneers in minimalism
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African-American composer, teacher, and writer; interested in electronic and African music; he is also a pianist, bassist and musicologist; he established the first conservatory program for electronic music
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American-Jewish composer and performer; one of the innovators of minimalism; he is one of the most influential composers in the 20th century
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Russian composer notable for his use of jazz in classical genres
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American; known as the father of Neo-romanticism; influenced by literature; won a Pulitzer Prize in 1980
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Ukrainian composer and pianist; considered post-modern, but he believes his music is an echo of the past
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American composer; won a Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for his choral work, The Flight into Egypt
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American composer pianist, and conductor; mainstream composer influenced by Beethoven and Stravinsky; one of the most successful female composers
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American composer; addresses important social issues in his sometimes intense music; one of our composers to watch for future generations
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American composer and pianist who desired to erase boundaries between popular music and art music; won a Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for his 12 New Etudes for Piano
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American composer, pianist, and teacher; favors serialism; complex music; he composed an opera, Brokeback Mountain in 2008-12; won the Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for his electronic work, Time's Encomium
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American composer; known for her serialism and pointillism; first American woman to win the Prix de Rome; she uses sound masses in her music
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American composer and violinist; very popular, busy, and noteworthy composer; first female composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music with her Symphony No.1 from 1982
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French composer, Pierre Schaeffer first developed this technique using a tape recorder; using recorded natural sounds then manipulating the sound by tape-splicing, then mixing, and superimposing the sounds on top of another
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British composer and teacher; uses complex notation; considered a central figure in the New Complexity movement
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Cuban-American composer and pianist of mixed descent; influenced by gospel, jazz, African, and Cuban elements; teacher
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American pioneer in digital sound synthesis
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British composer known for his choral music and use of neo-tonality
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American performance artist and composer; also a painter and teacher; considered experimental
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American composer and conductor; expanded the new language of minimalism and Neo-romanticism; one of our leading composers of post-minimalist music
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British composer of extraordinary contemporary fame and success
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American composer and teacher; his Trombone Concerto won a Pulitzer Prize in 1993
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American composer and teacher; his Second Concerto for Orchestra won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005
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chance music, composer left one or more musical elements in performance up to change. Performances were never the same twice; Charles Ives and Henry Cowell
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Scottish composer and teacher; Inked with the New Complexity group of composers
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American composer; co-founder of the Minnesota Composers Forum (now the American Composers Forum)
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also based on elements of chance, but could imply more directly three specified types of change elements; John Cage; Iannis Xenakis; Karlheinz Stockhausen; Earle Brown; Morton Feldman
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developed in Germany after Stockhausen worked in Schaeffer's studio in 1962. Cologne became the leading city for electronische musik with its famous electronic music studio in the radio studios of NWDR in 1953
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functioned with non-tonal music; sound masses could function contrapuntally although not constructed obviously of individual melodies, harmonies or rhythms. Used Sound blocks; Charles Ives; Henry Cowell; Gyorgy Ligeti; Krzysztof Penderecki
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integral serialism; Following Taruskin's notions of Maximalism; Milton Babbitt; George Crumb
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American composer who writes music inspired by nature; his orchestral work, Become Ocean won a Pulitzer Prize in 2014
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American composer; uses a kaleidoscopic approach to composition; saxophonist, producer, arranger
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American film-score composer, actor, and record producer; his film scores since 1980 have been widely recognized
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American composer, especially important for his operas
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American composer associated with post-minimalism and works exhibiting totalism
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Prolific American composer of an eclectic style
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American composer and teacher; won a Pulitzer Prize in 2004 for his chamber work, Tempest Fantasy
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American composer associated with totals influenced by popular and world musics
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German-born composer; innovator in the use of computer-synthesized soundtracks combined with orchestral music, in 2014 he was head of the film division of Dreamworks studio
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Chinese composer and conductor; he strives to create multicultural, multimedia programs that obscure the boundaries between classical and non-classical, East and West, avant-garde and indigenous art forms
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Finnish composer and pianist; conscious composer with mixed styles and tonalities
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Japanese composer of video game music (Final Fantasy Series); he is changing the perception of art music
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American composer and teacher; Neo-romantic style; won a Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for his String Quartet No.2
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English composer; prolific composer of emotionally charged music; strongly influenced by jazz
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Japanese video game composer and sound director for Nintendo since 1984
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South Korean composer based in Germany; winner of several international competitions intricate serialism with mixed styles
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American trumpeter, composer, teacher, and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York; won a Pulitzer Prize in 1997 for his oratorio, Blood on the Fields
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American composer and teacher; won the Pulitzer Prize in 2010 for her Violin Concerto; active commissions in the 21st century
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American composer, conductor and lecturer; specially known for his Virtual Choir project and large, online musical performances; writes in neo-tonal style
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Dutch composer trained first as a recording engineer; 3D film-opera from 2013 is of particular note, Sunken Garden
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British composer, pianist and conductor; prolific composer; post-minimalist influences
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American composer of particular appeal; teacher
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American composer; his opera, Silent Night won a Pulitzer Prize in 2012; teacher
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Canadian composer and pianist
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American composer who fuses orchestral music with electronics; wrote a work for the Youtube Symphony Orchestra. 2011
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American composer and teacher; active commissions in the 21st century
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British born; co-composer in residence with Mason Bates for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; composes electro-acoustic music
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British Bulgarian composer; won the Jean-Frederic Perrenoud Prize in Vienna at age 14, and many International prizes since
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American composer, conductor, and pianist; internationally awarded; post-minimalist
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British composer and pianist of Russian heritage; by age 8 he had written significant works numbering more than 40