[LugBug1]

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, is an acquired taste just like Birtwistle. Both went to college together, but both took different paths there after. Birtwistle stayed with his self found ritualistic style founded with his love for Greek mythology. Davies hibernated on a Scottish Island with his surroundings acting as artistic food. I must admit it took me a long time to realise just how good a composer Davies is. He is hard work but well worth it. With Birtwistle you know what you are going to get, with Davies you don't. Both simplistic and outrageous, his music can never be called dull... Always a big folk music element and a clear love for medieval church music, if you have never tried any PMD then you could do worse than these 2 recommendations.
 
  
 
      

 

[Henry Flower]

Quote:

Heres something you couldn't have done 50yrs ago.. Name your top 5 female Composers!

 
 
 

Also well worth a look is Sally Beamish.  Like Max an English emigre to Scotland, she's very lyrical.  Her saxophone concerto The Imagined Sound of Sun on Stone is magical.   BIS have recorded her quite extensively.

 

[LugBug1]

Quote:

Also well worth a look is Sally Beamish.  Like Max an English emigre to Scotland, she's very lyrical.  Her saxophone concerto The Imagined Sound of Sun on Stone is magical.   BIS have recorded her quite extensively.

Thanks for that, I've never heard any of her works. I love checking out new composers

 

[seaskimmer]

I always describe Bach as the God of music
 

Streich for sure. Also moccio which is more contemporary/classical.

I personally think Beethoven was the god of classical music. So much talent and genius right there. Long live the master.

 

[BenjaminHarris]

I'm actually a little surprised that no one's yet mentioned Edward Gregson (b. 1945, England).  I had the pleasure of performing his Trumpet concerto (iTunes) two years ago and that really turned me onto his work - although to be quite honest my favorite on that album is the Saxophone Concerto.  I've also recently acquired a second album (iTunes) with an assortment of orchestral works that's quite good.  And just yesterday I picked up a third album (Amazon) that includes two orchestral works, a clarinet concerto, and a violin concerto.  I'm just finished listening to the violin concerto for the first time and already know that this will become an instant favorite.
 
Besides Gregson, a second notable favorite includes Esa-Pekka Salonen (b. 1958, Finland), composer and long-time conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic (now also the principal conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London).  I prefer his three part work Foreign Bodies (iTunes) and Insomnia (also on the same album), which I had the pleasure to hear and see (it's quite a sight to see with its massive percussion requirements) at its western-hemisphere premiere at the Chicago Symphony several years ago.  

 

[BWV988]

Reich's 18 Musicians would still have to be my favourite work by a (major) living composer. Pretty much lost interest in his music after the works that followed, Large Ensemble and Octet. Nothing that came later quite matched the glory and grandeur of 18 for me.

 

[Okkultus]

Arvo Pärt
Krzysztof Penderecki
Steve Reich
 
Certainly there are others too.

 

[JohnFerrier]

Pierre Boulez: Pli Selon Pli

 
Olga Neuwirth: Bählamms Fest, Hooloomooloo, Clinamen/Nodus

 
Wolfgang Mitterer: coloured noise

 
 
.
 

 

[Nyvar]

Alla Pavlova
 

 
John Corigliano
 
Circus Maximus is awesome as well.
 

 

 

[LugBug1]

Quote:

Pierre Boulez: Pli Selon Pli

 
Olga Neuwirth: Bählamms Fest, Hooloomooloo, Clinamen/Nodus

 
Wolfgang Mitterer: coloured noise

 
 
.
 

Hah! some nice recommendations there, I was beginning to think I was the only one on here who listened to this type of racket haha
 

Boulez "Pli is a modern masterwork. I do love a lot of Olga Neuwirths works but that opera is hard to digest, moments of brilliance but at the same time a slight un-needed edgeness with the  clever effects, that would probably sound more effective when it its played live than on disc, nevertheless she is certainly a clever and unique composer.
 
Have you checked out Mitterer's "Music for reading Emails"?
 

 

[mcmurray]

Harry Gregson Williams.

 

[DearestDane]

Arvo Pärt
Per Nørgård
 
(and I cringe, when their names are dumbed down.)