Steve Reich
Stephen Michael Reich (born October 3, 1936) is an American composer known for creating a style of music called minimalism in the 1960s and 1970s. His music uses repeated patterns, slow changes in harmony, and overlapping musical phrases. Reich explained his approach in an essay titled “Music as a Gradual Process,” where he said, “I want to hear the process happening throughout the music.” For example, in his early works, he used a technique called phase shifting, where repeated musical phrases played at slightly different speeds, creating new patterns as they moved out of alignment.
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and musician known for helping create the minimalist style of music. His work was influenced by jazz and Indian classical music. He used repetition, tape delay systems, and improvisation in new ways.
La Monte Young
La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist known as one of the first American minimalist composers and a key figure in post-war avant-garde music. He is best known for using long, continuous sounds, starting with his 1958 piece called Trio for Strings. His compositions have raised questions about what music is and how it is defined, especially in the written instructions of his Compositions 1960.
Earle Brown
Earle Brown was an American composer, producer, and teacher who worked closely with John Cage. He developed special ways of writing music and created a style called “open form.” This style influenced many composers, including John Zorn and musicians in New York City during the 1980s, as well as later composers. Some of Brown’s most famous works include December 1952, a musical score that uses images instead of traditional notes, and Available Forms I & II, Centering, Cross Sections, and Color Fields.
Morton Feldman
Morton Feldman was born on January 12, 1926, and died on September 3, 1987. He was an American composer and an important figure in 20th-century classical music. Feldman was a supporter of indeterminacy in music, a concept linked to the experimental New York School of composers, which also included John Cage, Christian Wolff, and Earle Brown.
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer, artist, and music theorist. He helped create music where chance plays a role, music that uses electronic sounds, and music that uses instruments in unusual ways.
Lukas Foss
Lukas Foss was born on August 15, 1922, and he passed away on February 1, 2009. He was a German-American composer, pianist, and conductor.
Ned Rorem
Ned Miller Rorem (October 23, 1923 – November 18, 2022) was an American composer of contemporary classical music and a writer. He is best known for his art songs, of which there are more than 500. During his time, he was considered the leading American composer in this genre.
Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He played a key role in creating the “American Sound” in classical music. He was known for working in different styles, including modernist, neoromantic, and neoclassicist approaches.
Roy Harris
Roy Ellsworth Harris (February 12, 1898 – October 1, 1979) was an American composer. He wrote music about American subjects, and his most famous work is Symphony No. 3.