David Nathaniel Baker, Jr. (born 1931) is a native of Indianapolis, Indiana and currently holds the position of Distinguished Professor of Music and Chairman of the Jazz Department at the Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana. A virtuosic performer on multiple instruments and top in his field in several disciplines, Baker has taught and performed throughout the USA, Canada, Europe, Scandinavia, New Zealand and Japan.
Bang on a Can is a multi-faceted musical organization based in New York City. It was founded in 1987 by three American composers who remain its artistic directors: Julia Wolfe, David Lang, and Michael Gordon. It is a major force in the presentation of new concert music, and has presented hundreds of musical events worldwide. The San Francisco Chronicle has called Bang on a Can "the country's most important vehicle for contemporary music."
See also original artist name in Russian: Дмитрий Дмитриевич Шостакович. Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (Russian: Дми́трий Дми́триевич Шостако́вич, Dmitrij Dmitrievič Šostakovič) (September 25 [O.S. September 12] 1906, (St Petersburg, Russia) – August 9, 1975) was a Russian composer of the Soviet period. Shostakovich had a complex and difficult relationship with the Soviet government, suffering two official denunciations of his music, in 1936 and 1948, and the periodic banning of his work.
Kronos Quartet is a string quartet founded by violinist David Harrington in 1973. Since 1978, the quartet has been based in San Francisco, California. The longest-running combination of performers (1978–1999) had Harrington and John Sherba on violin, Hank Dutt on viola and Joan Jeanrenaud on cello. Jennifer Culp replaced Jeanrenaud on cello in 1999. Jeffrey Zeigler replaced Culp on cello in 2005.
Sergey Khachatryan was born in 1985 in Yerevan, Armenia. In December 2000 he won First Prize in the VIII International Jean Sibelius competition in Helsinki, becoming the youngest ever winner in the history of the competition. In 2005 he claimed the First Prize at the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels. Sergey has performed with all the major UK orchestras, including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic and regularly with the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Thomas Adès (born in London, 1 March 1971) is a British composer, pianist and conductor. Adès studied piano with Paul Berkowitz and later composition with Robert Saxton at Guildhall School,London. He graduated in 1992 from King's College, Cambridge after studying with Alexander Goehr and Robin Holloway. His degree was classified as "double starred first", indicating outstanding academic distinction. He was made Britten Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music, and in 2004 was given an honorary doctorate by the University of Essex.
Sarah Hopkins is a unique Australian composer-performer, highly acclaimed for her visionary music and inspiring performances for cello, harmonic overtone singing, handbells, choir and the celestial Harmonic Whirlies of her own creation. With a strong background and training in classical music, over the years she has moved into the realm of holistic music and developed a very distinctive compositional voice.
Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (born December 6, 1933 in Czernica, Silesia, Poland. Died 12 November 2010 in Katowice, Poland) was a Polish composer of classical music. Though his earlier work in the late 1950s and 1960s were characterised by a dissonant modernism influenced by Nono, Stockhausen and contemporaries Penderecki and Serocki, he moved in the mid 1970's towards a 'pure' sacred minimalist sound encapsulated by the 1976 Symphony No. 3.
Cellist Wendy Sutter received degrees from both the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School. A native of Seattle, she made her solo debut with the Seattle Symphony at age sixteen. Awarded the first prize in the Juilliard cello competition, Ms Sutter made her New York solo concerto debut at Avery Fisher Hall in the New York premiere of Kaddish for cello and orchestra by composer David Diamond.
See The Sand Pebbles