Best Composer under 45yrs. old

[snyprrr]

I can't think of anyone I like born after 1959. It just seems to me that "these people" have grown up in the same world as I have...and I certainly have found inspiration lacking in the bewildering array of choices offered to ME if I was to decide to be a composer. I wouldn't know where to begin. Though I've never heard Thomas Ades, I have no real desire (read too many reviews).  It just seems that the younger generation has done so much better in streamlining "popular" music (though I haven't really heard anything "new" since Nirvana...or the Residents for that matter).

any thoughts?

[sul G]

I'd still try Ades, though. He's....different. And just so consumately talented that matters of generation, age etc. don't really come into it IMO. And a decade or so before him there are a whole group of British composers born in the early 60s - a disparate group comprising among others Benjamin, Turnage, Macmillan...- who I'm sure you've heard, but who are worth persevering with. (Turnage isn't really my cup of tea but I can see why he's of interest.)

How old is Henning, again?

[Guido]

Ades is your man.

I prefer him to the other great british talents that Luke mentions, and I think his work is more universally appealing than theirs, or perhaps speaks on a broader and more universal scale. I've seen some reviewers referring to him as just the composer du jour, as if he is a fad, but I really don't think so - they just don't properly get him.

I cannot recommend his works highly enough. Especially to those that think Western Art music is only its last legs - he gave me hope!

[snyprrr]

ah, the brits...ok, yea, that was the kind of answer I was looking for. I HAD forgotten about them. hmmm.

Tan Dun? though, not my cup of tea.

for me, the last vanguard belongs to the 1955-ers such as Rihm, Saariaho, Lindberg and the like.

however, i am hoping we will get some more names here. This COULD be interesting.

I'd LOVE to write some "serious" music, but, like Bruno Walter hearing Mahler and deciding "what's the point", most of the music I wish I would have written was already written by someone else.  I feel totally fulfilled just listening...even though SOMETHING seems to be missing.

i mean, the pressure to be original is intense, and i am one of those people who has a need for "distinctive voices," but don't want to be known as the guy who made music out of balloons (a la Eve Beglarian).

[bhodges]

Here are some suggestions, just off the top of my head:

Derek Bermel (U.S., b. 1967)
Jefferson Friedman (U.S., b. 1974)
Olga Neuwirth (Austria, b. 1968)
Huang Ruo (U.S./China, b. 1976)
Mason Bates (U.S., b. 1977)
Michel van der Aa (Netherlands, b. 1970)
Marc-André Dalbavie (France, b. 1961)

Another vote for Thomas Adès, who has written some very interesting pieces.  I'm sure there are many others...

--Bruce

[some guy]

Well, no one has really grown up in the same world. My sister and I were born in 1958 and 1952, respectively, with the same parents, in the same house, and we grew up in essentially two different families.

So here's my list. These should be fairly easy people to find online, listen to clips.

Anna Clyne
Diana Simpson
Mike Boyd
J Morales (aka Abusive Delay)
Francisco Meirino (aka Phroq)
Berangere Maximin
Helmut Oehring
Natasha Barrett
José María Sánchez-Verdú

Those people are the smallest of small handfuls of talented composers out there under 45. And stylistically all over the map, so you should get a good taste of some of the possibilities.

[bhodges]

Anna Clyne
Diana Simpson
Mike Boyd
J Morales (aka Abusive Delay)
Francisco Meirino (aka Phroq)
Berangere Maximin
Helmut Oehring
Natasha Barrett
José María Sánchez-Verdú

Very interesting list...I have heard of a couple of these, but most are new to me!

--Bruce

[Cato]

I am not sure if he is still under 45, but will anyone dispute that Karl Henning should be included, if he is at least close?

People have also raved here at GMG about Luke Ottevanger but his age is a mystery to me.

[Guido]

Another vote for Thomas Adès, who has written some very interesting pieces.  I'm sure there are many others...

--Bruce

Not just interesting, but beautiful, wonderfully original with a truly unique and compelling voice and most importantly profoundly moving too. Well IMHO anyway! 

[Dundonnell]

Not just interesting, but beautiful, wonderfully original with a truly unique and compelling voice and most importantly profoundly moving too. Well IMHO anyway! 

On the basis of the only work by Ades I have heard-'Tevot'(thanks again, Guido)-I would certainly agree that he is a composer to reckon with!

[snyprrr]

i'm sitting here staring at the screen thinking about Logan's Run?

anyway, in a way what brought this topic to mind is that i'm obsessed with the Arditti Qrt., and was on a buying frenzy,...but then reality broke in and i had to be verrry careful about what i purchased, so i vowed to get super established composer names to experiment with.  so then that began to dry i realized that most of the Arditti cds left were by the younger-er composers (Ades, Neuwirth, Pintscher, Dahinden), so i thought it would be a good time to stop collecting and just enjoy what i have...which is most everything up to the 1955 generation.

i did get the Matthias Pintscher/Arditti on Winter & Winter (look at all the caps!!!) and still have mixed feelings, but the amount of love Ades is getting here is quite impressive indeed, yet i do hear the neuwirth is reallly out there/aggressive (in the good way).

anyhow, i'll add Matthias Pintscher to the list as someone i actually had and forgot about, but i think he's doin the german thing as well as anyone (does remind me of Rihm).

thanks for all the great posts. keep em comin...

[Guido]

Yay caps! Now if you could just append them to the beginning of sentences too!  0:)

Anyway - If you haven't heard Ades' string quartet then you absolutely must - it's one of my absolute favourite works full stop, as well as one of his best IMO. Fantastic stuff!

[bhodges]

Not just interesting, but beautiful, wonderfully original with a truly unique and compelling voice and most importantly profoundly moving too. Well IMHO anyway! 

Quite right!  (Sorry, didn't let enough enthusiasm peek through earlier.)  Tevot is marvelous--I must have listened to it 3 or 4 times online after hearing it live (Rattle and the BPO).  Also like Arcadiana and Living Toys, as well as an early piece, his Chamber Symphony.

Last year I also heard him do a piano recital here, which was quite good.  His program included Janáček, Stravinsky, Nancarrow and a couple of his own works, Darknesse Visible and Traced Overhead.  I'm not sure he is the most virtuosic pianist around but he did quite well and IMHO got high marks for his programming.

--Bruce

[ChamberNut]

I'd mention Karl but.......is he under 45? 

[Cato]

I'd mention Karl but.......is he under 45? 

He so far has no comment!   

Maybe like Jack Benny he is 39!

And if Karl knows who Jack Benny was then he is not 39!   0:)

[karlhenning]

I must have a birth certificate around here somewhere . . . .

[snyprrr]

i would most certainly like to hear a quartet by Mr. Henning.