"Kwon Younghee" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Can anyone recomemend a recording of contemporary music composer? I
>would like listen to the music at first, but I have no idea about that.

The clown prince of Alternative Vienna, HK Gruber is probably the most
consistently surprising composer working today:  his masterpiece-to-date (a
self-proclaimed pan-demonium for chansonnier, toy instruments & ensemble),
Frankenstein!!, is available in English & German versions on EMI.

HE Zhanhao & ZHU Jian'er are two very different PRChinese composers based
in Shanghai:  HE (as you may already know, Chinese names are commonly
transliterated in English in CLEMENTS Robert format) is an eclectic
melodist & the coauthor of the popular ZHU Yingtai & LIANG Shanpo/The
Butterfly Lovers concerto (multiple recordings; including a startlingly
good one - if splendidly nonChinese in idiom - by Vanessa-Mae); ZHU is a
major new (but hardly young - his Cultural Revolution-inspired 1st symphony
premiered when the composer was 60yrs of age) symphonist of the
Shostakovich school (Marco Polo).

(Also DSCH-inspired - but officially retired for serious health reasons -
is the dean of English symphonists, Sir Malcolm Arnold.  Best known as a
composer of popular miniatures, Arnold's symphonies are a very different
kettle of rallentendo indeed:  multiple recordings of these works are
available on Naxos, Conifer, Chandos & EMI.  The shattering - & supposedly
unperformable - 9th symphony on Naxos is as dark a place to start as any on
these musical maps of hell)

 From the nothing succeeds like excess school, the Greek song writer (&
national hero) Mikis Theodorakis has written some mighty concert scores,
mostly for massed voices & large orchestra:  the Canto General from texts
by Pablo Neruda is the best known (a fine version available on Intuition)
is the best known & probably also the best; although his ballet Alexis
Zorba (Theodorakis penned the famous Zorba's Dance from the film Zorba the
Greek) is also excellent.

At the extreme opposite end of the scale, Australian maverick Ian Shanahan
writes serialist scores for recorders. Serious fun....

All the best,
Robert Clements <[log in to unmask]>