Kevin Sutton wrote:

>>Here is my list of 10 recent composers/pieces of very high quality ...
>>
>>Glass - Anything
>>Feldman - Anything
>>Cage - Number Pieces (works composed 1987-1992)
>>Nyman - Anything
>>Hovhaness - Anything
>>Gordon - Anything
>>Reich - Anything
>>Stockhausen - Almost Anything
>>Ligeti - Almost Anything
>>Erb - Almost Anything
>
>This is a lame answer, sorry Glenn.  Can you give us some inkling of why
>you think these composers can do no wrong? Philip Glass hasn't written
>anything original since Akhnaten. There's only so much you can do with
>an arpeggio. Hovhaness was the modern day Vivaldi, copying the same
>gimmicks over and over again. You can't just throw out names. Let's
>have some discussion here!  (please and thank you)

Did Bach, Beethoven and Mozart ever write anything original? Do you enjoy
Vivaldi? Ponder this ...

These are not just names, I think they are the finest composers of our
time.  They are consistently inventive and interesting, within their own
styles (like Bach, Beethoven and Mozart).  I said "many might disagree".
That is fine.

I somewhat agree with your statement ... not many younger composers have
written great music in recent times ... it is hard to find. The "Avant
Garde" (changes over time, not a genre!) music of our time has evolved
from the later works of Cage, Feldman, Messiaen and others (the masters
of the late 1960s to recent times) ...

OLDER FOLKS
Philip Glass
Steve Reich
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Michael Nyman

YOUNGER FOLKS
Michael Gordon
Michael Daugherty
Maria de Alvear

I would say that Boulez is much more conservative than the folks mentioned
above ... his music is based on methods developed in the 1950s and earlier.
Some of it is great music, but it often sounds dated and formulaic to me.

This is as "unlame" an answer I can give.

Glenn Freeman
http://profiles.yahoo.com/glennfgrfnorg