Sofia Gubaidulina is my favorite female Russian composer (along with Iraida Yusupova and the late Galina Ustvolskaya). She is a practicing Orthodox Christian, and this piece melds Ancient Christianity with the avant-garde.
Contemporary Classical
[Video] Spooky Tooth with Pierre Henry – Prayer
An updated version of this post, as an error by GoDaddy, who hosts this site, ate it. Hopefully, I have no more missing posts.
[Video] Lubomyr Melnik – Requiem (Fragment)
Lubomyr Melnik has been featured on these pages previously. Expect to see a lot more of his work as the years roll by.
[Video] Valgeir Sigurðsson – Between Monuments/Guardian at the Door
Good heavens, this is an absolutely schizophrenic piece of music. It ranges from a sumptuous minimalist to an edgy post-rock before sliding into something more appropriate in an electroacoustic work.
Valgeir Sigurðsson hails from Iceland. Why is this not surprising? Yet another composer/musician from there to watch out for. To hear the whole of Architecture of Loss, the album this track is on, go to Valgeir’s Bandcamp site.
[Video] André Boucourechliev: Archipel II (1969)
André Boucourechliev was a French composer of Bulgarian origin. He studied under Luciano Berio and Bruno Maderna, and would later be influenced by avant-garde composers like John Cage.
He’s a new name for me. Many thanks to the Wellesz Theatre for continually showcasing the finest in contemporary classical music.
[Article] Phantom of the Orchestra
The New Republic’s Christopher Beam writes on the tragic fraud, Mamoru Samuragochi, and the lie he peddled on being a deaf composer, who was, in fact, neither deaf nor much of a composer, since Takashi Niigaki was really the one doing the composing.
[Video] Þverfellshorn – Agnieszka
Simple, and sublime.
Luke Paine, operating under the moniker Þverfellshorn, produces lush pieces in a style reminiscent of Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson.
A special thanks to Albanian electroacoustic composer Ilir Lluka, who posted this piece originally.
[Video] Iraida Yusupova – Annunziatore Della Tempesta
A personal story about Iraida Yusupova.
Many years ago, I had run a record label (Falçata-Galia) which had a few releases. I was, and am, proud of every single one, though the label disintegrated thanks to many misunderstandings which the artists never had a part of. Iraida was one of the artists I desperately wanted to publish, and as it seems I’m drifting back into the trajectory of music again, it looks like a grand opportunity to work with one of my favorite modern composers.
This is a new work by her. Choral bliss.
[Sample] Belarus Modern Orchestra – Epitaph (Olga Podhajska)
I have absolutely no information about the Belarus Modern Orchestra (music from Belarus is horribly represented online), but if this is a sample of what their body of work is like, I definitely want to enjoy more of it!
[Video] Sergey Kuryokhin – Mystics
Sergey Kuryokhin was, by far, the most influential and most widely recognized avant-garde musician to come out of Russia in the 1980s. Both alone and with the Ensemble Pop-Mekhanika, he made music which was extreme even to American tastes. Here is an absurdist sample of his work.
A Miscellany Of Tasteful Music 