the moment

listed here are the websites of composers, ensembles, venues, festivals, events, labels, and anyone else who is taking particularly positive steps in reforming classical music culture.

explore, research, communicate, be inspired, and share :::::

labels

Bedroom Community – the Iceland-based trendsetters. home of Nico Muhly, Valgeir Sigurðsson, et al.

Cantaloupe Music – house label of the Bang on a Can gang, representing ‘music that slips through the cracks’

Innova Recordings – ‘radically artist-friendly’ American new music label

nonclassical – Gabriel Prokofiev’s pioneering UK-based label, and experimental London club-night

New Amsterdam Records – genre-defying New York label, run by Judd Greenstein, Sarah Kirkland Snider and William Brittelle

Disquiet – Michel van der Aa’s stylish label

composers

John Adams – his lovely online domain also hosts his ‘Hell Mouth’ blog

Louis Andriessen – his official myspace page (!)

Robert Ashley – influential pioneer of electronic opera, large-scale mixed-media theatre projects, and the combination of vernacular and avant-garde languages to explore new modes of contemporary story-telling

Eve Beglarian – American composer-performer whose lovingly constructed online catalogue hosts streamable recordings and scores generously downloadable as part of a donation-based publishing system

Ed Bennett - Irish composer of frenetic and feverish music, often involving electronic elements and amplification

Oscar Bettison – British expat specialising in grimy music packed with homemade or unconventional instrument timbres

Anna Clyne – another British expat, tending towards electro-acoustic music and deeply engaged with the idea of cross-discipline collaboration

Jacob Cooper – composer of the outrageous and conceptually fascinating Spears/Timberlake opera: Timberbrit

Michael Daugherty – unique American veteran, drawing inspiration from pop culture for large-scale, high-profile pieces such as Jackie O and the Metropolis Symphony

Tansy Davies – edgy, groovy, funk-inspired British composer

Donnacha Dennehy – Irish composer of often-aggressive, always-infectious music

David Dramm – Amsterdam-based American composer-performer, closely linked to (and borrowing heavily from) rock music culture, writes his own lyrics

Shiva Feshareki – young British composer interested in combining video game technology and turntablism with classical structures

Gameshow Outpatient – British composer Matt Rogers, who works extensively with 8-bit music as well as more standard classical forms

Aaron Gervais - very exciting Canadian composer whose music veers between live pop collages, outrageous chamber melodramas and exuberant musical critiques of copyright law

Michael Gordon – big-deal New York composer, co-founder of Bang on a Can, and genre-mushing post-minimalist

Andrew Hamilton – Irish composer of joyfully surrealist, deconstructionist musical works

Hauschka – German artist turning the prepared piano to breezy ‘post-classical’ tracks, including a new album inspired by dance music: Salon Des Amateurs

Matthew Hindson – Australian composer heavily engaged with popular/contemporary influences, including techno, heavy metal and video game music

Jordan Hunt – trendy British composer-performer with attractive website, deeply invested in performance art, multi-media works and cross-genre collage techniques

David Lang – big-deal New York composer, co-founder of Bang on a Can, and eclectic populist

Nicole Lizée – Canadian composer heavily influenced by turntablism and other pop-electronic processes

Anna Meredith - one of the UK’s rising stars, maintaining institutional kudos while engaging with pop subjects and effecting a full-blown indie crossover with her Black Prince Fury EP

Claudia Molitor – composer and sound artist interested in multi-sensory music and experimental notation

Nico Muhly – all-powerful musical Renaissance person

Olga Neuwirth – intriguing and transgressive composer of the Lynchian Lost Highway opera

Tristan Perich – questing composer of ecstatic 1-bit compositions, many of which you can download from his website for free

Andrew Poppy – UK minimalist, electro fan and cross-genre, cross-media collaborator

Gabriel Prokofiev – nonclassical founder, dance/electronica producer, and composer of acoustic music deeply inspired by dance/electronica

Steve Reich – possibly the hippest classical composer ever, and he has a real website

Matthew Shlomowitz – London-based, Australian composer of experimental performance works (Letter Pieces) and concert music that explores and subverts the uses and conventions of music in everyday life (Popular Contexts)

Sarah Kirkland Snider – genre-evading New Amsterdam Records co-director and composer of convincing pop-song-cycle Penelope

Philip Venables – good-looking site for the Berlin-based composer and ‘shocking opera’ advocate (+ the mini-site for his new ‘sex-torture opera’)

Errollyn Wallen – endlessly flexible British composer-performer-singer-songwriter

Jennifer Walshe – experimental composer/artist dealing in theatrical, pandisciplinary music, including the legendary Barbie Doll opera XXX_Live_Nude_Girls!!!

Julia Wolfe – important US composer, Bang on a Can founder, and pioneer of uncompromising, rock-infused post-minimalism

ensembles/companies

Alarm Will Sound – explosive American chamber ensemble whose exclusively modern repertoire includes arrangements of Aphex Twin and Autechre

Aurora Orchestra – young London-based orchestra pushing towards versatility and accessibility

Bang on a Can – throbbing, US nexus of populist new music activity, founded by Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe, and represented by the Bang on a Can All-Stars

Britten Sinfonia – forward-looking British chamber orchestra with a fresh and positive approach to performance presentation and programming

Brooklyn Rider – New York string quartet dedicated to eclecticism, whilst imaginatively re-appropriating older works into entirely new contexts

Carmen Elektra Opera Collective – the biting point‘s house band, presenting new and contemporary works in immersive club-night formats

Divergence Vocal Theater – daring studio opera company, based in Houston, Texas

eighth blackbird – American sextet, aiming to bring contemporary chamber music to a wider audience

Elysian Quartet – edgy British string quartet, collaborating with electronic artists and bringing experimental works to non-traditional venues

Ensemble Amorpha – London-based chamber ensemble exploring with new performance formats and serious cross-disciplinary projects

Experiments In Opera – New York performance/composition collaborative promising ‘unorthodox answers to traditional questions’ within music and theatre

Go Opera – reformist opera company based in London, who put on bite-size versions of popular works in new and unusual contexts

Guerilla Opera – Boston’s alternative opera company, building up a new repertoire of accessible chamber operas in progressive studio stagings

The Heritage Orchestra – Britain’s cross-over orchestra of choice

International Contemporary Ensemble – flexible chamber ensemble established to promote new music to a new audience

Kiez Oper - Berlin’s version of alternative fringe opera, staging classic works in strange venues for new audiences

Kronos Quartet – legendary, boundary-smashing string quartet

London Sinfonietta – visionary chamber orchestra ‘committed to placing new music at the heart of contemporary culture’

London’s Little Opera House – renegade repertory company building on the success of OperaUpClose’s intimate, pub-based La Bohème at the Cock Tavern. now based at the King’s Head (pub) Theatre, Islington

Mahogany Opera – British company producing site-specific productions and ‘taking a strong dramaturgical approach to performance’

NOW Ensemble – New York-based, electric guitar-flavoured chamber group

Opera Cabal - Chicago’s interdisciplinary laboratory for serious, striking operatic experimentation

Opera Erratica – London-based international performance company exploring radical new formats, techniques and technologies in the creation of opera

Opera in Space - London fringe company interested in movement-focused, promenade stagings of old classics

Polyphonic Films - production company behind intriguing attempts to create new film formats from classical performance

S0 Percussion – Brooklyn percussion four-piece and scene luminaries, helping to define a contemporary NY aesthetic

Spira Mirabilis – Italy-centred, pan-European orchestral project, approaching traditional repertoire through totally unconventional rehearsal and performance structures

Sympho – yet another boundary-pushing New York ensemble, Paul Haas’s orchestra present through-composed, theatrical concert programmes ‘like iPod playlists’

Vignette Productions – touring shoe-string opera company, putting emphasis on the theatrical side of opera and regularly found in alternative performance spaces

VOCAALLAB – some genuinely new directions in staged vocal performance from this Dutch company

Wordless Music – New York concert series bringing together performers from different genre backgrounds in order to encourage collaboration and grow audiences

events/festivals/venues

Le Carmen – former home of Georges Bizet and current Parisian home of Nonclassical Export

Chimera Productions – the UK organisation that commissioned G. Prokofiev’s Concerto for Turntables & Orchestra, they specialise in adventurous concert series and site-specific events, epitomised by their club-night Blank Canvas

Classical Revolution – cosmopolitan promoters bringing eclectic chamber concerts and ‘non-concerts’ to informal venues across the USA and Canada

Ecstatic Music Festival – the trans-genre love-in at New York’s Kaufman Centre, fuelled by New Amsterdam Records and bringing together all the brightest lights of the New York scene

Ether Festival – mixed genre music festival of ‘innovation and cross-arts experimentation’ at London’s Southbank Centre

Faster Than Sound – a project of Aldeburgh Music, aims through residencies and performances to initiate collaborations between classical and electronic musicians through new technologies

Filthy Lucre – multi-genre nights of live music and alt-pop chamber arrangements in Cambridge

Kämmer Klang – independent contemporary concert series, adding modern classical works to the roster of improvised and experimental music at Dalston’s Cafe OTO

Kings Place – multi-arts complex at Kings Cross, present a diverse programme of intimate musical events, an imaginative multi-genre festival, and the experimental Out Hear series

Limelight – London’s classical club night at the 100 Club, Soho

MATA Festival – New York music festival featuring special commissions from young composers ‘whose work doesn’t fit into existing institutions’

Neuköllner Oper – Berlin’s ‘other’ opera house, host to the OpenOp festival of ‘alternative opera’

The Night Shift – the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s ‘alternative’ concert experience, with DJs and an informal approach, at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall

Le Poisson Rouge – New York nexus of ‘alt-classical’ happenings

Tête à Tête Festival – festival of small-scale, intimate and accessible studio operas at Riverside Studios, Hammersmith

Yellow Lounge – ‘Klassik im Club’ from sexy-looking German concert series and mix CDs, courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon (now also a fixture at London Bridge)

webzines/blogs

Alt-Classical.com – great place to sample ‘independent-DIY-art music’ in all its breadth

5:4 – excellent blog of composer Simon Cummings, with contemporary music reviews, downloadable recordings and eclectic mixtapes

I Care If You Listen – fresh and outward-looking New York-centred new music blog

Indie Opera podcast – US-based but international opera podcast with news and commentary on small, independent opera companies producing new works in new ways.

Mixed Meters – interesting ideas and little musical gifts from ‘failed composer’ David Ocker

Noisy Nothing – exciting, polemical new classical music blog from a kindred spirit

PostClassic – blog of Kyle Gann, enthusiastic advocate of a ‘post-classical’ paradigm

Resonant Other – new new UK classical blog with previews, reviews, interviews and mixtapes.

The Rest Is Noise – heroically open-minded and down-to-earth author and New Yorker critic Alex Ross’s blog

Sandow – Greg Sandow’s dedicated blog on the future of classical music which shares quite a few of the same emphases as the biting point

Sequenza21 – intense, busy, but effective online contemporary music community, slanted mainly towards New York composers

Sinfini – Universal Music’s attempt at constructing an accessible, anti-elitist online hub for discovering and discussing (mainstream) classical music, with a UK focus