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Last semester in our concert band, we played a peice called "The Witch and the Saint," by one Steven Reineke. Subsequently, we agreed that it was probably one of the greatest peices our band had ever performed. It was fun to play, it was exciting, and it was challenging. Lately, I've been searching through Google for him, and along with his other peices, I've found that the site that he publishes his music through has audio samples of many of his charts.

His bio; peices he's written are at the bottom. I, obviously, reccomend The Witch and the Saint, though let it be known that it is an edited-down version.

The other topic that this got me thinking on was about other modern composers who weren't mostly concentrated on movie/TV soundtracks. John Williams, Klaus Baedelt, and the sort are obviously great composers, but most of their work is on soundtracks. I'm interested in people who write simply for the beauty of the music. Are there any great classical composers around today? Discuss your favorites, show us some of their music.

I'm really not well up enough on modern classical composers to give any examples of purely orchestral work that's not based in soundtracks.

I could give some examples of what I'd call well done orchestral metal if you'd like, but I suspect you don't.

If you enjoy choral music at all, I'd highly recommend Eric Whitacre and Morten Lauridsen.

You can listen to some of Whitacre's music on his MySpace page here: http://www.myspace.com/ericwhitacre

I haven't found any online freebies for Lauridsen; if I do I'll post them.

We did a concert band arrangement of Lux Arumque last year! Good call on that one. I do like him a lot.

Oh definately, there are whole slews of them!

I'll start off with a teacher I studied with, David Macbride. Part John Cage, part Bela Bartok, and many others as well, he has a fairly large catalog of work spanning from percussion duets ("Timing") to full scale concerti ("One Revolution".) A good cd to check out is called "Connundrum," which has some of his percussion and chamber works. His site can be found here.

Another favorite of mine is percussionist Nebojsa Jovan Zivkovic. A fine performer in his own rite but a great composer in the still young field of percussion music. He has written everything from solo marimba to concerti to piano. His site is here.

Michael Daugherty is another prominant figure in the composition scene today. He was in residence at my school about two years ago and has made some nice pushes in the world of wind ensambles. His site is here.

Susan Botti was a composer in residence at my school this year and is making a splash into the scene both as a fine soprano and composer. One of her operas opened in NY this year and has been sold out pretty consistancy. Amongst other things, she has written for the unlikely duo of soprano and percussion. Genuinely, I can't say I've ever heard anything quite like her works before and I mean that in a good way. Her site can be found here.

Yet another composer who was in residence at my school was Joseph Schwantner. I've found many of his works to be rather dynamic and powerful. He's also a percussionist's friend when it comes to pieces. His site can be found here.

I've had the joy of playing some of the works of David Gillingham in wind ensamble and many of his works are quickly becoming staples of the genre. His site can be found here.

Those are a few off the top of my head. I'll post more as I think of them.