Lutyens was known and respected as a creative artist for whom compromise was impossible. She was also a provocative and inspiring teacher who gave herself unstintingly to her pupils. Her output was large and varied, and the importance of her contribution to the country’s musical life was recognised in 1969, when she was made a Commander of the British Empire.
When Les Six was formed in 1919-20, she became its only female member. Her abilities at the harpsichord and affinity for the styles of music originally composed for the instrument stood her in excellent stead as the neo-classicism of Stravinsky began to grow in popularity, though her works retained an influence of Fauré and Ravel.
Her music combines a rich and romantic symphonic idiom with the melodic intimacy and emotional intensity of African-American spirituals. As Alex Ross wrote in The New Yorker, her music “deserves to be widely heard.”
French composer, conductor and composition teacher Nadia Boulanger was a hugely influential figure in twentieth century music.
A producer at Radio France from 1978 to 1992, in residence at the Casa Velázquez in Madrid between 1979 and 1981, composer in residence at the Strasburg Conservatory and guest of the Festival Musica in that city in 1993, she has been teaching analysis and orchestration at the Paris Conservatory since 1983. In 1995 she won the Grand Prix for symphonic music of the SACEM for her work as a whole. Michèle Reverdy has written many pieces for various chamber formations, vocal and choral music, works for chamber orchestra and symphony orchestra, as well as four operas.
Du Yun is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, performance artist, activist, and curator for new music, who works at the intersection of orchestral, opera, chamber music, theatre, cabaret, musical theater, oral tradition, public performances, sound installation, electronics, visual arts, and noise.
As the 21st century dawns and the musical offerings of the world are more varied than ever before, few composers have emerged with the unique personality of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. Her music is widely known because it is performed, recorded, broadcast, and above all, listened to and liked by all sorts of audiences the world over. Like the great masters of bygone times, Zwilich produces music “with fingerprints,” music that is immediately recognized as the product of a particular American composer who combines craft and inspiration in reflecting her optimistic and humanistic spirit in her compositions.
Grethe Agatz was a fervent jazz enthusiast and a pioneer in Danish children’s music and music teaching. Her work has inspired many of her successors.
Her compositions gain their dramatic structure by combining elements of theatre with musical forms which use voice as well as instruments. A series of songs for voice and piano reveal her strong interest in lieder, arguably the form of composition which she finds most satisfying.
The 1950s brought Glanville-Hicks to prominence as a composer of ‘exotic’ music and as a catalyst for the performance of new music.