My favorite pieces by five living American composers – music by Jennifer Higdon, Michael Daugherty, Joan Tower, Mason Bates and Missy Mazzoli.

Jennifer Higdon – All Things Majestic

Jennifer Higdon is a master craftsman. The three works here are all attractive, formally shapely, smartly and colorfully scored, thematically appealing, and approachable. David Hurwitz writing in ClassicsToday said: “The performances do the music proud, with Roberto Diaz (viola) and James Button (oboe) the excellent soloists, and Giancarlo Guerrero leading the Nashville Symphony with unflagging enthusiasm. A beautifully produced disc, all around.”

Michael Daugherty – Tales of Hemingway

GRAMMY® Award-winning composer Michael Daugherty in this recording he creates colorful musical portraits of three larger-than-life personalities drawn from 20th-century American culture – Ernest Hemingway, Grant Wood and Randolph Hearst. Tales of Hemingway is a dramatic cello concerto, evoking the turbulent life, adventures and literature of author Ernest Hemingway. The album features the Nashville Symphony Orchestra under Music Director Giancarlo Guerrero, alongside Zuill Bailey, one of the leading cellists of his generation, and GRAMMY® Award-winning organist Paul Jacobs

Joan Tower – Strike Zones

Joan Tower is widely regarded as one of today’s most important American composers. The works heard here are world premiere recordings and are part of a growing legacy that one pundit has described as “The Power of Tower.” Strike Zones is tailor-made for percussionist Evelyn Glennie’s dazzling technique and impeccable musicianship. The work’s orchestration is crafted to enhance a stage filled with percussion instruments – while in Small they are contained on a single table, the soloist working like a brilliant chef.

Mason Bates – Mass Transmission

Grammy-winning composer Mason Bates is widely renowned for his pioneering practice of creating music for conventional performing forces enhanced by electronic sounds. Of the two works presented in this remarkable album, Mass Transmission- in its world premiere recording- is a particularly winning example of Bates’ use of “electronica,” blended here with music for mixed choir and organ. ‘Sirens,’ lacking electronica, still achieves mesmerizing vocal effects through its complex scoring for 12-part a cappella choir.

Missy Mazzoli – Dark With Excessive Bright

Upon first listen this album instantly became one of my favorites. Missy Mazzoli inhabits an exquisite and mysterious sound-world in which indie-rock sensibilities meet American minimalism, European modernism and classical traditions. The first woman ever to receive a commission from the Metropolitan Opera, she has also composed for prominent soloists, ensembles and orchestras around the world. Through her music, she reaches to the roots of tradition, inhabits and renovates older forms while using every resource at her command.

Do you have a favorite piece of music by a living composer? Let us know and we will add it to the list.