20th-century classical composers

Jack Hamilton Beeson (July 15, 1921 – June 6, 2010) was an American composer. He was known particularly for his operas, the best known of which are Lizzie Borden, Hello Out There!, and The Sweet Bye and Bye.

Wim Mertens (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈʋɪˈmɛrtə(n)s]; born 14 May 1953) is a Flemish Belgian composer, countertenor vocalist, pianist, guitarist, and musicologist.

David Rakowski (born June 13, 1958, St. Albans, Vermont) is an American composer and typeface designer. He studied under such composers as Robert Ceely, John Heiss, Milton Babbitt, Peter Westergaard, Paul Lansky, and Luciano Berio. In 2006, he was awarded the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's 2004–2006 Elise L. Stoeger Prize. He has twice been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Music: in 1999 for Persistent Memory and in 2002 for his second symphony Ten of a Kind.He has released dozens of typefaces since the 1990s, mostly as freeware, which include both original designs and revivals (such as "Lemiesz" – a free version of Publicity Gothic, 1916 – and "Harting", a typewriter face in the "grunge" style.)

Sadiel Cuentas (born 1973) is a Peruvian composer of contemporary classical music.

Howard Leake Boatwright Jr. (March 16, 1918 – February 20, 1999) was an American composer, violinist and musicologist.

Garrett List (September 10, 1943 – December 27, 2019) was an American trombonist, vocalist, and composer.
List was born in Phoenix, Arizona. He studied at California State University, Long Beach, and the Juilliard School. He was a member of Italian band Musica Elettronica Viva from 1971. In 1980, he began teaching at the Royal Conservatory of Liège. List died in Liège, Belgium, aged 76.

Jeanne Behrend (11 May 1911 – 20 March 1988) was an American pianist, music educator, musicologist and composer.

Ernst Hermann Ludimar Meyer (8 December 1905 – 8 October 1988) was a German composer and musicologist, noted for his expertise on seventeenth-century English chamber music.

Günter Raphael (30 April 1903 – 19 October 1960) was a German composer. Born in Berlin, Raphael was the grandson of composer Albert Becker. His first symphony was premiered by Wilhelm Furtwängler in 1926 in Leipzig with the Gewandhaus Orchestra. From 1926 to 1934 he taught in Leipzig, but illness and the rise of Fascism – he was declared a "half-Jew" – made this difficult for him. He received the Franz Liszt Award for composition in 1948. His students include Kurt Hessenberg.
His compositions include five symphonies, concertos for violin and for organ, six string quartets, numerous solos and duos for strings and winds with and without piano of which several have been recorded. Raphael also composed organ, piano and choral works. He was also responsible for arranging a performance version of Antonín Dvořák's Cello Concerto in A major (1865) when its piano and cello score was discovered in 1918.He was also an editor of classical and baroque scores for Breitkopf and Härtel, preparing editions of, for example, flute sonatas by Frederick the Great and works by Vivaldi and Johann Sebastian Bach (some of these can be found in the Cornell University Library).

Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt (5 May 1900 – 28 May 1973) was a German conductor and composer. After studying at several music academies, he worked in German opera houses between 1923 and 1945, first as a répétiteur and then in increasingly senior conducting posts, ending as Generalmusikdirektor of the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
After the Second World War, Schmidt-Isserstedt was invited by the occupying British forces to form the Northwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra, of which he was musical director and chief conductor from 1945 to 1971. He was a frequent guest conductor for leading symphony orchestras around the world, and returned to opera from time to time, including appearances at Glyndebourne and Covent Garden as well as the Hamburg State Opera.
Schmidt-Isserstedt was known for his transparent orchestral textures, strict rhythmic precision, and rejection of superfluous gestures and mannerisms on the rostrum. His extensive recorded legacy features the Austro-German classics with which he was widely associated, but also includes works by Czech, English, French, Italian and Russian composers.