Guardian Music — A Coltrane devotee who liked Brubeck's Take Five? Anthony Braxton has always been at odds with orthodox jazz thinkingIn the 1980s, after a period of eclipse by fusion, more traditional approaches to jazz were in resurgence – a subject I'll return t... more info

Guardian Music — Avant-garde American composer who championed electronic musicMilton Babbitt, who has died aged 94, was one of the most eminent, and controversial, American composers of the 20th century. Deeply influenced by the 12-tone music of Arnold Schoenberg, wh... more info

Guardian Music — Polish composer best known for his Symphony of Sorrowful SongsIn the mid-1990s, the Third Symphony, the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, by Henryk Górecki, who has died aged 76, was one of the best-known works by a living composer. It uses simple, s... more info

Guardian Music — The wondrous recommendation site couldn't cope with my requests for artists like Lachenmann, Stockhausen or AyresI've done it. I've broken mufin.com, the music recommendation site. All you do is type in one of the big names of contemporary music and ... more info

Guardian Music — The plastic present is about to become reacquainted with a 'musical miniature of the cosmos'There is a budget-price edition of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Mantra, for two pianos, percussion – sometimes crotales, which are essentially antique cymbals â... more info

Guardian Music — One of Karlheinz Stockhausen's most intriguing ideas was for a piece musicians could complete themselves. Christopher Fox took up the composer's self-assembly challengeIn the summer of 1963, Karlheinz Stockhausen came up with a project for a composit... more info

Guardian Music — The famous Venezuelan musicians are growing long in the tooth – and there's a new generation waiting in the wingsThe Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra is youthful no longer – as I was saying last week in my review of their concert wit... more info

Guardian Music — It might be more than 30 years old, but krautrock, Germany's experimental music from the 1970s, still has a freshness that sixth-generation British indie bands can't matchIt began out of nothing, was given a joke name, and became the pop influence du... more info

Guardian Music — Tony Kushner's harrowing play Angels in America became a film, a TV series and finally an opera. As it makes its UK debut, John O'Mahony meets the playwright – and one very enterprising composer, Péter EötvösIt's almost 17 years since... more info

Guardian Music — Although once home to Stockhausen and Boulez, it took two English composers to drag Darmstadt music school out of its rut. Christopher Fox examines their legacyIn many ways, Darmstadt is a typical German city. It has a local beer, an opera house, par... more info