Conductor // American Orchestral Music
American Composers -- Nearly Forgotten
This is an incomplete list of American composers of orchestral music, in chronological order. Some you may recognize, most probably not. I will continuously update this list with relevant information for each composer, their lives, and their music, in the hope of keeping it alive and prevalent.
William Henry Fry
(1813–1864)
George Frederick Bristow
(1825–1898)
Louis Moreau Gottschalk
(1829–1869)
Benjamin Johnson Lang
(1837–1909)
John Knowles Paine
(1839–1906)
Arthur Foote
(1853–1937)
George Whitefield Chadwick
(1854–1931)
Victor Herbert
(1859–1924)
Edward MacDowell
(1860–1908)
Walter Damrosch
(1862–1950)
Horatio Parker
(1863–1919)
Scott Joplin
(1867/68–1917)
Amy Beach
(1867–1944)
Victor Harris
(1869–1943)
Arthur Nevin
(1871–1943)
Rubin Goldmark
(1872–1936)
Arthur Farwell
(1872–1952)
John Alden Carpenter
(1876–1951)
Carl Ruggles
(1876–1971)
Ernest Bloch
(1880–1959)
Charles Tomlinson Griffes
(1884–1920)
Joseph Lamb
(1887–1960)
Ferde Grofé
(1892–1972)
Walter Piston
(1894–1976)
William Grant Still
(1895–1978)
Leroy Robertson
(1896–1971)
Howard Hanson
(1896–1981)
Roger Sessions
(1896–1985)
Virgil Thomson
(1896–1989)
Erich Korngold
(1897–1957)
Henry Cowell
(1897–1965)
Roy Harris
(1898–1979)
George Frederick McKay
(1899–1970)
Randall Thompson
(1899–1984)
George Antheil
(1900–1959)
Ruth Crawford Seeger
(1901–1953)
Harry Partch
(1901–1974)
Franz Waxman
(1906–1967)
Leroy Anderson
(1908–1975)
Elliott Carter
(1908–2012)
William Schuman
(1910–1992)
Bernard Herrmann
(1911–1975)
Alan Hovhaness
(1911–2000)
Gian Carlo Menotti
(1911–2007)
Don Gillis
(1912–1978)
Conlon Nancarrow
(1912–1997)
Arthur Berger
(1912–2003)
Morton Gould
(1913–1996)
Vivian Fine
(1913–2000)
Irving Fine
(1914–1963)
Vincent Persichetti
(1915–1987)
David Diamond
(1915–2005)
George Perle
(1915–2009)
Milton Babbitt
(1916–2011)
Lou Harrison
(1917–2003)
Edward T. Cone
(1917–2004)
Leon Kirchner
(1919–2009)
William Bergsma
(1921–1994)
Lukas Foss
(1922–2009)
Peter Mennin
(1923–1983)
Benjamin Lees
(1924–2010)
Gunther Schuller
(1925–2015)
Morton Feldman
(1926–1987)
David Tudor
(1926–1996)
Lee Hoiby
(1926–2011)
Jacob Druckman
(1928–1996)
André Previn
(1929–2019)
Harold Shapero
(born 1920)
Ned Rorem
(born 1923)
Samuel Adler
(born 1928)
George Crumb
(born 1929)
John Towner Williams
(born 1932)
Steve Reich
(born 1936)
David Del Tredici
(born 1937)
Jan Bach
(born 1937)
Joan Tower
(born 1938)