This stirring release was written by acclaimed composer/sampler artist Bob Ostertag, and performed alongside the Kronos Quartet. A stark response to the AIDS epidemic (with the proceeds of all sales of this disc going to AIDS research), the quartet follows an opening sing-spiel narrative before diving into a section of Ostertag's cut-up loops of crowds cheering, and intense string work from the quartet.

Not only is the piece amazing! (of course) but the performance is incredible! The London Sinfonietta plays with remarkable virtuosity and STYLE! As a musician having listened and seen the score, I know this piece is extremely difficult, and they play with wonderful competence and character. Aside from the fantastic playing, the piece is a real ear opener for fans of Adams. The majority of his music (or, that which is being recorded) are large orchestral works. Large orchestras, lots of soloists, etc. Wonderful stuff, if you haven't heard Harmonium yet, go listen. .

Górecki's Third Symphony has become legend. Composed in 1976, it's always had its champions and admirers within the contemporary music world, but in 1993 it found a new audience of undreamt-of proportions. A few weeks after its release, this Elektra Nonesuch release not only entered the top 10 in the classical charts, but was also riding high in the UK Pop Album charts. It became the biggest selling disc of music by a contemporary classical composer.

Peteris Vasks has contemplated the passing of the twentieth century – its violence and tragedy balanced against its more benign aspects – and made his String Quartet No. 4 a spiritual summary of the times. Yet the work's success can be judged without relying too much on the composer's subjective program. As pure music, the quartet is effective and striking in its contrasts. The Elegy, a pensive and austere opening, bears a strong resemblance to John Tavener's Last Sleep of the Virgin, especially in its chains of trills and subdued ambience.

Darren Aronofsky's second film Requiem for a Dream features a score from his Pi collaborator, former Pop Will Eat Itself vocalist/guitarist Clint Mansell. This time, Mansell blends his usual electronic/industrial leanings with brooding, evocative performances from the Kronos Quartet. As with Pi, Mansell's compositions play a large part in Requiem for a Dream, which is an adaptation of Hubert Selby's 1978 novel about the harrowing lives of four drug addicts. Impressively, Mansell's score manages to be appropriately dark and disturbing, as well as compulsively listenable.

On their 2000 release, the Kronos Quartet has appeared with an album worthy of their name. On Caravan, the quartet uses songs from the world round, with all of them rearranged as needed to fit a string quartet. There are compositions from Yugoslavia ("Pannonia Boundless"), Portugal ("Cancao Verdes Anos" and "Romance No. 1"), India ("Aaj Ki Raat"), Mexico ("La Muerte Chiquita"), Turkey ("Turceasca"), Romania, Hungary, Iran, Lebanon, and Argentina. There are guest artists left and right on the album: Hindustani tabla great Zakir Hussain aids on the Bollywood work "Aaj Ki Raat" (Tonight's the Night). Taraf de Haidouks, a gypsy ensemble, provides extra violins and accordions on "Turceasca" to make the work outright exhilarating.

Writer-director Paul Schrader's films are always as memorable for their music as they are for their visuals–sometimes more so. Think of Giorgio Moroder's synthesizers pulsing through Cat People; think of Blondie's anthem for American Gigolo; think of Scott Johnson's remarkable score for Patty Hearst–and think of the full suite of music composed by Philip Glass for Schrader's ode to the deeply conflicted Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima. With its gilded, impressionistic set and its plot-eschewing cinematic vision, Mishima depended upon Glass's compositions for grounding.

This album features the original version of "White Man Sleeps," written in 1982, and "Mbira" from 1980. If you think landmark European 17th/18th century baroque instruments and African musical structures are irreconcilable opposites and you are open enough to change your mind, this is the album for you. These pieces of Kevin Volans belong indeed to the most exciting developments in contemporary music.

This is possibly this most beautifull CD ever recorded by the Kronos Quartet. Who said that Berg or Webern were writing obscur or difficult music? Actually i did, but certainly not when listening to this fabulous breathtaking, harmonius and moving interpretation.

This elegantly packaged 10 disc retrospective surveys four decades of work by Philip Glass, from his earliest solo pieces to his world-renowned operas to his Oscar-nominated film scores. In music, words and pictures, it traces the evolution, as critic Tim Page puts it in his liner notes essay, of 'the first composer to win a wide, multi-generational audience in the opera house, the concert hall, the dance world, in film and in popular music-simultaneously.' The long-awaited release of this set follows this past spring's triumphal new staging of Glass's 1980 Satyagraha at the Metropolitan Opera House.