Music from Downtown Europe

When I performed in Moscow a couple of years ago (the day the Chechen terrorist seige of a nearby theater ended), I was generously showered with CDs by local postminimalist, electronic, and improvising composers who, in this country, would be considered “Downtown.” I’m now uploading much of that material to Postclassic Radio. In fact, although I am an American music specialist, I have quite a few Europeans running on my station now, and they are NOT the usual suspects from that continent:

from Holland:

Renske Vrolijk

from Germany (though half Spanish):

Maria De Alvear

from Finland:

Juhani Nuorvala

from Italy:

Giancarlo Cardini

from Russia:

Dmitriy Riabtsev

Alexander Bakshi

Pavel Karmanov

Vladimir Martynov

Anton Batagov

Their music may suggest, I think, that in Europe, as here, the young composers writing the most interesting music are not the ones receiving major exposure from classical music institutions.