List of minimalist composers

The following is a list of minimalist composers:

Austria

 * David Behrman

Australia

 * Anne Boyd
 * Andrew Chubb
 * Robert Davidson
 * Matthew Hindson
 * Phillip Houghton
 * Kate Moore
 * Nigel Westlake

Belgium

 * Frans Geysen
 * Karel Goeyvaerts
 * Wim Mertens

Canada

 * Kyle Bobby Dunn (based in the United States)
 * Peter Hannan
 * Ann Southam

Denmark

 * Hans Abrahamsen

Estonia

 * Arvo Pärt

Finland

 * Petri Kuljuntausta
 * Erkki Salmenhaara

France

 * Renaud Gagneux
 * Éliane Radigue
 * Yann Tiersen
 * Pascal Comelade

Georgia

 * Giya Kancheli (based in Belgium)

Germany

 * Peter Michael Hamel
 * Hauke Harder
 * Hans Otte
 * Ernstalbrecht Stiebler
 * Wolfgang Voigt
 * Walter Zimmermann

Hungary

 * Zoltán Jeney
 * László Melis
 * László Sáry
 * Tibor Szemző
 * László Vidovszky

Italy

 * Roberto Carnevale
 * Luciano Cilio
 * Ludovico Einaudi
 * Lucio Garau
 * Giovanni Sollima
 * Ezio Bosso

Japan

 * Joe Hisaishi
 * Jo Kondo
 * Yoshi Wada (based in the United States)
 * Yasunori Mitsuda

Latvia

 * Pēteris Vasks

Netherlands

 * Louis Andriessen
 * Douwe Eisenga
 * Simeon ten Holt

Poland

 * Henryk Górecki
 * Zygmunt Krauze
 * Tomasz Sikorski

Russia

 * Vladimir Martynov
 * Anton Batagov
 * Alexandre Rabinovitch-Barakovsky
 * Kirill Richter

Serbia

 * Vladimir Tošić

South Africa

 * Kevin Volans

South Korea

 * Jung Hee Choi

Sweden

 * Catherine Christer Hennix (based in the United States)

Switzerland

 * Ralph Zurmühle

Ukraine

 * Lubomyr Melnyk

United Kingdom

 * Gavin Bryars
 * Joe Cutler
 * Brian Eno
 * Roger Eno
 * Graham Fitkin
 * Malcolm Galloway
 * John Godfrey (composer)
 * Orlando Gough
 * Rob Haigh
 * Christopher Hobbs
 * Michael Parsons
 * Max Richter
 * Howard Skempton
 * Dave Smith
 * Steve Martland
 * Anna Meredith
 * Michael Nyman
 * Mike Oldfield
 * Andrew Poppy
 * Simon Rackham
 * John Tavener

United States

 * John Luther Adams
 * John Adams
 * Laurie Anderson
 * William Basinski
 * Barbara Benary
 * David Borden (and his ensemble Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Company)
 * Glenn Branca
 * Harold Budd
 * Joseph Byrd
 * John Cage
 * Lawrence Chandler
 * Richard Chartier
 * Rhys Chatham (based in France)
 * Anna Clyne
 * Tony Conrad
 * Philip Corner (based in Italy)
 * Kurt Doles
 * Arnold Dreyblatt (based in Germany)
 * Julius Eastman
 * Henry Flynt
 * Jon Gibson
 * Philip Glass
 * Daniel Goode
 * Annie Gosfield
 * Michael Harrison
 * Alan Hovhaness
 * Rafael Anton Irisarri
 * Terry Jennings
 * Dennis Johnson
 * Scott Johnson
 * Tom Johnson (based in France)
 * Sarah Kirkland Snider
 * Catherine Lamb
 * Hannah Lash
 * Douglas Leedy
 * Angus MacLise (died in Nepal)
 * Kali Malone
 * Ingram Marshall
 * Richard Maxfield
 * Meredith Monk
 * Robert Moran
 * Phill Niblock
 * Pauline Oliveros
 * Charlemagne Palestine
 * Steve Reich
 * Terry Riley
 * Tim Risher
 * Arthur Russell
 * Andrew Shapiro
 * Caroline Shaw
 * Wayne Siegel (based in Denmark)
 * Stars of the Lid (Adam Wiltzie & Brian McBride)
 * James Tenney
 * Michael Torke
 * Lois V. Vierk
 * Michael Waller
 * Shelley Washington
 * John White (born in the UK)
 * Julia Wolfe (born in the US)
 * La Monte Young (born in the US)

Mystic minimalists
A number of composers showing a distinctly religious influence have been labelled the "mystic minimalists", or "holy minimalists":
 * Henryk Górecki
 * Alan Hovhaness (the earliest mystic minimalist)
 * Giya Kancheli
 * Hans Otte
 * Arvo Pärt
 * John Tavener
 * Pēteris Vasks

Precedent composers
Other composers whose works have been described as precedents to minimalism include:
 * Jakob van Domselaer, whose early-20th century experiments in translating the theories of Piet Mondrian's De Stijl movement into music represent an early precedent to minimalist music.
 * Alexander Mosolov, whose orchestral composition Iron Foundry (1923) is made up of mechanical and repetitive patterns.
 * George Antheil, whose 1924 Ballet Mecanique is characterized by much use of motoric and repetitive patterns, as well as an instrumentation made up of multiple player pianos and mallet percussion.
 * Erik Satie, seen as a precursor of minimalism as in much of his music. For example, his score for Francis Picabia's 1924 film Entr'acte consists of phrases, many borrowed from bawdy popular songs, ordered seemingly arbitrarily and repetitiously, providing a rhythmic counterpoint to the film.
 * Colin McPhee, whose Tabuh-Tabuhan for two pianos and orchestra (1936) features the use of motoric, repetitive, pentatonic patterns drawn from the music of Bali (and featuring a large section of tuned percussion).
 * Carl Orff, who, particularly in his later theater works Antigonae (1940–1949) and Oedipus der Tyrann (1957–58), utilized instrumentations (six pianos and multiple xylophones, in imitation of gamelan music) and musical patterns (motoric, repetitive, triadic) reminiscent of the later music of Steve Reich and Philip Glass
 * Yves Klein, whose 1949 Monotone Symphony (formally The Monotone-Silence Symphony, conceived 1947–1948) is an orchestral 40-minute piece whose first movement is an unvarying 20-minute drone and the second and last movement a 20-minute silence, predating by several years both the drone music works of La Monte Young and the "silent" 4'33" of John Cage.
 * Morton Feldman, whose works prominently feature some sort of repetition as well as a sparseness.
 * Alvin Lucier, whose acoustical experiments demand a stripped-down musical surface to bring out details in the phenomena.
 * Anton Webern, whose economy of materials and sparse textures led many of the minimalists who were educated in serialism to turn to a reduction of means.
 * Alphonse Allais is the author of the earliest known example of a completely silent musical composition. His Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Great Deaf Man of 1897 consists of twenty-four blank measures. The fact that this is his one and only composition makes him all the more a precursor of minimalism in music.
 * Charlotte Moorman became known as an avant-garde musician who collaborated with Nam June Paik.