Joseph Maurice Ravel was a French composer who is often associated with impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer.
Born to a music-loving family, Ravel attended France's premier music college, the Paris Conservatoire; he was not well regarded by its conservative establishment, whose biased treatment of him caused a scandal. After leaving the Conservatoire Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity, incorporating elements of baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz. He liked to experiment with musical form, as in his best-known work, Boléro (1928), in which repetition takes the place of development. He made some orchestral arrangements of other composers' music, of which his 1922 version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is the best known.
As a slow and painstaking worker, Ravel composed fewer pieces than many of his contemporaries. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, two piano concertos, ballet music, two operas, and eight song cycles; he wrote no symphonies and only one religious work. Many of his works exist in two versions: a first, piano score and a later orchestration. Some of his piano music, such as Gaspard de la nuit (1908), is exceptionally difficult to play, and his complex orchestral works such as Daphnis et Chloé (1912) require skilful balance in performance.

The American composer Philip Glass is considered as one of the influential composers of the late 20th century. His music has often been described as minimal music, although Glass himself preferred to describe his work as “music with repetitive structures.” Glass was born in 1937 in Baltimore. In 1964 he travelled to Paris, where he studied with the famous pedagogue Nadia Boulanger and worked closely with the composer and sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar, who both have influenced his compositions. When he returned to New York in 1967 he attended a performance of works by Steve Reich, which left a deep impression on him. He subsequently began to compose in a simplified and consonant style, based on additive rhythms and a sense of time that has been influenced by the playwright Samuel Beckett. In 1971 he founded the Philip Glass Ensemble, an amplified ensemble with keyboards, saxophones, flutes and soprano voices, with which he continues to perform regularly.
In 1975 Glass composed his first opera, Einstein on the Beach, in collaboration with Robert Wilson. Later on this work became part of a trilogy on revolutionary figures in world history, which further includes the operas Satyagraha about the life of Mahatma Gandhi and Akhnaten about the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaton. These works are regularly performed in the world’s leading opera houses.
Since the 1980’s, Glass writes music for influential and award-winning movies such as Koyaanisqatsi, Kundun and The Hours. From the 1990’s onwards, he composes more and more conventional classical music for string quartet and symphony orchestra.

George Gershwin was an American composer, who is mostly known due to his combinations of classical and popular music genres.

George Gershwin grew up in a poor neighbourhood in New York. His parents were Russian immigrants who had trouble making ends meet. They did, however, decide to purchase an old piano so Ira Gershwin could study to become a musician. Yet, it turned out not Ira, but his younger brother George showed remarkable talent. Ira applied himself to writing song lyrics and together the Gershwin brothers became absolute greats in the world of 20th century musicals. Nowadays, George's compositions are still relevant, as is evidenced by the many performances of his Rhapsody in Blue from 1924. But the best example is the ageless Summtertime, which has been covered a countless number of times by a countless number of artists.