Music I most enjoyed discovering this quarter:

• Marc Mellits: “Eclipse” (2022)
• Ronan Hardiman: “Victory” (1995)
• Rene Aubry: some of Signes (1997), some of Plaisirs d’amour (1998), “Steppe” & “Faceties” (acoustic versions) (2008), “The Snail and the Whale (2019), some of Maria reve (2022)
• London Grammar: “Wicked Game” (2013), “Nightcall” (2013)
• Florence & the Machine: “Stand By Me” (2016)
• Seinabo Sey: “Pistols At Dawn” (2014)
• Anna Meredith: “Orca” (2012), “Unicron” & “Orlock” (2013), “Paramour” (2019)
• Nik Bartsch: some of Spin (2024)
• Maybeshewill: I Was Here for a Moment, Then I Was Gone (2011)
• Ferry Corsten: “Adagio for Strings” (1999)
• Rank 1: “Sensation Anthem 2003” (2003)¹
• Yndi Halda: Under Summer (2016)
• Carla Bley: Blue Palestine mvts 1, 2, 4 (2018)
• Red Snapper: “Ban-Di-To” (2025)
• Bobby Previte: most of Set the Alarm for Monday (2008)
• Present: “Contre” (2024)
• Shibusashirazu: some of Dettaramen (1993), some of Something Difference (1994), some of Shibuzen (2006), Sakuraza Mon (2025)
• Daisuke Fuwa: some of Chitei Records Works (2012)
  • With these new listens, Shibusashirazu / Daisuke Fuwa have crossed the 5-hour mark as one of my favorite musical artists!
• The Physics House Band: Horizons / Rapture (2013), Mercury Fountain (2017), Death Sequence (2019)
• Jeremy Dutcher: Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa (2018)
• Tina Guo: some of Game On! (2017)
• The 8-Bit Big Band: some of Press Start! (2018), some of Choose Your Character! (2019), some of Backwards Compatible (2021), “Song of Storms” (2023), some of Orchestrator Emulator (2025)
• Sheena Ringo: Shouso Strip (2000), Kalk (Bleach), Semen, Chestnut Blossoms (2003)
• Wim Mertens: some of Music and Film (2006)
• Turtle Island String Quartet: “Street Stuff” (1989), “Near Northern” (1995)
• David Balakrishnan: “Syzygy” (2018)
• Desmond Earley: “Dulaman” (2019)
• Andries van Tonder: “Siyahamba” (1950)
• Michael Barrett: “Thixo Onothando” (2016)
• Brad Richmond: “Ipharadisi” (2002)
• Ishmael Morabe: “Avulekile Amasango” (2001)
• Theresa Clements & Thomas Shadrach James: “Bura Fera” (1886)
• Lebo M: “One by One” (1995)
• Ladysmith Black Mambazo: “Awu Wemadoda” (1973)
• Brian Tate: “Gate Gate” (1998)
• James Horner: “Sacred Guardian of the Mountain” & “Dedication and Windsong” (1998)
• Audiomachine: some of The Platinum Series I (2007), “The Dark Knight” & “The Illusionist” (2008), some of The Platinum Series III (2009), “Ad Suprema” (2009), some of The Platinum Series IV (2010), some of Chronicles (2012), some of Tree of Life (2013), some of Decimus (2015), some of Life (2017), some of Worlds of Wonder (2017), some of La Belle Époque (2018), some of Another Sky (2020), “Unrelenting Desires” (2024), some of Even Poets Go to War (2024)

I also listened to a significant portion of the recorded works by each of the (new-to-me) composers listed below.² My favorites pieces from them (names linked to playlists) were:

• Oliver Davis (b. 1972): most of Flight (2015), most of Dance (2016), most of Liberty (2018), most of Arcadia (2019), most of Solace (2021), some of Air (2022), most of Blue (2023), most of Life (2025)
  • With these new listens, Davis has crossed the 5-hour mark as one of my favorite musical artists!
• Marcus Paus (b. 1979): Decameron mvt 10 (2020), Tuba Mirum (2021), The War Cross mvt 15 (2023)
• Federico Jusid (b. 1973): Tango Rhapsody mvt 3 (2010), Isabel “A Todo Galope” (2013), The English “Opening Credits” (2022)
• Vladimir Martynov (b. 1946): Requiem “Sequentia” (1998), Passionslieder “Kommunionsgesange” (1977)
• Aleksey Igudesman (b. 1973): Koberia Fantasy (2018), Joyful Variations (2020), Peace-acaglia (2024)
• Russell Peck (b. 1945): some of Signs of Life II (1986)
• Giancarlo Castro D’Addona (b. 1980): Concerto for Clarinet & Big Band (2005?), Tuba Concerto (2007), “Walking Faster” (2009), Concierto Sureño (2010), “Rhapsody for Talents” (2013), “Melk Abbey” (2017?)
• Alexis Aranda (b. 1974): Concierto de Fuego para Violonchelo y Orquesta (2009), Piano Concerto No. 2 mvt 3 (2012), Flute Concerto “Acqua” mvts 2, 3 (2013), Double Concerto for Flute & Guitar mvts 1, 3 (2017)
• Andrew Pearce (b. 1975): some of Maison Yves Rocher (2018)
• Peter Breiner (b. 1957): some of Songs and Dances from the Silk Road (2003), Beatles Concerti Grossi Nos. 1-4 (1986), Beatles Concerti Grossi 5-9 (2018)
• Tarquinio Merula (b. 1595): “Ciaccona” (1637)
• Stuart Hancock (b. 1975): Violin Concerto mvt 3 (2005), “Variations on a Heroic Theme” (2007)
• Daniel Freiberg (b. 1957): Latin American Chronicles mvt 3 (2015), Northern Journey (2017)
• Loris Tjeknavorian (b. 1937): Dances Fantastic mvt 7 (1993), Ararat Suite mvts 3, 5, 7 (1998)
• Srul Irving Glick (b. 1934): Old Toronto Klezmer Suite mvt 1 (1998)
• José Alberto Pina (b. 1984): “A Mi Banda” (2003), “Himne a la Festa” (2006), “Crucifixus” (2008), The Bermuda Triangle (2009/2013), “Es Vedra” (2010), “The Legend of Maracaibo” (2011), The Island of Light (2013), The Ghost Ship (2017), Pompeii (2019), Dunkirk (2020), Sajelbon (2021), “Steel Overture” (2022), “Excalibur” (2023), “The Ambitious Plan” (2023), “The Scary Mountains” (2024), “Promesa” (2025), Cleopatra (2025)
• Takashi Kako (b. 1947): “Medina” (1990), “The Wind of Gibraltar” (1992), Passage of the Gods mvts 1, 3 (2006)
• Gediminas Gelgotas (b. 1986): “Extracadenza” (2015)
• Krzesimir Debski (b. 1953): some of With Fire and Sword (1999), some of Ancient Tale (2003)
• Kirill Richter (b. 1989): some of Chronos (2019), “In Memoriam” (2019), “Waltz No. 1” & “Waltz No. 3” (2025)
• Saul Gomez Soler (b. 1982): some of Suite Al’Ariba (2018), “Gioia” (2020)
• Alex Poelman (b. 1981): “1944” (2021)
• Matej Mestrovic (b. 1969): some of Eat Suite (2014), Danube Rhapsody mvts 1, 2, 4 (2015), Chinese Rhapsody (2015), New England Rhapsody (2015), “Pleter” (2022)
• Vaja Azarashvili (b. 1936): Piano Concerto No. 2 (2023)
• Murat Kabardokov (b. 1986): “Baso Ostinato” (2015?), “Alla Barocco” (2015), Above the Mountains “Main Theme” (2017), “Hunderkuakua” (2021)
• Masamichi Amano (b. 1957): “Tragedy Occurs Again” (1993), “Spy Swordsman Jubei and the Fivefold Group” (1998), “New Departure” (2000)
• Can Atilla (b. 1969): “Yine Gel Ne Olursan Ol” (2008), Symphony of Love (2024)
• Kim Andre Arnesen (b. 1980): “Cry of the Sea” & “The Strangers” (2016), Holy Spirit Mass “Amen” (2017)
• Alexey Rybnikov (b. 1945): “Adagio for Cello & Strings in D Minor” (1981), Concerto Grosso No. 2 (2006)
• Olli Mustonen (b. 1967): Concerto for 3 Violins mvts 1, 2, 4 (1998)
• Vladimir Cosma (b. 1940): “Danse roumaine” (1972)
• Harry Stafylakis (b. 1982): “Brittle Fracture” (2013), Arc of Horizon (2015), “Sun Exhaling Light” (2017), Symphony No. 1 “Holocene Extinction” (2017), “Atlas” (2018), Weighted (2019), “Source Code” (2019), “Focus” (2019), “To Wake and Find the World Still Burning” (2022), “Incinerate” (2022), Calibrating Frictions [album] (2023), Piano Concerto No. 1 “Mythos” (2023), Violin Concerto “On a Path to Singularity” (2024)
• Joey Roukens (b. 1982): In Unison mvt 1 (2017)
• Lee Che-Yi (b. 1970): Dancing Strings mvts 1 & 2 (2011), Lukang Impression (2017), Four Seasons in the Peach Garden mvt 4 (2018)
• Jim Bonney (b. 1971): Chaos Theory (2000)
• Chiel Meijering (b. 1954): “Slash” (1995), “The truth requires a hairier buck” (1996), “Rip Off” & “Joe Montana” (2001), “Joke” & “The Roof of Blue Glass” & “Rondo” (2007), The Pied Piper mvt 4 (2012)
• Andy Scott (b. 1966): Dark Rain (2005), “Three Letter Word” (2010), Spirit of Mingus (2012)
• Sergei Akhunov (b. 1967): Le quattro stagioni (2011)
• Anton Batagov (b. 1965): Bodhicharyavatara “Adopting the Spirit of Awakening” (2009), The One Thus Gone mvt 4 (2016)
• Howard Blake (b. 1938): Four Miniatures (orchestral) (1964), Concert Dances mvt 5 (1992)
• Alexandre Rabinovitch-Barakovsky (b. 1945): La belle musique No. 3 (1977), Musique populaire (1980), “Liebliches Lied” (1980), Discours sur la delivrance (1982), La belle musique No. 4 (1987), Das tibetanische gebet (1987), 3 Invocations (1996), Incantations (1996), Schwanengesang an Apollo (1996), La triade (1998), Les six etats intermediaires (1998), Die Zeit (2000), Jiao (2004), Maithuna (2005)
  • With these new listens, Rabinovitch-Barakovsky has crossed the 5-hour mark as one of my favorite musical artists!
• Sven Helbig (b. 1968): some of Pocket Symphonies (2013)
• Yasushi Akutagawa (b. 1925): some of Village of Eight Gravestones (1977), Village of Eight Gravestones Suite (1977), Mt. Hakkoda Suite (1977)
• Arash Safaian (b. 1981): UberBach (2016), This Is (Not) Beethoven (2019), “Lara” (2019), “Marie’s Piece” (2023)
• Michael Kurth (b. 1971): “May Cause Dizziness” (2010), Everything Lasts Forever mvt 3 (2012), A Thousand Words mvts 2, 3, 4 (2015), some of Miserere (2017), Origin Story (2023), “All Will Be Revealed” (2023), “Suspectivish” (2025)
• Alexey Kurbatov (b. 1983): Sextet “Train” (2016)
• Polina Nazaykinskaya (b. 1987): Nostalghia (2018), “A Summer Rain” & “Remembrance” (2020), “Songs for Tasya” (2021), Emily mvt 1 (2023)
• Victoriano Valencia (b. 1970): “Siete Colores” (2003), “Sanjuanito” (2003), “Fandanguillo” (2003), Suite No. 1 (2003), “Gualajo y Candelo” (2004), “Leon Bambuco” (2004), “San Pelayo” (2005), “La gaïta de Arlington” (2006), Suite No. 2 (2007), “Fandanguería” (2007), “Mayito” (2007), “Juana Jacinta” (2008), “Espiritu” (2009), “El Mono” (2011), “Balin” (2012), Ritmos de la Tierra (2013), Suite de los Juegos (2013), “Macondo” (2015), “Puyax” (2017), Concerto for Clarinet & Band (2018), Concerto for Saxophone & Band (2019), Fandango! Secretos de La Rueda Oscura (2022)
• Fahir Atakoglu (b. 1963): “Med Cezir” (1993), “12 + Lai” & “Yesilada” & “Demirkirat” & “Vals” (1994), some of East Side Story (2005), 15 Temmuz Destani (2020)
• Roland Szentpali (b. 1977): “Blow on Fire” & “Cinder Dance” (2007), “Carmen Fantasy” (2007)
• Giovanni Allevi (b. 1969): “Angelo Ribelle” (2006), “Mandella” (2012), Violin Concerto “La danza della strega” (2012), Piano Concerto No. 1 mvts 1, 3 (2017)
• Kinan Azmeh (b. 1976): “Love on 139th Street in D” (2005), Ibn Arabi Suite mvt 3 (2013), In the Element mvt 3 (2018)
• Pacho Flores (b. 1981): Cantos y Revueltas (2018), Albares (2022)
• Masanori Taruya (b. 1978): “A Picture Book Without a Picture” & “Liberty Guiding the People” & “Magellan’s Voyage to Unknown Continent” (2004), “Tears of the Princess Kushinada Flowing in Hii” (2012)
• Li Bochan (b. 1992): “Ode to Chu” (2014), “Late Autumn” (2014), “Chant on Strings” (2016), “Bamboo Stone” (2017)
• Cristian Carrara (b. 1977): Destinazione del Sangue mvt 3 (2008), “East West Romance” (2009), “A Little Tango to My Wife” (2011), “Liber Mundi” (2012), Slot Machine mvt 3 (2014), Machpelah mvt 2 (2015)
• Andrew Staniland (b. 1977): The Laws of Nature mvts 1, 2 (2025)
• Ilari Hylkila (b. 1978): “Return to the Indian Valley” (2002), “Reflection of Destiny” (2002), “Force” (2003), “Honor March” (2003), “Tristesse” (2003), “Dance of Giants” (2004), “Unknown Legend” (2005), “The Zest” (2007), “Hero Tale” (2008), “Sinia” (2008), “Cinclus Arctica” (2010), “Magical Forest” (2010), “Metalflare” (2010), “Nimia” (2012), “Sankar” (2012), “Waltz Unforgettable” (2014), “Wonderworld” (2014), Into the Wind (2015), “My Christmas Dream” (2016), “Taiga” (2018), “Dark” (2018), “Adorable Creatures” (2018), Saga (2018), “Yet” (2018), Lapland Imagery mvts 1, 5 (2020), “Echoes from Central Finland” (2025)
• Kristjan Jarvi (b. 1972): “Aurora” (2016), “Kritical Mass” (2017), “Midnight Sun” (2019)
• Mily Balakirev (b. 1837): Symphony No. 1 mvt 2 (1898)
• Marcus Warner (b. 1996): “Africa” (2014), some of Oceans (2016), “Wintersong” (2017), “Tokyo Rain” & “Helsinki” (2018)
• Efrain Oscher (b. 1974): some of Barroqueana Venezolanas 1-4 (2017), Barroqueana Sudamericana No. 1 (2018), Danzas Latinas (2019)
• Wang Jianmin (b. 1956): Erhu Rhapsody No. 6 (2023)
• Aldo Lopez-Gavilan (b. 1979): “Pan Con Timba” (2005), “La Jutia Preguntona” (2009), “Oddudua” (2011), “Epilogo” (2012)
• Tuluyhan Ugurlu (b. 1968): “Yaşamımız Bu Toprakta” & “Allaturca” (2002), “A World Capital Istanbul” (2006)
• Fang Dongqing (b. 1981): “A Dance of Fire” (2016)
• Francisco Valor Llorens (b. 1979): most of Creu Daura (2006), Llegenda (2014), Dolca Mareta, les Llagrimes de Maria (2021), most of Francisco Valor in Live (2021), Mazon (2023), some of Suite Alcodianima (2023), some of Crucis Petra (2023), plus dozens of other short compositions
  • With these new listens, Valor Llorens has crossed the 5-hour mark as one of my favorite musical artists!
• Hayato Hirose (b. 1974): “Marching Blues” (2005), “Norman Rockwell Suite” (2006), “The Bell of Hope” (2010)
• M.M. Keeravani (b. 1961): Baahubali “Wkkb” (2015), RRR “The Water” (2022)
• Rafael Mullor Grau (b. 1962): “Un moro mudejar” (1981)
• Jose Rafael Pascual Vilaplana (b. 1971): “Cavall de Foc” (1996), “Jessica” (2000), “Falhanis” (2015), Out of Earth mvt 3 (2015), “Hernandiana” (2017)
• Florian Christl (b. 1990): some of Inspiration (2018), “Glass” & “Timelapse” (2022), “Vienna” (2024)
• Michele Mangani (b. 1966): “Clarinettomania” (2015), Clarinet Concerto mvts 1, 3 (2018)
• Nancy Galbraith (b. 1951): “Danza de los Duendes” (1991), “Febris Ver” (2011), “Euphonic Blues” (2012), Effervescent Air (2012), Strange Travels (2013), Violin Concerto No. 1 mvts 1, 3 (2016), Everything Flows (2019)
• Jose Maria Vitier (b. 1954): Mediopunto mvts 1, 3 (1977), Vitral mvts 1, 3 (1982), “Contradanza festiva” (1991), “Epílogo” (1993), “Rítmico” (2012)
• José Suñer-Oriola (b. 1964): Vasa mvts 1, 3 (1999), El Jardín de las Hespérides mvt 4 (2014)
• Ramón García i Soler (b. 1971): Oryza (2015)
• Armand Amar (b. 1953): “To amo” & “La terre vue du ciel” (2004), “Mere et enfant” (2005), some of Home (2009), “La vallee de la solitude” (2014), some of Human (2015), some of L’histoire de l’amour (2016), “Arrivee a Nice” & “La traversee” (2017)
• Christopher Stark (b. 1980): “Velocity Meadows” (2015)
• Hardy Mertens (b. 1960): “Viva El Litro” (2008)
• Marek Bednar (Marc Cooper) (b. 1985): “Violin Sonata in E Minor” & “Flash Flood” & “Violin Concerto in D Minor” (2025), “The Awakening of Spring” & “The Weimar Punk-Opera” (2026)
• George Deac (b. 1970): “Modul X-01” & “Polonaise: The Emperor’s Entrance” & “Metamorphosis” & “Neon Shadows” & “The Hero’s Return” & “Midnight in Andalusia” & “The Clockwork Machine” & “Elegy for a Forgotten Princess” & “The Broken Waltz” & “St. Petersburg Nocturne” & “Clarinet Dance in Central Park” & “Starlight Farewell” & “Oracle of the Cold Moon” (2026)
• Mario Burki (b. 1977): “Napoleon” (2009), “Milestone” (2013), La Corrida de Toros (2016), Utinam (2021)
• Roland Batik (b. 1951): Piano Concerto No. 1 mvt 3 (1993)
• Gordon Hamilton (b. 1982): “Baby Steps First” (2014), Thum Prints (2015), “482 Variations on a Very Short Theme” (2016)
• Simon Dobson (b. 1981): “Firefly” (2015), “Clash” (2016)
• Hugo Chinesta (b. 1977): The Gates of the Alhambra mvt 4 (2007), The Angel of the Apocalypse (2019)
• Valgeir Sigurosson (b. 1971): “Past Tundra” (2011), “Ancor che col partire” (2013)
• MAias Alyamani (b. 1981): “Dance” & “Zainno el Marje” (2010), most of White (2011), “Al Ad’am” (2012), most of Offstage (2014), most of A Decade of MAqam Ensemble (2018), “Najaz” (2019), “Reborn” (2020)
• Dimitri Cervo (b. 1968): “Uguabe” (1999), “Toronuba” (2000), “Brasil Amazonico” (2005), “Toro-Lobiana” (2007), Flute Concerto mvts 1, 3 (2008), “Abertura Brasil 2012” (2012), “Abertura 2014” (2014), Suite Concertante (2017), “Abertura Brasil 2018” (2018), Trombone Concerto (2018)
• Nuno Corte-Real (b. 1971): Folias (2024)
• Juan J. Colomer (b. 1966): some of Sorolla: Vision of Spain (2013), Sorolla Breve Suite (2022)
• Vakhtang Kakhidze (b. 1959): “Satyr’s Dance” (1989), Blitz Fantasy mvt 4 (2000)
• Abraham Cupeiro (b. 1980): some of Os Sons Esquecidos (2017), Pangea (2020), some of Mythos (2024)
• Tielman Susato (b. ~1510): some of Danseyre (1551)
• Chen Gang (b. 1935): “Golden Hearth” (1972), “Deep Gratitude” (1974), “Drum and Song” (1976)
• Gauthier Dupertuis (b. 1997): “Terminal” (2025)
• Katahj Copley (b. 1998): “Grosso Blue” (2018), “HayWire” (2018), “Infinity” (2020), “Halcyon Hearts” (2021), “In Living Color” (2021), “Uptilt” (2021), “Equinox” (2021), “Havens” (2022), “Iridessi” (2023)
• Jeff Tyzik (b. 1951): “Fire Dance” (1978), “Blues Suite for String Orchestra” (1985), “Skater’s Overture” (1996), New York Cityscape (2008), “Riffs” (2009), Images (2012), “Dream Sequence for Flute and Orchestra” (2015), “Three Latin Dances” (2018), “Give My Regards to George” (2020), Dance Suite for Oboe, String Orchestra, and Piano (2021), Jazz Concerto for Soprano Saxophone (2023)
• Ricardo Molla Albero (b. 1992): Finisterrai (2022)
• Nunzio Ortolano (b. 1967): “Russian Melodies” (1999), “Texas” (2000), “Event” (2001), “Giuditta” (2001), “Preludio e Marcia” (2001), “I Tre Puntini” (2005), “Prelude for Concert” (2007), “Manola” (2008), “Tano Tano” (2014)
• Alexander Litvinovsky (b. 1962): some of Consort Lessons (1999), “Steps Upward” (2001), “Theatre” & “L’incendie” & “La fin de la guerre” (2015), “Procession du crepuscule” & “Melisande au rouet” (2021), “In fuga dai briganti” & “Volare sul Colombo” (2022), “Morning Jogging” & “Playful Goatlings” (2023), “Games and Fun (2024)
• Soon Hee Newbold (b. 1974): “American Landscape” (2006), “Angel City” (2025), “The Iliad” (2025)
• Greg Dombrowski (b. 1983): “Birth of a Hero” (2018), some of Heart of Darkness (2019), “Manifesto” & “Past in Flames” & “The Immortalist” (2020), “Reprise” (2020), “Born a Legend” & “To Boldly Go” (2021),
• Anthony Fiumara (b. 1968): “As I Opened Fire” (2014), “Here Comes Everybody” (2017)
• Jaz Coleman (b. 1960): Magna Invocatio (2018)
• Lino Guerreiro (b. 1977): “Maud’Adib” (2008), “Fanfare Overture” (2013), “Mazurkax” (2014), “al-Uqsur” (2015), Balkan (2019)
• Carlos Marques (b. 1973): “Artis Calambria” (2011)
• Carl Wittrock (b. 1966): “Lord Tullamore” (2001), “Journey of the Half Moon” (2017)
• Filippo Ledda (b. 1975): “Argon” (2018)
• Marcel Khalife (b. 1950): “Mare” (1998), Andalusian Suite for Oud and Orchestra (2002), Sharq (2007), Arabian Concerto (2008), “Achikain” (2016)
• Francois Rousselot (b. 1984): “New World Coming” & “The Lost World” & “World of Wonders” (2015), Live Epic Orchestra (2021), “Hope Is Reborn” & “Strat of Adventure” (2022), “Bird Flight” (2023), “Weigh Anchor” & “Raising the Sails” & “The Final Treasure” (2026)
• David Fanshawe (b. 1942): “Trafalgar” (2005), Pacific Song mvts 2, 3 (2007)
• Jim Papoulis (b. 1961): “Sing for Peace” (2004), “Can You Hear” (2005), “Oye” (2006), “Stand Together” (2008), “Kusimama” (2011), “Sililiza” (2012), “Juntos” (2013), “There Is Peace” (2015), “We Are the Voices” (2015), “Regalando Belleza” (2017), “Sing to Bring Us Together” (2018), “I Will Raise My Voice” (2019)
• Gu Guanren (b. 1942): Spring Suite mvts 2, 3, 5 (1979)
• Robert Davidson (b. 1965): From to Here (2020)
• Guido Lopez-Gavilan (b. 1944): “Camerata en Guaguanco” (1983), Por el Mar de las Antillas Anda un Violin mvt 3 (2003), “Ritmotiv” (2006)
• Lukas Hurnik (b. 1967): Variations on the Theme by Frank Zappa (2003)
• Conni Ellisor (b. 1953): Blackberry Winter mvts 1, 3 (1995), “The Littlest Star” (2000), Broad Band of Light (2012), Tres Danzas de Vida mvt 3 (2013), “The Bell Witch Dances” (2014)
• Iiro Rantala (b. 1970): “Pizzitaxi” (1990), “Topi” & “Final Fantasy” & “Tango Ouh” (1993), “Tango Dada” (1995), some of Sisu (1997), “Proko-type of Polka” & “Another Ragtime” (1998), Piano Concerto in G-Sharp Major / A-Flat Major mvt 3 (2002), “A Concert Tango” (2002), “Beba” & “Third Ball” (2005), Jouluoratorio “Intro” (2012), Veneziana (2023)
• Azael Tormo Munoz (b. 1966): “Malaguenya de Barxeta” (2018), “Escenas de Carnaval” (2024)
• Christiaan Janssen (b. 1974): “Impresiones de Estepona” (2024)
• Randall Standridge (b. 1976): “Choose Joy” (2022), “Groovitude” (2025)
• Timothy Shortell (b. 2002): “Onward” (2019), “Convergence” & “Shattered Destiny” (2020)
• Law Wai Lun (b. 1944): Prince Sang Nila Utama and Singa (2003), The Celestial Web (2003), Journey Through Taoyuan mvts 1,3 (2021)
• Philippe Geiss (b. 1961): “Medina” (2004), United Colors of Saxophones (2009), “Foxy Music” (by 2011), “Sax Heroes” (2011), “Sir Patrick” (2012), “Klezmer Salsa” (by 2012), “Zerbace” (2016), several other short pieces (years unknown)
• Francois Dompierre (b. 1943): Piano Concerto in A Major (1978), Les Diableries mvts 3, 5 (1979), “Celeste” (1988), “Maxime Theme” (1994), “Frenetique” (2012), “Partance” (2022)
• Wlodek Pawlik (b. 1958): “Let’s All Go to Heaven” & “Magic Seven” (2009), some of Night in Calisia (2013), some of America (2015)
• Clint Needham (b. 1981): “Urban Sprawl” (2011), “Free Radicals” (2017)
• Plus the following composers for which I didn’t “strongly like” any of their pieces I listened to: Leo Brouwer (b. 1939), Soren Hyldgaard (b. 1962), Efrem Podgaits (b. 1949), Karol Beffa (b. 1973), Fabien Waksman (b. 1980), Eric Tanguy (b. 1968), Robin Holloway (b. 1943), Peter Seabourne (b. 1950), Rick Sowash (b. 1950), Fabian Muller (b. 1964), Jerome Ducros (b. 1974), Kareem Roustom (b. 1971), John Estacio (b. 1966), Joep Franssens (b. 1955), Richard Galliano (b. 1950), Herman Beeftink (b. 1953), Lorenzo Palomo (b. 1938), Ian Clarke (b. 1964), Stephen Lias (b. 1966), Jeff Manookian (b. 1953), Gabriela Montero (b. 1970), Jukka Linkola (b. 1955), Ney Rosauro (b. 1952), Boris Pigovat (b. 1953), Bert Appermont (b. 1973), Ilya Demutsky (b. 1983), Paul Desenne (b. 1959), Gonzalo Grau (b. 1972), Franco Cesarini (b. 1961), Kassia (b. ~810), Alexander Comitas [Eduard de Boer] (b. 1957), Yared (b. 505), Kevin Lau (b. 1982), Jiang Kui (b. 1155), Wlad Marhulets (b. 1986), Ofer Ben-Amots (b. 1955), Paul Dresher (b. 1951), Valery Gavrilin (b. 1939), Ugis Praulins (b. 1957), Alla Pavlova (b. 1952), Esteban Benzecry (b. 1970), Kaoru Wada (b. 1962), Jose Elizondo (b. 1972), Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate (b. 1968), Paul Hart (b. 1945), Julian Cochran (b. 1974), Juan Pablo Contreras (b. 1987), Kalevi Aho (b. 1949), Joel Puckett (b. 1977), Tania Leon (b. 1943), Stamatis Spanoudakis (b. 1948), Thierry Deleruyelle (b. 1983), Fernando Velazquez (b. 1976), Arturo Rodriguez (b. 1976), Anton García Abril (b. 1933), Luis Serrano Alarcon (b. 1972), Enjott Schneider (b. 1950), Paul Carr (b. 1961), Kevin Houben (b. 1977), Addie Muljadi Sumaatmadja (b. 1959), Ryan Cayabyab (b. 1954), Ashenafi Kebede (b. 1938), Ahmad Pejman (b. 1935), Adil Bestybayev (b. 1959), Fred Onovwerosuoke (b. 1960), Narongrit Dhamabutra (b. 1962), Nkeiru Okoye (b. 1972), Justinian Tamusuza (b. 1951), Christian Onyeji (b. 1967), Vu Viet Anh (b. 1978), Nguyen Van Nam (b. 1932), Majid Entezami (b. 1948), Muammer Sun (b. 1932), Cetin Isikozlu (b. 1939), Dnu Huntrakul (b. 1950), Josefino “Chino” Toledo (b. 1959), Njane Mugambi (b. 197?), Shaka Marko (b. 2000), Francisco Zumaque (b. 1945), Jorge Pinzon (b. 1968), Victor Agudelo (b. 1979), Ali Osman (b. 1958), Salim Dada (b. 1975), Steve Dobrogosz (b. 1956), Luke Howard (b. 1978), Ante Grgin (b. 1945), Eleni Karaindrou (b. 1939), Ara Gevorgyan (b. 1960), Francesco Tristano (b. 1981), Leonid Desyatnikov (b. 1955), Osama Abdulrasol (b. 1968), Rahim AlHaj (b. 1967), Taro Iwashiro (b. 1965), Stacy Garrop (b. 1969), Marc-Andre Hamelin (b. 1961), Fernando Otero (b. 1972), Koichi Sugiyama (b. 1931), Robert Jager (b. 1939), Peeter Vahi (b. 1955), Bill Douglas (b. 1944), Alexander Peskanov (b. 1955), Paul Reade (b. 1943), Ma Shui-long (b. 1939), Aldemaro Romero (b. 1928), Murad Kazhlayev (b. 1931), Albert Schnelzer (b. 1972), Mike Mower (b. 1958), Tobias Brostrom (b. 1978), Eugen Doga (b. 1937), Erkki-Sven Tuur (b. 1959), Vincent Ho (b. 1975), Yasuhide Ito (b. 1960), Valerie Coleman (b. 1970), Enrico Chapela (b. 1974), Dan Visconti (b. 1982), Bernhard Gander (b. 1969), Gian Piero Reverberi (b. 1939), Stewart Copeland (b. 1952), Holly Harrison (b. 1988), Earl Maneein (b. 1976), David Wallace (b. 1970), Christian Kolonovits (b. 1952), Regis Campo (b. 1968), Richard Dubugnon (b. 1968), Gene Pritsker (b. 1971), B. Tommy Andersson (b. 1964), Go Shiina (b. 1974), Pierre Jalbert (b. 1925), Robert Paterson (b. 1970), Paul Stanhope (b. 1969), Rene Eespere (b. 1953), Hanna Kulenty (b. 1961), Mieczyslaw Weinberg (b. 1919), Arno Babajanian (b. 1921), Andrei Eshpai (b. 1925), Sulkhan Tsintsadze (b. 1925), Igor Frolov (b. 1937), Tikhon Khrennikov (b. 1913), Anatoly Lyadov (b. 1855), Blas Galindo (b. 1910), Boris Papandopulo (b. 1906), John White (b. 1936), York Bowen (b. 1884), Lars-Erik Larsson (b. 1908), Doreen Carwithen (b. 1922), Dag Wiren (b. 1905), Walter Piston (b. 1894), Radames Gnattali (b. 1906), Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (b. 1932), Lera Auerbach (b. 1973), Dani Howard (b. 1993), Cheryl Frances-Hoad (b. 1980), Helen Grime (b. 1981), Caio Faco (b. 1992), Edward W. Hardy (b. 1992), Karin Rehnqvist (b. 1957), Kuzma Bodrov (b. 1980), Outi Tarkiainen (b. 1985), Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964), George Benjamin (b. 1960), Mischa Zupko (b. 1971), Heather Schmidt (b. 1974), Uljas Pulkkis (b. 1975), Richard Prior (b. 1966), Wouter Lenaerts (b. 1981), Kevin Day (b. 1996), Bechara El-Khoury (b. 1957), Francisco Jose Martinez Gallego (b. 1969), Leszek Mozdzer (b. 1970), Chang Su Koh (b. 1970), Alexander Tchaikovsky (b. 1946), Christian Lindberg (b. 1958), Mikhail Bronner (b. 1952), Yo Goto (b. 1958), Andres Valero-Castells (b. 1973), Martin Romberg (b. 1978), Bob Chilcott (b. 1955), Krzysztof Herdzin (b. 1970), James Swearingen (b. 1947), Martin Bresnick (b. 1946), Torstein Aagaard-Nilsen (b. 1964),  Ian Cusson (b. 1981), Ronaldo Miranda (b. 1948), Odaline de la Martinez (b. 1949), Jack Stamp (b. 1954), Anthony DiLorenzo (b. 1967), Andres Martin (b. 1981), Kow Otani (b. 1957), Tracy Silverman (b. 1960), Wang I-Yu (b. 1981), Peter Eotvos (b. 1944), Chris Thile (b. 1981), Jose Evangelista (b. 1943), Maxime Goulet (b. 1980), David Heath (b. 1958), Yosuke Fukuda (b. 1982), Gil Shohat (b. 1973), James Lee III (b. 1975), Ricardo Lorenz (b. 1961), Thierry Huillet (b. 1965), Sean O’Loughlin (b. 1972), Jake Runestad (b. 1986), Naji Hakim (b. 1955), David Rivas Domínguez (b. 1980), Nicola Campogrande (b. 1969), Eduardo Alonso-Crespo (b. 1956), Andrea Tarrodi (b.1981), Joe Cutler (b. 1968), Gordon Chin (b. 1957), Martín Palmeri (b. 1965), Thomas Hewitt Jones (b. 1984), Itaru Sakai (b. 1970), Elena Ruehr (b. 1963), Lorenzo Pusceddu (b. 1964), Joe Chindamo (b. 1961), Patrick Cassidy (b. 1956), Yasuharu Takanashi (b. 1963), Maximo Diego Pujol (b. 1957), Rihards Dubra (b. 1964), Stella Sung (b. 1959), Teo Aparicio-Barberán (b. 1967), John Harle (b. 1956), Gavin Higgins (b. 1983), Victoria Borisova-Ollas (b. 1969), Lev “Ljova” Zhurbin (b. 1978), Claudia Montero (b. 1962), Mikolaj Majkusiak (b. 1983), Rob Smith (b. 1968), Roshanne Etezady (b. 1973), Noizgenie (b. ????), Wings of Fates (b. 19??), Ruben Dario Gomez (b. 1973), Fritz Kreisler (b. 1875), Roberto Di Marino (b. 1956), Alexander L’Estrange (b. 1974), Nicholas Lens (b. 1957), Guillermo Lago (Willem van Merwijk) (b. 1960), Richard Einhorn (b. 1952), Dave Maric (b. 1970), Robert Honstein (b. 1980), Mikael Karlsson (b. 1975), Paul Halley (b. 1952), Hirokazu Fukushima (b. 1971), Carlos Pellicer (b. 1981), Ryan George (b. 1978), Armando Ghidoni (b. 1959), Eiji Suzuki (b. 1965), Richard Saucedo (b. 1957), Vivian Fung (b. 1975), Patrick Zimmerli (b. 1968), Gareth Glyn (b. 1951), Christopher Tyler Nickel (b. 1978), Aleksandar Simic (b. 1973), Wang Chenwei (b. 1988), Efrain Amaya (b. 1959), Veljo Tormis (b. 1930), Nikita Koshkin (B. 1956), Eduardo Gamboa (b. 1960), Hasan Niyazi Tura (b. 1982), Evencio Castellanos (b. 1915), Chung Yiu-Kwong (b. 1956), Anatoly Kalvarsky (b. 1934), John Carmichael (b. 1930), Vadim Bibergan (b. 1937), Charles Camilleri (b. 1931), Igor Andric (b. 1996), Qasim Naqvi (b. 1977), Milos Bok (b. 1968), Oguzhan Balci (b. 1977), Eduardo Angulo (b. 1954), Toshio Mashima (b. 1949), Tolibkhon Shakhidi (b. 1946), Andrey Rubtsov (b. 1982), Niels Marthinsen (b. 1963), Carlos Franzetti (b. 1948), Antti Martikainen (b. 1985), Jo Blankenburg (b. 1972), Jeroen D’hoe (b. 1968), Michael John Trotta (b. 1978), Hilarion Alfeyev (b. 1966), Filip Ceunen (b. 1983), Jesus Orielso Santiago Jacome (b. 1968), Juan Jose Ramírez Gomez (b. 196?), Nikola Resanovic (b. 1955), Yalil Guerra (b. 1973), Jaan Raats (b. 1932), Lior Navok (b. 1971), Alejandro Vinao (b. 1951), Gernot Wolfgang (b. 1957), Chris Pilsner (b. 1986), Jose Ignacio Blesa Lull (b. 1982), Mzilikazi Khumalo (b. 1932), Peter Louis van Dijk (b. 1953), Qinisela Sibisi (b. 1963), Santiago Quinto Serna (b. 1971), Jean-Pascal Beintus (b. 1966), Nicola Vicentino (b. 1511), Anthony Philip Heinrich (b. 1781), Claude T. Smith (b. 1932), Valery Saparov (b. 1947), Peng-Peng Gong (b. 1992), Thomas Enhco (b. 1988), Carlo Boccadoro (b. 1963), Eino Tamberg (b. 1930), He Zhanhao (b. 1933), Nikolai Rakov (b. 1908), William Mathias (b. 1934), Jesus Guridi (b. 1886), Edmundo Villani-Cortes (b. 1930), Alexei Machavariani (b. 1913), Yuzo Toyama (b. 1931), Jeno Hubay (b. 1858), Selim Palmgren (b. 1878), Charles de Beriot (b. 1802), Federico Moreno Torroba (b. 1891), Arthur Benjamin (b. 1893), Mark Isaacs (b. 1958), Ivan Torrent (b. 1978), Ryan Amon (b. 1978), Gerrit Wunder (b. 1978), Piet Swerts (b. 1960), Philip Harper (b. 1973), Ken Steven (b. 1993), Katerina Gimon (b. 1993), Paolo Ugoletti (b. 1956), Michael Schelle (b. 1950), Baptiste Trotignon (b. 1974), Penka Kouneva (b. 1967), Miguel Kertsman (b. 1965), Maciej Zielinski (b. 1971)

Rediscovered or revisited, and really liked:

• Yngwie Malmsteen: Rising Force (1984), “Trilogy Suite” (1986), “Leviathan” (1992), “Overture 1622” (1995), Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra (1998), some of Spellbound (2012), some of World on Fire (2016)

I also listened to a significant portion of the recorded works by each of the (not new-to-me) composers listed below.³ My favorites pieces from them (names linked to playlists) were:

• Richard Harvey (b. 1953): most of Concerto Antico (1995)
• Toshiyuki Honda (b. 1957): Metropolis “Metropolis” & “Run” (2001)
• Nicholas Britell (b. 1980): “Billie Jean King” & “Bobby Riggs” (2017), “The War in Afghanistan” & “The Iraq War Symphony” (2018), “Succession Main Theme” & “Strings con Fuoco” (2019), Don’t Look Up (2021)
• Tony Banks (b. 1950): “Blade” (2011)
• Volker Bertelmann (b. 1966): Drowning (2015), some of All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)
• Abel Korzeniowski (b. 1972): W.E. (2012), Romeo & Juliet (2013), some of Penny Dreadful (2014), “Wayward Sisters” (2016), “Ghost Waltz” (2016), “Maybe We Are Only Two People” (2021), some of Emily (2022)
• Ibrahim Maalouf (b. 1980): some of Diagnostic (2011), Levantine Symphony No. 1 (2018)
• Richard Addinsell (b. 1904): “Warsaw Concerto” (1941)
• Florent Ghys (b. 1979): “Hommage a Kevin Volans” (2007), “Phase parisienne” (2011), “Friday 3PM” & “Thursday Afternoon” (2016)
• Thomas Ades (b. 1971): Asyla mvt 3 (1997), Dante “The Thieves” & “The Ascent” (2020)
• Brian Tyler (b. 1972): “Iron Man 3” (2013), “Thor: The Dark World” & “Thor, Son of Odin” (2013), “Formula 1 Theme” (2018)
• Jean-Michel Blais (b. 1984): “Nostos” (2016), some of Aubades (2022)
• Poppy Ackroyd (b. 1982): “Light” (2018)
• Motoi Sakuraba (b. 1965): “Gwynevere, Princess of Sunlight” (2011), “Sinh, the Slumbering Dragon” (2014)
• Giacomo Puccini (b. 1858): “O mio babbino caro” (1918), “Nessun dorma” (1926)
• Tyondai Braxton (b. 1978): “The Violent Light Through Falling Shards” (2005), Central Market (2009)
• Basil Poledouris (b. 1945): some of Conan the Barbarian (1982), Sword and Sorcery Spectacular (1983), “Hymn to Red October” (1990), Quigley Down Under “Main Title” & “The Fight” (1990), “The Tradition of the Games” (1996)
• Plus the following composers for which I didn’t “strongly like” any of their pieces I listened to: John Luther Adams (b. 1953), Somei Satoh (b. 1947), Jeroen van Veen (b. 1969), Lepo Sumera (b. 1950), Urmas Sisask (b. 1960), Orlando Gough (b. 1953), Tarik O’Regan (b. 1978), Sebastian Fagerlund (b. 1972), Christopher Cerrone (b. 1984), Jorg Widmann (b. 1973), Rick Wakeman (b. 1949), Laurie Anderson (b. 1947), Kelly-Marie Murphy (b. 1964), Esa-Pekka Salonen (b. 1958), Goran Bregovic (b. 1950), Steven Mackey (b. 1956), Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933), Michael Thomas Foumai (b. 1987), Jon Gibson (b. 1940), Charles Ives (b. 1874), Arthur Honegger (b. 1892), Frederick Delius (b. 1862), Fredrik Hogberg (b. 1971)

Movies/TV

Ones I “really liked” (no star), or “loved” (star):

• Various: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, season 15 (2021)
• Various: The Great, season 1 (2020) ★
• Various: The Great, seasons 2-3 (2021-2023)
• Nash Edgerton: Mr. Inbetween, seasons 1-3 (2018-2021)
• Yorgos Lanthimos: Bugonia (2025) ★
• Drew Hancock: Companion (2025)
• Josh Safdie: Marty Supreme (2025) ★
• George Miller: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) ★
• Weronika Tofilska & Josephine Bornebusch: Baby Reindeer (2024)
• Tim Kirkby & Harry Bradbeer: Fleabag, seasons 1-2 (2016-2019)
• Nathan Fielder: The Rehearsal, seasons 1-2 (2022-2025) ★
• David Zellner & Nathan Zellner: The Curse (2024) ★
• John Wilson: How To with John Wilson, seasons 1-2 (2020-2021)

Games

All games I finished or decided to stop playing:

• [none]

Standup comedy

• Ricky Gervais: Humanity (2018), SuperNature (2022)
• Ronny Chieng: Asian Comedian Destroys America (2019)
• Tom Papa: You’re Doing Great (2020)
• Julia Sweeney: God Said Ha! (1995)
• Doug Stanhope: The Great White Stanhope (1998), Oslo: Burning the Bridge to Nowhere (2011)
• Joe List: This Year’s Material (2022)
• Romesh Ranganathan: Irrational (2016), The Cynic (2025)
• Ray Romano: Live at Carnegie Hall (2001)
• Ari Shaffir: America’s Sweetheart (2025)
• Dustin Nickerson: 30 Isn’t Old, But It Is Almost Old (2024)
• Michelle Wolf: Joke Show (2019)
• Phoebe Waller-Bridge: Fleabag (2019)
• Mike Birbiglia: My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend (2013)
• Louis CK: Oh My God (2013), Live at the Comedy Store (2015), Back to the Garden (2023)
• Nate Bargatze: The Greatest Average American (2021)
• Elon Gold: Chosen and Taken (2014)
• Jen Kirkman: Just Keep Livin? (2017)
• Patton Oswalt: No Reason to Complain (2004)
• Dan Soder: On the Road (2024)
• Dylan Moran: Monster (2004)
• Mark Normand: Still Got It (2014), Soup to Nuts (2023)
• Phil Hanley: Ooh La La (2022)
• Rachel Feinstein: Big Guy (2024)
• Nick Mullen: The Year of the Dragon (2023)
• Simon Amstell: Numb (2012)
• Ismo: Hello (2026)

Books

I post book ratings and reviews to my Goodreads account instead of here.

1. A remix of Mozart’s “Lacrimosa” from K. 626.
2. The pieces I listened to for each composer were: Davis, Brouwer, Paus (plus a few film scores), Jusid (plus a few film scores), Martynov, Podgaits, Beffa, Waksman, Tanguy, Holloway, Seabourne, Sowash, Muller, Ducros, Roustom, Estacio, Franssens, Galliano, Beeftink, Palomo, Igudesman, Clarke, Peck, D’Addona, Aranda, Lias, Pearce, Manookian, Montero, Linkola, Rosauro, Pigovat, Breiner, Appermont, Merula, Demutsky, Hancock (plus several film/TV scores), Desenne, Freiberg, Grau, Cesarini, Kassia, Comitas, Yared, Lau, Jiang, Tjeknavorian, Marhulets, Glick, Ben-Amots, Dresher, Pina, Gavrilin, Kako (plus some TV/film scores and jazz albums), Praulins, Pavlova, Gelgotas, Benzecry, Wada (plus a few film/TV scores), Elizondo, Tate, Hart, Cochran, Contreras, Aho, Puckett, Leon, Debski (plus some film scores), Richter, Soler, Poelman, Mestrovic, Azarashvili, Spanoudakis, Kabardokov, Deleruyelle, Amano (plus several film/TV scores), Velazquez, Rodriguez, Abril (plus several film/TV scores), Alarcon, Schneider, Carr, Houben, Sumaatmadja, Cayabyab, Kebede, Pejman, Atilla, Bestybayev, Onovwerosuoke, Dhamabutra, Okoye, Tamusuza, Onyeji, Vu, Nguyen, Entezami (plus a few film scores), Sun, Isikozlu, Huntrakul, Toledo, Mugambi, Marko, Zumaque, Pinzon, Agudelo, Osman, Dada, Dobrogosz, Howard, Grgin, Karaindrou (plus lots more music for films and plays), Gevorgyan, Tristano, Arnesen, Desyatnikov, Abdulrasol, AlHaj, several film/TV/videogame scores by Iwashiro, Garrop, Hamelin, Otero, Rybnikov, all the Dragon Quest symphonic suites by Sugiyama, Jager, Vahi, Douglas, Mustonen, Peskanov, Reade, Ma, Romero, Kazhlayev, Cosma (plus several film/TV scores), Stafylakis, Roukens, Schnelzer, Mower, Lee, Bonney, Meijering, Brostrom, Scott, Doga (plus several film scores and Film Music Vols. 1-4), Tuur, Ho, Ito, Coleman, Chapela, Visconti, Gander, Reverberi, Copeland (plus a few film scores), Harrison, Maneein (plus a few metal albums), Wallace, Kolonovits, Campo, Dubugnon, Pritsker, Akhunov, Andersson, Batagov, Blake (plus several film scores), several film/TV/videogame scores by Shiina, Rabinovitch-Barakovsky, Jalbert, Helbig, Paterson, Stanhope, Kulenty, Weinberg, Babajanian, Eshpai, Tsintsadze, Akutagawa (plus several film scores), Frolov, Khrennikov, Lyadov, Galindo, Papandopulo, White, Bowen, Larsson, Carwithen (plus Film Music), Wiren, Piston, Gnattali, Perkinson, Auerbach, Howard, Frances-Hoad, Safaian, Grime, Faco, Hardy, Rehnqvist, Bodrov, Tarkiainen, Thomas, Benjamin, Kurth, Zupko, Schmidt, Pulkkis, Prior, Lenaerts, Kurbatov, Nazaykinskaya, Day, El-Khoury, Valencia, Martinez Gallego, Atakoglu, Szentpali, Mozdzer, Koh, A. Tchaikovsky, Lindberg, Bronner, Goto, Valero-Castells, Romberg, Chilcott, Allevi (plus a few albums of piano music), Herdzin, Swearingen, Azmeh, Bresnick, Aagaard-Nilsen, Flores, Cusson, Miranda, O. Martinez, Stamp, Taruya, DiLorenzo, Martin, Li, Silverman, several film/game soundtracks by Otani, Wang I-Yu, Eotvos, Thile, Carrara, Staniland, Evangelista, Goulet, Hylkila, Heath, Jarvi, Fukuda, Balakirev, Shohat, several albums by Warner, Lee, Lorenz, Huillet, O’Loughlin, Runestad, Hakim, Rivas Dominguez, Campogrande, Alonso-Crespo, Tarrodi, Cutler, Chin, Oscher, Wang Jianmin, Lopez-Gavilan, Palmeri, Jones, Ugurlu, Fang, Valor Llorens, Ruehr, Hirose, Mullor Grau, Pusceddu, several film scores by Keeravani, Pascual Vilaplana, Chindamo, Christl, Cassidy, Mangani, various soundtracks by Takanashi, Pujol, Galbraith, Dubra, Sung, Vitier, Aparicio-Barberán, Harle, Suñer-Oriola, Higgins, García i Soler, Borisova-Ollas, Amar (plus several film/TV scores), Stark, Deac, Zhurbin, Mertens, Montero, Majkusiak, Rob Smith, Etezady, Bednar, Noizgenie, Wings of Fates, Gomez, Kreisler, Marino, L’Estrange, Lens, Lago, Einhorn (plus a few film scores), Burki, Maric, Honstein, Karlsson, Halley, Fukushima, Batik, George, Ghidoni, Hamilton, Dobson, Suzuki, Saucedo, Chinesta, Fung, Zimmerli, Sigurosson (plus a few film scores and non-classical albums), Glyn,  Nickel, Alyamani, Simic, Wang Chenwei, Amaya, Cervo, Corte-Real, Colomer, Kakhidze, Cupeiro, Tormis, Koshkin, Gamboa, Tura, Castellanos, Chung, Kalvarsky, Chen Gang, Carmichael, Bibergan, Camilleri, Dupertuis, Copley, Andric, Naqvi, Bok, Balci, Angulo, Tyzik, Mashima, Shakhidi, Molla Albero, Rubtsov, Ortolano, Marthinsen, Litvinovsky, Newbold, Franzetti, various albums by Martikainen,  Blankenburg, Dombrowski, Fiumara, D’hoe, Trotta, Coleman, Alfeyev, Guerreiro, Marques, Wittrock, Ceunen, Santiago Jacome, Ramírez Gomez, Ledda, Resanovic, Guerra, Raats, Rousselot, Navok, Vinao, Wolfgang, Pilsner, Blesa Lull, Fanshawe, Papoulis, Gu, Khumalo, van Dijk, Sibisi, Quinto Serna, Beintus, Vicentino, Heinrich, Claude T. Smith, Davidson, Saparov, Lopez-Gavilan, Hurnik, Ellisor, Gong, Enhco, Boccadoro, Tamberg, Rantala (plus several jazz albums), He, Rakov, Mathias, Guridi, Villani-Cortes, Machavariani, Toyama, Hubay, Palmgren, Beriot, Moreno Torroba, Benjamin, Tormo Munoz, Isaacs, Janssen, Standridge, a few albums by Torrent, a few albums and film/videogame scores by Amon, Wunder, Shortell, Swerts, Harper, Steven, Gimon, Law, Ugoletti, Geiss, Schelle, Trotignon, Kouneva (plus some film/TV/videogame scores), Kertsman, Zielinski, Dompierre, Pawlik (plus a few jazz albums), Needham.
3. The pieces I listened to for each composer were: Harvey (plus a few film/TV scores), Honda, Adams, several film/TV scores by Britell, Banks, Bertelmann (plus several film/TV scores and Hauschka albums), Satoh, Veen, several film/TV scores by Korzeniowski, Maalouf (plus several jazz and soundtrack albums), Sumera, Sisask, Addinsell (plus some film music), Gough, Ghys, O’Regan, Fagerlund, Cerrone, Widmann, Wakeman, Anderson, Murphy, Tyler, Salonen, Bregovic (plus several film scores and a few other albums), Blais, Ackroyd, several videogame soundtracks by Sakuraba, Mackey, Puccini, Penderecki, Foumai, Gibson, Ives, Braxton, Honegger, Delius, Hogberg.

Music I most enjoyed discovering this quarter:

• Snorre Tidemand: The Hollywoodian (2024)
• Geese: Projector (2021), 3D Country (2023), Getting Killed (2025)
• Cameron Winter: “Vines” & “Take It With You” (2024), Heavy Metal (2024), “LSD” (2025)
• Rodner Padilla: “Concerto for Electric Bass and Orchestra” (2022)
• Vinnie Colaiuta: “I’m Tweeked / Attack of the 20lb Pizza” (1994)
• Johnny Thunder: “I’m Alive” (1969)
• Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble: In C (2009), In C (2010)
• Balázs Havasi: “Sunrise” & “Hypnotic” (2018)
• Aretha Franklin: “Nessun Dorma” (1998)
• Janis Joplin: “Summertime” (1968)
• The Necks: “Ghost Net” (2025)
• Project Trio: Winter in June (2007), Project Trio (2010), Instrumental (2014), “In the Hall of the Mountain King” (2022)
• Yosi Horikawa: Wandering (2012), Spaces (2019)
• Resina: Speechless (2021)
• Susanne Sundfor: The Silicone Veil (2012)
• Max Cooper [playlist]: some of Yearning for the Infinite (2019)
• Rosalía: “Reliquia” & “Berghain” (2025)
• Joe Hisaishi: some of Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (2010)
• David Grisman: some of Dawg ’90 (1990), “Dawgwood” & “Jazzin'” (1993), most of Stephane Grappelli and David Grisman Live (1994)
• Michael Nyman: The Final Score (1991), AET (After Extra Time) (1996), Sangam “Dhyan Meditation” (2002), “Manhatta” (2003), “50,000 pairs of feet can’t be wrong” (2007), The Musicologist Scores (2009)
• Steve Reich: Variations for Vibes, Pianos, and Strings mvts 1, 3 (2005)
• Michael Gordon: “Link” (1998)
• Philip Glass: Glasspieces mvts 1, 2 (1983), most of The Pigeon Tunnel (2023)
• Michael Daugherty: Cadillac Ranch (2024), Dreams of Dali (2024)
• Kuan Nai-chung: Love of Kaohsiung mvts 1, 5 (1994), Qin Yong Chungqui mvt 1 (2003)
• Johan de Meij: Un Momento Dado (2020), Trittico Eclettico (2021)
• Jiang Ying: Impressions of Chinese Music mvt 3 (2013)
• Clint Mansell / Antonin Roux: “Requiem for a Tower — Re:Scored” (2025)
• L. Subramaniam: “Journey” & “A Tribute to Bach” (1987), Concerto for Indian Violin and Tuba mvts 1, 3 (2016)
• Karl Jenkins: some of Imagined Oceans (1998), some of Tlep (2006)
• Hans Zimmer: “Drink Up Me Hearties Yo Ho” (2007), “Seven Worlds One Planet Suite” (2019)
• Bennett Bertram: “Vois sur ton chemin (techno mix)” (2023)
• Mohamed Assani: “Ayesha and the Mullah” (2020), “Transit” (2020), “Lucid Dreaming” (2021)
• Anna von Hausswolff: some of Iconoclasts (2025)
• Ladytron: “High Rise” (2005)

I also listened to a significant portion of the recorded works by each of the (new-to-me) composers listed below.¹ My favorites pieces from them (names linked to playlists) were:

• Marjan Mozetich (b. 1948): Desire at Twilight (1986), The Passion of Angels (1995), Affairs of the Heart (1997), Steps to Ecstasy (2001), Scales of Joy and Sorrow (2007), String Quartet No. 2 (2008), Procession of Duos (2011), Viola Concerto (2013)
• Nigel Westlake (b. 1958): some of Missa Solis (2010), Spirit of the Wild (2016)
• Elena Kats-Chernin (b. 1957): Wedding Suite (1996), “Skeletons in the Cupboard” (1999), some of People on Sunday (2000), “Deep Sea Dreaming” (2000), Displaced Dances (2000), Piano Concerto No. 2 (2001), some of Wild Swans Concert Suite (2002), “Slicked Back Tango” (2002), Re-Inventions (2004), The Spirit and the Maiden (2004), Mythic (2004), “Butterflying” (2004), “Russian Rag” (2004), Silver Poetry Suite (2004), Ornamental Air (2007), “Road to Harvest” (2007), “Calliope Dreaming” (2009), “Consolation” (2009), Redmyre Suite (2009), Without Words (2009), “Tree of Love” & “Mesmerised” (2011), “Dance of the Paper Umbrellas” (2013), Prelude & Cube (2014), Sunshine Journal (2014), The Three Dancers (2015), Night and Now (2015), Macquarie’s Castle (2015), The Offering (2015), The Witching Hour (2016), “Pitter Patter” (2016), Big Rhap (2017), Ancient Letters (2017), Piano Concerto No. 3 (2018), Inner Angels (2020), “Times of Rain and Sun” (2022), “Memoir of a Snail” & “Alouette” (2024)
  • With these new listens, Kats-Chernin has crossed the 5-hour mark as one of my favorite musical artists!
• Victor Davies (b. 1939): The Mennonite Piano Concerto (1975), Pulsations (1978), some of Opening And Closing Ceremonies Music From The XIII Pan American Games (1999), “Colours of Jazz” (2003)
• Gareth Farr (b. 1968): Ahi mvt 4 (1998)
• Ye Xiaogang (b. 1955): “Starry Sky” (2008)
• Debbie Wiseman (b. 1963): “Wilde” & “Wild West” (1997), “Centuries Ago” (2009), “Jubile Gigue” (2012), New Water Music “Gigue” (2012), “Wolf Hall” (2015), The Musical Zodiac (2016), “Den Reisende (The Traveller)” (2017), “Salute” (2018), “A Lustre to This Day” (2020), The Music of Kings and Queens (2021), “A First Sunrise” (2022), “Onwards” (2022)
• Nigel Hess (b. 1953): East Coast Pictures mvt 3 (1985), New London Pictures mvt 1 (2003), Piano Concerto (2007), The Lochnagar Suite mvts 1 & 3 (2012)
• Carlos Simon (b. 1986): Tales mvt 1 (2021), Four Black American Dances (2022)
• Lu Pei (b. 1956): “Taming the Waters” (2014)
• Zhang Shuai (b. 1979): “Run” (2010), some of Daughter of the Sun (2015), “Millennium Appointment” (2017)
• Dirk Brossé (b. 1960): “Philadelphia Overture” (2010), “In Motu” (2012), “The Pulse of Joy” (2021)
• Jiang Ying (b. 1985?): “Dunhuang” (2009), “Silk Road” (2010), some of Xuanzang’s Pilgrimage (2017), Ode to Life (2020), Hardship and Glory (2021), Ode to Time (2023)
• Zhao Lin (b. 1973): “Distant Green Valley” & “Battle Remembered” (2004)
• Etienne Perruchon (b. 1958): Dogora (2004)
• Allan Gilliland (b. 1965): Shadows & Light (2000), Dreaming of the Masters I (2003), Dreaming of the Masters II (2007), Three Faces of Ebony mvts 2 & 3 (2007), Dreaming of the Masters III mvts 1 & 3 (2010), “Morse” (2012), “Procol Fantasy” (2013), Concerto for Cello, Strings, and Harpsichord mvt 1 (2016), Dreaming of the Masters IV mvts 1 & 3 (2018), Pipe Dreams (2019)
• Jonathan Dove (b. 1959): “Run to the Edge” (2003)
• David Holsinger (b. 1945): “Prelude and Rondo” (1966), Ballet Sacra (1990), To Tame the Perilous Skies (1992), “At the Strongholds of en Gedi” (1996), “Abram’s Pursuit” (1998), “Prairie Dances” (1998), “Scootin’ on the Hardrock” (1999), “Battle Music” (1999), “Providence Unfinished” (2002), “A Little Adventure Music ” (2002), “Gears Pulleys Chains” (2005), Divertimented Dances mvt 3 (2006), Cityscape (2008), “Solemn Hymn & Rowdy Dance” (2011)
• Peter Graham (b. 1958): Call of the Cossacks mvt 3 (2002), On the Shoulders of Giants mvt 1 (2010)
• Oliver Waespi (b. 1971): Divertimento mvt 3 (2011)
• Marco Putz (b. 1958): Arrows of Lightning mvts 1, 3, 4 (2007)
• Samy Moussa (b. 1984): “A Globe Itself Infolding” (2014), “Orpheus” (2017), Pantagruel mvts 1, 3, 6 (2019), Violin Concerto “Adrano” (2019), “Ring” (2020), “Elysium” (2021), Symphony No. 2 (2022), “Adgilis Deda” (2024)
• Dinuk Wijeratne (b. 1978): “This Way Up” (2008), Tabla Concerto mvt 1 (2011)
• Errollyn Wallen (b. 1958): Concerto Grosso mvt 3 (2008)
• Hayato Sumino (b. 1995): “Tinkerland” (2020), “One Minute Hourglass” (2021), “Turkish March Variations in All 24 Keys” (2024)
• David Gillingham (b. 1947): Concerto For Piano, Percussion And Wind Orchestra mvts 1 & 3 (2004)
• Samuel Hazo (b. 1966): “Ride” (2002), “Arabesque” (2008), “Across the Halfpipe” (2008)
• Brian Balmages (b. 1975): “Blue Ridge Reel” (2013), “Rippling Watercolors” (2015), “Renaissance Reimagined” (2017), “Infinite Hope” (2018)
• Morton Gould (b. 1913): Interplay mvt 4 (1945)
• Dmitry Kabalevsky (b. 1904): “Galop of the Comedians” (1940), Violin Concerto (1948), Piano Concerto No. 3 (1952)
• William Grant Still (b. 1895): Symphony No. 1 mvts 1, 3 (1930), Symphony No. 3 mvt 1 (1958)
• José Pablo Moncayo (b. 1912): “Huapango” (1941)
• Pablo de Sarasate (b. 1884): “Gypsy Airs” mvt 3 (1876), “Caprice basque” (1880), Carmen Fantasy mvts 1, 2, 5 (1883), “Sérénade andalouse” [Op. 28] (1883), “Miramar” (1899)
• Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov (b. 1859): Caucasian Sketches, Suite No. 2, mvts 3, 4 (1896), Turkish Fragments mvts 1, 2, 4 (1930), “Turkish March” (1932)
• Franz von Suppe (b. 1819): Poet and Peasant Overture (1846), Light Cavalry Overture (1866)
• Georgy Sviridov (b. 1915): The Snowstorm [Blizzard] mvts 2, 4, 9 (1975)
• Albert Ketèlbey (b. 1875): “In a Monastery Garden” (1915), “In a Persian Market” (1920), “In the Mystic Land of Egypt” (1931)
• Ludwig Minkus (b. 1826): some of La Source (1866), some of Don Quixote (1869)
• Ronald Binge (b. 1910): “Madrugado” (1945), “The Red Sombrero” (1947), Saxophone Concerto mvt 3 (1956), “Las Castañuelas” (1960)
• Jules Massenet (b. 1842): Suite No. 5 mvts 1, 3 (1876), Suite No. 6 mvts 1, 2, 4 (1881)
• James Barnes (b. 1949): “Caribbean Hideaway” (1997)
• Adolphe Adam (b. 1803): “O Holy Night” (1847), Le corsaire “Ecossaise” (1856)
• Evan Call (b. 1988): some of The 13 Lords of the Shogun (2022), some of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End (2024)
• Kenji Bunch (b. 1973): “Concerto for Piano Trio and Percussion” (1996), “Arachnophobia” (1997), “Boiling Point” & “Swing Shift” (2002), Piano Concerto mvt 3 (2011), “Groovebox Fantasy” (2016)
• A.R. Rahman (b. 1967): “Raga’s Dance” (2004), some of Muhammad (2015), Ponniyin Selvan “Chozha’s Bravery” & “The Fall of Pandya” (2024)
• Eunike Tanzil (b. 1998): “Be My Home” & “Serenade” (2024), The First of Everything (2025)
• Camille Pepin (b. 1990): La Source d’Yggdrasil (2018), The Sound of Trees (2019), Laniakea (2019), Aux confins de l’orage (2021), Les Eaux célestes (2023), “Un Monde nouveau” (2024)
• Bao Yuankai (b. 1944): some of Chinese Sights and Sounds (1991)
• Du Mingxin (b. 1928): “Festival Overture” (1958), Mermaid Suite “Mass Dance at the Wedding” (1959), Violin Concerto No. 1 (1982), some of 10 Xinjiang Dances (1984), Piano Concerto No. 1 mvt 3 (1988), Phoenix Rebirth (2011), Piano Concerto No. 4 mvt 3 (2020)
• Douwe Eisenga (b. 1961): Piano Concerto mvts 1 & 3 (2003), some of Music for Wiek (2009), “Delta Dance” (2009), “La casa degli specchi” (2011), “The Line” (2014), “Bliss” & “Tick” (2016), Block Attack mvt 3 (2019), some of The Border (2022), “Returning Days” (2025)
• Graeme Koehne (b. 1956): “To His Servant Bach…” (1989), “Unchained Melody” (1990), “Elevator Music” (1997), In-Flight Entertainment (2000), Tivoli Dances mvt 3 (2005), Time is a River (2010), “Forty Reasons to Be Cheerful” (2012), “Just Walk Beside Me” (2013), “The Persistence of Memory” (2013), “Song of the Open Road” (2017)
• Andy Akiho (b. 1979): “Ki Iro – Yellow” (2022)
• Michel Camilo (b. 1954): most of Why Not? (1985), some of Suntan (1986), most of Michel Camilo (1988), most of On Fire (1989), some of On the Other Hand (1990), some of Rendezvous (1993), most of One More Once (1994), Concerto for Piano & Orchestra (2001), Suite for Piano, Strings & Harp mvts 1, 4 (2001), Concerto for Jazz Trio & Orchestra (2017), some of Essence (2019)
  • With these new listens, Camilo has crossed the 5-hour mark as one of my favorite musical artists!
• Masayoshi Soken (b. 1975): “Footprints in the Snow” (2010), some of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (2014), “A Cold Wind” (2016), “Crimson Sunrise” & “Ultima” (2017), “From the Heavens” & “Pain in Pleasure” & “Vamo alla Flamenco” (2019), “Sixteen Bells” (2023), plus an orchestral adaptation of “Torn from the Heavens” (2014)
• Alexander Rosenblatt (b. 1956): “Gipsy Fantasy” (2009)
• Louis Moreau Gottschalk (b. 1829): “Grande Tarentelle” (1864)
• Dan Forrest (b. 1978): Jubilatae Deo “Ngokujabula!” (2016)
• William Susman (b. 1960): Camille mvt 3 (2010), Piano Concerto (2011)
• Paul Schoenfield (b. 1947): Cafe Music mvt 1 (1986), Vaudeville mvt 1 (1988)
• Belinda Gehlert (b. 1984): Femme Fatale mvt 1 (2013), “Driving” (2015), “Torschlusspanik” (2020), Planetarium mvts 1, 3 (2025)
• Viet Cuong (b. 1990): Sound and Smoke mvt 2 (2011), “Moth” (2013), Re(new)al (2018), “Extra(ordinarily) Fancy” (2019), Tuba Concerto (2019), Fine Lines (2019), “Full Circle” (2020), “Sanctuary” (2020), “Next Week’s Trees” (2021), “Room to Move” (2021), Vital Sines (2022), “Deciduous” (2022), Stargazer (2023), Second Nature (2024), “Evergreen” (2025)
• Wu Zuqiang (b. 1927): The Mermaid Suite mvts 8-9 (2004)
• Elliot Leung (b. 1995): Symphony No. 1 mvt 1 (2023), Chinese Kitchen “Deep Fried Sesame Balls” (2024)
• Chen Yu-Peng (b. 1984): Genshin Impact: The Wind and the Star Traveler (2020), some of Genshim Impact: City of Winds and Idylls (2020), some of Genshin Impact: Jade Moon Upon a Sea of Clouds (2020), some of Fantasyland (2025)
• Roc Chen (b. 1984): some of Red Sorghum (2015), some of Evernight (2019)
• Jens Kruger (b. 1962): “Waterfall” (2002), “Pull that Brake” (2004), The Suite, Vol. 1 (2007), Appalachian Concerto (2011), some of Profile (2012), “Cork Harbor” (2012), some of Spirit of the Rockies (2014), Lucid Dreamer (2015), Roan Mountain Suite (2017), Moonshine Sonata (2023)
• Jacques Ibert (b. 1890): Divertissement mvts 4 & 6 (1930)
• Arturo Cardelús (b. 1981): Con Aire de Tango (2015), “Grace” (2016), “Vida” (2022)
• Kayhan Kalhor (b. 1964): Blue as the Turquoise Night of Neyshabur (2000)
• Rodion Shchedrin (b. 1932): some of Carmen Suite (1967)
• Alexander Tsfasman (b. 1906): “Intermezzo for Clarinet” (1944), Jazz Suite (1945)
• Allan Zavod (b. 1945): some of What’s New (1980), Concerto Australiana mvts 1, 2 (1988), Good Vibrations (2015)
• Henry Wolking (b. 1948): “Chick” (1975), “Rush Hour Shuffle” (1984), “Methenyology” (1988), Powell Canyons (1996), Letting Midnight Out on Bail (1997), “Sumo Mix” (2006), “In Sea” (2010?), “A Piece of Cake” (2016)
• Roberto Molinelli (b. 1963): “Milonga para Astor” (1988), 4 Pictures from New York mvt 1, 2, 4 (2001), “Twin Legends” (2004), Once Upon a Memory mvts 4, 6, 8 (2007), Trittico (2009), “Sempre Caro Mi E” (2009), Lady Walton’s Garden (2018), William’s Rock (2019), “The Missing E” (2022), “Swingin’ 24” (2022)
• Vinicio Meza (b. 1968): “Pasillo Enredao” (2011)
• Laurie Johnson (b. 1927): Symphony: Synthesis mvts 1, 2, 4, 5 (1969)
• Eduard Künneke (b. 1885): Tanzerische Suite mvts 1, 3, 5 (1929)
• Jessica Curry (b. 1973): some of So Let Us Melt (2017)
• Igor Raykhelson (b. 1961): Jazz Suite mvt 2 (2005)
• Wojciech Kostrzewa (b. 1992): “Fog Noir” (2024)
• Guillaume Saint-James (b. 1967): some of Megapolis (2012), “Sur mon nuage” (2012), some of La symphonie “Bleu” (2021)
• Elizabeth Knudson (b. 1981): Blueprint (2016)
• Jonathan Newman (b. 1972): “Chunk” (2003), Symphony No. 1 mvt 1 (2009), “Blow It Up, Start Again” (2011), “3 O’Clock Mix” (2012)
• Bruce Broughton (b. 1945): “Message Montage” (1990)
• Ernesto Lecuona (b. 1896): “Andalucía” (1923), “Malagueña” (1928)
• Dave Flynn (b. 1977): “Glass and Reich Go to Tulla” (2013), Symphony No. 1 mvts 1, 3 (2017)
• Shaun Davey (b. 1948): The Brendan Voyage (1980), some of The Pilgrim (1983), The Relief of Derry Symphony mvts 1, 2, 4 (1990), most of May We Never Have To Say Goodbye (2003)
• Mark O’Connor (b. 1961): “Sweet Suzanne” (1991), The Fiddle Concerto mvts 1, 3 (1993), Call of the Mockingbird (1996), “Swingin’ on the ’Ville” (2000), “In Full Swing” (2002), “Gypsy Fantastic” (2004), March of the Gypsy Fiddler mvt 3 (2009), The Improvised Violin Concerto (2010)
• Edgar Meyer (b. 1960): “Death by Triple Fiddle” (1997), The Melody of Rhythm mvts 1, 3 (2006)
• Yasunori Nishiki (b. 1985): some of Octopath Traveler II (2023)
• Giovanni Sollima (b. 1962): “Terra Aria” (2003), Il Concerto Perduto mvt 3 (2021)
• Denny Schneidemesser (b. 1988): “Thunderdome” (2008), “Call of Calamity” (2011), “Veni Vidi Vici” (2011), “The Humans” (2013), Dreams of Flight (2014), “Mystical Spirit” (2014), “Dusk’s Flight” (2022)
• Jasha Klebe (b. 1989?): Time-Lapse (2019), “Hum” (2021), “World on the Move” (2023), “Spotlight” (2025)
• Zakir Hussain (b. 1951): The Melody of Rhythm mvts 1, 3 (2006)
• Jacob Shea (b. 1982): “Planet Earth II Suite” (2016)
• Daniel Schnyder (b. 1961): Concerto for Nay mvt 4 (2005), “Bamboo Man” & “Da Skale” (2007)
• Tim Garland (b. 1966): “Bajo del Sol” (2009), “Sama’i for Peace” (2016), “Rugged Land” & “Angry Sun” (2018), “Night Flight” (2020), “Approaching Winter” (2024)
• Don Sebesky (b. 1937): Bird and Bela in B Flat, mvts 2, 3 (1979)
• Mike Herting (b. 1954): some of Sai Symphony (2015)
• Corentin Boissier (b. 1995): L’Enfance de l’Art mvt 2 (2005), Glamour Concerto (2012), Philip Marlowe Concerto (2013)
• Airat Ichmouratov (b. 1973): Viola Concerto No. 1 mvts 1, 3 (2004), David of Sassoun (2006), Concerto No. 1 for Cello and Strings with Percussion (2009), “The Ride of Cello-Vello Buffon” (2010), Concerto Grosso No. 1 (2011), Maslenitsa Overture (2013), Piano Concerto (2013), Viola Concerto No. 2 mvts 1, 3 (2015), Youth Overture (2016), “Soulmate” (2016), “The Ninth Wave” (2018)
• Don Gillis (b. 1912): Symphony 5 1/2 mvts 1, 3, 4 (1946)
• Georgs Pelecis (b. 1947): Concertino Bianco mvts 1, 3 (1983), “Meeting with a Friend” (2001), Buena Riga (2001) “55 + 5” (2002), Dedication (2003), Revelation (2003), “Flowering Jasmine” (2007), Endorphin Music (2011), “Field of Dandelions” (2017), Fiori Musicali mvts 2, 3 (2022)
• Pavel Karmanov (b. 1970): “ARIAtions” (1996), “Seven Minutes until Christmas” (1996), “Music for Firework” (1997), “Trout-quintet” (1998), “Music for Answering Machine” (1999), “Music for Spaceflight” (1999), “Schlaf, mein Herz, schlaf ein (Sleep, My Heart)” (2000), “Michael Music” (2004), “Cambridge Music” (2008), Twice a Double Concerto (2009), “Different Brooks” (2011), Day One (2011), “Tatiana” & “Anastasia” (2013), “Music con Cello” (2015)
• Ezio Bosso (b. 1971): Violin Concerto No. 1 mvts 1, 3 (2006), some of Road Signs Variations (2008), “The Last Breath” (2009), Symphony No. 1 mvts 1, 3, 6 (2009), Symphony No. 2 mvts 2, 3, 4, 5 (2010), some of Music for Weather Elements (2011)
• Joseph Tawadros (b. 1983): “Guardian” (2008), “Bluegrass Nikriz” & “Permission to Evaporate” & “Constantinople” & “Eye of the Beholder” (2014), “The Adventure” (2016), Oud Concerto mvts 1, 3 (2017), “The Bluebird” (2018), “Man Plans, God Laughs” (2021)
• Anthony Ritchie (b. 1960): Symphony No. 6 mvt 1 (2021)
• Tigran Mansurian (b. 1939): “Gortsughum Aroghjaran” (1981)
• Oscar Navarro (b. 1981): El Arca de Noe (2005), “Paradise” (2005), Clarinet Concerto No. 1 (2006), “Mustafa” (2009), “Things of Destiny” (2009), Libertadores (2010), “Downey Overture” (2011), Creation mvts 1, 3 (2011), Clarinet Concerto No. 2 (2012), “Hispania” (2013), “The Fly” (2013), “El Ilustre Marino” (2013), some of La Mula (2013), La Mula concert suite (2013), El Olimpo de los Dioses (2015), some of Sueños de Sal (2015), “Arabian Gypsy Promenade” (2015), Expedition (2016), “Paconchita” (2016), “Latent Emotions” (2016), “Rose in Flames” (2017), “Gimenez Ganga” (2018), Symphony No. 1 (2019), “New Dawn” (2022), “Jenaro Melguizo” (2022), Cumbre Alta (2023), Infinity (2024), “Overture King Felipe VI” (2024)
  • With these new listens, Navarro has crossed the 5-hour mark as one of my favorite musical artists!
• Kevin Kaska (b. 1972): “Battle for Altantis” (2001)
• Plus the following composers for which I didn’t “strongly like” any of their pieces I listened to: Peter Sculthorpe (b. 1929), Roxanna Panufnik (b. 1968), Alexey Shor (b. 1970), Howard Goodall (b. 1958), Lee Holdridge (b. 1944), Gabriela Lena Frank (b. 1972), Quinn Mason (b. 1996), Edward Gregson (b. 1945), Jia Daqun (b. 1955), Anthony Iannaccone (b. 1943), Tolga Kashif (b. 1962), Martin Keary (b. 1982), Wang Danhong (b. 1981), Han Lankui (b. 1959), Zheng Bing (b. 1956), Jia Guoping (b. 1963), Joseph Curiale (b. 1955), Steven Reineke (b. 1970), Zhou Xianglin (b. 1963), Shi Ziwei (b. 1963), Weng Chigeng (b. 1960), Wen Ziyang (b. 1998), Wang Tianming (b. 1964?), Chris Brubeck (b. 1952), Alexina Louie (b. 1949), Clarice Assad (b. 1978), Steven Bryant (b. 1972), Daniel Dorff (b. 1956), Jan Van der Roost (b. 1956), Satoshi Yagisawa (b. 1975), Kamala Sankaram (b. 1978), Jordan Pal (b. 1983), John Burge (b. 1961), Thomas Doss (b. 1966), Martin Ellerby (b. 1957), Ferrer Ferran (b. 1966), Deantha Edmunds (b. 1972), Ana Sokolovic (b. 1968), Jocelyn Morlock (b. 1969), Jordan Nobles (b. 1969), Adrian Sutton (b. 1967), Brian Current (b. 1972), Allan Gordon Bell (b. 1953), Christos Hatzis (b. 1953), Denis Gougeon (b. 1951), Bramwell Tovey (b. 1953), Chan Ka Nin (b. 1949), Oskar Morawetz (b. 1917), Stephen Hartke (b. 1952), Robert Aldridge (b. 1954), Peter Lieberson (b. 1946), George Tsontakis (b. 1951), Percy Grainger (b. 1882), Jean Françaix (b. 1912), Ron Nelson (b. 1929), Eric Ewazen (b. 1954), Uuno Klami (b. 1900), Alexander Tcherepnin (b. 1899), Alberto Ginastera (b. 1916), Carlos Chavez (b. 1899), Silvestre Revueltas (b. 1899), Vittorio Giannini (b. 1903), Yasunori Mitsuda (b. 1972), Zoltán Kodály (b. 1882), Hitoshi Sakimoto (b. 1969), Joaquín Turina (b. 1882), Eric Coates (b. 1886), Fikret Amirov (b. 1922), Akira Ifukube (b. 1914), Kurt Atterberg (b. 1887), Erkki Melartin (b. 1875), Johan Svendsen (b. 1840), Gara Garayev (b. 1918), Ulvi Cemal Erkin (b. 1906), Julie Giroux (b. 1961), Robert Farnon (b. 1917), Haydn Wood (b. 1882), Riccardo Drigo (b. 1846), William Alwyn (b. 1905), Alfred Reed (b. 1925), Julius Röntgen (b. 1855), Geirr Tveitt (b. 1908), Sergei Bortkiewicz (b. 1877), Manuel Ponce (b. 1882), Stephen Melillo (b. 1957), Rossano Galante (b. 1967), Samuel Zyman (b. 1956), Reena Esmail (b. 1983), He Xuntian (b. 1952), Andre Mehmari (b. 1977), Masashi Hamauzu (b. 1971), Stephen Paulus (b. 1949), Hiroyuki Sawano (b. 1980), Yuki Kajiura (b. 1965), Murray Gold (b. 1969), Jessie Montgomery (b. 1981), Ross Edwards (b. 1943), Salvador Brotons (b. 1959), Xaver Scharwenka (b. 1850), Jacob de Haan (b. 1959), Anders Koppel (b. 1947), Franz Lehár (b. 1870), Yoko Kanno (b. 1963), Earl Wild (b. 1915), Shiro Sagisu (b. 1957), George Lloyd (b. 1913), Nitin Sawhney (b. 1964), Stuart Greenbaum (b. 1966), Judith Weir (b. 1954), William Barton (b. 1981), Michael Gandolfi (b. 1956), Paul Dooley (b. 1983), Michael Markowski (b. 1986), Dana Wilson (b. 1946), Yutaka Kimura (b. 1985), Jimmy López (b. 1978), Alexandre Tansman (b. 1897), Adam Gorb (b. 1958), Guan Xia (b. 1957), Liu Wenjin (b. 1937), Otar Taktakishvili (b. 1924), Ding Shande (b. 1911), Yu Man Ching “Donald” (b. 1980), Tang Jianping (b. 1955), Enrique Granados (b. 1867), Paul Creston (b. 1906), Maxime Lacoste-Lebuis (b. 1988?), Johann Nepomuk Hummel (b. 1778), Ferdinand Ries (b. 1784), Tyāgayya (b. 1767), Derek Bermel (b. 1967), William Thomas McKinley (b. 1938), Nadia Burgess (b. 1958), Sid Robinovitch (b. 1942), Tyzen Hsiao (b. 1938), Ann Southam (b. 1937), David García Díaz (b. 1979), Jason Graves (b. 1973), John Dankworth (b. 1927), Yaron Gottfried (b. 1968), Paul Amrod (b. 1951), James Hartway (b. 1944), Angel Peña (b. 1921), Leonid Polovinkin (b. 1894), Stephan Konig (b. 1963), Matthias Dorsam (b. 1960), Wolfgang Schmidtke (b. 1956), Gabriel Pierné (b. 1863), Paquito D’Rivera (b. 1948), Dominique Marchal (b. 1952), Howard Brubeck (b. 1916), Gordon Goodwin (b. 1954), Frédéric Volanti (b. 1979?), Eugenio Toussaint (b. 1954), Martial Solal (b. 1927), Harold Farberman (b. 1929), Paulo Bellinati (b. 1950), Hector Infanzon (b. 1959), Luis Arias (b. 1940), Neil Martin (b. 1962), Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin (b. 1950), Adolfo Mejía Navarro (b. 1905), Honorio Siccardi (b. 1897), Inocente Carreño (b. 1919), Paul Wiancko (b. 1983), Sebastian Hilli (b. 1990), Courtney Bryan (b. 1982), Takeshi Furukawa (b. 1983?), Michael Makhal (b. 1984?), Shruthi Rajasekar (b. 1996), Akshaya Avril Tucker (b. 1992), Paul Lovatt-Cooper (b. 1976), Akira Senju (b. 1960), Michiru Oshima (b. 1961), Leszek Kułakowski (b. 1955), Gwilym Simcock (b. 1981), Nicky Sohn (b. 1992), Masaru Yokoyama (b. 1982), Mikel Urquiza (b. 1988), Kenneth Fuchs (b. 1956), Carl Vine (b. 1954), Matthew Hindson (b. 1968), David Biedenbender (b. 1984), Alex Shapiro (b. 1962), Nina C. Young (b. 1984), Wilhelm Stenhammar (b. 1871), Vince Mendoza (b. 1961), Claus Ogerman (b. 1930), Anders Hillborg (b. 1954), Joseph Schwantner (b. 1943), Jasdeep Singh Degun (b. 1991), Arvydas Malcys (b. 1957), Camargo Guarnieri (b. 1907), Pancho Vladigerov (b. 1899), Zita Burzaite (b. 1966), Loreta Narvilaite (b. 1965), Michael Colgrass (b. 1932), Algirdas Martinaitis (b. 1950), Nancy Bloomer Deussen (b. 1931), Donald Grantham (b. 1947), Chitravina N. Ravikiran (b. 1967), Nicolas Bacri (b. 1961), Alma Deutscher (b. 2005), Keiichi Okabe (b. 1969), Louise Farrenc (b. 1804), Vladimir Godar (b. 1956), Nikolai Myaskovsky (b. 1881), John Musto (b. 1954), Tobias Picker (b. 1954), Donnacha Dennehy (b. 1970), Mary Ellen Childs (b. 1957), Lee Actor (b. 1952), Emmanuel Sejourne (b. 1961), Carter Pann (b. 1972), Rolf Martinsson (b. 1956), Valentin Silvestrov (b. 1937), Will Todd (b. 1970), Nimrod Borenstein (b. 1969), Paul Moravec (b. 1957), Lam Bun-Ching (b. 1954), Huang Ruo (b. 1976), Behzad Ranjbaran (b. 1955), David Conte (b. 1955), Libby Larsen (b. 1950), Daron Hagen (b. 1961), Tonu Korvits (b. 1969), Minoru Miki (b. 1930), Param Vir (b. 1952), Sean O’Boyle (b. 1963), Reza Vali (b. 1952), Derek Bourgeois (b. 1941), Olivia Belli (b. 1980?), Aaron Robinson (b. 1970), David Thomas Roberts (b. 1955), David Rakowski (b. 1958), Nigel Clarke (b. 1960), Huw Watkins (b. 1976), Justin Dello Joio (b. 1955), Cindy McTee (b. 1953), Philip Lasser (b. 1963), Michael Kurek (b. 1955), Kimmo Hakola (b. 1958), Mikko Heinio (b. 1948), Lasse Thoresen (b. 1949), Howard Skempton (b. 1947), Sally Beamish (b. 1956), Thierry Escaich (b. 1965), Stale Kleiberg (b. 1958), David Matthews (b. 1943), Jan Sandstrom (b. 1954), Aulis Sallinen (b. 1935), Narong Prangcharoen (b. 1973), Arturs Maskats (b. 1967), Albert Guinovart (b. 1962), Daisuke Shimizu (b. 1980), Myroslav Skoryk (b. 1938).

Rediscovered or revisited, and really liked:

• Tim Minchin: “White Wine in the Sun” (2009)
• Darude: “Sandstorm” (1999)
• Modeselektor: “Sucker Pin” & “Deboutonner” (2007)
• Esbjorn Svensson: Tuesday Wonderland (2006), “Three Falling Free, Pt. II” (2012)
• Christian Scott [Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah]: “Litany Against Fear” (2007), Stretch Music (2015)
• Hiromi: Voice (2011), Move (2012)
• Rudresh Mahanthappa: “Waiting Is Forbidden” & “We’ll Make More” (2013)
• Tigran Hamasyan [playlist]: some of World Passion (2006), “Homesick” & “New Era” (2008), “Shogher Jan” & “Serpentine” & “Moneypulated” (2009), Shadow Theater (2013)
• James Farm: James Farm (2011), City Folk (2014)
• Kenny Garrett: Standard of Language (2003)

I also listened to a significant portion of the recorded works by each of the (not new-to-me) composers listed below.² My favorites pieces from them (names linked to playlists) were:

• John Powell (b. 1963): Chicken Run (2000), some of Evolution (2001), “Tangiers” (2007), “This is Berk” (2010), some of How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014), “Meet Han” (2018), How to Train Your Dragon Suite (2020), some of How to Train Your Dragon (2025)
• Jon Lord (b. 1941): Concerto for Group and Orchestra mvt 3 (1969), Gemini Suite “Guitar” (1970), Sarabande “Sarabande” & “Bouree” (1975)
• Takashi Yoshimatsu (b. 1953): Saxophone Concerto “Cyber-bird” mvts 1 & 3 (1994)
• Ramin Djawadi (b. 1974): Game of Thrones “Main Title” & “Finale” (2011), Westworld “Main Title” (2016)
• Astor Piazzolla (b. 1921): “Introducción al Ángel” (1962), María de Buenos Aires “Tangata del Alba” (1968), “Libertango” (1974)
• James Newton Howard (b. 1951): Dinosaur “The Egg Travels” & “Across the Desert” (2000), Atlantis: The Lost Empire “The Submarine” & “The Crystal Chamber” & “Just Do It” (2001), Peter Pan “Flying” & “Flying Jolly Roger” (2003), Batman Begins “Molossus” (2005), Blood Diamond “Crossing the Bridge” (2006), Fantastic Beasts… “Main Titles” & “Newt Says Goodbye to Tina / Jacob’s Bakery” (2016), Raya and the Last Dragon “Running on Raindrops” (2021)
• Jeremy Soule (b. 1975): Supreme Commander “An Old Idea Made New” (2007), Skyrim “Dragonborn” & “From Past to Present” & “One They Fear” (2011)
• Gareth Coker (b. 1984): Ori and the Blind Forest (2015), “The Mean Greens” (2015), some of Minecraft: Battle & Tumble (2016), Minecraft: Chinese Mythology (2016), ARK (2017), Minecraft: Norse Mythology (2017), Minecraft: Egyptian Mythology (2018), Minecraft: Pirates of the Caribbean “Overworld 4” (2018), Ori and the Will of the Wisps (2020), Immortals Fenyx Rising “Heart of the Hero” (2020), Darksiders Genesis (2023)
  • With these new and old listens, Coker has crossed the 5-hour mark as one of my favorite musical artists!
• Jerry Goldsmith (b. 1929): The Russia House “The Family Arrives” (1990), some of The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)
• Harry Gregson-Williams (b. 1961): “Fairytale” (2001), “A Narnia Lullaby” (2005)
• Erich Korngold (b. 1897): Kings Row “Main Theme” & “Children” (1942)
• Yoko Shimomura (b. 1967): some of Final Fantasy XV (2016), “Swingin’ Free” (2019), Symphonic Suite: The Worlds of Tres mvt 1 (2019), plus orchestral adaptations of “The Bird Flies…” (1994), “Destati” (2002), “Fate of the Unknown” (2005), “Daybreak of Town” (2013), “Wave of Darkness” (2017)
• Malcolm Arnold (b. 1921): English Dances, Set 1 Nos. 1, 2, 4 (1950), English Dances, Set 2 Nos. 1, 2, 4 (1951), Four Scottish Dances (1957)
• Nobuo Uematsu (b. 1959): Final Fantasy Concerto mvt 3 (2011), plus orchestral adaptations of “Prelude” & “Final Fantasy Main Theme” (1987), “Eternal Wind” & “Legend of the Eternal Wind” (1990), “Battle with the Four Fiends” & “Final Fantasy IV Main Theme” (1991), “Clash on the Big Bridge” (1992), “Terra’s Theme” & “Balance is Restored” & “Searching for Fiends” (1994), “Final Fantasy VII Main Theme” & “Jenova” & “Cosmo Canyon” & “One-Winged Angel” & “Those Chosen by the Planet” (1997), “Liberi Fatali” & “Don’t Be Afraid” & “The Man with the Machine Gun” (1999), “Prima Vista Orchestra” & “Festival of the Hunt” & “Vamo’ alla Flamenco” (2000), “Ronafaure” & “Sword Song, Battle Medley” (2002), “Battle Medley 2012” (2012)
• Koji Kondo (b. 1961): “Band Performance” & “Bowser’s Castle” (2017), plus orchestral adaptations of some Super Mario Bros. themes (1985), some Legend of Zelda themes (1986), “Palace Theme” (1987), some Super Mario Bros. 2 themes (1988), some Super Mario World themes (1990), “Dark World” (1991), some Super Mario 64 themes (1996), some Ocarina of Time themes (1998), some Super Mario Sunshine themes (2002), “Gusty Garden Galaxy” (2007), “New Super Mario Bros. Wii theme” (2009), some A Link Between Worlds themes (2013)³
• Julius Fučík (b. 1872): “Entrance of the Gladiators” (1897)
• Jacques Offenbach (b. 1819): “Can-Can” (1858), “Barcarolle” (1864)
• Bear McCreary (b. 1979): Three Pieces for Trio (2006), some of Da Vinci’s Demons (2013), Outlander “Clean Pease Strae” & “The Marriage Contract” (2015), The Walking Dead “Theme” & “The Day Will Come” (2017)
• Ludwig Göransson (b. 1984): Oppenheimer “Can You Hear the Music” (2023)
• Alan Silvestri (b. 1950): “Back to the Future” (1985), “I’m Forrest… Forrest Gump” (1994)
• Christopher Larkin (b. 1988?): Barbecue (2017), some of Hollow Knight: Silksong (2025)
• John Psathas (b. 1966): Omnifenix (2000), View from Olympus mvt 3 (2002), The New Zeibekiko “Bacchic” & “Maenads” (2010), Voices at the End “Predator” & “Chrysalis” (2018), Koolish Zein mvt 3 (2019), Leviathan mvt 4 (2021), Orbital (2021), Call of the Wild mvts 1 & 3 (2021), The All-Seeing Eye (2022), Ahlan wa Sahlan “Hijra” & “Achalino” (2023)
• Simeon ten Holt (b. 1923): Canto Ostinato (1975), Palimpsest (1992)
• John Rutter (b. 1945): The Beatles Concerto (1977)
• John Barry (b. 1933): “James Bond Theme” (1962)
• Bill Whelan (b. 1950): The Road to La Coruna” (1992), some of Riverdance (1995/2019), “Emerald Tiger” (2004), some of Riverdance: A Symphonic Suite (2012)
• Rachel Portman (b. 1960): The Cider House Rules “Main Titles” & “End Credits” (1999), Mona Lisa Smile “End Credits” (2003)
• Kurt Weill (b. 1900): “Mack the Knife” (1928), some of Kleine Dreigroschenmusik (1929)
• Ravi Shankar (b. 1920): Sitar Concerto No. 1 mvt 3 (1971), Symphony mvts 1, 3, 4 (2010)
• John Debney (b. 1956): The Passion of the Christ (2003)
• Clint Mansell (b. 1963): “Lux Aeterna” (2000), “Tree of Life” & “Death Is the Road to Awe” (2006)
• Inon Zur (b. 1965): some of Eagle Flight (2016)
• Patrick Williams (b. 1939): An American Concerto mvts 1, 3 (1976), “A Bird from Missouri” (2002)
• Grant Kirkhope (b. 1962): Banjo-Kazooie (1998), “Jinjo Village” (2000), “Island Welcome” & “Oven-Fresh Day” (2006), Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (2008), “Kirkfeld” (2012), some of Yooka Replaylee (2025)
• Emile Mosseri (b. 1985): The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019), Kajillionaire (2020), Homecoming (2020), Minari (2021)
• Bela Fleck (b. 1958): The Melody of Rhythm mvts 1, 3 (2006), Juno Concerto mvt 3 (2016), some of My Bluegrass Heart (2021)
• John Tavener (b. 1944): “Funeral Canticle” (1996)
• Emile Waldteufel (b. 1837): “The Skater’s Waltz” (1882)
• John Murphy (b. 1965): “Adagio in D Minor” (2007)
• Sarah Kirkland Snider (b. 1973): Unremembered “The Barn” (2015)
• Shirley Walker (b. 1945): Batman: The Animated Series “Alternate Main Title” (1992), Batman: Mask of the Phantasm “Main Title” (1993), Superman: The Animated Series “Main Title” (1996), The New Batman / Superman Adventures “Main Title” (1997)
• Carl Davis (b. 1936): some of Ben-Hur (1986), “Patapan and Cornhill Slide” (1992), “The Power of the Lamp” (1999), “Walking in the Park with Eloise” (2016), some of The Great Gatsby (2019)
• Gavin Bryars (b. 1943): “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet” [full strings version] (1971)
• Plus the following composers for which I didn’t “strongly like” any of their pieces I listened to: Graham Fitkin (b. 1963), Patrick Doyle (b. 1953), Austin Wintory (b. 1984), Michael Giacchino (b. 1967), Bohuslav Martinu (b. 1890), Leonard Bernstein (b. 1918), Eduard Tubin (b. 1905), Lorne Balfe (b. 1976), Stephen Barton (b. 1982), Alan Hovhaness (b. 1911), Bright Sheng (b. 1955), Alexandre Desplat (b. 1961), William Bolcom (b. 1938), Ryuichi Sakamoto (b. 1952), Chen Yi (b. 1953), Zhou Long (b. 1953), Jóhann Jóhannsson (b. 1969), Gabriel Prokofiev (b. 1975), Peteris Vasks (b. 1946), Kevin Volans (b. 1949), Luis Bacalov (b. 1933), Andre Previn (b. 1929), William Duckworth (b. 1943), Lou Harrison (b. 1937), Uri Caine (b. 1956), Peter Schickele (b. 1935).

Movies/TV

Ones I “really liked” (no star), or “loved” (star):

• Zach Cregger: Weapons (2025) ★
• Michael Angelo Covino: Splitsville (2025) ★
• Various: What We Do in the Shadows, season 3-6 (2021-2024) ★
• Wes Ball: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)
• Various: Documentary Now! seasons 1-3 (2015-2019)
• Various: The Chair Company, season 1 (2025)
• Various: Stath Lets Flats, seasons 1-3 (2018-2021) ★
• Merlin Crossingham & Nick Park: Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)
• Clint Bentley: Train Dreams (2025)
• Various: Pluribus, season 1 (2025) ★
• Rian Johnson: Wake Up Dead Man (2025)
• James Cameron: Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025)

Games

All games I finished or decided to stop playing:

• [none]

Standup comedy

• Dan Cummins: Revenge is Near (2009), Get Outta Here Devil (2020), ★Live in Denver (2020), Trying to Get Better (2023)
• Josh Johnson: I Like You (2017)
• Nikki Glaser: Perfect (2016), Bangin’ (2019), Good Clean Filth (2022)
• Tom Papa: Calm, Cool, and Collected (2005), Live in New York City (2010), Freaked Out (2013)
• Anthony Jeselnik: Thoughts and Prayers (2016), Fire in the Maternity Ward (2019), Bones and All (2024)
• Louis C.K.: ★One Night Stand (2005)
• Taylor Tomlinson: Quarter-Life Crisis (2020), Look at You (2022), Have It All (2024)
• Brian Regan: All By Myself (2010)
• Patton Oswalt: My Weakness is Strong (2009), Talking for Clapping (2017), Annihilation (2018) I Love Everything (2020), We All Scream (2025)
• Julia Sweeney: Letting Go of God (2006)
• Dave Chappelle: Killin’ Them Softly (2000), Equanimity (2017), Sticks & Stones (2019)
• Ricky Gervais: Animals (2003), Armageddon (2023)
• Shane Gillis: Live in Austin (2021), ★Beautiful Dogs (2024)
• Jim Jefferies: Contraband (2008), Alcoholocaust (2010), Fully Functional (2012), Bare (2014), Freedumb (2016), This Is Me Now (2018)
• John Mulaney: The Comeback Kid (2017), Kid Gorgeous at Radio City (2018)
• Bill Burr: Why Do I Do This (2008), You People Are All the Same (2012), I’m Sorry You Feel That Way (2014), Paper Tiger (2019), Live at Red Rocks (2022), Drop Dead Years (2025)
• Nate Bargatze: ★Full Time Magic (2015), Hello World! (2023)
• Jimmy Carr: Comedian (2007)
• Jimmy O. Yang: Guess How Much? (2023)
• Mark Normand: Don’t Be Yourself (2017)
• Sam Morril: Positive Influence (2017), You’ve Changed (2024), Same Time Tomorrow (2024)
• Michelle Wolf: Nice Lady (2018)
• Ali Wong: Baby Cobra (2017)
• Ari Shaffer: ★Jew (2023)
• Kurt Metzger: Talks to Young People About Sex (2011), White Precious (2014)
• Chad Daniels: You’re the Best (2012), Natural Selection (2014)
• Danny Jolles: Six Parts (2021)
• Dustin Nickerson: Overwhelmed (2021), Runs in the Family (2023)
• Gus Tate: Top Gus (2023)
• Amy Schumer: Live at the Apollo (2015)

Books

I post book ratings and reviews to my Goodreads account instead of here.

1. The pieces I listened to for each composer were: Mozetich, Westlake (plus a few of his film scores), Kats-Chernin (plus a few of her film scores), Sculthorpe, Davies, Farr, Ye, Panufnik, Shor, Wiseman (plus several of her film scores), Hess (plus some of his TV music), Goodall, Holdridge (plus several of his film/TV scores), Frank, Mason, Simon, Lu, Gregson, Jia Daqun, Iannaccone, Kashif (plus some of his film, TV, and production music work), Keary, Wang Danhong, Han, Zheng, Zhang, Jia Guoping, Curiale, Brossé (plus a few of his film/TV scores), Reineke, Zhou Xianglin, Shi, Weng, Wen, Wang Tianming, Jiang, Zhao (plus a couple of his film scores), Perruchon (plus a couple of his film scores), Chris Brubeck, Louie, Gilliland, Dove, Assad, Bryant, Dorff, Roost, Yagisawa, Sankaram, Pal, Burge, Holsinger, Graham, Doss, Ellerby, Ferran, Waespi, Putz, Edmunds, Moussa, Sokolovic, Morlock, Nobles, Wijeratne, Wallen, Sumino, Current, Bell, Hatzis, Gougeon, Tovey, Chan, Morawetz, Hartke, Aldridge, Lieberson, Tsontakis, Gillingham, Hazo, Balmages, Grainger, Gould, Kabalevsky, Françaix, Nelson, Ewazen, Klami, Tcherepnin, Still, Ginastera, Chavez, Revueltas, Giannini, several videogame soundtracks (and orchestral adaptations of them) by Mitsuda, Kodály, several videogame soundtracks (and orchestral adaptations of them) by Sakimoto, Turina, Moncayo, Sarasate, Ippolitov-Ivanov, Suppe, Coates, Sviridov, Amirov, Ifukube, Atterberg, Ketèlbey, Minkus, Melartin, Svendsen, Garayev, Erkin, Giroux, Binge, Farnon, Wood, Drigo, Alwyn (plus Film Music of William Alwyn, Vols. 1-4), Massenet, Reed, Barnes, Röntgen, Tveitt, Adam, Bortkiewicz, Ponce, several film/TV scores by Call, Melillo, Bunch, Galante, Zyman, Esmail, Rahman (plus many film scores), He, Tanzil, Pepin, Mehmari, Bao, Du, Hamauzu (plus several videogame scores, and orchestral adaptations from them), Eisenga, Koehne, Paulus, Sawano (plus several film/TV scores), various film/TV scores by Kajiura, a few film/TV scores by Gold, Montgomery, Edwards, Brotons, Akiho, Scharwenka, Haan, Camilo (plus several of his jazz albums), Koppel, many videogame scores by Soken (and some orchestral adaptations from them), Rosenblatt, Gottschalk, Forrest, Lehár, Kanno (plus several film/TV/videogame soundtracks), Wild, several film/TV/videogame scores by Sagisu, Lloyd, Susman (plus a few film scores), Sawhney (plus several of his film/TV scores), Greenbaum, Schoenfield, Weir, Gehlert, Barton, Gandolfi, Cuong, Dooley, Markowski, Wilson, López, Tansman, Gorb, Guan, Liu, Wu, Leung (plus a few film scores), Chen Yu-Peng (plus some film/TV/videogame scores), Taktakishvili, Ding, several TV/film scores by Roc Chen, Yu, Tang, Granados, Pierné, Creston, Kruger (plus some of his less “classical” albums), Lacoste-Lebuis (plus several videogame scores), Ibert, Hummel, Cardelús (plus several film scores), Ries, Tyāgayya, Kalhor, Shchedrin, Tsfasman, Bermel, McKinley, Zavod, Wolking, Molinelli, Meza, Burgess, Johnson, Künneke, Robinovitch, Hsiao, Southam, a few videogame scores by Díaz, a few videogame scores by Curry, several videogame scores by Graves, Raykhelson, Dankworth, Gottfried, Amrod, Hartway, Peña, Polovinkin, Saint-James, Konig, Knudson, Newman, Dorsam, Schmidtke, Pierné, Broughton (plus several film/TV/videogame scores), Lecuona, D’Rivera, Marchal, Howard Brubeck, Goodwin, Kimura, Volanti, Toussaint, Solal, Farberman, Bellinati, Infanzon, Arias, Flynn, Davey (plus a few film/TV scores), Martin, O’Connor, Ó Súilleabháin, Adolfo Navarro, Siccardi, Meyer, Wiancko, Nishiki, Hilli, Sollima, Bryan, Schneidemesser (plus a few film/videogame scores), several film/TV/videogame scores by Furukawa, Klebe (plus several film/TV scores), Makhal, Hussain, Rajasekar, Tucker, Lovatt-Cooper, Shea (plus several film/TV scores), Senju, Oshima (plus several film/TV scores), Schnyder (plus a couple of his more jazzy albums), Kułakowski (plus a few of his more jazzy albums), Simcock, Garland (plus a few of his more jazz albums),  Sohn, a few TV scores by Yokoyama, Urquiza, Fuchs, Vine, Hindson, Biedenbender, Shapiro, Young, Stenhammar, Mendoza, Sebesky, Ogerman, Hillborg, Schwantner, Herting (plus a few of his jazz albums), Degun, Malcys, Guarnieri, Vladigerov, Burzaite, Narvilaite, Colgrass, Martinaitis, Deussen, Grantham, Ravikiran, Boissier, Bacri, Ichmouratov, a few videogame scores by Okabe, Farrenc, Godar, Myaskovsky, Gillis, Musto, Picker, Dennehy, Childs, Pelecis, Actor, Sejourne, Pann, Karmanov, Martinsson, Silvestrov, Todd, Mansurian, Borenstein, Moravec, Lam, Huang, Ranjbaran, Conte, Larsen, Hagen, Korvits, Miki, Vir, O’Boyle, Vali, Bourgeois, Belli, Bosso, Robinson, Roberts, Rakowski, Clarke, Watkins, Dello Joio, McTee, Lasser, Kurek, Tawadros, Hakola, Heinio, Thoresen, Skempton, Beamish, Escaich, Kleiberg, Matthews, Ritchie, Oscar Navarro (plus a few film scores), Sandstrom, Sallinen, Prangcharoen, Maskats, Kaska (plus a couple film/TV scores), Guinovart, Shimizu, Skoryk.
2. The pieces I listened to for each composer were: Fitkin, Powell (plus many of his film scores), Lord, Yoshimatsu, Doyle (plus many of his film scores), several film/TV scores by Djawadi, Piazzolla, several videogame scores by Wintory, Howard (plus many film scores), Giacchino (plus many film scores), Martinu, several videogame scores by Soule, several videogame scores by Coker, Bernstein, Tubin, Goldsmith (plus many of his film scores), Gregson-Williams (plus many of his film/TV/videogame scores), Korngold (plus several of his film scores), several videogame soundtracks (and orchestral adaptations of them) by Shimomura, several film/videogame scores by Balfe, several TV/videogame scores by Barton, Arnold (plus a few of his film scores), Hovhaness, Uematsu (plus several of his videogame scores, and many albums of orchestral adaptations of his videogame scores), Fučík, Offenbach, Sheng, McCreary (plus several film/TV/videogame scores), Desplat (plus many film scores), several film scores by Göransson, seveal film scores by Silvestri, albums of many genres by Sakamoto, Chen, several film/TV/videogame scores by Larkin, Zhou, Psathas, ten Holt, Jóhannsson (plus several film scores), Rutter, Barry (plus many film scores), Whelan, Portman (plus several film/TV scores), Weill, Shankar, Debney (plus several film scores), several film scores by Mansell, several videogame scores by Zur, Williams, Kirkhope (plus several videogame scores), a few film/TV scores by Mosseri, Fleck (plus several of his more bluegrass/jazz albums), Prokofiev, Vasks, Snider, Volans, Tavener, Waldteufel, several film/TV scores by Murphy, Bacalov, several film/TV scores by Walker, Previn (plus a few film scores), Carl Davis (plus a few of his film scores), Duckworth, Harrison, Caine, Schickele, Bryars.
3. I like a lot more Kondo music than this, but I haven’t been able to find high-quality orchestral recordings for most of it, and the original chiptune/synth versions don’t sound great on their own.

Music I most enjoyed discovering this quarter:

• Yusef Greiss: Egypt (1932)
• Levon Minassian: “Hovern’ engan” (2006)
• Ellen Williams: “Time to Say Goodbye” (2023)
• James P. Johnson: Yamekraw (1928)
• Michel Camilio: Piano Concerto (1998), Suite for Piano, Strings & Harp mvts 1 & 4 (2001)
• Harry Reser: Suite for Banjo and Orchestra (1930)
• Hans Zimmer: The World of Hans Zimmer Part II: A New Dimension (2025)
• Signe Bisgaard: “Begyndelse” & “Doden og Jomfruen” & “Triumf” & “De dodes O” (2020)
• Francesco Tristano: “Strings of Life” (2005)
• Cengiz Ozdemir: Concerto for Baglama mvt. 3 (1998)
• Juventino Rosas: “Sobre las olas” (1888)
• Charles Ancliffe: “Nights of Gladness” (1912)
• Abram Chasins: “Rush Hour in Hong Kong” (1926)
• Adolf Jensen: “Murmuring Zephyrs” (1864)
• Friedrich Burgmüller: “Arabesque” (1852)
• Carl Bohm: “Moto Perpetuo” (1898)
• Shirish Korde: Svara Yantra mvts. 2 & 3 (2005)
• Wayne Horvitz: Halfrack (1993), Daylight (1997)
  • With these new listens, Horvitz has now crossed the 5-hour mark as one of my favorite musical artists! [playlist]
• Thomas Tallis: “Spem in alium” (c. 1570)
• Michael Nyman: “Shaping the Curve” (1990), The Upside-Down Violin mvts 2, 3 (1992), “De Granada A La Luna” (1998), “Yellow Beach” & “House on Fire” & “Rope Trick” & Wheelchair Chase” & “Mrs. O’Growney Appears” & “Final Act” (2002)
  • With these new listens, Nyman has now crossed the 5-hour mark as one of my favorite musical artists! [playlist]
• Simon Franglen: “Happiness is Simple” & “The Tulkun Return” (2022)
• Thomas Bergersen / Two Steps from Hell: “Heart of Courage” (2010), “Archangel” & “United We Stand…” (2011), some of Illusions (2011), “El Dorado” & “Winterspell” (2012), “Sons of War” (2013), “Fire Mountain” (2014), Sun (2014), Classics Vol. 2 (2015), most of Battlecry (2015), “New World Order” & “Fall of the Fountain World” (2016), some of Unleashed (2017), some of Dragon (2019), “Hercules” (2022)
• Heiner Goebbels: “Ballade von zerrissenen Rock” (1998)
• Emma Robinson: “Stay”¹ & “Hallelujah” & “Treasure” & “Young & Beautiful” & “Titanium” (2013), “Stronger Than Me” (2014) “Paper Hearts” (2015), “Rise Up” (2016)
• Hermann Necke: “Csikos Post” (1895)
• Karl Jenkins: Palladio Reimagined mvts 1, 3 (2024)
• Akusmi: Fleeting Future (2022), Lines (2023)
• Serj Tankian: Symphony No. 1 “Orca” (2012)
• Petar Lyondev: “Kaval Sviri” (1984)
• Artie Shaw: “Concerto for Clarinet” (1940)
• Zhivko Vasilev: “It’s Raining in 7” & “Triple Tension” (2021)
• Li Huanzhi: “Spring Festival Suite Overture” (1955)
• Various Artists: Swordsmen of China (1994)
• Steve Coleman: “Spontaneous Pi” & “Mdw Ntr” & “Pad Thai / Of Many Turns” & “Spontaneous Drum” (2024)
  • With these new listens, Coleman has now crossed the 5-hour mark as one of my favorite musical artists! [playlist]
• No Joy: Bugland (2025)
• John Hollenbeck: Shut Up and Dance (2010)
• The VSOP Quintet: Five Stars (1979)
• Redman / Mehldau / McBride / Blde: RoundAgain (2020)
• Chris Potter: Circuits (2019)
• Isfar Sarabski: Planet (2021)
• Okay Temiz: Oriental Wind (1977), “Moon” (1982)
• Oriental Wind: Chila-Chila (1979)
• Cardiacs: LSD (2025)
  • With this new listen, Cardiacs have now crossed the 5-hour mark as one of my favorite musical artists! [playlist]
• Christian Wallumrød: “Bunadsbangla” (2013)
• Alexander Alyabyev: “Cherubic Hymn” (1820s?)
  • lol that final bass note, geez
• Igorrr: Amen (2025)
• Ado: “Unravel” (2023)

I also listened to a significant portion of the recorded works by each of the (new-to-me) composers listed below.² My favorites pieces from them (names linked to playlists) were:

• Svante Henryson (b. 1963): Electric Bass Concerto No. 1 (2007), Concerto for Jazz Cello and Orchestra (2022)
• Daniel Bjarnason (b. 1979): “Red-handed” (2010)
• Marcos Balter (b. 1974): “Cherubim” (2013)
• Scott McAllister (b. 1969): Freebirds (2007), “More Cowbell” (2007), “Zing!” (2008), Death and Disfigurations (2024)
• Annie Gosfield (b. 1960): Ewa7 (1999)
• Jonathan Leshnoff (b. 1973): Double Concerto for Violin and Viola (2007), “Starburst” (2010), Violin Concerto No. 2 mvt. 4 (2018), Piano Concerto (2019), Of Thee I Sing (2020), Symphony for Winds mvt. 1 (2023)
• Sergei Taneyev (b. 1856): Piano Quintet in G minor mvt. 2 (1911)
• Nick Omiccioli (b. 1982): “Fuse” (2014)
• Adam Schoenberg (b. 1980): American Symphony mvts. 1, 3, 5 (2011), Picture Studies mvts. 2, 3, 10 (2012), Scatter (2015)
• Henrik Anassian (b. 1937): Concert for Duduk and Orchestra (2010)
• Moritz Moszkowski (b. 1854): Piano Concerto in B Minor (1875), Spanish Dances (1876), Johanna d’Arc mvts. 1 & 4 (1876), Violin Concerto in C Major mvt 3 (1881), From Foreign Lands mvt. 6 (1884), Orchestral Suite No. 1 mvts. 2 & 5 (1886), Piano Concerto in E Major mvts. 1, 3, & 4 (1898), Suite for Two Violins and Piano mvt 1 (1900), 15 Virtuosic Etudes No. 1 (1903)
• Engelbert Humperdinck (b. 1854): String Quartet in C Major mvt 3 (1920)
• Hugo Alfven (b. 1872): Swedish Rhapsody No. 1 (1903), Swedish Rhapsody No. 2 (1907), The Prodigal Son Suite (1957)
• Christian Sinding (b. 1856): Suite in A Minor mvt. 1 (1891), “Rustle of Spring” (1896), Violin Concerto No. 1 mvt. 1 (1898)
• Lowell Liebermann (b. 1961): Piano Concerto No. 2 mvt. 4 (1992)
• Charles Stanford (b. 1852): Symphony No. 2 mvt. 3 (1880)
• Jeff Beal (b. 1963): “House of Cards Title Theme” (2013), “Youthful Rebellion” (2015), House of Cards Symphony mvt. 9 (2018)
• Reinhold Glière (b. 1876): Symphony No. 2 (1907), The Red Poppy (1927), Bronze Horseman Suite (1949), “Whirlwind” (1952)
• Malek Jandali (b. 1972): “Piano Dream” & “Yafa” & “Arabesque” (2009), Emessa (2012)
• Friedrich Gulda (b. 1930): Piano Concerto No. 2, mvt 1 (1963), Music for 4 Soloists and Band mvts 1 & 3 (1964), Fantasy for 4 Soloists and Band (1964), Variations for Two Pianos and Band (1966), Eurosuite (1966), Symphony in G (1970), Wings mvts 2 & 4 (1973), Concerto for Cello, Wind Orchestra, and Band mvt 1 (1980), Concerto for Myself mvts 1-2 & 4 (1988)
• Emil von Reznicek (b. 1860): “Donna Diana Overture” (1894)
• Benjamin Yusupov (b. 1962): “Viola Tango Rock Concerto” (2005)
• Dora Pejačević (b. 1885): Piano Concerto mvts 1, 3 (1913), Symphony in F-sharp minor mvts 3, 4 (1917), Piano Quintet in B minor mvts 1, 3, 4 (1918), Phantasie concertante (1919)
• Gabriella Smith (b. 1991): “Bard of a Wasteland” & “Tarn” (2021)
• Nikolai Medtner (b. 1880): Piano Quintet in C (1949)
• Alexander Gretchaninov (b. 1864): Symphony No. 1 mvts 1, 3 (1894), Symphony No. 2 mvts 2, 3 (1908)
• Dana Suesse (b. 1909): “Jazz Nocturne” (1931), Concerto in 3 Rhythms mvts 1 & 3 (1932)
• Arturo Márquez (b. 1950): “Paisajes Bajo el Signo de Cosmos” (1993), “Danzon No. 1” & “Danzon No. 2” & “Danzon No. 3” (1994), “Zarabandeo” (1995), “Danzon No. 4” & “Octeto Malandro” & “Danza de Mediodía” (1996), “Danzon No. 5” (1997), Máscaras (1998), Espejos en la arena (2000), “Danzon No. 6” & “Danzon No. 7” (2001), “Danzon No. 8” (2004), “Conga del Fuego Nuevo” (2005), “De Juarez a Maximiliano” (2006), “Leyenda de Miliano” (2010), “Danzon No. 9” (2017), Concierto de Otoño (2018), “Lejania Interior” (2019), Fandango (2020), La Sinfonia Imposible (2022)
  • With these new listens, Márquez has now crossed the 5-hour mark as one of my favorite musical artists! [playlist]
• Miguel del Águila (b. 1957): “Conga-Line in Hell” (1994), Wind Quintet No. 2 mvts 2, 4 (1994), Salon Buenos Aires mvt 3 (2005), “Milonga” (2017)
• Antonio Bazzini (b. 1818): “Dance of the Goblins” (1852), “Calabrese” (1859)
• Paul Richards (b. 1969): “A Butterfly Coughs in Africa” (2003), “Witch Doctor” (2008), “If You Could Only See the Frog” (2010)
• Christopher Gunning (b. 1944): Poirot theme (1989)
• Grigor Arakelian (b. 1963): “Melody and Dance of Sun” (2010)
• Nikolai Budashkin (b. 1910): “Concert Variations on a Folk Song” (1946), “Balalaika Concerto” (1946), “First Rhapsody” (1947), “Second Rhapsody” (1949), “Russian Overture for Orchestra” (1950), “The Legend of Lake Baikal” (1950), Domra Concerto (1953), “Lyric Suite in Four Parts” (1955)
• Kuan Nai-chung (b. 1939): Scenes from Yunnan (1982), “Bumper Harvest Worship [Harvest Festival]” (1983), Butterfly Dream (1988), “Prayer for Rain” (1989), Memory of Mountain mvt 1 (1991), The Peacock (1998), The Age of the Dragon (1999), “Millennium Overture” (2001), The Charming Braid (2009), Erhu Concerto No. 5 “Centennial of the Xinhai Revolution” (2011)
• Peng Xiuwen (b. 1931): “Axi Moon Dance” (1956), Four Seasons Suite mvt. 1 (1971), 12 Months Suite mvts 1, 10 (1989)
• Judd Greenstein (b. 1979): “Change” (2009), “City Boy” (2010), “Clearing, Dawn, Dance” (2010), “Acadia” (2012)
• Florence Price (b. 1887): Symphony No. 1 mvts 1, 3, 4 (1933), Piano Concerto in One Movement sec. 3 (1934), Suite of Negro Dances (1951), Violin Concerto No. 2 (1952), Piano Quintet in A minor mvt 4 (1952)
• Kamran Ince (b. 1960): Music for a Lost Earth mvts 5, 9, 10, 12 (2007)
• William Perry (b. 1930): Trumpet Concerto mvts 1, 3 (1986), Six Title Themes in Search of a Movie mvt 1 (2008)
• Ignacy Jan Paderewski (b. 1860): Piano Concerto mvt 3 (1888)
• Leo Delibes (b. 1836): La Source Suite “Scene dansee” & “Introduction et Mazurka” (1866), Coppélia Suite “Prelude” & “Theme slave, variation 5” & “Galop final” (1870), Sylvia Suite “Les Chasseresses, Fanfare” & “Strette, Galop” (1876), Lakmé “Flower Duet” (1883)
• David Baker (b. 1931): “Screamin’ Meemies” (~1959), “IU Swing Machine” (1968), Concerto for Violin and Jazz Band (1969), “5M Calypso” (1989), Three Ethnic Dances (1993), “Dance of the Jitterbugs” (1993), “Walt’s Barbershop” (2016)
• William Russo (b. 1928): “Frankly Speaking” (1953), “Blues Before and After” & “Bacante” (1954), “Rituals” (1964), 3 Pieces for Blues Band and Symphony Orchestra (1968), Street Music mvts 3, 4 (1977)
• Donal Fox (b. 1952): “Variations & Improvisations on Prokofiev’s Toccata” (2001), Scarlatti Jazz Suite (2007), “Variations on Piazzolla’s Oblivion” (2007), “Le Coucou and the Funky Chicken” (2010), “Partita Jazz Suite in G Major” (2010), “Variations on Ludovico Einaudi’s I Giorni” (2022)
• Brendon Randall-Myers (b. 1986): “The World as a Nail” (2017)
• D. J. Sparr (b. 1975): The World Within mvts 1-3 (2022)
• Dario Marianelli (b. 1963): “Briony” (2007), “21 Years” (2013), “The War Rooms” & “We Shall Fight” (2017)
• Ferde Grofe (b. 1892): Mississippi Suite mvt 4 (1926), Grand Canyon Suite mvt 1 (1931)
• Patrick Hawes (b. 1958): “Quanta Qualia” (2004)
• Peter Gregson (b. 1987): Quartets: One mvt 3 & Quartets: Two mvt 1 (2022)
• John Korsrud (b. 1963): “Cruel Yet Fair” & “Scratching the Surface” (1995), “Crush” (2003), “Lowest Tide” (2005), “Slice” & “Chorale in Two Chords” & “Wise Up” (2014?)
• Somtow Sucharitkul (b. 1952): Requiem for the Mother of Songs mvt 1 (2011)
• Mohammed Fairouz (b. 1985): Symphony No. 4 mvts 3 & 4 (2012)
• Peter Boyer (b. 1970): “Celebration Overture” (1997), Three Olympians mvt 3 (2000), “Silver Fanfare” (2004), American Rhapsody (2008), Symphony No. 1 (2013), “Rolling River” (2014), Balance of Power (2019), “Fanfare for Tomorrow” (2021)
• Roberto Sierra (b. 1953): Fandangos (2000)
• Johan de Meij (b. 1953): T-Bone Concerto mvts 1 &  3 (1996), Wind in the Willows mvts 1 & 2 (2002), “Klezmer Classics” (2002), At Kitty O’Shea’s (2010), “Spring” (2010), “Songs from the Catskills” (2011), Sinfonietta No. 1 (2011), Extreme Beethoven (2012), African Harmony (2017), Pennsylvania Faux Songs (2018), Symphony No. 5 mvt 2 (2019), “Rotterdam 1945” (2019), “Los Cuatro Vientos” (2021), Los Libros Olvidados (2023), “Elegy & Scherzo” (2023)
• Zhou Tian (b. 1981): Grand Canal Symphonic Suite “The Grand Canal” & “Life” & “Tomorrow” (2008)
• Plus the following composers for which I didn’t “strongly like” any of their pieces I listened to: Vladimir Dukelsky [Vernon Duke] (b. 1903), Orbert Davis (b. 1960), John Alden Carpenter (b. 1876), Erwin Schulhoff (b. 1894), Constant Lambert (b. 1905), Pietro Mascagni (b. 1863), David T. Little (b. 1978), Guillaume Connesson (b. 1970), Sergei Lyapunov (b. 1859), Magnus Lindberg (b. 1958), Ferruccio Busoni (b. 1866), Carl Reinecke (b. 1824), Guo Zurong (b. 1928), Huang An-Lun (b. 1949), Vache Sharafyan (b. 1966), Avner Dorman (b. 1975), Aram Satyan (b. 1947), Stepan Rostomyan (b. 1956), Benjamin Dean Taylor (b. 1983), Bongani Ndodana-Breen (b. 1975), Tim Brady (b. 1956), Rageh Daoud (b. 1954), Aaron Jay Kernis (b. 1960), Timo Andres (b. 1985), Adolphus Hailstork (b. 1941), Guy Ropartz (b. 1864), Abu-Bakr Khairat (b. 1910), Calixa Lavallée (b. 1842), Grażyna Bacewicz (b. 1909), Victor Herbert (b. 1859), Mohamed Abdelwahab Abdelfattah (b. 1962), Tôn-Thất Tiết (b. 1933), David Chesky (b. 1956), Vasily Kalinnikov (b. 1866), Nguyen Van Quy (b. 1925), Alberic Magnard (b. 1865), Franz Schmidt (b. 1874), Michio Miyagi (b. 1894), Gabriela Ortiz (b. 1964), Ahmet Adnan Saygun (b. 1907), Ottorino Respighi (b. 1879), Vladimir Rebikov (b. 1866), Alexander von Zemlinsky (b. 1871), Hans Rott (b. 1858), Josef Suk (b. 1874), Anton Arensky (b. 1861), Amy Beach (b. 1867), Zdenek Fibich (b. 1850), Ernest Chausson (b. 1855), Richard Danielpour (b. 1956), Paul Mealor (b. 1975), Eriks Esenvalds (b. 1977), Tansy Davies (b. 1973), Luigi Cherubini (b. 1760), George Enescu (b. 1881), Franz Berwald (b. 1796), Thomas Schmidt-Kowalski (b. 1949), Emmanuel Chabrier (b. 1841), Hugo Wolf (b. 1860), Ernest Bloch (b. 1880), Anton Rubinstein (b. 1829), Alexander Arutiunian (b. 1920), Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (b. 1895), Arnold Bax (b. 1883), Dobrinka Tabakova (b. 1980), Brett Dean (b. 1961), Richard Rodney Bennett (b. 1936), Frank Ticheli (b. 1958), Qigang Chen (b. 1951), James M. Stephenson (b. 1969), Otto M. Schwarz (b. 1967), Philip Sparke (b. 1951).

Rediscovered or revisited, and really liked:

• Hans Zimmer [playlist]: The Power of One (1992), “You’re So Cool” (1993), The Lion King (1994), The Gladiator (2000), “Leave No Man Behind” (2001), “Woad to Ruin” & “Hold the Ice” (2004), “Molossus” (2005), “The Dark Knight” (2008), “It’s So Over It’s Covert” & “Romanian Wind” & “Two Mules for Sister Sara” & “The End?” & “End Credits” (2011), “What Are You Going to Do When You Are Not Saving the World?” (2013), “Tick-Tock” (2014), Blue Planet II (2017), The World of Hans Zimmer: A Symphonic Celebration (2019), “Rust” & “Themyscira” & “Games” & “1984” & “The Beauty in What Is” (2020), “Dragon Age: The Veilguard Main Theme” (2024)
  • With these new and old listens, Zimmer has now crossed the 5-hour mark as one of my favorite musical artists!
• Son Lux / Ryan Lott: [playlist]: At War With Walls and Mazes (2008), We Are Rising (2011), Lanterns (2013), “You Don’t Know Me” (2015), “Part of This” & “Remedy” (2017), “Dream State” & “The Fool You Need” (2018), “Possibility Bells” (2019), “Thunderbolts” (2025)
• Timbre Timbre: “Black Water” (2011)
• Jeremiah Clarke: “Trumpet Voluntary” (c. 1700)
• Luigi Denza: “Funiculì, Funiculà” (1890)
• James Last: “The Lonely Shepherd” (1977)
• John Metcalfe: “The Appearance of Colour” (2015), Tree (2023)
• Duke Ellington: New World A’Coming (1943), Harlem (1950), “The Handsome Traffic Policeman” (1960), The Golden Broom and the Green Apple (1965)
• Remo Giazotto: “Adagio in G minor” (1949)
• Robert Wyatt: “The Duchess” & “September the Ninth” & “Alien” & “Out of Season” (1997)
  • With these re-listens, Wyatt has now crossed the 5-hour mark as one of my favorite musical artists! [playlist]
• Dave Holland: “Metamorphos” (1998), “The Sum of All Parts” & “Double Vision” (2008)
  • With these re-listens, Holland has now crossed the 5-hour mark as one of my favorite musical artists! [playlist]
• Vijay Iyer: Tirtha (2011), Accelerando (2012)
• Hania Rani: “Hawaii Oslo” (2019)
• Grandbrothers: “Naive Rider” & “Arctica” (2015), “Bloodflow” (2017)
• Zack Hemsey: “Mind Heist” (2010)

I also listened to a significant portion of the recorded works by each of the (not new-to-me) composers listed below.³ My favorites pieces from them (names linked to playlists) were:

• Steve Martland (b. 1954): Dance Works (1993), Beat the Retreat (1995), “Kick” (1996)
• Samuel Barber (b. 1910): String Quartet mvt. 2 / “Adagio for Strings” / “Agnus Dei” (1936 / 1967)
• Henryk Górecki (b. 1933): Three Pieces in Olden Style No. 2 (1963), Symphony No. 3 (1976)
• Leroy Anderson (b. 1908): “Jazz Legato” (1938), “Chicken Reel” (1946), “The Irish Washerwoman” (1947), “Sleigh Ride” (1948), “The Typewriter” (1950), “Melody on 2 Notes” (1965)
• Paul Dukas (b. 1865): The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (1897)
• Evan Ziporyn (b. 1959): “Angkat” (2001), Frog’s Eye (2002), Big Grenadilla (2006), Mumbai (2011)
• Kevin Puts (b. 1972): Network (1997), Marimba Concerto mvt. 3 (1997), Millennium Canons (2001), Symphony No. 2 (2002), Inspiring Beethoven (2002), Flute Concerto (2013), Contact (2022)
• Christopher Rouse (b. 1949): “The Nevill Feast” (2003)
• Johnny Greenwood (b. 1971): “Moon Trills” & “Splitter” & “24 Hour Charleston” & “Milky Drops from Heaven” & “Tehellet” (2003), “Future Markets” (2007), “Arrival” (2021)
• James Horner (b. 1953): “Following Kirwill” & “Krull Main Theme” & “Ride of the Firemanes” & “Epilogue and End Title” (1983), “Returning to the Sea” (1985), The Land Before Time (1988), “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Main Title” (1989), “All Systems Go / The Launch” & “End Titles” (1995), “A Kaleidoscope of Mathematics” (2001), “Becoming one of The People…” & “Climbing up Iknimaya…” (2009), “Avatar Suite” (2013), Pas de Deux mvt 3 (2014)
• Wojciech Kilar (b. 1932): Exodus (1981), Angelus (1984), Requiem Father Kolbe (1994), Piano Concerto No. 1 mvt. 3 (1996) Missa Pro Pace mvts. 2 & 3 (2000)
• Craig Armstrong (b. 1959): “Hanging” & “Escape” (1999), “Opening” & “End Credits” (2015)
• Carl Nielsen (b. 1865): Symphony No. 1 mvt. 1 (1894), Aladdin Suite mvts. 1 & 7 (1940)
• Aram Khachaturian (b. 1903): Masquerade Suite mvts. 1 & 3 (1941), “Sabre Dance” (1941), “Dance of the Pirates” & “The Market” & “Dance of a Greek Slave” (1955)
• Nikolai Kapustin (b. 1937): Piano Concerto No. 1 (1961), “Variations for Piano and Big Band” (1962), “Rose-Marie” (1963), “Toccata for piano and orchestra” (1964), Piano Concerto No. 2 (1974), “March for orchestra” (1975), Concert Rhapsody for piano and orchestra (1976), “Variations for Piano” (1984), Piano Concerto No. 3 (1985), Concerto for alto saxophone and orchestra (1987), Piano Concerto No. 4 (1989), Chamber Symphony mvts. 1 & 3 (1990), Piano Concerto No. 5 (1993), Piano Concerto No. 6 mvts. 1 & 3 (1993), “Piece for sextet” (1995), Duet for alto saxophone and cello (1999), Concerto for 2 Pianos and Percussion (2002), Divertissement in Four Movements mvt. 4 (2005)
• Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (b. 1875): “Bohemian Waltz” (1899)
• Howard Hanson (b. 1896): “Prelude to Act II & Maypole Dances” (1938)
• Robert W. Smith (b. 1958): “The Tempest” (1995), Inchon (2001), Symphony No. 3 “Don Quixote” (2008)
• Michael Daugherty (b. 1954): “Flamingo” (1991), “Route 66” (1998), Sunset Strip mvt 3 (1999), Ghost Ranch (2005), Brooklyn Bridge mvt 1 (2005), Troyjam mvt 3 (2008), Gee’s Bend mvts 1, 3, 4 (2009), Mount Rushmore mvt 3 (2010), Radio City mvt 1 (2011), Lost Vegas (2012), Vulcan mvts 1, 3 (2014), Rio Grande (2015), Night Owl mvt 3 (2018), To the New World mvt 3 (2019), Blue Electra (2022), Valley of the Moon (2022), Passacaglia in Primary Colors (2023)
• Henry Purcell (b. 1659): “Fantazia Upon a Ground [Z. 731] (1678), “When I am Laid in Earth” (“Dido’s Lament”) (1689), Abdelazer mvts 2, 6 (1695), “Funeral March 1” (1695)
• Manuel de Falla (b. 1876): “Danza del fuego fatuo” (1915), “Danza de la molinera” (1917)
• Gabriel Fauré (b. 1845): Cantique de Jean Racine (1865), Piano Quartet No. 1 mvts 1, 2, 4 (1879), Ballade for piano and orchestra in F♯ major (1881), Piano Quartet No. 2 mvts 1, 2, 4 (1887), “Pavane” (1887), Dolly Suite (1897), “Sicilienne” (1898), “Fileuse” (1900)
• Johann Pachelbel (b. 1653): “Canon & Gigue in D” (c. 1690)
• Heitor Villa-Lobos (b. 1887): “Etude No. 1” (1929), Fantasia for saxophone, three horns, and strings mvts 1, 3 (1948)
• Fazil Say (1970): “Alla Turca Jazz” (1993), “Nazim” & “Kumru” (2002), “Religious Order” (2009), “Fur Elise Jazz” (2009), “Tigris River” & “About the Culture of Death” (2011), İlk Şarkılar (2013)
• Miklós Rózsa (b. 1907): Theme, Variations, and Finale mvts 2, 3 (1933)
• Johann Strauss II (b. 1825): “Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka” (1858), “The Blue Danube” (1867), “Voices of Spring” (1882)
• Ola Gjeilo (b. 1978): “Dark Night of the Soul” (2010), “Luminous Night of the Soul” (2011), Dreamweaver mvt 3 (2017)
• Zbigniew Preisner (b. 1955): “Lacrimosa” & “Meeting” & “Lacrimosa, Day of Tears” (1998)
• Gunther Schuller (b. 1925): Concertino for Jazz Quartet and Orchestra (1959)
• Jacques Loussier (b. 1934): Concerto for Violin and Percussion (1988), Lumières mvts 3, 5, 6 (1990), “Tableaux Vénitiens” (1992), Piano Concerto “Playades” (1993), Violin Concerto No. 2 mvts 1, 3 (2001)
• Lalo Schifrin (b. 1932): Gillespiana (1960), Mission Impossible theme (1966)
• Thomas Newman (b. 1955): “Shawshank Prison / Stoic Theme” (1994), “Orchard House” (1995), “Still Dead” (1999), “Angels in America” & “Acolyte of the Flux” (2003), “Flying Fish” (2009)
• Nino Rota (b. 1911): Concerto Soirée mvt 5 (1961), 8½ Suite mvts 4, 5 (1963), La Strada Suite mvts 1, 2 (1966), “Romeo and Juliet Love Theme (1968), “The Godfather Love Theme” (1972), Amarcord Suite (1974)
• Wynton Marsalis (b. 1961): “Bullet Train” (1999), Swing Symphony mvts 3, 4 (2019)
• Dave Brubeck (b. 1920): Time Out (1959), “Points on Jazz Waltz” (1961), “Elementals” (1963), “Tritonis” (1978)
• David Lang (b. 1957): Cheating, Lying, Stealing (1993), The Passing Measures (1998), The Carbon Copy Building scenes 6-8, 12 (1999), “Sweet Air” (1999), “Involuntary” (2011)
• Michael Kamen (b. 1948): Saxophone Concerto (1989), “Mr. Holland Begins” & “An American Symphony” (1995), Guitar Concerto (1998), The New Moon in the Old Moon’s Arms mvts 2-4 (2001)
• Joe Hisaishi (b. 1950): “Kiki’s Delivery Service” (1989), “Madness” & “The Wind of Ages” & “Mamma Aiuto” & “A Picture in Sepia” (1992), “DA MA SHI E” (1996), “Cinema Nostalgia” (1998), “Summer” (1999), “One Summer Day” & “The Dragon Boy” & “Procession of the Spirits” & “Reprise” (2001), “Merry-Go-Round of Life” (2004), “Links” (2007), “Orbis” (2007), “794BDH” & “TIRA-RIN” (2000), Sinfonia for Chamber Orchestra (2009), MKWAJU 1981-2009 (2009), Symphonic Poem Nausicaa (2015), “Dream More” (2015), TRI-AD (2016), Symphonic Suite “Castle in the Sky” (2017), Asian Symphony (2017), Spirited Away Suite (2018), World Dreams (2019), Woman (2019), Symphonic Suite “Kiki’s Delivery Service” (2019), The Border Concerto mvt 1 (2020), 2 Pieces for Strange Ensemble (2020), “Variation 14 for MFB” (2020), Asian Works (2020), “How do you dance?” (2021), Viola Saga (2023)
  • With these new and old listens, Hisaishi has now crossed the 5-hour mark as one of my favorite musical artists! [playlist]
• Osvaldo Golijov (b. 1960): “Gallop” (1992), The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind mvt 1 (1994), Air to Air mvt 4 (2006), Azul mvt 4 (2006), “Sidereus” (2010)
• Carl Orff (b. 1895): Carmina Burana mvts 1, 2, 25 (1937)
• Zhao Jiping (b. 1945): Violin Concerto No. 1 (2017), “Plateau Dance” (2019)
• Niccolo Paganini (b. 1782): Sonata for Violin & Guitar Op. 2 No. 6 mvt 2 (1809), Violin Concerto No. 1 (1816), Violin Concerto No. 2 mvt 3 (1826), Violin Concerto No. 4 mvt 3 (1830)
• Claude Bolling (b. 1930): “March Turque (Rondo Alla Turca)” (1965), Picnic Suite mvt 5 (1980), Toot Suite mvt 4 (1981)
• Joaquín Rodrigo (b. 1901): Concierto de Aranjuez (1939), Concierto heroico (1943), Concierto de estío mvt 3 (1944), Fantasía para un gentilhombre mvts 2, 3 (1954), Pavana Real “Escene de Cetreria” & “Danza Final” (1955), Concierto madrigal mvts 2, 5, 7, 10 (1966), Concierto Andaluz (1967), Concierto como un divertimento mvt 1 (1981)
• John Adams (b. 1947): “Christian Zeal and Activity” (1973), Shaker Loops mvt 1 (1978), Common Tones in Simple Time (1979), Harmonium mvts 1, 3 (1980), Grand Pianola Music (1982), Harmonielehre (1985), “The Chairman Dances” (1985), “Tromba Lontana” (1986), “Short Ride in a Fast Machine” (1986), Nixon in China “Landing of the Spirit of ’76” & “Oh What a Day I Thought I’d Die!” & “Act III Beginning” (1987), Fearful Symmetries (1988), El Dorado mvt 2 (1991), Naive and Sentimental Music mvts 1, 3 (1998), The Dharma at Big Sur mvt 2 (2003), Absolute Jest (2012), Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? mvt 3 (2018), “I Still Dance” (2019)
  • With these new and old listens, Adams has now crossed the 5-hour mark as one of my favorite musical artists! [playlist]
• Mason Bates (b. 1977): Omnivorous Furniture (2004), Rusty Air in Carolina (2006), Liquid Interface (2007), The B-Sides (2009), Desert Transport (2010), Sea-Blue Circuitry (2010), “Mothership” (2011), “Attack Decay Sustain Release” (2013), Cello Concerto mvt 3 (2014), “Devil’s Radio” (2014), Anthology of Fantastic Zoology mvt 11 (2015), “Soundcheck in C Major” (2021), “Bootlegger’s Break” (2022), Piano Concerto (2022), Philharmonia Fantastique (2022)
  • For Philharmonia Fantastique, be sure to watch the music video, which is probably the new best musical (wordless) introduction to the orchestra!
• John Mayer (b. 1930): “Nine for Bacon” (1965), Indo-Jazz Suite (1965), Indo-Jazz Fusions I & II (1967), Etudes (1969), “Raga Malika” (1970), Dhammapada (1976), Violin Concerto No. 2 mvt 5 (1978), Asian Airs (1996), Ragatal (1998), Inja (2000), Shiva Nataraj, King of Dance (2001)
  • With these new and old listens, Mayer has now crossed the 5-hour mark as one of my favorite musical artists! [playlist]
• Georges Bizet (b. 1838): Carmen Suite No. 1 (1882), Carmen Suite No. 2 (1887)
• Steve Reich (b. 1936): Music for 18 Musicians (1976), Music for a Large Ensemble (1978), Octet (1979), Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards (1979), The Desert Music mvts 1, 5 (1983), Electric Counterpoint mvt 3 (1987), The Four Sections mvt 4 (1987), “Duet” (1993), Proverb (1995), You Are mvts 1, 2, 4 (2004), Music for Ensemble and Orchestra mvts 1, 5 (2018)
• Darius Milhaud (b. 1892): The Ox on the Roof (1920), Scaramouche (1937)
• Terry Riley (b. 1935): In C (1964)
• Michael Torke (b. 1961): Iphigenia mvt 4 (2013), Sky mvt 1 (2018)
• Arthur Sullivan (b. 1842): “I am the very model of a modern Major-General” (1879)
• Philip Glass (b. 1937): some parts of Einstein on the Beach (1976), some parts of Dressed Like an Egg (1977), some parts of Another Look at Harmony Part 4 (1977), “Modern Love Waltz” (1978), some parts of Satyagraha (1979), Mad Rush (1979), Glassworks (1981), some parts of Koyaanisqatsi (1982), The Photographer “A Gentleman’s Honor” (1982), some parts of Akhnaten (1983), The Juniper Tree “Act Two Interlude” (1984), The Civil Wars, Rome Section “Prologue” & “Scene A” (1984), String Quartet No. 2 (1984), “The Olympian” (1984), String Quartet No. 3 (1985), Songs from Liquid Days (1985), some parts of A Descent into the Maelstrom (1985), Mishima (1985), In the Upper Room (1986), The Fall of the House of Usher “Act I Interlude” (1987), The Light (1987), Violin Concerto No. 1 (1987), 1000 Airplanes on the Roof “The Encounter” (1988), The Canyon (1988), Powaqqatsi (1988), Music from the Thin Blue Line (1988), “Wichita Vortex Sutra” (1988), Metamorphosis (1988), String Quartet No. 4 (1988), Itaipu mvts 1 & 3 (1989), The Voyage “Act I: Scene 2 Interlude” (1990), “Howl Part II” (1990), Passages “Meetings Along the Edge” (1990), White Raven Act 2, Scene 2 “Exploring Black Holes in the Sky (1991), Symphony No. 1 mvt 2 (1992), Anima Mundi “Living Waters” & “Perpetual Motion” (1992), Candyman “It Was Always You Helen” (1992), Aguas da Amazonia (1993), Symphony No. 2 mvt 3 (1994), “Now, So Long After That Time” (1994), Piano Etudes 1-3 & 6 (1994), Persephone mvts 3 & 4 (1994), Symphony No. 3 mvts 3 & 4 (1995), “Echorus” (1995), some parts of The Secret Agent (1996), Symphony No. 4 mvt 1 & 6 (1996), The Witches of Venice “A Happy Ending” (1997), Days and Nights in Rocinha (1997), Kundun “Escape to India” (1997), The Truman Show “Dreaming of Fiji” & “Truman Sleeps” & “Raising the Sail” (1998), Symphony No. 5 mvt 1 (1999), Piano Concerto No. 1 (2000), Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra mvts 1 & 3 (2000), Cello Concerto No. 1 (2001), some parts of Cello Concerto No. 2 (2002), some parts of Naqoyqatsi (2002), Harpsichord Concerto (2002), The Hours (2002), The Fog of War “100,000 People” & “Target Destruction” (2003), Orion “Australia” (2004), Piano Concerto No. 2 mvts 1 & 3 (2004), Night Stalker theme (2005), Life “Into the Air” & “Planet of Life” (2006), Four Movements for Two Pianos mvts 1 & 4 (2008), Sonata for Violin and Piano mvts 1 & 3 (2008), some parts of Double Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Orchestra (2010), Symphony No. 10 mvts 1 & 5 (2012), “Concert Overture 2012” (2012), Piano Etudes 11-12 & 17 (2004-2012), Jane “Perfect Life” (2017), Symphony No. 12 (2019)
  • With these new and old listens, Glass has surpassed Miles Davis as my favorite musical artist! Indeed, there are apparently 25.5 hours of music I “strongly like” from Philip Glass, and all my other favorite artists are at ≤14 hours each, so in that sense I like Philip Glass more than “twice as much” as any other musical artist!
• Tan Dun (b. 1957): “2000 Today: A World Symphony for the Millennium” (1999), “Internet Symphony: Eroica” (2009)
• Plus the following composers for which I didn’t “strongly like” any of their pieces I listened to: Alexander Scriabin (b. 1872), James MacMillan (b. 1959), Einojuhani Rautavaara (b. 1928), Max Reger (b. 1873), Clara Schumann (b. 1819), David del Tredici (b. 1937), Joan Tower (b. 1938), Alfred Schnittke (b. 1934), Don Davis (b. 1957), Rolf Liebermann (b. 1910), Conlon Nancarrow (b. 1912), Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962), Fela Sowande (b. 1905), Marc Mellits (b. 1966), Mark-Anthony Turnage (b. 1960), Heinrich Schutz (b. 1585), Francis Poulenc (b. 1899), John Corigliano (b. 1938), Paul Hindemith (b. 1895), William Walton (b. 1902), Morten Lauridsen (b. 1943), John Mackey (b. 1973).

Movies/TV

Ones I “really liked” (no star), or “loved” (star):

• Alex Garland & Ray Mendoza: Warfare (2025)
• Shawn Levy: Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
• Various: Flight of the Conchords, season 1 (2007) ★
• Various: Flight of the Conchords, season 2 (2009) ★
• Lenny Abrahamson & Hettie Macdonald: Normal People (2020)
• Jessie Eisenberg: A Real Pain (2024)
• Various: The Boys, season 4 (2024) ★
• Paul Thomas Anderson: One Battle After Another (2025) ★

Games

All games I finished or decided to stop playing:

• Balatro: Like Slay the Spire before it, an impeccably well-designed and addictive rougelike deck-builder.
• ★ Donkey Kong Bananza: Is this my new favorite game of all time? I have played more ambitious games, more awe-inspiring games, and games with higher peaks, but I can’t remember another game that gave me such high average joy per minute played, across >10hrs. It’s basically the Mario Odyssey formula, but improved in several ways, and with the crucial addition of smashing. I agree with Skill Up that the crux for this game is that (1) smashing is very fun, and (2) DKB has the best smashing of all time.

Standup comedy

For some reason I wasn’t previously tracking the standup comedy I watched or listened to. Now I am.

• Patton Oswalt: Feelin’ Kinda Patton (2004), ★Werewolves and Lollipops (2007), Finest Hour (2011), Tragedy Plus Comedy Equals Time (2014)
• Louis C.K.: Shameless (2007), Chewed Up (2008), Live at the Beacon Theater (2011), Hilarious (2020)
• Anthony Jeselnik: Caligula (2013)
• Jimmy Carr: Stand Up (2006), Live (2006), Telling Jokes (2009), In Concert (2010), Making People Laugh (2010), Being Funny (2011), Laughing and Joking (2015), Funny Business (2025), His Dark Material (2025)
• Jimmy O. Yang: ★Good Deal (2020)
• Kelsey Cook: The Hustler (2023)
• Nate Bergatze: The Tennessee Kid (2015)
• Brian Regan: Live (1997)
• Tom Segura: Mostly Stories (2017)
• Mike Birbiglia: Sleepwalk with Me (2011)
• Myq Kaplan: Vegan Mind Meld (2010)
• Neal Brennan: 3 Mics (2018)
• Doug Stanhope: Beer Hall Putsch (2013), No Place Like Home (2016), No Refunds (2019)
• Sam Morill: I Got This (2020)
• Chad Daniels: Footprints on the Moon (2017)

Books

I post book ratings and reviews to my Goodreads account instead of here.

1. See also the original YouTube version here.
2. The pieces I listened to for each composer were: Henryson, Bjarnason, Balter, McAllister, Gosfield, Leshnoff, Fibich, Taneyev, Beach, Chausson, Danielpour, Omiccioli, Schoenberg, Anassian, Moszkowski, Humperdinck, Alfven, Sinding, Zemlinsky, Rott, Suk, Arensky, Liebermann, Stanford, Beal (plus many of his film scores and several of his jazz albums), Respighi, Rebikov, Glière, Ortiz, Saygun, Jandali, Miyagi, Gulda, Schmidt, Reznicek, Magnard, Yusupov, Pejačević, Abdelfattah, Tiết, Chesky, Kalinnikov, Nguyen, Smith, Bacewicz, Herbert, Medtner, Gretchaninov, Ropartz, Khairat, Lavallée, Suesse, Márquez, Águila, Daoud, Kernis, Andres, Hailstork, Bazzini, Ndodana-Breen, Brady, Richards, Taylor, Gunning (plus a few of his film/TV scores), Satyan, Rostomyan, Arakelian, Sharafyan, Dorman, Budashkin, Kuan, Peng, Busoni, Reinecke, Guo, Huang, Greenstein, Lindberg, Price, Ince, Perry, Paderewski, Connesson, Lyapunov, Delibes, Baker, Russo, Fox, Schulhoff, Lambert, Mascagni, Little, Randall-Myers, Sparr, Marianelli (plus many of his film scores), Davis, Carpenter, Grofe, Dukelsky, Hawes, Mealor, Esenvalds, Gregson, Davies, Cherubini, Enescu, Berwald, Schmidt-Kowalski, Chabrier, Wolf, Bloch, Rubinstein, Korsrud, Arutiunian, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Bax, Tabakova, Dean, Sucharitkul, Fairouz, Bennett (plus several of his film/TV scores and a few of his jazz tunes), Boyer, Sierra, Ticheli, Meij, Haan, Schwarz, Sparke, Stephenson, Zhou, Chen, TODO.
3. The pieces I listened to for each composer were: Martland, Scriabin, Barber, Gorecki, Anderson, MacMillan, Dukas, Ziporyn, Rautavaara, Puts, Reger, Rouse, Greenwood (plus many of his film scores), Horner (plus many of his film scores), Kilar (plus several of his film scores), Armstrong (plus many of his film scores), Nielsen, Khachaturian, Kapustin, Coleridge-Taylor, Hanson, Smith, Daugherty, Purcell, de Falla, Fauré, Pachelbel, Schumann, Villa-Lobos, Say, Rozsa (plus many of his film scores), Tredici, Strauss II, Tower, Schnittke, Davis (plus several of his film scores), Gjeilo, Liebermann, Preisner (plus several of his film scores), Schuller, Loussier (plus a few of his film/TV scores), Schifrin (plus several of his film/TV scores), Newman (plus many of his film scores), Nancarrow, Rota (plus many of his film scores), Marsalis, Brubeck (plus several of his jazz albums), Lang, Higdon, Kamen (plus several of his film/TV scores), Hisaishi (plus many of his film and videogame scores), Golijov, Orff, Zhao (plus several of his film scores), Paganini, Bolling (plus a few of his film scores), Rodrigo, Adams, Bates, Mayer, Sowande, Bizet, Mellits, Reich, Turnage, Schutz, Poulenc, Milhaud, Corigliano (plus a few of his film scores), Hindemith, Riley, Walton, Torke, Lauridsen, Sullivan, Glass, Mackey, Tan (plus a few of his film scores), TODO.

In particular, classical music is often:

1. Unavailable:
   1. Outside the most popular ~350 classical composers, most works by most composers have never been commercially recorded (even if they’ve been performed repeatedly),² making it almost impossible to hear them.³ For comparison, the 350th most popular/acclaimed rock music artist according to this aggregated list is Kings of Leon; imagine if most of their songs were available as notated scores and occasional live performances in specific cities but never actually recorded! That is the state of classical music listening.⁴
   2. When a new piece of classical music is premiered, it’s often not commercially recorded and released for several years, or even decades. Imagine hearing that your favorite musical artist played an entire new-album set in a city far away from you, but there’s no information on when the album will be released, and it might not come out for several years. Amazingly, this is standard practice in classical music, even for the most popular composers: e.g. Philip Glass’ Appomattox (2007), John Williams’ La Jolla (2011), and John Adams’ Second Quartet (2014) still haven’t been recorded and released, despite each being performed several times around the world.
2. Hard to navigate / poorly promoted:
   1. Classical music critics typically recommend pieces based on their historical importance, innovativeness, or abstract music theory ideas rather than on how fun they are to listen to for most people. Many “classical music for beginners” lists include some honest selections like Pachelbel’s “Canon in D,” but also obvious lies such as Stravinsky’s wild, wandering, and dissonant Rite of Spring.⁵
   2. Classical music review books and websites are poorly organized, e.g. compositions and recordings often aren’t given any kind of rating or ranking, and they aren’t categorized into hundreds of precise stylistic subgenres as is common in e.g. rock music, where even a single subgenre like punk rock has many sub-subgenres like pop-punk, hardcore punk, art punk, crust punk, garage punk, riot grrrl, melodic punk, ska punk, synthpunk, grindcore, emocore, and so on.⁶ So if you find a piece of classical music you like (say, Pachelbel’s “Canon in D”), it’s difficult to find other similar pieces you might like.⁷
   3. On review sites for pop, rock, or hip-hop music, almost all reviewed releases are of new (not previously released) music, but on classical music review sites, almost all reviewed releases are cover albums (of compositions that have been recorded and released before), making it difficult for fans to track what’s actually new. This could be easily solved if classical music review sites used a special tag or section for premiere recordings, but they’ve chosen not to!
   4. Many of the most-recommended compositions are available in (a) multiple different arrangements (e.g. for solo piano vs. string quartet vs. orchestra), in (b) multiple different revisions (e.g. Beethoven’s Fidelio has three versions, Stravinsky’s The Firebird has four, and Bruckner’s 3rd symphony has six), and in (c) dozens or hundreds of different recordings, which vary in pacing and dynamics and other choices, in performance quality, and in recording quality. If someone recommends a rock album to you, just search the album name and click Play. But if you search the name of a classical piece that was recommended to you, often hundreds of versions will appear, and there’s rarely clear guidance on which version you should try first.
   5. Many compositions are listed using different titles depending on which source you check. For example, Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” is also frequently listed as “Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor,” “Piano Sonata Op. 27, No. 2,” “Sonata quasi una fantasia,” “Mondscheinsonate,” or “Sonate für Klavier cis-Moll.” Obviously, it’s hard to know at a glance that these six different phrases all refer to the same piece!
   6. Music streaming services will often fail to show you the piece you searched for, even if it’s in their catalog, because they were designed around the cataloguing conventions of pop music.

Even the ~least popular (and ~lowest-budget) rock, jazz, or hip-hop music is much more navigable and available than this.

Opera has its own special additional anti-consumer habits, some of them covered here.

1. Lots of classical music has features most listeners don’t like, e.g. dissonance, wild complexity, sudden volume changes, bombastic/pretentious vocals (think of opera), and lots of time on what sounds like “aimless wandering” (music nerds call it “musical development”). (For example, even the famously delightful “galloping” section of the William Tell Overture doesn’t start until over 8 minutes into the piece. Or to take a more obscure example: I think many listeners will enjoy the bombastic first 1.5 minutes of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8 mvt 4, but then be bored by most of the rest of the 24-minute movement. I suspect very few people can identify and appreciate most musical development, e.g. the parts of a sonata.) Composers defend all this by writing essays like “Who Cares if You Listen?“
2. For example: (1) The most prominent classical composer in all of Africa (19% of world population) is Fela Sowande, who wrote hundreds of pieces for organ, chorus, orchestra, and more — only a handful of which have been recorded. (2) Xian Xinghai was the leading “founder” of Western classical music in China (17% of world population), and one of its most prominent composers. He wrote over 300 works for chorus, orchestra, chamber ensemble, and more, but again only a handful have been recorded. (3) This is not just a feature of classical composers outside Europe and North America. For example, Simon Sechter was one of the most prolific classical composers in history, he taught Bruckner and was praised by Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann, and yet only a handful of his pieces have been recorded. Or consider Ferdinand Hiller, who was close friends with Chopin, Berlioz, Liszt, Rossini, and Mendelssohn, and wrote hundreds of pieces across all genres, perhaps roughly 7% of which have been recorded. Similarly few surviving classical works have been recorded for many other significant Western composers, e.g. Ludwig Minkus (~15%), Don Davis (~25%), Nicola Piovani (~15%), Nikolai Kapustin (~25%), or Dario Marianelli (~3%). Or consider perhaps the most popular modern classical composer, Ennio Morricone (>70 million records sold). He is best known for his film scores, but also composed numerous “classical” compositions, only a fraction of which have been recorded (~20%).
3. Since performances near your home will happen rarely or never. Note that I’m not counting software-generated realizations for scores that were meant to be performed by musicians, since they are typically a poor substitute for a recording of human performers, at least using the technology available today — AI advances in the next few years might enable much more realistic automated “performances” of well-notated musical scores.
4. Of course, this isn’t a “fair” comparison: there have been far more rock/pop artists in history than classical composers. Gemini 2.5 Deep Research estimated for me that “For Western classical composers, encompassing the tradition from its early roots through contemporary classical music, a plausible estimate is in the range of 50,000 to 75,000 individuals throughout history. For rock musical artists, including bands and solo performers from the genre’s inception to the present day, the number is likely in the low to mid-millions, potentially ranging from 2 million to 8 million or more distinct artist entities.”
5. A great piece, but not accessible to beginners!
6. Classical music is often organized by chronological period (e.g. baroque vs. classical vs. romantic), by instrument ensemble (e.g. solo piano vs. string quartet vs. piano trio vs. chamber orchestra vs. symphony orchestra), or by structure/form (e.g. canon vs. fugue vs. sonata vs. rondo vs. theme and variations), but those categorizations (especially the last two) are typically mostly unrelated to style in the sense of most rock / pop / hip-hop subgenres. There are some recognized style genres for classical music (e.g. arguably Mannheim School, Sturm und Drang, galant, Empfindsamkeit, impressionism, neoclassicism, or minimalism), but there are many fewer of these in common use than for rock music, and most classical music books and websites don’t reliably use them to categorize compositions or recordings.
7. See also here.

Music I most enjoyed discovering this quarter:¹

• DJ Koze: Music Can Hear Us (2025)
• Wayne Horvitz: Those Who Remain mvt 1 (2018), “A Walk in the Rain” & “Barber Shop” (2014)
• George Russell: “Time Spiral” and “Ezz-thetic” (1983)
• Aaron Parks: Invisible Cinema (2008)
• Spiro Dussias: “Negative” (2024)
• Vijay Iyer: Far from Over (2017)
• Christian McBride: Live at Tonic (2006)
• McCoy Tyner: The Turning Point (1992)
• Chris Potter: Follow the Red Line (2007)
• Eskaton: Musique post-atomique (1979)
• Bob Brookmeyer: “Make Me Smile” (1982)
• Levi McClain: Etch a Sketch (2018)
• Graeme Shields & others: Pocket Grooves (2019)
• Adrián Berenguer: “Overture” (2025)
• Matyáš Novák: “Vltava” (2021)
• Carla Bley: Fleur Carnivore (1989)
• Too Many Zooz: “Lose Control” (2024), “Severance Theme” (2025)
• Aaron Hibell & Dan Heath: “Odyssey” (2025)
• Natural Information Society & Bitchin’ Bajas: “Clock no Clock” (2025)
• Josef Gung’l: “Narren Galopp” (c. 1855)
• Eduard Strauss: “Bahn Frei!” (1869)
• Trombone Shorty: “Hurricane Season” & “Neph” (2010)
• Andrew Wrangell: “Rush E” (2018)
• Darcy James Argue: “Best Friends Forever” (2016)
• Woody Shaw: The Moontrane (1975)
• Gustavo Santaolalla: “Babel”
• Saagara: 3 (2024)
• New Age Doom / Tuvaband: There Is No End (2023)
• KALI Trio: “Transitoriness” (2021)
• Avishai Cohen: Continuo (2006)
• Jacques Loussier: Plays Bach, the 50th Anniversary Recording (2009)
• Bent Knee: Twenty Pills Without Water (2024)
• Soap&Skin: Untitled (2008), “Sugarbread” (2013)
• Danny Elfman: Back to School (1986), Darkman (1990), Serenada Schizophrana (2006), Rabbit & Rogue (2008), Iris (2011), Eleven Eleven (2017), Percussion Quartet (2019), Percussion Concerto (2022), Wunderkammer (2022), Cello Concerto (2024)
• Christopher Tin: Calling All Dawns (2009), The Drop That Contained the Sea (2014), To Shiver the Sky (2020)
• Kosaku Yamada [playlist]: Symphony in F Major mvt 4 (1912), “Sunayama” (1923)
• L. Subramaniam [playlist]: “Rainbow Serenade” & “Kali Dance” (1981), “Garland” (1982), Double Concerto for Violin and Flute in E Major (1983), “Flight of the Humble Bee” (1984), Fantasy on Vedic Chants (1985), Spring Rhapsody (1986), Turbulence Concerto mvts 1 & 3 (1987), Shanti Priya mvts 1 & 3 (1988), Freedom Symphony (2007), “Tribute to Bach” (2015), Isabella Violin Concerto (2016), Bharat Symphony (2017), Mahatma Symphony (2022)
• Ludovico Einaudi [playlist]: “The Apple Tree” (1995), Doctor Zhivago (2002), “Nuvole Bianche” & “Dietro Casa” (2004), “Primavera” & “Divenire” (2006), “Lady Labyrinth” & “Nightbook” (2009), Intouchables (2011), “Wetlands” (2012), “Experience” & “Life” & “Run” (2013), “Night” (2015), Nomadland (2021)
• MONACA Inc. [playlist]: several tracks from NieR Gestalt & RepliCant (2010)
• Miles Davis: ‘Four’ & More (1966)
• Terence Blanchard [playlist]: “Hannibal” & “Kaos” & “Unchanged” & “Soldiers” (2018)
• Kurt Rosenwinkel [playlist]: “Chords” & “Flute” (2008)
• Sonny Rollins: G-Man (1987)
• Heiner Goebbels: “Ballade vom zerrissenen Rock” (1998)
• Annie Gosfield: “Impulse Turbine: Inlet, Exhaust-cumbustion Chamber” (1999)
• Daniel Bernard Roumain: Voodoo Violin Concerto (2002)
• Matthew Hindson: Speed (1997)
• Mike Mills: Concerto for Violin, Rock Band, and String Orchestra (2016)
• Cannonball Adderley: Mercy, Mercy, Mercy (1967)
• Dexter Gordon: Homecoming (1977)
• VSOP the Quintet: Live Under the Sky (1979)
• Lubomyr Melnyk: Corollaries (2013)

Rediscovered or revisited, and really liked:²

• Arcangelo Corelli: “La folia” (1700)
• Wayne Horvitz: “Prodigal Sun Revisited” (1990)
• Claudio Monteverdi: “Zefiro torna e di soavi accenti” (1632)
• George Frederic Handel: Suite in D Minor [HWV 437] (1706)
• Saint-Saens: “Havanaise” (1887), Piano Concerto No. 5 mvt 3 (1896)
• Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 23 “Appassionata” mvts. 1 & 3 (1806), Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor” (1809)
• Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 mvt. 3 (1785), Piano Concerto No. 21 mvt. 2 (1785), Piano Sonata No. 16 mvt. 1 (1788)
• Karl Jenkins: Adiemus: Songs of Sanctuary (1995), Adiemus II: Cantata Mundi (1996), Adiemus III: Dances of Time (1998), Adiemus IV: The Eternal Knot (2001), Adiemus V: Vocalise (2004), “Canción Amarilla” (2013), Symphonic Adiemus (2017)
• Sons of Kemet: Burn (2013), Lest We Forget What We Came Here to Do (2015)
• Metallica: S&M (1999)
• Frank Zappa: King Kong (1969), “Strictly Genteel” (1971)
• Soap&Skin: Lovetune for Vacuum (2009), Narrow (2012)
• Robert Rodriguez: “Sin City” & “Sin City End Titles” (2005)
• Philip Glass: Powaqqatsi (1988), “It Was Always You, Helen” (1992), “Escape to India” (2003) “Intensive Time” (2002), “100,000 People” & “Target Destruction” (2003), “Miller’s Theme” (2003)
• Kamasi Washington [playlist]: “The Conception” & “The Bombshell’s Waltz” & “Bobby Boom Bap” (2007), “Change of the Guard” & “Askim” & “Miss Understanding” & “Leroy and Lanisha” & “The Magnificent 7” & “Malcolm’s Theme” & “The Message” (2015), Harmony of Difference (2017), “The Secret of Jinison” & “Fists of Fury” & “Hub-Tones” & “One of One” & “Vi Lua Vi Sol” & “Show Us the Way” & “Will You Sing” (2018), “Lesanu”  & “The Garden Path” & “Prologue” (2024), Lazarus (2025)
• Wim Mertens [playlist]: “Birds for the Mind” & “Struggle for Pleasure” & “4 Mains” (1987), “No Testament” & “The Whole” (1989), “Iris” & “Far” (1991), “Their Duet” & “His Own Thing” & “Watch Over Me” & “Shot One” (1993), Jardin Clos (1996), Skopos (2003), Partes Extra Partes (2006), Receptacle (2007), Zee Versus Zed (2010)
• Ill Considered: Ill Considered (2017), “Delusion” (2018), “Incandescent Rage” & “Single Leaf” (2019), Liminal Space (2021), Precipice (2024)
• Rollerball: Ahura (2008), Murwa Mbwa (2011)
• Fire! [playlist]: “Can I Hold You for a Minute?” & “You Liked Me Five Minutes Ago” (2009), “And the Stories Will Flood Your Satisfaction” & “He Wants to Sleep in a Dream” (2012), “Exit! Pt. 1” (2013), “Enter Part Four” (2014), “Ritual, Pts 1-2” (2016), “The Hands” & “Washing Your Heart in Filth” (2018), “Weekends” & “Blue Crystal Fire” (2019), “A lost farewell” (2023)
• Anna von Hausswolff [playlist]: “Lost at Sea” (2010), Ceremony (2014), “Pomperipossa” (2015), “The Mysterious Vanishing of Electra” & “Ugly and Vengeful” (2018)
• Howard Shore [playlist]: “A. Hauser and O’Brien B. Bugpowder” (1991), “The Shire” & “Bag End” & “The Council of Elrond Assembles” & “The Road Goes Ever On…” (2001), “The Three Hunters” (2002), “The Battle of Pelennor Fields” & “The Lighting of the Beacons” & “For Frodo” (2003), “Believe” (2010)

I also listened to a significant portion of the works by each of the composers listed below.³ My favorites pieces from them were (names linked to playlists):

• Franz Liszt (b. 1811): Schubert Marches Nos. 3 & 4 (1846), Totentanz (1849), “Un sospiro” (1849), Liebesträume No. 3 (1850), Paganini Studies Nos. 3 & 4 (1851), Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 (1851), Transcendental Études No. 4 (1852), Piano Concerto No. 2 mvt 2 (1861)
• Hector Berlioz (b. 1803): “Marche hongroise” (1845)
• Gustav Holst (b. 1874): The Planets (1917)
• Modest Mussorgsky (b. 1839): Night on Bald Mountain (1867), “Varlaam’s Drinking Song” (1873), Pictures at an Exhibition (1874)
• Giuseppe Verdi (b. 1813): “La donna è mobile” (1851), “Libiamo ne’ lieti calici” (1853), Messa da Requiem mvts. 3 & 19 (1874)
• Bedrich Smetana (b. 1824): Triumphal Symphony (1853), The Bartered Bride (1866), Ma vlast (1879)
• Gioachino Rossini (b. 1792): The Italian Girl in Algiers “Overture” (1813), The Barber of Seville “Overture” and “Largo al factotum” (1816), William Tell “Overture (Finale)” (1829)
• Jean-Philippe Rameau (b. 1683): “Les cyclopes” (1724), “Les Sauvages” (1725), Platée act 1 scene 6’s air & orage (1745), Zais overture (1748)
• Charles-Valentin Alkan (b. 1813): Etude [from Encyclopédie Du Pianiste Compositeur] (1840), Piano Trio No. 1 mvt 4 (1841), Symphony for Solo Piano mvt 1 (1857)
• Edouard Lalo (b. 1823): Fantasie Originale mvt 1 (1848), Divertissement mvt 4 (1872), Norwegian Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra mvts 1 & 3 (1878), Norwegian Fantasy (1878), Romance-Sérénade (1879), Fantasy-Ballet for Violin and Orchestra (1885), Symphony in G Minor mvts 1 & 4 (1886), Piano Concerto in F Minor (1889)
• Louis Spohr (b. 1784): String Quartet No. 3 mvt 1 (1806)
• Isaac Albeniz (b. 1860): Iberia mvts 1 & 2 (arr. for orch.) (1908), Suite española (arr. for orch.) (1889), “Asturias (Leyenda)” (arr. for guitar) (1889), “Tango” (arr. for orch.) (1890)
• Charles Gounod (b. 1818): “Funeral March of a Marionette” (1872)
• Henryk Wieniawski (b. 1835): Adagio elegiaque (1852), Capriccio-Valse (1852), Violin Concerto No. 1  mvt 3 (1853), Variations on an Original Theme (1854), 8 Etudes-Caprices No. 4 (1862), “Scherzo Tarantelle” (1885)
• Max Bruch (b. 1838): Violin Conerto No. 1 mvt 3 (1867), Symphony No. 1 mvt 3 (1868), Scottish Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra (1880), Violin Concerto No. 3 mvt 3 (1891), 8 Pieces Nos. 2 & 7 (1910)
• C.P.E. Bach (b. 1714): Symphony in E Minor [Wq 178] mvt 1 (1756), Symphony in E-Flat Major [Wq 179] mvt 1 (c. 1757), “Solfeggio” [H 220] (c. 1766)
• Alexander Borodin (b. 1833): String Sextet in D Minor mvt 1 (1861), Piano Quintet in C Minor (1862), Symphony No. 2 mvt 4 (1876), “Requiem” (1878), Petite Suite (1885), Prince Igor “Overture” (1887)
• Alexander Glazunov (b. 1865): Symphony No. 1 (1884), “Slavonic Feast” (1888), Oriental Rhapsody mvts 2 & 5 (1889), Chopiniana mvts 1 & 4 (1892), Symphony No. 4 (1893), Symphony No. 5 (1895), The Seasons (1900), “Grand Waltz” and “Little Peasant Dance” (1900)
• Edward MacDowell (b. 1860): Piano Concerto No. 1 mvts 1 & 3 (1885), Piano Concerto No. 2 (1890), Woodland Sketches (1896)
• Vincent d’Indy (b. 1851): Symphony No. 1 mvt 1 (1872)
• Niels Gade (b. 1817): Symphony No. 5 (1852)
• Joachim Raff (b. 1822): String Sextet in G Minor mvt 2 (1872), Orchestral Suite No. 2  (1874), Symphony No. 9 mvt 4 (1878)
• Henri Vieuxtemps (b. 1820): Violin Concerto No. 3 mvt 3 (1844), Violin Concerto No. 4 mvts 2-4 (1850)
• Edward Elgar (b. 1857): Enigma Variations (1899), Pomp and Circumstance Marches (1901-1907 & 1930), Cello Concerto (1919)
• Mikhail Glinka (b. 1804): Spanish Overture No. 1 (1845), Spanish Overture No. 2 (1851)
• Ernst von Dohnányi (b. 1877): Ruralia Hungarica [orch.] mvts 2 & 5 (1924)
• Plus the following composers for which I didn’t “strongly like” any of their pieces I listened to: Karl Goldmark (b. 1830), Anton Bruckner (b. 1824), Henri Duparc (b. 1848), Ethel Smyth (b. 1858), Giuseppe Torelli (b. 1658), Georg Philipp Telemann (b. 1681), Cesar Franck (b. 1822), Carl Maria von Weber (b. 1786), Giuseppe Martucci (b. 1856).

As a reminder, when I don’t list any works by a given composer, that just means I didn’t “love” or “strongly like” any of their works that I listened to, even if I “liked” a lot of them. And liking or disliking a piece is different from thinking it’s good/bad aesthetically.

Movies/TV

Ones I “really liked” (no star), or “loved” (star):

• Soderbergh, Black Bag (2025)
• Ho, Mickey 17 (2025)
• Linklater, Hit Man (2023)
• Baker, Anora (2024) ★
• Various, Black Mirror, season 7 (2025)
• Various, The Righteous Gemstones, season 4 (2025) ★
• Hobkinson, Lover Stalker Killer (2024)
• Saulnier, Rebel Ridge (2024)
• Borgli, Dream Scenario (2023)
• Rogen & Goldberg, The Studio, season 1 (2025) ★
• Various, What We Do in the Shadows, season 1 (2019) ★
• Various, What We Do in the Shadows, season 2 (2020) ★

Games

All games I finished or decided to stop playing:

• ★ Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty: A unique and highly ambitious game that, years after its release (with the 2.0 update and Phantom Liberty expansion), has finally come close to achieving its original ambitions. Great world-building, massive scope, open-ended exciting gameplay, frequently good storytelling, thought-provoking themes, and just lots of fun.

Books

I post book ratings and reviews to my Goodreads account instead of here.

1. Here are ~all the works I listened to for some of the composers below: Yamada, Subramaniam, Einaudi.
2. I think I hadn’t heard some of the classical pieces before, but I’m not sure which ones.
3. For Liszt, I listened to this ~complete works playlist through S427 before switching to this highlights playlist. For Berlioz, I listened to this complete works playlist through H81b before switching to this highlights playlist. I listened only to highlights playlists (plus a smattering of other pieces) for Holst, Mussorgsky, Verdi, Smetana, Rossini, Franck (note the repeated pieces), Weber, Rameau, Alkan, Torelli, Telemann, Spohr, Albeniz, Gounod, Bruch, Duparc, Smyth, C.P.E. Bach (only through 6 Prussian Sonatas), Bruckner, Borodin, Glazunov, MacDowell, d’Indy, Gade, Raff, Goldmark, Vieuxtemps, Martucci, Elgar, Glinka, and Dohnányi. I listened to complete works playlists for Lalo and Wieniawski.

This metric’s biggest downside is that it can’t track enjoyment differences within “strongly liked.” E.g. if I had to choose between the 3.5 hours I strongly like from Foals and the 0.5 hours I strongly like from Erik Satie, I’d choose the Satie.

But still, I like this as a measure of my “favorite” artists, because:

• I didn’t know in advance how the ranking would turn out.
• It tracks something central: how much music did they make that I strongly like?

I’ve put a few clarifications in a footnote,¹ and now here’s the ranking (I’ll update the spreadsheet occasionally):

A few observations (also updated occasionally):

• This list is very different from what I would’ve said in response to “Who are your favorite musical artists?” before constructing this list. But when I look at each one, I think “Oh yeah, I do strongly like all the music on this playlist!” So this exercise was eye-opening to me.
• This ranking privileges musical artists who are highly prolific and write long pieces, e.g. classical and jazz over rock/pop. But this is a feature not a bug: the classical and jazz artists really do compose more minutes of music I strongly like as a result of being more prolific.
• I’m surprised by how diverse the genres represented at the top are. I would’ve expected my tastes to be more concentrated at the very top, rather than including not just jazz and contemporary classical but also e.g. psychedelic pop, post-rock, prog rock, industrial, electronica, a singer-songwriter, tribal ambient, art pop, jungle, and even musica festera (a genre I hadn’t heard of until 2026).
• Many of these artists are probably unusual choices for “favorite” artists, but only a few of them are truly “obscure”: on this “>5hrs” list it’s mainly Vampire Rodents / Ether Bunny, Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, Spring Heel Jack, and Ghost Rhythms (each have <1000 monthly listeners on Spotify).
• After >20 years of listening to a huge variety of music fairly comprehensively, I am still discovering new favorite artists! For example, in I didn’t discover these favorite artists until 2025 or later: Elena Kats-Chernin, Arturo Márquez, Michel Camilo, Francisco Valor Llorens, Gareth Coker, Oscar Navarro, Alexandre Rabinovitch-Barakovsky, David Maslanka, Oliver Davis.

1. (1) I’ve rounded to the nearest 0.5 hours. (2) I typically only include one recording per track/composition (typically from a studio album), but in some cases I include additional performances by the original artist if they’re significantly changed from the original and I strongly like them, e.g.: some Phish live tracks, orchestral re-imaginings of Metallica tracks in the S&M albums, or live jazz performances that differ substantially from the originals while still involving the original composer (e.g. the high-speed versions of Miles Davis classics on Four & More). (3) For classical composers, I sometimes include later re-arrangements of their compositions either (a) instead of the original composition, if I like it better, or (b) in addition to the original composition, if they are now sufficiently “canon” (e.g. Ravel’s re-arrangements of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition). (4) Because of how jazz works, I often attribute an entire jazz album to the bandleader even if it includes a couple pieces written by others. (But if most tracks were originally composed by someone other than the bandleader, then I attribute them to the composer instead.) (5) The numbers here might not match what you see if you click through to a particular playlist, because I plan to continue updating the playlists as I listen and re-listen to music by these artists. (6) Film/TV/videogame composers are listed as “contemporary classical” if that’s their primary “style,” and for videogame composers who primarily wrote non-orchestral music I typically prefer a later orchestration of their music to the original tracks.

Here is continuously-updated doc of music search prompts I’ve found helpful, a few examples below:

I like [specific piece, e.g. “the theme music for Game of Thrones”]. Please recommend 20 other pieces of contemporary classical music that are as similar as possible to that track, but limit yourself to one composition per composer. Please optimize for the pieces being as similar as possible to the theme music for Game of Thrones, even if some of the pieces are very obscure. Please only include compositions (or individual movements) that are shorter than 6 minutes. Please list the 20 pieces in a table, and for each piece provide a short description of its musical style and instrumentation, an explanation for why it’s so similar to [piece you named], and a clickable link to a complete recording of the piece on Spotify, or on YouTube or Soundcloud or Bandcamp if it’s not available on Spotify. Please number the pieces 1-20.

**

Which compositions by [composer] are most popular and/or highly regarded today? Please list 20 of their compositions in a table, along with the evidence that they are popular and/or highly regarded, and direct Spotify links to complete recordings where available (but it’s fine to list many compositions which aren’t available on Spotify).

**

What are 20 of the most celebrated covers or re-interpretation of compositions by [musical artist]? Please list each one in a table along with the performer(s), the release year of the cover/re-interpretation, a few notes about what is changed from the original, and a direct link to the piece on Spotify (where available).

**

Who are the top 20 most highly respected composers of [genre]? Please list them in a table, and for each composer please list 4 of their most celebrated works/albums.

**

Who are the top 20 contemporary classical composers who (a) mainly write notated music for performance by classically trained musicians, but who (b) frequently draw inspiration from popular electronic music genres in their compositions (e.g. breakbeat, drum and bass, dubstep, electro, EDM, grime, IDM, techno, or trance)? Please list them in a table with four columns: Composer, Example 1, Example 2, Example 3. Each of the three examples should be a composition by that composer which draws inspiration from popular electronic music genres, along with a short description of how, exactly, it draws inspiration from popular electronic music genres. Where possible, please link each listed composition title to a recording of the piece on Spotify (but it’s fine to list many compositions which aren’t available on Spotify).

Please don’t include any of the following composers, because I’m already familiar with them: [list of composers]

**

What are 20 of the most creatively unique and ambitious [genre] albums/compositions after 2000 that are also relatively “tonal” and “accessible” to the general listener? Please list each album/composition in a table along with its composer, release year, a paragraph describing what is so creatively ambitious about it, and a direct link to a complete recording of the piece on Spotify (where available). Please also limit yourself to one album/composition per musical artist.

For example: if I search Spotify for “telemann oboe concerto in a major”, my top results are Telemann’s Oboe Concerto in E Minor, Telemann’s Concerto for Flute… [TWV 54], Vivaldi’s Oboe Concerto in C Major, and many other other pieces I wasn’t looking for. If I search the TWV catalogue number (“telemann 51:A2”), my top results are TWV 55:B1, TWV 51:G9, TWV 51:G2, and so on, without a TWV 51:A2 in sight.

Does this mean Spotify doesn’t have the piece I’m looking for? No, it has at least three recordings of it! One, two, three.

So how did I find those? I asked Perplexity “Are there recordings of Telemann’s TWV 51:A2 available on Spotify? Please provide links.” This requires more typing and more clicks to find a recording than Spotify search would if Spotify wasn’t broken, but I’ve found Perplexity to be much better at finding classical music recordings on Spotify than Spotify is. (Other web-search-enabled AI systems may be similarly capable.)

Music I most enjoyed discovering this quarter:

• Pinkshinyultrablast: Everything Else Matters (2015)
• Third Coast Percussion: Perspectives (2022)
• Chuquimamani-Condori [Elysia Crampton]: “Breathing” (2023)
• Bryce Dessner: Quilting (2014), “Haven” (2019), Trombone Concerto (2020), Violin Concerto (2021)
• Edward Ratliff: Wong Fei-Hong Meets Little Strudel (2000)
• Goat: Joy in Fear (2023)
• Eric Christian: Trois Valses Sentimentales (2022)
• Richard Harvey: Concerto Antico (1995)
• Los Angeles Guitar Quartet: “Jumpin’ at the Woodside” (1995), LAGQ (1998)
• Ian Krouse: Symphonies of Strings No. 1 “La Follia” (1993), Guitar Quartet No. 5 “Labyrinth” (1995)

Previously, I listened to hundreds of orchestral arrangements of non-orchestral compositions and listed my favorites. This quarter, I decided to explore acoustic guitar arrangements of classical compositions (by a different composer). Ones I especially liked, listed by performer, are [playlist]:

• Kazuhito Yamashita: Bach’s BWV 1006 mvt 1 & BWV 1007 mvt 1; Debussy’s Petite Suite & “Passepied“; Vivaldi’s RV 425 mvts 1 & 3
• John C. Williams: Bach’s “Air on a G String“; Vivaldi’s RV 93 mvt 2; The Baroque Album
• Dublin Guitar Quartet: Performs Philip Glass
• Johan Smith: Schubert’s “Erlkönig“
• Los Angeles Guitar Quartet: Rimsky-Korasakov’s Capriccio espagnol; For Thy Pleasure; Bizet’s Carmen Suite; Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite; Warlock’s Capriol Suite; Copland’s “Simple Gifts“
• Amsterdam Guitar Trio: Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons
• Los Romeros: Vivaldi Guitar Concertos
• Vincent Airault: Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun (w/ flute);
• Philip Hii: J.S. Bach: New Transcriptions for Guitar;
• Tariq Harb: Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor; Debussy’s Clair de lune; Beethoven’s Fur Elise;
• Moran Wasser: Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor;
• Vancouver Guitar Orchestra: Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No 3 mvt 1;
• Edson Lopes: Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik mvt 1;
• Vera Danilina: Mozart’s Turkish March;
• Rolf van Meurs: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 mvt 2; Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite No. 1, Waltz No. 2;
• Bridget Mermikides: Mozart’s “Lacrimosa“;
• Emre Sabuncuoglu: Dvorak’s Serenade for Strings mvt 2;
• Tim Sparks: Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite;
• Julian Bream: Bach’s BWV 1006 mvt 1, BWV 999;
• Eliot Fisk: Bach’s BWV 1006 mvt 1;

Rediscovered or revisited, and really liked:¹

• Seirom: 1973 (2012)
• Kings of Leon: “Knocked Up” (2007), “Use Somebody” (2008)
• Fucked Up: “Solomon’s Song” (2010), “Onno” (2012), “Act Four” (2021)
• Health: “Stonefist” & “Men Today” (2015)
• Deerhunter: Cryptograms (2007)
• M83: Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts (2003), Before the Dawn Heals Us (2005), Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming (2011)
• Serena-Maneesh: Serena-Maneesh (2006)
• Flotation Toy Warning: Bluffer’s Guide to the Flight Deck (2004), The Machine That Made Us (2017)
• Plants: Double Infinity (2006)
• Brightblack Morning Light: Brightblack Morning Light (2006)
• Gang Gang Dance: Saint Dymphna (2008), Eye Contact (2011)
• Cave: Psychic Psummer (2009), Pure Moods (2010), Neverendless (2011)
• Shit and Shine: Ladybird (2005), “Practicing to Be a Doctor” (2006)

And with that, I finally finished my third listen-through of every album and track listed in Scaruffi’s history of rock music. (A couple years ago I finished my 2nd listen-through of his jazz history, and last year I listened through his history of film music.) The Spotify playlists I made for each chapter in the rock history book are here.

More albums I rediscovered and really liked:

• Eddie Henderson: Realization (1973), Inside Out (1974)
• Joe Jackson: Heaven & Hell (1997)
• Slow Loris: The Ten Commandments and Two Territories According to… (1996)

I also resumed listening through complete works playlists for classical composers, picking up with Rimsky-Korsakov and Mendelssohn. My favorites were:

• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov [playlist]: Quintet in B Flat mvt 1 (1876), Capriccio espagnol (1887), Scheherazade (1888), Russian Easter Festival Overture (1888), Mlada Suite (1890), The Snow Maiden Suite (1895), “Flight of the Bumblebee” (1900), Christmas Eve Suite (1903)
• Felix Mendelssohn [playlist]: String Octet in E-Flat Major (1825), String Quartet No. 1 mvt 4 (1829), The Hebrides (1830), “Ich will hier bei Dir stehen” (1830), Capriccio Brillant in B Minor (1832), Rondo Brillante in E Flat Major (1834), Symphony No. 3 mvt 2 (1842), “Wedding March” (1842), Violin Concerto (1844), Piano Trio No. 2 (1845)

Movies/TV

Ones I “really liked” (no star), or “loved” (star):

• Various, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, season 14 (2019)
• Schaffer, Curb Your Enthusiasm, season 12 (2024) ★
• Various, Severance, season 2 (2025) ★
• Randall, Slow Horses, season 4 (2024) ★
• Barantini, Adolescence (2025) ★
• Guadagnino, Challengers (2024)
• Mann, Inside Out 2 (2024)

Games

All games I finished or decided to stop playing:

• Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom: The new “echoes” mechanic brings in some of the creative freedom of Breath of the Wild and especially Tears of the Kingdom, but this 2D Zelda is still much smaller and less open-world than those games, and it has too high a portion of its time spent in unskippable dialogue or miniature cutscenes, and the Zelda series has never been well-written. Still fun overall.
• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: A very on-point nostalgia trip for fans of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and consistently fun, with diverse locations and great pacing.
• Horizon: Forbidden West: A very good game that had the misfortune of being released one week before what turned out to be the best video game of all time (Elden Ring). Forbidden West improves on Zero Dawn in every way: the already-great combat is even deeper and richer while still being accessible; the world is more varied and well-populated; the gear and enemies are more varied; the side quests are more varied, dynamic, and interesting; and the story is better-told and with fewer annoying exposition dumps. There are still some weaknesses, and I still prefer open-world games with less hand-holding / checkboxes, but this is probably one of the best open-world action/adventure/RPG games this side of Zelda and Elden Ring.
• ★ Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree: A fantastic expansion pack, basically as good as the base game except of course less innovative. Very plausibly the best game of its year despite being a DLC. I haven’t beaten the final boss yet but otherwise I made it through most of the content. The build variety and balance in this game is crazy good, and FromSoft’s level/world design remains unmatched (afaik) in the Soulslike genre.
• ★ Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2: Less technically polished than many big-budget open world games, but the gameplay systems are especially immersive and addicting, the quest design is very good, the world is rich and alive, the writing and voice acting are next-level, and the commitment to realism pays off in numerous ways. Overall, it reminded me most of RDR2. The hype is real; this has to be one of the best open-world RPGs ever made. The review I resonate with most is this one by Skill Up.
• Ghost of Tsushima: Its gorgeous visuals are typically unobstructed by any HUD. A surprisingly good story, and I really liked the final chapter. The gameplay was good but not great, e.g. the enemy targeting was kinda janky, the loot was minimal (most of it just generic “supplies”!), a lot of the game was too on-rails for my tastes (“return to the quest area in 15 seconds!”), and more.

Books

I post book ratings and reviews to my Goodreads account instead of here. Last year I averaged ~5000 pages per month, but this year I’m reading much less so far.

1. I think I hadn’t heard some of the classical pieces before, but I’m not sure which ones.

Of works I’ve finished (151) or DNF’d (quit; 80), I rated only 5% (13 total) of those 5 stars. But I expect the “favorite” and “best” lists below to change significantly from year to year, as I’ve read very few books so far.¹

Favorite works

Below are the 5-star works I most enjoyed so far. When multiple works are from the same author and I enjoyed them similarly, I combine them into one item.

1. Project Hail Mary
2. Lonesome Dove
3. The Pillars of the Earth
4. Last Argument of Kings, Before They Are Hanged, Best Served Cold, Red Country, The Heroes
5. Kindred

Other 5-star books: Of Mice and Men, The Paper Menagerie, Stoner, World Without End.

Best 5-star works

Here are the works I enjoyed at a 5-star level that I’d rate highest for “aesthetic value” or “artistic merit” or something like that:

1. Lonesome Dove
2. Stoner
3. Of Mice and Men
4. The Heroes

There are some novels I’ve read or DNF’d that might be as good (on “artistic merit”) as some of those listed above, but I didn’t also enjoy them at the 5-star level — e.g. possibly The Sound and the Fury, The Master and Margarita, The Grapes of Wrath, Lolita, or A Confederacy of Dunces.

Favorite authors

To calculate my favorite authors, I’ll award each author 1 point for each page in a 4.5-star work,² and 2 points for each page in a 5-star work.³ By that metric (calculations here), my favorite authors to date are:

1. Joe Abercrombie (5637 points across 6 works)
2. Ken Follett (4426 points across 2 works)
3. Larry McMurtry (2467 points across 2 works)
4. Brandon Sanderson (2095 points across 2 works)

Commentary

• Some works are hard to classify by genre, but I’ll say 6 of my five-star reads are primarily historical fiction, 5 are primarily fantasy, 1 is primarily science fiction, and 1 I’ll call “other.”
• I generally prefer genre/commercial fiction to literary fiction. Only one of my 5-star reads has the “literary fiction” tag on Goodreads (Stoner).
• The oldest 5-star fiction work I’ve read is Of Mice and Men (1937), the shortest is The Paper Menagerie (32 pages), and the longest is World Without End (1237 pages).
• It’s interesting that Project Hail Mary is my favorite novel, and it was only the 5th novel I read as an adult. When will I find something I like even more? Or, is this an artifact of my being easier to thrill and impress back when I had read almost nothing?

1. My TBR (to be read) list is >3800 items long, and that’s only counting one work per series for books in a series. To give you a sense of how little I’ve read, some famous authors I haven’t yet tried at all (as an adult) include the Brontës, Shakespeare, Mann, and Dumas. Even within my favorite genres (fantasy, sci-fi, historical fiction), I haven’t yet tried (as an adult): JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, Roald Dahl, GRR Martin, Steven Erikson, Anne Rice, Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Jules Verne, William Gibson, Michael Crichton, Liu Cixin, Hilary Mantel, Colleen McCullough, Bernard Cornwell, James Clavell, Edward Rutherfurd, or Patrick O’Brian.
2. Annoyingly, Goodreads doesn’t allow scoring with half-points, but I have written “4.5 stars” in the Goodreads review of each book I’m rating 4.5 stars.
3. For page counts, I use figures from Goodreads.