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Kraftwerk (German: [ˈkʁaftvɛɐ̯k], lit. "power station") is a German band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk were among the first successful acts to popularize the genre. The group began as part of West Germany's experimental krautrock scene in the early 1970s before fully embracing electronic instrumentation, including synthesizers, drum machines, and vocoders. Wolfgang Flür joined the band in 1974 and Karl Bartos in 1975, expanding the band to a quartet.

On commercially successful albums such as Autobahn (1974), Trans-Europe Express (1977), The Man-Machine (1978), and Computer World (1981), Kraftwerk developed a self-described "robot pop" style that combined electronic music with pop melodies, sparse arrangements, and repetitive rhythms, while adopting a stylized image including matching suits. Following the release of Electric Café (1986), Flür left the group in 1987, followed by Bartos in 1990. Founding member Schneider left in 2008.

Béla Viktor János Bartók (; Hungarian: [ˈbɒrtoːk ˈbeːlɒ]; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hungary's greatest composers. Through his collection and analytical study of folk music, he was one of the founders of comparative musicology, which later became ethnomusicology.

Bartók was born in the Banatian town of Nagyszentmiklós in the Kingdom of Hungary (present-day Sânnicolau Mare, Romania) on 25 March 1881. On his father's side, the Bartók family was a Hungarian lower noble family, originating from Borsodszirák, Borsod. His paternal grandmother was a Catholic of Bunjevci origin, but considered herself Hungarian. Bartók's father (1855–1888) was also named Béla. Bartók's mother, Paula (née Voit) (1857–1939), also spoke Hungarian fluently. A native of Turócszentmárton (present-day Martin, Slovakia), she also had Hungarian and Slovak ancestry.

Klaus Sperber, known professionally as Klaus Nomi, was a German countertenor noted for his wide vocal range and an unusual, otherworldly stage persona.

Public Image Ltd (abbreviated and stylized as PiL) are an English post-punk band (and incorporated limited company) formed by singer John Lydon (previously known as the singer of Sex Pistols), guitarist Keith Levene, bassist Jah Wobble, and drummer Jim Walker in May 1978. The group's personnel has changed frequently over the years; Lydon has been the sole constant member.

Following Lydon's departure from the Sex Pistols in January 1978, he sought a more experimental "anti-rock" project and formed PiL. That year PiL released their debut First Issue (1978), creating an abrasive, bass-heavy sound that drew on dub, noise, progressive rock and disco. PiL's second album Metal Box (1979) pushed their sound further into the avant-garde, and is often regarded as one of the most important albums of the post-punk era.

Laurel Philips Anderson (born June 5, 1947), known as Laurie Anderson, is an American avant-garde artist, composer, musician, and film director whose work spans performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Initially trained in violin and sculpting, Anderson pursued a variety of performance art projects in New York during the 1970s, focusing particularly on language, technology, and visual imagery. She became more widely known outside the art world when her single "O Superman" reached number two on the UK singles chart in 1981. Her debut album Big Science was released the following year. She also starred in and directed the 1986 concert film Home of the Brave.

Anderson is a pioneer in electronic music and has invented several devices that she has used in her recordings and performance art shows. In 1977, she created a tape-bow violin that uses recorded magnetic tape on the bow instead of horsehair and a magnetic tape head in the bridge. In the late 1990s, she collaborated with Interval Research to develop an instrument she called a "talking stick," a six-foot (1.8 m) long baton-like MIDI controller that can access and replicate sounds.

Arvo Pärt (Estonian pronunciation: [ˈɑrʋo ˈpært]; born 11 September 1935) is an Estonian composer of classical and religious music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs tintinnabuli, a compositional technique he invented. Pärt's music is in part inspired by Gregorian chant. His most performed works include Fratres (1977), Spiegel im Spiegel (1978), and Für Alina (1976). From 2011 to 2018, Pärt was the most performed living composer in the world, and the second most performed in 2019—after John Williams. The Arvo Pärt Centre, in Laulasmaa, was opened to the public in 2018.

Pärt was born in Paide, Järva County, Estonia, and was raised by his mother and stepfather in Rakvere in northern Estonia. He began to experiment with the top and bottom notes of the family's piano as the middle register was damaged.

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (17 June [O.S. 5 June] 1882 – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernist music.

Stravinsky's compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. He first achieved international fame with three ballets commissioned by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev and first performed in Paris by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913). The last transformed the way in which subsequent composers thought about rhythmic structure and was largely responsible for Stravinsky's enduring reputation as a revolutionary who pushed the boundaries of musical design. His "Russian phase", which continued with works such as Renard, L'Histoire du soldat, and Les noces, was followed in the 1920s by a period in which he turned to neoclassicism. The works from this period tended to make use of traditional musical forms (concerto grosso, fugue, and symphony) and drew from earlier styles, especially those of the 18th century. In the 1950s, Stravinsky adopted serial procedures. His compositions of this period shared traits with examples of his earlier output: rhythmic energy, the construction of extended melodic ideas out of a few two- or three-note cells, and clarity of form and instrumentation.

Diamanda Galás (born August 29, 1955) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, visual artist, and soprano. She has campaigned for AIDS education and the rights of the infected.

Galás's commitment to addressing social issues and her involvement in collective action has made her concentrate on themes such as AIDS, mental illness, despair, loss of dignity, political injustice, historical revisionism, and war crimes. Galás has attracted the attention of the press particularly for her voice – a soprano sfogato – and written accounts that describe her work as original and thought-provoking refer to her as "capable of the most unnerving vocal terror", an "aesthetic revolutionary", "a mourner for the world's victims" and "an envoy of risk, honesty and commitment".

Siouxsie and the Banshees were a British rock band formed in London in 1976 by vocalist Siouxsie Sioux and bass guitarist Steven Severin. They have been widely influential, both over their contemporaries and with later acts. Q magazine included John McKay's guitar playing on "Hong Kong Garden" in their list of "100 Greatest Guitar Tracks Ever", while Mojo rated guitarist John McGeoch in their list of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" for his work on "Spellbound". The Times called the group "one of the most audacious and uncompromising musical adventurers of the post-punk era".

Composers of music for cello.

György Sándor Ligeti (; Hungarian: [ˈliɡɛti ˈɟørɟ ˈʃaːndor]; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one of the most important avant-garde composers in the latter half of the twentieth century" and "one of the most innovative and influential among progressive figures of his time".

Born in Transylvania, Romania, he lived in the Hungarian People's Republic before emigrating to Austria in 1956. He became an Austrian citizen in 1968. In 1973 he became professor of composition at the Hamburg Hochschule für Musik und Theater, where he worked until retiring in 1989. He died in Vienna in 2006.

Restricted in his musical style by the authorities of Communist Hungary, only when he reached the West in 1956 could Ligeti fully realise his passion for avant-garde music and develop new compositional techniques. After experimenting with electronic music in Cologne, Germany, his breakthrough came with orchestral works such as Atmosphères, for which he used a technique he later dubbed micropolyphony. After writing his "anti-anti-opera" Le Grand Macabre, Ligeti shifted away from chromaticism and towards polyrhythm for his later works.

Julee Ann Cruise (December 1, 1956 – June 9, 2022) was an American singer, songwriter and actress, best known for her collaborations with composer Angelo Badalamenti and film director David Lynch in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She released four albums beginning with 1989's Floating into the Night.

Cruise is best known for her 1989 single "Falling"; an instrumental version was used as the theme song for the television series Twin Peaks in which she appeared in a recurring role as a roadhouse singer. She reprised the role in the 1992 movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (which also featured her music), and in the 2017 revival series Twin Peaks: The Return. She was also featured in Lynch and Badalamenti's avant-garde 1990 theater production Industrial Symphony No. 1, which was filmed and released on home media.

Bauhaus are an English rock band, formed in Northampton, England, in 1978. The group consists of Daniel Ash (guitar, saxophone), Peter Murphy (vocals, occasional instruments), Kevin Haskins (drums) and David J (bass). The band were originally named Bauhaus 1919 in reference to the first operating year of the German art school Bauhaus, although they shortened the name within a year of formation. One of the pioneers of gothic rock, Bauhaus were known for their dark image and gloomy sound, although they mixed many genres, including dub, glam rock, psychedelia, and funk.

Their 1979 debut single, "Bela Lugosi's Dead" is considered one of the harbingers of gothic rock music and has been influential on contemporary goth culture. Their debut album, In the Flat Field, is regarded as one of the first gothic rock records. Their 1981 second album Mask expanded their sound by incorporating a wider variety of instruments—such as keyboards, saxophone and acoustic guitar—and experimenting with funk-inspired rhythms on tracks like "Kick in the Eye". Bauhaus went on to achieve mainstream success in the United Kingdom with their third album, The Sky's Gone Out, which peaked at No. 3 on the UK Albums Chart in 1982. That same year, they also reached No. 15 on the Singles Chart with a standalone cover of David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust", earning them an appearance on Top of the Pops. During recording sessions for their next album, Murphy fell ill and spent much of his time away from the studio, leaving the rest of the band to compensate for his absence. This created a rift between the singer and his bandmates, culminating in the group's dissolution on 5 July 1983, one week before Burning from the Inside was released. Featuring the hit single "She's in Parties", it would be their final studio album composed entirely of new material for a quarter century.

Cabaret Voltaire was an English music group formed in Sheffield in 1973 and initially composed of Stephen Mallinder, Richard H. Kirk, and Chris Watson. The group was named after the Cabaret Voltaire, the Zürich nightclub that served as a centre for the early Dada movement.

The early work of Cabaret Voltaire consisted primarily of experimentation with DIY electronics and tape machines, as well as Dada-influenced performance art, helping to pioneer industrial music in the mid-1970s. Finding an audience during the post-punk era, they integrated their experimental sensibilities with dance and pop styles. They are often characterized as among the most innovative and influential electronic groups of their era.

Glenn Branca was an American avant-garde composer, guitarist, and creator of unique musical instruments. Known for his use of volume, alternative guitar tunings, repetition, droning, and the harmonic series, he was a driving force behind the genres of no wave, totalism and noise rock. Branca received a 2009 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his First Symphony in 1926 and was regarded throughout his life as a major composer.

Einstürzende Neubauten is a German experimental music group, formed in West Berlin in 1980. The group is currently composed of founding members Blixa Bargeld and N.U. Unruh, long-time contributor Alexander Hacke, plus Jochen Arbeit, and Rudolf Moser, who both joined the line-up in 1997.