Philip Glass - Einstein on the Beach, Koyaanisqatsi, Hydrogen Jukebox. How could you possibly have a section on contemporary composers without mentioning good old Phil. Bores plenty of people to death but I'm totally addicted - once you penetrate the apparent (i.e. deceiving) repetitiveness, some of his work is fairly incredible. I once read somewhere that he thought a good analogy for his music was of "wheels inside of wheels, all moving at different speeds". That's exactly what it feels like. If you've never heard any before, give the Koyaanisqatsi soundtrack a listen - very addictive.
Michael Nyman - Drowning By Numbers, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat. Hasn't done much of huge interest lately, but the Greenaway film scores are amazing. Nyman is a good site for information.
Robert Ashley - Improvement (Don Leaves Linda). Managed to see a production of this by Melbourne's Chamber Made Opera a couple of years ago and was completely blown away. The music is virtually non-existent, the voices are barely singing (but they're working pretty damn hard) and there's loads of sound effects and pre-recorded voicework going on. Definitely one of the most original contemporary operas I've ever seen.
David Chesworth - Exotica Suite.
Other Minds has basic background information, including audio samples, for a huge range of contemporary composers.
