Stephen Hartke, Fred Lerdahl and Christopher Theofanidis are hardly unknown composers. I for one am well acquainted with their music, especially Hartke and Theofanidis. And just because you or I have not heard of the others on the list does not speak as to their qualifications.

drgiles, I completely agree with you. I would image it's very hard to get rid of the politics involved. Also, just because some composers are unknown does not make them "not as good" or bad.

Where are AAron Kernis and Paul Morovec? How about John Corigliano?

Why pick relatively unknown composers. Orpheus should have the best and brightest

In order for a nominating committee of that size to function, it is usual that most of the members defer to the advice and leadership of two or three "prime movers," who really do the picking. It would be nice to know who those really are.
Rememnber the definition of a camel: "A horse designed by a committee."

@drgiles Your comment is pertinent, however it seems that the entire exercise actually relies a great deal upon the composers involved "co-opting" their own contacts in order to publicize this competition. Without this, one suspects that there would be very few comments at all.

This site is not very well put together - the project 440 page is almost impossible to find, it's hard to find information on the project as a whole from the composer list pages. It would be nice to see a "recent comments" bar somewhere so one could get a sense of the overall dialogue, rather than having each page as its own isolated little chatroom. In the end, one assumes that Orpheus will pick whoever they like anyway and we will all feel a little dirty for having been part of this.

I've noticed that there are some excellent composers who get no comments at all and there are some composers, both good and bad, who get TONS.

I think there is a certain amount of, shall we say, ballot stuffing, going on as some musicians enlist friends and family to praise them to the heavens.

This part of the process has been co-opted. The number of comments and even the comments themselves should, I propose, not be taken into account when judging who to commission.

It is a shame when something interesting and pleasant is corrupted.

Actually, my last comment sounded kind of harsh when what I intend is a real question and not some sort of dig.

Really, is this a good line up or is this a bit on the obscure academic, bureaucratically connected, Eastern Establishment side of things?

Wait, that sounds like a dig, too. Well, imagine that question but in a pleasant tone of voice!

Do you think this is a good line-up?

I am a composer from Poland

www.youtube.com/user/GerardDrozd