Has any great classical music been composed within the last 50 years?

There have been plenty great works written since 1960 - including some by Shostakovich. I few off the top of my head include:

John Adams - Chamber Symphony (1992); Harmonium (1981)

Kalevi Aho - everything

Malcolm Arnold - Symphony No 5 (1961)

Benjamin Britten - War Requiem (1962)

Elliott Carter - Concerto for Orchestra (1969)

John Corigliano - everything

Henryk Górecki - Symphony No 3 (1976)

Vagn Holmboe - Symphonies Nos 9-13; String Quartets Nos 6-21

André Jolivet - Cellos Concertos Nos 1 & 2 (1962; 1967)

Jón Leifs - Geysír (1961); Hekla (1961); Hafís (1965)

Witold Lutosławski - Symphony Nos 2-4; Cello Concerto (1970); Livre pour orchestre (1968); Mi-Parti (1976); Chains 1-3; Piano Concerto (1988); String Quartet (1964); Double Concerto (1980)

James MacMillan - The Confession of Isobel Gowdie (1990)

William Schuman - Symphonies Nos 7-9

Robert Simpson - Symphonies Nos 3-11; String Quartets Nos 4-15; String Quintets 1 & 2; Clarinet Quintets 1 & 2; Horn Trio; Horn Quartet

Dmitri Shostakovich - String Quartets 7-15; Symphonies 13-15; Violin Concerto No 2 (1967); Cello Concerto No 2 (1966); Violin Sonata (1968), Viola Sonata (1975); The Execution of Stepan Razin (1964)

Toru Takemitsu - nearly everything (check him out!)

Erkki-Sven Tüür - everything

John Woolrich - Viola Concerto (1993)

Enough to be going on with?

By definition anything composed in the past fifty years would not be classical. There has been a lot of great music that has been composed however.

I find myself drawn to the scores of Ennio Morricone, though he is a film composer.

John Rutter has a lot of very nice choral work.

Tan Dun, though not always my favorite, has quite an output including the YouTube symphony and the opera The First Emperor.

Eric Whitacre is a rising star of both choral and wind music.

Nobuo Uematsu is both very popular and very good. If only he could break the stigma of being a video game composer. I'd like to hear much more from this composer. Or at least music that isn't tied directly to the Final Fantasy series of games.

Well, I enjoy many works by John Adams, who is still alive. Can't think of much else. Somewhere around 50 years ago, Vaughan Williams composed his Tuba Concerto.

I would definitely rank Leonard Bernstein up on that list. He wrote three symphonies which, while unconventional by our standards, are no more unthinkable than Beethoven, Mahler or Vaughan Williams' symphonies were in their own times. I refer to the unconventional precedent-settings achieved by these men; Beethoven to lengthen the symphony and put a chorus in the final movements; Mahler to lengthen it again and to use soloists and the chorus even more so; Vaughan Williams to incorporate folk music and to use the chorus as an integral part of the music. Bernstein can be seen as fitting nicely into this progression with two of his works: the third symphony and his MASS. Though the chorus is less present in his third symphony ('Kaddish') than in Vaughan Williams 1, it actually plays a dramatic part, as this is both a symphony and a drama of sorts, complete with a narrator. In MASS, Bernstein crossed the boundary between his Broadway works (West Side Story, Wonderful Town) and formal music by setting sections of the RC Mass (plus bits of text in Hebrew) in a stage-drama with a street chorus and a jazz/rock band, along with the more traditional classical orchestra and chorus. The narrator (or the 'celebrant') is a Catholic priest who undergoes a crisis and renewal of faith in the course of the work. Bernstein brilliantly synthesizes many things here, while giving an almost-autobiographical account of his own crisis of faith: broadway musical traditions, the traditional Mass and Symphonic form. While this composition plays out in the typical order of a Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo etc.), it also has interjected numbers in which the character and situation of the celebrant is explored. There are also several 'Meditation' movements that prefigure or introduce important musical material, and the Celebrant's long solo near the end is a recapitulation of much of this material. Some have even drawn parallels between MASS and the last movement of Beethoven's 9th, wherein a lot of earlier movements' material is recapitulated before the choral finale. Finally, a motif that was introduced in the begining and used partially throughout the piece is given a fugal treatment as the meditative finale. Bernstein's genius is again in evidence; the fugue theme, originally expressing the celebrant's relationship with God, has been transformed and developed musically throughout the work, while the celebrant himself is transformed by his crisis, and is finally realized in the fugue-finale as the perfected return of the celebrant's faith. This work as a whole is such a brilliant synthesis of the traditional Mass, a broadway-style narrative and symphonic form as to make even Beethoven scratch his head in wonder. I don't hesitate to say that this is the most significant 'Classical' work composed since the Rite of Spring, and, arguably, before that. If it seems now to be not quite a 'classical' work, perhaps more in the realm of musical theatre, realize that its combination of academic brilliance and showmanship is precisely what many of the great works of the standard repertoire have that makes them the definition of the 'classical' tradition. Beethoven's Choral Fantasy, then considered a rather extravagant blend of genres, is the precedent for his ninth symphony, which is, of course, the great overshaddower of all symphonies. Bernstein's works, while definitely different than the common concept of classical music, are just a more recent step in defining the western symphonic tradition.

do not understand if it relatively is amazingly interior of it gradual constraints, yet i like Samuel Barber and Gian Carlo Menotti (however the latter's song sounds incredibly disturbed. apparently adequate, I pay attention there exchange into definitely not something incorrect with him, and not something darkish approximately his character.). And what do you even like? Atonal? Minimalist? New instrumental effects? digital? Freely diatonic (i.e. Lauridsen, Whitacre)? Neo-something? possibly in basic terms some "incorrect" notes here and there? this might help destiny respondents.

Yes, definitely. Luigi Nono, just to name one, was a major figure. Film scores are often pooh-poohed, but there have been some really good ones. Jerry Goldsmith's score for the original Planet of the Apes is worth checking out.

Barber Piano Concerto - premiered in 1962.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVgFHselUlc

I would actually suggest the John Browning recording, but it's not on Youtube.

There are great works by Messiaen, Ligeti, Britten, among many others.

Benjamon Britten didn't die until 1976, so falls with your time scale. Also consider Arvo Part, Henryk Goreki,Eino Rautavaara. There are lots more.

Addinsell Warsaw concerto

Elliott Carter: Symphony of three orchestras

(to name only one of much by many.)

Where have you been all this time?

best regards.