Classical composers of the twentieth century?

You'll never have a shortage of politically (not necessarily *party* politically) engaged composers in the 20thC, so brace yourself for many more from contributions still to come... :-)

The mention of Weill cannot happen without equal mention of Hans Eisler and lifelong collaborator Bertolt Brecht:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Eisler

Likewise, Bernd Alois Zimmermann, whose opera 'Die Soldaten' has to be one of the most brutal theatre studies on the nature of power ever penned:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernd_Alois_Zimmerman...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Soldaten

and, to avoid neglecting a little country with many major 20thC composers of the avant garde and giving you a whole clutch of them, my own composition mentor, Peter Schat, in collaboration with Louis Andriessen, Reinbert de Leeuw, Misha Mengelberg and Jan van Vlijmen, and, for an example among many, the 'kind-of' opera, called a 'morality', of 'Reconstructie' (1969), a scathing essay on, as they saw it at the time, US imperialism and liberty, centred around Che Guevara.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Andriessen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misha_Mengelberg

http://www.laphil.com/philpedia/artist-detail.cfm?...

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_van_Vlijmen

You'll doubtless garner many, many more, but there's a handful for you to be getting on with...

All the best and good luck!

females have been discouraged or perhaps forbidden from receiving guidance contained in the song international, yet issues are extremely changing at present. indexed under are some composers that confirm you look into - all at present residing and all arising some extremely stable cloth: Jennifer Higdon Melinda Wagner Joan Tower Ellen Taffe Zwilich i do no longer think of they have been pronounced yet, and definitely properly worth a while. Ms. Higdon is speedy starting to be between the main oftentimes occurring composers of our time, no longer in basic terms gaining recognition as a novelty "lady composer."

Kurt Weill was a Communist.

Since Nazi Germany was unhospitable to Communists, he fled the country.

Ironically, he fled to the United States, which is not known for its hospitality to Communists.

The reason he chose the United States was probably because the United States is hospitable to show biz, and he took full advantage of the United States' hospitality to show biz.

All of Kurt Weill's operas, at least all of them that I know of, portray capitalist businessmen as villains.

You'll probably get the most mileage out of Shostakovich, Benjamin Britten is the only other one who springs to mind - his music often had a strong anti-war message.

TECHNICALLY the classical period was over 200 years ago anything written in the 20th century is contemporary

but Shostakovich wrote his symphonies (like the 5th especially) under speculation of the USSR. In his 5th symphony he mocks them and he was definitely under fire. you should check more about him out