Contemporary Classical

Letters, We Get Letters, We Get Stacks and Stacks of Letters

Dear Jerry:

I am extremely interested in educating myself on the trends in new “downtown” as well as much “uptown” music (e.g. the music, methods and processes of; yourself, David Lang, Meredith Monk, Nico Muhly, Toru Takemitsu, Steve Reich, Morton Feldman, Carl Ruggles, Charles Ives, Lou Harrison), and I am in search of resources online to meet this end.  I want to know them the way you do, or the way a composition professor would.  The online resources of which I am aware are The New Grove Dictionary, Music Theory Spectrum, The Society For Music Theory, and Sequenza21.com.

I have a BA in music, so I can read and understand most things about art music.
I want to acquaint my thinking with the culture and methods of these great composers.  Can you recommend some resources for me?  I thank you very much for whatever time you take with this.
JL