Artists like Edgard Varèse

Henry Cow were an English experimental rock group, founded at the University of Cambridge in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson. Henry Cow's personnel fluctuated over their decade together; alongside Frith and Hodgkinson, however, drummer Chris Cutler, bassist John Greaves, and bassoonist/oboist Lindsay Cooper were important long-term members.

Don Van Vliet, known by his stage name Captain Beefheart, was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist. Conducting a rotating ensemble known as the Magic Band, he recorded 13 studio albums between 1967 and 1982. His music blended elements of blues, free jazz, rock, and avant-garde composition with idiosyncratic rhythms, absurdist wordplay, and Vliet's gravelly singing voice with a wide vocal range.

Arvo Pärt is an Estonian composer. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs tintinnabuli, a compositional technique he invented. Pärt's music is in part inspired by Gregorian chant. His most performed works include Fratres (1977), Spiegel im Spiegel (1978), and Für Alina (1976). From 2011 to 2018, and again in 2022 and 2025, Pärt was the most performed living composer in the world. The Arvo Pärt Centre, in Laulasmaa, was opened to the public in 2018.