Nino Rota was one of the most prolific and acclaimed film composers of his era, and his 30-year collaboration with Fellini became one of the classic director-composer pairings. His soundtrack credits range from Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" to Franco Zeffirelli's "Romeo and Juliet" to Francis Ford Coppo

Classical, Expansive, Playful, Surreal

Just before his death in 1991, Miles Davis teamed up with rapper Easy Mo Bee to make a jazz/hip-hop album called "Doo Bop." This wasn't the first time Davis had done something utterly new -- his entire career was devoted to jazz-faring exploration. Playing with such supernovae as Charles Mingus

Bebop, Classical, Composed, Cool, Cool jazz, Electronic, Elegant, Expansive, Fusion, Fuzzy, Hard bop/post-bop, Improvised, Intimate, Loose, Lush, Mathematical, Minimal, Open-ended, Quiet, Sexy, Sincere, Spare, Subtle, Trippy

What is it that makes soprano Maria Callas stand out from all the other outstanding vocalists of her time? What is it that persuades new opera fans to buy her albums, more than 25 years after her death, when other opera singers are forgotten immediately after their retirement? Most people insist that

Classical, Epic, Feminine, Political, Sublime

One of the first composers to meld the sounds of the Western and Eastern classical music traditions, Philip Glass is largely responsible for creating the Minimalist movement in music. His unique sound developed over a long span of time -- time in which Glass decided that he was not satisfied with Wes

Classical, Clean, Electronic, Mathematical, Minimalist music, New musical hybrids, Repetition