It's Modern Classical Week! Classical Foreverrrrrrr!
 

Intoxicating:

and again:

Gorecki has his own thread but I feel that this bears repeating.

Henryk Gorecki - Symphony of Sorrowful Songs.

:shycouch:

That sounds eerily ominous and somewhat disturbing. Is there a particular recording you would recommend?

Arvo Part - Symphony No 4 (Part 1)

This one is highest rated, and contains most of the work I've heard of his. I absolutely adore what I've heard so far. I need to man up and get ahold of it.

A very broad genre, indeed. So many subgenres, musicians, instruments....

I love Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet (1935) and Peter and the Wolf (1936):

modern classical
 

I like Eric Whitacre's choral compositions-particularly his work with the Virtual Choir. Check it out on youtube.

Two more heavyweights:

*Gustav Holst: The Planets (1918). I like that connection Planets' names --> Classical mythology --> Classical music.

Anne Akiko Meyers Birds In Warped Time - Violin - YouTube

The video is being a bit spotty on my end, but it's a great bit of music, I hope some people can hear it through.

They're also incredible fun to sing - virtually all his pieces have 3rd bass lines down in the gutteral depths of the range, and it's the same up the higher end. They give singers a chance to sing in registers they don't necessarily hit :P

You're almost there buddy. Ban-hammer is awaiting. :)

Another important composer: Samuel Barber. These are the famous Adagio for Strings (1936) and Violin Concerto op.14 (1939):

Gyorgi Ligeti is probably by far my favorite post 50s composer. An original, genius, madman with a sense of humor:

As it's defined here I think it's way too broad. Anything from over 20 years ago I would struggle to label as modern in the usual sense.

Even now of course there is a wide variety of things, often crossing over with musicians from popular music (from jazz, 'rock', world music, electronica etc).