Mieczyslaw Weinberg 

Okay for a change of pace. Classical Music.  M. Weinberg is a Polish/Russian composer from the 20th century.  He fled from Nazi Germany and ended up in Moscow and Shostakovich took him underneath his wing.  He wrote many symphonies, chamber music, operas, etc.  His music is just now being discovered and he has been called the 3rd great Russian composer of the 20th century. 
His music is somewhat akin to Shostakovich but he does have his own style and synthesis. 

I have downloaded much of his music from Itunes and Amazon.  Chandos has put out some excellent recordings of his symphonies.  Naxos has recently put out a recording of his 8th symphony which is choral plus orchestral.  It is a modern story of Poland taken with prose from a famous Polish poem and poet.  It is beautiful and you should check it out.  I am not much for opera but this is excellent and different.  The orchestra blends well with the voices and the whole effect is beautiful and mesmerizing.  

The man lost his whole family to the concentration camps and somehow survived.  He did become semi-famous in Russia and Poland but died fairly broke and undiscovered. Pay homage to him and either get one of the CDs of his music or download a piece of work. 

Joe P.

Webpage for the symphony 8 is below.  

http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.572873

By the way naxos.com is an excellent site for reading about recordings and the composers.  Many of the CDs are cheap from this company but they are nearly always high in quality.  The catalogue has a page about each recording with reviews and downloads of the back cover and notes about the recordings.  It is a good site for classical music information.  I have not tried the  subscription service to their radio station but it might be worth the charge.