If you visit http://www.presser.com/Composers/gallery.cfm there's a good cross-section of academic and non-academic, tonal, atonal, ethnic-inspired, abstract, famous, not famous, etc., which these days may also be true of many other companies, big and small, representing (dare I say) "serious" composers, by which I mean neo-art-music rather than pop oriented.
This might be a good excuse to announce that next week the Philadelphia Orchestra will be performing my BLAST OFF! on some children's concerts. Going back to the first posting on this topic, I think there are at least 4 relevant factors in what I see as a healthy tower of Babel lately: 1) The nature of media and commerce has changed so radically in recent years that it's easier for self-promoting composers to keep a high profile than it used to be, 2) The pendulum of style is in transition, and music is a whole lot more diverse than a generation ago, allowing for more styles and schools, and perhaps interacting with reason #1 also, 3) despite the number of great and important composers alive in 2003, there doesn't seem to be any one or two universally deified masters of the exalted magnitude of Stravinsky (or Beethoven etc) bearing a magnetic force on everyone else. 4) A generation ago, serial composers were often adamant that their students wrote serially, non-serial atonalists were equally adamant about their approach, etc., whereas nowadays many more composers have a more "open tent" attitude. That means when young composers emulate Adams or Carter, they're doing so out of attraction and curiosity more than from bullying and peer pressure, whereas those factors were definitely going on a generation ago regarding serialism and non-serial atonality. My opinion, certainly debatable. ==== Daniel Dorff _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
