Reading Frank Oteri’s recent piece “No Longer New” Music and Judith Lang Zaimont’s “Living American Woman” on newmusicbox reminded me not only of the many conversations I have had with colleagues about the need to include music being composed by living and recently living composers in our programs, but of the difficulty in finding a word to call that music. While some might say it is purely semantics to decide whether or not to call it classical music, contemporary music, modern music, 20th century classical music, 21st century classical music, “new” music, or any other assorted mix of names each name has connotations and expectations attached to it. After that we have to deal with the messiness of making a distinction between this type of music and contemporary popular music or calling one “art” music. Rather than getting into a discussion about elitism and democracy in music, I’m going to just refer in this case to music outside of a popular mainstream context.
There used to be a point when many schools had composers in residence composing music specifically for the students they worked with. Take a look at Chapter 2 of Michael Mark’s [affiliate link] “Contemporary Music Education” for a refresher on some past initiatives. There was a brief discussion on the MENC research network community forum in 2002 about one of these intiatives. Another initiative called the young composer’s project matched young composers with school music programs – More than thirty years later a composer in residence project was started in Australia.
Luckily programs are sprouting up throughout the country that help connect composers with schools – Bandquest commissions living composers to create music for middle level band students and to actually work with students, the American Composers Orchestra’s Music Factory offers several programs that connect composers with students in New York schools and the UMKC conservatory Composers in the School program connects composers with students in Kansas City public schools. Unfortunately there is no longer a large initiative to help music educators bring the music and experience of living composers into schools on a regular basis. It seems strange that there was a bigger push to do this fifty years ago than there is now. While many of the composers who write music specifically for school bands, choruses and orchestras have their music performed in school – composers who write for other types of chamber groups and large ensembles are pretty much left out of schools. It would be interesting to find out how many music programs incorporate music by living composers in their programs through listening, discussing performing and other means. I wonder how many living composers the average music student or music teacher can name?