The Value Of Contemporary Music

The argument of old music vs. new music has been raging for decades and in recent years it’s taken a severe turn as orchestras scramble to keep their audiences.  As a result, some artistic managers are pushing to program standard repertoire and other works they believe will be the most “audience friendly”.

In the end, this strategy will only be self defeating as the real value of classical music is how it touches each individual in the audience.  There’s no way to dictate how music will reach someone nor is there any guarantee that older music will reach people better than newer music. 

The Partial Observer published an article of mine today which examines this in more detail. Specifically, it examines recent events surrounding the passing of Pope John Paul II; a man who would easily fall into a category of being a traditionalist, yet one of his favorite classical music composeres is Henryk G