To the editors:
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Today’s art-music is being composed by a greater diversity of people than ever before, many of whom are not operating in a structured, collective environment. This music, which is the result of numerous cross influences and stylistic splintering on behalf of serious composers, is often experimental, it sometimes leans toward free-jazz, it can be heard on unfamiliar instruments, and it almost always blithely eludes definition. This genre is usually pigeonholed under the “classical music” appellation. When searching for a label, most commentators resort to the ambiguous term “new-music.” The noble and visionary mission statement of the now defunct New Music Chicago organization stated, in part, that “New music is the composed and improvised music of today. This includes various styles of art music and avant-garde styles of jazz and popular music.” There now, it’s perfectly clear, right?
From three consecutive issues of the Reader, beginning on October 29, we got a generous dose of new music information. Ted Shen got things rolling with two Critic’s Choice features on new music in one issue, then on November 5 the ghostly Egbert Souse was given no less than 45 column inches of valuable Section One real estate to bring to bear his preconceived notions of academe’s cagey mathematical approach and its avoidance of charm and humor upon an event which, in his opinion, reflected essentially the forces echoing throughout the corridors of our local universities. His amorphous description of a ten-composer, 14-work, three-hour event (which may itself appear shapeless to some observers) at an Uptown saloon was, nevertheless, important and valiant. An important gesture was Souse’s tribute to a great local composer, George Flynn, by referring to him as illustrious and then writing, “To a true modernist of the late 20th century, such as DePaul’s George Flynn, there’s no difference between the impulses of the head and heart.” That is a compliment regardless of which century an artist represents, and from among the 14 works he heard at the October 31 concert, one concludes that Mr. Souse did not find this happy conjunction of mind and soul. Some of us did find it, however.
Robert A. Falesch
