On February 17, 2011, Governor Peter Shumlin declared this the Year of the Composer in Vermont; what had happened in 30-plus years to bring Vermont from artistic backwater to being the first state to declare its commitment to new music?

Perhaps new music is not inaccessible, but the concert hall is.

As Cassidy talked me through the many stages of planning, sketching, and composing the quartet, it occurred to me that each step was carefully designed to advance the music’s richness without, first, sacrificing the structural propositions of the previous step and, second, requiring him to resort to the limitations of his human imagination.

The discipline needed to learn any piece by Milton Babbitt helped me become a better musician.

To mark the tenth anniversary of Transient Glory, the Young People’s Chorus of New York’s ongoing commissioning, performance, and recording program, YPC Founder and Artistic Director Francisco Núñez writes about how this important initiative first got started and how it has continued to flourish as it enters its second decade.

If instrumentalists are not exposed to new music when they are learning to play, they are naturally going to be much more inhibited about trying it when they are done with their studies.

Teenagers love playing new music; I know this because I run a contemporary chamber orchestra for teens which in its sixth season can hardly keep up with the enthusiasm of its members.

Many Americans would love to claim Louis Andriessen as ours simply because we recognize so much of us in him and of him in us.

Ironically, the avant-garde might be the old guard’s best bet for bolstering the audience for classical music, and vocal music might lead the way.

I’ve often been asked why I would want to compose an opera and while I actually expect this question to arise among those who know me primarily through my work as a film composer, when it’s asked by accomplished composers who have also composed operas, it seems that its answer lies more in the philosophical than the practical.