I meet many non-trained composers who write more successful music for amateurs than the trained professional.

In which we take cues from Dada, Madonna, Hollywood, and (for the more practical kids in the crowd) Business Week.

How long has it been since you’ve been completely blown away by a new piece of music? And by completely blown away, I mean you underwent an utter transformation, everything was earth-shatteringly different afterwards, and now, following a considerable amount of soul searching, an absolute epiphany has hit—or something along these lines anyway.

My composer friends and I are in near-unanimous agreement that a “faked” performance of our music is far better than no performance at all.

According to Rufus Wainwright, in classical music: “you can write your most interesting music when you’re old, fat, and ugly”; what does he mean by that?

Why would a “classically trained” composer, complete with a Ph.D. and a list of works and performances that many of us would envy, need help writing music for young wind players and percussionists?

We’re playing a little PowerBook, drooling over Elliott Carter as cover boy, financing 365 days of composition, and marking the death of Mozart’s last contemporary. All of these and more this week in the new music news you can use.

Are you missing out on free money? If you’re not signed up with ASCAP or BMI the answer is yes.

Maybe I’m way out of line here—if so, please call me out—but I just can’t help thinking that a little mandatory instruction in vernacular new music might pay off.

By hermetically sealing off a single composer’s work when we present single-composer concerts, are we somehow losing a contextual framework for listening to it?