Oberlin

The New York City chapter of the American Federation of Musicians recently sent out a questionnaire to its members that queried "How do you really feel about 21^st century repertoire?... How do you think 21^st century repertoire speaks (or doesn't speak!) to audiences?" A more loaded question for musicians is difficult to imagine, especially when posed as such. The tone and word choice clearly suggest that the authors already know what your answer will be: you dislike contemporary music, and so do audiences, because why would anyone enjoy that dissonant, difficult, uninspired noise?

Unfortunately, this is a common attitude towards not just music from this century, but even much of what was written after, say, 1918, the year Debussy died. This is not necessarily a wrong-headed opinion. Everyone has his own taste, and it's absurd to disdain people for not enjoying every piece of music they hear. 

Not everyone should be expected to love Thomas Adès or Steve Reich or Sofia Gubaidulina. But such an anti-contemporary music stance is often an uninformed position. People who avoid new pieces often have a slim amount of experience with music of the past century, and view it as one monolithic genre, in which everything is piercingly atonal or played on a kitchen blender. Yes, there are works like that and, no, you don't have to like them. The point is that there is a kaleidoscopic variety of music beyond that. Just because you ran screaming from the hall when a Boulez piece was performed doesn't mean you should avoid all music written during his lifetime.

Like in any other period, there is a multitude of music being written now, and obviously not all of it is touched by genius. What makes listening to contemporary music difficult is that history has yet to decide what pieces are "worthy." It takes a long time for that process to occur: there have been two centuries for audiences, musicians, critics, and musicologists to sift the Beethovens from the Ferdinand Rieses. As such, a listener of 21^st century music has to wade through much that will soon be forgotten. This doesn't mean that there isn't anything being composed nowadays that is worth your time. You just have to work harder to find it, and be willing to continue looking even after encountering music you don't like.

If for nothing else, at least try listening to contemporary music with the future in mind. There are numerous historical examples of composers whom we now consider indispensable being rejected by large swaths of people during their own lifetime: Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, Berlioz, Wagner, Brahms. Do we really want to deprive later audiences of a master by not supporting a composer in his or her own lifetime?

So, to return to the AFM's question: How does 21^st century repertoire speak to audiences? That depends on whether the audience gives it a chance in the first place.