Chris Bonds writes:

>I'm curious to know if anyone here has, or knows someone who has, come
>to appreciate 20th-century atonal, pantonal, serial, etc.  music in vacuo,
>i.e.  in relative unfamiliarity with the music of earlier centuries.  I
>doubt it, but it's possible.

Simon Rattle has spoken about some of his work with ghetto kids, immigrants
with English not spoken at home, kids from broken homes in the poorest
areas of Birmingham (England).  They would be familiar possibly only with
the latest music of the ghetto, plus TV jingles etc., and certainly not
with anything pre-1980 or so.  He says they accept and readily enjoy what
most white adults would call difficult modern music, they have no problem
with it and are very good at improvising in that idiom.

Alan Moss
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