There are several kinds of 'new music.' Strictly speaking, the term
should apply to music that was written in the last five years or so.
(In terms of new, unrecorded concert music, one might have to stretch
the definition of new to around 20 years, but no longer than that since
fashions change.) However, the term could be construed to mean (2) music
that is newly heard by the public as opposed to newly composed (like the
Elgar Third Symphony), or (3) music that is only new to a particular
listener.

The last category, 'new-to-me (NtM) music' is what matters. Anyone who
doesn't do NtM cannot claim to be much of a music lover, if they think
the few classics they know are all they need to know.  They should at
least explore more unheard music of their favorite composers or styles.
Non- NtMers I dismiss out of hand.  (Let me also point out that even the
newest NtM music becomes OtM music after repeated listenings.  The magic
NtM-OtM conversion number may vary widely by individual, but for me it's
usually around 3.)

But being an NtMer is not sufficient.  Not including fairly new music
in one's NtMing risks abandoning any pretense of being truly alive,
culturally.  (By 'fairly new,' I must fudge and include all 20th-century
music that had a say in making us what we are today.) Without doing this,
one might as well be a museum piece.  I'm not saying one must love any
new music, by the way, but even anti-new-music die-hards who are culturally
alive (e.g., Donald Vroon) listen to and like SOME fairly new music.

I may be more extreme than some since I prefer, in terms of hours of
listening, a ratio of at least 60/40 'fairly new' to OtM music.  I have
meticulously rated the NtM music I have listened to over a nine-year
period and observe in general that a 30% of it does not please me, 65%
of it is pleasant enough for 3-7 listenings, but only 5% moves me.  But
BOY how that 5% moves me!

Like last night I heard Golijov's 1992 'Yiddishbbuk' for the first time
and just about jumped up out of the bench I was so electrified with the
first movement.

Without having heard this NtM masterpiece, or the fairly new OtM
masterpieces of favorite composers such as Rouse and Tveitt, my life
would be so much the poorer, I might as well be that Jeffrey pine that
fell down last week on Sentinel Dome in Yosemite.  The San Francisco
Chronicle front page today implied it was one of the most photographed
trees in the world, first photographed in 1867 and made famous by Ansel
Adams.  But the poor thing died of drought in 1977.  The time to mourn
was then.  A dead tree, like anyone who does not renew themselves through
art, will inevitably crack, topple, and crumble.

Jeff Dunn <[log in to unmask]>