Kevin Sutton wrote:

>Who is in the current avant garde and what are they doing? I am not
>trying to be a smart-ass here, I really want to know.

Many of the composers active in the 60s and still alive and active in
these early years of the 21st century continue to be "in the current
avant garde".  Moreover, these days it is perhaps quite avant garde to
be "neo-romantic".  Tobias Picker springs to mind as an American example,
Peter Sculthorpe is still the leading Australian composer and either John
Rimmer or Edwin Carr might be considered the leading New Zealand composer
(Douglas Lilburn having kicked the bucket last year).  Can any of these
composers do any wrong? Frankly I have no idea - I've dabbled without
hope or talent in composition, but turned instead to the visual arts
and actually managed to start selling some recognisable images of nature,
especially my pen & ink drawings.  Eventually I hope that spilling the ink
& adding my initials will suffice.  I could churn those out very quickly!

Geoffrey Gaskell