Steve Schwartz wrote: >I prefer to blame audience laziness, guilt, and resentment. I understand Steve's position, but I can't go with it very far. Most concert goers are looking for entertainment and find much contemporary music alien, hard to focus on, and not entertaining. I'm not going to blame them for seeking only entertainment in a familiar packaging. That's their right, and classical music is not a particularly strong force in their lives. About a year ago, my wife and I visted her mother in Miami. One evening her mom had over most of her current friends, and they were talking about the recent opera performances they had seen and those to come during the season. They groused quite a bit concerning a contemporary opera they attended. I asked them if all they wanted to attend were performances of operas where the music was in a familiar style. Their general answer was that they were not going to allocate "fixed income" monies to horrible music. What about non-operatic works? They also wanted none of that. What's the point of blaming them for their perferences or thinking less of them? They do support classical music and that's not very prevalent. Contemporary composers can write to satify their own standards and goals, to satisfy the general classical music audience, or some combination of the two. Which route they take is their business. But, there's little value in not accepting the audience as it is. Unfortunately, i find little vlaue in the music which is written to satisfy audiences. Don Satz [log in to unmask]