Excerpts from keynote speech, The ISCM-ACL World Music Days Festival, Hong Kong, 1988
[continued]
These examples literally prescribed all of the major developments in the U.S. for the subsequent decades:
- Developing new sonorities and new concepts for organization;
- Expanding on serialism;
- Formulating mathematical and acoustic methodologies for composing, anticipating the computer age;
- Forsaking the mannerism and artificiality of neoclassicism for the objectivity of serialism;
- Evolving new contrapuntal and metric conceptions;
- Establishing electronic music as a major area of attention;
- Exploring microtonal possibilities;
- Reassessing the characteristics and value of American folk and popular traditions in music;
- Experimenting with aleatoric procedures and artistic values of choice and spontaniety; and>
- Assimilating theories and practices of Asian musical cultures.
So, where do we stand now in the late 1980’s, after such a dazzling display of trends and directions? Some of the above indeed represent new directions while others may well prove to be no more than merely thrashing about.
Some composers in the U.S, today still follow the tradition of the earlier decades, seeking to further expand the musical horizons; others try to consolidate ideas and practices evolved earlier. Still others are concerned with preserving the older European tradition. An emerging group is devoted to bridging serial and tonal concepts and procedures.
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