During two years as General Manager of Soundstreams Canada, a new music concert presenter in Toronto, Canada--the conversation we hosted that most animated the music community here was a lecture given by Sir John Tavener. He was in town at our invitation for a concert we were presenting of his music. It might be added that unlike the small attendance at most new music concerts, this was an SRO concert. We crowded about 1200 into an 1100 seat cathedral and had to send hundreds home in disappointment. Clearly this is a voice that is reaching people musically.

Prior to John's arrival, he and I had discussed by phone, the fact that both the music community and the theological community wanted to sponsor a lecture and there was insufficient time in the schedule for two such events. At his suggestion, and with the cooperation of the two sponsoring faculties, we had combined the two into a lecture entitled, "The vocation of the sacred artist".

In the lecture Tavener presented the view that music had a purpose and that purpose was to reach the soul of individuals in an uplifting, encouraging and enobling way. The purpose of music was fulfilled when the audience left the concert hall feeling troubles lifted and with a desire for a better world, filled with beauty. He continued in voicing the opinion that music had lost its way when composers began to use music as a way to express their personal tragedy and turmoil, unloading that depression and tortured visions on the audience. In so doing, he continued, the composer was contributing to a negative world-view and the entropy of a corrupted civilization.

Although I found myself uncomfortable with a certain black-and-white nature to his arguments, I found myself fundamentally agreeing. The idea that "if the world is to be saved, it will be saved by beauty"-- a Tavener quote that so struck me that I made it the featured quotes in our marketing campaign--was certainly the central theme to my own love of music and what I want to achieve in music and also what is at the root of my own assessment of "good music" and "bad music". I don't necessarily want music to make me "feel good" but I want to leave the concert hall with the sense that my soul has been touched and nourished.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Critical Conversation has truly been a fascinating read. Thank you all for your thoughts and observations...you have really made me think. And though I refer to give my answer in the music that I write, I was reminded of a recent concert at the Caramoor Festival, in which both John Rockwell and myself were participants. At this concert, he expressed his concerns about the lack of a Big Idea. I had responded that I find this actually exciting, because I can get up everyday and try something new or different in the music that I write.

I realized about a day after that concert, that I actually do have a Big Idea in my composing, and I just didn't think to say anything in our public forum...this might be because I was thinking of styles when he made this comment.

But my Big Idea is more of a philosophy: I want the music to be interesting and to communicate...which doesn't rule out any "isms" but generally acts like a guide in my composing. It sounds simplistic and it's definitely not unique, but it is for me of paramount importance. So thank you all for your wisdom, experience, and wit. It is much appreciated by many folks.

I hope at almost 32 that I still possibly qualify as a young(ish) voice. Here's a letter I wrote to Alex Ross not too long ago in response to a New Yorker article, that I think addresses Mr. Dargel's question:

Dear Mr. Ross,

As an emerging student composer, I'd like to commend you for paying attention to the future of classical music: student composers. We are largely ignored by the media, while we watch our rock'n'roll peers get all the attention. I urge you, however, to follow up this article with two more installments: public university music departments and young composers working outside of school. Everyone knows about the music departments at Juilliard, Yale, Columbia, Mannes, NYU, and so on. A portrait of music students in the New York City area is hardly complete with private schools alone. CUNY and SUNY schools in the area have several fine music departments with student composers just as exciting and edgy as their private school counterparts. Furthermore, there are several groups in the area comprised of young performer-composers working outside of the academic arena: Anti-Social Music, Wet Ink, Common Sense Composers Collective, Vox Novus, to name but a few, and new ones are popping up all the time. All of these groups and students would love to see you at one of our shows and hear your opinions, whether or not they turn into a New Yorker article.

In short, we young composers are out there and we are getting our music heard; the critics aren't showing up to hear us. I suspect their bosses aren't interested in letting them explore the "underground" classical world, because they think their readers aren't interested.

As a member of the aforementioned Anti-Social Music, here's what I see are the big ideas in classical music: --a d-i-y attitude: put together your own shows with your own music. --think like a rock band, not an orchestra. --don't be ashamed of what you listen to, everything is potential creative fodder; if Josquin can use drinking tunes in his music, so can I. --don't wait for your audience to find you, go out and find your audience; lots of people are interested in more "difficult" or "challenging" music that you can't dance to.

Classical music is not dead or dying any more than punk or disco or bluegrass. It's just not your grandmother's classical music, anymore.

"But one thing classical composers could learn from pop is a sense of fun...Mozart thought of himself as an entertainer as well as an artist.." Justin Davidson

No. Unlike in Mozart's era, in 20th century America - and now in the rest of the world - entertainment is a business and an industry, and except for a few powerful artists (often for a short amount of time), it the business of entertainment that determines its rules, reception and quality, at the center of which is the most researched, defined and marketed product: fun. That is why the "fun" most entertainers produce fades when a new concept of "fun" arises, one version of which is "pop" entertainment.

Although he has his moments, T.S. Eliot is not fun in entertainment terms; Andrew Lloyd Weber is. How about asking Aavo Part to lighten up? I recall an incident a few years ago with a composer commissioned by Disney. In a final rehearsal, a Disney executive tried to have the last movement of the piece, which was an elegy or requium, become more lively. After all, why make death something so sad? It won't play in the 'burbs.

There are some artists who can do business and entertain, not a problem. And some whose work, uncompromisingly, can flourish in the two domains (e.g., Glass). But fun and entertainment should be left to those who do it best and the meaning that artists convey should not be entertaining when it

needs to be.

As a composer and performer (see Kyle Gann's list of postminimalists), I know that when I compose, I am not trying to follow a musical trend or style, nor am I aiming to create a new one. I want to write music that will speak to all listeners; music that is true and sincere.

As artists, we each bring our individual histories, whatever that may be, to our work. Because I was classically-trained as a pianist and didn't start composing until after college, my musical influences growing up were dominated by the Western, traditional piano repertoire. I didn't even know that living composers (let alone women composers) existed until college.

Regardless of style or genre, I think music with a strong, sincere voice will be heard and most likely will endure. My question is how can we make new music relevant in today's society?

As Greg wrote, we are suffering from a disconnect between classical music and the rest of our culture. Wasn't there a time in this country when everyone shared common classical musical references? Household names included not only performers and conductors (like Horowitz, Heifetz and Toscanini) but composers and music educators like Leonard Bernstein, Deems Taylor and Sigmund Spaeth.

We live in such a different world today, and I think the lack of acceptance of new music in American society has a lot to do with the decline in music education throughout the nation (in addition to the kind of world we live in - faster-paced, technology-driven with overwhelming amounts of information, all competing with one another to distract and entertain us).

If everyone in this country had music education that was thorough and more open-minded in its teachings, I believe they would be able to connect and relate to more of the music that is being written today.

Since unfortunately this is not the case, composers and performers must reach out to audiences beyond the traditional way of doing things. I commend cellist Matt Haimovitz's efforts to reach out to broader audiences by performing both traditional and contemporary works in unusual venues.

I'm at work on my second disc of original chamber works, Earthshine, (due out in the fall) and I aim to promote my CDs by selling them at solo piano recitals. Nowadays, we composers must do it on our own. Since the support isn't out there, we have to be innovative and think like entrepreneurs.

I'm proud to say I produced this upcoming disc, as well as my first one, Perigee & Apogee, through funds raised from private donors. This time around, I am launching Earthshine on my own label so as to sustain funds for future projects.

Getting new music out there is an uphill battle, but I am hopeful. I work with many children and adults of all backgrounds as a music teaching artist with Lincoln Center Institute. I know that they, the children especially, are so open to new music when they are exposed to it by someone they can relate to and trust.

Audiences need new music guides they can trust, and I don�t think critics are always looked upon as reliable sources. Composers and performers need to work together, regardless of style or genre, to invite others to join us in our diverse musical worlds.

It's not unlike the lobbying efforts of the politicians today. Composers need to reach out and connect with people outside their field, their potential audiences, and convince people why they should listen to us.

Beata Moon
Composer/Pianist

Scott Cantrell wrote: "I'm apparently not alone in feeling that too much of this has degenerated into one-upsmanship and looking down noses. Let's have disagreement, fine, but the condescending tone of at least one contributor hardly illuminates anything except--well, we won't go there. No wonder readers don't like critics."

And John Rockwell commented: "And I definitely agree with Scott's latest posting, about civility."

Interesting. That fraying of the edges of civility among the professionals here seemed to me a most welcome sign of critical good health, and the very thing that made this symposium's exchanges (among the professionals) so encouraging.

Time enough for dispassionate civility in your print columns, gentlemen (and ladies), where y'all are peddling learning and wisdom to the Great Unwashed. Here, among yourselves, it seems to me, is the place for the free and forthright expression of your informed passions and prejudices, and their justifications.

It's the lack of that free and forthright expression in print that makes what should be a vital and vigorous public conversation in the media among professional music critics seem instead (to quote myself), "...[arguments] more appropriate to genteel luncheon and dinner parties where it's considered the height of gauche to argue in any manner that might upset the digestion of those seated at table. Arguing in that dispassionate, genteel way makes members of [the mainstream critical fraternity] feel they've been informative and reasonable, when all they've managed to be is glib...while at the same time keeping hands clean, hair un-mussed, and digestion undisturbed -- theirs, their fellow music critics', and their readers'."

Well, admittedly, John Rockwell, I do not read everything you write, so I will defer to other commentators. But, while you might think you are Mr. Context, your reviews, not feature writing, too often become strongly evaluative. I think Gann & Ross are more artist oriented in their writing. That is not a problem, however, unless your intent is to be more historical than judgemental, etc. In any case, I still do not see the basis for stating that Gann (or anyone of the principle writers involved in this discussion) do not hear enough or write about a breadth of music.

Random aesthetic questions (wrapping a few assumptions) that I've been turning over ever since reading Leonard B. Meyers' "Music, The Arts and Ideas" many years ago:

Which metaphorical direction do ideas have to be in to become "big"? "Up"? "Out"? Against"?

We can call anything a work of art; what kind of attribute are we imbuing it with, that a moment before the same object wasn't given?

The Earth is only so big; given enough time running around the surface of it, we end up never able to climb a new mountain, discover a new island, etc. We still create new, important, personal experiences, but the direction is different. Is there something similar in Aesthetics?

What happens when we include ideas in the artstic "sphere" that were excluded before? More specifically, what happens when we finally allow the last door in the sphere to be opened, that includes everything in the sphere? Where do we "go" then for the next big idea?

Is Aesthetics in the big sense, like the universe itself, a kind of finite-yet-unbounded place? If it is, how do we come to terms with it ? Where do we find the same level of value and importance when the direction can only go "back", around", "through"?

When John Rockwell gripes that Kyle Gann has devoted his career to certain composers and suggests that he pick up on the composers Alex Ross mentions, he indirectly brings up a point regarding musical worlds and critical positions that needs further discussion. From my reading over decades, I find Gann to have a far more thorough social and historist sense of contemporary composer's careers and the specific trajectories of their music than John Rockwell.

Rockwell is the type of critic who seems far more willing to hear (and judge) music piece by piece and not as part of an artist's life's work. I often stop reading him when I discern that he fails to place music he is writing about in any context, as if just the sound and performance of one piece on one night were enough to know what a work may mean or what a composer's ideas are. Unfortunately, I think that has something to do with the uptown/downtown and NYC vs. non-NY music worldview, not to mention academic/non-academic approaches.

That last comment also pertains to Alex Ross' work. Nearly all of the compositions Ross mentions are by composers-who-need-no-introduction and whose works are presented in major, oh well, uptown venues. Ross, for the most part, generally contextualizes the work he reviews in the New Yorker, but he rarely ventures into Gann's musical neighborhoods. This is, in some sense a good thing; and thank-you, Greg Sandow, for being all over the place. (Sandow, by the way, recently had a perceptive AJ Blog on the different audiences & the places in NYC they hear and respond to music). This is all not meant to be personal, each writer represents a "type" and, in a way, an aesthetic that could be addressed.

Points of discussion: there are no transcendent ideas without history and context, which audiences bring to work and is sanctioned by the institutions and discourses that surround productions. To respond to music or art without contexts is to buy into (sorry for this old term) anonymous commodification of material and denial of individual creative evolution. This is especially significant when writing about living composers whose work or ideas are not known.

Second, as Alex Ross points out, there are no ideas without accounting for artistic lives and careers. This applies to critics as well, who need, as Gann often does (following Virgil Thomson, for one), to declare their positions and allegiances. Purely "detached" or "objective" critical writing is credible only up to a point, which is nevertheless generally determined by the publication (like one that would hold to the convention of such form of address as "Mr. Ice Cube.") This is, of course, not to argue for impressionistic responses; there is much more at stake.

John Rockwell advises Gann to spread his wings, to which, I would suggest Rockwell grab a Metro Card to visit more composers at work, pick up his his walking stick, and use his expense account to get on the road and not just in the concert hall.

"The musical equivalent would have been a composer who, in a white heat of creation, spewed out music -- but writing it down, not improvising it in concert. (Of course, somebody's sure to point out some composer who did just this." - Greg Sandow

I'd like to be that somebody - Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1892 - 1988) an enormously prolific composer, who completed more than one hundred works between 1915 and 1984. Many are for piano solo; some are of enormous dimensions. He wrote over 10,000 pages of manuscript. His works are fearsomely complex, through composed with no direct repetition of any kind. They where written from top left to bottom right at break neck speed with no pre-sketching and virtually no correction after the event, even the two massive symphonies for huge orchestra and chorus, 824 and 1001 pages of A2. Those who actually saw him compose (which were very few indeed) said that he indeed "spewed out music*in the white heat of creation".

Very much a minor figure (indeed a non-figure) during his lifetime entirely by choice and the thought of being part of any "idea" let alone a "big idea" would have been completely repugnant to him. Sorabji was himself a prolific critic and music journalist. One of my favourite Sorabji quotes was directed against his fellow critics "Insects that are merely noisome like to think that they can also sting."

David Carter
London

While my background is in the visual arts, I am an accomplished guitarist. As Wynne Delacoma accurately points out, none of us are ever going to become capable of predicting the "next big" anything. Worse yet, while John Cage's incorporating Zen Buddhist practices to composition and performance may still have a strong potential, his 1962 "Silent piece 0' 0" personifies Delacoma's statement:"...schools of thought that stifle creativity rather than stimulate it."

Whenever mediocre thought and subsequent performance are elevated to the level of being news worthy based on timing rather than content, a glaring problem exists. The hell-bent attempts to periodically merge "art and technology" into some magical Disneyesque experience for artdom to celebrate, has most always resulted in shallow, human removed exercises that the advertising industry thrives on to reach their mass of consumers. Rauschenberg's "Mud Muse" is a case in point, what is even the intended content of that piece? Computer-generated imagery on the same level of accomplishment and/or content as the Chauvet cave horse paintings.

Sorry, does not compute. Former U of M artist/instructor John Link, once astutely observed: "Art doesn't give a damn who creates the next masterpiece, just so long as someone does." I think music will continue to operate under that same decree.

Greg: I've read your 3rd point, where you ask why improvisation, as manifest in the 1950s and likened to the procedures of Pollock and Kerouac, seemed to be rejected by the musical mainstream, in favor of a kind of musical formalism.

The idea that improvisation can be handily introduced into classical concert music has been largely built on a misunderstanding of the nature of both of those great processes. Each requires far different musical skills, and more importantly, each requires a dedication to a unique sensibility that transcends the skills themselves. It seems to me that on balance, the separation between traditional Western improvisational and interpretive forms has proved to be a healthy one. Much of the enjoyment of hearing fine musicians lies in the appreciation of the dedication to a particular point of view come to life in a specific performance. And I'm sure we've all had our disappointments with hybrids that end up at best as a musical "surf 'n turf."

Improvisational forms are present in much experimental music of the last few decades. If the likely roots for this are in jazz, it has certainly moved into procedural realms that are as far-removed from those origins as they are from so-called concert music. There's your "third stream" - at this point, a wholly different genre, much more open to the changeable ideas of the Art world at large, and much more able to participate in that change. Whether it's part of the NY Times-reading mainstream or not, is (to me) beside the point: It is the life work of musicians more interested in creating the present than connecting to the past.

I have been following the Critical Conversation discussion, and I would like to offer my contribution:Compared to the NYC new-music scene, the NYC independent (pop) music scene consistently draws a wider demographic and larger pool of listeners to hear its emerging artists. The venues and the artists themselves take a more proactive role in marketing emerging composers, songwriters, and musicians, so the interesting things that are happening in the pop music world are heard about and talked about a lot (and by a lot of different people).

Interesting things and Big Ideas are certainly happening in the concert music world, but they're not being heard about or talked about because concerts are not being marketed well. New music promoters should focus on attracting young audiences and emerging composers before we all become completely jaded.

Music critics should write more PREview articles, in an effort to bring more audiences to upcoming events. Positive REviews of one-time concerts of music by emerging composers may be forgotten by the time the composers' music is performed again. [Nobody take this personally please!]

Finally, venues/presenters that tend to present established artists should host events in which a collection of emerging artists are presented (on one bill) with the same courtesy, production values, quality performers, and publicity that established artists enjoy. I believe it would not be difficult to find funding for such an "outreach" event, and it truly *could* strengthen the community, if it were handled with genuine and professional care. The Kitchen (NYC) may claim to do this with Kitchen House Blend, but KHB usually features established and semi-established composers, not truly emerging composers.

I've had a lot of support from composers, performers, and some smaller presenters in the concert-music world, and this support has been invaluable to me. That is why I strive to advocate change in the concert-music world rather than just removing myself from it. But the support I've experienced from the independent (pop) music world brings with it the potential for my music to reach a broader and more diverse audience, and sadly I can't imagine such potential in today's concert-music world. How jaded am I?

When I put on concerts, one of the main obstructions to bringing in an audience is marketing. The amount of money spent to promote the LA Phil and related organizations gives many people a sense that it is the "thing" to do. The practicality of putting on a concert in an alternative venue (church, art gallery, museum) can limit the exposure and coverage of the event. In Los Angeles, the official Green Umbrella "New Music" Concerts are really setup to promote the direction of the LA Phil and the orchestra as a whole. Their mailings, posters, radio ads and banners give the public a sense of confidence in the quality of the presentation. Of course when you attend the concert you realize that you might have been swindled. Or feel that you are not smart enough to "understand" the music.

So the problem for any alternative ensemble, is that unless we are playing in an establishment venue or concert series then we can only bring in the same 50-60 people (heavy on friends and family) that come out to our concerts on a consistent basis.

I recently met a music producer, Ronan Murphy, who I found out I had much in common with. Although he makes his living making punk, and progressive rock records, we both could talk in detail about early Glass and Reich records that we really love. Knowing this I wondered his views on why they had not "caught on" more. He said it was like teaching the public to eat sheep heads.

What?

He was recording an album in Iceland and having a dinner with a Afghan and a Swede. They saw that there was sheep head on the menu and ordered it immediately. He was horrified, but decided to try it. Of course it was wonderful, but it was not something he ever thought he would like. So our goal is getting people to like sheep heads. Maybe, with the right marketing campaign...

Through marketing we could get there, but who will pick up the cost? I feel that whoever gets some traction and gets halfway their will open the door for the rest of us.

Until then we push on.

Yes, that's helpful, and a nice list (though not terribly "new" to anyone paying fair attention over the last couple decades). For a really broad slice of the current spectrum, including much fine work by people that don't even begin to approach the fringes of the "official radar", I'd like to recommend two sites:

In both of these cases, What becomes important is not the name, affiliation, publisher/label, awards, reputation, "buzz", etc; rather it's simply do they make good music?

Is it too much to expect that nearly the entire significance-sickness in nonpop has to do with the dearth of effective investment and imaginative marketing -- as well as, to some extent, the noose of intellectual property laws that strangles compositions that might use popular work as source material?

As for marketing, I don't think my (our) ears are exceptions. My wife was a blues and rock listener before she met me. Yet she has developed not only a discernment but also a true enjoyment of new nonpop because of its presence in the home, and my own enthusiasm for it. My one-on-one marketing has expanded my friends' listening habits. Our tiny radio show has developed a local audience that faithfully listens every week -- an audience of largely 'naive' listeners that is very different from our much larger on-line listenership. Our local audiences *and* critics have grown into nonpop over the past decade in live concerts as well; Vermont is small, so change can be more easily effected, but after 15 years of our composers working together in promoting and marketing our work, nearly every Vermont nonpop ensemble includes new compositions in its concerts ... *and* an audience eager to hear them.

Today, the larger consumer world doesn't really care about composers, doesn't know what they do for the most part (as in the term 'songs' in place of 'compositions' in almost every piece of commercial software), and, when nonpop rises at all above the horizon, it's limited to marketing of "The Most Beautiful Music in the World: 99 Classics to Go to Sleep By".

Yet I truly believe that a marketing entrepreneur coupled with a group of serious investors could turn around the public attention, and that would reveal the occasional Big Ideas by sheer mass presence and subsequent mass filtering. A single movie turned enthusiastic public attention back to bluegrass. Yanni dragged the concerto soloist model into the pop world. Sir ALW has skirted the classical model and brought attention to a certain concert-ish sound through spectacle.

I tried to get through to the Spectacle Man himself, Richard Branson. This little Q&A from 1998 is still valid today (though I'm more optimistic about the investment issue). An excerpt:

===

What is this music?

Once it was called 'classical' music, but that word doesn't fit now. For a while people tried adjectives like serious, avant-garde, concert or art music--a panoply of terms that tried to identify this music as different from entertainment music. Yes, this music is different because it asks the listener's intimate attention and involvement. You might say that entertainment music wears familiar clothes; this music--this art music--simply drops its clothes to the floor, inviting a longer look. It's quite a story. Let's talk about it.

Who cares about this music?

Few enough people, but that's because they don't know much about it. An entire generation--maybe two--simply got out of the habit of listening closely to music. Maybe the music wasn't listenable for a while. Maybe recordings overtook the concert hall. Maybe music became a commodity or a utility. The reasons aren't important, because listeners are ready to re-discover this music-without-a-name.

With so many important causes, why should I care about this? For the same reasons people buy recordings or wear fashionable clothes or fly balloons--because, when the day is done, there's growth and good beyond raw survival. Perhaps, in a world of pain, all pleasure is indefensible. So ultimately, if you don't want to do this, nothing can justify it.

What will I get out of it?

This is not a financial investment. It's an open question whether you will reap a penny. History will hardly know you, any more than it remembers the Margrave of Brandenburg. But there will be Branson compositions and dedications and concerts and recordings. Something will be forever changed in the musical and cultural history of the world. But your own reward will be entirely personal.

Isn't arts sponsorship the government's business?

Hardly. Who knows why they continue funding the arts? Maybe it's a hand-me-down from royal patronage. Perhaps it insulates artists from a commercial world. But I believe--and have lived the belief--that individual risk sharpens appreciation for the imagination of art and music.

But isn't it just charity anyway?

No. Here's the difference. Society pays for what it values, or perceives to have value ... the basics, travel, entertainment, and even one-of-a-kind artwork by the Great Masters. By hiring living composers and paying for their products, you, Richard Branson, assign value--cash value--that others can wonder about, consider, and emulate. Don't call the awards or commissions or fellowships; call them the Branson Positions, where you hire composers as inventors of worthwhile products.

What am I actually doing?

Consider it R&D--I like the research and development analogy. To start, you'll hire 100 composers as 'creative developers' to work in an environment free from outside pressures, perhaps for two years. When they've completed their experimental designs, you'll bring the results in for engineering (rehearsals), improvement (revisions), beta-testing (concerts), and production. Then, with all your enthusiasm behind them, you'll market the products under your own New Virgins label and purchase time on concerts for their performance. Aside from the artistic integrity guaranteed the composers, it will partly be a commercial venture in the public's eyes. If orchestras and chamber groups play the music, they will receive payment, publicity, and your good graces; if they don't, they'll continue to beg for contributions to play more Mozart. Audiences will pack the halls for Branson Concerts.

And then what?

If you've done it up right, others less artistically aware will emulate you--the technological barons, the financiers, the Wall Street investors. Where millions went to purchase paintings of the Old Masters, millions will also go to create new musical masterpieces. You will have met the challenge

===

Branson didn't answer, of course, but I thought it was worth posing the questions if only to frame them.

There's also the intellectual property issue. With sourcing new tunes so legally complicated and often nasty, who will have the fortitude of a John Oswald? His Pluderphonics, of course, worked in the electronic medium that needed no skittish performer or performance organization base. A set of textural and tonal variations on, to use the current blog-mentioned pop diva, "Oops, I Did It Again" would be a legal navigation nightmare. And speaking of ALW and his hard lock on contracts, what sort of nightmare would result from using his tunes as source material?

This is a major issue, especially considering that nonpop also forms the essential research & development system for the mass-audience arts.

Nonpop by nature will never be popular in the same entertainment-based way as the pop tune, but that does not mean it should lack visibility. Again using a blog example, "Fahrenheit 9/11" transformed (for now) opinion of & attention to the documentary form.

Somewhat as an aside about the local complaint in one comment: From reports I hear from hundreds of our guests, the local audiences are almost always enthusiastic -- outside the provincial cities such as New York, that is. This is personality at work, don't you think? A good marketing scheme to present nonpop composers as personalities is not a bad idea. (As you can guess, I think it's a great idea.)

We're in a golden age of musical composition. Much as I prefer to think that the voices of nonpop art and music can be heard because of their sheer ability to inspire the imagination and participate in a community of cultural growth, I have concluded that the willingness to dismiss (or at least subjugate) all the mechanisms of public outreach -- marketing, IP, R&D investment -- means the Big Idea (or even the Little Ideas that I have dedicated my own life to in creating 650 compositions over 40 years) will rarely be felt in practice. And as I said to Branson, "individual risk sharpens appreciation for the imagination of art and music."

It seems to me a critic's role might include addressing how nonpop has failed to come of age, not as an artform in its own time, but as a vital participant in contemporary enterprise.