Who’s Afraid of New Music?

If you spend any time contemplating directions in contemporary classical music, not to say designing programs full of it, or selling tickets to said programs, no matter how adventurous the vast majority of your audience may be, you almost invariably eventually run into the response, “I just don’t get it.” This is often a kind of mask for “I just really don’t like it,” or worse. In his book, Fear of Music, David stubbs explores why people are drawn to the visual experimentations of Rothko, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into affection for Stockhausen or Cage. NPR’s excellent program, To the Best of our Knowledge just conducted a fascinating interview with Mr. Stubbs. You can hear the whole interview here.