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"From Schoenberg I learned that tradition is a home we must love and forgo." —LUKAS FOSS

The term "new music" has been used throughout history. Nearly every generation of creative musicians produced sounds and styles that had never been heard before. All the same, the innovations of the last half of the twentieth century have outstripped the most far-reaching changes of earlier times, truly justifying the label "new music." In effect, we have witnessed nothing less than the birth of a new world of sound.

Key Points

  • Musical trends in the later twentieth century mirrored movements in the other arts, including abstract expressionism, pop art, and postmodernism.
  • Feminist as well as ethnic art and literature flourished.
  • Modern theater and music merged into performance art, a multimedia genre explored by John Cage and Laurie Anderson, among others.
  • Some composers moved in the direction of total serialism, imposing a more structured organizational system on their works, while others moved toward freer constructions (aleatoric music, open form).
  • European and American composers alike responded to societal changes that occurred after World War II to produce experimental, or avant-garde, music in widely varied styles and genres.
  • Canada has followed the lead of European countries—and France in particular—in establishing significant government-sponsored programs in the arts, with a goal of preserving the country's cultural heritage and promoting and disseminating the artistic products of its composers and performers (see CP 21).

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