Okay, folks, this is serious. Last week, a number of you weighed in via Classical 101's Facebook page on a Christian Science Monitor story I sent your way that explored why contemporary classical music "spurns melody." It was a lively discussion (to put it mildly), so I know lots of you care about contemporary art music. That's why I'm now referring you to Robert Blumen's blogpost, Why Do We Hate Modern Classical Music?, the most recent installment in a war of the contemporary music pamphleteers, allegedly set in motion by New Yorker music critic Alex Ross. In the article, Blumen sounds the death knell for modern classical music saying, "Even after a century, the public does not accept the a-melodic, dissonant, car-crash, sound-effect-driven compositional output of the modernist school as music. It is ultimately audience acceptance that drives composition, not the other way around. While we have been on a bit of a detour for the last 100 years, that should be long enough to declare the modernist agenda a failure and move on to something that people do like." I know you've got some thing to say. Let's hear it.
Jennifer Hambrick unites her extensive backgrounds in the arts and media and her deep roots in Columbus to bring inspiring music to central Ohio as Classical 101’s midday host. Jennifer performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago before earning a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.