we're all dead. (John Maynard Keynes)
But for some of us, our music will live on. Norman Lebrecht wants to know whose music (of composers living today) will be played 50 years from now. There have been responses at Mr. Lebreacht's blog and from other bloggers. If you are surprised that the leading vote getters are of a more-or-less minimalist/not-Modern bent, you haven't been reading about concert/non-pop music on the Interweb very much. In addition, this result shows one inevitable result of predictions--that what is happening now will continue indefinitely, and that the predictor's values/tastes will be confirmed.
With that in mind, I'd like to add two predictions of my own to this little exercise.
The first, and I'm damn confident of this one, is that some composer who dies 49 years from now will have a pretty good year, performance-wise, 50 years from now.
The second is that John Mackey's music will still be performed in 2059. Mr. Mackey writes very solid and very educational music for winds and percussion (mostly). I've heard a good bit of it, and it mostly works. I think band (for lack of a better term, and I don't think we really need a better term) music is an increasingly important part of the art's future (especially in the US), and Mr. Mackey's is as good as there is.
