Contemporary music

     From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

This article is part of the History of Art Music series.

Mediaeval

Renaissance

Baroque

Classical

Romantic

20th Century

Contemporary

In the broadest sense, contemporary music is any music being written in the present day. In practice, usage of the term tends to be restricted to composers writing avant garde music or music not in the manner of the common practice period but in the classical tradition since the beginning of the 20th century or the breakdown of tonality.

Contemporary composers working the early 21st century include Gyoergy Ligeti, Mauricio Kagel, Harrison Birtwistle, Steve Reich, Henri Dutilleux and many younger figures such as Oliver Knussen and Thomas Ades. For more examples see: List of 21st century classical composers.

There are a number of festivals dedicated to contemporary music, among them the Donaueschingen Festival of Contemporary Music and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.

In the early part of the 20th century contemporary music included modernism. the twelve tone technique, atonality, unresolved and greater amounts of dissonance, rhythmic complexity) and neoclassicism. In the 50's contemporary music generally meant serialism, in the 60's serialism, indeterminacy, electronic music including computer music, mixed media, performance art, and fluxus, and since then minimal music, post-minimalism, and all of the above.

See also

• 20th century classical music
• List of 20th century classical composers

This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.