Now I use air quotes around the word “classical” because it’s such a misnomer. True Classical Music, with a capital C, refers to the music produced exclusively in the time period from about 1750-1820. It’s when people like Mozart and Haydn were active. Now, I love me a little Mozart as much as the next guy, but that music is old. It’s great, but it’s very, very old. We live in a modern day society, right? And there are still some orchestras around playing this “classical” music? So where are our Mozarts and Haydns? Where are the people producing music that speaks to us as a modern generation? And the answer…well it requires a little history lesson.
Near the beginning of the Twentieth Century, composers started to get a little ambitious. They were fed up with the old style and how music followed exact patterns, so they started to push the boundaries of music more and more. This meant a lot of things (levels of complexity in the music started to pick up, composers started doing some weird things) but suffice to say, listeners’ reactions were all across the charts. Some people cheered on this new music, others rioted at the premieres (See: Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring). Music really started to push some buttons, go farther and father out, and the audience started to deplete a bit.
The answer to this in the 60s and 70s was a movement called minimalism. This music favored repetitive structures, a unifying process to create a piece, and mixed instrumentation (that is, whoever the composers could find to play their music). The sound owed a lot to rock music, african music, and eastern thought. The idea was that you could experience music in a very different time structure―something that hinted at a much more primal and basic human level. Repetition was a natural human sensation that could be exploited through music.
It’s also worth noting the artists that aren’t considered to be composers in the classical tradition. This means people and groups like Sufjan Stevens, Arcade Fire, Radiohead, Bjork, and the Dirty Projectors. These folks all owe a lot to this weird classical tradition, and, I would argue, are some of the great composers of our time. Songs like The Age of Adz, by Sufjan Stevens are just great demonstrators of this.
Besides the obvious instrumentation that owes itself to the classical realm, Stevens’ whole aesthetic is informed by the shifting timbres, experimentation, and the violent energy that modern classical music has.
To mention these artists and not mention their backup groups would quite a travesty. These artists, like Sufjan, often enlist help from musicians who are also active in the classical community. See Colin Stetson or yMusic as great examples. Stetson has toured and recorded with Arcade Fire, Tom Waits, TV on the Radio, Yeasayer, and a whole host of other "non-classical" groups.
