Peoria Journal-Star Article

Peoria Journal Star,
Peoria, IL
Sunday, August 14, 2005
By Gary Panetta, music critic

It's not easy to see yet, but something like a renaissance is about to occur in contemporary classical music. For the first time in a century, composers are moving out from under the shadow of the university and writing music that speaks to people beyond the ivy walls. For the first time in quite a while, composers are free from -isms and movements and prescribed ways of composing. They are free to write any way they please.

So says Seth Boustead, executive director of Chicago-based Accessible Contemporary Music, which is collaborating long-distance via the Internet with local composer Jeffrey Hoover on "Dancing in the Park," a 10-minute chamber ensemble piece.

The collaboration sums up the mission of Accessible Contemporary Music: To free music from its academic shackles and allow it to find fresh audiences in unexpected places such as bars, theaters, churches, coffeeshops - and on the World Wide Web.

Log on to www.acmusic.org/composeralive.html and you can chart the progress of the summer-long collaboration between the Chicago group and Hoover, chairman of fine and applied arts at Illinois Central College. Hoover has been sending weekly installments to the group, which tries each new installment out, records it, and posts both the recording and comments about the piece in progress on the contemporary music site. The result is a rough, week-by-week snapshot of a composition from its genesis to its final form as well as a down-to-earth look on how music comes to be.

"For some reason the word 'composer' has mysterious connotations," Boustead wrote by e-mail. "Even other musicians fall into this. They say, 'I'm a songwriter but he's a COMPOSER' like somehow one is better than the other. We don't necessarily believe that this is true, and we believe that mystifying the compositional process is hurting classical music."

"By following it along and watching the individual weeks, people can get an idea of how music evolves and changes over time," Hoover said. "Music does not spring fully formed from the mind of the composer. There is a certain amount of editing involved." Besides the project with Hoover, Accessible Contemporary Music also uses its Web site for a program called Weekly Readings, where the group performs and records music by living composers. Through the Internet and live concerts at offbeat venues, Accessible Contemporary Music has been able to connect new music with new audiences, normally put off by over-intellectualized, overly serious environments, Boustead said. There is reason for hope, not gloom, about new music's future.

"The music is becoming less and less academic, more full of life and passion, and more and more it's connecting with wider audiences," Boustead said. "I truly believe that this is an exciting time for new classical music and that a rebirth is not far behind."

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