New Directions in Choral Music

What is 21st century music trends?

Polystylism and musical eclecticism are growing trends in the 21st century. They combine elements of diverse musical genres and compositional techniques, often alien to the composers' own culture, into a unified and coherent body of works.

What is the difference between 20th and 21st century music?

The main difference so far is in the 20th century, recordings were primarily made on analog media and in the 21st century, exclusively on digital media.

 The late Robert Shaw stated “In these times of political, economic, and personal disintegration, music is not a luxury, it is a necessity: not simply because it is therapeutic, nor because it is the universal language, but because it is the persistent focus of our intelligence, aspiration, and good will.” 

 As the 20th century was drawing to a close, though, major choral works started appearing with more regularity. Holy minimalism, a movement toward simplicity that avoided the extreme use of the dissonance that had been the norm in "serious" new music since the middle of the century, attracted new audiences with its serenity, austerity and sense of mystery. In this tradition, Arvo Part of Estonia, John Tavener of the UK, and Henryk Gorecki of Poland, among others, created works that incorporated ancient musical traditions and managed to sound both very old and very new. Most of the new pieces here, whether minimalist or not, sound thoroughly contemporary, but draw eclectically on music of other eras or other cultures, creating distinctive new sounds.

In recognition of the turn of the millennium, and to honor the 250th anniversary of J.S. Bach's death, the International Bach Institute of Stuttgart commissioned four composers to write Passion settings, one for each of the Gospels. The composers selected were Wolfgang Rihm of Germany, Sofia Gubaidulina of Russia, Tan Dun of China and the U.S., and Osvaldo Golijor of Argentina, Israel, and the U.S. The Passions by Tan Dun and Golijov have gone on to great success, and have been widely performed. While it can't be claimed that the commissions were a significant catalyst for new choral music beyond the four Passion settings, the organizers were certainly astute in picking up on a feeling that the time was ripe for new choral works.

Innumerable composers working in smaller forms have turned out some stunning choral pieces, but this feature will look at larger works. The works presented here are representative of some of the new approaches composers have taken to writing large choral works for our time. These pieces for the most part use texts from the Christian tradition, but John Tavener also incorporates Sufi poetry and sacred Islamic and Hindu texts in The Veil of the Temple, and Osvaldo Golijor employs secular Spanish poetry in his passion and closes it with a Kaddish, a Jewish prayer of mourning in Aramaic.
 
Choral music in the 21st century is undergoing a cultural renaissance. More and more ensembles are bringing together musical innovation in the choral world, and ensembles are performing music that points composers in a new direction. These composers are exploring and expanding what is possible in the choral medium without being stymied by the avocational nature of many of the performers. There has, perhaps, never been a better time to make a national, and even global, impact with choral music. The choral world is one of the most accessible avenues for the public to stay connected with “classical” or “concert” music, especially when it comes to the work of living choral composers, where there is still a mass appeal from the young to the elderly. The medium is hugely popular, it is being taken more seriously than it has for the past hundred years, and the performers themselves are hungry for new types of exploration.  There is a wonderful opportunity to use choral music as a way to expose a wide swath of Americans to the adventurous side of today’s new music conversation by getting people involved as performers, not just passive listeners. 

NOTABLE 21ST CENTURY COMPOSERS

Osvaldo Golijov

Tan Dun

Pawel Lukaszewski

Peteris Vasks'John Tavener

Arvo Part

Joby Talbot

Phil Kline

Paul Barker

Ysaye Barnwell

Andy Beck

Ken Berg

Abbie Betinis

David L. Brunner

Garin Bryars

Alan Bullard

Javier Busto 

Bob Chilcott

Pepper Choplin

Rene Clausen

Matthew Emery

Oscar Escalada

Eric Whitacre

John Rutter

Eriks Esenvalds

Jill Gallina

Ola Gjeilo

Sir Karl Jenkins

Libby Larsen

Morten Lauridsen

Sir James MacMillan

Joseph Martin

Kirke Mechem

Stephen Paulus

Rosephanye Powell

John Purifoy

John Adams