New York-Based Orchestra Presents Only American Composers

Based in New York City, the American Composers Orchestra (ACO) is the world’s only symphony orchestra whose sole purpose is the “creation, performance, preservation, and promulgation” of American composers’ music (http://www.americancomposers.org/about-aco/mission). As a young American composer, I am grateful for the existence of this organization, and I would love to at least one more on the west coast. The ACO presents an annual concert series at Carnegie Hall in Manhattan and from 2005 to 2010 ventured periodically to Philadelphia’s Annenberg Center. In the last 36 years, the orchestra has presented works by roughly 600 composers, including more than 200 world premieres and new commissions.

The orchestra was founded in 1975 by composers Dennis Russell Davies and Francis Thorne who were frustrated that major American orchestras passed over domestic composers in favor of Europeans. (This mirrors a trend we have discussed in class: Americans being proud of everything but our own art.) According the their website, the ACO’s commissioning program has led the way since its founding, cultivating more new music than any other.  Ellen Taaffe Zwilich and Joseph Schwantner received their first symphonic commissions from the ACO, and both pieces won a Pulitzer Prize for Music.

The ACO has actively sought the broadest definitions of American composer and symphonic music. The Sonidos de las Américas festival series from 1994 to 1999 showcased the music of Latin America, while Immigrant Sounds/Immigrant Voices in 2000 presented the work of our new arrivals. The Orchestra Underground series, launched in 2004, “challenges conventional notions about orchestral music, deconstructing the symphonic experience, with unusual instrumentations and multimedia collaborations” (http://www.americancomposers.org/about-aco/mission). Some of the featured artists – dancers, “laptopists,” software developers, and more – have never worked with an orchestra before. In 2007, the ACO launched Playing it UNsafe, the first professional laboratory for active experimentation in orchestral music. They also encourage improvisation and have partnered with Jazz at Lincoln Center to present it.

This spring the ACO will present multiple readings and Orchestra Underground performances (http://www.americancomposers.org/concerts-and-events). Orchestra Underground @ Zankel: Lines on a Point features Steve Reich’s Eight Lines and world premieres by Lisa Renée Coons and Amy Beth Kirsten on February 20. March features the Detroit Symphony EarShot Classical Roots Readings of works by Jonathan Bailey Holland, Kevin Scott, Matthew Even Taylor, and Eric Lindsay in Detroit on the 9th and 10th. Orchestra Underground @ Zankel: Border Vanguards presents Latin and jazz influences including Gunther Schuller’s Countours as well as a world premiere by Marcos Balter on April 4. In May the Berkeley Symphony EarShot Under Construction Readings offers composers the opportunity to “test-drive” works in progress on the 4th and 5th. Finally, The ACO will present the 23rd Annual Underwood New Music Readings on June 6 and 7. These reading offer aspiring young composers the chance to have their music played and is free to the public.

ACO Website: http://www.americancomposers.org

Modernized performance of classical music

People around the globe celebrate the lunar year last week, and as one of them, I did my own celebrating by watching a classical music performance on TV featuring Chinese pianist - Lang Lang and his collaborators.

Lang Lang, a world renowned classical pianist, appeared in the China Spring Festival Gala this year. He played a transcription of Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee." For most of the audience, both the piece and performance felt very familiar. Hearing "Flight of the Bumblebee" is not a surprise to anyway, but seeing how Lang Lang and duo electric cellists were able to make it a new audio and visual experience was a special performance for the audience. Lang Lang's act included two electric cellist and a vocalist. Mazas's "Czardas"is another familiar tune to most listener,but what they weren't expecting was to hear it with voice. In this boisterous and crowed-rousing act, Lang Lang saved the virtuosic vocalist as a surprise for the end of the show. While watching this performance on TV, I was surprised and excited by the combination of classical music in a modernized atmosphere. There was a large visual element in this production, from the cellist spinning his instrument to the flare of "Czardas" , to Lang Lang standing up playing the piano with one hand and striking the piano strings with a mallet in the other hand.

This performance proved that classical music can include vagarious ideas on stage and bring a fresh interpretation to familiar pieces not only in a splendid concert hall, but also in an arena where the audience is bound to participate between and during acts.

YouTube:  http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bcWZ73B02Iw

BSO Presents All-Ravel Program

The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) presented an all-Ravel program on Thursday, January 31, Friday, February 1, and Saturday February 2. The concerts opened with “Alborada del Gracioso”, which Ravel original composed in 1905 as a solo piano piece, the fourth of his five work Miroirs suite. More than a simple transcription for orchestra, his 1918 reimagining of the piece transformed it with the signature rhapsodic orchestration for which he is glorified and which the BSO presented with great integrity under the baton of Conductor Emeritus Bernard Haitink.

In the middle-of-the-program “concerto slot” was 1903’s Shéhérazade, a cycle of three songs for mezzo-soprano and orchestra. Shéhérazade­ is a great example of Ravel’s exotic style works, set to the One Thousand and One Nights-themed poetry of Tristan Klingsor. Rather favor the soloist, the work showcases her and the orchestra rather equally and somewhat subdued, true to the ethereal, mysterious nature of the music. Renowned mezzo-sopranno Susan Graham (born in my home state of New Mexico!) delivered the French poetry with sensuous reverence, even coming dressed to the nines in a long flowing Arabesque dress and wrap.

Concluding the evening was Ravel’s score to the ballet Daphnis et Chloé, based on a Greek romance and commissioned bySergei Diaghilev of Ballet Russes fame. Far from any kind of incidental music, this is Ravel’s longest and most ambitious work1 at an hour long and featuring a giant orchestra: 10 parts for strings alone, expanded winds, percussion of all sorts including wind machine, two harps, off-stage instruments, and wordless choir. The wordless choir adds interesting color to the piece, a superb of example of Ravel the timbre magician’s cherished orchestration. Ravel described the ballet, which when presented in concert is usually in one of two suites, as a “choreographic symphony” (see the program notes). Haitink delivered the complete work, which was delightful if feeling a bit long without the choreography. I did not feel the complete score worked as well on its own as say a Beethoven or Shostakovich symphony devised from its inception as a concert piece with an integrated emotional contour.

I enjoyed the program immensely, and especially appreciated Maestro Haitink’s gracious nature. The program featured especially lush flute passages in Shéhérazade­’s “La flûte enchantée” (The Echanted Flute) and throughout Daphnis et Chloé, and Haitink invited the BSO’s principal flutist Elizabeth Row to the front of the orchestra to take her own bow. As far as Susan Graham goes, I hope that the audience will take the time to hear her in concerts that more readily showcase her vocal prowess, but I admired her subdued and faithful performance as a true artist. I was also interested in how the audience exhibited the polite training that we have been in class developed around the turn of the twentieth century. For example, when several “wayward” audience members applauded after the first song in Shéhérazade­, Haitink raised his hands slightly to remind them of the proper etiquette to show admiration only at the conclusion of multi-movement work. I am starting to lose my conviction in the universal truth of this imperative, something on which I hope to reflect more as I attend concerts in the coming weeks.

---

1 Ravel is not known for lengthy works. According to the concert’s program notes, his musical ideas come out “perfect” and do not require the same Mahlerian development, something which gives me hope for my own composition, as I tend to labor over every bar yet produce shorter, compact works

Muti signs with Chicago Symphony

Riccardo Muti led the Philadelphia Orchestra for 12 years, from 1980-1992, then decided to back away from the "social responsibilities that an American directorship involves." (NY Times) Muti made several brief appearances with the New York Philharmonic; then began associating with the Chicago Symphony in 2010. On Monday, the seventy-two year old conductor signed his second contract with the CSO, extending his tenure through August, 2020. Both of Muti's CSO contracts have and will continue to require him to conduct 10 subscription weeks each season, as well as recordings (the orchestra has its own label, CSO Resound. Source: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/03/muti-signs-new-contract-with-chicago-symphony-orchestra/?_php=true&_type=blogs&ref=music&_r=0 Accessed February 4, 2014

Bravo! Vail has just announced their 27th season

The New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra and the Dallas Symphony wo be joined by nationally acclaimed soloists June 27th to August 2nd of 2014.  Violinist Joshua Bell(July 6th) and Midori.  The Dallas symphony will open up it's season June 27th with jazz guitarist John Pizzarelli, playing music by Richard Rogers, Gershwin and Duke Ellington.  The Dallas symphony will then follow up thy concert with Beethovens 9th symphony the next night, June 28th.  A fun Hollywood concert with music from James Bond will be on July 2nd, and ending their residency with a patriotic concert on July 4th.

The schedule heats up when the Philadelphia orchestra takes over on July 5th with the world famous violinist Joshua Bell.  If that wasn't exciting enough, Bravo! Vail will present it's first ever play along with the film Fantasia.  It's sure to be a family packed event.  Getting a little more serious, on July 11th and 12th,  The Philadelphia orchestra will play Beethovens 3rd sympjony, the Eroica.

Taking the reins on July 18th, The New York Philharmoic will invite violinist Madori to play the Tchaikovsky violin concerto.  The next night it just as exciting, with pianist Yefim Bronfmin playing both the 1st and 5th beethoven piano concertos.  On July 20th, the Phil will dabble in a bunch of classics, including works by Strauss, Rouse and Tchaikovsky and the 21st will be another all Erica's Gershwin type concert.
The orchestral residency with Bravo! Vail will wrap up on Julu 25th, with Russian classics, featuring the Rachmaninoff piano concerto no 1.

Anecdotes and Opinions

Medtner and Audience Participation

A friend of mine recently came to Boston to accompany a violin recital, and I was asked to page-turn for him. Before the concert, we had a brief chat to catch up and to discuss the art of performing the music of composers whose works are impeccably written but are relatively unknown for a variety of (usually non-musical) reasons. One composer about whom we discussed was Nikolai Medtner. My friend remarked that he does not mention anything about Medtner's life or about particular aspects of the music that may be worth pointing out to the audience before he sits down and play. He contended that Medtner is not a composer whom he feels has to "bow down" to the audience because he believes that the music--like the music of Beethoven or Chopin that is deemed great enough not to require an introduction--will speak for itself.

There is a sense of wonder I feel, however, about whether certain kinds of music need no introduction in the current era of information overload and instant gratification. A usually justified preconception about classical music is that listening to it requires a great deal of patience, focus, and time; and some--especially those who are uninitiated to the accepted art of listening to classical music--may turn to other forms of entertainment or enlightenment that are as readily available and that may be easier for them to obtain gratification from. Perhaps all music needs and deserves to be introduced, and what is said before the performance does not have to be the same for all the performers.


Aspen and Audience Decorum

When the Detroit Symphony Orchestra re-emerged from strike a few years ago, a public press conference was held. One of the audience members asked a question:  would the dress code change? When I heard this question, my first understanding was that the question pertained to the musicians of the orchestra, who almost always had to dress up for performances.

Recently, I was reading an article in The New Yorker that countered the arguments that were made by an article in Slate concerning an apparent death of classical music. In the comments section, I have noticed a person who had mentioned the words "patrons" and "dress code" in a same sentence. I then realized that the "dress code" that the person in the Detroit press conference mentioned was in fact about what the audience members were to wear.

To my knowledge, I believe that no dress codes are required for most classical music concerts (perhaps except for benefit party concerts that usually cost in the hundreds). This fact apparently does not help abate the popular misconception--through movies or spoken and written words--that people who attend operas and classical music concerts must be patrons who have to dress well and who have to donate thousands of dollars to keep these concert organizations in business.

Enter the concerts of the Aspen Music Festival. A seat in the concerts in this festival usually costs at least $75, and the benefit concerts cost at least $500 per attender. Many audience members are those who live and vacation in Aspen, and my understanding is that their monetary status is quite above average.

I would like to invite you to observe the dress code for one of these concerts:

Click the photo for a bigger view, and observe the dress code!

And this dress code is held for all of the concerts in the Festival.

Some people seem to state their ambivalence of classical music by mentioning an appropriate and proper decorum in a concert hall. Perhaps they are right on the money, and perhaps they are misinformed.


Coming soon:  a post about music and disability, or a post about something entirely different. Stay tuned!

Click here for Anecdotes and Opinions 2

Prehistoric New Music – Notes on a New Piece by Kryštof Mařatka

Prehistoric New Music – Notes on a New Piece by Kryštof Mařatka

Written by Lukáš Olejník

The first Prague Spring International Music Festival was held nearly 70 years ago, under the patronage of the second president of Czechoslovakia, Edvard Beneš. The project was initiated by Rafael Kubelík, conductor of the Prague Philharmonic, which that year was celebrating its fiftieth anniversary.

The festival has since become a permanent showcase for outstanding performing artists, symphonic orchestras and chamber music ensembles from around the world. The list of  musicians who appeared on the festival’s stage includes Karel Ančerl, Leonard Bernstein, David Oistrakh, Sviatoslav Richter, Mstislav Rostropovich, Herbert von Karajan, Leopold Stokowski, Arthur Honegger among many others of equal renown.

This past year (2013) the Prague Spring Festival has shown a particular inclination to feature contemporary music, more so than it has in previous seasons. Several striking examples were the performances by the Ensemble Intercontemporain on May 19, the Stamic Quartet and the Prague Wind Quintet on May 21 and Ostravská banda (with New York City– based Prague native Petr Kotík conducting) on May 31. But the most significant example of this trend was the Czech premiere of Vábení, a composition by the Paris-based Czech composer Kryštof Mařatka.

Vábení is part of a tryptich of compositions inspired by prehistoric art and was written between 2009 and 2011. The work received its premiere on November 19, 2012, at the Tansman International Festival in Lodz, Poland, when it was performed by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra under Mařatka’s direction. It was also performed in March of this year in Toronto. Its subtitle is “Ritual of Prehistoric Fossils of Man” and it is dedicated to the late Václav Havel.

Regarding the spirit behind the composition of Vábení, Mařatka told Radio France earlier last year: “I regard prehistoric creations with a great deal of respect. What fascinates me is that we ask ourselves the same questions about existence [as did prehistoric man]. We have absolutely no right to say that we are better. Of course, we leave traces when we create. It’s one way to go beyond the idea of death.“

Compared to his festival debut, in 2003, during which he conducted the Prague Symphonic Orchestra, with soloist Michel Lethiec, in a performance of his clarinet concerto, Mařatka this time returned with a larger, almost monumental piece. Vábení is approximately 50 minutes in duration, in six movements scored for for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, three slide whistles, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contra-bassoon, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, orchestral strings and mixed chorus.

The work’s generosity of proportions as well as its orchestration reflect its deep purpose, to create a synthesis. According to Mařatka, “Vábení is the third part of a cycle, in a form of synthesis, and recapitulates the two conceptions from the previous parts of the cycle.”

In his program notes to the piece, he describes these concepts as follows: “At the heart of the triptych resides an experience of incredible beauty [and] of authentic expressions facing existence and which are freed from the temporal significance of the concept of beauty of any given civilization. And this absolute freedom is precisely the key to Vábení. Vábení is the third part of the trilogy, freely drawing its inspiration from prehistoric art — a trilogy which became a kind of ‘Symphony from the Old World’ whose first part is Otisk, for symphony orchestra; the second, Zvěrohra, for soprano and orchestra; and the third Vábení, for choir and orchestra.”

The piece was performed on May 14 in the Rudolfinum’s Dvořák Hall in Prague by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, under the direction of  Peter Oundjian, and the Choeur de Radio France. Also on the program was Ravel’s “Bolero” and the Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 33, by Camille Saint-Saëns.

Mařatka was born in Prague in 1972 and studied at the Prague Conservatory with Bohuslav Řehoř and Petr Eben. He moved to France in 1994, with the help of a grant from the French Institute in Prague, and tells the Prague Post that he regards himself as “a Czech composer living in Paris.”

Asked if his nearly two decades of living abroad have changed his relationship with his homeland, he replies that it has not.

 “I never felt like an immigrant because I didn’t decide to live in Paris out of political protest or some other dissatisfaction,” he explains. “I see myself instead as a migrant on the move.”

He says that he returns to the Czech capital fairly often, about every two months, to conduct various orchestras and ensembles, particularly the Talich Chamber Philharmonic and the innovative Berg Orchestra. He is married to the French violist and artistic director of the prestigious Ensemble Calliopée, Karine Lethiec.  

The 68^th Prague Spring Festival ran from May 12 to June 2, 2013.

Links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLrxXzrfcnA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring_International_Music_Festival
http://www.festival.cz/en
http://www.clarelarochesalter.com/KRYSTOF_MARATKA_.html

ForOrchestra - "Popular" Orchestral Music

There currently exists a channel on YouTube called ForOrchestra. The channel is owned by composer Walt Ribeiro. The channel was created on May 18, 2009 and, as of February 2014, it boasts just under 23,000 subscribers and over 4.5 million views. Upon viewing Ribeiro's channel, one will notice that the channel almost solely consists of various pops tunes (ranging from Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" to the theme from The Legend of Zelda video game series) all arranged for orchestra. Unfortunately, Ribeiro has no orchestra of his own, so what ends up playing his arrangements is high-end orchestra sampling software that Ribeiro simply pumps his arrangements into. Ribeiro has also uploaded some of his original orchestral works but they are not nearly as popular as his arrangements. His arrangements gained him a lot of popularity and he has been featured on perezhilton.com, The Wall Street Journal, Tosh.O, CBS, and numerous times on various internet blogs. Needless to say,Ribeiro has gotten many people outside the classical tradition to listen to orchestral music (even if it is ultimately generated by software). From time to time, Ribeiro will put in quotations of other works inside his arrangements; for example. in his arrangement of LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem" he put in a quote of Beethoven's "Für Elise." Ribeiro most recent video is an orchestral arrangement of Lady Gaga's "Applause." This video shows that Ribeiro is taking a larger interest in the presentation of his videos as he a silhouette of him is seen "conducting" the music while the actual notation of some of the parts scroll across the screen. It can be debated if what Ribeiro is doing is beneficial or detrimental to orchestral music as a whole, but it is definitely has brought the orchestral sound to more ears who would have not heard it otherwise.

ForOrchestra:
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/ForOrchestra
Website - http://fororchestra.com/

Study Questions for Cook, "Music: A Very Short Introduction"

Foreword

In what regard does music function as an agent of meaning?

Chapter 1

1.  What are some defining characteristics of musical authenticity in rock? In its construct, who is privileged and who is disparaged?  What cultural work do such distinctions do?

2.  What are our some of our transparent assumptions about music?

3.  How do they reflect the structure of a classic industrial economy?

Chapter 2

1.  What role does music play in the early nineteenth century’s construction of bourgeois subjectivity?

2.  How does Beethoven differ from his predecessors?

3.  What is the Beethoven cult?

4.  Which two aspects of the Beethoven cult does Cook discuss? What is their significance beyond Beethoven?

5.  What components of music’s mystical qualities does the Beethoven cult celebrate? How?

6.  How does such spiritualization affect the historic relationship between words and music?

7.  What irony ensued?

Chapter 3

1.  How have 21^st-century realities inverted the basic assumptions of 19^th-century musical culture?

2.  By what process did modern music become “modern music”?

3.  In Cook’s view, what are some signs of vitality in classical music?  Which aspects are “beyond resuscitation”?

Chapter 4

1.  What is the abiding paradox of musical notation?

2.  Discuss the following statement: “[N]otations…transmit a whole way of thinking about music.”

3.  Why were 19^th-century writers inclined to believe specious incidents attributed to Mozart and Beethoven?

4.  What is the underlying root metaphor of Western musical culture?

5.  What does Cook see as the “basic paradox” of music?

6.  How does Cook apply Dawkins’s “river of genes” image to music?

Chapter 5

1.  How do our perceptions of “Nikosi Sikelel iAfrica” differ from our perceptions of the “Hammerklavier”?

2.   What hierarchy ensues from the traditional understanding of classical music?

3.   How does a reception-based approach alter our perception of music?

Chapter 6

1.   Why is the concept of a definitive edition problematic?

2.   Why can there be no certifiably “authentic” performance?

3.   Conversely, how do “authentic” performances mirror our own time?

4.   How did musicologists and theorists come to realize the necessity for engagement that had previously been the exclusive province of ethnomusicologists?

Chapter 7

1.   What is a transparent system of beliefs? Examples?

2.   What applications does critical theory find in music?

3.   What is Cook’s antidote to Tomlinson’s extreme pessimism?

Conclusion

1.  Comment on the following quote from Philip Brett:  “[Music is] an enclave in our society—a sisterhood or brotherhood of lovers, music lovers, united by an unmediated form of communication that is only by imperfect analogy called a language, ‘the’ language of feeling.”

2.  In what regards does music have “unique powers as an agent of ideology”?

Minnesota Orchestra wins Grammy post Lockout

On Sunday, January 26, the Minnesota Orchestra won the 2014 Grammy Award for “best orchestral performance.” The accolade was granted for the orchestra’s recording of Sibelius’ first and fourth symphonies on BIS records with its former music director, Osmo Vanska. The Orchestra recently ended a fifteen-month lockout, the longest work stoppage for any symphonic orchestra in U.S. history, and plans to return to work on February 1. The award was surely gratifying but stirred a pot of mixed emotions, as Vanska resigned from his position during the lockout, but will return as a guest, leading the orchestra in some Sibelius concerts in March. The award, “confirms where the musicians and our leader Osmo Vanska were as a symphony orchestra before the lockout,” says Tony Ross, the orchestra’s principal cellist, adding, “this is also why we need him to return and carry on with the projects and partnership that have brought this orchestra acclaim worldwide.” The lockout occurred in October of 2012, when members of the orchestra’s board and musicians reached a stalemate in financial bargaining. Musicians were locked out “after rejecting a proposal that would have cut some salaries up to 40 percent, according to the board’s figures. The entire 2012-13 season eventually was canceled, as well as the first five months of the current season,” writes Graydon Royce of the Star Tribune. Sources: http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/music/240153421.html http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/minnesota-orchestra-rebuilding-after-lockout-celebrates-a-grammy-win/?ref=music Accessed January 28, 2014

Towards a 21st-century Repertoire

Enter works as comments in the following format:

Composer, Title (Year). Genre. 
Remarks

Levine, "Highbrow/Lowbrow" Study Questions

Prologue

1.      Our current hierarchical system of cultural categories (highbrow, midbrow, lowbrow) seems fixed and immutable.  What cultural work is done by a historian who maintains these categories?

2.     What error might ensue?

Chapter 2

1.      What was the status of opera in Walt Whitman’s New York?

2.     What does the prevalence of parodies and arrangements suggest about a popular familiarity with opera?

3.     How had the perception of opera changed by the end of the 19^th century?

4.    What was the relative status of bands and orchestras in the middle of the 19^th century?

5.     When Jenny Lind, and other eminent European soloists, toured mid-century America, whom did they appeal to?  How did Adelina Patti’s experience differ?

6.    How were typical mid-century orchestra programs constructed?  How did sacralization affect this paradigm?

7.     How did Theodore Thomas manage to draw crowds for his New York concerts?  How did his philosophy change when he went to Chicago?

8.    Since the founding in the 19^th century of our country’s major orchestras, what has remained their abiding fiscal reality?  Who now employs the Chicago Symphony’s funding model?  How has that funding model changed, if at all, over the last century?

9.    What are some of John Sullivan Dwight’s basic beliefs concerning the sacralization of art?

10.  Through art’s sacralization in the course of the late 19^th century, what were some of the changes wrought in the public’s perception of music? musicians? the concert experience?

11.    After a hundred years’ time, which of these perceptions have remained in place?

 Chapter 3

1.      Faced with industrialization and increasing cultural diversity, how did America’s cultural elites respond at the end of the 19^th century?

2.     How might one characterize 19^th-century audiences?  To what extent did arbiters of culture attempt to modify audiences’ behavior, and succeed?

3.     What unintended consequences did more docile audiences create?

4.    To what ends did 19^th-century champions of culture maintain and disseminate pure culture?

5.     How did the Columbian Exposition’s Midway Plaisance and White City symbolize a growing gulf in American culture?

6.    How was American culture perceived to compare with European examples?

7.     What racial and cultural dimensions did the ideology of culture assume?

8.    How did Matthew Arnold contribute to our understanding of Culture?

9.    How did our invented notions of culture conflict with reality?

10.  As cultural categories codified, how were new forms of expressive culture characterized?  With what results?

Epilogue

1.      What reactions have been provoked by the growth of cultural pluralism in the late 20^th century?

2.     What is the logical fallacy of the cultural categories that we embrace?