The 20th-21st Century

Videos of Musical Performances of 20th/21st Century Music

Glossary for the 20th Century

Popular Music of the 20th Century

Prepared Piano - John Cage

Contemporary Classical Performing Arts (The 20th-21st Century)

From Sony's Essentials of Music (no longer available)

Historical Themes

Phenomenal changes in technology
The advent of instantaneous global communication
The growth and eventual decline of totalitarian culture

Musical Context

Ambivalent attitudes toward the musical past
A widening gap between "art" and "popular" music
The advent of sound recording
The birth of a "World Music" culture

Wikipedia

Performing Arts - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performing_arts
Contemporary Classical Music - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_Music
Modern Era - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_world
Twentieth Cenutry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_century
Theatre - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatres
Dance - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DanCe

Wikipedia Discussion of Arts and Culture in the 20th Century

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th-century_classical_music
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th-century_music

As the century begins, Paris is the artistic capital of the world, where both French and foreign writers, composers and visual artists gather. By the end of the century, the focal point of global culture had moved to the United States, especially New York City and Los Angeles.
Movies, music and the media had a major influence on fashion and trends in all aspects of life. As many movies and music originate from the United States, American culture spread rapidly over the world.
After gaining political rights in the United States and much of Europe in the first part of the century, and with the advent of new birth control techniques women became more independent throughout the century.
Rock and Roll and Jazz styles of music are developed in the United States, and quickly become the dominant forms of popular music in America, and later, the world.
Modern art developed new styles such as expressionism, cubism, and surrealism.
The automobile provided vastly increased transportation capabilities for the average member of Western societies in the early to mid-century, spreading even further later on. City design throughout most of the West became focused on transport via car. The car became a leading symbol of modern society, with styles of car suited to and symbolic of particular lifestyles.
Sports became an important part of society, becoming an activity not only for the privileged. Watching sports, later also on television, became a popular activity.
Post-World War II performing arts were highlighted by the resurgence of both ballet and opera in Europe and the United States.
Alvin Ailey's revolutionary American Dance Theater was created in the 1950s, signaling the radical changes that were to come to performing arts in the 1950s and 1960s as new cultural themes bombarded the public consciousness in the United States and abroad. Postmodernism in performing arts dominated the 1960s to large extent.
Rock and roll evolved from rhythm and blues during the 1950s, and became the staple musical form of popular entertainment.

Rite of Spring - Stravinsky

Terminology- from Wikipedia

Expressionism is the tendency of an artist to distort reality for an emotional effect; it is a subjective art form. Expressionism is exhibited in many art forms, including painting, literature, film, architecture and music. Additionally, the term often implies emotional angst – the number of cheerful expressionist works is relatively small.

Modernism, is a trend of thought which affirms the power of human beings to make, improve and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation. The term covers a variety of political, cultural and artistic movements rooted in the changes in Western society at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century

Postmodernism is an idea that has been extremely controversial and difficult to define among scholars, intellectuals, and historians, as it connotes to many the hotly debated idea that the modern historical period has passed. Nevertheless, most agree that postmodern ideas have taken place in philosophy, art, critical theory, literature, architecture, design, interpretation of history, and culture since the late 20th century.

Avant-garde French means front guard, advance guard, or vanguard. People often use the term in French and English to refer to people or works that are experimental or novel, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics. According to its champions, the avant-garde pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm within definitions of art/culture/reality.

Aleatoric music (or aleatory) is music in which some element of the composition is left to chance or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the determination of its performer(s). The term became known to European composers through lectures by acoustician Werner Meyer-Eppler at Darmstadt Summer School in the beginning of the 1950s. According to his definition, "aleatoric processes are such processes which have been fixed in their outline but the details of which are left to chance". Chance music is preferred by some composers.