20/21 Ensemble
Lenfest Hall, Curtis Institute of Music
David Ludwig, director

As the Darmstadt school exerted an aesthetic dominance over the middle part of the 20th century, it stimulated a strong reaction. Composers worldwide rejected the stylistic orthodoxy of the post-war European avant-garde in favor of compositional techniques that drew from eclectic sources-from ancient sounds to popular music, jazz, and indigenous cultural traditions. A new group of American minimalists, neo-Romantics, and "downtown" composers emerged to create a new ecology of vivid sounds and vibrant rhythm that redefined new music and initiated the post-Modern era of today.