On Postmodernism and the Musical Arts – This essay outlines and reflects upon the impact of modernism (in its broadest sense) on Western music, especially in the early and mid twentieth century, as well as more recent postmodern reactions against this. It concludes by advocating a postmodern eclecticism within a Christian framework.
Hospice Care for the Mainline: A repsonse of Confessing Christians to the death of denominalitionalism (Robert P. Mills) (html or PDF) – “Part I of this paper will briefly survey the historical development and current terminal condition of modern mainline denominations, using as my main example the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Part II will explore ways in which mainline denominationalism, a creature unique to the modern era, is succumbing to emerging trends in the postmodern world. Part III will suggest “hospice care” as an appropriate model for confessing Christians to follow during the last days of modern denominationalism. Part IV will consider the rise and criticism of Confessing Church Movements and suggest several positive consequences of this inevitable transition.”
The Responsibility of the Choral Conductor to the Emerging Composer (html or PDF) – This essay argues why the assistance and guidance of the choral conductor is critical to the development of any emerging composer who would offer a significant contribution to the choral repertoire.
Zipf's law and the creation of musical context (Damián H. Zanette) – This article discusses the extension of the notion of context from linguistics to the domain of music. In language, the statistical regularity known as Zipf's law—which concerns the frequency of usage of different words—has been quantitatively related to the process of text generation. This connection is established by Simon's model, on the basis of a few assumptions regarding the accompanying creation of context. Here, it is shown that the statistics of note usage in musical compositions are compatible with the predictions of Simon's model. This result, which gives objective support to the conceptual likeness of context in language and music, is obtained through automatic analysis of the digital versions of several compositions. As a by-product, a quantitative measure of context definiteness is introduced and used to compare tonal and atonal works.
An Analysis of the Sanctus and Benedictus and Agnus Dei in James MacMillan's Mass (2000) – This analytical paper focuses on the last two movements of the Ordinary of MacMillan's powerful work for choir and organ with relatively brief attention given to the Kyrie, Gloria, and elements of the Proper to give context to the bulk of the analysis.
In ‘Silence,’ pure art cries out that its job is not to entertain (Peter Dobrin) – Philadelphia Inquirer music critic Peter Dobrin muses on the U.S. premiere of James MacMillan's Symphony No. 3, ‘Silence’ and the relationship between art and entertainment.
