Not Dead Yet - Two

Before I get into the music, I want to suggest a couple of things that may overcome the understandable reticence that a few listeners might have when it comes to new music.

At some point, every single artefact of human creativity was new, was being sent out into the world for the very first time.

And much of what we now celebrate took a while to find acceptance and appreciation.

Now surviving time's passing is not a foolproof guide to a work of art's merits.

Of the mass of stuff that has been forgotten and is going to be forgotten, some deserves to be and some doesn't.

And just because something is new doesn't mean it is necessarily good either.

Or just waiting for a more enlightened age or audience to stumble upon it.

It might just not be very good.

And when art is new, there can be a bit of a challenge to separate the wheat from the chaff.

We really have no idea what future generations are going to cherish.

To claim some sort of foresight is just wonderfully foolish.

And seriously, how can a man who didn't think texting would catch on, that would be me, be trusted to choose works of contemporary music for you? Well, the good news is that with new classical music, there is a surprisingly impressive selection system in place that has done most of the work for me.

To put it simply, any work that needs more than a handful of musicians to perform it has a lot of hurdles to clear before anyone bothers to record it.

And requires an enterprise to take some significant financial risk.

So if it's been recorded, the music has already survived plenty of gatekeepers, dead ends and false starts.

I think that in itself recommends that each of these works might deserve a listen.

Finally, why play any new music at all? Because I think there is something really exciting about what is being expressed in our time by our contemporaries.

Now, at last, some music to make that case.