Festival, an important outlet for modern music in New York City, and the San Francisco Conservatory has the New Music Ensemble, which under its dynamic new director, Nicole Paiement, seems destined to become an important contribution to the contemporary music scene on the West Coast. Even a conservative conservatory like Curtis genuinely appears to be supportive of their composition students and faculty. Best of all, are schools like Eastman that react to the shrinking interest in classical music by teaching students ways to reach out to the local community, educate and build new audiences for classical and modern music. The brains of the next millennium's musicians, composers and concert-goers are now developing in children across the country. However, American public schools are generally indifferent to the state of music.
Most states have little or no graduation requirements for music in the public schools.
Many schools no longer teach music at all. If children are exposed to even the basic musical concepts and skills, or to the most elementary musical history, they are lucky. The greatest American composers, such as Charles Ives and John Cage, are most likely unfamiliar names to young Americans, and important living composers are even less known. So, when high school graduates who are lucky enough to be exposed to classical music, decide to enter conservatories and universities, it is not uncommon for them to have been raised on a staple of dead Europeans. Of course, they may have also played the music of American composers, but probably less often.