The rejection of collective descriptions has always been a matter of honour for artists. Applying a label to oneself voluntarily goes against the ideal of originality, lessens individual achievement and increases the danger of hasty interpretations and classifications.
For an artist to negate their allegiance to an art form entirely – and more still: to the sphere of art as such – is a less common phenomenon. One of the few such ›deserters‹ was Joseph Beuys, who declared on a multiple postcard in 1985: »I hereby resign from art.« A stance that has recently begun to appear in the realm of art music, however, suggests that Beuys’s initiative might experience an unexpected revival.
If the latent willingness of young composers to ›resign‹ from New Music is more than a mere fashion, one of the most urgent questions for the genre in the immediate future will be how far the supposedly exotic activity of composition can justify its function in earthly life.
The distance of young composers from their own profession holds the real opportunity to free contemporary music from its isolation.
Quelle: http://www.internationales-musikinstitut.de/images/stories/PDF-Datein/NEWS_27.8.12_Rebhahn_-_I_hereby_resign_from_New_Music.pdf
