What Is Considered Contemporary Classical Music?

Contemporary Classical music can be understood as the period that starts in the mid-1970s to the early 1990s which is an umbrella term covering everything from modernist, postmodern, neoromantic, pluralist music and everything in-between. However, the term Contemporary Classical music can also be applied to refer to all post-1945 musical forms.

Contemporary Classical Music can be characterised as Western art music that has immense stylistic diversity but utilising technical experimentation and a blending of both traditional and modern influences.

Pluralistic is a term often thrown about when discussing Contemporary Classical or Neoclassical music. Pluralism is a 21st-Century aesthetic where composers utilise a diverse palette of influences depending on their culture, upbringing, musical training or preference. This might include traditional Classical tropes mixed with Romantic period harmony, serial or atonal compositional approaches blended with pop structure or form and jazz or world rhythmic elements, using acoustic instruments or electronics. The elements can be blended together or used in juxtaposition to maximise the impact of the piece.

Increasingly, current modern Contemporary Classical Music uses technology in both manipulating sounds and throughout the recording process. One can manipulate the sounds through modulation pedals or plugins with Delay or Reverbs with plenty of ‘normal’ options that emulate real-life sounds and plenty of whacky convolution reverbs and delays with crazy feedback/modulation options that allow for a significant amount of accidental creativity.

This allows composers to expand their compositional palettes on top of their traditional harmonic, melodic and rhythmic structures, giving them options to explore alternative sounds that aren’t grounded in traditional Classical harmonic language.

Other ways for composers to avoid being grounded in traditional classical harmonies and forms is to use the extended range and techniques of instruments. You increasingly hear this a lot in film, from violin harmonics at the beginning of huge numbers of film scores to the clacking of the keyword on a woodwind instrument to create tension. There is a huge amount you can do with instruments as most of them are variations on some sort of resonating chamber - you can hit them with different things, push air through them at different speeds, vibrate them in weird ways and even attach odd things to them and see what it does to the sound. Experimentation is the key here and, whilst plenty of these experiments might result in unpleasant sounds, some will be incredibly interesting and hopefully unique!

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Explore More from Nick Pike

Nick Pike is a London-based composer, pianist, saxophonist, producer, and educator with over 15 years of professional experience. His music blends neoclassical piano with jazz, funk, and contemporary influences, drawing comparisons to Ludovico Einaudi, Yiruma, and Ólafur Arnalds. Alongside original compositions, Nick offers music services including scoring for film, TV, and advertising, piano and saxophone recording, arranging for strings and horns, and professional mixing and production.

Music & Albums – Original releases from solo piano to orchestral scores.

Services – Composition, recording, arranging, and production for artists, media, and brands.

Contact – Get in touch for lessons, commissions, or collaborations.