Contemporary music is often dismissed as unapproachable. The very idea of a “composer” too often conjures the image of an out-of-touch intellectual. The thinking might go like this: why listen to something unfamiliar, unpleasant, and disconnected from the rest of modern life?

When I auditioned at Juilliard at the age of 17, I was told that I had two viable options for a musical career: 1) be a soloist or 2) play continuo. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, this was my first direct experience with the “scarcity mindset” propagated by major classical music institutions.