Boundaries of the New: American Classical Music at the Turn of the Millennium

This contribution examines the music and career of composer Tan Dun around the turn of the millennium. I read Tan's work against the backdrop of post-Cold War fantasies about impending 'global harmony' and the dissolution of borders, arguing that his market strategy combined performances of cultural particularity with appeals to old ideas about classical music's universalism. This strategy was apparent in his music, which shares aesthetic qualities with both New Age and world music, and in his rhetoric, where he consistently claimed to operate beyond both generic and national boundaries. Focusing on three of Tan's works, I argue that his market-friendly multiculturalism worked partly by reanimating the residual power of Kunstreligion, updating its musical religiosity for millennial audiences in search of spiritual meaning.