Composers have to be schooled in a deep-seated tradition and learn skills that go back not just generations but centuries. So, you find that even the… - James MacMillan

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Composers have to be schooled in a deep-seated tradition and learn skills that go back not just generations but centuries. So, you find that even the most thrusting, cutting-edge modernists have a deep knowledge of musical history, and a respect for musical history, and indeed the values and worlds that produced those traditions, including religion. That kind of culture-war stuff that you get sometimes in the other arts just doesn’t really appear in the world of music, because there’s this deep knowledge, respect, understanding, and learning about the art of music. For that reason, you find lots of composers who are all over the place politically, but on many things you could say that they are conserving an ancient craft, an ancient tradition. They’re deeply plugged into the roots and in ways that sometimes other artists and other media are not.