joint programmes and the interaction between these groups, we are realistically setting the pace for the musical tools, techniques and idioms that will characterise the new cultural traditions of the 21st century.

3.  Change and open-mindedness

The confirmation of the electronic medium as a performing musical instrument, the advent of multi-media and digital arts, and online performance on the Internet are now unequivocal realities for the professional musicians at the threshold of the 21st century. With the changing of the channels of production and transmission of the musical work, the image of the composer, is changing too. No longer the isolated genius, but a musician whose creativity is equally shared with visual artists, choreographers, dancers and film directors, and whose communication tools are no longer confined to traditional acoustic instruments, but expanded through electronics, computers and digital media.

The death of style dominance has also prepared the way for a more open-minded exploration of the repertoire of aesthetics, performance practises and instruments of the world which can potentially change the entire way music will be perceived in the 21st century. Springing from the diversity that has characterized the past, local idioms can become powerful agents for a more integrating platform upon which different musical perspectives can be proposed afresh and new traditions invented. In such a context, it may no longer be relevant whether a Westerner is employing Asian instruments for multi-media works or whether an African is using Western forms in composition for the local drum ensemble. Embracing the aesthetics of other traditions is now for many musicians a natural result of an indiscriminate approach to global culture where diversity can be exploited as a challenge for refreshing musical paths, and new interpretations of idioms practises and instrumental combinations may take place away from the cultural constraints in which they have been rooted for centuries.

When talking about the importance of new technology I implied that the progressive advancement of the digital media is supplying an unprecedented challenge to artistic imagination and that the confrontation with an expanded set of working tools will enhance the creative consciousness of the composer. All these factors, however, may imply the abandonment of the traditional concept of art as we have known it so far. Perhaps within the next ten or twenty years it will no longer be a matter of what kind of music will be ‘online’, but rather the logistics of sound diffusion that will count. In such an environment the definition of a ‘global’ music may be referring to the media and the modalities of diffusion, rather than the characteristics of the music itself.

At the beginning of this paper I discussed some problems with the definition of a global culture and hinted at the danger of over-conceptualising the notion of globalisation, particularly if this were to become the new authorised ideology of the 21st century. Perhaps as a cultural circumstance, the most challenging distinction of a global music is the recognition of dynamic processes at work weaving networks of interconnection and interaction across the societies of the world, their cultures and technologies. Notions such as ‘global village’ and ‘globalisation’ per sé mean