Electronic Music Is Here to Stay – or Is It ?

Musical composers frequently make use of new technologies in instrumentation. Whilst orchestral traditions remain strong and the instruments viable, what of the works of composers of electronic music where the sound sources have fallen into disrepair, obsolescence, or modern technology has changed the sound so that it bears no relation to the original? Beyond collections of manuscripts and recordings, the practicalities of the re-performance of electronic music compositions have not been widely discussed, and no methodology for archiving the artefacts for re-performability exists. In time, as greater importance is placed on these works, the issue will become more difficult to retrospectively resolve.