youth, Zorn stole record albums almost indiscrimi-
nately and in all styles. Later, he taught himself alto
saxophone mainly by trying to learn Ornette Cole-
man’s unorthodox free jazz solos. While Adams’s
classical scores were essentially finished products,
which the performer then interprets as faithfully as
possible, Zorn’s classical scores resembled instruc-
tions to games of improvisation or loosely conceived
verbal instructions written on file cards in a code un-
derstood by the composer and his coterie of fellow
virtuosic improvisers.
Zorn’s classical work as a composer began in the
1980’s in works for string quartet, such asForbidden
Fruit, in which elements of thrash metal join with
quotes from diverse sources such as Ludwig van Bee-
thoven or Japanese pop movie sound tracks. The
quartet in that work is joined by a Japanese singer
and a deejay who manipulates records as would hap-
pen in a rap or hip-hop performance. His work in
the 1990’s grew in influence, as he wrote several clas-
sical pieces such asElegy(1993) andKristallnacht
(1994), while continuing to record his game pieces
in ever-new incarnations.
While Adams and Zorn may reflect extremes
of the postmodern tendency in 1990’s classical
music, their diverse approaches typified the de-
cade. More central might be clearly classical com-
poser John Corigliano, who enjoyed many success-
ful premieres during the decade and established
himself as a preeminent American classical com-
poser capable of manipulating diverse styles with
excellent results.
The University as Patron Since the 1950’s, the
American university has taken on the charge of pa-
tronizing new music by hiring faculties of composers
at virtually every state-supported and private univer-
sity. This trend continued unabated during the
1990’s. While the university of the 1950’s clearly pre-
ferred a style that placed a premium on connections
between mathematics and music, by the 1990’s the
university had lost an easily identifiable aesthetic
preference. The result was a wide range of compos-
ers supported and encouraged by universities. The
general trend during the decade was toward a stylis-
tic retrenchment around tonal approaches to har-
mony and corollary approaches such as pantonality.
This new conservatism could be seen in the work
of students during the 1990’s who often sought ca-
reers not in the academy but in making film scores,
television music, video-game music, commercial jin-
gles, and commercially viable music. The result was a
more relaxed and less schematic approach than in
past decades among young and aspiring composers.
Impact Classical music saw much growth in the
1990’s but continued to suffer from a perception of
its elitism, as evidenced by advertisers remaining far
more willing to attract customers for expensive sport
sedans and other prestigious items with classical mu-
sic and leaving youth-oriented products to popular
music. With young people tending to remain wary of
elitist culture, this perception remained a problem
throughout the decade, with only minimal efforts to
reform how young people perceived classical music.
Further Reading
Burkholder, J. Peter, Donald Jay Grout, and Claude
V. Palisca.A Histor y of Western Music. 7th ed. New
York: W. W. Norton, 2006. A music history text
used by academic institutions.
Gann, Kyle.American Music in the Twentieth Centur y.
New York: Schirmer Books, 1997. A survey of
movements and their leaders through the late
1990’s.
Hall, Charles J.A Chronicle of American Music, 1700-
1995. New York: Schirmer Books, 1996. Provides
a list of highlights in American music by year.
Simms, Bryan R.Music of the Twentieth Centur y: Style
and Structure. 2d ed. New York: Schirmer Books,- A survey of important twentieth century
music styles, structure, composers, and pieces.
Michael E. Lee
See also Art movements; Film in the United
States; Music. Clean Air Act of 1990
Identification U.S. environmental law
Date Signed on November 15, 1990
This legislation strengthened earlier versions of the law and
solved many salient air-quality problems of the 1990’s, in-
cluding acid rain, ozone depletion, lead, and older power
plants.
The Clean Air Act of 1990 (CAA) was a major revi-
sion of earlier pioneering legislation, the Clean Air
Act of 1970 and its 1977 amendments. The earlier
versions recognized the need for air-quality stan-The Nineties in America Clean Air Act of 1990 187