Contemporary music

When joining the European Shakuhachi festival in Prague there was one concert dedicated to contemporary music. Intuitively I am not specifically fond of it, but I have to confess I am not highly aware of that field. I play shakuhachi mainly for the tradiotional pieces, aka honkyoku. But it came as a good surprise I really liked the concert! Maybe even most of them all (three were held). My grand favourite of that evening was the piece 'Mirage' composed by Elizabeth Brown for shakuhachi and string quartet. I also heared it was first performed at the International festival in Australia. Well I loved it! I was able to experience something when hearing it. Some contemporary song are so abstract that for me it hardly qualifies as music, more as art. But not for this song. See also: E. Brown's site.  The song can be listened by streaming audio at this location: Mirage Song for shakuhachi and string. It is pretty on the pc as well, but nothing like the real deal though.