Written in 2006, “Music for the Blanton” commemorated the opening of the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas. According to music performance doctoral student Steven Kandow, who is a trombonist in the ensemble, several parts of the piece were composed to go along with portraits in the museum.

“As people would walk through the museum, they would hear the music,” he said.

Kandow began his doctoral studies at MSU in 2011. Pursuing a career in music education, Kandow said it’s important for people to see the contemporary music that is being written.

“I really think an event like this highlights music as it has been recently,” he said. “A lot of times, people go to concerts where the music was written by people who weren’t alive when they were born. You hear Beethoven; you hear Mozart.”

On Tuesday, the ensemble included 10 students, four faculty members and narration from Jody Knol of WKAR. The performance displayed a variety of genres. The ensemble covered songs that were jazzy, pieces from the Renaissance period and works that were more contemporary in nature.

Musique 21 director Kevin Sedatole said in an email that the group has long been an opportunity for MSU students and faculty to illustrate modern American classical music.

“This ensemble performs what could be considered the most cutting edge of all new music being written in the United States,” Sedatole said. “It can serve for a vehicle for our own composition department, both students and faculty, to have their new works performed.”

Doctoral student and co-director Matthew Dockendorf said in an email that although it’s important to perform music from various genres and time periods, new music is particularly exciting because the music often deals with relevant subjects to students and current events.

“In this case, art can be visited with relative ease,” Dockendorf said. “Many other concerts Musique 21 performs attempt to present contemporary classical music in a compelling and artistic way.”

Kandow described contemporary classical music as an “art form.” Like any art form, Kandow said that contemporary classical music should be constantly evolving. Performances by Musique 21, he says, help the art form grow.

“It’s important to teach it so that people can decide themselves how they feel about it,” he said.

“The people that listen to it or watch art give to it. It’s something that should be listened to because that’s the only way that it’s going to get better. People have to critique and listen to it, and that’s how it’s going to evolve.”