Uch.

[edit: that's not really a very good response now is it?  Alas, I don't much have the inclination to respond to that article in detail, so the above will have suffice]

Don't know to correct the title, but it should have been Joe Queenan.

The article is quite characteristic of a style of writing about new music that I've come across on many occasions from the US - usually the old 'emperor's new clothes' argument delivered in the style of talk radio. In terms of the success or otherwise of sandwiching new works between old ones, he might have a point, though often the precise nature of the sandwiching is the problem (a token new work placed between two warhorses with scant regard for how the works relate to one another); Queenan does make a reasonable point about the problems inherent in placing a new, relatively unknown/untried work in the company of 'titans', I suppose.

As far as audiences are concerned, the big halls of London can indeed be packed out for concerts of works by 'big name' contemporary composers, though I wonder if that has something to do with the relative scarcity of performance of some of the works concerned (if Nono's Prometeo had a production each year, would it continue to sell out?). But that situation is very different when one gets outside of London, I think, and certainly in the US. But both Queenan and Service seem stuck with a judgement quality in terms of popularity and ticket sales, by which standards even some only moderately popular 'pop' music would be in a different league to any of the stuff they attack/defend.