STEVE EMBER: For some people in the classical music world, the past ten to fifteen years have been a difficult period. Budgets have shrunk, a situation that only worsened with the recent recession. And there is growing competition from other forms of entertainment.

Also, public schools in the United States have reduced classical music education.

BARBARA KLEIN: Still, there is reason to celebrate the variety and energy of music created in the United States today. So says Frank Oteri, himself a composer. He works for the American Music Center, a nonprofit group that supports classical music. He started its online magazine, the NewMusicBox.

Frank Oteri says the Internet and new technologies have increased the competition for people's attention and money. But he points out that technology has also made new music available to people all over the world twenty-four hours a day. He says there has never been a richer time for so many musicians and so many kinds of new music.

We asked Frank Oteri if there is something that defines the work of modern American composers. That is a hard question, he says, because there are so many kinds of music being made right now.

But he believes this variety in music is informed by the variety in backgrounds of a nation of immigrants. If anything defines American music, he says, it is a spirit of redefinition and reinvention.

STEVE EMBER: Adam Schoenberg is a young composer adding to this rich variety. He started playing the piano at the age of three. But it was not until college at Oberlin in Ohio that he decided to study music more seriously. He recently earned a doctorate from the Juilliard School in New York.