Hi again guys. I have been very-very busy this period (and still am), but came back here to quickly scan what's being said in a thread I would normally be all over. So I am not going to address everything that's been said, upon which I'd normally love to comment, and instead focus on topic - again not really explaining my position thoroughly, so if you all tell me to buzz off, I won't take offence.
I would just like to point out that in my cursory scan of this thread, I believe it is fair to say that people are not focusing so much on the thread's question "Where is music going?" - to which my answer is still 'nowhere' - but are rather referring to their own compositional credi and experiences (important to us all but not really indicative of where music is going internationally), referring to Boulez, Ligeti, Messiaen, (Ives!), composers that some may have passed away relatively recently, but had long belonged to previous generations of modernism, they were not -and are not- considered contemporary as such. Even if they threw a work here and there in their late-80s/90s, they were more venerated than considered cutting edge.
I have yet to spot a name of a composer that is considered part of mainstream modernism today (say, Ades, Saariaho, Dean, what have you, there are so so many of them getting commissioned, performed, and recorded to day), save for Salonen, let alone a composer who is on the current cutting edge of experimentation. Until this happens I cannot enter a discussion about why I believe music to be now going nowhere...
As far as the 'home-spun' philosophies of music herein proffered (no offence meant but this is more an informal discussion of friends around a table, including me), having spent an inordinate amount of time in academia and classical radio as professional producer/broadcaster who monitored current musical activity worldwide, I can tell you that if that is what you are interested in, there are endless tomes of lore (books and academic periodicals - ex. Perspectives of New Music), and even more infinite -and oftentimes- hilarious dissertations and conference papers to fill the moon with rainforests, all replete with 'proper research methodologies' and references. This would bring you up to date, if you are interested in the 'philosophical' direction music is currently taking. If you're not interested, so much the better for you, you are not missing out on much.
My decades-worth of experience has taught me what people think about their music, and what they believe it represents, is vastly different to what others aurally perceive. I cannot count how many times I have read the erudite programme notes in a concert, referring to a work inspired and constructed say by Aristoxenus', game theory's, and semasiological tenets combined, only to hear a work by someone who cannot be inspired (biologically impossible for them), cannot orchestrate, cannot write polyphonically, cannot think in a straight musical line for more than a couple of seconds. So who cares what "inspires" them if the result is utter puerility...
As far as I am concerned, I am interested in how your music sounds to begin with. If it intrigues me, then maybe I'll be interested in the structure and symbolism behind it. 'Sound' comes first, and naked - that is what I love about music. The first downbeat flushes all conceptual bullsh!t right down the toilet.
So if you are interested in what the current musical trends are (not 50-150 years ago), go to concerts, listen to the radio/YouTube, visit your local university music department, (I am actually listening to Robert Aldridge's opera Sister Carrie as I'm typing this post), and if you like what you hear, then there are tons to read about it...